Then the sorrow came on her, and she walked the otherwhere path to the beginning and end of her course, where harp and harper lay, deserted, the Wolf’s comrades all fled. There was no mending here. The light was gone from his eyes and the wood of the harp was shattered.
But in his fingers lay another thing, which gleamed like the summer moon in his hand.
Clean it was from his keeping, and loved. She gathered the moonstone to her. The silver chain went again about her neck and the stone rested where it ought. She bent last of all and kissed him to his long sleep, fading then to otherwhere.
And the storm grew.
SIX
Setting Forth
The storm had come over the Steading, a wall of cloud and wind which whipped the branches of the oak and ripped the young spring leaves.
And in it Caoimhin came home, running breathless, panting and stumbling as he came along the fence row, fighting the wind which drove across his path.
So he came to the gate and up the path, and young Eadwulf who had come out to see to the sheep saw him first: “Caoimhin!” Eadwulf cried.
But Caoimhin passed on, running and holding his side. Blood was on his face. Eadwulf saw that and clambered over the pen and ran after him.
So Niall saw him, not knowing him at first, seeing only that a man had come to the Steading: he left his securing of the barn against the storm and came running from the other side as many did from many points of the Steading, from the house and from the pens, leaving their work in haste.
But when he had come into Caoimhin’s way his heart turned in him, seeing the quiver and the bow, the gauntness of the man, the recent scar that crossed his unshaven face, the blood that ran on it from scratches.
“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.