Chapter XXXVIII
XXXVIII
“YOU ARE STILL SULKING.”
I look up as Conor slides to the wood of the causeway beside me, dangling his feet so that they almost touch the water.
He’s trailed by Seanna, Miach, and the burly form of blunt-faced Fearghus, who are chatting cheerfully about something, fast enough that I’m having difficulty following the conversation.
None of them hesitate as they join me, despite the embarrassment of training this morning.
“Not at all.” Conor grins at my denial, dimples showing, and I can’t help but reflect some of the annoyingly irrepressible expression back at him. “Perhaps a little.”
It’s dusk. The waters are silent and mirror smooth as the lake stretches away for hundreds of feet, reflecting both bruising sky and the thickly forested slope to the west. Everywhere else surrounding is rolling hills that are green and tipped gold in the last of the light.
From our small, artificially created island out here, we can see every part of the shore; while the large hut farther along houses a long table as well as mats of straw and fur for our nights, most of us prefer to eat out here.
Sitting out above the water like this feels right, somehow.
It’s windless this evening, still and quiet.
This place has an ethereal beauty to it that’s hard to put into words.
A natural calm that I can’t quite decide comes from the place itself, or just my own mind.
There are no towering structures or bustling cities or conquered peoples.
No outward signs of Will, no matter what I saw this morning.
Suus was like that, as well, but there was always the crashing waves, always energy and light and warmth and motion.
My heart remains there, of course, but this … this is appealing, too, in its own way.
I pull my cloak tighter around my shoulders. Still gods-damned cold for summer, though.
“At least you were not the one used to set an example,” grumbles Miach as he slides onto the wooden slat on the other side of me. His face is swollen and bruised from Tara’s strikes. Despite the words, he seems to hold no particular grudge over it.
“You know what you are doing,” chimes in Fearghus, rubbing at his squashed nose. “But your technique needs a lot of work.”
“You have to be faster. Put your opponent on the defensive,” observes Seanna.
“And adjust your footwork to account for your arm,” adds Conor, offering me a bowl of some kind of fish stew. “Tara may be a deamhan, but Pádraig’s right—you were protecting your left too much.”
I look around at them all. They’re just being honest. No sense that I might be offended and because of that, it’s hard to be. Especially because I know they’re right.
“Thanks.” I scoop some of the stew into my mouth, pleasantly surprised at the taste. “Did you think she would beat three of you at once?”
Seanna grunts, while Fearghus rolls his eyes. Miach flips the silver coin he seems to constantly keep on his person, catching it with an absent, practiced motion and barely looking at the result.
“Tara always wins,” says Conor ruefully.
I nod, keeping my expression and voice carefully casual. “Her eyes,” I note between taking mouthfuls from my bowl. “They looked strange.”
“The nasceann.” Seanna nods.
“Nasceann?” I don’t know the word.
There’s silence as they glance at each other and then screw up their faces, trying to come up with a proper translation for me.
“It is one who has a battle-fever,” says Miach eventually, his coin glimmering as he flips it again. Expression indicating dissatisfaction at the description even as he says it.
“But not one of anger,” adds Fearghus.
“The opposite,” agrees Conor, “at least according to Pádraig. He says it is a calmness. A clarity. Communion with the fight.”
“Draoi Affraic says it is a strength given by the gods to only the greatest warriors,” says Seanna.
I focus on her. “There are druids here?” I haven’t seen any of the white-cloaked men since I arrived.
Not since Caer áras, actually. My impression is that they’re the educated class among these people, and part of me still wants to see whether someone else has heard of Caten or the Hierarchy.
To understand exactly where I am. But the more cautious side of me knows that it is their apparent leader Ruarc who wants me dead, too.
“Not here. But they visit. Teach us lessons, from time to time.” From Seanna’s tone, those lessons tend to be boring.
I try to make it look as though the information is only vaguely interesting. “When will they next come?”
“Dia Saol alone knows. The draoi do not keep to normal people’s schedules,” says Conor cheerfully.
“Ah. And what are the lessons they teach?”
“They train the mind,” says Fearghus.
“Where they can,” adds Seanna lightly, with a conspicuous look at Fearghus.
“Do they teach nasceann?”
There’s another silence at that. Not quite uncomfortable, but an unspoken communication between the group as they decide what to say.
“To some. Like Tara. When they are ready,” says Conor eventually.
“We think,” adds Fearghus.
“They don’t exactly discuss it with us,” adds Seanna.
“But you do not need the nasceann to be a warrior.” Conor’s mistaken my pensiveness for brooding as he slaps me on the back.
“The rest of us have been here for many years, and each have had broken arms many times. We have all been through practice one-handed, which is why we know the techniques so well.”
“Some better than others.” Fearghus chuckles. “I swear Conor has had more experience fighting one-handed than two. Remember that year when the frost killed all the berries, and he kept ruining the hunt because he couldn’t throw straight?”
Seanna and Miach nod solemnly as Conor leans over to slap Fearghus on the side of the head, but the bigger boy leans away, grinning.
“What about you, Leathf hear? It is clear you have already had some training,” says Conor eventually, giving up his half-hearted attack with a disgusted wave.
“Some. Not as much as all of you. And having two arms helped,” I say, drawing smiles at the light jest at my own expense.
“What was your homeland like?” asks Seanna.
I hesitate. “It is a place best forgotten.”
I say it simply, conveying the truth of the statement to them. All four watch me, and then nod. Accepting my reluctance to talk about it, my desire to leave that past behind.
I cannot describe how grateful I am to them for that simple understanding.
Water laps and timber creaks beneath us as the conversation moves on; we chat and eat and laugh, companionable in the last of the day’s meagre warmth.
I’m surprised again by the ease at which this group has accepted my presence, welcomed me into their conversations and jokes with such natural, guileless effortlessness.
Getting to know Conor on the way here undoubtedly helped; he was returning to Loch Traenala from a family visit and though idle moments were few during the journey, we struck up enough of a rapport for him to enthusiastically introduce me to the others when we arrived.
Even if I did still receive plenty of openly dubious looks at my arm, my days at the Academy had me braced for an entirely different reception.
That’s not to say that there aren’t instances of isolation or conflict, here and there.
Fearghus is brash and full of himself, Seanna is snippy and easily offended, Tara is standoffish, and Miach is quiet.
They are an extraordinarily tight-knit group, closer to a family than friends, and I am still a newcomer.
They have inside jokes and a way of talking among themselves that is sometimes closer to code than conversation.
And yet there is camaraderie more than competition; victories are applauded, the vanquished exhorted to improve rather than mocked or disdained.
When there is discord it is always of a simple kind, resolved by shouts or occasionally fists, but then followed by laughter and mead at the end of the day.
It’s not that everyone likes one another. But they do care for one another.
I like it. I like it a lot more than I expected to.
Which is a shame.
The trip here, and my burgeoning understanding of the language, allowed Neasa to explain Loch Traenala properly.
My initial understanding of it being a school wasn’t far off, even if the education here is almost entirely focused on warfare.
Its purpose, though, is for the students to become warbands.
Elite warriors that mesh perfectly with one another on the battlefield.
And I have no desire to fight in a war I don’t understand, or for a king I do not know.
I have seen what a life without fear can be like, now.
The meal is almost over and the light almost gone, the purples and reds above the silhouetted hills echoed in the water, when there are footsteps along the causeway and I look up to see Tara lighting the torches along the way.
She usually eats with us as well, though rarely says a word.
The conversation’s felt easier, much more free, for her absence tonight.
Still, I direct a smile at her. Undeniably curious to find out more about this nasceann, which seems to be what they call Will, here. “You were very impressive today, Tara.”
She continues her task, not glancing in my direction. “You are meant to be patrolling with Rian, Leathfhear. He has been waiting for at least fifteen minutes.”
“Ah.” I scramble to my feet. I hadn’t forgotten.
There’s no question of my asking to leave Loch Traenala; aside from ostensibly slapping away the honour done to me by King Rónán, the school’s current position is a closely guarded secret, and I would be forced to stay anyway.
But I am done with fighting. If the only way to find my way back to Gráinne, Onchú, and the children is to disappoint—to be seen as lazy and unreliable, as well as crippled—then I will do it.
I have done worse. I have suffered far greater indignities.