“Fair to us,” Evald said, numb in his deeper feelings, but Meredydd had settled into his thinking as she had settled into the hold, without question, because it had to be. “Yes, fair.” His eyes were for Niall’s face. And then he turned away, and passed the door where Scaga stood watch, haggard and grim and never leaving.
“He sleeps,” he said to Scaga.
“So,” said Scaga. Nothing more.
It was a premonition on Evald that he should not go up to bed tonight, but stay near. He went down into the wardroom where there was a fire, and lingered there a time, into the dark of the night and the sinking of the fire. There was little murmur from the courtyard or the barracks where Dryw’s folk had settled: there was little sound from anywhere.
But the beat of hooves came gently through the dark, gently past the wall, so that it might have been a dream if his eyes had not been open. The hair prickled at his nape and for a moment there was a heaviness over him too deep to throw off.
After that came a scratching at the stones of the wall, and that was too much. He got up and flung his cloak about him, moving quietly, not to disturb the peace. He went out onto the wall, padding softly as he could, unsure whether his ears had tricked him.
Suddenly a darkness bounded up onto the wall, a hairy thing, all arms and eyes. He cried out, a strangled cry, and it leapt back again.
“Cearbhallain,” it piped. “I have come for Cearbhallain.”
Evald lunged at him: it was too quick and bounded away, but he threw his knife at it. It wailed and dived over the wall, and now everywhere men were crying after lights.
But Scaga reached him first, pelting down the stairs.
“It was a hairy man,” Evald cried, “some dark thing—come for him; it said, it had come for him. I flung my knife at it—it went down again.”
“No,” said Scaga. No more than that. Scaga went running for the stairs; but that nowas one of anguish—of fear, as if he knew the nature of the thing. Evald hurried after, but “Stay by your father,” Scaga shouted at him, and was gone.
He stood still upon the stairs. He heard the lesser gate open, heard the hoofbeats going away and rushed to the wall to look. It was a piebald horse with something on its back; and after it Scaga ran, down by the river, under the trees.
“Dryw!” Evald shouted into the yard. “Dryw!”
So it stopped, small and forlorn. The horse had fled, going whatever way it could. And Scaga stopped, crouched near, panting.
“Iron,” it wept, “o the bitter iron. I bleed.”
“Come back,” said Scaga. “Was it for him you came? O take him back.”
A shake of the hairy head, of all the body, indistinct in the moonlight, among the leaves. “The Gruagach pities him. Pities you. O too late, too late. His luck is driven all away now. O the bitter iron.”
Scaga looked down at himself, his weapons. He laid aside his sword. “That was his son. He did not understand, never knew you. O Gruagach—”
“He is gone,” the Gruagach said, “gone, gone, gone.”
“Never say so!” Scaga cried. “A curse on you for saying it!”
“Scaga goes wrapped in iron. O Scaga, ill for you the forest, ill for you. The Gruagach goes back again where you might go, but never will you. Ill for you the meeting. You were never like your lord. Eald will kill you in the day you meet. O Scaga, Scaga, Scaga, they wept for you when you left And the Gruagach weeps, but he cannot stay.”
There was nothing there—neither shadow nor moving branch or leaf, only the moonlight on the river.
And Scaga ran, ran with all that was in him, to reach Caer Wiell.
“He is dead,” Evald told him when he came inside, when he had reached the doors. And Scaga bowed down in the hall and wept.
There was a decent time of burying and mourning, and Dryw stayed, buttressing Caer Wiell against its enemies. Evald—lord Evald—with Scaga at his side, dispensed justice, ordered this and that in the lands round about, set guards and posts and took oaths from men that came.
Even from aged Taithleach came a message that only Dryw understood. “The King,” said Dryw privily, his skull’s-face ever more grim than its wont: “this passing has set back the time that might have been. Had your father lived and been strong—but he is gone. Alliances must be proved again.”
“Send back,” Evald said, “and say that I am Cearbhallain’s son and the lady Meara’s, no other.”
“So,” said Dryw, “I have done.”
And another time: “You cannot go back to your lands,” Evald said, “without the promise kept my father made. And I shall be glad of your daughter.” It had come to be the truth, for Meredydd had nested in the heart of Caer Wiell to his mother’s comfort and to his own, and if it was not love at least it was deepest need. If he had had to sue for Meredydd on his knees now he would have done so; and it was his father’s will, the which he tried to do in everything.
“It is nigh time,” said Dryw.
So Caer Wiell put off its mourning in the spring. The stones remained, and the grass grew and flowers bloomed, violets and rue.
And vines twined in the wood, among forgotten bones.
BOOK TWO
The Sidhe
NINE
Midsummer and Meetings
Summer lay over the old forest, when leaves veiled the twisted trunks and graced the skeletal branches with a gray-green life. They were stubborn, the old trees, and clung tenaciously to their long existence on the ridge above the dale. There was anger here, and long memory. The trees whispered and leaned together like conspirators in their old age while the rains came and the quick mortal suns shone, and shadows slithered round their roots within the brambles and the thickets. No creatures from the New Forest ventured here without fear; and none stayed the night—not the furtive hare, which nibbled the flowers that stopped at the forest edge, not the deer, which drew the air into quivering black nostrils and bounded away to take her chances with human hunters. Not the wariest or the boldest of such creatures which grew up under the mortal sun might love the Ealdwood . . . but there were hares and deer which did wander here, shadowy wanderers with dark, fey eyes, swift to run, and not for hunting.
At rare times the forest seemed other than sullen and dreambound, and stirred and wakened somewhat, while the moon shone less white and terrible. Midsummer was such a time, when the phantom deer gathered by night, and birds flew which would never be seen by day, and for a brief hour the Ealdwood forgot its anger and dreamed of itself.
On this night, after many such nights, Arafel came, a motion of the heart, a desire which was enough to span seeming and being, to slip from the passage of her time and her sun and moon which shone with a cooler, greener light, and out of the memory of trees and woods as they might have been, or were, or had once been. She brought a bit of that otherwhere with her, a bright gleaming where she walked. Flowers bloomed this magic night which without her presence might never have waked from their buds, as most flowers did not, in the Ealdwood men saw. She looked about her, and touched the moongreen stone at her throat, which was much of her heart, and shivered a bit in the cool dankness of a world she had much forgot. The deer and the hares which, like her, wandered the shadow-ways twixt there and here,moved the more boldly for her presence.
Once there had been dancing on such a night, merry revels, but the harpers and the pipers were stilled, gone far across the gray cold sea. The stone at her throat echoed only the remembrance of songs. She came this night out of curiosity, now that she remembered to come. Mortal years fled swiftly past and how many of them might have passed since her grief and her anger had faded, she did not know. She was dismayed. It pained her heart to see this heart of the wood so changed, so choked with brambles. A great mound rose in this place, thorn-ringed now, about which her folk had once danced on green grass, among great and beautiful trees. This night she walked the old dancing-ring, laid a hand on an oak impossibly old, and strength drained from her, greening his old heart and making thin buds swell at his branch-tips. Such magics she had left, native as breathing.