The Well of Shades (26 page)

“Tell us now, Eile.” Líobhan had seated herself by her guest’s side, a cup of the spicy
brew between her capable hands.

“Let the lass eat, Líobhan,” said the old man mildly.

“I’m sorry. You must be starving, Eile. Phadraig, Saraid hasn’t had supper yet. Can you put some things on a platter for her? Yes, you can have some, too. You’re growing so fast, I don’t think a second supper will hurt you.”

“First I have to say… You need to know…” Eile glanced at the two children. The boy
was assembling bread, cheese, preserve on a small platter while Saraid remained by Donnan’s knee, fingers gentle against the cat’s soft fur.

“Phadraig,” said Líobhan, “why don’t you and Saraid take that over to the little table in the corner? I think her dog needs feeding, too. Maybe there’s a bone somewhere. Saraid will help you look.”

Impossible, thought Eile. In yet another houseful of strangers,
Saraid had done well to venture three steps from her mother.

“A dog? Where is it?” inquired Phadraig, squatting to peer under the bench. “Oh, I see. What’s his name? I bet he’s hungry. Come on, good boy. Come on.” Carrying the platter and talking all the time, the boy drew both cowering dog and shy child after him all the way across the chamber and out through a small door. Saraid did not even
look back.

Eile felt a tremulous smile curve her lips. “She’s usually very wary of strangers.”

“Phadraig has a way with him,” said Líobhan, her tone matter-of-fact. “What is it you need to tell us, Eile?”

Eile swallowed nervously. Blurting out the truth in all its violent, bloody detail felt wrong here, among these peaceable, courteous folk. These people did not seem to belong in the same world
as Dalach and Anda, a world of curses and threats, of blows and bruises and silent endurance. What if Líobhan heard this and set them both outside the gate to spend another night in the cold? Folk suffered harsh penalties for far less than Eile had done.

“I killed someone.” There, it was out. “A man who had
been hurting me for a long time. I was afraid for my daughter. I did it a while ago; more
than fifty days, by my count. The lady at Blackthorn Rise took me in. She said she’d deal with everything for me, but she never did. She just kept me there. I still have to face charges; I still have to be punished. I don’t want to lose Saraid. I ran away from Cloud Hill, after it happened, and then I ran away from Blackthorn Rise.”

Brown-eyed woman, quiet man, and grave grandfather looked at
one another in silence, weighing this. The fire crackled; the cat stretched, luxurious on Donnan’s knee.

“You’ve come to Fiddler’s Crossing to ask Father to deal with this matter?” asked Líobhan.

“That’s not why I came. But I suppose he will, now I’m here. I don’t want to be locked up. There’s nobody else to look after Saraid. I never hurt anyone, except him. Well, that’s not quite true. There
was a horrible child at Blackthorn Rise, his name was Fionn, he was cruel to Saraid and I slapped him. That’s why we left there. But I won’t hurt anyone again.”

“Faolan,” said the old man. “What can you tell us of Faolan?” His knotty hands were clasped tightly together.

“He helped me.” As swiftly as she could, Eile told the story; her audience of three sat silent and still, hungry for every
word. “So,” she said at the end, “I thought he was gone, because that was what the Widow told me. But I’m sure I heard him calling my name. Certain of it. If he’s her brother, why would she do that? Why would she lie to me? I’m nothing to grand ladies like her. Me and Saraid, we’re the dirt under her boot sole.” Belatedly, she remembered whom she was talking to. “I’m sorry,” she added. “She’s your
kinswoman; I didn’t mean any offense. But she was unkind, and she lied to me. She played games with us. She said I’d be safe there, and I wasn’t; she never settled things with the law. She would have had my daughter beaten. Saraid’s only little.”

Líobhan sighed. “Gods,” she said as if to herself, “he came back at last and this was what he walked into.”

Donnan reached over and took her hand.
“He did come back,” he said. “Hold on to that. We can sort this out. Your father and I will have to go there. We’ll have to confront Áine openly.”

“Young lady,” said the grandfather, “Faolan is lucky to have such a friend as yourself. It took courage and strength to make your way here to us, when most other folk in your situation would have seized the opportunity to flee the district. My son-in-law,
the brithem, is a just man, and wise. He will settle your case. You should not be afraid.”

Eile gave a nod, sudden shyness robbing her of speech.

“I’m sure this all seems very odd to you, Eile,” said Líobhan. “Did Faolan tell you anything of his past? Do you know what happened to us here before he left home?”

“Not much. He spoke of your family being wronged, and how it was too late for vengeance
because the man who did it was dead. There were folk talking about it at the bridge we crossed. They said Faolan had done something so terrible it didn’t bear thinking about.”

Donnan exchanged glances with the old man. “They must have gone straight to Áine,” he said. “It explains how she knew, how she was there the next morning to take him. She must have offered incentives for silence, or we’d
have heard before now that he was home.”

“You wonder, perhaps,” Líobhan said to Eile, “why we are not more shocked to hear of your own violent deed. Of course, we are a brithem’s family, and that must count for something. But what happened that night, long ago, changed all of us. It took a heavy toll, and we’ve been a long time recovering. Faolan was forced to kill his elder brother, Dubhán,
before the eyes of our whole family. The choice offered to him was to do that or see the rest of us die as well. Dubhán bid him do it, and he obeyed, though not until after the perpetrator’s men had killed my grandmother.”

The old man bowed his head.

“We were spared, the rest of us,” Líobhan went on,
“but the men who had invaded our house did not leave empty-handed. They took our youngest sister,
Áine. She was twelve at the time. They laughed, leaving, about what they would do to her that night. My father believed her beyond saving; he was certain she’d be dead before rescue was possible. Indeed, he thought that if any of us tried to intervene we, too, would be killed. The man who did this, Echen, was a powerful chieftain. To resist him, as Dubhán had done, was to invite a violent end.
It happened right here in this room.”

Horrified, Eile stared at the flagstoned floor, imagining the blood; seeing a young Faolan with the knife in his hands.

“For a long time, we couldn’t bear to come in here,” the grandfather said. “My daughter, Conor’s wife, lived only a season after that night. She never recovered from what she witnessed; the first winter chill carried her from us as easily
as the breeze gathers up a dandelion seed. Líobhan’s eldest sister, Dáire, went to the priory at Winterfalls, not far from here. She found solace in the Christian faith, and is content with her life of seclusion. She had lost husband and unborn child before that night. It was Echen’s cruelty that took them both. Dubhán sought only a just vengeance.”

“Two years after it happened, we were still
reeling from the blow,” said Líobhan. “Then Donnan came courting me, like a bit of sunshine in a dark place. He’d long been close to the family; my brother, the one who died, was his friend, and Donnan had been part of the resistance that sparked the whole thing. We decided we didn’t want Echen’s victory over us to be complete, as it would be if we let this destroy us. We decided it was time to start
healing ourselves. We made this chamber into the warmest, most welcoming place in the house. We said prayers here, lit lamps, sang songs, and told stories. We cooked meals to share. We invited folk to visit.”

“What about Áine?” asked Eile, thinking this tale was one of the strangest she’d ever heard.

“It was a shock,” said Donnan softly. “We had done our best to avoid Echen’s notice, all of
us who’d been involved, for those two years. We’d abided by his rules, and Líobhan’s father had not practiced as a brithem during that time for fear of antagonizing his enemy again by pronouncing an unfavorable judgment on one of his favorites. For those two years after the night it happened, we had believed Áine dead. Attempts to get information about what had happened were fruitless. Then we heard
that she was, after all, alive and well; that she’d been in Tirconnell, and that now she was Echen’s wife.”

“It couldn’t be a happy ending,” said Líobhan. “Not with that man as her husband. But we wanted to see her, to be reassured that she had not been ill-treated and to know the marriage was her own choice. She refused to see us. Even now, with Echen gone, she has nothing to do with us. She
was displeased when Father resumed his role as a brithem after Echen’s death. He’d been giving people advice on matters of law all the while, unofficially; folk knew to keep quiet about it. Because the local community had sore need of a qualified lawman, my sister could hardly raise objections when he took up his formal duties again. We do meet her occasionally; it’s inevitable our paths will cross
from time to time. She avoids it if she can. She despises us. She loathes us. This has changed her more profoundly than it did any of the rest of us, save perhaps for poor Mother, who never recovered from losing both her sons in one night. Áine’s mind has been somehow twisted. She may be a powerful and competent chieftain in her husband’s stead, and far more just with her folk than he ever was.
But she’s erratic. She’s dangerous.”

“She blames Faolan for what happened to her,” said the grandfather. “Him most of all, because he was a man, and young, and she thought he should have saved her. If she has him prisoner, he’s in real danger. What time do you expect Conor home, Líobhan?”

“Early,” said Líobhan as the back door opened and the two children came in, followed by the gray dog with
a
meaty bone in his mouth. “He said he’d be back here for breakfast.”

“We must wait for his decision, of course,” the old man said. “But this is what he’ll want to do. We must ride there tomorrow and confront Áine with what we know.”

“Ride where?” asked Phadraig. “Can I come?” A look from his mother silenced him. Saraid had climbed onto Eile’s knee.

“What if she says I was mistaken? That Faolan’s
not there?” Eile asked them. “If what you say about her is true, she’s not just going to let him go, is she?” She felt a chill, thinking of that place, Breakstone Hollow, and what it had done to her father.

“Conor’s a good talker,” said Donnan. He did not sound completely confident.

“We must wait until morning,” Líobhan said. “She hasn’t let any of us in the gates of Blackthorn Rise in all the
time she’s been head of that household, and it’s very possible tomorrow may be no different. As brithem, Father does have great authority in the district. He’s widely respected. But Blackthorn Rise makes its own rules. We’re not welcome in Áine’s house and perhaps we never will be. She can’t see the irony of it: that the husband whose sons she’s dedicated to raising, the one whose lands she puts
her life into governing, was the man who set this darkness on us all in the first place. I don’t think she’ll ever understand.”

“Who won’t understand?” asked Phadraig.

“Your aunt Áine, the one who doesn’t come here,” his mother said. “What’s in the little bag, Saraid?”

Saraid turned her head into Eile’s shoulder.

“It’s a doll,” said Phadraig. “She showed me. Only it’s broken. A boy sawed its
head off. It’s called Sorry. I told her you would fix it, Mama.”

“I’m sure I can manage that,” Líobhan said with a wry smile. “We’ll do it in the morning, shall we, Saraid? Maybe Sorry would like a ribbon around her neck, or a little frill. You can help me sew it on.”

“I can do it.” Eile heard the combative tone of her own voice and hastened to add, “But thank you for the offer. If I could borrow
a needle and thread… We’re used to fending for ourselves, Saraid and me. I do know how to mend.”

“I’m sure you do. Now, it’s time for bed, Phadraig, and I think Eile and Saraid need somewhere to sleep. Let’s go and see where we can squeeze them in.”

M
ORNING BROUGHT THE
brithem, a gray-haired, clean-shaven man with Faolan’s thin lips and wary eyes. It was plain from
the moment he walked in that he would be the one who made any decisions required. Despite his reserved manner he was the kind of man, Eile thought, who was accustomed to taking charge.

Over breakfast, the others told him the tale of an unlawful killing and the story of Faolan’s capture. Conor was adept at concealing what he felt; the more Eile watched him, the more of Faolan she saw in him. It
made her wonder about her father and about herself.

Saraid had slept well. She sat up next to Phadraig to eat her breakfast, and Líobhan, with a glance at Eile, complimented her on her good manners. Dismissed from the table, the two children headed straight out into the yard with the gray dog loping after them.

“She’s not scared here,” Eile said in tones of amazement. “Your son is a good little
boy. I think she knew that straightaway.”