It took time. It took courage as well. There were so many people, and so much noise, and apart from Muirrin nobody seemed to understand how much I hated that. It made my stomach clench tight and my head ache and my fingers long to make some mischief of their own. But I did not use the craft. Instead I watched and listened, and soon enough, with an application which was second nature to me after years of Father’s tutelage, I learned the intricacies of the family and their allies.
There were the folk of this household, the keep of Sevenwaters, which was the centre of my uncle Sean’s vast túath. Him I could tolerate. Sometimes he seemed a little distant, but when he spoke to me it was as to an equal, and he took the time to explain things. I never saw him being less than fair to any of his household. I was forced to remind myself that it had been he, amongst others, who had banished my mother from her home. It did not seem to me that Uncle Sean would be dangerous, except maybe on the field of battle, or in a debate of strategy. Then there was Aunt Aisling. Just watching her made me tired. She was perpetually busy, supervising every aspect of the household with a whirlwind energy that totally consumed her day. As a result, the place moved with a seamless efficiency. I wondered if she was ever happy. I wondered why you would have so many children when you scarcely had time to bid them good morning before you were off again to attend to some more pressing business.
This keep had once been the only major settlement in the forest of Sevenwaters. But now there were others, established by my uncle and tenanted by his free clients, whose own bands of armed men he could call upon in time of need. Thus the túath had been made less vulnerable, with strong outposts serving as a reminder, should powerful neighbours think to stretch out a hand a little further than was appropriate. These free clients were part of the Council, as were the richly clad leaders of the Uí Néill in their tunics blazoned with the scarlet symbol of the coiled snake. In the household of Sevenwaters there was a brithem and a scribe and a poet. There was a master at arms and a fletcher and several blacksmiths. But it was others, unseen others, who intrigued me more.
Aunt Liadan was my mother’s sister, and Sean’s twin. My father had said she lived at Harrowfield. I had not realised how far away that was. Strangely, she dwelt in Britain amongst the enemies of Sevenwaters, for her husband was now master of an estate in Northumbria which had once belonged to her father. When they were not living there they were at Inis Eala, some remote place far north, surely so distant it was hardly worth thinking of. But when my uncle Sean spoke of his sister it was as if she lived as close as a skip and a jump across the fields. Conor talked of her as of an old and respected friend. I tried to remember what my grandmother had told me. I thought she’d said something about wishing Ciarán had chosen the other sister, because their child would have been cleverer, or more skilful. It had not been the most tactful of remarks to make to me. But that was Grandmother for you.
Liadan and her husband had sons. I started to learn about them not long after my arrival. For all my efforts to retreat to my room for some time alone, to shrug off the Glamour for a little, or to repeat in peace the secret incantations of the craft, I had not been able to avoid a regular influx of small, curious visitors. As Muirrin had predicted, I soon learned to distinguish them, for all their matching mops of red hair and lively freckled faces. Sibeal was the odd one out; dark, like her eldest sister, and quiet. And she had very strange eyes, clear, colourless eyes that seemed to look beyond the surface of things. Eilis was very small, and very mischievous. You had to watch her. Maeve was in the middle, and had a dog that followed her everywhere like a devoted slave. And Deirdre and Clodagh were twins. When they grew a little older, it would be just like having two more of my aunt Aisling running around making sure everything in the household was perfect. I began to understand soon enough why Muirrin spent a great deal of her time in the stillroom working, or down at the cottages tending to the sick.
On this particular day I had the twins in my room, seated one on each bed, and Maeve as well, with the dog. The dog, at least, was quiet, though its huge bulk blocked the little fire’s heat from reaching the rest of us.
‘Is this your doll? Can I hold her?’ Maeve had queried immediately on coming in, and had picked Riona up before I could answer. Nasty things could happen to little girls who annoyed me. They could prick their fingers on a concealed pin. They could find their dogs didn’t like them any more. Or they might discover that same dog suddenly gone, and nothing but an ant or a cockroach in its place. With some difficulty, I restrained myself.
‘Did your mother make it?’ asked Clodagh. Deirdre glared at her.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘What’s her name?’ queried Maeve, inspecting Riona’s rose-pink skirt, and screwing up her nose at the strangely woven necklace.
‘Riona.’
‘Muirrin made me a doll once. But it’s not as nice as this one. Can I play with her?’
‘She’s not for playing with,’ I said, and I went over and took Riona out of the child’s arms. I placed her carefully back where she belonged, gazing out of the window, down to the margin of the forest.
‘Baby,’ said Deirdre, making a face at Maeve.
‘I am not a baby! Eilis is a baby. Coll’s a baby. I’m ten years old. I’m grown up.’
Deirdre lifted her brows and grimaced.
Maeve burst into tears. ‘I am! I am! I am, aren’t I, Fainne?’
Bad things could happen to girls who made their little sisters cry for nothing. My fingers were itching to work a spell; it had been a while. I exercised control. The craft must be conserved for my true purpose here.
‘You can play with Riona, if you like,’ I said magnanimously.
‘Don’t want to now,’ pouted Maeve, but she took Riona down again, and sat there hiccuping with the doll in her arms.
‘Here,’ I said, handing her my hairbrush. ‘She could do with a tidy-up.’ I turned to the older girls. ‘Who’s Coll?’ I enquired.
‘Our cousin.’ Clodagh liked to explain things; enjoyed sharing her grasp of affairs. ‘That makes him your cousin too, I suppose.’
‘Aunt Liadan’s son?’
‘One of them. She’s got heaps.’
‘Four, actually,’ put in Deirdre. ‘Coll’s the smallest one.’
‘There’s Cormack, he’s fourteen and thinks he’s quite a warrior. There’s Fintan, but we don’t see him, he stays at Harrowfield. And there’s Johnny.’ This name was spoken in a very special tone, as if referring to a god.
‘I’m going to marry Johnny when I’m old enough,’ said Deirdre in tones of great assurance.
Her twin glanced at her with a wry expression. ‘No, you’re not,’ said Clodagh.
‘I am so!’ Deirdre looked as if she were about to explode.
‘No, you’re not,’ repeated her twin firmly. ‘You can’t marry your first cousin, or your nephew, or your uncle. Janis told me.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Deirdre.
‘Your children would be cursed, that’s why not. They’d be born with three eyes, or ears like a hare, or crooked feet or something. Everyone knows that.’
‘What’s wrong, Fainne?’ asked Maeve suddenly, looking up at me. ‘You’ve gone all white.’
‘Nothing,’ I said as cheerfully as I could, though Clodagh’s words had set a chill on my heart. ‘Tell me. These boys, these cousins. Don’t they live rather a long way away? But you seem to know them quite well.’
‘We see them sometimes. Not Fintan; he’s the