Juliet Marillier - Heart's Blood

“Shut your poisonous mouth!” roared Gearróg, stepping towards her with hands outstretched as if to take her by the neck and throttle her. Others moved too, the old warrior Broc, one or two of the younger men.

“Hold still!” called Anluan, and they did. “Do not disturb the pattern!”

“This is over, Anluan,” Aislinn said. “You can’t do it. Admit it. Your foolish woman there has made a promise you can’t keep.This does not end so easily.”

“Be silent!” Anluan roared. Out in the circle the ghost child began to cry, a little, woeful sound.

“What do we do now?” muttered Magnus.

Think, Caitrin. The Latin words had been right, I was sure of it.The pattern was right; the herbs were as close as we could get them.The elemental greetings had been carefully worded—Anluan’s reluctance to tread the path of sorcery had made that essential.This was the right place, the right time . . . I gazed across the circle, desperate for an answer, and met the limpid eyes of Aislinn. I remembered Nechtan’s lust for her, the way he’d seen her every move as an invitation. She’d been young, pretty, desirable—for him, perhaps more desirable because she was also clever. That girl in the first vision had begun to lose her conscience, but she was far from the evil being who stood amongst us now. Nechtan had wanted her. He had chosen not to bed her. He had known that to do so would ruin his great work of magic.

And that was the answer.There was only one thing wrong here, and it was not the spell of banishment. “Anluan,” I said, “we must do it again.”

He looked at me, face ashen white in the moonlight, the irregularity of his features more marked than usual.

“But not with Aislinn in the center,” I said. “That’s why she was so willing, because she knew it was wrong.When Nechtan was preparing for the ritual, he needed her as an innocent, a maiden untouched—he resisted temptation to keep her that way.That must have been a requirement of the spell.After the evil she has wrought here over a hundred years, Aislinn can no longer play this part. Someone else must stand there: a young girl who is untainted by sin.”

A restless whispering among the folk of the host. A stir in their ranks, and the ghost girl was pushed gently to the front.

“No!” I cried, finding it suddenly hard to breathe. Not this little one, so frail, so tender. She had trusted me, whispered her sorrow to me, taken refuge in my bed. She had asked me . . . My heart skipped a beat. Dear God, this was what we had to do. This, which felt so wrong, was the way to work the counterspell. It was the opposite of what had happened the first time.This was no living girl, but a spirit. If she stood in the center, she would be left behind, left in this world when the others departed.And that was just what she wanted. “Anluan,” I said, “I think this is right. But first we must make the child a promise.”

His eyes were on Aislinn, and when I followed his gaze, I saw a dawning horror on her face. “I’m sure it’s right,” I added in an undertone.

Aislinn moved, lightning quick, bolting out of the center heedless of the pattern. Sand scattered. Before she could break through the folk of the host, two pairs of strong arms halted her flight: Cathaír’s on one side, Gearróg’s on the other.

“A promise,” Anluan said. “What promise?”

“That if she stays, we will be mother and father to her.” I considered the long years ahead with a child who could never get warm, a child who would remain as she was, five years old, while Anluan and I grew old and weary. She was a spirit; how could it be otherwise?

“Men, hold Muirne there,” Anluan ordered. “Olcan, please step into the circle and remake the pattern for us.”The authoritative tone gave way to a gentler one. He moved down the steps, stood by the outer edge of the pattern, squatted down. “Little one,” he said, “come forward.”

The child approached, careful to keep her feet clear of the lines of sand. Not too close; she was not quite sure of him.

“We need you to help us,” Anluan said. “You’ll have to be very brave; as brave as Olcan’s big dog who saved me today. Can you do that?”

A bob of the thistledown head.

“The others are going away,” he said carefully. “Cathaír and Gearróg, Rioghan and Eichri and all these people, they’re going to another place. If you want, you can stay with Caitrin and me.You can stay here.We will be your mother and father. Is that what you want?”

“No!” Aislinn’s scream cut through the air, brittle as fine glass. “You can’t do this!” Held fast in the two men’s grip, she thrashed and fought, her fair hair flying.

“Be still, Muirne! Hold your tongue!”

She obeyed; Anluan had always been able to command her on the Tor, and his control still held, though her eyes were desperate.

“Don’t be scared,” Anluan said to the little girl. “Just whisper it to me, yes or no.Will you help us? Would you like to stay?”

The child nodded, her solemn gaze locked on his pale face. She whispered something, but it was only for Anluan’s ears.

“Very well,” he said, rising to his feet. “You must go over there, to the middle of the big star, and stand very still until I say you can move. Can you do that?”

Aislinn’s lips were moving, though she made no sound. I imagined her words: Don’t send me away, please, please! I love you! But Anluan was watching the little girl as she picked her way across the lines of sand.

The child stood in the center, feet together, bundle tight against her chest. The moonlight shone on her gossamer hair. Olcan had swept the sand back into place, then retreated to the brazier; the pattern was remade. Anluan came back up the steps, turned, raised his arms. The host stood ready once more.

“Erappa sinigilac oigel! Mitats ihim erappa!”

A shifting, a swirling all around the circle.The chill was as deep as the harshest frost of winter. Time seemed to falter in its tracks; sudden cloud extinguished the moon. The child gave a wail of terror and dropped the embroidered kerchief. An eldritch gust caught the little bundle, skidding it across the flagstones to an inner corner of the pentagram, close to the spot where the two warriors held Aislinn captive. Quick as a heartbeat,Aislinn’s foot came over the line to kick the bundle beyond the child’s reach.

“My baby!” shrieked the little girl. “I need my baby!”

“Come and get her, then,” taunted Aislinn, her voice reedy and ragged, as if it cost her dearly to disobey Anluan’s command. “Come on, you’re supposed to be brave, aren’t you, little spy? Just run over and grab your precious baby. Didn’t look after her very well, did you? She’s only a bundle of rags now.”

The little girl stood shaking, trembling, full of the urge to rush across and snatch back her darling, but holding still because she had promised. Beside me, Anluan drew an uneven breath. All hung in the balance. One word wrong, one gesture out of place and we would fail again. We could not ask the child to do this a second time; there had been a note of utter terror in her voice.

Gearróg muttered something and let go of Aislinn. Cathaír held firm. Gearróg stooped to retrieve the bundle, then moved into the center of the pentagram, kneeling to put the kerchief in the child’s hands. She was sobbing with fright. He picked her up; settled her on his hip. “It’s all right, little one,” he said.“We’ll do this together, you and me. A game of pretend. We’re pretending to be brave dogs on guard, like Fianchu.” He gazed over at Anluan and nodded as if to say, You can go on now .

No going back. No thinking beyond this moment.

“Egruser!” Anluan called. “Egruser!” and as he spoke the ritual words a scream ripped across the circle, a wrenching wail of anguish: “ Nooooo!” Even as she fought against the charm, Aislinn faded. Shadows danced.The torch blew out, leaving the circle in near darkness.The wind gusted again. The leaves shivered on the trees; the pattern of sand went whistling away across the flagstones.

From one breath to the next, the host was gone. Between the points of the ritual star the spaces were empty. In the center, a stalwart figure stood with feet planted and head held high, and in his arms was a smaller person, whose hair was no longer gossamer-white but dark as fine oak wood.

“Magnus,” said Anluan in a voice unlike his own, “light the torch again.”

“Gearróg?” I stepped down, not quite sure what I was seeing there, but knowing I had just witnessed an act of such selfless courage that it took my breath away.

Light flared as Magnus touched the torch to the brazier and lifted it high.

“By all the saints,” he said in tones of awe.

Gearróg set the child down and she ran to me. Her hair shone glossy brown in the torchlight; her face was rosy.When I lifted her, she felt warm and real. Gearróg was examining his hands, moving his feet, touching his face as if hardly able to believe he was still here.

“I’m . . .” he said, disbelieving. “I can . . .”

Without a word, Anluan strode across to throw his arms around the guard. Olcan fetched another torch, and it became apparent that something truly astonishing had occurred. Here before us were two living beings: a little girl of five, a sturdily built man of perhaps five-and-thirty. Blood flowed beneath their skin; their bodies were solid flesh. Gearróg put a hand against his chest.“Beating like a drum,” he said in wonder.“Sweet Jesus, my lord, you’ve wrought a miracle.”

“If this is a miracle,” Anluan said, his hand on Gearróg’s shoulder, “it is not my doing. I cannot believe such a wondrous change could be made by speaking a charm whose origins lay in a dark work of sorcery. This . . . this transformation was not wrought by my fumbling attempt to reverse Nechtan’s spell, but by your act of selflessness, Gearróg, and by the child’s loving trust.” He looked across at me, and at the girl in my arms. I saw that after the long and testing day, he was close to tears. “We must find you a name, little one,” he said. “We cannot have a daughter with no name.”

“It’s late,” I said, struggling to grasp onto the real world with its practical challenges and its comforting routines. “She should be in bed.” Emer, I thought as I carried our new daughter indoors. If Anluan agreed, we would give her his mother’s name.

Nobody had much to say.The immensity of what had occurred had set a deep shock in all of us.We were too stunned to feel joy at our success, too awestruck to absorb the consequences of this night of deep change. Each of us took refuge in ordinary things, the little things that help us deal with what is too large for our minds to encompass. Gearróg carried the child over to Anluan’s quarters while Magnus found a small straw pallet and a blanket or two. She was asleep even before we laid her down in this improvised bed. I tucked the embroidered bundle in beside her. Anluan went to the chapel to check that all was well with the wounded and their attendants, and returned to say that even the most sorely injured was holding his own. Gearróg offered to stand guard overnight while we slept. Anluan thanked him gravely and said he would not dream of it. If Gearróg was concerned for our safety, we would promise to bar the door until sunrise. “You, too, must sleep,” he said.

“Sleep,” Gearróg muttered in astonished tones. “I haven’t slept in a hundred years.” A vast yawn overtook him.

“Come on, then,” Magnus said from the doorway, where he stood with Olcan. “We’d better find you a bed. The three of us might share a jug of ale first, eh?”