by Edith Pattou
Brie stared into her bowl of barley-mutton soup, her stomach tightening.
"Not now, Amrys," said Aunt Rainne, her eyes on Brie. "There is plenty of time to discuss Breigit's future. Let her eat in peace."
"But I was only suggesting that—"
"Did you know, Breigit," Rainne said, firmly interrupting her husband, "that Corwin, the daughter of Lord Darrfed, has married the boy Dalmen of Dun Treane?"
"Not that skinny fellow with the squint?"
"The very one."
"And whatever became of the maidservant Verena who had such a lovely voice?"
"She married a bard and they travel together now."
A disgruntled Uncle Amrys called for more soup while Brie and Rainne exchanged gossip. Finally, as they were served dessert, Rainne took pity on him, saying, "Amrys, tell Breigit of your newest acquisition."
He brightened immediately. "Ah, yes, it is an exceedingly handsome leather-bound edition of a lay from the second cycle of the coulin, as rendered by the poet..."
Tired from her travels that day, Brie stifled a yawn, trying hard to appear interested in her uncle's words. Amrys was a scholar and an enthusiastic collector of books. It was said that he had the finest collection outside Temair, especially of books on bird lore, which was his special area of interest.
As he droned on about a book on purple martins, Brie thought longingly of her bed.
***
Brie went to Masha the next morning, and again the bright eyes seemed to focus on her. A ghost of a smile appeared on the thin lips. Brie took Masha's hand.
Gradually the sick woman's eyes drifted shut and her breathing grew regular. Thinking Masha asleep, Brie started to withdraw her hand, but Masha's thin hand held hers with surprising strength. Masha muttered something sounding like "caroo teeth."
Brie squeezed Masha's hand. Soon after, Masha slept.
At the midday meal Brie asked her aunt and uncle about her mother's family. After Aideen's death, Brie's father had been too torn by grief to speak of his wife and her people to the daughter she had left behind. The only relative of Aideen's Brie had met was a distant cousin, a boy, who had spent a year with them as a sort of squire to her father, Conall. At first Conall had been ill-pleased at the unannounced appearance of this cousin, but he was soon impressed with the boy's athleticism and his self-confidence. His name had been Balor, and Brie remembered looking up to him. She also remembered feeling grateful that this handsome cousin distracted her father, however briefly, from pressing Brie in her endless lessons in archery, swordplay, and all the rest he would have expected from the son he did not have. After he left Dun Slieve, however, Balor had not kept in touch, and Brie knew of no one else in Aideen's family.
"Aideen didn't have much of a family," Uncle Amrys told her. "Just her mother, Hudag—your grandmother. Hudag was a widow, lived in a village not far from Temair. She didn't visit much, and not at all after Aideen's death. I don't think they got on well."
Brie's aunt laughed. "Aideen always said her mother bored her to tears. The only things she cared about were needlework and that little dog of hers."
"Is Hudag still alive?" Brie asked.
"No. We got word several years ago that she had died," Uncle Amrys said. "They sent along her things. The dog died a few days before she did."
"Your mother had a grandmother; I think Aideen was closer to her than to Hudag," said Aunt Rainne.
"What was her name?"
"Seila," Uncle Amrys said. "I recall that my brother did not care for her."
"Wasn't there some kind of scandal?" asked Rainne.
"What sort of scandal?" Brie asked, curious.
Uncle Amrys cleared his throat. "Oh, well, I can't quite remember. Conall preferred not to speak of it. Anyway, it's all in the distant past."
"She showed up at Aideen and Conall's wedding," Rainne said.
"Much to Conall's displeasure," put in Uncle Amrys.
Aunt Rainne said, "You know, Breigit, there are some things stored in the tower room that belonged to your parents. Mostly to your father. There is also a box of your grandmother Hudag's things. I doubt that will be of much interest; it seems to consist mainly of little china statues of dogs. Anyway, you ought to go through it."
Uncle Amrys laughed. "Rainne's been wanting to clear that room out for a long time."
Brie was suddenly eager for the meal to be over. "Perhaps this afternoon...?"
Her aunt shook her head. "I've some matters to attend to this afternoon. Best wait until tomorrow. And anyway, that room's been shut up for a long time. We'll need to air it out; everything is covered with dust."
***
Brie was up early the next morning. Her aunt did not keep her waiting. Together they wrestled open the shuttered windows of the tower room and dusted and wiped until Brie's arms ached.
"Were you at my mother and father's wedding?" she asked Rainne as they worked.
"Oh yes. I remember it well." Rainne paused thoughtfully. "Your uncle and I had been married several years by then. It was a lovely spring afternoon. Your mother was always beautiful, but she was particularly beautiful that day. Radiant. She wore a dress of many colors, with matching flowers in her yellow hair.
"All of Conall's family was there, but Hudag was the only one from Aideen's side—that is, at first. Halfway through the ceremony a woman rode up on a white horse. She was quite remarkable, you could hardly keep from staring. She must have been ninety years old or more, but her face was almost as luminous as that of Aideen herself.
"Of course, her arrival caused quite a stir. Hudag was clearly horrified and Conall looked thunderous, but Aideen ran over to the woman and gave her a great joyful hug. Seila stayed through the vows, then afterward presented Aideen with a gift, whispering in her ear for some time." Rainne smiled. "We all wondered what that amazing woman was saying to Aideen, and I kept glancing over at Conall, who looked ready to burst. Then all of a sudden Seila departed on her white horse. Now," Rainne said briskly, casting a critical eye over the room. "I think we've done enough. I will leave you in peace."
Brie began to sort through her father's belongings first, though her patience quickly wore thin. His things were a jumbled mess. Her father had had little skill at organizing. He was a man of action who preferred being outdoors, hunting, competing in tourneys, or, best of all, riding to battle. Brie could see from his papers that Aunt Rainne must have had a difficult time putting the affairs of the dun in order.
She moved to other boxes but found only old clothing and weaponry. Finally Brie came to a small trunk that was clearly her mother's. Inside was a dress of many colors that Brie guessed to be Aideen's wedding gown. It was musty, but the light coming in the window caught the colors and made them almost sparkle.
There was an assortment of odds and ends—jewelry, biorans for Aideen's hair, half-finished tapestries, old books. Then, at the very bottom of the trunk, Brie found a long, thin, pale blue box. It was made of wood, and painted on its surface in pale, opalescent colors were images of suns and fish and breaking waves. They were wrought in a distinctive, almost primitive style. Brie tried to open the box, but the lid was stuck. The wood had warped slightly over the years. Brie worked her fingernail around the edges, then rapped it gently against the side of the trunk. Still, it remained stuck. She dug her nails under the lid and pried as hard as she could. Finally the box opened with a rasp.
Brie let out a small sound of disappointment. The box was empty.' Or not quite. She lifted the box to her nose. There was a faint powdery smell, as of ancient dust, and of something else, something faintly familiar. A soft, abrupt sound made Brie look up. The door stood several inches ajar; hadn't Aunt Rainne closed it all the way when she left? She got up and closed it, wondering why she felt the need.
***
That afternoon as she helped Aunt Rainne take down and fold some freshly washed linens in the outer ward of the dun, Brie suddenly asked, "Do you remember anything of the scandal you mentioned, about my great-gr
andmother Seila?"
"I'm afraid I don't. It may not have been all that scandalous, you know. Your father was, uh, traditional. It runs in the family," she added with a flash of a smile at Brie.
Brie smiled back, then said offhandedly, "The gift Seila brought my mother, do you know what it was, by any chance?" She realized she was holding her breath.
"No, I never knew." Rainne folded a damask tablecloth. "But I do remember it was in a long blue box. Very thin."
Brie let out her breath with a feeling of wonder. So the blue box was from Seila; somehow she had known that.
Rainne was still speaking. "I was beside a young cousin of Amrys's when Seila presented it to Aideen. We made a little game of trying to guess what such a long thin box could hold. Came up with a few outlandish ideas. But we never learned what it was."
"Why not?" Brie asked.
"It was put away, not shown about the way the other presents were. I heard that Conall was offended by the gift for some reason."
***
As she entered the kitchen that evening to make up a posset for Masha, Brie spotted a man in ragged clothing scuttling out a door at the other end of the room. He limped heavily, one leg shorter than the other. She had caught sight of the ragged man once before and had asked Rainne about him. Rainne said he had come begging at the dun several months ago, and, feeling sympathy for him, they had found him some odd jobs. He turned out to be especially helpful in the kitchen, and the head cook had suggested hiring him on permanently. He went by the name of Crin, but Brie had yet to see him face-to-face.
The yellow bird hurtled down at her. She saw its face as it swooped in, eyes wide, black pupils dilated, its curved beak open and shrieking with a strange, high-pitched, human sound. Brie woke with a scream.
Her heart pounding, Brie gazed wildly around the darkened room.
It was only a dream, she said to herself. She was safe. But still she was having trouble breathing. Had no one heard her? Her room was remote from the other bedrooms. She suddenly felt a great aching loss as she thought of Collun. She wished she were lying by their campfire, listening to the sound of his breathing as he slept.
She rose and crossed to the long thin blue box. Listening to the rain beat thickly against her small window, Brie traced the patterns of fish and suns and waves with her finger. What did they mean? she wondered. And what had they meant to her mother?
THREE
The White Stag
Feeling jumpy from the sleepless night, Brie descended to the kitchen for the morning meal. Rainne told her tersely that Masha had taken a turn for the worse in the early hours of the morning. The dun healer could not explain it. Brie went directly to Masha and spent the day at her bedside. The older woman's breathing was labored and her words incoherent. She spoke again those strange words, which sounded this time like "caroo tree ra eeth."
The words sounded, faintly familiar to Brie, and as she listened to them, repeated again and again, she suddenly thought they sounded Dungalan, like something Aelwyn would say. But that was absurd; she was beginning to see Dungal in everything.
When Brie heard the gong for dinner, she realized she had not eaten all day. She left Masha with the dun healer and went down to dinner.
"Uncle Amrys, have you a Dungalan dictionary by chance?" Brie said abruptly, as she helped herself to some minted red potatoes.
Surprised, he replied, "Why, yes, I do. It is very old and very valuable, one of the prizes of my collection, in fact. Traded for it with an old vendor from—"
"May I look at it sometime? Tomorrow, perhaps?" Brie interrupted.
"Well, I don't know ... I suppose so, but—"
"Thank you, Uncle Amrys."
After dinner Brie stopped by the kitchen for a fresh basin of hot water to take up to the sickroom and was surprised to see the dun healer there. "Who is with Masha?" she asked.
"The man Crin. I needed some herbs—"
Without knowing why, Brie was suddenly alarmed. She bolted out of the kitchen and up the stone stairs. The ragged man was just leaving Masha's room, his face hidden. He spotted Brie and scurried down the hall in the opposite direction.
"Stop!" Brie called. She swiftly caught up with him on the winding stairway and grabbed his arm. He kept his face averted, pulling away from her, but Brie held fast to the fabric of his sleeve. The man then deliberately turned his face toward Brie.
It was a ravaged face, ridged with scars and gaunt with suffering. Brie stared. She knew the face. Then the ragged man violently wrenched his arm from her. There was a tearing sound and he catapulted away, down the stairwell. Brie stood still, looking at the torn fabric in her hand. It was stained and dull with wear, threads unraveling, but once upon a time it had been velvet, from a lustrous scarlet cloak. And she knew whose cloak it was; it belonged to the traitor Bricriu, who had been responsible for the kidnapping and torturing of Nessa, Collun's sister.
Masha. Brie ran back to the sick woman's room. Masha was in her death throes, her back arched up off the pallet, her face distorted by pain.
"Masha, it's all right. I'm here," Brie murmured soothingly in Masha's ear.
The wild eyes turned toward her. "Breigit. From Aideen. Caroo tree ra eeth," she said one last time, then died, her body rigid and contorted. Brie took Masha in her arms and awkwardly tried to lay her down. She felt something wet. A brownish liquid had run out of Masha's ear onto Brie's hand. Brie raised it to her nose and sniffed. Bitter, like a root: mandrake perhaps. Bricriu had murdered Masha by pouring poison in her ear.
Brie recalled Collun telling her about mandrake, how in small doses over time it can take away a person's wits, and how a large dose is lethal, squeezing the heart until it stops beating.
Brie drew a blanket over the dead woman and then went downstairs to raise the alarm. A search for Crin was quickly mounted. Brie wanted to go with the search party, but her aunt reminded her of Masha and of the night-vigil. Aunt Rainne was a strong believer in the old traditions, so Brie sat with her aunt in Masha's darkened room, lit by a single beeswax candle. In contrast to the still body lying on the pallet and the quiet of the room, Brie's thoughts were like a stream rushing headlong, veering from the ruined figure of Bricriu to the prophecies of Aelwyn the wyll to Masha's strange final words.
Sometime before dawn, the two women left the room. They joined Uncle Amrys at the morning meal. He told them that the searchers had found no trace of the ragged man. Then Brie related to her aunt and uncle all she knew of the traitor Bricriu. They listened, horrified, to Brie's tale.
"No one knew what happened to Bricriu after his attempt to destroy us failed. But we thought perhaps he went to Medb. If so, she must have dealt with him harshly," Brie said, thinking of the once handsome nobleman's shattered face.
"But why here? Why Masha?" Aunt Rainne asked in confusion.
"I do not know," Brie replied. "Uncle Amrys," she said abruptly. "May I see that dictionary of Dungal?"
"Now?"
"Yes."
"You must be exhausted."
"Please."
"It is very delicate, one of a kind..."
"I will be careful."
Aunt Rainne was giving Amrys a direct look. He sighed. "Very well."
Uncle Amrys led Brie to his library. It was located halfway up one of the dun's highest turrets. Silently he lit several oil lamps.
The last time Brie had been in this room it had been her father's. Gone were the animal-skin rugs, hunting trophies, and sundry bows, arrows, swords. Instead, the floor was covered with woven rugs of muted colors and shelves crammed with books lined the walls.
Uncle Amrys found the Dungalan dictionary, took it off its shelf, and handed it to Brie with an expression of profound reluctance.
"I promise to treat it with the greatest of care," Brie said.
Looking only slightly reassured, and with several backward glances, Amrys left Brie alone with the fragile volume. It was bound in blue leather, and on the cover, embossed in gold, were the figures o
f a fish and a bird. Brie gingerly leafed through the brittle pages.
"Caroo tree ra eeth," she muttered under her breath. And laboriously she pieced the gibberish together. She had been right. The words were Dungalan. One by one she found them. Carew was "stag." Tri, "three." And rhaidd, "horn" or "antler." Stag, three, antler. Stag of three antlers.
Brie closed her eyes. Stag. Memory washed over her: a memory from many years ago—she and her father at the top of Dun Slieve, her father holding her up, looking down at the bonfires, the white stag lit by the flames. Abruptly Brie stood, leaving the book on her uncle's desk.
She ascended the winding stairs of the turret, taking them two at a time, and came up into the battlements. A steady rainfall hampered her vision, but peering through the castellations she could just make out the White Stag of Herge. And the stag had three horns.
She turned and descended to her uncle's study. Carefully she put the Dungalan dictionary back in its place and blew out the oil lamps.
***
Brie exited the dun, pulling her cloak over her head against the rain. She began climbing the slope of the hillside on which the stag lay.
The wind blew rain into her face and the grass was slippery. Finally she came to the top of the moor, where the stag's antlers crested. Not knowing why she was there or what she was looking for, Brie gazed down at the wet grass and white chalk-stone. Three antlers. Slowly she walked along the length of the first antler, then, rounding the top, walked back down to the head. She did the same with the second and third antlers. When she got to the tip of the third antler, Brie noticed a jagged gray rock sticking up out of the grass. She knelt beside it, then dug her fingers into the soggy earth around it. Despite the cool rain her skin felt hot, and there was a faint humming in her ears.
The piece of rock was firmly embedded in the ground, going down the length of a forearm. Brie kept digging. The rock finally came loose and she pulled it out. It was an ordinary bit of stone, though long and narrow. Brie put her hand into the hole and pressed her fingers further into the earth. Her fingertips hit something solid.
