“Ma.” The distress on her face sliced through him. “He would cut them down, or worse. Those too young for a sword or a bow, or too old for all that, well, there’s power. It’s sparked in Finian. What he has, it’s best he learn how to use. I’m sorry for it. I wish—”
“No, no, don’t. You’re right, of course. I swear by all I am there’ll come a day a child is only a child and there’s no thought of war. But what of those who can’t fight?”
“We’ll have shelters for them, secure as we can make, and shields around them. I’ve spent bloody hours in the Map Room, going over all of this, the wheres and the hows.”
“What if— I’m sorry,” Breen began, “I really don’t know anything about how to do any of this, but I take it you’re banking on surprise, like you did in the South.”
“It would be a fine advantage—which is just what he believes he’ll have.”
“But if you’re moving troops and training grounds, and he gets any spies or scouts through, he’d know, wouldn’t he?”
“That’s a good question from someone who says she knows nothing of tactics or strategies. It’s all to freshen things up, you see. Change routines, move some closer to home, and others who may need some discipline that distance can bring, away a bit. To give areas who haven’t had the troops and training nearby the benefit. For custom and trade, for help with spring planting, with the stock.”
“A kind of rotation.”
“A kind of that.”
He rose, held up both hands. On the wall a mural, not unlike theone over his bed, formed. “Here is Talamh, and here, the portals. A farmer has a field resting, fallow for the season. Ah well, we’ll make use of it. This village could use a bit of help thatching roofs or repairing walls, what have you. We’ll train there, and when not training, lend the hands. These woods, here, here, here, who notices if more make camp in them, or hunt there?”
“Fresh troops in the South.” Mahon nodded as he studied Keegan’s map. “A prime duty, and so in the Far North, not as warm and balmy, and don’t some need a bit of toughening up?”
“And a chance for those who rarely wander far from home,” Tarryn added, “to see the world. So by the shifting, the increased numbers don’t show as much as they might.”
“I wonder if…”
“Ah, speak, woman,” Keegan said impatiently when Breen hesitated.
“I know it might sound frivolous, but if you planned—announced—festivals, contests? Archery and races, horsemanship, that sort of thing.”
She cast her mind back to Renaissance fairs. “Crafts, demonstrations of crafting, games for children, music. One in all those areas. A kind of reward for the training. When I was teaching, the kids usually worked harder if they thought they’d get something or could show off. Then it would look like you’re—we’re just going about as usual. More, planning fairs and celebrations.”
“Nothing of tactics, is it? That’s bloody brilliant. Food, music,” Keegan speculated. “Contests, shagging jugglers, and the like. We’re all just lambs for the slaughter, aren’t we? The Capital, the midlands, the Far North, the valley, the South, the Far West, the Troll camps, the elf camps, and so on and on.”
“He’d see it, and we could make certain he does,” Mahon added, “as the Fey dancing their way to their end.”
“We stopped him in the South, and here.” Now Tarryn nodded as she studied the mural. “We have the Daughter safe from every attempt made on her. With spring comes the blooming, the planting. We train, of course, as always, but we’ve held the peace.”
“And with the summer comes the fruit and the plenty,” Keegancontinued. “So we celebrate, we reward the skilled, we dance to the pipes. A year it’ll be since the Daughter returned. So festivals across Talamh. The Return of the Daughter.”
“Oh, Keegan—”
“It’s good tactics.” He interrupted Breen’s automatic protest and just rolled on. “Wouldn’t I, as taoiseach, want to mark the year? It shows confidence. Wouldn’t Talamh, after all the loss and grief, want this time of music and dance? If he strikes sooner, we’ll be prepared. But if he waits, and oh, I surely would, for that ripe moment, to destroy all at its happiest? If he waits, we’ll end this, and him, by all the gods, by the solstice when the light is ours.”
She went with Keegan, Bollocks by her side, at first light. Into the wood where she’d fought and bled and killed, where so many had fallen.
She knew the way, realized she could have found it in the dark. Bollocks didn’t prance, didn’t stray, and she felt him remember, just as she did.
When she stood in front of the tree that wasn’t a tree, he didn’t sit, but stayed on alert.
“There’s nothing to fear here now,” Keegan began, but she shook her head.
“Everything. He’s so close, I can almost hear him breathing.”
Keegan took her hand. “Don’t be drawn over as you were before. I have you. You’re anchored here.”
“We shared a vision of the other side, his side. Of him pushing. Spring or early summer.”
“I remember.”