The Dark Mirror (18 page)

His arrow struck the spoon with a small metallic sound
and fell to the earth beneath the tree. The wind got up again almost immediately, making the target near-invisible amidst the rustling leaves. It was just possible to discern that the string was intact.

“Oh, bad luck, Bridei!” That was Erip. “So close!”

Donal, who was well aware of the rules of hospitality, was first to congratulate Breth and to suggest some of them might follow up archery with
swordplay or wrestling another day. Others clustered around, clapping the visitor on the back and offering their own words of praise. Breth was grinning now, pride salvaged, clasping a hand here, exchanging a joke there. It had been a good contest. And the boy had done remarkably well, considering. A real little archer in the making. Donal had done a fine job with him.

When the others were gone,
Bridei and Donal began gathering arrows and dismantling the various targets.

“Bridei?” Donal asked.

“What?”

“Would you ever shoot less ably than your talents allowed you to do?”

Bridei had had time to work out his answer to this, knowing it would be asked of him sooner or later. Donal knew him too well to have misinterpreted that failed shot. “Would you ever encourage a student of yours to
get something wrong?” he asked.

“It depends,” Donal said.

“That’s my answer, too.”

“It could be the difference between life and death one day,” the warrior observed. “Yours, not the other fellow’s.”

“If it was a matter of life and death, I would make certain I didn’t miss,” Bridei said. “But if it was just a matter of pride, I’d weigh everything in the balance. Then I’d choose what to do.”

“Mm,” Donal said, pulling an arrow out of the ground and adding it to the ones he was carrying. “I couldn’t have done what you did today. Don’t have it in me.”

“You didn’t have to. You missed anyway,” said Bridei, grinning.

Donal’s smile was more of a grimace. “Wait till that fellow Breth sees what I can do with a staff. Won’t know what hit him. Now go on; lessons don’t stop just because there’s
a king’s councillor in the house. I expect those two old rascals are lying in wait for you somewhere with a dose of obscure history. Off you go.”

“Donal?”

“What?”

“Have you seen Tuala, these last couple of days? We’ve been busy, I know, but she wasn’t there at dinner last night, nor the night before, and nor was Brenna. And she’s not here this morning.”

“As to that,” Donal said after a moment,
“the lassie’s left Pitnochie. Gone away on a family visit. Brenna took her.”

Bridei felt suddenly cold. Donal’s tone was too casual, his answer too glib. “Gone?” he echoed, struggling for a way to make sense of this. “What visit? What family?” Tuala’s family was here. What had Broichan done?

“Easy now, lad. Broichan gave Brenna a bit of time off, a few days to go and see her mother at Oak Ridge,
that’s all. Tuala’s gone with her, and Cinioch as an escort. They’ll be there by now.”

“He sent her away.” Bridei realized he had his fists clenched; he made
himself relax them, but he could not stop the anger building inside him. No wonder Tuala had been sad and quiet. No wonder she had seemed to be guarding a secret. What had Broichan threatened her with, to keep her silent? “You should have
told me,” he added.

“And break an undertaking to your foster father? He asked us not to mention this to you, Bridei; not until Tuala was well away. He’d have told you himself, all in good time, if you’d waited.”

“Why?” Bridei demanded. “Why would he send her there?”

“So you can make yourself known to Broichan’s guests without any distractions. That’s important, Bridei. Your foster father wants
you to make a good impression. Don’t clench your teeth like that, you’re making me nervous.”

“She was sad. She didn’t want to go.”

“Did Tuala say that?”

“She couldn’t, could she? I suppose Broichan threatened her into silence. She’s only six, Donal. Without a bedtime story, she can’t get to sleep. The dark scares her.”

“Brenna’s there.”

“And she’ll miss Midsummer. She’ll miss the ritual.”

Donal’s mouth twisted. “Perhaps that’s what Broichan had in mind. Let it go, Bridei. This is a small thing. It’s nothing in the pattern of your foster father’s plans. Bridei?”

But Bridei was already heading for the house. He wanted an accounting; his foster father must give that, at least. Curse Broichan and his mysterious schemes! You didn’t treat children as if they were no more than an inconvenience
to be brushed out of the way when they didn’t happen to suit you. You didn’t send them away to be lonely and frightened. In particular, you didn’t coerce them into keeping secrets from their friends. He would tell Broichan so, and if his foster father didn’t care to hear the truth, too bad.

Righteous rage driving all from his mind save the words he would say, Bridei marched around a corner of
the house and halted abruptly. There were riders before the door, a party of six men who must have come up from the east, shielded from view by the birches between house and lakeside way. Broichan was greeting them; Aniel stood nearby, a guard at his back. The new arrivals were warriors, their faces decorated with kin markings and battle counts. They were clad in gear serviceable and practical for
fighting men in transit, leather caps and breast-pieces, felt cloaks and heavy tunics, leggings of
a uniform deep blue, supple riding boots and protective gauntlets. All bore arms. There was a pack horse, lightly laden. The animals were stocky, bright-eyed, and strong looking.

One man, tall and curly-haired, had dismounted by the steps and was speaking to Broichan. He broke off the conversation
as Bridei appeared.

“Ah, this is your foster son, I’ve no doubt. My greeting to you, Bridei! I’m Talorgen of Raven’s Well. It’s a great pleasure to meet you at last. I was a friend of your mother’s before she took it into her head to wed Maelchon and go off south.”

His mother again. Bridei clasped the man’s extended hand. Talorgen had such a disarming grin that it was not possible to do anything
but grin back and greet him with genuine good will.

“I’ve a son of your age,” Talorgen went on. “His name’s Gartnait. Shaping up well with bow and sword, but not as clever as yourself, from what I’ve heard.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t bring him with you, my lord,” Bridei said.

“Ah, well, another time,” Talorgen said easily. “His mother wanted him at home, and she can be hard to disagree with.”

“Come,” Broichan said. “I’ll show you your lodgings. Your men will be quartered in the barn with mine. Bridei, will you take them down to the stables and ask Donal to settle them in?” The druid’s dark eyes were scrutinizing his foster son’s face closely. No doubt, Bridei thought, the rage still showed in his expression, although Talorgen’s friendly manner had gone a long way to damping it down. He
stared back for long enough to be quite sure Broichan understood he was angry, and why. Then he turned to Talorgen’s men and motioned the way to stables and barn. What he had to say must wait.

At dusk that day the third of Broichan’s guests arrived. When Bridei thought of druids, he generally pictured his foster father, the only one of that kind he had known: a man of incisive mind and daunting
intelligence, a man whose worldly power was balanced by a deep reverence for the mysteries. There was another kind of druid he had heard of, the kind that appeared in the old tales. This was a wild inhabitant of oak groves in the deep heart of the forest, a man so steeped in lore, so attuned to magic, that he often seemed to the outer world quite crazed, as if he had stepped across the margin and
existed with one foot in this world and one in the other. Such a druid was Uist, whom dusk brought to the threshold of Pitnochie. He came on a
milk-pale mare that moved with a delicate, dancing gait, swishing her silken tail. Uist had wild white hair, plaited as Broichan’s was, but not as neatly; the braids were tangled with feathers and twigs and seeds, and wisps escaped them to stand out in
an aureole around his head. There was a musky smell about him, like that of a forest creature. Uist’s features were hard to describe, the eyes of changeable color, the face now one thing, now another, as if he were constantly making small adjustments so that nobody would remember how he looked. He seemed old, but stood straight and relaxed, one hand grasping a tall staff of birch wood with a polished
stone set at the tip, palest gray speckled like an egg with a darker hue, and three white feathers tied below it with a silver thread. His garments were flowing; they stirred strangely as Uist moved, as if there were some life in the fabric beyond that the wearer’s body imparted. Here and there the robes were rent, as if the druid had moved through briars or brambles. The mare, however, bore no
scratches on her gleaming coat.

Uist made no attempt to engage anyone in conversation nor to greet any member of the household beyond his host. Offered a bed in the men’s quarters with Talorgen and Aniel, he said it had been too long since he slept with any roof over his head but an oak canopy and the stars. He would spend his nights in the forest and tolerate the days in the confines of Broichan’s
house if that was strictly necessary. He needed the hands of Bone Mother under his back and the eyes of the Shining One looking down on him. If he had not those, he must walk out of Pitnochie within two days or run mad.

“You mean, madder than you are already,” commented Talorgen with a smile, and the old druid’s bushy brows creased in a frown.

The remark seemed to Bridei less than courteous,
but Uist only said, “Ah, well, I was lost to your kind of society years ago, my friend, and I don’t miss it a bit. The music, perhaps. Apart from that, kings’ courts hold no attraction. Living wild suits me, and it suits those who whisper in my ears at night. I won’t howl at the moon; you have my assurance of that.”

Bridei was waiting for a moment when he could catch Broichan alone. But as soon
as supper was over, his foster father and the three guests retreated to Broichan’s own chamber and closed the door firmly behind them and, angry or not, there was no way he was going to interrupt their private council. Later, Talorgen came out and settled himself by the fire, and soon Donal, Uven, and two other men had him embroiled in a debate about the Gaels. This had all of them shifting knives
and tankards and bowls around
the table in enactment of a grand strategic push beyond the western end of the Great Glen and out across the isles, an advance that saw the invaders swept before it, back to the land of Erin where such miscreants belonged. Talorgen had fought some of Gabhran’s forces quite recently; his territory of Raven’s Well lay to the west of Pitnochie and a great deal closer
to the enemy’s settlements. He had information about the current positions of the Gaels that was new to Donal, and his account of his men’s fierce skirmishes with their forward parties held everyone transfixed. By the time that was over, lamps were being doused and it was time for bed. It seemed Bridei had left it too late to see his foster father alone. But as he walked past Broichan’s chamber to
fetch his candle before he went out to the barn, the druid opened the door and stepped out.

“You had something to say to me,” Broichan said. It was not a question.

Bridei’s anger was not as fierce as it had been earlier. Talorgen had said he could come and stay at Raven’s Well as soon as Broichan gave permission for it, and the exciting prospect of traveling outside Pitnochie and practicing
his combat skills with this boy Gartnait had greatly improved his mood. But he had not lost sight of the injustice, nor the need for an accounting.

There was nobody else nearby, and Broichan had shut the door on his influential guests.

“You sent Tuala away,” Bridei said, using the techniques his foster father had taught him to keep his voice calm and his body relaxed, though speaking of it brought
the anger back. “She was unhappy, I could see it. And you forbade people to tell me. That wasn’t fair.”

Broichan waited in silence, regarding his foster son steadily.

“I think I deserve an explanation,” Bridei said.

Broichan did not speak. His silences could be unnerving, but over the long years of his education Bridei had learned to deal with them. “Why are these people here?” he asked, deciding
a direct question was required. “Why shouldn’t they see Tuala? Are you ashamed of her?”

Broichan folded his arms. “You are angry,” he observed. “Pace your breathing. School your eyes. You must learn to mask such feelings, for in the council chamber they do a man ill service.”

Bridei thought he had been controlling his feelings quite well. At least he was not shouting and throwing things, the
way Ferat sometimes did. “Will you answer my questions?” he asked.

“My guests are here to meet you. To observe you and to assess how well
you have learned, thus far. It is of the utmost importance that you show them your best qualities. Tuala will return when they are gone. It is inappropriate that the girl be present at this time. She does not belong here.”

“She is part of Pitnochie,” Bridei
said. “She belongs with me.”

A ripple of something crossed Broichan’s pale features. Bridei could not tell what it meant. “I had thought you almost a man, Bridei,” the druid said. “You demonstrate tonight that you are still a child. Go to bed now. This is a trivial matter, and you will need all your energy for the days to come. We will not discuss this further.” With that, he opened the door
and stepped back into his chamber, and the conversation was over. It was deeply unsatisfactory, but Bridei knew he would get no more from his foster father.

As he dropped off to sleep surrounded by snoring men, Bridei told a story in his head, silently, thinking that thus he was in some way true to his promise, even if Tuala had no way of knowing it.
Once upon a time
. . .