Description: Chapter One My mother knew every tale that was ever told by the firesides of Erin, and more besides. Folks stood hushed around the hearth to hear her tell them after a long day''s work, and marveled at the bright tapestries she wove with her words. She related the many adventures of C Chulainn the hero, and she told of Fionn mac Cumhaill, who was a great warrior and cunning with it. In some households, such tales were reserved for men alone. But not in ours, for my mother made a magic with her words that drew all under its spell. She told tales that had the household in stitches with laughter, and tales that made strong men grow quiet. But there was one tale she would never tell, and that was her own. My mother was the girl who had saved her brothers from a sorceress''s curse, and nearly lost her own life doing it. She was the girl whose six brothers had spent three long years as creatures of the wild, and had been brought back only by her own silence and suffering. There was no need for telling and retelling of this story, for it had found a place in folks'' minds. Besides, in every village there would be one or two who had seen the brother who returned, briefly, with the shining wing of a swan in place of his left arm. Even without this evidence, all knew the tale for truth; and they watched my mother pass, a slight figure with her basket of salves and potions, and nodded with deep respect in their eyes. If I asked my father to tell a tale, he would laugh and shrug and say he had no skill with words, and besides he knew but one tale, or maybe two, and he had told them both already. Then he would glance at my mother, and she at him, in that way they had that was like talking without words, and then my father would distract me with something else. He taught me to carve with a little knife, and he taught me how to plant trees, and he taught me to fight. My uncle thought that more than a little odd. All right for my brother Sean, but when would Niamh and I need skills with our fists and our feet, with a staff or a small dagger? Why waste time on this when there were so many other things for us to learn? "No daughter of mine will go beyond these woods unprotected," my father had said to my Uncle Liam. "Men cannot be trusted. I would not make warriors of my girls, but I will at least give them the means to defend themselves. I am surprised that you need ask why. Is your memory so short?" I did not ask him what he meant. We had all discovered, early on, that it was unwise to get between him and Liam at such times. I learned fast. I followed my mother around the villages, and was taught how to stitch a wound and fashion a splint and doctor the croup or nettle rash. I watched my father, and discovered how to make an owl and a deer and a hedgehog out of a piece of fine oak. I practiced the arts of combat with Sean, when he could be cajoled into it, and perfected a variety of tricks that worked even when your opponent was bigger and stronger. It often seemed as if everyone at Seven-waters was bigger than me. My father made me a staff that was just the right size, and he gave me his little dagger for my own. Sean was quite put out for a day or so. But he never harbored grudges. Besides, he was a boy, and had his own weapons. As for my sister, Niamh, you never could tell what she was thinking. "Remember, little one," my father told me gravely, "this dagger can kill. I hope you need never employ it for such a purpose; but if you must, use it cleanly and boldly. Here at Seven-waters you have seen little of evil, and I hope you will never have to strike a man in your own defense. But one day you may have need of this, and you must keep it sharp and bright, and practice your skills against such a day." It seemed to me a shadow came over his face, and his eyes went distant as they did sometimes. I nodded silently and slipped the small, deadly weapon away in its sheath These things I learned from my father, whom folk called Iubdan, though his real name was different. If you knew the old tales, you recognized this name as a joke, which he accepted with good humor. For the Iubdan of the tales was a tiny wee man, who got into strife when he fell into a bowl of porridge, though he got his own back later. My father was very tall and strongly built, and had hair the color of autumn leaves in afternoon sun. He was a Briton, but people forgot that. When he got his new name he became part of Sevenwaters, and those who didn''t use his name called him the Big Man. I''d have liked a bit more height myself, but I was little, skinny, dark haired, the sort of girl a man wouldn''t look twice at. Not that I cared. I had plenty to occupy me without thinking that far ahead. It was Niamh they followed with their eyes, for she was tall and broad shouldered, made in our father''s image, and she had a long fall of bright hair and a body that curved generously in all the right places. Without even knowing it, she walked in a way that drew men''s eyes. "That one''s trouble," our kitchen woman Janis would mutter over her pots and pans. As for Niamh herself, she was ever critical. "Isn''t it bad enough being half Briton," she said crossly, "without having to look the part as well? See this?" She tugged at her thick plait, and the red-gold strands unraveled in a shinning curtain. "Who would take me for a daughter of Sevenwaters? I could be a Saxon with this head of hair! Why couldn''t I be tiny and graceful like Mother?" I studied her for a moment or two as she began to wield the hairbrush with fierce strokes. For one so displeased with her appearance, she did spend rather a lot of time trying out new hairstyles and changing her gown and ribbons. "Are you ashamed to be the daughter of a Briton?" I asked her. She glared at me. "That''s so like you, Liadan. Always come straight out with it, don''t you? It''s all very well for you; you''re a small copy of Mother yourself, her little right hand. No wonder Father adores you. For you it''s simple." I let her words wash over me. She could be like this at times, as if there were too many feelings inside her and they had to burst out somewhere. The words themselves meant nothing. I waited. Niamh used her hairbrush like an instrument of punishment. "Sean, too," she said, glaring at herself in the mirror of polished bronze. "Did you hear what Father called him? He said, he''s the son Liam never had. What do you think of that? Sean fits in; he knows exactly where he''s going. Heir to Sevenwaters, beloved son with not one but two fathers--he even looks the part. He''ll do all the right things--wed Aisling, which will make everyone happy, be a leader of men, maybe even the one who wins the Islands back for us. His children will follow in his footsteps, and so on, and so on. Brighid save me, it''s so tedious! It''s so predictable." "You can''t have it both ways," I said. "Either you want to fit in, or you don''t. Besides, we are the daughters of Sevenwaters, like it or not. I''m sure Eamonn will wed you gladly when it''s time, golden hair or no. I''ve heard no objections from him." "Eamonn? Huh!" She moved to the center of the room, where a shaft of light struck gold against the oak boards of the floor, and in this spot she began slowly to turn, so that her white gown and her brilliant shining hair moved around her like a cloud. "Don''t you long for something different to happen, something so exciting and new it carries you along with it like a great tide, something that lets your life blaze and burn so the whole world can see it? Something that touches you with joy or with terror, that lifts you out of your safe, little path and onto a great, wild road whose ending nobody knows? Don''t you ever long for that, Liadan?" She turned and turned, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if this were the only way she could contain what she felt. I sat on the edge of the bed, watching her quietly. After a while I said, "You should take care. Such words might tempt the Fair Folk to take a hand in your life. It happens. You know Mother''s story. She was given such a chance, and she took it; and it was only through her courage, and Father''s, that she did not die. To survive their games you must be very strong. For her and for Father the ending was good. But that tale had losers as well. What about her six brothers? Of them, but two remain, or maybe three. What happened damaged them all. And there were others who perished. You would be better to take your life one day at a time. For me, there is enough excitement in helping to deliver a new lamb, or seeing small oaks grow strong in spring rains. In shooting an arrow straight to the mark, or curing a child of the croup. Why ask for more when what we have is so good?" Niamh unwrapped her arms and ran a hand through her hair, undoing the work of the brush in an instant. She sighed. "You sound so like Father you make me sick sometimes," she said, but the tone was affectionate enough. I knew my sister well. I did not let her upset me often. "I''ve never understood how he could do it," she went on. "Give up everything, just like that: his lands, his power, his position, his family. Just give it away. He''ll never be master of Sevenwaters, that''s Liam''s place. His son will inherit, no doubt; but Iubdan, all he''ll be is ''the Big Man'', quietly growing his trees and tending his flocks and letting the world pass him by. How could a real man choose to let life go like that? He never even went back to Harrowfield." I smiled to myself. Was she blind that she did not see the way it was between them, Sorcha and Iubdan? How could she live here day by day, and see them look at one another, and not understand why he had done what he had done? Besides, without his good husbandry, Sevenwaters would be nothing more than

Please Wait