I tamped down my anger at Duald for bringing the situation about. I set aside my ill will toward my mother and my dread of tonight’s public appearance. I kept my breathing slow, my voice even and quiet. I did my best to hold Swift’s eye. I kept on talking to him. And eventually, as so often before, a time came when he was no longer frightened, but had begun to play a game with us:
Will I give in yet, or will I test them further? Which way will I jump, left or right? Run a little or stand still?
“Calm now, lovely boy,” I murmured, moving in close as he came to a quivering halt, breathing hard. I laid the soft back of my
hand against his sweat-dewed coat. “Kind hands and quiet.” I stroked his neck, all the while speaking to him. Swift stood still, though the warning wildness was not quite gone from his eye. I laid my brow against his neck. He shifted his feet but made no attempt to bolt.
Emrys did not take hold of the leading rope right away, but waited for my word, as was our practice. When I judged it was safe, I murmured, “Now.” Emrys took the rope as casually as if nothing at all had happened, and Swift allowed himself to be led off to the comforting shadow of the stable building.
“Back to work, then!” Duald snapped at the grooms. They dispersed in a flash. The stable master turned to me, where I stood in the middle of the circle. I felt as if I had run a race. “You took a big risk, Lady Maeve,” Duald observed. “In my book, an unacceptable risk.”
I hardly had the strength to challenge him, but it was necessary to do so straightaway. “It was too soon to bring him out,” I said. “I know you are in charge here, Duald, but this is not just any horse. As you can see, his temperament is volatile. He’s always responded better to kindness than to strict discipline.”
“What you did was remarkable, no doubt of that.” I could see no trace of apology on his face, and I wondered whether I had lost any chance of having him listen. A man does not like to be shown up in front of his underlings. “But the creature’s at Sevenwaters now, in my stables, and I’ll be handling him my way. If he’s going on to Tirconnell, he needs to learn some manners in a hurry. You can’t coddle a horse of such wayward temper, Lady Maeve, or he’ll always think he’s in charge, and such an animal isn’t safe to keep in a man’s stables. Cruinn of Tirconnell knows his horses. Your father won’t be wanting to give Cruinn a flawed gift.”
I opened my mouth to deliver a withering retort, then caught the interested eye of the tutor, Luachan, across the barrier and thought better of it. “I’m sure you are entirely expert in these matters, Duald,” I said. “I did have a conversation with my father about the yearling earlier this morning. He concurred with my suggestion that it might be best for Swift to be kept quiet for a few
days, and then to be pastured awhile on his own, away from the keep. What you say about Cruinn is undoubtedly true. But there’s more than one way to win the trust of a difficult horse. With this particular animal, kindness does seem to work best.”
Duald looked at me in silence for a few moments. “A few days, maybe. Then we’ll see. Hope you didn’t tear your gown getting over the fence, my lady. There is a gate on this side, you know.”
“There was no time for gates,” I said. “I’ll remind my father to discuss the matter with you, Duald.” I was tempted to add that I would give Father a full report of this morning’s happenings, but I needed to win Duald’s trust, not annoy him further, so I held my tongue.
“Where did you learn to do that?” the stable master asked as we moved toward the gate. “To calm a creature with just your voice? The only time I’ve ever seen that done before, it was by one of Dan Walker’s traveling folk. And they’re a breed apart where horses are concerned.”
“I don’t know. It’s just something I can do.”
He moved to open the gate for me, but there was Luachan, smiling all over his handsome face, unlatching it and holding it for me to come through, and there was Finbar, fixing his unnervingly intense eyes on me as I approached.
“Could you do that with a bull? A frog? A wild boar?”
I smiled at my little brother. “I’ve never tried. I expect a truly wild creature would be much harder to reach. I suppose it might work with a bull, if you started when it was young. But I only use it when I really need to.”
“Swift was frightened. He wanted to go home.”
I knew better than to ask him how he knew this. “He doesn’t like change,” I said. “It’s hard to leave everything that’s familiar.” It was all too easy for me to understand Swift’s longing for his world to go back to the way it had been. “I hope I will be able to spend a lot of time with him, helping him to settle down.”
“We were heading out for a walk in the forest,” Luachan said in courteous tones. “Would it please you to walk with us, Lady Maeve?”
I was finding Lady Maeve something of a stranger. “You may call me Maeve. Yes, I’d like a walk.” Anything rather than go back and be cooped up indoors. I should let Rhian know where I was going. But the green shade of the forest called me, and I could not face returning to the sewing room to find her. As to whether it was quite proper for me to go off on my own in company with a young man, it could be argued that a druid was a safe companion. And Finbar might be viewed as a chaperone.
“I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying to Duald.” Luachan fell into step beside me as we headed down toward the lake. “There are walled grazing fields close to the nemetons, housing cows, goats, a flock of geese. The creatures supply the druid community with milk and eggs. It’s very quiet there. An ideal spot, one might think, for an animal needing time to come to terms with its life being turned upside down. Not that I can claim any expertise in the management of horses.”
“There needs to be someone to watch over Swift,” I said, weighing my words carefully. If Luachan had been employed partly as a bodyguard for Finbar, he must know about the Disappearance. “Father has his guard posts on the borders, of course, and the forest looks after its own. But this horse is particularly valuable, and…”
Luachan looked at me sideways. “You fear the creature may spark the interest of a malevolent party already dwelling within this forest? That is possible, of course. But if I were wanting to house a precious item in the place least likely to attract such interference, the place I described is the one I would choose. We are not mages, of course, only druids. But the hand of Danu stretches over us and our modest dwellings. The goddess no doubt extends her protection to every creature within our place of prayer.”
Clearly he understood the situation with Mac Dara. I wanted to question him, but I would not venture into such dark matters in Finbar’s hearing. “That could be a good arrangement for Swift,” I said. “But only if someone can stay nearby and watch over him. And I don’t suppose your druid brethren have time for that.”
Luachan grinned. “Too busy with meditation and prayer, you
mean? In fact, some must milk the cows and goats, collect the eggs, shut in the chickens at night. And even druids eat, sleep and occasionally wash themselves and their garments. Our lives are not spent entirely in memorizing passages of lore or conducting scholarly argument.”
“Really?” I said as we reached the lakeside track and proceeded westward. “From what I remember of my years at Sevenwaters, that was more or less exactly what druids did.”
“Ah,” said Luachan. “But when you left here you were a child of—what—seven? Your understanding was not what it is now, I imagine, unless you were unusually perceptive for your age.” He glanced at Finbar, who was not running ahead or dawdling to poke sticks into interesting holes or skip stones across the water, but walking quietly along beside us.
“I was ten,” I said. “And I don’t suppose I was any more perceptive than most children are at that age. Whatever is usual for a druid, I suspect you have stepped far outside its borders, Luachan. Do you live in the keep all the time now you are teaching Finbar?”
He smiled again, perhaps realizing I had deliberately turned the conversation away from myself. “I go between your father’s house and the nemetons. A few days with Finbar, a day or two of prayer. While at the keep I assist Lord Sean with his letters and documents. I learned to read and write both Latin and Irish as a boy and I am teaching your brother the same skills.”
My brother’s silence was starting to unnerve me a little. “Perhaps you, too, are headed for the druidic life, Finbar,” I said lightly.
He turned his big eyes on me. “I’m the only son,” he pointed out. “I can’t be a druid.”
I had spoken without thinking, and I regretted it. I knew the arrangement. Johnny, eldest son of Bran and Liadan and leader of warriors, was my father’s heir. Finbar would be Johnny’s heir when the time came. There were several reasons for this line of succession to the chieftaincy, one of which was that Finbar had been born relatively late in my parents’ lives. It was possible my father might die before his only son was a grown man. I had not until now considered that being chieftain of Sevenwaters, with the
heavy weight of responsibility that role carried, might not suit Finbar at all. He looked such a frail child, shadowy and insubstantial, as if he bore a load too heavy for such small shoulders.
“Do you know how to skip stones across the water, Finbar?” I asked.
He looked at me as if I had said something silly. “That’s for little children.”
“Oh, big ones, too,” I said calmly. “There’s no rule that says you have to stop having fun when you turn six or seven, you know. My sisters and I used to compete to see who could get the longest distance or the most skips. Clodagh usually won, but I was second best.”
“Show me.”
A little pause; Luachan did not step in to help me. “I can’t do it anymore, Finbar,” I said. “You’ll have to skip them for me, and Luachan can be your competition. Let’s see if we can find some good stones. Flat ones go best. Not too heavy and not too light. About the weight of a small egg.”
“You’ll get your shoes wet,” observed the druid as I moved off the track onto the pebbly shore and crouched down to hunt for the perfect stone.
“You’re afraid of wet feet?” I challenged. “Or concerned that a seven-year-old might beat you?”
In a moment he was hunkered down beside me, finding his own stone. “Best of three,” he muttered. “Believe it or not, I used to be good at this.”
Finbar took a long time selecting his three perfect stones. It seemed to me he chose as much for color and pattern as for anything. Each of them he brought to me and made me lay it on my palm to feel the weight and to give it my approval. The one I judged too heavy was laid carefully back in the spot where he had found it and replaced by another of the same dove gray.
“Ready?” asked Luachan, who was standing by the water’s edge—his sandals were indeed wet, as was the hem of his robe—with his stones in his hand. “Maeve, I rely on you to be an impartial judge.”
“Finbar should have a few practice throws before you start.”
“That’s all right,” said my brother, his tone all calm composure.
The druid gazed out over the shining waters of the lake, weighed his first stone in his hand, drew back his arm and flicked the stone expertly across the surface. It was impossible not to see what a fine stance he had, what economy and power of movement. If I had not been told already that he was something of a warrior, I thought I might have guessed in those few moments. The stone skipped across the lake surface, once, twice, five times before it sank.
“My turn now.” Finbar did as I would have done, squatting down to throw. In view of the lack of rehearsal, I expected his missile to bounce once if he was lucky. He drew back his hand, and with an economical movement of the wrist released the stone. It hardly seemed like a throw, but the stone danced over the water, bouncing four times, then vanishing like a diving bird.
“Remarkably good for a first attempt,” I said. Clearly, no concessions were required. “Luachan wins the first round. Ready for the next? You should go first this time, Finbar; that’s fair.”
In the second round Finbar’s stone bounced six times, Luachan’s five again.
“Third and deciding round,” I said.
“No more.” Finbar’s small voice was firm. “It’s time to walk on now.”
“Are you sure?” He had surprised me again. Was this game too simple for him?
“Yes. Thank you for showing me, Maeve.” Solemn as a little owl.
“That’s all right. I know a lot of games. But it’s a while since I played most of them.”
We walked on, my shoes and Luachan’s sandals squelching as we went.
“Did you play games with Bounder?” Finbar asked.
A silence drew out, punctuated by our footsteps on the pathway and the gushing of a nearby stream. What to answer? The easy lie: no. The bare truth: yes. Or the difficult answer the question
deserved?
Come on, Maeve. I thought you prided yourself on honesty.
“I remember Doran making me a ball out of hide strips,” I made myself say. “Bounder liked chasing it, but he wasn’t so keen on bringing it back. And he loved a good tug-of-war.” Ten years, and it still hurt to talk about him.
“Teafa had puppies not long ago,” Finbar said. “Three of them. You could keep one if you liked.”
“Father already offered and I said no.” It came out too sharply. This wasn’t Finbar’s fault. “What about you? Don’t you want a dog of your own?”
He shook his head solemnly. “The chieftain of Sevenwaters always has a pair of wolfhounds. Father told me. But that’s not for a long time yet. If I got a dog now it might die before I needed it.”
He had shocked me again. “But you might want one, just because it’s lovely to have a dog for a friend and companion. That’s why Father has Broccan and Teafa, I’m sure, not because it’s…expected.”
“If it’s lovely,” Finbar said, “why don’t you want a puppy?”
“Enough, Finbar.” Luachan had not contributed to this conversation, but now his tone conveyed an order. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, glancing at me.
I felt somewhat annoyed that he thought to protect me from my brother’s piercing honesty. “It’s all right, Finbar,” I said. “It’s because I miss Bounder too much. He can’t ever be replaced.” And since I had gone so far, I might as well give him all of it. “Besides, after what happened that night, the night I lost him, I don’t think I can trust myself to look after another dog. I’d always be worried that I might do it again. Or something like it.”