Sidhe faded. Ciaran had gone, Sidhe-like; but even in that place was no refuge—or he would have let the children seek it. Branwyn was blind, hoping to pass the forest, hoping because she had no other hope.
But Meadhbh had visions.
Your brother is gone, the Dark Man whispered. Lost. Donnchadh started and looked about him, in the solitude of the gloomy hall in Dun na h-Eoin. Armies were about it: his; the lords had gathered like carrion birds at the King's failing; and among them had come one eagle.
"What—dead?" he whispered aloud; but the voice came creeping inward, cold as ice.
Last night, the voice said, soft as spidersilk. The Bain Sidhe has sung it daran of Caer Wiell, of Bonn, Branwyn's husband—he is gone.
Donnchadh sat down on the plain wooden throne, that being where there was to sit. He felt it like a blow, a hammer-strike to the heart. He felt like weeping; and felt relief at once. Dead—of the wounds An Beag gave him?
Dead— The voice grew softer still. Ah, well, but nearly. At least as dead as Sidhe can die.
This was a dagger-thrust. He looked up at the shadows, but there was no one to see. A man is dead or not, ghost.
Oh, but a Man is—dead or not. But there was less and less of Man in him—cousin. Now he has no boundaries. He might be here, this moment—or stand beside your bed of nights. He might easily come this way. He would still defend his hold, his son—with every means at his command, and those means are many.
A chill came on Donnchadh. It grew, as if warmth were leaving him forever. It was true: there was his brother's son, heir through Meara, Evald, Branwyn; and all those armies knew it. It wanted so little to produce one rebel, one of those lords to rouse others in the name of a boy who could be brought up as they pleased, if he fell into their ambitious hands.
That is the first danger, he thought; and it was his thought, per haps; or it was the Dark Man's, who had come so close now there was no distinguishing one from the other. The boy. Ceallach. Laochailan's heir; and my brother's; and Dryw's kinsman. In Caer Wiell, near the Sidhe.
"It is quite mad," Leannan said. His pale blue eyes were mazed with ale when Domhnull found him outside the scullery, with ale and too much of losing folk he loved; and with doings of the Sidhe and a sky that seemed worse and worse. But: "Say no word of it," Domhnull said. "Only give me help—to keep the folk quiet. Go among them. Find out how many there are here; and how many of those could not ride—somehow. Or be carried."
"Aye," the harper said, who had a skill at remembering things, and at numbers.
"Southward," Cein said when Domhnull went to him at the sta bles. "O gods. With wagons?" But: "Better Sidhe luck than Donnchadh's mercy," Domhnull said. "I can swear to that. Don't say anything here. Send your boys for the steaders. I want them back by sundown. And tell them to be discreet in it."
And last to Cobhan, who was grooming Ciaran's Iolaire, stub bornly, faithfully as every morning: "Every horse, Cobhan. Every one. We leave none of my lord's horses to An Beag bandits. Bring them in. And oxen for the wagons."
"Aye," said Cobhan, tight-lipped and thinking. He called a boy to him and gave instructions, never pausing in his work.
So the matter proceeded. There was further gossip: The enemy is near. The border is giving way. So these preparations.
Domhnull did not gainsay that rumor. It served him. He went here and there with a worried frown and cared little now who saw it.
"Is it so?" his mother asked. "Is the north in danger?"
So there was another soul he decided to trust. "It may. Mother, it's southward we are going. And soon. For good reasons. It's not to be told, not yet. But if Beorc is driven back—we will move quickly; for our lives, we must move, to shelter with lord Dryw until this thing is over. You know the steader woman, who's to rely on. Name them to me, the ones to move the others."
She set her lips, frowned a bit, and named them.
There was smithery in the yard, the hammering of iron, the mend ing of a wheel. Leannan moved here and there like a fish through troubled waters, visiting shelters, playing small songs to keep minds elsewhere, asking after this old man's health, that old woman's, the weeks a baby had. Cein and Cobhan brought in the horses, a great protesting of mares and nervous foals; of old geldings too long out to pasture and showing their tempers; of oxen, lastly, moving their great bulk past shelters and collapsing one tent by the Old Hall, to wails and protests of the old woman in it.
Domhnull went from place to place, keeping pages and steader lads busy sharpening old weapons and the old warriors at more me ticulous tasks restoring old horse gear out of storage. He took care to be seen often; he gave, if not detailed orders, at least approval of what experienced folk would do; and wider and wider he spread his trust where he dared, taking oath of this one and that one to keep quiet.
Even silence begat rumors. There is too much quiet, folk began to say. There be those that know things. He heard other whisperings and murmurings which he could not make out; and these made him uneasy. Whenever he chanced up to the wall he could not forbear looking northward himself, wishing for some sight of riders, just enough to be Beorc and Rhys coming home, with Ruadhan beside them: but what he dreaded was a larger band—the whole of Caer Damh and the Bradhaeth turning up on that horizon. And always there was that unnatural ring of sunlight, against their walls now on east and south: we must pass under it if we go south—into that shadow.
When such chill thoughts came on him he would think, unthink ing: Lord Ciaran would know what we ought to do—
Then with a reeling of his mind he would remember why they were doing all of this at all, that lord Ciaran was not in hall, nor likely to be again: that there was no chance of things being what they had been, no days stretching before them of summer and harvest and winter and spring, no more, no more, forever.
O gods, he would think then, and there would come a leaden pain about his heart and a panic desire to go up to hall if only to look and be sure no further calamity had fallen. They do not know how to watch them, he thought of Meadhbh and Ceallach, remembering that they were fey, and willful, and desperate. I would know. I might. O gods. Muirne; my lady—keep them from wandering.
But he had tasks enough at hand. The counting of the horses came to him; Leannan brought him the tally of the people. "Cipher me the thing," he begged Leannan, helpless in the profusion of numbers; and so they squatted together by the steps and made an obstacle of themselves while Leannan traced figures in the dust and told him the tale of it.
"The fittest men have to have the good horses," Domhnull said. "To ride at the fore. They cannot carry double; we must not tire those horses or those men—for our defense."
"So," said Leannan. "But what will we do with the twenty-odd left walking?"
He had no answer. So Leannan left him, saying nothing more. He ran his hands over his aching head, sitting as he was on the step; and remembered then that there were always eyes on him, and gathered himself to his feet.
A shadow fell, abrupt twilight. Thunder rumbled. He looked up at the cloudwall, towering up and up above them. A dark thread had torn from it and streamed across the heavens, headed northward. Another mare's-tail, in sky that had been pure. A chill went up his back.