“Mad bastard…”
“Saved the girl…”
“That was FitzUrse…”
FitzUrse.
Aingeal looked down into the yard. Tomas had come out into the rain, one hand on the gatepost, staring hard toward the holding. Even Seamus’s younger men, the ones who had muttered loudest the day before about false names and hanging, stood in silence.
Somewhere behind her, Brennach swiped the rain from his eyes. He watched the field for a long moment before speaking. “There.”
Below them, the last of the raiders broke and scattered. One horse ran riderless. Another stumbled and vanished beyond the ridge. Fintan’s lower barn was lost, but the smaller sheds still stood. Cattle milled in frightened knots instead of being driven clean away. Men moved through smoke and mud and sparks,hauling the wounded, stamping out flame, wrenching doors from hinges to beat at embers.
The holding had been struck hard but it had not been overrun.
“He was right about the split,” Brennach whispered.
Aingeal turned her face slightly into the rain. “Yes.”
“Seamus would have lost the north line if FitzUrse had not cut it when he did.”
“Yes.”
Brennach gave her a sidelong glance she felt more than saw. “You need not like the truth for it to remain true.”
Aingeal almost laughed, but there was too much bitterness in her mouth. No, she did not like that the man who had lied to her could still stand between her people and ruin. She did not like that some part of her heart leaped with dreadful relief every time she saw him upright in the smoke. She did not like that even now, after public humiliation and private betrayal, love had not died cleanly in her but kept finding new ways to wound.
Without Donal’s name, without alliance, without any promised place beside her, he had still chosen them.
Rain slid cold down the back of her neck. She scarcely felt it.
“Will the council see?” she asked, surprising herself by giving the question voice.
Brennach took his time answering. “Some will.”
“Some.”
“That is more than none.”
Aingeal looked back to the field.
Reginald had mounted again now. He sat the black gelding like a man born to iron and bad weather, cloak black with rain and smoke. He had turned toward the castle at last, leading the first riders home.
Tomas came up the stair next, soaked through and breathing hard from haste.
“Three dead,” he said without preamble. “Six wounded at the holding, perhaps more once they’re counted properly. Two raiders down, three taken hurt, the rest fled.”
“And Fintan?” Aingeal asked.
“Alive.” Tomas’s mouth tightened. “One of his girls was trapped in the shed.”
Aingeal already knew who had brought her out.
Tomas looked back toward the returning riders and then said, very carefully, “The men saw it.”
They had seen Reginald stripped of the false identity and still worth more on the field than most men ever were beneath banner and noble name. Seen him fight without claim of right. Seen him save what he could of her people while knowing he might still be driven from the gates afterward.
The gates below opened to admit the first returning riders.
