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this from the flowers which surround us now! Surely even you can agree that I must be a king, when such things happen wherever I go!”  
    Muriel did laugh this time, shaking her head. Anyone else saying such things would simply have been an insufferable braggart, but Brendan was so good-natured that it was difficult to hold his boasting against him.  
    Difficult—but not impossible. She must not begin to allow him so close. She reminded herself again that she did not know what he was, did not know if he was really a prince or just the grandest liar she’d ever met…and as they walked on, she made herself still the longing that had begun to rise in her heart and instead think only with her head.  
    They came to a high open spot where the lush grass rippled in the wind. Brendan reached down and picked a few of the yellow primroses and dandelions, leaving a clear space so that they would not crush any of the flowers, and the two sat down together on the soft, thick grass.  
    For a time there was only silence between them. Muriel was more than content to simply gaze out at Dun Farraige and at the sea beyond, enjoying the warm sun and the fresh sea breeze and the scent of thick greenery and thriving flora. She found that it helped to keep her heart from pounding—and her breath from quickening, if she looked at anything else but Brendan.  
    I will be the one to control my feelings, not you. Muriel took a deep breath and deliberately looked away from him, out at the glittering bay.  
    “This is indeed a lovely place,” said Brendan. “Now—out there, straight across the water to the north, is the land that I am from.”  
    Muriel glanced over at him, following his gaze to where the mountainous land was visible as a hazy outline. “You are fortunate today that we can see it at all. So much of the time it is hidden in the mists.”  
    “I have found that many things might be hidden in the mists—but you need only wait for the sun to come out and burn the fog away, and then all will be revealed to you.” He grinned, and Muriel could not decide if he was serious or merely trying to bait her again.  
    Brendan turned and pointed off to the east. “There, at the closed end of the bay, is the place where Odhran overthrew a king.”  
    “And where you sent a tanist to his death.” She watched his face this time, wanting to see if he would laugh.  
    Instead, his shining eyes grew serious, and his voice became quiet and soft. “I had no wish to kill him. I had no choice at all, if I wanted to live. But I had no wish to kill him.”  
    He fell silent and looked away from her, out toward the open sea. Muriel watched for a moment, waiting for him to continue.  
    But he said nothing more.  
    “I often come up here in fine weather to do the spinning or the sewing,” she offered, brushing a strand of black hair from her face. “It is a favorite place of mine.”  
    He turned back to her and his smile returned. “Do you come up alone?”  
    She paused a spell, blinking. It was as if she saw nothing else but that beautiful smile. “Ah, sometimes,” she said, looking down to pick a few blades of grass. “At other times Alvy comes with me—or, on the best days, perhaps a few of the other women. But most often they prefer to stay closer to home. But alone I find this a place of great beauty, and of peace.”  
    “I am not surprised that you would enjoy looking out toward the sea,” said Brendan. “Straight down that bay, nearly at the place where the ocean begins, is the place where I am from—Dun Bochna. You have been looking to me all this time, Lady Muriel.”  
    She turned her head very slowly to stare at him, then asked, “And when you looked out from your shores, do you mean to tell me that you were looking at me in turn?”  
    He looked a bit surprised, and before he could answer she smiled coolly and turned away again. “I thought not.”  
    “But I was looking to you,” he argued, reaching for