‘Nightshade,’ says Eirne, ‘pass Liobhan her instructions, please.’
The sage draws out a little scroll from the folds of her voluminous robe and passes it to me. I unroll it and read the contents. It’s not at all what I expected. There’s nothing heroic on it at all. Indeed, it seems meaningless. Dance three times with a man who doesn’t like to dance. Fashion a doll from borrowed cloth, and let that doll’s eyes see the future of Breifne. What can that possibly mean? Sewing is not my strong point, never has been, and I know enough to understand that I can’t ask anyone for help. Which is a shame, since Banva would make a perfect doll in the time it took me to do a load of washing in return. What is this queen trying to do, make me into something I’ve never been and have no intention of becoming? Help build a small house from sand or earth, then watch the water wash it away. This is plain stupid.
Brocc has been given a scroll of his own. But he’s taken only a moment to read his. He stands beside me, not saying a word.
‘I don’t understand the purpose of these tasks.’ It takes all my powers of self-restraint to stay courteous. ‘But if they are truly essential then I will do my best to complete them. They are . . . not at all what I expected.’
‘By the time you have completed them, you will understand their purpose,’ says Eirne. ‘You should go now. Rowan will see you through the wall. Perhaps your friend is no longer waiting. He had a despondent air about him.’
That catches Brocc’s attention at last. He looks at me, brows up. I’d forgotten Dau. He’s probably given up and gone back by now. I won’t speak his name, not here. No point in getting him embroiled in this, whatever it is. ‘Thank you, my lady.’ I hold on to my temper. ‘When we have completed the tasks, what then?’
‘Then you return here to fetch your brother. On Midsummer Eve, come and sing at our portal once again and you will be admitted. You will be given the means to achieve your purpose, and you will be allowed to go back to court.’
‘Wait a bit – what did you say? Midsummer Eve? That’s far too late!’ It’s a trick, the whole thing, she’s not going to give us the harp, all she wants is to keep Brocc –
‘Liobhan.’ Brocc hands me his little scroll. There are only two items on his list:
Complete the great song we need, and sing it
Stay with us and play to us until Midsummer Eve
I look up, and I see in my brother’s eyes that he wants to stay as much as he wants to leave. He is torn between the two, and no wonder, for this place and its odd people are part of his heritage; the Otherworld is in his blood. I don’t want to leave him here. Eirne already regards him as hers; I can see it in her eyes. If he stays with her until Midsummer Eve he’ll be changed. He’ll have no choice but to partake of their food and drink, and they’ll be able to work their magic on him.
‘It’s all right,’ Brocc says. Do I imagine that tremor in his voice? ‘Liobhan, it’s all right, really. I’ve made a promise. I can craft this song best if I work here undisturbed. Please, just go and leave me. I will be safe here.’
‘One more thing before you go,’ says the faery queen. ‘What passes in this realm is secret. That rule is for the protection of my people. Human folk are rarely admitted here, but some blunder in by one door or another, and some would meddle if they could. You will not speak of this to anyone, Ciara. Make up a story to explain your absence and Brocc’s. I’m sure that will not be beyond your abilities. Even your faithful friend out there must not be told the full truth. Go out, explain yourself in terms an ordinary man or woman can understand – by that I mean a person who is not the child of a wise woman, a person who has not been brought up to sing and play and make verses, a person who is neither druid nor sage nor healer. Go back to court and complete these tasks. And on Midsummer Eve return to the portal alone, ready to sing. Not a word, remember. Self-discipline is part of a warrior’s code, is it not?’
Eirne turns to Rowan. ‘Escort Liobhan through the doorway.’ She takes Brocc’s arm, leaning against him. I see the blush rising to my brother’s cheeks and I don’t like it. He will lose himself here. ‘Come, my bard,’ says the queen. ‘Say your farewells. I am weary.’ But before Brocc can say a word, she draws him away.
Rowan walks beside me to the narrow passage between the rocks. I should go while it stands open, but I hesitate. ‘Rowan, will my brother be safe here? At least until Midsummer Eve?’
‘Safe?’ he echoes. ‘We’re none of us safe while the Crow Folk darken the skies. I can make no promises. But I will keep him as safe as I can.’
‘Then, as one warrior to another, I thank you. And I say farewell until Midsummer Eve.’ Dagda save us, it’s less than ten days away.
‘Until Midsummer Eve. Pass through now.’
I step through the crack in the rocks and out of Eirne’s realm into my own world. And if my heart is not broken, it’s a fair way to being bruised and dented like a plum that’s fallen from the tree onto hard ground.
Dau is still there. I didn’t realise how much I needed that until now. Feelings flood through me: relief, exhaustion, sadness, and a drop or two of pure panic, because what in the name of the gods am I going to tell Archu? If my big brother Galen was here, or my father, I’d throw myself into their arms and cry, or growl a few curse words, or both. I’m crying anyway, I can’t help it. Curse it! ‘Thanks for waiting,’ I mumble, wiping my face on my sleeve. Gods, I’m tired.
Dau puts a water skin in my right hand and a clean handkerchief in my left, then stands back and waits, saying nothing at all. Not even asking the obvious questions: Where on earth did you go? Didn’t you find him?
I drink, wipe my nose, and feel slightly better. ‘Thanks,’ I say, sinking down onto the rocks. I can’t rest for long; we have to get back. Why am I so wretchedly tired? And now I can feel the stabbing pain in my ankle, something I managed to forget while I was in that place. It’s been a long, long day and it’s not over yet.
I have to give Dau an explanation. How much of the truth can I tell him without breaking my promise to Eirne? The first thing that comes out of my mouth is, ‘Would you be prepared to dance with me three times before midsummer?’
Dau stares at me as if I’ve gone mad, which is unsurprising. ‘Wouldn’t that arouse suspicion? Since the singer and the horse boy are supposed to act as if they don’t know each other?’
‘Just say yes or no. Three nights, three dances, between now and Midsummer Eve. I’ll work out a way of making it not look suspicious.’
A long silence. ‘A warrior should be bold and decisive,’ Dau says. ‘I say yes. I warn you, I may step on your toes. It’s hardly my favourite pursuit.’ After a bit, he asks, ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’
‘We should start walking back. I don’t want to be in this forest a moment longer than I need to.’
We head off, side by side where the path allows. I try not to limp. I struggle for the right words. Anything that comes to mind sounds completely crazy.
In the end, it’s Dau who gets the conversation started. ‘Did you find your brother?’ he asks.
‘Yes, I found him and he’s all right. But he can’t come back, not yet. Dau, both Brocc and I are bound by promises not to tell anyone what happened in there. You’ll have seen . . . you can’t have failed to notice that there’s something unusual about all this.’
‘After waiting so long in that place, I was beginning to think I’d dreamed the whole thing, starting from you asking me to help you get over the wall. The whole day has been, as you put it, unusual.’
An unwelcome thought comes to me. ‘Curse it!’ I mutter.
‘Curse what?’
‘Without Brocc, I have no plan for getting back in. The guards are used to letting him through the gate.’
‘Ah,’ says Dau. ‘I have a solution to that problem. You won’t like it much, but it should work. And it ties in nicely with the dancing.’<
br />
‘You’d better tell me. If there’s talking involved, it’ll be me
doing it.’
‘I have a good reason for being outside the walls. I came out with a horse and delivered it to a farm, just as I was told to do. I could have had further business for Illann up here somewhere. Nobody needs to know Archu sent me to find you.’
‘And?’ I’m distracted by the fact that the path is so much easier to see now we’re on the way back, as if someone deliberately made it hard for me to reach the portal to Eirne’s realm. Then made me sing myself hoarse for hours before letting me in. Add to that the tasks, which seem purposeless, and it does seem Eirne won’t give us the harp – if she has it – until Midsummer Eve. That allows time for us to hand it over before the ritual, but only just. How can I explain this to Dau without spelling it out? He’s doing a remarkably good job of not asking a hundred questions. In his place I’d be less restrained, especially after the long lonely wait.
‘Dau?’
‘Mm?’ He bends to pick up a small branch that has fallen across the path and move it out of the way.
‘The mission. I think we’ll be able to retrieve what we need in time. Maybe only just in time. The day before, most likely. But I have some things I must do first, and some of them are going to seem quite odd.’ This is like wading through porridge. Porridge that might explode if I’m not careful.
‘Odd? You mean, like dangerous leaps and sudden disappearances? And nearly getting other people in serious trouble?’
‘No, I mean things I wouldn’t usually do. Making mud pies, for instance. The dancing I mentioned. And sewing.’
‘Sewing.’ Dau’s flat tone suggests complete disbelief.
‘Who do you think mends my clothing while we’re on the road? Not Archu, I assure you.’
‘I’m dreaming. There’s no other explanation for this. Liobhan, Archu’s going to ask for my account of what just happened. So is Illann. What do I tell them?’
‘You let me speak first, if that’s possible. I tell them more or less what I’ve told you – that Brocc can’t come back yet, that he’s following a good lead, and that it seems that lead will get us what we came here for. That we hope to have the item we need in time. But for that to happen, everyone needs to trust Brocc and me to complete the mission. This is something nobody else can do. He’s in a place where very few folk are admitted. Almost none. And . . . some aspects of this would be hard for people to believe. Especially people who haven’t been brought up on old stories.’
We walk on and Dau says nothing for a while. Soon we’ll be back on the road, and there might be people around, and he’ll be dumb Nessan again. In the back of my mind are the two scenes Eirne showed us in the scrying bowl, and the fear that by completing the mission we may be condemning this kingdom to a bleak future. If only I knew what it meant. If only I knew whether the king in the peaceable future was Rodan, a remarkably reformed Rodan, or someone else. This, above all, is what I wish I could tell the others.
‘I left my knife with the storyteller,’ I say. ‘We’ll need to stop there.’
‘Mine, too. The harp . . . Is it in this place you mentioned? The place on the other side of that rock wall?’
‘I don’t know. And that is the truth. When Archu asks me that question, I’ll answer the same way.’
‘But there’s someone in that place who can tell you where it is? Or tell Brocc?’
‘More or less.’
‘And you have to do some odd things, like sewing, before they’ll do that.’
He hasn’t made this a question, so I don’t answer.
‘Liobhan.’ Dau stops walking. ‘You must know how mad this sounds. Archu will never agree to it, and nor will Illann. We have only a matter of days before midsummer. And so much hangs on this. Your future. Brocc’s future. And mine. You’re asking Archu to relinquish control of the mission. You’re expecting us to trust you when you can’t even say where your brother is or what he’s doing.’
I bite my tongue over an unhelpful remark.
‘If the people of Breifne reject Rodan at the ritual,’ Dau goes on, telling me what I already know, ‘and that’s what we’ve been told is likely to happen if the harp isn’t produced in time, the kingdom could be thrown into disarray. There doesn’t seem to be any other candidate who’s both willing and eligible, and even if there was, without the harp he’d probably be rejected too. If Cathra was prepared to maintain the regency for a few more years, until the heir grows up a bit, he’d have announced that long ago and we wouldn’t be here. What do you imagine our future chances are on Swan Island if we all agree to your crazy idea and it sends Breifne into a long period of instability, maybe even war? Ours would be talked about on Swan Island as the most disastrous mission ever.’
I count silently to five. ‘Finished?’ I ask. ‘We should move on. Unhinged as I am, I believe I may be just about capable of walking and talking at the same time.’ In fact my ankle is hurting quite a lot, but I’m not going to tell him that.
Dau doesn’t reply.
‘I know all that, Dau,’ I say. ‘I’m asking you to trust me. To help me convince Archu that I haven’t lost my wits. You helped me this morning. You helped me do something that broke all the rules and you didn’t hesitate. Well, not for long. What’s different now?’
‘Nothing. But you’ve surprised me. You had me convinced that winning a place on Swan Island meant as much to you as it does to me. Wrong, it seems. My first impression of you was correct after all. You’re just . . . amusing yourself. If you really cared, you wouldn’t dream of risking the mission like this.’
Now I’ve stopped walking. And I don’t feel tired any more. Instead I’m burning with anger. ‘Amusing myself? What utter bollocks! What do you think I’ve been doing today, wandering about in the woods just to pass the time? Sitting by myself singing for hours because I had nothing better to do? Was I supposed to let my brother disappear and just get on with something else? Is that what you’d do if your own brother vanished into thin air?’
A strange expression appears on Dau’s face. His eyes turn hard as flint, his mouth goes grim and tight. I wish I hadn’t spoken.
‘It is exactly what I would do,’ he says. ‘And I would do it smiling.’
Gods. I’m seeing what Dau would be like in a fight to the death, and it scares all the fury out of me. ‘Brocc and I are very close,’ I tell him. ‘He’s not only my brother, he’s my fellow warrior, just as you are. I came after him because it was the right thing to do. I did have an idea where he might have gone and why. I’ve explained why I can’t tell you any more, at least, not until after midsummer. As for Swan Island, you’re wrong about me. I’ve wanted to be one of them since I was five years old and –’ No, I won’t tell him I met Cionnaola when I was a small child. I won’t tell him that little girl wished she could wear her hair in long twists and have her face tattooed with swirly patterns, not to speak of owning a big sharp knife with a handle of carven bone. ‘And heard about the warriors for the first time,’ I say. ‘This is the right thing for the mission. If you help me, if you trust me, if you back me up when I have to explain to Archu, we can do it in time. And if I’m not explaining as fully or clearly as I should, it’s partly because,’ I drop my voice to a murmur, ‘even here, there could be folk listening.’
‘Folk.’
‘Folk, as in the tales. Come on, not far to Mistress Juniper’s house. If we’re in luck, she might feed us. I can’t remember when I last had something to eat.’
26
Dau
We’re back at the storyteller’s house. My behaviour left something to be desired last time I was here, but I don’t know how to apologise, so I sit quietly and listen. We’re at her table, eating a meal she had ready for us even though she can’t have known when, or if, we would get here. Liobhan’s obviously on better terms with this woman than I am. I’m hoping
one of them will say something that will help me understand what in the name of the gods is going on.
But they’re being cautious. Liobhan tells the woman – it seems her name is Juniper – that Brocc has stayed behind with some folk he met, and that he may be playing some music. Could that mean those folk do have the Harp of Kings? I can’t ask. I feel as if I’m in a sticky web, where every pathway is narrow, treacherous and unpredictable. A person could use all his strength and all his wits and still end up trapped, unable to go forward or back. Can’t ask, can’t tell, can’t talk . . . I want to curse and yell and hit someone. I want to yawn, lay my head down on the table and sleep. I want to put a blanket over my head, roll up in a ball and wish the nightmare away. I want . . .
Something touches my leg, gentle and warm. I look down and there is the dog, Storm, resting her muzzle and gazing up at me with calm eyes as Bryn often does. I stroke her silky ears and breathe slowly. I’m out of the wretched forest. I’ve found Liobhan. I have a way back into the fortress. I need not even explain to Archu, beyond the simple facts, since I’ve done only what he told me to do. Let Liobhan try to convince him to take no action between now and Midsummer Eve. That’s the way she wants it. Why did I challenge her? Why did I call her mad? Whatever she may be, it’s not that. If she’s making this choice, she must have a plan, and chances are it really will work, even if it seems bizarre. This woman is strong. And she likes to win.
Storm’s fur is soft under my fingers. Her breathing is slow and steady. Her eyes close to slits, as if she would sleep sitting up. Oh, this feels good.
‘She trusts you,’ says Liobhan.
‘These things are simpler for dogs,’ says the old woman.
‘I wish my judgement was as unerring,’ says Liobhan, surprising me. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to make the right choice. You can be going along one path, quite sure it’s the way you want, and then suddenly everything turns upside down, and although you were sure you could always tell right from wrong, you start to wonder.’
Harp of Kings Page 26
