Chapter Two
L ight danced like bright raindrops, making the air shimmer and bounce as Liadan ran. It jittered all around her as sun does on water and dazzled her eyes. She did not feel the stones beneath her feet as she left the house, or the grass as she crossed the practice field. She could still hear Mam’s wail in her mind.
It could not be so. It could not be so, what the messenger had said. Her brother, her beloved brother Conall, so strong and bright with laughter always in his heart.
Dead.
She had dreaded this. On some terrible, deep-seated level, she had. Ever since he’d gone off to battle when she was very young—for nearly six winters separated them in age—she’d feared losing him. She’d thought the news would come following some distant campaign, a fight over territory off to the west. Not here on their own turf.
She stumbled in the grass and nearly went down. Ahead of her in the green field she could see—
A great crowd of warriors. Liadan could see them standing all around Mam, who knelt in the rough grass, bent over something else. Someone else. Keening, keening.
The messenger, who had brought the dread news, turned back to look at her. Liadan’s younger sister, Flanna, came after her, calling out.
Time slowed and then stopped, just like Liadan’s feet, which dragged to a halt. She had reached her mother’s huddled form. The air around her grew bright. Too bright.
Her mam’s yellow hair had come loose in the run and tumbled messily down her back. The pale-gray fabric of her tunic dress looked dull against grass so green it hurt the eyes, and there—there—
Red. Rich and full, not rusty like that dried on the bandages she sometimes helped to wash. All over the tunic she had herself helped to weave for her brother. Thick and padded the garment was, so it might afford him some protection if he entered battle.
It had done nothing to stop the blade of the knife that protruded from his heart.
She fell to her knees beside her mother and stared into her brother’s face.
Untouched, it appeared calm and peaceful as he did when sleeping. Perhaps he merely slept, withal.
But nay. So much blood. Too much.
Conall’s yellow hair made another bright patch against the sod. His eyes, blue as her own, lay closed.
A sob rose to her throat and fought for release. Mam wailed and wailed. Flanna came down into the grass beside Liadan. Only twelve years old, would Flanna understand?
“My son! My son! I ha’ lost my only son!”
The warriors stood silent in a respectful circle. One of them stooped—it was Cathair, foremost among their young men. That was, unless Ardahl could be considered foremost. Ardahl. Where was he? Surely he above all others should be here at Conall’s side.
Cathair bent close over Mam. He touched her shoulder gently and spoke in her ear so Liadan could hear.
“’Twas Ardahl who did this. Ardahl took your son’s life.”
Mam lifted her face and stared at him. Eyes awash with tears, cheeks blotched and reddened, she looked nothing like herself.
“Nay. Ardahl is nearest to him in all the world.”
“They quarreled. I saw it all.”
Another warrior stepped across from the clot of men not far away and called Cathair by name. The young man straightened with a last pat for Mam’s shoulder. His pale eyes slid over Liadan and Flanna before he turned away.
“Cathair, the chief requires ye.”
“Ardahl,” Mam whispered in a voice such as Liadan had never heard. “Ye have taken my son. I will ne’er forgive ye. Ne’er. Ne’er .”
She broke down then into wild sobs. Liadan and Flanna clung to her even as the pain and disbelief warred in Liadan’s heart.
Ardahl. Nay. From as far back as she could remember, Conall and Ardahl had run together, laughed together, trained together. Could such a bond be severed even by a knife’s blade?
Someone helped her up, strong arms lifting her. The same arms lifted Mam and Flanna in turn. Ferghan, one of the senior warriors, stood there.
“Come, mistress. We must take him. Carry him to the healers.”
Mam raised a devastated face. “He is alive? They can save him?”
“Nay, mistress, nay. They will care for him, wash him. Prepare him for his cairn. We who loved him will carry him. Ye may follow behind.”
But the dagger is still in his heart. His very own dagger .
Liadan wanted to spit that out. She could see the hilt of the dagger quite clearly as the men tenderly, so tenderly, lifted her brother. The pattern on the handle, showing through the slick coating of blood. That very dirk Chief Fearghal had given Conall when he entered the chief’s service.
Dead by his own dirk? By Ardahl’s hand? She could believe none of it.
But she followed. Mam went first after the men carrying Conall, and then Liadan, clasping Flanna’s hand.
Liadan glanced into her young sister’s face. It wore a look that must reflect her own. Pale with shock. Wide-eyed with disbelief.
Remember this moment, said a voice in Liadan’s mind. Remember your mam’s grief and your own. The look in your sister’s eyes. Store it in anger. If ’tis Ardahl who has done this, he must pay.
He must pay in kind, however she felt about him.
*
He had become her enemy, had Ardahl. No matter how long she had followed after him with wistful eyes. Her brother’s friend, who seldom seemed to notice her and who, when he did, clearly still thought of her as a child. No matter how she wanted to catch his smile, which was a singular thing, lighting and transforming a face ordinarily all lines and angles, wreathing it in joy. No matter how the glint of sunlight on auburn hair could turn her head. Or how she tried—in vain—to guess at the thoughts teeming in his hazel eyes.
A woman, however youthful, should not follow after a man that way. Especially one who was so plainly uninterested in her.
Now she followed her brother’s body instead, borne by four strong warriors. Hearing Mam’s wails all the while, watching her stumble and nearly go down once, twice.
Before they reached the healers’ roundhouse, she let go of Flanna’s hand and hurried forward to support Mam. They entered the hut together.
Somehow, so swiftly, word had gone ahead of them. The healers were waiting and ready when the little group arrived.
They stretched Conall’s body on a pallet and gathered around him. Sunlight streamed in through the smoke hole in the roof—so bright and beautiful was the day—and the three healers, three being a sacred number, bent close to him.
One of the men, Master Dathi, was aged, the other two younger, his assistants. Dathi’s veined hands trembled as he reached to hover above the handle of the knife, as if afraid to touch.
One of the younger men fluttered careful fingers at Conall’s neck. “Dead, master.”
“Aye. Och, aye.” Dathi closed his eyes and whispered a prayer. For Conall’s spirit? That it might wing swiftly westward to Tír na nóg , the land of the blessed?
They all should have done that. She should. In her horror, she’d forgotten.
Had she imperiled her brother? Would his spirit now fail to reach the place of rest?
With an arm about her mother, who trembled violently, she eyed Conall’s face. He looked so very peaceful. No hint that his best friend had just stabbed him to the heart. No anger, no fear, only the beautiful face of a youthful man at rest.
Gone from them so swiftly. How could that be? Whether Conall’s spirit had winged to the west or otherwise, he had departed their lives.
No more early mornings spent with him when he got up for training and she rose also, being of a sort unable to keep to her bed once the sun was up. No making a meal so he could break his fast while he teased her and they laughed together. No more going to him with her troubles, the wise older brother—for Mam had lost two babes between her son and her elder daughter—seeking his strength and caring. Knowing he would mend things for her if he could.
Where be ye? she asked his quiet face. No answer, save a flicker of the sunlight coming down through the roof above him.
Flanna began to sob. Master Dathi looked at her kindly. “Why d’ye no’ take your sister away?” he suggested to Liadan. “Before we prepare the body.” His old hands again hovered over the handle of the dirk. Did she want to see that drawn from her brother’s breast?
But she shook her head. “I will stay and support my mam.”
Mam lifted her head. “Go, Liadan. Comfort your sister. If I faced watching your da go to his grave, I can face this.”
But could she? Da’s death had near leveled her. Changed the bright, cheerful woman she was. As would this. It would change all of them.
Liadan clothed her sister’s hand with her own, and went.