“Mm,” she said. “So, another one who will not grow up a warrior.” Her tone was cool.

“My brothers are all adept with sword and bow,” I said defensively. “They may not all choose Father’s path, but they are not lacking in the skills of war.”

“Even Finbar?”

The eyes of the creatures glowed. I stared back at them and, gathering up every scrap of will, kept my mouth firmly shut. She was behind me again, suddenly, and the hairbrush was in her hand. She waited as the maidservant began, grimly, to unfasten the network of green ribbons that tamed my hair.

“You are reluctant to speak. But how can I be a good mother to these boys, if I do not know them?” She sighed expressively, her face sweetly rueful. “I’m afraid Colum has favored some of his sons and neglected others. I detect a very frosty atmosphere where young Finbar is concerned. What can he have done, to earn such censure? Is it simply a reluctance to participate in warlike pursuits? Or has he never really forgiven his mother for dying and leaving him alone?”

“That’s not fair!” I stood up and whirled around to face her, wrenching my hair from the servant’s grasp. I was oblivious to the pain. “Mother didn’t choose to die! Of course he misses her—we all do, nothing can ever fill the space she left. But we’re not alone, we never have been, we’ve got each other. Can’t you understand that? We are friends, and family, and part of each other, like leaves on the same branch, or pools in the same stream. The same life flows in us all. Talking of jealousy is just silly.”

“Sit down, dear.” Oonagh’s voice was quite calm; she did not react to my outburst. “You spring to your brother’s defense—that is natural, as you have had no other companionship, all these years. What grounds have you for comparison, so narrow is your little world? Not surprising, then, that you cannot see his limitations.”

I managed to escape, finally, but there was no way of blotting out her words, and I wondered again what it was she wanted from me, from us. I felt a strong desire to have all my brothers with me, to touch them and talk with them, to feel their strength and comforting sameness. So I looked for them; but Cormack was engaged in a bout with staves, grinning fiercely as he challenged Donal to find a way past his whirling weapon and fancy footwork. And Padriac was fully occupied with some contraption he was building. A raven perched on a rail above him, turning her head this way and that as his fingers went about their delicate task. “What is it?” I asked my youngest brother, eyeing the intricate folding framework of fine wooden slats and stretched linen.

“Not quite a wing, not quite a sail,” muttered Padriac as his deft fingers fastened another tiny joint. “With this, a small boat will travel very fast over the water; even in the lightest of winds. See how the panels turn, when I tighten this thread?” Indeed, it was ingenious; and I told him so. I patted the old donkey, and peered into the stalls, where a litter of brindled kittens nestled in a corner of the warm straw. The raven followed me, still limping a little from her injury (attacked by other birds, Padriac thought, but she was mending well). She gave the kittens a wide berth.