Chapter Thirty-Eight
T he interior of Brihan’s hall bustled with people, so Ardahl saw when they went in. Some must be extended family. He saw several women, a few with children. A number of servants. Warriors. Advisors? It seemed more a meeting place than a fine dwelling.
Ah, but who were they to judge? Their own hall lay blackened and burned.
“Abban,” Brihan called to a servant. “Bring drink. Clear us a place at the fire.”
Clear us a place apparently meant chasing those already there away. A couple of old men. Two children and three women, one of whom cast a horrified look at Ardahl’s group before stepping up to Brihan and beginning an intent conversation.
The four of them waited, Ardahl’s spine tingling at the threat of attack from behind. It seemed Brihan was willing to talk, but anything could happen. It could end very badly indeed.
Ardahl did not want to die in this foreign, slightly squalid place out of sight of the sky.
Brihan reassured the woman—his wife?—and she left. The other occupants of the hall trickled out also.
Brihan turned to his visitors, hard eyed. “Will ye sit?”
They did so, Fearghal and Brihan together, Ardahl, Cathair, and Tiernan slightly behind, like guards. Though how they could hope to safely guard their charge, Ardahl could not tell.
A hundred things might happen. A charge. A rush. Poisoned fare, he thought as a servant stepped up with a flask. Their ponies might be slain so they could not get away.
Nearly impossible for him to keep his hand from his weapon in such circumstances, but he managed. No need to appear threatening.
“Chief Fearghal,” Brihan said when they were all seated, “ye ha’ surprised me wi’ your arrival here today. I must admit, ye ha’ balls—or a surfeit o’ foolish temerity.”
“Have I?” Fearghal peered into his cup, clearly wondering whether or not to drink.
“Och, aye.”
“At one time,” Fearghal said slowly and clearly, “I would have been certain of my welcome in your hall. That was before ye turned against me and mine.”
Brihan gave a grunt at that, nothing more.
“We had an alliance,” Fearghal began.
“We never had an alliance.”
“No’ a formal one, mayhap. But ’twas understood between us we would live in peace aside one another, whatever happened around us.”
“Circumstances change.”
“Indeed, they do. Now ye send your men to attack and murder innocents while our warriors are otherwise engaged.”
Brihan’s face grew carefully blank, but a muscle jumped in his cheek. He said nothing.
“It is a betrayal,” Fearghal declared. “Of trust, if naught more.”
“I regret this, but we had no formal alliance.”
“’Twas given that I would no’ attack yours and ye would no’ attack mine. Brihan”—Fearghal leaned forward slightly—“wha’ happened?”
Brihan raised brown eyes to Fearghal’s face in a level stare. He did not speak.
“Ha’ ye made an alliance wi’ Chief Dacha that supersedes our own?”
“Nay.” Violently, Brihan shook his head. “I ha’ no alliance wi’ him either. No’ as such. I stand alone.”
“‘As such’?” Fearghal asked.
“Dacha is a strong neighbor. A dangerous one. This season, he has grown more so.”
Ardahl, watching Fearghal carefully, saw his eyes narrow. Brihan’s position—pinned between Dacha, who wanted Fearghal’s lands, and Fearghal, who refused to give up those lands—had, aye, long been a perilous one. Yet he had managed to balance there.
What had changed?
Fearghal clearly wondered. “Chief Brihan, had your neighbor become so strong as to threaten ye and your tribe, I should hope ye would turn to me.”
“Would ye? Would ye, so?”
“Aye.”
“Well, ye would be wrong.”
“Why?” Fearghal lowered his voice. “Brihan, ye should ha’ known I would aid ye. ’Tis in my best interest.”
“No’ perchance in mine.”
What does that mean? Ardahl pondered as a servant came in, offering food and more drink. Brihan waved him away.
Ardahl’s back twitched. He felt sure they were being watched.
“Dacha,” Fearghal pressed, “makes a gey dangerous neighbor.”
“Ye can see that, can ye?”
“Aye, I can see that. Yet long ha’ ye held that place and no’ raised a hand against us. Now ye come spilling blood. Ye must know I ha’ to retaliate.”
That brought Brihan’s gaze to Fearghal’s face.
“We, who were once friends,” Fearghal pushed, “are now enemies. I wished for the sake o’ old understandings to talk wi’ ye first.”
Emotions moved suddenly in Brihan’s stern face, as if it would crack. Grief filled his eyes.
In a voice so low Ardahl could barely hear it, he said, “He has my young son. Dacha does. Taken wi’ a number of other lads at the beginning o’ spring. Out larking, they were, on our own lands. He has but ten winters.”
A deadly silence fell.
Savagely now, Brihan said, “The other lads, three o’ them, ha’ all been sent back one by one. Slain. No’ just slain but killed in—in the cruelest o’ ways. They suffered before they died.”
Children.
“Ah,” Fearghal said.
Brihan’s gaze once more came up to meet Fearghal’s. “The message was clear. ’Tis no’ an alliance I ha’ wi’ Dacha but a kind o’ geis .”
“Have ye tried to get your lad back?”
“How? He is at the heart o’ Dacha’s stronghold. One wrong move on my part—he will be dead afore we reach him.”
“Aye.”
“Ye must see, Fearghal, that while I did no’ want to raise a weapon against ye, and while there is nay honor in it—”
“I do see, aye.” Fearghal also had young children.
“My wife—” For an instant, Brihan’s voice failed him. “She is distraught. Ill wi’ it. She saw the bodies o’ the lads returned.”
“As any good mother would be.”
“He is my only son. We ha’ a crop o’ daughters, but—”
“I am certain that despite his torment o’ the others, Dacha is treating him well. ’Tis in his best interest to do so, aye? If your son dies, Dacha loses his hold over ye.”
“I do try to believe that.”
Fearghal scowled. A hostage made for a perilous situation.
“Dacha,” said Brihan abruptly, “has made up his mind to conquer all of Armagh. From his own lands to the sea. He has ambitions about which he is no’ shy of boasting—to rival the Ard Ri himself. His druids and mine have cast stones in his favor. What am I to do?”
“If he conquers my lands, Brihan, he will take yours also.”
“He will leave me to the last, until I am o’ no’ more use to him. Then he will no’ only cut my son’s throat, but mine.”
“Will ye sit still for it?”
“What choice have I?”
“Ye should ha’ come to me. Come in secret if need be. We might—”
Brihan shook his head. “He is too powerful. He has eyes. Some o’ my own men, I do no’ doubt, have been bought or threatened. He will know ye ha’ been here. I only hope it does no’ cost Donen’s life.”
Fearghal clapped the man on the shoulder. “Chief Brihan, I do no’ wish to be at war wi’ ye.”
“Nor I wi’ ye.”
“But it, aye, does seem the way the stones are cast.”
Brihan said nothing. An agony lay in his eyes.
“Will ye at least gi’ us safe conduct from your lands?”
“Aye, I will. Go home, Fearghal. Set your defenses. Set them well.”
The meeting at an end, they arose and made their way from the hall, past all the staring faces that waited outside.
It seemed they would get away alive after all.
No one spoke until they had mounted their chariots and ridden off, when Fearghal turned to Ardahl and said, “Who can blame a man for loving his son?”
Who, indeed?
Not until they reached home, when the two chariots rolled into the settlement and they disembarked, did Ardahl find Cathair at his shoulder.
He turned, half startled, to face Cathair’s fierce blue eyes.
“I suppose ye think yoursel’ somewhat to brag of, Ardahl MacCormac, wi’ your place at the chief’s side. But I am here to warn ye. Ye would do well all the same to watch your back.”