Saoirse

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Ismay inquired, her tone not entirely welcoming.</div> <div> Saoirse dropped a small curtsy, feeling her hair catch on her own wool skirt.  "Mother, if I could have a word or two with you and Father?  I've been trying to catch you out, but," she shrugged an apology, "you're hard to follow."</div> <div> "If you wish," Ismay answered; her mother's melodious and very Gaelic contralto sounded disapproving.  "Come in, then."</div> <div> Ismay left Revelin standing near the door, and seated her daughter on a flat-topped chest, while her footfalls shush-shushed away.  "Sorley," Saoirse heard her mother's soft, urgent murmur.  "Sorley, your daughter wants…." </div> <div> She settled against the wall, twining her hands in her skirt and letting her smooth hair slide over her shoulder to lay warm against her cheek.  There was no help for it; her father's measured step clicked decisively closer, no matter how she turned her head.  At least she didn't have to watch him approach; she couldn't. Sometimes Saoirse blessed her blindness; others she cursed it, and this was one of the former.</div> <div> "Saoirse?  What does my favorite daughter want?" Sorley's rich bass rolled beside her, his English the same muddle of accents as her own.  He laid a hand on her fretting ones, and she stopped; felt the warmth of it as it dwarfed her own.</div> <div> The chest creaked as he settled, and she turned her face to him to smile up at that soft, warm voice.  "Your only daughter, Father.  And…it is not so very much I want," she told him, slipping her hand around to hold his own.</div> <div> "Only daughter," Sorley agreed wistfully, but she heard the linen of his leine-sleeve rustle, beckoning Ismay over.  "Aye, only daughter among five sons.  Tell us what this little thing is, Saoirse."</div> <div> She cleared her throat, tucked her hair back behind her ear, and said the sentence she had so earnestly come to ask.  "I want to be a bard.  I want to be a harper, Mother, Father," Saoirse pleaded, holding out her hands in supplication, and whispered it again,  "I want to be a bard."</div> <div> Her father's hand left hers, and she heard her mother's knowing sigh.  "A bard?  Why should my Saoirse wish to be a bard?  You would stay here?"  Sorley inquired, puzzled.</div> <div> "Tell us, Saoirse," Ismay commanded gently, and put her hand on her daughter's shoulder.</div> <div> "I want to be a harper, oh, I do.  I want the music, those gorgeous melodies that they play.  I have no suitors, no craft but music to turn my hand to.  Not when I'm blind, Father.  Mother, I can't possibly stay, here with my brothers on what will be Beircheart's keep.  The old maiden aunt," Saoirse told them with a steady voice, dismay flavoring her tone as yearning had before.  </div> <div> Ismay's exhalation was unhappily thoughtful, reproof dampening her daughter's hope.  "Beircheart's inheritance is not the point, Saoirse.  We're almost the head family, here in Leitrim, and having our children play Gaelic harp wouldn't put us in good mind with His Majesty of England.  There are some who would love to take your family down for doing such, pointing fingers and accusing us of violating those silly Statutes.  And they'd bring up Norman and Gaelic marrying <I>again</I>.  They did when Sorley and I were wedded, Saoir."</div> <div> Her father stepped in smoothly, "Saoirse, I really don't know if I can have my daughter roaming about the countryside and singing for her keep.  How would you find your way?  Who would take care of you?"</div> <div> A very courteous tenor interjected a strong "I would".  By the door, Revelin stirred, and scuffed his toes in the rushes as he continued,  "I've been Saoirse's guide nearly since I was fostered, Lord Sorley, Lady Ismay.  I'd not let her come to harm.  Ask my father if I know the road," he said quietly, silently asking for that much trust.</div> <div> "No doubt of that, young sir MacCabe; I shan't question your familial talent.  But let Ismay and I talk of it for a while, Saoirse.  A few weeks is not so very much, if you've truly been that long finding time to talk with us," Sorley rumbled, and Saoirse bowed her head with a very small smile.  </div> <div> Her father's arm held her a moment with a reassuring pressure, and she bent to his strength and allowed him the embrace.  "I thank you, Father, Mother, and all my heart hopes that you will answer yes when you are ready.  Until then, my parents, I shall leave you," and Saoirse spun away.  "Revelin, if you will?"</div> <div> His warm hand touched her elbow lightly, and led her back out into the cool, quiet hall.  The door thudded behind her, squeaking with indigent protest at being wedged against the jamb.  </div> <div> "That went," and she turned toward him with her thanks written all over her face, "better than I thought.  Not as well as I had hoped, but they didn't say no.  Go raimh maith agat, Rev."</div> <div> He tugged her onward, embarrassed.  "'Twasn't much, Saoirse.  How could I not be your guide if you harp?  I'm too young yet to muck about with Father's money, which I shall have to do if I'm setting up to deal with horses as I want to.  And you're more my friend than any of your brothers."</div> <div> Saoirse turned her face up toward him.  "You don't get along with them very well, do you?  I know Lor and Kier like you, at least, and `Mire thinks the sun rises and sets on you, just because you've been his little sister's friend.  Beir is Beir, of course; cool and aloof from anyone that isn't kith and kin to him, and Cath is too busy rebelling to befriend you, but couldn't you be friends with at least one of my barbarian brothers?"</div> <div> Revelin sighed moodily.  "Beircheart thinks I'm a dangerous liability, Ainmire wants a fencing partner, Lorcan doesn't think I can `overcome' my ancestry, Kieran goes out of his way to be nice to me because he hopes we'll fall in love, and all Cathal wishes to do is read me long discourses on the virtues of his dogs and their pedigrees."  </div> <div> Saoirse wrinkled her nose in agreement.  "I do love my little brother, but someday I <I>shall</I> interrupt with something rude.  Cathal's far too fond of his hounds.  But still, Rev," she trailed off and earnestly clasped his hand.</div> <div> "You're enough friend for me, Saoirse," he told her with a decisive rumble to his words, and led her on firmly.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The wind whistled and keened, blowing up her skirts as she slid back a little, reclining on the slick, sun-warmed slate with only the rain-hollowed stone to remind her that she was, indeed, earthbound.  The sky was at her fingertips, and she drew in the softening air exultantly, rejoicing in being alone at last.</div> <div> The scrape of her brother's shoes reminded her she was not <I>that</I> alone.  Still, she did not have to hang on Revelin or her siblings, and the furniture never rearranged itself out here.  There were no stern and lofty ceilings to startle the sounds up to the very rafters.  And Ainmire was polite company.  She wouldn't dream of chasing off her only sibling who minded neither wind, chill, or heat.</div> <div> After all, it had been Ainmire's hiding place before she came.  He'd unselfishly offered it to her, shown her the broken masonry and window ledges, patiently talking her through it until she fixed the footing and handholds in her mind.  </div> <div> She sat there a moment, breathing the odd smells that were not in themselves pleasant-sweat and crushed moss, mud and damp wood; the scent of rain lingered in the breeze that drowsed around the rooftops.  She could feel the height of the sun, its fragile warmth as gentle as Revelin's hands.</div> <div> "Saoirse!" Ainmire's claxon baritone cracked like well-intentioned thunder, refracting her train of thought into echoes of chaos.  She groaned and mumbled something uncomplimentary under her breath, levering herself up with her arms.  </div> <div> "Ainmire," she called back, resigned.  The soft leather soles of his shoes shushed and scraped across the rooftop toward her, uneven since her brother had to pick his footing on the damp stone, and in a moment he stood by her.</div> <div> "Storm's coming, Saoirse.  Shall we try a new way down?  Roof's got a big break in it over the attic.  Another attempt of Lorcan's to `fix' something, I don't doubt," his cheerful voice drifted down from his head-and-a-half of extra height.  </div> <div> She grinned and stuck her hand up, expectantly.  His hard and wiry hands closed over her wrist, angling her upright with an expert delicacy.  "But of course, brother dear."  Lorcan's insatiable urge to twiddle with things often ended with parts of the roof missing; they had grown used to it, and the wide holes turned the roof into a rabbit-warren for brother and sister.  </div> <div> Footfalls pattered across the slopes as they darted to and fro giddily.  "Does Ranalt know," Saoirse panted, windmilling her arms and skidding to a halt,  "that you wander about on the rooftops with a young woman you grew up with?  Totally unchaperoned?"</div> <div> Ainmire's lanky build caused his elbow to hit closer to her shoulder than to her ribs.  He chuckled as she yelped indignantly.  "Well, now, you know, I've never told her.  She'd come up after us and bluster for sure if she knew.  Poor Rana," he mocked, love apparent in his voice.</div> <div> "Poor wifie to my barbarian brother," Saoirse agreed, and toed the edge of the hole.  "Lower me down, barbarian, before you start painting yourself blue."</div> <div> He sucked in breath in false anguish, muttered theatrically as he eased Saoirse's thin frame through the gaping breach.  She dropped lightly to the floor, knees bent, and sidled away to give her sibling room.</div> <div> The thud a moment later made the rafters vibrate.  Ainmire grunted at the impact and drew a long, happy breath.  </div> <div> Saoirse rubbed the ball of her foot over the floor, curiously.  It was smooth, old wood, pitted and full of dust, without a scrap of rushes between the close-joined planks.  </div> <div> "Saoirs," Ainmire called in an impatient clarion, "Saoirse!  Come on!  We have to go down the stairs, you know!"</div> <div> She bit her lip and heaved an enormous sigh, holding out her hands at waist-level while she skated cautiously over to him, toes tracing nervous circles of clear floor before she stepped.  Her fingers met cloth, and she halted, eyebrows raised in question.</div> <div> A work-roughened hand clasped about her elbow, and she jerked, glowering.  The too-strong grip and deft, callused fingers would have told her it was Ainmire, even if she hadn't felt the characteristic copper band on his hand digging into her skin.  </div> <div> "Ainmire!" she protested, prying his fingers up to a looser grip.  He coughed apologetically, slackened his stranglehold, and tugged her on.  The stairwell almost scraped his shoulders as they went in, and she let him lead.</div> <div> The shallow stone steps spiraled down steeply, and Saoirse shuddered at the closeness of the walls and shortness of the steps, drawing into herself as they edged slowly down.  Her brother's pull was insistent and eager; Saoirse chose to think of that instead of the claustrophobic clutch of the walls.</div> <div> She held back a little, bracing her feet and pulling back her arm obstinately.  Ainmire reacted predictably, pausing to turn around and draw on her arm with all the patience of a starving wolf.  "Hungry, brother?" Saoirse queried, innocently.</div> <div> "Curious," he growled, and she relented, climbing downward into the cold depths of the tower. </div> <div> There was warmth and heat now, and she stepped down onto a thin layer of old rushes and flat floor.  It was wood under her feet here as well, she discovered, and thumped with her heel to hear the hollow sound.  The rushes were dust-velveted, as soft as new shoots, crackling underfoot.</div> <div> "Careful, Saoirs, there's a lot of stuff up here," Ainmire warned and then halted in surprise.  "Saoirse, hey!  There's a harp."</div> <div> She had only time to blink in shock before he heaved at her elbow and all but dragged her over to the instrument.  Ainmire knew of her desire to be a bard; he encouraged it, asking her to sing and play the little tinwhistle he'd given her.  Now he practically shoved her onto the long, low bench he'd found behind the harp, and waited expectantly, panting.  </div> <div> The wood of the bench was dustless, polished, and the grain was more silken in the center, where she sat; it felt strangely recently-used.  She reached forward and touched the harp, felt along the smoothness of the soundboard and stroked its staved back with a wild hunger.  She stretched to caress the bird-ornamented pillar, tracing the swooping curve with delight.</div> <div> Then Saoirse brought herself to pluck a string, delicately, lovingly.  The clear, bell-like tone made her shiver at its beauty.  She ran her short oval nails over the strings and then silenced them, in awe of their voice.  And yet, she tried again, and this time she <I>played</I>, finding the first note and linking the ups and downs of her melody to the up-and-down placement of strings.  </div> <div> Ainmire coughed softly, and she stilled the strings with her palm, turning her unseeing eyes toward him.  "Ah, Saoirse, can you get down by yourself?  I can't stay here much longer…Beircheart'll come looking for me…and I hate to drag you away…"</div> <div> "Go ahead," she granted, absorbed in her music again, wishing tunes out of the willing harp.  "I'll be just fine.  If you get done before I do, come back and get me."  She knew he'd escape Beircheart's meetings before she would care to leave this new and glorious instrument.</div> <div> He clattered away while she sat playing from the heart, cursing her fingers - never before <I>this</I> clumsy - and the uncertain hands she'd depended on from the moment of her birth.  </div> <div> She filled the hours with melodies, coaxing  song from the waiting strings.  Saoirse was happy as she'd never been before, with the unfamiliar weight light on her shoulder, and her fingers wove songs instead of cloth.  Her head nodded; she almost dozed, sleepily jubilant, drunk with sound.</div> <div> Footsteps thudded on the stairs, and she straightened to show Ainmire how well she was doing.  She embroidered the thin thread of her own song for him, thrumming joyfully.</div> <div> A deep-throated roar tumbled up the stairway, sending up echoes like a hound sends up birds.  "Who's playing?"  </div> <div> Saoirse shrank into herself and shivered in fear.  "I am," she faltered, her voice gone shrill as her tinwhistle.  </div> <div> <B>"Saoirse!" </b>the voice - her father's voice - bellowed.  "Out!  Go!  Leave now!"  Undertones of throbbing anger beating at the bass register pushed at her, whirling her out of her seat as if she were a leaf.  </div> <div> She pressed flat against the wall, shuddering, as she heard his footsteps tread dourly past, and then darted for the stairs down, flinching at every snap of a brittle reed.  Like a punished hound, she flattened herself as she half-stumbled down the stairs, even these wider walls unnerving her.  </div> <div> Someone caught her arm, and she struggled, not recognizing the grip.  "Saoirs, Saoirs, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Ainmire babbled, stricken.  "I couldn't go up before him, I couldn't, and he was so <I>angry</I>…"</div> <div> Saoirse simply pressed close to him, and pushed him to the hallway nearby.  With an absent hug, she reassured him, calming him a little before she fled to the little room she had all to herself, where she lay quivering and wondering what she had done wrong.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Chapter 2</b></div> <bR> <div> A rolling drumbeat invaded the silence of her room, and Saoirse uncurled and sat up, shaking her hair back from her face and calling, "Come in."</div> <div> But it was not just Ainmire's steady tread.  There was someone else there, with cat-quiet steps and clothes that rustled and whispered against the clean rushes on her floor.  And the draft from the doorway smelled of cloves.  </div> <div> "Mother?" Saoirse queried, astonished, and sat up a little straighter, combing her fingers through her tangled hair.  </div> <div> "Saoirse," Ismay replied, and settled next to her, putting a comforting arm around her daughter's sharp shoulders.  "May I talk to you?"</div> <div>  Ainmire jounced down on her other side, radiating concern.  He seemed uncomfortable, perched beside her in her room, but he stayed.</div> <div> Saoirse nodded wordlessly, closing her itching eyes and listening with a tight concentration.  She sniffed, her chest expanding in a deep breath, and she sat waiting, distant but attentive.</div> <div> Ismay, apparently satisfied with this, began.  "That incident this afternoon, dear, with the harp-it isn't any of your doing.  That's your Uncle Liam's harp.  Liam wanted to be a bard, you know.  He almost got there, too.  He had a harp, and talent, and a love of it like nothing else-but Liam didn't have a teacher.  He couldn't find a single bard without an apprentice, or one that was willing to take on a man of twenty-one as a protégé.  He'd have made a good bard, a wonderful bard."  She paused for effect, letting her words sink in.</div> <div> "Your grandfather, though…he wasn't having his first-born be a bard.  And when Liam persisted, old Piaras up and disinherited him.  The boy still had some of the family money, but he was no longer the eldest son. </div> <div> Liam was devastated.  He left his harp and his dream, and set out to find <I>some</I> way of redeeming himself in Piaras' eyes.  The monies he had he used to start a merchant business, small but very good.  Poor man, he was skin and bones for a while there, forgetting to eat, working himself down.</div> <div> Then, he met Siany Monahan, a fellow merchant's daughter, and as strong-willed an Irish lass as ever there was.  She loved him, though, and he came around, eventually.  That's your Aunt Siany, Saoirse, Ainmire.</div> <div> But, anyway, Sorley was very upset at becoming eldest son in so precipitous a manner, and exceedingly distraught that his brother had to leave.  He blamed the harp and the bard-dream, and still does.  He broods over it sometimes, on winter afternoons.  </div> <div> Still, he's always kept Liam's harp, kept it in tune and out of the heat and draft, even played it sometimes when he's very, very lonely.  To see someone else touching that harp scared him; his daughter being claimed by the same dream that broke up his happy life.  I fear he'll have more to say this evening about you touching that thing, Saoirse, but I wanted you to know why he was so angry."</div> <div> Saoirse raised an eyebrow.  "Uncle <I>Liam</I> wanted to be a <I>bard</I>?  I'd have thought it of Uncle Modan, perhaps, but not Uncle Liam."  Then she caught the rest of it, and her face stiffening in a grimace of incredulity.  "Father plays it?  Keeps it tuned?  And he blames the bards for his brother?  What have I gotten myself into?"</div> <div> "Modan," said Ismay crisply, "is wordy, not musical.  Which you'd know if you'd ever heard him sing."  She made a derogatory noise in the back of her throat.  "Yes," she replied briefly to Saoirse's other questions.  "It's a pretty kettle of soup, dear.  But I shall try to convince him, if you really wish it.  Goodness knows, none of the boys want to do anything of the sort, and you aren't first-born nor very likely to marry someone powerful.  I can hardly deny you something from my side of Ireland.  Any more questions, Saoirs?"</div> <div> The young woman shook her head.  "Nay, Mother, none."</div> <div> Ismay rose in a shushing cascade of unfolding fabric and spice-scented breeze, Ainmire following sheepishly with a creak of the bed's frame.  The door closed gently behind them, and Saoirse lay back, closing her eyes and lapsing back into silent thought.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> With Saoirse's mother taking up the discussion with a belligerent Sorley, Saoirse assumed it to be bad form to remind him of her presence.  Keeping out of the way for the next several weeks proved to be much harder than she'd expected, and she begged a friend of hers in the village nearby for things to occupy her mind.  Bebhinn Gilmore was a midwife, and always had tasks she could, and would, entrust to Saoirse.  </div> <div> Not that it proved to be <I>easy</I> work.  Bebhinn was a strict taskmistress, and there was no hint of astringent humor in her practical alto when Saoirse failed to complete an assignment</div> <div> And so it came that Saoirse was on the road to home as the tentative warmth of the sun was fleeing toward the western horizon, tired and aching hands brushing the dragging weight of her heavy wool skirts.  They seemed sewn with lead, falling in sharp folds like granite to slow her stride.  </div> <div> The creak and rumble of a wagon finally did slow her sufficiently; she stopped and listened to the staccato thud of hooves, the jingle of bridle and saddle ornaments, the protesting <I>whuff</I> of breath a few mounts gave as their riders jounced to the racking rhythm of a trot.  </div> <div> Saoirse stepped tentatively back into the tall grass at the side of the road, well aware she smelled of vinegar and sharp wine, that her skirt was stained from kneeling in the seasonal mud and her hair was adhering to the back of her neck, that something was itching as it dried in a smear across her brow.  The racket of wagon and horses approached with every thud and jingle, and she winced; it drew abreast of her, and a voice startlingly like her fathers queried, puzzled, "Saoirs?  Saoirse?"</div> <div> "Uncle <I>Liam</I>?" Saoirse cried, incredulously, and there was a thump, a jangle, and the velveted tread of a tall man before she was scooped up and spun around.  "What are you doing here?" she asked with astonishment.  </div> <div> The lace and linen under her fingers trembled with his suppressed amusement.  "I could ask you the same," her uncle murmured in his warm baritone, and he snorted.  "Saoirse!  Dear niece, you smell like an herbwoman.  Tell you what, would you like to turn your walk home into a ride home?"</div> <div> Saoirse nodded eagerly, and with his rumble-chuckle he scooped her up-with a grunt as her lanky frame proved both heavier and more unwieldy than he'd thought-and carried her up and onto the horse in question, settling her skirts deftly about her knees.  </div> <div> The saddle was sweat-slick and warm against her legs, and she settled comfortably on the horse's back, dropping her heels reflexively.  Her seat jerked as Uncle Liam mounted, and the stirrup leather creaked and lurched at his weight.  Her uncle's steed fidgeted and sidled at the sudden increase in his load, but Liam murmured softly to it and the tense hardness of muscles under the beast's damp coat eased.</div> <div> An impatient hand touched her shoulder, inquiringly, and Saoirse grinned to herself and picked up the reins her uncle had requested.  But she didn't give them to him at once; with a cluck and a flick of leather, she started the horse on its way.</div> <div> He flinched and nearly snatched up the reins, reaching `round her like the arms of a stone chair.  "Saoirs," her uncle muttered dangerously, and she felt a laugh leap expectantly in her throat at his disgruntled tone.</div> <div> "Sorry," Saoirse whispered, scarcely repentant and busy learning the prim sway of her mount's trot.  When she felt confident in her balance, she wrapped her legs around the horse's barrel and let her hands rest on her lap, instead of twined in the tangled mane.</div> <div> Uncle Liam apparently forgave her.  He murmured in her ear, "The horse you're riding is a chestnut mare, with a quick step and a bright eye.  She's got long, clean legs, and her color is clear, though she's shedding today.  I bought her from Owen Taaffe, up in Louth.  She was paired with my Sia's mount, a smoky bay with a trot like flowing water and a head full of stars."</div> <div> Saoirse leaned back on her uncle's shoulder, and smiled at his descriptions of the scenery, of his battered wagon, of Aunt Siany's green and chestnut gown that made her disappear when she walked in the woods.  <I>Now, </I>she thought, <I>now I remember.  Oh, Uncle Liam, why not a bard?</I>  His voice was pleasant, with enough tonal variance to be interesting, but not so much as to make him one of the people who emphasized every word.</div> <div> The little chestnut mare stopped and blew long-sufferingly, lowering her head to rub at her pasterns, snapping the reins like whips.  "We're home?" Saoirse asked, questing for the stirrup with her heel.  </div> <div> There was already a foot there.  "Let me down first, Saoirse," her uncle commanded, shifting in the saddle.  His shoulder pressed hard against her for a moment as he swung his leg over, and his boots thumped on solid earth an eyeblink later.  Strong hands tugged at her to sit side-saddle, the left full of horseman's welts from sliding reins, the right pen-creased.  "Come down, Saoirs.  Down!"</div> <div> The very tone of his demand made her grin; he sounded as impetuous as Cathal had when he was younger. She dragged her leg and skirts over the chestnut mare's rump, perching there above the ground for one happy moment, and then Uncle Liam lifted her up and away, letting her slide down the horse's side.</div> <div> She tilted her face skywards, right about where her uncle's head would be, and frowned, hands on hips.  "I can get down by myself, Uncle Li!  I've been riding since I could walk.  Where are we?"</div> <div> "Your front door, Saoir.  Will you let us in?" he replied, impatiently.  </div> <div> Saoirse shrugged and stepped forward until she felt a wall.  She slid her hand along it until she found the door, and rapped the cold curlicues of iron against their base.  "G'day there!  Kieran!  Beircheart!  Cath and Ainmire!  Looor-can!  Let your little sister in.  Uncle Liam and Aunt Siany're here.  There's work to be done!" She dropped the knocker again.</div> <div> The door rattled on its hinges as Cathal and Kieran hit it simultaneously.  With a bang, the bar thudded back, and the wood vibrated.  Hastily, Saoirse stepped away, letting the exuberant flood of her brothers wash by her.</div> <div> "Beircheart!  Goodness, but you're no wistful boy anymore!  You and Ainmire here, you're all grown and mature- married men!  Darerca and  Ranalt are official O'Rourkes now, good lads!  Kieran, you look like you've been haunting the practice-yard again.  Don't <I>strangle</I> me, boy."</div> <div> "Who's this handsome young man with the hound?  Cathal?  My goodness, Cath, good sister Ismay has been feeding you again, hasn't she?  You've grown so since I last saw you!  Speaking of growing, Lorcan, I hear you're promoting the mixing of more Irish blood in our lines!  What's the lass's name?  I didn't catch it.  My, isn't she the beauty!  Well chosen, lad, indeed."</div> <div> While Lorcan muttered that she was Aurnia O'Driscoll, Saoirse padded over to the stamping, irritable oxen, and rested her elbows on the wagon box.  "Aunt Siany?" she asked shyly.  "Aunt Sia!  Wake up!  We're at my house."</div> <div> A disgruntled murmur of " I'm <I>awake</I>," grated in a dry alto, and blankets rustled hurriedly.  Siany cleared her throat and coughed, mumbling under her breath,  "Willow tea.  Gah.  Nevermore."  </div> <div> Her aunt worked on clambering out of the wagon, and Saoirse winced at the banging and small hisses of pain.  Siany, she'd been told, was not a beauty, grey-eyed and dark-haired, but Saoirse preferred the lean, angular contours of Sia's face to her mother's soft oval.</div> <div> And Sia was wonderful.  The first time she met her new niece, she'd taken Saoirse's offered hand in her own narrow, long-fingered one, and ran it lightly over her face.  "I'm twenty-nine, and fair-skinned," she told the astonished Saoirse, "with freckles all over my long nose and sharp cheeks.  I've got a chin like a mountain peak, all pointy-cleft, and heavy eyebrows.  My eyes are grey, though sometimes Liam says they're full of greens and blues, like the ocean.  My hair is dark and wavy, and it comes all the way down to my  knees.  My mouth is small, and my lips thin.  I'm slender and not too pretty, with broad shoulders like your da's."</div> <div> She'd always loved Aunt Sia for her immediate acceptance of her niece's disability, and honest compassion without pity.   Right now, she had a feeling that Aunt Sia needed some honest compassion.  </div> <div> Her aunt had been out on a walk and slid down an embankment, breaking her arm on the way down.  It was easy for the healer to fix it up with some herbs and a splint.  Unfortunately, it still pained Siany.  </div> <div> She'd slept all the way to the keep, dosed with poppy and willowbark.  The hard seats of the wagon were swathed in heavy blankets, an attempt to soften the jolts of wooden wheels on rutted road, and keep a coughing Sia warm.  Saoirse wrinkled her nose at the thought of traveling the many miles of ill-kept highway between Leitrim and Carbery, on a stomach full of sloshy herbal concoctions.  </div> <div> Siany touched her arm and Saoirse jerked back to the present, feeling dry air against her eyes as they widened involuntarily.   "Saoirs?  Could you get the stable boy or some such?"  her aunt asked gently, breathing hard against what sounded like a stuffy nose.  The oxen bawled in cracked bass brasses, and harnesses clinked as they tossed their heads and fidgeted.  </div> <div> "Ah, aye!  I'm sorry, Aunt Sia.  I didn't even think of it…." Saoirse darted toward the stables, face hot.  The trampled weeds sprang up like friendly dogs to whip around her knees, and they clung to her feet with admirable pugnacity.  </div> <div> At last the halfhearted crisp of much-worn straw and the churned muck of the stableyard met her questing foot, and she stopped.  Hoping devoutly that there weren't any skittish horses out, she claxioned, "Bresal!  Bres!  Visitors from our family!  Two oxen, three horses!"</div> <div> Not even the sucking mud spoke out for her when she heard, "Lord Liam, Dame Siany, Lady Saoirse?  Smoky bay, dapple, and roan hunter?"  murmured at her elbow.  She leapt like a startled deer, turning to fix her vague eyes in her approximation of a glare on the owner of the Gaelic tenor.  </div> <div> "Bres!" she wailed in half-feigned fury as the stableboy failed to `announce' himself in squishing footsteps as <I>other</I> people did.  "Step louder next time!"  Pursing her lips, the girl noted, "One's new, a chestnut mare.  Other than that, Bres, I can't <I>see</I>."</div> <div> "No dapple this time, then," Bresal intuited, his tone soft and unassuming, as always.  "Sorry, Lady Saoirs."</div> <div> She scowled at him and stalked back down the path she'd come on, but it was difficult to stay angry with Bres.  She left him to do his work, while she eddied back to the cheerful noise of family greetings. </div> <bR> <div> Her uncle didn't stay long.  He made it clear that there was no way he could visit for more than a few weeks, and he held to his word.  </div> <div> On the third day of his last week, Uncle Liam sought out his niece with a gentle and determined air, and finally herded her to the same attic room where the harp was.  She quivered, knowing what knelt on curving legs just to the forward left of the stairwell, as forbidden as the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  </div> <div> Her uncle rummaged around for a few moments, and things creaked and thumped as he rustled in corners.  Chairlegs scraped and rushes cracked as he `walked' the seat closer, first one leg thumping, then the other.</div> <div> He seated her on the harpbench, and himself on whichever old chair or couch or stool he'd dug out, clearing his throat softly several times and gently tapping his boot heels against the floor.  </div> <div> "Saoirse," he started awkwardly, "I know you don't know too much about me, or what I do.  But Kieran says you want to be a bard, and Saoirse, I…." He swallowed.  "I did too.  And if that's what you wish to do, all I can do is wish you more luck than came to me.  But Saoirs, it's so much harder than it looks.  I don't want you to start without knowing what you're going into."</div> <div> "There are few clear skies when you're traveling, and you have to protect your instrument before yourself.  Any time you stop to rest and play, your harp will be untuned, because the strings have to be loosened so they don't snap.  You don't earn too much, and what you receive for your music is often a roof over your head and, if you're in luck, a hot meal.  You can't carry too much with you, so you'll have to stop at every band of shepherds and every hint of a tiny village to sleep and eat.  There are men out there who wouldn't hesitate to kill you for the food in your saddlebags; the poorer you look, the less likely it is that they'll set upon you.  So when you turn up at a lord's castle, they're as likely to set the dogs at your heels as to take you in as a harper.  You travel more than you perform, and if you don't find a place to stay the winter, you travel <I>then</I>, and it's bitter, bitter cold, Saoirse."</div> <div> "I'm not making up tales, Saoir, and I would rather spare you those hardships.  But if you truly love it enough to accept everything I've told you as your way of life, well…my harp is yours."</div> <div> She started, blinked, and shook her head with the abruptness of disbelief.  "Mine?"</div> <div> He must have started to nod before he answered; his voice was sheepish and his response slow.  "Yours," he assured her, calmly.  "Property of one Saoirse O'Rourke, fifth living child and only daughter of Sorley O'Rourke and Ismay Kelleher, passed down from Sorley O'Rourke's brother, merchant Liam O'Rourke, to his niece, on condition she love her work and endure its hardships.  It is no longer property of said Liam O'Rourke, nor has Sorley, Ismay, Beircheart, Ainmire, Lorcan, Kieran, or Cathal O'Rourke any right to it.  If Saoirse O'Rourke should cease to make music upon it for a period of six months, it shall revert to being the legal possession of Liam O'Rourke and Siany Monahan, held in trust by Sorley O'Rourke and Ismay Kelleher."  </div> <div> His tone was absolutely serious, and Saoirse felt the damp of tears on her face. She reached out, clumsily, and caught his shoulder.  He enfolded her in his arms with pleasure, proud somehow, knowing he had pleased his niece.</div> <div> "Liam?" a deep basso rumble tolled, coming up the stairs in a backward avalanche.</div> <div> The arms fell away, and she straightened, eyes narrowing at the stairwell.  "Uncle Liam?" she pleaded, knowing her father wasn't going to approve.  </div> <div> "I'm here!" her uncle called back.  "Come on up, Sorley, I want you to hear something."  He turned toward her.  "Play the harp, Saoirs.  Play!"  he murmured, urgently.  </div> <div> Her fumbling hands found the curve of the harp, and she cuddled against it.  Her sensitive fingers found strings and her well-trained ears distinguished the soft chime of them as she verified where her fingers had landed.  And she played, quietly, heart-rendingly, one of the mournful aires she had heard Lorcan's betrothed singing.  Aurnia had a high, distant soprano, and the coldness of her voice fit the desolation of the song.  Saoirse only hoped she could transpose it to strings with the same sorrow that the O'Driscoll girl had permeated the tune.</div> <div> Her father's voice was uncertain.  "Liam?  How do you know that tune?  You can't've heard it before you came; the O'Driscoll bard made it up for Aurnia and Lorcan's betrothal feast.  You haven't had time to learn it, have you?"  Then he crested the stairs. "<I>Liam!"</I> </div> <div> "Sorley," Liam spoke rapidly, "I just gave Saoirse my harp.  You'll let her keep it, of course.  And find a teacher for her.  You really must.  I'll pay for her tuition myself, but I can't find a teacher where I live and expect them to travel all the way down here.  Promise me you'll find a harper to teach Saoirse." His chair squeaked as he leaned forward earnestly.  </div> <div> She heard anger building in the sudden frostiness of Sorley's tone.  "Liam, whatever your age, you are uncle, not father, and she is my daughter.  You may give her a harp, but you are not to dictate to me, no matter if you are elder brother or not.  I do not want Saoirse going off dreamy-eyed to eat the dust of the road and sleep in the lea of the hill with a Scots boy for company."</div> <div> Equally as frosty, Liam replied, "You owe me a favor, Sorley, and I'll call it in now.  Let your daughter be happy with the things she <I>can</I> do, and do not limit her any more with <I>your </I>bias and <I>your</I> problems."</div> <div> There was a dark silence and Saoirse though for a moment that her father might explode, but he choked back his scathing words and told his brother coldly, "Fine then.  I will find her a teacher.  But no more shall you see her, Liam O'Rourke!  No more!"</div> <div> Liam hissed through his teeth at that, and his voice was pained.  "Be you that way then.  Nevertheless, I shall hear her someday, Sorley!  She'll play like an angel, and `twill be none of your doing."</div> <div> He rose and stalked past his brother, thudding down the stairs with dropped-drum steps.  As soon as he was out of earshot, her father turned toward her, rushes grinding under his heels.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> "I shall find you a teacher, Saoirse, but you're not to play that harp until you've learned everything he has to teach.  Everything!" and he thundered on each stair, as tumultuous as his brother.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Liam left the next day, and took Siany with him.  Ainmire left soon after, too busy packing up for his trip home to wonder what was wrong with Saoirse.  Kieran avoided her, yet dropped hints to Revelin in the hall as to how fine and lovely Saoirse was.  Beircheart ran the keep as tumultuously as ever; Lorcan sulked that Uncle Liam could not come for his wedding.  Only Cathal noticed his sister's common tears, and Cathal, being Cathal, said nothing, only putting an arm `round her slender shoulders and holding her awkwardly until she broke away.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Chapter 3</b></div> <bR> <bR> <div> There was no time for Saoirse to mourn the loss of contact with her uncle.  Only a few days later a very polite and very insistent visitor arrived.  A Joyce nobleman, Lord Brion, came a-calling.  With him he brought a shy daughter, Fionnuír, who was somewhat less than Cathal's age and slender as Bebhinn Gilmore's Wee Folk; a son, Meehaul, strange and quiet and as old as Kieran; and his wife, Etain, a cool and devious lady who seemed to find far more meaning in short conversations than Saoirse did.  </div> <div> He also brought his harper, a man of normal height and weight, age of thirty-four, and by the name of Jarlath Dolan.  Jarlath brought merely two traveling harps, a well-made wood flute, three bodhrans of different sizes, and Eachann Taaffe, his apprentice.</div> <div> While Saoirse ate with a sulking Cathal, a cheerful Darerca, and a flustered Aurnia, she heard around the dinner table that her father was trying to make good on his word, and she yearned for an answer every time she bent her head over her meal.  Conversations would go something like:</div> <div> "Pass the honey, please." (cracking bass, Cathal)</div> <div> "Saoirse, have you heard?  There's a harper here, and your da's been arguing with him for three days straight." (nervous soprano, Aurnia)</div> <div> "You told me yesterday, Aur." (pause) "I wish the harper'd make up his mind!  Have you heard anything?" (alto, Saoirse)</div> <div> "Mmf." (Cathal)</div> <div> "Sorry, no." (Aurnia)</div> <bR> <div> Saoirse met the harper in the long hall in front of his chamber, her wandering feet taking her there absent-mindedly. She was roaming quietly, walking for the sake of walking and not much else.  Her shod feet made little noise on the floor, even on the spaces where rushes were strewn.   Her breath came soft and even, sounding a drowsy <I>chhha-hhhhhgh</I><I>*</I> in her ears.  The fabric that billowed around her ankles made nary a rustle, and there was no louder companion to dog her steps.  </div> <div> She strode full-tilt into something that yielded slightly to her momentum, something that gave like flesh.  The pained whoof of air in her ear confirmed it; she'd run into someone.  <I>Probably a guest, </I>her fuzzy thoughts clarified belatedly, <I>since, this is their hall</I>.  </div> <div> "Clumsy!" railed her victim.  "Young people, never watching where they're going….  What's your excuse, girl? Speak!"  His was a controlled baritone, powerful and brimming with outrage.</div> <div> "You're too quiet, sir," Saoirse replied quickly, bending her head in apology.  "I can't see you; you have to make noise."  A dread suspicion of who she'd encountered began niggling wildly at her, and she pressed her lips together as if that small motion would forbid it.  </div> <div> "Blind?" he asked sharply.  "What's your name?"</div> <div> "Saoirse O'Rourke."</div> <div> "I thought it might be.  Do you always plow into guests like that?" he queried, with a hint of disdain in his very British English.  There was a cool dismissiveness to his words, as if her answer would do little to change his opinions of her.  </div> <div> "No!" she exclaimed, distressed.  "No, I'm terribly sorry.   That is not a habit of mine, and I apologize for running into you, sir."</div> <div> He must have been sizing her up and finding her wanting by the curious pauses in the conversation, such as it was.  "Your father has been making impassioned speeches about your steadfastness and talent and great desire to be a harper, Saoirse O'Rourke.  I find, though, that you are not the young lady he's described.  I shall have to tell him no again; female harpers are well and good, and blind is common, but a clumsy blind woman-<I>young </I>woman-is simply too much.  Not with my schedule, not with my apprentice.  And not with you."</div> <div> She blinked in shock.  "But sir," she pleaded.  "Why?"</div> <div> "Suffice it to say," Jarlath Dolan replied with a condescending sneer in his voice, "I do not like you, girl.  I do not like you at all.  In my position, I have no need to oblige anyone but the Joyces, and I do not aim to please your father."  His footsteps, now very audible, scraped smugly on down the hall, and Saoirse sagged in place.  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> He didn't like her.  He wouldn't take her.  She wasn't good enough.  Miserably, she leaned against the wall, burying her head in her hands.  A door squeaked softly, close to her; she ignored it. </div> <div> "He doesn't like me either," a mournful tenor murmured from across the room, its husky Gaelic peculiarly accented.  "And I've never done a thing in my life to displease him."</div> <div> She turned her head listlessly, and asked without much interest, "Who are you?"</div> <div> The rushes crackled like far-away lightning.  "Eachann Taaffe, m'lady O'Rourke.  Eachann Taaffe, son of Owen Taaffe and Maelisa Ahearne ban Taaffe, apprentice of Jarlath Dolan-without-a-smile, and general wander-wits.  And you are Saoirse O'Rourke, daughter of Sorley O'Rourke and Ismay Kelleher ban O'Rourke, harper hopeful and only female progeny of this O'Rourke steading.   Pleased to make your acquaintance I am, Saoirse, and I bid you not look on me too harshly for being apprenticed to Jarlath.  My master surely could use a finer hand in judging prospective apprentices.  Why else take on a `lackadaisical' one-eyed son of a horsebreeder and not a hard-working noblewoman with her own harp and nothing else to do?" </div> <div> "Ah," Saoirse intoned slowly.  "Ah. I thought you said you'd never done a thing to displease him, but if you're so adverse to lessons, I think that might be why he dislikes you."</div> <div> "Not adverse to them," Eachann corrected, "slow.  `Fingers are slow, mind is slow, wits are slow'.  And I'm not <I>trying</I> to be difficult.  I <I>like</I> harping, and I'm good.  Wasn't then, but I am now.  Ol' Jarlath, he thinks I'm little more than an idiot.  But I don't think I am.  Do you?"</div> <div> Saoirse shook her head.  "No. I don't think you are.  Could you talk a little slower?  And will you play for me sometime?"  </div> <div> The longish pause made her wonder if she'd offended him.  "Sorry," he said at last.  "Forgot you can't see.  Hard to tell, with those big, dark eyes staring through you, watching.  Yes to both."  He halted and breathed meditatively for a moment, considering.  "But not today. I've already practiced, and Master Jarlath seems to frown on any excessive effort on my part to improve by spending more time at the harp."</div> <div> "Dark?" she asked, frowning.  "Revelin said they were blue."  </div> <div> "Dark blue," Eachann murmured.  "Who's Revelin?"</div> <div> Saoirse blinked and drew in her chin.  "Revelin MacCabe?  He's a fosterling, and my honorary guide.  I think he's off with Meehaul, asking about whatever lovely specimen of horseflesh he rode up on.  Didn't you get introduced?"</div> <div> He sighed sorrowfully.  "No.  I was playing baggage-boy for Master Jarlath when there were introductions.  Have you been introduced?  I mean, really introduced?  Met Meehaul and Fionnuír?  If you are going to become at all well acquainted with them, you shall have to meet Lord Joyce and his lady."</div> <div> Her lips turned down in thought.  "Well, no," she admitted diffidently.  I was there for the naming, but I don't think Lord Joyce let any of them speak, and I can't tell their <I>faces</I> apart, certainly!"</div> <div> Eachann chuckled a little, obviously not embarrassed by her making light of her sightlessness.  "Well, then, follow me!  I shall try to be noisy; I've no doubt that you know this old keep better than I, but you can't follow me if I walk like that stableboy, what's his name….Brazil?  Meehaul shall love you."</div> <div> "Bresal," she admonished , and felt her face heat.  "Come now, you really think he'd enjoy the company of the O'Rourke's daughter?"</div> <div> "Absolutely," he assured, voice warm with conviction .  "His sister is as shy as a little bird, and hardly says four words.  He'll be thrilled to have someone who'll speak her mind about.  Besides his mother."  He paced ahead, and she followed, bemusedly, hissing through her teeth as she stubbed her toe on Jarlath's open door.</div> <div> Eachann must have explored beforehand, as surely as he wound his way through the complexity of Saoirse's home.  Unerring as she had been on the rooftop, Eachann chattered of Jarlath, of harping, of the Joyce family and his own, and so many other things that Saoirse lost track.  </div> <div> The first member of the family they bumped into was Fionnuír.  She was trotting haltingly down one of the far halls, breathing rather heavily, and murmuring to herself under her breath.  Saoirse could hear her several corridors back.  </div> <div> "Eachann?" her faint soprano called, plaintively.  "'Each, is that you?"</div> <bR> <div> "It's me, muirnín.  And a friend.  Y'feel like company, Fionnuír?  `Tis the Lady Saoirse." Eachann's voice was gentle as he spoke to her, with a softness Saoirse hadn't heard before.</div> <div> The murmur stopped for a moment, and a shaky "Aye," came echoing back.  </div> <div> Saoirse cocked an eyebrow at the harper's apprentice, and he must have caught it, for he slowed a little.  Before she could phrase her question right, Eachann put a finger to her lips.</div> <div> "I know what you're asking, Saoirse.  But please, don't talk of it in front of Fionnuír.  I don't think," and his voice sounded queer, "Fia quite knows I'm courting her yet.  And neither does her father."  He ended the conversation with an increase in speed and a hesitant hand on her shoulder to propel her forward.</div> <div> "Lady Fionnuír Joyce, may I present Lady Saoirse O'Rourke.  She can't see you, a-thaisce, so don't be shy.  Saoirse needs to hear you."</div> <div> "Fionnuír is small and slender, Saoirse, with very pale gold hair and big hazel eyes.  She's very fair complexioned, with even features and a very expressive and beautiful face.  Don't blush, Fia, it's true."  Eachann caught at her hand, and Saoirse stretched it out, aware of her strong, square hands outthrust so gracelessly, grasping like an infant's.  </div> <div> A small, airy hand, cold and slightly damp, met hers, ragged ends of nails anomalous after the smooth roundness of the fingertips.  Despite its clamminess, the handclasp Fionnuír gave was warm and strong, welcoming a sister noblewoman with its considerate grip.   </div> <div> "Go mbeannaí Dia is Muire duit,* Saoirse," were the only words she spoke, but her breathy voice was solidly behind them.</div> <div> "Ceud mile failte,** Fionnuír," Saoirse returned with a smile, and dropped a very small curtsy.  </div> <div> She could feel Eachann's grin in return, and he swirled onward affably.   "Fia, we're exchanging introductions.  Saoirse doesn't know your family, and we don't know hers.  Would you care to join us?"</div> <div> "Please," Fionnuír answered, agreeably, and her shy little footsteps made a tremolo patter beside his restless andante clacking.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> Saoirse, caught unaware, darted after them, plaintively calling "Wait for me!" and Eachann chuckled at her plight.  Half-skipping to outdistance his long strides, she flew between them, stopping short as she realized what she'd done and making even Fionnuír laugh. </div> <div> Dropping back, she did a brief, breathless bob of a bow, tilting her head and proclaiming with wide-eyed solemnity, "Gabh mo leithscéal, más é do thoil é, m'lord and lady (Pardon me, if you please)."</div> <div> Fionnuír giggled.  "You sound so exactly like your brother, Saoirse!"</div> <div> "Oh?" Saoirse queried, waggling her eyebrows, "And which one would that be?  There are six, you know."</div> <div> The noblewoman's voice went cool and distant, back to silvery high soprano with little trace of Gaelic to its pale, jagged-edged tones.  "Kieran."</div> <div> Saoirse pursed her lips, distressed, and ventured bravely, "Ah, I would then.  Scoundrel."</div> <div> "Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg elle (One beetle recognizes another beetle)," Eachann commented with nonchalant cheer, and Saoirse elbowed him in the ribs, but not another word did they get out of Fionnuír all the way to the stables. </div> <div> Just before they went in to search for Revelin and Meehaul, Eachann drew his Fia over, and whispered huskily in her ear.  Saoirse couldn't make out the words, but whatever he said, it drew out the good cheer again.  </div> <div> "Meehaul!" Fionnuír called lightly.  "Meeeeeeee-ha-ul!  Rev-vel-lin!  Come out, come out!  Meehaul Ailill Joyce MacBrion!"</div> <div> Sharp footsteps fell in uneasy staccatoes across dirt, sounding like cannon on wood.  "Fion?  What do you need, a-rún?"  </div> <div> This voice was huskier than Eachann's and deeper, quieter.  But there was an edge of sharpness to it, like Fionnuír's chilly tones, even in greetings.  It issued from a position near the stable door, a snow-soft call that seemed to blanket the air.  </div> <div> "Meehaul, I have someone for you to meet here.  And I'm supposed to meet your friend.  `Chan would like to as well."  Fionnuír cried back, and the clicky stride came forward cautiously.  </div> <div> Cold fingers tugged at Saoirse's wrist.  "This is Saoirse O'Rourke, the daughter of the lord of this place.  Saoirse, this is Meehaul Joyce, son of Brion Joyce, and my brother."  </div> <div> She stepped up to curtsy, but Meehaul had taken her hand already, and held it fast while he bowed over it.  Fine, curling strands of hair brushed her skin, and she felt the zephyr of his breath before he stood again.  His hand was broad and muscular, while his grip was gentle; there were rougher spots on the heavy lines across his palm telling her that Meehaul Joyce was no spoiled heir or favored son.  </div> <div> "God bless, Lady O'Rourke," the baritone addressed pleasantly.  "A pleasure to meet our host's lovely daughter."  Sincerity was not to be doubted; Meehaul's voice was as earnest as Cathal's puppies.  </div> <div> "Go raimh maith agat (thanks)," Saoirse managed, cheeks heating alarmingly.  She felt that she might be glowing.  "Good health to you."</div> <div> Meehaul didn't even slow in his outpouring of charm.  "Gurab amhlaidh duit*, Saoirse." </div> <div> Things continued in the same vein, alternating between the four, with Meehaul and Eachann complimenting the ladies and trading polite insults.  They did not do this directly, but by addressing the lady that such-and-such a syrupy comment had been bestowed on, and asking her how she could bear this uncouth flattery, then coming up with something even more outrageous.  When Revelin finally turned up, he leapt into te game with glee, beating Eachann hollow and sorely pressing Meehaul to keep up with him.  </div> <div> When they said good night ("Slán leat!"  "Slán agat, Lady!"  "Oiche mhaith, a chroí!"  "Codladh sámh duit!"  "Gurab amhlaidh duit!"*) Saoirse lingered longer than the rest, leaning on the moss-velveteened remnants of an old wall.  Her eyes were white-ringed in the gloaming and her hands traced cracks through the astringent-scented moss, while  she breathed the familiar fog-weighted breeze dreamily.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Chapter 4</b></div> <bR> <bR> <div> For several months the Joyces came and went.  Once they brought the entire family - Lord Brion, Lady Etain, daughters Caoimhe, Echna, Laoise, Líadan, Muirin, and Fionnuír, and sons Donnchadh, Niall, and Meehaul.  Caoimhe, Donnchadh, Echna and Laoise came with spouses, and, with the exception of Laoise, several children.</div> <div> Saoirse, of rather better cheer now, dictated letters to Meehaul, Eachann, and Fionnuír; Revelin, pleased, wrote them for her.  <I>He</I> wrote rather a lot of letters himself, and Saoirse forbore to do more than laugh behind her hand at this sudden quiet interest in the bright and talkative Muirin.</div> <div> Her father was true to his word, and was searching ardently for a bard-teacher.  He even let his brothers help, though grudgingly.  Unfortunately, <I>nothing</I> had turned up, for all of Sorley, Liam, and Modan's searching.  Few harpers were found, and those that were discovered either could not come up to Leitrim, or they already had more than enough on their plates without a blind noblewoman apprentice.  </div> <div> Eachann was helping, too.  "'Tis'nt your fault my master's so temperamental, Saoir," he wrote.  "He ought to have taken you on.  It's only justice for me to help you find someone who will.  Master Dolan doesn't get out much, but he's sure to meet more of his kind eventually, and they can't <I>all</I> refuse you.  If all else fails, m'lady, I shall hasten to the end of my training and teach you myself."  </div> <div> Meehaul professed himself utterly ignorant of music, and admitted that he was rather busy and wouldn't have time to talk to any strange harpers even if he could recognize them.  Lorcan, in his nervousness about his forthcoming handfasting, threw papers and overturned chairs and made villainous noises at tailors; she couldn't bring herself to ask him, and wouldn't have been heard over his bellowings about weddings anyway.  Kieran was still avoiding her, but no longer ambushing Revelin in the halls.  She suspected that he was sending wholesale letters of her virtues to Meehaul and Niall.  Cathal's prized bitch had whelped early, and he was nowhere but the kennels any time of the day or night.  </div> <div> Lord O'Rourke was smugly cheerful, and when Saoirse asked why she could not go to the harpers instead of having the harpers come to her, he lectured her long on familial honor and the duties of a noblewoman.  Other then that strain, he was pleasant to her, almost doting on her the way he had before.  He took his wife on his knee at the dinner table, and swept her off her feet to talk with a cheerful randomness.</div> <div> But there was still no harper.</div> <bR> <div> The house was ablaze with motion for a few weeks - Lorcan's wedding was to take place at last.  Now, too, Saoirse crept away to Bebhinn's, feeling assured that she would be run over if she stayed in the keep, underfoot.  Lorcan was filling the entire house with his roaring and bellowing, pacing and worrying, rather like a cow tormented by flies.  </div> <div> Saoirse was all for letting Beircheart duck him in the pond, but Ismay, happening upon Beircheart while he took care of Lorcan's most recent proposal, forbade it.  Beir, as quiet and orderly as ever a man could be, seemed to have taken his younger brother's  train of chaos as a personal affront, and she fled to the village as much from his silently seething insistence upon punctuality as anything else.  </div> <div> Her aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins were trickling in, an ever-increasing stream of "Saoirse, dear, I haven't seen you since…" and other such benign irritations.  Ainmire came back from his small holding, bounding happily into the middle of everything.  </div> <div> It was finally The Day, and Saoirse had her mother's help in choosing a garment appropriate for the occasion.  "A dark blue," Ismay insisted.  "'Twill match your eyes, and bring out the colors in that dark hair of yours."  She would not let Saoirse wear pale green.  "Washes you out, it does," the lady commented briskly.  "Your skin's the wrong color for it."</div> <div> Saoirse, to her extreme embarrassment, fell asleep during the ceremony.  It was no use keeping her eyes open, and when she closed them she lost her firm resolve to stay awake.  She was awakened by a half-familiar voice, arguing loudly with a gregarious bass.  </div> <div> "Who's there?" she inquired, without shame; if the voice belonged to who she thought it did, he knew her limitations.  </div> <div> The familiar baritone halted, miffed.  "You don't remember your Uncle Modan?" he whimpered with egocentric self-pity.</div> <div> "Of course not," she replied immediately, grinning.  "I forget all the time we used to spend on word-puzzles, and the poem of mine you memorized, just like that."  She snapped her fingers.  "I only remember the stranger you're talking to, Uncle Modan."</div> <div> Her father's brother coughed.  "Ah, well, Saoirs; this is the Welsh harper the O'Driscolls have taken on, by the name of Daffyd ap Hywell.  We've been discussing the works of Irish and Welsh poets."</div> <div> "How interesting," Saoirse said blandly, rising and tolerating an enthusiastic hug from her uncle before she wandered off to find less argumentative company.</div> <div> There was feasting going on still, and the smell of roasting meat made Saoirse's mouth water.  She sat down with the feasters and filled her belly with good cheer, chatting with her uncles on her mother's side; Uillioc, Martán, and Ruairi.  They teased her unmercifully, patted her on the back, and sent her on her way.  She was rather glad of it, because Uncle Martán and Uncle Ruairi sounded almost exactly alike, and Uncle Uillioc did not merely rumble; he boomed.  </div> <div> The Welsh harper performed a stint or two to give air to the Kelleher fiddler that Uncle Martán brought with him, and to Saoirse's ears he wasn't too bad.  His style was a trifle florid for her taste, but the new pieces played made up for it.  She could have paid attention to the harper all day; he was playing a different kind of harp with several rows of strings, and the echo effects he got out of them made her thirst all the more for her own harp.  Uncle Modan caught up with Daffyd ap Hywell as soon as the fiddler had caught his breath, and they started to argue again: with a shrug Saoirse left them to their bickering.  </div> <bR> <div> After all the traditions had been followed, Lor and Aurnia rode hastily away into the night and left their kindred to wearily keep the festivities.  Even Uncle Modan and the Welsh harper had settled down to a dull roar.</div> <div> Saoirse had made up her mind what she was to do, and she crept like a bandit in the dark to the stables.  Revelin, unexpectedly, took nearly half an hour to realize that she was gone, so busy was he in the shadows, murmuring to Muirin without paying attention to his self-imposed burden.  She waited, listening twitchily to the noisy whickers, neighs and thudding hooves of the horses, only moving (she hoped) to duck out of sight when Bresal rounded the corner with a guest's mount that radiated heat as it passed.  </div> <div> The Scotsman found her at last, and if he were a horse, he would've had his ears back.  "Saoir," he hissed, "what <I>are</I> you doing back here?  Cathal's looking for you, and `Chan's asking that you come and listen to him again, and your father's wanting to introduce you to some distant cousin Brógán.  Where have you <I>been</I>?"</div> <div> "Here," she proclaimed calmly, "waiting for you."</div> <div> "Well then," he almost exploded, "it might've helped if you had <I>informed</I> me of that!"</div> <div> "And interrupted your conversation with Muirin?  Anyway, you've found me now," Saoirse soothed.  "Do you want to hear my question, or not?"</div> <div> Revelin settled to a mild froth.  "Ask," he gritted.</div> <div> "Will you come with me to Belfast?"</div> <div> She could feel him flinch.  "What?  Saoirs, Belfast is on the other side of Ireland!" he expostulated, rising and falling on his toes so that his heels came down with a frame-rattling <I>thud</I>.  "Why hasn't your father mentioned it?"</div> <div> Saoirse lifted her nose defiantly.  "My father," she told him crisply, "doesn't know.  He's not going to get a teacher to come to him, so I'll jolly well go to the teacher.  I'll lose my harp if I go on like this, Uncle Liam's terms say I have to play it before six months have passed, and Father tells me I can't play until I can at least<I> perform</I>.  I have only four months left, Rev." </div> <div> She knew she had him there, even before his sigh of resignation.  "Saoir," Revelin pleaded, hopelessly.  "You <I>can't….</I>"</div> <div> Saoirse turned her eyes - dark blue eyes, Eachann had said - upon the place she was fairly sure was her friend's face, let them rest there a moment, and begged as well as she knew how.  "Please," she beseeched, voice whisper-soft.  "I won't make it without you."</div> <div> That did it.  "Have you planned at all?" he groaned, the walls thudding solidly as they met with a disconsolate shoulder.  "Horses, food, clothes, how we're going to leave, where we're going to stay?"</div> <div> "Bres will see to the horses, if I ask…there's plenty of Lor and Aurnia's wedding feast still there and much of it will keep…I have the laundry woman lay out all my clothes, we're going to leave tomorrow morning when I usually go see Bebhinn - we'll have to stop there and talk to her, I suppose…and people are kind in Ireland," she beguiled encouragingly, meanwhile she twined her hands in the cascade of hair that fell long past where they could reach, as she waited for his response.</div> <div> "Tomorrow?" he repeated in disbelief.  "'Tomorrow' and `kind in Ireland', she says!  Saoir, there are miles and <I>miles </I>between here and Belfast!"</div> <div> She leveled her brows at him.  "So?  I <I>have</I> to go.  I do have a little coin.  I'm bringing my tinwhistle and bodhran, and the small bells.  I can sing if they want something other than coin, and I have enough of the coin that we shouldn't starve if the wedding food runs out.  We're leaving <I>tomorrow</I>, Rev, and don't you dare tell anyone else.  I'll see you at dawn."</div> <div> Saoirse waltzed off, hair swaying behind her imperiously.  She danced with Brógán while Eachann played,  and smiled encouragingly at the distressed Cathal as she pushed him back into the festivities.    She was almost all the way to the front door before a soft-voiced "Saoirse" stopped her.  </div> <div> "Meehaul?"  she breathed to herself.  "What's he doing out here?"  Then she directed, louder, "Yes?"</div> <div> "Dance with me?"</div> <div> He sounded like Cathal.  She melted and let him guide her back, doing her best to remember the dance that the Welsh harper was playing at breakneck speed.  Someone was accompanying him with the sharp rhythmic clacking of `bones'; she wondered if it were perhaps Uncle Modan, who had been known to make wagers.  </div> <div> Meehaul danced superbly, and she could only disentangle herself when Beircheart, sounding rather too long-suffering, asked to cut in.  </div> <div> "Na, Beirch, I'm going in after this set," she told him brightly.  "Dance with Darrie; this is one of the few times she'll get you to."  And so Meehaul let her go when the fiddling paused.  </div> <div> She stepped carefully through the dewy grass, then through the indifferent halls, whose silence was infrequently disturbed by the shouts of the few who'd stayed inside.  Her bedroom was not far, and she was grateful for it, sinking down onto her mattress with a sigh of relief.  She didn't even have time to plan, as she had considered, before slumber stole her away.</div> <div> <B>Chapter 5</b></div> <bR> <bR> <div> She rose early, out of habit, and caught up an armful of wool and linen as soon as her feet touched the floor.   Deft fingers smoothed wrinkles as she deposited them into the waiting saddlebag, touching precise folds and pleats with pleasure.  They fit in easily, of course.  Saoirse didn't have much more than that scant armful, and she considered herself lucky that she could afford to leave her Sunday best and second-best at home.</div> <div> She bit her lip as she realized that she'd miss church the next day.  The priest was always kind, willing to answer the seemingly endless stream of questions - when and how and why and who and where.  When he confessed to not knowing the answers, his quiet faith in the fact that it had happened convinced her as well.  </div> <div> Resolutely, she slithered into her clothes, tying her leine's long, almost Grecian folds about her with a dim awareness that the fabric was close-woven wool.</div> <div> She packed a few more items - her small bells, her whistle, and her bodhran - and descended to the kitchen for her breakfast, a bowl of oat porridge.  She avoided the cook's questions with her own, and managed to wrangle a saddlebag-full of the leftovers.  There were few people about.  Most were sleeping off late hours and perhaps hangovers, and the keep was dully subdued.  </div> <div> Bresal was in the yard, punctiliously exercising one of his charges.  When he saw her, which was before Saoirse had figured out that he was there, he called, "'Ware, Lady Saoirse, there are horses about."</div> <div> She nodded and stood there a moment, listening to the dull, sloshy thuds of hooves - squish-splat, squish-splat - on the damp earth, and then, working with that even rhythm, she asked blithely, "Bres, could you get two horses ready for me?"</div> <div> The hoofbeats continued on for a little while before Bresal answered, "Of course."</div> <bR> <bR> <div> As his horse slowed, she bent her head to the shrill wind that pressed a chill hand to her cheek, pushing restlessly at the sharp angles of her shoulders, and flinging her hair out with careless ease.  Bres' feet hit the ground cat-quiet.  The horse, who was sighing explosively, seeing that it would be in its stall soon, clopped off behind him towards the stables.</div> <div> Bresal never asked questions.  She'd bet that if twenty Irish soldiers with their horses lathered and half of the men wounded rushed in and Cathal told him to take care of the horses, Bres would ask quietly if Lord Cathal wanted them picketed out or two to a stall and walk the beasts cool.  Still, she could never decide if he was merely a none-too-bright lad who followed orders to the letter, or if he was very bright, heard everything he needed to know and kept his own council.</div> <div> "Bres," she directed, thinking of something that drove her musings over the stableboy away, "ah, just tether them somewhere if they're done before I get back.  I need to get Revelin."</div> <div> "Aye, Lady Saoirse," he replied, distantly, and she strode off.</div> <div> Revelin had managed to stay in his room most of the morning, and he took what seemed like an eternity to find.  She finally tracked him to the study, where she found him scratching away with a quill.  </div> <div> He must have heard her, because the chair scraped hastily, and he said very quickly, "I'm almost finished, Saoir, and I've got the food, I only have to finish this letter to your da that says that I'll be taking care of you and not to worry…"</div> <div> Saoirse sighed and gave up her frown.  "Fine.  Hurry up, Bres's got the horses saddled."  She leaned patiently against the doorframe, and drummed her fingers.</div> <div> "Father's going to disown me for this, I just know it," his mournful tenor mumbled on, and his pen scratched maniacally.  Then the chair thumped back-he must've been rocking forward on two legs, Saoirse guessed-fabric rustled, and he stood in front of her.  </div> <div> She beckoned him down the halls, moving confidently and without an excess of motion.  He stopped her once, to ask if she was really sure that this was the only way, and she'd told him yes before he finished the sentence.</div> <bR> <div> Bres was waiting for them at the door, with saddled horses and no questions.  He insisted on taking their saddlebags, and he loaded them with scrupulous care.  Nervously, Saoirse mounted, hearing Revelin slide gracefully into the saddle.  She wished she could see to look back on her home, but all she could do was take a deep breath, nod pleasantly to Bresal, and canter off toward Bebhinn's house.</div> <div> A bit scared after a quarter-mile or so as the novelty of not going on her own two feet turned into indecision, she turned to Revelin.  "Rev," she implored, "would you lead me?  The horse, I mean."  There was a proud, stubborn corner of her mind that loathed her uncertainty, that rankled at this cowardice, but she set her jaw and didn't add an excuse as that steel-voiced bit of her so desperately wanted.  </div> <div> He muttered something that might have been "Aye".  Certainly there was no hint of an n.  The ponderous warmness of horse pressed up against the outside of her left leg, and a brief whiplash of coarse hairs stung her elbow-Revelin's mount was several hands higher than hers-and the snaffle-rings jingled.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Her mare shied and skittered a little, but as Revelin took the reins gently out of Saoirse's hands, the nervous creature steadied.   She locked her fingers in the mare's mane and settled deep in the saddle, and they <I>traveled</I>.</div> <div> They rode for a long, long time.  She could feel the hours passing as the heat of the sun changed from back to neck to the top of her head, could feel her fidgety mare tire as canter turned into trot and trot turned into fast walk.  Finally, when her scalp burned with the heat of the sun that glowered down from directly overhead, Revelin called a halt.  </div> <div> "We should stop and eat lunch now, Saoir," he admitted, without sounding anything but hungry.  </div> <div> While Revelin had ridden every day he'd been a fosterling at Saoirse's home, Saoirse only rode perhaps once every month.  Her legs ached, her behind felt battered, and her back was cramping fiercely, but Rev was nothing but pleasantly exerted.  </div> <div> She nodded stiffly, and put a hand to one sore hip in mute appeal, and he had the colossal gall to <I>laugh</I> at her.  Wound in her mount's mane, her fingers twitched, but she thought about it for a moment, and could see, reluctantly, where he might find it funny.  </div> <div> He led her horse off to the side of the road-she felt her mare stumble on the gullies and potholes of the shoulder, and halted a fair distance away in the shade.  </div> <div> It was pleasant there, and if the day grew a little chillier and the sky spat a few raindrops, Saoirse didn't mind.  The steady, rippling gurgle of a large stream leant beauty to the ordinary noises, and its persistence of sound was lulling.  </div> <div> They mounted up again after a time, and went on, shrugging deeper into their coats when the rain grew heavy, and moving tirelessly across the hilly road.  </div> <div> The gloaming was sprinkling its damp chill on the back of her neck when they halted again.  She thought at first that they were going to rest, and was adroitly glad that Rev was, indeed, human.  But when their horses' hooves had stopped their mud-deadened tread, there was still the sound of another horse moving.  It thubbed to a stop in front of them, and the beast snorted.</div> <div> Blithely, a hoarse baritone-young, cracked, and sounding slightly as if the owner had a cold-belted out, "Hallo there!  Good day, fellow travelers!"</div> <div> Revelin muttered something indecipherable.  With an apologetic smile, Saoirse returned the greeting, though with less volume.  "Sláinte chugat, sir.  Who might you be?"</div> <div> Cheerily, the young man coughed back, "Beolagh O'Donovan, if it pleases you, madam.  I didn't quite catch that, sir, but thank you anyway!"</div> <div> Abruptly, Revelin took over.  "I am Revalan O'Driscoll, and this is Saraid O'Driscoll, my sister.  We're looking for a harper to teach Sarai here, who's blind, the craft.  You have an instrument with you-are you a harper, Beolagh O'Donovan?"</div> <div> "Nay," Beolagh admitted without haste, and paused to hack again, making Saoirse wince.  "Nay, not a harper.  Not yet.  But I am a harper's apprentice, fellow travelers!  My old master won't take you-he's got something like twelve `prentices already, and has sworn he's going to retire and make us take care of him as soon as he's finished training us.  Still, there are others about.  May I come with you?"</div> <div> Saoirse arched an eyebrow and replied before Revelin could.  "Come with us?  Don't you have your training to do, `prentice Beolagh?"</div> <div> Beolagh sighed heavily, cleared his throat, and faltered, "Well, yes, you see, I do have work to do.  But my master's in the next village, and you'll be stopping for the night, won't you?  I'd gotten frustrated, y'see, and taken off on my horse in the opposite direction, quick as quick, but as you lot were coming around the bend, I thought `Beolagh, lad, you can't run away from your master, you'll never find a craft that fit you better.'  And I'd left my money behind, sadly.  So I can ride with you to the next village, if you'll let me."  He sniffed pathetically.</div> <div> "All <I>right</I>," Revelin enunciated tensely, grinding his teeth.  From his voice, Saoirse guessed he'd already had quite enough of Beolagh O'Donovan, and had decided that he'd <I>never</I> go away until they reached the town.  </div> <div> A long-suffering horse gave a harsh grunt as its sides were thumped by its rider.  "Great!" Beolagh bubbled.  "Well, then, follow me!"  </div> <div> Without a word, they followed.</div> <bR> <div> The village was wary of the strangers (they had been escorted in by Beolagh, and couldn't escape at least a trifle of the stigma attached to him), but the people were kindhearted, and Saoirse and Revelin were offered a hayloft for the night.  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> It was snug, though chilly; if not for their blankets, they'd've had a sleepless night.  Happily, Saoirse contemplated the course of events, and, going over her decision, still declared it sensible.  Satisfied, she fell into dreamless slumber.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Chapter 6</b></div> <bR> <div> Their waking was pleasant-not Beolagh-and the bannocks they'd brought sufficed for breakfast when supplemented with milk bought from the locals.  Revelin was a trifle less irritable, the horses were cooperative, and there was little to pack up before they left again, leaving Beolagh the `prentice with his aging master.</div> <div> They passed another town two hours after noon, and Revelin stopped and inquired about a harper.  He left Saoirse sitting on an upthrust rock, twining her hands in her skirt.  </div> <div> Oddly lonely, she leaned back against the stone-deceptively warm, until one sat on it and found the frosts of winter still lingering beneath the sunwarming.  She fondled the damp moss that patchworked the surface of the rough stone, and turned her face toward the wind with a sigh.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The far-off thunder of drums woke her from the half-slumber she'd fallen into, a slow, ever-nearing rumble that pounded insistently at her ears.  Saoirse lifted her head from the support of her shoulder, but let her elbow lie on the little shelf of stone.  </div> <div> They wound closer, and the sound of the drums was joined by other instruments, in a slow, sad march that brought back old memories.  She hummed the tune that the performers played, softly, and drummed her fingers on the stone.</div> <div> "Maid," a pleasant tenor lilted, very Gaelic indeed, "maid, I don't wish to disturb you, but yon noise is that of a funeral procession, and they march by quite soon.  I do not think that such as you ought to be left by the side of the road, for they have been at the wake for a long while, and at their ale for longer."</div> <div> Another voice, a gorgeous baritone with no accent at all,  rich as softest flannel, added gently, "Aye, young woman, and if you will come with us, we will make sure whoever's traveling with you finds you.  My apprentice and I have a small room at the local inn," the pure tone darkened skillfully in very real scorn, "and it should do as lodging until your kith or kin come asking."</div> <div> Saoirse blinked up across the studious distance kept by the two men to strain hopelessly at the place from whence issued the voices.  "Go raimh maith agat!" she told them gratefully.  "I had no idea.  That would be lovely."  </div> <div>  Half-sliding to her feet, Saoirse tugged at her leine as she straightened.  A deft, long-finged hand, with short, nearly square hints of nail on its fingertips that only brushed her, supported her without question, and she smiled her thanks.</div> <div> "Do you wish to be led?" the tenor husked kindly in her ear, and she nodded, regal as a queen, and grinned with sudden sunniness.  He led her well, too, gently and yet decisively.</div> <div> "How," she began to ask, curious where he had learned such expert guidance, but he stopped her with an interjected statement, anticipating her question.</div> <div> "My master's blind as well.  I seem to have a talent for it; they all tell me so."</div> <div> She arched an eyebrow at his tone.  There was very little boast about the tenor's statement; it was merely an unabashed pride in his ability to help others.  After a moment she smiled again, and `listened' to the careful directions of his capable hand.</div> <div> A flock of geese trumpeted hoarsely, muttering to themselves in cold, disdainful mezzos.  A calf shrilled for its mother in alarm, doors banged, bells tinkled, and people made a variety of unidentifiable strange noises.  The brisk breeze slammed shutters against their hinges with careless merriment, and stuttered briefly around the curves of larger buildings.  Mud puddles had built up, and for all the tenor's guiding, she couldn't miss <I>all</I> of them; cold silty water seeped into her stockings as she sauntered on.</div> <div> The fingers squeezed her arm warningly as they pressed back for a stop, and then left her sleeve entirely, leaving her standing on what she was fairly sure was a threshold.  The baritone gave two solid knocks to the thin wood of the door.</div> <div> Footsteps hurried across the floor, and recalcitrant hinges squealed irritably as the door scraped open.  There was silence for a moment as stuffy, smokey air trickled out of the house, slowly, as if ashamed of its disagreeableness. "Oh," grumbled a bass, as touchy as the hinges.  "It's you two.  Well, go on to your room, harpers; you needn't have come `round the front way."</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The bass shuffled reluctantly out of their way, and the tenor's hand came back to guide her up a series of stairs with short risers and broad treads; exhausting to go up at any speed, unless you had long enough legs to take them two at a time.  Saoirse did not.  She panted shamelessly as they reached the top of the flight, leaning a little on the tenor, who didn't seem to mind.  </div> <div> Saoirse ran her fingers lightly across the wall that hovered close by her right side, and she felt the rough seam of a door, and then wall again before the tenor stopped her and unlocked what she presumed to be their quarters.</div> <div> The tenor led her to a light wicker chair, courteously, and then he and his master took a seat on the bed, which creaked horribly at their weight.  "Well now," sighed the baritone.  "Now, young lady, if you will tell us who will look for you, we'll keep an eye out for them."</div> <div> She shrugged and yawned, unintimidated by his use of that particular title.  "There's only Revelin, or Revalan, or whatever he's calling himself.  Last name of MacCabe or O'Driscoll.  I'm Saoirse."</div> <div> The baritone replied, warm as summer, "And I, Saoirse MacCabekin, am Harper Donal Sheridan of County Leitrim, and this is my apprentice Sitric MacKenna."</div> <div> She paled a little in excitement as Sitric murmured courteously, "A pleasure, Saoirse."</div> <div> "My thanks," Saoirse smiled, then leaned forward eagerly.  "Harpers?  Are you really?"</div> <div> A knock on the door almost drowned out Sitric's punctilious, "Of course," and the dull sound of bed ropes snapping back against the straw-stuffed mattress was loud enough to cover the hopeful little throat-clearing noise she'd made.</div> <div> "There's a young man outside that wishes to speak to you, sirs," croaked a woman's weary alto, accompanied by another dull tattoo on the door.  "He needs it to be soon."  </div> <div> "We'll be there as quick as we can," Donal assured, amused.   In an undertone he murmured, "Well, he didn't take long about it."  The rustle of cloth was decisive as he straightened.  "Sitric, lad, you come with me.  Saoirse, it's dreadfully bad manners to leave you here, but I hope you'll forgive us.  Come, `prentice mine…" and the door scraped half-shut behind them.</div> <div> She rose and stood on the threshold, leaning against the jamb like a shy child.  On the stairwell were voices, and she strained to hear the conversation.</div> <div> It was indeed Revelin, and he inquired politely if the two men were actually the harpers he'd heard of.  Donal affably introduced himself and his apprentice, and assured her friend that his kinswoman was upstairs and safe.</div> <div> "Kinswoman?"  he replied, confused, and explained that he was looking for harpers that would be willing to teach a blind kinswoman of his. </div> <div> Sitric smoothly explained her situation, and Saoirse grinned at the apprentice's silver tongue.  The harper would surely not lack for a place to sleep of a night, if he argued with farmers and innkeepers as eloquently as he persuaded Revelin.</div> <div> The Scotsman finally shrugged this off and thanked the harpers heartily, relief in his voice.  </div> <div> There was a clatter from the kitchens beneath the room, and Saoirse pressed closer to the half-open door, losing pieces of conversation in the noise. </div> <div> "Would you be willing to teach her?"</div> <div> "Certainly.  She….bright lass…, glad to….  Sitric?"</div> <div> "Whyev-r…?  Less…for you…me.  Take -er."</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Boots thundered up the stairs, and Saoirse shot hastily away to her seat, barking her shins as she `misplaced' the bed in her memory.  Revelin's youthful voice raised in gleeful excitement, and Donal's answered sedately.  </div> <div> The half-closed door burst open with a bang, thudding dully against the earth walls, and her benefactors filed in.  </div> <div> "Saoir!  Saoir!" caroled Revelin excitedly.  "Those gentlemen who own this room, they're harpers, and-"</div> <div> "And you've struck a deal with them," Saoirse interjected hurriedly.  "I heard.  Oh, Rev, it's wonderful!" She leapt up and grasped his hand, and he gleefully twirled her around.  </div> <div> "Isn't it, Saoir?  Glorious.  Here, come thank Donal and Sitric.  They're the ones who agreed to it.  You're choking me," he told her, embarrassed, so she flew to bestow gleeful greetings on Donal and Sitric.  </div> <div> The blind harper accepted her hug warmly, his strong arms wrapping gently around her shoulders.  Donal was a good deal taller than she, but the solidness of him was comfortable to embrace, and he did not seem troubled by his new apprentice's exuberance.  </div> <div> Sitric, however, went as rigid as stone in her embrace, and muttered something that sounded profoundly embarrassed.  The polite squeeze he gave her was shier than Fionnuír's had been, and she pursed her lips at his discomfort.  </div> <div> Sitric was saved from further affections when Donal cleared his throat.  "Well," he suggested, "perhaps, `prentice mine, you would like your first lesson?"   </div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Chapter 7</b></div> <bR> <div> Donal had to be very strict with Saoirse for the first few days.   He forcibly pried Sitric's lap harp out of her hands and threatened to hide it.  After that Saoirse stalled out over the exercise her master assigned her, and while she was stuck they packed up and went on the move again.  </div> <div> Donal and Sitric made an interesting pair, not quite in harmony with each other.  Their idiosyncrasies clashed on occasion, and they argued explosively at least once or twice a day.  Donal, however, was easily mollified, and Sitric was polite enough to apologize - though both still held to their own notions.  Saoirse speculated that neither of them had ever in his life given ground to someone else.  </div> <div> Donal and Revelin, now, <I>they</I> had hit it right off.  They lagged behind incessantly, chatting animatedly over trifling hobbies and preoccupations they shared.  Donal was delighted to meet someone new who was used to abstaining from nodding, hand gestures, scowls and smiles to express himself, and Revelin thrilled at this sudden friendship offered from so venerable a teacher.  </div> <div> This left Saoirse with Sitric, something that did not disturb her at all.  Sitric was kind and amusing, endearingly awkward behind the manners he adhered to, and he could make anything interesting when he talked about it.  She learned that his family were traditionally harpers - father, sons, and daughters.  By chance or not-chance, Cairell MacKenna had also married a trained lady harper in whose family ran much music.  Sitric had an elder brother, Mahon, and a younger sister, Iseult, with whom he was closest.  He showered his conversations with lively images of them and the misadventures of his family.  His cheerful descriptions and wry observations made her dreadfully homesick for her brothers' company and her father's teasing.</div> <div> The exercise she found so difficult was the basics: damping.  She could not bring her fingers in evenly enough to please Donal.  "Put your hand on mine," he'd instructed gruffly.  "Lightly, girl, lightly.  Now, listen and feel what I'm doing."  The muscles in his hand moved smoothly as first his thumb plucked the string, coming back down on it precisely. As soon as his thumb had muted that note, his index finger played the next one down.  The result was two even sounds, the latter ringing on without the muddying it would have had if Donal had let the first one sound.</div> <div> She had tried it.  The first time, her nails hadn't even struck the right strings, producing harmony instead of the effect Donal wished her to hear, and both notes rang on unhindered.  Her teacher did not speak; instead, he firmly directed her hand to the strings, showing her without words the narrow spacing and the `feel' of notes in succession.  He placed her forefinger and thumb on the right notes, and then instructed, "Play your thumb first.  Good.  Now, play your thumb and bring the side of it back down on the string almost as soon as you play it."  </div> <div> That much worked, but as soon as she got to the two notes in succession, everything fell apart.  She was <I>supposed </I>to "Play and damp with your thumb, girl.  As soon as you damp with your thumb, play your forefinger."  </div> <div> She mangled it, first not damping and playing soon enough, and then, more frustratingly, overdamping so the two notes sounded like an ornament, the first too quick so the sound was <I>ba-daaa.</I>  It didn't improve from there.</div> <div> Sitric's good-natured shout brought her out of her reverie, and she urged her horse closer to him with a heel.  "Where are we?"</div> <div> A horse stamped on her other side, blowing through its nose noisily.  "A mighty big town," Revelin drawled laconically, his accented tenor disdainful.</div> <div> "Quite right," Sitric agreed, peevishly, and hooves clattered on rock as he pulled his mount violently sideways.  </div> <div> She flinched at the ongoing competition between the two, jaw jutting in perplexity.  Revelin poked and prodded at the sighted harper until he felt satisfied that he had again proven himself to be Saoirse's only friend and guide.  Sitric bit off his words with such severity when talking to the Scotsman that Saoirse was appalled.  </div> <div> Their entry into the town was otherwise uneventful; indeed, it was almost anticlimactic.  Donal bargained with a townsman for space on his floor that night.  In return he promised a few hours of music before they settled in.  Their host steadfastly refused to take their coin, saying that he had plenty.  His English was, well…very English, without a hint of any accent Saoirse could recognize.</div> <div> The house was well-kept, and the floor was as clean as any Saoirse had seen, save a particularly lofty town church she'd once visited.  There was room on the hearth for several pallets, and the three musicians were offered stools for their `performance'.  Saoirse declined; Sitric needed to use his harp that night, and she knew far too little to warrant taking time from his playing.  </div> <div> She stood and drummed for them instead, head nodding to the patterned fall of her double-sided drumstick, or played soft, sweet notes on her whistle when the two more learned harpers started an aire.  The townsman was appreciative, they had a hot meal that night, with fresh watercress and a bit of actual meat.  Not long into their playing he bid them rest, saying "You'll need your sleep to fuel your fingers, harpers, so-to bed!"</div> <div> The worn flagstones beneath her blankets were not too cold, and she lay peacefully near the banked fire, her mind too busy for true sleep.  Saoirse listened contentedly to the night noises, identifying them with soporific detachment.  </div> <div> Shutters banged in a strong eastern wind.  A few sleepy calls of night birds fluttered against the gusts.  The house creaked and muttered to its foundation, and the thatch whispered sibilantly above her.  Someone rapped on the door in the other room, and their host's footfalls-soft in his stocking feet-rose to answer.  </div> <div> Her eyes flew open, useless as they were, as the stranger entered, and heavy-heeled shoes rang dully against the stone.  The rhythm of the step was very familiar, bump thud-thud, bump thud-thud, and she strove to identify it.  </div> <div> But a moment later she laughed at herself as she realized what she was hearing.  It was the same two-legged limp that she'd experienced after a day of hard riding, when knees no longer straightened and thigh muscles went lax.  </div> <div> As she cuddled down into her bedding, the stranger spoke, and Saoirse froze at the tones of someone she knew.  She couldn't understand what he was saying at all, for the stranger was speaking French very fast, with a heavy Gaelic accent, and the strong young voice unexpectedly cracked and boomed every now and then,.  Apparently, the townsman couldn't understand him either, for he begged him, "Peace, still, sir.  I pray ye, speak slowly!  I do not know what you have said."</div> <div> The stranger sighed and spoke again in French, slowly and deliberately.  The walls muffled sound too well for Saoirse to pick out more than an occasional phrase, and after a half-hour of straining to hear, she began to nod off.  Each time she shook herself back awake with a jerk, but it did nothing for the weary weight of her body.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> The tone in conversation shifted from bargaining to arguing, still polite but dreadfully obstinate.  At last the visitor muttered something curt and clomped out, loudly promising to return in the morning.</div> <div> Saoirse, vaguely disquieted, relaxed.  Whatever it was, it would wait.</div> <div> Sitric awakened her early, as she heard him noisily trading accusations with his master as to why a string had snapped on Donal's harp.  The spat continued until they all trotted down to the hitching-rings where the horses were tied, lugging saddles and baggage with them.</div> <div> She stood off to the side as Sitric and Revelin packed up, feeling out-of-sorts and useless.  Donal kept out of the way as well, but he was talking animatedly to the townsman, who was apparently a distant kinsman.  </div> <div> The air was wet and still, droplets flattening out her hair into a long, hanging weight.  Only a few songbirds were calling.  If there were more, they were drowned out by the chickens, who were screeching a dawn serenade for the town.  There was no sense of peace to the morning, nor of a new awakening; the noise and humidity were curiously oppressive.</div> <div> She frowned and shifted at the train of her thoughts - then leapt violently, stifling a shriek as something cold and wet was shoved into her hand.  A large furry weight left the side of her skirt.  She froze, leaning carefully away from…well, whatever it was.  "Sitric?" Saoirse pled, her voice high and strained.  "What's beside me?"</div> <div> His boots scuffed the street.  "Just a dog, Saoirse.  A friendly one, it looks like, though rather large.  Wolfhoundish."</div> <div> She rolled her eyes, sticking a hand out with a prayer on her lips.  "Only a dog.  Mmm-hmm."  A bony head was thrust up into her hand, and she tentatively stroked the wiry fur.   The dog's hot, panting breath fluttered a portion of her skirt.  "Nice lad.  Or lass."  Her fingers buried themselves in the softer fur of the neck.  "What's this?"  She bent to feel around the thin band of leather, fingers catching on the softened edges of…paper?</div> <div> "Rev!  Sitric!  Come look at this!"  she called, gently stroking the dog's bony withers.  </div> <div> Footsteps hurried toward her.  "Isn't that Cathal's dog, Saoir?" Revelin asked wonderingly.  </div> <div> "Cath's?  Is it?  I can't tell.  But here," she brandished the paper, "take a peek at this.  Is it a message?"</div> <div> There was a brief, tense moment when both of them tried to go for the paper at once.  Sitric got there first, and the piece crackled in his careful fingers.  "The ink hasn't run much," he remarked, and began to read.</div> <div> <I>Dear sister or reader,</I></div> <div> <I>Please come home!  Mother and Father are frantic with worry.  Beircheart is roaring.  Please come!  </I></div> <div> <I>If you've had any luck finding a teacher, ask him or her to come home with you.  It's too quiet here, just Kieran and me.  Beir and Darerca don't count.  They spend all of their time mewed up anyway. </I></div> <div> <I>I miss you,</I></div> <div> <B>Cathal O'Rourke</b></div> <div> Saoirse blinked and caressed the dog a little harder. "Cath.  My, my.  Well, it's nice to be missed, I suppose."  She shrugged and half-crouched to better her attentions to her brother's beast. </div> <div> "Aren't you going to ask Donal, Saoir?" Sitric inquired diffidently.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> She shrugged again.  "I don't want to go home," she said simply, standing, face turned away from her friends.</div> <div> Silence met this statement, and neither of them said a word as they finished their tasks.  Donal ended his conversation pleasantly, and after a bit of planning they mounted.  Revelin bid the dog go home, while Sitric took hold of her reins, and the horses started forward in a surprising matching of gaits.  </div> <div> They had to stop and wait while Revelin and Donal backtracked to pick up a pack left a day's journey behind them, letting Saoirse converse with Sitric again.  She was not displeased.  But when they returned, they brought with them a startling revelation.</div> <div> The barking of dogs preceded the noise of laden horses, and Saoirse cocked her head curiously, wondering….  As they would have been coming into view, a shout rang out, rather sheepish for all its volume.  "Saoirse?" </div> <div> It was the voice she'd heard in the townhouse, and things suddenly snapped into focus.  "<I>Cathal</I>?"</div> <div> Revelin told her the whole story.  Her brother had heard their conversation in the stable at home.   He had been following them ever since, bringing with him five of his best dogs.  Donal and Revelin had run into him on the way back, and after much shouting, brought him in.  </div> <div> Her brother pleaded for her to go home.  With his coming, her homesickness had resurged from where she thought she'd banished it, and she made him a solemn promise that she would return if a teacher could be found to go with them.</div> <div> After some discussion, Donal agreed to go back to Saoirse's home and stay for the length of her tuition, if possible.  She felt a hint of foreboding at the thought of her parents and their likely response, but she had promised.  The next morn they set out-this time, for home.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Chapter 8</b></div> <div> Home was over the next hill.</div> <div> She knew it.  It wasn't the familiar dips in the road that told her.  Nor was it the signal scent of the huge lilacs that had once grown helter-skelter by the road, now gentled into towering hedges on this side of the keep.   Somehow, she just <I>knew</I>-felt it, smelled it, almost tasted it.  It was home, and it was there, and Saoirse made her poor horse toss his head as she tensed and fidgeted, legs wrapped around his belly as if the stirrups were only there for show.  </div> <div> The long-suffering horse seem to stretch as he leaned forward, picking his way carefully toward the top of the incline.    Saoirse clung to the saddlebow like a rank amateur and didn't care whether Sitric saw her or not; the hill's steep pitch was likely to slide her right out of the saddle if she didn't hang on to <I>something</I>, and she didn't trust her gelding's ratty mane at all.  </div> <div> "There it is!" whooped Cathal, and his great hounds made queer, deep half-yips in the back of their throats, snuffling around excitedly in a mob surrounding the horse that their master and the harper's apprentice shared.  Sitric hissed something short and to the point at him, and Saoirse's brother quieted, though his low murmurs to his beasts remained undaunted.</div> <div> The gelding leveled for a moment, blew wearily, and began to pick his way down.  Every step jolted as the horse's weight rested on the newly-placed hoof, and Saoirse clenched her teeth as they half-slid down the steep section of the incline.  Then her mount straightened and shook himself briskly, crowding his fellow gelding's hindquarters.  They were down.</div> <div> "Are y'ready for all this, Saoirs?" Revelin discreetly murmured near her ear.  Stones rattled down the road as the others found a way down.  </div> <div> Saoirse shrugged and kneed her horse over a little.  She'd agonized over the issue before, and decided, finally, that there was nothing she could do.  Atop the pall of fatigue, all she could really worry about was the twisting nausea that churned her stomach.</div> <div> They meandered to the door without haste, and had a brief discussion on who would knock, and what they would say.  While they were dismounting, still arguing, the doors swung open of themselves, hinges shrieking like individual banshees. </div> <div> Saoirse flinched and made a face.  "Been rainin', I s'pose," she told no one in particular, embarrassed.</div> <div> "Who's that?" Kieran's startled voice rang up like a startled bird in front of them, probably going out on an errand or to get some fresh air.  "<I>Saoir? </I> Cath?  <I>Revelin!</I>"  And without further attempts at conversation, he flew at them, wildly embracing the people he knew.  "Mum's been so <I>worried</I>," he whispered in her ear as he crushed her with his hugs.</div> <div> "Who're these people you've brought with you?" Kier asked at last, when he had finished squeezing the life out of friends and family members.  "Do introduce them, Rev, please."</div> <div> Revelin cleared his throat self-consciously.  "Well, the man on my right is Sitric MacKenna,  and he's `prenticed to the gentleman beyond him, Harper Donal Sheridan.  Donal is Saoirs' teacher," he proclaimed proudly, as if the idea had been his all along.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> "Teacher?"  asked Kieran delightedly.  "Welcome to our home, good sirs!"  He flew at them gleefully.</div> <div> After they had disentangled themselves from Kieran, Saoirse's parents descended upon them, scolding, laughing, and crying to the point of incoherence.</div> <div> "Saoirse!  Saoir, Saoir, Saoir!"</div> <div> "How could you?"</div> <div> "You came <I>back</I>!"</div> <div> "Harper?  Oh, Saoir, you found a teacher!"</div> <div> "You <I>are</I> a harper?"</div> <div> After they had calmed down a bit, Sorley pulled her aside.  She stood in the long, cool grass in the shadow of the keep, leaning against the stones and listened to her father.</div> <div> "Daughter mine, you've no idea how glad I am to see you back.  Not only because I missed you, though you've no idea how much I did.  Also, Saoirse, I…I've had an offer for your hand." He sounded somewhat abashed.  </div> <div> She blinked, shook her head, and leaned forward.  "What?" There was a definite hint of steel in her tone.  </div> <div> "I've had an offer for your hand," he repeated.  "And I think I ought to take the lad up on it."</div> <div> "Who?" she demanded, pressing her shoulders against the wall.  A trapped feeling fluttered into her chest, and she clenched her fists at this twist of fate.</div> <div> "You like him, Saoir.  Meehaul Joyce?  Remember?" he pleaded.</div> <div> She stiffened.  "<I>Meehaul</I>?"</div> <div> "Right," Sorley assured, his bass rumble hopeful.  "He spoke very well of you and seemed quite earnest.  It was a pity you weren't there when he asked."</div> <div> The birdsong seemed to be especially loud in the long, stony gap in conversation.  Her father added, more firmly, "You must.  Nobody else has asked, and you said you didn't wish to be an old maid on Beircheart's holdings.  The Joyce family is one of the best choices for an alliance, and his father and I also wish this marriage to happen."  He lowered his voice.  "Kieran and Fionnuír were supposed to be betrothed, but the Joyce's harper's apprentice went and proposed, and she'll have no other.  Lord Brion is not too pleased."</div> <div> "But…I'm learning…my harp…Meehaul?  I <I>can't</I>…"</div> <div>   "You will," he decreed in an iron voice and left abruptly, leaving Saoirse to gape behind him.</div> <bR> <div> The days flew by on wild wings, and she felt as if she needed to run and catch up, lost in the bewilderment of her father's `news'.  She brought down her uncle's harp, now hers.  After Donal admired it, he had her practice on it, and the sound was more than music to her ears.  </div> <div> Sitric had become rather shy, but he brought her flowers, and seemed to exist to wait on her.  At last, after several bouts of increasingly strange behavior from her fellow apprentice, Donal told her gently and without panache, "Saoirse, <I>do </I>something for that poor boy.  Sitric's courting you."  </div> <div> This left her quite astonished, and she was uncertain of the shy pleasure that she found when she spoke back to her cautious suitor.  She felt an odd thrill when he put his arm around her, and was desperately unsure when he quietly asked for her opinion on one thing or another, as if there was a deeper question behind his words.</div> <div> Her mother was making plans for her wedding to Meehaul.  Saoirse was avoiding them.  She was quite sure that she was making herself invisible, by the times she'd avoided Ismay.  Unfortunately, it all came to an end when Meehaul and Líadan Joyce came knocking on the door.</div> <bR> <div> The quiet, youngest Lord Joyce and his elder sister came in without warning, fanfare, or hoopla,  leaves curtsying on the breeze.  It boded ill for Sitric's plans when Meehaul first came upon her, for he scooped her up in a gentle hug, kissing her on the forehead perfunctorily as he greeted her.   Saoirse returned his endearments with a wooden "Good day" and turned her face from him.  He must have ascribed it to `maidenly shyness', for he did not remark upon it or seem hurt.</div> <div> Sitric had come to the hallway with her, and she could feel his suppressed anger as she led Meehaul to his quarters.  When she talked with her betrothed, she could not reach behind the coolness of his manners to find out if he truly loved her.  She couldn't bear it as he switched smoothly from subject to subject, always avoiding the key topic that she knew would have to come up one day.  Finally she broke and scrambled off to the outdoors, pleading fatigue.</div> <div> He found her the next day, walking energetically down toward the village with Sitric, and asked her to come away for a ride with him.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> When she declined, she could hear…<I>something</I> in his voice.  It wasn't quite anger, nor jealousy, but a slow and creeping despair, an unhappiness that niggled at her like a bad tooth.  She did not know what to do.  She could not understand.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Chapter 9</b></div> <div> "I love you."</div> <div> Saoirse gaped down at him, flexing her fingers in his gentle grip.  Just moments ago she'd stepped around the corner near her parents' section of the hallway, moving her feet in a vain hope that the movement would burn away her confusion.  Then he'd stepped up to her and asked to speak with her.  She'd agreed happily.  </div> <div> That's when he got down on one knee and took her hand.  Sitric's voice came again with a shaking, yearning tone that shook her to the core.  "I don't know if you care for me that much, Lady Saoirse, but believe me when I say this - I love you."</div> <div> She nodded faintly, her free hand going to her cheek to quell the flaming color she knew must be rising.  "I, oh, I…Sitric, I do."</div> <div> "Will you ask for me, m'lady?  Will you tell your father that you wish to break your betrothal?  I dare not ask for your hand otherwise," he pled, his hold strengthening, half-trembling with adrenaline.  Sitric continued, stronger, "The MacKennas are a prestigious lot, and I daresay your da wouldn't mind an `alliance' with my family."</div> <div> Saoirse nodded again, tentatively, and her hair slid over her shoulders in a swishing fall.  "I…shall try, Sitric," she stammered, still blushing mightily, "f-for you."</div> <div> He rose and enveloped her in strong arms.  It was then that she knew for sure that this was where she belonged - caught in her harper's embrace.  "There's a little house on a hill not far from my home," her love murmured rhapsodically.  "We could live there.  I'll introduce you to all my family, Father and Mother and Brónach-" </div> <div> "Stop!" rang out a thunderous voice, infused with an icy rage.  "Let her go, wastrel.  This is my betrothed."  A broad and muscular hand fastened around her wrist, yanking her away.  Meehaul held her close to him, breathing in short, sharp gasps.  "How could you, Saoirse?  How could you?  You never said a word.  How can you do this to me?"  Raw agony shot through his voice, and she shook as she pulled free.</div> <div> "You never asked!" she all but shrieked.  "Never!  You asked my father, but you didn't ask me.  I can't be your wife.  I love him!"</div> <div> Meehaul ,enraged, whirled upon Sitric.  "How dare you," he snarled, words shattering like ice.  "She was <I>mine</I>, harper, and you courted her still.  You stole her heart away and now you laugh in my face.  <I>You!</I>" </div> <div> "Meehaul," Sorley intoned without expression from the doorway.  Saoirse's head whipped around with tear-tracks glinting like scars against her face. "Meehaul, I need to talk with you, your sister, and Kieran.  At once, if possible.  Will you come?"</div> <div> The silence stretched overlong before Meehaul replied, his voice dead tired, "Aye.  Aye, Lord Sorley.  I will."  He sounded as old and weary as Uncle Liam when he'd spoken his goodbyes.  Her father must have beckoned him out, for many footsteps thudded farther and farther away.</div> <div> She slumped down into the rushes, curving her back against the wall and shivering for a moment, before she could get a hold of herself.  Saoirse bent her head over her knees so that her hair curtained her face, and waited for whatever doom her father and Meehaul would bring with them when they returned.  Sitric put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook her head at him.  "No," she croaked.  "No, love, not yet.  Do not lay another hand on me afore my father comes.  I do not know if we can be, Sitric."</div> <div> "Sounds like a song," he said bleakly and sat against the opposing wall.  With no sun to mark the hours on her skin, and no noise but their own breath to disturb the aching void of sound, time seemed to stretch like a new harpstring in the cool stone hall.</div> <div> In that tense quiet, her lips moved without speaking, and she stared up with red-rimmed eyes.  <I>Please</I>, they pled, and her sightless eyes strained towards the heavens that were sheathed in wood and stone.  Many more words fell soundlessly from her lips, and she wept as she begged, until no more words or tears would come.  </div> <div> Footsteps rang in the hall, and she sat bolt upright, tension buzzing in the fight-or-flight movement of her shoulders.  </div> <div> It was only Líadan.  She burst into the hall, positively dripping happiness, and fidgeted and danced on the rushes near the doorway.  When it was apparent that the woman would say nothing at all, Saoirse ignored her, her head and her heart sinking.</div> <div> Boots sounded again on the stones, and again she half-leapt upright.  This time it was Kieran, and he swooped down on Líadan with glee.  "Married!  Betrothed!" he caroled, and the Joyce woman shrieked in joy as he scooped her up and spun her around, "Kieran!"</div> <div> Saoirse offered them a queasy half-smile before she settled down again.  It seemed unfair, she mused, that they should have their marriage yet she probably would not.  Not to Sitric….</div> <div> Her brother and his betrothed dashed away gaily, leaving her alone <I>again.</I>  She stood and paced nervously.  To block out her unhappiness, she concentrated on the rhythm of her gait above all else.</div> <div> A gentle hand caught her shoulder as she passed the doorway.  "Saoir," Meehaul murmured, and took her hands.  His face was close to hers now, and she could feel the strain of his regard….  Then his lips met hers in a quick, hard kiss, and he stalked away, leaving her,  astonished, to brush at the damp of his tears on her cheek.</div> <div> Her father came in after the young man, and sighed gustily.  "Strange lad," he said softly.  "Saoirse, Líadan and Kieran are getting married, as you might know.  Kier's been writing to her.  He was worried about the engagement between you and Meehaul, afraid that since there was already a connection between us and the Joyces, I wouldn't want him to marry her.  Meehaul…" and his voice faltered sadly, "has formally broken the betrothal.  He told his sister that she was free to marry.  I would have let Kier have her anyway."  </div> <div> "Broken?" Saoirse's voice was unusually shrill.  "He broke the betrothal?"  Her father rumbled an affirmative, and she stood quite still a moment, hands twining behind her back.</div> <div> Sitric, who had been standing silent all this time, strode to her elbow hastily.  "Sir?"</div> <div> She supposed Sorley had cocked a brow, and he waited expectantly for the rest of the harper apprentice's question.  "Aye?"</div> <div> "Might I have your daughter's hand in marriage?" Sitric answered, without a quaver in his wonderful tenor.</div> <div> Her father squeezed her hand.  "I think you may," he agreed smilingly.  "I'd ask her, though.  Saoirse is a harper, after all, and she needs her freedom."</div> <div> Rushes ground beneath the young man's feet as he pivoted to ask her, but she held a finger to her lips, eyes wide.  "I will," she affirmed, with a radiant smile, and reached toward him determinedly.  His lips met hers halfway, and she luxuriated in being in the place where she truly belonged.</div> <bR> <div> It was not to be.  Somehow, the world revolted at the thought of Saoirse O'Rourke being truly fulfilled at last.  She had thought it was too good to be true, and it was.  </div> <div> Meehaul had met Sitric in the hall.  The harper was on the way to meet Saoirse at the altar.  There had been no witnesses, but foul play had definitely come to Sitric MacKenna.  Foul play would be writ large on his grave.  </div> <div> He was dead, and it was Meehaul's fault.  Saoirse knew that her refusal had wounded him deeply, but she had never thought that it would drive him to violence and madness.  But Sitric had paid the price for her perfidy…her Sitric…</div> <div> She would never hear his voice again.  </div> <bR> <div> She went walking, cold and lonely, on the roof.  The air was full of mist, or fog, although a chill breeze stirred the damp tendrils of her hair.  The harper thought that the icy north wind might well blow through her soul.  </div> <div> <I>Let it.  There is nothing to fill it now.  </I></div> <div> Saoirse had not laid a finger on her harp since she heard the news.  It was too painful.  <I>Sitric is dead,</I> the strings had murmured.  <I>He is dead, he is dead.  Gone.  </I>There was no solstice in music any more, when <I>he</I> had been the tune that filled her heart.  </div> <div> The stones here were slick with moisture, smoothed by years of Eire's relentless weather.  She knew where she was.  She had never been so aware of the space around her…of the chasm of air in front of her.  This was the north wall of the keep.  The stones were so very wet here…and the roof was a perilous place for a woman who could not see.  </div> <div> She wavered on the edge, breathing the knife-edged air.  It felt as though ice had settled in her too-tight lungs, but her eyes, her useless eyes, were on fire with tears.  There was oblivion down there, waiting.  The wind was calling for her; she imagined Sitric's voice in its soughing, and stretched out her hand.  It would be so easy… she would fly for a moment, and then there would be only a wonderful freedom.  </div> <bR> <bR> <div> (Insert RP here...)</div> <bR> <div> Saoirse bonded silver Ionuin!  Isn't she glorious?</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="0b6faa30.gif" border=0 width="250" height="163" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="0b7f4970.gif" border=0 width="500" height="407" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>