The light hazed in Ciaran's eyes; the colors blurred. Of a sudden he found it more convenient to look out over the walls, for the stone hurt him where it lay, a burning pang of things wild and green and intricate.
"Lord?" said Beorc.
He wept. He did not know why, except that he was cold, as lost as ever he was lost on the field before the gates. It was hard to breathe, as if someone he loved were dying, that keen a grief. "They make fantasies. The grass always grows."
"All the same," said Beorc. "It is the truth."
He shivered. It was panic. "I have Sidhe blood. Do they say that?"
"Oh, yes. That too."
He folded his arms. "They expect too much. You are my right hand, Beorc. Does it not frighten you, to be the right hand of the Sidhe?"
"So was my father," Beorc said.
Ciaran looked at him.
"He told me tales," Beorc said further. "Did you not know? He served the Cearbhallain, and the luck was on him too, and the Sight. Ask Rhys. They tell tales in his hills."
"Watch after Meadhbh and Ceallach," Ciaran said hoarsely. "Mind, tell Rhys and Domhnull—to keep an eye to them, where they go. Always."
"This warning of the Sidhe—Lord, there's always trouble of some kind. Or is there more than usual?"
Ciaran forced a laugh. "Perhaps we have had the luck. But hereaf ter luck rests on what we do. Mind you talk to Rhys and Domhnull. Say—Say I rely on them in that." The laughter failed. He looked out over the land and for a moment the colors dimmed. A mist lay over the land, and strange forests rose about him. Toward the hills, the west, the north, everywhere he faced, there seemed a shadow, but to the south he could not see, nor to the east.
Liosliath! he cried in his heart. But now there were only echoes, and the pacing of a horse, the slow striking of hooves. And shadows lowered, flowing in small curlings about the hills, pouring between him and that presence.
"Rhys and Domhnull will not fail you," Beorc said, heedless of such things as coiled across his sight. "And I will watch them too."
"Do." He looked back at Beorc, flinching from what he had seen. He felt after Beorc's solid shoulder, found it, let slip his hand.
"Lord," Beorc murmured, courtesy. Ciaran went away. He had wanted something different than worship, had wanted friendship, brotherhood, something somewhere lost. But there were no more comrades, no one but Branwyn, and even there he suspected a gulf too wide to cross. He had served his King; he had a living brother: neither wanted the sight of him. He felt the grayness about him like a shroud.
So the elves had gone, the tall fair folk, the Daoine Sidhe. The melancholy came on them and they no longer suited the world, but faded, deed by deed. Death could not touch them. Like Liosliath, whose heart he wore.
It was his heritage. He was alone, except the few brightnesses of his life—like Branwyn; like Meadhbh and Ceallach; like what he had hoped was comradeship and feared was distrust—but it was all too great a weight of trust instead. He felt the stone as a burning at his throat; he was cursed to See while he carried it, and nothing he saw was hopeful.
The trees which had loomed black and barren out of the mist gave way to stranger geography, hills looming up out of shadow, them-selves touched with the elvish moon. A stream ran here, still pure, and Fionnghuala leapt it with ease, running more smoothly now. Here were fences of stone and rail, neat pasturage and fields where never war had come. A farmhouse squatted against the farthest hill, under a tree broad and gnarled and strong; a cluster of barn and sheds stood near, with orchards beyond.
It was a human place, and not. It was refuge, where Arafel rode more quietly, like a wisp of wind along the reedy bank. Fionnghuala moved with the lightest pulse of thunder, like a storm muttering in the sky, but hushed, hushed, and ceasing, for Arafel whispered to
The elvish horse paused a moment, set one hoof into the clear running water, dipped her head and drank, for here she could drink, of waters which fed clear Airgiod. The wind whispered in the reeds. A heron watched in tall solemnity from a little distance away, seem-ing unastonished, but herons betrayed little. An owl called.
"Come," Arafel whispered, and Fionnghuala moved, delicately, softly. If sleepers had stirred in the farmhouse thinking a storm might be blowing up, they settled into their pillows again and thought that they had dreamed. Fionnghuala's steps glided soundlessly; she slipped like moonlight along the banks and finally along the fences, tossing her head somewhat, for this was strange to her, the fences, the hewn wood, the buildings in the very fringe of Eald.
There were horses here, who put their heads out of the barn as they came near and drank in the strangeness with eyes as dark as night and nostrils quivering, a piebald mare, a fat dark pony, plain and mortal-born. They watched, and ventured no farther from their barn. Wings stirred in the loft, then settled again.
''Gruagach," Arafel called softly.
There was, if only to her ears, a tiny movement within.
''Gruagach."
Stillness then.
"Will you make me angry, Gruagach?"
It was the third calling. He must come. A small, shaggy darkness crept out past the feet of the pony and the horse, a moving untidiness shot through with straw, a small brown man looking up at her with eyes darker than dark.
"I hear," he said, "I hear."
"So. I had thought you must. Has it slipped your notice, the trouble hereabouts? Are you so comfortable at night?"
It squatted, arms clenched about its chest, peering up at her as if it would tuck its head between its shoulders if it could. It shivered. "I have seen it, Duine Sidhe. I watch, oh, I do watch my Men to keep them safe; I make confusions in the hills. There was a nasty thing. I threatened it and it went running."
"So." It touched a sense of mirth in her, and not, for small and twisted that it was, the dark eyes sparked sullenness at her tone. She dropped lightly to the ground, still towering, and then, for she sensed its pride, bent down as it bent, until she looked at it eye to eye. "A secret thing have I to ask, Gruagach."
"Ask " it repeated, flinching back ever so slightly, its shoulders tucked about its shaggy head. "Ask, she says. The Duine Sidhe be longs in the deep shadow, the far places. Oh leave my Men alone, elf. Leave them be."
"Is there no trust, small Sidhe?"
It flinched the more. "I love them. I will fight, I will."
"In truth you would," she said, resting her arms on her knees and gazing full on the round, dark eyes. "It is a warm place you have made. Even with the fences. Do you know I have guested with Men?"
The eyes grew rounder a moment, perplexed. It shook its head.
"In their hall," said Arafel.
This was too much to credit. The eyes blinked and the doubt grew. "An elf likes my fences."
"I did not say I liked them, Gruagach! I said I forgave them."
"Ah. Ah. This is the Daoine Sidhe."
She had drawn herself up somewhat. The Gruagach flinched back again, then frowned.
"There is bravery in you," she said. "Greater than your size. I have long thought so. So I have come to you. Will you listen?"