“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in it,” Kerlew said doubtfully. He thought a moment, then chanted,
“They’ll see themselves as they really are now?” Gar asked. Kerlew nodded. “If my words have any real power, they will.”
“You didn’t tell me you could make verses that would shame and hurt people.”
“The shame I knew about,” Kerlew muttered. “The hurt, I didn’t.” He shivered. “I never dreamed a satire could really do anything but embarrass!”
“Perhaps you never spoke it with such emotion before,” Gar suggested. “You might want to think about forgiving your grandfather.”
“Him? Never!” Kerlew’s face hardened. “The pain he’s cost by his ridiculing and raging, the dear ones he’s cast out—if my words hurt him at all, it was too little.”
Gar decided it was too early to tell the boy that his grudge really hurt himself more than his grandfather, that it kept him tied to the events that had caused him so much pain and waked the fear and humiliation again and again whenever he thought of them. If Kerlew could ever summon the courage to face the damage that trauma had done, grieve for it, then accept himself in spite of it, there would come a time when he would be able to forgive and cut himself free of the pain—but not yet, it seemed, not yet.
Suddenly a distant yelping broke out. Kerlew leaped to his feet. “The hounds! They haven’t given up! Cross that river, quickly!”
“Find a ford!” Gar snapped.
They turned upstream and jogged along, watching the depth of the water. The brush thickened. Gar was about to cast aside his pack and swim when they suddenly broke through some bushes and found themselves in serenity.
It was a ring of lawn sixty yards across with a huge mound in its center. Goats and sheep grazed the clearing and the slopes, demonstrating how the grass was kept so neatly trimmed. At the eastern edge stood a small cottage, stucco plastered over wattle and daub, beams showing in half-timbering, thatched with straw, and bordered by flowering bushes.
Kerlew froze and stared. “A Mound! We can’t stay here!”
“Why not?” Gar asked.
“Because fairies live inside it and there’s no telling what new mischief they’ll dream up for the man who intrudes on them! Quickly, Gar! Turn and go!”
He spun about, but the breeze shifted and blew the belling of the hounds more loudly to him. Kerlew froze.
14
He reached out a restraining hand. “Wait a minute. You know that dream of fairies and elves I had?”
“The Old Ones? Aye.” Kerlew turned to him, puzzled. “What of them?”
“They told me that if ever I were in trouble, I could go to the Keepers of the Mounds for sanctuary. Do you think we’re in trouble?”
Kerlew glanced over his shoulder at the distant clamor. “I think you could say that, yes.”
“Then let’s throw ourselves on the mercy of the Keepers.” Gar started toward the cottage.
Kerlew stared after him as though he were crazy. Then he shrugged and followed.
Before Gar could knock, the door opened to reveal an old woman and old man, wrinkled faces creased with smiles, white hair straight and flowing (though most of the old man’s was in his beard) and a deep serenity in their eyes. “Welcome, travelers,” said the woman. “How come you to the Hollow Hill?”
“By great good fortune,” Gar told her, “and hard beset by a band of outlaws.”
The old man raised his head. “Yes, I hear their hounds.” Gar frowned. “Don’t you fear them?”
The old man turned his head from side to side, still smiling. “None dare to come here with ill will, for the fairies would lame them in an instant or the eyes lay them low with elf-shot.”
“If you need protection from them, you shall have it,” the old woman said, “if you do not fear the fairies.”
“Which you would be well advised to do,” the old man warned.
“You do not,” Kerlew pointed out.
“True.” The old couple exchanged a warm glance; then the woman turned to Kerlew and explained, “We fled our clans so that we might wed, but they tracked us down, even as they track you right now, and in our flight, we blundered upon this mound in the dead of night. We lay there gasping in each other’s arms, not fearing, for we thought that whatever harm the fairies might render could certainly be no worse than what our kin might do.”
“And the fairies spared you?” Kerlew asked, wide-eyed.
The old man nodded. “We did not even have to ask. They came out and knew us at sight for desperate lovers whose romance defied the hatred of our clans. When our kindred burst from the woods, they found us surrounded by a glowing cloud of fairies, who bade them touch us at their peril.”
“They halted then, and conferred,” the old woman said, “and told the fairies that we would be safe, so long as we never left this clearing. Thereupon the Old Ones declared us the Keepers of the Mound, and we dwelt with the old Keeper and cared for him in his age until he died, then lived here most happily…”
“Well, Joram, there have been arguments,” his wife reminded him.
“There have indeed, Maeve, and times when we chafed at our bondage and wished we could visit our kinfolk,” Joram admitted, “but it would have been death for me if her clan had found me, and shame for her.”
“No, we have been happy here far more often than not,” Maeve told Gar and Kerlew. “Seven babes have I borne…” Sadness touched her face. “…and three buried.” Then she brightened again. “But four did we rear to manhood and womanhood, and ever and anon they come back to stay awhile with us.”
“Where could they have gone?” Gar asked in surprise.
“To any clan who didn’t know theirs,” Kerlew told him, “ones many miles away.”
“Even so.” Maeve nodded. “My Brilla, she married Josh Farland, and Orlin, he wed Beryl Gonigle. Finn went to study with a Druid and came back a bard. He still studies, and will be a Druid himself one day.”
“Moira, though, has a heavy weird,” Joram said, frowning. “Aye, my Moira was touched by the goddesses,” Maeve sighed. “Myself, I scarcely believed in them, but she went past belief—she knew they were real. She had a vision of a man and woman who came to bring peace to all the clans—only the first vision of many—and has gone to tramp the roadways looking for them, preaching peace and forgiveness to all the clans, even to the outlaws.”
“I fear for her safety,” Joram said with a heavy frown, “but I cannot go to guard her—I am bound here by the hatred of our clans.”
“I had never known,” Kerlew said softly, almost in a whisper. “I had heard of the Keepers of the Mounds, but I never dreamt that they themselves sought sanctuary in these clearings.”
“If the rest are like to us, they are happy enough at it,” Maeve said with a smile. “So we herd our goats and tend our sheep, and see to it that the shrubs are pruned and the grass kept short for the fairy folk to dance upon, and wait for our Moira to find her true love and come back to take up our vigil.”