Juliet Marillier - Heart's Blood

He’s conducted such interrogations before, though not often. They follow a logical sequence. If a person holds out to the point where one risks losing him without a result, it becomes more effective to transfer one’s attention to someone else, someone with whom one’s subject has a bond—the husband or wife, a child, an aged parent.There is a weak chink of that kind in the strongest armor. But this old woman has no family. She’s lived by herself in the woods for years.

He sighs. His hands are filthy. It will take vigorous scrubbing to get the blood out from under the nails.The crone’s breathing is a squeaking rustle, another irritant. He doesn’t look at her; such disorder offends his eye. And now Aislinn is coming back, he can hear her at the door.

“Are you done, my lord?” the girl asks politely, coming in and locking the door after her. She is thorough as always; he has trained her well.

“I haven’t got a thing.” There’s no need to pretend with Aislinn. She knows everything about him, to the extent that a simple village girl can understand a mind like his, a mind that soars above those of ordinary folk like a great eagle above the creeping, crawling creatures of the earth. His thoughts reach for the high, the impossible, the stuff of dreams and visions. “I don’t want to kill the witch before she’s given me the answer—I can’t understand why she would hold it back, she’s near death anyway, why take such valuable information to the grave?”

“I have something that may help,”Aislinn offers unexpectedly, her tone sweet.“I went back to her cottage after I gathered the herbs I needed. And I found this.” She holds up a bundle, and the woman strapped onto the table lets out a hissing sound, her reddened eyes rolling towards what the girl is carrying.

“Ah!” His breath comes out in a rush of triumph. He takes the little dog from Aislinn and carries it over to the tabletop, close to the woman, so she can see. A warmth floods through his body, the anticipation of success. “Aislinn, you may go out if you wish.”

“I’ll stay and watch, Lord Nechtan.”

The creature in his hands is quite small. It is not yet frightened—it has recognized its mistress and is straining to get close enough to lick her face. “I think we may be ready to talk,” says the chieftain of Whistling Tor. And when the woman replies only with a moan of horror, he gets out his thin-bladed knife, weighing it casually in his free hand.“I’m an artist at this. Watch me and learn.”

When it is over, he disposes of the debris while Aislinn cleans. The crone was all too ready to gasp out the names of the ingredients once he began to work on her creature. Aislinn has written them down in her little book, precise by measure, each in its turn. There was just time to get the last. Now he and the girl are the only living beings in the subterranean chamber, save things that scuttle and crawl in the corners and rustle in the walls. Not many of those: Aislinn keeps it spotless.

He watches her now as she scrubs the table.What a difference a year or two can make. Aislinn was a child when she first came to his notice; he did not expect a serving girl to show such intense interest in the maps and charts spread out in the chamber whose floor she was sweeping. He did not expect the orphaned daughter of humble villagers to be such a quick learner, thirsty to master reading, writing and numbers, then move into more esoteric branches of study. His protégé has been clever, eager to please and a great deal more patient than he is, which makes her an invaluable assistant. Time has passed, and Aislinn is no longer a child. Her hair is a fall of liquid gold; her pert buttocks move to and fro as she swings the brush. He’s suddenly hard for her, desire thrumming in his blood. No doubt she would be as quick to learn the arts of the bedchamber as she’s been with sorcery, and what pleasure he would take in the teaching.

But no. He cannot allow himself this; there are priorities. He must obey to the letter the information he got from Saint Criodan’s: the vital knowledge that was so astonishingly expensive to acquire. Let me show you the woeful state of our roof, Lord Nechtan; it will be quite costly to repair. Who would have believed Brother Gearalt would hold out for such a generous donation to the monastic funds before opening the doors to that secret collection within the foundation’s library? Oh, a dark collection it was, full of intriguing surprises.The good brother didn’t let him take the book away. He was given only long enough to find and read the one form of words. It was enough. He knew what he wanted.

“How quickly can you make up the mixture?” he asks Aislinn.

“It might take a number of days, Lord Nechtan.” The girl pushes her hair back from her brow. He imagines the pale strands drifting across his bare body; he thinks of her under him, yielding. “Goldenwood has to be gathered in a particular way. And some of the ingredients need grinding thrice over.” After a moment she adds, “I can stay on and work late. I can sleep in the corner there.”

There’s a pallet each of them has used from time to time when an experiment needs watching; they take turns to rest. Now that she’s older, that no longer seems wise. But time is of the essence, for All Hallows is drawing close. The pieces must be ready to slot in place by then or there will be a whole year more of waiting. Another whole year of Maenach stealing his cattle as if he has every right to do so. Another whole year of being ostra cised because nobody understands the significance of his work. A year of slights and offenses, injustices and dismissals. It is unthinkable. “So close,” he muses. “Less than a turning of the moon and then, such power . . . Power such as none of them can possibly dream of, Aislinn, the capacity to dominate not only wretched Maenach and the rest of my neighboring chieftains, but the whole district, the whole of Connacht, the whole of Erin if I want it.Against my army, none will stand. It will be a force worthy of a great hero of mythology, such as Cu Chulainn himself. I can hardly believe it is within my grasp . . . We must not waste a moment. This must be precise in every detail.”

They go back to work. Aislinn mixes powders, grinds dried berries, measures liquids with meticulous attention. He pores over his notes, though he has long since committed the charm to memory. He knows it deep in the bone, a potent, living thing. It is his future. It is his raising up and the doom of his enemies. It is, purely and simply, power.

The light in the underground chamber dimmed. The image wavered and faded, and with a shudder I came back to myself. Here in the library the sun was streaming in the window to set a brightness on the parchment before me. It was glinting off the surface of the obsidian mirror, on whose border the little creatures were now huddled or curled into postures of sorrow or fear, heads under wings, hands over eyes, arms around one another, as if what had been revealed were too piteous to behold.

Oh God, oh God . . . Tears spilled from my eyes. Foul thoughts and obscene images crowded my head. I felt filthy, soiled, wretched. Bile rose in my throat, bitter and urgent. Out! Out of this cursed place! I blundered across the chamber, bruising my hip on the sharp corner of a table, and stumbled out into the garden, where I sank to my knees and retched out the contents of my stomach under a lavender bush. My gut heaved and heaved again. Between the spasms I fought for breath.

A hand on my shoulder. I started violently, Nechtan looming in my mind, and the hand was withdrawn.

“What is it? You are ill.” A man’s voice. I had forgotten Anluan, in the garden. “I’ll call for Magnus,” I heard him say.

“No!” Through the paroxysms of my gut and the dark visions in my head, I had enough awareness to know I did not want the all-too-busy steward called away from whatever he was doing to tend to me.“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be in your garden. I’ll be all right in a moment—” As if to make me a liar, a new fit of choking and retching gripped me. My nose and eyes streamed.