Chapter 6
Chapter six
NIALL
Staring at his furious sister and his horrorstruck advisors, Niall wished, not for the first time, that his father had not died.
Not that he had been particularly fond of his father. He had respected him well enough, as a just and competent king, but as a man – not as much.
No doubt the result of his other sister’s lasting influence on him.
Rory had hated their father with a quiet, vicious hatred ever since she first met him that morning in the vale, and she had never once wavered in her opinion of him.
Niall knew his father had tried to make amends, but they never made any impact on Rory, his tentative peace offerings.
The only gift that she had ever accepted from him – and begrudgingly at that – was her falcon, the twin to his own.
As though he had summoned her, Molly appeared in a rustle of feathers, swooping in through the open window to land on his shoulder.
Niall cleared his throat, the familiar weight of her calming his nerves.
“Eilis, I know this is not ideal.” He stepped forward to stand in front of Aoife’s serene and smiling form.
“But the cailleach and her kin are no happier about the Albion invasion than are we. They are a threat to us all, and we must set aside our mistrust and consider what is best for all of éire.”
“She is a witch,” Eilis hissed, face taut. “Do you not remember how poorly it went for you, the last time you put your faith in one of these gods-forsaken creatures?”
“Rory is not a witch –”
“Oh for the gods’ sakes, Niall! Our realm is teetering on the brink of ruin, and we are all going to die if you do not leave these silly tales of heroes and monsters behind you and rule as you were always meant to do!
You are no longer a child playing at war in our father’s courtyard, Niall.
This is real, and what’s more, Rory – whom I know you are trusting will swoop in at the last moment and save you, as she always has –is not here, Niall, and she is never coming back. ”
Silence fell across the room, heavy and somber, only broken by the tremulous breathing of his older sister as she stared at him, chest heaving from the force of her outburst. Niall’s stomach clenched, aching to reach for her, as he had never done, all his energy and affection focused on the other sister – his twin who had been kept secret from him, and who had been cemented into the very fabric of his being when they had stood hand-in-hand before the creature who stood behind him even now, her scent filling his nostrils.
Nearly fifteen years ago to the day, Aoife had well-nigh killed him – would certainly have done so, if Rory had not, at the last moment, as Eilis put it, swooped in and saved him.
It had taken weeks for his new sister to speak to him after his father had taken her away from grandmother’s castle in the vale of Inagh.
He had watched from atop his squat gray pony as the girl wept in her mother’s arms, and even though the dark-haired woman had not cried, her face was an awful thing to behold – ghost-pale and taut, her grief etched into her delicate features like claw marks on marble.
They had bid one another goodbye, the woman caressing her daughter’s cheeks and whispering words that he could not hear – did not want to hear, to be honest. Even to a boy like himself, it seemed shameful, to witness such an intimate thing as a mother being parted from her child.
His sister – Rory, he soon learned her name to be – ignored all of them for the full journey back to Soghain, hood pulled low over her face, eyes downcast as they rode. She ate when she was told to eat and slept when she was told to sleep, but not a single word did she speak.
Not for his lack of trying. For whatever reason, Niall felt compelled to bond with her, this newfound sister of his, trailing along in her footsteps when they made camp, nudging his pony into a slow trot to fall into step beside hers, slipping her the crusts of his soda bread.
He’d noticed that about her right way, her tendency to nibble away at the crisp brown edges of the bread, seeming to savor the crunch of the crust over the softness in the middle.
She never spoke a word of thanks or acknowledgment, barely even looked at him, but still he persisted.
The breakthrough came weeks later, when he came upon her huddled in a horse-stall one crisp autumn morning, her nose buried in one of his books which she had clearly stolen from his room.
“Hullo,” he said, and her gaze snapped up to his, her brow furrowed as she studied him.
“There you are. You missed breakfast.” She merely stared at him, but he stepped closer anyway. “I love that one –. Are you liking it?”
She closed the book, setting it down on the straw and pushing it towards him with the tips of her fingers. “You can have it back,” she said. “I’m finished with it.”
“You’ve read it already? What was your favorite part?” He paused expectantly, but she continued to stare, silver eyes icy and cool. “Mine’s when Cúchulainn begs Ferdiad not to fight him – ‘thou wast my heart’s comrade, my clan and my kinsman, ne’er found I one dearer.’ Makes me shiver.”
At last, she deigned to answer. “All the lads back home loved Cúchulainn too. The greatest warrior in all of éire.”
“Och no.” Niall shook his head. “He’s quite good, but not the best. That would be Oisín.
The son of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, who ate the flesh of the salmon of knowledge.
” Niall plopped down next to her in the straw.
“He was a great warrior like his father, fierce and furious in battle, with a ríastrad to rival Cúchulainn’s own –”
“What’s that?” Rory interrupted with a frown.
“Battle frenzy,” Niall said. “The blood-lust of killing.”
For some reason, a shadow of something like guilt flickered across her face. “I see.”
He nodded eagerly. “The Fianna were the greatest group of warriors ever known to éire, and he was their prince. But Oisín was also a poet, the greatest bárd ever to be born in éire, thanks to his father’s eating of the bradán feasa.”
“I know the story of the salmon of knowledge,” Rory said. “But I don’t think a poet would make a very good warrior.”
“Why not?”
“Killing someone, taking a life – it’s ugly. I’m sure it leaves a scar.” A piece of straw twirled in her fingers. “Poets – my mamaí says that they remind us of the beauty of life, not the glory of death.”
“Why are there so many poems about war, then?”
Rory shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I am not a bárd.”
“I am,” Niall said proudly. “Well, not a bárd, exactly. I don’t have any magic. But I am a poet, you know. I write poems all the time, just like Oisín. I wrote one about the harvest last week, about the corn-cutting. I can show it to you, if you like. It’s very good.”
“How do you know it’s good?”
“Oh, I’m good at everything I do. Da says I’m a prince for the ages.” He paused. “I don’t know what that means, but it sounds thrilling.”
Something akin to a smile twisted his sister’s lips, but it didn’t seem particularly good-willed to him, nothing like the smiles he’d been surrounded by for much of his seven short years of life. “And you like being thrilled, do you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to have lots of adventures when I grow up.
I’ll travel all over éire, just like the Fianna did, singing songs and fighting glorious battles.
I’ll be like a hero of old, like Oisín and Cúchulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill.
That’s Oisín’s father. He killed the witch of Carrigogonnel. ”
“No mere man is a match for a cailleach.”
“Fionn was. I read all about it, in the tales of Oisín.”
Rory studied him for a moment, her dark gray eyes flat and unreadable. “My mamaí once told me,” she said presently, “of a witch who lives high in the mountains beyond our vale.”
Niall leaned forward eagerly. “Truly? A real cailleach?”
“Yes. She lives in a stone cottage enchanted to seem as nothing more than a pile of rocks, but my mamaí says that I would be able to find it. I have the blood of the gods, she says.” She paused.
“It’s a pity,” she said, and for a moment, it seemed as though the sunlight leaking in through the rafters of the barn darkened, strange shadows creeping towards them from the corners of the barn, an unearthly fog descending with slow inexorable steps.
He blinked, and it was gone, the sunbeams dancing merrily across the straw, as though they had never left.
“A pity that we are stuck here, in your father’s hall, and not in my grandmother’s vale.
Otherwise, we could go into the mountains, you and I, and seek her out, the witch, and you could kill her – become the hero you dream of. ”
“Really? Because I could convince our father to let us visit. Da gives me anything I ask for. And this should be easy enough. Everyone is…nervous, having you here. I’ve heard them whispering, about the rumors of what you can do, what you might have already done.
” He glanced at her warily. “I heard something about a boy in your grandmother’s castle, the son of one of the captains. ”
“You mean Ionatán,” she said. “Poor lad. Tripped and fell right out of a window a fortnight after Lughnasa.” She shook her head, and for some reason, Niall’s stomach squirmed a little.
“Such a tragedy, a terrible accident. I don’t know why anyone would think I had anything to do with it.
” She smiled, wide and white-teethed. “I am only a girl, probably the same age as you.”
“I’m seven,” he found himself saying. “I’ll be eight on the feast of Imbolc.”
Her eyes widened at that. “So will I.”