She almost blurted that it was what she had to do, not him, but the stubborn set of his jaw had her sipping from the much depleted wineskin and keeping quiet instead.
“So tell me about what you were like when you were young,” he said, motioning for her to pass him the wine. “My guess is that you were much like El-you liked to be off by yourself.”
Instead of answering him right away, she fed the fire more branches and they were both silent as the logs popped and cracked.
“Brighid,” he said her name and waited for her to shift her gaze to his. “You made me talk to you when I wanted only to crawl into a dark hole and lick my wounds. You wouldn’t let me give up on life.”
“And now it’s your turn to do the same for me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Right now, though, I’d just like for my wife to be able to speak easily with me about her past.”
Wife…the word was heavy in the night air. Brighid took another long drink of wine, welcoming its warmth and its ability to loosen the bonds she kept carefully in place around the past.
“It’s hard,” she began haltingly. “I’m not used to talking about it.”
“Well, take your time. We have all night.” He popped the last of the bread and meat into his mouth and then shifted the saddle that he’d propped behind him as a backrest, using the same movement to edge closer to her. Looking comfortable and settled, he leaned back, bringing himself within touching distance of her. “It’s just us. Fand’s not even here to listen in.”
“Or to yip annoyingly,” Brighid said.
“Wolves don’t yip. They growl.”
“Whatever you want to call it, the cub is annoying.”
“Which is one of the reasons I left her at the castle,” he said. “And the children like her. They’ll keep her occupied.”
“They’re equally as annoying.”
Cuchulainn laughed. “I won’t even begin to deny that.”
Brighid smiled at him, captured by his infectious laugh. “Just like the cub, they never stopped making noise.”
The warrior chuckled and stretched. “There are definitely some good points about being off by ourselves. One is that our ears aren’t constantly bombarded with the voices of the young-be they winged or furred.”
She sighed and took another pull from the wineskin. “On that point you and I are in complete agreement.”
The wine and Cuchulainn’s good humor had worked its magic. She wasn’t feeling so self-conscious and nervous; actually, she was relaxed and a little sleepy. So she started talking.
“You were right. I was alone a lot when I was young, but it wasn’t because I was a loner. It was because it seemed that everyone around me wanted something from me. It was just easier for me to be alone.”
“Everyone?” Cuchulainn prompted when she fell silent. “Even your brother and sister?”
“Like Elphame, I’m the firstborn. Niam was several years younger, and she and I were never close. She cared about luxuries and gazing at herself in any and all reflective surfaces. I cared about avoiding our mother.” Brighid’s brow wrinkled. “I didn’t understand then that what she was doing was finding her own way to avoid Mother.”
“It was always like that with your mother?” he asked.
She sighed. “Almost as far back as I can remember, though when I was very young, and my father was still alive, she was less controlling and more-” she struggled to find the right word “-more normal. After he died it was like the coldness that had always shadowed her took over completely.”
“What about your brother?”
“Bregon and I were nearer in age, like you and El. As children we were close, even though it used to confuse him that I didn’t want to spend time with Mother. He idolized her. In turn, she ignored him. I always expected him to sour toward her, to see what a user she was, but he never did. Instead he began resenting me. Especially after…” She stopped talking, like her words had run out. Brighid stared into the fire, remembering. In the crackle of the flames she could almost hear the small, frightened voice from her past, and see the terrible red sunset of that long ago day.
Cuchulainn’s touch on her arm made her jump, and her eyes swung back to his, wide and dark in her suddenly pale face.
“What happened?”
She opened her mouth and words that had remained unsaid for years rushed out. “It was near the end of my training as a Huntress. I was about half a day away from the herd’s campsite. No one knew I was there. When I saw the wagon tracks I thought I’d use them as a training exercise. I’d follow and see what they led me to, all the while reading the story they told. I was already unusually good at tracking animals.” She moved her shoulders apologetically. “I was drawing on my affinity with animal spirits, though I wasn’t consciously aware of it. So I was particularly interested in tracking the wagon. It was pulled by animals, but technically it wasn’t an animal. I thought it would be more difficult to read. Plus, it had left the road and was cutting through a cross-timbers area of the Plains, which was rugged and harder to track. Then it started to rain. Just lightly, but I remember that I liked the added element of difficulty. When the hoofprints mixed with those of the wagon’s it was easy to tell that they were the tracks of centaurs. Five of them.”
Brighid met Cuchulainn’s eyes and she gave a dry, humorless laugh.
“I’d wanted a story to read in tracks-something difficult-and that was exactly what I was granted. Only it wasn’t the reading of it that was difficult. That was clear, at least to me. I suppose Ciara would say that I should thank the ability that runs innately through my blood for that clarity. That day I didn’t feel much like giving thanks.” She stopped speaking, and tilted the wineskin against her lips.
“What story did the tracks tell you?” Cuchulainn asked softly.
She glanced at him, and then looked away, back into the fire. “They told me that the five centaurs had chased the wagon. That the horses that were pulling it had panicked, and that the centaurs purposefully herded the stampeding team toward the timberline and the cliff that the creek and time had eroded. Then I didn’t need to read the tracks anymore because I heard her. I followed the sound of her cries as I slid down the side of the cliff to where the wagon had overturned, spilling out its driver, as well as the bolts of brightly colored cloth that she had been bringing to the centaur herd for trade. I remember that most of the cloth was dyed rich jewel tones-reds, blues, emerald greens-so when I found her at first I thought that the bottom of her body was swathed in yards of ruby-colored linen.”
Brighid shook her head, her eyes far away, seeing that day in the past.
“The wagon had rolled over her, crushing her body just below her rib cage. She lay there on the ground, the rain mixing with her blood, and she was still alive. She was crying. When she saw me she tried to drag herself away, begged me not to hurt her anymore. I told her I didn’t want to hurt her. I don’t think she believed me, but when she moved the bleeding got worse. A lot worse. Like something within her had snapped and broken loose. She knew she was dying and she didn’t want to be alone, even if it meant breathing her last breath in the arms of a centaur.” Brighid lifted her eyes from the fire to the warrior beside her who was so silent and attentive. “Oh, Cu, she was just a girl. She said she’d snuck away from her merchant train and come alone to trade with the Ulstan Herd to prove to her parents she could do the work of an adult, but she’d gotten lost. Then the centaurs-young males, she said, had surrounded her and scared the horses and laughed and whooped while they ran her over the cliff. Then they’d left her alone in the rain to die.”
Brighid took another long pull from the wineskin, forcing the trembling from her voice. It was important that she tell the story clearly-that he understand everything.