The Sword and the Song

by C. E. Laureano

  Aine just shook her head, unsurprised. Eoghan was almost as bad as Conor. “Then breakfast first. I’m starving. Are you hungry?”

  “No, my lady. We eat before sunrise.”

  Right. Even with the influx of kingdom citizens, those Fíréin-raised men stuck to the same rigid schedule they always had. When they reached the cookhouse, it was only women and children with a smattering of men in line. The Fíréin and the more able-bodied of the kingdom’s men were already at their assignments for the day. Aine slammed down the boundaries of her mind before the hum of voices could grow into a head-splitting cacophony. The instinct had become automatic shortly after she’d arrived at Ard Dhaimhin, but having to keep herself open to both Conor and Keondric in the late hours had made it less and less natural.

  Aine accepted a bowl of thin soup and a hunk of bread, then moved off to eat it away from the others, aware of Iomhar following two paces behind.

  “I’m sorry you drew this duty,” she said as she settled on a patch of reasonably dry grass.

  “It’s my honor.”

  She tilted her head to study him. “Why?”

  “You don’t remember?” When Aine shook her head, he pulled down the neck of his tunic to show a thick white scar. “You healed this when you first came. I’d suffered it in the attack on the city. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it wouldn’t heal properly. I could barely raise a sword.”

  She vaguely remembered the incident, but those early days in which she had been overwhelmed by both her gift and the sheer volume of work were just a blur in her memory.

  “Is that why Eoghan chose you?”

  Iomhar chuckled. “Eoghan chose me because next to him and your husband, I’m the best sword in the city. Besides, you’d be hard-pressed to find a man you haven’t helped in some way, my lady.”

  Aine smiled. She liked this man. Confident but not cocky. Good-humored. And quick. “What do you think about all of this?”

  Iomhar sobered. “About the danger you face, or about Ard Dhaimhin in general?”

  “In general.”

  He thought for a long moment. “This is all temporary. Right now we’re doing the best that we can with what we have. But the real fight is still to come.”

  Aine nodded slightly, sobered by his assessment. She wasn’t the only one who felt they were just holding on. In order for them to have any hope of rebuilding Seare, they needed to stop with the small, stopgap measures and end the war once and for all. But as she looked around at the men, women, and children—fighters and non-fighters alike—she wondered what price they would pay to accomplish it.

  Iomhar chatted with her while he walked her to the healers’ cottages, so different from taciturn Ruarc and fierce Lorcan. She had been so taken in by the illusory safety of the city that she had forgotten the security she drew from a warrior’s constant presence. Iomhar was pleasant, intelligent, and kind in his demeanor, but he was also ever watchful, his eyes assessing possible threats even as he told her stories about growing up in Ard Dhaimhin. She got a glimpse of the mischievous little boy, gradually shaped and molded into a man of duty and conscience. How easily he and others like him accepted that duty, how willing they were to die to discharge it. How could she think her life was worth the constant risk to theirs? Love, she understood. But this steadfast devotion to an idea . . .

  Why do you think those two things are in opposition?

  The thought pierced through her own, clearly from Comdiu. She nearly stumbled from the clarity of it.

  Why do you fight for people you don’t know, if not for love? Love of country, love of justice. Your knowledge that I love them and know each one. Do you not risk all for an idea?

  “Lady Aine?”

  Aine realized she’d stopped and shot Iomhar an embarrassed smile. “Just thinking too deeply, I suppose. I’m fine.”

  But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been entrusted with something important, something precious. Perhaps it was simply an insight into the heart of Comdiu.

  Or perhaps it was encouragement to persevere in the face of the danger to come.

  When they arrived at the healers’ cottage, Iomhar took up his post outside the door. Inside, Murchadh was already hard at work. He glanced up and nodded in her direction. “You’re looking well today, Lady Aine. Had a good night’s rest, I hope?”

  Hardly, she thought, but she just smiled. At least that was proof they’d been successful in keeping Aine’s activities quiet. She perused the freshly washed roots laid out on the table before him. “Are you making tinctures today?”

  “Dandelion.” He produced a heavy-bladed knife and began to chop them into tiny, precise pieces. He nodded toward the bucket of rendered lard in the corner. “If you want, we could use a new batch of salve.”

  Aine retrieved the bucket and hefted it onto the bench. They went through this salve most quickly of all their preparations. It was as good for treating blisters and skin ulcers as it was for cuts and bruises. She selected a jar of marshmallow root oil from the shelf and then added bottles of marigold and arnica extract to her apron to bring over to the bench. She quickly lost herself in the careful measurements of the recipe Mistress Bearrach had taught her during her apprenticeship at Lisdara, stirring the oils into the fat until her arms ached from the effort of plying the wooden spoon. Then she started the painstaking process of spooning it into jars to be distributed to the other healers.

  When the last of the salve was in the jars, she carried them two by two to the wooden shelving opposite the bench. “I think I’m done here. I’m going to go walk the garden and make sure the rain didn’t disturb the mulch before I go back to the fortress.”

  “I thought to do the same,” he said. “I’ll accompany you.”

  She looked askance at the healer. Ever since she had compelled him to tell his story to the Conclave, he’d been friendly but businesslike with her. He certainly hadn’t shown any interest in her personal plantings before or in spending any time with her beyond the tasks that he set her in the cottage.

  Still, she smiled at him. “I’ll welcome the company.”

  The older man removed his apron and followed her out of the cottage silently. He lifted an eyebrow at Iomhar’s presence, then frowned when the young man followed them into the garden. “Acquired a new shadow?”

  “You know Eoghan,” she said with a smile, hoping he’d leave it at that. But Murchadh seemed content to just walk beside her. Sure enough, the mulch that she’d mounded around the trimmed stalks of her chamomile plants had slid away in the overnight rain. She picked her way through the rows, brushing the mulch up where it belonged, pressing down earth that had begun to crumble from the hills.

  “Your monk’s collar is looking sickly,” Murchadh said, moving to a row of bushy plants. He used his knife to dig down beside the roots of one of them. “See here?”

  Aine knelt beside him. “A little pale perhaps, but it’s late in the season. Were there a real problem in the soil, we’d see evidence on the—”

  Before she could finish the thought, the healer’s body slammed into her, his thin frame crashing her back into the dirt of her garden. She froze in shock as his knife hovered above her, too stunned to fight back. And then all of a sudden, his weight was gone and he was flying back to the turf. Iomhar straddled him on the ground, striking the weapon from his hand, and then flipped him onto his stomach in an armlock that made the old man cry out in pain.

  “Are you hurt, my lady?” Iomhar’s tone carried concern but not panic.

  “I—I—what just happened? He tried to kill me!”

  “My lady, are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”

  Aine looked down at herself and saw the smear of blood on the front of her dress, then traced it to her palm. “I’m fine. I think I just sliced it open on one of the plant’s canes. He didn’t strike me.”

  “Good.” Iomhar looked around, then raised his voice and shouted, “Rafer! Come here!”

  A short, muscular brother caught Iom
har’s eye and trotted to their side immediately. Concern passed through his expression when he took in the scene. “How may I be of service, sir?”

  “Escort Lady Aine to Master Eoghan. Don’t let anyone get within three feet of her. There’s been an assassination attempt.”

  Another flash of unease surfaced on Rafer’s face, but he bowed in acknowledgment. “Aye, sir. Lady Aine, if you would come with me.”

  “Go,” Iomhar said. “Rafer will see you safely to the fortress. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Numbly, she let the brother draw her to her feet, only now noticing that he had his sword free from his sheath. “Murchadh tried to kill me.”

  “Aye, my lady, it would seem so,” Rafer said in a quiet voice. “Let us get you someplace more defensible, shall we?”

  Iomhar gave her a reassuring nod before he hauled Murchadh to his feet. She expected to see hatred or fury in the healer’s face, but it was only as placid as it ever was.

  “How could this happen?” Eoghan roared.

  Aine cringed, even though she knew his fury was not directed toward her. She focused instead on the sting in her palm where she had sliced it open on the thorns of the monk’s collar plant. Even beneath the numbing salve and the wrapping, it hurt.

  Not as bad as a knife wound would have—or had. She had been cut before by an assassin’s blade, and that had been someone she had trusted as well.

  She had a terrible record of trusting people who secretly wanted to kill her.

  “Eoghan,” Riordan said gently, nodding in her direction.

  Eoghan focused on her, and his demeanor softened. He came to kneel beside the chair in the Ceannaire’s office where she sat and took her unwounded hand. “Aine, look at me. Are you all right? Are you hurt in any way?”

  She shook her head numbly. “I suspect I’m in shock, though.”

  “We should get you to your chamber. But first, did he say anything? Did he give any indication why he tried to kill you?”

  “No, none. I thought it was odd that he wanted to accompany me to the garden, because the garden is not his responsibility. It never entered my mind he would do something like this.”

  “I don’t understand why if he wanted to kill her he didn’t do it inside the cottage,” Iomhar wondered. “He was alone with her for hours. Instead he takes her outside where he can be seen and stopped? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Eoghan’s eyes narrowed. “You left her alone? After your express orders were to not leave her side?”

  Aine squeezed Eoghan’s hand to stem the flow of his tirade. “Iomhar was doing as I asked. Would you have honestly believed that Murchadh was a threat? The fact is, he saved me, and I don’t even know how he managed that. He was several feet away.”

  Eoghan’s eyes returned to the guard. “How did you manage that?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Something felt wrong. I was already walking toward them when he turned the blade on her. I was there just in time.”

  “Or he didn’t really want to kill me,” Aine said softly.

  The three men in the room stared disbelievingly at her.

  “Think about it. He waited until we were outside, where Iomhar could stop him. He knocked me over and hesitated before he tried to stab me. That doesn’t sound like a well-thought-out plan for assassination.” It was certainly easier to believe that the healer with whom she’d worked for months hadn’t truly wanted to kill her, even if his real motivations hadn’t yet been explained.

  “Then why do it at all?” Eoghan asked.

  “Maybe he was compelled.” The words spilled out before she could consider them, but they felt right. They felt possible. Hadn’t she seen what a spell could do to a person’s will? “What better way to get to me than through someone I trusted? After all, as soon as you thought there might be a threat against me, you assigned a guard. I can’t move more than a handful of steps without someone watching over me. A stranger would never get within a dozen feet of me.”

  “Why do it at all? And how could he have been spelled? Murchadh isn’t new here. I would have expected such a thing from a patient or one of the refugees. But not a sworn brother who has lived more of his life here than he has elsewhere.”

  “In the nemetons.”

  Again, all the men’s attention fell on her.

  “Murchadh was a druid. He spent the first thirty years of his life there. He himself said that he still considers himself a druid. Now Niall is trying to collect the runes his order scattered, and we are trying to stop him. Somehow I don’t believe that’s any coincidence.”

  “So you think he’s loyal to the druidic order and they somehow want you dead?” Riordan said doubtfully.

  “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that there are too many coincidences here. It seems that I’m always being attacked by people I trust. First, Keondric ambushed and kidnapped me under Niall’s direction. Then I was attacked by a man who had helped me reach Forrais safely. They’d both had the opportunity to harm me before then, but they hadn’t taken it. And now Murchadh.”

  “But you yourself said you didn’t think Niall had anything to do with the attack on you at your aunt’s keep. You thought that was orchestrated by her or your cousin.”

  “Aye. But the sidhe . . . the druid . . . they all may be acting for their own purposes, but who pulls the strings?” The words flowed out of her as if she’d always known the answer, even if this was the first time she had ever truly articulated the idea. “Lord Balus told me that the storm of darkness must be stopped before it spread across the world. I don’t think He meant mere physical oppression or even the control of the sidhe.”

  “You’re saying this is all part of a larger plan by the Adversary,” Riordan said.

  “What else? Is that not how the story goes? That the Adversary hated the creation that Comdiu loved? That Comdiu gave him dominion over the earth, even as He gave us tools to fight him? And now we threaten that reign on earth, Conor and I especially. We have been targeted every step of the way, by evil men, by spirit, by magic.”

  “We need to question Murchadh,” Eoghan said.

  “Let me.”

  “My lady?”

  “He didn’t want to kill me. I’m almost sure of it. Let me question him. I’m more likely to get the answers we seek from him than you are.”

  “You were almost just killed!” Eoghan said. “No. I won’t allow it.”

  Aine arched an eyebrow at him. “You won’t allow it? Last time I checked, you were neither my husband nor my king.”

  Eoghan flinched, but he didn’t budge. “I am the leader here and responsible for your safety.”

  “What do you think is going to happen with him restrained? Iomhar overpowered him without a struggle. He’s not going to harm me. At least let me try. You question him too strenuously and he will tell us nothing. I’m sure of that.”

  Another round of doubtful looks. Aine sighed. “I promise, no harm is going to come to me.”

  After a long moment of deliberation, Eoghan nodded. “Fine. But only if we all are with you.”

  “Good. Thank you. All right, before we go down, we need some things. Where can I find ink and a brush?”

  Eoghan called for one of the brothers on watch in the corridor to retrieve the implements. “Come, my lady. He’s being held in the dungeons.” He ushered her out the door with a light touch on her elbow.

  “Carraigmór has a dungeon?”

  “Aye. Not often used, but equipped for the task.”

  “Somehow I didn’t take the Fíréin as proponents of torture.” A shudder of horror skittered down her back, the mere word taking her back to what she had experienced through Conor’s mind.

  “It’s nothing for you to be concerned about, my lady. Murchadh is one of us. He will be given the opportunity to confess. I don’t anticipate any unpleasantness being necessary to get to the bottom of this.”

  Eoghan’s careful dodge of the topic did nothing to ease the sick feeling in her stomach. Somehow s
he had thought of the brotherhood as being more civilized, more enlightened, than the kingdoms, but perhaps that was just a false conceit. Up until recently, they’d had no outsiders and relatively little crime. Interlopers who had no good reason to be in their forests were killed, and brothers who committed crimes were already held to a codified standard of discipline. Where did that leave Murchadh, she wondered, who had taken an oath as a brother and then attempted to kill someone under the Ceannaire’s protection?

  Eoghan led Aine down the stairs to a part of the keep she hadn’t even known existed, beside the isolated Hall of Prophecies. Rather than the dark, dingy, foul-smelling lower level she’d expected, it was rather a warren of small chambers that looked like storerooms, each closed with a heavy iron-bound door. The brother on duty stepped aside from one in the middle of the hall.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Eoghan asked, his hand on the latch. “He did just try to kill you.”

  “Which is why I must speak with him.”

  Eoghan exchanged a glance with Riordan, who nodded. Iomhar followed at her heels, his hand on the knife at his waist. Aine found it laughable. What danger did he think she would face?

  Certainly not Murchadh. He had always struck her as hale and full of life when working in the cottage, but now, tied to a chair with heavy ropes, he looked like a withered husk.

  Aine stopped several paces in front of him. He raised miserable eyes to hers and then dropped his gaze to the stones again. No, this was not a man who was proud of his actions. She reached out for his thoughts, but they were slippery, like trying to catch smoke with her hands. Still, she caught guilt, regret, anger. And among it, the distinctive, oily taint of sorcery.

  “He’s spelled,” Aine murmured. “I’m sure of it.”

  She crouched down in front of him. “Brother Murchadh, why did you do it? I don’t truly believe you want me dead.”

  He refused to meet her eyes, and he said nothing.

  “Lady Aine, this is pointless,” Riordan said. “Even if he does answer, I don’t think you’re going to like what he has to say.”

  The door creaked open behind them and a brother entered with a jar of ink and a brush in hand. Aine thanked him, and Eoghan dismissed him with a nod.