by Jayne Castel
“When Wid returns, I’ll ensure this is built properly,” Tea replied. “Our brother deserves better.”
The two of them stood before the cairn, just before its entrance—a deep cleft that cut into the center of the tomb. Further in, there was a stone slab, preventing animals or grave robbers from entering. Within, lay her brother’s body.
Tea clasped her hands before her. “Did anyone sing a lament for him?”
Eithni shook her head. “No one attended his burial—Forcus wouldn’t let me, and Wid had already been driven out. There was no one here to see him safely into the afterlife.”
Tea’s eyes prickled with tears at this news, and she felt another surge of hatred toward Forcus. Loc had never done him any harm; instead he had always seen the warrior much like an elder brother. He had trusted and respected Forcus, but his killer had not even granted him a proper burial. Tea balled her hands into fists and breathed deeply until the crimson tide of fury passed.
“Then I shall sing one for him,” she said finally.
Inhaling deeply, dredging down into the depths of her soul, Tea began to sing. Lingering, quavering, long notes filled with sadness and regret lifted high into the fog, drifting across the still, mist-shrouded landscape.
Brave Loc mac Domech
Believer in peace
Go to your long sleep.
Brave Loc mac Domech
Warrior, brother and chief
Slain.
Betrayed.
Tears streamed down Tea’s face as she poured out all the love she felt for her brother, and her regret at how they had parted. He had tricked her, but she forgave him for it. Loc had believed in peace when all others opposed it. Her lament was her way of reaching out to his spirit, of letting him know that she was sorry and that she loved him more than words could ever express.
On and on she sang, until her throat was hoarse. When she finished, she felt wrung out, exhausted. This was the third lament she had sung in a year, and she would end up a husk if she had to sing many more.
Straightening up and wiping the tears from her face, Tea turned her attention to Eithni, who stood quietly beside her. Her sister’s eyes were dry, although they glittered with deep emotion as she stared at her brother’s tomb. A nerve flickered in her smooth cheek. Tea worried about Eithni. During their walk here, she had noticed that her sister’s gait was uneven and she limped slightly.
“Eithni,” she began gently, “what did he do to you?”
Her sister looked up, her face hardening. “I can’t speak of it, Tea,” she replied, her voice shaking slightly. “Even to you … I can only say that he was a beast, and that he used me in ways that will scar me forever, inside and out.”
“But, the way you walk … did he—”
“I can’t!” Eithni choked out the words, backing away from her sister. “I’ll heal in time, but you mustn’t rush me. Maybe one day I’ll be able to tell you what he did, but now I’m not strong enough. Please don’t ask me again.”
Tea nodded, her heart hammering at the thought that Forcus had damaged her sister. It made her feel ill.
She realized what a lucky escape she’d had during their time together. Forcus had never been a good lover—she had realized that fully after laying with Galan. Unlike her husband, Forcus had been rushed and rough in his treatment of her. She had been a maid the first time they had lain together, and he had hurt her. Things had gotten easier after that, but she had never really enjoyed their coupling. It had been one of the reasons she had ended things between them. However, she now realized things could have been far worse for her.
Tea stepped forward and drew her sister into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Eithni. I didn’t mean to upset you, I was only worried.”
Eithni wrapped her arms around Tea’s waist and squeezed in a wordless answer, her slender body relaxing against hers. When the two sisters drew apart, the panic had faded from Eithni’s eyes.
“Just promise me that if you need a healer, you’ll tell me,” Tea said firmly. “You can be so stubborn.”
“I am a healer,” Eithni replied with a shake of her head. “And if I’m stubborn you are doubly so.”
Tea snorted, linking her arm through Eithni’s before they turned and picked their way down the rocky incline. “I wasn’t talking about me.”
“No, but I see your pig-headed ways have not mended. What has your husband done for you to treat him so viciously?”
Tea stiffened. Of course, Eithni was talking of the conversation she had overhead that morning. She did not know of what had passed between Galan and Tea the night before.
Tea sighed. She did not want to go into this but nor did she wish to rebuff her sister, not when Eithni was currently so fragile. “When I first went to Dun Ringill, things were difficult between us,” she said finally, “but after a while we grew close.” Tea paused here, her jaw clenching. “Yet when word of raiders bearing the mark of The Wolf reached him, he turned on me.”
Silence stretched between them for a few moments. They had reached the flatter ground and started along a narrow path that wound through the village back toward the gates of Dun Ardtreck.
“And is he sorry for it now?” Eithni asked eventually, once she had considered Tea’s words.
“Aye—he says so, but I don’t see him the same way. It’s for the best, Eithni. My place is here—Wid is young and untested, he will need someone to help him rule Dun Ardtreck.”
Tea realized that Eithni was watching her closely now, her gaze narrowed.
“What is it?” Tea demanded, uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny.
“You gave your heart to him, didn’t you?”
Tea made a dismissive, scoffing noise. “You’ve seen how handsome he is. Galan is an easy man to like, but that doesn’t mean I’m smitten.”
“I think you are.”
Tea frowned. “Well, I’m not—I just want him to go.”
“He seems like a good man.”
Tea’s chest squeezed painfully at her sister’s words. If only things were as easy as her sister saw them.
“He is,” Tea eventually replied, her voice barely above a whisper, “but that changes nothing.”
Chapter Thirty
Final Words
Wid returned two days later, bringing with him a host of warriors, as well as the families who had fled Dun Ardtreck with him. Tea’s cousin had not been idle in his time away. He had been gathering men from the east—warriors from the People of The Stag—who agreed to help him reclaim Dun Ardtreck. He had been planning an attack on the fort in a few days’ time, when Lutrin and Cal found him.
Greeting him before the gates of the fort, Tea clasped Wid in a hug. He was a hulking young man who at seventeen winters was already an impressive size. A mane of jet curls tumbled over his shoulders, and he smelled of leather and ponies. When he pulled back, Wid’s face was wet with tears.
“I failed you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
“Your decision to go saved the lives of many,” Tea replied firmly. She did not admit to him that her initial reaction to the news he had refused to fight Forcus, and had instead fled the broch, had been anger. However, in the days since she had realized the wisdom of his act. “Never regret it.”
“But I should have guessed Forcus’s ruse.” His young face twisted with grief. “I should have prevented Loc’s death.”
Tea reached up, her hand cupping his whiskery face. “You couldn’t have known—none of us suspected him.”
Behind Wid, a crowd of weary travelers trudged up the hill—men, women and children who had fled Dun Ardtreck days earlier now returned home. It gladdened Tea’s heart to see them. Now the tense melancholy that had lingered here for days would lift.
A few feet behind Tea and Wid stood Galan. He waited silently, his warriors gathered behind him, allowing Tea and her cousin to be reunited before the young man turned his attention to him.
Tea watched Wid leave her side and stride up to Galan, stopping be
fore him. The two men’s gazes met and held for a few moments before Wid stepped close and hugged Galan. His eyes shone when he stepped back.
“I thank you.”
Tea watched a smile curve her husband’s mouth. “What for?”
“Things would have gone ill for Tea and Eithni, if you had not followed your wife here.”
Galan’s smile turned wry. “Tea didn’t need my help—she slew Forcus herself.”
“Yes, but you and your men liberated the fort.”
Galan inclined his head, finally accepting the younger man’s thanks. “So the peace between our tribes still stands?”
Wid’s face turned serious. “You realize that Loc and I had nothing to do with those raids?”
“Aye,” Galan replied, his gaze flicking to Tea. Their gazes met for a moment before he fixed his attention on Wid once more. “I know that now—one of the raiders we captured alive told us that Forcus was responsible. I don’t blame you.”
Wid held his gaze. “I am of the same mind as Loc was—I want peace between The Wolf and The Eagle.”
Galan smiled, and this time warmth reached his eyes. The two men reached out and clasped arms. “As do I.”
***
The fog remained in a dense shroud over The Winged Isle for two further days after Wid’s return—two difficult days in which Tea avoided Galan as much as she was able.
Fortunately, there was plenty of work to keep her occupied. Wid initially seemed a bit lost, so she took control of the fort. She welcomed back some of Loc’s warriors who had returned from a deer hunt to find Loc dead and Forcus’s men guarding the fort. They had refused them entry unless they swore loyalty to the new chief; when the warriors refused, they had been driven off. Tea set men to work sharpening blades and mending the shields and weaponry damaged in the attack. Meanwhile Galan and his warriors repaired the oaken gates they had broken down during the attack.
Eithni oversaw the cleaning of the fort. Forcus and his men had left it a mess, and it took a full day to clean out the broch, replacing the soiled rushes with clean ones and scrubbing all the wooden surfaces with hot water and lye. Eithni also organized a great feast to celebrate Wid’s return, and the ceremony that would make him the new Wolf chieftain.
They held the chief-making ceremony at noon the second day following Wid’s return to Dun Ardtreck. Tea stood upon a raised stone dais at the far end of the broch, watching as her cousin’s men pushed their way through the crowd, bearing a great oaken shield. They brought it before Wid, who seated himself on it.
With a great cheer, the warriors lifted Wid high into the air—a gesture that showed their new chieftain to the gods. Clinging on to the edge of the shield, Wid laughed, and for the first time in many days, Tea found a smile curving her own mouth.
However, the joy she felt at seeing Wid made chief was tinged with sadness. Just months ago she had witnessed Loc go through the same rite—yet his time ruling the tribe had been so tragically brief. He had never had the chance to take a wife or father children—and he would have made a good husband and father.
The gathered crowd inside the broch roared their approval, the noise shaking the great stone tower to its foundations. Tea’s eyes misted with tears, but she blinked them away. She would not let her grief tarnish this occasion. Like her people, she had to look forward and make a fresh start.
A great feast followed the ceremony. The long tables arranged in a square around the great central hearth groaned under the weight of the dishes: roast boar stuffed with walnuts and apples, braised onions and carrots, many types of breads, huge wheels of goat’s and ewe’s cheese, roast fowl, and turnips mashed with butter.
Tea deliberately took a seat on the opposite side of the hearth to her husband. Instead of sitting down beside him as a wife should, she sat next to Eithni. Her sister had finally regained some color to her face, although she still walked awkwardly and sometimes winced when she rose to her feet after sitting a while. Tea worried for Eithni at times, although she was relieved to see her sister smile at the sight of the feast set before them.
Glancing away from her sister, Tea felt Galan’s gaze upon her, boring into her, from across the room, but she did her best to ignore him. Determined that she would not ignore him completely, as she had done since Wid’s return, Galan had sat down directly opposite, ensuring that every time Tea raised her gaze she would see him.
He was watching her now, his eyes smoke-grey in the flickering light from the cressets that lined the broch’s walls. Outside, it was day, but the fortress had few windows, meaning that it was dark indoors, even on the sunniest of days.
Tea helped herself to some roast fowl, meeting Galan’s eye briefly as she did so. She saw that his expression was troubled. She knew her avoidance of him would hurt Galan; but she was not ignoring him in order to cause him pain. Indeed, it was painful to look upon him, to look into his eyes.
Every look brought back memories.
That period after Mid-Winter Fire had been the happiest in her life. Like a flower, opening after a long and bitter winter, she had given herself to him and let warmth touch her heart. She knew he was sorry, but his regret had come too late—she had already walled up her heart again.
Her true purpose was not to be a wife, but a warrior. She would not wed again—instead she would co-rule with Wid. She would make the People of The Wolf strong. Loc could rest easy now; the peace would last whether or not Tea and Galan remained handfasted. There was no need for her to return to Dun Ringill.
A roar went up at the far end of the table, drawing Tea’s gaze from Galan. Wid’s men had filled a huge drinking horn with mead, and had passed it to him. They cheered raucously, a few of them already well into their cups, as the new chief brought it to his lips and tipped back his head, drinking until the horn was drained. Face flushed, Wid handed the horn back to one of his men to be refilled.
Tea turned her attention back to her end of the table, to find Galan still watching her. Bristling, she resolutely kept her gaze fastened upon the wooden platter in front of her.
Let him stare all he wanted—it would do no good.
The feasting and drinking went on for a long while; throughout the afternoon and into the evening. A harpist set herself up on the dais above the revelers and began to play, a scop at her side. The scop was a young man who had come from a neighboring village for the chief-making. Small and frail, with a shock of jet hair, the lad had a hauntingly beautiful voice as he sang of the gods, of great chieftains and their wives, of battles, loss and reckoning.
After the scop had sung for a while, a flutist playing a bone whistle climbed up onto the dais and together with the harpist, they played songs for dancing. The rich food and surfeit of ale and sloe wine made Tea feel drowsy. The noise of the reveling and the smoke from the burning peat had given her a thick head, and she longed for some peace and fresh air.
She stood on the edge of the dancers, watching as Wid staggered around, passed from maid to maid, each of them eager to dance with the young, handsome chief. After a while, Galan approached her.
Tea was aware of his presence by her side before she even glanced in his direction. From the first time she had seen him, she had noticed Galan’s charisma; how he filled every space he walked into. Her skin prickled with awareness as he stepped close to her.
“Tea,” his voice was low, barely audible above the clapping, cheering and drunken laughter that echoed through the broch. “I would speak with you.”
She inclined her head to him. “What … now?”
He nodded.
She stiffened. “Can you not do so here?”
He frowned. “I can barely hear my own thoughts above the din—come upstairs with me a moment.”
Tea watched Galan leave her side, and stride around the edge of the circular space, before he climbed the stone steps leading up to the top level. Her belly clenched. She did not want to follow him, yet she found her feet doing just that. She made her way around the perimeter of the dancing
and hesitantly climbed the steps.
The top level of the broch was a sacred place; the private quarters of the chieftain. Her mother and father had once dwelled up here, and then Loc. Now this space was Wid’s. Thick furs covered the wooden floor, and wall hangings, richly decorated with gold, obscured the damp stone walls. A pile of furs dominated one corner of the space—a disturbing reminder of the alcove Tea had shared with Galan in Dun Ringill—and three cressets filled with burning oil cast a gilded light over the room.
Galan was waiting for her in the center of the space.
The sight of him caused the pit of Tea’s belly to tighten in instinctive arousal. Damn him for being so attractive. Dressed in tight plaid leggings, his torso bare, his long straight hair flowing like oil over his bare shoulders, he watched her as if she were a deer and he was the hunter.
Tea stopped a few feet from him, clenching her hands by her sides to prevent herself from trembling. “What did you wish to say?” she asked.
Galan held her gaze, tension emanating from his strong body. “The mist is clearing,” he said finally. “I will leave with the dawn tomorrow.”
Tea stared back at him, her chest constricting at this news. This was what she wanted—why then did she feel so hollow inside?
He continued to watch her. “I want you to come back to Dun Ringill with me, Tea.” He stepped closer to her. “Let us start again.”
Tea raised her chin and clenched her jaw. Their gazes fused and her insides twisted. Galan’s mouth thinned when she did not answer him.
“I won’t ask again, Tea.” He spoke her name like a caress, the gentleness of his tone made her suppress a shiver. “I won’t beg or bully you to be with me—I ask you this final time to forgive me, to come home.”
Tea inhaled deeply, her heart slamming against her ribs. “Why do you have to make this so hard,” she gasped. “I’ve already given you my decision. Why won’t you just accept it?”
Two strides brought Galan to Tea; he reached out and took hold of her upper arms, holding her fast. “I can’t. Not without knowing that’s really what you want.” He pulled her against him, his mouth covering hers.
