The Well of Shades

by Juliet Marillier

  “I acted gradually.” Carnach was not meeting the king’s eye now, but looking down at his hands. “That is why I was absent from court so long, and unable to send a plainer message of reassurance than the cryptic one Faolan brought you. Bargoit thought he was wooing me. He saw an opportunity to destabilize your rule, my lord, by turning your staunchest allies against you one by one. If I changed my allegiance, and I played along by letting him believe I was considering that, then it was only a matter of time before he gained the loyalty of Wredech, of Fokel, even of Talorgen. So he believed; I started to think the man’s mind had become addled with the grandeur of his plans.”

  Bridei’s head was reeling. The news of Bargoit’s plotting was troubling in itself, but there was something else here; something missing. “Why stay so long?” he asked Carnach. “Why drag it out until most of Fortriu had started to think you a traitor?”

  “Information,” Carnach said simply. “I encouraged him to expose full details of his plot by pretending to consider seriously what he suggested. That took time; I had to make it convincing. He believed me, and as a result I’ve come back with vital intelligence for the future. I have the details of Circinn’s armies, its strongholds, the will of its people; insights into King Garnet’s character that will serve you well at the council table. Names of certain allies we did not know about; plans for certain meetings at which you’ll want a listening ear in place.”

  Bridei eyed him; it was at moments like these that he remembered why he had given Carnach the position of chief war leader. “A perilous path,” he said. “How did you extricate yourself? Does Bargoit still believe you a traitor to your king?”

  “He believes I’m considering his offer, which included certain privileges for me and my family. In time, I’ll let him know I’ve changed my mind.”

  “You’ll have made a powerful enemy,” Faolan observed.

  Carnach smiled. “I’ll take my chances with the weasel,” he said.

  “So Faolan was right,” Bridei said. “You did make use of him to send me reassurance of your loyalty. I did wonder if the whole thing was in his head.”

  “He made an unlikely farmhand,” Carnach said, grinning. “You’ll wish to consider this before we speak further, I imagine. I can provide detailed information when you are ready.”

  “These are grave matters,” said Bridei. “Bargoit’s ambitions seem unrealistic, but we need to discuss what you’ve brought us and the possible consequences of his plans. Not one of us wants war with Circinn, but if Bargoit and his new king try to undermine my authority and turn my chieftains against me, I’ll be obliged to take decisive action. We can wait a little before we decide how to meet this new challenge. We’ve had an eventful time here at White Hill, Carnach. You’ll find this household’s news strange and disturbing. But that’s for later. You should eat and drink, then go to rest awhile. We are indeed glad to see you back at court, kinsman. You were sorely missed. Faolan, you may leave us now if you wish. I thank you again for your part in this, which was bravely and cleverly acquitted. You need time with your family.”

  When Faolan was gone, Carnach poured ale for the king and for himself. They were close kinsmen and, when alone, did not stand on ceremony. “Family?” Carnach queried.

  “It’s a complicated story,” Bridei said. “Faolan’s undergone more changes in recent times than anyone would have believed possible. But he’ll never lose that ruthless quickness, that uncanny nerve, that keen-eyed determination. Or the mask he can slap on to cover whatever he’s feeling.”

  “Faolan’s quite exceptional,” said Carnach. “I saw him put to a severe test when I encountered him in Circinn. He passed it with flying colors. I believe he’s underutilized. If I were you I’d be employing him not as a guard or even a spy but as a strategic adviser. The fact that he’s trained himself to kill at a snap of the fingers wouldn’t be a disadvantage. That man’s too clever to be wasted on spear-throwing and fancy horsemanship.”

  “IT IS STRANGE,” said Broichan to his daughter, “how, in the light of such dramatic events here at White Hill, the very thing you feared most, a public exhibition of your extraordinary skill in magic, passed with remarkably little fuss. Folk do speak of the child’s fall and how she was saved by a transformation. They mention that some of the guards saw a cat, and then a woman. Nothing at all about the queen of Fortriu and her sorcerous powers. Breda’s sudden death seems to have taken that right out of their minds.”

  “They are also afraid of you,” Tuala said. “You did speak up rather strongly in my defense. You surprised me.”

  Broichan changed the subject. “I heard folk debating whether Bridei will make concessions to Brother Colm and his brethren,” he said. “The parties were divided on whether the king and his druid would come to blows over it all.”

  Tuala smiled. They were still in the garden, and Derelei had now been joined by Saraid, demure in her pink gown. The children were sitting under a bush, collecting twigs in a little cup and talking in whispers. On the sward was Eile, watching over them, her face wreathed in dreams. Tuala and Broichan had moved a little way off to a stone bench where they sat in conversation.

  “And will you?” Tuala asked the druid. “Come to blows, that is? Has Bridei told you what he intends?”

  “We’ve yet to speak of it. There will be no dispute between us. I anticipate our being out of step where this matter is concerned. I will make my position known to him. In council, I will support whatever stance Bridei decides to take. I will not weaken the king of Fortriu before his enemies.”

  Tuala nodded. “He was afraid to tell you of his choice where the kingship of Circinn was concerned,” she said. “He will hesitate to speak to you on the matter of Ioua and Brother Colm.”

  “Afraid? Bridei? The only time he was ever in fear of me was the first time he clapped eyes on me at four years old, and even then he did his best to master it.”

  “He was afraid of distressing you; concerned that you would believe he had deserted your common goal, to see all Priteni lands united under the old gods. He felt disloyal even as he knew his choice was right strategically.”

  “He wants a time of peace,” Broichan said, his tone soft and dark. “After the winter, I understand that. He wants conciliation. He will give the Christians their island. He has his family back; he is full of joy. That will make him generous.”

  “Maybe so. But not so generous that he loses his strategic grasp. He never forgets that he is king. Not for a moment. You should trust him.”

  Broichan was watching the two children, deep in their secret world. The harvest of twigs had been placed in Sorry’s lap; Saraid was making the doll pick up each in turn, examine it and utter some grave pronouncement. Derelei was laughing. “You realize,” the druid said quietly, “that at some point I’ll need to take the boy away. When he’s older. His talents can only be developed to a certain point here at White Hill. There are so many distractions.”

  “He’s an infant, for all his intrepid journey into the wildwood,” Tuala said, but she did not snap out a denial as she might once have done, for what he said had now begun to ring true for her. Derelei’s abilities were frightening. The forest druids would nurture them to maturity while keeping him safe. But…”I don’t think Eile would be happy to hear her daughter called a distraction,” she murmured. “Saraid is good for Derelei. She lets him be a child. He needs that. He needs friends.”

  “Up to a point. The stronger his childhood friendships become, the harder it will be for him to go away. Remember that.”

  Tuala looked at the two little heads, bent close in concentration. Saraid’s cascade of dark curls, her limpid brown eyes; Derelei’s pallor, his delicate neck like the stalk of a tender plant. His strange, deep gaze. A chill went through her, a premonition of future sorrow. “We need not face this yet,” she said. “We’ve only recently become a whole family. Let us enjoy that a little. Father.” She smiled. “It feels very odd to say that.”

  “It feels odd
to hear it, daughter. Odd, but good.”

  (From Brother Suibne’s Account)

  It has been a time of wonders. I saw the miraculous feats worked by our own Colmcille through his faith in God. We came to the court of Fortriu, and here we witnessed a phenomenon still more astounding: the transformation of a bird into a child at the hands of Bridei’s queen. In private, Colm called this an act of sorcery and condemned it. I felt bound to say that, by whatever art it was she used, Queen Tuala had saved the life of an innocent. I’d seen that shadowy well. I’d seen how pale and bruised Faolan’s young wife was when we found her, and the look in her eyes when she thought her daughter dead. I knew that if godless evil lurked within the walls of White Hill, it was not in the fey form of the queen, nor in the powerful druid who, they say, is her father—that was apparently as much of a surprise to the folk of Bridei’s court as it was to me—but in the hands of the woman who wrought havoc among these people on no better grounds than a jealous whim. That night, Faolan nearly killed the princess of the Light Isles. I saw his hands around her neck, until his fellow guards pulled him away. That I did not mention to my brethren. Now she is dead, not at the hand of an assassin, but by pure mischance. May God rest her soul, for although she performed wicked acts, she was still young. If she had lived, perhaps in time she might have learned to tread a better path.

  There is another mystery within this tale. How was it Tuala appeared outside the walls of the fortress, accompanied by the long-absent Broichan and her own missing child? She was said to have been unwell; to have remained in her quarters looking after her newborn infant all through the time of Derelei’s absence. Yet there she was that same evening, down below the gates, and ready on an instant to halt the little girl’s terrible fall by changing her. Miracle or sorcery? We discussed it long within the enclosing walls of our private quarters at White Hill. It seemed to me that the question of which priest spoke the prayer that preserved Saraid’s life, which deity chose to exercise compassion that night, was almost immaterial. I had only to see the look on Eile’s face and on Faolan’s when their daughter was restored to them to know that an act of great goodness had taken place. Perhaps, I said to Brother Colm, wishing to move away from talk of Tuala’s sorcery, it was an Act of Grace. We had all been praying hard that the king’s son would be restored to him. God had heard our prayers. At the same time, in His wisdom, He had seen the fall of a tiny sparrow and out of His great compassion spared her.

  SUIBNE, MONK OF DERRY

  “I AM COME as an emissary,” said Brother Colm, dark eyes intent in his pale, lean face. He had the appearance of an aesthete, but that was deceptive, Bridei thought. The man was strong as iron and every inch a leader. They sat now in the grand council chamber at White Hill, which was set about with lamps and hung with tapestries on which the ancient symbols of the Priteni bloodlines were embroidered: the twin shields, the broken rod and crescent moon, the eagle that was his own sign of kingship. The images gave Bridei strength; they kept him in mind of who he was and what he must do here. Today, he and Carnach both wore their blue cloaks, the particular dye of the cloth signifying that they were descended from the royal line of the Priteni. The preliminaries of the audience were over. Bridei had acknowledged the Christians and made an apology for the delay in receiving them formally. Colm had expressed sadness that there had been yet another death at White Hill, and thanked the king, coolly, for his hospitality. That done, Bridei had invited him to state his purpose at the court of Fortriu.

  “You have a secular master, Brother Colm?” inquired Broichan, who was seated on Bridei’s right. “Would that be a petty king of the Uí Néill? Close kin, perhaps?” He was wearing his customary black robe, and his eyes equaled it in darkness, deep-set in a face that seemed these days all bone. He had scraped his cropped hair back, tying it in a cord at the nape of the neck. His voice was resonant and strong.

  “The Lord God is my only master,” Colm replied, meeting the druid’s eye. “I am His messenger. Those matters on which I wish to address King Bridei concern the safety of our brethren within Priteni territories, and the promise of a safe haven for myself and those men who accompanied me to this shore. My purpose is God’s purpose. I follow the path He sets before me.”

  Faolan and Brother Suibne were sharing the duties of translator, since the discussion would be complex. Wid and Keother’s scribe sat side by side with quills in hand, taking it in turns to record the proceedings. Colmcille had chosen to bring only Suibne to the audience with him and, in his turn, Bridei had limited his party to Keother, Carnach, and Broichan, along with the necessary translator, scribes, and guards.

  “We understand this,” Broichan said now. “Yet we have heard that your reasons for leaving your home shore had more to do with a territorial struggle than with a grand endeavor of faith. Is this not so? Were you not cast out of Erin for interfering in the course of a battle? If that is true, the king wonders at your temerity in approaching him here in the heartland of Fortriu, when less than a year ago his folk defeated yours in the great war of the west.”

  Colm turned a gaze on him that would have shriveled a lesser man. “I could examine your own past here and now, before these listeners,” the Christian said. “But I choose not to do so; it has no relevance to the matters under discussion. Should you do me the courtesy of exercising equal forbearance, I will think the better of you for it.” The penetrating look turned toward Bridei. “My lord king, let me set this out for you plainly. I know it is your practice to keep hostages at your court as surety against the compliance of your vassal king. King Keother is here with us today; his own cousin spent years as a captive at Fortriu’s court. In his kingdom dwell many Christian hermits. They are tolerated there, allowed their patch of land and freedom of worship. I seek your assurance that our brethren in the Light Isles will continue to be offered that freedom; that you intend them no harm now or in the future. I know you have outlawed the practice of our faith in Dalriada. I would not see that restriction put in place for your northern islands as well.”

  “Tell me,” said Carnach, “if King Bridei were to send Broichan to your own homeland, and our druid and his fellows were to teach the ancient faith of the Priteni to all in Erin who would hear them, would you expect that practice to go on unchallenged and unimpeded?”

  “His teachings would fall on deaf ears,” Colm said simply. “Erin is fast becoming a Christian land, as is your own southern realm of Circinn. Even a king’s druid cannot stand firm against such a tide.”

  Bridei caught a particular look on Faolan’s face, swiftly masked. Faolan was present as a translator, not as a participant in the meeting. Nonetheless, Bridei said, “Faolan, will you give us your opinion on this matter, since you are not long returned from that shore? Do Brother Colm’s words give an accurate picture of the lie of the land in Erin?”

  “I am not a man of faith, my lord. From my observations, I would say two modes of belief exist side by side in my homeland, the old and the new. In some regions one is more prominent, in some the other. Folk cling to the traditions of their ancestors, the trusted and true, even in the face of a tide such as Brother Colm mentions. On the other hand, the missionaries of the Christian faith have been astute in their teachings. They are expert at blending old and new in a way that draws folk in.”

  Colmcille had fixed a stern gaze on Faolan as he spoke. “We made you welcome among us at Kerrykeel, and on the voyage to Dalriada,” he said. “Were you sent among us not as a messenger but as a spy?”

  “An emissary only, as you are,” Faolan said lightly. “But old habits die hard.”

  “Have you an answer for me on the question of the Light Isles, my lord king?” Colm asked, now ignoring everyone but Bridei himself.

  Broichan rose to his feet. He was a tall man; his eyes were level with the Christian’s. “If your intention is to run through a list of demands and obtain the king’s approval for each in turn,” he said coolly, “you have sorely mistaken the nature of this audience.
You are a supplicant. You represent a faith that has been outlawed in Fortriu. When our own wise women and druids spoke out against those who spread the Christian teaching in Circinn, they were cut down or banished, their houses of prayer destroyed. Be glad that King Bridei treats your party with respect, and moderate your tone.”

  Colm’s gaze had remained on Bridei. “What do you say, my lord king?” he asked.

  Bridei drew a deep breath. “Broichan speaks for me,” he said quietly. “We are of one mind. I will give you my decisions when all the business of this audience has been presented. You mentioned only in passing the matter which I know to be your strongest reason for making this arduous journey up the Glen to my court. Now is your opportunity to tell us of Yew Tree Isle, and a promise made by a man who no longer has the authority to honor it.”

  He wondered if Colm would choose to berate him for banning the practice of the Christian faith in Dalriada, or make a speech about folk needing to move with the times, or comment that, if the court at White Hill represented Bridei’s kingdom in miniature, Fortriu must be a place where murder, plotting, and sorcery ran rampant. Instead, the priest made a simple statement of his heartfelt desire for a safe haven, a place where he might establish a house of prayer and contemplation amid the wonders of God’s creation. Ioua was such a place; he had felt the breath of God in the west wind and heard the whisper of holiness in the waves on the shore. For now, should Bridei agree to fulfill the promise made by Gabhran of Dalriada, Colm and his twelve brethren would do no more than establish their monastic house.

  “A man such as yourself is incapable of stopping at that,” said Broichan flatly. “I see it in your eyes; I hear it in every word you speak. You’re on a mission. If you are given Ioua, you will not long be content with it. Your teachings will spread like a creeping plague over all Fortriu, even to the eastern coast and down to the borders. Give us an undertaking that none of you will travel beyond Yew Tree Isle and the king might perhaps give your proposal some consideration.”