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Alistair laughed, the first time he could remember doing so in many months. "More? I'm a walking dead man, Fergus, in every way that matters. Isn't that enough?"

Deirdre Maxwell walked swiftly to the pool, looking neither right nor left. Her hair hung loose down her back, falling well below her waist, and the last rays of the setting sun struck blue lights in its raven depths. Hurry, hurry, her mind said in rhythm to her steps. But she should have a little time yet. Her daughter, Maeve, was sleeping, and Brodie snored soundly in his bed, helped along by the draught she'd tipped into his ale.

Stupid man, she thought with rising anger as she glided noiselessly through the wood. He blamed her for his impotence when it was none of her doing. True, she'd never wanted him and had never once pretended that she did, but if a woman's will could strike a man's rod lifeless, there would be few children born into this sorry world.

When she thought of what he would do if he discovered she was gone, she hesitated, a brief spasm of terror shaking her from head to foot. Then she squared her shoulders and hurried on. It was only for an hour. Was that so much to ask? She quickened her steps and ran headlong through the dusk, arriving breathless at the pool.

There she stopped, growing calmer, growing stronger, as she always did when she came to this place. The last rays of the sun fell through the new green leaves to light the tiny clearing. In the center stood a round pool, its surface calm and still. Deirdre sat down on a rock and gazed into its depths, a world of flickering light and shadow. It reminded her suddenly and sharply of the tide pools beneath the cliffs of Donegal.

She raised her eyes to the setting sun. "You sink down into the perilous ocean, without harm and without hurt," she sang in her pure, clear voice, "You rise on the quiet wave like a young queen in flower."

Even now they would be singing that in Donegal, with the bonfire piled high at their backs and the endless sea before them. Deirdre's father would be there, her sister, Siobhan...and Ronan. She thought of her childhood friend with a stab of longing, then pushed the image aside.

"Dear Brighid, give me courage," she prayed. "Give me strength and wisdom—"

Deirdre did not dare light a fire here tonight, even a small one. Since the first year of their marriage, Brodie had banned the ancient springtime ritual from his lands. He said it was a pagan thing, not pleasing to his god, but Deirdre did not believe him for a moment. Brodie's beliefs were easily twisted to suit his own design, and taking this from Deirdre pleased him.

She sighed, the familiar weight descending on her shoulders. It was such weary work to live with Brodie, always watching, always waiting, using all her wits to anticipate the moment when his mood would sour, keeping their daughter Maeve from sight when he descended into sudden rage. After four years, she was exhausted. If not for Maeve, there would be no point in going on at all...

How did I ever end up in this place? she wondered. Once the future had stretched before her, bright and filled with promise. Fool that she had been, she actually believed there was a man, one man and no other, whose heart beat in rhythm with her own, whose soul had come to earth in search of hers.

But as Deirdre grew to womanhood and he did not appear, she put away her hopes of a lover spun of dreams and moonlight. She would be mature, she thought. Dutiful. Responsible. If she would not marry for love, she must do so for her family. And so she had accepted Sir Brodie Maxwell, who had come to Donegal to trade for horses.

A good match, everyone had said; extraordinary, really, for a dowerless lass like Deirdre. She had thought so herself, had been grateful to Brodie, and though she told him from the first she did not love him, he only laughed and said that didn't matter. Love often came after marriage, she had told herself, a belief that lasted right up to the moment he backhanded her across the face, knocked her stunned and bleeding to the floor, saying she had been careless in polishing his boots.

By the time she knew what Brodie was, it was too late. She was trapped in Scotland, shackled to the brute who was her husband for all time. Her fault. Her own damnably stupid fault!

A mirthless smile twisted her lips as she thought of the man she had wished for, the one she'd waited for in vain. Even if she met him now, she probably would not know him. Certain it was he would not recognize her!

She looked into the pool again but saw only her own reflection on the surface. Huge eyes stared back at her from a pale strained face, surrounded by dark hair hanging straight down to the water.

The clearing grew hushed, as though the forest had drawn in its breath. Then a breeze rushed past, rippling the surface of the water. A smile of startled delight curved Deirdre's lips as she tasted the unmistakable flavor of the sea.

Tonight was Beltane and the veil between this world and the next was very thin. "I am the flow, I am the ebb," she chanted softly. "I am the weaver and I am the web."

There was magic in the air tonight, Deirdre could feel it all around her. A flutter of hope stirred deep within her breast. Maybe he existed after all, the one she'd dreamed of as a child. Maybe he was out there somewhere, looking for her, not knowing he had left it far too late.

"Just a glimpse of him," she whispered. "Is that so much to ask? Just to know if he was ever real?"

She bent her head to the pool and waited.

Alistair climbed the steep rocks to the top of the gushing waterfall. By the time he gained the crest he was soaked to the skin and his shoulders ached from the weight of the hide slung across his back. He splashed through the cataract to the small cave behind, then slipped the ropes from his shoulders and rolled his arms with a sigh of relief.

The evening sunlight struck the water and the breath caught in his throat. He was inside a crystal, gazing through a prism of endless living color. Then the sun moved, the illusion vanished, and he was back in the small cave, cold and shivering, looking at an impenetrable curtain of water.

Well, I've gone mad, he thought. This is it, I've hit the bottom. Or not quite, he reflected, looking at the hide rolled at his feet. In a moment I will have reached the depths.

Shivering, he stripped and untied the hide, wrapping it around him. It was stiff with blood and globules of fat glistened on its surface. For a moment he was close to vomiting with revulsion, then he relaxed as its warmth began to spread across his skin.

The water was leaden against the fading light. The cave was chill, but inside the bullock's hide, sweat began to trickle down Alistair's chest and back. What did he think he was doing here? Did he honestly expect he would be granted a vision? Such things were for saints and wise men, not for him.

But he'd said he'd stay a night and damned if he would fail. The water rushed by, soothing the thoughts from his mind, beckoning him into its depths...

He began to dream without any sense of falling into sleep. One moment he lay inside the cave, the next he was watching himself, a boy of eleven, run through the forest with Ian. They burst through the treeline and into a small clearing where several boys were laughing as they threw rocks at a dark-haired lad who was straining against the ropes about his wrists.

Yes, Alistair thought with one part of his mind, I remember this. The tinker lads we found that day. Ian's younger brother, Jemmy, had disturbed them in some game and they'd tied him to a tree.

Now he watched Ian glance at him—the younger Alistair—with a hard grin. Five tinker boys, that grin said, every one of them older than the two of us. No contest at all. Alistair had joined the fight readily—no one trifled with a Kirallen as these boys were doing. He'd been too angry, too excited, to feel much fear, even when he found their opponents were armed and eager for a fight. It could have gone badly, but it didn't. Because he and Ian found the way to win.