Liam frowned. “These Britons will pay for what they have done to our sister. But that must wait. We have more pressing business.”
“My hands itch for the sorceress’ neck.” Diarmid clenched and unclenched his fists. “Cannot we ride there openly, and see justice done swiftly? I would tell our tale to all, and make the lady Oonagh pay the penalty where all can witness it.”
“You’re too hasty,” said Cormack, breaking off a piece of his bread and chewing thoughtfully. “We don’t know anything about what’s happened at Sevenwaters yet. Liam’s right. We can’t just rush in with swords raised. That approach tends to lead to slaughter, and not always of your enemy.”
Conor regarded his twin levelly. “You’ve learned something, this long time away,” he observed with a little smile. Cormack threw a crust of bread at him, and missed.
Padriac nodded agreement. “The element of surprise might help us,” he said. “Best if the lady Oonagh is not forewarned of our arrival.”
We fell silent for a while. The memories hurt, and the fear was not altogether gone.
“Still,” said Diarmid, “it seems too long to wait.”
However long, it can never be long enough. Long enough to walk through the forest, and to come home. Long enough to be ourselves again.
I had heard Finbar’s voice, if the others had not. “We must do as Liam advises,” I said quietly. “After such a long journey, we must go home the right way. I can walk the distance. I’m quite strong, really.”
“Hm.” Conor was eyeing me up and down. “Perhaps we should extract a promise that you will eat five good meals a day until we get there. But she’s right, Diarmid. This is the only way.”
So we moved on foot across the land, and my brothers took their pace from me. This was a different way from the one I had taken when I left the forest, when the river had borne me so swiftly away from my home and deposited me into the hands of a passing Briton. This way took us across open ground, moving from one rocky outcrop to the next, taking what cover could be found in isolated groves of storm-bent trees, camping at night and moving off soon after dawn. We avoided the tracks of men, moving like seven silent shadows, our progress witnessed only by cliff and rock and tree. And on the third day we came to the edge of the forest.
We paused on the crest of a rise as sun broke through the clouds, and watched a solitary hawk balance its wings on the air, high above the vista of gray and green and autumn gold that stretched before us as far as the eye could see.
“We’re home,” Conor said. I breathed deep, and felt a cloak of stillness settle on my spirit. Then we started to walk, down between moss-covered stones and under the blanket of the trees, and we made our way homeward on tracks that were plain to us without map or guide, though no stranger could have followed them. The trees shivered in the cold autumn wind, and voices followed me. Sorcha, oh Sorcha. Home. You are home at last. The wind rose, and leaves fell about us in a bright rain of scarlet and gold. Little sister, why are you still sad? For you have come home. If you looked up, you could almost see them. They moved in the cool sunlight, on the wind between the bare bones of birch and ash, always just on the edge of sight. If you turned to look, they were suddenly gone.
“The lookouts are unmanned,” observed Liam, frowning. “That is folly.” And as we came closer and closer to Sevenwaters, the faces of my brothers grew still and watchful.
Three nights we spent in the forest, and my brothers made sure I had a comfortable bed of bracken, and ate what I was told to. Our pace was slow, for I was not the only one weakened by hunger and lack of sleep, and the journey was not an easy one. Here, we could make a small fire, and brew a kind of tea made from whatever herbs were to hand. This warmed the body if not the spirits. Here in the forest it was quite safe, and my brothers slept well at night. All but Finbar. For him there was no rest. By day he walked as if in a dream. By night he sat cross-legged, looking into the distance with eyes that did not seem to be seeing. He had eaten nothing; had spoken not a word. It was as if he were not really there at all, his body a hollow shell whose spirit inhabited some world the rest of us could not touch. As for me, I lay there open-eyed in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. I should have been joyful. Was I not back where I belonged, in the place of my spirit, with my brothers all safe around me, ready to start their lives anew? Had I not saved them and achieved the task against all odds? But my heart was shriveled and cold, my mind was unable to see a future that was not one of stark loneliness, of half being, of dreams unfulfilled.
The further time took me away from that far shore, the more I recognized how much I had given up. I told myself not to be stupid. Not to be selfish. What did I expect, that Red would have begged me to stay? Even in that most unlikely event, I would have been obliged to refuse him. How could I have remained there to drag him down, a burdensome wife, object of hatred and distrust to all his people? I could not have done that to him. What I wanted didn’t matter. If I had stayed, I would have destroyed him. So why did I feel so miserable? What was wrong with me? Anyone would have thought…anyone would have thought you were no longer afraid of men.
That was the small voice of common sense, like a dash of cold water. I am. I am still afraid, I said to myself, for I still remembered how those men had hurt and shamed me, the ugly things they had said, in every vivid detail. The memory still turned my body cold with disgust. It would never go away. That was one side of the balance. As for the other side, for there was now another side, I thought I would give almost anything to have that one moment again, the moment when I had felt Red’s arm around me like a shield against the world, and his lips against my hair, and his heart drumming under my cheek. In that moment, he had not wanted to let me go. It’s all right. It’s all right, Jenny, he had said. But it was not all right. I lay in the darkness under the trees, and silently cursed the Fair Folk for the way they used and discarded us in their strange games, heedless of the damage they did.
It was the seventh day, and we were coming close to the keep of Sevenwaters. Between the bare branches of the willows the waters of the lake glinted bright, and ducks dabbled in the shallows. It was very quiet.
“There are no scouts,” said Liam grimly. “No forward posts. Any man could ride in here unchallenged. What can he be thinking of?”
We emerged from the margin of the trees behind the settlement, and my heart lurched in shock. Beyond the walled fields and the cottages, beyond the stone-walled keep, on the hill once clothed in graceful birch, strong ash and noble oak, a great scar lay across the landscape, where a stand of the oldest trees had been felled and burned. Not a scrap of life was left there, no bold holly tree nor branching hawthorn to soften the wound. Behind me, Conor began to chant softly, a lament whose words I could not understand, but whose message went straight to the spirit.
“Wanton destruction,” said Liam. “An act of sheer willfulness, with no intent but harm. They have not even put the wood to use, but burned it where it lay.”
We walked through the village, where the track had become rutted and bogged, and folk had a weary, pinched look about them. But these were our own people, people who knew the thin line between this world and the other. All of them had seen a cousin taken by the folk under the hill, or known of a strange child found under a nettle bush, or spoken to one who had ventured too far into a cave or walked into a ring of mushrooms by moonlight. There were no probing questions, no narrowed eyes or looks of distrust. Instead, they came out with faces wreathed in smiles, and hands outstretched in welcome. Only when they looked at Finbar did they fall silent, and that was a silence of deep respect.
“Master Liam! Master Conor! You’ve come home!” Niall the miller strode forward to clap Liam on the back.
And Paddy the pig man, grinning from ear to ear, gripped one brother’s hand after another, exclaiming, “Sure and you’ve returned at last! Didn’t I say they’d be back, Mary, didn’t I say it now?”
And before I’d gone three steps up the track, the g
randdaughter of Old Tom was taking me by the arm, and leading me into his cottage to listen to the old man’s wheezing chest. I promised an infusion of balsam and peppermint to ease his breathing.
“And a fire,” I added. “It’s freezing in here. You must light a fire.”
But there was no dry wood, and no men from up yonder to help cut and store it. This year the crops had not been good; rot had set in with the heavy autumn rains. Little had been stricken for the long cold season ahead. The flock had been stricken with the sheep murrain, and there had been heavy losses.
“What of our father?” asked Conor, his dark brows drawn together in a frown. “Has he made no provision for your well-being these last winters? Is there no factor to oversee the harvest, no steward to send supplies to those that are in hardship?”
They shuffled their feet.
“Well?” demanded Liam, sounding just like our father.
“Lord Colum, he—he’s not been himself, not since you went away,” ventured the miller. “Things changed for all of us.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cormack, frowning.
But nobody was prepared to voice a reply.
So, with assurances of help, with promises of repairs and supplies, we left the village and made our way up the track toward our old home. And there, by the hawthorn hedges, at last there was a challenge.
“Who goes there? Identify yourself and your business!” We could not see the man, but the voice sounded familiar.
“Rest easy,” responded my eldest brother. “I am Liam of Sevenwaters, returned home with my brothers and my sister.”
“Returned to reclaim what is ours,” put in Diarmid, scowling.
The man stepped out, his sword pointed firmly in our direction. He was clad in a leather jerkin and trousers, and over them a well-worn tunic which bore on its breast the proud symbol of two torque interlinked; the crest of Sevenwaters. The man’s mouth fell open, and the sword dropped.
“Liam!” A broad grin spread across his weathered face.
“Donal!” For it was indeed the old master at arms, who had been banished by our father at his new wife’s behest. “I thought you long gone from these parts! I thought the place quite unguarded. At least there is some sense left here.”
“Precious little,” growled Donal, slapping an arm around Liam’s shoulders and shaking his head in wonderment. “By all that’s holy, it’s good to see you, boy. Come on, come on, I’ll take you up to the house.”
But once we came closer to the courtyard he was not in such a hurry to go in. Instead, we paused on the pathway where once I had heard him take his leave of my father, and Conor explained to him what had happened to us, and where we had been.
“Mm,” mused the old warrior as the strange tale came to a close. “There were plenty of stories flying around, of course, and folk knew she had a hand in it. One look at her, and you knew she was up to no good. Some said you were gone for good, but I knew the seven of you could look after yourselves. Only a matter of waiting for you to come back.” He glanced at Finbar, and gave a little shake of the head. “But I see your brother’s sadly changed.”
Nobody made comment, and Finbar might not have heard, so little did his expression reveal. Donal shook his head again.
“You’ll find things different here,” he warned. “Very different. It shocked me, I can tell you. Came back not so long ago myself, thinking the past might be forgotten, and he might have a place for me. I’m too old to sell my sword to the highest bidder. Three years of that was more than enough. I began to hear tales, around midsummer, that Colum was in trouble. Those brought me back, and I’ve stayed. Someone has to keep watch.”
“Trouble? What sort of trouble?” queried Liam.
“They said he was losing his grip. Men deserting his command in droves, posts unmanned, councils unattended. Autumn culling wasn’t done, and the best part of the herd starved last winter. Land cleared for no good purpose. They said he just didn’t care anymore. She had her hand on him all right, and he couldn’t shake it.”
Diarmid was pacing restlessly, brows set in a scowl, hand fingering his sword hilt.
“Where is she?” he asked impatiently. “Where will we find the lady Oonagh?”
There was a brief pause.
“She’s gone,” Donal said.
“What!?” The air seemed to crackle with Diarmid’s fury and frustration. “Gone? How can she be gone?”
“Packed up and left in a hurry, seven or eight days ago it was, around dusk. As if she got a sudden fright. Took the boy, and her own men, and away off with her into the night. And good riddance, if you ask me.”
“She took our brother?” There was a note of deep concern in Conor’s question. “So Ciarán, too, is gone?”
“That was the final blow for your father,” said Donal soberly. “You’ll find him much altered.”
“Your words trouble me,” said Conor, frowning. “What has become of him, now she is gone from here?”
“Colum’s always been strong,” Donal said “But losing you cut him deep. Some of the old household stayed here, and I’ve heard how it was from them. He blamed himself for your disappearance, and maybe rightly. As time passed, the guilt began to eat him up. He would have done more, but he couldn’t break free of her. Lost his will. His efforts to find you were all thwarted. Now that you’re here at last, I can’t tell you if you’ll be greeted with joy or simply with confusion.”
“You said he tried to find us,” I found myself saying. “I was told—I was told he was offered my safe return, in exchange for gold or land. And that he refused.”
“What!?” Diarmid’s tone was outraged. Cormack swore.
“Ask him yourself,” said Donal grimly. “I’d say that was impossible. He wished for nothing more fervently than your safe return. I believe he’d have given anything to secure it. Whoever told you that tale must have been lying.”
“We’ll see,” said Liam, stony-faced.
If I were telling this tale, and it were not my own, I would give it a neat and satisfying ending. The children would come home, and their father would greet them with open arms, rejoicing. The wicked stepmother would be punished for the evil she had done, and driven forth from their home. The father and his sons would put all to rights, and everyone would live happily ever after. In such stories, there are no loose ends. There are no unraveled edges and crooked threads. Daughters do not give their hearts to the enemy. The wicked do not simply disappear, taking with them the satisfaction of vengeance. Young men do not find themselves divided between two worlds. Fathers know their children.
But this was my own story. And surprisingly, it was I who met our father first, for when my brothers followed Donal indoors, I slipped around the side to my old garden, which Oonagh in her spite had destroyed. I had thought my heart broken, then. How little I had known of sorrow.
My garden was still a mess of tumbled stones and mounded earth, but the seasons had been kind since my departure. Mosses clothed shattered path and weathered stone wall. Creepers rioted over the remains of a trellis; in spring it would be blanketed in blossoms of pure white. There were brave spikes of lavender among the weeds, a faint haze of blue-gray, and I could smell the healing scent of thyme. The stillroom door stood ajar. The old bench was almost overgrown with soft feathery fronds of wormwood and chamomile, and there my father sat, wrapped in a dark cloak, staring in front of him with vacant eyes. His once stern, strong face seemed somehow blurred, as if someone had smudged a wet brush across the features of some painted king. Of his two wolfhounds, who had once shadowed his every footstep, there was not a sign.
I advanced across the garden, picking my way on the broken paving. He turned his head slowly at the sound, and his deep-set eyes took on an expression of sheer wonderment. I came closer.
“Niamh?” he breathed, incredulous.
“No, Father,” I said, swallowing hard. “It’s I, Sorcha, your daughter. I’ve come home. We are all back, returned to you safe.”
/> I came up and sat on the bench by his side. There was a long silence. After a while, I reached out and took his hand in both of mine. It was trembling.
I scarcely knew what to say. I had been a child when I left, he a stern, distant figure whom I hardly knew. Now it was as if I were the parent, and he the child.
“Father?” I ventured. “Do you know me?”
He took a long time to reply.
“My daughter was a little girl,” he said finally.
“It—it’s been quite a while.”
“I lost them, you know. All of them. Even the smallest one.”
Around us the garden was quiet.
“Father. Perhaps we should go in. My brothers are here, all of them. It’s all right now.” But I knew this was untrue.
He sighed. “I don’t think so. Not yet. I will stay here for a while. You go in.” He settled back into silence, and his eyes again lost their focus. At length I got up and walked to the door, my skirts brushing the trailing chamomile and creeping thyme, sending a sweet scent into the cool morning air. As I reached for the door he spoke again, behind me.
“I’m sorry, Niamh,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
But when I turned my head, he was not looking at me. You might have thought his gaze was fixed on the stone wall, but I sensed he saw something far, far away, as distant as an ancient memory, but still sweet and strong as the note of a harp, and painful as a sword thrust deep into the vitals. I went indoors to find my brothers.
It would take time. That was what Conor said, as each of us took a share of the tasks that must be done, the decisions that must be made. Time for Father to regain his strength of will, to gather his shattered wits, to come again to the knowledge of where he was, of who he was. Time for Finbar to emerge from his silence, to lose that feral glint of the eye, that ghastly pallor of the skin. Meanwhile, there was work to be done, and those that had the strength and the will must get on with it. It was fortunate that my father had no cousins, or nephews, that might have challenged him for his estates before now, in his sons’ absence. But we had powerful neighbors, who would not delay long before they took advantage of Lord Colum’s weakness. I heard Liam discussing this with Donal over a quiet cup of mead one night.