"Will you sit?" Ciaran asked of her, reminding her, and she sank carefully into the chair that was prepared for her, before silver plates, before the perilous fires.
"May we sit at table?" Ceallach asked anxiously, and receiving his father's nod, his face lighted and he hugged his sister and his mother, while there was some stir about, of benches brought, and extra plates, and places made, all with a clatter and a rising relief.
A few tentative harp notes sounded, sweet and pure, bringing si lence and a settling quickly into places, silence even from the chil dren. So the harper played, and played well for her, light songs and merry. And then was the meal. Muirne took the serving mostly on herself, being most careful of their guest, brought Arafel wine and pressed honeyed cakes and fruits on her when she refused other food.
Arafel was doubtful, but if there was something of Men about the offering, still it was sweet in her mouth, and the wine was good if smoky and strange to her tongue. Everyone ate, in a silence so deep the noise of a cup seemed loud, and Muirne's mouselike steps seemed like echoing footfalls. Even the children were grave and very silent, but their eyes drank in everything.
"We are not wont to be so quiet," Ciaran said desperately.
"May we talk then?" Ceallach cried in his high clear voice, which caught Arafel most by surprise. She laughed, which laughter found its echo first in Meadhbh and then in Domhnull.
"Yes," Ciaran said, "we may talk."
"Perhaps," said Arafel, "the harper will give us songs to make us light."
This pleased the harper, who took up his harp again, and soon had the children clapping their hands and all but bouncing in their seats; at last even the grimmest of them laughed, red-haired Beorc. The song minded old Siodhachan of a tale, which he told well and deftly, and there was more wine, at which Arafel, feeling strange diffidence among such brevity, told a small elvish tale, dismayed when it gained only silent stares. Then: "Oh!" breathed Muirne, and everyone breathed, and she saw that they were pleased and more than pleased, their eyes shining, the harper wiping tears.
"Tell another," said Meadhbh.
It had been a moment of peace, a precious time. The young voice tempted. But, "No," Arafel said softly, for she suddenly felt the hours, saw the candles low in their sconces, heard the fall of a log in the fireplace, saw one of the torches out, its flame-bearing head hav ing showered its last cinders to the stones a while ago like stars. "No, now we must to your own affairs. Perhaps you will tell me—" She addressed herself to Ciaran "—how you have fared since last I came."
"Oh, well," said Ciaran. "The land never fails us. And my horses —my horses are surpassing fine."
"And peace. Have you that?"
There was a shifting among the Men. "The King has ordered peace," said Ciaran. "And I keep it as I can."
"Ah," she said.
"Perhaps," said Ciaran, "the children should be abed."
"No," said Arafel; and Meadhbh and Ceallach, whose faces had fallen at once, bounced in their seats and their faces glowed. "Bear with me," said Arafel to Branwyn, and wandered in her gaze to aged Siodhachan, to Muirne who had stopped in her serving. Wisps of hair had fallen about Muirne's thin face and her cheeks were flushed from her many trips this way and that with plates and servings. She had never gotten to eat. Now she had a pitcher of wine in hand and quite forgot it, heavy as it was. And Ruadhan, who was supposed to watch the door, but whom Arafel had called to table too, a Man who smiled much and forgot to smile now; and Domhnull, a handsome fair-eyed Man less than the others' years; and dark Rhys, of wise glances and quiet; and Beorc Scaga's-son, a Man much like his fa ther. "Siodhachan's years are longest backward," Arafel said, "and have their honor; and the years of Meadhbh and Ceallach are longest forward, and extend this company into times and places no one but I may see. So I speak to them as well as to the rest. So counsel taken should be in their hearing, because I cannot say when I will come back again."
Faces grew anxious all about the table, Ciaran's most of all except ing the children's, but no one spoke.
"In all the years of Caer Wiell," she said further, "the guesting has been of Men in Eald and not the Sidhe among Men. But you wake old memories tonight. You remind me of times I had almost forgot ten. The blessing of the Sidhe is on you: your step will lie light upon the leaves, your way will not easily wander in the wood, your eyes will see truth when others fail, and this for all your days. Eald will not fade for you. What you see you will see truly. This gift I give. And one more I give to Meadhbh and Ceallach—Come," she said when the children hesitated to leave their places, and they excused themselves and came to her seat at the head of the table, staring at her with eyes as wide as fawns'.
"So," she said, and opened her hand, laying what might have been a mote of light upon the table, but the light faded and there were two leaves more silver than green. "For memory," she said, "for memory that Eald is true. They come of the youngest of my trees. Keep them near you and they will never fade. You have never seen the trees as they are: I cannot bring you there. I wish I might. But they are for hope when there is no hope, and vision when there is no seeing. I have set a virtue on them of finding. And for children lately lost, this seems a right gift."
They were confused and their eyes were wider still as they took each a leaf.
"Mother," said Meadhbh, showing hers. And, "Lady," Ceallach said in a hushed voice, and looked down at his, and took it to his father to show.
"I have seen such trees," said Ciaran softly. Ceallach sat at his father's side and Ciaran put an arm about him, holding this dearest treasure time had given him very close as Branwyn held Meadhbh. Their friends and trusted folk were about them in this room, like a bulwark against the night, against shadows, against all the ills of the world. But knowledge sat in Ciaran's eyes, as if they saw the shad ows beyond the walls. "You speak of going," he said. "And you have been about some business. Is it—something I might ask?"
"Do not." She passed her finger down the side of the cup before her, and looked up as Muirne, sensing want, moved to fill it. The gesture touched her strangely, the earnestness of brown human eyes which saw only need and offered what there was, if only wine. She bent a thought on Muirne, shed a grace which had not been there as the pitcher brushed the cup she held in her hand, and thought no more of it than the flowering of some blighted tree under her hand . . . indeed her thoughts traveled on and circled and came back again to the children—to Beorc, whose eyes met hers squarely as few Men's would. He was afraid: this she saw. And loyal and terrible in a way that stretched into a dark future. A shiver came over her, and she was not accustomed to such weaknesses. She looked past him to Domhnull, whose heart was clearest; and Rhys, who had a darkness in him, but so, indeed, had elves; last to Ciaran, finding strange still the sight of this bearded, older man with a son against his side.
"I will be direct," she said. "There is trouble near you. I cannot say the nature of it: plainly, I do not know. I warned you once of balances, and things are out of balance. Meadhbh and Ceallach have chanced against the merest straying visitor to your lands; do it no harm. It does not deserve it. And there are things truly baneful. This is not your affair. But a corner of Eald has gone into shadow, and Eald is both wider and darker than it was. There are things awake that slept. I have a watch to keep and I have kept it—aye, do you understand now, Lord-of-Men? So I have watched and will watch. You are my weakness and my strength, you, Caer Wiell, this little circle of firelight in the dusk. And that dusk is gathering. The night will come. Grant there may be a dawn."