Heart's Blood

something for me.”

Silence again; this time it felt as if all of them were holding their breath. Anluan’s face darkened. His lips tightened. His left hand, resting on the tabletop, became a fist.

“You mock me?” he asked, and in an instant my sudden surge of bravery was over. In his tone were all the times Cillian had hurt me, and the times Ita had hurled insults at me. I became the girl who had once crouched in a corner of her bedchamber weeping, unable to move. I had a good answer for him, but it refused to come out.

“Explain yourself!” demanded Anluan.

Trembling, craven, despising myself, I got to my feet and made for the door, a mumbled apology on my lips.

“Stop!” It was a command, and I obeyed. I was right by his chair. I kept my gaze on the stone floor. I counted the beats of my heart. “If you run from a simple question, why should anyone believe you will not run from Whistling Tor at the first difficulty?” Anluan’s tone was like a flail.

“I didn’t run,” I whispered, finding a last shred of courage hidden deep. “You know that.The day I looked in Nechtan’s mirror, you were there.”

Another silence, this time of a different quality. Magnus cleared his throat. I stood where I was, ready for another blast of angry words.

“If you require me to wager, my stake is heart’s blood,” Anluan said, his voice quieter. “Last out the summer and you’ll be here to see it bloom. You’ll be here to pluck the flowers and make ink. When the work is finished you can take it home with you.”

Olcan whistled. “That’s some wager,” he said.

My head was reeling. If I could work out how to make even one good pot of ink, I would not have to worry about money for years to come.Anluan must have no idea of how valuable the stuff was. “I can’t accept that,” I said shakily. “It would be worth a fabulous amount. It wouldn’t be right for me to take it.”

“It is what I offer,” said Anluan. “The argument about value is irrelevant. You won’t stay.”

“All right, I accept,” I retorted. “I will prove you wrong.”

He shrugged. It was an awkward gesture, emphasising the uneven set of his shoulders.

“Heart’s blood ink, eh?” Eichri chuckled.“Fine color; comes up beautifully on vellum.You know how to make the stuff, Caitrin?”

“I’ll know by the time the flowers are out,” I said. “With a whole library full of documents, there must be instructions somewhere.”

That night I had the bad dream again, the one in which Ita threw me down a well of tormenting demons. I woke drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time. Beyond my bedchamber door the moon shone down into the garden. Knowing I would not sleep again, I took off my clammy nightrobe, put on a shift and wrapped my shawl around me. I went out to stand on the gallery overlooking the courtyard, wondering how long it would be before I could hear an angry voice without turning from courageous, resourceful woman to powerless, hopeless child. Perhaps brave Caitrin was only a fantasy. Perhaps the cringing, whimpering girl who had failed to stand up to her abusers was the real me. If so, my parents must be looking down on me in shame.

In the courtyard Rioghan was pacing, the red of his cloak muted under the moon. In the stillness I heard snatches of his speech. “Go in from the west instead, splitting the force into three parties . . . No, devise a decoy, take the enemy by surprise with a flanking action, then strike with catapults . . . He would still have fallen. My lord would still have fallen . . .” He walked further down the garden and his voice was lost for a little.Then he turned on his heel, restless as a caged animal, and paced back. “We should have checked the signs . . . Why did I tell him it would work?”

My own troubles paled by comparison with such distress. It seemed he was revisiting, over and over, the circumstances of some terrible error of judgment that haunted him. Perhaps every single night was spent in this painful search for answers. I wondered if going down to talk to him would be any help at all. It would be a distraction, at least. I was about to do so when I had the sensation that someone was watching me. I glanced about, hugging the shawl around me more closely, aware that under it I was scantily clad. There was nobody on the gallery; nobody on the steps. While moonlight bathed the garden in an eerie glow, under the trees it was shadow dark. I imagined folk standing there, clad all in black; I could almost see them. Don’t be foolish, Caitrin. The rampaging host of Conan’s records would hardly be up here, inside the courtyard walls. Maybe there were creatures of some kind out in the forest beyond the fortress, but they couldn’t be the ones he had spoken of. It had been years and years ago—Anluan’s father had been a child. Besides, a host of hacking, stabbing warriors could hardly be living just out there without my having seen or heard something of it.

One thing I knew with certainty: I was not the only sad and troubled soul in this place. Perhaps I would never quite be free from the shadows of my own past, but that didn’t mean I must stand by in the face of other folk’s misery. I found my cloak and went down to talk to Rioghan. He was still muttering to himself.

“If I had put archers on the northern hill . . . Or perhaps taken action far earlier, set a permanent guard at the bridge, that might have delayed the onslaught . . . He would still have fallen . . .”

I was standing right beside him and he had not noticed me. His fists were clenched, his eyes full of shadows.

“Rioghan,” I said quietly.

He started. He had been far away.

“Caitrin! You’re up late.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“A familiar state for me, alas, but not so for a young thing like yourself. You have bad dreams?”

“Sometimes.Troubles and terrors grow stronger in the dark, when I’m alone. Then, when I sleep, the bad things from the past come flooding in. But it’s worse for you. It seems you have that even when you’re awake.”

“It is true, Caitrin. I cannot be bitter. This is my lot. My own action, or failure to act, earned it for me.” Rioghan settled himself on a bench that was damp with dew and motioned for me to sit beside him. I did so, feeling the chill as it seeped through cloak, shawl and shift to sink into my bones.