Farms that once would have provided the castle with grain and vegetables were overgrown with brambles, the huts cowering ashamed beneath sheaves of ragged thatch half rotted from the roofs. Here and there, fire-blackened ruins raised sooty skeletons toward the sky. Far too many ruins to be ill luck or accident, Niall realized as he rode.
Whoever had wreaked this chaos upon Daire had taken a sick pleasure in their task. He had seen enough raiding parties and ridden past enough ruined farm huts to know the difference. Men who regretted what they must do but knew it was a necessity allowed the pathetic people enough time to gather a few supplies—pots to cook in, enough clothing to keep them warm.
Everything on Daire land had been burned, including the poor wretches who had once dwelled upon it. Niall gripped the reins tighter, his stomach turning as he saw yet another cottage, its door barred by a charred length of wood. White bone gleaming amidst the blackened household goods within. A shattered cradle, half-burned, lay beyond a window in the stone hut. A vine of wild rose had curled about the cradle, softening the ugliness of scorched and shattered wood as if nature were trying to hide this evidence of someone's cruelty.
Had the child who had inhabited the cradle escaped with its life? Niall wondered. What would it be like to be barred inside your own home as the flames consumed everyone you loved? He could almost hear the parents, trapped in the building, pleading for mercy for their child. But Niall could have told them the men who had done this work were not the sort to show mercy, even to the most helpless babes.
Why did this tragedy seem so suffocatingly close, so real? It had all happened long ago, when he was but a lad trying to carve himself some kind of haven at Conn's court. Were it not for the chieftain's mercy, he might have met his death in such a terrible way. Aye, Fiona and his mother, too.
It was uncanny, the way destruction ringed about them, leaving them barely able to eke out enough to survive. Yet no one had taken that final step, a hellishly logical step, to punish those loyal to a hated traitor. Driving them off the land forever or putting them to the sword.
Why would anyone leave things thus? Vengeance begun but not finished? It made no sense. Anyone who hated his father enough to murder the land itself in this way would not hesitate to kill two lone women with no one to protect them.
Unless Fiona and his mother had had a protector of sorts, a man powerful enough to be feared, distant enough to be unaware of this kind of destruction.
Niall rubbed his aching temple. Aye, that had to be it. The only reasonable explanation for why they had been spared was that Conn had kept his promise to Niall, ordered no warrior to touch them despite the fact that Ronan of Daire had been a traitor. And these warriors had obeyed the chieftain's order with grim precision. Allowing the two helpless women to live yet destroying everything around them. Decimating land and people, livestock and everything beautiful in Castle Daire yet not touching the two women whose murder would bring Conn's wrath down upon their heads.
When Niall found whoever had wreaked this havoc, he vowed there would be a fearsome reckoning. He would see just how brave the cur waswhen he had to fight someone who was not helpless or weak or grief-torn.
Chilled to the marrow of his bones, Niall turned his horse toward home, all thought of hunting forgotten.
In the courtyard, he tied his horse, swung down, and stalked into the hall. He barely noticed how changed it was. Furniture polished, the floor swept clean.
"Fiona?" he called out. He was surprised to see the girl saunter out from the direction of the buttery, her face smudged, one finger bandaged.
"If any more mischief has befallen you, I am innocent," the girl said, holding up her palms as if in surrender. "I have not had three moments to plot devilment since you rode out, no matter how pleasurable it might have been. This Caitlin of yours, she might as well have a chariot whip, hard as she's been driving me."
"I do not care if you have spent the afternoon plotting ways to murder me, girl. You will sit down at once. Tell me what has happened to this place!"
Fiona collapsed on a chair of carved bog oak. "I tried to tell you yesterday, but you would not believe me. Why repeat myself again?"
"The crofter's huts are burned. Father's stagand herds of red deer—I saw not so much as a flash of their tails!"
"The thieves did not content themselves with stealing what we had inside the house. They hunted down the herds, killed them, left them rot where they lay, just so we would have nothing to eat. As for the people, most of them were wise enough to leave after the first few attacks. Those who did not—you saw what happened to them. I wish to God the cowards had waited until I was grown enough to fight them."
"Fiona, they would have killed you! A mere girl, thin as a bird's leg."
His sister's eyes burned, and Niall almost thought he saw the glint of a tear. "I would rather have fought! Died! That would have been far easier than continuing to live."
Niall winced at the passion in the child's voice and the weariness she tried so hard to disguise. "Why did you not leave?" he demanded. "Go north to Mother's family? They would have welcomed you both! Why stay in this hell-cursed place?"
"I was barely four years old when Father died. Mother did not consult my wishes then."
"Blast it, Fiona, this is not a jest! It is a miracle you both survived! No servants, no one to defendyou, no crops or wild game or cattle! Perhaps you had no choice when you were a babe, but even I can see that you have been tending to everything here for years. Why did you not make Mother see reason? Go where you would be safe?"
"Daire has been in our family for two hundred years!" She bristled. "Some of us consider our duty to the land and those who came before us."
"So you risked your life out of pure stubbornness, then? Fiona, any girl with enough courage and resourcefulness to survive in this kind of desolation is intelligent enough to know she should have fled this place years ago."
She looked at him, eyes widening with something like surprise at his words. Her gaze dropped to her ragged bandage. "It was... hell. But Mother would not leave. She insisted we had to be at Daire when you—" She hesitated, her eyes glittering, over-bright, her voice hard with defiance. "She could not bear the thought that we would not be at Daire when you learned the truth about Father and came home to us."
Niall's fists knotted at the vision of his mother waiting for her son to return. A son who held her in contempt because of her devotion to a man who had destroyed her life and the lives of her children.
"By the time I was old enough to understand how bleak things were," Fiona continued, "it was already difficult enough for her to grasp what had happened. I was afraid if I forced her to leave, she would shatter completely."
"There is no reason for her to wait here any longer. I have come home now, devil take it!" Niall drove his fingers back through the wind-tangled waves of his hair, fighting for inner balance. "When the time comes for me to leave, I am taking the two of you where you will be safe. Cared for."
"Is that so?" Fiona demanded. "You think it that simple, then? Cast us upon someone else's charity, and forget us entirely? It is not so easy as that, Niall. Our mother may have been waiting for your return, but I was not! This is my home. Mother's home. We stay here."
