Chapter 45
XLV
TARA LOOKS UP EXPECTANTLY AS I EMERGE FROM THE mists. Frowns when she sees my expression.
“There was someone.” I answer her unasked question. “White cloak. He rode off on a horse before I could get close enough to see much.”
She can see there’s more to it, but she’s nothing if not practical. Miach is binding Fearghus’s wound. Fearghus is forcing soft laughter through clenched teeth. It’s a bad injury, if not life-threatening, but he’s not the type to show it. None of this group are.
Tara considers, then nods sharply. “If he is with Ruarc, he will not have had the chance to speak with those we fought,” she decides swiftly, taking in the state of our band.
Even excluding Fearghus, we are battered from our attack.
“But he may come back with others to look for them. We cannot stay here, nor can we make it to Loch Traenala before dawn. We must camp nearby. Rest and return to the crannog tomorrow.” She turns to Miach. “How bad are your injuries?”
He shrugs. “I can make it back tonight,” he says, seeing where she’s going.
“Let Pádraig know what has happened, and that we are alright.”
Miach gives us a parting nod of encouragement, and lopes into the mists.
The rest of us travel slowly and silently for an hour, half supporting and half carrying a grumbling Fearghus, making sure to cover any traces of our passage where possible. We keep to stony ground. Wade through streams. Avoid soft ground at all costs.
“This will do.” Tara makes the decision. We’re in a small hollow; between the dip in the ground and the mists, any fire we make should be thoroughly concealed to all but the closest enemy.
Conor makes to protest, but sees the greyish tinge to Fearghus’s face and says nothing. Soon enough a small fire crackles, its warmth a welcome respite. We arrange ourselves around it. It’s not long before Fearghus is asleep.
There’s soft, idle conversation for a while, and then Tara stirs. “What did you really see out there, Leathf hear?”
I’ve been expecting the question, known it was coming since I first got back.
Much of the past hour has been spent deciding how to respond.
I don’t want to talk about it. But they know something spooked me, and a lie feels unnecessary.
“My father. Or, a man who reminded me very strongly of him.” I release the second part to the air, an admission as much to myself as to them.
“I was a long way away. I couldn’t see his face properly.
It was a man in a druid’s cloak. Just a man who triggered a memory.
” A trick of the dim and the fog. The more I think about it, the more it is the only explanation.
“He’s the one I could sense, though. Him being nearby is what warned me, at Loch Traenala. ”
“The … feeling. It is gone now?” Seanna examines me curiously. Intrigued, I think, more than doubtful.
“Yes. It disappeared when he rode off.”
Tara considers. “Not likely with Ruarc, then.”
“At least not with the scouting party,” I agree. It wouldn’t make sense for the druid to travel so close but not with them, otherwise. “He must have been watching them.”
There’s a pause as Tara, Conor, and Seanna take it in. They all look at me. Curiosity in their eyes more than disbelief.
“You are certain it was not your father.” It’s Seanna. A statement with another question behind it.
I hesitate, considering whether or not to answer.
“He was executed five years ago.”
Silence again. A long one. Then Tara leans forward. “Justly?” It’s not her usual brusque tone. I think she already knows the answer.
“No.” The word catches in my throat. “No. His name was Cristoval, King of Suus. He was murdered by his enemies. While I fled.” I watch the fire.
The way its small flames lick yellow and orange along the wood.
It’s all I can see. I open my mouth, then shut it again.
Brow furrowing. Throat closing, a pressure behind my eyes.
“You were not a warrior five years ago,” says Conor suddenly. I finally look over at him, see the meaningfulness of the statement to him. Sense the others nodding.
“You would not have had the nasceann five years ago, either,” adds Seanna.
The lingering burst of sorrow obfuscates her meaning for a few seconds. “I don’t know how to use the nasceann,” I say slowly. Wondering if I’ve misunderstood.
“You do. I saw it too,” says Conor quietly.
I stare around at them. Not sure what to say. I haven’t been through the Aurora Columnae. Don’t have anyone ceding to me. “Are you certain?”
Conor touches his eyes. Nods a calm, unyielding confirmation to me.
Tara is frowning, looking as disbelieving as I’m sure I do, though she doesn’t doubt her fellow warriors’ word. “You have been to Fornax?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what that is.”
The furrows in her brow deepen and her gaze again goes to my weapon. “This strange sense that warned you, earlier. Do you ever get it from anything else?”
“My spear, sometimes. And yours,” I admit.
“Then you are nasceann. Though I have never heard of anyone sensing another’s power from so far away.” She sounds nonplussed. “The tale of your accusing Gallchobhar, before his banishment. It is true, then?”
“It is.” I frown at her. “You thought it wasn’t?”
“I thought Lir must have convinced you to lie.” Unsurprising reluctance in the admission, and I can see the others shifting uncomfortably at the suggestion that a druid might deceive anyone. “Many would do far worse for the chance to be here.”
“Why would Lir do that?”
“Because he was at odds with Gallchobhar being placed at my father’s right hand. I heard him arguing against his becoming Champion, while I was recovering. But Donnán insisted that Gallchobhar had earned it by saving me.”
I look at her. “You were injured in the same attack?”
“I was the reason for the attack.” She traces the ugly scar on her cheek.
“Near three years ago. They snuck in. Killed Artán before the alarm was raised, came into my room, and cut my birthright away. And then Gallchobhar killed them all.” The others are listening just as intently as I am, I realise.
They’ve been with Tara for years and not heard this story.
But perhaps tonight—our first battle, our first kills, blood still drying on our clothes and skin—is bringing it out of her.
“They had no markings, no torcs. My father was sure it was Fiachra but there was no proof, and so the draoi did not see it as cause for war.”
I grimace at that. My understanding of the druids’ power here is still imperfect, but I know that no one wants to go to war without their blessing. “A lot of people were angry, when I picked this spear to fight Gallchobhar,” I observe quietly.
“A nasceann’s weapon is not buried with them.” Seanna supplies the information. “So it can one day be claimed by a worthy successor.”
“Oh.” I squeeze my eyes shut against a sudden headache. “A worthy successor. To your father’s Champion.” I waggle my stump of an arm in irritation. “No gods-damned wonder everyone was so angry.”
Faint amusement, from Tara. “I imagine they were. Gallchobhar must never have claimed it for himself. Or perhaps he tried in secret, and it rejected him. Either way, once he was Champion, none in Caer áras would have dared dishonour him by touching it.”
“Reject him?” I examine the weapon in my hand. “How could it do that?”
Tara hesitates. I can see she wants to answer, or at least knows something. But she shakes her head. “A question only the draoi can answer.”
“There are none of those around.” I still don’t really want to know, want no part in even touching Will. But if I’m somehow using it despite not being ceded to—if that strange battle sense, these pulses I’ve been feeling, are some unknown application of it—then I need to understand what’s going on.
“One will come for Samhain, in a couple of months. To tell us news of the outside world, and to let us know if we are Called.”
“Called.” The name for when warriors are needed by their king. My curiosity about the nasceann briefly dies. “Do you think that likely?”
“You know the answer as well as I. úrthuile is an old man. It is only a matter of time.” She rubs at some of the blood on her arm.
Looks around at us, comes to a decision.
“And when it is time, I will welcome it. When I was given my scar, my father did not intend to renounce my claim, but it happened not long after Ruarc and Fiachra had first made their deal, and he had voiced his disapproval of it only months earlier. He had the choice of admitting that the Old Ways no longer had to be heeded—further weakening the draoi who stood in opposition to Ruarc—or sending me away.” She grimaces.
“In the end, I did not give him a choice. I have always been quick with a weapon. I had already visited Fornax and been taught the nasceann. I volunteered to come here, because there was never a path that did not lead to war, after that.”
There’s a hush as she finishes, and I close my eyes as I understand the implications.
The others have already explained to me that according to the Old Ways, only the unblemished—the physically perfect—may rule, here.
Perhaps these people’s deep sense of honour is meant to preclude such situations, but Tara’s account is exactly why I thought, and still think, it is one of their most unsound customs.
“The men who attacked. They never intended to kill you.”
“No.”
“They meant only to maim?” Conor’s voice has raised an octave in outrage; he quickly glances around and lowers his voice again, but the usually ebullient young man is livid. “Fiachra sent men in secret to do that to you, to embarrass your father?”