“How did she do it?” Thanks to Ciarán, I knew more of this story than most of my sisters did. Bran and Gull had both been imprisoned and tortured, and Liadan, flouting convention as she so often did, had rushed to their aid. Bran had been very ill afterward, locked inside himself. My parents did not speak of those events. Unlike other parts of our family history, which formed part of our after-supper repertory of tales, this story had a blanket of silence over it.

“How did she bring him back?” echoed Gull. “She had all of us tell the Chief stories. We spoke to him of how he’d found each of us when we were at our lowest and given us another chance, another life, a better one than the wretched thing of before.”

“Why don’t you tell that story tonight?” I suggested. “How you and Aunt Liadan saved Bran from his enemy, I mean. I know Ciarán helped you.”

Perhaps my voice had changed when I spoke this name, for Gull smiled.

“Think a lot of that fellow, don’t you?”

“I owe him more than I can say. He’s not just my kinsman, he’s my mentor. My teacher. And far more.”

“Must be a lot more, if he’s convinced a young woman of your age to commit herself to a spiritual life. Are there other females among these druids of yours?”

“Three.”

“Young? Old? What kind of woman chooses that path?”

“They’re all quite a bit older than me,” I said. There would, in fact, be a gap of some thirty years between me and the youngest of them, but I did not tell him that. “It’s not so much a matter of choosing, as of being chosen.”

“Mm-hm. These women druids, they take a part in teaching you, do they?”

“They are not scholars like Ciarán or my uncle Conor. Ciarán teaches all the young druids. Conor has particular branches of study that he shares with me.” After a little I added, “Last time I told Ardal a story, it was about my choice of a spiritual life. He won’t want to hear all this again.”

“I wish to hear,” Ardal said.