Juliet Marillier - Hearts Blood

“I didn’t like to see you using the mirror, Caitrin. Promise me you won’t do it alone again.”

“I promise.” I did not ask for a promise in return, though I dearly wanted one. After this, after the delight of his tender words, the sheer bliss of his touch, I would find it unbearable if he closed himself off again.

“This way,” Anluan said, and led me into the south tower. I hesitated on the threshold, realizing the outer door led straight into his sleeping quarters. In the world of Market Cross it was unthinkable for a young woman and an unrelated man to be alone in a private chamber together. There was a bed against the back wall, its covers neatly folded, and a table and bench to one side. The floor was of bare flagstones, swept clean. A tall, narrow window pierced the thick wall to let in light, and winding steps curved up to lose themselves above. I imagined a monk’s cell might look somewhat like this, though the assortment of garments flung untidily across the top of a storage chest would not have earned an abbot’s approval.A pile of bound books teetered on a corner of the table.The books were old, their covers stained from handling, their binding worn to fragility. I had seen them before.

“Please, sit down.” Anluan released my hand and motioned to the bench, then went back to close the door.

“Nechtan’s grimoires,” I whispered, sitting down before them. “You had them here all the time.”There was a pot of ink on the table, and a jar with quills. His little notebook lay beside them, its covers closed. An extinguished candle had dripped a complex cascade all down its iron holder. The chamber was cold. “Why didn’t you show me these before?”

“I know you’re looking for a counterspell.” Anluan stood before me with his arms folded. There was a hardness, a determination in his stance now. “I know you believe I can banish the host if such a charm is found. These books—I’ve been aware of their existence for some time.This problem has taxed me since long before I made the decision to hire a scribe. I did not bring them into the light of day until you came to Whistling Tor and I saw that you truly intended to stay. You planted the seed of hope; you know I was afraid of that, afraid of accepting it, then finding it was a lie. I had grave doubts about delving into these books.” For the first time he hesitated.“I fear that opening my mind to Nechtan’s sorcery may awaken a part of me best left sleeping. Reading these seems as perilous as looking into the obsidian mirror. At the very touch of these pages, I hear a voice in my mind, a voice I believe is his.What if my spirit were turned to his will?”

“You are strong enough to withstand that, Anluan.” I trembled as I spoke; I had felt the same malign presence as I gazed into the mirror.

“Perhaps. In fact, I doubted from the first that the counterspell would be here. Nechtan had the grimoires at hand. If such a spell existed, wouldn’t he have used it? Conan knew Latin. Where Nechtan might perhaps have held back out of a belief that he could still gain full control of the host and employ it as a tool against his enemies, Conan most certainly would have banished the host if he’d had the means. He was no duplicate of his father.”

“You say you brought them into the light of day . . . but I don’t understand why you’ve waited so long to show me. I could have been working on them all this time. I might have found something by now, something that would help us.” I swallowed, struggling for calm. “I mean, help you and everyone at Whistling Tor. I know that I am only—I mean—” It wasn’t possible to go on. In the silence that followed, I lifted the top book from the pile and placed it on the desk before me. A malign, grimacing face had been worked on the dark leather of the cover. I left the book closed.

Anluan was looking down at the floor. A flush had appeared on his wan cheeks. “I don’t know how to say this,” he murmured. “I fear I will offend you.”

“Say it, please.”

“What made me bring the grimoires out in the first place also made me reluctant to share them.Your coming here has changed everything, Caitrin. You have opened my mind to possibilities beyond any I had dreamed of. So I fetched the books. I knew you could translate them, but . . . Caitrin, the idea of any action of mine causing you hurt is . . . it’s unbearable.You are . . . you’re like a beating heart. A glowing lamp. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

The words fell into my heart like drops of healing balm. My whole body warmed. Despite everything, I was filled with happiness.“Nor I you,” I whispered, clasping my hands together lest I do something foolish like jump up and throw my arms around him. His tall form was tense, his features grim; there was more to come.

“I couldn’t expose you to these books.They are harmful. Nechtan left his descendants a dark legacy. The key to ending this may well lie in the use of sorcery. I can’t ask you to deal with that. The obsidian mirror dis tresses you; I saw the look on your face today.”

“But—”

“I do know a few words of Latin. My father had begun to teach me. I hoped my scant knowledge of the language would be sufficient for me to recognize the spell if it were within these covers. I’ve been working on the grimoires since Magnus brought back the bad news about Stephen de Courcy. I’ve worked long hours, as you have; your candle has burned late into the night. I’ve watched you growing thinner and paler, Caitrin, and it troubles me deeply.”

A silence.

“But you haven’t found a counterspell,” I said eventually. “And nor have I. And we only have a few days left. Let me borrow these, Anluan. I can work on them in the library.”

“You look exhausted. I have wondered if you should be here at all, with this new threat. If you’re harmed I will never forgive myself.”

My heart skipped a beat. “I want to stay,” I said. The compulsion to reach out and touch him was more powerful with every breath. I wrapped my arms around myself.“Please let me work on these books. I gave an undertaking to the host. Maybe that was foolish. Maybe I overreached myself. But I want to do the best I can.”

“I don’t understand why you would want to stay. I have nothing to offer you, Caitrin. Nothing but shadows and secrets.”

“That isn’t true,Anluan.” My voice was not quite steady.“You’ve given me a home, and friendship, and work that I love.You’ve given me . . .” You’ve made me look outside myself. You’ve taught me that I can be strong. You’ve . . . “You’ve given me more than you know,” I said. “Let me help. Please.”

He drew a deep breath and released it, then moved to sit on the edge of the bed.“You understand, I imagine, where my dilemma lies,” he said.“I have no skills whatever as a leader of fighting men. I have no experience in councils and strategies. If I defy the Normans I risk not only your safety, but also that of Magnus, oldest and most stalwart of friends, and Olcan, who should stand outside all this. I risk all who dwell on the hill. Yes, I include the host—it came to me, that day when you offered them your apology, that they are as much my people as the folk of the settlements are. I may not hold them dear, but I am responsible for their wellbeing. A two-edged sword, since they present the immediate risk, but may also prove the long-term solution if this comes to war.To go ahead with this will require a great deal of faith. It will require the quality you taught me, Caitrin.” He gave his lopsided smile, twisting my heart. “The quality of persistent hope, hope against the odds. Magnus believes it’s time to make a stand. Rioghan agrees that we should act. In their opinion, we must do so or perish. And yet . . .Caitrin, there’s no trusting the host. One cannot disregard so many years of violence, so many acts of barbarism here on the hill. Nechtan’s shadow still hangs heavy over this place.”

“I have a theory,” I said.“Eichri and I were talking about the mirrors in this house and what each of them could do. He said perhaps artifacts like those are not good or bad in their own right, but work according to the character of the person who is using them. Mightn’t the same theory be applied to the host? All accounts tell us Nechtan was a deeply flawed man, a man with no sense of right and wrong, obsessed by the need for power, cruel to his family, deluded in that he believed everyone was against him. As I understand it, the host is tied to the chieftain of Whistling Tor, whoever that is at any time. Its members are obedient to his will, at least while he remains on the hill.”

“That is true, Caitrin.”

“In the vision I saw today, Nechtan was going to let his wife leave. He was tired of Mella; he didn’t want her at Whistling Tor any longer. I know this because the obsidian mirror doesn’t only show the vision, it draws me into Nechtan’s thoughts.”The memory of it was in my bones, like the deepest frost of winter. “But Mella made a mistake. She told her husband that Maenach was prepared to take her in; she implied that she had made an escape plan with his arch rival, the man he blamed for all his woes. I felt the change in him, Anluan. There was a boiling, uncontrollable surge of anger, then the command to the host, issued in a moment when all reason was swept away. Kill her, he told them. So Mella died.”

“I wish you had not seen that.”

“I hope I never have to witness such a sight again. But I learned something. If Nechtan had not suddenly lost his temper, if Mella had not mentioned Maenach, she would have left the hill, gone to her family and lived the rest of her life in peace. It was not an innate evil in the host that caused her to die so cruelly. All they did was obey Nechtan’s order. They had to; they were bound to his will.

“Conan was brought up by Nechtan from an early age. As chieftain he made grievous errors, certainly. Like Nechtan, he tried to make use of the host for war. He neglected his lands and his people as his father had done. But he was not Nechtan all over again. What about his wife and son? We know from Conan’s writings that Líoch was concerned about the welfare of the community in time of flood; we know that her husband did make some attempts to help them, though the people’s fear of the host made those efforts fruitless. I cannot believe that Irial grew up without love and care; he was such a loving man himself. Anluan, how and when did your grandmother die?” I prayed that he would not tell me that Líoch, too, had been slain by the host. My theory was fragile already; that would shred its last credibility.

In the dim light of the bedchamber, Anluan’s eyes did not seem blue now, but stony gray. “She fell from one of the towers,” he said. “An accident. She and Conan both lived until my father was a grown man. They died within a season of each other.”

It felt wrong to be delving into such sad memories, but I had no choice. “So they held on, Conan and Líoch, despite their difficulties.They stayed strong while Irial grew up. They cared about him. And about each other, I would guess, since Líoch did not try to run away as poor Mella did. Conan probably changed somewhat in those later years. Once it became plain that the host could not be led into battle without terrible consequences, he ceased trying to use them in that way. Perhaps the host quieted as a result.”

“There is a flaw in this theory, Caitrin.” Anluan was frowning.

“Please,” I said, “let me finish before you judge. We know that Irial, as chieftain, followed a completely different path. He had no intention of using the host as an army. He was a peaceable scholar who loved his wife and child. His household retainers worshiped him. Irial was a good man through and through. If my theory is correct, that inner goodness in your father would have meant that in his time the host would have felt no desire to kill, to maim, to perform ill deeds.”

“I wish I could believe this, but I cannot.”

“Didn’t your father fight against the family curse? Magnus told me he held a council at Whistling Tor. He let your mother take you to Whiteshore to visit her family. He sent Magnus out to talk to the other chieftains. He tried to make peace. I know how he died, Anluan, and I’m terribly sorry, not only because it is so sad for you, but also because he seems to have been such a lovely man. That’s the point. Irial was good. In his time, the host reflected his inner nature. As now they do yours.You want peace; they feel no desire for conflict.You feel burdened by your situation; they despair of ever being released from theirs. If you are able to summon hope, they, too, will see the possibility of a brighter future.”

There was a deep silence.After a long time,Anluan said,“Can the dead have a future?”

“They can still hope.What they want is rest. A sleep without dreams.”

“It is not within my power to bestow such a precious gift. I cannot even command it for myself.”

I considered this, remembering the nightmares that had plagued me so long: the visions of reaching hands and scratching claws, the images of the dank cell and a monster with Cillian’s face. “Anluan, I know there is a certain power amongst the host that is anything but good. But I believe the rest of them are just like any other group of people, good, bad, in between, with their own aspirations, their own sorrows, their own hopes and fears. Most of them want nothing more than to go back to wherever they came from. Nechtan’s spell binds them to you as chieftain.They know that only you can give them what they want. And until that happens, they follow you. That means you control their actions, keeping them in check. It also means they think and act in the way you think and act.You are a good man like your father. Under your leadership, they too can be good.”

“And if I need to fight, they will fight for me.” He was looking at me now; brows up, eyes intent. “You know, don’t you, that once I refuse de Courcy’s demands I must follow this through to the end, even if it means leading a ragtag army into battle against a force of ironclad Norman men-at-arms?”

The scene he had described painted itself instantly in my mind:Anluan falling to the ground, his clothing all over blood; Magnus fighting a last, lone battle over his chieftain’s corpse. I shuddered at the thought. If that came true, it would be partly my doing. “I don’t know anything about fighting. I don’t know what the next step should be. I just thought my theory might be helpful.”

“I wish I could believe it true,” Anluan said. “That would make it possible to carry out my plan with some measure of confidence. I could go down to the settlement and leave the host under the supervision of Rioghan and Eichri, secure in the knowledge that they would not follow me and wreak havoc beyond the hill. There are many warriors in their number.Work to do, meaningful work, might give their long time of waiting some purpose.”

“But?”

“There are parts of this story you don’t know, Caitrin, parts I don’t talk about, past events my household does not discuss. It isn’t true that the host was peaceable and benign throughout Irial’s chieftaincy. The last time my father left the hill, he came home to find my mother dead.”

I could find nothing to say. It had been there in Irial’s notebook, but I hadn’t understood. Why did I leave them? A wave of bitter disappointment flowed through me. No doubt my feelings were plain on my face.