I ventured out, knowing it was late and questions would be asked if I did not appear for a second day in a row. I was tired and cold and covered with bruises. I did not look as a girl should look who had been resting for a whole day and night. A little pallor was one thing; the appearance of complete exhaustion quite another. At least I was tidy. And I would not use the Glamour. If I must do this, I would do it as myself.
I was lucky. The girls were nowhere to be seen, and I found Eamonn alone, frowning over documents in very small script as he sat in an antechamber where tall narrow windows caught the cold sunlight of this winter morning. I stood in the doorway watching, thinking his face seemed worn and lined in the unforgiving light, noting his brown hair was touched with gray at the temples, reminding myself that I must learn that people were pieces in a game, no more, no less. I made no sound, but suddenly he was aware of me and sprang to his feet, almost as if on guard against an enemy.
“Good morning,” I said politely. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“Not at all.” He recovered quickly, coming forward to guide me to a bench by the small fire. It was deathly cold; the tapestries stirred in the draft. I could not suppress a shiver.
“Come, sit here,” said Eamonn. “You’re still not well. Have you eaten?”
I shook my head, and immediately a serving woman was summoned and dispatched, and bread and cold fowl and an ale jug were brought on a tray and set by my side. The woman was dismissed. The door was closed.
“Please,” I said, “I have disturbed you at your work. Please go on. Ignore me. I will be quiet. Or, if you wish, I can take this elsewhere. I did not intend—”
Eamonn gave a grim little smile. “Not at all. I’m making slow progress with this; the task is not to my liking, and I cannot concentrate today. The interruption is welcome. Besides, I was just about to send a woman along to see how you were. Here, let me pour this for you.”
I waited silently while he did so, thinking of Darragh’s fingers warm around my own, remembering him feeding me like a child.
“There,” said Eamonn. “I’ve been concerned, Fainne. We did not have the pleasure of your company yesterday.”
“As you see, I’m quite well now.” I sipped the ale and crumbled the bread between my fingers.
“I—” Eamonn was unusually hesitant. “I did wonder if your indisposition was a result of—I thought perhaps I had offended you, distressed you. My behavior was not altogether appropriate, I realize that.”
I looked up at him.
“It was not so much your behavior as—it was what you said. I was—I was somewhat upset, it’s true. But as you see, I am recovered now.”
“Then I did offend you. I regret that.” He sounded sincere enough. He had seated himself on the bench opposite and was scrutinizing me closely. I sipped the ale. In fact I was quite hungry, for the oaten porridge had not gone far, but a hearty appetite was at odds with the picture I wished to create. I left the bread.
“We must discuss this,” said Eamonn, his tone less than enthusiastic. “Still, I scarcely know where to begin.”
I glanced up at him. He looked like a man who had gone without sleep, and I sensed the scrolls strewn on the table were the least of his worries. “You mentioned compromise,” I reminded him. “I believe that’s possible between us. But we won’t speak of it this morning. I am still weary, and you appear somewhat distracted. If I might make a suggestion?”
“By all means.”
“Perhaps I might remain here quietly for a while. No need to speak of what occurred between us. I have some needlework with me; I will eat and drink, and occupy myself with that, for the light is good in this chamber, and I wish for no company but yours this morning. You can get on with your work, as if I were not here. Later, after supper perhaps, we might speak of other matters.”
For a few moments he stared at me in silence. Then he said, “There was a fellow here asking for you yesterday. Rough sort of man. Rode straight in demanding to see you, and reluctant to take no for an answer.” He was frowning. I exerted the utmost control over my features, and kept my voice calm.
“Really?”
“Fine pony he had with him, too good a piece of horseflesh for such riffraff. Pure white. Fellow said he knew you, from Kerry.”
“It would be one of the traveling folk, I suppose. They brought me north to Sevenwaters.”
“Unusual arrangement,” Eamonn said, scowling.
“Maybe. But safer, in its way, for a girl traveling alone than a more obvious escort. Folk let the travelers by unhindered. This man is related to a woman in my uncle Sean’s household. That is all.”
“And what is this fellow to you, Fainne? He was very persistent. Foolishly so. He seemed slow to understand, when I ordered him off my land. What’s he to you?”
And all of a sudden there was a note in his voice, and a look in his eye, that made me very uncomfortable indeed. I remembered that this was the man who had nurtured his jealous resentment for eighteen years or more. This was the man who had said, A man who takes what is mine, pays in kind. I did not like that look, but my grandmother’s voice was saying, Yes, oh yes. Play on that.
I attempted a sweetly dismissive laugh. “Him? Nothing at all. They’re good folk, but simple. They’ve a habit of dropping in, asking after the welfare of a friend, riding away again. It means little.”
“Friend? Surely a lady would not be classed as friend by such as this, a tinker’s boy, no more?”
“There’s no harm in it,” I said, offhand. “Besides, I am not so much of a lady. You recognize that yourself, do not deny it. A man in your position could not consider such a girl as a wife, after all. A girl whose parentage is, at the very least, irregular. A girl brought up in isolation, knowing more of books and learning than the ways of a fine household.”
“Fainne—”
“Ah. I broke my own rules. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You’ll sit down and continue deciphering that very small script. I’ll eat what you have kindly provided for me, and get on with my sewing. And we won’t talk. Not until later. Agreed?”
Eamonn gave a wry smile, and retreated to his seat by the table.
“Somehow,” he observed, “I feel I am not being consulted here so much as instructed.”
“This is not pleasing to you?” I inquired, my brows raised in imitation of my grandmother’s style.
“I didn’t say that.”
I finished my breakfast and applied myself to needle and thread. It was just as well my grandmother had taught me how to sew. Perhaps the quality of my stitchery might not have satisfied her, but at least I was able to make a suitable picture of domestic competence. And the light was good. This man had spoken of white skin and red hair as if both pleased him well. I sat exactly where the winter sun would touch my pale cheeks with its brightness; I knew its rays would catch the burning flame of my hair and turn it to a dazzling halo. I concentrated on my work, my fingers moving industriously. I knew without looking that Eamonn’s eyes were fixed more often on me than on the documents before him.
Time passed in total silence. All too soon the sun moved across the sky, and the best of the light was gone. It was not so long until midwinter. For a moment I allowed myself to think of Darragh, and Aoife carrying him back westward across the miles to Ceann na Mara. He would return to O’Flaherty’s, and settle, and perhaps he would wed Orla and raise a brood of small dark-haired sons and beautiful blue-eyed daughters. All of them would swim like fish and ride as if born in the saddle. He would have his sister close by, when she married Aidan. Their existence would be simple and happy and full of purpose. He’d live to see his children grow.
“Fainne?”
I flinched as if struck, and wrenched myself back from my dangerous thoughts. I must not do that again. I must concentrate.
“Mmm?” I queried, finishing my thread with a neat little knot, and biting the end off.
“I—nothing. Forget I spoke.”
“You broke the
rules,” I said lightly, folding my work. “No talking. Still, I’ve finished this task. Perhaps I should go.”
“Don’t. It is pleasing to me to have you sit thus quietly while I work. It seems strange, yet in its way fitting. I used to—I used to dream that it would be so, with—I used to imagine how it would be, if I were a married man. How different it might be. There was a picture in my mind, of riding home to Sídhe Dubh, and—no, this is not appropriate. I should not speak thus to you.”
“Tell me,” I said quietly.
He stood up and came over to stand by me, staring out the tall, narrow window at the winter landscape: bare elms, a well-dug garden awaiting new planting.
“You will think me foolish,” he said. “Soft.”
“No, I won’t, Eamonn. I would not judge you.”
He glanced down at me, his expression bleak. “Then, you understand, I thought I would wed and sire sons, as any man does. It was at that time I first encountered the Painted Man; that spawn of evil who was to become my lifelong nemesis. I did not know, then, that he would snatch from me all that I held dear; that he would seize my very hope of the future and take it for his own. Then, I still believed my life would be like other men’s. And, as I felt the darkness of that man’s influence begin to enter my spirit, I saw a small picture, like the one pure image that would remain true: my wife standing in the doorway at Sídhe Dubh, with my child in her arms. That was my reassurance that things were as they should be.”
I said nothing.
“Foolish thoughts, for an old man,” observed Eamonn bitterly. “That’s what you think.”
“It was Liadan you saw, of course.”
“Of course. But he took her. It was his sons she bore. Her sons should have been mine.”
This seemed an extraordinary thing to say, so much so I could scarcely frame a response.
“We said we would not speak of these things until later,” I managed. “Why would you choose to tell me this?”
Eamonn was avoiding my eye. Still he stared out the window, watching a man go down the path with a pitchfork over his shoulder and a pair of dogs at his heels.
“I don’t know,” he said after a little. “I suppose, watching you there across the room in the quiet, I felt a sense of—of rightness, of the way my life might be if things were different.”
I said nothing.
“I did not wish to speak of this; I have told you, despite myself. It is folly and weakness. One cannot recapture something that never was.”
I rose to my feet. “I’m going now,” I said quietly. “I must see the little girls, and then I should rest again. The ride to the waterfall caused me more aches and pains than I would have imagined.”
“That was very thoughtless of me.” Eamonn frowned, staring at me. “Very thoughtless.”
“Nothing to worry about,” I said lightly. “After supper, perhaps we might play at brandubh again, and talk further of these things.”
“I don’t think—”
“Perhaps we might.” My tone was firm. “And before then, I want you to consider one question.”
He waited.
“The question is,” I said carefully, “what is it you need to do before you can move on? What is it you are waiting for before you seize hold of your life, and ensure your return home will be greeted with open arms and a warm hearth and the laughter of children? What ghost is it you need to lay before you do this?”
“You cannot—”
“Ah,” I said. “I already have. I have asked the question, and I want the answer.”
“I will not speak further of these things. They are best left untouched.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “You have lived but half a life. If you throw away the rest, then your enemy has indeed conquered you. Now I’m going. Will you do something for me?”
He inclined his head courteously, but his jaw was tight.
“Put your hands behind your back,” I said. “And shut your eyes, until I say.”
Startled into compliance, he did as I asked. I placed my palms on either side of his face, and felt tension grip his body.
“Eyes shut,” I said sternly. Then I forced myself to kiss him, a kiss which began as the sweet touching of lips one might expect from an innocent young girl such as myself. But Grandmother had taught me many things. I knew how to make this kiss change, with a slight parting of the lips, and a little flicking of the tongue, into something more, something which would make a man’s blood race and his breathing quicken as Eamonn’s did now. I waited for the moment when he could no longer manage to hold his hands behind his back, and at that moment I withdrew my lips and stepped away.
“Fainne!” he breathed, staring at me. “What are you trying to do to me?”
“Nothing,” I replied in round-eyed surprise. “I wished only to show you that I, too, believe compromise is possible. By the way, if in future you have difficulty with your reading, I would be able to help you. I’m well practiced at it, and my eyes are younger.”
I turned my back and left the room, and Eamonn said not a word.
It wasn’t easy. I despised myself for what I was doing. I shuddered to imagine what Darragh would think if he could see me. My father had always let me find my own path and make my own mistakes, but this would have shocked him deeply. Still, I found the strength within me to go on. There was a little image of my father, coughing blood. There was another, Darragh and Aoife moving on into the west, and away from danger. And what about the little girls, each one of them different, each one in her own way precious? They had given me their trust without question; I could not expose them to my grandmother’s destructive anger. I need only think of that, and it was not, after all, so very difficult to go on.
I spent a little time with the girls. They were unusually subdued; Eilis showed me her sewing, the twins sprawled on the rug before my fire, and Sibeal sat by the window as still and silent as if she were a girl carven of pale stone.
“Very good, Eilis,” I said. “Your mother would be proud of you. I’m sorry I could not help with this yesterday. I’ve been ill.”
“I helped her,” said Deirdre with a touch of smugness. “You were shut in here all day. You didn’t even answer the door. What’s wrong with you?”
“A very bad headache. I’m better now.”
“You don’t look better,” observed Clodagh. “Your face is white, and you’ve got bags under your eyes. We thought maybe you’d had a fight with Uncle Eamonn.”
“Uncle Eamonn’s in a really bad mood,” said Deirdre.
I did not reply. Better that I spend less time with them from now on. Better that I step away as quickly as I could, even if it hurt them. To stay close was to put them in danger. Besides, they were getting altogether too clever at puzzling things out.
“You missed him,” said Clodagh into the silence. “Darragh. He was here, and you missed him.”
“So I heard,” I said tightly.
“We never thought they were real.” Deirdre lay on the floor, head propped on one hand, looking up at me where I sat by Eilis on the bed. “Him and the white pony. Not really real: just a boy and a pony in a tale, having adventures. But they were. He let us pat Aoife.”
“He said he’d been to Sevenwaters, and then he had to leave again. He saw Maeve, did you know that? He said she was getting better.” Clodagh was holding a twig into the fire, letting it catch. “Can we go home, Fainne?”
Suddenly it was very quiet in the room. All four of them were looking at me intently.
“Soon,” I said. “Very soon. I have to talk to your uncle Eamonn again first. I’ll ask him what he thinks, if you like.”
Clodagh glanced at Deirdre, and an unspoken message passed between them.
“He’ll say no,” said Clodagh. “He’ll want you to stay at Glencarnagh. And you could hardly stay without us. You should have seen him yesterday, when Darragh was here. He was furious.”
“Darragh was nice,” observed Eilis. “He let me give the pony a c
arrot.”
“Don’t you mind?” Clodagh asked me. “That you missed him?”
I drew a deep breath. “It was a shame,” I said as firmly as I could. “But I wasn’t well enough to see anyone, not even an old friend. Your uncle Eamonn did the right thing.”
I could feel Sibeal watching me, even though she was behind me. But she kept quiet.
“If you say so,” said Clodagh in a tone of complete disbelief.
When they had gone I tried to rest, but could not. It came to me, that day, that the fair visions I had seen while I lay by a little fire, with Darragh’s arm around me and the warmth of his body against my own, were the last good dreams that would ever visit me. Now, as soon as I dropped into a half-doze, images crowded my mind: my mother stepping from a ledge and falling, falling with her bright hair whipped by the wind, and the rocks below reaching up in anticipation of one final, ungiving embrace; my father, chalk-pale, retching blood; Darragh lying by the road with a knife in his back and Aoife nudging him gently, her faithful eyes bewildered when he failed to wake. And later, more pictures which seemed to me to tell of things that were to come, or that might come. A girl sobbing and sobbing, eyes screwed shut, tears flooding down her cheeks, nose running, mouth stretched in a rictus of anguish, her dark red curls and milk-pale skin revealing her as myself, as if I had not known already. I had seen this before. Words came with the picture: You will not know how much you have to lose, until it is already gone. And then, a sudden darkening, as if the whole world had gone awry, and day turned to night by the force of this grief. Men muttering and crying out in fear. And a great wave, a wall of water from nowhere, a surge so high one looked up and recognized death, even as one snatched a last shuddering breath. I will sweep you bare…bare…I will take all…all…
I noticed, at supper, that Eamonn had changed his clothes and that his hair, like my own, bore signs of careful brushing. I observed the serious dark brown eyes, the square, uncompromising features, the way one lock of hair kept falling across his brow. I thought that once, a long time ago, he must have been a fine-looking young man, one whom a girl might well have thought highly suitable for a husband. When one considered his wealth and the position of power he held, it was hard to imagine my aunt Liadan rejecting him for another man, especially one as unappealing as her strange husband sounded. It did not seem to make sense. I considered what kind of woman she was, to treat a faithful suitor so cruelly that his whole existence had been blighted by it. Then I told myself, again, that I must remember men and women were just pieces in the game, to be manipulated to advantage. It was not appropriate for me to feel sympathy for the solemn, pale, middle-aged man seated silent across the table from me, eating little, drinking steadily. It was not appropriate for me to feel anything at all. Good girl, said my grandmother’s voice.