“Caoimhin!” Niall said and caught him up arm to arm. “Caoimhin!”
Caoimhin fell, collapsing to his knees, and Niall went down to his own, holding his arms while Caoimhin’s body heaved with his breathing. The bloody face lifted again, glazed with sweat, pale and gaunt. His beard and hair showed dirt and grass from his falling. “Lord,” Caoimhin said, “he’s dead, Evald is lost and dead.”
A moment Niall stared at him blankly and Caoimhin’s hands gripped his arms as the others gathered round. “Dead,” Niall said, but nothing else he understood. “But you are back, Caoimhin—You found the way.”
“ Dead,hear me, Cearbhallain.” Caoimhin found strength to shake at him. “Caer Wiell is without a lord—it is your hour, your hour, Cearbhallain. He went into the wood and never out again; he has crossed the fair folk and never will he come out again. Fionn—”
“Is he with you?”
“The harper’s dead. Evald killed him.”
“Coinneach’s son.”
“ Listen to me.There is no time but now. There are men would ride with you, I have told you—”
“The harper dead.”
“Cearbhallain, are you deaf to me?” The tears poured down Caoimhin’s face. “ I came back for you.”
Niall knelt still in the dust. Beorc was there, and set his large hands on Caoimhin’s shoulders. Most of the Steading gathered and was still gathering, some standing, some kneeling near, and the latest come were shushed so the silence thickened, a deep and terrible waiting.
“Tell me,” Niall said, “when and where. Tell me from the beginning.”
“From time to time—” Caoimhin caught his breath, leaning his hands now on his knees. “We met, Coinneach’s son and I. Fionn Fionnbharr. On the road, when I went after him. And so we parted. Only he brought word to me now and again—how he fared, and where. He wintered in Caer Wiell as he had said he would and the men—I have gathered old friends, my lord, men you knew. I have never been idle, about the roads and the hills and the fringes of the river; I have been to Donn and Ban and all such places and back again, and sent men to Caer Luel—”
“—in my name?”
“What less would bring them? Aye, your name. But we have kept quiet, lord, and hunted and done little—in your name. And we took our news from the harper when he could bring it, even from Caer Wiell. But lately he fled the hold—fled with Evald behind him, and so they report him dead, murdered—but Evald himself died after, this very morning. A man of ours was hidden near his camp; and brings word his men believe him dead—fear other things less lucky to talk of—in this storm—” Caoimhin fought for breath and caught his arms. “They will be riding back to Caer Wiell this morning, today, lordless, and leaderless—Caer Wiell is yours again. You cannot deny it now. Men are ready to follow you—Fearghal and Cadawg and Dryw, Ogan, the lot of them—”
“You had no right!” Niall flung Caoimhin’s hands aside and rose, swung his arm to clear himself a space and stopped at the shocked and staring faces of those about him, of Lonn and the others, and turned back to look on Beorc himself, his eyes stinging in the wind which howled and whipped about them. Lastly he looked down at Caoimhin, who looked up at him, hurt and worn as the world had worn him, bearing such scars as he had been spared in the Steading, where no war could come—and all at once his peace was shattered beyond recall. It was not a clap of thunder, although thunder rolled; it was only a sudden clear sight, how men fared that he once had loved, how life and death had gone on for all the world without him. He felt robbed, for in the stormlight everything about him seemed dimmed and less beautiful than it had been. There was gray about the Steading, which had never been. There were flaws in the faces about him he had never seen. Tears started from his eyes and ran crooked in the wind. “So, well, we ought to be on our way,” he said, and helped Caoimhin to his feet. It was hard to look at the others, but he must, at Beorc’s solemn face, whose red mane whipped in the gale; at Aelfraeda, whose golden braids were immovable in strongest winds; at Siolta and Lonn, steadfast; at Scaga whose thin young face had hollowed almost to manhood in the passing years. “I have a thing to see to,” Niall said to them. “Like for the wolf and foxes—there comes a time, doesn’t there? The deer are gone. They’ll hunt one another in the hills.”
“You’ll want food,” said Aelfraeda.
“If you will,” Niall whispered and looked at Beorc. “If you will—Banain—”
“She will bear you,” said Beorc, “I do not doubt. And if she will, then what she wills.”
“I need my sword,” Niall said then, and turned away, not having the heart for facing Beorc or Aelfraeda any longer. He flung his arm about Caoimhin. “Come up to the house. There’ll be ale and bread at least”
So they went. He found Scaga at his left, trudging along with him and Caoimhin, and so he set his left hand on Scaga’s shoulder, but the boy bowed his head and said nothing to him, nothing at all, while the thunder rumbled over the Steading and the wind blew the young leaves of the oak in shreds.
They came into the house, into warmth and a busy flurrying after drink and bread and the wherewithal to feed two and more hungry men on their way. Niall went to the corner by the fire and took his sword, but he did not draw it, not even to see to the blade of it. The sheath and hilt were covered with dust. Perhaps rust had gotten to it as it lay by the hearth. But it was not a thing for bringing to light in Beorc’s house and in Aelfraeda’s. Diarmaid brought the remnant of the armor he had had, and this he put on with Scaga and Lonn and Diarmaid to help him, while Caoimhin sat shaking with weariness and cramming food into his mouth. He had no cloak any longer. He put on the warm vest he had had on before, hung the dusty sword on his shoulder and went out into the chill of the storm to find Banain in the barn.
“I’ll come with you,” Scaga cried after him, following him outside.
“No,” he shouted back to the porch. “Stay warm. Help Aelfraeda. I’ll not be leaving without seeing you. Stay inside.”
The thunder cracked. He turned and ran, past the gate of the yard and down the hill to the barn and so inside, where was shelter from the wind and the warm smell of straw and horses.
“Banain,” he whispered, coming to her in the shadow of the stall. He brought the bridle she had been wearing when she came to them. They had mended its broken rein for the children’s riding; but he had never put it on her. He hugged her about the neck and got a nudging in the ribs in return, a whickering from the pony near her in the dark. “Banain,” he said. “Banain.”
“Cruel,” a small voice piped.
He whirled about with his back to the mare. The Gruagach sat on the pony’s back, peering at him across the rails of the next stall.
“Cruel to take Banain. Cruel Caoimhin, to take his lord away. O where is peace, Man? Never, never, for Caoimhin; now never for Banain; never for Cearbhallain. O never go.”
“I would I never had to.” He recovered himself and turned about again, stroking Banain’s neck. His hands were still cold from the wind outside. He coaxed the bit into Banain’s mouth and drew the strap past her ears. She turned her head and butted him gently in the chest, snorted as a dark shape landed on the rail in front of them.
“Never go,” said the Gruagach.
“I have no choice.”
“Always, always comes a choice. O Man, the Gruagach warns you.” It shifted and hugged itself upon its rail. “Wicked Caoimhin, wicked.”
Niall took the cheekstrap and backed Banain out of her warm nest of straw and comfort. The Gruagach followed, a scurrying in the straw: it came out into the light of the half-open door well-dusted, with straws in its hair, and hugged itself and rocked. “Never go,” it said.