Lia dropped her gaze. “I was a chambermaid. I cleaned the hearths and laid the fires.”
“Would you like to continue serving me?”
“Of course, my lady!” Lia’s eyes widened. “Unless, of course, you wish someone older, more experienced.”
“No, Lia, I would like you to continue. But you must be honest. I promise that anything you say to me will be held in confidence.”
Lia paused as if considering, and then she nodded. “As soon as word came of Lisdara’s fall, she put about that you were dead.”
“But it’s barely been a fortnight!”
“Indeed, my lady. But I couldn’t tell you why.”
“That’s all right. What else have you heard? Surely there’s been talk.”
The first light of mischief touched Lia’s eyes. “Granddad says word has already spread among the guardsmen. There are many who claim to remember you.”
Aine grinned. “Perfect. Who is your grandfather?”
“Master Guaire, of course. But that doesn’t mean I receive any special treatment.” Lia put aside the sewing basket and pushed to her feet. “There. I’ve got the length right. Shall I sew while you bathe?”
“Please.”
Moments later, Aine was up to her elbows in warm water. Nothing had ever felt so luxurious. She’d never really been able to get the stiff salt feel from her hair, even after washing in the stream on the way to Forrais. She scrubbed it clean with a cake of herbal soap, focusing on the mundane details of her toilette to avoid thinking of what was to come.
“There. It’s not perfect, my lady, but it’s near enough that no one will notice.” Lia held up the newly shortened dress to check her work and then laid it carefully on the bed. She helped Aine from the tub and wrapped her in a length of clean linen before leading her to a chair by the brazier.
“You’ve done this before,” Aine said.
“My mother served Lady Macha for a time. She made sure I understood the duties of a maid so I might better my station.”
Aine nodded. How strange to think of an entire family serving one clan their whole lives, from grandfather to granddaughter. True, life as a servant at Forrais was far easier than life as a crofter or baker or almost any sort of craftsman. But to have so few options . . .
How is that any different than your life? What options do you have? What real freedom do you possess to follow your own path?
But it was different, because Aine had the means to do what she wished. She simply lacked the courage.
“My lady?”
Aine glanced up and realized the girl was waiting with a comb in her hand. “I’m sorry, Lia. Go ahead.”
The girl combed the damp length of Aine’s hair and then arranged it in a swirl of braids atop her head, woven with an embroidered blue ribbon. It was style befitting a married woman, not a maiden. Was that Lia’s idea? Exactly how much did the inhabitants of Forrais know about what came before?
When Lia handed her the brass mirror, Aine nodded in satisfaction. She looked nothing like the travel-stained slip of a girl who had wandered in that morning. She was a chieftain’s heir, a queen’s daughter.
A warrior’s wife.
Inspiration struck. “Lia, would you send for your grandfather? I need one more thing.”
Aine stood before the doorway leading into the great hall, fingering the new addition to her wardrobe.
“That was good thinking,” a man’s voice said at her shoulder.
Aine spun, her heart pounding, her hand flying to her throat. The speaker smiled and stepped back, then swept into a low bow.
“Forgive me, Lady Aine. I did not mean to startle you. I am Uallas, lord of Eilean Buidhe. Welcome home.”
Under another circumstance, Aine might have found Lord Uallas handsome. Well built, with red hair and a trim beard, he somehow managed to avoid the ruddy, boyish look so many men of his coloring seemed never to lose. His green eyes twinkled, a sign of perpetual good humor. Aye, she would think him attractive if not for the impulse to compare every man she met to Conor.
“Thank you, my lord,” she managed at last. “Welcome to Forrais. You are far from home.”
“Not as far as you.”
His eyes drifted to her waist, where her other hand still rested. “Your mother’s, I take it?”
Aine released the bejeweled, silver-chased dagger. The weapon had been a wedding gift from her father to her mother, a tradition that dated back to the days when men would marry their sweethearts on the eve of battle. They would leave weapons behind to keep their wives safe and to mark them as a protected member of their clan. Gradually, the gifts became more and more ornate, until the daggers were as much a symbol of status as they were of the marriage bargain.
As a warrior’s wife, it was Aine’s right to wear one, even if her husband had not given it. And it would remind the entire assemblage of her heritage. Macha wouldn’t be as eager to push her to the margins with such a reminder.
And somehow, Uallas knew it.
His eyes found hers again. “Perhaps it is improper, considering I’m a stranger here, but may I escort you to your table?” He held out his hand, his gaze unwavering.
Aine automatically put her hand in his, and a pang struck her to her core. It was too familiar: his words, the situation. Conor had done the same thing his second night in Lisdara, despite the fact he too had been a stranger in her brother’s hall. The fingers of loss tightened around her lungs, squeezing the breath from her chest. The edges of her vision grew murky.
“Lady Aine?”
She sucked in a breath, and her view expanded once more. “Thank you, Lord Uallas. You are very kind.” Aine straightened herself to her full, unimpressive height and strode into the hall, wishing with every step that it were Conor walking beside her.
To her relief, the space was barely even half-full. Only a handful of nobles remained at court, the rest of them overseeing harvest and late planting on their lands. Platters of food already sat at the long tables, and the tap of knives and spoons against wooden trenchers punctuated the drone of voices. She hadn’t realized until this moment how much she missed the ever-present music at Lisdara.
Lady Macha sat at one such long table, undistinguished from the rest except by its position at the front of the hall. A handsome gray-haired man sat beside her: her husband, Aenghus. The youngest child in a family of nine, he’d given up his distant claim to his own clan’s leadership to handfast with Macha. Their two sons, older than Aine, sat at the table adjacent to their parents’. She felt their eyes, as hard and dark as their mother’s, on her as she entered.
Macha’s eyebrows rose when she saw her on Lord Uallas’s arm. She gestured for Aine to join her in the empty seat to her left. Lord Uallas bowed to both Aine and the chieftain and then found his own seat at the next table.
“Impressive. You’ve been here a day and already you’ve caught Lord Uallas’s attention. You do not waste time.”
“We met in the corridor. He offered to escort me.”
The little smile that curled on Macha’s lips said she clearly didn’t believe her. She gestured to the platter before them. “Eat. Seareanns may like to take emaciated waifs to wife, but Aronans need strong stock to breed sons.”
Aine’s shoulders slumped until she saw Uallas’s questioning look from across the room. Somehow, it gave her a boost of confidence. She straightened in her chair and helped herself to a joint of meat from the platter and then several small potatoes.
“I appreciate your concern, Aunt. But I’ve no need of suitors, considering I already have a husband.”
Lady Macha choked on her food, coughing into her hand before she swallowed the offending piece down with a long pull of wine from her goblet. “I must be mistaken. I thought you said you have a husband.”
Aine hid her own smile in her cup. It had to be a sin to enjoy her aunt’s discomfiture so much, but the chieftain had done nothing but try to keep her off balance since she’d arrived that morning. It was much too
pleasurable to turn the tables.
“Aye. I married Conor Mac Nir when I left Seare.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know. We were separated in the storm. I expect he’s making his way here at this very moment. I do hope you will offer him a less suspicious welcome than you gave me. He is the sole reason I’m alive.”
She took Macha’s slack-jawed expression as permission to elaborate and told her the story of how she’d been betrayed by one of King Calhoun’s lords, captured by the Red Druid at the fortress in Tigh, and then rescued by Conor. When she got to her attack on the road, she paused.
“You should know that Lord Riagain fully intended to take me back to Brightwater as a hostage. Had it not been for the help of some passing travelers, I would be in the hands of your enemy now.” Macha probably wouldn’t care if Aine were captured by Riagain, but she would take offense at the sheer audacity of the assault on her clan.
“It sounds as if you composed yourself in a manner befitting your Tamhais blood,” Aenghus said. Not for the first time, Aine wondered why such a kind-seeming man had married her aunt. “Or do you claim Nir as your clan now?”
Even Conor didn’t claim Nir as his clan, but they didn’t need to know that. “We handfasted, Uncle, as you and Lady Macha did. It seemed wisest given the circumstances.”
“You couldn’t have possibly had a legal handfasting in a few days and on the open sea, no less,” Macha said. “I’m tempted to believe this is all a fabrication. Will we learn in a few months that you’re carrying a bastard child?”
Aine recoiled at the venom in her aunt’s words. “I hope that I’m fortunate enough to be carrying my husband’s child now. And considering we were married by a former Fíréin brother and the captain of our ship, I’d say that makes it at least as legitimate as your own. My lady.”
“Except my husband is here to attest that the marriage actually happened.” Malice glimmered in Macha’s eyes, and her lips lifted in a satisfied smile. “But there’s no need to publicize that matter. Especially since the man you claimed to have married died almost four years ago.”
Aine swayed in her seat, her heart lodging somewhere in her throat as she realized how neatly she’d been set up. Macha knew all about her life in Seare, about Conor’s supposed disappearance. But she couldn’t possibly know that reports of his death had been intended to divert from the fact that he was training with Fíréin brotherhood. Without any proof, everyone would believe whatever Macha said about her, particularly if she turned up pregnant.
Aine’s hand drifted to her flat stomach and then dropped into her lap before Macha could note the gesture. She and Conor had had only two days together, little enough time to conceive a child. It would be easier if she had not: much of the speculation would fall away in several months. But if Conor were truly lost to her, could she be blamed for wanting some piece of him?
Macha went back to her food, apparently satisfied she’d put her upstart niece in her place. Aine ground her back teeth together. She couldn’t let Macha see how much she’d been rattled, how badly she’d been beaten. Her only hope of survival at Forrais was to find some way to force her aunt’s respect. Otherwise, she’d be marginalized, pushed to the side, ignored if not outright scorned.
Aine stayed at the table only as long as necessary to avoid looking as though she were storming out of the hall. Curious gazes followed her from the room, none more intent than that belonging to Lord Uallas.
She waited until she cleared the attention of the hall before she let her dignified walk break into a run. Hot tears stung the back of her eyes. It was all a lie, not just to Macha but to herself. Conor was probably dead. To think otherwise would only bring greater heartbreak.
She managed to throw herself through the doorway of her chamber and bolt the latch behind her before the first tear spilled over. Her fingers fumbled for the ivory charm beneath her dress and she pressed it between her hands.
“Please,” she whispered. “Just give me a sign, some indication you’re still alive. You can’t be gone. You just can’t be.”
But however much she willed the warmth to flare in the charm, it remained as still and cold as ever.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Riordan had never been able to sense the wards, but even he felt the difference as he moved through the forest. The wrongness beyond Ard Dhaimhin’s borders was palpable, like a snowstorm in the middle of summer. Never before had the margin between the High City and the kingdoms been so clear, and it made his task that much less appealing.
As he broke free of the tree line, he couldn’t hold back a shiver. Dark clouds roiled on the horizon, an ominous sign. Legend held that in the rule of a good and noble king, the sun would shine and the crops would thrive, while in the rule of an evil king, darkness would cover the land. He’d never believed it, thinking it one of Seare’s pagan superstitions, but now he wondered if there weren’t some truth to the stories.
Just as he now questioned the brotherhood’s policy of separation. There had been good reasons for it once, but was tradition an adequate justification now that they saw the darkness their inaction had wrought? The brotherhood was descended from the loyal palace guard who had protected Queen Shanna from the wrath of her sons after they murdered her husband, and their only purpose for five hundred years had been to hold the High City for the return of the king. But what good was holding the throne and the fortress if the people the High King was meant to serve were suffering under the rule of an evil man?
His uneasiness built, but he shook off the feeling as he shouldered his staff and trudged into the open meadow. It had to be the sidhe. The spirits had done enough damage while they were bound. It seemed that they were bound no more.
You should not have come here. Your place is at Ard Dhaimhin, not here in the world. Go back to your comfortable prison.
The pang of foreboding nearly doubled him over. He paused, breathing deeply. “You cannot harm me,” he said quietly. “I walk in the light of Balus.”
The oppression eased somewhat, and he moved forward, taking his heading from the position of what little sun peeked through the clouds. He’d meant to make for Clogheen, a market village that stood at the intersection of the road from the port of Ballaghbán and the shippers’ road that led from Siomar toward Lisdara. Its constant influx of travelers offered both anonymity and the promise of fresh news. But now he wondered if he’d chosen wrong. Walking in that direction was like trudging through molasses. His feet were moving, but it took an extraordinary effort to continue. Was it just an overall malaise brought on by the sidhe, or was he being specifically targeted?
“Be gone in the name of Comdiu and his son, Balus,” Riordan commanded, and the presence fled. He drew in another deep breath. Whatever he would learn in Clogheen, the sidhe did not want him to know.
It was bad enough that they had been released. Even worse that they now seemed to have purpose. Riordan struck out southeast, traveling overland so he wouldn’t meet up with the road until he came to Clogheen. A fine mist wet his skin, growing increasingly thicker and more persistent the closer he came to the town. Of course. The sidhe fed off human passions and delighted in creating mischief. A market town with its cross sections of travelers, some of whom had never heard of Balus, was the perfect place in which to gorge themselves.
No sooner did Riordan reach the boundaries of the town than the oppressive stench of misery and fear fell over him. He shuddered, sending up a silent prayer for protection. The town was small by any standards other than Seareann, a scattering of huts and thatched-roof cottages. Pony- and ox- and handcarts displayed all sorts of wares. He squinted through the mist and brushed moisture from his skin as he walked slowly down the main street, the usual market sounds dampened by the fog.
A shout caught his attention, followed by a clatter as a produce cart tipped over and late-summer vegetables spilled onto the road. Riordan jumped out of the way just as two men crashed into the street, grappling in the dirt and
shouting vile names Riordan hadn’t heard in years. The one on the bottom—the customer, Riordan thought—seemed to be getting in his fair share of licks, punching and kneeing the man on top, who groaned as each strike met flesh. Then, without warning, the merchant pulled a knife from his belt and plunged it into the other man’s chest.
The murderer stood and wiped his blade on his own tunic, then met Riordan’s eyes. Riordan shuddered again. There was something empty and hopeless, vacant, about those eyes. The sidhe had found another victim. Beneath his cloak, Riordan curled his hand around the hilt of his own dagger, but the man just turned and walked back to his toppled cart, leaving the body alone in the street.
Not for long, though. A pack of urchins scrambled into the road, rifling through the dead man’s possessions. His shoes went first, followed by his cloak. One girl howled in fury when his coin pouch turned out to be empty—probably the reason for the fight in the first place.
Riordan turned away, sickened. The children always turned feral first. They were too susceptible to the lies of the Adversary’s minions, too desperate to survive at any cost. Most of them would die on this street before they ever reached adulthood, and there was nothing Riordan could do about it.
Comdiu, help me. Protect me from this evil. Do not let me fall prey to this darkness.
The grip on his heart eased again, and he drew a long breath before continuing on down the street. There was an alehouse here somewhere, no doubt the most dangerous spot in the entire town, but ale tended to loosen lips and free tales. And tales were what he was after.
He found it at last, housed in one of the town’s few timbered buildings and topped with a real slate-shingled roof. Naturally it would be the most prosperous business in town. Riordan pushed through the door, trying to make himself inconspicuous, but the combination of his height, his weapons, and the old-fashioned cut of his clothing made that impossible. A dozen pairs of eyes fixed on him.
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