“It was her, wasn’t it?” I turned to him. “You saw her, Lail, tell me! She was just there . . .”
Lailoken gave a tight nod. Because he was my twin, I could feel his tears before they began. I sank down onto the pebbled bank. My brother sank down beside me. And together we poured our grief into the slowly waking world.
We sat at the river’s edge until our bodies grew stiff from cold and our sobs gave way to the sound of birds in the forest behind us. All the while the stag moved softly in the shallows. Perhaps tomorrow the beast would come no more—after all, it had been nine days. Cathan the Wisdom Keeper said nine was the most magical of numbers.
I was wiping my face with the corner of my cloak when Lail stiffened.
“What is it?” I asked.
He lifted a finger and gestured to the edge of the nearby thicket, where a brown hare was hunched beyond the brambles, its head tilted as if it were listening. Lail watched as it shivered its whiskers and scampered into the forest, his gaze following its trail. Then he turned to me, eyes rimmed red, and spoke the first words he’d uttered in days.
“A rider is coming. He brings news from the east.”
A “Knowing,” or so the Wisdom Keepers called them. At night, and even in waking, Lail told me, he dreamt of such things: salmon circling the bottom of a forest pool, or the speckled eggs of a faraway falcon’s nest. It had been Lail who had woken from sleep that first morning after Mother died and heeded the call to the river. There he’d found the red stag standing in the shallows as if it were waiting. My brother had a gift for reading such signs from the Gods. We were only ten winters—Lailoken was young to have such skill. Yet Lail could not make sense of why the great deer had come. Even so, I could sense now that my brother’s gift was growing. Messengers came often to Cadzow with news for our father, but never before had Lailoken foreseen one.
I shifted on the stones, straining to hear the sound of hoofbeats I knew were not yet approaching. A rider was coming—it was only a matter of when—and soon our nursemaid Crowan would wake to find our beds empty. I knew we should hurry, yet I could not take my eyes from the water.
“Was that truly Mother we saw?” I asked. “Is that what it’s like when you see someone from Spirit?”
“Don’t know.” Lailoken squinted. “I’ve never seen a spirit before.”
“She looked just as real as anyone. Do you think if we stayed . . . we might see her again?”
Lail’s blue eyes trailed to the water almost hopefully. But then he shook his head and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. I felt the small stab as he shut me out again and looked to the cliff top, where a yolky sun was filtering through the forest. The spell of dawn had broken. In the current, the stag shifted and meandered toward the opposite bank. I wanted to rest my head on his smooth flanks, make my mother reappear so she could chase away the emptiness. But we moved instead to climb the trail, turning our backs on the water.
As we reached the little gully where our mother had so often sat by our side, I heard the echo of her voice rising up from the depths of my longing. She had called out my name in the darkness of my dream. But her voice had not been tender or full of love.
Her voice had been full of warning.
CHAPTER 2
* * *
We’d lingered too long by the river, and our nursemaid Crowan had worked herself into a state over the sight of our empty beds.
“Just where have you been? And in your cloaks, I see! On such a cold morning as this, with marauding men about? Haven’t you a care for old Crowan’s heart? In with you now, lest your father catch sight of you.”
She ushered us into the warmth of the hall and toward our chambers, all the while mumbling, “Keep ’em safe, Crowan, and let no harm come to ’em. Hmph. Not so easy with these two rascals roaming the wilds.”
Lail regarded her mutely. Even in the depths of his grief I knew Crowan’s ceaseless ministrations rankled him no end. But what was Crowan to do? She’d tended us since we were babes, and our father before us. I looked at her as she planted her small feet, arms crossed over her bony chest.
“And well? Will you tell me where you’ve been, or don’t I deserve an answer at all?” Her tidy gray hair had escaped in wiry strands from her plait, and her little hazel eyes were clouded with worry.
“Don’t be cross,” I said. “We were only down at the river, Crowan. Nine mornings in a row we’ve spotted him—a great stag—and he doesn’t flee at all!”
Lail shot me a look for betraying our secret.
“Nine mornings you’ve been down to the river, sneaking from bed without me waking?” Crowan threw up her hands, but the rebuke faded from her tongue.
“I suppose your mother loved them woods, didn’t she?” She softened and gathered us close. I inhaled the smell of peat smoke and pine that always clung to her rough woolen smock.
“Gods know, the beauty left this house when she took her last breath,” she said. “But you must be careful. There’s talk of evil men roaming this land. Things aren’t what they once was. Swear to me you’ll not sneak away again. I couldn’a bear it if something ill were to happen to you. Swear it, now.”
Lailoken leaned into her but did not reply.
“We swear it, Crowan,” I said. Better me than Lailoken. If my brother didn’t speak it, it couldn’t hold him, and who knew where his wanderings might lead?
Lail gave me a nod of thanks as Crowan hurried us down the corridor to ready us for breakfast.
In my chamber before the bronze mirror, I watched as Crowan worked to comb and re-plait my long, wavy hair. Father swore she would outlive us all, but her wrinkled face looked worn now, her skin as thin as parchment.
“Crowan.” I stilled her hands.
“Yes, dove?”
“Do you believe that when we die, we truly go to the Summerlands?”
Her eyes searched mine in the reflection. “Aye. Don’t you believe it?”
I glanced away. There was a time when our warriors boasted of the bottomless horns of ale they’d drink in the land of the Gods, the fair women they’d bed, the riches they’d have. Once we were a people who held no fear of death. But that was before the Romans came. Before our warriors were cut down and our fields watered with blood.
Cathan—Father’s counsellor—had taught us the histories. How the Romans had slain entire villages, entire tribes, men, women, and children alike falling to the sword. They outlawed our Wisdom Keepers and put them to slaughter. Those who survived were sent to work in the mines. They set fire to our fields and then sowed them with salt.
They created a wasteland and called it peace, Cathan had said.
Now our warriors watched warily from our high hills and fortresses.
Did I believe in Summerlands when such things could happen? Did I dare believe a world of spirits and Gods could be real at all?
“I want to believe,” I said at last.
“Well. I’ll tell you what I know.” Crowan smiled. “The Ancestors keep their vigil at the edge of the worlds, waitin’ to bring their children home. It was them that taught us the plants that heal, the fire that burns, how to work our metal, and how to keep our stories. It was them that could shift their shapes to any animal of the forest in the blink of an eye.” She sighed and pressed her face beside mine in the mirror.