So she spoke softly to each of us, her voice growing quieter all the while. The twins were on either side of her, leaning in, each the mirror image of the other, eyes grey as the winter sky, hair deep brown and glossy as a ripe chestnut.
‘Conor, dear heart,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the verse about the deer, and the eagle?’ Conor nodded, his small features very serious. ‘Tell me then,’ she whispered.
‘My feet will tread soft as a deer in the forest,’ said Conor, frowning with concentration. ‘My mind will be clear as water from the sacred well. My heart will be strong as a great oak. My spirit will spread on eagle’s wings, and fly forth. This is the way of truth.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Remember, and teach it to your sister, when she is older. Can you do that?’
Another solemn nod.
‘It’s not fair!’ Cormack burst out, angry tears overwhelming him. He put his arms around her neck and held on tight. ‘You can’t die! I don’t want you to die!’
She stroked his hair, and soothed him with gentle words, and Conor moved around to take his twin’s hand in his own, and Cormack grew quiet. Then Diarmid held Padriac up so Mother’s arm could encircle the two of them for a moment. Finbar, standing next to her pillow, was so still you could have missed him entirely, watching silently as she let her sons go, one by one. She turned to him last of us boys, and she didn’t say anything this time, but motioned to him to take the carved piece of stone she wore around her neck, and to put it on his own. He wasn’t much more than an infant – the cord came down below his waist. He closed a small fist around the amulet. With him she had no need for words.
‘My daughter,’ she whispered at last. ‘Where’s my Sorcha?’ I went out and asked, and Fat Janis came in and put the newborn baby in our mother’s arms, by now almost too weak to curl around the little bundle of woollen wrappings. Finbar moved closer, his small hands helping to support the fragile burden. ‘My daughter will be strong,’ Mother said. ‘The magic is powerful in her, and so in all of you. Be true to yourselves, and to each other, my children.’ She lay back then, eyes closed, and we went softly out, and so we did not witness the moment of her passing. We put the seed in the ground and the tree took form within it and began to grow. She is gone, but the tree lives, and through this she gives us her strength, which is the strength of all living things.
My father had allies as well as enemies. The whole of the northern land was patchworked with túaths like his, some larger, most a great deal smaller, each held by its lord in an uneasy truce with a few neighbours. Far south at Tara dwelt the High King and his consort, but in the isolation of Sevenwaters we were not touched by their authority, nor they, it seemed, by our local feuds. Alliances were made at the council table, reinforced by marriages, broken frequently by disputes over cattle or borders. There were forays and campaigns enough, but not against our neighbours, who held my father in considerable respect. So there was a loose agreement between them to unite against Briton, Pict and Norseman alike, since all threatened our shores with their strange tongues and barbarian ways. But especially against the Britons, who had done the unthinkable and got away with it.
I could hardly be unaware that prisoners were sometimes taken, but they were closely housed and guarded with grim efficiency, and none of my brothers would talk about it. Not even Finbar. This was odd, for mostly he kept his mind open to me, and my own thoughts were never shut away from him. I knew his fears and his joys; I felt with him the sunlit spaces and the dark mystic depths of our forest, the heartbeat of the goddess in its dappled paths and spring freshness. But there was, even then, one part of himself that he kept hidden. Perhaps, even so early, he was trying to protect me. So, the prisoners were a mystery to me. Ours was a household of tall armoured figures, curt exchanges, hasty arrivals and departures. Even when my father was away, as for the best part of the year he was, he left a strong garrison behind, with his master at arms, Donal, in iron-fisted control.
That was one side of the household; the other, the more domestic, was secondary. What servants we had went about their tasks efficiently enough, and the folk of the settlement did their share, for there were stone walls to be maintained, and thatching to be done, and the work of mill and dairy. The herds must be driven to high ground in summer, to take advantage of what grazing there was, pig-boys must do their best to track their wayward charges in the woods, and the women had spinning and weaving to do. Our steward took sick with an ague, and died; and after that Conor took charge of the purse, and the accounts, while Father was away. Subtly he began to assume authority in the household; even at sixteen he had a shrewd sobriety that belied his years and appeared to inspire trust even in the hardbitten soldiers. It became plain to all that Conor was no mere scribe. In Father’s absence, small changes occurred unobtrusively: an orderly provision of dry turf to the cottagers in good time for winter, a stillroom set up for my use, with a woman to help me and take draughts and potions to the sick. When the little folk got to Madge Smallfoot’s husband, and he drowned himself in a long drop from rocks into the lake (which is how Smallfoot’s Leap got its name) it was Conor who made arrangements for Madge to come and work for us, rolling pastry and plucking chickens in our kitchens. These things were little enough, maybe, but a start.
Finbar did not go on the autumn campaign that year. Despite Father’s orders, it was Liam and Diarmid and, to his delight, young Cormack who departed abruptly one bright crisp morning. The call to arms was early, and unexpected. Unusually, we were entertaining guests: our nearest neighbour, Seamus Redbeard of Glencarnagh, and several of his household. Seamus was one of the trusted ones, my father’s closest ally. But even he had not entered the forest without an escort of my father’s men, who met him on his own border and saw him safe to the keep of Sevenwaters.
Seamus had brought his daughter, who was fifteen years old and had a mane of hair the same startling hue as her father’s. Her locks may have been fiery, but Eilis was a quiet girl, plump and rosy-cheeked; in fact, I found her rather boring compared with my brothers. Our guests had been with us for ten days or so, and because Eilis never wanted to climb trees, or swim in the lake, or even help me with brewing and preserving, I soon tired of her company and left her to her own devices. I was amazed that the boys took so much interest in her, for her conversation, when she spoke at all, ran mostly to the immediate and superficial. This could surely be of little interest to them. Yet in turn Liam, Diarmid and Cormack could be seen patiently escorting her around the keep and the gardens, bending with apparent fascination to catch every word she said, taking her hand to help her down steps I could have traversed with a few neatly executed jumps.
It was odd, and grew odder – though the strangest thing was that it took me so long to realise what was happening. After the first few days, she showed her allegiance, attaching herself firmly to Liam. He, whom I would have thought the busiest, always seemed to have time for Eilis. I detected something new in his face, now grown to the long-boned hardness of manhood. It was a warning to his brothers to keep off; and they heeded it. Eilis went walking in the woods with Liam, when she would not go with me. Eilis, most demure at table, could sense when Liam’s dark eyes were fixed on her from across the noisy hall; she looked up shyly, met his gaze for an instant, and blushed becomingly, before her long lashes shielded the blue eyes again. Still I was ignorant, until the night my father rapped the board for silence.
‘My friends! My good neighbours!’
There was a hush amongst the assembled guests; goblets paused half way to waiting lips, and I sensed an air of expectancy, as if everyone knew what Father was going to say, except me.
‘It is good, in these times of trouble, to make merry together, to drink and laugh and share the fruits of our pastures. Soon enough, at full moon, we must venture forward again, this time perhaps to make our shores safe once and for all.’
A few whistles and shouts of acclaim here, but they were clearly waiting for something more. ‘Meanwhile, you are welcome in my hall. It is a long time since such a feast was held here.’
He was grim