The Well of Shades by Juliet Marillier Page B

than most. He will not waste this journey.”

    “I suppose you’re right.” Ana took Drustan’s proffered hand as she climbed across a stile between woods and pastureland. “I wasn’t only thinking of him, as it happens.”
    “Oh?” Drustan traversed the stile with two steps up and a jump down, and still managed to look graceful. He coaxed a wary Cloud over after him.
    “Yes, I have something interesting to tell you, dear heart.” Ana stopped walkingand took both his hands in hers. “My moon-bleeding is ten days late. That’s very unusual. I think we may be going to have a child.”
    Drustan’s eyes warmed with hope and wonder, reflectingperfectly the feelings in her own heart. A moment later, a smile blazed across his face, reminding Ana of all the reasons she loved him. She set thoughts of Faolan aside. There was nothing she could do for herfriend now, save wish him the strength to move on.

3

    T HE RAIN ACCOMPANIED Faolan as he traveled inland to the crossroads where he must at last make a choice of ways. He tried to fix his mind on the decision ahead, but thoughts of Deord intruded: Deord strong and serene as guard to a solitary, gifted captive; Deord devoting all he had left, after Breakstone, to keeping that wrongly imprisoned man safefrom his own brother and from himself. Deord, at the end, fighting one last, heroic battle and dying so Faolan and Ana and the remarkable Drustan could go free. In a sense they had avenged his death. The cruel brother had been executed, covertly, in the forest. The manner of his passing would never be made public. It had owed a little to each of them: to Faolan himself, to Drustan, and to Ana. Anawhom Faolan had loved, Ana who would be wed to Drustan by the time King Bridei’s right-hand man made his way back to Fortriu.
    He trudged on, hood pulled low over his face, boots soaked through. The deluge continued.
Make a decision
, he ordered himself.
West or north? Fiddler’s Crossing or Colmcille?
But his mind darted from Deord to Deord’s daughter. There had been something badly awry there.It wasn’t just the grime and the poverty, Anda’s beaten-down look and Eile’s quivering defiance. There wassomething more, a sense of evil that made it hard to let go of this, even now he had paid them generously and told them as plainly as he could what he thought of Eile’s pitiable state. It was clear where their priorities lay: their own child, the tiny, silent girl, had been well-fed and neatcompared with the half-starved young woman with her scraggy hair and filthy, gnawed nails. He could not set aside her frightened eyes and her fighting words, the love for her father achingly evident even as she derided Deord for his last, most cruel abandonment. Curse it! He’d given them the silver, probably more than was quite wise, for once he was gone they could squander it if they pleased,with not a single piece spent on Eile’s welfare. They’d made it plain enough they expected no more and would be glad to see the back of him. What else could he do?
    You should have tried harder.
Faolan addressed Deord in his mind.
You should have come home again before your wife gave up hope. You were strong. If anyone could cope, surely it was you.
Unfair, of course. He, Faolan, was the lastman who should chide another for a failure to face his demons. Wasn’t he the boy who had fled his home settlement long ago and never had the courage to come back? Now here he was, only a few days’ travel from Fiddler’s Crossing, and his mind full of excuses not to walk those last miles. He’d go all the way up to the north coast to find this Brother Colm first, rather than travel across a couple ofvalleys and a ford or two to visit the place of his birth; the place where, as a very young man, he had killed his beloved elder brother, and set a curse on his family that could never be lifted.
Dubhán, ah, Dubhán…
Even now, in Faolan’s mind, the blood flowed scarlet over his fingers. After all these