Heart's Blood полностью

“Gearróg!” I screamed. Oh, God, it was true, it had happened after all. I had asked too much of him, drained his energy . . .There had been something wrong that he hadn’t told me, some illness . . .

Gearróg burst in, uttered an oath, then strode back outside to yell for help. As I fought for calm, laying a hand on Anluan’s chest to feel if his heart was still beating, putting my fingers to his neck in the place where the blood pulsed, the chamber filled up with people: Olcan, Eichri, Orna and Tomas. And just after them, Rioghan, who took one look and said, “Dear God, it’s Irial all over again.”

“What—” I began, outraged that anyone would believe Anluan, beloved Anluan who had held me and lain with me and made magic with me, might want to kill himself. Then I realized what he meant. The cup. The sudden collapse. The blue-gray pallor, the loss of speech, the labored breathing . . .“He’s been poisoned,” I said.“The ale—that was all he took—who prepared this tray?” Do something. Save him, now, now! screamed my inner voice, edging me closer to complete panic.

“Sionnach prepared the food,” Orna said. She kept glancing sideways, as if the close presence of uncanny folk still made her nervous.“Tomas got the ale for us and I brought the tray across to Gearróg. I was halfway back to the house when I heard you scream. It’s the same food and drink all of us had for supper, and nobody else is sick.”

A silence, though everyone was busy, Olcan supporting Anluan, Eichri at the door giving terse instructions to Gearróg, Orna dabbing a damp cloth to the stricken man’s brow. Anluan’s breathing was shallow and uneven. His skin was a corpse’s, all shadows.

“Did anyone else come into the kitchen when Sionnach was preparing the food?”

“Who else would be there in the middle of the night?” Orna frowned. “Oh, that strange creature did come by; the girl in the veil. Slipped in and out in that way she has, gives me the creeps. She was only there for a moment.”

A moment was long enough. Long enough to put a drop of poison in a jug. Long enough to kill a man.“There must be an antidote—we just have to work out what the poison is—who knows about herbs?”

“Only Magnus,” Rioghan said. “And he’s not here. Besides, if it’s the same thing that killed Irial, we never found out what it was. Nobody knew.”

I wanted to scream, to rend my garments and wail like a madwoman. I summoned the same chill purpose that had helped me once before, when I had walked into the house to confront Ita and Cillian. “Someone does know,” I said. “Find Muirne. Bring her here right now. This is her doing.” Aislinn was expert in herb lore. Aislinn knew all about potions. She loved Anluan, but perhaps she hated him too; hated him for loving me, hated him for changing everything on the hill. Maybe she hadn’t cared which of us drank first. “Hurry,” I said, but Rioghan was already gone.

“Caitrin.” Eichri spoke quietly. “If it’s the same thing Irial took, we don’t have very long. An hour, maybe. We can’t wait for Muirne, even if you’re right.” I heard in his voice that he could not believe Muirne would turn on the object of her lifelong devotion. “We must do something now or we’ll lose him while they’re still trying to find her.”

“Irial,” I said, as a new idea came to me. If Muirne was prepared to kill her beloved Anluan out of jealousy, might she not have done the same thing to Irial, to whom it seemed she had been as devoted a companion? “Irial would have known the antidote. He wrote notes on everything he discovered; he’ll have recorded every plant that grew on the Tor, I’m sure of it. It will be in one of those little books. He’ll have written down the symptoms, every detail—we need to find the poison first, and he should have noted the antidote underneath.” An hour. A little less than an hour.And I was the only one in the house who could read, apart from her. If there had been a better scholar among them, perhaps Irial could have been saved.

I took Anluan’s limp hand and brought it to my lips. He seemed already gone, but I had felt the blood still moving in his veins, weakly; I had felt the halting heartbeat. To release his hand and walk away was a little death. “I’m going to the library,” I said over my shoulder. “I need a safe lantern and a man to guard each door. If anyone finds Muirne, I want to see her straightaway. Gearróg, don’t let her anywhere near Anluan.”

I ran across the courtyard in my bare feet, with Gearróg’s cloak slung over the borrowed shirt.The news was spreading fast. By the time I reached Irial’s garden, folk of the host and folk from the settlement were gathering in huddled groups, faces somber. Cathaír came running into Irial’s garden before I entered the house, a lantern in one hand, a long dagger in the other.

“I’ll take this door, my lady. Broc’s on the other, with the dog. Let me open up for you.” He pushed the library door and it swung open; the inner bolt had not been fastened. “Where do you want this light?”