Heart's Blood Read Free

you say you were headed?”The man with the club asked the question without quite looking me in the eye.
    “I didn’t,” I said.“But my mother’s kin live in these parts.”That was not quite a lie: my mother’s family had indeed lived in the far west of Connacht, but there were none of them left now, at least none I knew of.
    “Fetch Tomas,” someone said. A lull, then; no more missiles thrown, but plenty of talk in low, agitated voices on that side of the barrier, while on this side I stood waiting as the last light faded. I wondered how much longer my legs would hold me up.
    “What are you?”A new voice.Another man had joined the first group, an older man with a more capable manner. “Ordinary folk don’t come to Whistling Tor. Especially not after dark.”
    “Are you Tomas?” I asked. “My name is Caitrin. I’ve been on the road all day. I just need somewhere to sleep. I can pay.”
    “If you mean no harm, prove it,” someone called out.
    “How?” I wondered if I would be subjected to a search or other indignities when I got through the defensive barrier.Well-born young women did not usually travel alone. It would be plain to everyone that I was in some kind of trouble. After today it was all too easy to believe men would interpret that as an invitation.
    “Say a Christian prayer.” That was the man with the club, his voice still thick with unease.
    I stared at him.Whatever these villagers were afraid of, it seemed it was not the Normans, for the most part a Christian people.“God in heaven,” I said, “guide and support me on my journey and bring me safely to shelter. Blessed Saint Patrick, shield me. Mother Mary, intercede for me. Amen.”
    There was a pause; then the man with the club lowered his weapon, and the older one said, “Let her through, boys. Duald, make sure the barrier’s properly sealed afterwards.You can’t be too careful in this mist. Go on, let her in.”
    “If you’re sure,Tomas.”
    Various bars and logs and pieces of metal were moved apart, and I was admitted to the safe ground within. “This way,”Tomas said as I murmured thanks.
    He walked by my side through the village. The houses were bristling with protective measures, the kind used by superstitious folk: triangles of iron nails, bowls of white stones set under steps, other charms to ward off evil. Doors and shutters were tightly closed. Many were barred with iron. What with the shifting light from the torches and the gathering mist, there was a nightmarish quality about the place. In the center of the settlement stood a bigger building, solidly built of mud and wattle and roofed with rain-darkened thatch.
    “Whistling Tor Inn,” my companion said. “I’m the innkeeper; my name’s Tomas.We can give you a bed for the night.”
    Tears pricked my eyes. I’d been beginning to think I had strayed into a different world, one where everything was awry. “Thank you,” I said.
    The inn was locked up. A wary-looking woman opened the door at Tomas’s call, and I was ushered into a kitchen where a warm fire burned on the hearth. Once we were in, the woman set a heavy bar across the front door.
    “My wife, Orna,” Tomas said. “Here.” He was pouring me a cup of ale. “Orna, is that soup still warm? This lass looks as if she could do with a meal.”
    My heart sank. I made myself speak up. “I have only four coppers. I don’t suppose that’s enough to pay for soup as well as a bed. I can manage without food. I just need to get warm.”
    The two of them turned searching looks on me. I could see questions coming, questions I wouldn’t want to answer.
    “That’s all right, lass,” Orna said, shifting a pot onto the fire. “Where are you headed? We don’t get many visitors here.”
    “I’m . . .” I hesitated, caught without a satisfactory answer. I could hardly tell them the truth: that I had left home with no plan other than to set as much distance between myself and Cillian as I could. But I did not