gossamer hair. Olcan had swept the sand back into place, then retreated to the brazier; the pattern was remade. Anluan came back up the steps, turned, raised his arms. The host stood ready once more.
A shifting, a swirling all around the circle.The chill was as deep as the harshest frost of winter. Time seemed to falter in its tracks; sudden cloud extinguished the moon. The child gave a wail of terror and dropped the embroidered kerchief. An eldritch gust caught the little bundle, skidding it across the flagstones to an inner corner of the pentagram, close to the spot where the two warriors held Aislinn captive. Quick as a heartbeat,Aislinn’s foot came over the line to kick the bundle beyond the child’s reach.
“My baby!” shrieked the little girl. “I need my baby!”
“Come and get her, then,” taunted Aislinn, her voice reedy and ragged, as if it cost her dearly to disobey Anluan’s command. “Come on, you’re supposed to be brave, aren’t you, little spy? Just run over and grab your precious baby. Didn’t look after her very well, did you? She’s only a bundle of rags now.”
The little girl stood shaking, trembling, full of the urge to rush across and snatch back her darling, but holding still because she had promised. Beside me, Anluan drew an uneven breath. All hung in the balance. One word wrong, one gesture out of place and we would fail again. We could not ask the child to do this a second time; there had been a note of utter terror in her voice.
Gearrog muttered something and let go of Aislinn. Cathair held firm. Gearrog stooped to retrieve the bundle, then moved into the center of the pentagram, kneeling to put the kerchief in the child’s hands. She was sobbing with fright. He picked her up; settled her on his hip. “It’s all right, little one,” he said.“We’ll do this together, you and me. A game of pretend. We’re pretending to be brave dogs on guard, like Fianchu.” He gazed over at Anluan and nodded as if to say,
No going back. No thinking beyond this moment.
From one breath to the next, the host was gone. Between the points of the ritual star the spaces were empty. In the center, a stalwart figure stood with feet planted and head held high, and in his arms was a smaller person, whose hair was no longer gossamer-white but dark as fine oak wood.
“Magnus,” said Anluan in a voice unlike his own, “light the torch again.”
“Gearrog?” I stepped down, not quite sure what I was seeing there, but knowing I had just witnessed an act of such selfless courage that it took my breath away.
Light flared as Magnus touched the torch to the brazier and lifted it high.
“By all the saints,” he said in tones of awe.
Gearrog set the child down and she ran to me. Her hair shone glossy brown in the torchlight; her face was rosy.When I lifted her, she felt warm and real. Gearrog was examining his hands, moving his feet, touching his face as if hardly able to believe he was still here.
“I’m . . .” he said, disbelieving. “I can . . .”
Without a word, Anluan strode across to throw his arms around the guard. Olcan fetched another torch, and it became apparent that something truly astonishing had occurred. Here before us were two living beings: a little girl of five, a sturdily built man of perhaps five-and-thirty. Blood flowed beneath their skin; their bodies were solid flesh. Gearrog put a hand against his chest.“Beating like a drum,” he said in wonder.“Sweet Jesus, my lord, you’ve wrought a miracle.”
“If this is a miracle,” Anluan said, his hand on Gearrog’s shoulder, “it is not my doing. I cannot believe such a wondrous change could be made by speaking a charm whose origins lay in a dark work of sorcery. This . . . this transformation was not wrought by my fumbling attempt to reverse Nechtan’s spell, but by your act of selflessness, Gearrog, and by the child’s loving trust.” He looked across at me, and at the girl in my arms. I saw that after the long and testing day, he was close to tears. “We must find you a name, little one,” he said. “We cannot have a daughter with no name.”
“It’s late,” I said, struggling to grasp onto the real world with its practical challenges and its comforting routines. “She should be in bed.” Emer, I thought as I carried our new daughter indoors. If Anluan agreed, we would give her his mother’s name.
Nobody had much to say.The immensity of what had occurred had set a deep shock in all of us.We were too stunned to feel joy at our success, too awestruck to absorb the consequences of this night of deep change. Each of us took refuge in ordinary things, the little things that help us deal with what is too large for our minds to encompass. Gearrog carried the child over to Anluan’s quarters while Magnus found a small straw pallet and a blanket or two. She was asleep even before we laid her down in this improvised bed. I tucked the embroidered bundle in beside her. Anluan went to the chapel to check that all was well with the wounded and their attendants, and returned to say that even the most sorely injured was holding his own. Gearrog offered to stand guard overnight while we slept. Anluan thanked him gravely and said he would not dream of it. If Gearrog was concerned for our safety, we would promise to bar the door until sunrise. “You, too, must sleep,” he said.
“Sleep,” Gearrog muttered in astonished tones. “I haven’t slept in a hundred years.” A vast yawn overtook him.
“Come on, then,” Magnus said from the doorway, where he stood with Olcan. “We’d better find you a bed. The three of us might share a jug of ale first, eh?”
Anluan closed the door, pushed the bolt across, stood very still a moment without turning.
“Are you all right?” I asked him. Magnus had brought us a candle; its wavering light sent shadows dancing around the chamber. Someone had tidied the place, straightening the bedding and removing the remnants of that desperate effort to save Anluan’s life.The memory of it would be with me forever.
“I think so, Caitrin. So much has happened today, I may spend the rest of my life making sense of it all. Such immense change. I feel as I’ve been turned inside out and upside down. And yet . . .”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and began to unfasten my bodice.
