The Dark Mirror (13 page)

“I need to practice this,” Bridei protested. “We talk all the time of assemblies and kings’ councils, but all I ever get to see is the house and the farm. How am I ever going to learn properly if I’m shut away here all my life?” Such a complaint was unusual for
him; he had ever been obedient to those he respected. It had been a long morning of theory.

“All your life?” Wid queried, brows raised. “An old man of—what, just twelve? I think you’ll find there will be opportunities soon enough. If Broichan’s not ready to let you travel, he may be prepared to bring a bit of the world to you. Perhaps not yet, but soon. Be patient. He has his reasons.”

“Wid?”
queried Bridei.

“Yes, lad?”

“I was just thinking. What will I become when all this is done? When my education is finished? A scholar? A councilor? Shouldn’t I be learning about my own folk in Gwynedd? I suppose I will go back to my father’s court some day”

“Maybe,” Wid said with a little smile. He had been asked these questions before, but never so directly. “We’ll touch further on Gwynedd
and on Powys, its neighbor, and on other faraway lands. For you, Fortriu is more important. And a man’s education is never finished. You should know that by now.”

“But I am not one of the Priteni,” Bridei pointed out. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I love learning the lore and history of the north. But—”

“Your mother was from here,” Wid said quietly.

“My mother!” Bridei was startled; he
had not thought about her for a long time. “She was from Fortriu? Then I might have family here, aunts and uncles, cousins maybe. Why didn’t Broichan tell me? What do you know about her?”

“Very little,” Wid said, beginning to tidy up his scrolls. “Her name was Anfreda. That’s about all I can tell you. Don’t you remember?”

Bridei was silent a little. After a while, he said, “I was only four when
I came here. I don’t remember any of them really. Perhaps my father, a bit. Not the others.”

“Mm. Broichan could tell you more.”

“He won’t talk about her. I don’t think he knows.”

“Ah, well,” said Wid, “all things in good time. Shall we go in search of some dinner?”

AFTER THE MORNING’S
lessons it was time for Donal’s tuition.
Bridei had become competent with sword and staff, efficient with knives, adept at detecting covert pursuit and evading it effectively. He had honed his skills in archery until all that separated him from Donal himself was the need to use a smaller bow. He had learned, over the course of a summer’s chilly ventures into the dark waters of Serpent Lake, to swim well enough to get himself to shore
should he be out sailing and suffer some kind of mishap. He was able to row a small boat. Once he grew out of Pearl and moved up to Blaze, he learned how to take his pony over jumps, how to lean sideways from the saddle and snatch a bundle up from the ground and how to throw a spear into a target while galloping past. Donal’s were good sorts of lessons; time went all too swiftly while he was
doing them. He did wish that he could practice fighting with someone closer to his own size, but the settlement remained forbidden. Both Donal and Broichan said it was still unsafe.

Sometimes Donal finished the lesson early, and there was a little time before the final, most testing part of the day’s learning: Bridei’s session with his foster father. Those snatched times were precious. Tuala
would be waiting for him, standing still and quiet under the oaks at the edge of the sward where Donal and Bridei practiced swordsmanship, or perched on a stone wall near the stables watching while they rehearsed maneuvers with knife or staff. She would take him to see some funny-looking mushrooms she had found, or tell him a bit of gossip she’d heard from Brenna, or demonstrate how she’d taught one
of the dogs to chase after a ball. Or Bridei would tell her some of what he’d learned in the morning: kings and tribes, battles and journeys. Then, all too soon, it would be time for him to go to Broichan. Those were
lessons Tuala could not watch. They took place in the druid’s own quarters now, and she was forbidden entry there.

“Broichan doesn’t like me,” she said to Bridei one day as they
sat under the oaks together, watching Fidich chop wood down by the stables. It was not a complaint so much as a simple statement of fact.

“He’s just not used to children,” Bridei told her. “He doesn’t know how to talk to you, that’s all. It’ll get better as you grow up.”

“What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“He is used to children. You’ve been here since you were little. He talks to you,
and teaches you, and lets you in his special room.”

“He didn’t let me in when I was your size. You just need to give him time.”

Tuala shook her head. “He doesn’t like me. Or he would let me have lessons, too. Brenna says all I need to learn is sewing and cooking. But I want to learn what you’re learning: all about the world.”

Bridei bit back the obvious riposte:
you’re a girl
. Though plainly
true, it did not seem at all the right response for Tuala. In his wildest imagination he could not see her sewing and cooking. “I’ll teach you as much as I can,” he told her.

Tuala twisted a stalk of grass between her small, white hands. “Can you teach me scrying?”

Bridei felt suddenly chill, though he was not sure why “What do you know about scrying?” he asked her.

“I know Broichan does it
with his bronze mirror. I know wise women and druids do it. You can see what’s going to happen. And what happened before. I’d like to try that. I think I could do it.” There was an odd note in her voice.

“Why, Tuala?” Bridei thought he could guess what the answer would be.

She bowed her head; the curtains of glossy dark hair fell forward, almost concealing her small face. “So I can see them,”
she whispered.

“Them?”

“The ones who left me here. My family. I think I might see them.”

Bridei’s heart twisted. “We are your family now,” he said gently.

“
You
are,” Tuala agreed, raising sorrowful eyes to meet his. “But Broichan isn’t. He doesn’t want me here.”

“Did he say—?”

“He doesn’t need to say. Bridei, will you teach me?”

“How can I? He keeps his special mirror locked away, and—well,
I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me to. It’s a secret sort of study, you need lots and lots of preparation for it, and it can be dangerous if you get it wrong.
He
could teach you, but I don’t think I could. I’ve only tried it a couple of times and I didn’t do it very well. Broichan said it didn’t matter. It’s the other lessons that count more for me.”

Tuala was silent for a little. Her fingers
were weaving the grass into a minuscule basket. Then she said, “This one counts for me. I’ll have to teach myself.”

Bridei frowned. “Be careful. I told you, it’s dangerous, like all the magical arts. Anyway, you don’t have a mirror.”

“I expect I can find one,” she said, and tucked the tiny basket down between the roots of the great oak. “You’ll be late for your lesson.”

All the way back to
the house he could feel her watching him, although she had remained where she was, under the trees. He worried about Tuala sometimes. One moment she was off through the woods like a little wild thing and the next she was sounding like someone’s grandmother. Still, she was only six. With luck, by tomorrow she’d have seized on a new interest and forgotten all about being a seer.

Broichan was waiting
for him. “You’ve been running,” the druid observed.

Bridei worked hard at slowing his breathing. He would not apologize. Because he had run, he was not, in fact, late. He did not wish to be drawn into a discussion of how he should be spending his free time. “Yes, my lord,” he said after a moment, his voice quite steady and not at all breathless.

“Sit down,” Broichan said.

Bridei sat on the
bench opposite his foster father with the breadth of the oak table between them. The table held a scattering of birch rods, each carved with its own particular marking. Bridei was careful not to disturb them. This was a pattern of augury.

“Tell me what you see here.” Broichan’s voice was deep and resonant, a sound full of both mystery and authority. The face was calm as always, the dark eyes
hooded, the braided hair falling across his shoulders. There were gray threads in the plaited locks now.

Bridei studied the birch rods. He’d begun to learn these signs very early; by his first summer at Pitnochie he’d been familiar with their basic meanings,
and now he understood there were as many ways of putting together their wisdom as there were stars in the sky. A skilled interpreter was
not merely seeking to ascertain a meaning, but to select what was relevant amongst myriad meanings.

“Are you looking for an answer to a particular question?” he asked Broichan, examining the lie of the rods, the places where they intersected and which had fallen above or below the others. Of course, the person who had cast them down was the one best fitted to understand the pattern of their falling;
no doubt Broichan had already completed his own interpretation.

The druid gave a nod. “The question I asked was complex. The answer, in its turn, is many-branched. Because you will see it in more simple terms, you may be able to provide a clearer resolution. It was a question about leaders and loyalties. A deep question about Fortriu itself.”

Bridei thought awhile, letting the small sticks of
birch go in and out of focus, making himself see what lay beyond the incised pattern of line and symbol that marked their pale surfaces. “I see two creatures here,” he said, “bull and boar, each with its own kind behind it. Enemies are coming from the west and the south, attacking them both and trying to come between them. But there’s one rod, here, that joins the two. The eagle. It holds them together,
bridging the gap. And see here, a half-hidden one, underneath. The shadow”

“And?”

“One unexpected move, and many would fall: boar and bull and eagle all together.”

“Leaving only the shadow,” said Broichan gravely “And alone, the shadow can achieve nothing. Thank you, Bridei; you may gather the rods back into their bag now, and while you do so, let’s test the efficacy of your tutors’ lessons
in history. The symbolism here is obvious. Let us say it reflects the years to come, the next ten years, perhaps, or fifteen. How would you interpret this picture of bulls and boars?”

“The bull must be our own king, Drust son of Wdrost, for the bull is his kin-token; Erip tells me the stones that circle his great fortress are full of such images. The boar is Drust son of Girom, monarch of Circinn.
That means the two tribes shown in the augury are the two kingdoms of the Priteni: we of Fortriu, who follow the true faith of our ancestors, and the southerners, the Christians.”

“Beset by enemies, all of us,” mused Broichan. “Yes, even a child could see that. Circinn’s hard put to defend its borders against barbarian rabble from the south. As for us, we face wave upon wave of Gaels bent on
seizing every last crag, glen, lake, and streamlet we have to call our own. And yet we are a strong people, Bridei. An enduring people. What meaning do you place on that one link, the eagle, bridging the gap so tenuously? The chieftains of the Priteni have minds of their own and their kings are equally stubborn. To unite bull and boar seems to me as unlikely as yoking a pair of wild stags and expecting
them to work as a team.”

The birch rods were packed away now, secure in their kidskin bag. Bridei fastened the leather cord around them and placed the bag on its shelf. Higher up, a tiny cradle, withered and faded, still lay in the shadows. He sat with chin in hand, thinking hard. Any answer given to Broichan must be well considered, or one might as well say nothing at all.

“I think,” Bridei
said, “that the eagle is the most important of all for Fortriu. It would be a good symbol for a king, better than bull or boar, although both of those are very strong in their ways. The eagle flies high above everything: he passes over the whole of the Great Glen, and beyond the Glen to the western isles, and northward to the lands of the Caitt, and southeast to Circinn. He can fly over the realms
where both kings rule; his clear vision shows him that the land is not split tribe by tribe, but is one whole, strong and indivisible. Or should be. I don’t wish to sound disloyal to King Drust, of course.”

“No,” said Broichan mildly, “and if you were in other company, I know you would choose not to express such ideas as these. No doubt Wid has cautioned you of the dangers of being misinterpreted.
Here at Pitnochie, amongst trusted friends, you can speak your mind freely. And your sentiments are admirable, Bridei. We would all wish to see the Priteni united, as they were before the scourge of the new religion swept across the south and poisoned the mind of Drust the Boar. Now, of course, we have two kings, two realms and two faiths. This has weakened us greatly. All your talk of eagles
does not alter the fact that this schism has shattered our capacity to resist armed incursions. The Gaels have made themselves at home in the west; they breed a new generation in the settlements where our grandfathers dwelled, and their boots trample our hallowed ground. Each time they mount an attack they step a little farther in. Could we withstand another major offensive? I doubt it. You saw
the shadow of their cruelty in the Vale of
the Fallen, Bridei. We cannot allow them the freedom of the Glen; we cannot permit a repetition of that mindless slaughter of good men, that pollution of our heartland. Unfortunately our own kings show a marked reluctance to invite each other to the council table. How can they? One is loyal to the ancient tenets of Fortriu; the other is a traitor to his
blood-deep faith.”