The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

  What Bridei really wanted to do was go back to his own chamber, where nobody could see, and keep his remarkable gift safe for as long as possible. He could not stop looking at those tiny, perfect features, the strange eyes that were both innocent and knowing, the little fingers like delicate petals. But it was cold in his room. Besides, Bridei understood that newborn creatures, such as early lambs, needed a lot of looking after. There’d need to be warm milk. How would they manage that in the middle of winter? There’d probably be all sorts of other things he knew nothing about. He carried the basket through into the hall and settled on the stone floor near the sleeping hounds. One of the dogs growled soft and low, and Bridei hushed it.

  He reached into the basket, hands careful as if gathering eggs, and lifted the infant out. It felt warm and relaxed and weighed no more than a rabbit. It was clad in a kind of cloak, fur-lined, and a gown underneath so fine-woven, so lacy, the thread might have been spun from cobweb or thistledown. The child’s lower parts were swathed in a bulky and practical piece of woolen cloth. Though this was undeniably damp, Bridei didn’t think he could do much about it, having no handy substitute. So he held the baby in his arms, rocking it a little, and the clear, strange eyes gazed up at him as if working out just what to make of him. A lock of hair had escaped the confines of the bonnet and curled, black as soot, over the pale brow.

  “It’s all right,” Bridei said in an undertone, just for the two of them. “I won’t leave you on your own. I’ll tell you a story every night, and play with you every day, and keep you safe from the Urisk. I promise.”

  PERHAPS THE GOOD Folk had made sure the infant’s belly was full of milk before they left the child for the moon to dispose of. At any rate, it was not until the late winter sunrise began to send its low light through the chinks and crannies around the door that the child became suddenly hungry and began a shrill squalling that brought the whole household instantly awake. The dogs began to bark, the men groaned and stretched cramped limbs, and Mara, one hand to her head, got slowly to her feet and took two steps toward the spot where Bridei, startled from sleep, sat by the hearth with the red-faced, bawling infant in his arms. Mara’s shrewd eyes took in the strange, small basket, the swansdown lining, the tiny robe edged in white fur; they moved to the child itself, now looking more like any other hungry newborn, yet still notable for the pale, clear eyes, the delicate hands, the curl of coal-black hair. Then Mara looked straight at Bridei. He held the child to him tightly and stared back. They’d better not try to take his baby brother.

  Mara moved her fingers in an age-old gesture, the sign to ward off evil. Behind her, the men were doing the same. “Black Crow save us,” she said, squatting down, “what have you been up to, Bridei? Here, give it to me.”

  Bridei held on grimly.

  “Come on, lad. Use your head. Can’t you see what that is? Just think what your foster father would say. Give it to me, quick now. The longer it stays within these four walls the more ill it’s likely to bring down on all of us. And with Broichan close to death and far from home, that’s just what we don’t need here.”

  Elpin reached down as if to take the child. The expression on his face was that of a person forced to touch something he finds repulsive or dangerous, such as an adder.

  Bridei edged away. “He just wants milk,” he said over the racket. Who would have thought such a scrap of a thing could make so much din? He could feel the cries vibrating right through the child’s fragile body. “Shh, shh, you’ll be all right,” he whispered.

  “Milk, is it?” inquired Mara. “And where do you think we’ll find that in the middle of winter, with the cows and sheep all dry as a bone?” She stood with hands on hips, stolid as a big guard dog set on seeing an intruder off the premises.

  “Best put it back out quick,” Elpin said. “They say if you do that, the—the Others, they’ll come and take such a child away again. If you don’t leave it too long, that is.”

  “Pretty cold out there,” observed Uven doubtfully. “The babe’s very small.”

  “What’s all this?” Ferat had been roused from his bed by the noise, and now wandered in with tousled hair and the look of a man whose head aches mightily. “Where did that come from, lad? Here, give us a hold—that’s it—” And with a deft dip and lift, the cook scooped the infant from Bridei’s arms and moved nearer to the hall fire so he could examine it more closely. He seemed to know what he was doing; after a scrutiny of the red, crumpled features he put the child against his shoulder, began a rhythmic patting of its back and, miraculously, the screaming died down to a thin, plaintive sobbing.

  “It’s hungry, all right,” Ferat said. “And stinking like a midden—Mara, go and fetch some clean cloths, will you? Lad, stir up the kitchen fire for me, we need warm water.”

  The others stood mute, staring at him. This morning he was definitely not himself.

  “Go on, get a move on,” Ferat snapped in something closer to his usual tone. “Wee creature’s starving! What would Broichan say if he heard that fancies and superstitions made us treat a newborn babe worse than we would an orphan lamb? Shame on you!”

  “That’s all very well,” said Mara, “but how are we to feed it? Besides, it’s not what Broichan would want. It’s not the right thing, and I can’t believe you’d ever consider it—”

  Bridei cleared his throat. “I was the one who brought him in. If my foster father is angry, he can be angry with me. But you can’t put the baby out in the snow. He’d die.”

  “Looks more like a lassie than a wee lad to me,” Ferat said, still patting. “And fey as they come, Mara’s right about that part. See how pale she is now she’s given up the shrieking for a bit? Long lashes like a fine heifer’s, and a little rosebud mouth. She’s like a thing from a tale; a fine gift, is how I see it. Mara’ll tell you if it’s a girl when she changes these wrappings.”

  “Me?” retorted Mara crossly, but she put the babe on the table and stripped off the dirty swaddling, and Ferat was right, it was a girl. Bridei was not at all sure how he felt about this. Duly washed and rewrapped in the cloth Mara had fetched, the baby stayed in the housekeeper’s arms while Ferat did what he could with warm water and honey, and in a little, the tiny girl was being coaxed to suck the mixture from a rolled-up rag they dipped into the bowl, and was growing quieter. Uven and Elpin stood by watching; neither of them seemed in a hurry to be away. Ferat, in the kitchen, had summoned his assistants and was busy cooking breakfast and talking the while.

  “That won’t keep her happy long,” he called over the clanking of pots and pans. “Didn’t Cinioch say he’d a cousin that just lost a babe? You know the girl, went up to Black Isle to wed, but her man was killed while the child was still in her belly. She’s in the settlement down the lake, came back to her sister’s for the birthing. The infant didn’t thrive; they buried him a day or two since. Can’t recall the girl’s name.”

  “Brenna,” said Uven. “Shy little thing. Sad tale, that.”

  “Aye,” said Mara, “sad indeed. But useful. That’s if we’re keeping this one.” She frowned at the infant, now cradled in Bridei’s arms once more as Mara squeezed a few more drops of the honeyed water into the small, neat mouth. The eyes gazed up at her, pale and clear.

  “Uven!” yelled Ferat. “Where’s Cinioch this morning?”

  “On night watch.”

  “Right. Get some breakfast into you then, and get up there as quick as you can. Tell him to come and talk to me before he does anything else. We need a wet-nurse; the longer we leave it, the more urgent it gets. Sounds like this Brenna might be just what we want.”

  “She’d have to be crazy,” muttered Mara. “Who’d offer to nurse one of them?” But it seemed to Bridei her words were only half meant, otherwise why would she be trying so hard to get the baby to suck, and nodding encouragement at each successful swallow? The little basket stood empty by the hearth, the key well hidden in its network of tangled foliage. It was true, what Broichan had told him. Someti
mes simple hearth magic is the strongest of all.

  The day seemed very long. Cinioch snatched a quick breakfast and headed off down the lake. The baby was quiet at first, but later she cried and cried until she had no strength left for it. She would not take the honey water. Bridei took his turn at holding her and patting her. She seemed to get heavier as the day went on. Her little, hiccupping wails made him want to cry, too, but he did not.

  In the early evening, Cinioch came home with a pale-faced young woman who was heavily shawled against the chill outside. Her features were pinched with cold, her nose and eyes were red and she was shivering under her layers of clothing. Nonetheless, as soon as she spotted the infant in Ferat’s arms, it was off with cloak and shawl, and three steps across the floor to gather the child to her breast.

  “Ah, poor mite, poor bairn,” Brenna crooned, and the babe hiccupped weakly in response. “I’ll take her off to a quiet corner, if you’ll show me where,” the young woman added. “Wee thing’s starving, but we’ll soon put that to rights.” And she did; while Bridei was bid to stay in the kitchen when the women went through by the hall fire, he could hear the baby’s voice subside through thin wails to a gasping, snuffling, desperate sort of sound to blissful silence. He let out his breath in a great sigh; Ferat, stirring up the soup, was nodding to himself in a satisfied way.

  “We’d best get a joint of mutton on the spit,” the cook said. “When a woman’s in milk she eats like a horse. Your wee one’ll do just fine now, lad, see if she doesn’t.”

  IN THE WINTER woods outside Broichan’s house, two presences hovered as the short day drew to its close.

  “It’s done,” said the first. “He’s taken her in, and nobody’s put her back out again. And the crying’s over. She’s got a big voice for such a scrap of a thing.”

  “I won the wager,” said the other. “I told you they’d keep her.”

  “Bridei’s doing, no doubt. For one of the human kind, that child’s canny beyond his years. A wee charm the druid taught him, no doubt . . . They’d never have held on to her otherwise. One look at her must have told them she’s ours.”

  The other glanced across. “In a way she is. In a way she isn’t. Now we’ve discharged our duty to the Shining One, and that’s an end of it.”

  The first being gave a peal of tinkling laughter. “Hardly! This is just the beginning. The two of them have a long road ahead of them, long and hard. And we’ll be there every step of the way. We all want the same ending for this, even the druid. Of course, the manner of it may come as a surprise to him.”

  “Come, let’s for home. That was a long night. I tire of these human folk. They can be so foolish; so slow to comprehend.”

  “The longest night,” the first being said gravely. “Night of the full moon; night of change; the start of a great journey.”

  “Bridei’s journey”

  “His, and hers, and all of ours. We walk forward to a new age, no less. The feet that make the pathway are small. Let us hope they do not falter. Let us hope they do not fail.”

  THE MAGIC SEEMED to be holding. Brenna settled into the household as if she belonged there. She was very quiet and always had a sad look in her eyes, not surprising for a widow only nineteen years of age who had just lost her firstborn. Mara refused to share her own sleeping quarters, declaring that she’d no mind to be up half the night when the child woke for feeding. So Ferat had his assistants clear out a little storeroom, and here Brenna unpacked her pitifully few possessions and settled with apparent gratitude. At night the babe slept by her side, not in its original strange bed woven from forest magic, but in a fine cradle of oak wood with sprays of leaves and acorns carved at head and foot. The farmer, Fidich, had surprised them all one morning by appearing with it and offering it rather shyly as his contribution to the small one’s upkeep. That was useful for Bridei. When the new cradle came, Mara had muttered something about burning the old one to get the last of its influence out of the household before Broichan returned home. Bridei ensured the basket disappeared while Mara was busy elsewhere. Now it lay in his own chamber, safe within his storage chest, hidden key and all.

  Ferat was not well pleased the day he needed spices and could not open his little coffer. He blamed the kitchen lads, at first, for the key’s loss, cursing the two of them as he forced the box open with a knife, scratching the wood. The sight of the contents, arrayed in their neat packets and quite undisturbed, calmed his temper miraculously. As a cook, he considered the small collection of nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, and fine peppercorns infinitely more precious than the polished box that held it. Grudgingly he acknowledged that maybe the key’s disappearance had been an accident of some kind; who would bother to steal it then leave the prize untouched? By the time he’d made his apple pie, he was humming again. Since the babe’s arrival he seemed a new man.

  “SHE NEEDS A name,” Bridei had said on the second day, as they ate supper in the warmth of the hall. Brenna was managing to work through a generous serving of Ferat’s special seethed mutton with dumplings, while cradling the infant with one arm. The baby herself was awake, her small features calm, her clear eyes watchful under what had been revealed as a generous thatch of soot-black curls. Even now that she was well fed, there was not a trace of rose in her cheeks; her complexion was milk-pale. Since yesterday she had cried very little; not so surprising, since her main need was for feeding, and Brenna had that well under control. In fact, now that Bridei’s little sister was getting all the milk she wanted, she hardly seemed to need him anymore. Bridei knew that he must not be jealous. He sat beside Brenna now on the bench, and from time to time he looked down at the baby and she gazed up at him, and he knew she recognized him and understood the promise he had made by moonlight. Perhaps she did not really need him now, but when she did, he would be there.

  “We should give her a name,” he said again, and as he spoke there was a name in the back of his mind, one that suited the baby’s pallor, her coal-black hair, her look of being very much herself.

  “Huh,” said Mara, “names, is it now? I know one thing. That’s not the kind of child you name after your mother or your grandmother.”

  “Why not?” asked Bridei.

  “Because she’s not one of us,” Mara said. “Probably she’s not ours to name. Got one already, I expect, something outlandish like the folk that put her here. Black Crow protect us,” she added hastily, making the sign of ward with her fingers.

  Brenna spoke seldom, and mostly to say please and thank you. Her voice was soft, almost apologetic. “What name would you give her, Bridei?” she asked him.

  Bridei put a finger to the baby’s white cheek; she waved her small hands, and her mouth curved in what might possibly have been a smile.

  “Tuala,” he said firmly. “That’s an old name, from a story. It means princess of the people. Broichan would like that.”

  “He won’t like squalling infants in the house, and him some kind of invalid,” Mara said drily. “Princess, is it? Poor little thing, she won’t be much of a princess if she stays here with us. Princess of the pigsties, is about all.”

  “It’s a pretty name,” Brenna whispered.

  “Aye,” put in Uven. “It suits her. Leave off, Mara. You know you’re as besotted with the mite as the rest of us.”

  So the foundling got her name, and Broichan’s household expanded its number by two, and Bridei, reminded that his foster father had been near death, applied himself in earnest to his studies once again in an effort to ensure Broichan would not be disappointed in his progress, even if he was displeased with the new arrivals. It was hard to practice combat skills without Donal; instead, he helped Fidich around the farm. In the afternoons he perfected his storytelling. This was a time when the infant tended to be awake, and Brenna, who still tired easily after her recent confinement and the death of her own babe, was generally content to leave Tuala with Bridei while she retreated to her tiny chamber for a rest.

  He knew quite a lot of tales al
ready, for tales are the foundation of a druid’s wisdom, containing as they do layer upon layer of understanding, symbol within symbol, code within code. Every time he told one it seemed to mean something different. For Tuala, Bridei did not choose tales full of battles and gore, nor tales of monsters and wraiths, losses and ancient griefs. He told her funny tales, silly tales, leavened with stories of heroic deeds and dreams come true. When he could remember no more, he made them up as he went along. Tuala was an excellent listener. She grew better and better at keeping quiet and watching with rapt attention as he spoke. Her bright eyes followed the movement of his hands as he illustrated a dramatic event; her small voice contributed here a gurgle, there a squeak. True, there were some tales that sent her to sleep. When that happened, Bridei simply turned his story into a song, which he sang quietly as he rocked the cradle. He was not sure where the song came from, only that it was not a thing Broichan had taught him.

  Hee-o, wee-o

  Spinner come and spinner go

  Weave a cobweb fine and thin

  Fit to wrap my princess in

  Hee-o, wee-o

  Feather from the blackest crow

  Plume of swan all snowy white

  Fit to clothe my baby bright

  Hee-o, wee-o

  Frond of elder, birch and yew

  Garland woven fresh and fair

  Fit to crown my lassie’s hair.

  And as she slept, she seemed to smile.