She was completely wrong, of course. Darragh and I were old friends, that was all. And Darragh thought I would be a nuisance and get into trouble if he did not play watchdog. Anything else was far too difficult to contemplate. I tied the little kerchief with its blue border over my newly braided hair, and went out to where he waited, with no sign of impatience, while Aoife cropped tranquilly at the grass. It seemed as if Dan and the men and the other lads were already gone. Peg and Molly were organising bigger children to carry younger ones, and making use of a couple of old horses to bear baskets and babies.
Darragh was looking at me with an odd expression, almost as if he were going to laugh.
‘Quite the little travelling girl,’ he remarked. ‘All you need’s a finishing touch, and you’ll blend right in. Here.’ He reached under his jacket and brought out a bundle of silk-soft cloth, neatly folded. As I took it in my hands it flowed out of itself and was revealed as a dazzling shawl of many colours, closely patterned with tiny creatures, delicate and jewel-like, leaf-green lizards, vivid blue birds, golden butterflies and exotic, rainbow fish with fronded tails. The shawl was fringed with long shining tassels, somewhere between gold and silver. It was the most beautiful garment I had ever seen.
‘I can’t wear this,’ I said, staring at it. It seemed fit only for a princess.
‘No?’ said Darragh, and he plucked it out of my hands and put it around my shoulders, tying the ends in front. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I promised not to be late. Not scared to ride a pony, are you?’
‘Of course not!’ I retorted.
‘Well, then.’
With him helping, it wasn’t too hard to scramble up on Aoife’s back. I’d thought I would have to cling on behind him, as his sister had said; but he put me up in front, sitting across like a lady, and held onto me with one arm while the other hand kept a light hold on the reins. It seemed to me, as we went, that Aoife knew what he wanted almost without being told. When there was a fork in the track, Darragh would say a quiet word, and she’d go one way or the other. He’d touch her with his knee, or put a brown hand on her glossy white neck, and she’d understand straight away what he wanted.
‘All right?’ he asked me once or twice, and I nodded. In fact, it was better than all right. It felt like old times; like the days of silent companionship we had shared as children. Those times were lost now. I knew that. But for as long as this ride might take, I could pretend that nothing had changed. I could feel the soft touch of the wonderful shawl with its vibrant pattern of life, enfolding me like a talisman of protection; I could almost believe I was one of the travelling folk, riding to the fair as bold as could be, and behind me, with his arm around my waist, a fine fellow who was the best piper in all of Kerry. Here I was, riding on the whitest and cleverest pony you ever saw, with the wind in my face, and the strange, stark shapes of distant hills on the one side, and the waters of a vast inlet on the other, bordered by a rocky shore, with here and there a little beach and a boat or two drawn up for safekeeping. There were not so many folk about, not now. Perhaps we really were late. Darragh didn’t seem bothered, and Aoife made her way as if she were the only creature of importance on the road anyway. We had passed Peg and Molly and the children, and Darragh’s sister had winked at me.
After a while I said to him, ‘What’s your sister’s name?’
‘Which one?’
‘The one with the red skirt, and a bold sort of way with her. The next one down from you, I think.’
There was a little pause. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’ said Darragh.
I made no reply.
‘They don’t bite, Fainne,’ he said, but there was no reproach in his tone. ‘That’d be Roisin. Been giving you cheek, has she?’
‘Not really.’
‘You need to watch out for her. She’ll say just what she thinks, if she’s a mind to.’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘I’ve noticed.’
‘She’s a good girl, though. They all are.’
All too soon we were there. I had never seen so many people all in the one place, nor heard such a din of voices. There was a sort of order in it, if you looked close enough. The real business was over where the horses were, with little groups of farmers and travelling men and a few with the air of a local lord or a master at arms, checking teeth and inspecting hooves, and conducting intense, private conversations. Nearer at hand, folk were trading for a variety of goods, and chattering, and there was a smell of something good roasting over a little fire, and I could see the covered cart of the Grand Master and his voluble henchman. From a distance, someone called out to Darragh. We came to a halt under a stand of great trees.
‘Well, then,’ he said, and slipped from Aoife’s back, light as a feather. ‘Here we are.’ He lifted me down, and stood there with his hands around my waist. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A smile. That’s a rare treat.’
I reached out to pat Aoife’s well-groomed flank. ‘Not selling her, are you?’ I queried.
‘Her? Not likely. Couldn’t part with her, not now. She’s my luck.’
I nodded. ‘Someone’s calling you,’ I said.
Darragh took his hands away. ‘Not sure I can go,’ he said, frowning. ‘Mam’s not here yet, and I said I’d make certain I found them for you. And up there’s no place for a girl,’ jerking his head towards the horse lines.
Another voice yelled out, ‘Darragh! You’re needed here!’
‘You’d better go,’ I said, with more courage than I felt. ‘I can wait here under the oaks and look out for the others.’
Darragh’s brown eyes regarded me very closely. ‘Sure?’
‘I’m not a child. I think I can be relied on to wait a little and not get lost.’
‘Promise you’ll stay out of trouble.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Promise, or I’ll be obliged to wait here with you.’
‘Darragh!’ This time it was Dan Walker who was calling.
‘This is stupid. All right, I promise.’
‘See you later, then.’ He tweaked the corner of my kerchief, turned on his heel and was gone, with Aoife walking obediently beside him, steady as a rock in the seething, noisy press of the crowd.
I did mean it, when I promised. I really did. But you can’t help who you are, and what you are. Sometimes things happen, and you have to act, you simply cannot stop yourself. That was how it was, that morning at the Cross.
I melted into the shadows under the big trees, wishing I had the power to command invisibility. For now I could stand here unobserved, brilliant-coloured shawl or no, since all attention was on the Grand Master’s cart. It was being opened and unpacked not ten strides away from me, to much craning of necks and ooh-ing and aah-ing from the crowd assembled around it. The lanky assistant was doing most of the work and all the talking, while the Master himself stood there in his tattered apology for a wizard’s cloak, staring down his beak of a nose and doing his best to look haughty and mysterious. There was less magic in that lugubrious fellow, I thought, than I had in my smallest finger. You could see at first glance that he was a fake, and it was astonishing that folk seemed to be taken in by it.
The assistant was a very busy man. Soon the area to each side of the cart was a gaudy array of banners and netting, with many little cages hung on poles, in each of which was a strange creature that might be obtained for a price, to amuse a sweetheart or make a neighbour jealous. I edged a little closer, but it was hard to see without being