The Dreamstone

There Niall saw him and wiped the sweat and the dust from his brow and came over to him.

“What,” Niall said lightly, “does Aelfraeda know you’ve strayed?”

“By your leave—”

Niall’s brows drew down. “No. Not mine. Not here.”

“My lord—”

“No lord, I say. No longer—Caoimhin.” He clapped him gently on the shoulder. “Come aside with me.”

Caoimhin walked with him, as far as the barn and into the shadow inside, and there Niall stopped. “There is no lord in the Steading,” Niall said at once, “if not Beorc himself; no lady if not Aelfraeda. And that is well enough with me. Forget my name.”

“I have rested. I am well enough to go back again—I will bring you word again. There are men of ours in the hills—”

“No. No. If you leave this place I do not think you will find it again.”

The eagerness died in Caoimhin’s lean face. From toe to crown Caoimhin looked at him and seemed to doubt what he saw as if it were his first clear look. “You have got calluses on your hands and not from the sword, my lord. There is straw in your hair. You do a farmer’s work.”

“I do it well. And I have more joy of it than anything I did. And I will tell you there is more good in it than ever I have hoped to do. Caoimhin, Caoimhin, you will see. You will see what this place is.”

“It has cast a spell on you, that much I see. The King—”

“The King.” A shudder came over Niall and he turned away. “My King is dead; the other—who knows? Who knows if he even exists? I saw my King dead. The other I never saw. A babe smuggled away at night—and who knows whose babe? Some serving maid’s? Some beggar’s child? Or any child at all.”

“I have seen him!”

“So you have seen him. And what proof is that? Any child, I say.”

“A boy—a fair blond boy. Laochailan son of Ruaidhrigh, like him as a boy could be. He has five years now. Taithleach keeps him safe—would you doubt hisword?—always on the move through the hills, so that the traitors will never find him, and they need you now—They need you, Niall Cearbhallain.”

“A boy.” Niall sat down on the gram bin and looked up at Caoimhin with the taste of ashes in his mouth, “And what am I, Caoimhin? I was forty and two when I began to serve this hope of a King to come; and my joints ache, Caoimhin, with five years’ sleeping under tree and stone. And if this boy ever comes to take Dun na h-Eoin—look at me. Twenty years it will need to make a boy a man; and how many more to make that man a king? Am I likely to see it done?”

“So, well—and who of the men dead on Aescford field will ever see him king? Or shall I? Or shall I? I do not know. But I do what I can as we always did. Where is your heart, Cearbhallain?”

“Broken. Long ago. I will hear no more of it. No more.You’ll go or you’ll stay as you wish, when you can. But stay for now. Rest. Only a little time. And see what things are here. O Caoimhin—leave me my peace.”

A long time Caoimhin was silent, looking desolate and lost.

“Peace,” Niall repeated. “Our war is done. There is the harvest; the apples are ripening; there’ll be the long wintertime. And no need of swords and no help at all we can be. It’s all for younger men. If there’s to be a king, he will be theirs, not ours. If we have begun, others will finish. And is that not the way of things?”

“Lord,” Caoimhin whispered softly; and then a sudden alarm came into his eyes at a quiet scurrying, a shadow by the door. Caoimhin sprang and hit the door and hurled the listener in the dust. “Here are spies,” Caoimhin cried, and nabbed the brown man by the hair and hauled him back struggling and gasping as he was and slammed the door.

“Let it go,” Niall said at once, “let it go.”

Caoimhin had a look at it and flung his right hand back with an oath and an outcry, for it bit him and scratched and clawed, but he held it with the left. “This is no man, this—”

“Gruagach is his name,” Niall said, and took Caoimhin’s hand from the brown man. The creature hugged Niall’s arm and danced behind him and fled, peering out again from the refuge of a pile of hay, with straw and dust clinging all over its hair.

“Wicked, wicked,” it said, a voice as slight as itself, that lifted the hairs on a man’s neck.

“He will never hurt you,” Niall promised it. Never had he heard it speak, though others said it could. “Open the door, Caoimhin—open it! Let it go!”

Carefully Caoimhin pushed at the door and light flooded in. The Gruagach stirred himself and sidled that way, closer than ever Niall had seen him clearly, face seamed and brown and bearded, eyes lightless as deep water peering out from under matted hair. It looked up at him and bobbed as if it bowed on its thick legs. And then it fled, scuttling out as quick as the breeze, and was gone.

Then Niall looked toward Caoimhin, and saw the dread there, and all the surmise. “There is no harm in it.”

“Is there none?” Caoimhin leaned against the door. “Now I know where the cakes go at night, and what the luck is in this place. Come away, Cearbhallain, come now.”

“I will never go. No. You do not know—the way of this place. Come, a bargain with me—only a little time. You would always take my word. Stay. You can always leave—but you will never find the way back again. Was it ill luck brought you here? Tell me that. Or tell me whether you would be breathing the air this morning or eating a good breakfast and looking forward to di

A long time Caoimhin reflected on it, and at last looked at the ground and at last looked at him. “There’s autumn ahead,” Caoimhin said, weakening.

“And winter. There is winter, Caoimhin.”

“Till the spring,” Caoimhin said. “In the spring I’ll go.”

The apples went into the bins; the sausages went to smoke; the oak tree shed his leaves and deep snow drifted down. The Gruagach sat on the roof by the chimney and left prints by the step where the cakes and mulled ale disappeared; and of nights he kept the pony and the oxen company.

“Tell us tales,” young Scaga said, as all the household sat about the fire. Marvelous to say, Scaga had taken to making the pony’s mash this winter without being asked; and never a thing had been missed about the house since summer. He had, from being last and least, become a thoughtful if sober lad, and attached himself to Niall’s side and by adoption, to Caoimhin’s as well.

So Caoimhin told of a winter on the Daur and a storm that had cracked old trees; and Sgeulaiche recalled being lost in such a storm. And after, when the whole house curled up to sleep each in their warm nooks, and Beorc and Aelfraeda in their great close-bed in the loft: “It is a young man’s winter,” Caoimhin said to Niall whose pallet was near his.

“A young man’s war,” said Niall.

“They have taken your lands,” Caoimhin said, “and mine.”

A long time Niall was silent. “I have no heir. Nor ever shall, most likely.”

“As for that—” Now the silence was on Caoimhin’s side, a very long time. “As for that, well, that is for young men too. Like the winter. Like the war.”

And after that Caoimhin said nothing. But in the morning a lightness was on him, as if some weight had passed.

He will stay, Niall thought, taking in his breath. At least one man of all that followed me. And then he put that prideful thought away, along with my lordand Cearbhallainand bundled himself into warm clothes, for there was winter’s work to do, the beasts to care for. The children fought snowball battles: Caoimhin joined in, stalking with Scaga round the barn. Niall saw the stealth, the skill that Caoimhin taught the boy. A moment the chill got through: but they were only snowballs, and the squeals and shouts were only children’s laughter.