A Dance with Fate

by Juliet Marillier

  “To say your father is displeased would be an understatement.” Archu moves to seat himself a little further away. I hear the scrape of wood on slate as he shifts the bench, and beside me the soft sounds of Jabir mopping up the spillage and retrieving the pieces of his broken bowl. “He assumes that if your condition doesn’t improve soon you’ll need to return home—no, Dau, sit easy—and that you’ll require an escort to Oakhill. He makes it clear that he wants some answers.”

  I’m so full of fear and rage and darkness that I hardly know what will come out of my mouth. I can’t be the warrior Archu still wants me to be. That man’s gone, vanished in an instant on the training ground. There’s only this man, this helpless apology for a man whose eyes are brimming with tears. My teeth are clenched so tight my whole jaw aches. “I’m not going back,” I say. “I’m not going. They can’t make me.”

  Archu doesn’t tell me I sound like a child. He waits awhile, and Jabir returns to bathing my eyes; there is a second bowl, I suppose, and a generous supply of whatever it is Liobhan made. Why is she over here anyway? She should be back on the island doing her work. There was no reason for her to come here.

  “We need to talk,” Archu says. “Or rather, I need to explain some things to you, and you need to sit quietly and listen. I understand your fury, Dau. I understand how frustrating this must be for you. But you are still a member of our Swan Island community and I need you to put the community’s needs ahead of your own. Will you listen while I explain?”

  I don’t nod, because I know it will hurt, but I grunt a yes. Who’d have thought those skills I exercised on our mission in Breifne, where I played the part of a mute man, would come in useful now?

  Archu explains the need to avoid all eyes turning to Swan Island if there’s a fuss about what’s happened to me. He reads part of the message from my father, sent by pigeon to the court of Dalriada and carried on here by one of King Oran’s riders.

  You supply scant detail of this incident. That leads me to ponder exactly what the true circumstances may have been. How is it possible that a man could suffer such a serious injury outside a situation of real conflict? Quite clearly the incident requires further investigation. My representative will be accompanied by a lawman, since it may be necessary for this matter to proceed to a formal hearing. You tell me my son may be blind. He is not yet twenty years old. You might consider—

  “Well, never mind that.” Archu falls silent. I hear a crackle; perhaps he has set the parchment down on the table.

  “Read the rest.” I want to hear all of it. The false compassion, the sudden interest in my welfare, the tone of lofty superiority—six years have passed since I ran away from home, but it’s plain my father has not changed at all. When Archu does not reply, I growl, “Read it!”

  Archu clears his throat. Jabir is using a soft cloth to dry my face gently. The eyewash has run down my cheeks like fragrant tears.

  You might consider what compensation could possibly be adequate for snatching away a young man’s future prospects; for robbing him of the best part of his lifetime. You might weigh up the cost to a family of supporting a kinsman who will be completely dependent on others for many years. My representative and his party are traveling to your location as I write this. All being well, they should reach you in less than twelve days. I will expect you to receive them and to ensure appropriate discussions take place promptly. If my son is well enough to travel, and if it is established that his condition cannot improve sufficiently for him to remain with you, the party has the means to convey him back to Oakhill.

  I don’t shout this time. I don’t try to leap up and blunder out the door. Here at the Barn there are no cliffs close by, only watchful guards. But what I feel must show plainly on my face, because Jabir puts his hand on my shoulder and Archu says quietly, “I would have spared you that. But the fact is, this representative is already on the way, he will want answers, and it’s in your best interest that we prepare ourselves as well as possible. We’ll need our own lawman.”

  I find my voice. “I’m not going. I’m not going home. I’m a grown man and I’m not answerable to my father.”

  Another silence. “Jabir,” Archu says, “you might take a walk in the garden, perhaps find yourself some refreshments. I’ll stay with Dau until you return.”

  Jabir retreats. I can barely hear his footsteps.

  “I explained to Liobhan and I’ll explain to you why it’s so important that we keep this contained,” Archu says. “The less information spreads to folk outside the Swan Island community the better.” He tells me what I can guess already: that if there’s a legal hearing, too much attention will fall on Swan Island. Our activities, most of which are secret, may be exposed in a way that threatens the island community’s future. The local folk have an idea of what we do. Further afield we are either a mystery or unknown, and that’s the way the elders want it to stay. None of them wants a formal hearing. If my father demands compensation in silver it will be paid, though the amount will be negotiable. If he wants something else, they’ll try to provide it.

  “Whatever he wants,” I say, trying to still the shivering that has taken over my body, “you can be sure it doesn’t include welcoming me back home. That part is lies. I was never wanted there. They despised me even when I had all my faculties.”

  Archu doesn’t try to contradict this. “Nonetheless, he sent the letter. And when his representative and the lawman arrive, we must deal with them. Dau, understand that when we made the decision to notify your father, we feared you might not last the night. You’re seriously ill. Yes, you are not a child but a man, and a man makes his own choices. We must hope this injury does not limit those choices. Fergus is capable. Jabir is highly qualified. But your father, with his resources, may well be able to find someone more expert, someone with a deeper understanding of your condition. And his household will surely accommodate you in more comfort than we can do on the island or here at the Barn. You say they don’t want you back. But years have passed since you fell out with them. Is it not possible the situation has changed? Or might you yourself not take steps to change it?”

  Hah! Change the household at Oakhill? Not in a thousand years. Is Archu telling me there’s no future for me on Swan Island, or even here at the Barn? No work I could possibly set my hand to? The answer must be yes, or he would offer, surely. I can’t bring myself to ask. I can’t bear to hear him say it.

  My mind goes down a devious pathway. They could lie. The elders could tell this representative that my eyes are slowly improving and that if I stay under the care of Jabir and Fergus for long enough, I will fully regain my sight and resume my place in the warrior band. They could point out that they are paying for my care. The representative could report all that back to my father, whose annoyance at not receiving a bag of silver in compensation would be outweighed by his relief that I am not, after all, coming home to be a burden to him for the rest of my life. I consider telling Archu that if he insists on sending me back I will kill myself before it can happen. I know where the weapon store is, here at the Barn. I wonder how it feels to slit your own throat.

  “Liobhan told us you were estranged from your family,” Archu says quietly.

  “Estranged. You could put it that way. What else did Liobhan say?” If she’s betrayed any confidences I’ll kill her. Only I won’t, because now that I’m blind she’ll win any fight hands down.

  “About your family circumstances, very little. She was upset to hear that we had contacted them without consulting you first. We did try to do that, Dau. At that point you were not capable of understanding.” He goes quiet for a little, then adds, “I thought you and Liobhan were friends. It might do you good to talk to her.”

  I’ve told them a thousand times that I don’t want to talk to Liobhan. The moment I hear her voice I’ll be reminded all over again that I’m not the fit and healthy person I was. That I’m not the man wh
o once heard himself described as a handsome prince. That I can’t be a Swan Island warrior after all. I can’t be any sort of warrior. I can’t even be the man who cleans the weapons and mends the boots, or the one who mops the floor, or the one who keeps the sheep from wandering where they shouldn’t. “There’s no point,” I growl.

  There’s a silence. I hear Archu move. He’s leaving. Good riddance. I don’t want him and his bad news. I don’t want Jabir and his gentle voice. I don’t want anyone.

  “Dau,” says Archu, and his tone has changed. This is the voice he uses on Swan Island when someone makes a mistake, and I don’t mean fumbling a combat move. He speaks like this when someone breaks the rules for daily life, the ones that keep our community orderly. Yes, it’s a place devoted to the art of fighting. But that makes it all the more important, the elders told us when we were new to the place, that we practice courtesy toward others and learn to listen. I’ve just broken that rule. Not that it matters, since I no longer belong here. “I remind you, again, that you are still part of our community,” Archu goes on, as if he can guess what I’m thinking. “I am your senior on Swan Island. However furious you are at what fate has delivered, I still deserve your respect. You will address me and whoever else comes your way with that same respect. Without those codes, Dau, Swan Island could never have grown and developed into what it is.”

  All right, I’m a seething mass of resentment right now, underlain with sheer terror, but I haven’t forgotten how much I learned from this man, or how much freedom he allowed me and Liobhan on our mission, freedom that could have led to disaster but ended up making the whole thing a brilliant success. Apart from the loss of Brocc, of course. Some part of me knows I’m being unfair to Liobhan. If I try to explain to Archu, I’ll sound selfish. She’s fit and strong, I’m not. She’s still a Swan Island warrior, and whatever Archu may say, I’m not. Hearing her voice will bring back a lot of memories. Memories that tell me, now, what the future might have been.

  “Dau?” He’s waiting for a response.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Good. Now I have one more thing to say to you. As your elder and as your trainer, I want you to talk to Liobhan. You will do so today. I’m not asking, I’m telling. If you want someone else to be present, we can arrange that.”

  “Why must I talk to her?”

  “Because,” Archu says, “I suspect she’s the only one who can talk some sense into you. So please conduct the meeting in a civil fashion. Keep your temper. Use the opportunity to talk about what happens next.”

  “She—” I stop myself before I can say, She knows nothing. Because, of all the people I’ve met since I came to Swan Island, not counting a certain old woman in Breifne, Liobhan is the only one who knows how bad things were at home before I ran away. I haven’t told her everything; some of it, I can’t make myself say aloud. But she knows a fair bit. Which means she will understand why I can’t go back there, couldn’t go back even as a fit, strong fighting man, and most certainly can’t go as a crippled burden on my father’s resources. It would be like walking willingly into a torture chamber. If anyone’s likely to help me, it will be Liobhan.

  “All right, I’ll do it. And I don’t want anyone else there. I promise not to attack her.”

  Archu does not speak.

  “Not even with words,” I add.

  5

  BROCC

  Brocc!” Rowan motions me over to where he stands beneath an old oak. There, among its tangle of roots, a dark form is splayed out in a drift of feathers. There’s blood. The thing’s claws are curled tight, but there’s nothing in them. Its eyes are open but unseeing.

  “Don’t touch!” I warn as he crouches down beside it. “Make sure it’s dead.”

  “It’s dead.” Rowan’s tone is flat as he picks up a stick and pokes it at the corpse, which rocks eerily to and fro against the tree roots. The leaves above us rustle in the wind; out in the forest the birds are quiet. We look down at the creature. This is the first time we have been so close to one of the Crow Folk, the strange beings that have established themselves in both Eirne’s realm and the human world, creatures neither bird nor animal but something else entirely. I have fought them with song and with fire. I have seen them killed with knives. I have seen what remained of one of Eirne’s small folk after they had ripped it apart. I still do not know what they are, only that they attack without warning and without any discernible pattern.

  Since I came to live here among the Fair Folk, Rowan and I have set up regular patrols to keep watch on our strange enemy. Although I am now Eirne’s husband, he is still her protector, her right-hand man. I am content with that. The last thing I want to do is displace or offend any of her people. It must be strange enough for them that their queen has chosen a man of humankind to rule alongside her. Though I am not entirely that. I have both fey and human blood, and so does Eirne. I was raised in one world, she in the other from the time she was five years old. Her folk love her. Me, they tolerate. They like my music; I am the first bard to live here in many years.

  “It’s still warm,” I say, examining the dead thing more closely. It smells vile, like rotting fish. I use a stick to lift one wing, to investigate the dark-feathered body, so much bigger than that of an ordinary crow. I peer more closely at the fearsome beak, which gapes slightly open, and the glazed, staring eye.

  Rowan looks up into the oak, then scans the forest all around us. “I see no more of them,” he says. “Unusual for one to be out alone. How did it die, I wonder.”

  The creature has wounds; beneath the tree roots on which it lies, the ground is stained with its blood. “Look here,” I say, lifting the other wing and wishing I could bring myself to touch the thing with my bare hands. “This is no attack by wolf or eagle. These cuts were not made by a desperate man or woman fighting to survive. They look . . .” What I see is hard to believe; hard to make sense of. In the tender area under the wing, the creature’s skin has been burned away in narrow strips, exposing the raw flesh beneath. The strips are in a pattern, though the swelling makes it hard to see the exact shape. But it looks almost like an Ogham sign or a rune of some kind. A brand of ownership? A mark of magic?

  “And there, on the beak.” Rowan points. “Perhaps the same symbol. Not burned, but carved with a small, sharp knife. Who could have got close enough to do that? We know how ferocious these things are.”

  “I want to turn it over. Will you help me?”

  Rowan looks somewhat like a fox, and somewhat like a young man. I have no trouble reading the reluctance on his face; he, too, does not want to touch. But we take one wing each and turn the creature awkwardly onto its front. “Some claws damaged,” Rowan says. “See here? And some cut right off.”

  “It’s lost a lot of feathers.” And there’s something else: a collar of raw flesh right around the neck, swollen and festering. “Died of wounds,” I murmur. “But such strange wounds.”

  We look at each other.

  “Torture,” says Rowan. “Here, in Eirne’s realm. None of our folk would do this. Nor could they; the Crow Folk are too strong.”

  “It may not have been done here. The Crow Folk move freely between worlds, as birds and animals do. Sorry as I am to admit it, Rowan, I suspect the hand of humankind. But I don’t understand why. There’s a degree of cruelty here that troubles me greatly. We’d best head back and report this to Eirne.”

  But we hesitate, the two of us, standing over the broken body of an enemy.

  “We can’t leave it like this,” I say, though my mind pictures our encounter with the Crow Folk last summer and the way they destroyed one of our little ones and hurt another. “We should lay it to rest.” We’re far out in the forest, a long walk from the area where Eirne’s folk gather. Rowan has his knife of bone and I have a staff. The ground here must be full of tree roots; we won’t be digging a grave.

  “You possess far greater compas
sion than I, Brocc,” Rowan says. “Perhaps that comes of being a bard. I hate these stinking things. If I could burn it, I would. But there is a shallow cave not far from here. We could lay it there. Perhaps cover it with what we find nearby. You might sing a song over it, if you’re feeling particularly tenderhearted.”

  He’s teasing me, of course. We are friends. But when the creature is placed in its final resting place, hardly a cave, more a small hollow under a rocky overhang, and when we have laid a blanket of leaves and twigs over its damaged body, with fallen branches to shield it, I stand quiet, considering. A death is a death, whether it be of friend or foe, one’s own kind or an alien kind. The Crow Folk are cruel, destructive, and willful. Their attacks make no sense. They do not eat their kill but leave it lying. They do not defend territory; some travelers they let pass unmolested, others they swoop upon with talons at the ready, to rip and slash and ruin. But there must be a reason for their madness. I have wondered if some malign spell was cast over them, if they were driven from their home, if perhaps they watched the unfolding of events so terrible their minds were forever blighted. This one has been killed in a particularly vile manner. No battle set those scars on its body. Rowan was right; it has been tortured to death. So I sing, not in the way I did when I drove them to the borders of Eirne’s realm, using my voice as a weapon to strike fear into them, but gently, as to a sleeping child.

  Be at peace, your flight is o’er

  Fold your wings on peaceful shore

  May love and goodness wrap you close

  Farewell to pain and grief and loss.