‘We ask for guidance,’ said Finbar. ‘We bear our lights within, and sometimes the path is clear. But often they are dim, and we cannot trust even our own. Spirits of the forest, spirits of the water, ghosts of the air, beings of the deep and secret places, help us in our time of need. For ahead is darkness and confusion.’
His words sent a shiver through me. Had he seen something of our future?
‘I heard a tale once,’ I said, ‘of a hero who came to grief, after long journeys and mighty deeds, when he met a monstrous creature with jaws like iron, and the strength of three giants. The hero was torn limb from limb; and when the monster finished with him, the parts that were left were strewn far and wide. So he had a shin bone that lay in a deep cave where water dripped constantly down the walls; and his hair was blown by the east wind till it tangled in a hazel tree in a far off corner of the land. His skull was used as a drinking bowl for a time, then abandoned in a stream, which bore it to the very shores of the western sea. A wild dog carried off his little finger bones to feed its young. And after a time, there seemed to be nothing left of him. Years went by, and tiny pale toadstools grew where his leg bone lay, and the leaves of the hazel grew around his bright hair. On the sea’s rim, his skull filled with soil, and in it sprouted and flourished the seeds of wild parsley; and through his finger bones, where the pups had left them white and clean, grew spears of crocus. And they say, if ever a traveller plucks the wild parsley, and takes the bark of the hazel tree, and the secret toadstools, and mixes them with crocus from the patch of forest where the hero’s last bones lie, a powerful spell will come to life. The hero will be reborn, not as he was before his destruction, but many times stronger in body and spirit; for he will be filled with the strength of earth, sea and air. I think of the seven of us as the parts of one body. We may be torn asunder, and it may seem as if there is no tomorrow for us. We may each travel our own path, and we may fall and be broken and mend again. But in the end, as surely as the sun and moon make their way across the arch of the heavens, the strength of one is the strength of seven. Don’t forget what our mother said, as she lay dying. We must touch the earth, we must look into the sky and feel the wind. Like pools in the same stream, we must meet and part and meet again. We belong to the flow of the lake and to the deep beating heart of the forest.’
The candles were lower now, and we fell into silence. It was a time of year when spirits were very close, for it was less than two moons to midwinter day, and I could almost catch small voices in the shadows around us. Padriac had not spoken again, but he placed his hand on Cormack’s shoulder briefly, and Cormack nodded. And Conor said to his twin, very quietly, ‘I’ll come back over to the barn with you, for a while.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cormack.
Finbar stayed behind when all the rest had gone. He sat staring into the fire. The mood was sombre. Despite our brave words, we were looking into an abyss.
‘What are you thinking, Finbar?’
‘Something I cannot share.’
I moved closer to the fire, thrusting my hands into my pockets for warmth. The smooth surface of Simon’s carving fitted exactly into my palm.
Tell me. Tell me what you see.
I tried to look into his mind, but there was a barrier there, a dark wall around his thoughts.
I cannot share this. I will not frighten you.
I caught an image of myself as a small child running barefoot through the forest in dappled sunlight.
Are you afraid?
A feeling of intense cold. Water. The whistling of air past the body, the strangest sensation of falling, flight, falling. That much he revealed to me. Then he shut it off abruptly. I cannot share this with you.
‘You cannot close yourself off from the whole world,’ I said aloud, exhausted already from the attempt to break into his mind pictures. ‘How can we help one another, if we have secrets?’
‘Sharing my last secret didn’t help you much,’ he said flatly. ‘Or the Briton. I wonder now how much my efforts to undo my father’s work were worth. You were hurt, and the boy – his fate was little better for my interference. Perhaps I should cease meddling. Perhaps I should accept that our kind are all killers under the skin. If the lady Oonagh wants us as playthings, what’s the real difference?’ He gave a crooked smile.
‘You don’t really believe that, Finbar!’ I was shocked; could he have changed so quickly? ‘Look me in the eye and say it again.’ I took his face between my hands quite firmly. And when I met his gaze, his eyes were as clear and far-seeing as ever.
‘It’s all right, Sorcha,’ he said gently. ‘I have been thinking hard, that’s all. I have not changed my tune so much. But my mind tells me there is a great ill about to befall us; and I wonder if our strength is enough to withstand it. I wish you were safe somewhere, not here in the middle of it all. And I need to rely on my brothers; I must be able to trust them, all of them.’
‘You can trust them,’ I said. ‘You heard what they said. We are all of a mind, and we always will be. Whenever one is in trouble, there will be six to help.’
‘Their business is torture and death. How can they be of a mind with you, or with Conor, or myself?’
‘I can’t answer that. Only – only that, if you believe the tales, it’s in the nature of our people to go to war and to kill, just as it is to sing and play and tell stories. Perhaps they are two halves of the same whole. I know that we seven are of the one family, and that we only have each other. It has to be enough.’
But there had been one brother missing; and when I opened the door for Finbar to go, we saw him, down the long hallway, as he slipped silently from a bedchamber that was not his own. She was concealed behind the door where she stood to bid him farewell, but we saw her white arm stretch out, and her fingers move softly down his cheek, and then Diarmid padded barefoot away, his face as dazzled and unseeing as some lad bewitched by faery folk. Finbar looked at me, and I looked at him; but we never said a word.
So they were married, she in her long gown of deepest russet, and my father looking at her as if there was not a soul in the world but the two of them, while all around them the family, the guests, the men of the garrison, the servants and cottagers muttered and exchanged sideways glances. I stood there in my green gown with my hair in ribbons, and by me my six brothers in a line. It did not seem to me a proper ceremony at all. In the tales, such things were done in the open, under a massive oak, and there would be play acting and mock fighting and riddles, and the druids would come out of the forest to perform the ritual of handfasting. There were none of the ancient ones at my father’s wedding, and no concession to the old ways. Perhaps the lady Oonagh came from a Christian household, but there was no way of telling, for none of her folk were there. Father Brien spoke the words tranquilly, as was his way, but it seemed to me his face was drawn, and his tone remote. As soon as the formalities were over, he packed his cart and left. A feast followed, with a laden board and flowing ale. And the next day things began to happen.
Eilis was taken ill, something she ate, they thought, but it went on too long, and I was called to her. Her face had lost its rosy plumpness, and she was purging and bringing up blood. I sent a boy for Father Brien, but he did not come, so I held her head and talked to her, and walked her up and down the room, and when she was done I made up a mixture for her, and sat by her bedside until she dropped into a fitful doze. Liam hovered outside, and so did Eilis’ father, muttering under his breath.
I stayed with her through the night, and did what I had to. The next day she was weak but seemed a little brighter. She needed rest, and careful nursing. It was something she ate, sure enough. I recognised the symptoms of monkshood poisoning, and I knew it was no accident. The amount must have been precisely calculated, for a person could survive only the very smallest dose of this lethal substance. The intent was mischief, not murder. I could not tell how the root of this herb had made its way into the wedding banquet, and so specifically onto one person’s platter. And I was not about to accuse my new stepmother aloud, though her eyes were on me as Seamus Redbeard took his hasty farewells.