Edith Pattou: Fire Arrow

"Wasn't there some kind of scandal?" asked Rainne.

"What sort of scandal?" Brie asked, curious.

Uncle Amrys cleared his throat. "Oh, well, I can't quite remember. Conall preferred not to speak of it. Anyway, it's all in the distant past."

"She showed up at Aideen and Conall's wedding," Rainne said.

"Much to Conall's displeasure," put in Uncle Amrys.

Aunt Rainne said, "You know, Breigit, there are some things stored in the tower room that belonged to your parents. Mostly to your father. There is also a box of your grandmother Hudag's things. I doubt that will be of much interest; it seems to consist mainly of little china statues of dogs. Anyway, you ought to go through it."

Uncle Amrys laughed. "Rainne's been wanting to clear that room out for a long time."

Brie was suddenly eager for the meal to be over. "Perhaps this afternoon...?"

Her aunt shook her head. "I've some matters to attend to this afternoon. Best wait until tomorrow. And anyway, that room's been shut up for a long time. We'll need to air it out; everything is covered with dust."

***

Brie was up early the next morning. Her aunt did not keep her waiting. Together they wrestled open the shuttered windows of the tower room and dusted and wiped until Brie's arms ached.

"Were you at my mother and father's wedding?" she asked Rainne as they worked.

"Oh yes. I remember it well." Rainne paused thoughtfully. "Your uncle and I had been married several years by then. It was a lovely spring afternoon. Your mother was always beautiful, but she was particularly beautiful that day. Radiant. She wore a dress of many colors, with matching flowers in her yellow hair.

"All of Conall's family was there, but Hudag was the only one from Aideen's side—that is, at first. Halfway through the ceremony a woman rode up on a white horse. She was quite remarkable, you could hardly keep from staring. She must have been ninety years old or more, but her face was almost as luminous as that of Aideen herself.

"Of course, her arrival caused quite a stir. Hudag was clearly horrified and Conall looked thunderous, but Aideen ran over to the woman and gave her a great joyful hug. Seila stayed through the vows, then afterward presented Aideen with a gift, whispering in her ear for some time." Rainne smiled. "We all wondered what that amazing woman was saying to Aideen, and I kept glancing over at Conall, who looked ready to burst. Then all of a sudden Seila departed on her white horse. Now," Rainne said briskly, casting a critical eye over the room. "I think we've done enough. I will leave you in peace."

Brie began to sort through her father's belongings first, though her patience quickly wore thin. His things were a jumbled mess. Her father had had little skill at organizing. He was a man of action who preferred being outdoors, hunting, competing in tourneys, or, best of all, riding to battle. Brie could see from his papers that Aunt Rainne must have had a difficult time putting the affairs of the dun in order.

She moved to other boxes but found only old clothing and weaponry. Finally Brie came to a small trunk that was clearly her mother's. Inside was a dress of many colors that Brie guessed to be Aideen's wedding gown. It was musty, but the light coming in the window caught the colors and made them almost sparkle.

There was an assortment of odds and ends—jewelry, biorans for Aideen's hair, half-finished tapestries, old books. Then, at the very bottom of the trunk, Brie found a long, thin, pale blue box. It was made of wood, and painted on its surface in pale, opalescent colors were images of suns and fish and breaking waves. They were wrought in a distinctive, almost primitive style. Brie tried to open the box, but the lid was stuck. The wood had warped slightly over the years. Brie worked her fingernail around the edges, then rapped it gently against the side of the trunk. Still, it remained stuck. She dug her nails under the lid and pried as hard as she could. Finally the box opened with a rasp.

Brie let out a small sound of disappointment. The box was empty.' Or not quite. She lifted the box to her nose. There was a faint powdery smell, as of ancient dust, and of something else, something faintly familiar. A soft, abrupt sound made Brie look up. The door stood several inches ajar; hadn't Aunt Rainne closed it all the way when she left? She got up and closed it, wondering why she felt the need.

***

That afternoon as she helped Aunt Rainne take down and fold some freshly washed linens in the outer ward of the dun, Brie suddenly asked, "Do you remember anything of the scandal you mentioned, about my great-grandmother Seila?"

"I'm afraid I don't. It may not have been all that scandalous, you know. Your father was, uh, traditional. It runs in the family," she added with a flash of a smile at Brie.

Brie smiled back, then said offhandedly, "The gift Seila brought my mother, do you know what it was, by any chance?" She realized she was holding her breath.

"No, I never knew." Rainne folded a damask tablecloth. "But I do remember it was in a long blue box. Very thin."

Brie let out her breath with a feeling of wonder. So the blue box was from Seila; somehow she had known that.

Rainne was still speaking. "I was beside a young cousin of Amrys's when Seila presented it to Aideen. We made a little game of trying to guess what such a long thin box could hold. Came up with a few outlandish ideas. But we never learned what it was."

"Why not?" Brie asked.

"It was put away, not shown about the way the other presents were. I heard that Conall was offended by the gift for some reason."

***

As she entered the kitchen that evening to make up a posset for Masha, Brie spotted a man in ragged clothing scuttling out a door at the other end of the room. He limped heavily, one leg shorter than the other. She had caught sight of the ragged man once before and had asked Rainne about him. Rainne said he had come begging at the dun several months ago, and, feeling sympathy for him, they had found him some odd jobs. He turned out to be especially helpful in the kitchen, and the head cook had suggested hiring him on permanently. He went by the name of Crin, but Brie had yet to see him face-to-face.

The yellow bird hurtled down at her. She saw its face as it swooped in, eyes wide, black pupils dilated, its curved beak open and shrieking with a strange, high-pitched, human sound. Brie woke with a scream.

Her heart pounding, Brie gazed wildly around the darkened room.

It was only a dream, she said to herself. She was safe. But still she was having trouble breathing. Had no one heard her? Her room was remote from the other bedrooms. She suddenly felt a great aching loss as she thought of Collun. She wished she were lying by their campfire, listening to the sound of his breathing as he slept.

She rose and crossed to the long thin blue box. Listening to the rain beat thickly against her small window, Brie traced the patterns of fish and suns and waves with her finger. What did they mean? she wondered. And what had they meant to her mother?

THREE

The White Stag

Feeling jumpy from the sleepless night, Brie descended to the kitchen for the morning meal. Rainne told her tersely that Masha had taken a turn for the worse in the early hours of the morning. The dun healer could not explain it. Brie went directly to Masha and spent the day at her bedside. The older woman's breathing was labored and her words incoherent. She spoke again those strange words, which sounded this time like "caroo tree ra eeth."

The words sounded, faintly familiar to Brie, and as she listened to them, repeated again and again, she suddenly thought they sounded Dungalan, like something Aelwyn would say. But that was absurd; she was beginning to see Dungal in everything.