Den of Wolves

by Juliet Marillier

  ‘Doesn’t want to? Why not?’

  ‘Offered to cut his hair for him once or twice and he said no. Asked Gormán why they don’t let the man wash and shave, and Gormán said it’s Bardán’s own choice not to. Odd. If he’d clean himself up, maybe they’d give him somewhere better to sleep.’

  ‘That’s like an old tale,’ Blackthorn murmurs. ‘A sort of curse. Don’t wash or cut your hair or nails for seven years, and you can have your sweetheart back. Or, if you would win the treasure, let not so much as one drop of water touch your skin from Imbolc to Lughnasad.’

  ‘Hope the treasure wasn’t a woman,’ I said. ‘The fellow would be a bit stinky after all that time. She might thank him for his patience but say no, thanks.’

  ‘She might enjoy giving him the long-postponed bath.’

  ‘If you could smell Bardán, you wouldn’t say that.’ I think about the wild man in his rickety hut, with the rain pouring down and the wind blowing fit to lift the roof off. ‘Don’t understand why they hate him so much. I know he walked off and left the heartwood house half-built. But that might not have been his fault. Sounds like he fell into that other place, the fey place, by accident. And he came back, didn’t he? Came back to finish the job. Which they want him to do. So why treat him like he’s dirt?’ I remember something. ‘Forgot to tell you. Lady Flidais asked if you can keep a special eye on the girl while she’s away. Donagan said.’

  ‘Cara? She’s here most days anyway. I don’t know how I can keep more of an eye on her than I’m doing already.’

  ‘Lady Flidais said you could go over there and stay for a bit, if you wanted. Easier to watch over the girl. And . . .’

  ‘And what? You know how much I’d hate that.’

  ‘Be safer. With this trouble in the south. Plenty of guards, even with the prince taking a big escort.’

  ‘With what’s happened at Cloud Hill, I’d have thought it was an appropriate time for Master Tóla to fetch his daughter back home,’ Blackthorn says. ‘But he won’t know about Oran and Flidais going away. Not unless someone’s ridden up there today with the news, and that seems unlikely in this rain. Besides, you would have met them on your way down.’

  ‘I can tell him what’s happened when I do go back. Won’t be tomorrow. My guess is it’ll stay wet a few days. About the girl. Want me to make myself scarce if she comes over here? Could be hard not to let slip I’ve been working for her father.’

  ‘If she comes, and if she asks, just tell her the truth. I take it Tóla has no idea you live with the local wise woman. And since he hasn’t visited his daughter since she first came to Winterfalls, he won’t know that Cara’s decided she’d rather spend her time with Emer and me than with Flidais and her ladies.’

  ‘Only thing is, if I tell her about the heartwood house and Tóla finds out, I could lose the job. And then there’d be nobody to watch over Bardán.’

  ‘Who’s Tóla going to find to replace you?’ Blackthorn gives me a smile. ‘Nobody else could do what you’re doing. Sounds like you’re building the whole thing almost single-handed. If the man has any wits, he’ll recognise that.’ She gets up. ‘Time for bed. I’m tired enough to sleep soundly even with Mathuin marching around in my head.’

  Turns out she’s wrong. She falls asleep quick enough, but she tosses and turns with bad dreams. Mutters and curses and once or twice shouts out, all without waking up. Covers on the floor. Pillow awry. Don’t want to wake her if I don’t have to. I get up, kneel by her bed, put the blanket back over her. Her face is all wet with tears. I dab them away with a corner of the blanket. Settle myself on the floor beside her. Wrap both my hands around one of hers. Hum a bit of that tune I’ve heard Bardán singing: Every birdling in the wood . . . When she’s quiet, when her breath’s not a sob anymore but peaceful, I rest my head on the bed next to her. Folk are easy hurt, no doubt about that. Easy wounded. Easy broken. There’s poor Bardán, and that boy Cully and his mother. There’s young Blackthorn, sent away from home when she was only ten. Wish I could mend them. Wish I could mend them all.

  13

  ~Cara~

  Cara loved the rain, loved the many feelings of it on her skin. Rain could be soft, like a mother’s touch. It could be as hard as a punishing whip. It could be as warm as a sunny morning or cold enough to set ice in your bones. Walking in the woods in a rainstorm she could feel the trees breathing deep, stretching their roots into the damp soil, reaching out their leaves to catch the wet. She could feel how thirsty they were and she rejoiced with them, letting the rain soak her to the skin and turn her hair into a mad, tangled mop. She would take off her shoes and slosh through the mud, and not care at all about the woeful state of her skirt. That was the kind of thing Aunt Della would say, woeful state. It was the kind of thing the servants at Winterfalls might mutter to each other, just loud enough for her to overhear.

  Blackthorn wouldn’t say it. Blackthorn would tell her to put her shoes by the fire to dry out, and give her a cloth to wrap around her hair, and suggest it might be a good idea to tuck up her skirt next time she went paddling in mud puddles. She wouldn’t tell Cara to hang up her own cloak, she’d just expect it. And if Blackthorn was too busy to listen, she’d say so straight out. But she’d promise to find time later, and she’d keep the promise.

  Today the rain was coming down in sheets and the fields between Winterfalls and Dreamer’s Wood were dotted with little lakes. And Prince Oran’s household was bustling with activity, with the prince and Lady Flidais about to head off for court, some folk going with them, some folk staying home to look after the house and the farm, lots of guards on duty, more than usual, as if a war far to the south might come all the way here, which was just silly. Nobody noticed when Cara put on her cloak and headed out along one of the farm tracks. There were good climbing trees up the rise; she knew most of them now. This old yew was a friend, ready to accept her hands and feet on its massive twisted trunk, welcoming her with its many spots to sit and think. Secret spots. The yew was full of surprises. She took off her shoes and climbed barefoot to a high perch. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, laying her cheek against the yew’s trunk.

  On a fine day you could get a wide view from here. Today the rain veiled everything. She could make out Dreamer’s Wood, a darker haze, and the water lying on the fields, and cattle huddling under the little groves that dotted the landscape, hazel, willow, apple. The settlement lay beyond the walls of the prince’s establishment, a scatter of cottages around the more substantial forms of the smithy, the weaver’s, the baker’s, the brewer’s. The mill stood by itself in farmland. Within the prince’s walls, closer at hand, grooms were leading a steady stream of horses from stables to gate. Men-at-arms, dressed for a journey, rode their own horses down to the courtyard. She narrowed her eyes. Was that the man who’d been at the cottage yesterday, the one with the dog tattoo? Cúan, hound, that was his name. But no. This was a different man, darker, and the facial marking was different too, with a strong, sharp line emphasising an already beak-like nose. This one was marked like a bird of some kind, maybe a hawk. She’d never seen him at Winterfalls before. But he wasn’t sneaking around like the other one, he was riding openly with the prince’s guards. Going to court with them, it looked like. She’d mention it to Blackthorn. Only it looked as if nobody would be bothered to escort her over to the cottage today. They were all too busy.

  ‘It’s an opportunity,’ Cara said to the ancient yew. ‘I could walk out that gate and over to Dreamer’s Wood, and instead of visiting Blackthorn I could simply keep going all the way to Wolf Glen. I could do it, I know I could. And when I got there I wouldn’t even need to let Father see me. I could stay under the trees until I was right near the barn, and I could just slip in and visit Gormán and Conn. I could ask Gormán to tell me the truth. Why Father doesn’t want me there. What’s going on. It would be easy. Nobody would even miss me. Mhairi’s not going to care. And who else is there?’ Donaga
n was going to court with the prince, Deirdre and Nuala were going with Lady Flidais, the nursemaids were going to look after the little boy. That did leave quite a few folk at Winterfalls, but none of them had shown much interest in Cara. Most of them only saw her at meals, or occasionally in passing. Anyway they’d be tired and out of sorts after all the fuss. She could do it. She should do it. Her father hadn’t come to visit her once. Not once.

  She watched as the stream of horses and riders slowed to a trickle and stopped. She watched as the rain eased slightly and a hint of watery sunlight brightened the cloudy sky. In her mind she heard Blackthorn’s voice. Don’t act unwisely, Cara. Think it through. Hadn’t she promised she wouldn’t try to run away again, at least not without telling Blackthorn first?

  She didn’t want to think it through. Her feet needed to go. They itched to walk, to stride, to run for home. It was Blackthorn’s fault, and practical, cautious Emer’s, that her mind filled up with all the reasons not to go. Getting there and back on foot would take up most of the day. She might get Gormán in trouble. Her father’s guards might see her, and then Father would be angry and do something even worse than making her stay at Winterfalls. Send her to court, for instance, where there wouldn’t even be Blackthorn and Emer and Dreamer’s Wood. Anyway, the truth was that soon enough someone at Winterfalls, probably Mhairi with her wretched yappy little dog, would notice she wasn’t anywhere to be found. And then there’d be a stupid fuss, and they’d ask Blackthorn, and Blackthorn would guess where she’d gone.

  ‘A pox on it,’ Cara muttered, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against the tree. ‘A pox on being sensible. I’m going home and I’m not letting anyone stop me.’

  14

  ~Bardán~

  Wet. Wet and cold. The floor of his hut is a quagmire. His bedding is clammy. The wind pokes chill fingers through every crack in the place. Him, a master builder? Hah! Can’t even mend the holes in this miserable hovel. Fingers don’t work. Hands don’t work. Useless cripple. His father’s years of patient training, wasted. That lost time among the Others, that crushing, silent time, all for nothing. What in God’s name is the point of this? Or is the point that there’s no point, no ending, only the dark and the cold and the stone of dread deep in the belly?

  In the dark, trembling and wretched, he can’t stop thinking of that story, the tale Grim was telling him, about the Red Giant. Never finished it. Had to be a sad story. Had to be. But he wanted the ending now. Needed the tale to finish.

  ‘Is it gold?’ he whispers. ‘No, it is not gold. Is it silver? No, it is not silver, nor jewels, nor land nor animals nor a fleet of ships nor a kingdom. It is a treasure far more precious than any of these. It is . . . it is . . .’

  The answer is in him somewhere, deep down, hidden away. He knows it’s there, if only he could find it, if only he could fight a way through this fog in his mind. Not just the answer to the Red Giant’s question. But the last piece of the puzzle. The missing part of him.

  Dawn breaks at last. His legs won’t bend, his arms ache, sitting up half kills him. There’ll be no making a fire out there; the rain’s still coming down and the wood is soaked. And Grim won’t be coming. It’s too wet for him to work. Without Grim, the day stretches ahead long and empty and hopeless. Nobody to listen. Nobody to hear. Nobody to tell tales and pass the time of day with him over a meal. He did not know how much he had missed those things until Grim brought them back.

  Up, wretch, he tells himself. Or have you sunk so low that you’ll piss in your bed for fear of the world outside the door? He forces himself to stand. His joints are an old man’s this morning. A hundred years old. Out, he orders himself.

  It’s a matter of pride to walk a certain distance from his hut, rain or no rain, before he empties his bladder. There’s a privy down by the barn, but he’s not allowed to use that any more than he can go in and sleep warm next to the animals or cook himself a hot meal over the little hearth Gormán and Conn use, in their quarters. How the master must despise him! Though not as much as he loathes Tóla.

  The rain hammers down with furious intent. It floods over the roof of the hut and pours off, a relentless waterfall. The track to the barn has become a rushing stream. Every bird in the forest must be hiding away, seeking shelter in the dark recesses of the trees. Perhaps they call out. Perhaps they cry, No more, no more! Our small ones are drowning in the nest! But their voices are lost in the roar of the deluge.

  Back in the hut, he considers his damp pallet. He could huddle there, wrap his arms around himself, squeeze his eyes shut and wait out the endless time until – until what? Until the rain stops? Until Grim comes back? Until the heartwood house is finished and he can leave this place forever?

  ‘Until I find what he took from me,’ Bardán mutters, wondering where the thought came from. Realising, a moment later, that he was thinking of the Red Giant and the unfinished tale. ‘Until I find my treasure.’

  Grim told him once that when you felt sad or angry or hopeless, a story could help. A story could lead you into a different world for a while. It might be a world where a foolish youngest son could turn into a brave and clever hero, or a beaten woman could end up as a wise leader of folk. And when the story was ended and that world was gone, you still had the idea of it inside you. Like a flame that didn’t go out even when the bad things rattled and swirled and screamed, and worse, oh, much worse, when they whispered and goaded and tormented.

  He could tell a tale now. That’s what Grim would say he should do. He tries to imagine Grim here in the hut, sitting by him, solid and strong. Grim’s not a handsome man. But he has truth and kindness in his gaze, and a steady pair of hands. He’s told Grim his father’s story, the part he knows, the part he remembers. It’s a tale as strange as anything you could make up. But true; sad and true. After his father and mother came out of that place, the Otherworld he supposes it was, they were happy after their fashion. His father had a deft touch with wood, so precise and clever that folk called it uncanny. But they paid for his work all the same, and there was always food on the table. They did not live in the settlement of Longwater, but in the forest above it, on the western side of Wolf Glen. Bardán’s father built the cottage. Snug and warm it was, not like this wretched place. Bardán’s mother made it cosy, the walls hung with her embroideries of strange and wondrous things: ships sailing to far islands surrounded by long-toothed sea creatures; a man with wings, flying over a great settlement of flat-roofed houses, and tiny folk in red gazing up and waving. And birds, always birds. She dyed the wool herself, finding the materials in the forest, making colours there were no names for; rich, remarkable hues. Bardán had loved those pictures. What had happened to them? Where had they gone?

  He sees the image again, as when he told Grim the tale. Himself and his father, side by side at his mother’s grave. His father ashen-faced, silent, robbed of words. The emptiness in his own heart, as if all the joy and laughter had been ripped out of him. Her soft voice echoing through his mind, singing his song, the lullaby he had heard every night since he was too small to remember. None shall harm this child of mine . . . Ten-year-old Bardán hummed the tune, there by the turned-over soil and the sad bunch of wildflowers they’d laid on it, and suddenly there were tears streaming down his father’s cheeks, and a great sob came out of him, a sound so terrible that Bardán’s heart flinched as if a knife had gone into it. His father sank to his knees, hands over his face. Young Bardán wanted to comfort him, but he stood frozen, hardly able to think. And in the woods all around, the birds broke out in song. So, she is gone, they seemed to say. She loved us, and she is gone.

  That day is still clear and bright in Bardán’s memory, though so much else has faded away. The day of mourning. The day of loss. His father digging the grave. Carrying her out of the house, cradled in his arms. Laying her to rest, wrapped in a fine blanket of her own weaving. Filling in the grave. Covering her up. The earth on her face, on her
closed eyes, on her white, white skin.

  ‘Bardán? Got food for you.’ Gormán’s there, banging on the door of the hut.

  Bardán pushes the door open a crack. It’s light outside, or as light as it can be with the rain still pissing down and the sun barely up.

  ‘Open up, will you? I’m getting wet.’

  Bardán opens the door further, takes the covered bowl Gormán’s holding.

  ‘No work today,’ Gormán says. ‘Grim won’t be coming in this weather. You want to warm up later, come down by the barn and I’ll find you some dry firewood. Get you another blanket.’

  Gormán’s a mystery. Seems like he could be a kind man if he wanted to. Makes Bardán wonder what hold Tóla’s got over the fellow, to have him doing the master’s bidding even when it means being cruel and unreasonable. Wasn’t Gormán once his friend? Or as close to a friend as anybody got? Now, when he looks at the man, he sees someone he can’t trust. ‘Thanks,’ he mutters, not wanting to accept the unusual favour, but knowing he’d be a fool not to.

  ‘No wandering off,’ Gormán cautions. ‘Don’t think Grim not being here makes any difference to the rules. You’re either here, or you’re down by the barn, or you’re in between. Nowhere else, understand? I’m too busy to keep an eye on you all day.’ He’s off without waiting for an answer.

  Where would he go? Everything depends on following the wretched rules. Everything depends on finishing the heartwood house.

  But then, today he’s not building. Can’t, because with Grim gone he has no hands. So it makes no difference where he goes or what he does. And since Gormán can’t watch him all day, who’s to know if he goes walking in the rain when he’s finished this meagre breakfast? If he shuts the door of his hovel behind him, they’ll think he’s inside sleeping, or weeping, or going quietly madder than he is already. That’s if they bother thinking anything at all. A man’s allowed to visit his mother’s grave, isn’t he? And his father’s, right beside it. A loss almost beyond bearing, that was. If it hadn’t been for Dáire . . .