8. Chapter Eight
Chapter eight
Reginald stood before the council with a dead man’s ring warm against his skin.
The chamber smelled of the sour warmth of too many bodies pressed too close. Above him, the green-and-gold banners of Ní Néill hung from the rafters like watchful eyes. Voices had lowered when he entered. That hush felt like judgment.
He had expected small humiliations from Aingeal. Traps set with courtesy. Private cruelties meant to force him from her path.
He had not expected this grand spectacle.
He should have left.
Instead, he had told himself one more day. One more day to think. One more day before flight became its own confession.
Across the chamber, Aingeal sat as though the chair had been carved around her. He could not tell whether she wanted him exposed or merely measured. Perhaps both.
Tomas read from the steward’s roll in a clear, even voice.
Brennach sat broad and wary to one side, age-worn like armor.
Padraig drummed thick fingers against the bench.
Seamus watched the room as another man might watch a battlefield.
Father Cillian stood to one side of the long table with his hands folded and his face solemn.
Tomas’s gaze flicked to Reginald’s hand, then to the ring. The smallest acknowledgment passed between record and supposed lord.
For one breath, Reginald let himself breathe.
Brennach rose. “We assemble to witness a joining of houses. We assemble to hear the man who would bind his blood to ours speak before God and men.” His gaze fixed on Reginald. “Speak, then. And speak true.”
Reginald stepped forward. The boards beneath his boots felt solid.
Father Cillian’s voice carried softly. “When houses are joined, truth must be known. If any man stands here with falsehood in his mouth, let it be seen.”
Reginald looked once toward Aingeal.
Her eyes were already on him. She had asked for light. Here it was.
Tomas said, “Do you swear to declare your name and lineage before this house?”
“I am called Donal O’Raida. My line holds land in the south, at Rathmore.
I swear by God and by the memory of my father that this is my name and my blood.
” The lie came too easily. When he spoke of Rathmore, he reached inward for all he had gathered on the road: scraps of local history, place names, enough shape to sound rooted.
The falsehood settled beneath his tongue like a stone he had learned to carry.
For protection. No different from a sword at the hip.
Tomas nodded. “Name your past loyalties and deeds relevant to this house’s safety.”
Too much detail might draw a thread toward England, toward Canterbury.
Too little would look evasive. Reginald chose ground that might bear weight.
“I have held garrison for lords in the marches. I have ridden in actions meant to secure roads against raiders. I have served under men of rank in the south. I will ride with this house as duty requires.”
A murmur passed through the people gathered behind him in the chamber.
Then Brennach leaned forward. “Have you ever borne arms against men of the Church?”
Reginald felt his pulse in his mouth. For one instant the room fell away. Old wax became incense. Pale walls became Canterbury stone. A priest cried out. Steel struck flesh.
Had he borne arms against the Church?
Not in campaign, he told himself. Not by the measure he had built to survive. He had acted under order. Under necessity. Under the law of his king. “No,” he answered.
A silence followed.
Seamus’s hand settled on the pommel of his sword, not threatening, not protective. Simply there. Suspicion had not vanished. It had only moved, searching for a better place to lodge.
Tomas continued. Lands. Prior oaths. Roads. Boundaries. Scraps of campaigns.
Reginald answered each as a man crossing marsh ground, one careful step after another. Every lie tightened the weave. Every answer depended on the last.
Then Brennach asked, “You said you held garrison in the marches. Under whom? Names matter.”
Reginald’s jaw tightened. He could offer a captain’s name from some winter muster, the sort of man no one here would bother confirming.
He could invent one. He could say too much and draw a road straight back to the place he could never allow them to reach.
“I served under Captain O’Malley in a winter muster,” he said.
Common enough to be believed. Vague enough to survive.
Brennach was not satisfied, but he let it pass.
Tomas came to the final question. “Do you stand ready to swear before God, in this house, that the words you have spoken are true, and that you will hold honor and defense for this land as if it were your own?”
Such a simple question.
He thought of the grave beneath the leaning ash.
Of sliding a dead man’s ring onto his finger because the dead no longer needed names.
He thought of Aingeal in the chapel demanding light as if light alone could make a thing honorable.
He thought of the oath he had once made to a king whose anger had become blood before anyone dared name it madness.
He could still leave. He could be gone by dawn.
He looked at Aingeal. Her face gave him nothing. Only the line at the corner of her mouth, tense enough to betray something beneath composure.
Perhaps she wanted him to fail so she would be spared a marriage built on rot. The thought stung.
He had meant to leave. But something had shifted in him since he rode through the gate. Curiosity, perhaps. Or the dangerous beginning of belonging.
He wanted to belong.
He met Tomas’s gaze. “I do.”
Father Cillian lifted one hand as if to bless, then let it hover. “I will witness no falsehood in God’s name,” he said quietly. “If a man speaks truth with clarity, I will lay blessing upon him. But this church will not become a shroud for deceit.”
The warning hung between them. Not condemnation. Not blessing. A blade too fine to see until it cut.
The steward made his mark. The clerk scratched the record. The council, satisfied enough for business, moved on to dowry calculations, border watches, and the dry necessities that mattered most to men who meant to survive winter.
Behind him, the crowd began to disperse.
Reginald stood through it all and felt the lie settle deeper.
When the assembly broke, men came with easy questions. Where had he ridden? What roads did he know? Could he train green men into steadier soldiers?
He answered as best he could. Each answer tightened the lie another turn.
Outside, the air was colder and cleaner.
Aingeal waited at the foot of the steps.
“You swore,” she said.
“I did.” There was no triumph in him. No pride. He had lied. He had stayed. Both truths lived together now.
She inclined her head once. “Very well.” Then she turned away.
Reginald followed before he had decided to move. “Aingeal.”
She stopped in the corridor beyond the council chamber, beneath a faded tapestry whose colors had nearly surrendered to age.
“You wanted a test,” he said.
She faced him. “I wanted a man I could trust.”
“You tried by law. Oath. Priest. Witness. You turned the whole house into a device meant to force me naked into my past or send me away.”
Her mouth tightened. “Do you think I meant to humiliate you?”
“I think you wanted control.”
“That is not the same as malice.”
“It felt damned close.”
Hurt flashed across her face before she hid it. “Do not mistake my caution for spite,” she said.
He stepped nearer. Not enough to crowd her. “You have been trying to make me leave.”
For one moment she only looked at him. Then her shoulders lowered a fraction. “Yes.”
The answer took some of the anger from him because it was honest.
“Leave with dignity,” she advised. “I will announce us incompatible before the people. I will not dress your departure as disgrace. You may ride south and keep your honor. A public release. No scandal.”
Mercy. The word moved through him before he could stop it.
She was offering him the road. If he accepted, he could keep his face and perhaps what remained of his conscience.
If he stayed, he would bind himself tighter to a dead man’s life and a lie spoken beneath God.
“You would make that announcement yourself?”
“I would.” Her voice had gone smaller. “If you leave.”
He let the silence hold them. At last, he said, “You have given me a choice.”
“You always had one.”
A strange calm settled in him. He had expected exposure or exile. He had not expected mercy.
“If you want me gone,” he said, “I will go. I will remove myself rather than make you bride to a falsehood.”
She went very still.
“But I will not vanish like a thief,” he continued. “If I leave, I leave after I have done what I can for this castle. I will help secure your borders. I will root out what threats I can. I will go with duty done.”
Aingeal stared at him. Shock first. Then relief so sharp it almost looked like pain. “You would do that?”
“I owe the castle that much.” He held her gaze. “And you owe your people better than a man who disappears and leaves scandal for you to answer.”
She swallowed.
“But until then,” he said, “no more public tests. No little cruelties. No spectacle.”
She searched his face as if expecting a snare. “And if I accept?”
“You will have my service and my departure. Public. Clean. Your honor untouched.”
“And if I keep you past the day you set?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Then you will have me bound,” he said quietly. “By oath. By duty. And you will answer for keeping me.”
The intimacy of it surprised them both. A pact that sounded practical and felt perilously close to trust.
Aingeal lifted her hand.
Reginald looked at it, then took it.
Her palm was warm. Steady. The clasp felt like treaty and warning both, and something else more dangerous because it was gentler.
“I will leave before the wedding,” he vowed. “I will make this house safer first. Until then, we act as allies.”
Her fingers tightened once against his. “So sworn,” she said.