It was not death—at least it was not death, and he saw Mam’s relief in her eyes. Not much better than a sentence of death, though, for did they not decree that he should lose himself? All that he was?
To take Conall’s place.
He spoke again, in a croak. “For how long? How long must I serve this sentence?”
“It is a life sentence,” Aodh said. “So do the gods decree.”
Ardahl turned his gaze upon Conall’s family, not sure what reaction he expected. Certainly not the horror he saw. Dismay so wide and deep it surpassed comprehension.
They did not want him. To be sure, they did not. They wanted their own lad, who brought laughter and sunlight into their lives.
Chief Fearghal spoke in a rumble. “When, Master Aodh, does this sentence commence?”
“Directly after young Conall’s funeral.”
“That will take place this afternoon. We shall all go up on the rise where our honored dead are laid.” He fixed a burning gaze upon Ardahl. “When we come back down, ye will become Conall MacAert, for the duration o’ your life.”
Nay. But Ardahl could not speak that word. Not to his chief, to whom he owed fealty. Not in the face of the priests who studied and kept the law. Yet—
How did a man surrender all he was, and all he might be? A dire punishment indeed.
Mayhap death would have been easier.
He did not expect what happened next. His mother, a quiet, retiring sort of woman, should not step out there before themall, putting herself forward. And yet she walked quietly to face Conall’s mother, to look her in the eye.
“Beath MacAert,” Mam called. “Will ye no’ put a stop to this madness? Ye alone can refuse the priests’ decree.”
Was that true? Could anyone halt what Aodh declared came from the gods?
With raw heartache in her eyes, Mistress MacAert said, “I cannot.”
Mam raised her voice, a thing she did but seldom. She raised it so it echoed round the chamber. “If ye accept this, I will lose my son.”
“As I ha’ lost mine, Maeve MacCormac.”
Conall’s little sister sobbed. Her elder sister caught her in clinging arms. Ardahl’s gaze slipped over them and fastened upon his mother, who seemed to droop where she stood.
Defeated. Abandoned.
All because of him.
And a deed he had never intended to occur.
Chapter Six
The wind blewhard up on the height, making the whole world glitter with shards of brightness. A glorious sort of day, far too lovely for laying one’s adored older brother to rest.
As Liadan stood there buffeted by that breeze, she told herself not to think of that. To close her mind upon the fact that her brother would go into the stony ground and be covered over. An abomination. Rocks would be piled atop him, and though the view from here was far-reaching and very bonny, he would not be able to see. The hills in the distance. A pair of lochs, all a-gleam. Far to the east, the sea.
All in motion. The very air in motion.
Liadan, standing with one arm around Flanna and the other around her mother, told herself Conall was no longer an inhabitant of the flesh that went into the earth. Not if she believed what the priests and the shanachies said. For he had winged away to the land for the ever young. With Da.
Her gaze moved to her father’s grave, not an actual stone’s throw away, alongside her grand-da and countless others of the valiant.
Did she believe the priests? The same who had lumbered them with an intruder in their midst.
He who had slain her brother.
