Child of the Prophecy

For a while I thought he was not going to answer. It seemed to me he had to reach deep within himself for the words.

‘Happiness is relative. There were times of content; your birth was one. In that, Niamh believed she had at last done something right. I thought she was well again; I was ill-prepared for what happened in the end. It seems she never recaptured what she had lost. Perhaps her final answer was the only one she had left.’

‘It is a very sad story,’ I said. ‘But I’m glad you told me.’

‘It has been necessary to tell you, Fainne,’ Father said very quietly. ‘I’ve been giving some consideration to your future. I think the time has come for you to move on.’

‘What do you mean, move on?’ My heart began to thump in alarm. ‘Can I begin to learn some other branch of the craft? I am eager to progress, Father. I will work hard, I promise.’

‘No, Fainne, that is not what I mean. The time is coming when you must go away for a while, to make yourself known to the family of whom I told you, those who have by now completely forgotten that Niamh ever existed to cause them embarrassment and inconvenience. It is time for you to go to Sevenwaters.’

‘What!’ I was aghast. Leave Kerry, leave the cove, travel all that way, to end up in the midst of those who had treated my parents so abominably that they had never been able to return to their home? How could he suggest such a thing?

‘Now, Fainne, be calm and listen.’ Father looked very grave; the firelight showed me the hollows and lines of his face, a shadow of the old man to come. I bit back a flood of anxious questions. ‘You’re getting older,’ he said. ‘You are the granddaughter of a chieftain of Ulster, the other side of your lineage does not change that. Your mother would not have wished you to grow up alone here with me, knowing no more than this narrow circle of fisherfolk and travellers, spending your whole life in practice of the craft. There is a wider world, daughter, and you must go forward and take your place in it. The folk of the forest have a debt to repay, and they will do so.’

‘But, Father –’ His words made no sense to me; I knew nothing but the terror of being sent away, of leaving the only safe place I knew in all the world. ‘The craft, what are you telling me, the craft is the only important thing, I’ve spent so long learning and I’m good at it now, really good, you said so yourself –’

‘Hush, Fainne. Breathe slowly; make your mind calm. There is no need to distress yourself. Do not fear that you will lose your skills or lack the opportunity to use them once you are gone from here. I have prepared you too well for that to occur.’

‘But – Sevenwaters? A great house, with so many strangers – Father, I …’ I could not begin to explain how much that terrified me.

‘There is no need for such anxiety. It is true, Sevenwaters was a place of grief and loss both for me and for your mother. But the folk of that family are not all bad. I have no quarrel with your mother’s sister. Liadan did me a great favour once. If it were not for her, Niamh would never have escaped that travesty of a marriage. I have not forgotten it. Liadan followed her mother’s pattern in choosing to wed a Briton. She went against Conor’s will; she allied herself with an outlaw and took her child away from the forest. Both Liadan and her husband are good people, though it may be some time before you see them, for they dwell now at Harrowfield, across the water. It is appropriate that you should meet Conor. I want him to know of you. You will be ready, Fainne. You’ll go next summer; we have a full year to prepare. Those things which I cannot teach you, my mother will.’ His lips twisted in a mirthless smile.

‘Oh,’ I said in a small voice. ‘Is she coming here? My grandmother?’

‘Later,’ Father replied coolly. ‘It may not be greatly to your liking or mine, but my mother has a part to play in this, and there is no doubt she has many skills you’ll find helpful. In a place like Sevenwaters you must be able to conduct yourself in every way as the daughter of a chieftain would. That you can never learn from me. I acquired deep knowledge in the nemetons, but I never discovered how to go out into the world as Lord Colum’s son.’

‘I’m sorry, Father,’ I said, aware that my own distress was nothing beside his.

‘I had thought – I had thought one day I might become like you, a great scholar and mage. The lessons you have taught me, the long seasons of practice and study, won’t all that be wasted if I am sent away to be some kind of – fine lady?’

Father’s lips curved. ‘You will use all your skills at Sevenwaters, I think,’ he said. ‘I have taught you the craft as my mother taught me – oh, yes,’ he added, seeing my eyes widen in surprise, ‘she is an adept, unparalleled in certain branches of magic. And such as she is need not be present in body in order to teach.’

I thought of the locked chamber, the long times of silence. He had indeed kept his secrets well.

‘I don’t invite her here lightly, Fainne. My mother is a dangerous woman. I’ve kept her away from you as long as I could, but we need her now. It’s time. You should have no misgivings. You are my daughter, and I am proud of your skills and all you have achieved. That I send you away is a sign of the great faith I have in you, Fainne, faith in your talents, and trust in your ability to find the right purpose for them. I hope one day it will become clear to you what I mean. Now, it’s late, and we’ve work to do in the morning. Best get some sleep, daughter.’

I was deeply shocked by what my father had told me, and inwardly much troubled. Still, a year was a long time. Anything could happen in a year. Perhaps I would not have to go. Maybe he would change his mind. Meanwhile, there was nothing for it but to continue with the practice of the craft, for if the worst happened and my father did send me away by myself, I wanted as much skill as I could master to help me. I put aside my misgivings and applied myself to work.

The weather was quite warm, but Father still had a persistent cough and a shortness of breath. He tried to conceal it, but I heard him, late at night when I lay awake in the darkness.

I was practising without the mirror. Gradually I had reduced the incantation to a couple of words. I made my eyes blue, or green, or clear winter-sky grey. I shaped them long and slanted, or round as a cat’s, thick-lashed, bulbous, sunken and old. As the season passed I moved on to the other features: the nose, the mouth, the bones of the face. The hair. The garments. An old crone in tatters, myself in future guise, maybe. A fisher girl with her hand on her hip, and her come-hither smile, white teeth flashing. A Fainne who was like myself, almost a twin, but subtly changed. The lips sweeter, the brows more arched, the lashes longer. The figure slighter and more shapely. The skin pale and fine as translucent pearl. A dangerous Fainne.

‘Good,’ said my father, watching me as I slipped from one guise to the next. ‘You’ve an aptitude for this, there’s no doubt of it. The semblance is quite convincing. But can you sustain it, I wonder?’

‘Of course I can,’ I responded instantly. ‘Try me, if you will.’

‘I’ll do just that.’ Father was gathering up a bundle of scrolls and letters, and a tightly strapped goatskin bag whose contents might have been anything. ‘Here, carry this. The walk will be good for you.’

He was already making for the passageway to the outside, his sandalled feet noiseless on the stone floor.

‘Where are we going?’ I was taken aback, and hastened after him, still in the guise of not-myself.

‘Dan heads back north in the morning. I’ve business for him to conduct on my behalf, and messages to be delivered. Stay as you are. Act as you seem. Maintain this until we return. Let me see your strength.’

‘But – won’t they notice that I am – different?’

‘They’ve not seen you for a year. Girls grow up quickly. No cause for concern.’

‘But –’

Father glanced back over his shoulder as we came out of the Honeycomb onto the cliff path. His expression was neutral. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.

‘No, Father.’ There was no problem. Only Dan and Peg and the other men and women with their sharp looks and their ready comments. Only the girls with their giggling whispers and the boys with their jokes. Only the fact that I had not once gone right into the encampment without Darragh by my side, not in all the long years Dan Walker’s folk had been spending their summers at the bay. Only that going amongst people still filled me with terror, even though I was a sorcerer’s daughter, for my clever tricks scarcely outweighed my limping, awkward gait and crippling shyness.

But then, I thought as I followed my father’s striding, dark-cloaked figure along the path and down the hillside towards the cove, today I was not that girl; not that Fainne. Instead, I was whatever I pleased. I was the other Fainne, the Glamour wrapping me in a soft raiment of gracefulness, smoothing my curls into a glossy flow of silk, making my walk straight and even, drawing the eye to my long curling lashes and my demure, pretty smile. They would see me, Dan and Peg and the others, and they would admire me, and never notice that anything had changed.

‘Ready?’ Father asked under his breath as we came along the path and caught sight of the cluster of folk preparing livestock and belongings for next morning’s early departure. Dogs were racing around yapping, and children chased each other in and out between carts and ponies and the legs of men and women about their tasks. As we came closer and were seen, people drew back as was their habit, leaving a neat untenanted space around my father. He was unperturbed, striding on forward until he spotted Dan Walker making some fine adjustments to a piece of harness. A couple of lads were bringing their ponies up from the shore, and they glanced my way. I put a hand on one hip, casually, and looked back at them under my lashes as I had seen that girl do, the one with the teeth. One lad looked down, as if abashed, and moved on past. The other one gave an appreciative whistle.

‘And drop this off at St Ronan’s,’ my father was telling Dan Walker. ‘I’m grateful to you, as always.’

‘It’s nothing. Got to go that way regardless, this year. It’s close enough to Sevenwaters. Can’t pass those parts without calling in on the old auntie, I’d never be forgiven. She’s getting long in the tooth, but she’s a sharp one, always has been. Got any messages for the folk up there?’ The question was thrown in as if quite by chance.

Father’s features tightened almost imperceptibly. ‘Not this time.’

I took a step forward, and then another, and I was aware that Peg and the other women were watching me from where they hung clothing on the bushes to dry, and I saw that now Dan’s eyes, too, were fixed on me, appraising. I looked away, down towards the sea.

‘Girl’s turned out a credit to you, Ciarán,’ Dan said. He had lowered his voice, but I heard him all the same. ‘Who’d have thought it? Right little beauty, she’s turning into; takes after her mother. You’d best be finding a husband for her before too long.’

There was a pause.

‘No offence,’ Dan added without emphasis.

‘The suggestion was inappropriate,’ my father said. ‘My daughter is a child.’

Dan made no comment, but I could feel his eyes following me as I walked over to the line of ponies tied up loosely in the shade under the trees, cropping at the rough grass. I could feel many eyes following me, and they were not amused or pitying or scornful, but curious, admiring, intrigued. It made me feel quite strange.

I reached up a hand to stroke the long muzzle of a placid grey beast, and the lad who had whistled before appeared at my side. He was a gangling, freckled fellow somewhat older than myself. I had seen him many times with the others, and never exchanged so much as a word. Behind him a couple more boys hovered.

‘His name’s Silver.’ This was offered with diffidence, as if the speaker were not quite sure of his possible reception. There was a pause. Some response from me was clearly expected. It was all very well to maintain the Glamour, to keep myself as this not-quite-myself that they all seemed to want to look at and talk to. My techniques were well up to that. But I must also act in keeping; find the words, the smiles, the little gestures. Find the courage. I slipped a hand into the pocket of my gown, repeated the words of an old spell silently in my head, and drew out a wrinkled apple that had not been there when we left home.

‘Is it all right if I give him this?’ I asked sweetly, arching my brows and trying for a shy smile.

The boy nodded, grinning. Now I had five of them around me, leaning with studied casualness on the wall, or half-hiding behind one another, peering around for a better look without being conspicuous. I put the apple on the palm of my hand, and the horse ate it. His ears were laid back. He was uneasy with me, and I knew why.

‘Is it true you can make fire with your hands?’ blurted out one of the lads suddenly.

‘Hush your mouth, Paddy,’ said the first one with a scowl. ‘What are you thinking of, asking the young lady something like that?’

‘None of our business, I’m sure,’ said another, though doubtless he, like all of them, had exchanged his fair share of speculative gossip about what we got up to, those long lonely times in the Honeycomb.

‘It’s my father who’s the sorcerer, not me,’ I said softly, still stroking the horse’s muzzle with delicate fingers. ‘I’m just a girl.’

‘Haven’t seen you out and about much this summer,’ commented the freckled boy. ‘Keeps you busy, does he?’

I gave a nod, allowing my expression to become crestfallen. ‘There’s only my father and me, you see.’ I imagined myself as a dutiful daughter, cooking sustaining meals, mending and sweeping and tending to my father, and I could see the same image in their eyes.

‘A shame, that,’ said one of the lads. ‘You should come down sometimes. There’s dancing and games and good times here in the camp. Pity to miss it.’

‘Maybe –’ began the other boy, but I never heard what he was about to say, for it was at that point my father called me, and the lads melted away quicker than spring snow, leaving me alone with the horse. And as I turned to follow my father obediently back home I saw Darragh, over on the far side of the horse lines, brushing down his white pony. Aoife, her name was; he’d argued long and hard with Dan to be allowed to keep her, and he’d had his way in the end. Now Darragh glanced at me and looked away, and not by so much as a twitch of the brow or a movement of the hand did he give me any recognition.

‘Very good,’ my father said as we walked home in the chill of a rising west wind. ‘Very good indeed. You’re getting the feeling of this. However, this is just the beginning. I’d like you to develop a degree of sophistication. You’ll need that at Sevenwaters. The folk there are somewhat different from these fishermen and simple travellers. We must begin work on that.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘We might start sooner than planned, I think. As soon as Dan’s folk are away we’ll take the next step. You can have one day’s rest. You’ve earned that much; we cannot afford more. Use the day wisely.’

There was no choice in it; there never had been. ‘Yes, Father,’ I said, and as we made our way up the cliff path and into the dark tunnels of the Honeycomb, I let the Glamour slip away and was once more my limping, clumsy self. I had done what my father asked. Why, then, did I feel so unhappy? Hadn’t I proved I could be what I pleased? Hadn’t I shown I could make people admire me and bend them to my will? Yet, later, lying on my bed, I stared into the darkness and felt an emptiness inside me that bore no relation whatever to spells, and enchantments, and the mastery of the craft.

It was a night of restless dreams, and I awoke before dawn, shivering under my woollen blanket, hearing the howl of the wind, and the roar of the sea as it pounded the rocks of the Honeycomb. Not a good day to be abroad. Perhaps Dan Walker and his folk would decide to stay a little longer. But it never did happen that way. They were as true to their time as birds flying away for the winter, their arrivals and departures as precise as the movement of shadows in a sacred circle. You could count your year by them. The golden times. The grey times. It seemed to me the voice of the wind had words in it. I will sweep you bare … bare … I will take all … all … And the sea responded in kind. I am hungry … give me … give …

I put my hands over my ears and curled up tight. It was supposed to be a day of rest, after all. Might I not sleep in peace, at least until the sun rose? But the voices would not go away, so I got up and dressed, not sure what the day might hold, but thinking I would make myself very busy indeed, and try to ignore the sick, empty feeling in my stomach. It was as I pulled on my boots that I heard, very faintly through the blast of the wind, another sound. A note or two, fragments of a tune over a steady, solid drone. The voice of the pipes. So, they were not gone yet. Not stopping to think, I grabbed my shawl and was away, out of doors and up the hill towards the standing stones, my hair whipped this way and that in the wild weather, the sea spray pursuing me as far from the cliffs as its icy fingers could stretch.

Darragh stopped playing when he saw me. He’d found a sheltered spot amongst the stones, and sat with his legs outstretched and his back to the great dolmen we called the Guardian, not disrespectful exactly, just blending in as if he belonged there, the same as the rabbits. I stumbled forward, pushing my hair back from my eyes, and sat down beside him. I clutched my shawl closer around me. It was still barely dawn, and the air held the first touch of a distant winter.

It took me a while to catch my breath.

‘Well,’ said Darragh eventually, which wasn’t much help.

‘Well,’ I echoed.

‘You’re abroad early.’

‘I heard you playing.’

‘I’ve played up here often enough, this summer. Didn’t bring you out before. We’re leaving this morning. But I suppose you knew that.’

I nodded, sudden misery near overwhelming me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ve been busy. Too busy to come out. I –’

‘Don’t apologise. Not if you don’t mean it,’ said Darragh lightly.

‘But I did want – I hadn’t any choice,’ I told him.

Darragh looked at me straight, his brown eyes very serious and a little frown on his face. ‘There’s always a choice, Fainne,’ he said soberly.

Then we sat in silence for a while, and at length he took up the pipes and began to play again, some tune I did not recognise that was sad enough to bring the tears to your eyes. Not that I’d have cried over so foolish a thing, even if I’d been capable of it.

‘There’s words to that tune,’ Darragh ventured. ‘I could teach you. It sounds bonny, with the pipes and the singing.’

‘Me, sing?’ I was jolted out of my misery. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Never tried, have you?’ said Darragh. ‘Odd, that. I’ve never yet met a soul without some music in them. I bet you could sing fit to call the seals up out of the ocean, if you gave it a try.’ His tone was coaxing.

‘Not me,’ I said flatly. ‘I’ve better things to do. More important things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Things. You know I can’t talk about it.’

‘Fainne.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t like to see you doing that – that – doing what you were doing yesterday. I don’t like it.’

‘Doing what?’ I lifted my brows as haughtily as I could manage, and stared straight at him. He looked steadily back.

‘Carrying on with the lads. Flirting. Behaving like some – some silly girl. It’s not right.’

‘I can’t imagine what you mean,’ I retorted scornfully, though I was struck to the heart by his criticism. ‘Anyway, you weren’t even looking at me.’

Darragh gave his crooked grin, but there was no mirth in it. ‘I was looking, all right. You made sure everyone would be looking.’

I was silent.

‘My father was right, you know,’ he said after a while. ‘You should get wed, have a brood of children, settle down. You need looking after.’

‘Nonsense,’ I scoffed. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘You need keeping an eye on,’ persisted Darragh. ‘Maybe you can’t see it, and maybe your father can’t see it, but you’re a danger to yourself.’

‘Rubbish,’ I said, bitterly offended that he should think me so inadequate. ‘Besides, who would I wed, here in the bay? A fisherman? A tinker’s lad? Hardly.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ Darragh said after a moment. ‘Quite unsuitable, it’d be. I see that.’ Then he got to his feet, lifting the pipes neatly onto his shoulder. He had grown a lot, this last year, and had begun to show a dark shadow of beard around the chin. He had acquired a small gold ring in one ear, just like his father’s.

‘I’d best be off, then.’ He looked at me unsmiling. ‘Slip you in my pocket and take you with me, I would, if you were a bit smaller. Keep you out of harm’s way.’

‘I’d be too busy anyway,’ I said, as the desolation of parting swept over me once again. It never got any easier, year after year, and knowing I would myself be leaving next autumn made this time even worse. ‘I have work to do. Difficult work, Darragh.’

‘Mm.’ He didn’t really seem to be listening to me, just looking. Then he reached over to tweak my hair, not too hard, and he said what he always said. ‘Goodbye, Curly. I’ll see you next summer. Keep out of trouble, now, until I come back.’

I nodded, incapable of speech. Somehow, even though I had learned so much this season, even though I had come close to a mastery of my craft, it seemed all of a sudden that the summer had been utterly wasted, that I had squandered something precious and irreplaceable. I watched my friend as he made his way through the circle of stones, the wind tugging and tearing at his old clothes and whipping his dark hair out behind him, and then he went down the other side of the hill and was gone. And it was cold, so cold I felt it in the very marrow, a chill that no warm fire nor sheepskin coat could keep at bay. I went home, and still the sun was barely creeping up the eastern sky, dark red behind storm-tossed clouds. As I walked back to the Honeycomb, and lit a lantern to see me in through the shadowy passages, I made my breathing into a pattern. One breath in, long and deep from the belly. Out in steps, like the cascades of a great waterfall. Control, that was what it was all about. You had to keep control. Lose that, and the exercise of the craft was pointless. I was a sorcerer’s daughter. A sorcerer’s daughter did not have friends or feelings; she could not afford them. Look at my father. He had tried to live a different sort of life, and all it had brought him was heartache and bitterness. Far wiser to concentrate on the craft, and put the rest aside.

Back in my room I made myself picture the travelling folk loading their carts, harnessing their horses, setting off up the track northwards with their dogs running alongside and the lads bringing up the rear. I made myself think of Darragh on his white pony, and forced myself to hear his words again. I don’t like to see you doing that … you made sure everyone would be looking … you’re a danger to yourself … If that was how he saw me, it was surely far better that our paths were separating now. Year after year, season after season I had waited for him, pinning my hope and happiness on his return. It had seemed to me, sometimes, that I was not fully alive unless he was there. Now my grandmother was coming, and I was being sent away; everything was changing. Best if I put Darragh from my thoughts and just get on with things. Best if I learn to do without him. Besides, what could a travelling boy understand about sorcery, and shape-changing, and the arts of the mind? It was a different world; a world beyond his wildest imaginings. It was a world in which, finally, one must be strong enough to move forward quite alone.

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