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“Thank you, Cébha.” The Lady bowed her head and her fine, white hands went still. Then she laid down her distaff, and when she lifted her head, there was a strangeness in her face. “I will ride forth to see these men. Do you prepare the sacred bath, for it is in my heart that they are not enemies, and I must make ready to receive them.”

All this was done as she wished. While the men of Máel Dúin drew their mighty curragh ashore and my Lady watched, we labored outside the walls of the dún. There, where the spring bubbles from amid the moss-covered rocks, we built the fires to warm the big hanging kettle.We filled it with pure water from the spring, before it spills over the rocks into the little brook.

It took three times to fill the bronze tub within the bothy, and when it was done, she came back. She gave her horse over to Eithne, who led it to the stable.We eased the richly embroidered robes from our Lady’s white shoulders, and she went straightaway into the bothy to bathe.

That is when I saw that the men had followed her.

They had hung back on the sloping hill, gathered and watching. All of them with their mouths agape, except for two. And we maidens watched back, all with our mouths agape, for we had seen few men since the Lady’s consort died, and that was some years ago, when most of us were but children.

One whose mouth was closed upon his thoughts was Máel Dúin.

By the way he stood, and the other men regarded him, it was clear he was their leader. And it was at him that the other maidens stared, for even though he was tossed and draggled by his sea voyage, he stood straight and tall, hale of limb and proud of sinew. His shoulders were broad and strong. Although his beard was like a wild man’s, and his hair was tangled with wind and salt, it shone bright as gold in the sunlight, and there was a fierceness in his face as he stared at the door of the bothy where the Lady had gone.

But I looked at the other man, who saw me looking and smiled.

“Cébha.”

It was my Lady’s voice. I went inside the bothy, where it was warm with steam. She sat in the bronze tub, pouring water from a dipper over her white skin.

“Go forth on my behalf and make them welcome in the dún,” she said to me. “Their leader is named Máel Dúin.”

So I was the one who went to give them greeting, picking up my skirts and making my way up the slope, while my sister-maidens watched in envy. Although I was not afraid when I began, my heart beat quicker as I drew near. If they were reavers, they would have fallen upon us at once; still, they were men. I breathed slowly, that my voice should not tremble.

“My Lady gives greeting to you and your men, Máel Dúin,” I said to him. “Do you come with me, we will make you welcome.”

His eyes were pale blue, ringed in black like a falcon’s. Although he was young, a man with such eyes might gaze at the sun until he saw visions. There was wariness in them, but no fear. “Who is your lady that she knows my name?” he asked me, and although his accent was strange and harsh, and there were words that sounded wrong to my ears, he spoke the tongue of Ériu. “What is this place? Does she rule here?”

I gave him the only answer I knew. “She is the Lady of this isle. It is her place.”

“I am seeking the sea raider who killed my father, Ailill, who was called Ailill Edge-of-Battle.” The pale falcon’s eyes did not blink. “Does your Queen know where he is to be found?”

I shook my head. “I do not know, Máel Dúin, what the Lady knows and does not.Will you accept her hospitality?”

He turned to the man beside him. “What think you, Diurán?”

It was the man who had smiled, and he smiled at me again. My ears went hot, and my tongue felt thick and clumsy in my mouth. He was dark where Máel Dúin was fair, with hair as brown as oak leaves and watchful dark eyes. They were eyes that might see visions, too; not in brightness, but in quiet, still places, where other men would not have the patience to wait.

“Máel Dúin, it is not in my