“That’s right. His name was Brother Eichri. He seemed friendly.They both did.”
“Anluan’s cronies, the two of them,” said Tomas. “If that’s what Duald and the others spotted, it’s no wonder they were throwing things.”
“Anluan?”The conversation was proving hard work.
“Our chieftain. So-called chieftain. I can’t think of one good thing to say about the man, crooked, miserable parasite that he is.”
“More soup?”At Orna’s question her husband fell silent, but the anger in his words vibrated through the warm air of the kitchen.
“If you came here through the woods,” he said after a little, “it’s just as well you didn’t meet the dog.”
“I don’t mind dogs,” I offered cautiously.
There was a meaningful pause.“This is not so much a dog as a . . .
Dog
,” said Orna.
“A really big one?”
“Big.You could say that.The creature can take a fully grown ram in a single bite. In the morning, all that’s left is a few wisps of wool.”
Now they really were trying to scare me. If every hapless traveler who wandered into the settlement was regaled with such stories, it was little wonder the place had so few visitors.
“There’s a bed made up in the back room,” Orna said, seeing that I had finished my supper. “It’s nothing fancy, but you’ll be warm.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling very awkward. I was new to being utterly without resources; new to having no shelter beyond dawn tomorrow. New to being all alone. “I appreciate your kindness.”
“Fallen on hard times, have you?” asked Tomas.
Maybe he meant well. After the carter, I was not prepared to put it to the test. “A temporary setback,” I said, hearing how unconvincing it sounded.“I would like to sleep now. I need to be able to lock the door. Especially with those things about, the ones you mentioned.” I did not for a moment believe in tiny beings that whispered in one’s ear, or in monstrous dogs. But I had learned about the human monster, and I needed a bolted door before I could sleep.
“It’s the cold, creeping ones that are the worst,” said Orna. “They sing to you, lull you with their voices, and the next thing you find yourself wandering on a little path to nowhere. My own uncle fell prey to them. You can’t arm yourself against them. If they want you, they get you.”
I began to wonder if this whole episode was a crazy dream brought about by exhaustion and sorrow.“If Whistling Tor is so beset by these creatures,” I asked, “it seems strange to me that the village still exists.That’s if I understood you right, that these . . .manifestations . . .have been plaguing the region for almost four generations. I’d have thought people would have packed up and left long ago.”
“Leave Whistling Tor?” The innkeeper’s tone was full of amazement. It was plain that he had never considered such a prospect and found the idea unimaginable. “We couldn’t do that.Whistling Tor’s our place. It’s our home.”
“The sleeping quarters are through this way,” Orna said briskly, as if that topic was too painful to dwell on. “Brace the bar across the door and don’t open up until daylight.”
I did not dream of creeping presences and dogs that devoured sheep whole, but of Market Cross and of Ita. My kinswoman sought to rule me even in my sleep, her tongue a whip scourging me for my imperfections.
You’re nothing
, her dream voice reminded me.
You’re nobody.Your father shouldn’t have filled your head with wild ideas and impossible aspirations.Women don’t earn a living at men’s crafts. Berach should have had you learn a housewife’s skills, not train you into a little copy of himself, just as if you were a boy. Be glad you have responsible kinsfolk to take care of you, Caitrin. It’s not as if you’ve demonstrated an ability to look after yourself since your father died. Be grateful Cillian is prepared to give you his name ...
In the dream, I had no voice. I could not scream a protest, I could not say that the idea of marrying Cillian filled my heart with terror. I could not tell her that turning my back on my beloved craft meant betraying my father. But then, in the long, waking nightmare that had unfolded after Father’s death, I had not once spoken out. My voice had been muted by grief and by a numb refusal to accept that all I held dear had been suddenly snatched from me. Even now, I did not quite believe that in a single season the bright promise of my life had turned to ashes.
Now Ita and I were in a tiny cell with iron bolts on the door. It was bitterly cold; I was clad only in a shift of scratchy homespun. Ita was shaving my head with a big knife.
You’ve run out of choices, Caitrin, you disobedient girl.You must go into the priory.You’ll have plenty of time there to consider the result of your folly.
A nun’s gray habit was laid out across the pallet.
On second thoughts,
Ita’s dream voice said,
we’ll do it this way.
The floor of the cell opened under my feet. I fell, half-naked as I was, and a forest of bony hands stretched out to rake my flesh with long nails as I passed. A howling filled the air, a wretched, despairing noise. Slavering mouths surrounded me, sinking their pointed teeth deep into my arms, my legs, the tender parts of my body, until I felt the flow of hot blood all over me.
You’re nothing! Nothing!
A derisive, shrieking laugh. Down I fell, down, down, knowing that when I landed I would break in pieces . . .
Sleep,
whispered someone.
Long sleep ...
I woke, heart hammering, skin damp with the sweat of terror. Where was I? It was pitch-dark and I was trembling with cold. An icy draft swept into the cell-like chamber where I lay. A cell . . . the priory, oh God, it hadn’t been a dream, it was true . . . No, I was in the inn at Whistling Tor, and I had kicked my blankets onto the floor while I slept. My bundle and writing box were beside me, the proof that at last I had taken control of my life and fled Market Cross.Tears filled my eyes as I reached for the blankets. It was all right. I was safe.The nightmare was over.
It had been worse than usual, perhaps thanks to Tomas and Orna’s tales, and I had no wish to lie down and close my eyes again. Besides, it was too cold to sleep. A clammy chill was seeping right into my bones. I huddled into the blankets and applied my mind to the dire situation I had brought on myself. I had no resources beyond my craft and my common sense, and even that had deserted me lately. I must think of tomorrow. How to get a ride when folk seldom visited Whistling Tor. How to pay for it with no funds.And the big one, the one that kept my belly churning with fear and my head racing to find solutions: how to stay one step ahead of pursuit.
My head began to turn in circles. My father lying pale and still on the workroom floor. Ita’s voice, always her voice, issuing decrees, giving orders, making things happen, too soon, much too soon, while shock and sorrow rendered me incapable of standing up for myself. And as soon as my sister was gone, the blows. Ita was a master of slaps and pinches. And Cillian ... Cillian had marked me. The bruises on my skin—blue, black, yellow, an angry patchwork—would fade. There were other hurts, deeper ones, that would be harder to lose.
You did it, Caitrin,
I reminded myself.
You got up and walked out.
Dawn came at last, but I did not unbar my door until I heard folk moving about outside. While I discounted the horror tales of suppertime, my dream made me reluctant to venture out until the local people deemed it safe to go abroad. Just as I was removing the iron bar, Tomas came to knock on the door.
“There’s a fire on,” the innkeeper said. “Come through when you’re ready. I’ve got a bit of breakfast for you.”
“I can’t pay any more.”
“No extra charge, lass.You need something in your stomach.”
I could have wept. It seemed so long since I had been amongst kind people. Soon after, I was sitting at a table by the window of the inn, looking out as I worked my way through a platter of coarse bread and sausage.
The mist was clearing. I could see the houses of the settlement, and behind them a stretch of the makeshift fortification. Beyond that, the ground rose towards a wooded hill. At the very top, sections of a high stone wall could be glimpsed above the canopy of oaks and elms.Towers loomed.The place looked big, grand. Without a doubt, this was the fortress Tomas had mentioned, the one that housed the crooked, inept chieftain of Whistling Tor. Stone: that was unusual.The Normans built in stone. Our own chieftains constructed their fortresses of mud and wattle.This place was substantial. Situated as it was, strategically high above the surrounding terrain, it would make an excellent base for a regional commander, and I wondered if the Norman leaders knew about it. For such a prize they might well venture into the west.
The slopes below the wall were thick with vegetation. Birds were flying in and out. The tale of dangerous creatures in the woods had painted the ancient fort as grim and forbidding in my mind, but the green growth softened it.All the same, it looked set apart, lonely somehow; even without last night’s tales, I thought I would have sensed a sadness about the place.
Outside the window Tomas, an apron around his waist, was speaking to a man I had not seen last night, a large, square-jawed individual with knives at his belt and a heavy axe slung on his back. He had on a worn but well-cared-for leather breastplate over practical garments of wool; it was the garb of a warrior. His hair was more gray than fair, and hung to his shoulders in thick twisted locks. As he and Tomas entered a dispute of some kind, Orna came out carrying a bundle, which she more or less dropped at the stranger’s feet. She did not look at him or speak a word, just scurried back inside.The men’s conversation reached me through the open window.
“What about someone to help with the livestock, at least?” the visitor asked. “That boy you sent me didn’t even last two days.”
“They’re afraid, Magnus. You can’t expect folk to stay in that household of freaks, not to speak of what’s in the woods on every side. And it’s not as if your master pays them a fortune for their labors.”
“You know quite well that the most a lad or lass should expect for that kind of work is a bed and two square meals a day, with perhaps a little something to take home on feast days. We need help. It’s perfectly safe. Anluan’s folk don’t attack their own.”
“I can’t help you,” Tomas said flatly. “You might tell Lord Anluan that ordinary people are sick and tired of being harassed by those creatures in his woods, and they’re still wearier of his failure to do anything about that or about any of the misfortunes that have beset the region since his sorry ancestor unleashed hell in Whistling Tor.”
“Come on,Tomas.You know how things stand. Ask around the neighborhood for me, will you? I can’t manage without a lad to give me a hand, and we could do with a girl to help around the house as well. And there’s another thing. Anluan needs someone for a special job, over the summer. Someone who can read Latin and write. Write properly, I mean.
Fast and accurate
, that’s what he said.”
My heart began to race.
Tomas snorted in disbelief. “Wouldn’t you need a cleric for that?” he asked.“You won’t get any of
them
near Whistling Tor, the way things stand. You’re wasting your time.All right, I’ll ask. But you know what the answer will be.”
As I gathered my belongings, the visitor hefted the bundle onto his shoulder and headed off in the general direction of the fortified barrier. By the time Tomas came back in with a load of firewood, Magnus had disappeared from view.
“That man who was outside,” I said. “Magnus, was it? Did he say they needed a scribe up at the fortress?” I prayed that this was the gift it appeared to be: a remarkable opportunity of both hiding place and paid work.
“He did say that.” Tomas set down the wood and regarded me, hands on hips. “Someone who can read Latin.Why he asked me, I can’t imagine. It’s hard enough to find him a simple cowherd, let alone a scholar. Sounds like it’s a big job, whatever it is; could take the whole summer. I’ll tell you the truth, Caitrin.There’s not a soul in the region would agree to spend a season in that place, not for all the silver in Connacht. Not that it matters, since none of us can read anyway, Latin, Irish or anything else.”
“Who is Magnus, exactly? A servant? He works for the chieftain, Anluan, is that his name?”
“Steward, I suppose you could call Magnus. Been there since Irial’s time. Hired as a fighter; stayed on when Irial died. Magnus is a foreigner, one of the
gallóglaigh
. Doesn’t do much fighting now. More of a farmer and jack of all trades. I can’t imagine why he stays.”
“So there are ordinary folk living on the hill, not just these . . . presences?” I’d have to run to catch up with Magnus before he disappeared up the path into the woods.
Tomas’s gaze sharpened.“Magnus is the most ordinary it gets up there,” he said.
“I must go after him,” I said.“I can do the job. I can read and write. I’m a trained scribe, and I need work.Will the barrier still be open?”
“You can read?” Tomas’s incredulity was not so surprising; people tended to respond like this when they heard about my skills. “A young woman like you? That’s the strangest thing I ever heard.”
“What you told me last night was a lot stranger,” I said.“Tomas, I have to run or I won’t catch up with him.”
“Whoa, whoa, now wait a bit.” Tomas looked genuinely alarmed. “That story you heard last night might have been hard to swallow, but it was simple truth.You’d only need to spend a few days here to discover that for yourself. I’ll accept that maybe you’re a scholar—why would you lie about such a thing?—but as I said to Magnus, no scribe in his right mind would touch this job. I didn’t take you for a fool, lass.”
“I have to tell you something,” I said, deciding to risk part of the truth. “I’m being followed and I don’t want to be found. I didn’t do anything wrong, but there’s someone after me and I need to get away. And I do need paid work, quite badly.Will you ask the men to let me through the barrier, please?”