Chapter Four
L iadan sat up all night with her mother, who sobbed and grieved without relent. Though she sent Flanna off to her bed, she doubted the poor lass got much rest. Mam’s lamenting filled the small roundhouse.
By first light, which came early at this time of year, she was worried enough by her mother’s state that she sent Flanna running for the healer.
Dathi himself arrived not much later, limping along after Flanna, for he was an aged man. Liadan met him at the door.
“Master Dathi, I am that grateful for your presence. I do not know what to do with my mam. She cries so hard I fear she will do herself a harm.”
In truth, Mam had thrown herself down upon Conall’s bed, the very place he had for most of his life laid his head, and refused to come away.
Dathi looked at Liadan with faded blue eyes. “Grief is grief, my lass, and in my experience the best remedy is to let it run its course.”
“Aye, Master Dathi, yet I have never seen grief like this. Not even when my da died.” He had perished from a wound got in battle that had taken poisoning.
Dathi lifted a brow. “If I recall correctly, your father’s death was long and slow.”
“Aye, so.” Hideously slow.
“Your mother had time to prepare herself. What happened yesterday—” He shook his head.
Liadan still could not believe what had happened yesterday. Conall and Ardahl, best of friends. But everyone said Conall’s blood had covered Ardahl’s hands.
“I will speak with her.”
Dathi did, at length and with kindness. Liadan, hovering nearby, listened. Her respect for the aged healer, already lofty, soared.
“Mistress MacAert, ye must take hold o’ yourself. Ye be frightening your daughters.”
“I have lost my son! My strong and bonny Conall. The pride o’ his father’s eye and the very spit o’ him. The lad I have loved since the first I took him to my breast. I have lost him!”
“Aye, and a heavy thing it is to bear. But ye will do no good lying here weeping yourself into a sickness.”
“He is gone from me.”
“Ye must remember he has gone in all his glory to the land of the ever-young, to live on in strength and beauty.”
“I want him here with me.”
Flanna came up and slipped her hand into Liadan’s. Liadan could feel her trembling.
“When I lie here, I am near him. I can still catch his scent.”
“Aye, and ye have spent the night so, but now ye will arise. There are duties to which ye must attend.”
Mam broke into sobs anew. Dathi got up from her side and spoke softly to Liadan.
“I will mix her a draught. It will soothe her enough to get her through this day.”
This day. “Aye.” Already, daylight streamed through the door. “But, Master Dathi, what o’ the days to come? The—the wake. The tributes.” For there would be many. Her brother had been well loved. “The b-burial.”
Dathi gave her a sympathetic look. “’Twill not be easy, lass. Can ye be her strength?”
“I do not know.” Could she? But who would be hers?
“I can leave more mixtures, if ye need to dose her again. Or call me back anytime.” He laid his fingers lightly on Liadan’s shoulder. “Day or night, I will come.”
They watched him mix the draught from the goods in the bundle he had brought. Watched him dose Mam and help her stretch out on Conall’s bed.
“She may sleep, or may not. Let her grieve as she might, for now.”
“Aye, Master Dathi. Thank ye.”
He eyed both of them. “And ye? Can I leave any potions for either o’ ye?”
“I am all right.” A blatant lie, but Liadan must be strong. For Mam. For Flanna. “Sister?”
Flanna merely shook her head, but after the aged healer had gone, she turned to Liadan with a look of panic in her eyes.
“Sister, what are we to do? Conall kept us in the chief’s regard and in our place here. With him gone, who will care for us? Hunt for us. Provide for us.”
Fancy Flanna, at her tender age, considering such matters. But aye, they had lost their provider as well as a light of their lives.
Fierce with belief, she said, “Chief Fearghal will not let us starve.” Yet well did she know a huge difference existed between being a family of status, which Da before his death and Conall had in turn earned for them, and mere hangers-on with the tribe. She had known a few such, considered little better than the slaves captured from enemy tribes.
She would never gain a husband so—if indeed that was what she wanted. Most women her age did desire a man and a home of her own.
She had ever desired but one man.
Turning her thoughts strictly away from that, she focused on her young sister. Would Flanna’s chances of a good marriage be ruined also, when she came of age?
So much rested upon a family’s status, which in turn pivoted on the standing of its warriors. Where a fighting man sat during feasting in the chief’s hall. What goods he claimed in spoils. Even how the shanachies praised him.
“Do not worry about that now,” she bade the pale-faced Flanna. “The chief will decide on it—or the priests will. We must try to trust them.”
Flanna appeared to find that as difficult as Liadan herself did.
“We must prepare for this day,” she told her sister, “difficult as that may be. Do you want anything to eat?”
“I cannot.”
“Nay.” If Liadan tried to take any food, she would choke on it. “Then wash and dress yourself in your finest clothing. Braid up your hair. We must look our best when the others come to honor Conall.”
Flanna’s eyes abruptly pooled with tears.
“I cannot,” she said again.
“You must. We must be strong for Mam.”
Much to ask of a lass with only eleven winters to her name. But Flanna straightened and blinked the tears away.
She whispered, “Sister, what will happen to us?”
Cursed if Liadan knew.
*
Daylight came through the gaps in the walls of Ardahl’s prison, flickering just as his courage had flickered all the night long. Sleep had not found him, and by morning dread lay in the pit of his stomach like a block of ice.
He suspected the chief—or possibly Dornach—had stationed guards outside the hut where he was being held, because he could hear them whispering from time to time. Talking about him, no doubt.
He wondered who they were. Whomever, he undoubtedly had trained and fought beside them. Feasted and drank—laughed with them.
Now they guarded him, in his dishonor.
As it had all night, his mind poked and prodded at what had happened yesterday afternoon. The sudden anger in Conall’s clear blue eyes, coming seemingly from nowhere. The dagger. The rush of horror as Ardahl realized his best friend intended to attack him. The brief, violent struggle.
The blade in Conall’s heart.
He still could not tell how it had ended there. The very question made him pace and sweat.
It could not be. None of this could be occurring. All a dream, mayhap. Or a horrible joke. Conall would appear at the door of the pen and give him a wide, mischievous smile, his eyes as bright as the morning.
All would be as ever, right between them. Because none of what had happened yesterday could have happened at all. An evil dream. Naught more.
But then, what about the traces of blood still on his hands? That which he had not been able to wash away, caught deep in the lines and creases. Conall’s blood.
Voices sounded outside—a query and an answer. The bar lifted and the door swung open on its leather hinges.
Daylight outlined a large figure. Blinking against the brightness, Ardahl identified him.
Dornach, with his woolen plaid slung over his shoulder. Wearing his sword.
“Ardahl MacCormac,” he called, “ye are to come wi’ me.”
“Where?”
“To the chief’s hall. To receive your sentence.”
Suddenly, Ardahl’s legs threatened to fail him. He’d not experienced the like since before his first battle.
None o’ that, lad, he bade himself. Ye will keep face and conduct yourself like a man .
That determination nearly deserted him when he stepped forward and got a look at Dornach’s expression. Bleak as winter it was, and twice as cold.
This man who had trained him, laughed with him, been like a second father to him, could not now look him in the eyes.
Och, by the gods, he was doomed.