Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

might prefer that we avoid anything sharp.”
    Aidan was watching me. He had gone to stand with Sigurd and Mikka, but I could feel his gaze and it troubled me. What was it between him and Cathal? Had this really been all about Aidan leaving out one critical detail in his account of his personal circumstances? That might matter to me, but it seemed unlikely that it would have ignited such a dispute between the two friends. Not only had this revealed a darker side to the placid musician I had been so drawn to, but even the impenetrable Cathal had seemed disturbed by it. Not by the fight itself; he’d handled that as coolly as Johnny would have done. It was that comment about fathers that had rattled him. The two of them knew exactly how to upset each other.
    Aidan still had his eyes on me, even though Cathal and Johnny, having settled on wrestling, were squaring off in the combat area. I decided I had had enough. I had nothing to say to Aidan, and it was a foregone conclusion that Johnny would win this bout. He always won. Cathal would be good, but not good enough. I would go back indoors and forget about men, the ones who lied by omission and the ones who had no idea how to deal with women. I would busy myself with overseeing preparations for the evening meal. And if Aidan wanted to entertain the household with music afterward, he’d be doing it with no help from me.
    I couldn’t sleep. It was too quiet. I lay on my back in the darkness, missing the gentle sound of my sister’s breathing. If only Deirdre hadn’t severed the link between us. I could have told her about Aidan, about how he’d concealed the existence of that girl back home even as he set out his credentials as a suitor. I could have discussed the peculiar behavior of both Aidan and Cathal, how they were supposed to be best friends and yet had fought as if they hated each other. I could have asked her what she thought of someone who could be gentle and smiling one moment and full of explosive rage the next. Or of someone with appalling manners and a woeful lack of judgment who demonstrated perfect control when under attack. It wouldn’t have mattered that Deirdre knew as little about men as I did. I just wanted to talk to her. We’d always talked about everything.
    I didn’t like being alone at night. Here in the dark, on my own, I could not keep unwelcome thoughts at bay with constant activity. Here there were no meals to plan, no provisions to order, no supplies to check. There was no pickling or preserving, no washing or mending or record-keeping with which to ward off my troubles. Instead there was the thought of Mother, weary today despite her happiness at seeing Deirdre settled so well; there was the looming nightmare of the birth. There was the strange sensation I’d had yesterday in the forest, of being watched as I walked; there was the shadowy figure I thought I’d seen last night in the courtyard, when Cathal had bundled me around a corner and made his ill-advised attempt to be helpful. There was the troubled look on Father’s face as he spoke of Eoin of Lough Gall.
    I worried about Johnny, too. How did he feel about the impending birth, and the fact that if Mother had a healthy boy, that child might supplant him as heir to Sevenwaters? While any male of the blood could make a claim to the chieftaincy, a son of direct descent would likely be favored over a cousin, especially a cousin of the female line. Johnny’s outstanding qualities as a leader did not outweigh the fact that his father was Bran of Harrowfield.
    I stared into the darkness and tried to distract myself by humming a ballad about a woman who fell in love with a toad. It didn’t help; I kept seeing Aidan playing the tune on his harp, brown eyes full of smiles. I tried lying on my right side and then on my left. I turned my pillow over, gave it a hard thump and willed my mind to stop churning around. It did not comply. Eventually I got up, put on a cloak over my nightrobe and