Juliet Marillier - Son of the Shadows

To Godric, voyager and man of the earth;and to Ben, a true son of Manannán mac Lir

Cover

Title Page JULIET MARILLIER Son of the Shadows Book Two of the Sevenwaters Trilogy

Dedication To Godric, voyager and man of the earth;and to Ben, a true son of Manannán mac Lir

Map Map

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Author’s Note

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

My mother knew every tale that was ever told by the firesides of Erin, and more besides. Folk stood hushed around the hearth to hear her tell them, after a long day’s work, and marvelled at the bright tapestries she wove with her words. She related the many adventures of Cú Chulainn the hero, and she told of Fionn MacCumhaill, who was a great warrior and cunning with it. In some households, such tales were reserved for men alone. But not in ours; for my mother made a magic with her words that drew all under its spell. She told tales that had the household in stitches with laughter, and tales that made strong men grow quiet. But there was one tale she would never tell, and that was her own. My mother was the girl who had saved her brothers from a sorceress’ curse, and nearly lost her own life doing it. She was the girl whose six brothers had spent three long years as creatures of the wild, and had been brought back only by her own silence and suffering. There was no need for telling and retelling of this story, for it had found a place in folk’s minds. Besides, in every village there would be one or two who had seen the brother who returned, briefly, with the shining wing of a swan in place of his left arm. Even without this evidence, all knew the tale for truth, and they watched my mother pass, a slight figure with her basket of salves and potions, and nodded with deep respect in their eyes.

If I asked my father to tell a tale, he would laugh and shrug, and say he had no skill with words, and besides he knew but one tale, or maybe two, and he had told them both already. Then he would glance at my mother, and she at him, in that way they had that was like talking without words, and then my father would distract me with something else. He taught me to carve with a little knife, and he taught me how to plant trees, and he taught me to fight. My uncle thought that more than a little odd. All right for my brother Sean, but when would Niamh and I need skills with our fists and our feet, with a staff or a small dagger? Why waste time on this when there were so many other things for us to learn?

‘No daughter of mine will go beyond these woods unprotected,’ my father had said to my uncle Liam. ‘Men cannot be trusted. I would not make warriors of my girls, but I will at least give them the means to defend themselves. I am surprised that you need ask why. Is your memory so short?’

I did not ask him what he meant. We had all discovered, early on, that it was unwise to get between him and Liam at such times.

I learned fast. I followed my mother around the villages, and was taught how to stitch a wound, and fashion a splint, and doctor the croup or nettle rash. I watched my father, and discovered how to make an owl, and a deer, and a hedgehog out of a piece of fine oak. I practised the arts of combat with Sean, when he could be cajoled into it, and perfected a variety of tricks that worked even when your opponent was bigger and stronger. It often seemed as if everyone at Sevenwaters was bigger than me. My father made me a staff that was just the right size, and he gave me his little dagger for my own. Sean was quite put out for a day or so. But he never harboured grudges. Besides, he was a boy, and had his own weapons. As for my sister Niamh, you never could tell what she was thinking.

‘Remember, little one,’ my father told me gravely, ‘this dagger can kill. I hope you need never employ it for such a purpose; but if you must, use it cleanly and boldly. Here at Sevenwaters you have seen little of evil, and I hope you will never have to strike a man in your own defence. But one day you may have need of this, and you must keep it sharp and bright, and practise your skills, against such a day.’

It seemed to me a shadow came over his face, and his eyes went distant as they did sometimes. I nodded silently, and slipped the small, deadly weapon away in its sheath.

These things I learned from my father, whom folk called Iubdan, though his real name was different. If you knew the old tales, you recognised this name as a joke, which he accepted with good humour. For the Iubdan of the tales was a tiny wee man, who got into strife when he fell into a bowl of porridge, though he got his own back later. My father was very tall, and strongly built, and had hair the colour of autumn leaves in afternoon sun. He was a Briton, but people forgot that. When he got his new name he became part of Sevenwaters, and those that didn’t use his name called him the Big Man.

I’d have liked a bit more height myself, but I was little, skinny, dark haired, the sort of girl a man wouldn’t look twice at. Not that I cared. I had plenty to occupy me, without thinking that far ahead. It was Niamh they followed with their eyes, for she was tall and broad shouldered, made in our father’s image, and she had a long fall of bright hair and a body that curved generously in all the right places. Without even knowing it, she walked in a way that drew men’s eyes.

‘That one’s trouble,’ our kitchen woman Janis would mutter over her pots and pans. As for Niamh herself, she was ever critical.

‘Isn’t it bad enough being half Briton,’ she said crossly, ‘without having to look the part as well? See this?’ She tugged at her thick plait, and the red-gold strands unravelled in a shining curtain. ‘Who would take me for a daughter of Sevenwaters? I could be a Saxon, with this head of hair! Why couldn’t I be tiny and graceful like Mother?’

I studied her for a moment or two, as she began to wield the hairbrush with fierce strokes. For one so displeased with her appearance, she did spend rather a lot of time trying out new hairstyles and changing her gown and ribbons.

‘Are you ashamed to be the daughter of a Briton?’ I asked her.

She glared at me. ‘That’s so like you, Liadan. Always come straight out with it, don’t you? It’s all very well for you, you’re a small copy of Mother yourself, her little right hand. No wonder Father adores you. For you it’s simple.’

I let her words wash over me. She could be like this at times, as if there were too many feelings inside her and they had to burst out somewhere. The words themselves meant nothing. I waited.

Niamh used her hairbrush like an instrument of punishment. ‘Sean, too,’ she said, glaring at herself in the mirror of polished bronze. ‘Did you hear what Father called him? He said, he’s the son Liam never had. What do you think of that? Sean fits in, he knows exactly where he’s going. Heir to Sevenwaters, beloved son with not one but two fathers – he even looks the part. He’ll do all the right things – wed Aisling, which will make everyone happy, be a leader of men, maybe even the one who wins the Islands back for us. His children will follow in his footsteps, and so on, and so on. Brighid save me, it’s so tedious! It’s so predictable.’