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croaked, at a time of year too late for frogs.
    In these ways, the god warned Airmid to pick her words with care. Twenty years of Mona’s lessons and a handful of years before that in service to the elder grandmother helped her find what to say.
    Leaning forward, the dreamer took the child’s two hands between her own. ‘You may be right. It may be the gods can do nothing, but the hare is Nemain’s beast and if it died, it did so to return to her. Death isn’t a bad thing when it comes at the right time, you must remember that. And you’re not a god, but another of Nemain’s creatures. You could no more have stopped the hare’s death than one of the skylarks could stop you from eating the apple. It’s not in your power.’
    ‘You mean the hare died because it wanted to? I don’t think it did.’
    ‘I don’t think so either. I didn’t say that. I said it may be that it died because its time was right. We can’t know why, but perhaps if Stone, who is the best of hunters, had not caught and killed it
    cleanly, something worse might have happened later; an eagle might have caught it and torn it apart to feed her young, or a fox cub that had not learned to kill properly might have left it crippled to die of starvation in the winter. Or perhaps simply it was its time to return to Nemain, who cares for it. We, who are not gods, cannot know these things.’
    ‘But Nemain can?’
    Airmid took time to think. The hands she clasped had grown cold and then too hot. She turned them over, studying the bitten nails with their constant half-moon of grime. The grey eyes drew her back.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Truly, I don’t. But I think we have to believe so, or there is nothing left to believe. It may not be true. It may be that the hare died because you chose to set the hound on it and there is nothing more. Would you rather believe that?’
    In the long silence, the birds sat still on the branches and the frog crooned alone.
    ‘If I believe it, will it make it so?’
    ‘I don’t think what we believe changes anything except ourselves.’
    ‘No … in that case, I would rather believe that it died because it was time for it to return to Nemain. But that means …’ Graine faltered. She was a child of six, grappling with questions that had vexed the elders since the time of the most ancient ancestors. Her frown became so complete that her brow flattened tight against the bone.
    Airmid said gently, ‘It means that Nemain sees a greater part of the picture and we see only that which is before our eyes. It means that if your father Caradoc is in Gaul, he is there for a reason that we do not know.’
    ‘And the traitor brother? Why is he in Hibernia?’
    ‘Valerius. He was Ban but he calls himself Valerius now.’ Airmid stroked a small cheek that could as easily have been his. ‘It doesn’t help to think of him badly. I don’t know why he’s there. I can’t reach him or see him. He has closed himself off from the gods’ touch.’
    Airmid had not said as much to anyone else, certainly not to Breaca. Graine shivered in the morning chill and it was not simply her skin thrumming to the sound of the god’s voice. Seeing it
    possible to show the depth of her care without doing harm, Airmid reached forward and drew the young body in to her chest, warming her and holding her close.
    The shuddering stilled in a while. Kissing the rich, unruly hair, Airmid said, ‘We must learn patience, both of us. The answer will be clear in time, if we have to wait for death to see it.’
    ‘Does death make some things more clear?’
    ‘Death makes all things clear.’
    ‘Then the man Sorcha brings on the ferry will know all things by noon.’
    The child was exceptional, but some things are beyond even the gods. Sharply, Airmid said, ‘How do you know that?’
    The small face turned up. For a moment Graine looked serious, keeping the faraway gaze that she had learned from the dreamers. Then she grinned and was a child