“What do you mean?”
“Just that. I don’t know how, but he tinted the snow to color his flower. You’ll see in the morning.”
”I probably marred it just now, crossing the yard.”
“Probably,” she said. “There is little left of the night, but I think I will try to sleep. You look very tired, too.”
He shrugged.
“There is only Finn’s bed,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
He rose. “That will suit me very well.”
A short while later, in the dark, he heard two things. The first was the sound of a mother crying for her child, and the second was the wind outside growing in strength in the hours before dawn.
The calling came. It woke Dari, as it always did. At first it felt like a dream again but he rubbed his eyes and knew he was awake, though very tired. He listened, and it seemed to him that there was something new this time. They were crying for him to come out with them, as they always did, but the voices in the wind were naming him by another name.
He was cold, though, and if he was cold in his bed, he would die outside in the wind. Little boys couldn’t go out into that wind. He was very cold. Rubbing his eyes drowsily, he slid into his slippers and voyaged across the floor to crawl into bed with Finn.
But it wasn’t Finn who was there. A dark figure rose up in Finn’s own bed and said to him, “Yes, Darien, what can I do?”
Dari was frightened but he didn’t want to wake his mother so he didn’t cry. He padded back to his own bed, which was even colder now, and lay wide awake, wanting Finn, not understanding how Finn, who was supposed to love him, could have left him all alone. After a while he felt his eyes change color; he could always feel it inside. They had changed when he did the flower, and now they did so again, and he lay there hearing the wind voices more clearly than he ever had before.
PART III—Dun Maura
Chapter 10
In the morning a shining company left Paras Derval by the eastern gate, led by two Kings. And with them were the children of Kings, Diarmuid dan Ailell, Levon dan Ivor, and Sharra dal Shalhassan; and there were also Matt Sören, who had been a King, and Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior, cursed to be a King forever without rest; and there were many great and high ones beside, and five hundred men of Brennin and Cathal.
Grey was the morning under grey clouds from the north, but bright was the mood of Aileron the High King, freed at last from powerless planning within his walls. And his exhilaration at being released to act ran through the mingled armies like a thread of gold.
He wanted to set a swift pace, for there were things to be done in Morvran that night, but scarcely had the company cleared the outskirts of the town when he was forced to raise his hand and bring them to a stop.
On the snow-clad slope north of the cleared road a dog barked, sharp and carrying in the cold air. And then as the High King, moved by some instinct, signaled the halt, they heard the dog bark three times more, and every man in that company who knew dogs heard frantic joy in the sound.
Even as they stopped, they saw the grey shape of a hunting dog begin to tumble and dash down through the snow toward them, barking all the while, somersaulting head over tail in its haste.
It was Aileron who saw the light blaze in Arthur’s face. The Warrior leaped from his horse down into the road and, at the top of his great voice, cried, “Cavall!”
Bracing his legs, he opened wide his arms and was knocked flying, nonetheless, by the wild leap of the dog. Over and over they rolled, the dog yelping in intoxicated delight, the Warrior mock growling in his chest.
All through the company, smiles and then laughter began to blossom like flowers in a stony place.