Grim gave me a funny look. ‘Heavy.’ He cast his glance over the garden; he sniffed like a hunting dog. ‘Folk have been here; not just him, a lot of folk. And horses. Just as well I fixed the wall around the vegetable patch. Here, a bit of this’ll be good in the brew.’ He leaned over the dry-stone wall and plucked a few sprigs of basil, a few leaves of thyme. ‘Good pile of horse dung over there. I’ll dig it into the new patch.’

‘Brew first. Dung later, if you insist.’

11 Grim

11

~GRIM~

I’ve come home with a story to tell. But Blackthorn’s got her own story and it’s bigger than mine. So instead of talking I sit down and listen.

It’s odd all right, a girl drowning with a whole crowd of folk around her, even if their backs were turned. Seems that’s what happened. Blackthorn says it’s just as well it was the maid who drowned on Prince Oran’s land and not this woman he’s marrying, since that’s the sort of thing wars get fought over. That sounds a bit hard to me, but most likely true. The maid was a person like me, well, maybe not so low, but far below Lady Flidais. The sort of person who can die and nobody cares much, except her closest family, that’s if she’s got any. I tell Blackthorn this and she says with some folk, not even the family cares, but yes, she knows what I mean, and she thinks Lady Flidais and her women won’t spend much time mourning this girl who’s died.

As for taking a swim in Dreamer’s Pool, that turns me cold. If Conmael and his kind don’t live in the wood, then something else does, something that isn’t animal and isn’t human. Last thing I’d be wanting, knowing it was watching, would be to strip off my clothes and get in the water. Not that I would anyway, seeing as I can’t swim. But the thought of it gives me the creeps.

Haven’t said this to Blackthorn, but if our cottage hadn’t been outside the wood, if it had been in there under the trees, I might not have stayed, even for her. Something wrong in that place. Can’t put my finger on what it is. Any time I go in for firewood or herbs or water I feel it, like an itch on the skin or a buzzing in the ears. Something different. Something not right.

‘I wonder how she’ll do as queen of Dalriada,’ Blackthorn’s saying, talking to herself more than to me. ‘I can’t say I took to the girl. But I have some sympathy. Especially if Prince Oran is anything like Mathuin.’

‘He’s young.’

‘That doesn’t make him good.’

‘Doesn’t make him bad either,’ I say.

‘What would you know?’

‘Seemed all right, the day they stopped here. Him and his man.’

‘Didn’t they only pass by to find out who’d moved in here? You hardly had the chance to judge his character.’