"Where is Beorc?" she asked.
"With your cousins. Making ready the men that will go north."
She stared a moment. "No," she said.
"Lady?"
"No, they will not go."
"Lady, little good they will do the land here, in Caer Wiell." He felt heat go to his face. His tongue tied, that he had forgotten to whom he spoke. He stared into her eyes, which were blue and pale and passionless. "The border," he finished, trying to mend things. "The northern steadings. They can't stay waiting." But she was of Caer Wiell, bred and born here. She knew the needs of its defense. That too he remembered.
"They will not go," she said. Her mouth set, making lines at the corners. She folded her children against her like a wall. "Tell Beorc so."
"I will tell him." He cast a desperate look at Muirne, then bowed his head and went in haste, knowing how Beorc would hear it.
She was adamant, when Beorc came thumping back upstairs with him to argue, when Rhys and his brothers arrived on his heels and Rhys shouted at her—which spoke how desperate Rhys had become, how desperate all the men. Horses, saddled, fretted in the yard; wag ons already loaded, stood with their teams outside the gates, their drivers waiting. Folk murmured from wall to wall of Caer Wiell, once again confused, frightened what with the ominous sky above them and the shifting orders of those that led them.
"Good gods," Rhys cried, "you cannot take on like this. Grief is one thing, madam, but this immolation of your people is profitless. You have a border crumbling at this hour, horses readied, men standing in their armor, rumors running rife in the yard."
"The King is dead," she said. She sat calmly, in her plain blue gown, dressed and coiffed now, her hair severe in its braids, her face very pale. She might have been an image graven out of ivory. "Do you understand?"
"Laochailan dead." Rhys paced the floor, when the rest of them would have wished to, fretting as they were. Rhys stopped, held out his hands in entreaty. "Well, that would be no great surprise, cousin, but how do you suppose to know that?"
"My husband said it," she answered in that firm still voice. "Be fore he left. Send riders out, over all our lands. As far as the borders. Bring our people in and bring Ruadhan home with all our men."
"Lady cousin," Rhys said gently, "lord Ciaran was fevered."
She rose, unfolded upward from her chair, and for a moment small as she was, they were daunted. "Cousin—do you understand me? My cousin Laochailan is dead. He hated us. But he is dead. They murdered him, smothered him in his bed, since their poisons failed. The King is dead."
Domhnull's eyes wandered to the corner, where a slight, red-haired boy sat watching by his sister, and a chill went down his spine. O gods, he thought, which he had not thought, for until yester-eve there had been Ciaran, and the chance of alliances and maneuverings; and that Laochailan would declare some heir. But nothing was the same this morning. Ceallach. Gods, gods, this boy is King.
So others fell silent. The perhaps-King stared back at them in distress, his hand locked in his sister's.
Then: "Cousin," Rhys said, "if it were true—we may have little time. If it were true—there might come trouble up the dale, and quickly. All the more reason to take care of that matter to the north and be ready to face trouble from the west when it comes."
"No," Branwyn said.
"Cousin, give orders in the hold. Not in matters of arms."
"I tell you no."
"This is grief," said Beorc. "Lady, you know me, that I am your man as I was his. And I say the same. Leave this matter of the borders to men who know them."
"The King is dead." Her voice rose, losing both calm and dignity. "And we need all our forces here. And my husband is not dead, Beorc. He has gone away, but he is not dead. You are still his man, and don't forget that."
Beorc bowed his head and lifted it sorrowfully. It was clear what his opinion was. "Lady, wherever he is— But this matter of the border—Lady, it can't wait."
"Beorc, he looked at me. It was the last thing—the last thing he said. He looked at me as clearly as I look at you: 'Branwyn,' he said, 'look to Dryw. Go there if you have to. Go soon.' "
"Impossible," said Rhys somberly. "Would to the gods you could; but that is no sunny ride, cousin, not now. Almost we failed it. Safest to secure that one border northward and then close the westward pass."
"They will come through the hills like ants," Branwyn said.
"Lady cousin, that they may; but that will put them in our hands: Owein and Madawc and I—do you think any lowlanders can best our folk in the hills? Let them try. We will hold here."
"Domhnull." Her gaze turned on him, her hands outheld.
"Donnchadh—it is Donnchadh who killed the King. Do you under stand me?"
A chill went over Domhnull, a memory in once shattered bones, fear driven deep there, and doubt. "Beorc," he said, "Beorc—that one has allies—O gods, Rhys, the Brown Hills and the north—there is too much moving on us now. I saw it—It isn't the armies. Not the worst of it. She may be right."
So they looked at him too with pity and something worse. Beorc had his hands in his belt; at last he ducked his head and lifted it with a frown, looking at Branwyn. "Domhnull will stay here," he said, "to order the defense. You are my lady, but my lord is gone; and until he's here again, I do what he told me last, and I mind me that I never had his leave to be coming back here in the first place. Rhys, Owein, Madawc—"
The color has risen to Branwyn's cheeks. "I have told you," she said. "But you refuse to hear." Her lips trembled. Her eyes were filled with tears. "So go. Do as you will, Beorc. Domhnull at least will stay."
Domhnull stood still, feeling the heat in his face, looking still toward Branwyn while Beorc and Rhys and his brothers left, a mar tial clattering on the stairs behind; and his eyes went dim and blurred and painful.
"Well?" Branwyn asked sharply. Muirne stood there, witness to this. The children sat in their corner, in the corner of his sight.
"I will go out, by your leave," Domhnull murmured painfully, "and see my cousin off."
Branwyn nodded and turned her shoulder to him, finding some thing to do in the clutter of herbs and jars in the corner that was hers.
The gates stood open. The wagons already groaned their way out onto the road. "Take care," Domhnull said, standing close beside the way, looking up at Beorc as he rode past; and Beorc reined aside from the others.
"Domhnull." For a moment Beorc sat looking down, a line be tween his brows; and then he heaved himself down from the saddle and offered an embrace, tentative and shamed-seeming.
Domhnull took what was offered, looked Beorc in the eyes, at arm's length. "Take care," he said doggedly. There was a fear in him like sickness. He saw the riders pour past, almost all Caer Wiell's strength. He was conscious of the sky above them. Donnchadh, rang in his mind with the rattle of the armor. Donnchadh, Donnchadh. "Do it quickly and come home."
The fear showed. It woke pity in Beorc's eyes, who was not accus tomed to failings. "Cousin—" he said, and bit his lip on what he would have said. "See to matters here. We'll be back as quickly as we can."
The ache of Beorc's fingers lingered on his shoulder. He stood there staring from the gate as Beorc galloped off to the fore and the column of riders bent northward. His heart had gone cold, for all the brave color of the banners of Caer Wiell and the black of the sons of Dry w, the thunder of horses, the clash of armor of riders hard upon their way toward the north, toward the gathering mare's-tails of new rampart building. There were folk about him, above him on the walls, watching from all manner of vantages, and only a few had cheered, a silence unlike Caer Wiell.