“Lord,” Evald said, hot with passion, “but the choice of a defender might be a sortie if he hoped for no help—they are brave, my folk, but they may also be desperate.”
“Lord King.” It was a voice hitherto unheard in council, Ciaran Cuilean, the younger son of Donn. “You gave your word no man of us should go home before the war is done. But Caer Wiell is not my home. And I know the hills.”
There was a deep frown on his father’s face and on his brother Donnchadh’s. But the King turned to him with his anger sinking. “So. Here is one man who has the gift of courtesy. And one I would be loath to lose.”
“Never lost,” the younger Ciaran said. He laughed, tallest of all his kindred, fairer than most and more lighthearted. “I have scoured those hills often enough. I can ride through them with less trouble now, if the King will, and maybe quicker than Beorc, who knows? He has not had the hills for his hunting, and I have.”
“Then you will carry lord Evald’s message,” the King said. “Do you frame it for him, cousin, and let us be done with it. I have given you all I will.”
A fell suspicion came on Evald then—that his cousin the King had some fear of him, feared messages and secrets passed—feared this kinship with him. It was a dark thought and unworthy. Others followed it, as dark and fearful. He drove them all away. “Lord King, my lord of Donn, my gratitude.” He worked the ring from his finger. “My steward’s likeness you can know from his son. Show this to him. Speak to my lady: I send this ring to her. Tell her how things stand. That whatever they hear they must hold a little time, and the King will be coming at An Beag from the back.”
“Lord,” said the younger Ciaran, taking the ring, “I will.”
“There will be peril in it,” Evald said.
“Aye,” said Ciaran, just that, which so quietly spoken mended all his thoughts of Donn.
“Speed well,” Evald said earnestly,” and safely.”
“Your leave, sir—lord King.” So Ciaran embraced his father, but his brother would not, and excused himself to the door of the tent.
“I am in your debt,” said Evald quietly. His pride was hurt, and anger still rankled in him, for it was less than he had wanted. A terrible fear was in him that the King wished the war to go toward the dale and batter down its strength awhile, for it was too rich and too well-situated and its lord was a kinsman. But that was too dire, even thinking what the war had come to. It was too great a waste. He looked on the young man Ciaran as young and high-hearted as once he had been, and all his heart went with the man as he walked from out the tent and into the dying day. But he ached with his wounds, and there was counsel to be held. He set his hand on Beorc’s shoulder, silently wishing him to peace, and Beorc’s arm was hard and stiff with anger.
So the King took counsel of them, how they should map the last assault on An Beag and Damh and the Bradhaeth, while the cries of the wounded and of the carrion crows mingled in the evening. Evald shivered and drank his wine. He served the King as his father would, if he had lived to see the day; and for his mother’s sake; and little for his own.
“That is a good man they sent,” Beorc said quietly while the King called for wine. “They speak well of the youngest son of Donn.”
“So shall I,” Evald said, “of all Donn, ever after this.”
As for Ciaran, he delayed little in his going, seeking after the best horse he could lay hand to, taking his brother’s shield with the crescent moon of Donn upon it, for his own was broken.
“Take care,” his brother said, Donnchadh, dark as he was fair, less tall, less favored by the King or even by their father.
“I shall,” Ciaran said soberly, seeing to the gear, and took the wineflask his brother pressed on him. “That will come welcome on the trail.”
“You should have kept silent. You never should have thrust yourself into this.”
“It is no small message,” Ciaran said, “the saving of the dale.”
“He never trusts the dale. Never. It is unsavory. And never you forget it.”
“I shall not,” Ciaran said, and hung the shield on his saddle, with the parcel of bread and meat a servant brought him. He slung his sword there too, and turned and embraced his brother longer than his wont at partings. “Evald galls the King. But that is not saying he is no true man, far too true to lose . . . Keep you safe, Donnchadh.”
“And you,” his brother said, holding him by the arms. “You take it far too lightly. As you take everything.”
“And you are far too worried. Is this more than riding into the same hills with the enemy in strength in them? More to fear is Dryw: I should hate him to take me for some wild man of the Bradhaeth. Keep yourself safe. I will see you at Caer Wiell—and I shall have been dining on plates and sleeping in a fine soft bed, while you shiver in the dew, Donnchadh.”
“Do not speak of sleeping.”
“Ah, you are too full of omens. I shall fare better than you do, and worry more for you before the walls than myself behind them. Only see that you come quickly and we will push the rascals north and be done with them. Be more cheerful, Donnchadh.”
So he took his leave, and flung himself into the saddle and rode away, taking the longer path at first, which was less littered by the dead and seeming-dead. The smokes of fires lit the hills, campfires and the fires lit by the pit where they dragged the dead.
It was not an auspicious hour. He would gladly have rested. But he served the King and lived to do it when others he knew had not. And he had to take Dryw’s way through the hills and not fall into ambush, either of Dryw or An Beag.
He lost no time in going now, through the wrack of war. Truth, he was not as light about the matter as he had told Donnchadh, but he saw ruin in delaying the army at Dun na h-Eoin, ruin for more than Caer Wiell. It was twice Laochailan’s failing, to delay too long upon a field and throw away half of what they had gained; and the dale was too close to Donn. Now it was rushing all downhill, the King on the verge of moving. He was, he hoped, the first pebble before the landslide—for now Donn would give the King no peace. And so they would remember this ride of his, he thought, for he rode to herald not alone the battle for the dale, but what might well prove the telling battle of all the years of war.
TWELVE
The Faring of Ciaran Cuilean
It was not so swift a ride, from Dun na h-Eoin’s ruins through the hills. Once Ciaran met with Dryw’s folk, but only once, and that was to his liking, for the southrons were sudden men and apt to haste in their killings. He suspected their presence sometimes, a silence of birds where birds ought to sing, a strangeness in the air that he could not put name to. But at last he had passed all of that manner of thing and reckoned that he was past Dryw’s farthest easterly advance—for Dryw would go off to the north direct to the Caerbourne as the enemy had fled, while his own course cut deeper into the woods.
But at last he reached the river himself, and forded it, choosing rather the hazards of the far shore than the ill repute of the southern one. He had been in the saddle so long he had forgotten when he had rested—his resting when he took it was only for the horse, and then he was back in the saddle again, sleeping little, aching with the weight of the mail and of his bruises from the battle. Now he kept the shield uncased on his arm, trusting none of this dark wooded way through the vale of the Caerbourne. He was in the dale now. There were no friends hereabouts. He watched about him, no longer hoping that Dryw was close. This was the darkest, the most dangerous portion of his ride. He had managed it so that he reckoned to pass An Beag in the dark, and hoped that he knew well enough where he was.