Firebrand (Rebel Angel Series)

by Gillian Philip

  ‘That girl,’ I said, nodding towards the stable. ‘Just now. I love her and I thought she might love me back, but she doesn’t. What an arse I am.’

  She looked down at her pale hand against mine.

  ‘You know what I like about you? You’re not going to tell anybody. About me being such a fool.’

  Her wounded fingers curled round my hand. She drew it to her lips and kissed it, then put her arms round me and hugged me. Getting to her feet, she pressed her crude little wolf into my grip, and walked away.

  25

  I was taken aback when I stood up at last, and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d stop haunting me now. Or maybe not. Glancing down at the crude little wooden wolf, I wondered if she really was a witch. Maybe she’d cast a spell on the thing to make it keep an eye on me, so that she didn’t have to. I smiled and held it out to Branndair.

  ‘What do you think?’

  He eyed it mistrustfully.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not very good, is it?’

  Deep in his throat he gave a soft whine, then stretched, claws scrabbling on the stone. The dun was all in shadow now, and the sun had vanished entirely. Shivering, I remembered how long it was since I’d slept, and how tired I was. I wondered where Orach was, and at the same time I was glad she wasn’t around. My emotions were hopelessly tangled, and after two years I didn’t know how she’d react to me anyway. For all I knew she’d be bound to Feorag by now, or someone else. For all I knew she could be bound to a woman.

  In my rooms I looked around. They were unchanged, veiled in a thin layer of dust, and my bed smelt musty. It was a thousand times better than anywhere I’d slept in the last two years: too good, and I knew I couldn’t sleep here, not yet. Picking up a blanket I shook the dust out of it, then took my bridle down from its hook by the door. I ran it between my fingers, then hitched it over my shoulder and backed out of the room, closing the door softly. Branndair glanced up at me, waiting in silence. I thought of my old room beside the tannery, but I changed my mind.

  The guards in the corridor outside Conal’s room still didn’t speak to me, but they stopped their murmuring talk and watched me as I went past. Ignoring them, I settled myself against the wall right outside Conal’s room, rolling myself in the blanket and curling up on the floor. That felt better. There was rush matting between me and the cold stone, and that was all I needed. Inside the blanket I clutched the bridle against my chest, and Branndair slumped down alongside me. I could feel the warmth of his body radiating into my bones, the rhythmic beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his ribcage. I could smell his wolf-breath close to my face. Then I couldn’t feel or hear or smell anything, and there was only the black oblivion of the best sleep I’d had in two years.

  * * *

  If I expected anything, I’d expected to feel a lot colder when I woke, especially since Branndair was no longer beside me. Sleepily I reached out my mind: he was fine. He was out in the dun, being fed with the hounds: Sionnach had come and taken him. My body felt limp and immobile. The last time I’d slept this long unmoving, I’d woken to pain and cold, still exhausted, knocked senseless by my own brother. Now, though the floor was hard beneath me, I felt warm and drowsy, as if I’d slept away all pain and cold and misery. A couple of skins and another blanket had been tucked around me, and my head lay on a soft folded plaid. I was surprised they’d bothered, but I was grateful anyway.

  Pushing myself up on one arm, I blinked. The guard had been changed. A man and a woman now efficiently blocked the access both to me and to Conal’s room: Carraig and Geanais. I could sense the flinty shield of their minds, their sharp questioning defences. Beyond them, barred from Conal and from me, a small figure crouched against a corner of the wall, wrapped in a blanket as I was. She was awake, and someone had given her a cup of something warm that she held in both her thin wounded hands, but the guards ignored her.

  I shoved off my wrapping of hides and blankets, and got to my feet, shaking off sleep as I hooked my bridle back over my shoulder. My body was stiff and I ached, but it was a good ache. Carraig glanced at me and nodded.

  ‘Let her through,’ I said.

  Carraig looked at Geanais, and she shrugged, then jerked her head at the girl. Catriona stumbled to her feet, still clutching the cup though a little of her drink spilled, and edged warily between them.

  ‘You couldn’t let her near his door, or what?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Geanais. ‘Of course we couldn’t.’

  ‘We let her through to give you blankets,’ added Carraig, as if that was some great concession.

  ‘And there was me about to thank you for them,’ I said.

  ‘I doubt you’d strain yourself,’ said Carraig.

  I called him something filthy, straight into his head. He gave me two fingers and went back to his conversation with Geanais.

  Catriona was hovering uncertainly, staring at Conal’s door.

  ‘Here,’ I said. Beckoning her, I opened his door silently. As it swung wide I stood back and let her look in at him. He lay absolutely still, his face hollowed out by the thin light filtering through the shutters, but his breathing was slow and deep and regular. His fingertips twitched, that was all. I drew her back out and closed the door.

  ‘See?’ I said. ‘He’s all right now.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you are too,’ I added. ‘You can stay here with us if you want. It’s fine.’

  She smiled briefly, then studied my face. Lifting a finger, she touched my cheek questioningly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes. I’m all right now too.’

  I thought about Eili, and realised it was the first time she’d crossed my mind since I’d woken. That was reassuring. I wondered where Orach was. I wanted to see her now.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ I said, taking the cup from Catriona. It was milk warmed with whisky, I could smell it, but it was drained to the dregs. ‘I’m starving too. He’s fine, you know. We can leave him.’ I raised my voice. ‘Even with this pair of arses, we can leave him.’

  This time it was Geanais who gave me two fingers.

  I took Catriona’s hand in mine and pushed past them. ‘I’m due in the arena anyway. I want something to eat first.’

  Carraig gave a bark of laughter. ‘Eorna said to let you know he considers it a moral victory, greenarse. Seeing as you never showed up.’

  Turning on my heel I snatched a fistful of his hair, and shoved my face close to his. I heard Catriona’s small frightened gasp, and the light rasp of Geanais’s dirk coming half out of its sheath, but I didn’t look round. The dirk was still half-sheathed and that was how it would stay. Her movement had been instinctive but I knew she wouldn’t dare. None of them would. Ever again.

  I stared right into Carraig’s eyes. ‘What did you call me?’

  He didn’t speak.

  I tightened my fingers in his hair till he winced. ‘What’s my name?’ I hissed.

  He was silent for only a moment more. Then he said, ‘Murlainn.’

  I let him go and left him to exhale. I didn’t have to look back to know that Catriona was following at my heels. At the bottom of the stone steps I stopped and turned to her, and she came to a sudden halt, almost banging into me.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked her sheepishly. ‘Isn’t it morning?’

  Her gaunt face was lit by a huge smile as she shook her head. As her hand went to her mouth her breath came out in a little soundless snort that should have been a giggle.

  I returned her grin. ‘Did I overplay that a bit?’

  Her hand was still stifling her silent laughter as she shook her head again.

  ‘Come on, then.’

  There would be no breakfast. As soon as I stepped outside I realised it was early evening and that I must have slept for nearly twenty-four hours. The late summer sun was still bright in the sky, and there were people in the great hall already starting to drink. In the kitchens I scavenged cold venison and brea
d and oatcakes for us both, then took her up to the parapet. We sat and ate in companionable silence, looking out at the long shadows on the sunlit machair, and I thought that life could get no better.

  Taking my bridle off my shoulder, I started to rub oil into it with a cloth I’d picked up as we passed the stables. The bridle was dull and stiff with disuse, but I was happy to have the work to do, and pleased with the way it softened and shone for me. Catriona wrapped her arms round her legs and watched, occasionally lifting her gaze to the machair and the sea and the far hills.

  ‘Why won’t you speak?’ I asked her.

  Looking away, she shrugged. Then she gave me a rueful smile.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Fair enough.’ I liked it anyway. She was peaceful to be around. Like Sionnach, only more so.

  Behind us there was the click of Branndair’s claws as he padded up the stone steps to join us. I gave him the scraps of my venison, and scratched his ears where he liked it, and he settled himself down, head in my lap.

  I was relaxed enough almost to fall back to sleep again, but she was fidgety and restless at my side, and eventually I opened my eyes and rolled my head to look at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She looked back towards the dun, then, beseechingly, at me. To be honest I was growing impatient, and it came quite naturally to slip inside her mind. It was only when she jerked back with a scared gasp that I realised it wouldn’t seem all that natural to her.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, not very sincerely. ‘Don’t look like a scared rabbit, for gods’ sake.’

  I could see her pulse beating in her throat, and she was still eyeing me like a coney eyeing a stoat. I rolled my eyes.

  ‘You want to go and take care of him. How else was I meant to find out?’

  She swallowed, uneasy, and nodded once.

  ‘So why didn’t you … well. Obviously you wouldn’t say so.’ Sighing, I got to my feet. ‘Don’t try getting past those twats in the corridor. They’ll never let you through. Come on, I’ll take you to Grian.’

  * * *

  The healer Grian was perfectly happy to have a dogsbody, and I was relieved not to have Catriona dogging my every step. It was nice not to have to worry about her, either. My moment inside her mind had been something of a shock. I’d discovered she was still in pain (you’d think I might have guessed), that she was still very afraid, but despite our instant of coexistence I still knew little about what had happened to her. Much of it she had stuffed behind a block that would grace the mind of a Sithe. She needed a distraction, I reckoned, and I knew nothing could suit her better than looking after her hero. Grian found her helpful, and he liked her, and he was good at healing minds and bodies even when a patient didn’t notice she was a patient. He and Catriona were good for each other, and I was pleased with myself for thinking of the pairing.

  ‘She’s a strong one.’ A couple of days later Grian said exactly the same as Sionnach. ‘Works hard. Dotes on your brother. Doesn’t speak but Conal likes having her around.’ He guffawed. ‘Not sure Eili does.’

  My grin was gleeful.

  26

  It dawned on me with excruciating slowness that only half the people in the dun thought I had been saved from a terrible obligation by the MacLeod’s intervention at Conal’s burning. The other half thought I had been thwarted.

  It started with a nagging suspicion and a few gazes that refused to meet mine. It ended with a brawl in the great hall, and I could have happily taken on the three of them myself—it wouldn’t have been the first time, since they’d had it in for me since I was eight—but Sionnach joined in with a cheerful heart. Eili looked on with rolling eyes and many pointed sighs, but when she eventually pitched in too, they finally yielded. My knee was on the throat of one of them, and it did occur to me simply to leave it there, to crush his windpipe for the benefit of anyone else who harboured the same poisonous idea. But it wasn’t worth it. If they wanted to think badly of me they would, and hell mend them. Besides, my brother, when he recovered, would have killed me.

  Catriona watched the bloody fight with her eyes wide, her face horrified. Leonora looked on, smiling slightly, taking no sides.

  Orach, of course, would no sooner think badly of me than she would of Conal. She returned to the dun a week after Conal and Catriona and I did, from patrolling the dun lands and collecting our payments in grain and meat. (The tolls were a great deal more reasonable than the payments Conal and I had had to make to the MacLeod, but I no longer resented the man even for hungry winters.) Orach, popular with the captains as much for her easygoing nature as for her shooting skills, had been escorting a cart laden with grain sacks, but she abandoned it half a mile out, ignoring the sharp shouts of her captain, and galloped into the dun gates. She threw herself off her horse and onto me, and I laughed and birled her in huge circles.

  ‘I heard the story,’ she said to me a little later. ‘I want to hear everything, all the details. Not just now, later. How’s Conal?’

  ‘He’s getting there,’ I said. ‘They used a knife to prick him; he lost a lot of blood. And they beat him and it damaged him where you can’t see, and that’s hard for the healers. You know there was a Lammyr?’

  ‘I heard.’ She shuddered. ‘How long did it have him?’

  I shrugged. ‘A week.’

  ‘Gods. How’s he alive?’

  ‘Luck,’ I said grimly. ‘And the L … the Lammyr was enjoying itself too much to ki…’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Stopping, she squeezed my hand, and I stared at the corner where the stable met the armoury wall, where there was no-one to see my tears of rage. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘I shouldn’t ask, not just now. What about the … good gods, is that the full-mortal girl?’

  I glanced round, glad of a change of subject. Catriona had come down from Conal’s rooms and was standing in the courtyard breathing the open air. Still too shy to go near human beings, she’d spotted a chestnut horse tethered by the stable, and wandered across to stroke its nose and rub its cheeks and ears. Whickering with adoration, it rubbed its face on her stubbly scalp. She was good with horses.

  She looked terrible, though. She was spending too much time in Conal’s sickroom now, watching Grian mend his broken and brutalised body, when her own had so recently been broken too. She’d had enough, I thought. She needed the sky above her and an empty mind and the north wind slicing into her skin. She needed the sun to take that dungeon pallor off her. It wasn’t her fault she looked the way she did.

  I opened my mouth to defend her, but I didn’t get a chance to say a word.

  ‘What the hell are you all thinking of?’ said Orach indignantly.

  Never having been snapped at by Orach in my life, I could hardly move my gaping jaw.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone thought to give the girl some proper clothes?’

  I stared at Orach, and then at Catriona. Sure enough the girl was still in the thin grey shift she’d worn to her cancelled execution. She must have been washing it out each night, because it looked clean enough. That was all you could say for it. Shame washed over me in a hot tide.

  ‘You crowd of thoughtless idiots,’ said Orach, and marched across towards Catriona.

  She was halfway to the girl when I remembered to shout, ‘She doesn’t talk.’ Then Orach had caught the shocked girl by the arm, and was hauling her off in the direction of her own rooms, murmuring in her ear.

  * * *

  ‘Doesn’t talk.’ Orach was contemptuous. ‘Doesn’t talk, indeed. You don’t listen, more like.’

  ‘When did you get that attitude?’ I laced my fingers hungrily into her hair and pulled her face down to kiss her. ‘You used to be so quiet.’

  She propped her hands on my chest and pushed herself up, making me grunt. ‘Arrogant sod. I wasn’t that quiet. It’s just I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.’

  The sky was blue enough to hurt your eyes. Beneath me the seagrass was scratchy against my naked back and the blown sand got everywhere, but I didn’t care. A breeze
rustled the clumps of pink thrift, tangled her pale unbound hair. I could smell the sea, and the machair, and Orach’s sun-warmed skin. I blinked against the brilliance of the sun, trying to focus on her intent face.

  ‘How’s Feorag?’ I asked.

  ‘Feorag’s fine.’ Straddling me, she gazed down, expressionless.

  Laying my palms on her thighs, I raised an eyebrow. ‘I take it you’re not bound to him.’

  ‘How astute. I’m no more bound to him than I am to you.’

  I gave her the very slow grin that always broke her down, and sure enough she gave an exclamation of disgust and slapped my ribcage.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said.

  ‘I never said I’d wait around for you, Seth.’

  ‘I never asked you to.’

  ‘Even if you had, I wouldn’t have.’

  ‘That’s why I never asked. You break my heart, woman.’

  ‘Liar.’ She slapped me again.

  ‘I love you, I’m telling you.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ Her eyes softened and she flopped down beside me into the dry salty grass. She stroked my cheek. ‘But I’ll never be enough for you.’

  ‘Right. Of course.’ I rolled to face her. ‘And I’ll never be enough for you.’

  Her fingers drifted across my lips, making me shiver.

  ‘If you say so, Murlainn.’

  I curled an arm round her body and kissed her forehead, suddenly sad. Which wasn’t how I wanted to feel. I changed the subject as always.

  ‘Did she speak to you? Catriona?’

  Orach gave me a long look. It made me uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, did she?’ I prompted.

  ‘No, but she can and she will.’ Orach glanced aside. ‘It only takes someone to listen.’

  ‘I listen,’ I said, miffed.

  ‘Aye. Only to your own echo.’

  We lay in silence for a while, my arm around her, hers lying lightly across my chest. The unseen sea moved, whispering and rushing, beyond the close horizon of our dune. When I closed my eyes, I saw red veins behind my eyelids, and I felt her kiss my skin.