“The healer believed Maeve might be able to regain some movement in her fingers, with a special salve and certain exercises carried out twice a day.” Artagan spoke with quiet confidence.
I expected Mother or maybe Clodagh to say what I had said, that this was impossible, that it was too late, that Liadan had already tried everything. But nobody said a word.
“We were told quite plainly that it must be Artagan who salves my hands and helps me with the exercises,” I said, giving my man a smile. “Odd as that sounds, I believe it’s important. Finbar was there at the time and he’ll vouch for the accuracy of what I say. He’ll also tell you how vital it is that this kind of thing is done in the correct way.”
Finbar nodded sagely. “Bear has to do it,” he said. “So he can’t go back to Tirconnell. Not yet.”
I was becoming disconcerted by my parents’ silence. “I’m sorry to be so blunt,” I went on. “I do understand why Lord Cruinn needs to head home as soon as he can. Tiernan as well. But…”
“I see there’s much for us to discuss, Cruinn.” My father rose to his feet, an indication that our council was over, and everyone else stood as well. “The rest of you had best leave us to it, or supper may be very late indeed.” He sounded stern, and I wondered if I had misread his earlier mood. But as I made to leave the chamber, Artagan coming behind me, Father spoke again.
“Maeve. Artagan. Stay.”
The door closed behind the others, leaving the two of us facing our fathers across the council chamber.
“Sit down,” Father said, motioning us back to the bench. “You look exhausted, the pair of you. Cruinn and I still have much to talk about, details to be hammer out, formal agreements to sign and so forth. This alliance is going to change the balance in the north considerably, and not all my neighboring chieftains will like it. But that’s for us to deal with. The two of you have been through an ordeal that would have turned most folk’s hair white overnight. You’ve saved Sevenwaters. You’ve banished Mac Dara. I’m sure Cruinn agrees that we shouldn’t keep you waiting while we argue about dowries.”
“Indeed not,” Cruinn said.
“Artagan,” said my father, fixing his prospective son-in-law with his steady gaze, “set out for me your solution to the difficulty you spoke of earlier.”
Artagan rose to his feet as if presenting a formal petition. “I understand the need for us to return home. There’s nothing to stop most of the men-at-arms from heading off as soon as their equipment is packed and ready. But, Father, I respectfully suggest that you and Tiernan might consider a ride south before you head homeward.”
“Go on,” said Cruinn, who had clearly not been expecting this.
“You could complete the journey we were undertaking when Mac Dara’s people ambushed our party. A difficult journey for Tiernan, and for Daigh, who will want to go with you.”
“But important,” Cruinn said slowly, “to reassure the family of Tiernan’s betrothed that this catastrophe has not changed our plans. Yes, that is well considered. They would understand, I am sure, why our visit must be brief.”
It would be good for Tiernan to do it, I thought; to ride that path again, and to become better acquainted with the stranger who was his future wife.
“You are not, I take it, suggesting that you lead the men-at-arms home while we ride south?” Now Cruinn looked as if he were trying not to smile.
“No, Father,” Artagan said. “As we explained, it’s necessary for me to tend to Maeve’s hands twice a day. Should Lord Sean—should you—even if you refuse—”
“You’re offering to stay on and play healer for my daughter even if I forbid the two of you to marry?” I could hear suppressed laughter in my father’s voice.
Artagan stood silent for a long moment. My heart bled for him.
“I would do that, of course. But, Lord Sean, Father, I hope you will agree to our marriage. I hope I may stay here until Maeve’s broken hand is healed, and we can ride to Tirconnell together as husband and wife.”
“Robbing me of the daughter I have only just welcomed home after ten long years.” The light tone was suddenly gone.
“It is not so far, Father,” I said. “Closer than Harrowfield.”
“Finbar will miss you. First he lost Sibeal, then Eilis. And this business with Luachan…It will have disturbed him.”
“I am sad about that, too,” I told him. “But…Clodagh is here. Might not she and Cathal stay awhile?”
“That is possible,” said Father. “And we should not forget that Finbar seems to have acquired a dog. If I’ve learned anything from this, it is that one should never underestimate the influence of a dog.” After a moment he added, “Cruinn, anything further to ask before we send this pair away?”
“You’ve covered it well, Sean.” Cruinn favored me with a broad smile. “If uncanny healing can gain you the ability to hang on to a horse’s mane, it’ll be easier for you to train the mare. Good luck with it. I have to say, if my own sons hadn’t told me part of the story I heard earlier, I’d have thought it pure fantasy, the product of a bard’s wild imaginings. No wonder folk think this place odd. Odd doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“What mare?” asked Artagan.
“I’ll tell you later. Father, thank you. And you, Lord Cruinn.”
“Off you go,” Father said. “You’d best leave us to our negotiations. Though I have to say, Cruinn, all I really want at this stage is to sit by the fire with a jug of good mead and talk about our fine children. What do you say?”
“There,” said Artagan. “A pity I can’t do this with the other hand until the bone is healed, but never mind that. Now I want you to try bending this finger. Just this one.”
I had swallowed the draught he had prepared for me. The salving was done, the ritual of wrapping his hand around each finger in turn and singing was over. Artagan had not attempted to copy Cat Mask’s humming chant. Instead, as he worked on my fingers he sang a song about an enormous trout and the ingenious ways in which local folk tried to catch the wily creature. In my opinion, his voice was quite good; I would enjoy listening each morning and evening as he tended to my hands. This did seem like touching a tree that had been burned to charcoal and willing it to run with sap and sprout fresh green leaves. But I had said I would try, and try I would.
We worked at it for some time and my mind began to wander. Artagan’s touch was both strong and gentle. I thought I would enjoy his hands on other parts of my body when the time came. I imagined ways I might please him in my turn.
“That is a mysterious smile,” he said. “What are you thinking?”
“Best not say. I would surely make you blush. And I hear Rhian coming back.”
Rhian had been with us, since my mother had decreed Artagan could not tend to me without a chaperone present. However, my maid had tactfully absented herself to fetch us all some mead.
“Quick, then,” Artagan said, bending to kiss me on the lips. I felt the touch in my whole body; it startled me so much that when he drew back, I had not a word to say.
“Now you are blushing,” he said. “I like it; the effect with that green gown is quite fetching.”
I was surprised when Clodagh appeared at the door, carrying the tray Rhian had borne off to the kitchen. “I sent your maid away for a while,” she said, coming in and setting her burden down on the little table. “I wanted to talk to you.”
The tray held three cups and a jug, but Artagan rose to his feet, saying, “I might see if my father has emerged from his meeting with Lord Sean.” He lifted my hand and turned his lips to my palm, where the scars were. “Until later,” he said, and was gone.
“A fine man,” observed my sister, pouring mead for the two of us. “Well trained.”
“That’s a joke, I hope,” I said, though it was true that Artagan, as a man, retained the good qualities he had shown as a dog, among them a quickness to learn and a finely tuned understanding of others’ needs.
Clodagh came to sit beside me,
smiling. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you again after so long,” she said. “Ten years! And yet I feel as close to you as I did then, as if we’re picking up just where we left off. I wonder if it’s always like that with sisters. Oh, Maeve, don’t cry!”
“Stupid,” I mumbled, reaching up my good hand to scrub away the sudden tears. Her ready smile, the look in her eyes, her kind words had enveloped me with warmth; they had done everything Mother’s awkward overtures had failed to do when I first arrived here. “I would give you a big hug, but I can’t without hurting my hand, and I’m under orders to look after it so I recover quickly. Clodagh, it is so wonderful to see you; I can’t put it into words as well as you do, but it’s like coming home again, only in a good way this time.”
A little frown creased her brow. “It must have been hard for you. I imagine this place is full of painful memories. You were brave to come back.”
“I didn’t want to; I only came because of Swift. But don’t tell Mother that. I’ve already upset her enough. I’m certain she didn’t expect me to be the way I am. I’m too forthright. Too argumentative. Too ready to break rules. And I hate people being sorry for me. I couldn’t pretend for her.”
“She loves you,” Clodagh said. “She loves all of us; we’re her world. She wants to make our lives perfect, and when she can’t, she feels as if she’s failed as a mother. Especially so with you. I know it doesn’t make much sense, since the fire was not her fault, and afterward the wise choice was to send you away where you’d get the best care. But having children is like that. Mother is good at the clear-cut things, running the household, being an example to the serving people, standing at Father’s side as a chieftain’s wife should. Bringing up children isn’t neat and tidy. It’s all feelings: love and doubt, joy and heartbreak. When you have little ones of your own you’ll understand how hard it’s been for her. She’s doing her best.”
Now felt like the time for a drink of mead. But there would be new difficulties until my broken hand had mended. “Could you lift up my goblet for me?” I asked.
My sister tilted it so I could take a mouthful.
“Thank you. Clodagh, may I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.”
“You chose to come here with Cathal. To bring your children with you. Wasn’t that a huge risk?”
She took her time in answering, turning her goblet between her hands. “We argued about it,” she said eventually, and now her voice was constrained, as if the memory was painful. “You know, maybe, that Ciarán asked Deirdre to speak to me through our mind link. The message he wanted her to pass on was that he believed there might be a way to challenge Mac Dara. He didn’t ask Cathal to come to Sevenwaters, not in so many words. But Cathal knew already that such a challenge was more likely to be successful if both he and Ciarán were present. Mac Dara’s magic was powerful; too powerful for either Cathal or Ciarán alone to be sure of overcoming him. The two of them together had a good chance of doing it. Ciarán let us know he was setting out on a journey to speak to Mac Dara’s daughters and that he believed he’d need Cathal’s assistance quite soon.”
“I understand that part,” I said. “But why would you and the children need to come with him, outside the safe borders of Inis Eala?”
“Ah,” said Clodagh. “That’s the part you’ll find easier to understand when you and Artagan have a child. I lost my temper with Deirdre, you know, when she said Cathal should come back and I shouldn’t, because of the risk to my children. That wasn’t a message from Ciarán; it was her own opinion. I raged at her, then broke the link. I was almost tempted to keep the whole thing from Cathal. But I told him, of course. It was his destiny to face his father. Cathal and I both believed, in our hearts, that he must eventually return to the Otherworld, defeat Mac Dara and take his place as prince there.” She set down her goblet, lifting mine to let me drink again. Her gaze was very direct. “Imagine yourself in my situation,” she said. “If you knew Artagan was setting out on a journey that would test him to the limit of his courage, and if you knew he was unlikely ever to return, wouldn’t you want to be by his side for as long as you possibly could, helping him be brave, warming him with your body at night, letting him hold his children by the campfire and tell them stories to remember him by?”
“You have the gift for making me cry.”
“Good tears,” Clodagh said. “Firinne and Ronan are protected from dark magic by a pair of amulets given to Cathal at the time of their birth. I wear the ring that was his mother’s. I placed trust in those things, perhaps more trust than he did. He wanted us to stay on the island. I insisted on traveling with him. Maeve, that was the best moment of my life today, when he came running down the hill, safe and sound. We owe Ciarán such a debt.”
I nodded, incapable of speech.
“Finbar told me he spoke to Becan,” Clodagh said. “That made me so happy.”
“Becan?”
“The changeling child, the twig and leaf baby. Finbar says he’s grown into a fine boy of around his own size.” She paused. “As for Finbar himself, it seems he’s been well and truly tested. I’m hoping you’ll tell me the whole story in time, including the parts you left out of the official account.”
“Like eating a freshly killed rabbit raw, with the fur still on?” I found, to my surprise, that I could share this detail with my sister quite readily.
Clodagh grimaced. “Anything you want to tell me. And I’ll give you my own Otherworld story. We sisters surely lead strange lives. But you’ll be forgiven now you’re marrying Artagan. No parent could object to that.” A pause. “Maeve?”
“Mmm? Pass me that mead again, will you?”
She held the cup for me. “Cathal and I thought we might stay here awhile. There’s no reason we shouldn’t divide our time between Sevenwaters and Inis Eala, as Johnny does. It would be good for Finbar.” After a moment she added, “I spoke to him earlier. Finbar, I mean. He was happy with his new dog and pleased to be home, but he’s been through a difficult time. And he’s never going to be an ordinary child. His gift makes that impossible. Without careful watching, his abilities could set him too much apart. I think it would be good for him if one of us was here, and it plainly isn’t going to be you.”
“No,” I said, feeling a rush of gratitude that she understood so well, “though we’re hoping Mother and Father will let him stay with us at some point. Dogs, horses and rare manuscripts, I think that was what Artagan offered. We have some interesting years ahead.”
“Mm-hm,” said Clodagh. “No doubt of that.”
We sat enjoying our mead for a while, talking of one thing or another, and I was beginning to wonder where Rhian had gotten to when she came rushing in the door, then stopped in her tracks. Clearly she’d thought Clodagh would be gone by now. Her cheeks were flushed. Quite plainly she was bursting to tell me something.
“You can talk in front of Clodagh,” I said.
But Rhian remained silent. Whatever it was, it was for my ears only.
“I must go,” Clodagh said, getting up. “I promised to sing a bedtime song.” With that, she was gone.
“Pour yourself some mead,” I said. “And tell me whatever it is. I may have been to the Otherworld, but I’m still the same person I was before. I’m still your friend.”
“It’s just that…” Rhian sat down abruptly. “I couldn’t tell you this before, with other people around. While you were gone, Emrys asked me to marry him.” As I opened my mouth to congratulate her, she added, “I said no.”
“Oh. But I thought—”
“Lord Cruinn offered him a position at Tirconnell. Head groom, with the chance of becoming stable master in a few years if he does well. Cruinn saw Emrys working with Swift and the other horses here, and he was impressed. But I said I wouldn’t go, because I needed to stay with you. And now…”
She really was distressed. It didn’t make sense. “But, Rhian, I’ll be going to Tirconnell. You were there when Artagan spoke to Father about it.”
<
br /> “So you really are marrying him?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. This is Bear we’re talking about.”
“Your father said yes?”
“He did, more or less. I am most certainly going there, and I’m hoping you’ll come with me. I don’t see how I can manage without you. I was working up to asking, but I was afraid you’d say no. I thought you might want to go back to Harrowfield. Especially if Emrys was going, too.”
“He doesn’t want to, but…”
“Don’t you want to marry him?”
“It’s just that—well, we argued about it, and he hasn’t spoken to me since, and I don’t know how to put it right. What if I tell him I’ve changed my mind and he says it’s too late?”
“He won’t,” I told her with perfect confidence. Nobody who had seen the way Emrys looked at Rhian could possibly believe he would turn down a second chance. But it seemed, remarkably, that she believed exactly that. “Of course he won’t. Go and talk to him right now. If he sulks, tell him you’re sorry and that you’ll find a way to make it up to him.”
She lifted her brows at me. “Oh, so you’re an authority on men now?”
“Go on!” I said. “Find him and put him out of his misery. If I’m getting a happy ending, it’s only fair that you have one, too.”
DRUID’S JOURNEY: FULL CIRCLE
He stands within a ring of oaks. His feet touch stone; before him lies a pool of clear water, fern-fringed. His arms are stretched wide, palms up; his gaze is skyward. He makes of himself an empty vessel. He awaits the quickening flame of the spirit. He opens himself to the whispering voices of the gods.
There is no need to make vows; no need to bind himself to this long task with formal words, though the words he spoke at the basin of stone were in themselves a promise. It seems to him, now, that he has been walking toward this all his life. Yet at the same time he walks away: from the brethren who honor and respect him, from the family that, despite all, appears to love him; from memory, sweetest and cruelest of all.