Heart's Blood полностью

With a sigh I put the book away and began to dress. Aengus had said that if we started off straight after breakfast we would reach Market Cross in the afternoon, all being well. As I took off my nightrobe and donned shift, stockings and gown, I tried to imagine what might happen when I walked in through the door of my childhood home. I did not like any of the variations my mind showed me. I won’t be afraid of them, I won’t, I told myself, but the churning feeling did not leave my belly. Sheer panic was not far away, the kind of fear that would send me fleeing inside myself. This is foolish.You must help Maraid.And you don’t have to do this alone. But perhaps I did have to do it on my own, or I would never conquer the terror that lurked deep inside me, threatening to cripple me when I most needed to be strong and whole.

One step at a time. If I looked neat and tidy, I might feel a little more in control. I would plait my hair and pin it up, then tie on a scarf. At least that would keep out the dust of the journey.

There was no mirror in the chamber where I was lodged. I reached into my bag and took out the little old one I had brought from Whistling Tor, propping it on a shelf. I laid the hairpins ready beside it, then put my hair into a single long braid. When I was ready to coil it atop my head, I glanced into the mirror. My heart leapt.There he was, standing in his bedchamber, clad in warrior’s garments, a leather breast-piece, wrist and arm braces. He was staring down at something held in one long-fingered hand, something small and glinting—a fragment, a shard of glass?

“Anluan,” I whispered, but he could not hear me. As I stared, not daring to move lest I cause the image to vanish, he turned the item one way then another, as if changing the angle of it might make a difference, and I saw that it was a jagged piece of mirror. It caught the light from his lamp, now shining like a star, now, when he turned it, dark as night. The mirror of might-have-been; the broken mirror. Did I only imagine that I saw his crooked mouth form the name Caitrin as he struggled to make the shattered glass show him once more the image that had made him smash it to pieces?

“I’m here,” I breathed. “I’m here, beloved, dearest one . . .”

He straightened; looked up and around, almost as if he had sensed my call. But it was another summons he had heard. I saw him slip the piece of glass under the pillow on his bed, then go to the door. He paused to scrub a hand across his cheeks. He straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.Then he opened the door, and there was Magnus, clad in similar garb, with a sword by his side. Anluan stepped out; the door closed, and the scene was lost. A moment later, there in the mirror was the chamber that had been mine. It seemed much as I had left it: neat, bare, empty. The place was a study in grays, shadow on shadow. The door stood slightly ajar. The only light was from the gallery openings beyond. It seemed to be dusk, or a stormy day.

One shadow caught my eye: a neat figure sitting cross-legged in the center of the floor with the little doll, Róise, in her hands. Not the ghost child. Muirne. Her eyes stared straight ahead; her expression was perfectly calm. Her hands worked in spite of that, pulling, tearing, ripping every remaining shred of hair from the doll’s linen scalp. Such strength in those hands; such violence that it sent a tremor of sheer horror into my bones. The little scarf I had made to cover the earlier damage lay on the floor beside Muirne’s outspread skirt, torn into pieces. Muirne’s face told me nothing, but now that I had seen Anluan’s notebook, I thought I could guess what was in her mind. She’s gone at last, gone forever, far, far away, and still she consumes your thoughts. She came here, you let her in, and she changed you. She changed everything.

“Caitrin? Are you ready for breakfast?”

The image fled. The mirror showed me my own face, eyes wide with shock, cheeks stained with tears. I was as white as Róise: linen pale.“I won’t be long,” I called to Fidelma through the closed door. I rolled the mirror in my nightrobe and thrust it back in my bag. My plait had unwound itself; I braided it again with my mind on Muirne’s detached gaze and her furious, destructive hands. That scene made no sense. I was gone from Whistling Tor.What could she hope to achieve by destroying my possessions? Was the woman simply unhinged?