The Well of Shades by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online Page A

Saraid stood silent. She had dipped her own cloth in the bucket first and washed her face, dabbing behind her ears and around her neck. She had washed her hands and dried them on her apron.
I’m not having her in there with us. I’ll never, ever dothat.
“Saraid? Take my shawl, here, and go out the front. Sit on the step until I come out for you. Don’t go off anywhere. Aunt Anda will be home soon with something for breakfast. You can look out for her. I know it’s cold.”
    The child nodded and slipped away, as obedient as the dog. Eile wasn’t sure how much Saraid understood. She suspected it was more than such a little girl should, and shehardened her will against what she must do next. Just once, just one last time he’d do it to her, and she’d have to let him, and then…
    While he was grunting and thrusting inside her, off in some trance of his own, Eile had become accustomed to shutting off her mind. She would think of how it had been before: before Saraid, before Dalach’s house, before she found Mother hanging from a tree. Beforethe eve of her twelfth birthday, when her aunt’s husband had come in the dark, pinned her down and robbed her of her innocence. Now, as he satisfied himself in her with an urgency born of the days away, she thought of the time when her father had come back, after Breakstone Hollow. Eile had been eight years old. Perhaps she’d been too young to realize how much Deord had been changed by his imprisonment.He’d been quiet; but he’d alwaysbeen quiet. There had been no bedtime stories. When she’d asked, he’d said he only knew sad ones now. So Eile had told him tales instead, the ones she could remember from before and some she made up. Sometimes her stories made him weep, and she would climb on his knee, put her arms around his neck, and press her warm cheek against his wet one. Yes, he had beendifferent that time. But he’d still been Father. When he’d gone away again, she had seen the hope gradually leach out of her mother. Every day, every single day Eile had prayed that he would come home. After her mother died, after Dalach, the prayers had become no more than desperate, unformed longings. Now, even those were pointless. All that she had was this moment, the straining, red-faced Dalachwith his ever-ready manhood deep inside her, and the knife Faolan had left behind clutched in her hand, under a fold of blanket. Her grip tightened; she drew a deep breath.
    Voices came from outside: her aunt’s, and, replying, a man’s. Faolan. He had come after all. He must have met Anda on the way, making it necessary for her to accompany him back empty-handed. Eile pushed the knife under theold sack that served as a pillow, and Dalach, unwilling to relinquish the opportunity his wife’s brief absence had provided, thrust hard and fast and spent himself inside her with a muffled groan before rolling off the pallet and hastily pulling up his trousers.
    “Make yourself decent, slut,” he hissed, and went out.
    Eile did not go out straightaway. Surely her father’s friend would smell Dalachon her. Surely he would hear her hammering heart, for she had been so close, a hair’s breadth from thrusting the weapon he had so conveniently left her deep inside her tormentor, giving Dalach a taste of his own medicine. The first time he’d done it to her, it had hurt a lot. It had never stopped hurting; she’d just become used to it, and learned that it was more bearable if she breathed slowlyand let him get on with it. If she fought, it made him rougher, and got her a beatinglater. Dalach needed little excuse to use his fists; she and Anda both bore their share of bruises. Not Saraid; not yet. Saraid was so silent, so obedient. She had learned to make herself invisible.
    Eile straightened her clothing and spread the thin blanket neatly across the pallet, making sure the knife wasquite hidden. She waited until her breathing was under better control. In the outer chamber they were