Chapter Fifty-Six
L iadan once more knelt on the floor of the hut beside the hearth, praying. She did not remember why she’d got down here in the first place—to blow on the fire, no doubt. Nor did she know how long she’d knelt here—a while, mayhap, for her knees had cramped.
She spoke to Brigid, wise and understanding. Brigid, who had always listened to her. Who knew a woman’s heart.
Liadan did not believe she had ever asked too much of life. Just for those she loved to be safe. For a stout roof when the wind blew, and food enough to sustain her, and hers.
But perhaps that had been too much to ask after all. For look what she’d lost. Look what was gone from her. Her da, and Conall of the bright, strong heart, and her mam.
Ardahl.
But—had Ardahl ever been hers? Aye, they had lain together. He’d possessed her body for a time as she’d possessed his. And he owned her heart forever, he did. There would never be another man in her sight.
But what they shared was forbidden. And being so, it seemed to her all too likely he would never return from this dire battle to which he’d gone. That the gods might so resolve their forbidden love. Take him from her, perhaps in punishment.
For he went at the head of the men to defend his chief. First into battle. First to fall?
If he did not return—
A small sound escaped her throat, a wordless entreaty to Brigid. If he did not return, she supposed she would have to live on—there would be no choice. She would live at least until Chief Dacha’s forces came and burned the settlement, killed the old men, and made slaves out of the rest of them.
She would fight when they came. Take up Ardahl’s sword. Do as he’d taught her. She might and she might not survive.
It would not be living, though, without him.
“Please,” she whispered to the goddess. “Please.”
Maeve entered the hut behind her. The woman had been wandering the settlement since their warriors rolled out, unable to keep still.
Liadan experienced a stab of pity. Poor Maeve. She had already lost her son once, denied him by Aodh’s ruling that turned him into someone else’s son instead. Circumstances had so altered their lives that she had come here to live with them. Had him back for a time.
Was she to lose him again now, for good?
“Lass,” Maeve gasped, “wha’ is it? Has word come?”
“Nay.” Moving like an old woman, Liadan got to her feet. “But I fear—”
She and Maeve looked at each other. Liadan saw her own terror reflected in the woman’s eyes.
“It does no good to fear,” Maeve said. “All we can do is wait.” She added softly before Liadan could speak, “And aye, I know what torture it is.” Reaching out, she brushed Liadan’s cheek. “Just as I know what it is ye feel for my son.”
“Forbidden,” Liadan whispered.
“We shall see. The good Brigid can accomplish many things. Come—the women are waiting at the spring, hoping a messenger might arrive.”
The women were, indeed, located at the spring, a whole throng of them. Some had brought what weapons they could find. The old men and the lads too young to go off to fight stood with them, and all eyes turned westward.
If Dacha’s forces did come, if they rolled over Fearghal’s and Brihan’s men combined and came to pillage and burn, they would find weapons waiting.
Yet no messenger and no enemy warriors came. Old Fergus said a pair of lads had been sent out to watch and had not been heard from again. The group fell unnaturally quiet, so much so that Liadan could hear birds singing in the trees, not far off.
Birds that did not know life and death teetered on what was to come.
Even the bairns in the crowd remained mostly quiet. Women sat down with their backs to the spring and nursed them, rocked them, coaxed them to sleep.
The afternoon dragged on toward evening.
At last, a cry came. A long, undulating cry it was, causing a disturbance of the very air, as if the world suddenly trembled. Those waiting were instantly on their feet. Facing all into the sunset.
One of the two lads who’d been sent out appeared, approaching at a dead run.
“They come. They come!”
“Who comes?” The words appeared on Liadan’s lips, and she heard them repeated all around.
“Who?”
Who?
The boy paused, his lungs working like bellows. A member of the guard, an aged fellow called Bran, labored up beside him.
“Our men. They come! Heads upon their chariots. Victorious!”
Victorious.
But was Ardahl among them?
As a body, the women, old men, and children ran. Out through the settlement toward the sunset. Along the track where the road ran through the trees. Until they could hear the jingle of harnesses. The rattle of wheels, and voices, beloved voices.
The two parties met in joy and grief, at the place where the track sloped downward. Women with bairns in their arms threw themselves at their men, gathered in tiny groups, screamed with joy. Wept.
Liadan, desperate to see, tried to peer between bodies, among heads. She could feel Maeve at her side, straining likewise. And then the crowd shifted. Liadan saw Fearghal, with his wife already in his arms. Cathair. Any number of warriors she knew, and—
Their eyes met across the distance, and it felt as if everything else melted away. The noise, the bustle, the cries, and the wondering. Liadan’s heart beat so hard in her chest that she could not breathe, and her world brightened around her in a flash of gratitude so strong it translated into wonder.
Beside her, Maeve cried, “He is there!”
Ardahl’s mother flew forward, threw herself into her son’s arms. Liadan’s feet refused to move. If she went to him now, flew to him as she longed to do, the whole world would see the truth.
So she stood rooted as, with his arm around his mother, he came to her. And when he stood before her, the joy became so bright she could no longer feel her feet on the ground.
He was wounded, and sorely. She could see that. Blood stained his clothing, and livid cuts—only some of which had been tended—still wept. But he gazed into her eyes and smiled at her.
Smiled with his eyes. With his heart.
“Master Ardahl. I am that glad to see ye safe returned.”
“I am that glad to be here.”
Maeve patted her son’s face. His arms, as if seeking out the injuries. “Son, be ye whole? Did ye vanquish that serpent? Did ye win?”
“We won. There should be peace for a time.”
Peace. Liadan did not know what that meant for her. For them. But he stood here beside her, big and alive and breathing. For the moment, she needed nothing more.
Fearghal called for their attention. There among the joyous and the grieving and the dead, laid in the broken chariots, he spoke to them from his heart.
“There has been a great victory. We and Clan Brioc are now united against all comers. Dacha is dead.”
He held aloft the trophy that had decorated the front of his chariot. Silence fell once again.
“We shall rebuild. Endure our grief. Hold these lands we love so well. Many have died for the sake of them. We shall no’ forget their sacrifice. To honor them, we will live on. We shall thrive just as they would wish us to.”
Were those tears in the chief’s eyes? Aye, for he blinked rapidly.
Fearghal went on, “Many have displayed great valor this past day and night. But there is one man—Ardahl MacCormac, step here to me.”
Ardahl did not move. He stood so close to Liadan, she might have reached out and snagged his hand, but it took his chief repeating the command for him to step forward.
“This man,” Fearghal declared when Ardahl stood beside him. “Amid a wealth of valiant deeds during this battle, he emerged as bravest. Strongest. First among our warriors. He it was who took Dacha’s head, and delivered us from that dark threat.”
A chill ran over Liadan’s skin. She watched something momentous. Something that would be told down through the ages. And if Ardahl could never be hers in truth—well, mayhap it was for this he had been destined.
Yet he did not look like a man comfortable with glory. He bowed his head to his chief and to all who cheered for him.
His gaze returned to Liadan—only to Liadan—before he said, “I have done naught but any man here might do. We defend this land and those we love.”
“This belongs to ye.” With a grand gesture, Fearghal presented Ardahl with Dacha’s head. Ardahl took it by the hair but did not so much as glance at it, his eyes all for Liadan still.