The Well of Shades (5 page)

“Of course, Tuala. Come in.”

She thought perhaps she had interrupted him in prayer, for two candles burned on a shelf and before them a thin mat was laid on the
stone floor, a small concession to his illness. The chamber was orderly. Shelves were neatly packed with the accouterments of his calling; an oak table held a jug of water and a single cup. From the rafters hung plaits of garlic and bundles of healing herbs. His scrying mirror was nowhere to be seen.

“Please sit. You wish to discuss Derelei’s progress? His welfare?”

“Not today. I see that he
is doing well, though he does get very tired. I have a difficult matter to set before you, Broichan. You may have some idea what it is; I’ve heard Fola refer to it once or twice, obliquely.”

Broichan waited, a tall figure, dark-robed. His hair was more gray than black now and fell in a multitude of small plaits across his shoulders. In the candlelight the moon-disc, a circle of pale bone he wore
on a cord around his neck in tribute to the Shining One, gleamed softly. His deep-set eyes gave nothing away.

“It would be easier for me to show you this in the water of a scrying vessel,” Tuala told him. “I feel a certain reluctance to put it straight into words; I’m afraid it will offend you.”

“If you wish.” His voice was at its most constrained. Tuala suspected he knew what was coming. “You
are confident you can summon what you need and reveal it in one form to the two of us? That’s a prodigiously difficult task, Tuala.”

Not for me.
“If the Shining One wishes us to see this, we will see it. Have you a bowl we can use?”

He fetched a vessel without further comment, uncovered it, and poured water from a ewer. “You prefer this to the mirror,” he said. It was not a question.

Tuala
nodded, not speaking. Already the water called her, too powerful to resist. She stood, and Broichan, opposite, reached over to take her hands. They faced each other across the bowl. Tuala felt his hands, strong and bony, relax in hers as he looked down. He was expert in the seer’s art, as in all branches of magic. He knew without the need for telling that, in order to grant Tuala control over the
vision, he must submit his formidable will to hers. And indeed, for all his long years of training and discipline, it was she, the child of the Good Folk, who had the greater facility in this branch of the craft. Perhaps it was not so surprising that some folk distrusted her.

The water rippled, shimmered, and was still. The vision came: the same Tuala had seen once before. That
first time neither
Broichan nor the wise woman Fola, both of whom had been in attendance, had discerned it. Now she felt Broichan start. His hands gripped tightly for a moment, then relaxed again as he forced his body to obey his will.

In the water a younger Broichan, clad in a white robe, walked a forest path in springtime. Another figure shadowed him, a slight, lovely woman whose fey eyes and milk-pale skin marked
her out as one of the Good Folk, that diverse band of Otherworld people who inhabited the woodlands of the Great Glen and beyond. This person was one of Tuala’s own kind, akin to the two beings who had shown themselves to her in her childhood, interfering in her life and Bridei’s, tempting her with promises to reveal her true identity and always holding that knowledge back. She knew only that
she’d been a foundling, an abandoned infant. If she had parents, they had never come forward to claim her, not in all the nineteen years since they had left her on Broichan’s doorstep.

In the water, the white-clad druid looked around; he had sensed he was not alone. A voice seemed to speak, though in the candlelit chamber where Broichan and Tuala stood all was silent.
Come, my son. Come and honor
me.
And, when the younger Broichan hesitated, suddenly very still on the sunlit path amid the dappled greens and golds of the springtime forest,
Come, faithful one. I require this of you.

Tuala did not doubt that the goddess spoke. The fey woman was only a messenger. Perhaps, for this one day, she was an avatar: the earthly embodiment of the Shining One, whose own presence was ever veiled in
the daylight. The white-clad druid saw the woman. His face paled and his jaw tightened. Obedient he might be, but this was plainly difficult for him. The woman smiled. She was beguiling, her lips full and rosy, her slender figure shapely and enticing beneath the sheer fabric of her floating gown. She reached out a hand toward the druid.

Go, my son.
The voice again, not that of this charming creature
but a deep, strong one that made every tree in the wildwood shiver.
I call you to my service. Do you hesitate?

The druid took the proffered hand in his. Tuala could feel his reluctance and, along with it, the coursing pull of physical desire in his body. It was customary for his kind to perform a solitary three-day vigil to mark the festival of Balance, when day and night were equal and spring
stirred even in the north. If the Shining One required of a believer, at such a time, a devotion expressed with the body rather than the mind, how could a faithful man hold back? If such an act felt wanton, abhorrent, lacking in self-control, he must still perform it, for at the heart of spiritual practice was the love of god and goddess, Flamekeeper and Shining One, and perfect obedience to their
will. Indeed, he must exercise mind and body to perform it in a spirit of good faith, for to practice a rite reluctantly was to cause the goddess most bitter offense.

The woman stepped closer. Her free hand slipped down to touch the front of the white robe, between the druid’s legs; if he was shy, she most certainly was not. Caught as she was in the vision, Tuala found herself sufficiently aware
of the here and now to hope profoundly that the goddess would draw a veil over what was to come. She had called this up to illustrate her theory to Broichan, not to embarrass and shame him.

The water swirled; the image broke up into brief glimpses, snatches of sight: here a white hand on the plane of thigh or back or chest; here a sensuous mouth, lips parted, tongue moving to lap and lick, to
taste and tease; here muscular buttocks clenching and unclenching; here long fingers stroking, playing, clearly not fettered by lack of experience. They were in a grove. They lay on the druid’s white robe, which was spread in a grassy hollow. The woman’s gown hung from a willow branch, its gauzy fabric as insubstantial as cobweb. Their
bodies moved, at first slowly, with sensuous delight in every
moment of their concourse, then more quickly as urgency overtook them, until their hearts surely shared the same desperate drumbeat. It was the oldest dance of all, beautiful, powerful, over all too quickly, leaving forest woman and druid lying together on the grass-stained linen, bodies sheened with sweat, chests rising and falling fast as the pounding heartbeat slowed and the fierce breath calmed.
A cloud darkened the sun; a shadow passed over the little grove. The vision dissipated and was gone.

Broichan drew his hands away from Tuala’s. There was a silence as each returned slowly to the shadowy chamber. A practiced seer allowed such a vision to release its hold gradually. To hasten the process led to dizziness, nausea, and distress. Tuala blinked, moving her fingers, stretching her arms.
Broichan reached for the dark cloth that had lain on a shelf beside the scrying bowl and draped it over to conceal the water. When he spoke, his voice was tight with constraint and decidedly chilly.

“I cannot imagine why you would wish to view such images in my company,” he said. “This was unseemly. Distasteful. I had thought us almost friends, Tuala. I had come to believe we trusted each other;
to think my first assessment of you, long ago, was incorrect. I believed you dangerous: to me, to Bridei, to all you touched. This makes me suspect I was right.”

Tuala felt his words like a blow. For a moment she could not speak. Then she reminded herself that she was queen of Fortriu and that, as Derelei’s mother and Bridei’s wife, she had power over the king’s druid whether he liked it or not.
It didn’t help much; she was amazed at how her heart shrank before his repudiation.

“Please go now,” Broichan said, walking to the door and holding it open.

“If that is your preference, of course. I’ll ask you a question first.”

He waited, eyes cold and remote.

“I don’t imagine such events occur often. Very likely, a man experiences them only once in his life, and therefore may have an excellent
recall of when they happened. I must tell you that when I saw this before, the vision was far briefer; I did not expect such… I did not call this up to shame you, Broichan. The goddess showed far more than I anticipated.”

“Please leave now, Tuala.”

“It was springtime, wasn’t it, at the feast of Balance? Was that the spring before my own arrival at Pitnochie? Was the winter after those events
the one when unknown hands delivered me to your doorstep as a newborn babe?”

“I will not discuss this.” His voice was hard as iron. “I will answer no questions.”

“There’s no need to answer them,” said Tuala, walking past him and out into the passageway. “All I request is that you give them consideration. The idea must have occurred to you. Or is the possibility that I might be your daughter
so painful to contemplate that you have closed your mind to it and thrown away the key?”

He shut the door in her face. Tuala stood outside, working on her breathing, willing back tears, slowing the painful thudding of her heart. She had known Broichan a long time. Part of her had anticipated this rejection, this refusal to acknowledge any error. And yet, the wave of sorrow that swept through
her was so profound that for long moments it paralyzed her there on his doorstep. Her father. Her own father. How wonderful it would have been if he had offered a little, a wary trust, a tentative recognition of that bond. She realized that, in her heart, she had hoped for more: an embrace; words of affection; perhaps a guarded apology. That had been foolish. Even if he had been prepared to acknowledge
the possibility of blood kinship, the closest Broichan ever came to an expression of feelings was a wintry smile or approving nod of the head. Only with Bridei,
his foster son, had he ever come close to revealing what was in his heart. And with Derelei because, after all, Derelei was Bridei’s son.

She had wanted to ask,
Does it mean nothing to you that this would make you Derelei’s blood kin?
That the infant mage whose rare talents you nurture with all your skill might be your own grandson? Do you not long to acknowledge him?
How could she say those things when she herself stood in the way? The thought of her as a daughter was abhorrent to him. That had been in his affronted eyes; it had been in the tight distaste of his tone. He would never tell the truth about this. He would never
accept it. Apart from his deep distrust of her, which had existed since the moment he first set eyes on her as a tiny babe, to acknowledge her as his daughter was to admit shutting his own kin out for all the years of her growing up. He had provided her with food and shelter. At the same time, he had made no secret of his hostility toward her. To admit the truth was to recognize the greatest error
of his life: an unforgivable insult to the Shining One. And is not a druid’s whole existence bent to the goddess’s service? Dashing the tears from her cheeks, Tuala forced herself to walk away. Maybe her own father did not want her, but she was still queen of Fortriu, and there were things to do.

S
OON AFTER DAWN
Eile heard them coming and the familiar feeling gripped her, cold and tight in her chest. Saraid was awake, sitting up on the pallet with her shapeless cloth doll in her arms, whispering to it. Fear gave speed to Eile’s limbs, though it was bitterly cold in
the tiny lean-to where they slept. She was fully dressed already, that being
the only way to stay at all warm at night, but she always made Saraid put on her nightrobe, giving her the second blanket to compensate. She encouraged Saraid to wash her face every day and sit up nicely to eat as well. If Saraid didn’t learn to be a lady she’d be doomed to a life like Eile’s own, an existence of squalor and slavery. Someone had to make sure Saraid escaped before she got too old.
There was only Eile to do it.

“Get dressed, Saraid. Can you manage by yourself? They’re home and I need to tend to the fire.”

Saraid nodded, solemn and silent, as Eile put the little gown, the shawl, the apron, the stockings, the boots on the bed next to the child, then scraped her own hair back and tied it with a length of string. She pushed her feet into her worn boots, an old pair of Aunt
Anda’s, and stumbled through to the main room. Fire; light; hot water. Quick. Never mind that it was cold enough to freeze a pig’s tail off and that she had spent more of the night crying than sleeping. If things weren’t ready, Dalach would be angry.

Her hands were numb with cold. There was no wood left beyond a few sticks of kindling. The dog had crept out of the bedchamber after her and now
stood by the ashes, staring up at her. He only stayed when Dalach and Anda were away. Those nights were better. The hound made a warm and undemanding third in the bed.