Fire Arrow

TWO

Dun Slieve

In the room next to Collun's, Brie was stowing her things, in her pack.

Collun entered. She glanced at him, then back at her pack. She did not want a quarrel but could read the mood in his eyes.

"What are you doing, Brie?"

"I am resuming my quest." She spoke tonelessly.

"Because of the words of a wandering fortune-teller with a weakness for shiny things?" His face held disbelief, as well as anger.

"As I recall, you were more than ready to believe in the wyll."

Collun's eyes flamed. "Even if she spoke truly, I cannot believe your blood lust so strong that you do not see the folly of such a quest."

Brie felt her own temper flare up. "I made a vow over my father's body. It is no folly to act with honor."

"It is no honor to seek death over life."

"I seek revenge, not death."

"And how will your revenge"—he said the word as if it were a foul thing—"profit you or your father?"

"Leave me," Brie said, her voice becoming quiet. "Before we say words we wish we had not."

Collun looked away, silent. When he spoke again, there was a stillness about him. He took a step closer, his eyes kindling as if from an overfull heart. "At least wait. Stay here at Cuillean's dun a few days more. Brie, I fear..."

Brie felt a rising panic. She could not hear what Collun was about to say. It frightened her. She closed her pack with a snap of the leather thong. "No."

"But..."

"I am not like you." She looked him full in the face. "I do not fear to act."

Collun whitened, at the words, his expression hurt, but then his jaw hardened and the brightness in his eyes went cold.

There was a long silence. Then Collun spoke. "You have made your choice. I will not journey with you, since it is clear you do not seek the companionship of a coward."

"Collun, I—"

He interrupted, giving her an odd cold salute, his face still transfigured with anger. "May you find what you seek, Brie."

And he was gone.

Brie was in the stable with Ciaran when Kled appeared. He carried something in his hands. "Collun asked that I bring you this," Kled said, holding something out.

Brie took it. It was the wizard Crann's map. Brie caught her breath. The map was one of Collun's most treasured possessions.

"I can't accept this," she said.

"He said that I mustn't bring it back." Kled's eyes were alight with curiosity.

Reluctantly Brie stowed the map in her quiver.

"Please thank him."

"I will. Do you journey forth for vengeance?"

"Yes," she said dully, thinking of the cost. "Kled, watch over Collun."

The young man nodded. "And good luck to you on your quest, Brie."

***

On the evening of the first day of Brie's journey, she spotted a rider heading toward her. As he drew closer, Brie recognized his saddlebags as those of a messenger.

He was a thin young man with a thatch of shiny sienna hair and, like most of the travelers Brie had come upon, he couldn't help gaping at the Ellyl horse. Reluctantly tearing his gaze away from Ciaran, he asked Brie if he was headed in the right direction for Cuillean's dun.

"Yes. I've just come from there. Who do you seek?"

The young man drew a parchment from his saddlebag. "Let's see ... Someone by the name of Breigit."

Brie was about to say she knew no one of that name when she stopped, startled. Breigit was her own childhood name.

"I am Breigit," she said.

***

The letter was from Brie's uncle at Dun Slieve. Masha, the serving woman who had helped run Brie's father's dun for him and was the nearest thing to a mother Brie had, was dying. Her uncle requested that Brie come at once. Masha was asking for her.

Masha. Brie realized with a pang of guilt that it had been some time since she had thought of the silent, gaunt woman. Masha had been wet nurse to Brie after Aideen, Brie's mother, died in childbirth. Masha had been with child at the same time as Aideen, but the serving woman's baby had been stillborn. Masha had been doubly laden with grief when, shortly after, her husband died in a hunting accident. As Brie was motherless and Masha childless, they were paired. When she recovered from childbirth, Masha put on her black clothes and became silent, though she watched over Brie diligently. The girl knew Masha was always there, solid and silent as a stone, but hard, too, with little in her of affection or laughter.

In the letter, Uncle Amrys said the sickness had come on Masha suddenly, and no manner of treatment had helped.

Brie felt a spasm of impatience. She did not want to delay her quest. Then she was suddenly uneasy. Was Collun indeed right? Was this thing, this hatred, poisoning her? Of course she must go to Masha.

Bidding the messenger farewell, Brie urged the Ellyl horse into a brisk trot. "Well, I guess we're going home, Ciaran."

At least, she thought with another pang of guilt, she would not be drawn far off course. Dun Slieve lay on the same northern road she had chosen to travel to Dungal.

***

When the fortifications of Dun Slieve came into sight, Brie felt a mixture of pleasure and apprehension. She knew that her aunt and uncle disapproved of her and felt that roaming the countryside was ill-befitting a highborn maiden of Eirren. Brie no longer affected the appearance of a boy, at least, having let her hair grow and return to its natural golden color, instead of staining it with black walnut leaves as she had before. She did, however, still wear breeches, finding them more comfortable than dresses.

After Conall's death, Brie's uncle Amrys had taken over Dun Slieve. Amrys and his wife, Rainne, had urged Brie to stay and make her home with them, but Brie had refused, explaining that she would have no ease until her father's murderers were dead. Periodically she had sent word through messengers to her aunt and uncle, letting them know she was well.

She could see the dun now, rising above the trees. She felt a twisting in her stomach at the sight of it.

Brie's had not been a happy childhood. She had lost her mother at birth and had been raised by a father who would have preferred a son. But here she was, and it was an odd feeling to be once more at the entrance to the home where she had grown from infant to girl. She guided Ciaran to the gate.

Brie was met by one of her uncle's serving men, who escorted her to her aunt. Rainne gave Brie a quick, affectionate hug, then hurried her along to Masha's room. "She's been asking for you, every day."

"What happened?" Brie asked her aunt as they strode through the halls.

"It was sudden. I found her lying on the floor of her room, clutching at her stomach and throat, in terrible pain. I thought she was dying. I got her to bed and called the healer.

"He worked over her and the crisis seemed to pass, but instead of healing, every day she seems to get a little worse. She does not speak—at least not in words we understand. Except your name, which she calls out insistently." Aunt Rainne opened the door to Masha's room, letting Brie go in ahead of her.

Masha's face had always been thin, but now, as she gazed down at it, Brie felt if she were to lay the palm of her hand over it, the whole of Masha's face would be covered. All of her body was shrunken, caved in on itself.

Masha's eyes burned bright in the wasted face. They stared up at Brie.

Not knowing if Masha was aware of her or not, Brie took the woman's emaciated hand in hers. Masha's eyes suddenly closed and she appeared to drift into sleep, a look almost of relief on her face.

Leaving Masha in peace, Aunt Rainne showed Brie to her old room. It felt strange to Brie: small and lifeless. And suffocating. As Rainne bustled about, stripping the bed of musty linens and calling to a serving maid for fresh, Brie crossed to the small window and pulled aside the tapestry. She wondered with a grin what her aunt and uncle would think if she slept in the dun gardens.

***

"What does the healer say? Can he not discover the cause of Masha's sickness?" Brie asked as they sat down to dinner.

Aunt Rainne shook her head. "I fear he is not as experienced as he might be."

"How long does he think she has to live?"

"He is surprised she is still alive at all," answered Aunt Rainne. "I wondered if she was waiting for you."

"Rainne has it in her head Masha has something to tell you," said Brie's uncle, "although it seems highly unlikely to me." He cleared his throat. "Now, Breigit, you have been away from Dun Slieve for a long time, and I hope now that you have returned you will settle in and make your home here. I fear your education has been sorely neglected, and I should be happy to take on the task of tutoring you in the many..."

Brie stared into her bowl of barley-mutton soup, her stomach tightening.

"Not now, Amrys," said Aunt Rainne, her eyes on Brie. "There is plenty of time to discuss Breigit's future. Let her eat in peace."

"But I was only suggesting that—"

"Did you know, Breigit," Rainne said, firmly interrupting her husband, "that Corwin, the daughter of Lord Darrfed, has married the boy Dalmen of Dun Treane?"

"Not that skinny fellow with the squint?"

"The very one."

"And whatever became of the maidservant Verena who had such a lovely voice?"

"She married a bard and they travel together now."

A disgruntled Uncle Amrys called for more soup while Brie and Rainne exchanged gossip. Finally, as they were served dessert, Rainne took pity on him, saying, "Amrys, tell Breigit of your newest acquisition."

He brightened immediately. "Ah, yes, it is an exceedingly handsome leather-bound edition of a lay from the second cycle of the coulin, as rendered by the poet..."

Tired from her travels that day, Brie stifled a yawn, trying hard to appear interested in her uncle's words. Amrys was a scholar and an enthusiastic collector of books. It was said that he had the finest collection outside Temair, especially of books on bird lore, which was his special area of interest.

As he droned on about a book on purple martins, Brie thought longingly of her bed.

***

Brie went to Masha the next morning, and again the bright eyes seemed to focus on her. A ghost of a smile appeared on the thin lips. Brie took Masha's hand.

Gradually the sick woman's eyes drifted shut and her breathing grew regular. Thinking Masha asleep, Brie started to withdraw her hand, but Masha's thin hand held hers with surprising strength. Masha muttered something sounding like "caroo teeth."

Brie squeezed Masha's hand. Soon after, Masha slept.

At the midday meal Brie asked her aunt and uncle about her mother's family. After Aideen's death, Brie's father had been too torn by grief to speak of his wife and her people to the daughter she had left behind. The only relative of Aideen's Brie had met was a distant cousin, a boy, who had spent a year with them as a sort of squire to her father, Conall. At first Conall had been ill-pleased at the unannounced appearance of this cousin, but he was soon impressed with the boy's athleticism and his self-confidence. His name had been Balor, and Brie remembered looking up to him. She also remembered feeling grateful that this handsome cousin distracted her father, however briefly, from pressing Brie in her endless lessons in archery, swordplay, and all the rest he would have expected from the son he did not have. After he left Dun Slieve, however, Balor had not kept in touch, and Brie knew of no one else in Aideen's family.

"Aideen didn't have much of a family," Uncle Amrys told her. "Just her mother, Hudag—your grandmother. Hudag was a widow, lived in a village not far from Temair. She didn't visit much, and not at all after Aideen's death. I don't think they got on well."

Brie's aunt laughed. "Aideen always said her mother bored her to tears. The only things she cared about were needlework and that little dog of hers."

"Is Hudag still alive?" Brie asked.

"No. We got word several years ago that she had died," Uncle Amrys said. "They sent along her things. The dog died a few days before she did."

"Your mother had a grandmother; I think Aideen was closer to her than to Hudag," said Aunt Rainne.

"What was her name?"

"Seila," Uncle Amrys said. "I recall that my brother did not care for her."

"Wasn't there some kind of scandal?" asked Rainne.

"What sort of scandal?" Brie asked, curious.

Uncle Amrys cleared his throat. "Oh, well, I can't quite remember. Conall preferred not to speak of it. Anyway, it's all in the distant past."

"She showed up at Aideen and Conall's wedding," Rainne said.

"Much to Conall's displeasure," put in Uncle Amrys.

Aunt Rainne said, "You know, Breigit, there are some things stored in the tower room that belonged to your parents. Mostly to your father. There is also a box of your grandmother Hudag's things. I doubt that will be of much interest; it seems to consist mainly of little china statues of dogs. Anyway, you ought to go through it."

Uncle Amrys laughed. "Rainne's been wanting to clear that room out for a long time."

Brie was suddenly eager for the meal to be over. "Perhaps this afternoon...?"

Her aunt shook her head. "I've some matters to attend to this afternoon. Best wait until tomorrow. And anyway, that room's been shut up for a long time. We'll need to air it out; everything is covered with dust."

***

Brie was up early the next morning. Her aunt did not keep her waiting. Together they wrestled open the shuttered windows of the tower room and dusted and wiped until Brie's arms ached.

"Were you at my mother and father's wedding?" she asked Rainne as they worked.

"Oh yes. I remember it well." Rainne paused thoughtfully. "Your uncle and I had been married several years by then. It was a lovely spring afternoon. Your mother was always beautiful, but she was particularly beautiful that day. Radiant. She wore a dress of many colors, with matching flowers in her yellow hair.

"All of Conall's family was there, but Hudag was the only one from Aideen's side—that is, at first. Halfway through the ceremony a woman rode up on a white horse. She was quite remarkable, you could hardly keep from staring. She must have been ninety years old or more, but her face was almost as luminous as that of Aideen herself.

"Of course, her arrival caused quite a stir. Hudag was clearly horrified and Conall looked thunderous, but Aideen ran over to the woman and gave her a great joyful hug. Seila stayed through the vows, then afterward presented Aideen with a gift, whispering in her ear for some time." Rainne smiled. "We all wondered what that amazing woman was saying to Aideen, and I kept glancing over at Conall, who looked ready to burst. Then all of a sudden Seila departed on her white horse. Now," Rainne said briskly, casting a critical eye over the room. "I think we've done enough. I will leave you in peace."

Brie began to sort through her father's belongings first, though her patience quickly wore thin. His things were a jumbled mess. Her father had had little skill at organizing. He was a man of action who preferred being outdoors, hunting, competing in tourneys, or, best of all, riding to battle. Brie could see from his papers that Aunt Rainne must have had a difficult time putting the affairs of the dun in order.

She moved to other boxes but found only old clothing and weaponry. Finally Brie came to a small trunk that was clearly her mother's. Inside was a dress of many colors that Brie guessed to be Aideen's wedding gown. It was musty, but the light coming in the window caught the colors and made them almost sparkle.

There was an assortment of odds and ends—jewelry, biorans for Aideen's hair, half-finished tapestries, old books. Then, at the very bottom of the trunk, Brie found a long, thin, pale blue box. It was made of wood, and painted on its surface in pale, opalescent colors were images of suns and fish and breaking waves. They were wrought in a distinctive, almost primitive style. Brie tried to open the box, but the lid was stuck. The wood had warped slightly over the years. Brie worked her fingernail around the edges, then rapped it gently against the side of the trunk. Still, it remained stuck. She dug her nails under the lid and pried as hard as she could. Finally the box opened with a rasp.

Brie let out a small sound of disappointment. The box was empty.' Or not quite. She lifted the box to her nose. There was a faint powdery smell, as of ancient dust, and of something else, something faintly familiar. A soft, abrupt sound made Brie look up. The door stood several inches ajar; hadn't Aunt Rainne closed it all the way when she left? She got up and closed it, wondering why she felt the need.

***

That afternoon as she helped Aunt Rainne take down and fold some freshly washed linens in the outer ward of the dun, Brie suddenly asked, "Do you remember anything of the scandal you mentioned, about my great-grandmother Seila?"

"I'm afraid I don't. It may not have been all that scandalous, you know. Your father was, uh, traditional. It runs in the family," she added with a flash of a smile at Brie.

Brie smiled back, then said offhandedly, "The gift Seila brought my mother, do you know what it was, by any chance?" She realized she was holding her breath.

"No, I never knew." Rainne folded a damask tablecloth. "But I do remember it was in a long blue box. Very thin."

Brie let out her breath with a feeling of wonder. So the blue box was from Seila; somehow she had known that.

Rainne was still speaking. "I was beside a young cousin of Amrys's when Seila presented it to Aideen. We made a little game of trying to guess what such a long thin box could hold. Came up with a few outlandish ideas. But we never learned what it was."

"Why not?" Brie asked.

"It was put away, not shown about the way the other presents were. I heard that Conall was offended by the gift for some reason."

***

As she entered the kitchen that evening to make up a posset for Masha, Brie spotted a man in ragged clothing scuttling out a door at the other end of the room. He limped heavily, one leg shorter than the other. She had caught sight of the ragged man once before and had asked Rainne about him. Rainne said he had come begging at the dun several months ago, and, feeling sympathy for him, they had found him some odd jobs. He turned out to be especially helpful in the kitchen, and the head cook had suggested hiring him on permanently. He went by the name of Crin, but Brie had yet to see him face-to-face.

The yellow bird hurtled down at her. She saw its face as it swooped in, eyes wide, black pupils dilated, its curved beak open and shrieking with a strange, high-pitched, human sound. Brie woke with a scream.

Her heart pounding, Brie gazed wildly around the darkened room.

It was only a dream, she said to herself. She was safe. But still she was having trouble breathing. Had no one heard her? Her room was remote from the other bedrooms. She suddenly felt a great aching loss as she thought of Collun. She wished she were lying by their campfire, listening to the sound of his breathing as he slept.

She rose and crossed to the long thin blue box. Listening to the rain beat thickly against her small window, Brie traced the patterns of fish and suns and waves with her finger. What did they mean? she wondered. And what had they meant to her mother?