Heir to Sevenwaters (50 page)

I shouldered my bag. “I’m ready,” I said.

“One more thing,” said Ciarán as we set off down the hill between the birches. “As I said, Mac Dara likes women. My advice would be to approach him in an apparent spirit of conciliation. Ask for Cathal back, since Mac Dara would think it odd if you didn’t, but do it nicely. Let him talk; encourage him to confide in you. Perhaps he is not so unlike his son as you imagine. Play his game as long as you can. My guess is that he will see this as an opportunity to test how well Cathal has learned his lesson.”

“Lesson?” My voice was shaking now.

“The lesson of forgetting,” said Ciarán. “You must prepare yourself for any possibility, Clodagh. Even that the man for whom you risk so much may no longer want to be rescued.”

CHAPTER 15

I
bade Ciarán farewell at the entrance to a shadowy passageway that opened between rocks close by a spring. I could not tell if it was the same way by which the Old Ones had brought me out of the Otherworld. Sometimes the raven flew ahead, stopping with visible impatience for me to catch up, then winging on and leaving me no choice but to scramble after him. Sometimes he did not seem so confident, and rode perched on my shoulder, his claws sharp through shawl and gown. Without the Old Ones’ torches it was dark; the faint glow of fireflies, clustered here and there on the tunnel roof, barely made the journey possible. In some places I had to feel my way with arms outstretched to graze the walls. My knees were soon bruised from falling; I jarred my left hip painfully on a spur of stone. My eyes longed for the sun. Even the strange, muted light of the Otherworld would be better than this.

I stopped twice to rest and forced myself to swallow food and water. Crouched there in the semi-dark with Fiacha’s eyes on me, the only thing I wanted to do was go on walking so we could be out as soon as possible. But I must keep up my strength. I would need all my wits about me when we reached the other end.

There were obstacles. At one point I teetered on the edge of a drop, a breath away from plunging down into the unknown. I stepped back from the brink and blundered about in the dimness until I found a different way. There was a narrow place where water trickled down the stone walls and pooled under my feet; I ducked through, balancing Fiacha, and came out with my skirt dripping. Later I entered a cavern tented with spider webs of monstrous thickness, their occupants invisible in the dark corners from which these sticky nets were suspended. Fiacha stopped to probe a crevice with his beak; I saw him swallow something. Several times I came to what seemed dead ends, my progress halted by impassable barriers of stone. Each time there was a path to be discovered. One was the merest slit, concealed behind a rough protrusion. Fiacha hopped through and I squeezed after him, ripping my shawl. One was a tiny aperture at foot level, through which I made a wriggling, eel-like passage. Another seemed to have no opening at all, but when I set my hand against the rock wall and sent a silent request to the Old Ones for guidance, a little door appeared, just large enough for me to step through.

Day was over when we finally emerged in the forest of the Otherworld. Now to find the way to Mac Dara’s hall. With luck he would be holding another audience tonight. If I could play this game right, he would at least agree to talk to me.

I walked forward under a stand of huge old trees that somewhat resembled oaks. Beneath my feet, dry leaves crunched; these forest ancestors were almost bare of foliage. The air was chill. Berries hung shriveled and dry on the bushes around me. A mist was forming in the forest, twisting its way around the boles of the trees like creeping fingers. The woods surrounding the nemetons had been alive with spring sounds, birds singing, insects chirping. The trees had been resplendent in new season’s green. In Mac Dara’s world it was autumn.

I ordered myself to be calm. I would be ready, no matter what. I would do this even if years and years had passed. I had the green glass ring, I had the necklace, I had the egg stone and I had Fiacha. And I had a plan, a plan that frightened me half out of my wits, but then the very notion of confronting Mac Dara would be enough to make most young women turn tail and flee, I thought. Perhaps, to survive in a place like this, a person had to be half mad; as mad as a man who would sacrifice his future to save a friend; as mad as a woman who could love a child made of sticks and stones.

Fiacha did indeed know the way. I followed him along the forest tracks to the grand avenue where the Fair Folk had passed on the night Becan was burned. I was about to step onto that open ground when the crow let out a warning caw and edged back along the branch where he was perched, letting the shadows swallow him. I shrank against the trunk of the tree.

Down the broad path beneath the arching boughs Mac Dara’s folk came in their stately procession. Lantern light announced them; their strange, compelling voices lilted over the sward, laughing and singing, and the music of a harp rang out, with a whistle adding a piercing tune that made my feet want to dance, almost. The hooves of their horses made no sound on the soft grass; the great gray hounds that padded by them did not look to one side or the other, but only straight ahead. There was the man with the black owl—Fiacha shifted on his branch—and there the woman I had thought, for a little, was Deirdre of the Forest come to help me. Her lovely blue eyes were cold as frost. There was the person in the butterfly-wing robe, and there a lady all in brilliant feathers, tossing her head as she laughed at something the man beside her was saying. There was no sign of Mac Dara, or of Cathal. A new fear crept into my heart. Perhaps they had gone away, back to the west where the Lord of the Oak had his origins. Perhaps they had gone still further, somewhere I could never reach them.

I waited until the last riders in the procession were disappearing down the avenue, lanterns held high, then glanced up at Fiacha. He winged ahead; I took a deep breath and followed. We walked the green way in silence, though it seemed to me my heart was beating so hard it must sound like a drum announcing my approach. At the edge of the open space bordered by white stones, Fiacha flew up into a tree and settled there. He busied himself with preening his feathers. It was quite clear that he was not planning to accompany me any further.

“Wonderful,” I murmured, looking up at him in disapproval. He ignored me. “Make sure you’re close by when I need you, then.” There was no way to tell if he heard or understood. For now, I was definitely on my own.

I stepped between the white stones in my plain, well-worn gown, and out among the assembled folk of the Tuatha De Danann. I held my head high and walked straight toward Mac Dara’s pavilion. The hanging that concealed its doorway was closed and there was no sign of light inside. The entry appeared unguarded. I maintained a steady pace forward. Nobody was quite looking at me, but the crowd parted to let me through.

Outside the pavilion I hesitated. Last time, the Lord of the Oak had come out to greet me. Now the silken curtains remained closed. Mac Dara’s hall looked deserted. But then, I had been told to be ready for tricks. I cleared my throat. I must try to sound both confident and courteous. “I am Clodagh, daughter of Sean of Sevenwaters!” I called out. “I seek an audience with the Lord of the Oak!”

There was a silence. Behind me on the open sward, the folk of the Otherworld had hushed their talk. Then the curtains parted and there was Mac Dara in the entry, looking me up and down, unsmiling. Behind him the pavilion was in darkness. “There is no audience tonight,” he said flatly.

“I will not take up much of your time, my lord,” I said, making myself dip into a curtsy. “I want to see Cathal. Tell me where to find him and I need trouble you no further.”

His gaze was so blank as he stood there staring at me that I began to wonder if he was under the influence of a potent herb or mushroom, the kind that sends folk into a trance. Or perhaps he had been scrying and I had interrupted him. Then he said, “Come in,” and ushered me into the pavilion.

The fire was out; the lamps were dark. There was a clammy chill about the place. Something was terribly wrong here. The only light came through the silk of the walls from the lanterns outside. It showed Mac Dara’s lean face as pallid and lined, the dark eyes sunk deep in their sockets. He motioned to one of the cushioned seats and sat down on the other, long legs stretched out before him. “I should offer you a drink,” he said vaguely, glancing toward the small table.

The same hearth, the same jug, the same goblets . . . I saw it again, Becan falling, the flames taking him; I heard my own shriek of anguish. “There’s no need,” I said. I could not look at Mac Dara without seeing Cathal. They were so alike, the two of them. There was a terrible sorrow on Mac Dara’s face, and in it I saw Cathal broken, defeated, despairing, somewhere out there all alone. “My lord, is something wrong?”

He gazed at me in the dimness. “Why are you here?” he asked.

I must stick to the plan; I must not allow myself to feel sorry for this man who had done the unthinkable. “I don’t know if you remember me,” I said. “I came here with your son, and you made him stay. It’s time for him to come back now. I’m here to fetch him home.”

Mac Dara got up to walk restlessly around the pavilion, his dark cloak moving about him like smoke. “You’ve left it a long time,” he said. “Why bother now? You should have wed a nice lad of your own kind and settled down to produce a brood of children.”

“My lord, I went out from here one day and came back the next, by human counting. You say,
a long time
. How many moons have passed here in your realm since I went away?”
Don’t say it’s years,
I willed him.

“Remind me,” said the Lord of the Oak, “what season was it when you last favored us with your presence?”

As if he would forget the momentous day when he had finally lured his son across the threshold. “Spring,” I said.

“And it is autumn here, as you will have observed. You are not so lacking in your wits that you cannot make a count of seven turnings of the moon, daughter of Sevenwaters. Or did you imagine it to be far longer, long enough for his little friend to have faded entirely from my son’s memory? Was that what you feared?”

My mouth was dry. “I knew that was possible,” I said. “That’s why I turned around and came straight back. My lord, I hope Cathal is well.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “Well in body and mind. I did not see him ride by with your court tonight.”

His lip curled. He stopped by the table and filled a goblet, then stood with head bent, looking down at it. “This can’t be what it seems,” he said. “My son would not attach himself to a woman who was stupid. What is your true purpose here?”

Why wouldn’t he tell me if Cathal was all right? Had something terrible happened? The plan. I must stick to the plan. “Firstly,” I forced out the words, “I wish to thank you for allowing me to leave here in safety before and to take my baby brother with me. I know you didn’t have to do that. I owe you a debt of gratitude. My parents will be overwhelmed with joy to see Finbar back home.”

Mac Dara fixed his dark eyes on me. “And yet you did not take time to deliver him to them yourself, that’s if you’re telling the truth about turning straight around. Who took him home?”

“My sister, who happened to be in the forest where I came out.” I must move this on; I did not want Sibeal brought into it. “So, thank you on behalf of my parents for your generosity. It shows that the goodwill between the human folk of Sevenwaters and your people is not entirely gone, even with the departure of those my family knew somewhat better than yourself.”

A wintry smile appeared on his face. “You did not think me so generous last time we met.”

“I don’t deny that. I was horrified that you would discard the changeling with so little thought. I hated what you did to lure Cathal in here.”

“You refer to the attack on your father’s holding in the southwest?” Mac Dara asked idly, making my jaw drop. “You found that excessive? It did burn very nicely. Provided a stunning show, I thought. And achieved its purpose. Along with your brother’s well-timed disappearance, it sent Cathal running from Sevenwaters lest he bring down more havoc on the place. Which underlined his guilt in Lord Sean’s eyes, as I anticipated it would. My son shared his vision with you, didn’t he? The one in which a certain member of your family appeared in an unfavorable light? I was sure Cathal would feel obliged to warn his little friend. Don’t look at me like that, young woman.”

“You . . .” I breathed. “It was all your doing. You burned Glencarnagh. That lovely house . . .”

“Houses can be rebuilt. Even changelings can be rebuilt, so I’ve heard.”

“People died in that fire,” I said, outraged. His response had been so casual; so careless. He had spoken of Aidan’s death in just the same way. “It was completely unnecessary, even in your scheme of things. Cathal was already gone by then—” I made myself stop. I was supposed to be placating the Lord of the Oak, not challenging his actions. “My lord,” I said, “I’ve come here for exactly the reason I told you before. I love your son. I want him back. Will you please consider my feelings and Cathal’s and let us be together? He never wanted this life. All he wants is to return to Inis Eala and be a warrior. And to have a family of his own.”