Juliet Marillier - Heart's Blood

“Shall I go and tell him you can’t do the job?”

“No!” I found that I was clutching the plant book to my chest, and set it down. “No, please don’t. I will do my best.”

Magnus’s gaze was assessing. “Is it the law you’re running from, with your need for a locked door and your wish to take on a job nobody else would want?”

He was too perceptive by half. “If you don’t ask awkward questions, I won’t,” I said.

“Fair enough.”

“But I must ask just one. Why doesn’t Lord Anluan come and talk to me about this himself?”

“Anluan doesn’t see folk from outside.”

This flat statement sounded remarkably final. How could I do a good job without talking to the man who wanted it done? No awkward questions. That meant I could take this line of conversation no further.

Magnus had moved over to the window and was staring out. The library overlooked the herb garden in which I had encountered the reclu sive chieftain of Whistling Tor earlier. From here I could not see the clump of heart’s blood, only the profusion of honeysuckle and the riotous growth of more common herbs.

“You shouldn’t judge him,” the steward said quietly. “He’s got his reasons. You’re our first visitor in a long time, and the first ever to come without some coercion. And you’re a woman. It was a shock.”

“To me, too,” I said, deciding not to point out that if one advertised for a scribe, one should not be surprised to see one turn up on the doorstep, so to speak. I was learning that the rules of this household bore little resemblance to those of the outside world. I moved to a small table by the window, which stood out for being the one tidy place in the chamber.The oak surface had been wiped clean, and on it stood a jar fashioned of an unusual green stone with a swirling pattern, containing several inexpertly trimmed quills and a knife. Perhaps Muirne was responsible for this little island of order. Beside the jar lay two sheets of good parchment, covered in writing. I picked one up. “Whose hand is this?” I asked.

“Anluan’s,” said Magnus. “Nobody else here can write.”

One look told me why Anluan had done no more than make a start on the daunting task. True, he could write, and if I really put my mind to it I could read what he had written. It was the worst hand I’d seen in my life, so undisciplined that the letters seemed to be trying to crawl right off the page.

“Don’t look like that,” Magnus said. “You’re a scribe, and he’s a fellow who’s lost the use of his right hand.”There was no judgment in his voice, only sorrow.

“I’m sorry . . .” My voice faded as I began to read.

Autumn begins to bite hard. I am in the final stages of preparation. With each new dawn, my mind and body are more fiercely driven by this. Knowledge beyond the earthly; a discovery to surpass any made hitherto by mortal man in this world. What if it is true? What if I can open this portal into the unknown? Where might I journey? What wondrous events might I witness? And when I return, how will I be changed?

I have dispatched Aislinn to gather wolfbane.

“I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve got things to do.”

I glanced up, one finger keeping my place on the page as I nodded to Magnus. He said something about supper, but his words faded into nothing as I was captured by the narrative before me.

Another day. Another step. As the time for the experiment draws closer, my helpers desert me, too blind to share my vision to the end, too feeble to bear the weight of my aspirations. They have allowed the superstitious tales of the local populace to influence them. My steward left me this morning. I can no longer serve you—those were his weakling words. No matter. I need no lackeys. I will do this alone, and when it is done I will have a parade of followers, a retinue of attendants, an army worthy of a king. They will be mine to lead, and those who doubted me, those who had not the stomach to stay the course, will choke on their cowardice. I will open this portal, and I will walk

I had reached the end of the second page. A dark and fascinating tale; I wanted more. But there was no more, not here at any rate. It couldn’t be Anluan’s account of his own experience, surely. He had not seemed at all the kind of man who would write thus, in an archaic and grandiose way, nor could I in my wildest imagination think of him commanding an army of any kind. This must be a partial transcription of some older document. To discover the rest of the story, I would have to hunt down Anluan’s source.

In the window embrasure beside the table where the chieftain had been working stood a little old chest. It was marginally less dust-coated than the others and seemed the obvious place to start looking. I reached out to see if it would open, then withdrew my hand.The box had a powerful aura, enticing and repellent at the same time. It made my skin prickle with unease and my heart race with anticipation.

The voice of reason told me there was no need to open it right now. There were small mountains of other documents to sort, not to speak of sweeping the floor, wiping away the dust that coated every surface, airing the room, establishing a storage system so I would know where to find things. I cleared a space on one of the bigger tables by the crude method of pushing everything else out of the way and got out the folding wax tablet I kept for making notes. It had seen good use over the years. I had learned my letters on it, my small hand wielding the stylus at first awkwardly, later with more control, as I formed the foundations of my craft. The tablet was shaped like a book, with a hinged wooden cover. A leather strap held it closed when not in use, and the stylus had its own pocket. The wax surfaces, protected thus, had remained clean and serviceable. I would use this to keep daily records of my work and to note down which documents were located where. Parchment and vellum were too costly to be squandered on such ephemeral writings. I opened the tablet, glanced around the library and sighed. I could feel that box calling to me. Read , it whispered. Read and weep.

I wouldn’t be able to set my mind to any other work until I dealt with this. I moved to the window and opened the box. No demons sprang forth. Inside, an assortment of items was neatly stowed. For the most part the contents were leaves of parchment, rolled in bundles and tied with disintegrating cords. Herbs had been sprinkled between the bundles long ago. These had dwindled to dust, but a faint sweet scent lingered on the pages, which were starting to crumble away at the edges. I reached for a bundle, then froze, gripped by a sense that someone was watching me. My skin prickling, I straightened and looked about me.The door to the garden stood ajar, but if someone had been there, he had vanished between one breath and the next. A faint scent of herbs lingered, sage and rosemary. I glanced out the window, but could see nobody. Get a grip on yourself, Caitrin. This place is odd enough without adding your own imaginings . I bent again to my task, lifting out each bundle of documents in turn and setting them side by side on the table. At the very bottom of the box was something wrapped in black cloth. I hesitated, then picked this up and placed it before me, unfolding its shroud with hands that were not entirely steady.

Perhaps I should have known it would be a mirror. This one was of obsidian, and something about it made me uneasy. The enigmatic black surface showed little reflection. I had read of such a mirror somewhere, I was certain. A dark mirror, used for divination. The artifact was in a silver frame crawling with eldritch creatures, each no bigger than a joint of my little finger, their eyes set with miniature stones of red or green. I blinked and stared anew. Hadn’t that gnomelike homunculus been at the bottom of the mirror last time I looked? And what about that being that was part sprite, part lizard? It had been curled up on itself and now it was looking right at me ...