Son of the Shadows Read online

  “You grow pigs to eat ’em,” put in Otter. “Not much difference really.”

  “Oh!” It was like arguing with a stone wall. “We’re talking of men here, not of animals bred for the pot. Doesn’t it bother you to have no livelihood but killing? Killing where and how your chief determines, wherever he can command the best price? One day you may take your instructions from a Briton, the next a lord from Connacht or a Pictish chief. There’s no meaning to it.”

  “Couldn’t take one side or another,” said Spider, apparently surprised. “Not on a permanent basis, you understand. All sorts, we are. Saxon, Pict, Southerner, and some like Gull from places you can’t even say the name of. Mixed bag, that’s us.”

  “But that doesn’t mean you—oh!” I gave up in frustration.

  “What about Cú Chulainn?” asked Snake. This was unexpected. “He killed his lady-friend’s father. I wonder what she thought of that? His men killed her father’s army. What for? So he could have a woman, satisfy his lust. So he could show he was the strongest. How different is that from killing for payment? Not so different, I’d say.”

  For now, I had run out of answers. Besides, it was time to go back. Dog could not be left in charge of the smith for too long, given his limited nursing skills.

  But when we came close to the shelter, the quiet voice I heard was not Dog’s. I motioned Snake to silence.

  “ … a man, his name you need not know … from the coast of Wessex across to Gaul … can arrange for you to travel on to … no, don’t mention that, it will be taken care of …”

  “Chief.” Evan’s reply was weak, but he sounded as if he understood. So he was awake, and his mind was clear again, for now. Snake had retreated farther down the bank and busied himself with something or other. I waited, remaining just out of sight, my curiosity getting the better of me. “What held you back,” Evan asked, “when you saw what was left of me? What stopped you?”

  There was a brief pause.

  “I won’t lie to you, Evan,” Bran said quietly. “I would have done it. And I am not persuaded, thus far, that this is right.”

  Again a silence. The smith was growing tired.

  “Bossy little wench, isn’t she?” he said eventually, summoning a ghost of a chuckle. “Likes to take charge. Talked me through it. Couldn’t tell if I was waking or sleeping half the time, but I heard her all right. Told me straight, she did. Arm’s off, she said. Not the end of the world, she said. Told me what I could do without it. Put a few ideas into my head, stuff I’d never have dreamed of. Ask me yesterday, I’d have cursed you for not finishing it then and there. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “You’d better rest,” Bran said, “or I’ll be accused of subverting her plans, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Got a mind of her own, that one. Just your type, Chief. Easy on the eye, too.”

  It was a little while before Bran answered this. When he did, the warmth had left his voice. “You know me better than that, Smith.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He was coming out. Suddenly, I was busy spreading out the wet garments to dry on the hawthorn bushes nearby. He halted in the entrance.

  “Where’s Dog?” I asked, without turning.

  “Not far. I will remain until he returns.”

  “You don’t need to,” I said. “Snake is still here. One guard is plenty. I can be trusted not to desert my charge. I would not have agreed to this task if I had intended to turn and run at the earliest opportunity.”

  I looked up at him. He was regarding me gravely, and I thought, not for the first time, about his strange two-in-one features. The intricately detailed pattern on the right side gave his eye a look of menace, his nostril an arrogant flare, his mouth a severe, reined-in tightness. And yet, if you took the other side in isolation, the skin was fair, the nose neat and straight, the eye a steady, clear gray like lake water on a winter morning. Only the mouth was the same, hard and ungiving. He was like two men in one body. I was staring again. I made myself look away.

  “Trust?” he said. “That word is meaningless.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said, and made to go back inside the shelter.

  “Not yet,” said Bran. “You heard, I suppose? Heard the smith talking?”

  “Some of it. I am pleased to hear him lucid. He seems to be improving.”

  “Mmm.” He did not sound convinced. “Thanks to you, he sees some hope of a future. You have painted this for him with your words, I imagine, as you did last night for my men. A rosy new beginning, full of love, life, and sunlight. You do this, and yet you dare to judge us.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked quietly. “I told him only the truth. I did not hide the facts nor falsify the extent of his injury and how it would limit him. As I told you before, his life need not be over. There are many things he can do.”

  “False hopes,” Bran said bleakly, frowning as he kicked the earth with the toe of his boot. “It is no life for an active man. In your soft way you are more cruel than the assassin who takes his victim quickly and efficiently. That prey does not suffer long. Yours may spend a lifetime learning that things can never be the same again.”

  “I have not told him it will be the same. Good, but different, I said. And I have spoken of the need to be strong, strong in mind and will rather than body. The need to fight against despair. You judge me unfairly. I have been honest with him.”

  “You can hardly speak of judgment,” Bran said. “You think me some kind of monster, that is clear.”

  I regarded him levelly. “No man is a monster,” I said. “Men do monstrous things, that is certain. And I have not judged quickly, as you do. I knew of you before I was rudely snatched and brought here against my will. As you are doubless aware, your reputation goes before you.”

  “What did you hear and from whom?”

  I was already regretting my words. “This and that, around the household,” I said cautiously. “Rumors of killings, seemingly at random, carried out in a way that was both effective and—and eccentric. Tales of a band of mercenaries for hire who would do anything if you paid them well enough and who did not let paltry considerations such as loyalty, honor, or justice stand in the way of their work. Men with the appearance of wild beasts or of creatures from the Otherworld led by a shadowy chief they called the Painted Man. You’ll hear these tales in many parts.”

  “And what household was this in which such rumors came to your ears?”

  I did not reply.

  “Answer my question,” he said, still softly. “It’s time you told me who you are and where you come from. My men were strangely vague in their account of how they found you and who accompanied you on the road. I still await an adequate explanation from them.”

  I remained silent, my eyes steady as I looked back at him.

  “Answer me, curse you!”

  “Are you going to hit me this time?” I inquired, not raising my voice.

  “Don’t tempt me. What is your name?”

  “I thought we had no names here.”

  “You do not belong here and cannot,” Bran snapped. “I can extract this information from you if I must. It will be easier for both of us if you simply tell me. I am amazed you do not realize the danger of your current situation. Perhaps you are a little slow in the wits.”

  “Very well,” I said, “fair trade. I’ll tell you my name and where I come from if you tell me yours—the real one, I mean—and where you were born. Your origins were in Britain, I would guess, though you speak our tongue with fluency. But no mother gives her son the name Chief.”

  There was a brief silence. Then he said, “You tread on perilous ground.”

  “Let me remind you,” I replied, my heart thumping, “I am not here of my own will. There will be those of my household out searching, and they are both well armed and skillful. You think I would jeopardize their efforts to find me by telling you who they are and whence they come? Slow in the wits I may be, but not that slow. I have told you my name is Liadan, and that must
be enough for you until you give me yours.”

  “I cannot imagine why anyone would take the trouble of searching for you,” he said in frustration. “Does not your habit of biting back, like a meddlesome terrier, make your folk soon weary of your company?”

  “Indeed no,” I told him sweetly. “At home I am known as a quiet, dutiful girl, well mannered, industrious, obedient. I think you must bring out the worst in me.”

  “Mmm,” he said. “Quiet, dutiful, I doubt it. It requires too great a leap of the imagination. More likely, true to your kind, you lie when it suits you. To such a teller of tales, that should come easily.”

  “You insult me,” I said, keeping my voice calm with increasing difficulty. “I would have preferred a blow to the cheek. Tales are not lies, nor are they truths, but something in between. They can be as true or as false as the listener chooses to make them, or the teller wants him to believe. It is a sign of the tight circle you draw around yourself, to keep others out, that you cannot understand this. I do not lie easily, nor would I do so for so superficial a reason.”

  He glared at me, gray eyes icy. At least I had sparked some sort of reaction.

  “By God, woman, you work an issue threadbare with your twisted logic!” he said impatiently. “Enough of this. We’ve work to do.”

  “Indeed,” I said quietly, and I turned and went in to my patient and did not look back.

  Evan was holding on, talking sense, and sleeping more naturally. I made sure nobody saw how greatly this surprised me. Gull was on watch that evening, and I asked him how the sick man was to be moved in safety when the time came, but he was evasive in his answers. Then I sent him outside for a while so that I could wash and ready myself for the evening meal. The smith was nearly asleep, eyes narrowed to slits, breath calm enough after the painful changing of his dressing. He had taken a little broth.

  “This is rather awkward,” I told him. “Shut your eyes, and turn your head away, and don’t move till I tell you.”

  “Still as the grave,” he whispered with a certain irony and closed his eyes.

  I stripped off quickly, shivering as I sponged my body with water from the bucket and used the sliver of coarse soap Dog had found for me. As I rinsed myself off again I felt the goosebumps rise, summer or no. I turned to grab the coarse towel, with the aim of dressing as swiftly as I could and found myself looking straight into Evan’s deep-set, brown eyes as he lay prone on his pallet, staring for all he was worth and grinning from ear to ear.

  “Shame on you!” I exclaimed, as a blush crept across my naked body. There was nothing for it but to dry off sketchily and struggle as fast as I could into my smallclothes, shift, and gown, glad that I could reach the back fastenings without assistance. “A grown man like you, acting like a—an ill-bred youth who spies on the girls. Didn’t I tell you—”

  “No offense, lass,” said Evan, the grin relaxing to a smile that gave his blunt features a surprising sweetness. “Quite beyond me not to look. And a pleasing eyeful it was, may I say.”

  “No, you may not say,” I snapped, but I had forgiven him already. “Don’t do it again, you understand? It’s bad enough being the only woman here, without …”

  He was suddenly serious.

  “These men would never harm you, lass,” he said gently. “They’re not barbarians who rape and spoil for the thrill of it. If they want a woman, they’ve no need to force one. Plenty of willing takers, and not all put a price on it, believe me. Besides, they know they can’t touch you.”

  “Because of what he said? The chief?”

  “Well, yes, he did tell them hands off, so I’m informed. But he could have saved his breath. Anyone with eyes in his head can see that you’re a woman for the marriage bed, not a quickie by the road, if you’ll pardon me. Got a man back home, have you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, unsure of the best answer to this.

  “What’s that mean? Either you have or you haven’t. Husband? Sweetheart?”

  “I have a—suitor, I suppose you’d call him. But I have not agreed to marry. Not yet.”

  Evan gave a long sigh as I tucked the blanket firmly around him, and smoothed the makeshift bolster.

  “Poor lad,” he said sleepily. “Don’t make him wait too long.”

  “Next time I tell you to close your eyes, keep them closed,” I said severely.

  He mumbled something and settled to rest, still with the hint of a grin on his face.

  That night I told stories to make them laugh. Funny stories. Silly stories. Iubdan and the plate of porridge. He got his own back on the big folk, make no doubt of it. The tale of the man who got three wishes from the Fair Folk so that he could have had health, wealth, and happiness. Poor fool, all he ended up with was a sausage. By the end of it, the men were roaring with laughter and begging for another one. All but the chief, of course. I ignored him as best I could.

  “One more,” I said. “Only one. And now it is time to grow sober again and ponder on the frailty of all creatures. I told you last night of one of our great heroes, Cú Chulainn of Ulster. You will recall how he lay with the warrior woman Aoife, and how she bore him a son long after he was gone from those shores. Not that he left her entirely without token. He gave her a little gold ring for her smallest finger before he went off to wed his sweetheart Emer.”

  “Big of him,” somebody commented dryly.

  “Aoife was used to it. She was her own woman, and strong, and she’d little time for the selfish ways of men. She bore her child one day, and the next she was back out of doors swinging her battleaxe around her head. She named the boy Conlai, and as you can imagine, he grew up expert in all the arts of combat so that there were few could match him in the field. When he was twelve years old, his mother, the warrior woman, gave him the little gold ring to wear on a chain around his neck, and she told him his father’s name.”

  “Not a good idea?” hazarded Snake.

  “That depends. A boy needs to know who his father is. And who is to say this tale would not have had the same ending had Aoife kept this knowledge from the boy? It was Cú Chulainn’s blood that ran in his veins, whether he bore the name or not. He was a youth destined to be a warrior, to take risks, full of his father’s impetuous courage.

  “She held him back as long as she could, but there came a day when Conlai was fourteen years old, and thought himself a man, and he set forth to find his father and show him the fine son he had made. Aoife had misgivings and sought to protect the boy. He’d need to be careful, she reasoned, not to let on he was the offspring of the greatest hero Ulster had ever known. At least, not until he came to his father’s hall. He’d be safe there; but on the way, he might well meet those whose sons or brothers or fathers had fallen foul of Cú Chulainn, and who was to say they might not take their vengeance on the father by killing the son? So she said to Conlai, tell no single warrior your name. Promise me. And he promised, for she was his mother. So, unwittingly, did she seal his doom, who sought only to keep him safe.”

  There was utter silence, save for a little breeze stirring the shadowy trees above us. It was dark of the moon.

  “Across the sea from Alba, across the land of Erin came Conlai, all the way to Ulster, and at last to the home of his father, the great hero Cú Chulainn. He was a tall, strong boy, and in his helm and battle raiment none could tell him from a seasoned warrior. He rode up to the gates and raised his sword in challenge; and out came Conall, foster brother of Cú Chulainn, in answer.

  “‘What name have you, bold upstart?’ shouted Conall. ‘Tell me so that I may know whose son lies vanquished at my feet when this duel is over!’

  “But Conlai answered not a word, for he kept his promise to his mother. A short, sharp fight ensued, watched with interest by Cú Chulainn and his warriors from the ramparts high above. And it was not the challenger who lay defeated at the end of it.”

  Then I told how the lad vanquished each man who went forth with sword or staff or dagger, until Cú Chulainn himself
determined to meet the challenge, for he liked the set of the young man’s shoulders, and the neatness of his footwork, seeing something of himself in it, no doubt.

  “‘I will go down and take on this fellow myself,’ he said. ‘He seems a worthy opponent, if somewhat arrogant. We shall see what he makes of Cú Chulainn’s battle craft. If he can withstand me until the sun sinks beyond those elms there, I will welcome him to my house and to my band of warriors, should he be so inclined.’

  “Down he went and out before the gates, and he told the lad who he was and what he intended. Father, whispered Conlai to himself, but he said not a word for he had promised his mother, and he would not break his oath. Cú Chulainn was offended that the challenger had not the courtesy to give his name, and so he started the encounter already angered, which is never good.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the men. I was watching Bran; I could not avoid it, for he sat quite near me, face lit by the fire into which he gazed, his expression very odd indeed. There was something about this story that had caught his attention where the others had not; and had I not known the kind of man he was, I would have said I saw something akin to fear in his expression. Must be a trick of the light, I told myself, and went on.

  “Well, that was a combat such as you see but rarely: the hardened, experienced swordsman against the quick, impetuous youth. They fought with sword and dagger, circling, to and fro, around and about, ducking and weaving; leaping and twisting so that at times it was hard to see which of them was which. One of the men watching from above commented that in stature, the two men were as like as peas in a pod. The sun sank lower and lower and touched the tip of the tallest elm. Cú Chulainn thought of calling it a day, for he was, in truth, merely playing with the upstart challenger. His own skills were far superior, and he had always planned to test the other only until the allotted time was up, and then to offer him the hand of friendship.

  “But Conlai, desperate to prove himself, gave a nifty little flick of the sword and lo! there in his hand lay a fiery lock of Cú Chulainn’s hair, neatly cut from his scalp. For a moment, just a moment, battle fury overcame Cú Chulainn, and before he knew what he did, he gave a great roar and plunged his sword deep into his opponent’s vitals.”