Reginald did not. For one moment, he sat still in the saddle, looking at the place where Donal O’Raida lay because of violence and because of him. Then he swung down and crossed the wet ground without haste.
Ciarán followed, and the sound that left him when he saw the grave was not quite a sob. It was worse.
Reginald stopped at the foot of the mound and lowered himself to one knee. “I buried him as well as I could,” he said. His voice was rough. “I had no priest. No proper linen. No men to bear witness. I marked the ash because I thought someone might need to find him one day.”
Ciarán’s hands closed into fists. “You thought of witness, then. But not of name.”
Reginald lowered his head. “No.” The answer was bare.
Ciarán looked as if he wanted to strike him. Instead, the steward turned away and put one hand against the ash’s wet trunk.
Father Cillian came forward and spoke the prayers for the dead. The words moved through the cold air, low and steady.
Reginald remained kneeling through all of it, rainwater soaking the ground beneath him, mud darkening one knee. It was because of this knight that he had met Aingeal. He could not be sorry for that.
When the prayer ended, Reginald drew the ring from the pouch Aingeal had given him that morning.
The gold sat in his palm. Small. Beautiful. Damning. He held it out to Ciarán. “This was his.”
Ciarán looked at the ring as though it were a wound made metal. “You wore it.”
“Yes.”
“To enter her house.”
“Yes.”
“To make men believe you were him.”
“Yes.”
Ciarán’s face twisted. “Do you have any answer that is not yes?”
Reginald lifted his gaze. “No answer that improves the truth.”
For the first time, Ciarán faltered. He took the ring. His fingers closed around it with a tremor he tried to hide. “I should hate you.”
“You should.”
“But you also saved her people.”
Reginald did not look at Aingeal. “I did.”
The grave was opened with care.
Aingeal stood beside Étaín and watched the men work. Watched earth lifted away from the dead. Watched Ciarán kneel when the body was raised and identify what remained of Donal O’Raida by clasp, bone, and grief.
Reginald helped bear him.
On the ride home, the body was wrapped in clean linen and carried between two horses. Reginald rode behind it, notat Aingeal’s side, not among the men where rank might have placed him, but where he belonged that day.
Behind the dead. Behind the deed.
When they returned to the castle, the yard had filled.
Servants stood beneath the arch. Boys from the training yard stood bareheaded despite the cold. The women from Fintan’s holding came with folded hands and tired faces.
Aingeal dismounted and turned to them. “This is Donal O’Raida,” she said, her voice carrying clearly over the wet stone. “He came north to bind our houses and was killed upon the road. He will be honored beneath this roof before he is returned to his own people.”
