And Branwyn went about ordering this and that with a preoccupied frown upon her brow and her hair flying loose from its braids in curling wisps from the abundance of water below.
Ciaran walked out along the wall, relieved, finding in the confu sion of the day some solace, as if things had wanted to be turned upside down. He changed a thing which had been the same since the Cearbhallain, and he changed few things in his lordship, but this one was for his comfort.
They must bear with me, he thought, and realized that none of them had questioned him in his strange request, no, not even Beorc.
But they knew what iron was to faery. They knew. And silently they went about this change for his sake.
Only the rider came back from Gearr's steading and reported no sign of Whitenose there, though the farmer would be watching for her. The youth looked crestfallen and unhappy. "Well," said Ciaran, "but she may have gotten frightened and it may take her time to stray toward some farmstead; but any man who finds her would know where she came from." He felt a need to console the youth, who looked thoroughly downcast, for the lad was one who worked closely with the horses.
"She has never been one to run," the youth said, as if the mare's character were in question.
"Well, she may come home," he said, and sent the lad off, sorrier for the boy than for the mare: he had many horses, and little could touch him on this day, that he had mastered the ill which had settled on him and gained peace in the house again.
He watched the lad walk away, leading his weary horse toward the stables inside the gates, and then went upstairs, into warmth and light and the newly cleaned room that would hold no iron hereafter, but only accounts, still smelling of water and burned pine.
He went farther, up into the hall, where Branwyn waited, and had his supper in good peace, with the children, with Beorc and Rhys and Domhnull, Siodhachan and Ruadhan and Muirne and Ruadhan's Seamaire, and had Leannan to play them songs, so that it was more merriment than loss after so disarranged a day.
But Muirne who had gone down the stairs to the kitchens after a pitcher came back and never poured, but went direct to Branwyn, ignoring all courtesy of precedence. She leaned and whispered straightway in Branwyn's ear, and Ciaran saw Branwyn's eyes, the startled dart aside, the fixing on thin air.
"What is it?" Ciaran asked, and frowned at Muirne, so the harp ing died, ringing softly into silence.
"Coille," said Branwyn softly. "Coille has not been seen."
"How, not seen?" He ignored the quick and ugly thoughts, searched further afield. "How long not seen?"
"Please you, lord," said Muirne, whose voice was always soft and now hard to hear even in the silence, "Cook thought he had gone to laze about again, that he would say this morning he had been at the fence-mending; or this afternoon at the moving of the hall, and so some thought he was—but neither—where, at nothing, so they say down in the yard."
"Coille," said Beorc in a low and rumbling tone.
"Aye, Coille," Ciaran said. An anger came on him, so for a mo ment it was hard to breathe, then he thought of it. He clenched his fists upon the arms of his chair and felt the heat go into his face. "So this is my reward of charity—a good horse and gods know what else. I believed that hangdog scoundrel; I took him in. And straightway he goes home again to his masters at An Beag, with gods know what tale—Oh, this is beyond my tolerance."
"Lord," said Rhys, with all his dark fierceness, "send a few of us that way."
"Aye," said Beorc, "we'll have some An Beag cattle for it. And Coille's head for it, if we spy him."
"No," said Branwyn sharply, "no, there is no good in it."
"Branwyn," said Ciaran, "I will not abide this thing."
"Then do not abide it; but do not break the peace. You know how it sits with the King; and where your enemies are: give them no such help. Gods know they need none."
"I know where my enemies are. At the King's ear. And in my hold, that I sheltered. Mind me of this, mind me of this, when I grow soft-hearted. They are laughing tonight in An Beag."
"They will be pleased if you break the peace," Siodhachan said.
"We cannot bear this thing." He brought his hand down on the table. "We have farmers on the borders who will bear worse if we do nothing. If we let this thief, this scoundrel of An Beag get away with what he's done, then who is safe, anywhere?"
"No," said Branwyn. "Who is safe if the King's forces ride against us as peace-breakers?"
"Laochailan King would not have the courage," said Rhys, which treason brought a deeper silence in the room.
"Children," said Branwyn suddenly, "go to bed. Now."
"Mother," whispered Meadhbh.
"Hush," said Ciaran without looking, and then looked all about the room, at all the anxious faces, at folk he trusted, men and women, all. "Friend's son," he said to Rhys, "friend to me—I wouldn't venture to say what the King would and would not do. But he has bad counsel. An Beag and Caer Damn have his ear, more than we. I don't say what the King might do; but what he would permit to others.—Well, Branwyn has the right of it: we have not been wise. The dale might rule the east, and he knows it—oh, he is wise in plots, is Laochailan. And what I say, I say to friends, to those I trust We have one true ally: your father, Rhys, and how I have valued him through the years—that is beyond telling. But he has had the burden to stand by us more often than we have been able to stand by him."
"Not so," said Rhys, "since he knows full well how this King would rule if not for fear of the dale."
"Perhaps we've guarded each other's shoulder," Ciaran said. "But we have been warned of troubles." The stone lay cold on his breast, like a second, aching heart, and he forebore with difficulty to touch it. "It seems to me that someone other than An Beag might have sent this man among us. That the King himself might have wanted to know what passes here, and poor Whitenose might have a longer run ahead of her than we think."
There was dread silence. "Then he would have a great tale to tell," said Beorc.
"Aye," said Ciaran, "well he might: how Caer Wiell's lord has gone mad, how he is feyer than they had thought; that magics are raised here that are gossipped in the halls—they are, are they not?"
"Aye," whispered Seamaire. "Too freely, everywhere in Caer Wiell's lands."
"That man then can do us great harm. He has been witness to— gods know what he has seen, or how we may be reported."
"The Sidhe spoke of war," Beorc said.
"Of war of a kind," Ciaran said. "And I cannot sit idle and let us be meshed in it."
"You cannot be riding against An Beag," said Branwyn. "There is no gain in that."
"No. No gain. Especially if this Coille is not An Beag's at all. Far less than gain. But we must find us allies."
"Who, pray? Caer Damh? The Bradhaeth? The lords across the hills? Husband, we are not their friends. We could never be."
'There is Donn."
The company stirred as if some wind had blown, and Branwyn made an outcry.
"Donn! Donn is the heart of our troubles. Who speaks loudest against you to the King?"
"Who can be more bitter than a brother? But he is still my brother. It came to me," he said very softly, and glanced once at Meadhbh and Ceallach who sat crouched small at Leannan's knee, "it came to me that this silence was more of my making than his. I offended my father's hopes; I know why. And somehow when Donnchadh sat in his place, well, perhaps he had tales told him how it sat with me, and perhaps there was some bitterness in it."
"You sent three times to your father, and each time your messen gers were sent away."
"The last was at his death. I had hoped, then. But to Donnchadh, after, I never sent, and perhaps Donnchadh would have answered me. He is in danger. I know that he is. The Sidhe said as much and I have felt it—" His hand went at last to the stone, unstoppable. "Here. I have felt traps meshed about us. We are none of us safe. And if things have gotten to such a pass that we have to fear spies and theft and treacheries—A shadow, the Sidhe said, a thing stretch ing out all round us; and I have seen something of it. You wonder that I don't sleep. The King is in danger. Danger surrounds us. And perhaps, if anything would forestall this—if I could gain my brother's ear and through him reach the King and stop this mad ness—"