The Dark Mirror (5 page)

The day came. Sibel was saddled and ready in the yard; four men at arms were to ride with the druid as an escort. Donal would stay at Pitnochie.

“I will work very hard, my lord,” Bridei said as Broichan stood waiting to mount his horse.

“Did I express any doubts as to that?” Broichan was almost smiling. “You will do well, son, I know it. Don’t neglect the more intellectual pursuits in your desire to develop your skills in combat. Now I must go. Farewell, Bridei.”

“Safe journey, my lord,” Donal said from where he held Sibel’s bridle. “I’ll watch over the boy”

“Farewell,” whispered Bridei, suddenly feeling quite odd. He would
not cry; he had promised his father. He watched in silence as Broichan, surrounded by his guards, rode away under the leafless oaks and down the track to the lake’s edge. They had a long journey northeast to Caer Pridne, great fortress of Drust the Bull.

“Right,” said Donal cheerfully. “How about swords today? I’ve a little one somewhere that you might just about be able to lift up, at a pinch.
What do you say?”

The lesson in swordsmanship kept Bridei occupied for some time, and while it lasted there was no place in his mind for anything beyond strength, balance, concentration. It was only in the afternoon, when the sky grew dark and rain began to fall in drizzling gray curtains, and his arms had begun to ache fiercely in belated protest at the morning’s hard work, that Bridei felt
sadness creep over him. Donal was out doing something with the men at arms. Mara was fussing over linen and the impossibility of getting it dry. Ferat, the cook, was in a foul temper that had something to do with wet firewood. There was nobody in the house to talk to.

Bridei’s small chamber was next to the place where Donal lodged with the other men at arms, although in practice Donal usually
slept in the hallway
outside Bridei’s door. He said the others snored and it kept him awake. Through Bridei’s tiny window, hardly big enough to admit a squirrel, could be seen a silvery glimpse of the lake between the branches of a birch. Sometimes Bridei could see the moon from his window, and then he would leave an offering on the sill, a white stone, a feather, or a charm woven from grasses.
Broichan had taught him the importance of the moon, how she governed the tides, not just in the oceans, but in the bodies of man, woman, and creature, linking her ebb and flow with the cycles of nature. The Shining One was powerful; she must be honored.

Today there was no moon to be seen, just the clouds and the rain, like endless, sorry tears. Bridei lay on his bed and stared up at the window,
a small, dim square in the stone wall, gray on gray. He knew what Broichan would say:
Self-pity is a waste of time, and time is precious. Use this for learning
. Then the druid would talk about the rain, and where it fit into the pattern of the seasons, and how the element of water was like the moon in its fluctuations. There was a lesson to be learned from every single thing that happened. Even
when people went away and left you. But right now Bridei didn’t feel like learning. Without his foster father, nothing seemed right at Pitnochie.

He sat cross-legged on the bed and recited the lore to himself until his lids were drooping over his eyes. Then he made himself stand up, and practiced balancing on one leg with one arm behind his back and one eye closed, which was what druids did for
meditation. Then he folded his blankets perfectly, so that the edges were a precise match, and he took everything out of his storage chest and replaced it in a different, more orderly arrangement. He polished his boots. He sharpened his knife. It still wasn’t time for supper.

Bridei stood by the window and looked out into the rain. He thought about the day, and about the expression in Broichan’s
eyes as he said farewell. He thought about the Vale of the Fallen, and all those men killed before their time, and their families with a whole life of sadness before them. He wondered which was the more difficult: having to go away, or being left behind.

DONAL WAS EXTENDING
the scope of Bridei’s combat training. It involved
grips and holds and tricks, balance and strength and speed, and also the proper care and maintenance of weapons. Bridei learned to use a bow and to
hit the center of the target nine times in ten. Donal began to move the target farther away and to add degrees of difficulty, such as a distraction at the moment of releasing the string or a sudden command to close his eyes. The lessons were never
boring. With the careful instructions on cleaning and oiling his blades, on retrieving and refletching his arrows, on maintaining the bow in perfect condition, Bridei came to realize that long-limbed, wry Donal was, in his way, as self-disciplined a man as the tight-lipped druid.

In the afternoons, when he would once have spent time with Broichan in the recitation of lore or the study of the
mysteries, he was now left to his own devices. They had been studying the elements. He did his best to remember everything Broichan had taught him, not just the words of the lore, which he sometimes only half understood, but the meanings behind them. The waxing and waning moon governed water, and was like the tides in the spirit, both strong and pliant. Water was storm, flood, rain for crops; the
hot saltiness of tears. Water could roar in a great torrent, a mighty fall from precipice to gorge, or lie still and silent, waiting, as in the Dark Mirror. Then there was fire, powerful and consuming. The life-giving warmth of the hearth fire could keep a man alive; the unchecked raging of wildfire could kill him. The Flamekeeper’s special gift to men was the fire in the heart: a courage that could
burn on even in the face of death. Air was chill with the promise of snow, carrying the scent of pines. Air supported the eagle’s flight, high above the dark folds of the Great Glen. Bridei could feel how it was for the eagle as he looked down over the land of Fortriu in all its grandeur. His land. His place. Earth was the deep heartbeat under his feet, the living, knowing body from whence all
sprang, deer, eagle, squirrel, shining salmon, bright-eyed corbie, man and woman and child, and the other ones, the Good Folk. Earth held him up; earth was ready to take him back when his time was done. Earth could make a house or form a track; earth could blanket a warrior’s long slumber. There was a whole world of meaning in the smallest things: a burned twig, a white pebble, a feather, a drop of
rain.

There were certain rules that must be followed when Bridei went out alone. He could climb Eagle Scar, as long as he was careful. He could traverse the woods as far as the second stream to the south. He was not permitted to approach the settlement or to venture on foot to the wilder reaches of the forest, where he had stumbled on the Vale of the Fallen. When he asked Donal why not, the warrior
simply said, “It’s not safe.” Because Donal invariably showed both common sense and kindness, Bridei accepted this rule. He
suspected it had something to do with the Good Folk. Besides, there were his father’s parting words, never to be forgotten:
Obey, learn
. He wandered the tracks, climbed rocks and trees, found a badger’s lair and an eagle’s abandoned nest and a frozen waterfall of fragile,
knife-edged filigree. He met not a living soul.

That changed abruptly one afternoon as he was making his way home from a hunting expedition. Well, perhaps not really hunting; he had his bow over his shoulder and his little knife at his belt, but he did not really intend to use either. He’d killed a rabbit not so many days ago, but Donal had been with him then. Much to Bridei’s relief, his shot
had taken the quarry cleanly; there had been no need for the knife. Bridei, a child who had a great deal of time for thinking, knew it could have been different.

Today he had brought his weapons because it made sense to have them, that was all. Didn’t Donal and the others always carry a wee knife in the boot? All Bridei had wanted to do was go up as far as the birch woods and sit on the stones
by the big waterfall, the one they called the Lady’s Veil, and watch for the eagles. The mountains wore caps of early snow, and the waters of the lake reflected the pale slate of the winter sky. The calls of birds were mournful, echoing across the distant reaches of the forest in lamenting question and answer. Perhaps it was the cold that made them cry so; how would they find food in winter, with
the berries shriveled on the brown-leaved bushes, and the sweet grasses carpeted in snow? Perhaps they simply cried to make a music fit for this grand, empty place. Winter must come, after all; the wild creatures knew that as Bridei did. Winter was sleeping time for the earth, dreaming time, a preparation for what was to follow. That had been one of Broichan’s earliest lessons. At such a time, a
boy should be open to his imaginings, to voices that might be stifled by the clamor of busier seasons. There was learning to be gained from all things: especially from dreams.

The Lady’s Veil was not frozen; its fall was too heavy, its face too open to allow the ice a grip. Pools at the base were fringed with tiny crystals and the ferns were frosted. Bridei scrambled up the rocks to the top.
He stood awhile watching the sky, but the eagles did not pass over. He practiced his one-legged stance, wondering which of his eyes saw truer than the other. After a while his feet began to go numb and his ears to ache despite the sheepskin hat, and he gathered his bow and quiver and set off for home. Ferat could be relied upon to have hot oatcakes available on such a day, and Bridei was hungry.

Beside and below the waterfall a granite outcrop marked the hillside; around it clustered holly bushes, glossy-leaved and dark. Bridei was perhaps two paces along the track at the base of the rocks when he heard it: a snapping, small, insignificant. He froze. Something was there, not far off under the trees, something that had gone quiet as he had. Something following him; stalking him. A boar?
A wildcat? Bridei’s heart began to thud a warning. His feet wanted to run. He was a fast runner for his size; it wouldn’t take him long to get down to the stone dike that bordered Broichan’s outer field, where there was a guard. His whole body felt ready for flight. His mind said no. What if it was the Urisk? The Urisk didn’t need to run. Once it saw you, once it wanted you, it stayed with you like
a shadow, however quick you were. The only way to escape was to trick it: to stand so still it couldn’t see you. Bridei was good at standing still.

Then the cracking twig became a footfall, not furtive at all now, and he turned his head to see a man clad all in brown and gray, a man not so easy to spot in the winter forest, and the man had a hood with eyeholes over his face and a bow in his hands
with an arrow aimed straight at Bridei’s heart.

No time to run; no place to hide. He would not scream. He would not beg for mercy, for he was Bridei son of Maelchon, and his father was a king. He reached for his bow, backing slowly against the rock wall as his assailant moved closer; he could see the fellow’s finger on the string, and knew above the clamor of his heart, above the clenching tightness
in his chest, that this warrior’s purpose was death. The stone was rough behind him, full of chinks and crevices lined with soft, damp patches of moss. Part of the earth; part of the heartbeat . . . As the man’s finger tightened on the string, Bridei slipped backward between the folds of stone and into the dim security of a tiny, narrow cave. He squeezed his body against the back, trying to
get out of sight, out of reach.

Outside, the man cursed explosively and at length. Bridei waited, trying to remember to breathe. A sword came, angled through the narrow gap, slashing up and down, reaching, probing, seeking. Bridei pressed back, making himself small. The sword hacked, stabbed: it seemed the owner could not maneuver it into the position he needed, for the gap itself was too slight.
Bridei wondered, now, how he had ever managed to get through.

“Godforsaken druid’s get!” a voice muttered. “Smoke, that’s what we need . . .”

Then there were other sounds, and Bridei knew the man was gathering
twigs, leaves, bracken, things that would burn. Most of it would be damp; still, Bridei had seen Broichan’s fires, started with no more than a snap of the fingers, and he moved cautiously
in the narrow space so he could get a sliver of view. The man was indeed heaping material at the base of the rocks, his movements quick and purposeful. There was no point in calling for help. If this warrior was canny with a flint, thick smoke would fill this tiny chamber well before any guard could run up the hill from the fields. If he didn’t want to die in this hole or walk out to certain slaughter,
Bridei would just have to save himself.

In the tight confinement of the little chink in the rocks, he struggled to set an arrow to the string. His hands were shaking and there wasn’t room to draw the bow fully. The man was kneeling now, perhaps already making fire. As a target, he was too low. The knife: Bridei could use that as he had seen Donal and the others do for sport, tossing it in a spinning
arc. He’d never actually tried it, but that wasn’t to say he couldn’t. Bridei set the bow aside, reached for the knife’s hilt. There would be one chance, one good shot at it, when the man had lit his wee fire and stepped back to admire it. One shot. Then he supposed he would have to leap out somehow, flames and all. Perhaps the leaves would not burn. Perhaps he would miss the target. No; he
was a king’s son.