Reading this, I thought not of forlorn Irial but of his son, and I considered the nature of love. I had once watched Anluan in the garden and seen an enchanted prince trapped in a dark net of sorcery. But this was no prince of ancient story. Anluan was a flesh and blood man, with a man’s virtues and flaws. The wounds Magnus had once spoken of, the hurts left on him by the past, were as much part of him as the limping leg and uneven shoulders.They made him the man he was.
I imagined the warmth of his body pressed against me, his face close to mine as I leaned over him to guide the quill. I considered how much it hurt to be shut out; more than it should, bearing in mind that I was a scribe hired for a single summer. I knew that whatever happened, leaving this place was going to break my heart.
My translation of Nechtan’s documents now covered a sizable pile of parchment sheets. I stored them between polished oak boards that Olcan had prepared for me, with a leather strap to keep them together. Between the long days of work and my constant anxiety, I grew thinner. My gowns hung loose on me. On the rare occasions when I looked in a mirror—generally by accident—and it gave me back a true reflection, I did not see the rounded, rosy person whom Eichri had called a lovely lady from an old tale, but a pallid creature with dark smudges under her eyes, brow furrowed by a frown, hair scraped back under a practical head-cloth. I recalled Nechtan’s cruel assessment of his wife:
I had not expected to be lonely, but I was. Most days the ghost child kept me company, sitting on the floor in the corner where Irial’s books were kept, playing mysterious games with Roise. Cathair had taken it upon himself to guard the entrance to my bedchamber through the daylight hours, and Fianchu kept guard at night.
In the evenings the household still gathered, without its leader and his shadow. But suppertime was not what it had been.We were all despondent and troubled. Olcan and Magnus exchanged a word or two about the work they planned for the next day. Rioghan sat silent, without his usual sparring partner, for Anluan had at last given Eichri permission to visit Saint Criodan’s. My appetite was gone. I ate only because I knew I must.
Twelve days until full moon. I entered the library to find an ink pot on its side and a pool of black all over the completed pages I had left on my work table the night before. The transcription was ruined. As I mopped up the spillage, I tried and failed to convince myself that this was some kind of accident. I always corked my ink and put it away before I left the library.Who could have been here? Who would come in at night? With a creeping sense of dread, I recognized this as a warning. But from whom, and why? Was I coming close to the heart of my search? If Nechtan had been so powerful, perhaps he had set some kind of spell on his documents to protect his secrets from curious eyes. If he could make those fell mirrors, he could surely do that. I considered what might be next. It would be something worse than the destruction of a day’s hard work, I was sure.
The ghost child was watching me, Roise clutched in her hands. Her big eyes were fearful, as if she had seen into my thoughts.
“It’s all right,” I said.“Just a little spillage. But maybe you should go up and stay with Cathair today. I’m sure he gets lonely all by himself.”
Ten days until full moon. Eichri came back with a supply of excellent vellum and the unfortunate news that one of Lord Stephen’s daughters was betrothed to a kinsman of Ruaridh Ui Conchubhair. There was no need to expand on this. It meant the high king would not intervene on Anluan’s behalf.
I broke my self-imposed rule about no lamps in the library, and worked through suppertime. I read until my lids were drooping and the patterns of Nechtan’s strong script were blurring and bobbing on the page before me. From time to time I sensed presences in the shadows beyond the warm circle of lamplight, shapes moving and shifting: the restless host. My progress was slow. Perhaps they were growing angry.
Eventually I gave up and went to bed. I fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, and did not wake until dawn. It was raining outside. Fianchu was already gone, and the door stood slightly ajar.The blanket bed the dog shared with the ghost child lay rumpled on the floor. No sign of the little girl.
I felt it before I saw it: something wrong, something out of place, beyond these absences. A moving shadow. Something above me swinging to and fro, to and fro. I looked up.
Roise was dangling in midair, her limp form suspended by the neck. My heart jolted. I had thought ... for a moment I had thought ... but then, people cannot die twice, not even if their ghostly forms have more substance than one might expect. But a ghost can suffer. A ghost can be hurt. I had learned that from Rioghan’s anguished retelling of his past, and from Cathair’s darting eyes, and from the way the little girl clung to this treasure that had once been mine and had now become hers. I wanted the doll down before she saw it. Now, right now; the sight made me shudder. I glanced at the open door. Perhaps she had already seen it.
Too high to reach. Who had done this? Who could do it brazenly, while I slept only three paces away? Who could get past Fianchu? Only one of the host. But why? They wanted me to succeed, they wanted me to find a way to send them back.These were acts of wanton mischief, serving no purpose at all.
I found the child out on the gallery, squeezed into a corner, weeping. There was nobody else in sight, either up here or down in the courtyard. I went over to the little girl and squatted down beside her. “Are you all right? I couldn’t find you.Where’s Fianchu?”
She was curled tightly on herself, her body shaking with sobs, her soft pale hair damp with the rain that blew in through the openings above the courtyard.
“Little one? Where is the dog? What happened in the bedchamber?”
“Baby,” she murmured on a sob, and allowed herself to be gathered onto my knee. “Baby’s gone.”
Perhaps she had not seen it. I rose to my feet, holding her.“Rioghan?” I called softly. “Are you down there? I need help.”
At that moment Fianchu came lolloping up the steps to the gallery, tail wagging, expression not in the least contrite. I could hardly blame him. He had probably just seized the opportunity to go out and relieve himself when whoever it was left the door open. Someone he trusted? A member of the household? It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Caitrin.” Rioghan was here; I had hardly needed to raise my voice to summon him. “What is it? You’re white as a sheet.”
“There’s something in my bedchamber that I would like—adjusted—before we go back in there,” I said, looking down at the child in my arms. “I woke to find there had been a visitor. Could you attend to it, please, Rioghan?”
He went into the chamber without another word, and I waited, rocking the little girl and murmuring to her. In not much time at all, Rioghan came back out. He was winding the wire into a coil. “It’s all right to take her back in,” he said.“You’ll need to do some mending, Caitrin.The object in question was almost torn in two.”
