"Son."
His mother stood close, by the stairs. He turned to look at her and her face changed at his look to something quieter—a tall woman, his mother, her hair shot through with gray and her eyes full of living. "Come," she said wisely, as she had coaxed him in younger years, of bruised knees and falls and prizes missed and loves spurned, in the years before he thought himself a man and ran off to Caer Wiell. "Come, I've somewhat to spare this morning. Come breakfast with me."
It was not the food he sought. His lady wanted him in hall; he had duties and no time to spend, but Beorc's look still stung, and he had duties here in the yard as well as anywhere else, if Branwyn and Muirne had the children well in hand. Someone had to be seen out here, someone to still the rumors.
So he let himself be seen; folk stared at him and murmured. Of the breakfast he took only a cup of cider and a bit of bread, while his mother talked of everything but wars. He sat on a sack of goods by the scullery door and the traffic came and went, of impudent goats and running children, of women going this way and that with water and food and stores. Most in Caer Wiell now were women; and the young and halt and old. So he listened while she talked of neighbors' lives and scullery gossip, and children played tag in the sunlight (but there was shadow beyond the wall) and squealed and screamed until the noise was like to drive him mad in one moment and seemed precious in the next. She asked no news of hall; no, she had no wish to go there. She had her friends and neighbors, and insisted on telling him of them, small, simple things, so he knew it was like Muirne's bravery, innocent and wise. And others lingered near them, pretend ing tasks and errands, listening ears and watching eyes of women all thinking of their sons, of husbands, brothers, cousins—and himself one maimed man, one marred and somewhat broken and now, with a handful of men left to him, commanding in Caer Wiell.
So he lifted his head and looked at his mother and marked how she was beautiful in his eyes, how other women deferred to her. It was the way she was, full of good sense. His father had loved her for reasons he only then saw, having only then come to manhood, this morning it seemed, in Caer Wiell.
He felt a great calm then amid his fear, finding himself knowing more of the world than he was wont. He knew where he belonged, and where his oath to his lord was pledged. "I have to get back to hall," he said deliberately. "There are plans—" Several score breaths bated. He knew. "—My lord left clear instructions to carry out; there are things to do." His mother sat quietly, her wise fair eyes intent on him, well knowing what he did. "Say that." He pressed her hand where it rested on her knee and looked straight into her eyes. "If others ask. Our lord is not lost. I've been where he fares now. And I came back. He's gone for healing. As I did. Say that too."
He rose. His mother did. He had become a liar. He had no shame in that at all. He kissed her on the brow and turned his cheek for her. So he walked away, not limping, though his bones ached.
He crossed the yard, took the stairs under hundreds of silent eyes. He felt them on his back. He heard the tide break behind him as he gained the wall, a flood of women's voices. He did not look back even so, but walked on up the inner stairs and up again through the accounting-room to the hall.
"Well?" said Branwyn, pausing in her combing of Meadhbh's hair.
"Nothing, lady. They've gone, that's all. A while ago. I've been down in the yard. Taking breakfast."
Branwyn tightened her lips, and Meadhbh braced herself and suf fered, her head bowed as she stood. Her red hair shone and sparked in wisps beneath the strokes of the comb.
And after a moment: "And where would Leannan be?"
"Somewhere about. Since the burying."
"So. Well." More strokes of the comb. "Now hear my morning's orders. Bring in every horse we have, mares and foals too. Find every cart Beorc has left us, and every weapon. We shall be going south tomorrow. Every soul in Caer Wiell."
"Lady—" His certainties ebbed from him, regrouped behind his reason. "You want a man to ride after Beorc, then. To force him and Rhys."
Two motions went on, Branwyn's combing; and Ceallach, who was at the grinding of Branwyn's herbs. There was the talisman about the boy's neck, that swung with the fierce effort of his arm. There was a madness in all this, that ordinary things went on, that Branwyn insisted on them. The air was full of rosemary and grief.
"If they would listen," Branwyn said, "they would have. Are you faithful, Domhnull?"
"Lady, those men are faithful to you. They only see a danger—"
"So do I."
"I will ride after them, persuade them—if I stood with you, to do this, then they might listen, and fortify Caer Wiell."
The combing stopped. She patted Meadhbh's shoulders, dismissed her. Meadhbh only stood and stared. Branwyn looked straight at him.
"You do not well hear me. And Beorc would hold you to prevent me," she said, "because he sees a danger. No. Send last to them. Before that, bring the last few steaders in. Send riders."
"The folk will be afraid, down in the yard."
"Say what you like. Send Cein's boys: they have close mouths. Find Leannan. And Cobhan. This hold will be ready. Tell that where you like. Take every weapon, everything that can be mended and every hand that can hold one. Most of all keep them busy. Will you do these things?"
"Aye, lady." He looked at Muirne and at the children both, at Branwyn, last and longest. "What is in your mind to do? Lady, you were not there when Rhys told us what he had seen on that southern road. Things that took men and horses. The forest is deadly."
"The Sidhe will protect us. For my children's sake, they will save us all."
There was fey madness in Branwyn's eyes. There was fear there too. Both were contagious.
"Lady—for the sake of those out there—who would suffer in siege, but most would live—with a half dozen men I might take you south to lord Dry w. If you are sure the risk is worth it. But to set out on a road like that with the old folk and the infants still in arms—gods, my lady, that's a forest trail we're speaking of, no way for carts and wagons. We haven't enough horses for all of them to ride."
"Domhnull—the King that sits in Dun na h-Eoin is Donnchadh. You of all people should know his manners."
"Aye," he said after a moment. O Beorc, come home, come quickly, reason with our lady. "But if Donnchadh comes into the dale he would waste no time on Caer Wiell if we were not in it."
"You think in numbers Caer Wiell could raise. You never saw the armies Dun na h-Eoin might lead. Well, I have seen them. Do you think they couldn't divide that force and come at Caer Wiell too, to let Damh and Bradhaeth and An Beag loose inside these walls? No." She drew her daughter back into her arms. Ceallach had come to stand beside her. Lines seemed graven in her face after these last, horrid days. "My husband's word, Domhnull. Do you believe it?"
"I saw Caer Wiell burned," Meadhbh said, so faintly he could hardly see her lips move. "I dreamed it last night, Domhnull. I think that it is true."
The world seemed cold and frail about him. He stared at both; at the boy-King who came to join them, red-haired, his sleeves rolled up, hands dusted with herbs and country simples.
"I will do what I can," Domhnull said to Branwyn. It seemed impossible to him that his lord was not there, that they were left with such choices. The Sidhe to protect them, his lady believed. But he lived with the ache in his bones, the memory of the hill and the fading of the light.
The Sidhe has lost, that is what, he thought, on the stairs leading down from the hall. He limped, using his hands to steady him, he, the guardian of Caer Wiell. About him constantly he seemed to see the stones, the lightning, the Sidhe tattered in the black winds.