Chapter 12 #2
“No. You are clever, Niall, I know you are. You can read people, read the situations and outsmart anyone in the field of battle. You don’t need to be stronger than your opponent; you just need to be cleverer than that.
Otherwise –” That same shadow passed over her face, and for the briefest moment, the midday sun seemed bedimmed in the sky, a hint of fog rising over the tops of the trees.
“Otherwise, it will get you killed one day, little brother.”
“You’re being strange,” he said, eying her warily. “Like before, in the cottage.”
Her face clouded over at that, the mention of that terrible, fog-laden day of fear and suffering. “Well, that’s why I don’t ever want to use it, this magic.” A brief pause. “It…frightens me too much.”
“But it makes you so strong!”
“It makes me a nightmare,” she said flatly. “And I don’t want to be that, ever again.”
“You’re not a nightmare,” he said, brow furrowed. “You’re just Rory, with a bit of magic. That’s all.”
For a moment, a smile, affectionate and warm, tugged at the corners of her lips, then faded away as she shook her head. “You saw me that day – saw me use it, and how awful it was. It can only bring evil, Niall, nothing good.”
“It could if you wanted it to,” he said. “If you chose to make something good come from it.”
Their gazes met, and he saw it still there, that strange knowing of hers still lingering in her eyes, smoky and eerie.
“Sometimes,” she said, “I think you are the only thing that keeps me from doing the things that are – not good.” She hesitated, then shrugged once before turning away, bending down to collect her sword.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Let’s go sneak into the kitchen and steal the biscuits Saraid baked this morning. ”
“She’ll catch you and box your ears! Last time, she said –”
“I know what she said.” Rory glanced back over her shoulder, that cunning smile of hers curving over her face, the one that had always made him think, inexplicably, of a serpent, rising from the foam of the sea. “So let’s practice being clever, little brother.”
He didn’t feel very clever now, surrounded by the troops of the vale, their faces hostile and wary and – unless he was much mistaken – more than a little bit frightened.
Niall raised his hands in the air. “We mean no harm,” he said. “I, Niall ó Flannagáin, king of Connacht, come to request conference with your queen, Líadain ó Conchúir.”
A low murmur arose among the men, and Niall’s heart sank in his chest, a strange foreboding, as one of the men stepped forward. “The queen is dead,” he said. “She died five nights ago, of a sudden and violent fever.”
Five nights ago. Niall’s throat went dry.
Five nights ago, he had stood in his council room and proposed to his sister and his friends and advisors – and the witch, too, he realized – and revealed to them the secret Rory had entrusted to him so many years ago, that she suspected that her mother, too, possessed the truth-magic of the Mórrígan.
He spoke, and she died.
It was all but impossible to ignore the churning in his stomach, the vicious whisper in his ear that it was his fault, that it was because of yet another one of his betrayals that the dark-eyed, soft-spoken Líadain, who had never given him anything other than gentle looks and kind words – he, the son of the man who treated her so cruelly – he was the reason that she was dead.
“There is other news,” the man continued, and Niall sat straighter in his saddle, a trickle of dread slithering down his spine.
“It does not bode well. We have received word that the deposed king of Leinster, Dáithí MacMurchada, has allied himself with the Albion general, and have declared war on Connacht and any other provincial king who does not lay down their arms and swear fealty to the Albion rule.”
“I know that too,” said Niall tersely. “It is why I am here, why I needed –” He inhaled through his teeth, trying to steady his rolling nerves, the fear threatening to consume him. “Why I needed your queen.”
The man nodded, that same fear swirling in his eyes. “We have also learned that most of the southern clans have ceded. They have sworn fealty to Albion, and to its general.”
Niall forced himself to remain expressionless and calm. “They are afraid, besieged by enemies,” he said. “The northern clans will not be so hasty, nor will the rest of the western realm. I will send word to them immediately, to seek their alliance. What else?”
“Another force,” the man said, low and stiff. “Another force has sailed from Albion, under the banner of the earl of Penfro, Arnaud Montrose, that is bound for Connacht.” He swallowed. “Their numbers are vast.”
Next to him, Aoife stirred in her saddle, humming tunelessly in that eerie, lyrical way of hers. “Little prince,” she said. “I believe it is time to start your journey eastward.”
Eilis’ horse surged forward, her face drawn, eyes wide. “Niall,” she said, low and soft, only meant for him. “Take a moment to reconsider. You cannot hope to defeat them in the field, not by virtue of sheer numbers alone. They will annihilate our forces – annihilate us.”
“The Lia Fáil will loose its voice and name him the one true king of éire,” said Aoife, smiling serenely. “There will be no need for swords and spears once it does.”
“Niall, this is madness.” Eilis laid her trembling hand on his arm, eyes shimmering with tears.
“Madness. Even if that damned rock does roar – even if, against all odds, magic returns to the land and somehow names you king – there will still be a battle. There will still be an army that must needs be vanquished, and you cannot do it with the paltry forces that we have.”
“The voice of the gods will drown out their fear and trepidation,” said Aoife, her sea-swept eyes distant and vague as she tipped her head back to watch the clouds drift high overhead.
“On the feast of Imbolc, when the white-wooled ewes grow heavy with their lambs, when the land feasts in the honor of the goddess whom the bárds adored, when the gentle rains fall the skies to cleanse the earth of its blood and its tears and bring forth new life from the ashes of the old, then the Lia Fáil shall roar again – for you, little prince, and all of éire shall bend its knee, and all its enemies shall fall into the shadows of the valley of death.” Her hand drifted down to her belly, white fingers splayed out wide over her abdomen.
“This is the birthright you shall hand down to our son, little prince.”
“Niall,” Eilis interrupted, leaning over to grip his arm with both her hands. “Listen to her. She does not even respect you enough to address you as her king now –”
“He is not my king,” said Aoife. “Not yet. But he will be the king of all éire on the feast of Imbolc by the break of dawn.” She turned her head towards him. “I have seen it.”
Niall rubbed his hands over his face, blowing out an exhausted breath.
Not even five-and-twenty, he thought longingly.
He was meant to still be enjoying the golden years of his youth, cavorting with pretty girls in bruidens and traveling about the land, doing such deeds as would be immortalized in song for years to follow, not having a panic attack in the looming shadow of his sister’s mother’s castle, desperately trying to discern the right thing to do, to choose the best course that would not end in the death and destruction of his entire realm.
Gods, he missed his sister.
“What would you have me do?” He asked at last, ignoring Eilis’ cry of protest, Aden and Deaglan’s grumbles of unease. “What else did you see, Aoife?”
She smiled. “The second wave of Albion troops do not sail for Connacht,” she said.
“The report you have received is incorrect. They will land at Baile átha Cliath and make their way inland from there, through Leinster, the lands of their ally, the traitor king MacMurchada. You, little prince –” She rested her hand on his knee, spindly-fingered and pale, and Niall thought, a bit wildly, of a spider lying in wait for an unsuspecting fly to go bumbling by.
“You must lead your forces to Cnoc na Teamhrach, to the Lia Fáil. Send word to all the clan leaders, the kings of the north and the east and the west, and summon them there, to witness it speak for the first time in a thousand years.”
“I don’t –”
“You will unite the realm,” she said, her sea-swept eyes glowing with an enigmatic light. “Because of you, little prince, and what you will set in motion, the land of éire will at last know true and lasting peace.”
A brittle silence followed this pronouncement, her words hovering in the air as everyone stared at Niall – in consternation, in dread, in tight-lipped resentment.
He closed his eyes to them all, shutting out the wordless screams of protest from Eilis and the quiet censure from his friends and the terrified panic of the soldiers of the vale.
A wave of despair swept over him.
It should be Rory here in this saddle – Rory, to whom all of these faces were turned, pale with fear and trembling with hope.
Because unlike him, Rory would be able to save them.
He inhaled, slow and deep, then opened his eyes.
“Gather what troops you can spare,” he said to the soldier of the vale.
“I am the king of Connacht, and in the lack of its queen, the vale of Inagh falls under my governance. We ride for Tara first thing in the morning.” He swung around in the saddle to address Aden and Deaglan, keeping his expression stern and unyielding, ignoring their pained and grieving looks.
“Send word to Soghain. Have Murray ready our forces and convene at Béal átha na Sluaighe.”
“Niall –”
“We will discuss this later.” Niall cut off Eilis’ protests, slashing his hand through the air in a furious motion. “The gods damn it, I am the king, Eilis. That is enough!”
He dismounted, fumbling a little as he lurched to the ground – not at all gracefully or commandingly, as a king should, he thought to himself, jerking off his gloves as he stalked to the castle ahead.
He really was a shite king.
He moved through the still-familiar halls of his other sister’s castle in a fog, blind to the wide-eyed stares of the pale-faced servants, the suspicion and the hostility blanketing the faces of the soldiers who lingered within.
He didn’t stop until he was safe within the familiar walls of the solar, that soothing scent of leather-bound books and turf-fire and home flooding through him.
The vale had been his home for but a few, ever-too-short weeks during the idyllic summers of his boyhood, but he had loved it so, had grieved the loss of it almost as dearly as he had grieved with the missing of Rory herself.
Niall braced his hands against the edge of the table, the faded ink on the well-worn maps strewn in front of him barely visible in the encroaching shadows of the twilight hours that crept in through the window, threatening to consume him in darkness.
Where in the world, he thought, fighting against the despair slithering through his belly, was Rory?
Because he wanted her — needed her — to come home.