Son of the Shadows (6 page)

This will see you through the winter."

"Why don't you sit down for a while, Mother?" The pot was boiling on the small fire; I took down two earthenware cups, opened jars of dried leaves.

"You're spoiling me, Liadan," she said, smiling, but she did sit down, a slight figure in her old, working dress. The sun streamed in the window behind her, showing me how pale she was. In the strong light, you could see the traces of faded embroidery at the neckline and hem of her gown. Ivy leaves, little flowers, here and there a tiny, winged insect. I poured hot water carefully into each cup.

"Is this a new mixture?"

"It is," I said, beginning to clean and tidy away the knives and bowls and implements we had used. "See if you can tell me what's in it." The smell of the herbal infusion was spreading through the cool, dry air of the stillroom.

Mother sniffed delicately. "There's all-heal—the dried flowers, that must be; there's figwort in it, maybe a touch of Saint-John's-wort as well, and—goldenwood?"

I found a jar of our best honey and spooned a little into each cup. "You certainly haven't lost your touch,"

I said. "You needn't worry. I know how to gather that herb and how to use it."

"A powerful combination, Daughter."

I glanced at her, and she looked straight back.

"You know, don't you?" she said softly.

I nodded, unable to speak. I placed a cup of the healing tea on the stone sill beside her and my own near me where I worked.

"Your choice of herbs is very apt. But it is too late for such cures to do more than provide a brief respite.

You know this too." She took a sip of the tea, screwed up her face, and gave a little smile. "It's a bitter brew."

"Bitter indeed," I said, sipping my own tea, which was plain peppermint. I managed to keep my voice under control, just.

"I can see we have taught you well, Liadan," said my mother, regarding me closely. "You have my skill with healing and your father's gift for love. He gathers all around him under his protective shade like a great forest tree. I see the same strength in you, Daughter."

This time, I did not risk speaking.

"It will be hard for him," she went on, "very hard. He is not one of us, not truly, though we forget it sometimes. He does not understand that this is not a true parting but simply a moving on, a changing."

"The wheel turns and returns," I said.

Mother smiled again. She had put the tea down almost untouched. "There's a bit of Conor in you as well," she said. "Sit down awhile, Liadan. I have something to tell you."

"You too?" I managed a watery grin.

"Yes, your father told me about Eamonn."

"And what did you think?"

A little frown creased her brow. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I can't advise you. But—but I would say, don't be in too much of a hurry. You'll be needed here for a while."

I didn't ask her why. "Have you told Father?" I asked finally.

Mother gave a sigh. "No. He will not ask me, since he knows I will answer with the truth. I don't need to put it into words. Not for Red. His knowledge is there in the touch of his hand, in his
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hastening home from plowing, in the way he sits by the bed, thinking me asleep, and holds my hand, looking into the darkness. He knows."

I shivered. "What was it you were going to tell me?"

"Something I have never shared with anyone. But I think now is the time to pass it on. You've been troubled lately; I've seen it in your eyes. Not just—not just this, but something more."

I held my cup between my palms, warming them. "I get—sometimes I get the strangest feeling.

As if suddenly everything goes cold, and—and there's a voice . . ."

"Go on."

"I see—I feel as if something terrible is coming. I look at someone and sense a—a sort of doom over them. Conor knows. He told me not to feel guilty. I didn't find that particularly helpful."

Mother nodded. "My brother was about your age when he first felt it. Finbar, I mean. Conor remembers that. It is a painful skill, one few would wish for themselves."

"What is it?" I asked, shivering. "Is it the Sight? Then why don't I go into convulsions and scream and then go limp like Biddy O'Neill down at the Crossing? She's got the Sight. She foretold the great floods two winters ago and the death of that man whose cart went over the edge at Fergal's Bluff. This is—different."

"Different but the same. The way it takes you depends on your own strength and your own gifts.

And what you see can also mislead you. Finbar often saw true, and he felt the guilt of not being able to prevent the things from happening. But what his visions meant was by no means easy to inter pret. It's a cruel gift, Liadan. With it comes another, which you have not yet had cause to develop."

"What's that?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Wasn't one such gift, if gift it could be called, more than enough?

"I can't explain it, not fully. He used it on me once. He and I—he and I shared the same bond you have with Sean, a closeness that lets you speak mind to mind, that tunes you to the other's inmost self. Finbar had greater skill than I; those last days he became adept at keeping me out.

There were times when I

think he dreaded to let down his guard; he had a wound deep to the spirit, and he would not share it, not even with me. But he had the other skill as well, the ability to use the power of his mind for healing. When

I was—when I was hurt and thought the world would never be right again, he—he touched me with his mind; he blocked out the bad things; he held my thoughts with his own until the night was over. Later, he used this same skill on my father, whose mind was deeply damaged by the work of the Sorceress, the

Lady Oonagh. She kept Father dancing to her will for three long years while my brothers were under the enchantment. And Lord Colum was not a weak man; he wrestled with his own guilt and shame, and yet he could not deny her. When we returned home at last, he scarcely knew us.

Bringing him back to himself took many patient days and nights. There is a heavy price for the use of this healing power.

Afterward Finbar was—drained, scarce himself. He was like a man who has undergone the fiercest ordeals of body and spirit. Only the strongest may withstand this."

I looked at her with a question in my eyes.

"You are strong, Liadan. I cannot tell you if and when you may be called to use this gift. Perhaps never.

It's best you know, at least. He would be able to tell you more."

"He? You mean—Finbar?" Now we were on fragile ground indeed.

Mother turned to look out of the window. "It grew again so beautifully," she said. "The little oak Red planted for me that will one day be tall and noble, the lilac, the hearing herbs. The Sorceress could not destroy us. Together, we were too strong for her." She looked back at me. "The magic
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is powerful in you, Liadan. And there is one more thing in your favor."

"What's that?" I asked. Her words were both fascinating and terrifying.

"He showed me once; Finbar. I came close to asking him what the future would hold for me. He showed me a moment of time. There was Niamh, dancing along a forest path with her hair like golden fire, a child with a gift for happiness. And Sean, running, running to catch up with her.

I saw my children and Red's. And—and there was another child. A child who was—shut out. On the

edge, so that I could never quite see. But that child was not you, Daughter. Of that I am certain.

Had it been you, I would have known the moment you were born and laid in my arms."

"But—but why wasn't I there? Sean and I are of an age. Why would I not be in your vision, too?"

"I saw the same vision earlier," said my mother slowly. "When I—but both times, you were not there.

Only that other child, closed off from the picture. I believe you are somehow outside the pattern, Liadan.

If this is so, it could give you great power, dangerous power. It could allow you to— change things. In these visions, it was not foretold that Sean's birth would bring forth a second child.

That sets you apart. I

have believed, for a long time, that the Fair Folk guide our steps. That they work their great plans through us. But you are not in their scheme. Perhaps you hold some sort of key."

It was too much to take in. Still, I could not but believe her, for my mother always told the truth, no more and no less.

"Then what about the third child in the vision?" I asked. "The child on the margin, in the shadows?"

"I cannot tell who that was. Only—it was a child who had given up all hope. That is a terrible thing. Why

I was shown this, there is no telling. In time, perhaps you will find out."

I shivered again. "I'm not sure that I want to."

Mother smiled and got up. "These things have a habit of finding you, whether you like it or not,"

she said.

"Conor was right. There's no point in feeling guilty or worrying about what may come. Put one foot before the other and follow your path. That's all we can do."

"Hmm." I glanced at her. It sounded as if my own particular path might be rather more complicated than I

would have wished. I didn't ask for much. The security and peace of Sevenwaters, the chance to use my craft well and be warmed by the love of my family. I wasn't sure if I had it in me to do more than that. I

could not see myself as one who might influence the course of destiny. How Sean would laugh at this notion, if I told him.

The season wore on, and Eamonn did not come back. The druids left us again, walking silent footed into the forest at dusk. Niamh became unusually quiet and took to sitting up on the roof slates, gazing out over the trees and humming softly to herself. Often, when I looked for her to help with a piece of sewing or the preparation of fruit for drying, she was nowhere to be found.

In the evenings she never wanted to talk anymore but lay on her bed smiling secretly, until her eyelids dropped over her beautiful eyes and she slept like a child. I slept less easily myself. We heard conflicting reports from the north. Eamonn was fighting on two fronts. He had advanced into his neighbor's territory. He had retreated to his inner wall.

The raiders were Norsemen, come back to harry a shore we had long thought safe. They had settlements far south, at the mouth of a great river, and they sought to expand their holding up along the coast and even into the heart of our own lands. They were not Norsemen at all but
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Britons. They were neither, but some more foreign breed; men who wore their identity on their skin in a secret, coded pattern. Men with faces like strange birds and great fierce cats and stag and boar; men who attacked in silence and killed without mercy. One had a face as black as the night sky. Not even men, perhaps, but Other-world warriors. Their weapons were as odd as their appearance; cunning pipes through which a dart with poison tip might be launched into the air; tiny metal balls studded with spikes that traveled fast and bit hard, clever use of a length of fine cord, no sword or spear, no honest weapons.

We did not know which of these stories to believe, though Sean and Liam favored the theory about

Norsemen as the most likely. After all, such invaders were best placed for a quick strike and retreat, for at sea they were as yet unmatched, employing both oar and sail to move faster than the wind over the water. Maybe their ornate helmets had given rise to the strange tales. And yet, said Liam, the Norsemen

fought unsubtly, with broadsword, mace, and axe. Nor were they known for their prowess in wooded terrain, preferring to keep their hold on the coastal margins rather than venture inland.

The theory did not fit quite as neatly as one might have wished.

Eventually around the time when day and night were of equal length and Father was busy with planting, Eamonn sent for help, and Liam despatched a force of thirty well-armed men off to the north. Sean would have liked to go and so, I think, would my uncle himself. But as it was, something stayed them both. There was Aisling, still dwelling in our house where she would be out of harm's way, and anxious for her brother's safety. That was enough to keep Sean at home for now. And Liam said it was too risky, with the threat not fully understood, for either of them to be in the front line along with both Eamonn and his grandfather. They would wait until they got a report from Eamonn himself or from Seamus. That would be fact and not fancy. Then would be time to decide whether to take further action.

I noticed, though, that they spoke long and seriously in the evenings and studied their maps.

Iubdan, too.

My father might have sworn not to take up arms, not if the enemy might be his own kind, but Liam was enough of a strategist to recognize and make use of the skill his sister's husband had with charts and with the planning of offense and defense. I heard him remark that it was a pity Padriac had never come back the last time he'd sailed off in search of new lands and fresh adventures. Now there was a man who knew how to build a boat and handle it better than any Norseman. There was a man who could think up ten different solutions to any problem. But it was three years now since Liam had last laid eyes on his youngest brother. Nobody held out much hope of a safe return after so long. I remembered this uncle quite well. Who could forget him? He'd be home awhile, full of wonderful tales, and then off again on some new quest. He was tanned brown as a nut, with his hair plaited down his back; and he wore three rings in the one ear; and he had a strange, many-colored bird that sat on his shoulder and asked you politely if you wanted a roll in the hay, dear? I knew my mother no more believed him dead than she did Finbar. I wondered if she knew. I wondered if I would know if Sean went away to battle and perished on the point of some stranger's sword. Would I feel it in my own heart, that moment when the blood slows in the veins and the breath stops and a film covers the eyes as they gaze sightless into the wide expanse of the sky?

It was never my intention to spy on Niamh. What my sister did with her spare time was her own affair. I