“I allow it. With Mam ailing, I am in charge.” For better, for worse.
Maeve glanced into Conall’s sleeping place, where Mam lay. “What ails your mother?”
“Grief. I can restore your son to ye. I cannot bring hers back to her.”
*
Ardahl dreamed ofConall, the aftermath of one of the battles they’d fought together out on the border. Conall’s spirits always rose sky high following a fight—because they’d triumphed, a fearless team, as he liked to say. He’d brag a little while they sat with their mugs of ale after having their wounds tended, but only to Ardahl. He was not a man to talk himself up in the warriors’ hall.
In this dream, though, Conall turned to Ardahl, fixed him with a knowing blue eye, and said, “I need to tell you something.”
It felt so good sitting with him once more that way, so at ease bumping shoulders companionably as they so often had, that Ardahl nearly did not want to listen.
“’Tis important,” Conall insisted.
“Tell me, then.”
“Cathair—”
He awoke abruptly and lay stinging in half a score of places. He told himself to disregard the pain. He’d been injured before. Both he and Conall had.
But he had not Conall to lean upon now. To encourage him. To laugh with about their daring, and their hurts.
He wanted to go back into the dream. To say, “I would never in a thousand lives have believed ye would turn on me in anger. Why?”
His mother’s face swam into place above him. “Mam? Ye, here? How?”
“Mistress Liadan sent for me. A kindness.”
Liadan. A vision of her danced in his mind. Honey-gold hair. Wary blue eyes.
As if he’d summoned her, she appeared at the opening in the sleeping place.Hersleeping place, as he realized.
“Is all well? Shall I call the healer?”
Mam looked at him. “D’ye want the healer?”
“By all the gods, no.” The last thing he wanted was another person poking and prodding at him. “They will be needed elsewhere.”
Mistress Liadan disappeared from view.
Mam took Ardahl’s hand. “Ye must eat. Grow stronger. They are saying out there”—she jerked her head toward the outer door—“ye be a hero.”
His lips twisted. “Theyare—the same who hate and despise me?”
She leaned close. “Ye will show them of what ye be made. Ye must grow strong so ye can show them.”
Madness. Even his own mam took part in it.
“I must get up.”
“Son, nay.”
“I need to relieve myself.”
“I will fetch the pot.”
“Mam, no.”
