The Sword and the Song (3 page)

Aine climbed down the steps to the village,
her mind tumbling around the recent revelation. All these weeks, looking for something
 
—anything
 
—related to the runes, and the evidence had been under their noses the whole time. Comdiu simply hadn’t seen fit to reveal it until this moment.

Even worse, Eoghan had asked her to hold off telling Conor until he could consult Comdiu on the matter. He didn’t want to reveal the news to the Conclave without understanding what it might mean, but she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable that he had asked her to keep something from Conor, considering the rift between the two men
 
—considering the feelings that Eoghan struggled against.

Guilt wound through her. She could end his conflict with a handful of words, had been moments away from doing just that, and still she had held back. What she needed to tell him about her abilities, no one knew, including Conor.

So many secrets, and she still didn’t know which ones were necessary and which were just plain foolish.

Thoughts tickled the edge of her consciousness as she
approached the village, and she forced her attention to the barriers that protected her from the press of so many thoughts. Worries, complaints, small joys
 
—they flooded around her like rainwater poured into muddy footprints, filling any crevice of consciousness she did not deliberately seal. The growth in her powers might mean she had to exert less effort to pick out individual thoughts, but it also meant she had to expend more to keep them out.

Aine kept her steps brisk and determined, avoiding eye contact that might encourage conversation. Instead of the usual glut of people wanting her attention, though, there was just a trickle. Only the women and children were at the cookhouse for the midday meal, the men long gone to their work assignments.

When she burst through the door of the first cottage in the healers’ quarter, a gray-haired man was already bent over the workbench, the tendons and muscles in his trim arms straining as he ground something with the heavy granite pestle. “Good morning, Brother Murchadh.”

He looked up immediately and set the stone into the bowl. “Good morning, Lady Aine. You’re tardy.”

“Late evening,” she said, without offense. Murchadh was blunt with everyone.

He grunted a response and gestured to a bundle of herbs hanging from the wire hooks over his head. “I’m making agrimony powder. We’re running low.”

“We’re running low on a lot of things.” Aine moved along the wall of shelving that housed the prepared remedies in vials and jars, much like the workroom she had temporarily established at Forrais. “Bitterroot, heart’s ease
 
—I’m not sure where we’re going to find any of these things in winter.”

“Not that it’s so essential with your presence, my lady.”

“I won’t always be available. And it won’t be long before the city’s needs outstrip my abilities.”

Aine dragged the bucket of tallow from its spot on the bottom shelf to an empty space at the workbench and selected several dark glass bottles of essences. She would start with one of her most useful concoctions, a healing salve for blisters and abrasions, something of which there was no shortage in Ard Dhaimhin these days. Some of the new laborers had been craftsmen and scholars, their hands more used to delicate tools and pens than shovels and picks.

She measured out a scoop of tallow into a wooden bowl and then carefully added the lavender, chamomile, and geranium extract to the fat. After she finished several batches of skin salve, she moved on to preparing newly harvested herbs. Hot water from the pot over the peat-burning hearth was poured into jars containing herbs for tinctures. Other jars were filled with the clear grain alcohol that the brothers distilled under close supervision for medicinal purposes on the opposite end of the city. Drunkenness traditionally had little traction in Ard Dhaimhin, considering the high degree of discipline, but the kingdom’s men had changed that.

The kingdom’s men had changed much.

“You seem troubled,” Murchadh said after they’d worked silently for nearly two hours.

Aine lifted her head. “I do?”

He gave a single nod.

“I suppose I’m concerned. More refugees arrive every day, and our stores grow more depleted.”

“I’m sure the Ceannaire and the Conclave are taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Aine nodded, not bothering to argue the point. Murchadh shared the attitude of many of the elder brethren. They trusted their leadership wholeheartedly and devoted themselves to their own duties. Those in charge surely had a plan for all
contingencies. Aine wished she didn’t know how far from the truth that actually was.

By the time afternoon sunlight changed to the bluish tint of dusk, Aine had filled one of the long, empty shelves with new tinctures and salves, all of which would need to cure before they could be used. She put the last jar on the board and pressed a hand against the sudden ache in her lower back.

Murchadh shot her a knowing smile. “Have you told your husband yet?”

Aine lifted her gaze in surprise. At least one of her secrets was not as secret as she thought. “No, not yet.”

“See that you do.” His smile softened, the lines of his face gentling. “And see that you don’t exhaust yourself.”

“Aye. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. Heed my advice, my lady. Rest.”

Aine nodded and slipped from the healer’s cottage, a flutter of nervousness in her middle. Tonight she would broach several long-overdue topics with Conor. And then she would find Eoghan.

Engrossed in her own thoughts, she forgot to shore up the barriers in her mind. The thoughts and emotions of the villagers slammed into her like a tidal wave, driving her to one knee. She doubled over and gasped for breath.

“Lady Aine, are you well?” A feminine voice broke through the background noise in her head. She stared at the speaker, searching her memory for the woman’s name while she forced the intruding thoughts outside the barrier. Sorcha. One of the kingdom’s refugees, kind-natured if a bit of a busybody.

“I’m fine, Sorcha, thank you. Just became a little light-headed.”

The woman helped her to her feet. “Perhaps I should walk with you a bit to make sure you’re feeling well.”

“You’re very kind.” Aine started back toward Carraigmór
again, and Sorcha stayed by her side. She didn’t need to delve deep into her mind to know she had motives other than simple kindness.

Still, it took her several minutes to broach the subject. “The rumor is that a High King has been named in secret.”

Aine’s heart lurched. “Who said that?”

“So it’s true? The High King really has returned?”

How could she possibly answer that question? She hated lying outright, but anything other than a categorical denial would send rumors flying. The last thing Ard Dhaimhin’s leadership wanted was to force Eoghan’s hand.

In the end, she dodged the question. “Why would you think I know anything about the High King?”

Sorcha leveled a reproving glance. “My lady, I’ve been married for almost as long as you’ve been alive. The woman nearest the man in charge always has the most complete perspective on what is actually happening.”

Aine chuckled. It wasn’t far from the truth. Aine might not be queen, but she was the nearest Seare had. Idly, she wondered if Queen Shanna had been plied with questions and flattered by Daimhin’s courtiers in the hope of gaining inside information.

And then it struck her what they had been overlooking all this time. “Excuse me, Mistress Sorcha. I just remembered an urgent task at Carraigmór.” Aine hurried away, barely registering Sorcha’s baffled and disappointed expression. How had she never considered this possibility?

All this time, they’d focused on King Daimhin’s writings when they should have been looking at the volumes penned by the woman responsible for the Fíréin brotherhood in the first place: Daimhin’s warrior-queen, Shanna.

Aine searched the Ceannaire’s office first, which turned up one of Shanna’s journals that Conor had brought up from
the Hall of Prophecies. Her husband, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found
 
—not in his study, their chamber, or Carraigmór’s great hall. Finally, she went back down to the cookhouse, where she stood in line for her bowl of venison soup and a small chunk of bread.

“Join me?”

Aine turned to find herself the object of Riordan’s sympathetic stare. She hesitated, but he gestured to a cluster of boulders away from the crush of villagers. “A few minutes of quiet conversation before duty calls again?”

She relented and took her seat on top of the flattest one, balancing her bowl on her lap. She liked Conor’s father, but the structure of Ard Dhaimhin was such that they rarely saw each other.

“You’ve been working yourself hard,” he said quietly.

“Did Conor ask you to speak with me?”

Riordan chuckled. “No. But I’m not surprised he’s concerned.”

“Well, when Conor stops working himself to exhaustion, then he can lecture me on my habits.” She softened her words with a slight smile. “Can I ask you a question?”

Riordan nodded.

“Can we win this fight? Or are we just holding off the darkness for as long as we can?”

He didn’t answer right away, a sign that he was actually considering the question rather than giving her the reassuring answer he thought she wanted to hear. “I have to believe we can. I don’t think Comdiu has brought us this far just to have us give up.”

No empty reassurances or platitudes, but there was a quiet confidence in the words that somehow buoyed her spirit. When Comdiu had sent his son, Balus, to visit her in that place between life and death when she’d nearly drowned in Loch
Eirich, He had told her it would not be easy. He had told her there would be a price to be paid. But He had also told her not to despair.

“I think I’ll rest now,” she said, standing with her bowl. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Riordan rose with her and gave her a warm smile. “Sleep well, daughter.”

The use of the word put a warm glow in her chest. Both her parents were dead, her brothers and sister likely murdered at the taking of Lisdara. She’d begun to think that Conor was all she had left, and Riordan knew it. But he had reminded her that he was her family too, as strange and strained as his relationship with his son might be.

She retreated to their chamber and undressed automatically, then sank down into the cushioned chair by the window with Shanna’s journal. Unlike Daimhin, the queen had dated her entries. That alone gave Aine hope that Shanna had recorded information for posterity rather than to work through her own thoughts.

The first several entries contained much of the same information as Daimhin’s, though she had some interesting insights into the feuding clans, just nothing about runes or wards or anything beyond common statecraft. Had she been overconfident about this solution to their dilemmas?

Hours passed without any sign of Conor, and Aine’s eyelids slowly drooped. She closed the journal and blew out the candle. But once in bed, her mind refused to settle. Maybe it was her conscience bumping up against all the things she wanted to communicate but hadn’t yet spoken aloud.

She threw off her blanket in frustration and wrapped her shawl around her. Then she slid her feet into the soft silk slippers she had brought back with her from Forrais. This late,
Carraigmór’s halls were deserted but for the occasional man on watch, half the torches extinguished until morning.

Inside the Ceannaire’s office, a single lamp burned, illuminating Conor’s familiar form bent over a book spread across the desk. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said quietly. “Were you planning on coming to bed tonight, or should I just bring your blanket down here?”

Conor looked up from his book, and his shoulders fell in defeat. “I’m sorry, love. I got wrapped up in this and lost track of the time.” When she circled the desk, he pulled her down on his lap and nuzzled his head into the space between her neck and shoulder.

“And what is so interesting that it could keep you from my bed?”

Conor pulled back to smile at her. “Nothing that interesting, I assure you. Just my own . . . distraction.”

She twisted around to catch a glimpse of the old-fashioned script in the book and realized it wasn’t in the common tongue. His education shouldn’t surprise her
 
—after all, her own had been relatively extensive
 
—but this language she didn’t even recognize.

“Ciraean?”

“Hesperidian. It’s an account of the Hundred Years’ War between the city states of the southern peninsula. Have you heard the story?”

Aine shook her head.

“Well, it’s bloody and depressing, hardly a bedtime tale. But there are certain battles that were won against incredible odds.”

“And you’re looking for ideas.”

“I’m looking for something to show the Conclave that victory is possible with a series of small-scale battles like these.”

Aine craned her neck, even though it didn’t help her decipher the foreign script. “How did they do it?”

“Massive casualties and dramatic sacrifices. And they didn’t even have magic with which to contend.”