Firebrand (31 page)

‘Murlainn,’ he whispered. ‘You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard.’

Somehow I managed to move my head to meet his eyes. I think I even managed an approximation of a smile.

~
Do I still look like you?

* * *

‘Well,’ I mumbled. ‘Do I?’

Almost silently he closed the door of my room. He took his time about it. I don’t think it was me he couldn’t face. Catriona gave him one cold look of anger before
she knelt at my head again and went back to cleaning me up. What a gentle touch she had, and the damp cloth was cool, but the bowl of water was stained scarlet with my blood. I just wanted to lie here on the pile of skins and blankets with my aching head in her lap. For once I couldn’t be bothered with Conal. I’d made my point; now I only wanted him to go away and leave me alone.

Fat chance.

He knelt beside me but he didn’t touch me. At least he had the grace to look me in the eye, though mine were swollen almost shut.

‘You look,’ he began, and cleared his throat. ‘You look more like me than I do.’

Slowly I let myself examine his face. Moving my eyeballs hurt.

‘You have no idea,’ I said, ‘how true that is.’

He clasped his hands behind his neck. He was weeping, I noticed. ‘I’m sorry, Murlainn. I’m so sorry.’

I spat blood, and Catriona cleaned the corner of my mouth. ‘Why? Saved me a flogging.’

‘You’re not funny.’

‘Neither are you.’

I let my gaze drift to his forearm, where a new cut leaked blood through a white rag. I managed another smile.

‘I’m not dead yet,’ I said.

He looked at it, silent for a long moment.

‘That’s not for you,’ he said. ‘That’s for myself.’

‘Make you feel better?’

He gave a dry harsh laugh. ‘No. So I’ll stop being so dramatic, shall I?’

I raised myself up on one elbow, and Catriona drew back.

‘Conal,’ I said.

‘Yes? Call me another name. Or can’t you find it? Because I can’t. I’m losing my name, Seth. I’m losing my soul.’

‘Fight her,’ I hissed.

‘I’d rather lose my name than lose my people.’

‘You lose one, you lose them both.’ I stared at him. ‘Cold iron instead of a soul. That what you want?’

‘Please, Murlainn. I didn’t come here to fight.’

‘Then why did you?’ Catriona glared at him, white-faced. ‘It’s all that’s left to you. You might as well fight. But best if you fight the right pers…’

We both stared as Catriona stumbled to her feet and ran to the bowl in the corner of the room. I watched her fall to her knees, retching till her stomach was empty. Conal sprang to his feet, but she shot him such a ferocious look he took a step back, and turned to me.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he whispered. ‘Gods, Seth, is she ill?’

I looked at her. My insides ached, and not with my beating.

‘There’s a child in her belly,’ I said flatly.

He crouched beside me, laid his hand very gently on my arm.

‘I’m sorry. Gods, Seth. I’m so sorry.’

‘Stop being bloody sorry,’ I said. I’d bitten my lip before I remembered how swollen and tender it was, and made myself wince. ‘What can you do?’ Bitterly I added, ‘About anything.’

‘It might be okay. Sometimes it is. Look at Ma Sinclair! You’ve good blood, you’ve—’

‘A living child’s as common as hobbyhorse shit, and you know it. I’m not that lucky.’ I took a breath. ‘Nor’s she.’

He opened his mouth to argue; changed his mind; rubbed his forehead. ‘Have you told her? Have you explained?’

‘Tried.’

It was all I could say. After that my throat didn’t work.

What could I tell her, after all? It was the first of two pregnancies, and she was too happy. I hadn’t thought a pregnancy was even possible. I warned her not to hope, but she wouldn’t listen, and a few weeks later her heart broke when it died inside her. Then it broke once more. They were in the future, my dead children and Catriona’s, but I’d never had the pain of hope.

Each one I buried for her. For the first I took a day’s leave, given to me by Aonghas without argument, to ride far enough from Kate’s caverns. I didn’t want any soul it might have to linger near there. I put the corpse in the ground in spite of my beliefs, few as they were, because Catriona’s beliefs were stronger and a good deal more numerous.

There was a ring of ancient stones a day’s ride towards home. High on a plateau, the stones had lost their rigid geometry long ago: some had fallen, some had been split by lightning-strikes, some still stood tall. The place had a good atmosphere. I put my first son there and deprived the raptors of his tiny half-formed corpse for the sake of his grieving mother. I’d known he would die, as I knew they all would, so I tried not to weep for him too.

There were only half-heard snippets of news from our dun. We heard rumours and counter-rumours, but most news passed between Calman Ruadh and Kate, with little but gossip to pad it out, so none of it was reliable. Conal’s clann were obedient, we heard, and dutiful, and loyal. I knew they were all that and more to Conal, but applied to Calman Ruadh it didn’t sound like the clann I knew and didn’t love. Conal fell on every scrap of rumour, while dreading it.

Eachann of course had a blood relative in the dun, in Raineach. Conal nagged him incessantly for news of her, but Eachann had grown evasive and haunted. When Conal at last lost his temper and yelled at the boy, Eachann confessed miserably that he knew almost as little of his mother as we did. She seemed fine. She seemed withdrawn. She was keeping something from him, that was what he thought.

Conal was haunted, and twitchy, and bad-tempered (though he didn’t lose it with me again), but he seemed more determined than ever to stick it out. He would last his year, and prove his loyalty, and regain complete authority over his own dun. He’d do it, he said, if it killed him.

Some figure of speech. Sometimes I wondered.

‘When did this happen?’ Aonghas asked him in a low voice one evening.

Kate had summoned the three of us from our sword
practice to her great hall, and I had a feeling we were late. Not our fault. It seemed we were last to be told; every room and passage was deserted. Conal and Aonghas walked ahead; I hung back, teasing the wolves, but my ears pricked up when I heard the tone of Aonghas’s voice. He was too easygoing to sound so bitter.

‘When did what happen?’ asked Conal.

‘When did we lose so much autonomy? When did dun captains turn into henchmen?’

‘Careful,’ said Conal, but there was low laughter in his voice for the first time in I don’t know how long. It cheered me up. He’d been sunk in darkness after that beating of me. But the bruises had faded weeks ago and the cuts had healed and my ribs fused and I looked more or less normal again. If any of us looked normal. Fact is, we all had an edgy suspicious hostility that seemed permanently etched into our faces.

Maybe, given what we saw when we turned the corner to the great hall, we had reason.

‘What the
fuck
…’

I was still tickling Branndair’s ear when Aonghas gave his exclamation of disgust. Branndair was twisting his head and nipping at my fingers, and I wasn’t paying attention, so I banged into Aonghas and we both stumbled.

Recovering my footing, I drew my sword as Conal and Aonghas did. The sound echoed in the silent hall. I felt Branndair’s hackles rise under my hand, I heard Liath’s low snarl, but the wolves did not move forward. Indeed, Branndair took a pace back, growling his furious fear. Kate rose to her feet on her dais, walked down a step, arms extended towards us. The thing at
her side smiled as broadly as Kate did. It stood far too close to my mother, its arm brushing hers, but Lilith looked more charmed than revolted. It was barefoot, bare-chested, skinny to the point of translucency. Its coat flapped almost to its ankles, its trews were cinched tight round a waist that was hollow scrawny muscle. Lank hair, papery skin stretched over a concave skull, a satisfied rictus grin.

‘Gentlemen!’ cried Kate. ‘Swords in scabbards, please!’

Conal and Aonghas seemed dumbstruck. I saw Conal’s blade tremble in his hand, then he tightened his grip again.

‘It’s a
Lammyr
.’ There was utter disbelief in his voice.

‘It’s my
guest
.’

I’d learned to be very suspicious of Kate’s innocent sweetness. ‘Conal,’ I whispered.

‘There’s a whole—frigging—
detachment
’. Aonghas was so incredulous he could hardly speak.

It was true. Down the left side of the hall they stood, their skin given a sickly cast by the torchlight. Even the vilest of Kate’s fighters hung back, keeping their distance as much as the cavern walls would let them. I could see Fearchar, his eyes wide, his spine pressed so hard against the stone wall it must have hurt. I was glad.

I looked for my friends. Sionnach stood far back, with Eili and Orach and Luthais. Sionnach’s eyes were locked, expressionless, on mine; the other three couldn’t take their eyes off the Lammyr. Caolas, Raonall and Feorag were near them, and Carraig and Righil stood together too. All our fighters had gathered close to one
another, on the left hand side. Except for Eachann: I wondered where Eachann was. Perhaps he alone had got trapped among the crowd of Kate’s fighters clustered tightly on the other side of the hall.

‘Swords!’ snapped Kate, the sweetness gone.

Reluctantly, slowly, we returned them to the scabbards on our backs.

‘Guests,’ Conal repeated, as if he’d never heard the word before.

‘Yes,’ said Kate. She was within ten feet of him when she stopped.

‘They’re
Lammyr
.’

‘That line is becoming tedious, Cù Chaorach.’

‘All right.’ His lip curled. ‘They’re filth.’

Sighing, she tutted. ‘Coming from you, Cù Chaorach, that shocks me. The Conal MacGregor whose tolerance for other cultures knows no limits?’

‘Their culture is
death!
’ He glowered at Kate, before remembering to make his features expressionless. ‘Nothing else. Nothing but death.’

‘They are our cousins.’ Kate’s gaze swivelled towards me, glittering. ‘We have more in common with them than we have with, say…
full-mortals
.’

I didn’t react. She smirked.

‘I’m pleased you’ve tamed your firebrand of a brother, Cù Chaorach.You seem to have beaten some manners into him, and we’re all grateful for that. Where was I?’ Her fingertip tapped gently at her jaw. ‘The Lammyr, yes. They are closer to us, and far more like us, than the full-mortals. Come, now. They can be very entertaining. A little less contempt, if you please. It’s rude.’

Conal was lost for words. Slowly he walked into the hall, Aonghas at his side, me at his heels and the wolves at mine. Branndair and Liath pressed close to me.

Satisfied, Kate spun on her elegant heel and walked back to her chair, flipping out her silk dress as she sat. If cobwebs rustled, that’s what it would have sounded like.

‘This is Skinshanks,’ she said. ‘It and its fighters have pledged allegiance to me.’

As if on cue, my mother slipped her slender hand into the crook of the Lammyr’s arm. It smiled down at her, a skull-smile devoid of every emotion but smugness.

‘And what I admire about the pledge of a Lammyr,’ Kate went on, ‘is its constancy. The word of a Lammyr is binding. Its loyalty, once given, is given for the duration of its oath.’

‘And why not,’ hissed Conal, ‘if it’s offered death and prey?’

‘Does it matter why?’ Kate’s eyes were frosted with suppressed fury. ‘All I know, Cù Chaorach, is that a kept oath is better than a broken one.’

He lost it, then. ‘I have kept every oath I made you!’ he screamed.

‘Did I say you hadn’t?’ The sweet smile was back. ‘I admire the way you controlled your brother’s excesses. I admire your intolerance of rebellion and mutiny. How he must have been humiliated, and yet you were willing to inflict it on him! That’s admirable. What a pity you have so much less authority over your clann.’

‘What?’

There was a horrible quality to the silence that returned to the hall. I felt my spine tense and chill, and I swallowed bile.

All world-weariness, Kate lifted an arm that might have been made of lead. Tilting her head to the side, closing her eyes as if exhausted by sadness, she languidly snapped her fingers.

The close-packed ranks of fighters on the right side of the hall parted, shuffling swiftly aside to reveal a long platform some five feet high, four nooses dangling empty in a row above it. Conal sucked in a sharp breath. Before the platform knelt four manacled prisoners.

So there was Eachann. And his brother, not more than fifteen years old, and Eachann barely any older. And there too was his mother, and his father Uilleann.

‘Raineach,’ I said, but not a sound came out of my mouth.

‘Calman Ruadh sends me a sad tribute,’ said Kate.

‘What the
hell
is this?’ roared Conal.

Kate shrugged lightly. At swordpoint the four captives were prodded to their feet, and at a further low-voiced order they stepped up onto a bench and then the higher platform. Eachann was still and calm; his brother was trembling but fierce-eyed and brave. I wanted to weep. The four captains who followed them slipped a noose around each neck.

‘This gives me no pleasure, Cù Chaorach.’ Kate pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers, her eyes shut tight.

‘Those are my people!’

‘Those are rebels. Didn’t you give instructions that
Calman Ruadh was to be obeyed in your absence? Have you no control over your own clann?’

‘Raineach?’ Conal stared at his swordsmith, bewildered.

‘It’s true, Cù Chaorach.’ Her whole slender body was tense with fear and fury. ‘I’m guilty of all she says.’

‘Raineach,
why?
’

‘You don’t live in the dun, Cù Chaorach.’

He raked his hands into his hair. ‘This is not forever, Raineach.’

‘But he’s the man who killed my brother. I’m the one who felt my brother die.’ She glared at Kate. ‘If another chance was given me to kill Calman Ruadh? I’d take it. And this time I’d do it right.’