The Well of Shades

by Juliet Marillier

  “I want to know. I expect my friends to be honest with me.”

  “Can you really not remember what happened?”

  “Nothing. What have you heard?”

  “The talk should have died down now you’ve been found; now it’s clear you were trapped in that place and too weak to call for help. But I heard the men talking this morning; I rearranged one fellow’s face for him.” Dovran eyed his right fist. “He was suggesting you didn’t fall down the well at all, just waited there to give your accomplice time to get away undetected with the child. That it was an elaborate cover for a kidnapping. He hadn’t seen your hands, or your head. You should be resting, Eile.”

  Eile folded her arms tightly, pushing her bandaged hands out of sight. “What about Faolan? Did anyone say anything about Faolan?”

  Dovran gave a grim smile. “Faolan’s more than capable of looking after himself. A person would be a prize fool to get on his wrong side.” Then, at her look, he added, “There’s been a rumor or two. A Gael at the court of Fortriu, a regular traveler; it’s inevitable. How did you two meet?”

  He saved me from the worst place in the world. He came for me: a wondrous friend in the guise of an unprepossessing stranger. “On the road,” Eile said.

  “You sound sad. Eile, you know how I feel about you. I want you to be safe; I want to help—”

  “You’ve been kind to me,” Eile said. “I value your friendship, Dovran.” She saw in his face that he had understood the unspoken message, but we will never be more than friends. She could not find any words to make him feel better. He was a nice man; he would meet someone else soon enough.

  Saraid was sitting by the pond, refastening a ribbon around Sorry’s head. It was an unusual color, a delicate lavender. Someone must have given it to Saraid; it was new. Eile felt an odd sensation, a prickling at the back of her neck, somewhere between memory and premonition. “Saraid?” she called. “Who gave Sorry the ribbon? Was it Elda?”

  Saraid shook her head, small face solemn.

  “Who was it, Squirrel?”

  “Lady.”

  “What lady, Saraid? Ferada? Red-haired lady?”

  But Saraid was hugging the doll tightly now and had closed in on herself; her pose told Eile there would be no more said on this subject today. Her stance reminded Eile, uncomfortably, of the old days at Cloud Hill, Saraid sitting hunched and silent on the front step while, in the hut, things happened that were no fit sight for a child. “You’d best be off, I suppose,” she told Dovran.

  “I can watch the garden and talk to you at the same time.”

  “We should be going in.”

  “Oh. Very well, then. I don’t suppose I will see you at supper tonight.”

  “No, I don’t imagine I will be there. Farewell, Dovran.”

  “Farewell, Eile. Bye, Saraid.”

  “Bye.” It was wistful. Nobody had offered games today.

  19

  THE SEARCH PARTY returned to White Hill well before the light began to fade. The men were tired and dispirited. They had not found Derelei. Faolan and Garth had made the judgment that the child could not have gone outside the broad area already covered unless someone had spirited him quickly away. Either the king’s son had been conveyed beyond the reach of an ordinary search or he was already dead.

  Faolan reported this to the king. Bridei took it calmly, but the look in his eyes was desperate. “Go,” he said. “You’ll be wanting to see Eile. I will not give up hope, Faolan. There is still Tuala.”

  Faolan refrained from mentioning that the search parties had seen no more sign of the queen than they had of her son. He supposed it was possible they had in fact seen her in the form of beetle, bird, or vole, and passed her by unthinking. Strange indeed. “I should stay with you,” he said to Bridei. “But I am concerned for Eile, it’s true. Have you learned any more about what happened?”

  Bridei shook his head. “Keother says Breda is distraught. He believes she has nothing more to tell. We may never learn the truth.”

  “It will come out,” said Faolan grimly. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  “Doubts and theories do not make up a convincing case. It does seem Breda has played a dark part in the matter of the hunt and her handmaid’s death. Where the issue of my son is concerned, and indeed that of Eile, there is no real evidence against her. I know what you’re thinking. You must cool your anger. One cannot accuse a person of Breda’s status without being sure of the facts. I know it’s difficult. Go on, now. Go and see your sweetheart. I’ll do well enough.”

  Privately, Faolan doubted this. Bridei was linen pale and had all the signs of one of his monumental headaches. Here in the small private meeting room, the king had been sitting alone without so much as a candle to illuminate the gloom. His usual supports were gone, Tuala on her perilous journey into the forest, Broichan who knew where. And now he, next closest to the king, was walking off to tend to his own business. “You need someone with you—” he began.

  “And Eile needs you. Go on. I’ll seek out Aniel or Tharan if I decide I must have company.”

  Faolan made his way down to the apartments he had already begun to think of as theirs: the three of them, himself, Eile, and Saraid. He tapped lightly on the door of the smaller chamber and went in.

  Saraid was on the bed, sorting out the contents of a little box, with Sorry beside her. Eile was sitting on the floor with her back to him. She, too, was sorting. There was a neat pile of garments beside her; he spotted the blue gown his sister had given her and a carved comb that had once been his. This is what I’ll be taking. Spread over the storage chest was an old tunic and skirt, the things she’d worn at Blackthorn Rise as a servant, and by them the boots in which she’d journeyed by his side, all the way over the sea and up the Great Glen. This is what I’ll be wearing. In another heap, over by the wall, were her best clothes, the ones she’d been given here at White Hill. The green gown; the soft slippers; the little cape Elda had made for Saraid. And this is what I’ll be leaving behind. He stood just inside the door, calming his breathing, as Eile turned her head to look at him. He could not read her expression.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, willing his voice calm.

  “It’s all right,” Eile said, her bandaged hands continuing, awkwardly, their task of folding. “We’re just… going over things. Don’t look like that. We wouldn’t go away; not without giving you the choice. But you do need to think about it, Faolan. You need to be sure this is all right, me and Saraid, I mean, here at White Hill with you, depending on you, perhaps being a burden you don’t really want or need.”

  He moved swiftly to kneel beside her, to take her hands in his. His voice came out ragged and harsh despite his best efforts. “What has prompted this? I thought you trusted me, Eile. I thought you knew…”

  “I do.” Her voice was tight, constrained with some emotion he could not identify. “But you need to know what folk are saying: that I betrayed the king’s and queen’s trust. That I’m a spy. And they’re saying vicious, horrible lies about you. That you were in collusion with me all along, that we arranged a kidnapping together. I won’t have them saying those things. It’s so wrong. As if you would ever act against King Bridei…”

  “I see.” He got to his feet. Watching his face, she had stilled her hands. “And you think going away would make it better?”

  A tear trickled down her cheek; she mopped it with a swathed hand. “I’m trouble for you, Faolan. You know how difficult things will be for you if I stay. I need to be sure you are prepared to face that; that you think it’s worth it. I don’t want you to keep us here just because of duty. Or worse still, from pity.”

  Saraid had lain down on the bed, her head buried in the pillow. Half under her, Sorry was barely visible.

  “Eile,” Faolan said, his heart hammering, “please believe what I tell you. If you were to go away, I would follow you to the ends of the earth. I’d leave White Hill and Bridei in an instant rather than lose you. I can’t do w
ithout you and Saraid. It’s as simple as that. As for the rumors and gossip, we’ll find a way to deal with them.”

  For a little she simply stared at him, green eyes assessing. Then she whispered, “Good, that’s all right, then,” and he saw her shoulders begin to shake and tears begin to spill in earnest. He knelt by her again, putting his arms around her. “It’s the truth, mo cridhe,” he murmured. “The desperate truth. I would not lie to you. Where you go, I go. If you left this place, I would come after you without a second thought. Saraid, come down here and give your mama a hug.” And, after the child had settled by him and he had done his best to enfold the whole of his small family within his embrace, “I think I’ve discovered something. I’m home at last. You, me, Saraid… this is it. This is home. Don’t go away.”

  “Feeler go away?” He could feel Saraid’s small hand clutching his shirt up by the shoulder, and the damp warmth of her tears soaking through the fabric over his heart.

  Eile drew a shuddering breath. “No, Squirrel,” she whispered. “Nobody’s going anywhere. Oh gods, I can’t stop crying, this is ridiculous. You really do mean it, don’t you? You really do mean you’ll stay with us, no matter what?”

  He stroked her hair, his fingers close to the place where the ugly wound disfigured her temple: the imprint of a regular pattern resembling the links of an iron chain. “Forever and always,” he said. “As long as I breathe.”

  She sighed. He felt her arms come around him. “I want to tell you something,” she said.

  Faolan waited.

  “You said you learned where home is. I’ve learned something, too. I’ve learned why my father did what he did. Why he left us; why he walked away and never came back. And I’ve learned that I’m not going to repeat what he did. I can’t do that to the people I love best in the world. It might be bad for you if I stay. But it would hurt you far more if I went away, and it would hurt Saraid, too. And I can’t make you leave White Hill, the work you love, the folk who depend on you. Faolan, I think I’ve forgiven him. My father. His choice was far harder than mine.”

  His heartbeat was quick but steady. He did not ask Eile to clarify what she had said about love. It was enough, for now, to hold those words close; to feel them sink within him, a force of profound strength. “Come,” he said, “you’re still an invalid and my knees are feeling the effects of a day’s riding. We’d best get up off the floor, rekindle our fire, and dry our tears. Squirrel, will you go next door and see if there’s kindling in the basket?”

  “Faolan,” Eile said as he helped her up, “there’s still the question of gossip and mistrust; the vicious tongues that keep so busy. I won’t have you subject to that. If you stay with me, I’ll attract those tales to you.”

  “Come through here and sit down, Eile. I need to see you drink something; that’s better. I do have a solution to the problem. You won’t like it. It presents a challenge every bit as taxing as scaling the sheer side of a well.”

  Eile sipped the water he had given her, as he knelt with flint and tinder to make the fire anew. Saraid, all sign of tears gone, was busily sorting out the wood.

  “What?” Eile asked.

  “The rumors are based on how we met, how long we’ve known each other, who might have recruited us,” he said, wondering if he was being a prize fool for even suggesting this, yet seeing a curious Tightness in it, as if their tale was making a neat full circle. “So we tell them the truth. We tell them our story. All of it.”

  “All of it? You mean Cloud Hill and… and Dalach… and what happened afterward?”

  “And Blackthorn Rise. And Fiddler’s Crossing.”

  “I can’t… how can I… Faolan, what are you saying? That we should get up in front of everyone and talk about those things? I’d be so ashamed I wouldn’t be able to get a word out.” The cup shook in her hand, spilling droplets on her skirt.

  “Ashamed?” He looked up at her as the fire began to catch. “Why? You haven’t a single thing to be ashamed about, Eile. Your actions have been selfless. Heroic. You are your father’s daughter. What advice do you think Deord would offer right now?”

  Eile gave a wan smile. “Fight,” she said. “But I’m afraid, Faolan. This is a great deal to ask.”

  “I’ll be there. I’ll stand by you; I’ll help you tell it.”

  “I don’t know enough of the language yet. And if you translate for me, people will say you can twist the story any way you want.”

  “Then we will ask for another translator. I know one who will do very well.”

  “When? When would we do it?”

  She looked frail and wretched, her hands shaking, the wound fresh and livid on her temple. Faolan would have given much to be able to say, honestly, that he did not care if she never told; that all he wanted was to wrap her up, hide her away, keep her safe. But when he looked at her huddled there by the fire, it was not an injured woman he saw. It was the daughter of Deord; Deord who had only once in his life run away, and who had paid a terrible price for it. Deord who, he sensed, was still watching over them.

  “Tonight,” he said. “We should do it tonight.”

  EILE ALREADY KNEW that Faolan’s self-control was formidable. She did not think she had ever been so impressed by it as she was that evening. Saraid had gone to her supper with Gilder and Galen; brows had been raised when Faolan and Eile appeared in the Great Hall to take their places, but he had acted as if there were nothing untoward about her attending supper so soon after what had happened.

  Garth was on duty, guarding the king. Faolan and Eile were flanked at table by Wid and Garvan. Dovran had placed himself opposite, next to Elda. Beyond that small circle of safety lay the unknown. Eile saw the looks, observed folk whispering to one another, and wondered if they were discussing her probable guilt, though it seemed to her the wound on her head should be some indication of innocence. She could hardly have inflicted it on herself. Her stomach was churning; she could not touch her food. Faolan ate his roast meat and pudding, and chatted to Wid about navigation and to Dovran, guardedly, about the finer points of swordplay.

  At the high table Bridei sat ashen-faced, contributing the occasional word to a conversation between his councillors and King Keother. Another day, another fruitless search. Eile had seen how much the king of Fortriu loved his children, how close he was to his wife, and her heart bled for him. She had Saraid. She had Faolan. Against what the king must be feeling, the trepidation that now gripped her, making her dizzy and nauseous, was nothing at all.

  “Not eating?” Wid asked her. “You look as if you should still be in bed, young woman. Faolan, what were you doing, letting her get up?”

  “I’d rather be here than in my chamber,” Eile said. “Besides, we have something to do.”

  “Oh?”

  She did not elaborate. Most folk had finished eating; Faolan was looking over toward the second table, where Brother Colm sat with his brethren, a small sea of brown robes topped by gleaming tonsured heads.

  “Are you ready?” he asked her in an undertone.

  I could never be ready for this, not in all my days. “If you are,” she said.

  It was customary, before or after the meal, for Bridei to say a few words to the household. In good times it might be thanks for certain work done or news that could affect them. Bridei’s speech might be followed by music; there was usually a court bard in residence. Or, if anyone had a matter of general interest to raise, Bridei might invite him to air it. In bad times folk expected little. Faolan had told her that tonight the king would wish to advise his household that the full search for his son was to be called off, leaving the task of tracking Derelei to a few specialists rather than taking so many of the household’s men away.

  “I won’t wait for him to speak,” Faolan whispered to Eile. “I see on his face that he can’t bear to declare the full search over.” He rose to his feet, took Eile’s hand and led her out to the open area before the dais.

  Folk took some time to notice. Talk buzzed aro
und them until the king stood and raised his hand.

  “You wish to speak, Faolan?” Bridei’s voice was level and quiet.

  “If you permit, my lord.”

  “Of course.”

  “My lord king, I wish to start with an apology for my breach of protocol last night. It will not happen again.”

  Bridei inclined his head in a spare indication of forgiveness.

  “With your approval, I will speak to the household about today’s search. After that, Eile and I have a matter to set before all present. We have a tale to tell.”

  “You have my approval.”

  Dizziness came over Eile again. The walls were moving about; the torches went double. The sea of faces around her was turbulent, the hum of voices strangely remote.

  “Eile?” A concerned voice: it was Dovran, beside her with a stool. She sat; Faolan nodded to the other man, expression somber, then put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  “Tell me if you feel faint,” he murmured. Then, raising his voice again, he said the words Bridei had not been able to get out. “You will all know by now that today’s search was unsuccessful. That is not through any lack of effort or of heart on the part of those who have worked so tirelessly these last days and nights, both those who went out to search and those who performed extra duties here at court so that could happen. Garth and I have concluded, with great reluctance, that there is no longer any chance a search of this kind will be successful. It seems likely King Bridei’s son has been taken far beyond those territories that lie within a few days’ reach. We will not require the men of the household any longer for these duties.” Muttering had broken out and he raised a hand to silence it. “That doesn’t mean we’ve given up. We’ll be adopting a more strategic approach. We may call on some of you as required.”

  “Who’s we?” someone called out.

  “Garth and I will handle the practical arrangements. Decisions will be made in consultation with the king and his councillors.” His tone was coolly controlled, his hand steady on Eile’s shoulder.