"She will come. The Sidhe," Ciaran said then. "Will you serve?"
"Aye," Beorc said after a moment's dismay. "My lord knows I would."
"And you others?"
"Aye," said Rhys, "without question."
"Shall we see one?" Domhnull asked, with all his heart. His eyes were blue and wide. "Here? Tonight? In hall?"
"Perhaps," said Ciaran, adding, "If she wills it you will see her. But if she will not, then not. You must not tell it—if you do."
"No, lord," Domhnull said, but his desire was in his eyes, wide as his heart was wide.
"Carry no iron," said Ciaran. "My guest will not bear that."
"No," said Beorc, "that we understand."
"She is not to fear," lady Branwyn said in a soft thin voice. "It is not that you should need it, or that we should not be safe."
"No," said Ciaran, "there is no question of that."
For Beorc's part he was not sure; and Rhys' look was the usual, which was unreadable; but Domhnull's face was full of color, his eyes bright with hope, as if there were no ill thing in all the world, and this from a youth who had ridden borders since his sixteenth year.
Perhaps Ciaran saw it, for he looked longest at Domhnull, and a faint smile touched his face. "Don't count on it overmuch. She may not stay. But perhaps she will."
THREE
Arafel
She came—not without hesitation, for it was a harder journey than once. The mists had grown thicker between her Eald-that-was and the world of Men. She had delayed at the last, beneath the pale silvery trees, among the elvish treasures which glistened with soft brilliance under the wan, strange sun of her day; she had chosen certain things to take with her, and put on light elvish garments which she had worn for festival—oh, very long ago, when there were songs among the elves. She went tonight in trust, as she would not have gone for any Man but one, and so she came weaponless except for the lightest of daggers; and uncloaked, which was mere thought lessness: for they were friends.
So she arrived in the upper hall of Caer Wiell—was there upon the instant, striding out of the mists into a place she knew; and blinked at the glare and half-faded away again in alarm.
There were fires before her like a row of perilous flowers. Metal glinted. Her every instinct cried away. But there was Ciaran holding out his hand to her: there was Branwyn, less her friend, but not treacherous, who stared at her with wide and anxious eyes. And the fires were candle flames and torches; the metal was the glitter of silver plates and cups and the finery of her hosts. The place smelled of closeness and Men and fire and food and dying flowers and cut boughs. She stayed, dismayed as she was by the flames.
For it was honor they wished to do her, she saw that now. She was caught between horror and weariness and a great sorrow for them in their best that they put forward to welcome her. She had on the garments of peace for respect of an invitation: and as Men did things, they had turned this grim gray hall into a dripping of fat of slain animals, and burning fire, and slain trees, and dying branches—but silver plates, no iron which would harm her, and a blaze of light and warmth and all the best they had.
"Please," Ciaran said, and offered her first place at the table that was set "Be welcome."
She stepped all the way within the room, a guest in Caer Wiell, in this small closed hall. She looked about her and at the place that was offered. "You have surprised me," she said truthfully, and looked toward the closed doors of the place. Torches burned all along the wall, candles lit the table, and fire blazed in the hearth. The dying boughs on the table sent up a great fragrance like silent anguish.
"We will serve," said Ciaran softly. "Or I have men I trust as close as brothers and they would do that service. They know about you. They're ready to do as much if I should call, no, more than willing. Anxious. But I wasn't sure you would bear with that."
"I have never guested with Men," Arafel said doubtfully, looking at him and at Branwyn; and then with her love of this Man, a strange mood fell on her, between despair and a remembrance of what had been, of the groves alight, of harping and of dancing.
"Might there be music?" she asked in diffidence; and, wistfully, from her heart's desire: "Might I see the children here too? And then we will talk. There is afterward for talking."
Branwyn's hand crept anxiously to Ciaran's, but Ciaran's eyes shone with pride. "Call them," he said to Branwyn. "Call them down." And himself hastening to the door: "Beorc," he called out. "Come ahead—and call Leannan upstairs, and Ruadhan, and Siodhachan too."
"Muirne," Branwyn called by the other stairs, "Muirne, bring Ceallach and Meadhbh and come down!"
Arafel stood still, feeling a certain dread at this multiplication of names. Once before she had faced the prospect of this hall and so many Men. But now was now, and if the place was strange and crude with glare and death, she schooled herself to trust, stood where they wished her to be and waited, to be amazed by them as they were amazed by her.
The stairs erupted with the patter of feet: Muirne, then, that was the name, a thin, pinched woman of no definite colors; and like sunrise and sunset the boy and girl beside her—who stopped at the bottom step and stared with open mouths—for Arafel had not come as she had appeared to them before, in gray and patchwork, but in silver and elvish jewels.
Then the Men came, and foremost in honor the harper, who came with his harp in his arms and kneeled before her: Leannan was his name—and she recalled another harper of Caer Wiell in looking into his weathered face. So he would have aged. The thought appalled her and filled her with sorrow.
"I have seen you once," the harper said, "lady, when you saved Caer Wiell. I remember. I was there. I only wish I could get it clear. I tried to make a song of it. ... but it was never what I wanted."
His voice faded. He only stared, bewildering her, until gently Ciaran took his arm and moved him aside. She looked for those faces she knew. Meredydd and Evald were gone—no part of this gather ing. Gone, she realized suddenly, of course gone, as Men went: Lord Death culled more than trees, and gently—she had never felt their passing. The faces about her were all different from what she had expected. On most of them she saw the marks of age.
"Beorc," Ciaran named a tall, red-haired Man, himself graying. "Scaga's son. And Domhnull his cousin. My right hand and my left, and I value them as much. Rhys ap Dryw. Ruadhan. Siodhachan." This last was an old, old Man, the oldest of them all.
"I rode," the aged Man said, his lips trembling with the effort of speech, "after my lord Ciaran on the field that day. When you came —" His voice wobbled away to silence and tears, something very like elvish warmth, so that she was touched in spite of herself. "Yes," she said full gently, not knowing this Man and wondering what face he had once worn. She grew desperate in these changes, among these Men. She looked toward the children who stood both in Branwyn's embrace, read there other change happening with fatal swiftness.