The Well of Shades (78 page)

“Derry’s gone. Gone in the woods. All dark.”

He looked at Fola; she regarded him calmly. A decision was made, without need for words, that no more questions
would be asked tonight.

“Saraid,” said Fola, “Mama’s very tired. She’s having a big sleep. You can go in and see her, but don’t wake her up. Good luck, Faolan. Don’t hesitate to ask for help if you need it. I sense that doesn’t come easily to you.”

But he had already moved to the other chamber, where Eile lay tucked up in the big bed, a slight form beneath layers of woollen blankets. The flickering
fire, its light playing on woven hangings depicting trees, flowers, and creatures, gave the room a good feeling, bright, safe, cozy. Saraid climbed onto the bed and wriggled in under the covers, as close to her mother as she could get. “Mama’s home,” she said. A moment later she started to cry, a small, repressed sound that soon grew to unrestrained sobbing as she clutched on to Eile and buried
her head against her mother’s breast.

Faolan did not allow himself time to think. He lay down on Eile’s other side, on top of the covers, and wrapped his arm over the two of them. “Hush, Saraid,” he whispered. “It will be all right. I promise. Everything will be all right.” A terrible weariness came over him, made up not simply of the ache in his leg, the gritty feeling
in his eyes, the weight
of too many sleepless nights. He sensed how small and powerless they were before the violent and arbitrary acts of destiny. It took him back to Fiddler’s Crossing and the night his whole life had changed.

Saraid’s weeping died down. He stroked her hair, and Eile’s, and felt his own tears flowing anew. After a while a little voice said, “Story now. Please.”

He drew a shuddering breath and let
it go. “All right, I’ll try. You’ll need to help me. I don’t know it as well as Eile does. Once upon a time there was a girl who lived with her mother and father…”

“In a house on a hill.”

“It was a little house, just big enough for three.”

“Chickens,” said Saraid. “Cat.”

“It was just the right size for everyone. Three chickens, one black as coal, one brown as—as mud…”

“One brown as earth.”

“And one white as snow. And a cat. Fluffy, is that right?”

“Mm. Garden.”

“She… she pulled up weeds and staked up beans and in between she stared into the pond, dreaming.”

Eile stirred, making a little sound.

“I think Mama’s waking up.” He lifted his arm away, slowly so as not to startle her; he eased himself off the bed.

“More story. Papa away. Eggs.”

He watched Eile as she raised a hand
to touch her temple; as her eyelids fluttered and she tried to swallow. “When her Papa came home she cooked eggs for him,” he whispered, “and put in all the good herbs she had grown in her garden; I can’t remember the names.”

“Thyme, sage, calamint,” said Saraid sleepily.

“And when she gave it to him, he said,
That’s my girl
. Then she knew her mama and papa loved her, and that she was the luckiest
girl in the world. Eile, are you awake?”

“Faolan?” Her voice was a croak, dry and painful. “What’s happened? My head hurts. And I’m thirsty.”

He fetched water; put an arm behind her shoulders to help her sit up; held the cup while she drank. “Not too much.”

Eile looked at him over the rim of the cup, her eyes shadowy in a face that seemed that of a ghost, pallid and shrunken.

“You had a bad
accident; we didn’t find you straightaway,” he said carefully. “You got very cold. We need to take things slowly.” He set the cup aside; moved away again to sit on the very edge of the bed.

“What happened? I can’t remember anything. What day is it? How long—?” She began to shiver.

“Mama fell. Down, way down.”

“Oh gods, Faolan. Was Saraid hurt?” Eile drew her daughter closer.

“She’s not hurt.
She was missing for a little, but no harm’s been done. She can’t tell us what happened. Eile, you were with the two children that day, Saraid and Derelei, out and about in the grounds. Then you vanished, the three of you…” He told her what he knew, without mentioning Breda. “And we found you, just now, by the rim of the well. Look at your hands, Eile. Can’t you remember?”

She stared at her hands,
slathered with salve and wrapped in bandages. Her eyes were confused.

“Mama’s hurt,” said Saraid.

Eile’s shivering became convulsive, fierce bursts racking her body.

“Lie down again. Under the blankets. Let me…”

“I’m so cold, Faolan. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.”

He went to lay more wood on the fire. The chamber was warmer than was entirely comfortable. When he turned, Eile was
sitting up again.

“You were lying here before, weren’t you, with your arm around us?” she said. “I wasn’t so cold then. And I
felt safe. Who else is here, Faolan? I thought I heard some women.”

“Fola was here, with Elda. Now it’s nighttime and it’s just the three of us.”

“Come and lie down next to us. Keep us warm.”

So he did, staying on top of the covers, and very soon Saraid was asleep,
cheeks pink, one arm around her mother’s and the other around Sorry. But Eile and Faolan stayed awake.
It is like the dream
, he thought.
The good dream, where I wake with her in my arms. But cruelly changed. What will she say when she knows the truth: that Breda tried to kill her?
For he knew in his heart what had happened; instinct and the evidence matched too neatly for there to be any other
explanation.

“Faolan?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here. For looking after me. For coming to find me. Faolan, I… You said the top of the well. I think I can remember climbing up. Did I just imagine that?”

“No,
mo cridhe
. You climbed to the top. It was a feat of matchless courage. But when you got there, I think your strength gave out. Don’t thank me for finding you. It was
my error that brought us there so late.”

“What error? How long was I there?”

“Almost two days and a night, Eile. It’s no wonder you’re thirsty.”

He felt sudden tension run through her body. “Derelei? What about Derelei? Is he safe?”

It had to be the truth. “We don’t know. We think he’s outside the walls, but our search has found no trace of him. Fola saw a vision, and in that he was alive
and well, somewhere in the forest. We’re hoping very much that it was accurate.”

Eile said nothing for a little. Then her voice came, shaky and faint. “I was looking after him. This is my
fault. Why can’t I remember? A well. Why would I go anywhere near a well with the two of them?”

Faolan’s lips were against her hair; his arm lay loosely across her, careful not to jar her injured shoulder.
Quietly, he told her about Tuala’s search, and the arrangements that had been made to keep it secret.

“I can’t remember anything,” she whispered. “Except… I think my father was there. Down in that place. I just wanted to lie there. Everything hurt. He said,
Fight
. He wouldn’t let me give in.”

“So you climbed up.”

“I suppose I did. My hands are a mess, aren’t they? Why does my head hurt so much,
Faolan?”

“You’ve got a lot of cuts and bruises. You’re lucky you didn’t break anything.” He got up, moving to the hearth. “Do you want some soup?”

She shook her head, wincing with pain. “I don’t want anything. I feel sick. I should have kept him safe. They trusted me and now he’s lost. He’s only little—”

“Shh, Eile. We’ll talk about this in the morning. Lie down now.”

“Faolan?”

“Mm?” He was
banking up the fire; he must not let her get cold.

“You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need much sleep.”

“Rubbish. Leave that, come and lie down.”

“I can sleep on the floor.”

“I need you here, next to me. Please.”

There was no chance at all, in his current state of exhaustion, that desire would create any kind of difficulty before morning. All the same, the only items of clothing he
removed were his boots. When he was lying down, Eile shifted so her head was on his shoulder. She curled against him. The fire set a rosy glow on the tapestry at the foot of the bed, a piece of Ana’s making, an image of a plum tree in full spring bloom with a family of ducks foraging beneath.

Faolan held Eile closer; his fingers twined in her hair.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep,” she
said. “I can’t get it out of my mind, Derelei all alone out there. It’s so cold at night.”

“Tuala may already have found him.”

“But—”

“Do I need to sing a song and tell a story to get you to sleep?” he asked her.

“You can if you want,” she said, and there was a smile in her voice.

There was a silence. “I’m worried that I’ll fall asleep halfway through. And there’s a thing I have to tell you.
I—”

“Shh. Not now.”

“A story, then. Once upon a time there was a man who had lost his way. When he was young he’d had a blow, and for a long while, years and years, he’d been following wrong paths, and all that time the world had been rushing by him, and he’d never bothered to stop and do little things. Hugging a child. Sitting quietly with a friend, talking. Singing songs. He’d gone so far
down a track to nowhere, he hardly knew who he was anymore, and although he was not yet thirty, he was told he looked old.”

“I never said that.”

“Not in so many words, maybe, but it was what you meant. Anyway, to cut things short, he met someone—two someones—who suddenly made his life very complicated. They were always doing things that surprised him. Sometimes they scared him. Sometimes they
brought tears to his eyes, tears he could not shed, because he had forgotten how. It became impossible to lead the life he had before. They were a nuisance and a hindrance and they made it necessary to throw away his carefully devised rules, the rules that held him safe, the ones that stopped him from feeling. He tried to let the two of them go, thinking they’d be better off without him; thinking
it would be easier for him without them.
Then he felt something odd, as if a part of him long closed had at last been exposed, raw and painful beyond belief. He thought maybe that was the sensation of his heart breaking.”

She said nothing. He wondered if the story had worked all too well; perhaps she had fallen asleep.

“Remarkably, he got another chance. She gave him that; she was wiser than
he was. This time he determined to tell her how he felt; how she had opened him up and let light into his life. But she kept saying, shh, no, not yet, and he held his tongue. Until the time he nearly lost her again. Then he told her, even though she tried to stop him, because he knew that if anything happened and he hadn’t said it, he could never forgive himself.”

A silence. Then she murmured,
“I suppose you’d better say it, then.”

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’ll take as much or as little as you’re prepared to give me. I’ll give you and Saraid everything that’s in me.”

The fire flickered; the birds on the tapestry moved in the draft; the silence lengthened. At last Eile’s voice came, hesitant and sweet: “That was the best story I ever heard, Faolan. Will you sing the song now?”

He did not tell her where and when he had last sung this lullaby. He did not speak of Deord lying in Briar Wood with his head on Faolan’s shoulder as his eyes grew slowly more tranquil and his face paler, and his lifeblood drained into the dark soil of the forest floor. But he sang it for the three of them, father, daughter, granddaughter; a trio of souls whose courage was a beacon, lighting the
way forward. The melody wafted around the sleeping form of Saraid and wove its way across Eile’s body lying against his as if it belonged there. It moved out through the fire-lit chamber where maybe, just maybe, Deord, too, could hear it. By the time Faolan got to the last lines his own lids were drooping, and a sweet warmth was stealing through his aching body. “Rest tired limbs and weary eyes,”
he
murmured, “and to a bright new day arise.” And, holding her close, he slept.

U
NDER THE SPREADING
canopy of an ancient oak, in a hollow partway up a wooded slope some miles from White Hill, the druid sat cross-legged on the ground. He felt the heartbeat of Bone Mother in the earth that supported him; he smelled the myriad scents in the air, the tiny, subtle differences
he had learned to recognize over the long years of his training. The sounds of the woodland were a wild, soft music, balm to the ears, telling a wisdom deep beyond human knowing, old and unchangeable.
I endure. I am strong
.

His eyes were closed, his back straight, his hands loose against the tattered garment that covered his nakedness. Soon he would slow his breathing, clear his mind, enter deep
meditation. As he had come closer to his destination, he had heard the goddess bid him slacken his pace and take time for reflection, for a task awaited him that would tax his newfound strength hard. Daily he had sat thus awhile, fixing his mind on the gods and on obedience.

Often, in the visions his trance brought him, he would see a figure climbing the hill, feet soft on the forest path, face
dappled with sun as the Flamekeeper’s light sought to penetrate down between the leaves. Sometimes it was Bridei, a strong, square-shouldered man in his prime with steadfast blue eyes and curling hair the color of ripe chestnuts. Sometimes it was Tuala, his daughter, a slight, graceful girl whose form seemed both ethereal and strong, both eldritch and dearly familiar, with her snow-pale skin, her
cloud of dark hair, and her deep, knowing eyes. And sometimes, as today, it was the child: Derelei, his little student, his frail, precious infant mage. Broichan’s vision showed him the tiny figure clad in nothing warmer than shirt and trousers, his feet in indoor boots that were fraying
and mud-coated. The child’s face was grubby, too. Beneath the grime of his journey, the soft mouth was set
in iron-strong determination. The large eyes gazed straight ahead.