“I must understand where you learned this,” Eoghan said. “The questions that could be answered . . .”
“No. I promised I would not tell anyone, and I keep my promises.” She focused a hard look on Eoghan. “Do you?”
It was a clear challenge, a test. Did he want information on the runes enough to break his word? Somehow he felt there was no good answer: be thought untrustworthy or weak; break her confidence or reveal his vulnerabilities.
“Aye. I keep my promises. All of them.” He seated himself behind the desk again. “That’s also why I’m not going to promise you can leave your chamber. I told you I expected the complete truth from you, and what you’ve told us is only what you have seen fit to share. But I’m true to my word. We won’t force you.”
Despite the fact she had to be angry with his decision, she bowed her head graciously. “I appreciate knowing that you are a man of your word at least.”
Eoghan gave her a crisp nod. “You may leave. Your guards will take you back. Lady Aine, a word?” He waited until Morrigan left the room and counted to ten to make sure they could not be overheard. “Your impressions.”
“Not very helpful, I’m afraid. She’s either skilled at lying or skilled at telling her way around the truth so she doesn’t look as though she’s lying. And this rune . . . With some study, this could prove to be very useful indeed. I don’t understand why she would have given up something this important without earning anything in return.”
“I agree.” Eoghan tented his fingers against his lips. “Something tells me she’s playing a long game, and this was a sacrifice she had planned all along.”
“Every piece down to her last one,” Aine murmured. “Conor warned me she was strategic.”
“What else did he warn you about?”
“That she was arrogant enough to believe she could always win.”
Eoghan stared at the door Morrigan had just walked through. Considering how well she had been playing them all this time, Conor just might be right.
Oenghus and the men stayed the night in their camp, and after everyone was adequately assured the Clanless wouldn’t slaughter them in their sleep, they were glad for the extra numbers.
The next morning, however, Oenghus issued several quiet orders, and half the party disappeared back into the canyon. “Spreading the word,” he said. Conor could only hope the message was to stand down attacks on his and Daigh’s parties.
But Oenghus seemed to be sincere in his promise to help. “You don’t look like our people, and no one will be fooled by those disguises. Here.” He pulled the fur mantle from his shoulders and swapped it for Conor’s cloak, taking the fine piece of wool for himself.
“Are you sure you don’t just want my cloak?” Conor asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Oh, aye, I want your cloak. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it shows you as Fíréin as surely as your weaponry does.”
“You’re not going to try to take those, I’d assume.”
“No, your weapons you keep. We’re generous in that way.”
“So very generous,” Conor replied with a snort. “You also aren’t confident you could actually accomplish it.”
“That as well.”
The sparkle in Oenghus’s eyes made Conor think he simply enjoyed his bluster. Despite his doubts, he found himself liking the man. When they started back down the canyon, he waited for the Clanless party’s leader to fall in beside him.
“Most people think the Clanless are merely bedtime stories to scare children into obeying. ‘If you don’t behave, you’ll be thrown out of the keep, and you’ll have to go live with the Clanless.’”
“Aye, and they say we eat children with our pointed monster’s teeth as well.” Oenghus grinned. “Either way, the rumors are good for us. Those who believe are too frightened to come look for us, and the rest don’t bother us.”
“Like the Fíréin.”
“Like the Fíréin.” He looked Conor over appraisingly. “But those rumors are mostly true, now, aren’t they?”
“Mostly. But you, Oenghus, you can’t tell me you are not an educated man. So how did you come to be Clanless in the first place?”
“Like most of us do, I suppose. Anyone who challenges his clan, particularly in Sliebhan, finds himself cast off. For me, I wouldn’t bow to the old gods. Our mam raised us to believe in Balus and the One True God Comdiu, but our da was loyal to the warrior gods until the day he died. He made it so I couldn’t inherit his title, couldn’t marry, couldn’t find a profession. So I left. Wandered a bit. Fell in with the Clanless here in the mountains.”
“How many of you are there?”
Oenghus cast another appraising look at Conor. “More than you probably think.”
Fair enough. The man didn’t want to reveal too much, and Conor couldn’t blame him. He probably believed that the Fíréin would think of them as threats, even though Conor was really feeling out whether or not they could be potential allies.
“What about the sidhe?” Conor asked finally. “If you dwell in these passes, surely they are attracted to your presence. Don’t you have problems with them causing disturbances among your people?”
“The Fíréin know of the sidhe?”
“Firsthand.”
“Then you know there are ways to block their influence.”
Conor thought of the charm beneath his tunic. “Aye, I do.”
“So do we.”
So the sharing would go only so far. That, too, he could understand. But Conor didn’t see any evidence that the Clanless warriors were wearing amulets of any sort. Were there other ways to defend against the spirits?
Conor thought they had seen the last of the party that had split off that morning, but when they made camp around a small fire again after nightfall, one of the men—Oscar, Conor thought—reappeared with a brace of rabbits over his shoulder. He tossed them to Conor, who passed them off to Larkin and Ferus to skin.
“You’re our guests,” Oenghus explained. “We show hospitality to our guests.”
“And if we attempted to hunt in your territory?”
Oenghus just shrugged, but Conor had the feeling these Clanless men were every bit as territorial as the Fíréin when it came to their livelihood.
They were just finishing the last greasy pieces of rabbit meat cooked over a spit and sharing around the last bit of tea when a familiar voice broke into Conor’s consciousness. He excused himself and stepped into the shadows.
Aine? I’m here.
Thank Comdiu.
Why, is something wrong?
Her long pause made his heart stutter. No, not wrong, she said at last. Just puzzling. Morrigan is branded. With a rune.
Conor frowned into the darkness. If anyone were watching him, they’d likely think him insane. I don’t understand. What kind of rune?
One that means “shield.” Once she showed it to us, Eoghan identified it. This is why I haven’t been able to read her. This rune blocks magic completely.
Where did she get it?
She wouldn’t tell us. Said she had made a solemn vow not to reveal its source.
Aine, how recent is the brand?
Weeks, perhaps. It’s still not healed. Why?
What he was thinking was completely impossible and yet the only logical explanation. He looked back at Oenghus and his four men. Could they have been the ones who gave her the rune? And how would they have come across such a thing?
We’ve made contact with the Clanless, Conor said. They seem to have some way to keep the sidhe from affecting them. Perhaps they branded her.
The Clanless? How is that possible?
I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. Tomorrow night I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. And, Aine?
Aye?
Be careful. Just because she shared that fact with you doesn’t make her less dangerous.
Aye, I know. I love you, Conor.
And I love you. He felt it the moment she disconnected from his mind, regi
stered the loss. It wasn’t like being physically present with her, but after so many separations, the fact they could speak in their minds was a comfort. It was also a concern. He could feel her worry and her wariness through her words, even if she didn’t realize she was transmitting it. He returned to the fire and lowered himself to his spot atop his bedroll.
“Everything all right?” Larkin asked in a low voice.
“Aye, it’s fine.” He directed his attention to Oenghus, sitting across the fire. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The rune.”
When Oenghus simply stared at him, Conor sighed. “The one you branded my sister with. The one you use to keep the sidhe from affecting your people.”
For a moment, Conor thought he wouldn’t answer. Then Oenghus smiled. “So you figured it out, did you? Took you long enough. Aye, I gave her the rune.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid she would be tracked. And anyone coming from Ard Bealach would not want to be tracked.”
“So you do know something about the fortress. Tell me.”
“There have been whispers. People who have heard screaming. Rumors of experiments.”
“What kind of experiments?”
“The kind that people think if they don’t talk about never really happened.”
Conor heaved a sigh. So things were as bad as they thought. “Tell me this, then. She was afraid she would be tracked. Does that mean that Lord Keondric has been here with the druid?”
Oenghus smiled. “Aye, both of them. And you know why.”
So he knew that Keondric was the druid. How did someone supposedly out of touch with the matters of the kingdoms know so much? It sounded as though the Clanless kept a better eye on the situation than the Fíréin. “Show me this rune.”
Oenghus nodded toward Oscar, who immediately unlaced his shirt and pulled down the neckline to show a pale white scar directly over his heart. Conor studied it for a moment. It was old and puckered, a sign that this was not a recent discovery.
“Where did you learn it?”
The Clanless men exchanged a glance and remained silent.
“This is a magic that no one has known for half a millennium, and you’re wearing it casually on your body. I want to know where you learned it.”
“The Fíréin do not have an exclusive right to magic,” Oenghus said. “Nor do they have a right to make demands in my territory. We have answered your questions out of courtesy. Don’t mistake our willingness for cowardice.”
Conor bowed his head slightly and tempered his tone. “Forgive me. But you must understand, this is an old magic, one that we believe predates even Balus’s gifts in Seare. It may be our best chance of stopping the druid and once more binding the sidhe. It’s important that we learn all we can about it.”
“That may be, but you will not learn it from us. You have your secrets; we have ours.”
But they had shared this secret, and it was one they could use. He picked up a stick and sketched the rune in the dirt at his feet. “What effect does it have on a person? Does it work only if it’s branded?”
Oenghus and the other Clanless stared at him openmouthed.
“What?” Conor asked.
“You can remember it.”
“Of course I can remember it.”
The other men exchanged a glance. So this rune was like the throne, not universally recognized for what it was. Perhaps to many people, it looked like a scar or a tribal marking. “What would happen if I drew it on?”
“The rune depends on its precision,” Oenghus finally answered. “You could draw the marking, but if it became blurred, there is no telling what could happen. It could kill the wearer. It could simply stop working. We don’t know enough about it to risk the impermanence.”
“Hence the brand.”
“Aye.”
Conor stared silently into the fire as he considered. This could be a solution to the problem of the sidhe, but it was also risky. He couldn’t ask his men to take the chance that a smudged marking would kill them, and he wasn’t about to have them brand it permanently into their skin until he understood exactly how it worked.
Now their mission at Ard Bealach—to retrieve the bard Meallachán alive and whole—was more important than ever.
After Morrigan’s revelation, Aine redoubled her efforts searching Queen Shanna’s journals. There was no guarantee she would find what she was looking for there, yet something—whether it be intuition or Comdiu’s leading—kept her reading until her vision blurred and her head ached.
Instead of passages about the runes, however, Aine stumbled across something unexpected. She shoved a piece of ribbon into the book and marched down to the Ceannaire’s office, where Eoghan sat alone, bent over a similar-looking book.
“You have to read this.” She shoved the volume under his nose and flipped it open to the marked page.
He frowned but he didn’t argue. When he finished reading the passage indicated, he blinked. “I don’t understand. That can’t be right.”
“What reason would she have to lie?” Aine turned the book around toward herself. “‘The druid Struthair claims that the spirits can be bound so they cannot harm humans, but it requires a language that has long since been forbidden in the nemetons. Few are able to even read it. Fewer still know where to locate the keys so it can be deciphered.’ They have to be talking about the runes, don’t they?”
“I can’t imagine what else. We already knew that the druids were the ones who bound the sidhe in the first place. But we’d assumed it happened prior to Daimhin’s time, prior to the coming of the Way.”
“This means that at one point, the druids weren’t in opposition to the Balians.”
“Or the sidhe were a big enough threat for them to put their differences aside,” Eoghan said.
Aine circled around the table to where she could perch on the chair opposite him. “What do they mean by keys, as in the meanings for the runes? They knew they existed but they didn’t have access to them?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never heard anything of the sort. Either no one read this journal or no one thought this fact was significant. After all, the sidhe had been bound for some time, and despite the fact they were growing stronger, their influence was confined to places where faith was weak.”
Aine remained silent, thinking. It all had to fit together somehow: the sidhe, the runes, the druids. But the answer remained just beyond her reach.
“I’ll keep reading. If you come across anything—”
“I’ll let you know. This is good work, Aine.” He met her eyes fully for the first time in days and gave her a warm smile.
Her heart hiccupped at what she read there in that unguarded moment, clear indication that his feelings toward her really hadn’t changed. She managed a nod and scooped up her book, then fled the study as quickly as possible. Either telling him about her gift hadn’t broken its effect on him, or his feelings—like her husband’s—had nothing to do with magic after all.
Either way, until Conor came back, she needed to stay as far from Eoghan as possible.
But the isolation in her chamber with the journal didn’t last long. Refugees continued to stream in and stretch Ard Dhaimhin even further to its limits. As soon as word came of another siege on another small fortress and the resulting flood of escapees from the battle arrived, Murchadh called Aine back to the healers’ cottages.
“There’s not much I can do for malnutrition,” Aine whispered to the healer when she saw the line of skeletal-looking people in front of the cottage.
“It’s worse than that,” Murchadh said. “They’re fleeing an outbreak of disease because they had too many people crammed in behind the walls without proper sanitation, and they were kind enough to bring it with them.”
So that was the real danger, and not just to the new arrivals’ health but to Ard Dhaimhin itself. The city’s excellent sanitation, skilled healers, and strict discipline kept any infl
ux of disease from sweeping unchecked through the population, but that continued to work only if the newcomers were healthy.
Ard Dhaimhin had no space for quarantine, so she couldn’t wait for the medicines to do their work. At the same time, she wasn’t about to spread the word that she could heal by touch. Instead, she gave her patients a dose of foul-tasting herbs mixed with oil—most people believed that for medicine to be effective, it had to taste awful—and healed them while she was making a show of her examination. Most were too distracted by the terrible aftertaste to immediately notice that their symptoms had gone, and by the time they did, they just assumed Ard Dhaimhin had knowledge of exceptionally effective medications.
She’d never thought she would find herself lying to so many so frequently.
“Are you sure you can keep this up, my lady?” Murchadh whispered to her when they were halfway through the day’s patients.
“I’m fine. A little tired and thirsty, but not nearly as exhausted as I’d expected to be.”
Murchadh looked as if he didn’t quite believe her, but he said nothing, just continued to dose the patients with the foul-tasting medicine before Aine set to her examinations.
She also took the opportunity to scan their thoughts for information of interest, but for the most part, she found nothing but mindless fear. They had been fleeing for their lives, often ahead of the actual siege. It seemed that word of the other attack—and the fate of the inhabitants—had now gone before the druid and his men, to the point that all the women and children were sent out before the fighting began. Aine had to give the villagers credit for their bravery. They were not professional warriors; they were merely farmers with mostly rudimentary implements, defending castles that were not their own simply because they felt they had to oppose the evil that Keondric represented.
“My lady,” Murchadh said, “you should take a break. Why don’t you get some fresh air while you check on the herbs? I think the burdock fruit in the hedgerow is overripe, but we might be able to salvage some of it.”
The Sword and the Song Page 12
