Occasionally, between assignments, Conor stole down to the clearing to watch Eoghan practice. His friend possessed a natural gift, and even men who had spent their entire lives training at Ard Dhaimhin struggled to match him. He fought with grace and focus and a pent-up passion that spoke to the depth of his misery.
Conor knew something about expectations and just how unhappy they could make a person, but Eoghan rebuffed any attempts he made to talk about it, turning the conversation instead to Aine or to news from the outside. When not on the training grounds, Eoghan fought the restrictions on him by passing along information gleaned from the runners or the oath-bound brothers. Mostly it was just gossip, but Conor welcomed the respite from the tedium.
Then in midwinter, Eoghan learned a bit of information that went far beyond the usual gossip.
“There have been Sofarende attacks up and down the coast of Sliebhan,” he whispered. They lingered at supper, alone at their table, the other boys having already departed for evening devotions. “Fergus has moved troops into the country under the guise of defending Seare, but rumor claims they’ve used sorcery to gain control over King Bodb.”
“What about Siomar and Faolán?” Conor asked.
“They’ve given Fergus an ultimatum. If he doesn’t move his men back across the border, they’ll declare war.”
War. Conor should not be surprised, considering the history of conflict among the four rival kingdoms, yet in his short life he had known only a period of tentative peace. This time, however, Fergus had a sorcerer on his side. “What’s Master Liam say?”
“‘The Fíréin don’t involve themselves in the matters of the kingdoms,’” Eoghan said. It was an oft-repeated doctrine in the brotherhood.
“This isn’t a little border dispute. This is a conquest of Seare. Fergus wants to eradicate the Balians from the island. Do you think he’ll stop without attacking Ard Dhaimhin? He wants to sit the Rune Throne.”
Eoghan glanced around. “We’re not supposed to know this, Conor. Keep your voice down.”
Conor fell silent, pushing down his sense of foreboding. This was why brothers were isolated. It was sheer torture knowing what was going to happen and not being able to do anything about it. His face twisted. Not that he could do anything about it if he were there. He’d be killed the moment he stepped onto the battlefield.
He took comfort in the fact that Faolán was more than a match for Tigh. Galbraith would not have made an alliance if he did not fear Calhoun’s might. Yet there was no telling the extent of the druid’s capabilities. The mere fact they had moved warriors into Sliebhan proved the balance of power had shifted.
Conor threw himself into his work, unconsciously taking out his worries and frustration on his tasks. His hard-earned contentment slipped more each day, and fear crept into his heart.
Comdiu, these are Your children. Protect them. He knew all too well from Labhrás’s example that being beloved by Balus did not exempt one from tragedy.
Winter moved into spring without any news of bloodshed, and gradually Conor’s fears faded into the daily routine, even if war was never far from his mind. Somehow, he neglected to notice the changes in himself that had occurred with the passing of the seasons. He was hauling nets on a boat in the loch, clad only in his trousers, when he caught sight of his reflection in the lake’s glassy surface. For a second, he wasn’t sure whom he was seeing: the defined muscles and broadening shoulders of the boy in the reflection didn’t correlate with his memory of his own scrawny frame. He looked down at himself and realized the hours of daily labor had begun to transform him, if not exactly into a man, at least into something different than the boy he had been.
He went back to the net and realized he no longer gritted his teeth through the work, but actually enjoyed the exertion. He grinned, feeling more alive than he had in months.
“I never thought fishing was so amusing,” the brother in the boat said.
Conor laughed. “Me neither.”
Later at supper, Eoghan asked him, “What are you so pleased about?”
“Today I realized I’m not such a weakling anymore.”
Eoghan arched an eyebrow. “You thought Tor left you alone because of your skills at King and Conqueror?”
Conor blinked. Now that he thought about it, it had been weeks since he’d been the object of more than just threatening looks. “I’ve been so exhausted I hadn’t given it much thought.”
“You’re hopeless.” Eoghan rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his stew.
“Remarkable, don’t you think?” Riordan said.
Conor didn’t look away from the practice yard where Eoghan drilled with the oath-bound brothers, absorbing the easy and yet precise way the boy handled the short sword. He could now see the subtleties of technique that separated his friend from the other men. “I’d be happy to have half his skill someday. Even that would make me one of the best swordsmen in the kingdoms.”
“I thought you had no interest in fighting.”
Conor glanced at his father, but he detected no mockery in his tone or demeanor. “I thought I had no aptitude for fighting. But it seems foolish to spend time among the Fíréin and not acquire your skills, doesn’t it?”
Riordan’s sharp look told him his words had given away more than he intended. “I hope I didn’t make a mistake, telling you about Aine.”
“Master Liam made a mistake lying to me in the first place. I’m aware I’m under no obligation to stay past my apprenticeship or even my novitiate. I’m here for a reason, even if I don’t know what that is yet.”
“You’re here to save your life!”
Annoyance bubbled up inside Conor. “That may be your plan, but Comdiu doesn’t need the Fíréin to protect me if that’s what He wills. Aine is proof of that.” He sighed and gentled his tone. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me, you and Labhrás and Liam. If it hadn’t been for your interference, I’d never have known the truth. I might be dead now. But it changes nothing. I will do what I feel is right.”
Riordan turned away without answering. Regret washed over Conor. He didn’t mean to dismiss this chance to know his real father so lightly, but he couldn’t allow sentiment to overshadow his greater purpose. Whatever that was.
Two days later, an unfamiliar brother summoned Conor to a meeting at Carraigmór. He left off his afternoon duties in the chandler’s cottage and followed the man toward the fortress with a sinking heart. Had Liam heard his oblique criticism and decided to expel him from Ard Dhaimhin? Surely the Ceannaire wouldn’t abandon his plans for Conor that easily.
The brother led him past the single guard at the door and into the hall. Conor’s steps faltered when he saw Master Liam was not alone. The entire Conclave waited in a semicircle of high-backed chairs, nine unreadable men still as stone. Only Riordan betrayed any emotion, his brow furrowed.
“Thank you, Brother Eamon,” Liam said to Conor’s escort. “You may leave us now.”
A single chair faced the Conclave, and the Ceannaire gestured for him to take a seat. Conor obeyed, holding his head high under their scrutiny.
“You are being considered for apprenticeship with the Fíréin brotherhood,” Master Liam said. “Have you anything to say?”
“What?” Conor had expected expulsion, not apprenticeship. “I only began my novitiate a year ago.”
Several of the men exchanged glances. Riordan spoke first. “There is some question about your suitability as an apprentice. Master Liam believes it is best addressed now.”
“Do you intend to take an oath of brotherhood?” Brother Daigh asked.
Conor looked among the Conclave members. What answer did they want from him? He didn’t want to lie, and the Ceannaire would probably know if he did. “At the moment, no. But I have not ruled it out, either.”
A few men hid smirks.
“Then why should we accept you as an apprentice?” Master Liam asked.
Conor met the Ceannaire’s gaze unflinchingly. “I shoul
d ask you the same thing. You knew my intentions before Brother Daigh posed the question. Yet here I am, an apprentice candidate.”
“Brother Conor’s position is not unusual,” Riordan said. “We do not require apprentices to bind themselves to the brotherhood. He is just more vocal about his intentions than most.”
Master Liam looked at each of the Conclave members in turn before he addressed Conor. “Brother Riordan is correct. We do not force apprentices to take oaths, nor do we require novices to undertake apprenticeships. You may leave if you wish. If you stay, you will be pledging yourself to our training for as long as we deem necessary. You may choose whether to take vows when you are put forth for full brotherhood, whenever that may be. But once you embark on this path, you are required to see it through.”
Conor balked at Master Liam’s words. It could take years to complete his apprenticeship. But what other choice did he have? He still had to discover his purpose in being here, and remaining a novice was not an option.
Still, he could barely force out the words. “I accept.”
“Good,” Liam said. “You will attend drills with your céad in the morning. Given what I understand of your exceptional education, sending you to lessons with them would be redundant, so you’ll continue your current duties in the afternoon.”
The Ceannaire sat back with a satisfied smile. “Your novitiate is complete. Now your apprenticeship at Ard Dhaimhin begins.”
“They accepted me as an apprentice.” Conor sat across from Eoghan at a table near the cookhouse. “For a second, I thought they were going to kick me out. Master Liam did not seem pleased with me.”
“Congratulations,” Eoghan said, but his tone was distracted.
Conor watched his friend push a chunk of fish around his half-empty bowl. “What’s wrong?”
Eoghan met his eyes and lowered his voice. “News from Sliebhan. King Fergus has seized the throne without a battle. All of Bodb’s chieftains and their warriors have sworn fealty.”
Gooseflesh prickled Conor’s skin. Fergus had conquered the country with only minor bloodshed, and now he had all Sliebhan’s warriors behind him. The situation smacked of sorcery. “When did this happen?”
“Word came last night. It’s been a few days at most.”
The Conclave had learned the news yesterday. And today Conor agreed to commit himself to an apprenticeship for an undefined period of time.
What had Riordan said? He fears you will leave before you’re ready if you don’t sever all ties to the kingdoms.
“They bound me here before I could hear the news.” Saying it aloud only confirmed his suspicions.
Eoghan looked at him strangely. “Why would they do that? You’d have to be mad to go back to the kingdoms now.”
“I don’t know.” But Conor felt the pull toward the turmoil of his uncle’s conquest the same way he had felt the pull toward Ard Dhaimhin. He was as enmeshed in the future of the kingdoms as he was bound to Liam’s plans in the High City.
Conor rubbed his arms against his sudden chill, despite the fact the evening air was mild. Comdiu, protect me, he thought, a ward against the unknown to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Conor’s first spear lesson took place the next morning. As he followed his céad mates around the lake to the practice yards, he could not shake his apprehension. Eoghan may have dismissed his concerns as mere imagination, but Conor could not rid himself of the feeling there was a bigger tapestry being woven, and he was seeing only one small part of the design.
“Delusions of grandeur,” he muttered to himself.
Those delusions did not extend to his first drills as an apprentice. Their instructor, Brother Teallach, a cast-iron man in his fifties, did not consider his lack of training an excuse for not keeping up with his céad mates. Conor barely caught the spear the instructor tossed him.
“First form!” Teallach barked.
The group moved in unison into a straight thrust, and Conor stumbled forward in time to avoid getting a spear through his back.
“Second form!”
The thrust shifted to a high block, and once more, Conor followed a beat behind.
The class dragged on painfully, Conor shadowing every movement and feeling hopelessly uncoordinated. Even after the hard labor of the past year, his arms and shoulders twinged from exertion, and a bead of sweat rolled down his back. It was his first day, he reminded himself. He couldn’t expect to get everything right on his first try.
Conor was relieved when Teallach split them into pairs, until he realized he had no partner. The instructor appeared before him, spear in hand. “Your attack.”
How was he supposed to do that? Conor hadn’t really learned the movements in the forms, though he understood they were meant to be applied against an opponent. He gripped the spear in both hands and lunged forward. Teallach knocked his spear aside and thwacked him hard on the ribs, then on the side of the head.
“Again,” Teallach said.
Conor tried again with the same results, but this time the instructor’s strikes were harder. His ribs stung, and his head ached.
“Again!”
How had he blocked that? The third time, he was ready to meet the instructor’s counterattack. Teallach gave his own spear a quick flick of the wrist, and Conor’s weapon clattered to the hard-packed earth.
A hint of a smile played on the older man’s lips. “Good. It didn’t take you long.” Teallach hooked his foot under the spear’s shaft and tossed it back to Conor. “Once more.”
By the end of the session, Conor had a handful of bruises to add to his count, but he was blocking and countering simple strikes with surprising facility. His arms and shoulders burned from the new movements, but a thin shred of hope had returned.
Conor followed the rest of the group to the next lesson, archery with Brother Seamus. Seamus was more patient than Teallach had been, and by the end of the lesson, Conor was at least able to loose arrows in the direction of his target, even if most of them struck the dirt in front of it.
He approached his third and final lesson of the day with aching muscles and a feeling of dread. Hand stones were the most traditional weapons of Seare, and while swordsmanship was more highly regarded, hardly a warrior or traveler went without a pouch of stones on his belt. Still, the groans of the younger boys as they approached the target scaffolds with their painted wooden discs made it clear this was their least favorite lesson.
While Conor’s céad mates selected their caches of stones and took their places in front of the targets with a combination of resignation and discipline, the instructor drew him aside. A young, fair-haired Siomaigh, Nuallain shared Eoghan’s calm, approachable manner. “You’ve never used these?”
Conor shook his head.
The instructor showed him the proper way of holding the stone and different methods of cocking his arm for the release. It was like skipping stones on a lake, something Conor had spent hours doing on summer afternoons.
Nuallain fired a stone. It hit the target with a crack and spun the disc backward on its rope. “Give it a go.”
Conor eyed a target beside the one Nuallain had just hit, about twenty paces away. He took aim and released the stone sidearm. To his shock, the projectile hit the target with as much force as Nuallain’s, dead center.
Nuallain arched an eyebrow. “Try another target.”
It was another ten paces back, so Conor could hardly believe it when he struck the target with equal accuracy.
“We may have found your weapon. Try this.” Nuallain made a few minor adjustments to the angle of Conor’s arm and his release and then handed him a larger stone. This time, the projectile hit the wooden disc with such force it cracked it in two and sent one half spinning off behind.
“That would kill a man,” Nuallain said approvingly.
Conor grinned. How appropriate his natural talent lay in the least-regarded ability of the kingdoms, one requiring finesse rather than brute strength. He cast a glance do
wn the line and received an approving nod from Merritt.
The other boys had free time between morning sessions and their lessons at the fortress, but Conor proceeded to Carraigmór as usual. He couldn’t help pouring his elation over the morning’s minor successes into his playing at Carraigmór, even though his arms ached so badly he could barely hold the harp.
After that, his daily routine varied only slightly. Some days, Teallach taught casting with the spear, or they worked with staffs instead. Nuallain taught them how to use hand slings and staff slings, for which Conor proved to have equal facility, even if he preferred throwing by hand. A small but shockingly strong brother named Cairbre introduced him to Hesperidian wrestling, which he took to with surprising alacrity.
Only archery remained a struggle. As Conor built strength to draw the bow, his range improved, but his aim did not. He was forced to admit he might never be a particularly proficient archer.
The only weapon with which he did not practice was the sword, and it was the one he wanted to learn most. Swordsmanship was the pinnacle of a Fíréin warrior’s skills, but while the other members of his céad trained with Ard Dhaimhin’s sword master, Brother Lughaire, Conor continued his menial duties around the village. Most days, he worked and trained from sunup to sundown with only his daily climb to Carraigmór as rest, and many nights, it was all he could do not to fall asleep in his bowl.
“Apparently the Fíréin don’t value sleep or free time,” Conor told Eoghan at supper one night.
“Or maybe Master Liam is trying to keep you busy. Most apprentices are required to attend lessons rather than join work details every day.”
“Maybe no one else has had my education.”
“Ciannait was raised by druids.” Eoghan shot him a significant look. “He probably knows more than all of us combined, and he’s spending his afternoons alone in the library.”
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