Aingeal looked at Seamus. “Say that again.”
“No.”
Brennach’s mouth twitched.
Aingeal almost smiled.
A boy came running from the hall. “My lady. The prisoners are asking for terms.”
“They have none,” Seamus said at once.
Aingeal looked toward the granary. “They have lives. That means they have something to trade.”
Reginald’s gaze shifted to her. “Information.”
“Yes.”
“Who funded Mael Ruadh,” Tomas said.
“And who promised to answer his holy grievance once he weakened us,” Father Cillian added as he joined them, his robe torn and one sleeve singed.
Aingeal looked at him. “You are injured.”
“I am offended,” he said. “It is different.”
Étaín appeared beside him with her hair coming loose and her skirts mud-streaked. “He is injured. He refuses to admit it because priests enjoy suffering when there is an audience.”
Father Cillian gave her a look.
She gave one back.
For one brief, impossible instant, the yard held something like ordinary life.
Then Brennach said, “My lady, the neighboring lords are still inside the walls. They saw enough today to carry whatever story you give them.”
The next battle, Aingeal thought. Not with swords. With memory.
Aingeal looked from Brennach to Tomas, from Seamus to Father Cillian, then finally to Reginald.
He seemed to understand before she spoke.
“My lady,” he said quietly, “you owe me no public defense.”
“No,” she said. “I do not.”
He nodded once.
“But I owe this castle the truth arranged in the right order.”
Within the hour, the hall was full again.
This time no one sat at ease. Too many benches had been dragged aside for the wounded. Women from the holdings stood near the hearth with bandaged children. Ciarán stood beside Donal’s bier, draped in green and gold until it could go south. The neighboring landholders clustered near the side wall, pale and attentive.
Mael Ruadh, bound and bleeding, knelt beneath guard at the foot of the dais.
Reginald stood beside Aingeal.
A murmur moved through the hall when they saw them.
