Abruptly, her eyes are on me, clear and searching. “Duty? You think I’m helping you out of duty?” She remembers Gull and lowers her voice. “You have a strange idea of what a druid is, Ardal. First you accuse me of being unable to feel as others do, and now this.”

“I tell the truth, as I see it. Maybe my truth offends you. Would you prefer a lie?”

“Of course not.” It is the first time I have heard her sound sharp. “I should not have asked you for your interpretation. No wonder your answer was somewhat . . . ”

Instead of holding my tongue as I should, I blunder in deeper. “Why are you helping me, Sibeal?”

She folds her hands in her lap, frowning. “You have disturbed the divination,” she says in a small, cool voice.

“There,” I say, “you change the subject, you detach yourself again, as if to look in your heart is too dangerous. Is this reserve something they teach you, your Ciarán and his fellows? Always to hold back, always to keep control, never to show the world your true self, a living, breathing woman? Is this what your gods require of you?”

She stares at me. After a moment she says, “The preparation to become a druid is very long, Ardal. I have spent a good deal of the last four years in the nemetons at Sevenwaters, much of it alone in prayer, or memorizing the lore, or finding out how much I still have to learn. If I allow my own feelings to crowd my mind, there will be no room left for the voices of the gods. If I expend my strength on my own everyday concerns, I cannot walk my spiritual path as I should.” She pauses then, reflecting on what she has said. “I didn’t express that well,” she adds. “Ardal, I must be detached. That’s one of the reasons I’m here, at Inis Eala. Because I have such difficulty, sometimes, in separating myself from what other people feel. It is something I must learn to do before I make my final promise.”

“I am not talking about what other people feel, Sibeal. I am talking about what you feel.”

“What I feel doesn’t matter.” It is a simple statement, and it saddens me beyond measure.

“Then you waste what you have to give,” I say quietly. “To be less than honest with yourself makes your pledge to the gods only half a gift.” I picture Brother Bernez, with his merry eyes and his droll wisdom; his family was vast, and he loved to talk of them. He spoke, too, of the anguish with which he made the choice, long ago, to dedicate himself to God. “Four years, you say. So you have been undergoing this training since you were . . . ?”

“Twelve. It is quite usual.” Her whole face is closed up; her tone is as chilly as I have ever heard it.