by Grace Martin
Chapter Twenty
That night, when we stopped to rest and make camp, turning ourselves and each other back into our human forms, we were sombre. We’d seen a lot of suffering from a great height today. We were quiet, passing around the food that Gwydion directed us to find in our backpacks. It was very simple fare: bread today and tomorrow, until it was stale, then we would eat the hard biscuit, wrapped tightly in its own little package. With the bread we had a hard cheese and potted meat.
I remembered another meal so much the same: fleeing Caillen with Ronan and Lynnevet, we’d stopped in the moonlight and scavenged what we could. We’d been starving and the food was delicious.
Tonight, the food was like eating a stone, difficult to swallow and it lay heavy in my stomach. No one said anything beyond “pass the salt” or “more water, please,” until Oisin put his plate aside.
‘My people are exiles,’ he said. ‘Wanderers. We have no homes, so we live on the road. It’s our custom to sing after our meals. Our lives are hard, but we rejoice that we are together. Rhiannon, Isolde, you might recognise this song from your time in our camp. Would you do me the honour of singing with me?’
Even as those two murmured agreement, I spoke over them. ‘Isolde?’ I asked. ‘Sparrow? I thought you were going by Elisabeth this year?’
‘That was last year. There has been another Solstice since we last attended the ceremony in Caillen. You might want to keep going by Emer, but I’m ready for a new name. I’m Isolde now.’
I blinked, but nodded. ‘OK. If that’s what you want. Isolde is a nice name.’
Oisin started to sing and Rhiannon and Sparrow — now Isolde — must have recognised the song so they sang along. Even I recognised the tune but wasn’t able to join in except for the chorus. This was the song Oisin and I had danced to last night, when Galeran had turned up covered in blood. After a few repetitions of the chorus, everyone was singing.
It changed things, lightened the air. We’d seen terrible things, but so had the people who wrote this song. There was still hope. After the twilight, there would still be bright days. There was something special about singing together. Rhiannon and Sparrow got up and began to dance, the firelight flickering off their hair and shining in their eyes.
But then I realised that for a group of seven people, we had a particularly full bodied choir backing us up. I stopped singing at once, yelped a little bit, and scrambled to my feet.
There was a woman standing in the woods opposite me, dressed in rags, but standing tall and unbowed, singing. She kept singing, even as I jumped to my feet, followed by my friends. The people surrounding us kept singing until the chorus was over. The silence was overwhelming.
‘Are these your people?’ I asked Oisin. ‘They know your songs.’
He shook his head. ‘I have never seen these people before.’
A woman stepped forward, leaving the shadows. ‘We hear many songs on the wind,’ she said, her tone measured. ‘We listen. We learn. Today we learned that the Bach Chwaer was going south to Ce’deira, to fight the White Queen.’
I stepped forward. Oisin had said he hadn’t seen these people before, but I was pretty sure that I had. The proud bearing, the ragged clothes: these were the Wild Ones, the Camiri who escaped and lived in the woods of Meistria.
‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘I go south. I go to Ce’deira. I go to fight the White Queen. What business do you have with me?’
‘We learned that our Queen is imprisoned in the fortress of Ce’deira. She has risked her life for ours countless times. We must do the same. We will go to Ce’deira. We will support you. We will accompany you. And when the time comes, we will give our lives if need be, for the safety of our Queen.’
‘We travel fast,’ I warned.
‘We are the Wild Ones. We listen to the wind. We travel on the wind. We will not slow you down.’ She extended her hand for me to shake. I grasped her forearm.
‘Welcome, then,’ I said. Her eyes went wide as my hand wrapped around her wrist. I released her and saw that she had been imprinted with the marking of the family Ganainn.
‘I’m sorry, I had no idea that would happen! It’s our family marking, for those who have no other family. We call ourselves the family Ganainn.’
‘Do not be disturbed. It is just. Until today, we, also, were nameless. Our interests align. From today forwards, we are family.’
Sparrow came forward to inspect the woman’s wrist, then grasped her hand. ‘My name is Isolde,’ she said. ‘I am… I am sister to the Bach Chwaer.’
I’d heard the word “cousin” tremble on her lips before she decided against speaking it and something went soaring inside it. She still considered herself my sister. We were still family. Isolde turned to me and embraced me. When she pulled away, on the inside of her wrist was the phoenix tattoo.
‘I am Derala,’ the woman said, bowing slightly. ‘It is an honour to join your family.’
One by one, my family came forward to clasp Derala’s hand. The Wild Ones came forward to clasp mine. As they did, each one felt the slight sting as the family marking was applied. I felt it, deep inside me somewhere, as each one of them was marked with my family insignia.
There were only about twenty of the Wild Ones. Among them was Jegu, the man who had been healing the refugees at the Draceni camp. The Wild Ones refused to share our food, stating that they had their own sustenance, but agreed to share our fire.
It was a very different gathering with so many more people there. They began to sing again, one of the Camiri songs I’d heard while working in the camp today. This one most of us had yet to learn, although Aine was already singing along.
Andras asked me to dance. I got up and went into his arms. This would be the last time, I told myself. After this dance, after this embrace, I would end it.
When the song was over, I led Andras away from the others. I know that Gwydion saw it, but I knew that Gwydion understood that I was seeking privacy to speak honestly to Andras, as I should have spoken to him in the beginning. I wished that I had the right words to say. I was afraid that Andras thought I was leading him into the shadows for a completely different reason.
He was more perceptive than I realised. He held my hand, but held it lightly as we travelled through the dark woods. I could hear a stream in the distance, so I headed for it. When we got there, I was a little sorry I had.
It was the perfect spot to fall in love. The night was dark around us and moonlight spilled abundantly into the space where the wide stream carved its way through the forest. Water splashed down from a shelf of rock, to fall into a silver pool.
Andras looked around. ‘You picked a beautiful spot.’
I flushed, though I didn’t mean to. ‘I didn’t bring you here to, um-’
‘I know.’
I looked up at him. His handsome face was serious, to the point of being stern and I realised he was holding himself under a terrible restraint. He let go of my hand and went to sit back against one of the rocks beside the small waterfall.
‘It was only a matter of time before you ended things.’ He looked away and I was wise enough to give him a moment to compose himself. ‘I’ve known all along that it could never last.’
‘I was wrong to give you the impression that I felt more than I really could. I love Caradoc. I’m sorry, Andras. I really am so sorry. I just — it’s who I am. I don’t know if that will ever change, but I know that I can’t keep on as we have been. It isn’t fair to you, and it isn’t fair to me.’
He nodded, still not looking at me. ‘You’ve been honest with me this whole time. That was important. I knew how you felt. I just wanted to grab whatever part of you was within my reach. And it turns out that you were out of reach all along. I do understand. Really, I do.’
He stood up. ‘Thank you for your honesty. If you’ll excuse me, Bach Chwaer, I’d like to re-join the others.’
He didn’t wait for my reply. What could I have said, anyway?
I’d though
t I’d cry. It had been nice, having someone to turn to, having someone I could call my own, someone I could make demands of and let’s face it, someone to find comfort in. Andras had done that for me. He’d given himself so generously, and I’d stolen every moment I could bear from him. It wasn’t fair to keep on stealing moments. Not when I knew that although he was upset right now, one day soon he would turn and see Gwydion in a new light. He’d told me, as a man twenty years older, that they’d been happy together.
And so they would be, with me out of the way.
I sat by the stream for a long time. Eventually, Oisin found me, and sat beside me on the rock.
‘Beautiful,’ he said. I looked at him, surprised, because he hadn’t seemed one to flirt. I blushed a vibrant red when I realised he was talking about the water, not me. He grinned a little and I was embarrassed that he’d seen my misreading of his word. I hopped off the rock.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘Andras returned. I came to find you. I’ve been talking with Derala. She is good friends with Niamh, her second in command among the Wild Ones. Being able to talk about the person you love, well,’ he smiled, and I realised that his smile was very different from his grin, ‘it’s a special joy.’
‘I suppose so,’ I replied, finding another rock to sit on. It was nice to be in the moonlight. I was feeling strong and strangely free.
‘She was friends with Caradoc, too,’ Oisin went on.
‘You have my attention.’
‘He was Niamh’s brother. You know that. They led the revolution together.’
‘He mentioned something about his sister. He used me to get the Seeds of Truth to Master Darragh.’ That still stung.
‘I cannot blame him for that. After all, what have you not done to save your sister? You returned through the Portal to your own time, and left Caradoc behind.’
‘Left him behind to die. Oh, God, Oisin, I feel like I’m being ripped apart.’ I put my face into my hands and wanted to weep but the tears wouldn’t come. ‘I don’t understand how Aoife could be so vicious. She took everything from me, just for sheer spite. I never asked to be the Bach Chwaer. I never wanted it. I would have given anything to spend the rest of my life with him. Anything. Oh, God, anything.’
There the tears were. They’d been waiting. I cried until I had my own little waterfall. When the tears passed, I leaned over the stream and washed my face and hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as much to the water as to Oisin.
‘This is an emotional time,’ he said. ‘Who knows what we will find in Ce’deira? You have changed. And perhaps, after his imprisonment, he has changed also. Sometimes such experiences will drive a couple apart. Sometimes, these experiences can bind a couple together. You will not know until you reach Ce’deira.’
‘What?’ I frowned and shook my head, leaning over the stream to splash some more cold water on my face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘When you are reunited with Caradoc. You’re afraid that it won’t be the same, yes?’
‘It probably won’t be the same, since he’s dead. The only way we get to reunite is if I die, too. And I’m willing to die, if it means that I can stop Aoife.’
Oisin cocked his head. ‘Emer, who told you Caradoc was dead?’
‘Aoife.’ I felt sick. ‘She gloated about it.’
‘I see. I spoke with Gwydion at length about the stories you told about your future. I understand that Aoife had Caradoc a prisoner in Cairastel as a much older man, yes? Cuchulainn?’
‘Yes. She loved to gloat, loved to know that she had something over her enemies.’
‘I see. And she made you think she’d killed your sister, too?’
‘Yes, but Sparrow was just knocked unconscious. Aoife put her in a featherskin to punish me.’
‘I see.’
‘Stop saying that, I’m telling you, it’s annoying.’
He chuckled. ‘What surprises me, Emer, is that you do not see. The White Queen loves power. She loves control and manipulation. If she killed Caradoc, it would hurt you.’
‘And it did.’
‘And it did, yes. But if she told you she killed Caradoc, but in actuality kept him a prisoner, she could not only hurt you, but use him to blackmail you later. That does seem to be her modus operandi, doesn’t it?’
I stared at him, open mouthed. I may have uttered a few silent obscenities, followed by what I wasn’t sure was a blasphemy or a prayer. I found my voice in a long, low keen. I started to cry again, keening and rocking. Oisin came to sit beside me again and put an arm around me. I put my head into his shoulder and cried my eyes out.
Because it was true. Aoife loved to keep her prisoners alive. She liked to play with them. She liked to know that she knew what her enemies didn’t know.
‘How did you know?’ I breathed, turning away from him to wash my face again.
His words seemed to hit an impenetrable barrier before they reached me. ‘Because I have been in contact with Niamh tonight and she told me he is alive, with the White Queen, approaching Ce’deira.’ I could hardly hear him over the ringing of my ears.
‘You… you’ve spoken to her?’
Oisin nodded. ‘Yes. There are some among the Camiri who can speak mind to mind. Niamh has the greatest range and power of any of them. She is so strong that she can be heard even by those who do not have the gift of listening. That’s why it was essential to save Niamh. Not because I love her, although if I had to break the world to save her, I would not hesitate. But because if Niamh is free, she can call the Draceni from all their hidden places, she can warn them. She can rally them to our side.’ He allowed himself a small smile. ‘Caradoc was a persuasive speaker. So is his sister. They say that his father was a seer, and raised his children to be ready for the times to come, in the brief years he was allowed to keep his children in his home.’
‘I didn’t know there was any such thing as a seer. I thought they were all charlatans.’
Oisin shrugged. ‘I knew Caradoc’s father, when I was travelling secretly in Rheged. Ronan was very convincing when he spoke of the future. He was an honest man.’
‘Ronan!’ I slipped out from under Oisin’s arm and off the rock. ‘Ronan!’
‘Why such a reaction, Emer?’
I was trembling from head to foot. ‘Ronan!’ I couldn’t stop saying the name. I buried my face in my hands again. Ronan had looked so much like Caradoc. I’d assumed that they were brothers. I’d hoped that one day Ronan would step out of the Portal, holding David’s hand and everything would be all right. But if he was Caradoc’s father…
‘Is he alive today?’ I whispered it from behind my fingers.
‘No, Bach Chwaer.’ I heard Oisin moving towards me. ‘Ronan died in the rebellion. He was a brave warrior, a great leader among the Camiri, which is why we met, but he was not a young man. He was at least in his sixties when he died, perhaps even his early seventies.’
‘Sixties or seventies.’ I couldn’t help the tremors that shook me. I must have looked like I had a fever. I felt like I was going to die. I fell to my knees and bowed low over them. ‘Sixties!’ I started to sob.
Oisin knelt beside me and put a hand on my back. I felt the confusion in his touch but I was utterly overcome. He didn’t ask me any more questions. I was beyond words.
But the sobs passed, because in real life there is time, even after tears. Eventually, I was able to wipe my face and begin to make sense, even though I wished the world would come to an end. If the river had been deeper, I would have cast myself into it. If there had been a great height, I would have cast myself from it. But the waterfall was only small and the river shallow, and Oisin would not allow me to end my life in front of him.
‘My son,’ I whispered. ‘My son. My son. Ronan was my friend. He was from my time. He saved me. He saved my son. They went into the Portal together — it takes people back in time. If Ronan was an old man, my son has lived his life for forty years or more without me. And I didn’t sa
ve him. I didn’t find him. I failed him. I can’t save them all. I failed him!’ I grasped Oisin’s shirt and sobbed into it.
When I was quiet enough to hear his voice, Oisin asked, ‘What was your son’s name?’
‘David,’ I replied.
Oisin pulled me away from him enough so that I could see his face. ‘As near as I know, Ronan did not have a son named David. The Camiri repeat their family names to keep their history alive. Ronan told me the names of his children many times, so that I could carry those names to Niamh and our children. Could they have been separated, perhaps? Would it be possible for Ronan to come out of the Portal at one time, and David at another?’
I couldn’t bear this, couldn’t bear the repeated shocks of the earth slipping out from beneath me, the sky fading from view, obscured by tears. It was too much. ‘If David let go of Ronan’s hand… they could have come out of the Portal at different times!’
Oisin smiled gently. ‘So, it is possible that you can still find him, still save him?’
‘Still give him a happy life.’ I pressed my hands hard against my heart because it hurt so much. I didn’t know if grief or hope hurt more, but I was shattered by both. ‘Oh, God, that I could give him a happy life!’
Oisin put his hand on my shoulder. ‘I hope that one day Niamh and I are blessed to welcome a son into our family, and we shall name him David, in honour of your son, Bach Chwaer.’
I was touched. ‘That would be an honour,’ I replied. A thought occurred to me. ‘If you’ve been in contact with Niamh all this time, why didn’t you just tell me where she was? Ce’deira is our destination. I would have gone there anyway. What did you gain by pretending that you wouldn’t help me until I agreed to give you Niamh?’
He didn’t answer straight away, looking over the silver water of the stream. When he answered it was like he was talking to the water instead of me. ‘I needed to know what kind of person you were. How much you were willing to sacrifice. Because it’s very possible that we are all going to die doing this.’
