Heart's Blood

There’s a pallet each of them has used from time to time when an experiment needs watching; they take turns to rest. Now that she’s older, that no longer seems wise. But time is of the essence, for All Hallows is drawing close. The pieces must be ready to slot in place by then or there will be a whole year more of waiting. Another whole year of Maenach stealing his cattle as if he has every right to do so. Another whole year of being ostra cised because nobody understands the significance of his work. A year of slights and offenses, injustices and dismissals. It is unthinkable. “So close,” he muses. “Less than a turning of the moon and then, such power . . . Power such as none of them can possibly dream of, Aislinn, the capacity to dominate not only wretched Maenach and the rest of my neighboring chieftains, but the whole district, the whole of Connacht, the whole of Erin if I want it.Against my army, none will stand. It will be a force worthy of a great hero of mythology, such as Cu Chulainn himself. I can hardly believe it is within my grasp . . . We must not waste a moment. This must be precise in every detail.”

They go back to work. Aislinn mixes powders, grinds dried berries, measures liquids with meticulous attention. He pores over his notes, though he has long since committed the charm to memory. He knows it deep in the bone, a potent, living thing. It is his future. It is his raising up and the doom of his enemies. It is, purely and simply, power.

The light in the underground chamber dimmed. The image wavered and faded, and with a shudder I came back to myself. Here in the library the sun was streaming in the window to set a brightness on the parchment before me. It was glinting off the surface of the obsidian mirror, on whose border the little creatures were now huddled or curled into postures of sorrow or fear, heads under wings, hands over eyes, arms around one another, as if what had been revealed were too piteous to behold.

Oh God, oh God . . . Tears spilled from my eyes. Foul thoughts and obscene images crowded my head. I felt filthy, soiled, wretched. Bile rose in my throat, bitter and urgent. Out! Out of this cursed place! I blundered across the chamber, bruising my hip on the sharp corner of a table, and stumbled out into the garden, where I sank to my knees and retched out the contents of my stomach under a lavender bush. My gut heaved and heaved again. Between the spasms I fought for breath.

A hand on my shoulder. I started violently, Nechtan looming in my mind, and the hand was withdrawn.

“What is it? You are ill.” A man’s voice. I had forgotten Anluan, in the garden. “I’ll call for Magnus,” I heard him say.

“No!” Through the paroxysms of my gut and the dark visions in my head, I had enough awareness to know I did not want the all-too-busy steward called away from whatever he was doing to tend to me.“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t be in your garden. I’ll be all right in a moment—” As if to make me a liar, a new fit of choking and retching gripped me. My nose and eyes streamed.

Anluan crouched down beside me and, rather awkwardly, held out a handkerchief. “Muirne!” he called.

I looked up, mopping my face ineffectually, and saw that she was standing beyond the bench in the shadow of the birch tree. I had not seen her when I looked out before.

“Fetch water,” Anluan said. It was an order, and Muirne obeyed in silence, going out through the archway.

In time the spasms died down. I wiped my nose and eyes anew and rose shakily to my feet. Anluan got up too. He did not try to touch me again.

“I’m sorry,” I managed. “I’ll go now. I know you don’t like people to be in this garden . . .” I glanced over my shoulder towards the library door. There was no way in the world I was going back in with that thing lying uncovered on the table. I took a step or two along the path, thinking I would make my escape into the main part of the grounds where I could recover in private. Everything swirled and went hazy around me. “I need to sit down,” I said.

“Sit on the bench, here.” Then, after another awkward silence, “I do not know how to help you. Have you eaten something that disagrees with you?”

I looked at him properly then. It seemed quite the wrong question. “The mirror,” I said, shaking my head in a vain hope that the images might flee. “That mirror in the little chest, with the documents you were working on . . . How could you do that to me? How could you leave it there, knowing what power it had? It pulled me in; it made me feel . . .” That had been the worst part of it, the sensation that I actually was that evil man and was thinking those thoughts and doing those things myself, because I wanted to. Here in the garden birds were singing, plants were growing, the sun was shining. But a shadow had touched an inward part of me, and I did not think it would be easily banished. “It made me feel dirty,” I said in a whisper.