Flame of Sevenwaters (5 page)

I returned to the gelding and Cerball dismounted to give me a lift up. “Well done, my lady,” he said. “I see you know your horses.”

“Thank you, all of you, for having the good sense to stay back and let us do that. Swift isn’t the calmest creature even at home in his own stable. Cerball, how far do we have to go from here?”

“When we come over the next rise we’ll be able to see the edge of the Sevenwaters forest and the nearest guard tower. Ready to move on, my lady?”

I turned my head and saw that Emrys was back on his horse, with Swift under good control. “Yes,” I said, wondering if I’d ever be ready for Sevenwaters and knowing there was no point in such speculation since I would be there soon, whether I wanted it or not.

“Forward!” Cerball called to his men. I wrapped my arms around Rhian’s waist and we rode on.

The forest was a massive dark blanket, smothering the hills, obscuring any landmarks. I did not know how far into that seemingly impenetrable wood we would have to ride. As we drew closer to the edge of it, I made out a guard tower—a walled platform atop great poles, as high as the old oaks that grew behind it. A shout of challenge rang out from up there. Shortly afterward, five armed guards emerged from under the trees to stand in a purposeful line, blocking our path.

“Cerball,” I began, “what—”

“No cause for alarm, my lady.” Cerball raised his voice. “Oak and shield!”

“Birch and blade!” came the response. Weapons were slid into sheaths, grins appeared on weathered faces, and one of the guards strode forward to stand by the gelding that bore Rhian and me.

“Lady Maeve,” the fellow said. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.” I held my head high as Aunt Liadan had taught me and tried not to notice the flicker of uneasiness in the man’s eyes; where Cerball and his companions had been well prepared for our first meeting, this guard failed to school his reaction on seeing me close up. Folk tended to find my appearance pleasing enough on first glance, especially if I wore a veil over my hair, for
much of my face was not burned. Aunt Liadan had told me I looked very much as my mother had when young. If I dispensed with the veil, people saw the mark that disfigured my brow and temple on the left side, and the patch where my hair would not grow. On second glance they noticed my hands. Then their expressions would turn to pity or, in the case of some folk, disgust. After that, they generally looked away.

“My name is Rhodri, my lady. Cerball will have explained about the sad loss of Lord Sean’s uncle. If not for that, your father would have been here to welcome you.”

“I understand. Do we ride straight on to the keep, Rhodri?”

“It’s a long way, as you may recall, my lady. We’ll provide some refreshments here before you go on, and something for the horses.”

I could not remember how far it was; when I had lived here as a child, I had rarely traveled beyond the borders of the forest. But, as before, I did not feel I could ask the question. “Thank you.”

“We’re to provide two more for the escort,” Rhodri went on, glancing at Cerball. “Lord Sean’s orders.”

Cerball nodded, and we rode on to the watchtower, where more armed men were waiting near a shelter at the foot of the poles. I did wonder about the escort; it seemed to me Cerball’s five men-at-arms and the two who had come with us from Harrowfield, along with three grooms, was surely more than sufficient. But then, there was the tale of the Disappearance, and in particular the way those men had turned up dead, one after another, within this very forest. That must weigh heavily on the whole household. I held my tongue on the matter. I had been away a long time; perhaps long enough to forget what a deeply unusual place the forest of Sevenwaters was.

Bread, cheese and ale were brought out from the shelter at the foot of the tower. I refused the food but drank the ale, holding the cup between my wrists. The horses were tended to. Rhian wrapped a portion of the food in a cloth and put it in her pouch. Then we mounted again and rode into the forest.

I had not thought it would be so far. As children, my sisters and I used to go up on the roof sometimes, though Mother frowned
on it as unsafe. From our perilous perch the forest resembled a magical garment of every shade of green. It wrapped itself around the keep and shawled the shining expanse of the lake and stretched as far as the eye could see. Today, riding along a shadowy track that seemed all too ready to lose itself under the oaks, I could understand why outsiders found the place unsettling. It was said that the pathways through this forest had a habit of suddenly changing. A way that not long ago had led a traveler directly to the keep might now take him on a twisting, tangling route to nowhere. This odd phenomenon did not apply to the Sevenwaters family; for us, the paths led where they should. At least, that was the story.

Rhian knew this tale from me, but it did nothing to dampen her excitement. She looked one way, then the other, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed pink. Plainly she was hoping to spot a clurichaun under the trees or a sylph up in the branches. My sister Sibeal used to say that you saw such beings only when you weren’t looking for them. I did not know whether that was true, for I had never seen clurichaun or sylph, Fair Folk or Old Ones myself. Only, sometimes, I’d thought I glimpsed a gossamer creature darting through a sunbeam, or heard the shuffle of odd little feet in the ferns. No more than that.

It took the rest of the day to reach the keep. We stopped by a stream to rest, and while the men were watering the horses Rhian broke the food she had brought into small pieces and wedged each in turn between the inflexible first and second fingers of my right hand so I could feed myself. Long practice had made us efficient at this, and I was done by the time the men returned. I’d have eaten quite happily in front of our grooms and men-at-arms, but doing so before my father’s guards was another matter.

As we rode I considered what lay ahead. I pictured the stone walls of the keep, tall and grim. There had always been men-at-arms by the gateway, their tunics bearing the family emblem, two torcs interlinked, in blue on a white background. Within the gateway
lay the courtyard, with stables and other outbuildings at the far side. My mind took me through the main door of the keep and into the living quarters. The grand dining hall housed several tables where family, guests and other members of the household all sat together to eat and be entertained in the evenings. There were musicians, storytellers, druids. Such visitors were often accommodated in the annex set within the walls but apart from the main building. To reach it, you went out the door from the kitchens and across the courtyard. But perhaps the annex wasn’t there any-more. Hadn’t someone told me, back when I was too sick to listen properly, that Father was having that whole building taken down? That, after the fire, he could not bear to look at it?

“Are you still comfortable?” Rhian asked me as we rode down a steep track with a gushing stream to one side. The ferns that hugged its course were spangled with tiny droplets. It was the sort of place where my sisters and I had often played in the old days, floating leaf boats, building dams, picking herbs.

“Comfortable, no,” I said. “I’m coping. How about you?”

“I’m fine.” She shifted a little in the saddle. “But tired. I’ll be glad to get there.”

“If they were expecting us to spend two nights at the inn, they may be surprised to see us today.”

There was a silence; then Rhian said, “Your family will be delighted to see you, even though this must be a sad time for them.” This remark showed her uncanny ability to guess what I was thinking.

“I hope so. And I hope they don’t assume I’m back for good.”

She waited again before answering. “They’ll want that,” she said. “Didn’t you say all your sisters have moved away now, even Eilis?”

“So I heard, though the news about Eilis sounded odd. She went to Galicia. That’s a long way.”

“There will be lots of stories to tell,” Rhian said, and then, in quite a different voice, “Maeve?”

“What?”

“You’ll think I’m being silly.”

“Tell me what it is and I can make up my own mind whether it’s silly.”

“I keep seeing things. Or half-seeing them. Figures moving about under the trees, only when I look again they’re only shadows. And things flying that aren’t bats or birds.”

I considered the stories my handmaid so loved to hear, full of quests and spells and beasts that changed into human folk. If anyone was going to turn a trick of the light into a dragon or a flying horse, it was Rhian.

“Don’t you remember what I told you?” I kept my tone light. “The Sevenwaters family and those who travel with them are always safe in this forest. So even if you do see something, you need not worry about it. We must be nearly there by now; it’s almost dusk. Besides, you were the one who wanted to see clurichauns.”

“This was much too big for a clurichaun.” Rhian’s voice was a whisper.

“We’ll be fine.” I turned my head to look back at Swift. The yearling had his head down. Even he was tired. “How much farther?” I asked the man closest to us.

“We’re almost there, my lady.”

This was indeed so, for as we crested a little rise, the waters of the Sevenwaters lake appeared before us, pale and mysterious in the fading light. And there, across the broad and glimmering expanse, was the keep, its stone walls rising above a softening stand of trees. A banner flew atop the tower: the torcs of Sevenwaters. Many torches flared, and a sound of singing reached us across the water. On the far shore, where the sward ran down from the stone walls to the lakeside, I could just make out the figures of men and women standing in a great circle.

Conor’s burial rite. We still had to ride a certain way around the shore, but it looked as if we were going to arrive right in the middle of it.

We moved on. My stomach felt tight, my skin prickly with nervous sweat. Most likely my family were not expecting me to arrive until tomorrow. With no time to school their features, how would they look at me? Would I see their true feelings in their
eyes? Was that what I feared? It came to me that it was possible to be afraid of your own fear, and that such a phenomenon was utterly ridiculous. I would think about Swift, and how good it was that he was close to a warm stable, a hearty feed and a rest. I wished he was not being sent on from Sevenwaters, to live among strangers.

The track followed the lakeshore for a distance, then went back up under the trees. We emerged on level ground not far from the keep gates and were immediately halted by guards. As the men from the watchtower made their explanations, I saw that one face was familiar, even after so long.

“Doran!” I exclaimed.

“Lady Maeve!” Father’s chief man-at-arms came over to help me down, smiling. “Welcome home!” He eyed Swift with some curiosity.

“I’m sorry if we have arrived at an inconvenient time,” I said. “The yearling needs to go straight to the stables.” That was the one priority there was no arguing with. “And either Emrys or Donal here—they are Uncle Bran’s grooms—must stay with him until Father knows the situation. Could you arrange that for us?”

Doran took control with the ease of long practice; he was a trusted member of my father’s household, one of many loyal and capable retainers. When I was a child I had not thought the seamless running of my family home anything unusual. We’d all known our mother could be content only when her domain was perfectly ordered. I remembered the way she drilled us in sewing a faultless hem, in the intricacies of fine embroidery, in the baking of a perfect pie. In my case, that training had been wasted effort, since I would never perform any of those tasks now, even imperfectly.

With remarkable swiftness grooms, guards and horses were despatched toward the keep. Rhian and I stood beside Doran, looking down the sward to the place where flaming torches illuminated the great circle of folk. A white-robed figure stood in the center, chanting in a clear voice.

“I won’t go in until I’ve spoken to my father and mother,” I said
quietly. “It doesn’t seem right. But I can’t march down there in the middle of a burial rite, if that’s what it is.”

“It’s hard to believe Master Conor is gone,” murmured Doran. “I think we all imagined he’d be here forever. He was buried earlier, Lady Maeve, out in the nemetons. This is more of a celebration. That’s what Master Ciarán said. Prayers for safe passing through the gateway, recognition of Conor’s life and his good deeds. That man was a great friend to folk, and a wise adviser to your father. He’ll be missed.” He fell silent, perhaps wondering whether he’d spoken out of turn.

“I’ll wait here until they come back to the house,” I said. “Rhian, you must be exhausted. I’m sure Doran can find someone to take you in if you’d prefer that.”

“I’ll wait with you, my lady.”

Doran favored my handmaid with a smile. “Are you back for good, Lady Maeve?” he asked me.

The tightness moved up to my chest. I could explain about Swift, of course, and why I’d finally come back after so long, but that was not a real answer to this question. I had better prepare one, since it would be asked over and over. “I’m not sure yet,” I told him.

We waited, and while we did so I played a game: picking out anyone I could recognize, or half-recognize, in the circle down the hill. The torchlight added to the challenge, painting each face with a moving pattern of gold and shadow. I looked for my little brother first, as there were only a few children there. Finbar was seven; he’d be bigger than my cousin Fintan’s children back at Harrowfield, and his hair would either be red like my mother’s and mine, or dark like Father’s. Was he that lad putting up a hand to cover a yawn? Or the one bending to tie up a shoe that had come loose? The others were all girls, or too small…But wait. A boy was standing very still beside a figure in a long robe, perhaps a druid. Indeed, the child was unnaturally still, like a rabbit frozen in the fox’s stare. A white face; a mop of dark curls. Shoulders very straight. Hands behind his back. I could not see his features clearly, but that stance was all unease. Perhaps this was the first death
Finbar had experienced. I felt a jolt of recognition, unexpected and not entirely welcome. My brother. My little brother.