His touch set my whole body on edge. “Don’t!” I snapped, wrenching myself from his grip. Then, hearing the shrill sound of my own voice, I added more calmly, “All right, I’ll listen. But no more baseless accusations. Where did this notion come from? And why can’t we take it straight to Johnny?”

“No!” Cathal’s hands came up as if to touch me again, then he lowered them to his sides. “This is between you and me, Clodagh. At this point it is nothing more than surmise. An informed guess. There should be no need for action unless . . .”

“Unless Deirdre gets in contact with me and asks the kinds of questions a rival chieftain would ask?”

Cathal sighed. “If she does, you should tell your father immediately. Imagine how it could be if you passed on information to your sister and Illann then used it as the basis for an attack on Sevenwaters. That would look ill for you.”

“This makes no sense,” I said flatly. “An attack, what attack? Why would Illann take any such action? He and Father are allies.”

“It’s only a theory.” He was pacing now, arms wrapped around himself. “But possible nonetheless. How can I convince you to give it some credence?”

“You can’t,” I said. “I had thought we were edging toward being friends, Cathal. But these accusations against Deirdre are deeply offensive. And they’re rubbish. How can you possibly know something like that? How could you know what Illann might be planning if Johnny doesn’t?”

Cathal sighed. “Let me paint a picture for you, Clodagh. We’re in the west somewhere, right on the borders of your father’s land. At dusk a raiding party surrounds a substantial house owned by Lord Sean. The place is fortified, but it’s less well defended than it might be. The raiding party is large, thirty men at least, and they’re not led by Illann, but he’s behind the enterprise. Why, I cannot tell you, but perhaps it has to do with his links among the kinsmen of the High King. The place they’re attacking has elms and oaks close to the house. There’s a stream, a pond, a beech hedge. Two men have been sent in advance to disable the forward sentry post. As a result, the raiders get close enough to set fire to the main dwelling house before their presence is noticed. In the ensuing panic they kill most of the opposing fighters, and the custodian of the house is forced to flee into the woods with his family. The place burns down. The raiders report to the man who sent them: Illann. And Illann thanks his wife for passing on the information that she gleaned for him: that the place was not well defended, since their marriage had allayed any fears of attack in this quarter.”