He took the cold silver chain in his hands and slipped it again about his neck, lay still a time holding to the stone with both hands, shivering at the flood of elvish memories . . . of old quarrels with this shadow-lord. The courage seemed bled out of him, through the wounds the hounds had made in his soul. He knew himself maimed—maimed forever, in a way which others could not see and he could not forget. The stone must be forever about his neck to shield him, and it was more powerful than he. His hands were cold that clutched it, and would not warm easily; they were mortal, and that jewel was elvish memory—of one who had not loved Men.
He stirred at last, hearing others astir in the keep, the calling of voices one to the other, ordinary voices, recalling him to a world no longer fully his. He rose, his teeth chattering, and pulled on his breeches and went to the windowslit, hugging his arms about him. He saw the muddy hill, the forest verge, wet green leaves and gray sky. Of attackers there was no sign but the marks which had been there before. The rain was nothing but dreary mist. He turned back and sought after his shirt and the rest of his clothing. He tucked the stone within his collar, tied the laces which concealed it at his throat. He dared not leave it . . . ever.
FIFTEEN
Of Fire and Iron
The ladies were in the great hall to give him morning’s hospitality, Meredydd and Branwyn and their maids; and two of the pages had stayed to serve them. He walked among them with a hope of a seat near the fire and a bit of bread crowded upon him; but there were places laid at the table, and he heard the lady Meredydd send a page for porridge. Scaga appeared in the door as the boy dodged and scurried mouselike about his errand, and nodded a good morning. “All’s quiet,” Scaga said. There was no great joy in the report, and Ciaran frowned too, wondering how long till it came down on them doubled. Perhaps the enemy had no liking for rain. Perhaps—the thought came worrisome at his empty stomach—there was something else astir. Perhaps something had gone amiss with the King, some trick, some trap prepared. The King, Dryw, his father—should come soon. They should make some move.
Perhaps—the thought would not leave him—they had tried and failed while he slept in Eald, unknowing. Some ambush in the lower end of the dale could have prevented them. The desolation before the walls of Caer Wiell was as wide as that at Dun na h-Eoin—and he could not judge whether the enemy was greater in the dale than they had reckoned in the first place or whether the forces fled from Dun na h-Eoin had joined them.
He sat where the Lady Meredydd bade him, at her right; and Branwyn sat at her left. Scaga sat down too, and others, but many seats at the great table stayed vacant, the hall of a hold long at war, its lord and young men absent. The harper sat with them, late arrival; there was the Lady Bebhinn, elderly and dour; and Muirne, all of twelve, who was a shy, pale-cheeked child, silent among her elders. The hall at Caer Donn came to his mind unbidden, his parents’ faces, the laughter of servants, joyous mornings, full of noise, himself and dour Donnchadh always at some friendly odds over trivial things. But it would be lonely there this morning too.
“You did not rest well,” the demoiselle Branwyn said, who sat facing him. Her face was troubled.
“I slept,” he said, straightening his shoulders; but the stone seemed a weight against his heart. And because his answer did not seem to satisfy those who stared at him: “I ran far—in coming here. I think the weariness has settled on me.”
“You must rest,” said Lady Meredydd. “Scaga, no harrying of him today.”
“Let him rest,” Scaga replied, a deep rumbling. “Only so theydo.”
The porridge came. Ciaran ate, small familiar motions which gave him excuse not to talk. In truth he felt numb, endured a moment’s fear that he might have begun to fade into elsewhere, so distant he was in his thoughts. He imagined their dismay if he should do so.
And in this homelike place he thought a second time of home, and meetings. Of facing his father and mother and Donnchadh, bearing an elvish stone forever against his heart, with close knowledge of that past which Caer Donn tried never to recall. He could never again see the farmer’s wards against the fair folk without feeling his own peace threatened; could not see the ruins on the mountain above Caer Donn without seeing them as they had been before any Man set foot there; could not walk the hillsides without knowing there were other hills within his reach, and knowing what fell things swarmed beneath them, never truly gone. Worst, to face his father and Donnchadh, knowing what they must never know, that he and they were closer to those things than ever they had believed, these things which lurked and crept at the roots of the hills; and to look on his father’s and his brother’s faces and to wonder whether the taint always bred true.
Unsavory, Donnchadh had called the dale—but he must live with an enemy always a breath away, Man’s shadow enemy, who would take the rest of him—without the stone.
Then he looked about him at the faces of the folk of Caer Wiell, whose war was the same as his, but without such protections as the stone; it was the same Enemy. Death had been outside the walls yesterday, hunting souls. Do we not, he wondered, all bear the wound? And am I coward, because my eyes alone are cursed to see him coming?
The stone seemed to burn him. “Be wise,” a whisper reached him. “O be wise. He is myold enemy, before he was yours. He wants one of elven-kind. Me he waits for . . . and now you. Your fate is not theirs. Your danger is far more.”
He touched the stone, wished the whisper away. I am Man, he thought again and again, for the green vision was in his eyes and the voices about him seemed far away.
“Are you well?” asked Lady Meredydd. “Sir Ciaran, are you well?”
“A wound,” he said, bedazed into almost truth, and added: “Healed.”
“The rain,” Scaga said. “I have something will warm the aches.—Boy, fetch me the flask from the post downstairs.”
“ ’Twill pass,” Ciaran murmured, ashamed; but the boy had sped, and the ladies talked of herbs and wished to help him. He swallowed sips of Scaga’s remedy then, and accepted salves of Meredydd and the maids; and before they were done, warmer clothing and a good cloak all done with Meredydd’s own fine stitching. Their kindness touched his heart and plunged him the more deeply into melancholy. He walked the walls alone after that, staring toward the camp of the enemy and wishing that there were something his hands might do. All the mood of the keep was grim, with the drizzling rain and the unaccustomed silence. Women and children came up onto the walls to look out; and some wept to see the fields, while youngest children simply stared with bewildered eyes, and sought warmer places again in the camp below.
Beyond the river he saw the tops of green trees, and shadowy greater trees high upon the ridge beyond the Caerbourne, over which the clouds were darkest. Those clouds cast a pall over his heart, for it was Death’s presence, and the castle was indeed under siege by more than human foes. The thought came to him that he might bring danger on others, that Death who hunted him might take others near him. This enemy of his might bring ruin on Caer Wiell, on the very folk he came to aid. The thought began to obsess him and cause him deeper and deeper despair.
“Come back,” a voice whispered to him, offering peace, and dreams. “You’ve done your duty to Caer Wiell. Come back.”
“Sir,” said a human, clear voice, and he turned and looked on Branwyn, cloaked and hooded against the mist. He was dismayed for the moment, and recovering, made a bow.