25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter twenty-five
The council chamber smelled of damp wool, smoke, and the faint sourness of wet leather drying too near the fire. Men had come in from the weather with dark hems and harder faces, and not one of them looked as though he had slept.
Neither had Aingeal. She sat at the head of the table in the carved chair that had belonged to her father before it belonged to her. The wood felt colder than it should through the layers of her gown. Her hands were steady because she had commanded them to be.
The rest of her felt scraped hollow.
Tomas sat to her right with a small stack of notes laid before him.
Beside him, Brennach was broad, grim, and silent in the way of men who intended to speak only when their words would land hardest. Seamus stood instead of sitting, one shoulder braced against the wall near the hearth, arms folded as though he mistrusted the whole business too much to rest for it.
Father Cillian sat near the end of the table with his hands clasped.
étaín was not there.
Aingeal had not asked her to come, and étaín had not insulted her by offering.
This was council.
Reginald stood opposite her at the far end of the chamber between two guards, not bound but not free.
He wore no sword. He looked wrong without steel.
More exposed. Rain-dark hair lay loose at his brow.
His face was pale beneath the weathered tan of his skin, tired and shut tight against whatever lived behind it.
His eyes found hers once when she entered. Then he looked away.
Aingeal was grateful for that.
Tomas broke the silence first, because he always did when silence had grown heavy enough. “You all know why we are here.”
The lie had broken in the yard before half the castle. By evening, the rest had heard it. Donal O’Raida, the southern lord whose marriage was meant to strengthen their position, did not exist within their walls.
Reginald FitzUrse. The name seemed to live in the room even when no one spoke it.
Brennach leaned forward, forearms planted on the table. “Then let us stop circling and name it plainly. The alliance is dead.”
The words landed hard, though Aingeal had been carrying them since the rider from the south opened his mouth.
The future the council had built with such sober certainty was dead. And something softer, more private, had died with it.
Seamus uncrossed his arms. “Dead and rotted, by the look of it.”
Father Cillian’s mouth tightened at that, but he did not rebuke him.
Brennach went on. “The O’Raida lands will send us no husband, no men, no cattle, no southern weight to brace our border. We stand weaker than we did a week ago, and more exposed than we were yesterday.” His gaze shifted to Aingeal. “That is the truth of it.”
Aingeal held his gaze without flinching. “Yes.”
Tomas lifted a small sheet of parchment and spread it flat before him.
“Ciarán mac Ruaidhrí has been questioned separately. His account holds. Donal O’Raida was expected in Ardglas two days before he should have reached us.
He was not seen there. A body believed to be his was found south of the high road.
The clasp and horse tack matched. The ring was missing.
” His gaze moved, briefly, to Reginald’s hand.
The ring was gone now. Locked away as evidence of a dead man’s life.
“There is no alliance left to recover,” Tomas finished.
The words made something clench so sharply in Aingeal’s chest that she nearly lost breath.
Brennach said, “Then the question is no longer whether he is false. The question is what we do with him.”
Seamus answered before anyone else could. “We throw him out.”
Father Cillian looked up. “To what end?”
“To every end,” Seamus snapped. “He came in under a dead man’s name. He entered Lady Aingeal’s hall. He deceived her council. If that is not enough to cast a man out, perhaps we should pull down the gate and let every roadside thief choose his own title before walking in.”
“He also helped hold the western border,” Tomas said quietly.
“That was under a lie.”
“It still held.”
Seamus looked ready to spit.
Brennach cut in before the argument widened. “Expulsion is one answer. Arrest is another.”
At that, Reginald moved at last. Only a little, but enough for Aingeal to feel it more than see it.
“Arrest for what?” Father Cillian asked. “Deception, yes. Fraud of person, if one wishes to dress it in legal cloth. But if we imprison every man who lies to survive a war-torn road, we will need stronger walls.”
Seamus rounded on him. “He is not some hedgerow thief. He is FitzUrse.”
Aingeal looked at Reginald then. One of Becket’s killers. A man already stained before he ever crossed her threshold.
He stood as before, hands empty, expression grave, as though he would accept whatever judgment came because there was no point left in resisting it.
That stillness made anger stir beneath her grief. Some wounded part of her wanted him to fight. To show some ragged edge of feeling beyond this tired, obedient composure.
Instead, he stood there and let the room speak over him as if he were no longer a man at all, but only a problem to be solved.
Brennach said, “If it were only the name, I would put him on a horse and be rid of him by dark. But it is not only the name. He stole the ring. The heraldry. He took a place in this house no man had given him honestly.” Then he looked to Aingeal, and his voice changed. “Your authority has taken the blow.”
Tomas lowered his gaze. Father Cillian folded his hands more tightly. Even Seamus’s anger quieted a fraction before the harder truth of that.
Aingeal felt the shame of it like heat under her skin.
Brennach went on. “The castle watched a false man stand at your side. The household watched you nearly wed to a lie. Every rival with ears will hear of it. Some will say you were deceived because you are young. Some because you are a woman. Some because they have long wanted a reason. The reasons matter less than the result.”
Aingeal held her face still by force. “And the result?”
Brennach did not look away. “Your rule feels more precarious today than it did yesterday.”
Rain thundered on the stones outside. Somewhere in the hallway, a draft whispered. The candle near Tomas’s elbow bent and righted itself.
Aingeal sat at her father’s table and felt, perhaps for the first time since taking his place, the full cold cost of public error.
She had not merely been hurt as a woman.
She had been weakened as a ruler. Those truths lay atop one another so closely now she could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
And because she still loved Reginald, she could not strike at him openly without exposing how deeply.
She folded her hands once upon the table to hide their tremor. “What do you advise?” she asked.
Seamus spoke first, as expected. “Expel him. Get rid of him.”
Father Cillian said, “And if the border is tested again before dawn?”
Seamus’s jaw hardened.
Tomas answered for him. “That is the trouble. FitzUrse is dangerous to keep. He may also be dangerous to lose.”
Aingeal almost laughed at that. If ever there had been a summary of the man, that was it.
Brennach said, “He cannot remain as he was. That much is done.”
“No,” Aingeal said quietly. “He cannot.”
At last, Reginald spoke. “Let me go.”
The room turned toward him as one.
He continued, “The alliance is broken. The harm is done. Keeping me here invites further division, and if those who watch your border learn who I am before I am gone, it gives them one more reason to act.” He looked at no one but Aingeal.
“I will ride before dusk if you wish it. Or submit to guard until first light if that eases the council’s mind. ”
Aingeal looked back at him. To hear him offer departure so calmly should have relieved her. It was what he had promised once. What he had offered her privately as final mercy. Instead, it hollowed her.
Because some traitorous part of her heard only this:
He will go.
She killed that part where it stood and made herself answer as ruler. “Do not mistake surrender for absolution.”
He gave a brief nod. “Never.”
She turned instead to the council. “You have all spoken to danger,” she said.
“Then hear me speak to need. The castle is weaker today than it was yesterday. That much is true. The alliance is gone. The deception has cost us. That is also true.” Her voice sharpened.
“What is not yet decided is whether casting him out before our borders settle is wisdom…or wounded pride dressed as justice.”
Seamus’s expression darkened, but he held his tongue.
Aingeal went on, each word chosen with care sharp enough to cut her from within.
“He will not remain here as groom. He will not remain here as ally. That is done. But before I expel a man who knows our border lines, our watches, our weaknesses, and whose skill has already helped hold them, I will know whether I do so for the good of this castle or for the satisfaction of seeing him gone.”
Brennach looked at her for a long time. Then he nodded once.
Tomas lowered his gaze, perhaps in agreement, perhaps in relief.
Seamus looked like a man chewing iron.
Father Cillian said quietly, “Then what do you decree?”
Aingeal kept her eyes on Reginald. Not beloved.
Not the man she had wanted. Only the danger before her now, and the judgment she had no choice but to make.
“He remains under watch,” she said. “No horse. No weapon. No free movement through the castle. He speaks to no servant, no guard, no messenger, and no member of this household unless I permit it.”
Reginald’s expression did not change.
“If the border stays quiet through tomorrow,” she continued, “we expel him at first light the following day.”
“And if it does not stay quiet?” Tomas asked.
Aingeal drew one slow breath. “Then we decide what this castle needs,” she said, “not what our wounds demand.”
Silence followed.
No one challenged her. For the first time since Ciarán had spoken in the yard, Aingeal felt the room settle around her, not comfortably, not kindly, but with recognition.
She had not undone the damage. She had not made herself whole. But she had ruled.
Reginald bowed his head once. “As you command.”
Aingeal looked to the guards. “Take him to the west chamber. Two men outside the door. Seamus will choose them.”
Seamus nodded once, grimly satisfied.
Reginald turned without protest.
As the guards moved to flank him, Aingeal forced herself not to watch too closely. Forced herself not to remember another time he had moved through her halls with a sword at his side and a place waiting for him beside her.
He passed into the corridor, and the door closed behind him.
Aingeal remained seated until the sound of his footsteps had faded. Only then did she look back at her council. “Now,” she said, her voice steadier than anything inside her, “show me the northern watch reports.”