Juliet Marillier - Hearts Blood

You didn’t listen, whispered a little voice. You didn’t take heed.You do not belong here.

“Lost, are you?”

I started violently, whirling around at the rough, booming voice. Between two massive oaks stood an extraordinary man. I hardly had time to take in his squat build, his ruddy cheeks like ripe apples and his mossy, green-gray beard. I glanced only briefly at his odd garb: a rough tunic and breeches of skins, a garland of leaves and twigs on his wild thatch of hair, festoons of greenery wreathed around his neck. As he took a step towards me, I saw what was coming up behind him. If the man was unusual, the dog was monstrous.The moment I set eyes on it I believed the whole story, rams, wisps of wool and all. It was a powerfully built animal of brindled hue, short-haired, its muzzle of the shape that men favor in a fighting dog, with the kind of jaws that grip fast and cannot be prized apart against the creature’s will. Its ears were small, its eyes mean, its posture one of imminent attack. It was four times as big as any dog I’d ever clapped eyes on.

“He won’t bite,” the man said, offhand. “Which way are you headed?”

I swallowed. It was not much of a choice: put my fate into the hands of this pair, or stay here and let the eldritch voices lead me on a long walk to nowhere.“I’m trying to get up to the fortress,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. If the dog knew I was afraid, it would be more likely to attack.

“You’re far off the path. Here.” The strange man extended a knobbly hand, grasped mine and helped me over a fallen tree trunk.“It’s not a long walk if you know how to do it.Track’s neglected. Folk don’t come this way. Follow me.”

I walked behind him, and the dog walked behind me, growling deep in its throat. Without quite looking, I knew its little eyes were fixed intently on me.

“Hush, Fianchu!” the man commanded, and the growling died down, but it was still there, a subterranean threat. “He’s not good with strangers,” my companion said. “If you’re a kindly soul, he’ll warm to you in time. Talk to him, why don’t you?” He paused, and I halted, not prepared to turn around in case the hound launched its considerable bulk straight at me. “Go on, try it,” the man added, not unkindly.

Under the circumstances I could hardly refuse. “Fianchu, is that his name?” I asked.

“He’s Fianchu, and I’m Olcan.”

“My name is Caitrin,” I said. “I’ve come to see your chieftain about a scribing job.” I turned very slowly towards the dog. He was two strides away and had gone into a sitting posture. “Nice dog, Fianchu,” I muttered insincerely.

“That’s it.” There was a smile in Olcan’s voice. “Keep it up. See, he likes it.”

Fianchu’s stumpy tail was beating a little rhythm against the forest floor. His mouth was stretched in a grin, revealing a set of efficient-looking teeth. Encouraged, I continued.“Such a good boy, sitting so politely. Good Fianchu.” I reached out cautiously.

“Careful!” said Olcan. “He has been known to snap.”

Hoping very much that I was not about to lose a hand, I held my fingers where Fianchu could smell them. I watched him without looking him directly in the eye. “Good boy. Nice gentle boy.” The hound sniffed at my hand, then put out his massive tongue to lick it.

“Looks like he’s taken to you,” said Olcan, grinning widely. Fianchu had gone down into a lying position, his massive head right beside my foot. I scratched him behind one ear and he drooled.

“To tell the truth,” my companion went on,“I wasn’t sure if he’d make friends or take a bite out of you. Looks as if you’ve got the touch.”

“Good,” I said a little shakily. “Do you live at the fortress, Olcan? Do you work for the chieftain?”

Olcan gave me a complicated look. “I’m no man’s servant,” he said. “But I’m one of Anluan’s folk.”

Soon we were back on the path, which wound steeply upwards through small groves of elder and willow.Whistling Tor was far bigger than it looked from down in the settlement. At last, above us between the trees loomed the massive bulk of the fortress wall.

“Gate’s around that way a bit,” Olcan said, halting. “Don’t go back downhill.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m most grateful.Where exactly—”

But before I could ask for further directions, he turned on his heel and strode back down the hill, Fianchu padding silently after him. I was on my own again.

chapter two

I skirted the wall, telling myself to breathe slowly. Those voices, those creeping hands . . . I had been too quick to dismiss Tomas and Orna’s stories as fantasy. And afterwards, I’d been so alarmed by the appearance of Fianchu that I hadn’t even thought to ask Olcan what the mysteri ous presences were. I understood, now, why people never came up here. If Olcan hadn’t appeared at the right moment to rescue me, I’d probably have become so hopelessly lost I’d never have emerged from the woods again. I just hoped I would get the scribing job so I didn’t have to walk back down the hill today.

I paused to tidy my hair and straighten my clothing. I practiced what I would say to Lord Anluan or to whomever I met when I finally reached the front door. My name is Caitrin, daughter of Berach. My father trained me as a scribe. He was famous throughout our area for his fine calligraphy and undertook commissions for all the local chieftains. I can read and write both Latin and Irish, and I’m prepared to stay here all summer. I am certain I can do the job. Perhaps not that last bit—it implied a confidence I did not feel. Ita had told me often enough that women could never ply such crafts as penmanship as well as men could, and that I was deluding myself if I imagined I was any different. I knew she was expressing society’s view when she said that. Any commissions I had fulfilled had always been presented to customers as my father’s work. It had irked Father that such subterfuge was necessary if we wanted fair payment. Folk believed, generally, that all I did was mix inks, prepare quills and keep the workroom tidy.

Lord Anluan would likely be no different from others we had worked for. He might well find it hard to believe that anyone other than a monk could read and write, for secular scribes such as my father were a rare breed. As for convincing this chieftain to employ a young woman for such work, that might not be so hard, I thought, in the light of the difficulty Magnus seemed to be having in finding helpers who would stay.

Further around the wall there was an arched opening with the remnant of iron fastenings to either side. If there had been a gate to block this entry, it had long since crumbled away to nothing.The fortress would once have provided an impregnable refuge, a safe retreat for the inhabitants of local farms and settlements in time of war. The stone blocks that formed it were massive. I could not for the life of me imagine how they had been moved into place.

Everything was damp.The stones were covered with creeping mosses; small ferns had colonized every chink and crevice, and long-thorned briars clustered thickly around the base of the wall, a forbidding outer barrier. I looked up at the towers and was seized by dizziness. Fine day or not, their tips were lost in a misty shroud.

Narrow slit windows pierced these towers, designed for the shooting of arrows in defense. There were some larger openings lower down, and from the gateway where I stood I glimpsed someone moving about inside, perhaps a woman. Magnus is the most ordinary it gets up there, Tomas had said.

I advanced cautiously through the gap.The space enclosed by the wall was immense, far bigger than it had seemed from outside, and there were buildings of various kinds set up against the bastion, here on one level, there on two, with external steps of stone. In one place these went up to a high walkway, a place where fighting men might be stationed in time of siege. Not that such a presence could be effective now, when anyone could wander in without a by-your-leave. The high, round towers were situated at the corners of the wall and had their own entries.

I would have expected a chieftain’s stronghold to have a courtyard inside, a place where warriors on horseback and oxen drawing carts could be accommodated, and where all the bustle and activity of a noble household could unfold. There was nothing like that here. Instead, the whole place was grown over with trees of various kinds—I saw a plum, a hazel, a weeping willow—and under them were bushes and grasses alive with insects and birds. I advanced along a flagstone path, my skirt brushing the thick foliage of bordering plants, and saw that beneath this lush, undisciplined growth there were traces of old gardens, lavender and rosemary bushes, stakes for beans now leaning on drunken angles, patches where straw had been laid to shelter vegetables of some kind. On a weedy pond, two ducks swam in desultory circles.

The main door might have been anywhere. All was swathed in creepers and mosses, and every time I glanced across at the biggest of the buildings, the one I thought most likely to be the entry point, it seemed to be in a slightly different place. Use your common sense, I ordered myself grimly as I noted the position of the sun relative to the towers I had just passed. Towers and walls didn’t move. This place might be odd, but nowhere was as odd as that. I passed a hawthorn bush over which a lonely shirt had been laid to dry. The garment was sodden from last night’s rain. I still couldn’t see the front door.

A scarecrow stood amidst the ill-tended plants near the path, a crow perched on each shoulder. It was an odd thing in a voluminous black cloak and a silk-lined cap. I went closer and the sun broke through the mist above me, striking a glint from a decoration that circled the neck of the effigy. Saints preserve us, if those were real jewels the manikin was wearing a king’s ransom.

The scarecrow raised a long-fingered hand to cover its mouth politely, then gave a cough. I felt the blood drain from my face. I stepped back, and whatever it was stepped forward out of the garden, flinging its cloak around itself in an imperious gesture. The crows flew up in fright. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to speak.The thing fixed its dark, assessing eyes on me and smiled without showing its teeth. There was a greenish pallor about its skin, as if it had been left out too long in the rain.

“Excuse me,” I babbled stupidly, “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’m looking for the chieftain, Lord Anluan. Or Magnus.”

The being lifted its hand, pointing towards a wall that seemed to enclose another garden. Through an archway mantled by a white-flowered creeper wafted a scent of familiar herbs: basil, thyme and wormwood.The inner wall was covered in honeysuckle.

“In there? Thank you.” I scuttled away, eyes averted. You need this job, Caitrin.You need this hiding place.You vowed you would be brave.

The walled garden was almost as unkempt and overgrown as the area outside, but I could see it had once been lovely. A birch tree stood in the center, and around it were the remnants of a circular path lined with stones, and beds of medicinal herbs hedged with bay. The bay was running riot and the herbs were sorely in need of a trimming, but it was clear that this little garden had been more recently tended than the wilderness beyond its walls. An ancient stone birdbath held its share of avian visitors; someone had cleaned and replenished it not long ago. A wooden bench stood under the tree, and on it lay an open book, face down. I froze. But there was nobody in sight; it seemed the reader had tired of study and left this sanctuary.

I put my bundle and writing box on the bench and walked slowly around the path, liking the methodical way the garden had been laid out. Its untidiness did not trouble me; it was only in the practice of my craft that my mind required complete order. This haven had been planted by a skilled herbalist. There was everything here for a wide range of uses, both culinary and medicinal. Belladonna for fever, sorrel for the liver. Figwort, meadowsweet, heart-of-the-earth. And over there . . .

Heart’s blood. In an unobtrusive corner, half hidden beneath the spreading silvery-gray leaves of a gigantic comfrey plant, grew a clump of this rarest of herbs. I’d never seen the real thing before, but I knew it from an illustrated treatise on inks and dyes.

I moved closer, crouching down to examine the leaves—they grew in characteristic groups of five, with neat serrations along each delicate edge—and the stem with its unusual mottled pattern. No buds yet; this rarity bloomed only in autumn, and then briefly. It was the flowers that made it an herb beyond price, for their crushed petals, when mixed in specific proportions with vinegar and oak ash, produced an ink of rich hue, a splendid deep purple favored by kings and princes for their most regal decrees and beloved of bishops for the illustrated capitals in missals and breviaries.The capacity to produce a supply of heart’s blood ink could make a man’s fortune. I brushed my fingers gently against the foliage.

“Don’t touch that!” roared a deep voice from behind me. I leaped to my feet, my heart thudding in fright.

A man stood on the pathway not three arms’ lengths from me, glaring. He had come from nowhere, and he looked not only angry, but somehow . . . wrong.

“I wasn’t—I was just—” Suddenly I was back in Market Cross, with Cillian’s cruel hands gripping my shoulders as he shook me, and Cillian’s abusive words ringing in my ears.“I—I—” Pull yourself together, Caitrin. Say something. I stood frozen, my stomach tying itself in knots.

The stranger stood over me, fist clenched in fury, eyes glowering. “What are you doing here? This place is forbidden!”

I struggled to find the words I had prepared. “I’m a ... I’ve come to . . .” Get a grip on yourself, Caitrin.You are not going back to that dark place. “I’m a . . . a ...” I forced the memory down, making myself look up at the man. His appearance was unsettling, for although his features were above the commonplace in beauty, they were at the same time somehow skewed, as if the two sides of his face were not a perfect match for each other. I noted the red hair, as ill tended and overgrown as his garden, and the fair complexion, flushed by anger. His eyes were of an intense dark blue and as inimical as his voice.

“You’re a what?” he snarled. “A thief? Why else would you be here? Nobody comes here!”

“I wasn’t trying to steal the heart’s blood plant,” I managed. “I’m here about the work. The position. Reading. Scribing. Latin.” I faltered to a halt, backing away. I could feel his rage quivering in the air of the peaceful garden.

He stood there a moment, staring at me as if I were the oddity and everything else here completely normal.Then he lurched towards me, one arm outstretched as if to seize hold of me.The cold fear washed through me again. “It doesn’t matter,” I squeaked. “I must have made a mistake . . .”

I backed further, then fled for the archway. Curse it! Curse this place, and curse Ita and her son, and most of all, a pox on me for daring to hope that I might have found sanctuary and for being wrong. And now I had to go all the way through that wretched forest again.