So, one by one, my brothers went away from Sevenwaters. We had always said we would be there one for another, as long as we lived. We had always said that, like the seven streams from which our home took its name, we were all parts of the same whole, and our lives would be interlinked. That nothing would drive us apart, though the greatest distance might separate us. And yet, soon there would be only Liam and me left here. Intense, driven, Liam channeled his energies fiercely into restoring what our father had almost let slip through his fingers. Unsmiling, tireless Liam, working as if possessed, demanded and received an unswerving loyalty from all his people. He had cause to be grateful, grudgingly, for the presence of Lord Hugh in his household now. For it was Red who sorted out the disputes between one settlement and another, while Liam was closeted with Seamus Redbeard discussing the finer points of their strategy. It was Red who saw to the revegetation of the land the lady Oonagh had devastated, explaining to the folk how you must plant before you harvested, and what trees would grow most quickly, to ensure a good supply of usable timber in years to come. It was Red who saw to the cottagers, and brought in new stock, and taught the people how best to mend stone walls and repair thatched roofs. By spring, Liam admitted reluctantly that he didn’t know how we’d managed without him.

At Meán Earraigh, when night equals day and the earth comes forth in her spring raiment after the long chill of winter, I took Red out by the lake and up through the woods to a place long unvisited. Here Father Brien the hermit had lived his solitary, ordered life. Here the children of Sevenwaters had learned strange tongues and secret symbols. Here I had first tended to Simon, and the seeds of one part of my story had been sown. I had explained to Red that this was a place I must go before I could be at ease. A place where an old friend had lived, once.

Red frowned on the idea of my riding forth, fearing harm to me or my unborn child, and agreed to go only if he might carry me before him on his own horse, where, he said, he could keep an eye on me. So we rode leisurely up between the great oaks, and he fell silent at their towering strength, and the sheets of gold that hung from their upper branches, where the sacred herb found its home in their shelter. The day was fair and warm, with a fresh breeze that tossed little clouds about the sky. The cave was empty, its shelves bare, and the tiny cottage deserted. If there had once been a scent of illness and fear over this small home, it was gone, and the slanting sunlight invested cave and cell with a warm stillness that suggested both were waiting, only waiting for another to come and take up tranquil, silent residence. We sat on the rocks under the rowan bushes, and shared the water and bread and dried fruits we had carried with us. The horse grazed contentedly on verdant spring grass.