The Dark Mirror (28 page)

“Fat lot of use you’d be,” Gartnait said under his breath, digging his young brother in the ribs.

“You haven’t the least idea what this is about, Bedo.” Ferada’s tone had returned to its customary note of calm superiority. “Gartnait and Bridei are men. You two are little children. Gartnait and Bridei
could be dead by the end of spring. Did you think of that? Be glad you are too young to go. You’ll get your turn soon enough. And if you think it’s unfair, try being a girl for a while.”

“Let us have no more talk of unfairness,” said their mother, rising to her feet. “You’ll do as your father and I bid you and that’s an end of it. And now it’s time for you lads to go to bed. Ferada, I have some
tasks for you; let us leave these men to their war talk.”

Much later, Bridei found Donal alone by the northern dike, gazing out over the dark hillside and down toward the dim, pale ribbon that was Maiden Lake. It was clear to him that Donal had been waiting; after so long as teacher and student, and then as something more like friends, they understood each other well. For a little they stood
in companionable silence, listening to the small sounds of the night.

“About today,” Bridei ventured.

“Mm?”

“Maybe I’m imagining things. I couldn’t say it in front of Talorgen; it sounds foolish. On the face of it that was a good capture, the retrieval of useful prisoners. But something about it didn’t add up.”

“Oh, aye?”

“I don’t know about the man Gartnait took. But the one I captured wasn’t
the kind to fold quickly under torture. And he may have been bleeding, but it wasn’t enough to kill him. I aimed carefully; I always do. So why did they handle things the way they did? Was that necessary?”

“You tell me,” said Donal.

“I’ve been over it and over it,” Bridei mused. He kept his voice down; there were still other folk about. “That was a man who could have been useful, I sensed it.
Maybe he wouldn’t have talked, but he would have been of some value, perhaps as a hostage. It would have been better to patch him up and hold onto him, keep him in custody. What Cenal did was just . . .”

“Inhumane? It’s the way things are, Bridei. There’s no place for scruples when spies creep up to a man’s very doorstep. These folk show no regard for niceties when they take our fellows prisoner.
Their methods would disgust you.”

“It was crude,” Bridei said, undeterred. “Crude and, I suspect, entirely unsuccessful, whatever Talorgen chooses to say about it. Why take that course? Talorgen’s neither stupid nor wantonly cruel. There’s something here he’s not telling us.”

Donal nodded. “Maybe so. Still, unless you plan to ask him outright, I don’t suppose you’re going to find out what it
is.”

“You don’t think,” Bridei said, voicing his deepest concern, “that the whole thing could have been set up, do you?”

“What do you mean, set up?”

“I mean, somehow entirely faked so that Gartnait and I got the chance to prove ourselves without being in any real danger. A false ambush, men acting as enemy, a strangely convenient opportunity for the two of us to take them unaided. It bothers
me that Broichan is so anxious about my safety. That was all very well when I was a child, back in the days when it seemed someone was out to get at him by injuring me. But I’m a man now. Doesn’t it frustrate you that you must always be close to me, you or another of the chosen guards, that you must still sleep across my doorway and be my watchdog rather than my friend? It seems to me that, even
as Talorgen tells
me I am a man, the safeguards my foster father has set in place mean I am still a child to him, to be shielded from harm. Perhaps today’s small triumph was a child’s triumph, engineered for me by my elders and betters.”

“I am your friend, Bridei.” Donal’s voice was very quiet.

“I know that; and a better one I could not hope for. But I must be allowed to stand on my own feet
some time.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Donal said. “The body I saw being taken from Cenal’s house of pain this afternoon was no fake.”

The chill returned to Bridei, fastening on his heart like the hand of a wraith. “Body? Which man was it?”

“Fellow with a bandage around the leg. Don’t know about the other one; I didn’t hang around to see him brought out. Their kind are rubbish, Bridei. They’re
not worthy to be under your boot sole. You shouldn’t waste another thought on them.”

Bridei was silent.

“As for boys and men,” Donal said, setting a hand on Bridei’s shoulder, “you’ll play your part in the campaign as a warrior amongst warriors; it’s something you have to face, you and Gartnait both. But Broichan’s been right to set up protection for you. Maybe he could have explained the reasons
better. That’s something you’ll have the right to demand of him, I reckon, after this campaign is over. It’s time he told you more. As for me, I do as I’m bid. I know you think there’s no need for such vigilance. But there’s every need. You are a king’s son, after all.”

“We are a long way from Gwynedd,” Bridei said.

“All the same. When spring’s over, things might change. In the meantime you’ll
have to put up with me a little longer.”

Bridei glanced at the tattooed warrior; Donal’s expression was unreadable in the dim light. “I have no complaints,” he said quietly. “Without you here I’d find it intolerable to stay. You’re my bit of home when I’m away from Pitnochie. You help me make sense of things. But when I ride into battle, I want to be on the same footing as the other men, to have
the same chances and take the same risks. You must not devote yourself to protecting me, but to pursuing the enemy. I don’t know what instructions Broichan has given you, but I hope you will respect that.”

“Oh, aye.” It was not possible to tell what Donal meant by this.

“A man died today because of what I did.”

“And more will die when you ride to war, your own as well as the enemy.
You’ll feel
your knife twist in a man’s heart. You’ll see the expression in his eyes as he screams for his mother while you gut him with your spear. The first time’s always the hardest. But it never gets easy; it never comes naturally. You have to remember what they’ve done, the filthy wretches. What has to be in your mind, every moment you’re out there, is the evil they’ve inflicted on our land, the rape
of our women, the slaughter of our children, the torching of our settlements, the destruction of our sacred places. Keep those thoughts alive and your hand won’t hesitate to grip the sword and strike a blow for freedom.”

“And today?”

“Put it behind you. Ask if you’d have such doubts if you’d seen Gartnait’s throat cut this morning. You did the right thing. You did what a man has to do. That’s
all that matters.”

SOMETHING FERADA HAD
said gnawed at Bridei’s thoughts, distracting him from the all-important tasks of preparation for war.
By spring, Gartnait and Bridei could be dead
. He had known this, of course. Protectors or no, he recognized that he would face the very real chance of falling foul of a Gaelic spear
or stepping into the path of an accurately loosed arrow. It was not the prospect of death itself that troubled Bridei so much. It was the thought of dying without knowing the truth; of not being sure if the future for which Broichan was preparing him so assiduously was indeed the one he had increasingly come to suspect. He did not wish to wait, as Donal had suggested, and ask Broichan for answers
in the spring. By spring it could be too late.

It was awkward. Talorgen, as Broichan’s friend, could not be approached with such a question, not if Bridei had not first raised the matter with his foster father. Dreseida would be able to give him the piece of information he required, but he was reluctant to approach her. Her manner made Bridei uneasy, verging as it did on the inimical for no good
reason he could see. She would tell him if he asked, but not without another volley of testing questions, the purpose of which was beyond his comprehension.

There was another avenue, and this he took when the opportunity offered itself. One morning before the day’s work began he went to the kitchen garden at Raven’s Well for a little solitude. It was a quiet spot, full of the pleasing scents
of herbs, with a small pond in the center and low, clipped
hedges neatly dividing the beds of culinary plants. There were not many places at Raven’s Well where one could be quite alone; meditation was well nigh impossible. Even in this small sanctuary one was likely to be interrupted by Uric or Bedo chasing a dog, or someone with a knife and basket, seeking parsley for a pie.

Today, Bridei sat
on a stone bench for a while, trying to set his thoughts in order. The capture; the Gael with his calm eyes and air of superiority; the battle to come. Broichan and his plans. Bridei thought of his family, far away in Gwynedd, the family he had all but forgotten. It had seemed for a long time that Broichan would bring him up, educate him, then send him back to Gwynedd to live his life among his
own people. It was for this that most noble families sent sons out for fostering: to broaden their horizons early so that they might contribute more fully later as councillor, sage, warrior. As king’s son. Bridei supposed his brothers were both seasoned fighters by now, riding out proudly at their father’s side. It occurred to him that he might even have other siblings, younger ones of whom he knew
nothing. A sister, perhaps. That was a strange thought. No sister could ever be closer to him than Tuala was, blood kin or no. Bridei smiled to himself. Although his little wild thing had grown now to a girl of nearly thirteen years old, he could not think of her without remembering that night: the moonlight, the snow, his frozen feet, and the moment when he first saw the Shining One’s remarkable
gift; the best moment of his life. He would never cease to be grateful for it. As for his own family, they seemed ever more distant as the years passed. All the same, it would be good to see them sometime, his father in particular. When the battle was over, perhaps Broichan would let him travel. Perhaps. Unless he was right about what the druid’s plans really were.

“Good morning.” Ferada was
approaching across the garden, a tiny, bound book in one hand, her skirt held clear of the dewy grass by the other. She was clad in a perfectly pressed gown in a russet shade similar to that of her hair, which was gathered in a complicated knot of plaits at the nape of her neck. A single bright curl hung at her right temple, accentuating the pallor of her skin. Bridei rose to his feet.

“Don’t
get up,” Ferada said, coming to sit beside him. “I’m after the same thing as you, peace and quiet. Uric committed some terrible crime, I think it was losing one of Bedo’s lucky stones, and it’s a battlefield in there. I wish to be out of everyone’s way, particularly Mother’s.”

Bridei smiled. “I can understand that very well.”

Ferada opened her book, but her gaze was not on the neat, hand-drawn
script that filled its tiny vellum pages. She stared across the garden as the light of early morning set its golden touch on the ordered rows of winter vegetables, the fallow beds with their bare, dark soil in which a mob of tiny birds was already hunting for tasty morsels. “I wonder sometimes,” she said, “if it’s the royal blood that makes her like that. It’s as if nothing can ever be good enough
for her. None of us can ever match up to what she sees in her mind as the way we should be. I’m sorry,” Ferada added hastily. “I shouldn’t be speaking thus to you, Bridei, it isn’t fair. Our difficulties are our own; we must find our own solutions.”

“I am always willing to listen,” Bridei said. “I make no judgments. I am hardly in a position to do so, having grown up without my own family.”

“Thank you.” It was evident Ferada did not wish to take the topic further.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Bridei.”

“I’d like you to tell me exactly what the kinship is between your mother and my mother. Between my mother and King Drust.”

Ferada stared at him. “All those years of education and you don’t know that?”

Bridei felt his cheeks flush. Ferada could be relied on for honesty,
but tact was not her strongest skill. “It seems to me that information was deliberately withheld from me. But I wish to know. I think it’s important that I find out before we leave for the west.”

“Mm,” observed Ferada, regarding him closely. “So, when you lie dying in battle you’ll know that, if you hadn’t been in the way of some Gael’s sword, you might one day have been king?”

There was a brief
silence.

“Something like that,” Bridei said.

“It’s simple,” said Ferada. “My mother’s mother and King Drust’s mother were sisters. That means my blood, and that of my brothers, is of the royal line; the female line. Horrendous as the prospect is, I’m forced to acknowledge that all three of my brothers will have a right to put themselves forward as claimants for the kingship one day, when Drust
the Bull dies. I fervently hope that won’t be for many years yet; the king’s not an old man. I cannot for the life of me imagine Uric on the throne; Bedo, at least, is capable of putting two thoughts together when he tries. As for Gartnait,” she shrugged, rolling her eyes skyward, “he’s the least likely of all. He’d absolutely hate it. Of course,
there are plenty of other possibilities. The sons
of the royal blood are spread widely within the kingdoms of the Priteni.”