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it, when we met on the waters; her dream, that is. I see more clearly, now. If you ... if you do not seek to land, but only to converse, I think he will allow it. And I might give her a message to bear. It is a long road, truly. We will be a year and more upon it. A word of hope ... it might help him to endure.”
    “Speak with Sibeal,” said Drustan mab Necthana. “If it be her will, I will see it done.”

Twenty-Five
    I MET with Sibeal, Drustan’s sister, in the Royal Mews.
    There had been, I gathered, no few offers of lover’s tokens or of marriage for the Cruarch of Alba’s sister during her time in Terre d’Ange. Insofar as I heard, Sibeal had refused them all, with a serene grace against which no one could take offense. Instead, she preferred to spend her time in the unlikeliest of pursuits.
    Currently, it was visiting the mews.
    The Head Falconer, a slight, dark man with the aquiline features of his own charges, clearly adored her. He watched with doting eyes as she assumed the duty of feeding the fledglings, carrying a basket filled with gobbets of meat. Awkward and still partially down-feathered, the young birds craned their heads toward her with beaks parted, maws agape.
    “Drustan said you wished to see me,” Sibeal said in her soft Cruithne accent, setting down the basket.
    “Yes.” A bell rang beside my right ear, on the jesses of a perched hawk as it roused, then preened. I sidled to my left. “I have a message for Hyacinthe.”
    Her dark eyes were calm and unsurprised. “And you wish ... ?”
    “I wish you to bear it for me,” I said firmly. The Head Falconer, clucking, hurried past me with gauntleted arm extended, untying the hawk’s jesses and coaxing it onto his arm. It was not my choice of venue, but I had little time to waste.
    “I do not think,” Sibeal said reflectively, “the Master of the Straits wishes to let any vessel draw nigh.”
    “He’ll let yours.” I kept a wary eye on the hawk as the Head Falconer eased it onto a distant perch near the doorway onto the courtyard. “Unless I miss my guess.”
    “He might.” The words were murmured, her head bowed. “I cannot say.”
    “You love him.” I made the words blunt. It cost me, to say it; more than I had reckoned. It struck home in my own heart, and I saw her head rise, eyes startled. “He’s D’Angeline, Sibeal, Tsingano or no. Love as thou wilt . I saw it, on Alba, all those years ago.”
    “Moiread.” She breathed her sister’s name; youngest of them all, slain in battle in Alba these many years gone by, a loss still grieved. “It was Moiread who made his heart glad. He might have loved her, and she him. Who can say? There was you, then and now. And I, I am only ...”
    “Alive.” I said. “Alive, and in love. Well and so, Sibeal, we too are sisters in this, for he is dear to my heart. But Moiread is dead, and I ... I have a long road to follow. Hyacinthe will understand that, if anyone will. Tell him I walk the Lungo Drom on his behalf, Joscelin and I. He was right about that. He saw it before I did. Tell him ... tell him I go seeking the Name of God. Will you do that for me?”
    “Yes. If he will allow it, I will tell him.” Sibeal extended a hand toward one of the fledglings, stroking its half-grown plumage with one slender brown finger. “They are called eyasses, did you know? The young birds. Eyasses. It is a lovely word, I think.”
    “It is.” I thought of the acolyte Liliane at the sanctuary of Elua, and our mounts following her in a line. I thought of the Battle of Bryn Gorrydum, where Moiread had died, and the black boar that had burst from the treeline there, giving the element of surprise into the hands of Drustan’s forces. Truly, there were things in this world beyond my understanding. “Thank you, Sibeal.”
    “Come back.” Her dark, visionary’s eyes held mine. “It is what he would ask of you. However far you go, whether you find what you seek or no. Whatever is to become of us all. Come back.”
    A shiver brushed my skin, a touch of magic that was ancient when Elua was young. Earth’s Eldest Children, they call themselves; barbarians, Drustan might jest, but they are older than we. “I will try,” I promised, bowing my head to Necthana’s daughter and taking my leave.
    Joscelin was awaiting me in the courtyard-the weathering yard, the falconers call it, where the birds are trained on long lines. He had padding wrapped about his vambraced forearm, a peregrine’s talons