Chapter Nine
I n the past, Ardahl had marched out to meet his fate more times than he could number. Gone on foot or horseback into a battle, not knowing if he would return. That had been easier in some ways than what now had to do.
At the well, it being a common place, he found half the tribe gathered. Women with bairns in their arms. Aged warriors no longer fit for much beyond helping with household chores. Children who had slipped beyond their mothers’ reach.
He walked into a storm of condemnation. Aye, he knew the people of his tribe, knew how they loved to talk about one another, to whisper. To rate a warrior or a shanachie and the way a woman kept her home.
Respect was the highest coin that could be offered, or obtained. And respect was earned through deeds and appearances.
He had now fallen among the lowest of the low. The slaves, the disabled who could fight no more. The disgraced and condemned.
He did not suppose his appearance helped any. He’d gone straight from the practice field to a cell and thence to his sentencing. He had spent a night outdoors, all without access to clean clothing or an opportunity to groom, beyond the violent scrubbing he’d done.
Yet he went with his head high. Not because of who he was but because of who Conall was. He had taken Conall’s place, had he not? He would not then creep like someone dishonored.
Much would be revealed by the way his fellow tribesfolk received him. Teasing and clever mockery were considered a form of liking. Hard anger might be marked by shouting and accusations.
The folk at the well met him with silence. Indeed, it unfolded before him as he approached, like the dark of night. Even the small babes in their mothers’ arms stopped peeping like birds and stared with wide eyes.
People shied from him. They peeled away from the well and moved off as if they did not want to breathe his air.
Stooping to the stone-lined spring, where the water bubbled up into a shallow trough surrounded by a low wall, he filled the ewer.
The tribe had settled here because of this spring. A holy place, it was said to be, with healing properties. The first of their ancestors, wanderers with no more than a few beasts to their names, had found the place and stayed.
No one, especially greedy chieftains from the west, should drive them from here. He, like many others, had determined that. Yet the pressure from the west grew intense.
He straightened, turned slowly, and surveyed those who surrounded him. He had fought for them in every battle. Now, so swiftly, they turned on him.
He did not speak a word, yet the bitterness lodged hard like a stone beneath his heart. He wanted to go home to his mother. He could not.
He could not.
*
Liadan drew a breath and fought to quiet her heartbeat, which ran ahead of her like a maddened pony. It had started to gallop when she opened the door and saw Ardahl standing there lit by the red sunrise.
She did not know how to handle the emotions he raised. She did not know how to handle anything that had happened since Conall’s death.
Why had she never realized until now how much she’d relied on her older brother in times of difficulty and strife? The extent to which he lifted worries from her, worries about Mam, worries about far more trivial things and more terrifying things too, such as the threat from the west.
Always with a smile. Always so calm. Though her brother was not a quiet man withal, since he did love to tease and tussle, she now saw he had taken her troubles from her without fuss, and usually solved them.
Upon whom was she to rely now?
Mam had awoken sick and grieving. She had retched into the night pot, ill from the draught. And yet the draught was all Liadan had to help quiet her. Even now, Mam lay once more upon Conall’s bed and wept.
Poor Flanna had a face like a ghost. She too would be ill before Liadan knew it. She needed food, which meant Liadan had to prepare some sort of breakfast.
She would need to feed the serpent.
That thought, among the teeming others, stopped her cold. Aye, she’d sent him away to fetch water, a few moments’ respite. Yet he would return.
Here, where she did not want him.
“Flanna, darling, bring me some kindling that I might light the fire.”
Fire was always first. That done, she would beat her thoughts into a line if she had to.
Flanna slipped outside and came back with arms full of dry sticks. Without being asked, she set about arranging them upon the hearth.
What if Ardahl did not return? What was Liadan to do then? Go the chief? Would Ardahl then be punished? Further humiliated?
For he had to be feeling humiliated, aye. Though how he should be, at taking her wonderful brother’s place—
The door opened. He came in with the ewer, bringing shadows.
Liadan glanced at him and away. “Place it here. Please.” Was one required to treat a serpent with courtesy?
He did as asked, his movements neat and quiet, and stood.
“I will be making some breakfast. Sit by the door.” She did not want for him to come any farther in to their place. Her place.
“Mistress, I will need weapons.”
“So?”
“I cannot fetch my own. Were Conall’s returned here?”
That made her glance up sharply. Should he touch her brother’s things? Those most precious to him?
“His weapons were brought here, aye. After the burial.” Her lips curled savagely. “All but his black knife.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. Good. She wanted him to hurt the way she did. The way Mam, whom she could still hear weeping, did.
He went and sat by the door even as her thoughts moved furiously.
Ordered to take Conall’s place, he would presumably need to train and fight among the other warriors. She tried to imagine what that would be like after having slain one so dear to those ranks, and then tried not to. She did not care.
But aye, he would need weapons. Her brother’s sword that had also been her father’s.
An abomination to see it in his hand.
His hands, stained red . Aye, she had seen the remnants of Conall’s blood there.
Suddenly she wanted to vomit, retch into the night pot as Mam had. She choked back the sickness and set about preparing the breakfast, never once glancing at the shadow that sat beside the door.
When the barley cakes were ready, she passed him a portion, still not looking at him, which he accepted. The three of them ate in silence, save for the sound of Mam’s soft sobs. After, Liadan entered Conall’s sleeping place and gently asked her mother if she would take something to eat.
She quietly gathered up Conall’s belongings. The cherished sword and the small knife—another besides the black one—he usually wore in his belt. A clean tunic, one she’d washed with her own hands. A spare kilt and a pair of leggings.
All still smelling of Conall.
These she carried out and thrust into Ardahl’s hands. For an instant he looked repulsed. His expression shut down—all but for his eyes. She could still see what lay in his eyes.
Flanna, silent as the spirit she now resembled, slipped away to Mam.
Liadan faced Ardahl and asked, “What is to happen now?”
He shook his head. “I cannot say. I ha’ never before been in this position.”
She wanted rid of him. She imagined he wanted rid of this duty even more. They were caught, the two of them. Bound together in a terrible way, by the druids’ decree.
She said, merely because she was used to speaking to Conall, and Conall was not there, “I shall have to persuade Mam to accept this. I do not know how.” Or how to accept it herself.
“I am sorry. Mistress Liadan, pray, look at me.”
She forced herself to do so. There he stood, slim and tall with her brother’s belongings in his arms.
“I did no’ mean to harm him.” He said it slowly and deliberately with emphasis, as if by doing so he could convince her. “I never would.”
“And yet,” she returned, everything within her rejecting him, “he lies dead. And ye do not.”
He bowed his head. Once again, Liadan’s sympathetic heart tried to imagine what he felt. She thrust the consideration from her also, violently.
“If ye would do something for me—for us,” she told him bitterly, “ye will get out of my sight.”
He went out in silence, leaving naught behind him but a glimpse, through the leather door, into the red morning.