Daughter of the Forest

by Juliet Marillier

  Come down. Come down to me. They circled again, and I saw Richard reaching for the torch. Then down they glided to land on the platform close by me. They huddled together, eyes wild with confusion, webbed feet padding up and down on the rough boards.

  Now, Sorcha. Do it now.

  No time to ask questions. No time to gaze up into the darkening sky for another. I reached into the basket, grasped a shirt, flung it over the arching neck of the first great bird. The crowd muttered and whispered.

  Quickly, Sorcha. Where was he, where was Finbar? Out over the water still? Left behind, too weak to fly so far? Where was he? I drew out the next shirt, and the next.

  “What evil sorcery is this?” Richard’s voice was a snarl, and I heard the torch rasp from its socket as he gripped it in his hand. “What familiars does she call to her aid? All must burn! All!” And he touched the fire to the bottommost layer, where twigs of birch and willow twisted between the ash logs. There was a little crackling, and a flare of light. The crowd gasped as one.

  The fourth shirt. The fifth. And I held the last shirt in my hands, the very last, which had but one sleeve, and was stained with dirt and blood and tears. Quickly, Finbar. Quickly.

  The swans shuffled in an awkward group, stretching their long vulnerable necks to the sky. The shirts of starwort hung loosely about their great white bodies. Now, Finbar! My eyes went here and there, scanning the sky, scanning the crowd. I would not look down, down beneath my feet where the fire glowed, and spread, running up the length of one twig and another, fanned by the capricious breeze. I felt the heat on my feet and legs, the draft from the fire stirring my skirts. It was not quite pain; not yet. The swans edged away, the flames reflected ever stronger in their frightened eyes. The sky was dark; I could see no birds there. At the back of the crowd, people were jostling and exclaiming. I looked that way. Looked straight into a pair of eyes the color of shadows on ice; into a face I had seen in my dreams these many nights since. He was haggard with exhaustion, his face wild with terror and fury. He had a long, fresh scar on his left cheek, and bruises around his eye. He was elbowing his way fiercely through the crowd, heedless of whom he thrust aside. Behind him, two other men, one with flaxen hair, and the emblem of Harrowfield on his tunic. The second, young, tall, and well built. A man with hair like a field of barley in the summer sun, and eyes of periwinkle blue.

  “Lord Hugh,” folk were exclaiming. “Lord Hugh is returned.” And they were saying, “Simon. Look, it’s Master Simon!” Somewhere, a small dog was yapping hysterically, a sound not of fright or pain, but a canine fanfare of ecstatic welcome. The flames began to lick at the second tier of logs. I tried to lift one foot, then the other, out of their path. Now it was really hurting. Above me, the wind twisted and turned, a strange, meddlesome wind such as I had never seen before. And on its eddies, another swan came flying, slowly, so slowly, as if it barely had the strength to move its great wings. People pointed upward.

  “Let me through!” shouted Red. “Let me by!” But he was trapped by the surge of bodies, all craning to watch the swan, or to see the fire, and his voice was lost in the hubbub as they chattered and cried out in their excitement. The heat rose from the ash logs; the lone bird drifted downward, down to where I stood, clutching the last of my shirts of starwort. Beneath my bare feet, the wood was smoking. Quickly, Finbar, quickly. Now he was circling as if unsure where to land. Hurry. People began to move, to let Red through, perhaps because of the way he was shouting, perhaps because of the small sharp knife that had appeared in his hand. At the foot of the pyre, Richard stood motionless, watching me, blind to all but his moment of victory. The flames grew higher, steadily advancing. They had almost reached the first of the special faggots. Hot fire, that burns and glows and leaves nothing but bones behind.

  “Jenny!” shouted Red, pushing aside two of Richard’s men. “Jenny!” His face was ashen white. And I saw something glinting, something reflecting the firelight, high above the heads of the crowd. In a window of the house, overlooking the courtyard, an archer stood poised, bow drawn, finger ready on the string. He was not aiming at me, or at the sixth swan which now circled low over the heads of the crowd again. He was not aiming at Ben, or at the golden-haired man who followed his brother through the crowd of gaping, round-eyed folk. He was aiming at Hugh of Harrowfield, he who stood head and shoulders above the people around him, he whose bright hair, like some flag of war, made him a clear and easy target. Richard had told me, as he taunted me in my cell, that he wanted me out of the way before Red’s return. He had said he might create a delay. A diversion, Richard had called it. This was something more than a diversion.

  Nobody had seen. Nobody but me. I sensed rather than saw the slight movement of hand on bowstring, the tilt, the steady aim. My eyes went back to Red, as he struggled against the sea of bodies packed tight. My feet were in agony, and the hem of my gown was smouldering. And then a gust of wind came up, out of nowhere, and snatched the sixth shirt of starwort out of my hands and up, up into the air, far from reach. Red was trapped behind two guards, their solid forms blocking him from any movement. The archer went very still.

  I screamed. “Red, look out! Behind you!” My voice came out rasping, and broken, and weak from years of silence. But he heard me, and turned, and the arrow took him in the shoulder with a sickening thud.

  The enormity of what I had done was like a blow straight to the heart. After all this time, after everything, I had spoken. I had not been able to stop myself. I had broken the silence. There were flames everywhere; the platform by the pyre was starting to turn black. There were little fizzing, popping sounds from the uppermost layer of wood. I watched blankly as Red reached up behind him and snapped the shaft of the arrow in two, as if breaking a twig; and wrenched the other part out, teeth bared in a grimace of pain. Still he was shoving his way forward. And now, the crowd parted quickly to let him through, and he reached the foot of the pyre. Richard thrust out an arm to stop him, his features suffused with rage, and received in return a blow to the face that sent him reeling back into the crowd. Then Red jumped, jumped through the flames and the heat to the second tier of logs, booted feet agile on the smouldering wood, stepped to the top, slashed once, twice with the little knife at the ropes that bound me there. His face was white as death. The flames were licking at the highest logs. He grabbed me around the waist, slung me over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables, and leaped again, awkwardly this time, so that the two of us landed in a heap on the middle of the smouldering wooden platform which stood beside the pyre. An instant later there was a flaring, and a whooshing, and the fire began to take on an eerie green hue, its strange light illuminating the whole courtyard, playing on open mouths and startled eyes, shining on the figure of an archer carefully backing away from an open window, lighting up the staring features of Richard of Northwoods, on which rage now warred with fear.

  I felt Red’s arm close around me like a shield against the rest of the world. His mouth was against my hair, and his heart thumped violently under my cheek. I shut my eyes, and held onto his shirt with both hands, and wept. Now I had lost them, I had lost them all. How could I? How could I do it? How could I speak, after so long, after all this time, how could I let the words out, before the spell was broken? And yet I knew in my heart that I would not have stayed silent, for in that moment, the only thing that had mattered was for Red to be alive. I had saved him; but I had lost my brothers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The fire burned green and gold, and small explosions popped and crackled. There was a smell of scorched feathers. The crowd gave a great gasp, and another, and broke into a babble of sound. Under my cheek, Red’s shirt was wet with blood and tears. “It’s all right,” he said over and over. “It’s all right, Jenny, it’s all right.” Neither of us seemed able to move. Then, suddenly, I felt his arm tighten around my shoulders.

  “Lay a finger on her,” he said very softly, “and I’ll kill you.”

  “I’m her brother, you
fool,” said somebody in a tongue Red could not understand. I could not turn around, he held me so hard against him.

  “He can’t understand you, Diarmid.”

  I could not believe it, but Conor’s voice went on, translating calmly. “We are her brothers, and are come to take Sorcha home. We will do no harm, if safe conduct can be granted from your lands. Our sister has no further need of your protection.” For an instant, the arm tightened around me still further; and then he let go. I twisted around to be scooped up into Conor’s arms like a child, and soon they were all around me, Liam exclaiming, Diarmid cursing, Cormack and Padriac already armed with short swords deftly removed from a couple of men who now lay groaning at the foot of the steps. Diarmid was scanning the crowd, sizing up the opposition, measuring the distance to cover. I began to be aware that we were very exposed, up here on the platform, and that the boards not far from where we stood were starting to burn.

  “Were you planning to bleed to death or wait for the fire?” Ben appeared as if from nowhere, his hair bright gold in the light from the flames. He bent down and hauled Red to his feet, grimacing. “In case you hadn’t noticed, this thing’s burning. Here.” He put an arm under Red’s good shoulder and began half dragging his friend down the steps. Red looked back, just once. I had not thought it possible for him to turn any paler, but he had; and he had wiped every trace of expression from his features. The left side of his shirt was soaked with blood.

  “Come on, Red,” said Ben. “Your mother is here, and your brother. There’s no need for you to stay. Besides, a dead hero’s no use to anyone. As for you,” he glanced back over his shoulder in the general direction of my brothers, “my advice would be to get out of here as soon as possible. Make your way to the house. That should be safe for now. I’d take you there myself, but as you see…” And they were gone.

  Cormack made his way down the steps, sword in hand, with Conor close behind him carrying me, and the others at the rear.

  “Where’s Finbar?” I whispered, but nobody heard me. The noise was bedlam. Voices shouting, here and there a clash of swords, the crackling and roaring of the great fire as it consumed ash wood and sawn timber and all it could reach. The flames were monstrous now, towering high, edged with sparks of green and orange. The ledge where I had been standing was long gone, the pole burned through. Around us, the crowd surged forward, and there were men with daggers and swords, and fear in their eyes. There was no way through, no route to the safety of the house. My brothers had formed a tight ring about me, but the crowd was moving in, and the mood was turning ugly. There were those among them that had come to see a sorceress burn, and felt cheated. There were those that saw only that, suddenly, their enemy was in their midst, armed and dangerous. And there were Richard’s men, who had certain orders to carry out.

  “I can’t believe we’ve been saved only to perish at the hands of some British rabble,” growled Cormack, trying with little success to clear a path through the shouting, angry crowd. A man cursed at him, and Cormack raised the sword. Conor’s arms tightened around me.

  “It’s not looking good,” agreed Liam, swinging his arm out and downward to knock a man to the ground. Behind him, others were toppled by his fall. A group of guards in the colors of Northwoods began to advance on us.

  “Good people of Harrowfield!” A voice rang out, sharply authoritative. “You have witnessed a great wonder this night. A miracle, it could be said.” Slowly the crowd hushed, and turned. Seated on a tall piebald horse, straight-backed in his black robe, Father Dominic of Whitehaven fixed the people with stern gaze. There was a deathly silence. From the safe haven of Conor’s arms, I looked up. Why was Father Dominic here? Why had he come back?

  “This girl has come close to death. But you have seen the transformation here, how these young men have been brought back to human form by her faith and hope, and the good work of her hands. Surely the devil laid this evil affliction on them, and it is through God’s will that they are saved.”

  More muttering; heads shaken, heads nodding. I was tired. I was so tired. Where was Finbar? Where was…?

  “The hand of the Lord is on this young woman,” Father Dominic went on in measured tones that carried right across the courtyard. “You should count yourselves blessed that you have seen it. And be thankful that help arrived in time, for there nearly was a gross miscarriage of justice here tonight. The girl was not condemned to death. The charges against her were not proven; besides, who would condemn a child who has not the powers of speech to plead her innocence? I believed it imperative in the interests of justice for the case to be held over until her husband returned, and could speak for her. I conveyed this much to Lord Richard, before I was called away. Why he chose to announce another verdict to the folkmoot, and to enact the penalty so swiftly I intend to discover for myself in due course. Had it not been for the lady Anne, who rode out herself to reach me and question me today, I would have known nothing of this burning until it was too late. And the Lord’s mercy would not have been granted to these unfortunate young men.”

  I saw, now, that Lady Anne was beside him, seated on the little mare and clad in riding clothes. She looked very tired.

  “Where is the man who ordered this done?” asked Father Dominic, and I saw Richard’s men melt into the throng of people and disappear. There was a flurry of activity on the edges of the crowd, in the semidarkness.

  “What about him, then?” came a voice from somewhere in the crowd. “That fellow, the one that’s holding her. He’s the one from the woods, the fugitive, the Irish bastard we nearly caught that night. You can’t tell me he’s just here for a quiet visit. What about him?”

  Conor looked up and across the sea of bodies, and there was a sudden hush.

  “I am her brother,” he said quietly in the tongue they could understand. “We are all her brothers. Her silence kept the darkness from us. Her labors released us.”

  “Good people,” Lady Anne spoke, and there was a desperate weariness in her voice. “We have indeed seen wonderful and terrible things here at Harrowfield tonight. There are many questions to be asked, and answers given. You see that—that my sons are returned; both of my sons, and my heart is too full of gratitude to see any man hurt, or punished, or offered less than courtesy this night.” She was trying not to weep, her voice tightly controlled. “These young men are guests in my house, for now. I believe Jenny is innocent of any wrongdoing. The hand of God does not bestow its blessing thus on those that have guilt in their hearts. There will be time enough, in the morning, for explanations and reckonings. Now put away your weapons, go home to your beds, and be glad that no innocent blood was shed here in the heart of the valley. Rejoice with me, that my sons are home again.”

  There was a halfhearted cheer, and the people began to disperse, a little reluctantly. Many glanced our way; but the wild, haggard faces of my brothers with their fierce eyes were enough to frighten off anyone. Then men of the household came to escort us indoors, and into Lady Anne’s small parlor that she used when guests came. There was a fire, and lamps. Conor put me carefully down on a cushioned bench near the hearth. They were all there, Liam listening, tight-lipped, to Lady Anne, and Conor translating; Padriac turning a half-burned stick from the pyre over and over in his hands, touching and testing the residue that coated it; Diarmid and Cormack by me, naked swords still in their hands, and their eyes on the doorway. And by the far window, looking out, stood Finbar with his back to us. His right hand, spread flat against the stone wall, was thin and transparent as if sculpted from ice. And now I could see the legacy of that last shirt, the shirt with but one sleeve. For in place of his left arm, my brother still bore the strong shining wing of a great swan. He had been the last to return, and so, for all his life, he would carry this burden, the doom of the incomplete garment made with love and tears and blood. He made no sound; he would not turn toward me where I lay encircled by my brothers. And there were strong shields around his mind.

  I tried my voice ag
ain. After so long, it was not easy to make it work.

  “How did—I thought—?”

  Conor came over to kneel by my side.

  “Well. You’ve done it. Only just in time, it seems.” He had a crooked little smile on his face, but his eyes were very serious. “This lady tells me we are safe here; but for how long remains to be seen. For now, you must rest. It’s over at last.”

  “But—but I spoke, I spoke before the shirts—I did not keep silent! How is it that you are here, and the spell broken?” Still I could not believe that, after all, they had been saved. Are not the dooms of the Fair Folk set out and determined in every cruel detail, so that the least slip, the smallest deviation from the rules brings the whole thing collapsing around the hapless victims? How was it the spell could be undone, when I had cried aloud before ever the last shirt was slipped over Finbar’s neck?

  “You could not see it,” said Conor gently. “But these things have a way of working themselves out, when it is time. Have you forgotten the wind, the sudden wind that whipped that last shirt from your hands and up into the air? Who is to say that wind did not let this garment drop over Finbar’s neck, an instant before your cry rang out? The spell really is broken, Sorcha; all but…”

  We both turned to look at Finbar. I thought, this tale will live a long time, and will change over the years as it is told and retold. But he will always bear the evidence of its truth. He will never come back, not fully. He will always be torn between that world and this, neither completely of the one nor of the other. It will be his curse and his blessing.

  “Jenny, how are you? But perhaps I should call you by your real name, Sorcha, is it?” Lady Anne had moved closer. “I can hardly believe what I have seen; and yet I must believe it. Father Dominic is right; it is a miracle, and we have been blessed to witness it. And now you have your voice back, by God’s will. My dear, you have turned this household upside down today.”