Firebrand (Rebel Angel Series)

by Gillian Philip

He silenced his breath. I did the same.

  His mind reached out. I closed my eyes for fear the light of them would be reflected in the black pool.

  Then he spat, and turned, and ran back up the steps.

  Trembling, I stared at my father, thinking: I’ll never know him now. And I stood there thinking that, over and over again, till for all I knew hours had passed. The noise of fighting faded, and eventually so did the screams, and the darkness became complete. Only then did I get my mind back, and only then did I scream in my head like an infant for Conal.

  * * *

  I think my father must have called out to Conal earlier, when he realised he had somehow been deceived into his own death, because my brother came faster than I could have hoped. I’d clambered on all fours up the well steps, because I could not stay in there with Griogair, not for anything. When I looked around me in the firelit darkness, I sat down on grass that was saturated with blood and entrails and the gods knew what else. There were no moans or cries from the wounded because there were no wounded. Those who hadn’t escaped were dead, and I tried not to think about what I’d heard as I stood frozen and shivering in the well, waiting till all the screams had died.

  I sat there on the blood-sticky grass for the whole of that long cold night, till dawn broke grey and weary at the far edge of the moor and I heard Conal coming. Two of his lieutenants came with him at the gallop, but what was the big hurry? Long before they drew to a halt they must have known they were hours too late. Slipping off their horses, they murmured together, awed by the slaughter, already planning how to deal with the corpses. In the morning they’d bring a detachment to recover them, but there were too many for proper rites just then. Niall Mor MacIain lay with his belly open from crotch to breastbone, his throat slashed and drained; I’d sat and stared at him for an age in the darkness, wondering what I could or should tell Eili and Sionnach about his end. There were limbs and heads and charred bodies strewn around the crofts, male and female fighters alike. Raineach’s brother had been crucified against a barn door, so they took him down from there, at least, and they also took the head of my red-haired crofter from the fence spike and laid it beside its neck stump.

  You know what the full-mortals call us? The People of Peace.

  They flatter us. Why? Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s folk-memory.

  I heard none of what Conal and his lieutenants said to me. They did bring away two bodies: Conal went with Righil down into the well and they carried up my father’s sodden remains. Of course they took those and Niall MacIain’s. When the bodies were roped to the other two horses, Conal picked me up and put me on his, then swung up behind me, and he brought me back to the dun like a living corpse. I could feel the warmth of his body behind mine, the pulse of his blood and the rise and fall of his chest, as if it was the only thing in the world that was real.

  The clann waited for us at the dun. Leonora already knew, of course, that her bound lover was dead, but she stood in dignified silence in the courtyard and waited for her son to ride through the gates and halt before her. With Conal’s arm around my waist, I looked into her blue grieving eyes and knew that in an instant she’d have me dead, and perhaps even Conal too, if there was a witchcraft that could bring Griogair back in our place.

  She was all in the colour of grief: loose white silk trews and a long embroidered white coat, her beautiful tawny hair woven into a long white-ribboned braid. Her raven hunched on the wall behind her. A faint breeze stirred its glossy wingtips and the spiky feathers at its throat, but it was unnaturally still, watching the corpses with eyes that were sly and as black as marble.

  Under the wordless gaze of the clann, Leonora took a knife from her belt, sliced the braided twist of hair from her head, and laid it across her lover’s body. When Griogair was carried away to be given to the buzzards, I thought the raven would go too, but it didn’t move.

  Leonora put her hand on Conal’s reins and looked up at him.

  ‘Will you go with Griogair?’ he asked her, very quietly.

  ‘No,’ she said. Her voice was even and steady. ‘Not yet. I’m needed.’

  I could sense his curiosity despite the circumstances. ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not born yet, whoever it is, but I have to stay.’

  ‘You want the Captaincy?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’ll renounce that. The dun is yours.’

  ‘All right.’

  She looked at him very hard. ‘That means you’re no longer Kate’s.’

  ‘Of course. She knows that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leonora thoughtfully. ‘She does. It’s a pity she didn’t foresee…’

  Her eyes snapped to me, as if she had only just remembered I was there, and she swallowed whatever words were on her tongue. But I wasn’t interested anyway. Through my daze of shock I knew only that Conal was returning, that he’d be Captain of the dun now, that I was getting him back. And even though I knew the birds were already eating my own father, and Sionnach and Eili’s too, I couldn’t help the welling happiness in my heart.

  Told you I was an optimist.

  8

  For a few weeks, I was contented with life as I’d never been before, as happy as I could imagine being. With Conal their Captain now, only a very few of the clann still saw me as a living insult to him, though a few still mistrusted me as the spawn of a witch. Leonora continued to ignore me. Raineach gave up hope of ever making me a silversmith, but Righil found the time and inclination to teach me to play fiddle and mandolin. I was never going to be a musical prodigy but I picked up the basics fast, and that made me all the more welcome in the great hall of an evening.

  I still had to put up with Eorna’s scathing remarks and his very evident pleasure in giving me regular hidings, but I didn’t mind, because there was a purpose to it and I was getting better all the time. He still hurt me more than I hurt him, but the fights grew less and less one-sided. One day he paused for breath—well, he would, with my blunt sword-tip at his throat—and chucked his old swathed sword down into the sand and grinned at me, and suddenly I knew what he knew: that one day I was going to be better than him. Better than all of them. Maybe never better than Eili, though I’d at least be her match, but my most shameful ambition was the one I kept blocked from everyone. I wanted to be better than Conal. I loved him, but I still wanted to prove I was Griogair’s son too, and not always the pointless one.

  When I wasn’t training, and I didn’t manage to slip away and simply run wild on my own, we were set to hunting food, Sionnach and Eili, Orach and Feorag and me, and that was no chore. I was always good at fishing and catching rabbits and hares, and I’d got the hang of a bow quickly, so if we wandered far enough I shot the occasional buck. Sionnach had taught me how to trap gulls and guillemots; they didn’t taste wonderful but their feathers were useful for arrows. Collecting shellfish had always been a game: mussels were easy and crabs were fun and we loved whacking limpets off rocks with an old sword, or digging manically after razor shells, racing to beat them as they tunnelled, and not always catching them. It was hard work but it was competitive, and we spent most of the time laughing and squabbling and shoving, and mostly we ended up stripping off and tumbling into the clear water of the bay. If we’d gathered enough food we’d build a small fire of driftwood, scraping dry fungus off scrawny birks and rocks for tinder, kindling it with dry bracken. Then we’d eat some of our catch ourselves, shivering over the flames and huddling together, telling our own fantasies and gently mocking one another’s. Sometimes I could only stay silent and watch the rest of them, afraid of my happiness, terrified that friendship might suddenly vanish in the dusk. I think Orach knew what went through my head: she often did. If I was silent too long, my heart and my tears in my throat, she would sit close against me, insinuating herself under my arm and letting her warmth sink into my bones.

  Conal was mostly absent for those weeks, keeping vigil over our father on his bleak hilltop. I went up to join him occasionally, but I did not
like the business. It was too easy to imagine the birds and the foxes tearing at my own flesh, and my new acquaintance with mortality still smarted too much for me to bear the smell for long. When it was finally decent for Conal to leave, when the bulk of Griogair’s rites were completed and the stripped bones were gathered, Conal left him with two guards and came back to the dun.

  And the day after that, we found out.

  * * *

  ‘What do you mean, hostages?’

  Eili and I stared at Conal in disbelief, but he carried on fletching arrows and didn’t look at us. He seemed different now that his hair was shorn close to his scalp: not older, exactly, since a grown Sithe never looks older till he’s practically on his deathbed; but somehow he looked harder and wiser. I hoped it had done the same for me, since I’d decided on balance that my hair too had to be shaved, though mostly out of respect for Conal rather than Griogair. My skull felt strange, bristly and cold. The arrow-feathers had been dyed sky blue and Conal’s fingers moved deftly and fast; his work was so hypnotic we’d been watching in silence for a while, and the whole time he must have been trying to choose his moment. I’d wondered why his block was up.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said again, more aggressively.

  ‘What I say. It’s just like last time, Seth. It’s not a request.’

  ‘But…’ I was completely bewildered. Politics were beyond me, and I couldn’t begin to fathom Kate’s reasoning.

  Conal’s two lieutenants exchanged glances behind him, raising their eyebrows. I knew what they were thinking; it was more than audible. Why did Kate have to choose the two stroppiest pains-in-the-arse in Conal’s dun? Righil and Carraig knew they were in for a long afternoon. Carraig sighed, sat down and pulled out his blade to sharpen it, while Righil simply slumped against the steps, folded his arms and shut his eyes, sunbathing in the winter brightness.

  ‘Is this something to do with my mother?’ I asked acidly.

  Conal shrugged. ‘Maybe. Sounds like one of her ideas.’

  ‘Kate doesn’t need Seth,’ put in Sionnach. ‘She wants two. If Eili’s going, I am too.’

  Conal rolled his eyes fondly. ‘Obviously. But then there will be three of you because she insists on having Seth. The people closest to me, of course. I’m sorry.’ He glanced at me, and I knew he truly was. ‘She doesn’t trust me, Seth.’

  ‘How can she not trust you?’ I exploded. ‘You’ve been one of her captains for, what…’ I counted swiftly. ‘Fifteen months!’

  ‘And opened my mouth once too often. She knows my opinions too well, and she doesn’t trust them or me. Maybe she has cause.’

  ‘What kind of a queen is that?’ snapped Eili. ‘What kind of a queen doesn’t want her captains’ opinions?’

  Gently Conal placed his fingers over her lips. ‘A powerful queen and a ruthless one. Don’t think such things, Eili. You mustn’t think them, or she’ll hear, one way or another. How do you think she got to be queen? You’ve no idea what she’s capable of.’

  Eili was barely listening. She blinked at him, and I saw her swallow. As he withdrew his fingers from her mouth, she almost yearned back towards his touch. Even now, I felt a rage of jealousy constrict my chest and throat. Well, I was going away with Eili now, and Conal wasn’t going to be in the way. That had to be good, didn’t it?

  Misery swamped me, made worse by my own treacherous train of thought. Trying and failing to hide his unease, Conal got to his feet and hugged my shorn head against him.

  ‘I won’t do anything to endanger any of you,’ he said. ‘I’ll be an obedient bondsman. Good as gold.’ There was acid in his tone, but then he smiled again. ‘And it isn’t for long.’

  Bitterly I said, ‘I’ve heard that one before.’

  * * *

  I slept that night, but only for minutes at a time. The night was cold but I couldn’t feel it, could only kick off my blankets and roll over to lie spreadeagled on my stomach, staring out at the star-bleached landscape and the glittering sky. Funnily enough, I missed the stink of the tannery since Conal had given me new and better rooms. I missed the unintelligible muttering of the guards up on the dun wall, their coughing and spitting and their occasional raucous laughter as they shared bad jokes to ward off the boredom. My new rooms were too big and quiet, the rafters too high, the carved stone too elegant.

  Orach was further away, too. I wanted her and I didn’t want her. I missed her skin against my skin, I missed her slender arms loose in sleep around my neck. I missed the feel of her back: muscles shifting beneath my palms, her ribs expanding with her soft sleeping breaths, my fingertips idly mapping the contours of her spine and shoulder blades as I lay wakeful. Love was meant to send you to sleep, I’d heard. It didn’t do it for me, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was being wanted. It flattered me, it contented me. She contented me.

  Still, tonight I did not want her, except with that common raw animal ache. I wanted to look at the stars while I could, and I wanted to look at them alone. For a moment I couldn’t breathe, and my lips parted as I sucked in breath with a high sound. It was almost like a sob, so I was mortified when I heard a footfall on the floorboards. I rolled onto my back and saw the dark shape of my brother against my open door.

  I sat up, shocked. ‘You should knock.’

  ‘I did.’ He sat down on the end of the bed. ‘I thought you spoke.’

  ‘Must have been a dream. What’s wrong?’ I thought for a moment Eili, and I was afraid.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘Except for the obvious. I’m sorry about it, Seth. I’m sorry about the whole business.’

  ‘Nothing you can do,’ I said coolly.

  ‘There should be.’

  ‘But there isn’t.’ In a way it was reassuring, I told myself. Even the perfect almighty Conal couldn’t control everything. Involuntarily I tightened my arms around my knees, crushing them against my stomach, trying to crush the ache inside me. ‘Can’t have it all your own way.’

  He grinned.

  ‘You didn’t wake me up just to go through all that again,’ I said.

  ‘I didn’t wake you up at all, you wee fraud.’

  This time I grinned.

  ‘There’s something we should have done long ago,’ he said. ‘Want to go up to the Dubh Loch?’

  I tried not to whoop with delight; then cold reality kicked in. ‘But I’m leaving, Cù Chaorach.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You have to do it now. The animal must be more than two years old by now. If you wait much longer it won’t be masterable.’

  ‘I won’t be here. I…’

  ‘Listen. Once he’s yours he’s yours, but you need to do it while he’s young.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘And of course, when he’s young he’s got less chance of killing you.’

  That went right over my head. I was too excited. ‘Tonight!’

  He smiled, a little sadly. ‘When else?’

  * * *

  What a night it was, the sky so frosted with stars it hardly mattered there was no moon. I sat behind Conal on his black horse, holding onto his waist, and now that it was so close I was almost mad with the hunger for a horse like this one. Conal seemed in no hurry; I wanted to race at a gallop, but he kept his black to an easy canter. I craned my head back to look up into the Milky Way, dizzy with the distance and splendour of it. Night air is different; it tastes younger, newer, darker. Fill your lungs with it, and you fill your lungs with night. Riding to the Dubh Loch that night I felt my innards cold and keen and hungry for life, and I thought that perhaps after all a man could live forever.

  The black slowed to a halt when we were still half a mile or so from the water’s dark lapping edge, hooves squelching in marshy ground. I slid off before Conal did, and he had to send a brusque order into my head to stop me charging ahead of him.

  I paused reluctantly, looked back at him, and then towards the loch that glimmered between slopes of bleached scree and scrappy heather. I could hear the soft slap of tiny waves on a pebbled sh
ore, the hiss and suck of water between rocks. As I drew closer it was a breath of wind in the rattling reeds I heard. And the scrape of a hoof on wet stone, and the scatter of silver droplets as a mane was shaken dry, and the questioning snort of fierce breath in the stillness.

  Don’t know why Conal was so hesitant. The creature’s hide glowed like a pearl in the starlight, and I knew before it raised its head from its lochside grazing that it had heard us coming, but it was entirely unafraid. It looked unthreatening, unthreatened. Its jaws crunched round tough grass from the lochside, and as its tongue came out to lick its lips I glimpsed its canines. Eyes watched us, black and featureless. The empty stare might have been unnerving, but for the way it lowered its head and whickered, flicked its tail and shook its black mane once more, playful and confident. Its face was black too, and its long still-coltish legs. You couldn’t see its true colour in the night; its neck and shoulders and flanks were all starlight and phosphorescence. Beautiful. My horse was beautiful.

  ‘Careful,’ said Conal.

  ‘Yes.’ My fingers clutched the bridle so hard I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to unfreeze them. ~ What do I do?

  ‘You speak openly, for a start. It’ll hear your thoughts anyway.’

  ‘Not very straightforward, this, is it?’

  ‘Where would the fun be otherwise? Now give me the bridle. It’s no use to you yet. And don’t let the horse go into the water, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Don’t let it go in the water,’ I echoed, as he eased the bridle from my fingers.

  ‘If you go into the water you’re dead. Now, listen. You’re not taming it, you’re offering it an exchange. You’re offering yourself and you’re taking its freedom.’

  ‘Like a binding,’ I said.

  Conal suppressed his laughter. ‘Not unlike it. But different. It’s a horse, for gods’ sake.’

  I glanced at him and grinned, but the horse can’t have liked me turning away from it. It gave an exasperated snort, shook its head, so that I looked back. Gently it tilted its head. It looked a bit like an invitation.