Ciaran came to table and sat down, staring at what was before him and not at the women, nor at the harper, who had fought that day; nor at Scaga, at him least of all. The servants served them, but no one touched the food.
“It is his wound,” Branwyn said suddenly, out of the silence. “He is ill.”
“He claims to have run through enemies and scaled our wall,” Scaga said. “He gives us fair advice. But who is he, truly? How far did he run? And what manner of man have we taken among us, when our lives rely on a gate staying shut?”
Ciaran looked up and met Scaga’s eyes. “I am of Caer Donn,” he said. “We serve the same King.”
Scaga stared at him, and no one moved.
“It is his wound,” Branwyn said again. He was grateful for it.
“We have seen no wound,” said Scaga.
“Would you?” Ciaran asked, for he had no lack of scars. He put on a face of anger, but it was shame that gnawed at him. “We can go into the guardroom, if you like. We can speak of it there, if you like.”
“Scaga,” Branwyn reproved the old warrior, but Lady Meredydd put a hand upon her daughter’s, silencing her. And Scaga put himself on his feet. Ciaran stood, prepared to go down with him, but Scaga beckoned a page.
“Sword,” Scaga said. The boy brought it from the doorway. Ciaran stood still, not to be made a coward in their eyes. Branwyn had risen to her feet, and Lady Meredydd and the others, one after the other.
“I would see you hold a sword,” Scaga said. “Mine will do. ’Tis good true iron.”
Ciaran said nothing. His heart shrank within him and the stone already pained him. He looked into the old warrior’s eyes, knowing the man had seen more than the others had. Scaga unsheathed the sword and offered it toward his hands; he reached for it, took the naked blade in his palms, and tried to keep the anguish from his face. He could not. He offered it back, not to dishonor the blade by flinging it, and Scaga took it gravely. There was a profound silence in the room.
“We are deceived,” Scaga said, his deep voice slow and sad. “You brought us fair words. But gifts of your sort do not come without cost.”
There was weeping. He saw the source of it, which was Branwyn, who suddenly tore herself from her mother’s arms and rushed from the hall. That wounded as much as the iron.
“I told you truth,” Ciaran said.
There was silence.
“The King,” Ciaran said, “will come here. I am not your enemy.”
“We have lived too long next the old forest,” said the Lady Meredydd. “I charge you tell me truth. Is my lord still alive?”
“I swear to you, lady, I had his ring from his own hand, and he was alive and well.”
“By what do the fair folk swear?”
He had no answer.
“What shall we do with him?” Scaga asked. “Lady? Iron would hold him. But it would be cruel.”
Meredydd shook her head. “Perhaps he has told the truth. It is all the hope we have, it it not? And we need no more enemies than we have. Let him do as he wills, but guard him.”
Ciaran bowed his head, grateful at least for this. He did not look at Scaga, nor at the others, only at the lady Meredydd. Since she had nothing more to say to him, he walked quietly from the hall and upstairs, to imprison himself in the room they had given him, where he was spared the accusation of their eyes.
Dark had fallen. There was no lamp burning in the room, nor did he reckon that any servant would come to him tonight. He closed the door behind him, gazed at the window through a haze of tears. The night was bright, framed in stone.
Branwyn wept somewhere, betrayed. The joy he had brought them all was gone. They expected now to die. He shut his eyes, seeing his own family, the pain he was sure to bring them. Shame, and grief more piercing than shame, that they would forever know what they were and distrust their own natures.
He sat down on the bed in the dark, and unlaced his collar, drew forth the stone and held it in his hands.
SIXTEEN
The Paths of Eald
“Arafel,” he whispered, “help us.” But no answer came, and Ciaran had hoped for none. It was doubt, perhaps, which robbed him. He felt a pain in his heart, pain in all his joints, as if the poison of the iron he had touched had gone inward. Perhaps it had more than driven Arafel away; perhaps it had wounded her more than he had known. There was silence, where once her voice would have come whispering to him, and he was afraid.
The stone was power. She had promised so. To cast it off, seek a death in battle . . . he thought of this, foreknowing that he would see before his death what others could not see, and know it when it came. It seemed a small-hearted thing now, though lonely; a selfish thing, to perish to no avail, and to take the hope of Caer Wiell with him once for all. Power was for using in such straits as he had set them in, if he but knew how.
And what had the stone ever done, but link him to Eald? Fare back, Arafel had wished him.
He began, holding the stone between his hands. He rose and slipped his mind toward the green fair world . . . saw gray brightness, and moved into it.
There was nothing here. He tried to recall the way he had come with Arafel’s leading. He thought that it lay before him in the mist. A certain sense of his heart said so, and he trusted that sense, which he had denied before.
Liosliath, he thought, wishing now for the memories of that grim elf, but nothing came to him. It was, perhaps, the taint of iron. Panic swept on him like a flood of water. He wavered out of the mist and blinked in dismay, for he stood on the dark slope of the hill, outside the walls of Caer Wiell.
In panic he reached for the mist again, and ran into it, ran, with all his strength, but very quickly he was lost indeed, and he was not sure that he had taken the right course in the beginning. He thought that he could see trees in the grayness, but they were not straight and fair, but twisted shapes, and the mist darkened.
Shadows were with him, loping along in dreamlike slowness. He could not see them well, but he heard the crash of brush, the beat of hooves, slow and strange. A stag coursed the mist, but it was black, and lost itself in the grayness. A bird flew past, baleful-eyed, and black as the stag. It called at him and flew on. He ran the more, panting, and at times his feet seemed to lose their purchase and to stride lower than he wished. Hounds bayed, striking terror into his flesh, and his wound grew into an ache, and to agony. He heard the beat of heavier hooves, and the winding of a horn.
Something tattered swept by him, wailing. He stumbled away from it and shuddered against another shadow, saw trees taking tortured shape. The way was darker and darker, agreeing with mortal night, as the elven-wood never had. He was possessed of sudden terror, that he had fled the wrong way altogether, that he was driven and harried where the enemy would be, toward a place where the stone had no power to save him. A wind blew which did not scatter the mist, but chilled him to the bone.
“Arafel!” he cried, having no hope in silence. “Arafel!”
A shadow loomed ahead of him. He flung himself aside, but it caught at him, and the stone warmed at his heart.
“Names are power,” she said. “But you must use commands three times.”
He caught her hand and held it, shut his eyes, for a rush of shadows passed, and the Huntsman was among them. He thought that sight would scar him forever.
And the chill left him. He opened his eyes and they were walking through the mist into brightness, into sunlight, of green forest and meadows with pale flowers. He sank down on the grass, out of strength, and Arafel sat by him, gravely watching until he should have caught his breath.