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Alane suddenly leaned forward, shaking his head. “The Irish have been coasting on top of a very deep current for a very long time. Sure as anything, the waves crashing at our shores are no’ caused by the lass.” Alane made a sound of disgust. “You send her back, she’s like a rabbit in a glade: dead in her tracks.”
“As we will be,” shouted someone, “if Rardove calls up even half his vassals.”
Alane sat back and shrugged. Finian sailed him a grateful look.
“And that’s just what he’ll do. He’ll want war,” a noble said in a grim voice.
“Aye, because he wants her back—”
“Nay! Because he wants our lands.” Finian was practically shouting and it was helpful to have Alane’s hand clamp down on his forearm briefly.
“And I think you ought to let him have her,” Brian finished irritably.
“And I think ye ought to fall on yer blade for suggesting such a thing, Brian,” snarled Finian. “Have ye heard nothing of what I’ve said? This has naught to do with her. Rardove has been looking for an excuse to launch a campaign against us for twenty years now.”
“And ’tis a most perfect opportunity ye’re giving him,” the first noble said.
Finian swung his head around like a raging bull. “And if Senna hadn’t given him such a perfect opportunity, Felim, I’d be dead.”
That brought silence.
“She’s the reason I’m alive. She’s brave—”
“And beautiful,” Alane chimed in cheerfully.
Finian retracted his previously grateful look. “The drink has addled yer mind. Yer mother said ’twould not be long in coming.” He looked back at the others. “’Tis wrong to return her to the maggot. She’s gotten caught up in something larger than herself.”
“Aye.” A few heads nodded around the table, mostly the younger ones. Alane’s was among them.
Brian, the young, argumentative one, pushed back the bench and rose. “And I say curse ye, O’Melaghlin, if this doesn’t go well.”
“And curse ye,” Finian growled, rising, too, “if ye could leave a maiden to be eaten by Rardove. She’s alone, and brave, and without her I wouldn’t be alive. She may be a spark, but Rardove has been laying this kindling for some long time.”
He slammed his fist on the table. It lay there, a sturdy, clenched reminder of his inclinations on how to deal with the matter. He went on, restraint evident in every taut syllable.
“Do ye think I’m putting anyone’s life in danger without a thought, Brian?” Finian’s eyes glittered hard as he pinned each member of the gathering in his glare. “He imprisoned me and my men, have ye forgotten? He killed every one of them. My men. My responsibility, and they died, to a man. Some were hanged, and that was the kindest way to go.”
His voice quaked for the briefest moment, then rode on, hard and harsh. “The ones I wasn’t forced to watch, I couldn’t miss hearing. And ’twill be on my conscience long after I tread on my sod of death, ye bastard.”
The room reverberated with silence.
“I’d as soon rip his heart out as spit across the room, and I will. I will.”
“We’re not forgetting yer capture,” Felim said into the heated tension, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ye do well to remind us of the travails of leadership, for those of us who’ve had them, we’ll not soon forget the grief of it.”
Finian threw his chin up and looked around the room, incensed, belligerent, wont to fight.
There were no takers. After a minute of quiet, during which pages tiptoed in and poured more drink, then slunk out again, O’Hanlon spoke.
“I agree with O’Melaghlin. Rardove is on the hunt for the dyes, and he’s got to be taken down. What better excuse than us retaliating in a war he’s launched on us?”
“Ye speak well. ’Tis best to deal with the worm on our own terms.” Lifting his mug, Finian threw back his head to down a swallow of ale, then passed it to Alane.
“Ye speak of Rardove as being an insect,” grumbled Brian from the shadows. “But a bug at least is predictable. Ye know what it will do, when, and why.”
His sullen words caught Finian’s attention. “Ye know a great deal about bugs, do ye, Brian?”
Brian scowled from across the table. “Aye, I do. ’Tis certain men who are more difficult to understand.”
