Not long after, from my high perch, I see Flannan walking across to the infirmary. A bit later I catch sight of Geiléis with Donncha, going down the track home. Can’t see her face. From the way she’s walking I’d guess she’s angry, upset. Seems Father Tomas didn’t say yes to what she wanted—maybe to see the manuscript herself. Which is a surprise. Would’ve thought a lady like her could twist men around her little finger. Even monks.

26

Geiléis

Armorica. Brother Gwenneg. She had all but forgotten him. He was long dead by now, along with the brethren whose number he had traveled so far to join. Brother Gwenneg had been kind to her that night, when she’d returned, weeping, to find all the doors to her home wide-open and banging in the wind. When, soon after, she’d discovered her family, their servants and retainers, all wrapped in a sleep like death, as if this were some ancient tale. She had run all the way to St. Olcan’s for help, with only the moonlight to guide her steps. Gwenneg and three other monks had come back with her, bearing lanterns. That was when she’d discovered this was no magical trance. All those she had loved, all those who had loved her, were stone dead. All but one, and he was beyond her reach. Lily’s punishment, the long ordeal set down in the curse, was just beginning.

The monks of St. Olcan’s had become her friends. They’d provided for her until she’d been able to claw together a household—she’d been determined to stay at Bann, in her own house. Ten of her father’s men-at-arms, under the leadership of Onchú, had been over the border in Tirconnell the night it had happened. On return, all had chosen to stay on at Bann. Seven of the household servants had been given leave to attend a wedding in the south—the bride was Senach’s sister—and to stay overnight for the celebrations. They too had chosen loyalty over freedom, even knowing the truth.

The brothers had suggested it might be more appropriate for her, young as she was and all alone, to live with kinsmen or in the household of a neighboring chieftain. She’d been firm in her refusal. She hadn’t told them about the curse. She hadn’t offered any theories about what had happened. Everyone had understood, without quite saying so, that only the fey could wreak such a catastrophe. When, in early summer of that year, it had become evident that there was someone in the tower, and that the someone or something liked to scream from dawn until dusk, folk had not said much at all. The curse had been powerful indeed. Strong enough to last as long as it took. Clever enough to ensure nobody noticed that the Lady of Bann still walked the forest paths twenty years later, and fifty years later, and eighty years later and a hundred. That she was still young and lovely, with golden hair streaming down her back and a complexion like peaches and cream. That over all that time she had aged no more than another sixteen years. Her name varied with the generations, of course. She referred to her mother, her grandmother, her forebears, her ancestors. And if her household servants, too, did not seem to grow old, nobody made comment.