There followed a quieter time. With Father and the older boys away, we fell back into our old routine, although the guard had increased around the keep and the enclosure. Conor controlled the household affairs with calm competence, arbitrating when two cottagers came to blows over an errant flock of geese, overseeing the autumn brewing and baking, the culling of yearling calves, the salting of meat for winter. For Finbar, Padriac, and me it was a good time. Donal still put the boys through their paces with sword and bow, and they still spent time with Conor, following more learned pursuits. I usually slipped into these lessons, thinking a little scholarship would do me no harm, and that I might pick up something interesting. Each of us could read and write, thanks to Father Brien’s kindness and patience. It was not until much later that I realized how unusual this was, for most households were lucky if they had a scribe who knew sufficient of basic letters to set down a simple inventory. For more complex tasks, such as drawing up contracts between neighbors, one must seek out a monk, or a druid, according to one’s own persuasion. Druids were hard to find, and harder still to pin down. We owed a great deal to Father Brien’s openness of mind.

We knew the runes, and we could reckon, and make a map, and had a fine repertoire of tales both old and new. In addition, we could sing, and play the whistle, and some of us the small harp. We’d had a bard once, who wintered over; that was a while ago, but he taught us the rudiments, and we had an instrument that had been Mother’s, a fine little harp with carvings of birds on it. Padriac, with his genius for finding out and fixing, replaced the broken pegs and restrung it, and we played it in an upper room, where Father couldn’t hear us. Without asking, we knew this reminder of her would be unwelcome.

Padriac’s owl got better, and was eager to be gone. Padriac had waited until the wing was quite mended, and then one day at dusk we went out into the forest to set her free. There was a grin of pure delight on my brother’s face as he released her from his glove for the last time and watched her spread wide those great gray-white wings and spiral up, up, into the treetops. I did not tell him I had seen the tears in his eyes.

Finbar was quiet. I felt he had plans, but he chose not to share them with me. Instead, between his bouts of archery and horsemanship, his scribing and reckoning, he went for long solitary walks, or could be found sitting in his favorite tree, or up on the roof deep in impenetrable thought. I left him alone; when he wanted to talk, I’d be there. I busied myself with the gathering of berries and leaves, the distillery and decoction, the drying and crushing and storing away, in preparation for winter’s ills.