‘What about the other one? Johnny, is that his name?’
‘Johnny’s different.’ Clodagh’s voice had softened. ‘He’s here a lot, learning about Sevenwaters, all the people’s names, and how to run the farms, and all about the alliances and the defences and the campaigns.’
‘Johnny’s a good rider,’ put in Maeve.
‘What would you expect?’ Clodagh said with no little scorn. ‘Look at the way he was brought up, amongst the best fighters in all of Ulster. He’s a real warrior, and a great leader, even if he is only young.’
‘So, he is a fearsome, wild sort of man?’ I queried.
‘Oh, no.’ Maeve stared at me, brows raised. ‘He’s lovely.’
‘So lovely,’ added Clodagh, grinning, ‘it’s amazing he isn’t wed already. Some day soon he’ll turn up with a beautiful, high-born wife, I expect.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ grumbled Deirdre.
‘I do so,’ retorted Clodagh.
‘Do not!’
‘Is it true what they say,’ I ventured, ‘that this Johnny is the child of the old prophecy? Do you know about that?’
‘Everyone knows that story,’ sniffed Maeve, who was plaiting Riona’s yellow hair into an elaborate coronet.
‘Well, is it true?’
The twins turned their small faces towards me.
‘Oh, yes,’ they said in chorus, and Deirdre gave a sigh. I did not think I could ask more, without seeming unduly inquisitive. I kept silent, and after a while they grew bored with me, and went off to bother someone else.
So, there was Uncle Sean and his girls, and Aunt Liadan and her boys. A much-beloved grandfather had died recently and been laid to rest under the oaks. And there was Conor. The druids dwelt deep in a secret part of the forest, as is the habit of the wise ones. But Conor was part of the Council, and therefore remained at Sevenwaters while the discussions proceeded behind closed doors. Indeed, he was the most senior member of the family, and much deferred to. And there was another uncle, Aunt Aisling’s brother. Him I met on the very first day, by chance, as I walked down the stairs with Muirrin on my way to supper and passed him coming up. I’d have thought nothing of this well-built, richly dressed man of middle years, pleasant featured, brown haired, but for the way he suddenly froze when he set eyes on me, and turned white as chalk.
‘Uncle Eamonn,’ said Muirrin as if nothing at all were amiss, ‘this is my cousin Fainne. Niamh’s daughter. From Kerry.’ A well-rehearsed statement, which said just enough, and invited no awkward questions.
The man opened his mouth and shut it again. Expressions warred on his features: shock; anger; offence; and, with a visible effort, polite welcome.
‘How are you, Fainne? I’m sure Muirrin is helping you settle in here. This visit was – unexpected?’
‘Father went out to meet Fainne this morning,’ Muirrin said smoothly. ‘She’ll be staying here awhile.’
‘I see.’ Behind the now well-controlled features, I could tell his mind was working very quickly indeed, as if putting the pieces of a puzzle together with speed and purpose. I did not much like the look of this.
‘We’d best go down now. We’ll see you at supper, Uncle Eamonn.’
‘I expect you will, Muirrin.’
That was all; but there were more than a few times after that when I saw this man watching me, at the table when other folk were engaged in talk, or across the hall when people gathered in the evening, or in the gardens walking. He was influential, I could tell that from the way the men of the alliance seemed to defer to him. Muirrin told me he was master of a huge estate, two really, that curled right around the east and north of Sevenwaters. He had acquired Glencarnagh as well as Sídhe Dubh, and that meant he controlled more men and more land than Sean did. All the same, he was family and therefore no threat. But he watched me, until I grew annoyed and began watching him back. I had no doubt what my grandmother would think of this man. She would say, power is everything, Fainne.
Time passed, and Dan Walker and his folk moved on. I had scarcely seen them, for I was caught up, despite myself, in the daily routine of the family, and when I was not needed I fled to my chamber or out into the garden for precious time alone. It began to be clear to me why the druids chose to remain so isolated, emerging only at the times of the great festivals, or to perform a hand fasting or a harvest blessing. To keep the lore in your mind, to tap into your inner strengths and maintain your focus required silence and solitude, for them as for us. For a druid it required also the company of trees, for trees are powerful symbols in the learning of the wise ones. In a landscape almost devoid of trees, I had learned their names and forms before I was five years old. Sean had questioned my father’s wisdom in choosing to live in Kerry, so remote, so far from Sevenwaters. To me, it became ever plainer that my father had known exactly what he was doing. Perhaps, at first, he went away in order to protect my mother. But I recalled those long years of study, of silent meditation, of self-imposed privation, and I knew that if we had not dwelt there in the Honeycomb, near encircled by wild sea, canopied by rain-washed sky, watched over by the cryptic forms of the standing stones, I would never have become what I was. He had sought simply to pass on what he knew, to provide his only child with some sort of calling so she might make her way in the world. The irony of it was that he had forged a weapon like a true master; his mother’s weapon. Perhaps he had never really escaped the legacy she left him, for in this had he not done exactly as she wished?
Despite my longing for home, I grew slowly more accustomed to the pattern of life at Sevenwaters, and it became harder and harder to remember why I was here. The memory of Grandmother’s threats seemed almost like a fantasy of the mind. Distractions were many. At times I looked at the bustling domestic scene around me, and thought of the magnitude of the task I had been set, and said to myself, this cannot be true. These things cannot exist together in the same world. Maybe I am dreaming. Let me be dreaming.
Aunt Aisling, busy as she was, had no intention of letting me disappear to do as I wished. I would help Muirrin with her healing work; I would assist Deirdre and Clodagh with their reading and writing, as it appeared I was very capable at both, and the girls’ education had been somewhat neglected recently, since everyone was so occupied. I could supervise the little ones at sewing, since I was apt at that too. I should learn to ride, properly, for one never knew when one might have to depart in a hurry. And I needed new clothes. I wondered what Aunt Aisling thought I would get up to if she did not organise every single moment of my day.
Muirrin helped. Often, when I was despatched to assist her in the stillroom or walk with her on some errand of mercy, she would look at me with her wide green eyes, and tell me I might as well sit in the garden and have some peace and quiet, while she got on with things. Then she would work at her mixing and blending, her drying and preserving, sometimes alone and sometimes assisted by small Sibeal, an earnest, silent child. And I would sit on the stone bench in the herb garden, wrapped in my everyday shawl, for I had folded Darragh’s gift neatly and laid it away in the very bottom of the wooden chest, safe from prying eyes and eager little hands. I would sit there alone in the chill of late autumn, and run the litany through my mind. I could almost hear my father’s voice.
Whence came you?
From the Cauldron of Unknowing.
So it unfolded, longer than the day, longer than the season, greater than the cycle of the year, as old as the pattern of all existences. And sometimes, as I let the familiar recital of lore unfold, I would play with things just a little, scarcely conscious of what I did. There might be a subtle change in the manner in which the moss grew over the ancient stones. There might be more bees clustering