Riordan’s irritation built. “Don’t be evasive. I know the news from Dún Eavan as well as you. Conor seems to think your sister is dead. How did he hear that, I wonder?”
“I didn’t say she was dead. I merely said she was in Comdiu’s hands, and he needed to move on.”
Riordan raked his hand through his hair. “What else could he think, Liam?”
“The boy was holding onto his past. His love for Aine will keep him from devoting himself to his training.”
“You mean it will keep him from fulfilling your great plan. You haven’t been honest with me, and I’ve let it pass because I trusted you had some greater vision. But in this, I can’t stay silent. It’s cruel to let him believe someone he loves is dead.”
Liam rose and circled the desk to stand before Riordan, his gaze steely. It was the first time the Ceannaire had ever attempted to use his considerable physical presence to intimidate him. Even though Riordan stood taller by several inches, it took effort to stand firm.
“Do you not believe the greater plan warrants what you call cruelty? Do you not think a united Seare is worth a little grief? The boy will never fulfill his true destiny if he believes it is a woman.”
Riordan stared back, unflinching. “Do you believe doing harm is part of Comdiu’s plan? Is our God so ineffective He needs your deception to accomplish His work?”
Each held the other’s gaze for a long, tense moment. Finally, Liam returned to the desk. “You will not mention this to Conor. I had hoped for the sake of our friendship you would respect my wishes. But if that is no longer enough of an incentive, you may consider it an order.”
Riordan clenched his jaw against an angry retort. Finally, he gave a terse nod and exited the study. He had spent most of his adult life at Ard Dhaimhin, and obedience to authority was as automatic as breathing. But for the first time, Riordan could not accept Liam’s judgment over his own conscience. The Ceannaire was wrong to believe Comdiu’s plan could be accomplished through deceit, even if he strayed dangerously close to revealing something Riordan was afraid to believe.
If Conor was to become the leader Liam believed him to be, he needed to enter into it clear-sighted, free from manipulation. The Ceannaire might have issued an order, but Riordan’s loyalty was to his conscience. Whatever the consequences to him personally.
Liam slumped in his chair, head in his hands. If his visions were true, their time drew ever shorter. Even now, the druid moved Tigh closer to a conquest that would consume Seare. The pressure to find and train the one who would stand against this spread of evil mounted with each passing season.
Still, he could not help feeling he had made a grave miscalculation. He had underestimated the depth of Conor’s feelings for Aine, far more profound than he would have expected from one so young. In his fumbling, he may have irreparably damaged his friendship with his most trusted adviser.
Riordan had reached the limits of his loyalty. He would act according to his conscience, even if his disobedience meant expulsion from the brotherhood or worse.
Liam was counting on it.
Conor performed his duties through a veil of grief. Outwardly, he was the perfect Fíréin novice, working without complaint and without emotion. Inside, he felt hollowed out, empty, distanced from even the movements of his own body.
Riordan was waiting for him when he returned from hauling nets with an elder brother. Conor dragged the boat onto the shore and donned the tunic and boots he had left there earlier.
“May I have a word with you?”
Conor shrugged, but he walked with Riordan away from the lake.
“I heard you went to see Liam.”
Conor stiffened. He didn’t want to discuss the matter. Even Eoghan had avoided the topic after their single lakeside conversation.
Riordan grabbed his arm and forced him to stop. “I’ve been forbidden to tell you this, Conor. Liam would have me expelled from Ard Dhaimhin.”
Conor’s heart beat faster at the words, but he said nothing, waiting.
“Aine is not dead. She didn’t drown.”
Conor lowered himself onto a boulder beneath a stand of trees. “How is that possible?”
Riordan squatted down beside him and pitched his voice low. “After you left Lisdara, Calhoun sent the girls to Dún Eavan. I’ve heard rumors about the old fortress, but I’ve never given them much thought. Something tricked Aine into going down to the lake and pushed her in.”
Conor drew in a long, shuddering breath, remembering his own encounters with the sidhe.
“Her guard pulled her out in time. They say she called on Comdiu’s Companions to protect her. Dozens of people saw them.”
Conor didn’t dare to accept what Riordan told him. He had spent days believing Aine was dead, and now he learned it was all a mistake? Could this be a cruel joke?
“Did Master Liam know this?”
Riordan averted his eyes. His father had taken a great risk in telling him, then.
“Why would he do that? Why would he lie to me?”
Conflicting emotions flashed over Riordan’s face as he wrestled with his answer. “Liam does what he believes is right,” he said finally. “He sees far more than the rest of us. He insists you must be trained at Ard Dhaimhin, and he fears you will leave before you’re ready if you don’t sever all ties to the kingdoms. He ordered me not to tell you.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I know what it’s like to mourn.”
Conor stared out at the lake. His piercing feeling of betrayal surprised him. If Riordan hadn’t followed his conscience, would he have lived the rest of his life at Ard Dhaimhin, plodding through a colorless existence of regret and grief, until the routine sapped him of all his emotion? Was that how the Ceannaire had become so hard-hearted?
Conor turned to his father. “Thank you for telling me. I understand what it means for you to go against Master Liam.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know what you were going through. I should have noticed.” Riordan placed a light hand on his shoulder before he left him alone with his thoughts.
Conor scarcely noticed his departure. Aine was alive. He silently repeated the words over and over again. Ruarc had saved her. Or was it Comdiu’s Companions?
Laughter bubbled up in him and turned just as quickly to sobs. He covered his face with his hands. It had been a test, an opportunity, and he had failed in the worst way. He had blamed Comdiu and turned his back on his beliefs at the first sign of difficulty. If he’d only had the slightest bit of faith . . .
I’m sorry. I failed miserably. How can You still love me when I turned away so easily? I hated You for letting her die.
The answer came with startling clarity. Comdiu had known he would fail the test long before He ever claimed him for His own. How else would Conor build his faith unless he was tested? The vision had been a lesson from Comdiu, a reminder of the narrowness of human understanding.
He rose from the boulder, and a smile broke across his face. Thank You. Thank You for saving her. Thank You for not giving up on me. I’m sorry I didn’t trust You.
Conor’s trust in Liam, on the other hand, had been badly misplaced. He had come to Ard Dhaimhin believing the Fíréin were a source of infallible judgment and knowledge, but they were merely human. Liam might have his own plans for him, but how did Conor know they were correct? Why should someone else be the judge of where Comdiu’s path was leading him?
Conor went about his afternoon duties at the mill without complaint, but he couldn’t hide his restlessness from Eoghan at supper. He didn’t wait for him to ask.
“Aine’s alive.”
“But Master Liam said—”
“He lied. Or rather, he purposely misled me.”
Eoghan looked stricken. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“Master Liam has plans for me,” Conor said grimly. “Whatever they may be.”
“I’m sorry, Conor. If I had known . . .” Eoghan stood and took his bowl. “I’ll s
ee you at devotions.”
Conor watched his friend go, confused. Did Eoghan take the criticism personally? After all, Liam was as close to a father as Eoghan had ever known. How would Conor feel if he learned Labhrás or even Riordan had intentionally caused a friend such pain?
He returned his half-empty bowl to the cookhouse and started after Eoghan. Conor thought their route would take them to the amphitheater for devotions, but instead the other boy turned down an intersecting path. Conor followed at a discreet distance.
The path emptied into a secluded yard where several brothers, including Master Liam, drilled with unsharpened practice swords. The clash of metal ceased when Eoghan came into view, and voices hummed, undecipherable. Conor peered around the corner and saw Eoghan take up a sword and face two of the older brothers. Master Liam stood aside, watching.
Conor crept closer, aware he was trespassing on a private gathering, and flattened himself against the rocks.
With the sword in his hand, Eoghan transformed, seeming to grow taller and more confident. He assumed a guard stance as he waited for an attack. When it came, he sprang into motion with a speed and fluidity that made Conor’s jaw drop. The boy met each attack effortlessly, ducking in and out of range with amazing ease. Even with his unpracticed eye, Conor could see he was just toying with them, testing his skills. His opponents, on the other hand, were doing no such thing.
“He’s likely to be the best swordsman Ard Dhaimhin has ever produced.”
Conor spun toward the voice. Riordan stood casually behind him, his arms crossed, watching the action below. “Master Liam took him as his apprentice when he became Ceannaire. Eoghan was only four years old, but already he showed great promise.”
Conor wasn’t sure which stunned him more, that Eoghan was the Ceannaire’s apprentice or that he had begun sword work at age four. No wonder he was so far ahead of his peers, drilling with oath-bound brothers instead of members of his own céad. “I didn’t know brothers took apprentices.”
“Ceannaires do. They choose their successors young, to mold them for the duty that awaits them.”
So that was why Eoghan had reacted so violently to Conor’s news. His connection with Liam was even more significant than Eoghan had led him to believe. He watched as the young man grew impatient with the workout and disarmed his opponents without any apparent effort.
I know something about having limited choices.
“Does he have any say in the matter?” Conor asked as Eoghan took his place in the center of the yard, this time facing three men. Even at this distance, he could see the boy’s hard expression.
“It’s a great honor. Why would he turn down such an opportunity?”
“Why indeed?” Conor turned back to his father, but Riordan was already gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A week after Aine’s encounter with the sidhe, the king summoned them back to Lisdara. Fergus had neither responded to Calhoun’s missive nor taken more aggressive action, so her brother must have decided they would be safer behind Lisdara’s high walls than among Dún Eavan’s dangers. Aine didn’t complain. Comdiu’s Companions might be protecting them, but that thread of sinister magic still remained.
Within days of Aine’s return to the keep, the sick, injured, and curious began streaming through Lisdara’s heavily guarded gates. It seemed word had traveled fast about Aine’s experience. No sooner had she delivered her report to Calhoun than half the countryside arrived, clamoring for her attention.
“How many are there?” Aine asked, dismayed, when she arrived at Mistress Bearrach’s clochan.
“Too many. They’ve come to see the lady healer of Lisdara.”
Some of the cases were legitimate: sprained limbs, festering wounds, a summer lung disease that spread in the damp, warm weather. But even those patients seemed disappointed when Aine prescribed practical treatments like tisanes and poultices. Evidently, rumor said she could heal by touch alone.
Returning to Lisdara also brought Conor back to the fore of her mind. She could scarcely pass the music room without a piercing ache in her heart. The one time she dared step inside and touch the harp on which he had played his final song, she left in tears. The peace she had found at Dún Eavan deserted her.
I don’t understand what You want from me! What purpose did You have in bringing us together and then tearing us apart once again?
She felt guilty, then. How could she lament the loss of Conor after Comdiu saved her life? Balus Himself had set her apart for something important. Perhaps Conor’s coming had been only a cog in a larger wheel, a way of bringing about what was to come. Maybe it was just her own weakness that made her long for someone she could not have.
Yet, as time passed, she couldn’t shake the feeling Conor was at the center of everything. His coming to Faolán had set something in motion she didn’t understand.
She delved deeply into work and study, hoping to numb herself to the questions that plagued her waking hours. Every evening and most mornings, she withdrew to her chamber with her books, bolstering her already expansive knowledge. Afternoons she spent at the clochan, seeing the never-ending stream of patients lined up outside the door. Even those who didn’t need her attention, she didn’t have the heart to turn away.
When Aine wasn’t thus occupied, she retreated to the stone chapel to pray or just bask in the rare moments of peace. Here she could be alone, even if her conversations with Comdiu became increasingly more anxious.
On a rainy fall evening, she lingered long past when she was expected back in the keep, too weary to even put words to her thoughts. The iron-bound door creaked open, and the breeze fluttered the candles’ flames. Footsteps echoed off the vaulted ceiling, signaling Ruarc’s presence even before he settled on the bench beside her.
He stared straight ahead, his profile cast in shadow by the guttering candles. “Something must change. You can’t go on like this.”
“I keep thinking if I can just keep going, everything will begin to make sense.”
“Working yourself to exhaustion won’t bring Conor back.”
“I know.” That Conor wasn’t dead made no difference. He still haunted her. “If Comdiu has a plan for me, I’m at a loss as to what it is. I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe that’s because there’s nothing to do.”
She glanced at him. “What do you mean?”
“It seems to me if it is Comdiu’s plan, you can’t do much to bring it about. He’s the one who must give you direction, isn’t He?”
“But what if I’m not listening? What if He’s telling me, and I just don’t understand?”
“When has Comdiu ever had difficulty telling someone who really seeks His will what to do?”
Aine remembered her all-encompassing desire to serve Lord Balus in that other place. She wanted to know His will no less now than she had then. Why did she feel so lost?
Perhaps she’d lost sight of her true focus. She’d let her discomfort and her loneliness distract her from what He had already told her to do: pray, study, wait for guidance. Didn’t Lord Balus tell her the future was not for her to know?
She rubbed her eyes wearily, exhaustion setting in again. “Everywhere I go, someone wants something from me.”
Ruarc smiled gently. “You don’t have to give it.”
“But I was given this gift—”
“And you are using it. But would Lord Balus want you to get so wrapped up in exercising that gift that you have nothing left for Him? Perhaps He hasn’t shown you His will because you haven’t made time to accomplish it.”
Aine stared at Ruarc, momentarily shocked. “You’re right. Why would He tell me what to do when I would just find an excuse to put it off?” She placed her hand lightly on Ruarc’s arm. “What would I do without you?”
“You’d get along just fine.” Ruarc smiled again. “You just might figure things out later rather than sooner.”
Aine unfolded herself from the bench. “Maybe. But I’m grateful all
the same. Come, it’s getting late.”
As they stepped out into the cool night, words formed in her mind, as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud. You have been given this gift for a reason, and you are meant to use it. But it is not all you are.
Aine recognized the wisdom in the words. She just needed to learn what else Comdiu intended to make of her.
Aine wasted no time making drastic changes in her routine. Ruarc had been right. Her obsession with her work was just an attempt to anesthetize herself from her feelings about Conor and the coming turmoil in Faolán. Her first responsibility was to spend her time in prayer and study of Scripture, to spend enough time in quiet reflection that she could hear Comdiu’s whisper among the cacophony of other demands.
Not everyone accepted the change so readily. The first time Aine reported to the clochan at midday, the petitioners grumbled about her lack of consideration. The complaining increased when she went down the line and selected those with the most pressing needs first.
“You don’t need me to look at a mere scratch,” she chided one man, who seemed more interested in her attention than in her healing. “Your village healers can assist you.”
She dismissed the curious politely but firmly. That left only a handful of patients sick enough to stay, but not so sick they couldn’t wait for her attention. Aine moved through the line capably and briskly, and by the time the daylight faded to dusk, she had seen the last of them. After several days of the routine, she no longer needed to poll the waiting patients when she arrived. Word had gotten out that she no longer accommodated the gawkers.
“Thank you,” she said to Ruarc as they returned to the keep. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be here all night. Maybe the novelty is finally beginning to wear off.”
Ruarc nodded, his expression solemn, but the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“What?”
“You haven’t heard the rumors then. They’re saying the lady healer of Lisdara can read men’s hearts by looking at them. The gawkers are afraid to come.”
Oath of the Brotherhood Page 17
