Hero's Song (32 page)

The remaining three arrived at Cuillean's dun before twilight on the same day. The king's men were there to greet them.

Collun gazed at the small fortress with its battlements facing the sea. As he and Fiain walked through the gates, he felt a heaviness in his heart. This had been his father's
home. But who was his father? Hero, traitor, grieving widower—and father? He pictured Cuillean standing on the battlements, staring out at the water, mourning the wife he loved and believed to be dead. Now, perhaps, they were both dead.

The soldiers told Collun they had searched the dun from top to bottom and, aside from several thriving colonies of mice, it was completely deserted.

Collun made his way through the dusty, chilled rooms. His melancholy deepened. He began to believe Cuillean truly was dead. There was an air of complete emptiness about the dun—no feeling of anticipation that he who had lived here would ever return.

But when Collun came out onto the land that stretched between the dun and the sea, his spirit lightened. He sank to his knees and crumbled the soil between his fingers.

Talisen was inside the dun, dangling his legs out an open window. Collun could hear the notes of a harp song beginning to take form. He smiled and brought a fistful of the earth up to his nose. He breathed in deeply. Brie silently came up beside him.

"Is the soil good?"

"It is good."

"The herbs will go there?" she asked, pointing.

"Yes," Collun nodded, "and roses for Nessa there. She loves roses."

"And the flower garden?"

"On that slope there, I think. First the heliotrope and next to it—"

"Valerian." Brie broke in with a smile.

"Because they grow well side by side," Collun replied,
smiling back at her. "Then a small patch of paggle—we shall have paggle pudding every night—and harebell. And then blue clownrie and peppergrass..." Collun reached into his wallet of herbs and drew out a handful of seeds.

Brie knelt down beside him, her eyes alight. "But what of the drainage, and where will the compost pile go, and what do you think of myrtle there...?"

The last rays of the early spring sun warmed their faces as they bent over the ground, shoulders touching. A sea wind blew gently over the bluff, and. it carried the sound of their voices up into the ramparts of the empty dun.

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What think you of revenge?" Collun asked the soldier Kled, though his eyes were on Brie. She smiled to herself.

"Revenge? Why there's nothing I like better than a good tale of revenge, dripping with blood and avenged honor and all." Kled handed Collun his cup of chicory for refilling. "Have you one to tell?" he asked.

Collun shook his head, impatient. "No, I am speaking of true revenge, outside of books and stories."

Kled looked puzzled. "Well, I have had no experience with it myself, but certainly if one has been sorely wronged, then revenge is a just and honorable—"

Brie let out a laugh. "Wrong answer, Kled."

"Why wrong?"

"Collun wanted you to say that revenge is a contemptible thing, fit only for cowards and scalawags."

"Why?"

"Because of me."

"You?" Kled's face was a study in bewilderment.

Brie's smile died. "Because I am sworn to revenge myself on the men who killed my father."

"In truth? How many men?" Kled asked, his eyes kindling with interest.

"There were twenty or more, all Scathians, but I would be content with the lives of three."

Collun let out a sound of disgust and threw the dregs of the chicory on the fire, making it hiss.

Brie ignored him. "Two who delivered the deathblows. And a third, whose orders they followed. When the killing was done it was he who came down off his horse to ensure they had done it well." Brie's voice was steady.

"By Amergin," Collun interrupted, "can neither of you see the folly? Ending the lives of these men will change nothing. The only one changed will be you, Brie. Remember the tale of Casiope, the archer? Revenge is as an arrow; it will surely return one day and pierce the one who shoots it."

Brie glared at Collun. She started to say something but bit it back. There was an awkward silence.

Kled cleared his throat. "Perhaps I should brew another pan of chicory, or have we all had enough?" But neither Collun nor Brie responded.

Abruptly Brie's mouth curved into a smile. "An ar row. That was clever."

Kled looked at Brie, then at Collun, uncomprehending.

"I thought you'd like it," Collun replied with an answering smile.

"Very clever."

"Does that mean you agree with him now, Brie?" asked Kled.

"No, not exactly."

Kled gave a shrug and drank the last of his chicory.

Brie gazed into her own cup, preoccupied. A moment ago, as Collun spoke of Casiope, the archer, Brie had caught something in his eyes; it was beneath the anger, a look of such deep-reaching kindness it had made her heart skid in her chest. No one before had shown her such a look, no one—not her father nor Masha, the nurse who cared for Brie after her mother died. She could not meet Collun's gaze again, and soon after made an excuse and left them.

***

The next morning Brie rose early, leaving Collun asleep by the campfire. Ever since they had come to the dim of Collun's father they had chosen to make camp outside. The dun had lain empty for almost two years, ever since Collun's father, the hero Cuillean, had disappeared, and the rooms were musty and ill-kept. On the few occasions it had rained heavily, they had sought shelter in the stables.

Brie found the Ellyl horse Ciaran grazing in the forecourt of the dun. The horse ambled over, searching her hand for a sweet. Though they had been companions for many months, Brie was still in awe of Ciaran. The horse
came from the land of Tir a Ceol, where the folk called Ellylon lived, out of sight of human eyes. Ellyl horses were smaller than Eirrenian horses, as well as leaner, but they were more graceful. Ciaran was the color of foam capping a sea wave, with gray stockings, a patch of gray at her forehead and another on her cheek. She was a beauty and knew it, but had a gentleness of spirit that made her vanity easier to bear. It was astounding to Brie that Ciaran continued to stay with her. She had expected the horse to disappear back to Tir a Ceol long ago.

Brie swung herself onto Ciaran's bare back, and they made their way west, to the sea and a sandy bay they had discovered a fortnight ago. It was the perfect place for a gallop.

Dismounting, Brie let Ciaran frisk at the edge of the water. Brie dug her toes into the sand and squinted at the horizon of sea and air.

There was an old Eirrenian story—part of the coulin that explained the beginnings of Eirren and included tales of all its great heroes and gods—about the god Nuadha, who had wielded a magic arrow, or teka. He had stood at the rim of the new world and, to chart a course through the wilderness, had repeatedly shot his teka from a bow and then run to catch up to it. Along the route he followed did appear the first ash tree, the first goshawk, the first flint, and the first hyacinth plant. The ash tree was to make the shaft of an arrow, the goshawk for its fletching, the flint for the arrowhead, and hyacinth for glue to bind the feathers to the shaft. Of course, unlike Brie, Nuadha was a god and had no trouble traveling over the sea with a magic arrow that would not sink beneath the waves. Certainly it was not a journey one could undertake in real life, but...

Impulsively Brie pulled her bow off her back and nocked an imaginary arrow to the string. Ciaran cocked an ear in Brie's direction.

With a grin Brie pulled back and let the imagined arrow fly. With her eyes she traced its invented arc over the waves and pictured it cleaving silently into the water, startling a passing school of fish as it sank slowly to the bottom.

Perhaps if she were an Ellyl, with the Ellyl's fishlike swimming ability, she could chart such a journey. Brie laughed softly to herself and lowered her bow to her knees. It was absurd of course. Such journeys were only for gods and heroes.

As Brie watched the Ellyl horse gallop along the sickle curve of the shoreline and thought back over her time at Cuillean's dun, she felt unaccountably peaceful. It was a new feeling. Indeed, it was the first time within her memory that the hard knot within her—of loneliness and the need to be best in all she did—had loosened. She had never had a brother or sister, but she imagined that this bond between herself and Collun was similar to what a brother and sister might share, and she savored the closeness.

There were moments, however, when she looked at him and a breathless, foreign feeling came over her, unexpected and fierce. Like yesterday when her heart had felt like it was flipping about in her chest. The feeling made her uncomfortable and somehow did not seem quite sisterly. The few times she had felt it, she had fled, going off with Ciaran to gallop in the countryside or on the beach of the Bay of Corran. Collun never asked where she went or why.

Brie gave a long whistle, and Ciaran wheeled around,
sending sprays of seawater up around her gray stockings. Soon Brie was astride the Ellyl horse, and they were pounding along the sand.

***

The night of Midsummer, Collun and Brie climbed the highest tower of Cuillean's dun to view the bonfires that blanketed the hills.

As they gazed out at the blazing fires, Brie was reminded of a night from her childhood when her father had carried her up to the ramparts of their dun and showed her the Midsummer bonfires for the first time. His strong arms held her as she stood barefoot on the cold stone of the parapet. She had been awed by the sight of all those glowing, leaping flowers of flame, stretching as far as her eye could see. The brightest one blazed at the foot of the hill that bore the White Stag of Herge, illuminating the enormous figure. The Stag had been etched into the hillside long ago by people who cut away turf to expose the white chalk of the cliff.

Brie had told her father she wanted to dance around the bonfire and feel the fire's heat on her face and arms. He had said she was too young. But even when she grew older, Brie didn't dance. She would gaze enviously at the abandoned twirling forms of the dancers, but her body felt hemmed in, awkward. And there was the unspoken word that it was somehow unseemly for the daugher of the hero Conall to join the bonfire dances.

"Brie?" Collun broke into her thoughts. "Where have you been?" he asked with a smile.

"At the bonfire dances, long ago," she said musingly. She shivered slightly. Brie did not often think of Dun
Slieve. Her uncle and aunt lived there now. She had left the day after her father's burial—to seek his murderers—and had never returned.

"Perhaps we should go inside?" Collun asked, trying to read Brie's face in the darkness.

"Not yet. I was thinking of the last time I saw the dun where I grew up." She paused. "And the pledge I made when I left there."

Brie felt Collun's eyes on her. "It has been two years, or more, since then..." She trailed off.

Then she turned to Collun with a ghost of a smile. "I have been wondering of late if I oughtn't leave my father's murderers to their own fates."

Collun let out a breath, smiling broadly. "I'm glad," he said simply.

***

As they made their way down the inside stairway, a loud crack of thunder echoed in the tower. "If we wish to remain dry, we'd best stay inside tonight," Collun said.

They had to rummage about to find bedding, and it took some time to sort out where to sleep in the long-deserted dun. But finally Brie lay on a pallet, Collun in the room next to hers. It felt strange to be separated by walls. She listened to the rain, glad it had held off until after the bonfires. She dozed, thinking again of her childhood in Dun Slieve.

***

Brie was in the Ramhar Forest, crouching beside her father's body, her heels skidding in the blood-slick grass. Hatred raged inside her, roaring in her ears. The three
men stood before her, like ghosts: one with wide shoulders and thick pale arms; another tall, with yellowish eyes; and the last, the most evil, with his arrogant, coarse face and black eye-patch.

As she stood to face them, they disappeared. Then there was darkness. A throbbing, quiet stillness. And suddenly out of the silence plunged a blazing yellow bird of prey. Its talons were extended and it dived at Brie. She raised her hands to fend it off.

***

There was a pale face hovering over her and the faint sound of a voice speaking. But the features of the face were blurred, black smudges where the eyes should have been, and she could not recognize it. Panic filled Brie, as if she were falling backward into darkness, nothingness. Her hands flailed; she didn't know if she should be trying to catch hold of something or to push it away.

"Brie?" Collun caught one of her fluttering, cold hands in his. She tried to snatch her hand away, hating the feel of his warm skin. But he held fast, keeping his voice low, soothing.

Her racing heart began to slow. She was able to focus on Collun's face, on the comfort in his voice. But for some reason, she still wanted her hand back.

"Let go," she croaked, pulling away, and suddenly her hand snapped loose of Collun's grasp. She cradled it against her chest. Collun drew away slightly.

"A bad dream?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"Yes. My father," Brie replied indistinctly. And a bird, she thought. She didn't understand about the bird. It
had been familiar, yet not like any live bird she had seen. Its yellow feathers were overvivid, unnatural. Perhaps she had dreamed it before.

"Can I bring you something? Water or...?"

Brie forced her lips into a smile and shook her head. "I'm better now. It was probably all the peach mead we drank." Collun's face relaxed. They had discovered an overgrown orchard of peach trees and for the past week had eaten little else but peaches: peach pie, poached peaches on toast, guinea hen flavored with peach juice. It was Kled's idea to make several barrels of peach mead for Midsummer.