Juliet Marillier - Heart's Blood

“Does that woman love Anluan or hate him?”

I could only grimace; I had no answer for that.

“Let’s take this one step at a time,” Maraid said.“If he wanted you back, but you could never have children with him, would you go?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “But . . . it’s not simple, is it? I’d marry him even if I knew we would be childless. I’d live with him even if we couldn’t marry. But I do want children of my own, Maraid. I want his children.The absence of them would be hard to set aside. In that, perhaps a little of the family curse would linger on. He would always feel that he had failed me. That’s the kind of man he is. I would always feel that there was something missing from my life.”

“It’s a pity you didn’t fall in love with Magnus instead,” my sister said dryly. “He sounds the kind of man who would father as many little gallóglaigh as you wanted, and look after you as well as any woman might need.”

“Not to speak of cooking supper every night,” I said, managing a smile. “Maraid, how could Anluan know whether he was able to father children or not? He’s hardly been off the hill since he was seven years old.”

“A man only knows something like that if he’s tried over a long time and failed,” Maraid said. “Perhaps it’s all in Anluan’s mind.When would he have had the opportunity to lie with a woman?”

I considered what I knew of Anluan’s past: Magnus nursing him back to health after the palsy, when Anluan was thirteen years old; the isolation of the household; the reluctance to leave the hill; the difficulty in getting folk to help. “He wouldn’t have had much opportunity at all,” I said. “I suppose there would have been serving girls up there for short periods. Or Magnus might have arranged . . .” This was so far beyond what I knew, I could hardly begin to imagine how it might have been.

“You know,” Maraid said, “for a boy with his past, and his disability, it might only take one bad experience to convince him that he was a complete failure. He does sound unduly prone to despair. Could it be only that, do you think?”

We considered that awhile, and I thought how impossible it would be, even if I did some day manage to return to Whistling Tor, to broach such a subject with Anluan.

“A boy might feel pretty awkward making love,” said my sister, “if he had limited use of an arm and a leg. If it was his first time and he was unsure of himself, and the woman didn’t understand his difficulty, it’s easy to see how it might go wrong. With the right woman, one who could help him a bit, that same man might find the experience quite different. As for children, they don’t come along if folk don’t try to make them.”

After a moment I said,“I’ve never lain with a man in my life.” My heart was thudding.

“He loves you,” said Maraid.“You love him. Who else will he manage this with, if not you?”

chapter thirteen

It was the first time I had seriously considered that I might return to Whistling Tor in defiance of Anluan’s decree of banishment.The idea sat uneasily with me, though my heart would have winged there like a homing swallow if it could. It was easy enough for Maraid to say these things. She could not understand the layers of history that sat so heavily over the place. Beside Nechtan’s dark legacy, the question of whether Anluan had been unmanned by the palsy or was merely beset by self-doubt dwindled into insignificance.

Unable to make a decision, I distracted myself by obtaining a fresh supply of materials for the workroom—not a great quantity, just sufficient to produce some samples that might be shown to potential customers. I could see that Maraid was pleased, though she made no comment.

I set out parchment, quills and ink on the familiar table. I would make three samples and I’d keep them simple.Time enough for embellishments, complicated scripts, gold leaf and rare inks once I’d established myself. First would be a passage of poetry rendered in minuscule, the kind of piece a noblewoman would appreciate as a courting gift. I began to score up the page, using the plummet and straight-edge from my writing box.

The empty desk beside me was eloquent. I found myself glancing across as if to check how Father was progressing with his own work. I recalled the gleam of his bald head under the light from the window; his habit of sucking in his bottom lip when particularly engrossed; his neat, square-tipped fingers placed precisely so, holding the parchment steady.

I had never said goodbye, not properly. On the day of his death I had been disbelieving, unable to accept that he was gone. At the burial rite I had been numb.

I set down the plummet and moved to kneel on the flagstoned floor, in the place where he had fallen. In this precise spot I had cradled him in my arms, begging death to change its mind, willing time to turn backwards. Here I had uttered the full-throated sobs of an abandoned child.

“Father,” I said now, “you have a beautiful new granddaughter. Maraid and I are together again, and the house is . . . cleansed.We’re making it a good place, as it was before. I hope you’re watching over us, you and Mother and Shea.That’s what Maraid believes. Father, I haven’t done very well since we lost you. I haven’t always been as brave as I wanted to be. But I’m trying. I want to make you proud of me. I want to use everything you taught me.”

I knelt awhile, and it seemed to me that beyond the window the sky grew a little brighter.The chamber was as quiet as a sleeping babe.“Goodbye, Father,” I whispered.Then I got up and went back to work.

I completed the poem, finishing it with a border of vines. The piece looked pleasing, if unadventurous. My eyes needed a rest. The next piece I planned, a legal document rendered in a common hand, must wait until the afternoon.

A shriek from somewhere in the house; something fell with a crash. I ran out into the passageway and almost bumped into Maraid, who was hastening towards our bedchamber.We reached the doorway together. Inside stood Fianait, linen-pale, with a shattered jug at her feet and water pooling. She was staring at the shelf before her as if it housed a demon. “That mirror,” she gasped. “There are things in it, things moving—”

I had forgotten to put the mirror away. “It’s all right,” I murmured, stepping across the debris to remove the artifact while Maraid went about reassuring the frightened girl.As I picked up the mirror, something dark and shadowy shifted within it: a chamber, the moon through a tall window, a face . . .

“Caitrin?” Maraid’s voice was a murmur. “What is it? What did she see?” And, when the silence drew out, “Caitrin? Are you all right?”

I stood frozen, the mirror clutched in my hands.There was Anluan in his chamber at Whistling Tor, lying on the pallet as still as death. His eyes were closed; his chest showed no rise and fall; his skin was a sickly gray. There was I, my face a mask of anguish, cradling him in my arms. “No,” I breathed, and “No!” I screamed.

“What is it, Caitrin? What can you see? Caitrin, speak to me!”

“He can’t be dead! He can’t be!”

My sister was peering over my shoulder at the polished metal. “Is that Anluan?” she asked. “Oh, God . . .”

Caitrin in the mirror laid her hand against Anluan’s cheek; she bent to kiss his pallid brow. Just for a moment, before the image faded, I saw a figure in the doorway of Anluan’s chamber: a slight, neat person in a demure gown and veil, her lustrous eyes fixed on the grieving woman, the motionless man. Her features showed not a trace of emotion.

“I must go to him,” I said. “Now, straightaway. Something’s terribly wrong, not this, since I was in the vision with him, but something . . . It’s a warning . . . I need to be there, Maraid.” I knew that whether or not Anluan could ever love me as a husband loves his wife, and whether or not I could ever bear his children, I was bound to him as tree is to earth or stars to sky, bound in a love that would transcend all obstacles. I must go. I would go. Nothing in the world was going to stop me.