Now, at last, I can speak to Sibeal alone.

“What is in your thoughts, Sibeal?”

She glances up at me, surprised. Her favorite place is on the mat before the hearth. I do not think it is the warmth she seeks, but visions in the flames. “I was considering whether to cast the runes again.”

“What is the question you need answered?”

The flames flicker in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she says.

“That cannot be true. Cast the runes for a trivial question? You are a druid. You would not do that.”

She makes no answer for a while. Her words, when they come, are hesitant. “Some things may be better not shared.”

“Sibeal, look at me.” She looks, taken aback by my tone. “Do you believe me unworthy of the truth?”

She wraps her arms around herself as if, even there before the hearth, she is touched by a deep cold. “I can’t tell you this, Ardal. It is someone else’s secret.” After a moment she adds, “I haven’t lied to you, just held something back.”

“You said your question did not matter. I do not think that can be true.”

“In fact,” Sibeal says, and I see I have upset her, “if I cast the runes again tonight I would hardly know which question to choose. Several matters are exercising my mind, all equally troubling.”

“Are all these matters better not shared?”

She looks up at me. I feel a jolt to the heart; it is the same each time I look into her eyes. There is no one else in the world with such eyes. She does not answer my question.

“Ah, well,” I say, “I can understand. I am no more than a piece of flotsam, washed up at random on your shore. I come clad only in the garments of today, with no mantle of history about me. I am a stranger even to myself. What right have I to demand truth from you? My every word might be a lie.”

Sibeal smiles. “If I were given three guesses as to what you were before you came here, my first guess would be a student of philosophy.”

I am in the library at St. Laorans. By all the saints, Felix, you astonish me with such an argument, says Brother Bernez. Better not speak thus before others, for if your theories on the nature of deity should reach the ears of Duke Remont, you would bring down trouble not only on this old teacher, but on yourself and on all your family. Light falls through a colored window to gleam on his tonsured head, crowning him with jewels of cobalt and crimson. His eyes are kind. I’m serious, Felix, the old philosopher says. The days when one could put forth such ideas openly are gone. Under Remont’s rule, one does not challenge the teachings of the established faith. Your father could lose his position at court.

I ask him, How can it be wrong to search for truth?