“If what she wrote in her little book really is the counterspell, he can use it. I believe he can release you all.”
He sank to a crouch, his hands over his face.
I knelt down beside him. “You’ll be with them again, Gearróg,” I said quietly, laying my hand on his shoulder.“The ones you loved; the ones you lost. I truly believe it. Now come. I have another task for you.”
We did not go back by the inner door, but made a solemn procession through Irial’s garden. The women of the host went in front, and then came Gearróg with Orna in his arms. I walked last. Not alone; the ghost child crept in from a corner of the garden, embroidered bundle in hand, to walk close beside me, brushing against the skirt of my borrowed gown. Suddenly I felt the full weight of this. If the counterspell worked, we would be saying goodbye to all of them. Cathaír. Gearróg. The little girl. Eichri. Rioghan. A catalogue of tears.
As we went through the archway something made me turn to gaze back over the empty garden. The cool autumn sunlight lay on a drift of fallen leaves, the empty birdbath, a blanket of moss softening the stone seat. A lone bird sang in the bare branches of the birch. And down by the stillroom there was a shifting and a folding. I saw nothing moving, but I had the sense that someone had stepped back, set down a burden.This garden had always felt like a safe place. It came to me that someone had kept watch over it, someone who had loved all that grew here. He had lingered beyond his time, knowing there was a duty to be done, a guard to keep; after all, he had seen his son become a man.The unseen tenth in the circle: the invisible presence revered by all. Here, not by the compulsion of a fell charm, but by his own selfless choice. He had been a good man, deserving of eternal rest, but love had held him here until he knew his son would be safe. I fixed my eyes on the place where a rake rested against the stillroom wall, with a hat hooked over the top of it that surely had not been there when I first entered the garden, and I whispered,“Farewell, Irial. Go home to your Emer. I will watch over him now.”
It was a day of triumph and of loss, of jubilation and of mourning, a day that would furnish fuel for a hundred years of fireside tales. Anluan led his ragtag army back up the hill and into the courtyard with his head held high.The men of the settlement marched behind him, shields carried with pride, weapons gripped in hands more accustomed to wield hay fork, scythe or fishing net than bow and spear. The men of the host came after, with a new light in their shadowy eyes.They had held fast; they had stood by their comrades.They had obeyed their orders and kept to the plan. Rioghan looked stunned. Perhaps he had not quite dared to believe that this time his audacious strategy would bring victory and deliver his lord home safe and sound.
The makeshift infirmary filled up.The stunning success had not been achieved without casualties, and the spectral monks went to and fro with their basins and bandages, splints and potions, tending to the wounded from the settlement and from the force Magnus had brought for the surprise attack.
I had barely time to greet Anluan before he was surrounded by a press of excited folk. As I moved across the courtyard, the tale came to me in fragments. All across the Tor folk were talking, talking, trying to put it together. The chieftains of Whiteshore and Silverlake, with their remaining troops, were even now dealing with the ragged remnant of the Norman army. Cleaning up, I heard someone call it. The horses having bolted, the enemy was fleeing on foot, disordered and terrified. No doubt Stephen de Courcy had heard the tales of Whistling Tor before he decided to lay siege to the place. That was not the same as waking from sleep to find oneself doing battle with an army like Anluan’s. Magnus was of the opinion that Lord Stephen would already have decided against claiming the hill for his own. Just in case he had not, Brión of Whiteshore and Fergal of Silverlake were out there reminding him of the wisdom of such a choice.
