“No?”
“Not exactly. We are both Broichan’s foster children.”
Fola smiled. “I doubt very much if that’s the way Broichan would see it,” she observed.
Bridei said nothing. This was probably another test; it was a harder one, for with this sharp-nosed, bright-eyed old woman there was no telling which answers were the right ones. One thing was certain; he would tolerate no criticism of his foster father, even though Broichan had sent Tuala away.
“Perhaps not,” he said cautiously. “But we are, all the same. I was sent here by my father, to be educated. Tuala was sent here by the Shining One herself.”
“To be educated?”
“For a purpose,” Bridei said. “And I am trying to teach her. She can count up to fifty now and knows quite a bit of the ritual and lots of stories. But there isn’t much time for it.”
“I’ll speak to Broichan,” Fola said crisply. “The situation’s ridiculous. She must share your lessons. Much of it she won’t understand, but she’ll soak up what she can.”
Her confidence was impressive. Bridei doubted very much that Broichan could be persuaded to agree, but he did not say so. “Tuala would like that.”
“I know. Now tell me, Bridei. I know the story of how you found her. I know you understand her background, what she is and where she came from. I’m not sure if you understand how difficult that could be for her later on. Think about it. Think about how it will be when you’re grown up and Tuala’s grown up. Consider the world the two of you will have to live in. What will she do? What can her life be?”
Bridei was not sure what the wise woman meant. “Here at Pitnochie, everyone loves her.” That part was not quite true. One could not associate the word love with Broichan himself. “She’s happy here. She belongs here.”
“You will not live here forever, Bridei. One day you will be a man, following your own calling, making your own journeys. It seems to me you are the center of this small girl’s world. Where will she be without you? People are wary of the Good Folk. Tuala will not always encounter kindness in the wider world of men.”
“What do you mean?” Bridei asked, taken aback. “Are you, too, telling me I should have left her in the snow? I’m not going to listen to this—” He was suddenly angry.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Fola said quietly. “Take my questions on face value. There are no lessons in them and no judgments. All I want is a considered answer.”
Bridei made himself breathe in a pattern until the anger passed. He made himself look the wise woman straight in her dark, penetrating eyes. “Tuala’s strong,” he said. “She’ll tread a path of her own choice. Her life can be anything she wants it to be.”
“And you?”
“Me? I will help her and protect her, and make sure she isn’t lonely. Like a brother, only not a brother.”
“I see. What of your own life? What if your path takes you far away, and you cannot fulfil this responsibility to a small sister who is not a sister?”
Bridei frowned. “My foster father hasn’t told me yet what he intends for me. Of course I might have to go away for a bit—Talorgen said I can stay at Raven’s Well—but Tuala will be bigger by then. And when we’re grown up we can have our own house. It would have to be near the forest; Tuala needs the trees close by”
“Mm,” Fola said, lips twisting in a wry smile. “Most of the time one tends to forget how young you are, Bridei. Broichan’s brought you up to speak like a scholar and to listen like one as well. Just occasionally I see the boy underneath, and I recognize that you are still just that: a boy. Tell me, what is it that you want? What future would you desire for yourself?”
The only way to answer this was with the truth. “To bring the kingdoms of the Priteni back together,” Bridei said simply. “To make Circinn part of Fortriu again. To bring back the proper observance of the old faith, so all of us honor the ancestors as we should. To drive out the Gaels and bring peace. That’s what I want to do.”
“Anything else?”
It took a moment before he realized she was joking. He felt his cheeks flush. “It sounds too grand, I suppose; how could I even hope to begin? It is a task for a great leader. I understand why you would laugh at me. But you did ask, and I gave a truthful answer. Those aspirations should be in the mind and heart of every man and woman of Fortriu. We should all strive for them.”
Fola nodded. “I wasn’t laughing at you, son,” she said. “I salute your courage and your ideals, and I pray that you live to achieve them. Now I have another question for you.”
It had been a difficult conversation. Bridei was hard put to guess what might be coming next.
“Tell me,” Fola said, “what if Broichan were to send you back home to Gwynedd?”
Sudden horror gripped Bridei. Did the wise woman know something Broichan had not told him?
“You are lost for words at last, after dealing so expertly with the rest of my interrogation. Now why is that, I wonder?”
“Did he say that?” Bridei blurted out, despite himself. “Is he going to send me back?”
She regarded him, solemn as an owl. “Don’t you want to see your family?”
He bit back the first response, my family is here, my family is Broichan and Donal and Tuala. “Of course,” he told her politely.
“I don’t believe you,” said Fola. “Your every utterance is hedged about by caution, save for when the conversation touches on something you truly care about. Then your face changes, your eyes light up, and you stop talking like a careful old man or an obfuscating druid and give me a little glimpse of yourself. What’s important to you is Fortriu and the Glen; the Shining One; and, of course, the child the goddess placed in your care. You’ve forgotten Gwynedd. How long have you been at Pitnochie, seven, eight years? I doubt if you can even remember what your parents look like.”
Bridei bowed his head.
“It must have been lonely,” she said quietly.
“I was all right.”
“Hmm. But you made sure it wasn’t like that for her. Yes?”
“Broichan is a good foster father. The best.”
“And you are a loyal son. Foster son. Very well, Bridei, you’ve acquitted yourself admirably; he’s trained you expertly in this kind of combat. Your little sister’s pretty good at it, too, for all she’s not much bigger than a hedge mouse. You know the solstice ritual’s a kind of test, do you?” She turned her sharp eyes suddenly on him.
“Yes,” Bridei said. “Of what exactly, I’m not sure. I’ll just have to do the best I can, and hope the gods will show me the way”
“I’ve no doubt at all that they will do just that,” said the wise woman.
TUALA KNEW ABOUT the solstice. Bridei had shown her how to watch the sun, when Midsummer Day was drawing close, how to check its position against a point such as a tree or stone until the morning its rising moved back to give its journey a narrower arc. A sunrise vigil was kept for three days in a row, and each of these days had its particular ritual observance. Back home in Pitnochie, Broichan would enact the solemn ceremonies with Bridei to help him. Here at Oak Ridge the recognition of the year’s turning was slight. There was a spring not far from the cottage, and they walked there when the morning’s work was done, the two older women, the younger one, and Tuala herself, with the little cat, Mist, keeping pace in the undergrowth, here crouching still, here sprinting ahead, her tail a whisper of gray amongst the curling fronds of bracken and fern. The water welled up between stones and spilled into a small, round pool over which elder trees stretched long, spindly branches. Each of the women tied a scrap of colored cloth there—Tuala would have done the same, but she had lost her ribbon again, and had nothing else to use—and Brenna and Tuala together made a pattern of white stones by the water’s edge. They spoke a simple prayer to the goddess; even this, Brenna’s mother and aunt did with sour faces and grim eyes. Tuala had never seen such sad people, such angry people. There were lots of things to smile abou
t, even when you were lonely: the sun coming out, the pattern the ferns made around the mossy rocks, the nice, damp smell of the little clearing, the whisper of the goddess’s voice . . .
“Can I stay here a little bit longer?” she asked Brenna. “Just a bit? I can see the house from here; I’ll come straight back, I promise.”
Already, the older women were walking home along the path. Brenna hesitated.
“I promise,” Tuala said again, trying to look like the most obedient child in the world.
“All right,” Brenna said. Her face had a happier look now it was nearly time for Cinioch to come and fetch them home; her eyes were hardly red at all, and she summoned a wan smile. “You’ve been a good girl, Tuala. Be careful; don’t get your clothes wet.”
“Yes, Brenna.”
In fact, Tuala had been here several times already, accompanied only by Mist. Since the morning she had discovered, accidentally, that scrying was in fact remarkably easy and that she hardly needed to practice at all, the pool had called her strongly, and she had spent as much time crouched here gazing into its shadowy waters as she had in the cradle of the oak’s ancient roots. The first time, she’d been looking in the water for fish; before she had a chance to see if there were any, there’d been the image on the surface, a picture of trees and sky and forest paths, not a reflection, for what she saw was the hill above Pitnochie, and there in the middle of the little pool were Bridei and his pony Blaze, riding out to Eagle Scar. All that she had to do to keep the image was stay quite still and breathe in a pattern. It wasn’t difficult at all.
As she visited the place more often and looked in the pool at different times and on different days, Tuala saw some images that worried her. They were things that could not be now, that must be long ago or yet to come. It was a pity Bridei was not here; she had so many questions she needed answers for. Why were people so cruel to each other, why did they have fights and arguments and get angry, when it never solved anything? Who were the red-haired warriors she kept seeing in the water, with calm, cold eyes bent on death? Was the young man there, the one with brown curls and a light in his face like a flame of courage, really a grown-up version of Bridei himself? And if so, why did she never see herself? Was it usual, when scrying, to have a strange, prickling sensation, as if all around the small glade where the spring emerged from the earth there were invisible, silent watchers?
They were here again today. Tuala could feel it: a ring of eyes fixed on her, a circle of beings centered on her. She could see nothing beyond a faint shimmering in the air, a slight disturbance of the way things were. Her eyes told her there was nobody there. Yet she knew she was not alone. When she knelt down by the pool, under the elder tree with its cargo of little scraps of wool, strips of leather, faded bits of ribbon, the offerings of season after season’s wayfarers, she could feel them kneeling by her, opposite her, behind her, following her every movement, breathing her every breath, as if she and they were one and the same.
“Who are you?” Tuala whispered almost angrily “Why don’t you show yourselves?” But there was nothing save a little sound like the breeze in the leaves, and then silence.
The image in the water showed midday, midday at Pitnochie, for there was Broichan’s house amidst the deceptive oaks, and there the waters of Serpent Lake glinting under the sun, sheltered by dark tree-clad hills. She saw Fidich limping up a steep track under pines to a bare hilltop where folk were assembling. Tuala knew this place. They called it Dawn Tree Hill, for a solitary oak stood there, a venerable ancient that caught the light of the sun’s rising in its leafy canopy. Here, Broichan and Bridei would have kept vigil last night and for two nights before, marking the place where the Flamekeeper pierced the horizon.
On the flat stones at the summit a circle was forming; the household of Pitnochie was already gathered there. She saw Broichan, tall and solemn in his dark robe, with a ritual dagger in his hands, horn and silver. He wore a wreath of oak leaves on his plaited hair. His expression made Tuala shiver.
There were folk she knew and some she didn’t know. There was Mara, and Donal and Ferat, and most of the men at arms. There were other warriors whom she had never seen before, their faces tattooed with kin signs and battle counts. There was a white-robed druid bearing a bundle of sticks. She could see that old woman, Fola, as well; Fola was carrying a bronze bowl of water which she set down now at the western quarter of the circle.
Tuala shifted a little, bending closer to the pool’s surface. Mist crouched by her, tail curled, paws tucked neatly under her breast, narrow eyes intent on the water’s stillness. Perhaps she saw a feline vision of her own.
The images unfolded like a solemn dance: Broichan pacing, his dagger’s point casting the sacred space; at each quarter, his voice speaking the ritual words of acknowledgment and greeting. Water being sprinkled around the circle; smoke from burning sticks wafting across, an elemental cleansing. Then Tuala saw the wise woman step forward from the north, place of earth. Fola did not seem small and harmless now, but strong and powerful, the embodiment of Bone Mother herself. She raised her arms, calling a challenge: Who are you? Why do you come here? Tell us! Tuala could hear nothing; no sound disturbed the quiet of the little clearing. But she knew the words; Bridei’s lessons had been as thorough as he could make them.
Three men stepped forward from the circle. One was the white-clad druid, an old fellow with penetrating, pale eyes and a crazy mass of snowy hair tangled with seeds and twigs and leaves. He held between his gnarled fingers a feather as white as his own garments.
“The sun’s light illuminates the mind,” he said, “and makes the pathway clear. Keeper of Flame, let our eyes see only truth.”
The man who spoke next was a warrior, tall, straight of carriage, his features marked with the blue tattoos of his calling. His eyes were keen, his bearing confident. He held before him an arrow fletched with the banded feathers of the great eagle. “The light of Midsummer is the light of courage.” His ringing tone thrilled through the cool air of the hilltop. “Keeper of Flame, you give us the strength to be men. Your blazing glory inspires our deeds of valor. Through you, we are true sons of Fortriu.”
The third man was bearing a bone; Tuala could not see what kind it was, but it was long and pale, like part of a leg. The man was gray-haired, gray-robed; his face was lined, his brow furrowed as with many cares. He spoke with quiet dignity. “Keeper of Flame, with your warmth you have nurtured the Priteni since the time before story, since the season before our grandfathers’ grandfathers walked the Glen. In your life is our life. In your wisdom is our wisdom. We salute your splendor.”
After that there was silence for a long time. Tuala understood that every man and woman there spoke the secret word of inspiration deep in the spirit, and felt it herself, humming its power through every single part of her. The unseen watchers remained, a circle of invisible presences right around the wellspring. Out of the corner of her eye Tuala thought she could see pale hands, shadowy faces, garments of green-gray willow leaves and soft feathers, silvery wings and strands of long hair in improbable shades of blue. Their eyes were a mirror of her own: colorless and clear, pale as ice. She would not turn her head to look; she must hold the image on the water. For now she saw Bridei; he was stepping forward from the base of the Dawn Tree and he held a lighted candle before him. Tuala’s heart beat harder. He looked so serious, so worried, as if he thought the gods would be displeased if he took a wrong step or made a mistake in the words. And he looked tired; there were dark smudges under his eyes. That would be from last night’s vigil. Broichan always made his foster son stay awake on Midsummer Eve. Bridei was biting his lip in nervousness. Silly boy; of course he wouldn’t make a mistake. Of course the gods would not be angry. He was in the hand of Bone Mother; the Flamekeeper burned in him. The Shining One had singled him out. He was Bridei, who always got things right.
He moved forward again, stepping through the circle and beginning a spiral path from its edge inward, the cand
le burning strong and steady in his hands. His curling hair, brown as oak bark, was tied neatly back; his eyes reflected the sky’s summer blue, warm and bright, and his steps were perfectly steady. He had a little scrap of faded ribbon tied around one wrist. Tuala found herself smiling; she had so longed to be there, to be a part of it. Now, in a way, she was there; he carried her with him. She hoped Broichan would not be angry about the ribbon.
Bridei’s path wound in to the circle’s midpoint, where his foster father now stood with the wise woman, Fola, by his side. Bridei raised his hands, holding the candle high. “This is the flame of hope and the promise of justice and peace throughout the land!” he proclaimed. There was no trace of nervousness in his tone. His voice rang out bell-clear; the sound of it made Tuala shiver, although she heard only with the ears of the seer, to which silence speaks. “I call down the power of the Flamekeeper, and I call forth the strength of our deep mother, the earth, and I invoke the bringer of tides, the Shining One! The sun has triumphed; today he reaches his peak. His life has awoken us and made fertile the land we walk upon. Now he begins his long retreat. Now we take his light within us, to illuminate our journey forward. Let each of us be as a lamp burning; let each of us step onward filled with the radiance of truth.”
Broichan should have spoken next, but before he could open his mouth there was a rushing of wings and a stirring in the sky, and out of the east the eagles came. Gliding on the currents of air above the Great Glen, they made a perfect pair, now seeming to float, now beating strong wings in slow, powerful strokes to carry them on toward the place where the boy stood straight and proud with the flame of hope in his young hands. Broichan spoke not a word; as the birds circled the tor in their dance of ancient symmetry, their weaving of feather and bone and breath, Tuala saw with deep amazement that the druid had tears streaming down his cheeks. Three times the winged ones passed, and then alighted, each in the same instant, on the topmost branches of the Dawn Tree. They folded their great pinions and settled, a watchful presence. The sun touched Bridei’s curling hair, lighting its brown to the deep red of autumn beeches; noon rays bathed the hilltop like the warmth of a blessing.
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