“We didn’t expect you,” I said.
Liadan glanced at Eamonn, and back at me. Her mouth tightened. “Indeed. I will not apologize, for it seems to me our arrival was impeccably timed. We plan to take you and the girls home tomorrow morning. Maeve is somewhat improved, and fretting for her sisters.”
“I—I’m glad she’s better,” I said. I forced myself to go on. “What of the man who was burned, the young druid?”
“I was able to ease his pain a little. But not even a young, strong man recovers from such injuries. I explained this to him. Conor took him back to the forest.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice cracked, and her gaze sharpened. The two men had neither moved nor spoken. The air in the dimly lit room was alive with tension. Then there were rapidly approaching footsteps, and Eamonn’s serving man was at the door, fastening his shirt, smoothing his rumpled hair, full of apologies. Eamonn gave quick instructions. Food to be prepared, sleeping quarters got ready immediately, horses stabled and cared for.
“It appears we have matters to discuss.” Sean moved at last, but only to fold his arms and frown. “Matters that cannot wait for tomorrow. I want the girls out of here as early as they can pack and be ready.”
“There’s no need for such haste, surely.” I had come to know Eamonn well enough to hear the deep unease in his voice, and to see how carefully he was not looking at my aunt as she settled herself on a bench, straight-backed, managing somehow to look like a princess in her plain gown.
“I’ve no intention of staying here beyond one night,” said Liadan coolly. “It’s time the girls went home. As for what you spoke of, it is quite out of the question. In the light of day, upon a little reflection, even you will see that, Eamonn.”
“I think not. The match appears to me quite suitable, and I’m confident that Aisling will agree. My sister has been urging me to wed for so many years I grow weary of it. And you are unlikely to see your niece so advantageously matched elsewhere, I think.”
“It’s not possible,” said Sean heavily. “For reasons best not discussed here.”
“If you refer to Fainne’s parentage, I know of it, she has told me herself, quite bravely. I think, if we are to debate this tonight, we should excuse her first. Fainne has been unwell, and is very tired. These matters are best settled between men.”
I saw my aunt Liadan’s mouth quirk up at the corner, but her eyes were deadly serious. She looked at her brother, and he looked back at her, and I was reminded that Sean was Liadan’s twin. I was reminded of what Clodagh had told me; that messages flew between them in silence, no matter what the distance. From the dark, shadowy forest of Sevenwaters to the impenetrable secrecy of Inis Eala or over the sea to Harrowfield, messages of the mind, straight as an arrow and swifter than the fleetest deer.
“For once I find myself in agreement with you, Eamonn.” Liadan rose to her feet, yawning. “We can spare Fainne the details, surely; and as for myself, I am quite weary, and have need of nothing but a warm place to sleep. I will see that our escort is settled, and then retire. Believe me, I have no wish to remain here one moment longer than I must. Come, Fainne. Shall we go?”
As the two of us made our way out of the chamber, leaving the men in a charged silence, I looked back at Eamonn over my shoulder. His expression was a wondrous blend, where the agony of hopeless love warred with a vindictive hatred nurtured through long years of frustration. I had been right before. It was on her his eyes were fixed, and the darkness in them showed how he struggled with himself. To him, nothing else mattered but this.
Chapter Ten
She was tiny, graceful, and well-mannered. She was completely in control. Eamonn’s folk snapped to attention and ran to do her bidding. I followed her, feeling like a clumsy giant, tongue-tied and awkward, until all was settled to her satisfaction and she announced with no consultation whatever that she would share my bedchamber for the night, since that would be easier for all. As we made our way there by candlelight, I asked her bluntly, “Don’t you trust me, Aunt?”
She glanced at me sidelong, her green eyes coolly appraising.
“I don’t trust Eamonn,” she said grimly. “I know him to be capable of many things. It seems taking advantage of young girls must be added to the list.”
I did not reply until we were in the chamber, and the door closed behind us. Liadan had a little bag with her containing a nightrobe and a comb. It was plain she had not intended to stay long. I watched as she began to unpin her coil of plaits.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked.
She paused, giving me a very direct sort of look. “No, my dear,” she said. “Not angry. Just a little sad. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. Indeed, I’d have fetched you straight back, but Maeve needed me at Sevenwaters and Aisling overruled me. If I’d been there, none of you would have come near this place. Now the occasion has been marred for both of us, but the fault is Eamonn’s, not yours. I know you have acted in innocence; it could hardly be otherwise for a girl of your years.”
Now she had really confused me. “Looking forward?” I asked, sitting on the bed to take off my shoes. “Why?”
“Why?” Liadan sounded astonished. “How can you ask such a thing, Fainne? Can’t you imagine how it was for us, to be cut off from Niamh for all those years? Ciarán never let us near. Once he took your mother to Kerry, that was the end of it. I understood his reasons, but I could never agree that he was right. Niamh was my sister, and Sean’s. We loved her. It was a terrible blow to hear that she had died; and another to be prevented from seeing you. It is a gift that you are here, Fainne. A gift it seems we have come close to losing, in our carelessness. We’ll leave early in the morning. I don’t want you to see Eamonn alone again.”
“Love,” I said bleakly. “Why does everyone use that word? My uncle Sean, and Conor, and the others, they did not show much love when they sent my mother away from Sevenwaters. There was not much love in raising a young man to think he could be a druid, and throwing those long years of discipline and devotion back in his face. I don’t believe love exists; or if it does, it causes only sorrow and loss. My mother killed herself. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” I had not intended to speak thus. I had wished to show control. But she made me angry, sitting there neat and pretty as could be, with her glib words of welcome. Couldn’t she see, couldn’t any of them see that my father and I would never belong here? Couldn’t they understand what they themselves had begun?
“You’re very like her,” said Liadan softly, looking at me with those huge, fey eyes. “Far more so than you realize, I expect. Do you remember your mother at all?”
I shook my head, furious with myself for saying too much. My discipline was slipping again, when I could least afford to let down my guard.
“That’s a shame,” she said. “Niamh could be quite—difficult at times. Blunt, even hurtful. She never meant it. She was just so full of feelings, bursting with them, that they spilled out sometimes. You cannot dismiss love, Fainne. If you do, it is only because you have not yet learned to recognize it. Niamh loved your father; loved him more than anything in the world. She’d have changed her whole life for him; and did, when it came to it. And he did no less for her. That’s why it’s so hard to believe.”
“What?” I slipped my nightrobe over my head as quickly as I could, for I did not care to undress in company.
Liadan looked thoughtful. “That she would put an end to it. That her choice would be death. I heard her threaten to kill herself once, when she was still wed to the Uí Néill. I had no doubt she meant it then. But to do it after Ciarán came for her, and after she had you…that always seemed to me impossible. I could not understand it. All she wanted was to be with him, and to bear his child. She longed for that. And she loved you dearly, Fainne. I know it.”
“You can’t know,” I said flatly. “You told me yourself, you never saw her again after she went away. You can’t know.” I lay down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling.
/> “Oh, dear,” said Liadan, and it sounded as if she were torn between laughter and tears. “We have started on the wrong footing, I see that. Forgive me, I must keep pinching myself to remember it is you lying there and not my sister, for she’d just such a way of conducting a conversation when she was cross with me.”
“I thought you said you loved her.”
Liadan sighed. “Everyone loved her, Fainne. She was like a beautiful creature of summer, lovely, merry and full of life. What happened changed her terribly. There was a great wrong done, to her and to Ciarán. I acknowledge that; indeed, your father and I spoke of it, long ago. But Ciarán and I were never enemies. And as for Niamh, she told me once how much she wanted to have his child. I understood what she meant, for at the same time I was carrying my own son within me, though his father was far away, and it seemed unlikely we could ever be together. I understood how much she longed for it. She kept hold of that hope, even in her darkest moment.”
“Maybe,” I said grudgingly. “But she did not love me. How could she? If she’d loved me, if there were any such thing as love, how could she choose to die, when I was too little even to remember her?”
“I do know how she felt about you.” Liadan’s voice was soft but sure in the darkness, as she blew out the candle. “I saw it. These visions are granted me sometimes. It was long ago, before you were born, that I saw this. An image of the Sight. Niamh was sitting in a strange place, a place of blue light and soft shadows, like a little cave half-buried beneath the sea, where a gentle tide washed in. Niamh and her child. The two of you were making patterns in the sand, careful, quiet. I’ll never forget the look on her face as she watched you. After that, I found it hard to understand that she would…” Her voice trailed off.
For a while I could say nothing. Her words had brought it back: the little cave beneath the Honeycomb, the place of the margins, the refuge where I had sat silent many a time, alone or with Darragh by me, watching the play of soft light on mellow stone, and let the pure sand trickle through my fingers, and heard the gentle wavelets washing in and out, in and out. That place called me back to Kerry. I tried to picture my mother sitting there on the little beach, watching as a tiny Fainne played on the sand. But that was all it was: a picture. I longed to remember, but I could recall nothing of her. Just as well, perhaps. I was in danger of feeling too much, and feelings only made things more difficult.
“Aunt Liadan?”
“Mmm?”
“Is it such an impossibility that I might wed Eamonn?”
There was a long pause.
“Yes,” she said finally.
“But why?” I asked her. “You know my background. Where else would I find a husband of such standing? Has he not honored me greatly by his choice? I don’t understand.”
“I won’t talk of this here, in his house, Fainne.” It was a tone which allowed for no discussion whatever. “This can wait. You can wait. Unlike Eamonn, you are only in your sixteenth year, and have all the time in the world. Now, best sleep, for we’ve an early start tomorrow.”
I said nothing, since I had no answers for her. I thought her asleep, but after a while she said, “It is possible, you know, to wed for love. Indeed, our family has been noted for choosing to do so, against all odds. It would be sad to marry with no more than security or strategic interests to aid your choice of a mate. Practical, maybe, but sad. Have you a sweetheart, Fainne?”
“No,” I snapped, much too quickly.
“Well, then,” said Aunt Liadan into the darkness.
Sometimes attack was the best defense. “Surely you did not wed for love?” I challenged.
“Why do you say that?” Liadan did not sound offended, merely surprised.
“Forgive me, but to all accounts your husband does not sound the kind of man for whom a girl would give up the prospect of an excellent marriage and leave her home forever. How did you meet him?”
There was a brief silence.
“As I recall,” said Liadan, and I could tell she was smiling, “his men hit me over the head and abducted me. I thought him quite fearsome in those days, and he considered me no more than a nuisance.”
“So,” I said, wondering if she was telling tales to make fun of me, “you did not wed for love?”
“Love found us, and surprised us,” she said softly. “I wed for nothing else, Fainne. When you see this man, you might think him strange; wild; most certainly not a dignified chieftain such as Eamonn of Glencarnagh. Bran is no respecter of laws and conventions, save those he makes himself. And his appearance sets him apart as much as his reputation. But he is fifty times the man Eamonn ever was. What is between us is beyond love, Fainne. He is my husband, my lover and my soul-friend, the one to whom I can confide the deepest secrets of the spirit. I hope, one day, you have the joy of finding such a mate, for nothing surpasses it.”
My aunt had a way with her, I was forced to admit it. I fell asleep with my fingers in my ears, lest I start to believe what she said was true.
We were ready for departure not long after dawn next morning. The girls were excited to be going home, and chattered like a flock of small birds until Sean silenced them with a firm but kindly warning. Eamonn seemed withdrawn. Whatever had been said between him and my uncle, it had not put him in a good humor. There was only one moment to be snatched, when Sean’s back was turned and Liadan was answering some lengthy query of Clodagh’s. The little horse which had carried me so bravely in Aoife’s footsteps was saddled ready for me; Eamonn had said I might ride her home, since she seemed to suit me so well. I could hardly point out she might be too tired after her nocturnal adventure. Now I stood by the horse’s side, and Eamonn made pretense of adjusting the bridle. He glanced at me, his eyes narrowed, his jaw tight.
“Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll do what you said.”
My heart thumped. There was death in that look, a vista of shadow on shadow. “It’s a bargain, remember?” I said, shivering. “There are two sides to it. How can you keep yours, now?”
“You doubt me?” Eamonn’s hand clamped itself around mine, the fingers tight enough to bruise. I willed pain and fear into the background, and stared back unflinching.
“I will keep my part of it, if I can rely on you to do the same,” I said steadily. “If my uncle refuses this marriage, why should I take any such risk for you?”
“He will not refuse.” There was no room for question in Eamonn’s tone. “He will comply with my wishes. They’re fools if they don’t realize what power I hold over them. Sean’s endeavor cannot go ahead without me. I will have the Painted Man; and I will have you. Make no doubt of it.”
“I—”
“Promise me, Fainne!”
I nodded, feeling the chill all down my spine.
“Say it!”
“I promise. You will have what you want by summer.”
His grip relaxed and he lifted my fingers to brush them with his lips. “Then so shall you,” he murmured. “And that, too, I shall look forward to with keen anticipation, my dear. The waiting will try me hard, I fear.”
It should not be too hard, I thought, as long as Mhairi was available. I restrained the comment that sprang to my lips.
“Goodbye, Eamonn,” I said, and then my aunt Liadan rode up alongside and the moment was over.
“This is your entire escort?” Eamonn ran his eyes over the three men in Sean’s colors, who now sat ready on their horses, with the four little girls between. “This is inadequate, surely. I’m astonished that you would come out thus unprotected. I’d better arrange some of my own guard to ride with you.” He frowned in Liadan’s direction.
“Please don’t,” she said coolly. “I’ve my own men.”
“Really? Are they creatures of the Otherworld, that they render themselves thus invisible? I see no men.”
“No, you wouldn’t. They’re good at that. I go nowhere unprotected, Eamonn. Bran makes sure of it.”
He stared at her, wordless. Then he spat,
very deliberately, on the ground at her horse’s feet. It was shocking; a gesture quite at odds with all I knew of the man, for outwardly at least he was ever bound by what was correct. Liadan said nothing, but turned her horse and rode away with never so much as a glance behind.
It was strange. We made our way eastward through Eamonn’s gardens and woods, past his fields and his settlements, and Sean and his three men rode ahead and behind, keeping a lookout, though surely while we remained within the borders of Glencarnagh there could be no danger. It was not until we had traveled beyond the wooded country and out into a terrain wilder, more open, and studded with rocky outcrops, that I became gradually aware of others riding alongside not so far away, a constant unseen presence. My skin prickled. I though of Otherworld creatures, messengers of the Túatha Dé Danann maybe, come to follow me and find out my secrets. After a time they became visible, as if it had only now become safe to show themselves. There were six or seven of them, and they did indeed have the appearance of some creatures from an old tale, for they were clad all in gray-brown, blending with the winter landscape, and over their heads they wore close-fitting hoods which concealed their features save for the eyes, nose and mouth; there was no telling these warriors one from another. And warriors they were; all were armed with dagger and sword, and some bore bow or staff, axe or throwing-knife. I was alarmed, but the others continued riding as if the presence of these fearsome creatures was nothing out of the ordinary, and I realized belatedly they must be my aunt Liadan’s men. Now they had formed a silent guard all around us, and my uncle, whose role as part of the escort seemed suddenly superfluous, reined back his horse to ride by his sister, who was just ahead of me.
Eilis chose this moment to speak up.
“Next time we go to Uncle Eamonn’s, I’m going to ride that big black horse,” she announced brightly.
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