“I sent a druid last Lughnas—”
“One? You sent one, out of all who crowd us to the roof here, Connla?”
Connla watched the spectral death lights dance around Meeve’s face. She had lost weight, Connla realized, her skin was jaundiced. She looks just like Mother, in the months before she died. Even the uisce-argoid, the silver-charged water the druids distilled as their most potent remedy, could only slow the disease’s inevitable progress, not cure it. “That’s not fair, Meeve,” Connla said, appalled. “The brothers and sisters are not mine to command—Dalraida’s sent no druids to the mother-groves…there’re few who’re willing to go that far. I had nothing—”
“You have everything to do with it—you’re the Ard-Cailleach, the ArchDruid of all Brynhyvar, are you not? If you’ve nothing to do with it, all those titles mean nothing, too.” With a contemptuous glance over her shoulder, Meeve rose and swept to the window, where the rain spattered on the horn pane. “I won’t leave this land anything less than settled and at peace.”
Feeling slapped, Connla opened her mouth, then shut it. She knew what Meeve implied. One’s status in the Summerlands was dependent upon how well one was regarded by those left behind, and Connla had no doubt Meeve intended to be remembered as the greatest queen who’d ever reigned. Meeve’s strategy had always been simple: she perceived every man in Brynhyvar as a suitor, every warrior a potential knight. No other queen in all of Brynhyvar had ever so identified herself as the love, as the wife, of the Land, and no other in all its history had ever roused such passions, inspired such loyalties and spawned such rivalries.
Great Meeve, she was called, even by her enemies; Red Meeve, for the color of her hair; Glad Meeve, for the bounty of her thighs she spread so willingly; Gold Meeve, for the treasure she dispensed with a generous hand. But Connla had sometimes wondered what would happen when youth and vigor inevitably decayed. “You can’t buy your peace or your place in the Summerlands with druid silver, Meeve.” The dancing lights were back now as Meeve paced to the fire and stood over it, warming her bone-thin hands. Meeve’s face had a ghastly pallor, the color of a day-old corpse. She’s dying quickly, Connla realized. And Meeve was right about Deirdre, who was more than two months overdue. How could whoever was Ard-Cailleach of the grove not have taken matters in hand? Connla had been so concentrated on Meeve and her machinations she’d forgotten her responsibility to her own sisters, her own blood.
An implacable sense of an impending presence filled her, but she shook it off, sure it was merely the sense of Meeve’s approaching death. Meeve would be dead by Imbolc—the energy she usually emanated had diminished alarmingly now that Connla had seen beyond Meeve’s own carefully constructed pretense. There was no point in continuing to antagonize her. She drew a deep breath. “I believe you want to leave the land at peace.”
“Then go do your work, Connla. And leave me to finish mine.”
At the door, Connla paused. There’d been no resolution about the silver. “I’ll expect the inventory of the Hawthorn Grove to match the inventory of that silver in the rolls at Ardagh.”
Meeve cocked her head and pursed her lips. “You know, Connla, one might think you care more about your silver than you do for Deirdre or anything else. I’m starting to think that what people say is true.”
Stung, Connla stiffened and tightened her grip on her staff until her knuckles turned white. “And what do they say, the people? And which people, exactly, do you mean?”
“You need look for them no farther than these wards and halls, sister. They say that the druids care only for their dreams, for the pleasures of the sidhe, that they dally on the Tors while the Land grows cold and the trees die. They say the druids are losing their power. They say the druids are dying out, and as they go, the land dies with it.” Meeve shrugged and arched one brow. “And given that you’ve preferred to stay here and make trouble while there’s reports of blight and rumors of goblins and now my daughter—your own niece—believes her life to be in danger, I wonder if what they say might be true.”
Connla bit back the hard retort that sprang to her lips. Have mercy, she told herself. Have mercy. Meeve’s dying and there’s more at stake than what anyone thinks of druidry. “All right, Meeve. I’ll do as you suggest. Doubtless your dying has had some affect upon the land. You should’ve told me sooner.” She turned to leave and then remembered the other piece of news she’d had that day. “I’ll plan on stopping to see Bran on my way through Pent—”
“Don’t bother—I’ve already sent for him.”
“He’s on his way here?”
“As we speak.” Meeve narrowed her eyes. “I sent Lochlan after him two nights ago. What’s this sudden interest in Bran? He’s none of your concern—he’s not druid.”
“He very well could be. I had a message from Athair Eamus.”
“Oh, come. He’s never shown even the least sign—”
“According to Athair Eamus, Bran appears to be a very strong rogue.”
Meeve stared at Connla, then snorted. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Why should you not believe it?”
“Because Bran was duller than Morla as a baby, if that’s possible. He was happy with his rocks and shells for hours, lining them all up in row after row. He didn’t even start to talk until well after he was weaned. No one’s ever—”
“According to Athair Eamus, he’s showing signs. He’ll be here soon? I’ll wait.”
“Oh, no, you won’t. Let me be clear.” Meeve advanced on her, bright eyes fixed in her flushed face. “I don’t want you here, Connla. I don’t want any of you here. I want you to pack up—all of you—and take yourselves off to Ardagh or TirNa’lugh or wherever you will. The blight, the goblins—these are your province. If you’d do something to ease my passing, you settle this land before I die.”
Connla stared at Meeve, anger surging through her, blinding all vestiges of her druid-sight. Her whole arm twitched a frantic tattoo against her side, and she gritted her teeth, striving for control. “Watch your back, sister,” she blurted before she could stop herself. “Briecru—”
“Oh, enough,” Meeve waved her hand in dismissal, a look of disgust on her face, and before Connla could continue, the door opened and a young page peered in.
“Great Queen? Lord Lochlan’s been spotted on the causeway—at least, we think it’s Lord Lochlan—in this rain it’s hard to see.”
“Lochlan?” said Meeve. “How could that be? Is he alone?” She glanced over her shoulder at Connla. “He must’ve turned back—”
“He’s got someone with him—someone riding one of your own roans.”
Connla limped forward. “Pentland’s a full three days’ ride from here, Meeve—even if he got there by now, they could only have just left. You think it’s only coincidence they arrived here on the edge of a storm?”
For a long moment Meeve stared at her, then turned to the page and said, “Set the watch for my son—Open the gates—have mead and blankets waiting. Tell them to draw hot baths and set fresh clothes warming. Go on now.” When the page had gone, she looked at Connla. “And you, too. I’ll order horses saddled and waiting. As soon as the weather breaks, I want you all on your way.”
In disbelief Connla gripped Meeve’s arm. “I don’t think you understand what you could be dealing with, Meeve. This is all beyond your ken—it’s beyond mine, if that really is Lochlan and Bran. How’d they get here in less than half the time it should’ve taken?”
Meeve stalked past her, and for a moment, Connla thought she might simply walk out of the room without replying. But with her hand on the latch, she