Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  There was someone else in the cave. Aonghas sat against the rock wall, arms resting on his knees, a silver flask in one hand. He turned his head and looked at me, but he didn’t smile.

  ~ Murlainn.

  I nodded to him, wondering if I was in trouble again, and not much caring. After a moment he held out the flask to me, so I sat down against the wall beside him and took it. The whisky was peaty and sharp; it burned the back of my throat and made me feel slightly sick, but I drank a good dram of it anyway. Too late at night. I passed the flask back to him and he took it without a word. In silence we watched Conal.

  When he stood up straight and took his arms away from the wall and the waterfall, I saw the dirk in his right hand. I didn’t dare say a word as he carved two methodical neat lines on his forearm, parallel to the rest. Blood flowed from his split flesh, and he thrust his arm back under the water till the wounds were washed clean.

  ‘Does he want a healer?’ I asked, my throat dry.

  ‘Never does,’ said Aonghas. And sure enough Conal stepped out of the water and wrapped a cloth round his arm, expertly, as he must have done it many times before, tightening it in a slipknot. He pulled his clothes back on over his soaking skin and sat down beside us.

  ‘Today,’ he said, ‘I was ordered to kill a child.’

  I thought his voice would echo. Instead it seemed to be swallowed up in the darkness and the damp stone. Aonghas held the flask towards him, but he shook his head.

  ‘He was the age you were, Seth, when I first laid eyes on you.’

  Reflexively I swallowed.

  ‘You didn’t do it,’ said Aonghas.

  Conal gave him a sidelong look. ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think so.’

  ‘I hanged his father and his uncle,’ said Conal, ‘and I turned him and his mother out on the moor where they might very well starve, but no, I did not kill him.’

  ‘For which disobedience,’ remarked Aonghas, ‘Kate may very well kill you.’

  ‘If you report him,’ I said. My voice was swallowed by the cave just as Conal’s had been, so I said it again. ‘If you report him I’ll kill you.’

  Aonghas did not react at first. Carefully he set down the flask, then sat back against the wall and stared at the roof, unseen in shadow.

  ‘Murlainn,’ he sighed. ‘Be insolent here and now, if you like. The rest of the time, keep your tongue in order. I do not like having you whipped. I did not like Fearchar setting his thugs on Sionnach. But it’s what must happen if you’re stupid. I have my own life to think about.’

  True. I fidgeted uncomfortably, remembering. My back didn’t hurt any more but the scabs itched. Just as well it was dark in that place; I wouldn’t have liked Aonghas to see my flush of shame. Conal wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He was silent, his head bowed onto his arms, his arms resting on his knees.

  At last he said, ‘My mother hasn’t returned to the dun.’

  ‘She had business with the soothsayer,’ said Aonghas.

  ‘Half a year ago.’ Conal gave a dry miserable laugh. ‘No-one’s business could take so long, even with that old charlatan.’

  ‘But you must know where she is?’

  ‘No. Only that she isn’t at the dun. Last time I felt her she was very far away. She’s been blocking me for months now.’

  ‘Well.’ Aonghas shrugged lightly. ‘If Leonora was dead you’d know it. So would Reultan.’

  ‘Maybe. But she found it hard not to go with Griogair.’ He laughed again, high-pitched and desperate. ‘That’s an understatement, isn’t it? Hard. Could be she’s stopped fighting it. Could be she’s going to go to him after all. She’s the only person since Griogair died who could stand up to Kate, and she’s leaving us. Leaving us.’

  Aonghas put an arm round his slumped shoulders.

  ‘One day this’ll be over,’ he said.

  ‘So I tell myself,’ said Conal bitterly.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it won’t.’

  They both turned their heads and stared at me. I was shocked too. I don’t know what had brought it on, but I knew it was true.

  ‘She’ll never let us be,’ I said. ‘We may as well walk out now.’

  ‘You better have your block up, you stupid little shit,’ said Aonghas.

  I gave him the filthiest look I could get away with. ‘Indeed. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘I obviously did.’

  ‘Quiet,’ said Conal. ‘Both of you.’

  He linked his hands behind his neck, digging his fingernails into his skin. I thought he was thinking over what I’d said, but after a while he just put his face in his hands.

  ‘Won’t stop you seeing it,’ I said. ‘Won’t stop the dreams. Won’t stop the screams.’

  Aonghas growled in exasperation. Conal ignored me. I stood up.

  ‘You hear me? You’re craven. Both of you.’ I shouldn’t have had that whisky. I’d come here to comfort him; instead I could hear myself losing my temper and I couldn’t hold on to it. ‘She has you dancing on a string, Cù Chaorach. What are you afraid of?’ I spat. ‘Your sister?’

  Aonghas half-rose at that, a snarl forming on his lips, but Conal seized his arm and he sank back to the ground, glaring at me. Conal would not meet my eye. Rage burned my throat as if I was going to throw that whisky back up.

  ‘She’ll go on making you dance to her tune, Cù Chaorach, till you forget what it’s like to sit still. Tell her where to stick her fiddle. What can she do? If Leonora won’t stand against her someone else has to. No-one’s better qualified than you are.’

  ‘Careful, Murlainn.’ Aonghas’s tone was surprisingly gentle, and he very nearly smiled. ‘He doesn’t want to lose his dun and his clann. And he doesn’t want to lose his brother.’

  I said. ‘Neither do I.’

  And like a foot-stamping toddler, I stalked out.

  33

  THIRTY-THREE

  Why was I so angry with him? I danced to Kate’s tune too, I kept her beat. My captain too killed for her, killed people who did not deserve to die, and I watched in acquiescent silence as he did it. I told myself I was angry because I would walk out myself if I could, but that I couldn’t, because I wouldn’t leave him. That was not true. It was only an excuse. The fact is, I was angry because it didn’t matter so much what I became. There was not so much in me to change. For Conal to let himself become her golem, though: that seemed like a blasphemy.

  Yet what Aonghas said was true. Through Calman Ruadh Kate held our dun and our clann in the palm of her hand, and she had it in her to destroy them both. When Conal could drag his mind out of the black pit it lived in he would yell it at me. Once, he thrashed it into me. He didn’t have to. I understood fine. But he thrashed it into me anyway.

  I’d answered Aonghas back, again. Oh, I should be honest. I had muttered a curse at him, under my breath but loud enough for his men to hear, and him. It was more than a curse, it was an accusation—another one on the theme of his cravenness—and I threw in a thoroughgoing insult to Reultan, just to make sure of my fate. There were days, you see, when I welcomed a beating. Usually the days that followed a croft-burning or a hanging.

  Branndair had been chained up in the kennels like he always was on these occasions: everyone liked their throat intact. Aonghas’s lieutenant was tightening the rope that bound my wrists to the post when Conal shoved through the press of watchers. Even Reultan had to get out of his way.

  ‘Leave him!’ he barked.

  Aonghas’s lieutenant looked at Aonghas, and jerked the rope tighter as he did so, but Aonghas shook his head. He knew what Conal was about, and so did I. I wasn’t stupid enough to think he was coming to my rescue.

  My brother unsheathed his dirk, and sawed through the rope, then cut the bonds round my wrists too.

  ‘Get your circulation back,’ he snapped. Turning away, he stripped off his shirt.

  I rubbed my wrists and hands, but only because they hurt. ‘I won’t need t
o,’ I said.

  Turning back, Conal gave me a deadly look. ‘You’ll fight me.’

  I gave him one back. ~ I don’t take orders.

  ~ You will after I’ve finished with you.

  ~ Not from you, I won’t. I linked my fingers tightly behind my back. ~ You’re not my Captain any more.

  His first blow snapped my head back and I was flung to the ground. I couldn’t keep my hands behind my back after that, they came forward in reflexive self-defence, but I did not return a single blow. When he ordered me to my feet I got to my feet, and each time he struck me he gave me every opportunity to hit back. I didn’t. Didn’t he know what a stubborn bastard I was? How long had he known me? It almost made me laugh, except that it hurt so much I couldn’t.

  I just kept getting to my feet, or as close to it as I could after ten minutes of this. If anything he hit me harder. I thought my head was going to come off. My face was sticky with blood, I could taste it in my mouth and nose, and my ribs would barely let my lungs draw breath for the pain. In the end I couldn’t get up again.

  The watchers were silent. Their hoots and yells of encouragement had faded long ago, and even Reultan looked on stony-faced. Sionnach had his arm round Orach, who was weeping, but she wasn’t making a sound. I lay in the gritty sand, staring up at the arching stone roof above me and the shadows that flickered with the torchlight. I felt almost peaceful and I’d have liked to smile, but my swollen face wouldn’t seem to let me. It felt out of shape somehow, and I had to blink away blood to see anything.

  Conal crouched above me, his hands gripping his head.

  ‘Murlainn,’ he whispered. ‘You stupid, stupid, stupid bastard.’

  Somehow I managed to move my head to meet his eyes. I think I even managed an approximation of a smile.

  ~ Do I still look like you?

  * * *

  ‘Well,’ I mumbled. ‘Do I?’

  Almost silently he closed the door of my room. He took his time about it. I don’t think it was me he couldn’t face. Catriona gave him one cold look of anger before she knelt at my head again and went back to cleaning me up. What a gentle touch she had, and the damp cloth was cool, but the bowl of water was stained scarlet with my blood. I just wanted to lie here on the pile of skins and blankets with my aching head in her lap. For once I couldn’t be bothered with Conal. I’d made my point; now I only wanted him to go away and leave me alone.

  Fat chance.

  He knelt beside me but he didn’t touch me. At least he had the grace to look me in the eye, though mine were swollen almost shut.

  ‘You look,’ he began, and cleared his throat. ‘You look more like me than I do.’

  Slowly I let myself examine his face. Moving my eyeballs hurt.

  ‘You have no idea,’ I said, ‘how true that is.’

  He clasped his hands behind his neck. He was weeping, I noticed. ‘I’m sorry, Murlainn. I’m so sorry.’

  I spat blood, and Catriona cleaned the corner of my mouth. ‘Why? Saved me a flogging.’

  ‘You’re not funny.’

  ‘Neither are you.’

  I let my gaze drift to his forearm, where a new cut leaked blood through a white rag. I managed another smile.

  ‘I’m not dead yet,’ I said.

  He looked at it, silent for a long moment.

  ‘That’s not for you,’ he said. ‘That’s for myself.’

  ‘Make you feel better?’

  He gave a dry harsh laugh. ‘No. So I’ll stop being so dramatic, shall I?’

  I raised myself up on one elbow, and Catriona drew back.

  ‘Conal,’ I said.

  ‘Yes? Call me another name. Or can’t you find it? Because I can’t. I’m losing my name, Seth. I’m losing my soul.’

  ‘Fight her,’ I hissed.

  ‘I’d rather lose my name than lose my people.’

  ‘You lose one, you lose them both.’ I stared at him. ‘Cold iron instead of a soul. That what you want?’

  ‘Please, Murlainn. I didn’t come here to fight.’

  ‘Then why did you?’ Catriona glared at him, white-faced. ‘It’s all that’s left to you. You might as well fight. But best if you fight the right pers…’

  We both stared as Catriona stumbled to her feet and ran to the bowl in the corner of the room. I watched her fall to her knees, retching till her stomach was empty. Conal sprang to his feet, but she shot him such a ferocious look he took a step back, and turned to me.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he whispered. ‘Gods, Seth, is she ill?’

  I looked at her. My insides ached, and not with my beating.

  ‘There’s a child in her belly,’ I said flatly.

  He crouched beside me, laid his hand very gently on my arm.

  ‘I’m sorry. Gods, Seth. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Stop being bloody sorry,’ I said. I’d bitten my lip before I remembered how swollen and tender it was, and made myself wince. ‘What can you do?’ Bitterly I added, ‘About anything.’

  ‘It might be okay. Sometimes it is. Look at Ma Sinclair! You’ve good blood, you’ve—’

  ‘A living child’s as common as hobbyhorse shit, and you know it. I’m not that lucky.’ I took a breath. ‘Nor’s she.’

  He opened his mouth to argue; changed his mind; rubbed his forehead. ‘Have you told her? Have you explained?’

  ‘Tried.’

  It was all I could say. After that my throat didn’t work.

  What could I tell her, after all? It was the first of two pregnancies, and she was too happy. I hadn’t thought a pregnancy was even possible. I warned her not to hope, but she wouldn’t listen, and a few weeks later her heart broke when it died inside her. Then it broke once more. They were in the future, my dead children and Catriona’s, but I’d never had the pain of hope.

  Each one I buried for her. For the first I took a day’s leave, given to me by Aonghas without argument, to ride far enough from Kate’s caverns. I didn’t want any soul it might have to linger near there. I put the corpse in the ground in spite of my beliefs, few as they were, because Catriona’s beliefs were stronger and a good deal more numerous.

  There was a ring of ancient stones a day’s ride towards home. High on a plateau, the stones had lost their rigid geometry long ago: some had fallen, some had been split by lightning-strikes, some still stood tall. The place had a good atmosphere. I put my first son there and deprived the raptors of his tiny half-formed corpse for the sake of his grieving mother. I’d known he would die, as I knew they all would, so I tried not to weep for him too.

  34

  THIRTY-FOUR

  There were only half-heard snippets of news from our dun. We heard rumours and counter-rumours, but most news passed between Calman Ruadh and Kate, with little but gossip to pad it out, so none of it was reliable. Conal’s clann were obedient, we heard, and dutiful, and loyal. I knew they were all that and more to Conal, but applied to Calman Ruadh it didn’t sound like the clann I knew and didn’t love. Conal fell on every scrap of rumour, while dreading it.

  Eachann of course had a blood relative in the dun, in Raineach. Conal nagged him incessantly for news of her, but Eachann had grown evasive and haunted. When Conal at last lost his temper and yelled at the boy, Eachann confessed miserably that he knew almost as little of his mother as we did. She seemed fine. She seemed withdrawn. She was keeping something from him, that was what he thought.

  Conal was haunted, and twitchy, and bad-tempered (though he didn’t lose it with me again), but he seemed more determined than ever to stick it out. He would last his year, and prove his loyalty, and regain complete authority over his own dun. He’d do it, he said, if it killed him.

  Some figure of speech. Sometimes I wondered.

  ‘When did this happen?’ Aonghas asked him in a low voice one evening.

  Kate had summoned the three of us from our sword practice to her great hall, and I had a feeling we were late. Not our fault. It seemed we were last to be told; every room and passage was
deserted. Conal and Aonghas walked ahead; I hung back, teasing the wolves, but my ears pricked up when I heard the tone of Aonghas’s voice. He was too easygoing to sound so bitter.

  ‘When did what happen?’ asked Conal.

  ‘When did we lose so much autonomy? When did dun captains turn into henchmen?’

  ‘Careful,’ said Conal, but there was low laughter in his voice for the first time in I don’t know how long. It cheered me up. He’d been sunk in darkness after that beating of me. But the bruises had faded weeks ago and the cuts had healed and my ribs fused and I looked more or less normal again. If any of us looked normal. Fact is, we all had an edgy suspicious hostility that seemed permanently etched into our faces.

  Maybe, given what we saw when we turned the corner to the great hall, we had reason.

  ‘What the fuck…’

  I was still tickling Branndair’s ear when Aonghas gave his exclamation of disgust. Branndair was twisting his head and nipping at my fingers, and I wasn’t paying attention, so I banged into Aonghas and we both stumbled.

  Recovering my footing, I drew my sword as Conal and Aonghas did. The sound echoed in the silent hall. I felt Branndair’s hackles rise under my hand, I heard Liath’s low snarl, but the wolves did not move forward. Indeed, Branndair took a pace back, growling his furious fear. Kate rose to her feet on her dais, walked down a step, arms extended towards us. The thing at her side smiled as broadly as Kate did. It stood far too close to my mother, its arm brushing hers, but Lilith looked more charmed than revolted. It was barefoot, bare-chested, skinny to the point of translucency. Its coat flapped almost to its ankles, its trews were cinched tight round a waist that was hollow scrawny muscle. Lank hair, papery skin stretched over a concave skull, a satisfied rictus grin.

  ‘Gentlemen!’ cried Kate. ‘Swords in scabbards, please!’

  Conal and Aonghas seemed dumbstruck. I saw Conal’s blade tremble in his hand, then he tightened his grip again.

  ‘It’s a Lammyr.’ There was utter disbelief in his voice.

  ‘It’s my guest.’

  I’d learned to be very suspicious of Kate’s innocent sweetness. ‘Conal,’ I whispered.