Diarmid drew his breath in sharply. “That will be a formidable alliance. What if they should turn against Father? I hope he’s strengthening our defenses up beyond the river. Seamus was ally enough before, but this news makes me uneasy. We should be concentrating our joint forces against Northwoods, and to do that effectively we must be able to trust our neighbors.”

“I know little of his defenses,” said Conor wearily. “There’s no sign of a replacement for Donal, and not much activity around the place. But it is winter. Perhaps when the warm weather comes, Father will take heart and rally his men.”

“What about Eilis?” asked Padriac, his hands busy. He worked rapidly and precisely by the dim lantern light, fashioning a new weaving frame from ash wood bound with twine. “Does it suit her to wed this fellow? Isn’t he a bit old for her?”

“It will be against her wishes,” said Conor quietly, glancing over at our eldest brother, who still stood in the shadows, his head bowed. “But she is a good daughter and will do as she is told. She never understood how Liam could leave and not tell her why. Her heart is still sore for him, but she will be a faithful wife and a loving mother. It is better thus.”

“Better for whom?” asked Diarmid bitterly.

It was a bleak visit. I wanted so much to be able to speak, for I could see their grief, their anger, their guilt, and I could feel how it was tearing them apart, even turning them one against the other, but without words there was little I could do for them. I gave Liam a hug, but could not tell him I knew Eilis loved him, and would have waited for him if she could. I took Diarmid’s hands in mine and studied the bitterness in his face; I would have told him that we all forgave him for his indiscretion; that Oonagh could have picked on any of them; it was just his bad luck that she chose him for her plaything. I wanted to tell him not to hate so much. But I could not speak. As for Finbar, he sat alone, his arms around his knees, his long hair unkempt and blowing across his eyes as he stared out toward the dark water of the lake. He did not look at me, and he said nothing at all.

So the night wore on, and Padriac finished the weaving frame. Cormack mended my boots, closely watched by an edgy Linn. These two brothers had not changed so much, I thought. Padriac was always so clearly focused on some task or some problem, perhaps the terrible thing that had happened to them was merely another interesting challenge for him. Certainly, he seemed content enough to spend his one night of freedom building and fixing and throwing the odd word or two into the general conversation. He at least would survive, I thought. In Cormack’s case it was probably lack of imagination that helped him cope. This was not kind of me, I suppose; but Cormack tended to see the world in black and white, and in some ways this made life easier for him. His aggression was his point of weakness, as the lady Oonagh had deduced earlier than any of us. By turning that against his dearest and most trusting companion, she had made him doubt his own integrity, and that doubt would always be with him now.