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Finian laughed. “They are as predictable as mist in the morning, they are. Money, power, and women.”
“And no’ in that particular order,” Alane chimed in.
“And yerself, Finian O’Melaghlin?” snarled Brian. “Is that why ye’re at doing the things ye’re doing? For I don’t like the idea of having my head served up to some Saxon king because of yer aching rod.”
Finian’s hand flashed out around Brian’s neck, then dropped immediately when Alane’s elbow nudged his ribs. But he did not turn his fury. “Ye’re not listening, Brian. ’Tisn’t her. She matters naught. She’s nothing.”
From the shadowy darkness, the king cleared his throat. All heads swiveled to him. “Then why did ye not take her to her brother’s manor, and leave her danger there?”
“No one was in residence,” he retorted. That wasn’t, precisely, the reason, but no one needed to know that.
“Oh, but aye, someone is very much in residence there now.”
“I saw no sign of it.” It wouldn’t have mattered though.
“Well, we did. Smoke. Not three hours ago our scouts reported smoke rising from the de Valery keep.”
“What of it? His reeve.”
“And a whole lot of horses milling around. War horses. And someone shouting orders.”
Finian narrowed his eyes. “I saw no one.”
Brian shrugged, stretching out his hand for the vessel busily making the rounds through the room. Alane intercepted it, took an unhealthy draught, then handed the empty vessel over with a broad grin. Brian scowled and dropped his hand.
Finian grabbed the other flask and splashed drink into his cup, the gurgling loud. His elbows came to rest on his knees as he bent at the waist, the hardened leather of his outfit creaking as he went. Holding the cup between callused fingertips, his hair swung alongside the pewter cup as he studied the ground.
Brian shook his head in disgust. “So now we’ll have de Valery and his knights joining the godforsaken Saxon throng looking to cut us down. Well done, O’Melaghlin. Ye’re at making us enemies near as well as ye used to make us friends.”
“And ye’re at making yer life in peril, Brian,” Finian retorted in a dangerously smooth voice.
Alane unraveled from the bench to stand beside Finian. “Shut your mouth, pup,” he said to Brian smoothly, but with a snarl underlying.
The O’Fáil spoke up from the shadows. “I’ll have no disrespect in my home, Brian O’Conhalaigh. Lord Finian deserves no less, and a good deal more. Have you a word to say, say i
t, and I will consider it ’ere I make my decision. But when I decide, ’tis what we will do. What we will all do.”
The room grew quiet. Everyone watched the king, the king watched Finian, and Finian stared at the wall. He knew that look very well. He’d been the recipient of such considering appraisals for many years, usually after he’d done something remarkably risky and reckless, like indulge in cliff diving, or visiting the grave he’d dug for his mother, when the priest denied her burial in the churchyard.
“I know what I am doing,” he avowed in a solid, steely voice.
“So ye say,” allowed his king. “’Tis the rest of us who don’t.”
The rest of us, meaning him. The O’Fáil. The man who’d saved Finian’s life and heart, and was now looking at him in deep disappointment. Could such things cross the border into regret?
The king got to his feet, in a royal enough way to bring the room to silence.
“This is your battle, Finian,” he announced, looking around the room and meeting the eye of every uncle or cousin or other claimant to the throne—and there were multitudes of them, not just in this room, but scattered across northern Eire, full or half-blood descendants of the reigning king—before settling back on Finian.
“You lead the men. ’Tis what you’ve been trained for. Yours, to win or lose. I give it to you.”
Finian got to his feet slowly. How many years had this been coming? And now the moment was to hand. Kings were not chosen solely by being the last one standing at the end of infighting or intrigue, but they were never chosen without it. Being handed battle command by the standing king settled the matter in a way councils never could.
Hot and cold, the cord that ran through Finian’s core resonated at the words. Started so low, to have risen so high, and have his foster father and king’s belief in him—it was a potent dénouement to a suicidal life. Finian reached out and clasped his king’s fist. “Onóir duit, my lord.”
“Nay, Finian. The honor to you. Win this war.”
They laid their plans swiftly. Word was already being carried to the other Irish of the region by swift runners, female Irish couriers who could move between mountains without even the trees knowing they had passed. The disparate Irish armies would head to their traditional muster point for northern campaigns, a burned-out old abbey on a hill above Rardove Keep.
