Chief Fearghal sooncame at a run, his druids following at a more dignified pace in a group of three, their expressions grave. Ardahl had by then gone numb with disbelief and dismay. Had it not been for the blood on his hands and the faint breath of a breeze on his cheek, he would have thought it a dream. Some dark imagining come in the night.
They took him to the chief’s hall, Dornach walking behind him as if he were a prisoner and thence to the chief’s private rooms beyond, where his lady wife stared like all the others before fleeing. Leaving the six of them, the chief, Ardahl, Dornach, and the three priests, alone.
“Tell us what happened.”
The same question over again. Different expressions. The chief’s had turned hard as flint. Dornach’s blank as stone. The three holy men appeared to be reserving judgment, but Ardahl saw no leniency in their eyes.
“I do not know what happened.”
“How can that be? You were there, were ye not?”
Ardahl searched his mind, which contained a jumble of thoughts and images. He shook his head. Even now he had no clear understanding of how Conall came to be dead at his feet.
Dead!
Chief Fearghal looked at Dornach. “What did ye see?”
“Very little. The men were at practice. I was on the far side of the field instructing the younger lads. All seemed well. Then there was a flurry. Cathair cried out—”
“Cathair?” Chief Fearghal interrupted. “He was there?”
“’Tis my understanding he was close by.”
“May I please wipe my hands?” Was that Ardahl’s own voice, sounding faint and far away? “They are covered in blood.”
“That blood is the proof o’ your crime,” said one of the holy men, speaking for the first time. “It stays where it is.”
Ardahl’s stomach heaved over in a slow roll. They believed he had done this terrible thing. To Conall, of all men.
Believe.
“Send for Cathair,” Chief Fearghal snapped. “We will hear what he saw.”
Cathair, who detested Ardahl. Cathair, who would not mind seeing him out of the way, that he might be first among the warriors.
“I did no’ mean to hurt Conall,” he said quickly, knowing he had best say something before Cathair arrived. “I would never harm him. He is my best—”
Was.Was.
The pain of it hit Ardahl then like a crashing wave. He swayed where he stood.
“Stand,” Chief Fearghal ordered him. “Ye will at least ha’ the courage, the decency, for that. Ye will keep to your feet until the truth o’ this is found and a punishment determined.”
Punishment. Was it not enough that Conall must be gone from the world? He who had brought at least half the sunlight to it. The first person Ardahl went to with a trouble or a joke to be shared. The one he stood beside in battle. A touchstone of his life.
But Conall had been different lately. Less confiding. Angry more often. Ardahl had thought it the pressures of training, which had increased. They would face many battles this summer against Chief Fearghal’s rivals to the west. A man like Conall, who refused to show fear, who dared not do so in the chief’s hall for dread of losing face, often demonstrated it in other ways. Nottill the knife was in Conall’s hands had Ardahl looked into his eyes and seen the threatening intent.
“Stand there,” Fearghal said, the very voice of command, “and speak your truth.”
Chapter Two
Light danced likebright raindrops, making the air shimmer and bounce as Liadan ran. It jittered all around her as sun does on water and dazzled her eyes. She did not feel the stones beneath her feet as she left the house, or the grass as she crossed the practice field. She could still hear Mam’s wail in her mind.
It could not be so. It could not be so, what the messenger had said. Her brother, her beloved brother Conall, so strong and bright with laughter always in his heart.
Dead.
She had dreaded this. On some terrible, deep-seated level, she had. Ever since he’d gone off to battle when she was very young—for nearly six winters separated them in age—she’d feared losing him. She’d thought the news would come following some distant campaign, a fight over territory off to the west. Not here on their own turf.
