Chapter Twenty-Two
L ife, as Liadan knew it, had flown. She thought it had changed irreparably with Conall’s death, as it had. With Ardahl’s presence among them and Mam’s grief. Hard enough to bear, with all the feelings tumbling through her, and her need to make things right.
Now the entire settlement had been turned on its head, everything altered again. What had been personal grief became widespread and consuming. The hurt and terror touched everyone.
And she learned something about herself. She liked order and a quiet life. She liked knowing what was going to happen, and when. She could handle difficulties if she saw them coming.
This kind of unexpected, disastrous change felt harder. It threw her off her stride.
And then there was Ardahl.
Och, what to do about him?
The long night they had spent together and its accompanying terror had also brought a change. She might wish to deny that, but in all honesty could not. She had clung to him for comfort, and he had provided it.
She found it harder and harder to believe him a serpent.
And her heart—her treacherous heart began to react on its own. Whenever she saw him, when he came back from the war chief’s hut or some warriors’ meeting, it leaped without her permission. Her eyes flew to him as if she needed to touch gazes with him for reassurance.
If only he were not such a handsome man. She liked everything about him, from the mane of red-brown hair to the way he moved. Living close to him as she now did, the desire—for she could not in honesty name it as aught else—rendered her helpless.
His presence lifted her. Intoxicated her. Threw her into despair.
Following the attack that Chief Fearghal insisted on calling a raid, there was a string of burials and so much grief it was hard to bear. The chief, who had himself lost his home, called frequent meetings, during which he spoke from the heart about recovery and revenge.
A good chief, was Fearghal. But rebuilding would be difficult and recovery long. Especially with the chief druid, Aodh, gone. Tamald, second in rank, had taken over for him, but as Liadan heard whispered when she went to the spring or elsewhere among the women, if such a holy man could be taken from them, had the gods themselves turned on the tribe?
Waiting for another raid, day by day, kept everyone on edge. Women wept for very little reason, and men lost their tempers without warning.
At least Mam was better, if Liadan could call it better. She had ceased with her endless grieving since the night of the raid and the flight up the hillside. Now she stayed quiet all the time. She sat in Conall’s sleeping place or beside the fire with idle hands and empty eyes, and had to be persuaded to eat. It was difficult to get so much as a word out of her.
Gone was the mam who had chattered endlessly over her work, showered affection on her son and two daughters, laughed easily.
It felt as if Liadan had lost someone else she loved, just a shell left behind.
She set herself to care for that shell and prayed Mam would come back to herself. She worked hard to do all she could around the hut and out in the settlement, volunteering to do laundry for others or help drag away the ruined rubble from the huts. She waited, like everyone else, for attack. At night she longed to sit once more holding Ardahl’s hand.
She never did, and kept well clear of him.
Ardahl healed. Since she’d watched Conall recover from similar injuries more than once, she knew what to look for. She treated Ardahl’s wounds when they looked dirty and he did not wish to trouble the healers.
It frightened her how much she enjoyed touching him during those moments, smoothing her fingers over freckled skin. Sitting near enough to catch his scent. To glance up and encounter the expression in his eyes.
What did that expression mean? So guarded was it, she never could quite tell.
He could not possibly desire her. He had given no real sign, and anyway, he was as good as her brother, and that made it forbidden. Did it not?
When he returned to training, she made excuses to pass by the field just so she could stand and watch him at work. Shameful, aye, but she owned it. She was never the only young woman who so indulged herself for a glimpse of some particular man. She encountered friends there.
She encountered Brasha.
A tall and very beautiful lass, Brasha was. When they encountered each other there beside the wall, Liadan expected Brasha to say something about Conall. She had been seeing him for the last half year of his life—on and off at first, and then so frequently that Liadan had begun to wonder if they would marry. She remembered being a little uneasy about it, for though Brasha was popular, Liadan had never taken to her. The lass had an edge. She talked about people, even her friends, behind their backs and sometimes had a sly look in her eyes. She had never once come by the hut to commiserate with them after Conall’s death. She’d shown little enough grief, apart from that terrible scene when she’d thrown herself on Conall’s body at his graveside, despite how long the two had been seeing each other.
And she said nothing of it now. Instead, with her two particular friends, she hung about the training field, gossiping and giggling. As if naught was wrong in her world.
It was not difficult to determine whom she watched, either. That was why Liadan had to be so careful with her own interest—people saw and talked of where a woman’s eyes turned. What a piece of crack it would be to report that Liadan MacAert lusted after her brother’s killer.
Even if she did.
She could see that Brasha watched one especially tall, fair-haired figure move about the field. Cathair. And although the warrior in question rarely spared any attention for the women at the wall of the field, acting as if they were beneath him, he did flick a glance once or twice toward Brasha.
It made Liadan uneasy enough that she brought it up with Ardahl the next time she had an opportunity.
She had given Flanna permission to go and visit with Lasair, and Mam sat quiet on Conall’s bed when Ardahl arrived home, which as good as left the two of them alone.
When Ardahl ducked into the hut and laid his weapons beside the door, Liadan said, “Come sit wi’ me. I have the supper ready.”
He shot her a look and as quickly glanced away. “Aye, mistress. I am filthy. Let me go wash first.”
She didn’t mind him filthy, she decided, with his hair half come loose from the plait he wore for practice and a gleam on his skin. She liked him clean also, when he came back in with his hair wet and smelling of the soap she made. When he sat down by the fire, she experienced a flash of rare satisfaction. She liked him here with her, whatever his condition.
“How goes the practice?” she began.
“Better. I am nearly recovered, so I believe.”
She’d been able to see that when she watched him, though she did not say so. Had he noticed her there by the wall? Had he thought her there only to speak with her friends?
He shook his head. “I cannot manage to convince Master Dornach. He refuses to let me expend myself. ’Tis almost as if he is saving me.”
For the next battle, no doubt. The next raid. “D’ye believe Dacha will strike again?”
“Unless Fearghal decides to strike first, it seems inevitable.”
“Waiting is an agony.”
“’Tis hard, indeed.”
He ate in silence a few moments while she marshaled her thoughts.
“Tell me, Master Ardahl, what d’ye think o’ Brasha MacGowd?”
Surprised, he lifted his gaze back to her. He took his time answering. “She and Conall were seeing each other, there before the end.”
“Aye, so.”
“I had no say in whom your brother saw.”
“To be sure. But what did ye think o’ the association?”
He must wonder why she asked, for he directed another long look at her. “I did no’ like it much. But in that instance, Conall did no’ welcome my opinions. He got swept up in her. They—” Abruptly he silenced.
“Master Ardahl, ye need not fear to speak plainly wi’ me.”
“You are his sister.”
“And no longer a child. I know fine what happens between a man and a woman—even if that man be my brother.”
He shifted his shoulders in a twitch of discomfort and glanced at Conall’s sleeping place, where Mam sat.
“She is no’ paying attention.” Liadan leaned closer to him. “They were—”
He made a face. “She was tumbling him. Regular.” The hazel eyes met hers, steady. “Ye know what that means?”
“Of course I know what it means.” Her cheeks heated. “She was taking him to her bed.”
“Naught so formal as that. They met wherever they could. In corners. In the pony sheds. At her house, if no one was to home.”
“The pony sheds!”
Another steady gaze. “He got right caught up in it.”
“As any young man might.”
“He told me he wanted to marry her. I told him to take his time and be sure about it.”
“Good advice.”
“There is somewhat I cannot like about her. But ye canna tell that to a man, even your best friend, about the woman wi’ whom he is enamored.”
“I suppose not.”
“He kept the whole thing close to his chest, but all the warriors knew. When I expressed doubts about her, he did no’ like it. Grew annoyed wi’ me. Even asked if I were jealous.” He snorted. “As if I would be jealous o’ that—” He caught himself abruptly.
“I see.” Did Liadan begin to?
“We rarely argued. Ye know that. But,” Ardahl paused and a new look came to his eyes, “that was when he began growing edgy wi’ me. Turned right prickly about it.”
“Could—could that be what he was so angry about that last day, when—”
Ardahl shook his head. “I do not know what he was so angry about that day. I have racked my brains over it. That was not mere anger, but rage.” Again, he studied her. “Ye believe me?”
“I find that I do.”
He puffed out a breath.
“Not,” she added, “that it matters what I believe.”
“It matters. To be sure, it does.”
“Brasha—she does not seem as grieved at Conall’s death as she was at first, or as a young woman hoping for marriage should.”
“One who’d taken him so often on her thighs.”
“She laughs with her friends and stands to gossip by the wall of the training field.”
“So I ha’ noticed.”
“It does not seem right.”
Their gazes met again.
“Have ye noticed whom it is she watches during her time there?” she asked.
“I have.”
Liadan leaned still closer. “Is there something in it?”
Again, Ardahl took several moments before answering. “I cannot imagine how. Unless…”
“What?” Liadan settled close beside him and drew up her knees. Now they sat close to one another indeed, making the conversation intimate.
“It cannot be,” he murmured. “No one would—”
“What?” Liadan repeated.
He gazed once more into her eyes. A stare of connection, this was.
At last he whispered, “Master Dornach seems to feel Cathair resents me. That we are—were—in competition for the place of first among the warriors.”
“Ah.” First among the warriors denoted much honor, including one’s place in the great hall during feasts—the great hall that no longer existed.
“Me, I have never competed wi’ anyone. It was enough for me to fight my best and wi’ Conall at my side.” Ardahl swallowed hard. “But aye, this last year I was declared foremost a few times above Cathair.”
Puzzled, Liadan waited for him to say more.
“What if…” he whispered. “What if Cathair used Brasha to turn Conall against me?”
“How so?”
“I am no’ sure. ’Tis a feeling more than aught else. The way Cathair looks at me. The way Brasha looks at him.”
“And he was the one, was he not, who spoke out to say you killed Conall?”
“Aye.”
They were both silent for a few moments.
“Ye think,” Liadan asked then, “they were together in it, trying to stir trouble between ye and Conall?”
“Mayhap.”
“But no woman, not even Brasha—whom, I must admit, I do no’ much respect—would lie wi’ a man just to turn his loyalty.” A woman lay with a man because she loved him. Because she desired him beyond reason. Because she wanted a life with him.
“I cannot claim to know what lies in the mind or the heart o’ a woman.”
“If this be true—” Liadan widened her eyes at him. “The treachery o’ it! The sheer evil. If those two have schemed in such a way to hurt ye—to hurt us—they must be exposed. Cathair is no’ worthy of the honors he collects. And ye… Ye do no’ deserve the disgrace ye ha’ received.”
Now his gaze burned on hers. “Aye, yet I canna figure how—even if she seduced Conall for the purpose—she could have turned him so against me. Caused such anger as I saw in his eyes that day.”
Liadan laid her hand on his arm. “Perhaps I can help to discover that part o’ it. I am able to go among the women as ye are not. I can get close to Brasha. Ask and listen.”
“Ye would do that?”
“I would.”
“I would be that grateful, mistress.” For the briefest moment only, he laid his hand over hers.
“Together,” she told him, “we may yet arrive at the truth.”