by Duncan Lay
At this the women and children and the rest of the men leaped to their feet and the two cheers merged into one. Fallon leaned over and lifted Bridgit up, so she also stood and acknowledged the cheers. He put his arm around her.
“Who would have thought we would see this day?” he whispered in her ear.
“I would have said you were mad as a spring hare had you suggested it,” Bridgit muttered back, holding her fine silver goblet high. “I never dreamed of eating from these plates, nor drinking from these cups, while the throne of Gaelland waited behind us.”
Fallon kissed her forehead. “Many’s the night I tried to tell you that things would get better, that our luck would change. And now look at us, living in the King’s castle, Kerrin strong enough to wrestle a bear and a second child on the way.”
She chuckled and smoothed down her dress. It hung loosely after her time on the ship escaping from Kotterman, except where it clung because of her pregnancy. “I don’t recall you ever talking about being made a slave, sailing across the ocean and executing the King for worshipping Zorva among all that!”
He grinned. “You would never have believed me if I had, so I kept quiet about it.”
The people had long since sat down and gone back to their own conversations and food, so they flopped down and surveyed the remains of the plates before them.
“Aroaril, we ate a lot tonight,” Bridgit said with a burp. “I feel guilty eating so much when winter’s on the way.”
“You have to have one last feast night before the cold closes in,” Fallon said. “And Aroaril knows, you all deserved it after what you’ve been through.”
“I can’t help thinking about all the families out there that will be going to bed hungry, while we stuff ourselves silly.”
He leaned in and kissed her again. “You think too much. We’ve earned this. And it’s not like we have made three score of servants cook it and serve it to us. We did it all ourselves.”
“We?” she said with a smile. “I don’t recall you slaving over a hot oven!”
He winked and pulled a plate of lamb chops towards him. But he didn’t get the chance to eat any of them, because Brendan got there first.
“So what do we do now?” the big smith asked as he sank his teeth into the meatiest chop.
“Right now, or when you’ve finished an entire sheep?” Devlin asked.
“Dev, you’re making jokes again!” Gallagher grinned as he and Rosaleen joined them.
“Well, one of us has to. And it’d be a mortal sin for you to be doing it now,” the farmer said, with a pointed look at how close Gallagher was sitting to Rosaleen.
The priestess pursed her lips as she looked at Devlin.
“You know you can’t say that sort of thing,” she warned. “I will have to give you a penance. Perhaps a whole night praying for forgiveness in the cathedral.”
“What? It was just a silly jest!” Devlin cried, then caught sight of the way Rosaleen was winking at Gallagher. He pointed at them both. “Now that’s just evil!”
Fallon led the laughter around the table. Bridgit was right; of course they could all rule Gaelland as long as they worked together.
Riona pushed away the remains of an enormous plate of chops and mash. “So what happens now?” she asked.
“Well, we have to clear up this mess,” Nola said, looking around the room. “And we’ll have more luck of getting some selkies to help us than we will some of these menfolk.”
“Never a truer word spoken in jest!” Riona said. “But I meant, do we go home or stay here?”
“We don’t have to do either. Prince Cavan had a secret island, far to the north of here,” Brendan said. “We can pack up and go there and never have to worry about anything again.”
Fallon shifted in his seat. “We can’t leave the people. If we do, Swane will come in here in spring and start sacrificing to Zorva.”
“But we’re not nobles. How can we rule the country?” Riona asked.
“You never saw the nobles in action. I’ve scraped things off a sick sheep’s arse that could do a better job of ruling,” Devlin said.
Riona leaned in and kissed him. “You always know how to say the most romantic things.”
“But who said we have to be the ones to stop Swane?” Nola asked.
“Nobody. But neither can we walk away,” Bridgit said quietly. “No more than we could walk away from a sick child. We have to get Gaelland healthy again and back on its feet before we can worry about ourselves.”
“How do we do that?’ Brendan asked.
“We talk about it and then decide what to do next,” Fallon said. “All of us, except Rosaleen.”
“And why not Rosaleen?” Gallagher asked hotly.
“Because she is the head of the church now.”
“Well, don’t you want her there then? She will make the rest of us look good,” Gallagher growled.
“Because the church cannot rule the people and make decisions.”
“Who said?”
“Well, it was Duchess Dina, but that does not make it wrong. She was right about some things,” Fallon said. “Putting the church in charge might look like a good idea but it’ll make some people nervous and give others ideas.”
“Fallon is right,” Rosaleen said firmly. “If we say that being head of the church grants you a seat on Gaelland’s ruling council, then every bishop and senior priest angry that I am running the church will redouble their efforts to get rid of me and get their fat backside onto the council.”
“If they did that, we would throw them into a cell,’ Gallagher declared.
“And then you’d have the ruling council controlling the church. We need to pick our fights, not go around looking for more trouble,” Bridgit said.
“But how are we going to be taken seriously as the rulers of Gaelland?” Riona asked. “We’re just ordinary people from Baltimore.”
“Because we’ll come down like a hammer on anyone who questions us,” Brendan snarled, snapping a chop bone in his hands.
Nola laid a hand on his arm and he subsided, but Fallon could feel the awkwardness around the table.
“This all sounds very noble but will we really have a say? I mean, the boys have been letting Fallon do the leading, while Bridgit has steered us right,” Nola said, breaking the silence.
“Of course we shall listen to each other. And you know I have always listened to Bridgit,” Fallon said.
She snorted. “That’s not quite the way I remember it,” she said.
He laughed. “I have learned my mistake.”
Bridgit gave him a nudge in the arm. “Well, I hope that does not come back to bite you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll bite it first,” Brendan said, sinking his teeth into another fatty chop.
CHAPTER 4
The throne room was cleared and empty after the feast. Protesting children had been put to bed but, in many rooms, the adults were still talking, trying to make sense of what had happened over the last few moons.
“The families are all back together. Just as we vowed,” Rosaleen said.
Gallagher felt his heart beating faster. He had sworn not to even think about her until everyone else was happy. But now he could think of little else. For years, all he had to sustain himself was the memory of his wife but now, when he looked at Rosaleen, he could not see his wife’s face anymore.
“I am hardly a fit consort for the Archbishop of Gaelland,” he said hoarsely. “A country fisherman who is losing his hair is not the right companion. And the things I have said about Aroaril—”
Rosaleen stepped closer and ran her hand down his face. “Those were said out of your pain, not because you are evil. I know your heart and I know Aroaril will forgive you. Besides, much of what you claimed about the old Bishops was right.”
He could smell her hair, a faint scent of mint and he wanted to breathe more of it in.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You could do so much better—”
She rais
ed herself up on tiptoe and kissed him and all his excuses melted away.
“I was lost without you. It is terrible to say, but I am almost glad we have been through so much, for it brought us together,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face.
She smiled gently. “It is true. Aroaril works in mysterious ways.”
Gallagher looked up at the ceiling and felt the truth of that sink into his bones. Maybe it was all for a reason. He had loved his wife but there had not been the same all-consuming passion he felt for Rosaleen. Perhaps he was meant to be with her and this had all been part of a test, to see if he was worthy.
“I see now,” he said. “Aroaril meant us to be together. It was ordained. You have a task to tackle, to bring this country back to Aroaril. And I am here to help you. I was a doubter and a sinner and you have converted me. I can help you convert others.”
“Our lives can take strange paths, that is true, but He lets us choose which direction to go. He never forces us down a path,” she said.
Gallagher was not really listening. It was all so clear to him now. Aroaril had chosen him for a special task, had tested him but now he had come through the fire and he had been rewarded with Rosaleen’s love.
“Do you understand, my love? Do not read too much into—”
He rolled over and kissed her, enfolding her in his arms. This was not a time for talking.
*
“You don’t need that horrible hammer anymore,” Nola said, patting Brendan’s hand.
He recoiled from her touch. “Are you mad? Do you know how many people out there want to do us harm? You and the girls have just come back from a nightmare. I will not let that happen again.”
“And it won’t. We are safe now,” she said. “We have stone walls around us and our friends beside us.”
“And it is my hammer that will keep you safe. I left you alone and let you be taken. Nobody will hurt any of you again,” he swore. His huge hands wrapped around her gently. He was twice her size but he had never raised his voice, let alone a hand to her. She was small but had a big voice and a core of iron harder than anything he had worked with at the smithy. When the Kottermani slavers had taken her and his girls, it felt like they had taken his heart.
“But you could not have stopped them that night. You would have been taken too, or, worse, killed,” she said gently.
Brendan felt his fury bubbling over at the thought. “I would have stopped them,” he swore. “I would have smashed their heads in until they begged for mercy!”
Lost in the thought of crushing Kottermani raiders, he jumped when she grabbed his arm.
“Please don’t talk like that,” she said. “Fallon has a whole army now. He does not need you to fight. You can do more for him as a smith—”
“I will not risk it!” he growled.
“My love, please, do you not want to go back to what we once had—”
“What, people laughing at me? No, I would rather they fear me!”
The door banged open and he surged up from the bed.
“Ma, can we go into town?” their eldest daughter Mildrith asked.
“No!” Brendan thundered. “Are you mad?”
Shocked, Mildrith fled.
“Oh come now, you didn’t need to yell at the poor girl,” Nola said.
“Yes, I did!” Brendan bellowed at her, throwing his arm out as he turned around. “You don’t know what I saw out there and what lurks in those streets!”
He turned away again, clenching his fists. How could he make them understand about the child snatchers, men who could only be killed by crushing their heads with his hammer?
“They worked every day in the fields and then nearly starved on the voyage home,” Nola said quietly. “You should go after her and apologize.”
“What?” Brendan roared and swept around again and this time caught a jug of water, which flew across the room and smashed against the wall.
“I’ll go and talk to her, because it’s not safe for me in here,” Nola said fiercely and stormed past him.
“And what does that mean?” he yelled.
He reached out for her and she dodged away, a strangely familiar look in her eyes. It took him a moment to place it, then he realized it was fear. He had seen it in so many other eyes, yet never in hers.
“Wait!” he cried. But she was gone.
He picked up the pieces of the jug and felt like he needed to put himself back together as well. It always felt as though he was going to fly apart. He hated seeing that look in Nola’s eyes but neither could he give up that hammer. It wasn’t safe. She would understand, eventually. He would never hurt them, just protect them.
*
“Did you hear that? Sounded like something broke,” Riona asked.
Devlin patted his stomach. “Yes, it did,” he said with a smile. “Just some wind.”
She pulled a face. “How many times have you told that joke?” she asked.
“I couldn’t tell a joke when you were gone,” Devlin said, looking up at the ceiling, his smile gone.
Riona leaned over, running her fingers through his chest hair. “Are you sure?” she teased. “I’ve never known you not to make a jest about something.”
He did not smile. “Truly. I could not bring myself to laugh when you and the kids were gone. Aroaril knows the others tried. Padraig was forever giving me lines about Brendan. But it would have felt wrong.”
“And now?”
“Now I cannot stop myself from laughing and jesting,” he said, then winked. “And that is not all I can’t stop myself doing.”
“Eating, it looks like,” she said with a grin, poking him in the stomach.
He laughed. “And do you feel like a nibble?”
“Will you be serious for a moment?”
“Whist, I cannot be serious now, woman!” Devlin said, running his hand through her hair. “Seeing you and the kids come back was like lifting a weight off me. I have to laugh about things, jest and quip, because otherwise it will feel like it did when you were gone. Every time I jest, it reminds me you are home.”
“Is that the only thing you remember?” she smiled.
“Well, now that I think about it, there is another thing,” he said, kissing her ear.
“And what is that?”
“I can’t get to sleep for all your snoring!”
She slapped him on the chest as he roared with laughter and he pulled her down to him. When he was with his family, when he was laughing, the dark memories of those terrible days without them vanished. But they always lurked there in the back of his mind, ready to steal out of the mists. Only jests could keep them at bay. Jests, and other things. But you couldn’t be doing this around the kids, or out in public. More was the pity …
*
“What’s that noise?” Bridgit asked.
“It’s just the castle. Nothing to worry about,” Fallon said, kissing his way down her neck.
She restrained him with a little difficulty. “It doesn’t sound right.”
“Let’s worry about it later,” he suggested, slipping his hand down her body. She caught it with the ease of long practice.
“If you won’t go and see what it is, I will,” she warned.
Fallon sighed grumpily and rolled out of bed, grabbing a robe and wrapping it around himself.
“I hope you are happy. This floor is freezing and my feet will be like ice when I come back,” he grumbled.
Bridgit sat up carefully, keeping the blankets high so as not to let the warmth out.
Fallon opened the door and disappeared into the corridor. She heard him talking softly to someone. She was about to see what was happening when he came back, dropping his robe on the floor and diving under the woollen blankets.
“All fine,” he said happily.
“Not yet. Who was it?” she asked, deftly slapping his roaming hands.
“Kerrin.”
“Kerrin! What was the matter? Is he sick?” She began to wriggle out of bed but he gr
abbed her arm.
“He’s fine. He wanted to patrol around the corridors for a bit, to make sure we were safe. I sent him to bed. He’s fine,” he said again reassuringly.
“Patrol?”
“He thinks we can’t look after ourselves now.” Fallon chuckled. “But it’s all safe now. He’s gone back to bed.” He reached out for her again but she grabbed his hand.
“How long has this been going on?” she asked.
Fallon shrugged. “Not every night,” he said finally.
“So most nights then?”
“Not that many. Anyway, can we talk about that later?”
“Oh, I’ll talk to him right now,” she said.
“Oh no,” he protested. “It can wait until tomorrow. You don’t want to upset him and have him up all night.”
“Are we still talking about Kerrin?” she asked archly.
“Well, it applies to us both.”
“All right, I shall wait until tomorrow to talk to him,” she said. He reached out again, only for her to intercept his hand.
“You had better make sure that door is shut properly first,” she said firmly.
Fallon groaned, but this time he raced across to the door and back again.
*
The morning was cold, wind whistling around the castle and making everyone pull on an extra jerkin, but it was warm by the fire. “Kerrin, come sit with me,” Bridgit invited.
Her son hesitated in the doorway. “But mam, there is training on. Dad is recruiting another army and he will need me there. I have to show the men how to loose a crossbow.”
Bridgit felt her mouth harden. Fallon had suggested, and the others had agreed, that they begin forming a larger army to firstly stamp out Swane and then fight the expected Kottermani invasion. The idea was that Fallon’s former recruits would train the new men and over the course of winter they would have enough men to turn back the Kottermanis. Progress had been slower than expected, with a trickle rather than a flood of men coming forwards, but Fallon was confident of turning that around.