"I will get the men," said Beorc.
"No," he said suddenly, returning to himself, looking about at Beorc's ruddy face. "There is nothing to do for it. It does not con cern the mare."
He turned his horse again. They rode and searched along the riv erside, where the road ran, even leaving the road at times to come to the edge of the Caerbourne; and the boundaries of Eald whispered softly in the wind, and the water chuckled as it would among its reeds, mocking them with silences. He did not use the stone again. It was wrong to have used it so, in so small a matter; it was not given him for the finding of stray horses, but in trust, and he chided him self for his foolishness—as if it were some hammer or awl that he had borrowed, this thing that was precious to the Sidhe. Best, he thought, if he learned not even to think of it, if he numbed his heart so that it did not answer when the leaves whispered, so that he did not imagine liveliness in the waters or small things watching from the thickets.
The feeling was not good here. His horse and Beorc's fretted, and it seemed to him in that sense which came curling unbidden through the stone that no horse might love this place, that they wasted their time and their search, for Whitenose would never have come this way.
"Let us go back," he said finally. "Send over to Gearr's steading, see whether she might turn up there: that pony of his might speak to her."
"So I was thinking," said Beorc.
So they came back by early afternoon, and no sign of Whitenose, which put Ciaran in less cheer than he had been. It was a good mare, one of his finest, and he had had the breeding of her through two generations of Caer Wiell's fine horses.
"Maybe," said Domhnull, who had also been out searching and turned up at the stable as overheated and out of sorts as they, with Rhys, who looked no better, "maybe, lord, she strayed west."
Due westerly lay An Beag's lands, and that thought had grazed his mind, ready as any man of Caer Wiell was to blame ill on that neighbor. "I cannot think she would have so little grace," Ciaran muttered. "She was too well-mannered to think of An Beag. Rather she has gone off toward Gearr's, or somewhere about."
"There is the woods," said Rhys, who bore scratches on his face from searching amongst the trees, "and there she might come to mischance—but there is no natural cause for a horse to stray there."
Natural, Ciaran heard, and looked at Rhys's ever-grim face, and at suspicions. "If it was unnatural," he said, "and the small Sidhe had aught to do with it—well, grant she finds some farm when they are done."
The thought put him out of sorts even further, and he climbed the stairs. "It comes to me," he said to them as they went up, "that we might use the tower for the warding room, and that we might set the one we have to other use. Will you see to that?"
"Other use," Beorc echoed, somewhat out of breath.
"A table, a chair or two: a library; we should move the accounting here." The poison closed about him as they came from the wall to the room, among the dreadful iron; he bore it,, shuddering as he reached the second stairs.
"Aye, lord," Beorc said, "but the accounts are small—"
"So, well, but do it, Beorc, see to it this afternoon. Set some of the boys to doing it. Move everything to the tower hall. Move what is there here." He reached the top of the stair, the relief of his own hall, where the table waited, with ale and the morning's bread and some of Cook's fine cheese. "Ah," he said, better pleased in the day, finding he had appetite, and that was good. "My lady has been kind. — Sit with me, you three."
"Is it father?" a young voice called from up the stairs inside, and Meadhbh came running down with Ceallach in her wake; so Branwyn came down the stairs, and he swept Meadhbh up in his arms and spun her so, a flurry of skirts.
"Did you find Whitenose?" Ceallach asked.
"No," he admitted, setting his daughter on her feet. "Likely she went off to some steading; but we will find her."
"If the elves have not got her," said Meadhbh.
"You do not call them elves," Ciaran said soberly, catching her with his eyes. "There is only one of her kind, and you cannot see her stealing our mare, can you?"
"Only one?" Meadhbh asked, her face gone very still. "Only one?"
"In all the world. The others of the Daoine Sidhe all went away, very long ago, so long ago no man can remember it. There is only one, and you must not speak ill of her."
"No," said Meadhbh, "but why did they go away?"
"Hush," said Branwyn. "Hush, no such questions. Let your father alone. Can't you see he's been at riding and might like to sit down? Don't be so graceless."
Meadhbh's face fell, her eyes so very earnest. I am sorry, they seemed to say, but not a whit for questions.
"Come," he said, moving the bench aside, "sit with us and share the bread."
Their young faces glowed, to be asked thus to sit with Beorc and Rhys and Domhnull and himself, small companions to a men's gath ering. They scrambled to the benches, fresh and clean and scrubbed, while his company still reeked of horses, except for washing at the trough. But Branwyn took her place at table too, a waft of lilac and herbs, her fine hands laced before her.
"There was none lost but the one?" she asked.
"No, lady," said Beorc. Muirne had come, and took it on herself to be cutting the bread: she took the knife from Rhys and sliced the bread and cheese, while Domhnull poured the ale.
"A little for Meadhbh and Ceallach," Ciaran said. "Mind, a little. And no, we have set everything to rights we can, and the plants wanted thinning, I suppose. It was likeliest Slue that did it."
"From the far end," said Domhnull. "She has never gone that way before."
"We will have to stall that mare," Ciaran said. "I'll not be feeding her on turnips." It occurred to him strangely that he was given uncommon tolerance, that Branwyn said not a thing about the ale, that her eyes shone at him, that she was happy and that the children were. He gave a short pleased sigh, his mouth full of bread and cheese, his world at rights again, even if it turned out to be faery which had stolen the mare.
And then he thought of his dream, how they had sat at table like this in Donn, and for a moment he felt a deep distress from the stone.
"We have another lamb," said Ceallach. "It's a ewe lamb."
"A ewe," he said. "Well, good for that."
"And we pulled all the weeds," said Meadhbh, showing reddened hands.
"Hush," said Branwyn, "your father's men have no need for small chatter."
"Oh, well," said Ciaran, "but the weeds were well done, all the same." He smiled, and got a flicker of a smile from his daughter. "Better luck than ours, I should say." He ate his bread; his men wolfed it, having been hard at work since dawn. "Maybe we should test the fences all round."
"Aye," said Beorc. "I'll tell Cein to put some of his lads to it."
"I'll do that. You have your matter, with the warding room. —I've decided," he said to Branwyn, with a look that tried to tell her secrets, "to have the accounts moved there."
Today Branwyn would object to nothing. It had been the warding room all her life. "Well," she said quietly, and nothing more.
"Can we help?" asked Ceallach.
"Not in your fine clothes."
"We'll change again," said Ceallach.
"I think," said Branwyn, "you might find things to do that didn't get in the men's way. I'm sure I can find things other than that."
"Yes," said Meadhbh miserably, her hands folded before her.
"You might ask the scullery to send up some of the lads," Ciaran said. "There'll be cobwebs to clear."
"Yes," said Ceallach.
So the matter went, and there was scrubbing in the warding room, with a great deal of carrying of water and a smell of wet stone came up from it, and vinegar and burning pine, so that all Caer Wiell seemed dislodged.