Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online

have a dog of my own – my beloved old hound, Grey, died last autumn, and thus far I have not had the heart to replace him. Perhaps you would allow me to share Bramble. If you do me the honour of agreeing to be my wife, we might in time acquire another small dog as companion for her. Were you going to tell me Bramble’s story?

    I will tell you a secret, she wrote . Bramble is not the kind of purebred dog people expect a lady like me to own. I found her in the woods one day, entangled in blackberry bushes, her poor skin covered in bleeding scratches. She was crying most piteously. It took me and my maid some considerable time to extricate her. While we worked, Bramble was so patient and good, despite her fear. She knew that at last she had found friends in a dark world. So she was rescued and given a new name, and she has been my constant companion ever since. You will laugh at me, but I have wondered if Bramble came from the realm of the fey. Sometimes her eyes take on a particular look, as if she is gazing right out of our world and into a place I cannot see. Do you believe what some folk say, that the fey still walk the land of Erin, but only show themselves when they choose? Or do you think me foolish for giving credence to any such idea? My maid says I am fanciful, but she likes it when I tell her stories of those ancient times.
    Oran, are you a tall man or short? Fat or thin? Fair-haired or dark? These things weigh nothing in the final decision, you understand. Only, I would like to know.

4
    ~BLACKTHORN~
    O ne thing was certain: there’d be no sleeping in warm barns or begging crusts from local farmers until I was off Mathuin’s land, and even then I’d have to find some way of cleaning myself up before I let anyone see me. These filthy, sodden tatters were all the clothes I possessed, and there was no concealing my matted, crawling locks and my bruised and stinking body. All very well for Conmael to say Make your way to Dalriada. Dalriada was far away, and even if I’d had so much as a paring knife or fishhook, I was too weak to do more than pick a berry or two from the bushes as I passed. I was the kind of vagrant who made folk hustle their children indoors and bolt the door behind them. Which I could understand, since if I’d been a respectable sort of person I’d have been doing exactly the same thing.
    There was little doubt in my mind that what had happened was Conmael’s doing. The sturdy-looking roof suddenly caving in on a fine morning without a breath of wind; the door conveniently blocked so the guards couldn’t come rushing in; nobody stopping me as I clambered over the roof, climbed down and crossed open ground to get to those woods – that had to be fey work. Conmael must have heard me calling after him, saying I wanted out after all. Or maybe he knew what I wanted without being told, just as he seemed to know a whole lot more about me than any stranger possibly could. It made me feel queasy. And now here I was, free at last, but bound by his poxy conditions unless I wanted to find myself right back in Mathuin’s lockup, waiting for the executioner. Could he do that? After what had just happened, I had no wish to put it to the test.
    The first night out saw me making camp – if you could call it that – under oaks, on rising ground. Midsummer, hah! It was freezing. Everything I had on was damp, including the blanket I’d had wrapped around me when Slammer and his cronies threw that bucket of slops to shut me up. I’d been drinking from streams, crouched like some feral creature, wary of capture, but all I’d found to eat were those berries, and they’d been dry and shrivelled, not even good enough for sparrows and shrews. The idea of getting to Dalriada on my own was laughable. One more day like this and I’d be too weak to walk ten paces.
    All I’d managed to do was find a hollow and hunker down in it with the clammy blanket over me. As the darkness deepened and the night birds started