It seemed the fitting was over. The seamstress began to undo the pins, one by one. There were a lot of pins.
‘I’ve seen very little of your youngest brother,’ said Oonagh, smiling. She had retreated to perch on the end of the bed, swinging one foot slightly. In her white dress with her hair falling about her shoulders, she seemed about sixteen years old. Until you looked into her eyes. ‘Always away off doing things, is Padriac. You’d almost think he was trying to avoid me. What is it keeps him away from crack of dawn till after supper time?’
This seemed safe enough.
‘He loves creatures, and mending things,’ I said. The seamstress eased the bodice down. It was cold in the chamber, despite the fire. ‘He keeps them in the old barn. If there’s ever a bird whose wing is broken, or a hound suffers an injury, Padriac will fix it. And he can build just about anything.’
‘Mm,’ she said. ‘So, another one who will not grow up a warrior.’ Her tone was cool.
‘My brothers are all adept with sword and bow,’ I said defensively. ‘They may not all choose Father’s path, but they are not lacking in the skills of war.’
‘Even Finbar?’
The eyes of the creatures glowed. I stared back at them and, gathering up every scrap of will, kept my mouth firmly shut. She was behind me again, suddenly, and the hairbrush was in her hand. She waited as the maidservant began, grimly, to unfasten the network of green ribbons that tamed my hair.
‘You are reluctant to speak. But how can I be a good mother to these boys, if I do not know them?’ She sighed expressively, her face sweetly rueful. ‘I’m afraid Colum has favoured some of his sons and neglected others. I detect a very frosty atmosphere where young Finbar is concerned. What can he have done, to earn such censure? Is it simply a reluctance to participate in warlike pursuits? Or has he never really forgiven his mother for dying and leaving him alone?’
‘That’s not fair!’ I stood up and whirled around to face her, wrenching my hair from the servant’s grasp. I was oblivious to the pain. ‘Mother didn’t choose to die! Of course he misses her – we all do, nothing can ever fill the space she left. But we’re not alone, we never have been, we’ve got each other. Can’t you understand that? We are friends, and family, and part of each other, like leaves on the same branch, or pools in the same stream. The same life flows in us all. Talking of jealousy is just silly.’
‘Sit down, dear.’ Oonagh’s voice was quite calm; she did not react to my outburst. ‘You spring to your brother’s defence – that is natural, as you have had no other companionship, all these years. What grounds have you for comparison, so narrow is your little world? Not surprising, then, that you cannot see his limitations.’
I managed to escape, finally, but there was no way of blotting out her words, and I wondered again what it was she wanted from me, from us. I felt a strong desire to have all my brothers with me, to touch them and talk with them, to feel their strength and comforting sameness. So I looked for them; but Cormack was engaged in a bout with staves, grinning fiercely as he challenged Donal to find a way past his whirling weapon and fancy footwork. And Padriac was fully occupied with some contraption he was building. A raven perched on a rail above him, turning her head this way and that as his fingers went about their delicate task. ‘What is it?’ I asked my youngest brother, eyeing the intricate folding framework of fine wooden slats and stretched linen.
‘Not quite a wing, not quite a sail,’ muttered Padriac as his deft fingers fastened another tiny joint. ‘With this, a small boat will travel very fast over the water; even in the lightest of winds. See how the panels turn, when I tighten this thread?’ Indeed, it was ingenious; and I told him so. I patted the old donkey, and peered into the stalls, where a litter of brindled kittens nestled in a corner of the warm straw. The raven followed me, still limping a little from her injury (attacked by other birds, Padriac thought, but she was mending well). She gave the kittens a wide berth.
There was a long walk, straight between willows, and hedged by a late-flowering plant whose childhood name was angel-eyes, because its round blue blossoms seemed to echo the colour of a spring sky. It was alive with blooms, but the heavens today were leaden; no angels would smile on this wedding. Down by the lake, Liam walked with Eilis. He held his cloak around her shoulders with his arm, careless as to who might be watching, and his head was bent as he spoke to her solemnly. Eilis had her face turned up to his, and she looked at him as if to shut out the rest of the world. For a moment, I felt a dark foreboding, a shadow over the two of them that spread its chill towards me. Then they were gone under the trees, and I went on towards the house.
There was much activity around the kitchen, with carts coming to and fro, and barrels of ale and sides of meat being hefted on shoulders and stowed away. Smells of baking and roasting drifted in the cold air, and horses stamped and snorted. Linn greeted me at the door, snuffling her wet nose into my hand, but she did not go in. It was then that I noticed, among the carts drawn up on the stones, a familiar vehicle of plain, serviceable kind, in whose shafts an old horse waited patiently for his turn to be unbridled and led away to warm stable and rest. And this was odd. Why would Father Brien be here now, with still a night to go before the wedding? I had been sure he would come down early in the morning and travel back before nightfall, for how could he leave Simon alone after dark?
I went in, but none of my brothers was there, and Fat Janis chased me straight out again, saying she had quite enough to worry about, what with all the fancy baking and the men coming in and helping themselves, without young ’uns underfoot. As she propelled me through the door, she slipped a warm honeycake into my hand with a wink.
I found them eventually back where I’d started, in my own herb garden. It was probably the most private place there was, with its high stone walls and its single door into the stillroom; barring the roof top, that is, but only Finbar and I went up there. Father Brien was on the mossy stone seat, and Conor was leaning next to him, speaking earnestly, while Finbar sat cross-legged on the grass. As I creaked the stillroom door open wider, they fell silent and all three turned their heads in unison to look at me. It was as if they had been waiting for me, and there was clearly something very wrong. ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘what’s the matter?’ My two brothers looked at Father Brien, and he sighed and got up, taking my hands when I ran up to him.
‘You won’t be happy with this news, Sorcha,’ he said gravely. ‘I wish I had better for you.’
‘What?’ I demanded, not allowing myself to think.
‘Your patient is gone,’ Father Brien said bluntly. ‘The day I was away, I made haste to return by sundown, as we planned. When I reached home, the place was in darkness. At first I feared the worst for the two of you; but I could see your belongings were taken, and no apparent harm done, and the dog had neither remained nor, it seemed, come to any ill. I knew Linn would not have let you be taken without blood being shed. It was plain the horses whose hooves had marked the ground belonged to your brothers.’
‘But Simon – I left him safe – he said he would wait for you –’
‘There was no sign of him, child,’ said Father Brien gently. ‘His outer garments were gone, and his ashen staff; though it seemed he took neither food nor water, nor a cloak against the cold, and he left his boots behind. I can hazard a guess at his intentions.’
For he cared not if he lived or died. But he had promised me.
‘Didn’t you even look for him? Why didn’t you send for us?’ I was beset with visions of Simon alone in the forest at night, surrounded by his personal demons, slowly weakening with pain and cold. Perhaps already he lay still and silent under the great oaks, with the mosses creeping over his lifeless body.
‘Hush, daughter. Of course I searched; but he is a warrior, and though hampered by his injuries, knows how to