Chapter Three
T hrice had the head priest, whose name was Aodh, asked Ardahl what happened. Thrice had he told them fairly he did not know.
Finally, Chief Fearghal spoke up. “How can ye fail to know how this happened, when ye stood right there?”
Before Ardahl could answer again, a clatter at the door of Fearghal’s quarters, where they remained, heralded an arrival.
“Ah, here is one who will know.”
Cathair burst in, looking overly large in his leather armor, fair hair gleaming in the gloom. His pale gaze went first to his chief, holding an odd gleam, then to the priests, and lastly to Ardahl’s face, openly hostile.
“My chief,” he gasped, breathless with his hurry.
“Cathair. You saw what happened to Conall MacAert, there on the field?”
“I saw some of it, my chief. Most of it.”
“Tell us as clearly as you can what you did see, as Ardahl seems unable.”
“Aye, chief.”
“Ye were nearby?”
“I was. We had all been at practice since just after dawn. Preparing for the battles to come wi’—”
Chief Fearghal said dryly, “I know wi’ whom we are at war.”
“To be sure. Forgive me.” Cathair wagged his head in sorrow. False sorrow? “Conall and Ardahl were sparring, across the field from Master Dornach.” He cast a glance at the war chief. “As they often do. I was no’ paying strict attention, not until I heard raised voices. They were quarreling.”
He shot a sharper look at Ardahl.
“Were they?” asked Dornach in surprise, as if Ardahl did not stand there.
“Aye. ’Tis what caught my attention. The shouting and a sudden flurry. I realized ’twas not sparring anymore but a true quarrel. Even as I turned my eyes that way, they struggled together. Over—over the knife, so it appeared. Before I could so much as take a step toward them, the blade was in Conall’s heart.”
“I had no hold of it,” Ardahl said. He must speak up or he would not have an opportunity. “I did not attack him.”
“Nay?” Chief Fearghal lifted a brow. “Then why are both your hands red with his blood?”
“I tried—I tried to pull the knife out, then remembered ’tis often fatal—” The horror of seeing Conall’s eyes go wide, of watching him begin to crumple, swamped him anew. “I swear to ye, I do not know how the knife got in his heart.”
“But ye did quarrel with him?”
“Nay.”
Cathair sneered. “I heard ye shouting.”
Ardahl shook his head. “I did not shout. Conall did. He took a sudden anger with me. He began to accuse me of—”
Of what, Ardahl truly could not say. It had happened so suddenly. Conall’s rage had been unprovoked, and his words unclear. Conall grew angry with him so seldom, though lately, aye, he had been much quicker to find fault.
“I do not know why he was angered or how—how—”
Steadily, Chief Fearghal asked of Cathair, “Was anyone else there with Conall and Ardahl? Another who could have committed this deed?”
“Nay, my chief. There was no one.”
“No one else who could have heard or seen what happened?”
“Nay.”
“Then”—Chief Fearghal’s gaze glinted—“we can but draw a single conclusion. Two young warriors. One still stands, and one lies dead.”
Was that a gleam of satisfaction Ardahl saw in Cathair’s eyes? In no fit condition to employ discernment, he could not tell.
“Chief Fearghal,” he said as steadily as he could manage, “Conall was as close to me as anyone in the world. I would never harm him.”
“Even though it appears you have?”
Another step sounded at the door and Ardahl’s mother hurried in. She had clearly come running from her weaving, with the bits of fluff all stuck to her clothing and her hair—auburn like his own—tumbling down. A face stark white with disbelief turned to Ardahl.
“Chief Fearghal. What has happened? My son—”
She reached to clasp Ardahl’s hands but stopped when she saw the blood.
“Ardahl! What?”
“That, Mistress Maeve, is what we are trying to determine. A treacherous and terrible deed has been committed.”
“Those outside, chief, those who ran to me said—they said Conall MacAert lies dead.”
“So he does. Slain by the hand of his friend.”
“Nay, nay, that cannot be. That cannot. My son would not do such a thing. My son—”
“Your son, mistress, will be held until justice can be pronounced.”
“Nay.”
“Our priests need time to ponder the occurrence, and the law.”
“I cannot lose my son. I cannot! He is all I have.”
“Mistress,” the head druid said in a voice like the knelling of a bell, “it is as the chief says. We must ponder. We must study the laws and determine what is right in this matter.”
“I cannot lose him,” Mam said almost madly. “I cannot!” She drew a breath. “Let me take him home until you determine your justice.”
“A man lies dead,” said Chief Fearghal. “Ardahl will remain in our custody until he receives his determination.”
Ardahl lifted his eyes to his mother’s in agony. Since his father’s death when he was but eleven, they had held each other. Been a family of two. He had done everything he could—including working to become foremost among Fearghal’s warriors—for her sake.
Now he must abandon her. She looked as terrified by that prospect as he felt.
“Mam. Mam, I did not do this thing. I did not harm him.”
She nodded.
But Chief Fearghal said, “Then who did? He has no answers, mistress. Go home and pray. Pray for justice.”
*
Not until nightfall, when they had fitted out a stout pen for him, did they let him clean his hands. By then it was near impossible. Conall’s blood had dried hard, had become part of him, settled into the cracks and folds of his skin. He asked for a bucket of water, but the smell of the loosened blood sickened him, so he retched into the slop pan.
Good thing he hadn’t eaten anything since dawn. Little came up but sorrow.
They had given him nothing besides the slop bucket and a blanket, so he sat on that and tried in vain to determine what had befallen him.
What he wanted—the one person with whom he needed to talk—was Conall. To him had Ardahl always turned with any trouble. They would walk or sit together and work things out. Make sense of any difficulty.
Although, indeed, lately Conall had seemed less ready to come to him. A bit short with him from time to time. There was something in it. Ardahl’s tired mind could not figure what.
There had been much pressure upon all of them. Knowledge of the battles that would come this summer, and must be won if Chief Fearghal meant to hold his lands. The effort to remain at or near the best of Dornach’s young warriors.
Such pressure—to be the best, to display courage in any situation—would plague anyone. Play upon the spirit.
But if troubled in that way, why had Conall not come to him? Since the very first battle they had entered together as young warriors, Conall had confided each doubt, every fear.
Had not Ardahl done the same?
He bent his head and pressed it against his upraised knees. Only months ago, Conall had confided that he had feelings, true feelings, for Brasha, the young woman he’d been seeing for the past half year. Not passing pricks of attraction or titillation as they all felt toward young women from time to time. This had become a matter of the heart.
“I do not know if I should tell her,” Conall had said. Ardahl could still hear the hesitancy in his voice and see the wonder in his eyes. “I have never spoken those words to anyone.” He’d grinned suddenly. “Save to my mam and our old hound, Blooney.”
Ardahl hadn’t known how to advise him. Women were dubious creatures, often harder to face than a screaming enemy warrior. And such words, once spoken, could not be recalled.
Now, huddled there on the floor of his cell, he wished he’d asked Conall for more. Had he spoken to Brasha of what was in his heart? Had she returned his feelings? Would she, too, be grieving him this night?
What would happen come morning? He lifted his head from his knees and looked at the remnants of Conall’s blood on his hands. The druids would deliberate. The entire tribe, and Chief Fearghal in particular, relied upon their wisdom.
Whatever sentence they handed down as justice would be carried out. Should that be a sentence of death—
Ardahl drew a painful, jerky breath into his lungs. He had not expected his life to end so soon. Of course, any warrior, and one so often sent in at the head of his fellows, faced the possibility of death. That, though, was a matter that lay in the hands of the gods. Swift and fierce, it would come in a flurry.
As had Conall’s death. A flurry so unexpected, he could not say how it had occurred.
If the druid Aodh came forth with a sentence of death for him, he would be hauled out to face it before all the tribe. His friends. His mam. Och, poor Mam. She, along with everyone he knew, would watch him die.
Had he the courage to face such a fate?