Chapter Twelve
F olk stared when Liadan made her way through the settlement. Some stole furtive, curious glances. Some shot her sympathetic ones. A few stepped forward and delayed her to express their shock and grief at Conall’s passing.
She wondered how long it would take for his killing to cease being the center of every conversation. A long while, she should think. For now it would be on every lip, the topic of discussion in the council chamber and the warriors’ hall.
That her brother’s death should become a matter of gossip!
But that was the way of their folk. They spoke of status and standing. They reached for it and they lived by it. Chief Fearghal’s bards, for he had two of them, both aged, sang of it and told stories in his hall of his ancestors. How great they had been. How high.
How never had they brought shame upon their blood.
That made her think again of Ardahl MacCormac. The way he’d looked at her in the firelight last night when she tended him. The wound in his eyes.
She hated him, aye. But she was not an unfeeling woman. The gods knew, she often felt too much.
She’d seen pain in Ardahl’s eyes, aye. Pain that brought her out on this damp, cloudy morning after Flanna had stopped by to collect a few of her belongings.
“Stay wi’ Mam, will ye?” she had bidden her sister. “I have an errand to run.”
When Flanna, clearly reluctant, gazed into Conall’s sleeping place, Liadan had assured her, “Mam still sleeps. I dare not leave her alone, is all.”
So she could not take long over this errand. She dared not.
Last night’s rain had ceased but the air struck chill, and mist rose from the sodden ground. Maeve’s hut sat on the far side of the settlement and at a distance.
When Liadan arrived, the place looked deserted, the door tight shut, not so much as a glimmer of light showing from within.
She very nearly turned and went back home. Something stopped her. With a look over her shoulder for the staring faces, she stepped up and rapped the doorframe.
No answer.
“Mistress MacCormac?” she called.
The leather curtain wiggled as it was untied and swept aside.
Maeve MacCormac did not appear well. For as long as Liadan had known her—near all her life—she’d been a well-kept woman, quiet and unassuming yet always neat. She had a look of her son, Liadan decided, standing there facing her. The same red-brown hair and eyes that nearly matched. She might have been a beauty once.
Now her hair, loosely bundled, billowed around her pale face. Her clothing appeared to have been slept in, and a frown of pain hovered between her eyes.
“Mistress MacCormac? Be ye well?”
The woman said nothing. Hastily, Liadan eased her back from the doorway and into the hut.
Her heart fell at the state of the place. Ash choked the hearth, and no flame showed there. Items lay strewn about, dishes and pots. A ewer lay on its side. The air had a musty smell.
“Liadan?” Maeve MacCormac’s gaze clung to her. “What is amiss? Is it my son?”
“He sent me, aye. He worries for ye.” And with good reason, so it seemed. A death might as well have occurred here, from appearances.
It struck Liadan that must be the weight of loss Maeve MacCormac now bore.
“Has aught happened to him?”
“Nay.” Save his life had fallen to pieces. Liadan did not want to entertain that thought either. She did not want to sympathize with Ardahl or his mother.
Her brother lay dead.
But who could fail to feel something for this woman? She looked as lost as Liadan felt.
“Here, sit down.” Liadan coaxed Maeve onto a rug beside the cold hearth. “Are ye unwell? Shall I fetch Master Dathi?”
Maeve shook her head violently. “Nay. I wish to see no one. No one but my son. And that is forbidden.” Her eyes flooded with tears. “He is my son no more.”
A hard fate, and no mistake. It seemed cruel to punish this woman for her son’s misdeeds. But did they not all suffer?
“When is the last time ye took something to eat?”
“I do not remember.”
“Mistress MacCormac, ’twill do no good whatever for ye to neglect yourself.”
“Good?” The hazel eyes sought hers. “There is naught of good anymore. Not since—”
“Aye, but—”
“I have no reason left to live. Once I lived for my husband. He was braw and strong. So, so handsome. He was the first charioteer of the tribe when we wed.”
“Indeed.” Liadan searched around the untidy hearth for a pot of water, or ale, but found naught that had not been spilled or contaminated with ash.
“It did no’ take long for us to have a wee daughter. In fact, she came early because we had no’ waited to be handfasted—she lived but thirty days. My Cormac said there would be many others. There were, but I lost them one after t’other. Did ye know Ardahl had an older brother?”
Liadan stood now watching the woman. “I did not.”
“He had just five years when he died. As bonny a lad as ye could find. He took sick in the winter and was gone before we knew it. That was just before Ardahl was born. Ardahl thrived.” Maeve began to weep. “I should ha’ known I would lose him too.”
Liadan cursed under her breath. Another weeping mother! Another broken heart.
“Whist, now.” She hunkered down in front of the woman, who wept into her hands. She did not want to sympathize, nay. Yet she would need to be made of stone did she not. “Ye have no’ lost your son. He is alive and well.” Unlike Conall.
“As good as dead,” Maeve sobbed bitterly. “I have held so many bairns in my arms, only to lose them.”
“No’ as good as dead,” Liadan told her forcefully. “He still walks. He still breathes. He still possesses a beating heart.”
Maeve disregarded this. “After I lost my Cormac, him brought home from battle in his own chariot, Ardahl became my reason for living.”
“And he is, still. Listen to me. ’Tis Ardahl who sent me here. Worrying for ye, he is. How might I go back and tell him I found ye in this state? Come, let us wash your face and hands. I will make up the fire. Have ye any clean clothing?”
Laying her own grief aside for the moment, Liadan tended Ardahl’s mother as she might a child. Raked out the fire. Found the ingredients for a sparse meal. Moved about the hut tidying the mess.
Och, but what was she to tell Ardahl when he returned from training? That his fears had been proved true and his mam coped no better than hers?
Could she place such an additional burden on him? Aye, she should. He had killed Conall, taken his brightness from them.
He deserved this and more.
She should walk away out of here. Leave Maeve to her hard fate.
Her mind more than half made up to it, she wound her shawl about her head and prepared to leave. As she turned away from the fire, Maeve reached out and snagged her arm.
“He would not do such a thing, ye know. This terrible deed.”
“Eh?”
Maeve’s gaze—now clear of tears as if burned dry—met Liadan’s. “My Ardahl would no’ have harmed a hair on Conall’s head. He loved him like a brother.”
“Yet Conall lies dead.”
“There must be more to it. The truth lies in it somewhere. Ye must discover it.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because he is yours now. Ardahl is yours. Would ye not know the truth o’ him?”