Bravely(75)

“How could this be a trick?” she asked.

He shook his head again. “How do you see me?”

Differently than she used to.

“I guess DunBroch’s not the only thing changing around here,” she said.





FERADACH stayed.

It snowed and snowed and snowed, and Feradach stayed. Surely the snow wouldn’t have stopped him, but he stayed.

He stayed and stayed and Merida could see his face go still and expressionless every time he heard his name—which he did, again and again, because the magic that had allowed them all to see him the same way before this kept on happening. So it was “Feradach, do you want to play a round of Whips and Hounds with us?” “Feradach, have you ever been to Hoy?” “Feradach, do you need more to eat?” “Feradach, can you play the flute at all? We need someone to do the melody for us.” “Feradach, you probably will be stuck here for days, I hope your business will hold.”

On each of the snowy evenings he joined the family in the common room, partaking of their ritual of telling stories and drinking sweet creamy whipkull and enjoying all the recipes Aileen was testing in advance of the big Christmas banquet. Every evening Merida watched him hold his gloved hands tightly against himself as he listened to his name again and again: Feradach, Feradach, Feradach.

“You’re very good at this,” he said, a few nights in. He was playing a game of Brandubh with Merida, the first time she’d played the actual game in ages. They had a lovely new board now, to match the new castle. It had come along with the orphan girls of Eilean Glan.

“She’s banned,” Hubert said. “She always wins.”

“Always?” Feradach asked.

“Yes, she’s a cheater,” Harris murmured, not looking up from his book.

Merida, remembering very well what Feradach thought of the Cailleach’s cheating, said as she moved a piece, “I am not! I’m just very good at it.”

“I’m very good at it too,” Feradach said, moving one of his as well, his hands still safely gloved. “I’ve never been beaten.”

“Enjoy suffering,” Harris said.

But Merida did not win. Or at least, not right away. She played her pieces out as she usually did, and Feradach played his pieces, and there was some jaunting back and forth without reasonable gains on either side. Harris and Hubert gave up their own diversions and came to crouch on either side of the board to watch. The game went on.

Elinor arrived. “Who’s winning? Oh, Merida’s playing, I know who’s winning.”

“She’s not!” Hubert said.

“I’m not losing, though,” Merida said. She and Feradach battled back and forth.

Hamish and Fergus arrived with their drinks. Fergus saw Merida at the board and said, “So we’ve decided to drive Feradach into the snow, is that what we’re after?”

“She’s not won yet,” Elinor said. “It’s touch and go.”

Leezie appeared in the doorway with a great Yule shawl she’d made of prickly-looking plants wrapped around her. “I thought Merida was banned from this game! Oh! Is she not winning?”

At just the same moment, Merida and Feradach moved their pieces in such a way to unlock the Black Raven.

“Impossible!” Hubert and Hamish roared.

“Improbable,” corrected Harris.

Feradach lifted his gaze to Merida over the Brandubh board, eyes merry. “Evenly matched. What now?”

At just that moment, Brionn burst into the room. With an uncanny sense, he leapt straight at the object every human and god in the room was looking at: the Black Raven piece.

He snatched it up and darted from the room.

“Brionn!” Harris said, leaping up, as his brothers laughed hysterically.

“It looks like you’ve both been bested by a wolfhound,” Fergus said to Feradach and Merida. “Who knew just how to employ the Black Raven. Better luck next time.”

“It’s nice to see Merida evenly matched for once,” Elinor said.



That night, Leezie paused in Merida’s bedroom door and whispered, “Is Feradach the god, Merida? The one we rescued in the woods?”

“You recognize him?”

“Of course I do!” Leezie said, indignantly. “I’ve been studying about gods and magic. I’m starting to read a little about it.”

“You’re reading!” Merida was delighted.

“The letters still wander,” Leezie replied crossly, “but not as badly. Do you know why Feradach is here? Is he just grateful we saved him? Will he give us a wish? Sometimes grateful gods can give wishes.”

Of course Merida couldn’t answer the reason, because she couldn’t talk about the bargain. And actually she wasn’t sure that the bargain was the real reason he was still there at the castle.

“I don’t think he’s the wishing sort of god,” Merida said, because that seemed safe. “He has that stone, not the well.”

“Do you think he’d be offended if I asked him about the stone?” Leezie answered herself: “Probably I should pretend I don’t know what he is. In the stories they seem to prefer that unless they’re going about telling everyone who they are. I’m just going to leave an offering for him. They like that too.”