Before dawn, Reginald stood in the yard beneath a low sky, tightening the girth on a horse he would not ride far.
Aingeal came to him alone.
The yard was quiet enough that every sound carried. Leather drawn tight. A horse’s breath. The soft step of her boots over damp straw.
“You are making yourself the thing he strikes at,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You might die for a castle that has not forgiven you.”
“I might.”
“For a woman who has not forgiven you.”
His hand stilled on the strap. Then he looked at her. “Yes.”
Aingeal’s heart twisted, and she stepped closer. “Do not do this because you think death will cleanse you.”
A flicker crossed his face.
She had found something true. “Do not,” she said again, lower now. “I will not have you turn repentance into another way of fleeing.”
For a moment, he said nothing. Then his voice came rough. “What would you have me do?”
“Live through the day,” she said, almost a plea.
The words hung between them.
For the first time, he looked almost shaken by hope. “As you command,” he said.
She turned before tenderness could undo her and crossed back toward the hall while the first gray of morning opened over the ridge.
Chapter thirty-five
Mael Ruadh came at noon beneath a white cloth and a liar’s smile. He rode with two men, as Aingeal had commanded, though beyond the far rise more horses moved like shadows among the trees. He made no effort to hide them well.
That was part of his insult and part of his warning. He wanted every witness gathering in Aingeal’s hall to understand that courtesy was a thread he could cut whenever he pleased.
The neighboring landholders had come too. Not all, but enough. Men with damp cloaks and cautious faces. Two old widows who held land through dead husbands and listened better than any of the men. A lesser lord from the western lake country who had called Aingeal “child” until she inherited enough responsibility to make him careful.
Ciarán stood near the front as Rathmore’s witness, Donal O’Raida’s ring on a cord around his neck until it could be returned south with the body.
Father Cillian stood beside the chapel door. Seamus was nowhere to be seen. That, Aingeal hoped, looked like weakness and division.
Reginald stood at the foot of the dais, visible to every eye in the hall, unarmed except for the short blade Aingeal had allowed him. Bait did not need to look defenseless. It needed to look worth striking.
Mael Ruadh entered the hall with rain on his shoulders and confidence in every step. He was not a large man. Red hair streaked with iron gray. Fine cloak. Belt tooled with silver. Eyes quick and pale and pleased with damage. He bowed to Aingeal just deeply enough to insult courtesy without breaking it. “Lady Ní Néill.”
“Mael Ruadh.”
His gaze went at once to Reginald. “And the holy murderer.”
A murmur moved through the hall.
Reginald did not move.
Aingeal kept her face still. “You asked to speak of holiness. Speak.”
