Heir to Sevenwaters (19 page)

I
locked the little chamber behind me and ran downstairs. Father was in the hall with Johnny and Aidan. The moment they caught sight of me the three of them fell silent.

“Father, something terrible has happened. It’s Finbar. He’s . . . he’s been taken.” I saw him flinch as if struck. He got up, his face ashen. I made myself go on. “Switched. I don’t know how it happened, I was there the whole time, but—”

He was already racing up the stairs. I picked up my skirts and ran after him. “Father, wait! I need to tell you . . . Father, there’s a . . . a sort of changeling in the cradle . . .”

He wasn’t listening. We passed the closed doorway to Mother’s chamber. When we reached the nursery, my hands were shaking so hard that Father grabbed the keys from me and unlocked the door himself.

The signs of my futile, frantic search were everywhere, cloths strewn over the floor, stools upturned, vessels on their sides. Father strode to the cradle, lifted away the blanket, took one look at what lay there and turned to seize me by the shoulders, so hard it hurt. “What happened? Tell me quickly!”

By now Johnny was in the doorway with Aidan behind him. The scratchy sobs of the sticks-and-stones baby filled the chamber.

“I only took my eyes off him for a moment, Father, only a moment. I never went further than the doorway. But when I next looked at him, he was gone and the changeling was there in his place. I don’t know how it could have happened.”

“How long ago?” Father had clamped a mask of control over his features, but his voice was only marginally steadier than mine. His hands bit into my shoulders.

“Just now, Father, only a few moments ago. I looked everywhere in this chamber and then I came straight to fetch you.”

“Start a search,” Father said, letting me go abruptly and turning to Johnny. “One group inside, upstairs first, then through the whole house. A second group outside, fanning out toward the forest in all directions. Gods, why didn’t I consider the possibility of abduction?”

Johnny and Aidan were gone almost before he finished speaking. I heard my cousin issuing crisp orders as he descended the stairs. There was a sound of people running.

“Are you telling me someone removed the baby while you were here?” Father asked. “How could that be?”

“Father, I don’t think this is an abduction—I mean, not a political one. No ordinary person could have got in without my seeing them. I was only outside the door for a moment. It must be the work of uncanny folk. I mean, what about the—the little creature, the changeling—” The willow basket was creaking as its occupant thrashed about, screaming for attention. I could hardly hear my own voice above the din. My father stepped over to the cradle again, looking down at the thing that had taken his son’s place.

“A cruel travesty,” he said. “A superficial likeness of a child, but it’s no more than a bundle of sticks and stones, Clodagh.”

“But . . .” I stared at him, not understanding. The changeling was shrieking. It was waving its arms frantically, desperate for a response to its cries of woe. Surely I wasn’t the only one who could hear it?

“You stepped outside the door,” Father said flatly. “You left Finbar alone. Why?”

I wanted to curl up small and hide. I wanted to shrink down into a little ball and roll away into a corner where nobody could find me. My insides had turned into a quivering jelly. “I was just there, in the doorway,” I croaked. “Right there. Talking to Cathal. I came straight back in. Father, nobody could have walked past me. They’d have had to be invisible. Father, can’t you hear the child crying?”

“You can hear him? Finbar?” A sudden hope dawned on his face.

“No,” I said, confused and wretched, “the changeling, the sticks-and-stones baby—Father, I can see it moving, I can hear it screaming. Father, this must be the work of the Fair Folk, you remember what Willow said about them becoming different—”

He turned a certain gaze on me. It was the kind of look he might have used on a rival chieftain daring to challenge his authority. My father had never, ever looked at me that way before.

“You’re overwrought,” he said. “I hear nothing. That is no changeling. It is nothing but a cruel trick.”

“But—” The cries were ear-piercing. Why couldn’t he hear?

“I won’t hear any more of this, Clodagh. Take a few deep breaths and compose yourself.” Father’s tone was sufficient to silence further protests. “This chamber is to remain locked. You’ll keep the key on your person. Nobody’s to come in or out. I’ll call the household together later, when Johnny reports back. Are you sure”—his voice cracked—“are you quite sure you saw nobody else up here? No serving folk, no man-at-arms, nobody?”

“Eithne came out of Mother’s chamber while I was in the doorway, and Cathal was up here for a few moments, but there was nobody else.”

“Your mother must be told.” His voice was almost detached now, as if he were putting his own grief and shock away inside somewhere in order to act as a chieftain must. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in delaying it. Come, Clodagh.”

The changeling’s throaty cries lanced through me as I followed my father into the hallway. The sound made my chest hurt. Father waited while I locked the door on the creature. Then we went to break my mother’s heart.

Some time later, I stood before my father in the small council chamber, my stomach tying itself into knots of grief and anxiety. Finbar had not been found in the house, or in the courtyard or outbuildings, or anywhere nearby in the forest. There were no marks of feet or hooves or wheels; whoever had taken the baby had left no trail to follow. Johnny was organizing a wide search, using every man-at-arms who could be spared.

I should have been out there calming the children and making sure the ordinary business of the household continued despite the crisis. But my usual duties seemed to have been taken out of my hands as if, now that I had allowed my brother to be kidnapped, I could no longer be trusted with anything at all. To make matters worse, Father had Aidan in the chamber with us, presumably as a guard. What did he imagine, that his own daughter was somehow a danger to him now? His eyes, fixed on me, were bleak and distant. In his head, I thought, there must be endlessly playing the same sound that filled my own thoughts: my mother’s wrenching wail when we told her. Afterward, her face had seemed little and shrunken, like that of a dead creature.

I had told Father everything again, step by step: I had been in the chamber, Cathal had come to the door, I had spoken to him briefly but had kept an eye on the cradle. I had gone back in, sat down for a while, then when I had checked on Finbar, he was gone. I tried once more to explain why this could not be a political abduction, but my father, a tolerant, reasonable man, was completely deaf on this particular point. Worse than that, he seemed to construe my attempts to explain as meaning either that I had temporarily lost my wits, or that I was using the Fair Folk as an excuse for my own negligence. What possible reason could the Tuatha De have to abduct a newborn son of Sevenwaters, he asked. Our family had been custodians and protectors of the forest since ancient times; it was a refuge for the Fair Folk. Why would they wish us ill? Besides, it was clear the changeling existed only in my mind—neither Father himself, nor Johnny, nor Aidan had perceived it as more than a crude wooden manikin. When I protested again, he cut me off short, for I was wasting precious time. With every moment that passed, one of his political rivals was taking Finbar further from home.

The interrogation continued. “Why would Cathal come to see you?” Father asked.

“He came to tell me he was going away somewhere. To say goodbye.”

“Going where?”

“I don’t know, Father. He didn’t say.”

“Aidan?” Father asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“I know nothing about this, Lord Sean. Johnny had given us no orders to ride out.” Aidan was pointedly not looking at me. His expression was grim.

“He seemed to think he would be leaving soon and not returning to Sevenwaters,” I said. “I don’t imagine he would have come upstairs unless he thought it was important.”

“Why you especially?” Father asked, suspicion evident in his tone.

“I don’t know, Father.” I stared at the floor.

“Has it not occurred to you, Clodagh,” Father said, “that the timing is a strange coincidence? Cathal decides to come upstairs, right into the family quarters, apparently to speak specifically to you when you are watching over my son. At that precise moment the baby is taken.”

His tone was perfectly steady. I knew how much that must be costing him. I wanted to tell him,
Let go, weep, rage, throw things. Being a chieftain does not require you to be more than human
. But I did not say it. My mother was barely holding onto her sanity. Finbar was out there somewhere, a tiny infant in the vastness of the forest. If my father could be strong, so must I be.

“Why wouldn’t I believe that the distraction offered by Cathal provided someone with a perfect opportunity to snatch my son?” Father demanded. “If this isn’t a conspiracy devised by one of the northern chieftains, what in the name of the gods is it?”

“My lord!” Aidan protested. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting nothing,” Father said. “My son’s been taken. I must look at all the possibilities, however distressing they may be to you or to anyone else. You think it’s easy for me to interrogate my own daughter?” He checked himself, clearly regretting that he had spoken so freely, and arranged his features in an expression that simulated calm.

I hated this; I hated every cruel moment of it. “Ask Cathal,” I said. “He will tell you he simply came to say goodbye. Father, I’m not lying to you.”

“Then explain this.” Father rose to his feet, his hands on the table. His skin had a grayish tinge and his eyes were those of an old man. “Eithne saw you and Cathal in the upper hallway at the time you mention. Not merely passing the time of day, not engaged in casual conversation, not making a courteous farewell. The two of you were locked in an embrace. A passionate embrace, that was the way she put it. If this is true, and your blush indicates it must be, then how can you possibly maintain you were watching your brother?”

I said nothing. Aidan gazed at the opposite wall. He, too, was working hard to remain calm, but I could see the fury he was suppressing, the same fury that had blazed in his eyes when he held his knife to Cathal’s throat.

“Answer me, Clodagh,” said Father. “We have no time to waste.”

“Yes, Cathal kissed me. No, I didn’t invite him to do so—I was so taken aback I took a few moments to extricate myself. But it wasn’t a passionate embrace, Father; there is nothing like that between Cathal and me. Eithne is mistaken. It was a . . . a friendly goodbye kiss, that was all. And it was only a moment. I told you before, nobody could have got past without my seeing them.”

“But someone did,” Father said. “Aidan, fetch Cathal here now. Johnny would be shocked at the notion that one of his trusted men might be somehow implicated in this, but we must hear what Cathal has to say, if only to rule out that possibility. Let us get to the bottom of this.”

Cathal could not be brought to account, for he was nowhere to be found. An investigation of his quarters revealed not only that he was missing, but that he had taken his pack and belongings with him. His horse was still in the stables. Apart from his cryptic conversation with me, he had not left word with anyone. Despite the presence of guards all around the keep, nobody had seen him go.

Meanwhile, I found that decisions were being made without my being consulted at all. Muirrin had asked that Coll and Eilis move to the part of the keep that housed those men-at-arms who had wives and children, to be watched over by Doran and Nuala while Mother was dealing with the initial shock of the baby’s disappearance. Having seen Mother earlier, I recognized that this was a sensible idea, but I should have been the one to arrange it, and they should have waited until I could talk to the children, reassure them, let them ask their questions. As it was, when Father finally let me go back upstairs, it was to find that Sibeal had already taken the younger ones over to Doran’s quarters and would stay there to help them settle in tonight. Muirrin came out of Mother’s room to tell me this, and to say, not unkindly, that Mother did not want to see me or indeed anyone other than Father, Eithne, and Muirrin herself. There would be hard times ahead if Finbar was not found soon.

“Don’t look like that, Clodagh,” Muirrin said. She’d been crying; her eyes were puffy and red.

“I can’t help it,” I whispered, close to tears again myself. “They think it’s my fault, Father, Mother, everyone. Nobody trusts me anymore. I was watching him the whole time, apart from just an instant.” I did not put my worst fear into words. Father had suggested I was losing my wits. Maybe it was true.

“They don’t really blame you,” Muirrin said. “They’re too shocked to think clearly. Later on they’ll realize it couldn’t have been your fault, but right now they’re too hurt to be rational about it. You must let this wash over you, Clodagh. Just keep up your normal routine and take one day at a time. That’s all we can do.”

“I can’t even do that,” I said. “Nobody seems to want me for anything anymore.”

“I expect the household can function reasonably well without you. You’re just used to doing things Mother’s way, which means supervising absolutely everything.”

“But Eilis and Coll—I didn’t even see them before they were whisked away—”

“Father thinks you’re too disturbed by what’s happened to perform your usual duties,” Muirrin said. “It’s actually better to let Sibeal cope with the younger ones, under the circumstances.”

“He thinks I’m imagining things,” I muttered. “But I’m not. I’m not going mad, I can’t be. What’s in there is no bundle of sticks and stones, it’s a little person with arms and legs and a voice. Maybe some people can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.” I met my sister’s gaze. “Will you come and look at it, Muirrin?” I asked. “Father won’t believe it’s a changeling, and if he can’t see that, he won’t search in the right places, and he’ll never find Finbar.”