Child of the Prophecy (32 page)

I made myself walk forward to the bed; forced myself to look down at the child who lay there in a sort of restless half-sleep. Her hands were heavily bandaged. I could only guess at the damage she had inflicted on them, clutching at hot iron in her headlong flight. But the wrapping had been taken from her head, and on one side her bright hair was all frizzled and burned away, the left eyelid grossly swollen, brow and lashes gone. A hideous, oozing patchwork of purple and red and brown spread like a canker from the eye all the way back past the small ear. On that side, her face was a monster's. I made myself keep looking. I controlled my expression. After a little, I found I could speak.

"I'll sit with her awhile, Aunt Aisling. You should go and rest. Eilis was asking for you. She'd dearly love to show you the little cloth she's hemmed. She's very proud of it."

Aisling stared at me, her blue eyes quite blank. For a moment, I think she scarcely knew who I was.

"I'll stay here with Maeve. It's all right, Aunt. You can go." I used the craft subtly, to make my voice more convincing. I conveyed the message that she could trust me. Inside, I shuddered at my own duplicity.

Aunt Aisling blinked and seemed to come to herself. "I suppose that would be quite suitable," she said reluctantly. "Thank you, Fainne. Muirrin, I'll be back later."

For a long time I simply sat there staring at the child. To look at her was to punish myself. But all the guilt in the world would not right the wrong I had done her. If these people knew, if they understood I was responsible, I would indeed be outcast. I would be hated and reviled as my grandmother had been. No matter that I must act

thus to prevent my father's suffering. No matter that I must carry out a task of such magnitude that none of their lives would ever be the same. I stared at the child and knew I had stolen her future. What I had done was every bit as bad as what Conor had done to my father. If Maeve lived, she would be scarred and hideous. I thought myself plain and awkward, with my tight-curling hair and my twisted foot, my gangling height and my shyness. But my skin was smooth and pale, my hands deft and free of blemish, my body healthy, for as Roisin had said, the limp was nothing. I was not disfigured. Not like this. It was at that moment I vowed to myself I would never again use the Glamour to make myself look beautiful. I would thank the goddess I was so lucky, and go forth as myself. Gently I let the veil of loveliness go, knowing that in the nature of things, folk would see nothing odd in the change.

"She's waking up," Muirrin said quietly. "These drafts are effective, but they don't last very long. We're all short of sleep. The pain's been bad. Will you stay while I put on the fresh dressing?"

I nodded and retreated back from the bedside. Clutching Riona to my chest, I watched as the child awoke, her damaged eye slitted by the swelling of the flesh around it, the other round and fearful, watched as Muirrin bathed her burned skin with cool herbal waters, listened as her faint, thready whimpering grew to a thin, painful keening sound while a poultice of onion skins was laid against the burned skin of face and scalp and tied there with a bandage of clean linen. I held it in place while Muirrin made the knots, and I felt Maeve's cries vibrating through my own head, as if they would lodge there forever. Then the bedding was changed, as a strapping serving woman lifted the child in her arms as carefully as a basket of new eggs. By the time Maeve was safely returned to her pallet and attempting to sip from a cup Muirrin held to her lips, I was cold with horror.

"Now, Maeve," said Muirrin calmly, "you have a visitor. Fainne is here to see you. Did you notice? Drink up, all of it, mind, and then she'll sit with you awhile. She might even tell you a story."

The child swallowed obediently, laboriously. This draft might give her another short spell of rest. I wondered at Muirrin's strength of will. She did not weep with fear at her own helplessness. She did not rail at the gods for thus striking her sister down. She did not collapse with exhaustion or ask me why I had left it so long to visit the

child. She simply went on quietly doing what had to be done, accepting that matters were as they were, and taking her place in the scheme of it with a purpose that left no place for doubt. And yet, it took its toll. You could see that in her shadowed eyes.

Maeve lay back on her pillows with a little wheeze of outgoing breath that might have been a sigh. Her eyes turned toward me.

"Well, Maeve," I said as steadily as I could, seating myself on the stool by her bed. "I've brought somebody to see you." I lifted Riona up so that the child could look at her butter-yellow locks, her shrewd dark eyes and delicately embroidered mouth. The pale pink skirts fanned out over the stark linen of Maeve's coverlet. The child's lips stretched in a tiny smile.

"Good," I said. "She's glad to see you, too. I've a favor to ask. I'm going to visit your uncle Eamonn, and I'll be away awhile. Riona can't go. But I don't want to leave her on her own, seeing we're so new here. I was hoping maybe you'd look after her for me while I'm away. You'd need to keep her company, see that her hair's neat, maybe give her a corner of your bed at night. Could you do that?"

The little, painful smile was there again.

"Good," I said, and I unwound the strange necklace the doll wore, knowing somewhere deep within me that while I might give up my small companion to someone who needed her more, I could not let go this last link to my mother. I slipped the necklace into the pocket of my gown and tucked Riona in beside Maeve, under the covers. She fitted snugly into the crook of the child's arm as if she belonged there. The expression on her embroidered features seemed almost benign.

"Now I'll tell you a story, and then I have to go. Would you like a story?"

A very faint response. "Mmm." That was all she could manage. On the far side of the chamber, Muirrin sat down by the fire, and one of the women put a tankard between her hands. She stared into the flames as if suddenly too weary to move.

What sort of tale do you tell to a child as she looks across the room and sees death waiting in the shadows? I knew plenty, but none of them seemed right. What trickery can amuse a little girl as her skin twists and tightens and works itself into a crippling fabric of scars? How do you keep her heart strong and her spirit clear when you must

speak from the dark turmoil of your own guilt? My fingers toyed with the little edge of fringe that hung down below my everyday shawl. Silken and sunny. Memory of innocence. The delicate, lacy pattern of wavelets lapping the sand in the tiny secret cave. Notes of a melody arching through the stillness of the dawn.

"The folk I traveled with when I came here, they tell a lot of tales around the fire at night. That's to help keep out the cold, you understand? The smallest children sit in front, and the old men and women, where it's warmest. Then there's the bigger lads and girls and the grown up folk, that's another circle. And beyond that, there's the creatures. Dogs that guard the camp, and ducks and chickens in little coops, and the horses. Enough horses to make a fine big circle all of their own. If those horses could speak, they'd have a tale or two to tell. Some of the stories are noble and grand, and some of them are silly, and some of them can make you cry and laugh at the same time. I'm going to tell you a story about a boy and a white pony. It's a new one. You are the very first person to hear it. You and Riona."

Maeve gave a little sigh, and turned her head slightly toward me, as if not to miss a single word.

"Well, now," I said, "this boy was one of the traveling folk. He'd grown up on the road. That was what he was used to. No fine houses or soft beds for him; no servants to cook or wash, no clients to tend the beasts and work in the fields. Just a cart and a pair of horses, and the sky and the sea, and the way stretching on before him, full of adventures. He didn't settle long. It's in the nature of a traveling man to be always on the move, you see."

Maeve was trying to say something. I bent my head to catch the faint words.

". . . name?"

I swallowed. "His name was Darragh. He traveled with his mother and father, and his sisters and brothers, and some cousins and uncles and aunts, and his old grandfather as well. There were plenty of folk, and even more horses, because that was what they did. They'd catch the wild ponies or buy them cheap, and train them up fine for riding, and sell them at the Cross. That's where they hold the best horse fair in all of Erin."

The room was very quiet. Not only was the child absorbed in the tale, but Muirrin's gaze was now intent on me, and the serving

women had put down their work and seated themselves on a bench near the window to listen.

"Now Darragh had a rare gift with the horses. It was something about him, something you could never quite put your finger on, but the creatures trusted him. It's a hard thing for a pony to go away from his herd and be among men, you know, hard and frightening. Like saying goodbye to your family. Like going somewhere so different it could be another world. They call it breaking a horse, to tame it so that it will take a saddle, and submit to a rider's will. Sometimes what they do can seem quite cruel; tying a creature, making it lie down and accept a man's mastery over it. Breaking its spirit, that's what it is. That's the only way, the traveling men say, if you want the horse to be of any value to a buyer. Nobody wants a beast that can't be trusted to obey.

"Darragh didn't like to speak of breaking. He'd a different approach entirely. If the other men thought his methods a little odd, they never said so, because it was always the horses Darragh had brought in that were the most sought after, and fetched the best prices at the Cross.

"There was one time when they were camped under a hill, and the men and lads went out to watch for wild ponies, thinking to take a few to prepare for the next autumn's fair. The ponies were grazing on the sweet grass of the hillside. They were edgy, ears twitching, tails swishing, as if they sensed something was afoot. Ready to bolt at the least excuse, they were. Their coats were the colors of the landscape, black, gray, brown, the shades of rock and lichen and bark. But there was one who stood out. She moved among them like a lovely full moon between dark clouds, her coat as white and shining as anything you'd ever see. Her mane and tail fell like the silken fringe of a lady's shawl, lustrous and gleaming.

" 'That one's mine,' said Darragh in a whisper.

" 'Her?' muttered his father, who knew more about horses than most people could learn in a lifetime. 'Not likely. Look at her eye. That creature's mad. There's a pride and an anger in her means you'd never break her. More likely she'd be the death of you. Pick one of the others.'

"But Darragh had made up his mind. The usual thing, once they'd chosen the ones worth taking, was to come back with their

JULIET MARILLIER

own horses, and the dogs, and cut the ponies out from the herd to take back to the encampment. There they'd be confined, and subject to the usual discipline, until they were docile enough to be ridden.

"Darragh knew the white pony was different. He'd seen what his father had seen: the wildness in the eye, the flare of the nostrils, the proud carriage of the beautiful head. She was like some princess of the old tales, aloof and untouchable, and very much herself. And frightened. She had sensed his presence there. This pony could not be seized and driven by sticks, with hounds yapping at her heels. That would indeed send her mad. This princess could only be tamed by love.

"It was as well the traveling folk were camped in those parts over the summer, for Darragh needed time. He told his mother he might be away a bit, and to let his Dad know, but not quite yet. Then he went up the hill very early in the morning, when the mist still slept in the hollows and crevices and only the boldest birds sang out their challenges to the first rose tint of the dawn. He went soft-footed, without company, with a little halter in one pocket and a scrap of bread and cheese in the other, and his eyes and ears open. The white pony was on her own under the rowan trees. She was dreaming; and so quiet was Darragh, coming up to her, that she never heard a whisper until he was quite close, sitting on a rock as still as he could. She looked at him. He made no move, though truth to tell it was freezing cold and he was hard put not to shake and shiver. But he kept still, and made sure his gaze was on the grass or the trees or the sky slowly lightening to a faint lilac, and after a while she seemed almost to forget him, dropping her head to crop at the grass. But she'd her eye on him, he knew it.

"It was a long process. On one hand, Darragh was wearing her down with his patience. On the other, she was trying him to the extent of his persistence. Everywhere the white pony went, there was Darragh, silent, still, not trying anything, just keeping close by her. She'd run, she'd run swift as the west wind, up the valleys and over the passes and across the fields of shimmering grass, and Darragh would run after her as fast as his human legs could carry him, and get left behind time after time. But always, eventually, he would find her. He had ever been a lean fellow, and he grew thinner. There'd be a bite to eat at a cottage here, or a handful of berries there, but it wasn't