Shame on you, Fainne. Have you forgotten your father’s suffering? Have you lost your discipline so quickly, that you play at being a druid, and forget your purpose?
I did not seem to be able to speak. My heart raced, my skin was clammy with sweat. I had known that she would seek me out. I had known that she would come, sooner or later. But not now. Not like this. “I—I—” I stammered, struggling for some vestige of control. “I haven’t forgotten, I swear I haven’t—”
Oh, Fainne. So weak. So easily fooled. Why did you save the druid from the flood? Why not leave your father’s nemesis to drown there in the dark? Oh yes, I was watching. Your will is not as strong as you thought.
“Conor plays his own game.” My teeth were chattering. Let her not show me my father’s image, not that. “I have his measure; I will outwit him. He’s an old man.”
He’s a druid. You’re not convincing me, Fainne. Must I come there in body as well as spirit, to apply a little spur to your will? Have you forgotten why you are there, child?
“N-no, Grandmother.”
Then why are you wasting time dreaming before the fire?
“It—it’s been necessary to earn these people’s trust,” I faltered. This was no good at all, I must get a grip on myself quickly. Her eyes were like knives, they seemed to pierce deep inside me, seeking out every little secret. “To appear their friend; to play the part of family. My mother—” I broke off. Tonight, I had almost felt Niamh watched me, through the veil of shadows.
Your mother would be ashamed of you. Grandmother’s voice was cold and hard as stone. She despised these folk for what they did to her, and to Ciarán. You’re losing your will, Fainne. And you know why.
“What do you mean?”
These folk are subtle. They give you the semblance of welcome, the outward form of acceptance. Conor lulls you, until you believe, almost, the same lie he fed your father. You start to think perhaps you can do it, after nil. Perhaps you may break through to the light; follow the way of the wise ones, until you become what he is. Huh! Look at yourself, Fainne. Look at yourself without the clothing of the Glamour. You are apart; you are not one of these folk. You bear my legacy, the blood of the outcast, and Conor knows it. He plays a little game with you, that is all. Even your father seeks simply to use you to his own ends. That is the way of it for our kind. There is no love. There is no light. There is no acceptance. The path is but confusion and shadows. At least give it some purpose.
“You say, no love. But I love my father, and he loves me. That must count for something.”
That’s sentimental nonsense. Ciarán thought he loved your mother. That was his biggest mistake. If he loved you he would never have sent you here. Your father knows, and I know, that you will never be other than what you are. Now pay attention. Look into the fire.
“I am looking.”
Look again.
I obeyed, and the flames changed, curled around and spread out and showed me, right in the glowing center of the fire, a tiny, clear image: my father bent over, coughing as if his chest would burst with it, and bright blood seeping out between the fingers he held over his mouth. I blinked, and the image was gone. My heart turned cold.
Saw that clear enough, didn’t you? That was your doing. That’s right now, what you see. It’s hard for a man to swallow, with a cough like that. No wonder he’s so thin. Hard to breathe, sometimes. And it’s cold in Kerry in the wintertime. Her eyes bored into me.
“Please!” My voice cracked with anguish. I could no longer stop myself from begging her. “Please don’t do this, it’s not my father’s fault. Please don’t hurt him like this! I am doing what you want, I am, I have plans. You’re punishing him for nothing.”
Plans are one thing. Action is another. What have you done, since you came here? Have you used the craft? Have you found a man to be your tool? What have you done?
“I—I went into the forest and sought out the Fair Folk. I spoke to one of them.”
And?
“I—I took a man’s interest,” I stammered, clutching at straws in my desperation. “An influential man. He is part of my plan.”
If you took his interest, where is he tonight?
“Gone home, for now. But he said he looked forward to seeing me again.” It wasn’t enough, I know it wasn’t. My father’s strangled coughing echoed in my head, a death knell.
Not good enough, Fainne. Pitifully gradual. Remember that codfish? You did that easily enough. It is the next stage that is the real challenge. You have been foolish to let these folk begin to worm their way into your heart. Best act soon, before you forget how. You’ll lose your will otherwise. You will simply become one of them. Maybe you enjoy seeing your father suffer.
“Stop it! Anyway, it wasn’t easy. I see that fish in my mind, every night before I fall asleep. That was evil. It was a misuse of the craft.”
She was expendable, Fainne. They all are. Where’s your backbone, girl? Now show me. Show me you still have it in you. Show me you don’t care about these folk. They are the people who sent your mother from her home, into the arms of a man so cruel she never recovered from it. They are the folk who planted hope in your father’s heart, only to tear it from him. They care nothing for you. Nothing. All that matters to them is their precious forest, and their Islands, and the will of the Fair Folk. Your mother died. She killed herself, because of what these people did. Have you forgotten? Are you instead drawn into their strange understanding of the world, so you value some so-called prophecy, some garbled piece of bard’s imagining, more highly than a woman’s very existence? Step outside that, Fainne. Where is your rage? Show me your strength.
I felt it then, welling within me, the craft in all its power, flowing forth into every part of my body. I could do what she wanted. I knew I could; I need only use what Father himself had taught me. Yet he had said…“Sometimes,” I whispered, “it shows greater strength of will not to act…”
What’s that? Some druid’s nonsense? Be true to yourself. Acknowledge your heritage. Show you can still do it. How long now, since you really used the craft? Show me, Fainne. A little fire, maybe. Just a small one. But hot. Give them a fright. Unsettle them. Can’t do it, can you? Lost the anger. Lost the will. So much for the love you professed for your father. That means nothing.
“I can! Even now my ringers feel the flames within me! But—but there seems no real purpose in this—it’s just trickery—”
You ask me about purpose? Tonight, of all nights? Has not your mother waited for you to come, year after long year between worlds, so she might see you through the veil on Samhain night? Watching as at last you show her brother, and her uncle, and all these folk, that they cannot walk forward blithely on a path awash with the blood of the innocent? Tonight your mother sees you, Fainne. Do it for her. They took away her power; they forced her into darkness and despair. Take it back for her. Show her what her daughter can do.
The craft was fierce in me now, a flame that seemed to hurry me forward, yet for some reason I still fought it. These were my mother’s own people, whatever they had done. “I—I can’t be sure—”
If you cannot summon up the will for this, you are a poor student indeed. You should not hesitate, not even for a moment. Ciarán lost his treasure, Fainne; his sweetheart and his hope. He lost his very identity. And you have denied him, in agreeing to be fatherless here at Sevenwaters. You know that I will make him suffer if you fail to obey my command. Now do it. Show your father that you have not forgotten him. Find the fury within you. Make the fire.
For a moment I closed my eyes, unable to meet the power of her gaze any longer, and when I opened them again the fire had died down to glowing coals, and she was gone.
“Father,” I whispered. “Father, hold on, wherever you are. Be strong.”
I picked up Riona and put her away in the chest, right down the bottom underneath Darragh’s shawl. Right down in the darkness where she could not see. I closed the lid. Then I went over to the window. It wa
s very late. I had been sitting alone a long time. There seemed to be nobody about, but there would be guards; there always were. The family, the druids, the folk of household and settlement would have retired to their beds by now. All was quiet. I blew out the candle and closed my eyes. I breathed slow and deep, summoning the eye of the spirit; slow and deep, building with gradual power like the swells of the great ocean itself. In my mind I watched the bonfire Conor had made, still burning down below the walls of the keep. I saw it clear and small. There were guards stationed near the fire, alert in the dark, edging closer to warm themselves. It was a still night, and cold enough to freeze a man through sheepskin coat and woollen cloak and all. I thought about that fire, seeing it as plain as if it were right before me. Great logs in the heart of it, glowing gold and orange, crumbling to dark ash. Cinders rising in the strong draft of it, dancing in the air like glowing insects. A spark or two. Smoke curling. In the morning there would be nothing much left. I could make a fire. All I had to do was point my finger. But this would be different. An accident. Nothing to do with me. Had I not been in my room asleep, on the far side of the keep? From my window I could not even see the courtyard where the fire had so unfortunately got out of control, and spread where it should not. Eyes tight shut, I held the fire in my mind. The change was quick. It had to be, before the guards could rush in with sticks and sacks and beat out the flames. A sudden flaring up, the licking along the ground, catching at whatever might be induced to burn. Men shouting, men running. The flames were a lovely color, red-gold like the autumn sun on dark clover honey. See, Grandmother? See what I can do? The flames caught at the wattles of the outbuildings and stretched hungrily up toward the sky. They sang. They shrieked. They roared. And there were other noises, not inside my head now, but all too real out there in the night, sounds of people yelling, and clanking buckets, and my uncle Sean’s voice shouting directions. Horses neighing, a crashing as something large was toppled or dragged out of the way, a sudden terrible sound of pain, a man screaming, screaming, on and on. I did not want to hear this. I put my fingers in my ears, but it made no difference. There were more smashing noises, and the sound of hooves on the stones of the path. I opened my eyes and now I could see, below my window, men leading terrified horses out to the safety of the fields, and running back into the mayhem. The glow from the conflagration spread their shadows long and dark across the stretch of green between keep and forest. I stood very still indeed. There was no need to undo the spell. They would put the fire out. The animals were saved. I was glad about that. The household would be unsettled. Such an event, on Samhain night, might suggest the archdruid’s hope for the coming year was ill-founded. It would sow the seed of uncertainty. It had worked very well indeed. Why, then, were my hands shaking like birch leaves in an autumn gale? I clutched at the little amulet around my neck, to steady them.
There was a hammering on my door.
“Fainne! Are you awake?”
It was Muirrin. I had no choice but to open the door and let her in.
“What is it? What’s happening?” I tried my best to sound half-asleep and confused.
“Oh, Fainne! Haven’t you heard the noise? There’s been a terrible fire. One of the druids is dead, and others badly hurt. And we can’t find Maeve. I was hoping—I was thinking she might have been with you. But I see she’s not here. Oh, Fainne, what will we do if—” At this point the self-contained, capable healer of Sevenwaters put her hands over her face and broke into floods of tears. I felt a terrible shiver right through my body, that had nothing at all to do with the lateness of the hour or the chill of the season.
“I’ll help you look for her,” I said, the unsteadiness of my voice owing nothing at all to artifice. “Let me get my cloak. I’m sure she’s all right, Muirrin. By the time we’re back downstairs they’ll have found her, believe me.” Brighid help me, why didn’t I stop it in time? Why didn’t I make it stop as soon as the flames began to lick at the walls? Why didn’t I remember where the druids were sleeping?
If there was an answer to these questions, I did not have it. Instead, as we hastened down the stairs and outside into the yard, a very small voice spoke up inside me. It’s the same again. The same as that other time, with the fish. You can’t help yourself; it’s in the blood…
I felt, that night, almost as if there were two of me. There was the Fainne who busied herself helping Muirrin, hunting for Maeve everywhere, through all the house, out in the garden with lantern in hand, down in the settlement where old folk and babes were now awake and fearful, and young folk all gone up to pump water and pass buckets and beat out flames. Stock were huddled together in the outer fields, boys and dogs doing their best to keep some order in the chaotic herd of terrified beasts. We asked everyone, but nobody had seen Maeve. And when we had made our way back up to the smoldering remains of the burnt outbuildings, we were just in time to see Sean bringing her out; his face was like an old man’s in the torchlight, and Muirrin gave a wordless cry of anguish before she ran toward her father and the limp, doll-like figure he held in his arms.
And all the time the other Fainne looked on from inside me. Nobody could see her. Nobody could hear her little voice but me; the little voice that was my grandmother’s voice. You aid this. See haw strong you can be. Tomorrow your father will breathe easier.
I put my hands over my ears, and I breathed deep, once, twice, three times. Then I forced myself to move forward and opened my mouth to ask a question whose answer I dreaded to hear. But there was no need to ask.
“Right,” Muirrin was saying briskly, though her face was tear-streaked and white. “Take her up to the chamber next to mine, and you’d best put the injured men in the room alongside. Carry her carefully. We’ll need a great deal of clean linen, and folk to help us. Hurry, now.”
So, Maeve still lived. I cleared my throat.
“Wh-where’s the dog?” I ventured. “She might want her dog, when…”
“The dog’s dead,” Sean said heavily. “She’s not allowed to have him sleep inside; he came down for warmth, and the druids gave him house room.”
“She was looking for the dog?” I whispered as we walked in grim procession back to the keep. In the distance somewhere, a man was still crying out in pain. “In the fire?”
Sean gave a nod. “Somehow we missed her. She must have slipped in to try to fetch him out.”
“What happened? Is she badly hurt?” I forced myself to ask him.
“It seems she tripped, and in seeking to break her fall, she has laid her hands on a length of iron which once bolted the door there, not knowing how it held the heat. Her hands are—they are damaged.” My uncle’s voice shook. “Her hair was in flames. We put them out. Face and hands will bear the marks of this, if she survives it. I cannot forgive myself. How could I let such a thing happen?”
Chalk-faced, Muirrin ordered everything with speed and efficiency. Linen, water, herbs. A clear space with pallets set out in rows. Folk to fetch and carry. There was a young druid with terrible burns on his legs and feet. For all the discipline, he could not still his screams, and the sound of it torc through me. As for the oldest, the pallet on which he lay was shrouded with white from head to foot. This wise one would not return to see midwinter under the bare oaks. Someone had placed a sprig of yew on the snowy linen that covered him. There were five men hurt; some with burns, others dizzy and gasping from the effects of the smoke. In the room where they laid them, Conor moved from one to the next, bending to murmur soft words, to hold a hand or touch a brow. They took Maeve into the adjoining chamber and I hovered in the doorway, helpless, as they laid her down. For once Aunt Aisling seemed at a complete loss. She knelt beside her daughter, staring blankly at the singed hair and the blistering face and hands, as the sound of the child’s labored breathing rasped in the candlelit room.
Muirrin was lighting more lamps. I could see her hands shaking.
“Father,” she said.
Sean looked at her.
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�There are too many hurt for me to tend to here,” she said quietly. “And this may be beyond my skill. We need Liadan.”
My uncle nodded. “It is fortunate that she is at Inis Eala and not in Britain. At least she need not travel across the sea to reach us, and so will be here sooner. What can you do for Maeve?”
Muirrin hesitated. “I’ll do my best, Father,” she whispered. “Now you should go. I hear men calling for you. You too, Mother.”
“I should stay with her.” Aunt Aisling’s voice was unrecognisable; thin and quavering and not at all like herself. It frightened me that things could change so quickly. “What if she wakes, and—”
“I’ll call you straight away,” said Muirrin with commendable firmness. “I promise. You’re right, she will want you beside her. But I’m going to give her a draft for the pain; she won’t wake for a while. Folk will need you downstairs, to tell them what to do, and to reassure them that all will be well. This will unsettle everyone.”
“You’re right, of course.” Aisling rose to her feet, a small, slight figure in her neat gown. Without the veil, her hair was bright as marigolds in the light of the candles. “I must go down.” I saw her square her shoulders and swallow her tears, and then somebody called her from the other room, and she was gone.
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