Jack Whyte - The Eagles' Brood

As I watched this astonishing sequence of events, I was aware of an equally astounding rush of conflicting emotions. In a few brief moments I felt fear, suspicion, jealousy and a sudden rage that blanketed all the other feelings and quickly threatened to overpower me. Then all of these left me as suddenly as they had sprung into being, when big, ferocious Donuil turned to me, his eyes running with tears, and whispered in a choking voice, " Dear dree, Commander, it's dear dree." Then he turned again and fell to his knees a second time, throwing his arms around my beloved's hips and burying his face in her bosom, his shoulders shuddering with sobs.

His words made no sense to me, but his actions, his possessiveness, filled me with a sense of doom. I stood up slowly from my chair and walked towards the two of them, my gaze shifting from Donuil to Cassandra, who was now also in tears. She watched me approach, but made no move to disengage her protective arms from around Donuil's head, hugging him to the soft fullness of her breasts. I felt my anger surging back, stronger than before, but she looked at me and smiled lovingly through her tears, and my flowering rage wilted as my confusion increased.

"Donuil?" I asked, hearing my own voice, low and wondering yet filled with menace, "What is it, Donuil? This dree? What is dear dree? Do you know this woman?" I can remember thinking that I had never heard myself sound so foolish. If there were anything certain on the face of the earth, it was this man's knowledge of this woman.

He turned his head to face me again, peering at me through the cradle of her arms, and his voice came to me muffled by her sleeves. This time, however, I understood every word he said. "It's Deirdre, Commander. We thought she was dead. My sister, Deirdre."

My sister, Deirdre! Shocked beyond credence, I literally pulled the two of them apart from each other, holding them at arm's length as I stared from one face into the other, moving my head rapidly from side to side as I compared his big face with her small one, and seeing the resemblance immediately. Brother and sister! I let fall their arms and walked away to the closest couch, where I collapsed, my heart pounding in my ears.

Cassandra was beside me immediately, her eyes filled now with concern for me, her brother abandoned on his knees in the doorway. I touched her cheek, brushing away her tears, and gently took her in my arms, cradling her and warming her with a sudden overflowing of love that was mixed with guilt over my conflicting reactions to what I had seen. Donuil knelt still, staring at us, incomprehension in his eyes.

It took almost an entire day for us to assemble the story into what had to be its truthful form, mainly because the only two of us who could speak were each having trouble accepting and believing the other's explanation of his involvement. Donuil could not accept that I had known his sister for months before I met him, nor could he believe that he could have been so close to his sister for so long without having any inkling of her existence. For my part, I was simply stunned to be faced with the truth about Cassandra, who was Cassandra no longer. I was also amazed to see her conversing fluently and rapidly with Donuil in a silent language of hand-signals that meant nothing and less than nothing to me, apart from the dumfounding truth that Cassandra was an eloquent and fluent conversationalist!

It was only later that I realized they were conversing in Erse, which explained why Cassandra and I had never been able to communicate. Being deaf and mute, she had never heard my Latin language, and so the movements of my lips, framing the sounds I made, were completely alien to her understanding. I, on the other hand, had presupposed her to be from Britain. It had never crossed my mind she might be Hibernian. How could it have? And what difference would that have made? Finally, however, I accepted the truths that had been thrust upon me and, with them, a new understanding of my beloved Cassandra, who had been Deirdre all her life. And I accepted, with intense excitement, the knowledge that I would be able to learn the hand-language she and Donuil used so expertly. I devoured everything Donuil had to tell me about her, and about her early life.

As a child, he told me, she had been known as Deirdre of the Lilac Eyes, the darling and favourite of her father, Athol, High King of the Scots of Hibernia. Her unformed beauty had even then been legendary because of her colouring, and her suitors had been many and wealthy. Her mane of flowing, red-gold hair, her milk-white skin and her startling, lilac-violet eyes had marked her as one blessed by the gods, and that blessing would pass on to the man who became her husband. Even today, in speaking of his sister's beauty, Donuil's voice was so hushed and awestruck that, in spite of my love for his sister and my longing to learn everything of her, I grew embarrassed for him.

Cassandra had been my love for long, golden months. Donuil's Deirdre, on the other hand, held no sway in my heart. And therein lay the cause of my embarrassment: I could see no commonality between my Cassandra and Donuil's Deirdre. The woman I loved was no flaming, red- golden-haired beauty with violet eyes. Her hair was long and lustrous, but it was fair, and no more than that—not golden, and with no trace of red. Nor were her eyes purple, or violet, or even lilac; they were huge and silvery, granite grey, almost completely colourless in any normal sense, yet changing to the palest of blue in certain lights. Eventually, in a mood of great discomfort, I said as much to Donuil.

He stared at me, wide-eyed, and waited for me to say more, but I had no more to say.

"So," he asked, eventually, "what are you saying, Commander?"

"What am I saying?" I put down my cup and looked at him in amazement, wondering how he could ask me anything so obvious. I pointed to his sister, who sat opposite me, her gaze moving from one to the other of us as we spoke. "Donuil, the girl you are describing from your memories bears no resemblance to this woman sitting here. Not the slightest, can't you see that?" He blinked at me, looking confused, and Deirdre leaned forward intently, looking from him to me. Her fingers began to fly, and he gazed at them, deciphering her meaning, and then his face cleared.

"Deirdre says to tell you about the sickness. But, Commander, you know about that! I've been talking about the way she was before the sickness. It was only after that she changed."

"Sickness? What sickness? And what should I know of it? We've had no talk of sickness, Donuil. You're saying a sickness changed her?" I looked intently at Cassandra, who gazed solemnly back at me from great, pale grey eyes. "A sickness changed the colour of her hair and eyes? Donuil, are you talking about magic again?"

"Aye, Commander Merlyn, I am." He nodded and his gaze was as unblinking as his sister's. "And my sister is the living proof of its existence."

I moved across to share Cassandra's couch, drawing her into the bend of my arm and kissing her temple, looking across the top of her head at her brother. "Tell me," I said.

The story he told me was a strange and wondrous one, and I believed it, word for word. Whether it told of magic or not, however, is something I cannot say, even to this day.

On Midsummer's Day, in the ninth year of little Deirdre's life, through the freakish anger of some Erse god, the light of high summer had been almost completely eclipsed by the darkness of an enormous storm that uprooted trees and blew down buildings and caused rivers to overflow their banks, flooding fields and houses. Scores of people were killed and hundreds injured, and cattle drowned by the dozens. And in the middle of the confusion, young Deirdre of the Lilac Eyes disappeared.