Flame of Sevenwaters (61 page)

“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.”

“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

H e 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.

He sees them in the clouds. His daughter, creature of fire and magic, difficult, angry, clever; his mother the sorceress, despised nemesis from whom he learned so much. How she would laugh if she could see him now. What would this be to her, triumph or bitter blow? Her son, a prince of the Otherworld. Her son, a druid
dedicated to the path of light. Well, she is gone, and the question remains unanswered.

Niamh. The thought of her is an ache in the heart, an emptiness never to be filled. His lovely Niamh, who danced by firelight and stole his heart forever and a day. Niamh, who gave him his child. Niamh, whom his mother killed. They are woven together, the three of them, the bright and the dark. He wears them like a garment of flowering thorn.

Others have opened cracks in his long-closed heart: that remarkable child Finbar, with his wide-open eyes and soaring courage; the sisters, Clodagh, Sibeal, Maeve, each of them more extraordinary than she can ever know. Cathal, whom he has spared to live and love, to have for a lifetime what he was granted for a scant three years. It was the right choice. It was the only choice. This duty is his and his alone.

The clouds drift before the wind and the faces are gone. The druid lowers his arms; crosses his hands at his breast. He closes his eyes. Around him the circle stills. He breathes in a slow pattern. There will be challenges; there will be dissent. There will be sharp knives and sharper words. Let them come. The flame burns in his spirit and he is not afraid.