Daughter of the Forest

by Juliet Marillier

  I came at length to a chamber, vaster and more grand than any before, where the pillars of living stone reached from smooth floor to arching roof, their stately forms reflected in a long, still pool. They were there, and their laughter and song ceased abruptly as I came forward into the light of their torches. Many eyes were on me. I saw one face I knew, palely beautiful, with dark intense eyes and hair like rippling black silk. She nodded gravely. But around her were many more of her kind, all of them tall beyond mortal span, and clothed in shimmering fabric, in garments of gauze like butterflies’ wings, or black and glossy as the plumage of a raven. Their heads were crowned with strange adornments, of feathers and shells and seaweed, of nuts and berries and leaves. Their eyes were strange, deep, knowing, searching; their faces were both wonderful and terrible. They watched me in silence. Then the circle of torches closed in slightly, and the tallest of the men stepped forward.

  “Well, well,” he said, looking me up and down. “You’re here at last, I see. Step forward, show yourself.” I stared up at him. A long way up. His face was very bright, brighter far than the torches might make it; some light from within seemed to turn his skin to gold and silver. His hair stood back from his face as if he were crowned with flames, and it was a brilliant red, except where frost touched it at the temples, and on his full beard. His eyes were no color, and every color. He wore a plain white robe, but where the light caught it, the cloth sparkled as if with many tiny gems.

  My lord. I greeted him silently. I turned to the Lady of the Forest, who stood by his side. My lady. What do you mean, here at last? He laughed, throwing his head back, letting the sound reverberate around the great rock chamber. There was a buzz of voices, which died down instantly as he became silent again. The Lady did not laugh, but watched me gravely.

  “You didn’t imagine you were here by accident, did you?” queried the Bright One. “You did? I forget how little your kind can understand, how limited your grasp. Your time in the world is brief, your knowledge matches it.”

  I did not come here to be insulted. I found my temper was short. They had been precious little help to me so far, apart from the rain storm, which I had to admit had been pretty good. But, Fair Folk or no, I would not let them bully me. What do you want of me?

  “Of you, nothing, child of the forest.” It was she who spoke now, the Lady, and her voice at least bore a trace of warmth. “Nothing beyond what you know you must do. Show me your hands, Sorcha.”

  I held them out, blinking as a lantern was moved closer to me. My hands were inspected.

  “These hands bear no traces of recent work,” frowned he with the head of flames. “How will your brothers live, if you neglect your task? How will these shirts be made, without spindle or loom?”

  I glared up at him. That’s not fair. And they all laughed again, lords and ladies, their musical voices filing my ears with sweet disdain.

  “Fair!” gasped the Bright One, amid his mirth. “Fair, she says? What a child it is, to be sure! Are you certain, my lady, that this is the right girl? For it seems to me she is a fool, and lazy with it.”

  He moved right up to me and, taking my chin in his hand, tipped my head back to scrutinize me more closely. His eyes were very bright, shifting, changing. It was hard to look into them and not be dazzled.

  “You have no need to ask me that,” said the Lady of the Forest. “You know well enough that this is she. She spits back at your mirth, she holds her head high, after everything. There is no cause to doubt her strength.”

  “She neglects her work. Time runs short,” he said, and he was holding my hands now, turning them this way and that. “Is this vanity, I wonder? Do you weep, that your hands will never again be soft and white?”

  “Let her go.”

  My head snapped around; the Lord and the Lady and their companions all turned their strange, luminous eyes to the cave entrance through which I had come. The flickering light of their torches showed Red swaying there, his face as pale as chalk, one hand resting on the rock wall for balance. His expression was ferocious.

  “I said, let her go.”

  The Bright One’s hands dropped away from mine and he smiled a small, dangerous smile that was totally lost on the Briton.

  “Touch her again and you’ll answer to me in blood,” said Red very quietly, and he limped forward to stand at my side. There was a brief silence, and then the attending folk put their hands together in a slow, derisive clapping. Red started to raise his arm, and I put out a hand and stopped him. Clearly, he had not the faintest idea who or what he was dealing with.

  The Bright One folded his arms and regarded us with a half smile. Whether he spoke in the Britons’ tongue, or some other, I cannot remember, save that we all understood him.

  “The Lord Hugh of Harrowfield, I believe that is your name? They say still waters run deep; you bear a weight of anger beneath that mask of control, young man. You are far from home; too far, some might say. What brings you across the sea, and into the forest, and alone in the dark among strangers?”

  Red looked him in the eye. He was using my shoulder for balance now; it seemed the leg would not take his weight much longer.

  “I am not answerable to you,” he said.

  “Nonetheless, you will answer,” replied the Bright One, and I saw a flash of brilliance like a tiny lightning bolt flare from his eyes and toward the Briton. Red sucked his breath in; whatever it was, it had hurt him.

  “You will answer.”

  The Briton stood silent; he moved me slightly behind him. I saw the Bright One’s face tighten, and his eyes take on a reddish tinge. He was eager for a battle of wills, but I knew there could be but one outcome. You did not play games with the Fair Folk and expect to come away unscathed.

  Leave him alone. I sent my message to him of the flaming crown, but also to the Lady. He does not know how to play this game. Let him go.

  “Tell me, Lord Hugh.” It was the Lady who spoke now. “Why do you take our girl with you, when you know all she wants is to go home? She does not belong in your world.”

  This stung him into response. “The girl is not yours, or mine, or anyone’s. But for now, she travels under my protection, and let him who lays a hand on her answer to me.”

  “Fine words,” said the Lady. “But you have lost sword and dagger. Your leg is laid open to the bone, you are hungry, and lacking sleep, and in hostile territory. Your threats can surely have little substance.”

  “I have my two arms, and my will,” said Red, stepping around so that he shielded me from the two of them. “That’s enough. Let him who dares, try me.” His back was solid enough; even on tiptoe I had trouble seeing over his shoulder. Pity about the leg, which would not last a moment if he were put to the test. He was a fool; a brave one, but a fool nonetheless.

  “Step aside,” said the Bright One wearily. “Let the girl show herself. We mean no harm to her; she is one of our own.” And the moment of crisis seemed to be over.

  “You chose well, daughter of the forest,” remarked the Lady, looking at Red and then at me.

  What do you mean, I chose well? I chose? I did not choose any of this. Would I be here, if there had been a choice?

  “Hush, child. There is always a choice; you knew that when you first set foot on this path.”

  “You have not answered truly, Lord Hugh of Harrowfield,” said the Bright One. “You have not answered at all. Why do you take the girl away from her forest? Why does she go across the sea? What is it you want from her?”

  “Tell the truth,” said the Lady, and there was a warning in her voice.

  “I am not beholden to you, whoever you are,” said Red. “I will give you no answers.”

  “You’re a fool.” The Bright One threw up his hands in a pantomime of exasperation. “I thought you wanted to know what happened to your brother, I really did. But keep silent you will; if you cannot ask the right questions, you can expect no sensible replies.”

  The effect of this speech on the Brito
n was electrifying. He started forward, forgetting his damaged leg, stumbled and half fell; then he forced himself back upright, his face dewed with sweat. Something new had awoken in his pale, cold eyes.

  “My brother!” he gasped. “You know about my brother! Tell me!”

  “Ah—ah—ah—not so fast,” said the Bright One, slyly. “No information comes free, not down here. Besides, it’s she who can tell you, not I.” He flicked a long finger in my direction. “That’s why you want her, isn’t it? Not because she’s alone, and helpless, and needs protection; but for the information she can give you. And give it she can; she saw him, she talked with him, and he gave her the thing you guard so jealously in your pocket there. Ask her, she’ll tell you all you want to know about your precious brother; aye, and some you don’t want to know besides.”

  “The girl cannot talk,” said Red, and I could tell he was fighting to keep his voice under control, “or will not. You say she spoke with my brother; she does not speak now.”

  “Oh, she speaks well enough,” said the Lord lightly. “We hear her. She asks us to stop tormenting you. She says you’re too stupid to be dangerous.”

  “But I can hear nothing,” said Red. “She is silent. She is always silent.”

  The Lady looked at him. “That is because you have not learned how to listen,” she said. “But she will speak to you one day. Are you good at waiting?”

  Red looked wildly from one to the other.

  “Just tell me,” he said. “Does my brother still live? Will I find him?”

  But the torches were starting to fade, and the bright folk with them, and the traces of laughter and rustling silk and the faint notes of the harp seemed to dissipate upward in the cool dampness of the cave, fragile as the perfume of an autumn flower.

  The Lady stood before me, when all others had gone.

  “Take this to light your way, daughter of the forest,” she said. “You told me you were tired of being strong. Maybe you will not need to be so strong, now.” She placed a tiny around candle, herb scented, in my open hand. She turned to the Briton.

  “You hurt her with your unthinking words,” she said, and her eyes had lost any warmth they had once had. “Make sure she is not hurt again.” And before he could draw breath, she turned and was gone.

  We made our way up to the surface in complete silence, our hands touching so as not to lose one another in a profound darkness, relieved only by the dimly flickering candlelight. I held the tiny light in the palm of my hand; it smelled of rosemary, of meadowsweet and caraway. Like the sharing of an apple, it too was full of hidden meanings. I wondered, not for the first time, just what game the Fair Folk were playing.

  Up in the outer cave, it was freezing cold, for a sharp breeze was blowing in from the east. Our clothes were still damp from the rain, and the cloak was not much better. It would be an uncomfortable night. Not that sleep seemed possible anyway. My mind was turning things over and over, and would not let me rest. I lay down on my side of the cave and closed my eyes, but I could not stop shivering. And I thought, his brother! I should have seen it. His brother! No wonder he pursues this quest so single-mindedly. And then I thought, Lord Hugh. Lord Hugh of—of somewhere. How did they know his name? He certainly didn’t seem like a lord of anywhere, with his cropped hair and his well-worn clothes, and the way his friends spoke to him, as to an equal. On the other hand, though, I considered how my father had warned his men to make sure Simon remained alive that night. He had been a prisoner of some consequence; a person of future value as a bargaining tool, maybe. So perhaps his brother really was Lord Hugh of somewhere or other. I thought Red suited him better. By the Lady, it was cold. I wished dawn would come; but my mind shrank from the problems of the next day. I rolled over, trying to make myself comfortable.

  “You’re shivering,” said the Briton from the other side of the cave. “Best come over and lie by me. That cloak will cover us both.” But I shook my head, drawing the wet cloak about me tighter. After what had been done to me, I did not think I would ever be able to lie by a man, not even to sleep, not even with somebody I trusted. And I did not trust him, with his cold eyes and his silences.

  “You need not be afraid of me,” he said. “It would be a lot warmer.” But I shrank in on myself, wrapped my arms around my chest, drew my knees up to my stomach, made myself small under the cloak. I stared at the candle; it still burned, tiny and golden, in the space between us. There was silence for a while.

  “Suit yourself,” said Red. He lay on his back, staring up at the vaulted roof of the cave, and the candlelight flickered on his high-bridged nose, and his set jaw, and his grim, tight mouth. I drifted in and out of a fitful sleep, with snatches of half-seen nightmares, with fragments of painful memory and visions of an unimaginable future. And every time I woke, I looked across to see him lying stretched out with his head on his pack, and his face white in the moonlight, and his eyes wide open. But once, waking, I found him sitting up, motionless, and staring toward the cave mouth. When I looked, there on a dark branch that stretched across the opening perched a perfect white owl, preening her feathers fastidiously with a delicate beak, regarding us from time to time with her shining, ancient eyes. I held my breath, watching her, and when at length she spread her great wings and rose to flight I sensed an end to things, a moving on and parting that would not be halted by any burning of magical herbs, by any intervention of human or spirit world. It was as inevitable as death, and I put my hands over my mouth, to keep silent.

  “What is it,” said Red in a whisper, “what is this fire in the head, that will not let me rest?” I glanced across at him; but it was not to me that he was speaking.

  Toward dawn, we both fell into an exhausted sleep. It was as well that, when the first rays of sunlight began to spread across the sky, it was one of his own that found us, and not Seamus’s men. I came to with a start, and was getting shakily to my feet, and so was he, but more slowly because of his leg; we had both been woken by a rustling in the bushes outside. There was scarcely time for thought. Then we heard the call of a seabird, very close by; and Red amazed me by cupping his hands to his mouth and echoing the same call. It was a signal; and a minute later a figure with flaxen hair, with stained traveling clothes and well-worn boots, appeared in the cave mouth, parting the greenery to step rather breathlessly inside.

  “A steep climb,” said Ben, for it was the Briton’s companion, bending now to catch his breath, hands on knees. And after him, the other man, John. He looked at me, then at Red, his expression quizzical.

  “You’ve still got her, then,” he observed.

  Red frowned. “I told you to go on without me,” he said. “What of Redbeard and his men? Were you not pursued?”

  Ben grinned. “We were; but we’re quick and quiet, and we had a few tricks up our sleeve. There was a small problem in the cove, but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  “I told you to go on without us,” repeated Red. It sounded as if he didn’t like being disobeyed. Myself, I had never been so pleased to see anyone as I was those two. At least now there was some chance of getting him down the cliff in one piece, even with that leg.

  “We stood offshore overnight,” said John, sounding not the least apologetic.

  “Rough enough to turn your guts inside out, it was,” added Ben picturesquely. “So here we are. You may want to kill yourself being a hero, but don’t expect us to help you.”

  “The boat’s waiting under the rocks down below,” said John. “I’d say we’ve time enough before full dawn; with luck we be away before they’re stirring. But we need to move now, and quickly. Lucky we found you so soon.” Red said nothing, but fumbled for his pack, and limped forward.

  “Wonderful,” said Ben, looking at the makeshift bandage, and at Red’s face. “Just how did you expect to get away without us? You wouldn’t have made it halfway down this track; it’s steep as a church roof and crumbling away.”

  “We’d have managed,” said Red. His companions looke
d at me, and at each other, but no more was said.

  As we left the cave, I looked around for the remains of the candle, for its herbal scent still hung lightly on the morning air. But I was too late. It was Red who bent, awkwardly, to lift the small remnant of beeswax from the rock, to hold it in his hand a moment, before slipping it into a pocket.

  “Nonsense, of course,” he said to himself. The others were at the cave entrance, Ben keeping a lookout, John clearing away branches to make a safer path. “Nothing but dreams. And yet, such dreams. A man could lose his mind in this accursed country.”

  Then he turned and went out, and I followed him, since that seemed to be the only thing to do.

  Chapter Eight

  I wondered, later, why it did not break my heart to go away across the sea, far from the forest, leaving no sign my brothers could read, no map or chart by which they might find me. The boat went east, and perhaps a little south; I supposed that we were heading for Britain. But where? Had I been able to think, had I been myself, that would have been a day almost beyond bearing. But the sea, as well as being wide beyond imagining, was stirred by freakish winds, and before long I was lying across the side of the small sailing boat, retching convulsively, as my body rejected what little food it had in it. Between the spasms, I heard the caustic comments of the two men, Ben and John, and the dour boatman who held the tiller. Red kept himself busy and said nothing. I wondered how much he’d let them get away with, before he decided to inform them that I could understand their jokes and curses. For all this, they took their turns in holding my head, and wiping my face, and shielding me from the wind. The voyage seemed to take forever, and I vowed to myself that when at last I returned home, that would be the one and only time I would ever go by water again. I felt so wretched, I hardly thought beyond my churning gut and my aching head. And so my homeland slipped away, and I scarcely felt the pain of parting.