Despair churned in his gut as he stood there surveying the small, gloomy room. Just a roundhouse it was, with a central hearth fire and a few partitioned areas around the outer walls. Similar as could be to his own home.
Where Mam would now be alone. Och, she had friends who might help her, unless they did not want the stain of disgrace to transfer upon them.
He had failed her. He had failed his mam, even though after Da’s death he’d sworn to protect her in all things. The dearest vow he could give.
His da had been a charioteer, and his father before him. He had died when his chariot overturned on stony ground during a battle. Flung far from the cart. An enemy warrior had taken his head.
Ardahl remembered his mam’s face that day when Da was brought home. Bone white and seared by grief.
Much the way she’d looked parting from him today.
Aye, so, the druids’ decree had been given and here he stood—unwelcome. He could feel the hostility filling the tiny hut.
Conall’s mam still wept. She wept as she breathed, and the younger of Conall’s sisters sat by the fire hiding her face in her hands. Weeping also?
Liadan—when had she grown up into a young woman? Ardahl must have missed it while battling his way through his days. A young woman she surely was now, and a bonny one. But he could feel the antagonism filling her. Hate directed straight at him. She had a wall up, but behind it she stored enough hate to flay him alive.
How was he to endure this? And what to do with his own grief, the pit of emptiness at the center of his chest?
He wanted Conall to walk in behind him and give one of his laughs, make one of his quips. Declare that all this had been a wild, misguided prank. Make the world come right.
It did not happen. To be sure, not. Conall lay up in the ground under the cold stones. Had he himself not watched him go in?
Mistress MacAert took herself off into what had been Conall’s sleeping place, directly back from the hearth. Wee Flanna still sat as if frozen.
Liadan turned to him.
“You had best come in.”
He already was in, but he knew what she meant. Closer to the fire. Into the bosom of her family. The one place she did not want him.
“Mistress Liadan.” His voice sounded hoarse. “I but wish to say, I did not mean to harm Conall. I would never have harmed—”
“Do not speak his name.” Mistress MacAert flew from Conall’s sleeping place and across at Ardahl, nearly setting her skirts aflame from the embers of the fire. “Ye be not worthy to speak his name.”
She slapped Ardahl in the face, all the force of her grief behind the blow. He, who had withstood far worse in battle, turned aside from the pain of it.
The woman collapsed into sobs and wails. Both her daughters helped her up.
“Come, Mam, awa’ to your bed,” Liadan crooned to her.
“Nay. I will not. How can I rest when my boy is lost?”
“Come lie upon Conall’s bed, then. The healer has left a draught. I will mix it for ye.”
Both lasses led their mother away to the inner chamber, where Liadan drew the curtain. Ardahl stood where he was.
Aching.
A thought occurred to him. It would indeed have been easier had they just taken his life.
*
“Mam cannot abidehaving ye here.” Mistress Liadan stood in front of Ardahl like a living barrier. Her eyes, as blue as Conall’s, made two bright shields raised against him. She jerked her head at the sleeping place behind her. “I have managed to quiet her now wi’ the help of a draught. When she wakes and sees ye still here—”
“I am not allowed to leave.” He said it with sorrow. His entire being wanted to flee this place. Wanted to return to his mam.
Emotions chased one another across Liadan’s face. Like Conall again, those emotions seemed easy to glean. Ardahl had always been able to tell what his friend was thinking.
