Heart's Blood

Summer

Irial’s garden is full of color: honeysuckle cloaks the walls, the beds of lavender are alive with bees, the gray-green foliage of the giant comfrey bush shelters our heart’s blood plant, which has sent up five stems this season. The birdbath hosts a crowd of chattering sparrows. Streak, the terrier, races madly around the path, pursued by a muddy-looking Emer. Our daughter is growing apace; her hair is long enough for plaits, and she has lost two baby teeth. Nechtan’s All Hallows rendered death to Aislinn.Anluan’s All Hallows has given our daughter and her protector full and natural life.

I watch them through the library window. More than a year has passed since the day I first came up the hill to Whistling Tor and met a man with hair like fire and skin like snow, a crooked man who shouted at me and almost frightened me away. Now here I am. That crooked man is my beloved husband. We have our daughter and another child on the way. And I have my first commission, copying a book of classical verse for Fergal of Silverlake. Fergal wants decorated capitals, ornate borders and a touch of gold leaf, and he will pay appropriately. The work is going well. It is a joy to take up my craft again after so long, to lose myself in the intricacies of it and to see a thing of beauty flowering on the blank page before me. I’ve had to ban Emer from the library. With the best intentions in the world, she enters any room like a miniature whirlwind with Streak generally not far behind, and there are precious items here, Irial’s notebooks, my writing materials, and the other documents now stored away in boxes.We have put the dark history of Anluan’s family behind us, but we will never forget.

Gearróg is in the garden now, a basket over his arm. Emer likes to collect the eggs. Olcan, who will be working down at the farm this morning, loves to see both the child and her little dog, for he still misses Fianchu. Gearróg takes Emer’s hand and they go out through the archway with Streak dancing around their feet.

Ah, Gearróg! He’s only talked to me once about that night, and how it felt to give up the chance to be reunited with his loved ones in the place Cathaír called the land beyond the gray. He wanted it so badly. I still remember the way he sank down, hands over his face, when he learned it was possible. But Gearróg is a practical sort of man. He knows there’s a place for him here.Anluan has put him in charge of our household defenses.The Normans may have lost interest in Whistling Tor itself, but that doesn’t mean the threat to our part of Connacht is over.

Besides, Gearróg added when we spoke of this, our household is short of helpers for just about everything, and he can turn his hand to milking cows or carrying messages or digging the vegetable patch.As for his family, he will see them eventually. Perhaps God means it to be that way. Maybe he needs to live out the rest of his life so he can make up for the things he got wrong before.

The fine weather is bringing everyone into Irial’s garden today. Here is Maraid in a broad-brimmed hat, with a basket of sewing, and behind her the newly walking Etain, her small hands held firmly in Magnus’s big ones. Proud of her accomplishment, the baby beams as she wobbles and staggers along the path, and Magnus’s smile is almost as broad as hers. Maraid speaks to him, turning her head, and if she cannot see what is in his eyes as he answers, I surely can. My sister came in the spring, for our wedding, and she has stayed on far longer than she intended. She still grieves for Shea. But time is slowly healing that wound, time and the love that surrounds her and her daughter here at Whistling Tor. Magnus is a patient man. Already she likes him greatly; his strength and gentleness are exactly what she needs. In time, I believe she will come to love him.

“Finished for the morning?” Anluan is standing in the inner doorway, one hand up on the frame. I wonder how long he’s been there, watching me without a sound.

I rise and walk across the library, and he stretches out his arms to receive me. He’s looking tired, but it’s a good sort of weariness, caused by long days of work rebuilding our ties with the community beyond the Tor. He, of us all, has borne the heaviest burden and continues to do so. The host may be gone, but there are fresh challenges, those every chieftain of Erin faces in these troubled times. Leaning against him, warm in his embrace, I say,“Emer told me she heard the horse again last night. A neighing sound and a rattling of bones.”

“It misses Eichri, no doubt. As do I, more than I can put into words. And Rioghan; I had not realized quite how much I depended on his friendship and his wise advice. I hope they are content, wherever they have journeyed.”

“They’ll be seated opposite each other, trading quips and making wa gers in the place beyond death, I expect.” It’s hard to summon a smile, but I do so for Anluan’s sake.“Come, let’s join the others for a little before you and Magnus go to your meeting. Did you know the heart’s blood is already in bud?” Maraid has told me she’ll try to make ink when the flowers are ready. That pleases me, since it implies she will stay until autumn at least. “Anluan,” I say as we pause on the threshold.

“Mm?”

“They would be so proud if they could see you now. Irial and Emer, I mean. Our children will have the future your father wanted for you.”

“I believe they keep watch over us,” Anluan says, surprising me. “Our good spirits, the souls of our departed ones. I sense my father’s presence in the garden. He must be glad to hear the voices of children here, to see folk busy about the place, to know the curse that shadowed the Tor for so long has been lifted.”

A wailing from the garden as Etain takes a tumble. Magnus scoops her up and cradles her against his shoulder as if being a father were as simple as making a good pie. For him, perhaps it is. The baby is already quieting in his arms.

“Come out here, Caitrin!” my sister calls.“Magnus and I are in disagreement about a method for preserving eggs and we need you to arbitrate.”

Anluan takes my hand and we go out together into Irial’s garden.