than last year ...
... dispute with Father Aidan, who considers my area of study perilous. Nothing new in that.
Fergus got an excellent price for our calves at this year’s market.
I have a son.They tell me he is healthy, though he appears red-faced and small. I am surprised, not at his fighting spirit, but that my wife has at last proven herself useful at something.
That jolted me. I had been beginning to warm to the writer, an ordinary man making a record of losses and gains on his farm—sheep, cattle, where had they been kept?—and debating issues with the local priest. But after that callous remark, I found I could not like him at all.
He is to be named Conan, for my father.
I began on the second bundle of papers. For these the scribe had used Latin and a different style of script to go with it, a rounded half-uncial rather than the common hand of his Irish writings. Or perhaps this was a different writer.The pages seemed of similar age, the ink equally faded.
Autumn of the thirteenth year of the tenure of Glassan son of Eochaid as high king.We approach the time known as Ruis, in Christian nomenclature All Hallows. A time of transition, when we step into the dark. A time when end is beginning and beginning end.
Not only was this Latin, but the style of expression was more formal. I smoothed the page out carefully. The parchment had been scraped back and reused at least once, perhaps several times; it seemed there had not always been a ready supply of materials at Whistling Tor. I tried to guess the document’s age. Glassan son of Eochaid. A hundred years, give or take a little? Hadn’t Tomas or Orna said something about a hundred years of ill luck? I couldn’t find the writer’s name anywhere on the pages, but perhaps if I read on, it would be there.
The dark mirror flickered. I turned to look over my shoulder, half expecting to see Muirne there with her neat clothing and disapproving expression. But there was nobody; I was alone in the library. I turned back and my gaze caught a touch of red, not in the mirror but out in the garden. Had it been Anluan whose presence I had sensed before, standing in the doorway watching me without a word? He was seated on the bench now. He had his left elbow on his knee, his right arm across his lap, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. White face, red hair: snow and fire, like something from an old tale. The book I had noticed earlier was on the bench beside him, its covers shut. Around Anluan’s feet and in the birdbath, small visitors to the garden hopped and splashed and made the most of a day that was becoming fair and sunny. He did not seem to notice them. As for me, I found it difficult to take my eyes from him.There was an odd beauty in his isolation and his sadness, like that of a forlorn prince ensorcelled by a wicked enchantress, or a traveler lost forever in a world far from home.
I must stop being so fanciful. Less than a day here, and already I was inventing wild stories about the folk of the house.This was no enchanted prince, just an ill-tempered chieftain with no manners. If he’d been spying on me, that was his prerogative as my employer, I supposed; after all, I was on trial. I turned my attention back to the documents. The words on the page swirled and moved, and I rubbed my eyes, annoyed at my lack of concentration.
I have applied myself assiduously to the great work of preparation. I keep the door locked.That does not stop the ignorant from seeking my attention with intrusive knocking. The child was sick—some minor malady, a cough, a slight fever. It was inappropriate to call me; trivial domestic matters are for others to deal with. It is for precisely this reason that our principal place of experimentation is situated beneath the floor level of the house, guarded by bolts and key, and by charms and wards to keep out marauders of a less earthly kind. The minds of ordinary folk cannot comprehend the nature of our work ...
Something moved on the surface of the obsidian mirror. I glanced quickly, started with shock, stared deep, the hair standing up on my neck. Surely not ... but there it was. Within the dark stone was the image of a man standing in an underground chamber, a long, shadowy place lined with shelves on which stood crucibles, flasks, jars of powders and mixtures, books ... so many books in one place, their covers stained and worn as if from long and frequent handling. Anluan . . . No, this man was much older. In the uneven light from candles set around the chamber, his features became those of a carven saint: the eyes deep and penetrating; the mouth thin-lipped, disciplined; the bones of cheeks and jaw jutting beneath the pale skin.With long-fingered, dexterous hands he sorted implements on the bench before him, knives with odd-shaped blades, pincers, screws, other things whose uses I could only guess at.
A chill ran through me. I shut my eyes, opened them again in disbelief, my gaze moving between the lines of black script and the gleaming surface of the dark mirror. What was this? I could see the work chamber of the document as if I were standing right there opposite the writer. I could see his long, ascetic face as he pondered the dilemma facing him. And I knew his thoughts; knew them and felt the edge of a terrible darkness touching my mind. How could this be? I was here, in the library by full daylight, and yet I was in that underground place, my hands feeling the touch of cold metal as the man took up his blade; my mind knowing his evil purpose. The mirror ... the mirror held the memory of time past, and as my eyes fell on it once more I felt the man’s presence as if he and I were one. Now there was no looking away.
The old woman lies on the table, grimly silent. He’d been confident of achieving success before Aislinn got back with the herbs, but the crone is holding out beyond all expectations. She knows, of course. Of all the local women who dabble in a little white magic, this one has the reputation as the most experienced, the one who will understand without a doubt exactly what is meant in the grimoire by
He’s conducted such interrogations before, though not often. They follow a logical sequence. If a person holds out to the point where one risks losing him without a result, it becomes more effective to transfer one’s attention to someone else, someone with whom one’s subject has a bond—the husband or wife, a child, an aged parent.There is a weak chink of that kind in the strongest armor. But this old woman has no family. She’s lived by herself in the woods for years.
He sighs. His hands are filthy. It will take vigorous scrubbing to get the blood out from under the nails.The crone’s breathing is a squeaking rustle, another irritant. He doesn’t look at her; such disorder offends his eye. And now Aislinn is coming back, he can hear her at the door.
“Are you done, my lord?” the girl asks politely, coming in and locking the door after her. She is thorough as always; he has trained her well.
“I haven’t got a thing.” There’s no need to pretend with Aislinn. She knows everything about him, to the extent that a simple village girl can understand a mind like his, a mind that soars above those of ordinary folk like a great eagle above the creeping, crawling creatures of the earth. His thoughts reach for the high, the impossible, the stuff of dreams and visions. “I don’t want to kill the witch before she’s given me the answer—I can’t understand why she would hold it back, she’s near death anyway, why take such valuable information to the grave?”
“I have something that may help,”Aislinn offers unexpectedly, her tone sweet.“I went back to her cottage after I gathered the herbs I needed. And I found this.” She holds up a bundle, and the woman strapped onto the table lets out a hissing sound, her reddened eyes rolling towards what the girl is carrying.
