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1
Harrowfield – Simon
The day is grey and cool for his departure from the valley. He has walked the fields and woodlands with Simon, sharing their father’s lessons, their grandfather’s words, all he can in so short a time. He entrusts it all—the beasts and crops and future of the folk—to Simon, golden and mercurial and strangely different than before. Simon is unsurprised to realize that his brother will not stay where his people almost killed his woman. The betrayal cuts too deep. Simon wishes his brother good fortune, and sketches a small map of the road to Sevenwaters, marking dangers more clearly than the path, which seems to wriggle and twist, sibilant as the language and the tales of that place. Neither brother speaks her name, though she is between them constantly.
Elaine’s eyes are sympathetic, and she is very gentle as she wishes him well. He can see guilt and regret in her eyes, but she is not her father, and they both know that while Simon will inherit, Elaine will nurture and cultivate the estate. She is needed, loved, and (finally) appreciated. Without her, he would have no peace at all about leaving Harrowfield.
His mother’s farewell is a strained and awful thing. She does not weep, but he can read her eyes, her posture, her measured breaths and the hands knotted in her lap. She is wondering why she must, after all, lose a son to the land of fierce, mysterious pagans across the water. What appeal can that place have for the steady, biddable son who values hearth and home? But she does not ask the question for she knows the answer and cannot bear to have hope of his return removed.
Margery and her son are standing together in the yard, in a patch of pale, weak sun. They watch together as Ben rides out to check the border with Northwoods. Margery is thin and a little too pale, even for this season. Each day is shortening, and the nights are growing toward midwinter, the longest night of the year. The child is almost a year old, but he almost seems to listen, as Margery speaks about her midwinter child, who will always walk toward the light. Red understands this to be her blessing upon him and his journey to the girl they knew as Jenny.
So he leaves after clasping hands with a few of the waiting folk. He walks away, taking no horse, only a small pack of essentials. He takes his good health, his knowledge, his principles, but he leaves family, fortune and name, all for a dream. Sometimes, he accuses himself of madness. But when he remembers her on the strand, listening to him speak of Toby and his selkie wife, or when his memory gives him a picture of her in the light of unnatural rain or tainted fire, he knows that if Jenny was a dream, that dream is more real than the waking world.
He is no longer a lord, no longer “of Harrowfield,” and the men who christened him Red are dead and gone. He does not know what name to call himself, so he settles for Hugh, although it doesn’t quite satisfy. He wonders if his Jenny (Sorcha, the brothers called her) felt adrift without her true name. He does not speak her name to the sailors who ferry him across the sea, but she is in every thought, every breath, every wave and seabird’s cry. So he sails from one shore into a great unknown, pausing only to rest on Little Island, feeling oddly that he will not see this place again, whatsoever welcome awaits him in Erin.
He travels quiet and quick across the country, recognizing certain dangers from his last journey with John and Ben, avoiding other traps described by his brother. The trees, bare of leaves as they are, rustle a greeting. The lake laps against the shore in welcome, and the breeze sighs “at last,” and the earth itself makes the path easy for his feet to follow.
He presents himself to the men guarding the settlement, and is docile as they bind his arms and cover his eyes. Once more, the path welcomes him—no stones trip him, nor branches scratch him, although his captors curse more than once at new turns to the path.
Inside, the wash of warmth on his face is welcome, as are the smells of broth and mead. He has not dared a fire since landing on the shore, and it is just days past midwinter, so cold jerky and colder water are unsatisfying fare. He understands the words around him only a little, in the vaguest way, but the brother who speaks the language translates.
He is challenged to tell a tale, and so he tells it. In some ways, the blindfold is a blessing, because he does not need to confront the strangers—he tells it as he would have on that strand in Cumbria, long moons ago, on Beltane when he finished his records, stepped outside the pattern, and made her his bride. Tonight, he hopes to win his bride to wife, so he obeys her kinsmen.
He has heard male voices, and one or two female voices, but has not heard her voice. He strained to hear her voice for nearly a year, and despite the fact that fewer than 50 words passed from her lips, the sound of her voice is imprinted on his soul—he would recognize it anywhere, as he would recognize the sound his heart makes when it beats, the sound his breath makes in his lungs—her voice is a life-giving sound. So that is why the gasp alerts him to her presence.
She removes his blindfold and slices his bonds with his own knife, the knife he used to prepare their first meal, when she was almost starving. The knife he used to carve the ring she wears. It complements the gown, where he sees once more Margery’s loving touch. It’s like she was waiting for him, prepared for his arrival this night.
She kisses him and it carries such sweetness and innocence and relieves desire so long banked and controlled that he honestly could not tell you who was or was not present in the room other than her. She takes him to her bed and explains between kisses that her father gave her this choice as a reward for her labors.
He wants her badly, but he fears hurting her, he fears it more than he feared walking into the fortress with only his knife for protection. But his fears make him careful of her, and their bodies speak, one to the other, back and forth, throughout the long, long night. He blesses the darkness more than once, for this kind of love could not be contained in a short Beltane night. He wonders now, who would plan a wedding night for the long days and short nights of summer. But them her body meets his, her lips cling to his, and he wonders about her alone.
2
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Conor
The next morning, they begin the work of building a life. In the course of time, he has cause to remember the words he spoke to her in farewell: “You have a circle that you draw tight around you; John, Ben, these feral brothers of yours. Simon is as fiercely protective as the rest of them, and yet he has little cause to love your kind. But once you touch us, our hearts are no longer our own.”
As they rebuild the túath and heal the wounds left by the lady Oonagh, Hugh has cause to know his wife’s brothers and their love for Sorcha in ways that might have surprised even her, though he knows her to be wise and observant, a teller of tales who understands the hearts of men and women, old and young, fair and ill-favored, sick and healthy alike.
Conor is the first Hugh speaks to at length, for no other reason than they share a tongue. Hugh would have liked to talk to Liam without an intermediary, for they are of an age and Hugh understands that where Liam leads, his people follow. But Liam’s eyes grow suspicious when Sorcha is absent, and beyond the conversation (through Conor) where Hugh pledged aid with beast and harvest, pledged protection and love for the woman who healed him and drew him across the sea, away from an orderly pattern and into a world of magic and sacred mysteries where truth is not so easy to fix into place, and beyond the wordless conversation when Hugh meets Liam in the practice yard and they bruise and teach each other, Liam keeps a measured distance, observing Hugh and Sorcha as one of many things within his sphere.
Conor and Hugh share a common tongue, so they speak. Neither is effusive, but their eyes soften for Sorcha, and brighten at the prospect of bringing peace and plenty to Sevenwaters. They both enjoy tales well told, particularly those spun by Colum’s only daughter. When Sorcha speaks, all strain to listen, and that seems only fair, given her achingly long years of silence. She is the beating heart of Sevenwaters and only she seems unaware of it, working in her garden and stillroom, in the village and the home, content and unaware of the awe she inspires.
Conor and Hugh do not try, at first, to speak of the grand things—for Hugh, it is still odd, to feel as though he lives half in a tale and half in the mundane world of farm and field, feed and fertilizer. So, ever practical, when he speaks to Conor, it’s of supplies, storage, seeds, and livestock. They speak about the times to plant and harvest, of the ways wind and rain and sun affect the growing things. They replant the birch, ash, oak, holly and hawthorne the sorceress destroyed, adding rowan and beech and others. They work together to bring order and prosperity to the settlement.
Conor teaches Hugh, matter of factly, how to read, to write, and to figure. The former Lord of Harrowfield comes to understand the history Conor has made for Sevenwaters, and is humbled by the gift. It seems like the writing should go to solemn Liam or clever Padriac, but Liam is concerned with other matters, alliances and borders and traitors and protecting his family and people.
Hugh realizes Conor is leaving without words being spoken, which is fortunate because his wife is rusty in the ways of daily conversation. She speaks when she thinks it important, but holds her tongue and watches the world with her wise owl-like eyes, listening much and speaking little. In answer to her husband’s question, Sorcha explains (somewhat vaguely) that Conor may become a wise one, a member of the nemetons, as her father was meant to be until he met his Niamh and fathered children. Hugh thinks that Conor sees his brother-in-law as Hugh himself saw Elaine, as good and capable hands to leave the settlement in. It is the first step to acceptance in the community, and though his wife sees that within three moons Liam appreciates the work, Hugh is grateful for Conor’s quiet respect.
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Padriac
Padriac gives “Sorcha’s husband” a name, for this has become a problem. Sorcha calls him Red and Hugh calls her Jenny, in private moments. But Liam has pointed out that it would not do for it to become too widely known that Lord Hugh of Harrowfield, close kinsman to those who hold the sacred islands, is harboring at Sevenwaters. “Hugh” reveals a shade too much truth, but “Red” came from his father and John; it is a name for intimate friends, not for public use. Besides, both are considered hard to say, being rather harsh and bitten off for the fluid rolling tongue spoken by the folk of this land.
Donal and a few of the armed men are puzzling over the problem at night, for something to talk about. It seems that Liam and Padriac are involved in other matters. The focus turns to tales, and someone asks for the tale of Iubdan, since they’re having porridge for supper. Sorcha tells it with some skill, pausing and making faces and gestures until everyone in the hall is laughing at the picture she weaves of a wee man coming close to grief in a giant’s porridge bowl.
The next day in the village, Padriac calls out, “Oh, our own Iubdan can carry that to the lake.” Hugh hauls the pot full of foul smelling brew, willing to accept that as a giant foreigner, friendly laughter is better than fear. Padriac and his lads busily apply the substance, a sealant of some variety, to the boat they are building.
By the end of the day, the people of the village are so pleased to have a name they can pronounce to call him, one that pokes fun at his size to boot, that he knows there’s no changing it. He accepts it with good grace, though the next day, in the practice yard, he challenges Padriac to work on knife techniques. Understanding this close-range weapon will help when this brother leaves home, and a little humility never hurt a lad with adventures in his eyes.
Iubdan has Padriac on the ground in a minute and a half. “Again!” Sorcha’s youngest older brother demands, so they work on it again and again, until wheezing with effort, but pleased with himself, Padriac declares “Big Man, you should be as slow as an ox, but you move like a fox.” The small, agile Irish delight in teasing him about his size, but it is the teasing of belonging, so he smiles and learns certain choice insults to return (always used outside his wife’s hearing).
He speaks to Padriac again, seriously, after Conor and Finbar and Colum leave, but before Colum, Diarmid, and Cormack return with Ciarán. Padriac is about to depart, eyes bright, farewells said. Iubdan cannot ask him to stay within the túath for the sake of his family, not without great hypocrisy, so instead, he offers the best advice he can. “This life you choose brings the danger of sea and storm, which you understand already. But remember that men on foreign shores have quarrels you cannot know, but which can kill you just the same. Be courteous, but keep a small, sharp knife hidden on your person. Send us word, when you are able, because your sister worries.”
Padriac’s smile dims and his eyes cloud for a moment. He nods acknowledgment, and claps his brother-in-law on the back. “You must guard her and the child well, Big Man,” he says, “I fear that our strange tale is not ended, though my sister is loath to hear such talk.”
A chill runs through Iubdan, realizing that even this brother, the happiest of the lot, has a pinch of the fey about him. “Slán leat” He says solemnly.
“Slán agaibh” Padriac answers. And those are the last words they hear of him for nigh on eighteen years.
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Finbar
Finbar is quiet, almost as quiet as his sister was in Hugh’s home. It is not the quiet of one sharply present, vividly engaged, but the silence of one whose mind and spirit are far, far away. When Lord Colum is in the home, weak and fractured, Finbar hovers over him as a silent guard and healer. But when Lord Colum is strong and alert again, this most mysterious brother seems to fade, stepping further and further out of the life of the family.
Iubdan can see that his wife loves this brother dearly, that she worries for him, trapped as he is between worlds. He does not know how to help, so he simply tries to show Finbar (and all of them) that his sister is well protected and truly loved.
Iubdan carefully does not touch the other man, or make eye contact too long, or allow dogs in the same room. Through these small gestures, he tries to show courtesy, because although he is far, far outside the web that connects Finbar to Sorcha and Conor, he respects it deeply.
The night the beloved brother slips away, he knows Sorcha grieves, so he dons his cloak and carries the lantern and helps her search. She focuses on the amulet, left behind as a parting gift. She sees no other sign, not from Imbolc to Lugnasad, which is to say the time of his vanishing in February to the time in August when she is too great with child to search the woods.
Iubdan is thinking about his brother, with a little pain in his heart, wondering (without wanting to know the answer) what happened with Simon in this strange country, how he came to know Sorcha, how he came to forget so much. He is thinking about this mystery when he sees a swath of white exactly the color of a swan, just the size of a human arm. It vanishes into the shadow of a tree so quickly he doubts that he really saw it…although in his heart, he knows he did, as he knows he saw the Fair Folk the night Sorcha saved their lives with a wild druidic rain fall.
He looks away from the trees and shadows that simply will not behave as they ought to, turning instead to the lake. Faintly Simon’s face shimmers back at him, looking content if not happy. He shivers and closes his eyes, breathing deep the smell of growing things, wood and water and leaf and bracken. He looks again and decides that it must have been his own face and a trick of light that made him think he saw his brother in that lake water. He tells himself this truth very firmly, and he does not call out and he does not look too deeply into the shadows on the way back to Sevenwaters.
He makes it a habit, however, to leave oatcakes or a bit of fruit or cheese, from time to time, close to that spot. If they nourish rabbits, well, fine. But if they nourish a hermit like Conor or Finbar (if he is still alive, in this world instead of the Other), then so much the better. And between them, Sorcha and Red teach their children to respect and honor the forest and all its occupants, seen and unseen.
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Diarmid
Their first daughter, Niamh, is almost two years old and Sorcha is round with the next child when Lord Colum returns home with three sons—a greater gift than anyone hoped for. They have been gone from Sevenwaters for three years, the same length of time they spent as swans, so it has been six years since Diarmid and Cormack have had a home other than the trail.
Despite the deep excitement stirred by the exiles’ successful return, there is little fuss as the horses are groomed and cared for, the packs stowed, the wanderers brought inside. In the house, however, the embraces are joyous. Baths are called for, and clean clothes, and mugs with drink to wet parched throats.
No message is sent (at least not as far as Iubdan can tell), but Conor appears within a few hours. Save for Finbar and Padriac, the family is gathered together under one roof for a single night. Mead flows freely, and despite the fact that Janis had no notice, she contrives a pudding and more than enough to feed them all, even Sorch who seems to want only bread and mild soup.
Diarmid, who Iubdan remembers as a furious and bitter man, is hostile. He does not challenge Iubdan’s right to be in Sevenwaters, not openly, although the former Lord of Harrowfield can feel the challenge prickling, like a rash about to break forth on the skin.
But he is restrained, perhaps by respect for Lord Colum and his brother Liam, who have accepted Iubdan. Perhaps it is the presence of the first child, the fact that another is on the way, and the prophecy about the islands and the child not of Britain or Erin but at the same time both.
Niamh is in the small nursery and Ciarán in Cormack and Conor’s old room. Ciarán seems wary, although he knows Cormack well, having traveled the length and breadth of this land in his care. Conor appears to be Cormack’s mirror, but experience has worn them differently. While Conor holds his face in smooth serenity, Cormack’s is set in a fiercer mold. While the boy sleeps, his elder brothers and sister disappear with bread, honey, milk and mead. Iubdan does not know for sure, but he can guess where they went. He nods to Lord Colum, who seems tired.
During the feast in the family quarters, Diarmid becomes almost expansive under the effects of good mead, hot food, and family company. Sorcha’s face is very solemn as she watches him, although that may be because the child is heavy inside her—already her belly has stretched as much as it did with Niamh and this child should not be born for two moons at least. She seats herself next to him, as if her presence will quell the forces that tear at his spirit, but she miscalculates, for Iubdan is drawn to his wife’s side, and his proximity unsettles the benefits from Sorcha’s presence.
Cormack proposes a toast to the islands. This toast is drunk with a sense of the sacred and solemn, remembering the costs thus far. Hugh drinks to the islands, although he feels conspicuous for his small sip.
Diarmid notices, and stands unsteadily, hot words bubbling up. Sorcha blanches, and her brothers lean closer. Iubdan stands, nods to the assembled company. No one tells Sorcha what to do, not in this house, but he does make suggestions: “And as you turn to family business, I will go.”
No one protests his absence. This is a sensitive line he walks, supporting Sevenwaters and the family while refusing to bear arms or provide intelligence about the Britons. It is a mark of difference and separation from this community. He belongs to her and she belongs to them, but he does not necessarily belong to them. He observes to his wife: “The hour is late and the babe has been busy.”
“Yes.” Sorcha agrees. “Yes, but…a little longer.”
Iubdan kisses her forehead gently, a gesture of trust. He sees her with her brothers, touching each, as if there can never be quite enough time. He looks to Liam, the brother he knows best. “I leave her in your care.”
“You think she needs a guard here?” Diarmid is livid.
“I take no chances with the things most precious to me,” Iubdan answers.
“I remember well a chance you took.” Diarmid spits.
“Stop, Diarmid, please.” Sorcha says, and, with great effort, he subsides. “Our common enemy is outside these walls, and you have dealt her a grievous blow with your patience and work. Let us celebrate tonight.”
It is a measure of their respect for Sorcha that the harsh words go no further. They never trust one another, and neither makes life comfortable for the other, but Diarmid throws himself into planning an assault on the islands. It takes almost four years to make a plan that Liam, Cormack and Seamus Redbeard can all support, a year and a half to lay in supplies and make plans, and so little time to fail, to come home so bloody and broken that Iubdan is sick. He shields Sorcha from view of the corpse and helps Liam bury the brothers who could not move past the sorceress’s evil to build a life. He feels, bitterly, the waste of it all.
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Cormack
Iubdan does not quite know what to make of Cormack. He appears identical to Conor, but behaves more like Diarmid. He’s not quite so angry, but he does not do well indoors. The single night of the family gathering, he sleeps outdoors, but he’s been outdoors for three years, and the room is shared by two others.
When Conor and the child leave for life with the wise ones, at first, Iubdan does not notice that the twins’ room is unoccupied. But one night Niamh is fretful with an illness. Sorcha is only days away from delivering their next child. She needs rest and time away from illness, so Iubdan walks with Niamh in the darkened home. He knows a maidservant could do this job, but Niamh responds best to his touch or to Sorcha’s, so he tends this small daughter, bright as a flame in the night.
The child asks for milk, so he carries her out of her chamber through the stillroom where he wants to get a little peppermint to soothe her throat before going to the kitchen. In the stillroom, he looks outside to the garden, where he catches a glance, somehow, of Cormack, sleeping there. Cormack sees Iubdan and seems abashed. Iubdan comforts and soothes little Niamh, leaving this oddity for another day. He tucks her into her bed, then checks on Sorcha, who is sleeping restlessly. Iubdan joins his wife.
In the morning, he goes out to Cormack, who has packed up his bedroll as though it never were. He is settled on the bench in Sorcha’s garden, as if expecting this. Iubdan sits next to Cormack, pulls out his small knife, and begins to whittle. They look at the walls of the garden, the rows of herbs, the bushes, even the distance together, without making eye contact. Iubdan waits.
“I feel…it seems…” Cormack’s words are broken and embarrassed, as if he has had little practice speaking recently.
“There is no need to explain.” Iubdan says. He is a little proud that, after three years, Irish comes more easily to him than he ever thought it would.
Cormack strives on. “It is not… I am not afraid.” He says finally. “Not of the dogs or the walls or the strange voices and smells. But I feel a need to see the sky, to feel it above me without the separation of thatch or shingle.”
Iubdan nods a little.
“My sister…” His voice trails off.
“She does not need to know.” Iubdan agrees.
Cormack nods assent, “I fear for her.” He says. “And for you, and for the babe in the womb and the one sleeping up there.”
Iubdan’s heart squeezes, “I thought only Finbar has the Sight of the future.”
Cormack shook his head, “I See only what you see, Briton.” But it is not the insult it would ordinarily be. “I have seen so much pain and ugliness of late. We suffered strangely, but there is suffering everywhere. It seems to me this world holds more evil and ugliness than good.”
Iubdan has no answer for the blank despair in Cormack’s stare. He thinks of the abuse his Sorcha suffered, of the long shadows cast by Lady Oonagh’s curse. He sees Richard’s evil, thinks of John’s broken body, remembers the sacrifices he made to be here. He thinks of a sister’s pain, of the way she willingly crippled herself for love. He thinks of her sweet strength and capacity for self sacrifice. He thinks of Niamh, laid in his arms after only minutes of life, her small red face scrunched up in indignation. He thinks of the sweetness of her trust, when she sleeps in his arms or reaches for him. He sees flocks grazing and trees growing taller under his care. And to him, the balance seems not so weighted to evil.
He has no gift for words, so he says only “Turn your mind to life and to growth. Only healing can bandage the pain and ugliness of the world.”
Cormack nods, and the conversation is over when they hear Sorcha’s groans—her labor pains have begun.
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Liam
Hugh did not bargain to spend his life with Liam. But when he chose Sorcha, and Sevenwaters, Liam came in the bargain.
They have good moments—Iubdan will never forget the night of Niamh’s birth, when he waits, pacing, outside the room where his wife labors. Liam brings a small stool and sits, watching the door and Iubdan, saying little. Lord Colum, who lost a wife to this endeavor, is absent, off searching for his lost child, so Iubdan and Liam face this alone. When a nurse finally emerges, calling Iubdan in, Liam is right behind, anxious to see his sister and perhaps his heir. The child is beautiful, for all that she is red and wrinkled and yelling indignantly for warmth and comfort and milk.
The night of the twins’ birth is a different case. Liam, Diarmid, and Cormack are home, as is Lord Colum, though it seems that, after finishing his grand task of retrieving and securing his seventh son, he is relinquishing his grasp on life. Iubdan is forbidden to pace the upper hallway this time, so he makes almost everyone miserable by pacing before the fireplace.
Diarmid tries offering strong ale—his own solution to the anxiety of the situation. Cormack sits alone, face drawn. Lord Colum sits at a table with bread and cheese in front of him, but he does not eat. But Liam, he is every inch the lord and master of Sevenwaters, feigning a calm he does not feel for his people. The hours wear on and the men irritate each other, but when a maidservant tell them not one but two infants have been born, then the Irishmen weep in relief.
Iubdan takes the stairs two at a time to see his wife. She is wan and tired, but she finds a smile for him that twists his heart. When she has been bathed and dressed in a fresh gown and laid on fresh sheets, he cradles her and swears simply, “Never again.”
She nods, but her eyes are far away, “In a vision, on that day, I saw Niamh and the boy. The girl…she breaks the pattern, Red.”
“Patterns sometimes need to be broken.” He kisses her.
Iubdan lifts each child. He lays the lass in her grandfather’s arms, for she is the image of her mother, watchful and solemn although she’s less than an hour in this world.
The boy he brings to Liam, and he bows.
Liam looks a bit startled, but he inclines his head, almost regally, and he accepts the light bundle of the child into his arms. “So you have fathered an heir for Sevenwaters.” Liam murmurs.
“A son for Sevenwaters, certainly.” Iubdan knows that some part of Liam harbors a hope that when Eilis is widowed, she will consider suitors once more, but the hope seems to be fading as her belly grows with her second child.
Liam stands, and looks at the folk of the house, some of whom have left their beds, guessing there is news.
“The heir.” Liam says, loud enough for all to hear. “Let it be known that I hold in my arms a man child, not of Erin, not of Britain, but at the same time both. He is wrapped in a blanket, and see the raven pattern woven? He is the heir to Sevenwaters, and the heir to our islands.”
They cheer, raggedly, and the boy looks up at Liam and Iubdan’s heart beats a bit, for now he will share one more part of his life with this leader who feels like his own distorted mirror.
So eighteen years later, when Liam claims him as a brother, on the worst day of his life, he is moved beyond words by remembering the series of early choices, made years ago, that brought him here to a life more strange and wonderful than he’d imagined possible.