Tower of Thorns

by Juliet Marillier

  “My second favor,” Donncha said, as if I had not spoken, “is that you do not talk to Lady Geiléis about our visit today. If she asks you, you might tell her we went to see some local folk and that you did not hear anything useful—the truth, as far as it goes. I would ask you not to mention that I have been visiting Ana, or that some members of our household have been providing supplies for her. If you could keep quiet about this, that would be in Ana’s best interests.”

  “And yours.”

  “Mine don’t matter, Mistress Blackthorn. But Fursa was my friend. My only friend in a very long time. I’m honor bound to see his wife and child right. I need to be sure they’ll be looked after as they deserve, and I’m not sure I will be able to see to that myself. I’ve done a pretty poor job thus far. You’ll have noticed that.”

  He meant the run-down house; Ana’s exhaustion. But it was a long ride, and Geiléis kept her retainers on a tight rein. “Ana trusts you; she relies on you. That much is plain. If her husband could see what you are doing for her, I’m sure it would make him happy. Donncha, I can’t promise to speak to the monks myself—I’m not only a woman, I’m a wise woman, and I don’t imagine Father Tomas and the brethren would be inclined to do me any favors. But I can make sure a message reaches them on Midsummer Day or thereabouts, letting them know about Ana.” Just how I was going to manage that—ensuring a message was delivered after I had left Bann—I could not think. Maybe a pigeon could carry it. Grim would know. But he was the one person I could not ask.

  “Thank you, Mistress Blackthorn.”

  “You took a risk today. Letting me in on your secret, not knowing if I’d rush straight back and tell Geiléis everything. I’d never dreamed before this afternoon that any of you had a life beyond being her loyal retainers.”

  “That is our life,” said Donncha, and there was a sad acceptance in his voice that jolted my heart.

  “But it need not be, surely.” I found myself unable to let the argument go. The men-at-arms in the royal household, and those in Prince Oran’s establishment at Winterfalls, had their wives and children living with them. They went out into the community, both on and off duty; they were not forbidden to make friends.

  Donncha was spared the need to reply, for we turned a corner and found our path blocked by a huge mound of stones and earth. The run-off from the earlier storm had brought down part of the hillside; there was no way around. Some malign spirit had decided I was not going to be present when Flannan divulged the contents of his manuscript.

  I uttered a curse foul enough to make Donncha glance at me, brows raised.

  “No way forward,” he said. “Our best choice will be to go back to the last fork in the path and take a route downhill toward the river. It’s easy enough for the horses and not a great deal longer than this one. I’m sorry, Mistress Blackthorn. It does look as if we’ll be late. But surely they will wait for you.”

  Geiléis wouldn’t wait, I thought as we turned the horses and headed back the way we had come. Perhaps it was unfair of me, but I was starting to think the Lady of Bann cared only for herself. She had come to Cahercorcan full of tears and woe on behalf of her poor beleaguered people, yet she made no effort to help those very people when they were in need. She didn’t like her men going to visit them and she didn’t seem to visit them herself. Instead she stayed in her house, often in her chamber, doing nothing much that I could see. She must have resources, or she would not be able to keep her household going—St. Olcan’s might be helping with food, but it surely wasn’t providing fodder for ten or eleven horses as well. So why didn’t she make an effort to do what a leader was supposed to do? Did the curse work on her mind in such a way that she could not act as a chieftain should? Or was the curse just a convenient excuse for being lazy and irresponsible?

  We took the route by the river. Dusk had fallen by the time we came in sight of the Tower of Thorns, and the creature was silent. We were tired and so were the horses.

  “I’m so sorry, Mistress Blackthorn,” Donncha said as we rode up the forest path toward Geiléis’s house. “I did not intend this.”

  “A mudslide could hardly be your fault,” I said. “And neither is my ill temper. I have enjoyed your company today. Just when I was starting to believe all people were selfish bastards, you proved me wrong.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured, clearly taken aback.

  “I’ll honor your two requests. You have my word. As for Midsummer Eve, let’s hope Flannan has all the answers we need.”

  34

  Grim

  “What?” Head fills up with pictures. Spurting blood, shattered bone. I can hear it. Smell it. Makes my gut churn. Can’t have heard right.

  “That’s what it says.” Flannan sounds calm, like the scholar he is. He can’t keep still, though. Twisting his fingers, folding his arms, unfolding them, shifting around. Blackthorn’s got her fists clenched and her jaw tight. Look in her eyes tells me she’s working herself up to be brave, to say, Cut off his head? All right, why not? As if she did that sort of thing every day. As if it’s easy. Which it isn’t. Not without a very good weapon, a lot of strength and plenty of practice. Geiléis is strung up tight, has been since I got here. Even Senach’s looking nervy, though his hands are steady on the mead flask.

  “Tell us that last part again.” Blackthorn sounds stern. She’s got a look about her that scares me. Don’t try to argue with me, that look says, plain as plain.

  “The woman must cut the thorn hedge,” Flannan goes on, “which will give way to her blade. As soon as she passes through, the thorns will close behind her. She must enter the tower alone and willingly. If these conditions are not met, the curse cannot be undone.” He pauses. “I suppose the fey woman who pronounced the curse wanted to rule out the possibility of someone taking an army to slay the monster. That would be far too easy.”

  Blackthorn clears her throat. “If this account is accurate,” she says, “it’s not a monster. It’s a young man ensorcelled into a monstrous shape. I can’t decide if that will make it harder or easier to do it.”

  “The scribe writes that she must climb the steps to the high chamber, and there she will find the monster—Lily’s sweetheart, Ash,” Flannan says. Which he’s told us already, but Blackthorn did say she wanted to hear it again. “She must use her blade to cut off his head. Then the curse will be broken.”

  For a bit nobody says a word. Then I speak up. “You can’t ask Blackthorn to do that. It’s a job for a trained warrior. Needs strength and skill with a weapon. Ask any of your men-at-arms, they’ll tell you the same. This creature would kill her before she could strike her first blow.”

  “Grim,” says Blackthorn, quiet-like, “if I do it, I do it. If I don’t, I don’t. The only one who can make that decision is me.” She turns to Geiléis, who’s hardly said a word since Flannan told us the story. “This tale raises quite a few questions. What happened to the girl, Lily? If the document’s so old, she couldn’t still be living. But it says she’ll live to see her lover freed. And, curses being what they are, unless we get every detail right, our attempt to undo the thing may fail.” She’s got that look she gets when she’s trying to work out a puzzle in her head. Staring at Geiléis, waiting for an answer.

  “I don’t believe there’s a Lily in my ancestry,” Geiléis says. “The name seems very unlikely. I cannot check it. This all happened such a long time ago, and there are no family records. If Flannan’s rendition of this document is accurate, it does not state that Lily must be present for the spell to be broken. Indeed, it’s indicated quite clearly that another woman must perform the deed, and that nobody else can go into the tower with her when she does it. So even if Lily has lingered on far beyond her years—implausible, but maybe possible by magic—she cannot be present when her sweetheart is freed. We should not let thoughts of her distract us from the business in hand. Do you have further questions, Blackthorn?”

&
nbsp; “Even if she herself is long gone,” says Senach, “Lily would surely have wanted her man released from his suffering. The two were cruelly punished for what was, on her part, a quite innocent action.”

  “But would she want it at such a cost?” Blackthorn’s still thinking hard. “If I cut off his head, he’ll be dead.”

  “Think how you’d feel,” I say. I’m remembering that picture scratched on the stone, the one the creature threw down. I’m seeing the stick figure crouched against a box, and the other one with an ax. That’s what it means. Head on the block. Ax ready to chop. “Someone you love, turned into a monster and shut up in a tower for two hundred years. Screaming all summer, so you can’t forget even for an instant. If you were Lily, wouldn’t you decide he might be better off dead than having that go on and on forever?”

  Blackthorn nods. She knows what it’s like to watch someone suffer and not be able to help, same as I do. “But she was only a young girl,” she says. “She might not have thought it through. And since the curse is magical in nature, he might not die. He might spring back to life, head and all, as young and handsome as he was two hundred years ago.”

  I catch Geiléis’s smile, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time. “I had forgotten,” she said. “A happy ending. A fairy-tale ending. I asked you once if you believed they were possible, Blackthorn. Your answer, I recall, was ‘sometimes yes and sometimes no.’ Which is it for Lily and Ash?”

  “How would I know?” Blackthorn sounds snappish. Who’d blame her? She’s the one who’s going to be risking her life, not Geiléis or Flannan or Senach or anyone else. Not even me, though if I could do it for her, I’d put my hand up without a second thought. She knows that.

  “I’m sorry.” Geiléis is sounding a bit steadier. “This is all quite distressing; I hope only that you will go ahead with this, even knowing the confronting nature of the task. Most women would lack the courage to undertake such a quest. But you, I believe, are brave enough.”

  “Brave enough,” mutters Blackthorn. “Or stupid enough. Maybe both.”

  “We are fortunate, I think, that you are prepared to believe this tale,” Geiléis says. “A person of less imagination would simply dismiss it as impossible, for it is full of oddities. These small folk, whom I have never once set eyes on, apparently living in these woods and bound to serve the creature or see their captive king injured. And such a rare chance; only once in fifty years. How remarkable that this document has come to light just in time. No wonder I made so little impact on the thorns last summer. I knew nothing.”

  Not quite true. She knew about it having to be a woman, and on Midsummer Eve, and about it happening before. Makes me wonder. If this document’s been hidden away for two hundred years, and it’s in a foreign tongue and coded as well, who told her those things? How did anyone know anything, when the curse has that bit about people forgetting? I don’t say any of that. It’ll keep for when Blackthorn and me are on our own. She’s holding questions in too. See it on her face.

  “I suppose I’ll need a weapon,” she says. “I’ll speak to Onchú in the morning.”

  She’s going ahead with this. Made up her mind. That turns my bones to ice. Can’t go with her. Can’t stand beside her and protect her. Helpless. Useless. One thing I can do, though. Make sure she’s as ready as she can be. Means St. Olcan’s will have to do without me for now. Might not get to finish off the creatures for the roof. Might not get a look at Brother Galen’s book, not before midsummer, at least. I was looking forward to that. But she comes first, always. “I’ll talk to Onchú,” I say. “You don’t just need the right weapon; you need training.”

  “Training?” Blackthorn makes a face at me.

  “Not like cutting bread,” I say. “If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to do it right. Three days isn’t long. Start tomorrow, mm?”

  “If you say so. I suspect all the training in the world won’t make any difference. If the curse is meant to be broken, it will be broken. And if not, not.”

  “Still,” I tell her, “makes sense not to go in unprepared. Practice your skills; sharpen your tools; do the best job you can.”

  Blackthorn smiles, a good smile that lights up her face. I think of her in the tower, facing the monster all on her own, and it twists the heart in my chest. I give her a smile back. For a bit, it feels like just the two of us in the room.

  Then she says, “Flannan, I’d like a private word, if you have time. Will you be staying here tonight?”

  “Since it’s so late, I must request Lady Geiléis’s hospitality again, I fear.”

  “But of course. You’ve done us such an immense favor, Master Flannan, with this discovery . . . Senach has sleeping quarters prepared for you already, in anticipation of this.”

  “Thank you. Blackthorn, perhaps we might walk around the courtyard?”

  They get up and go out, the two of them. Leaving me with Senach and Geiléis, and the whole heavy weight of what Flannan’s told us, an odd tale indeed. Something about it doesn’t add up. Hope Blackthorn’s not long; I want to hear what she thinks.

  “I’ll take my leave,” I say. “Might stroll over to the stables and have a word with Onchú tonight, see about a weapon for Blackthorn. Sooner the better.”

  “Take a lantern,” says Senach. “Dau will have one in the kitchen. We don’t want you tripping and breaking a leg, so close to midsummer.”

  Funny how that sounds more like a threat than a warning. Got too much on my mind, not thinking straight. Tired too. Long day. Telling my story up at St. Olcan’s, that’s the part that wore me out, not climbing around on the roof. Felt good when I’d got it all out, cried some tears that have been a long time coming. Felt almost peaceful. Didn’t last long. She’s going to do it. She’s really going to do it. Hack through the thorns, rush up the tower, chop off the monster’s head. All by herself. Crazy. What if that thing Flannan translated is only a made-up story? What if it’s all a trick?

  Shut it, Grim. Get your big self over to the guards’ quarters and do the stuff you can do. And if Blackthorn’s out there having a heart-to-heart talk with Flannan, be glad she’s got a friend, a proper one who’s book-learned and clever. A man she’s known since she was young. A man who’s not carrying a burden on his back, a man who won’t lose himself in his own troubles. A man she can trust. What you think of him doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter one little bit.

  35

  Blackthorn

  “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts,” Flannan said. “Lady Geiléis will be devastated.”

  “I’m not. Not now I’ve heard the story. But you can’t deny the risk. Even if this creature was once a man, the curse transformed it. It could be all teeth and claws, and strong enough to snap me in two. But then, you probably don’t believe any of it. You always said the old tales were too fanciful to contain any grain of truth. So why aren’t you simply dismissing this whole thing? What do you care about Lady Geiléis’s feelings? It would make more sense for us to forget her and her monster and slip away south while everyone else is planning for Midsummer Eve. Wouldn’t it? We could do it as soon as Grim goes back up to St. Olcan’s.”

  We kept our voices to an undertone. Although the courtyard was deserted, Geiléis’s retainers had a habit of appearing without warning. Then there was Grim. If there was anyone I didn’t want to hear this conversation it was him.

  “I thought you wanted to do it,” Flannan said. “I thought you wanted to help her. Another day or two, it’s not long.”

  “I do. I did. Only . . . I think I’m missing something. It feels a bit too clear-cut, the appearance of this manuscript too timely, everything a little too neat. And . . .”

  “And what?”

  “I went out to visit some local people earlier today. That visit made me sad. Disillusioned. I never had a lot of faith in folk’s natural goodness, not even when I was young.
Didn’t have much cause to. But this . . . Since we came here, I’ve started thinking we’re all selfish bastards, every last one of us. Don’t care about anything but our own interests.”

  “That’s pretty harsh.”

  “There might be a handful of exceptions.” Prince Oran and Lady Flidais. Donncha, when he wasn’t under Geiléis’s thumb. Emer, the young woman I was training back at Winterfalls. Grim. “But they’re not enough to balance up the hate and selfishness and distrust. And I’m sick of dealing with it.” My promise to Conmael meant I must use my gifts only for good. It bound me to say yes to anyone who asked for my help. And it forbade me from leaving Dalriada or seeking revenge against my old enemy. Within days I would break that third part and head south with Flannan. As for the second part, I was having difficulty finding the will to help anyone. I wondered if it was really worth the effort. Especially when I might get myself killed trying.

  “Blackthorn,” said Flannan softly. He stopped walking and took my hands in his. “That doesn’t matter. None of it matters. You and I have a mission, and it’s far bigger than Geiléis and her monster in the tower. But you need to think this through. The time for us to leave is Midsummer Eve, as we planned. After you break the curse, everything will be confusion for a while. It’s the ideal time to slip away unnoticed. Provided Grim’s not around, that is.”

  “You can leave Grim to me. Just don’t say anything in front of him about what time on Midsummer Eve we’ll be attempting this. His work at St. Olcan’s isn’t finished yet, and if he plans to spend tomorrow teaching me how to chop off a man’s head, it most likely won’t be finished by Midsummer Eve. I’ll tell him he can fit in a half day’s work and still be back in time.” Now I was sounding as selfish and untrustworthy as the rest of humankind. And who, after all, was I to judge anyone? A worn-out, angry apology for a wise woman, who only did good deeds because Conmael’s agreement bound me to it. That solitary cottage deep in the woods, the one I sometimes imagined for myself, was sounding very appealing: a bolt-hole where I could live out my life and be as bitter and cantankerous as I wanted. “Only . . . I have a strange feeling about this. About Geiléis and the whole thing with the tower. As if there’s something more, something I need to know or it will all be a disaster.” Not to speak of having to lie to Grim and get away with it.