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.”
Aine gaped, aghast at the thought of yet another fantastic ability added to her reputation. Then she sighed. “Very well. If it means they’re staying away, they can say whatever they want. I don’t have the energy to deny every new rumor.”
Part of her still remained uncomfortable with her selectiveness, though. Those who sought her meant well. It was not every day they had access to someone who had been brought back from the dead, with Comdiu’s Companions as proof of His protection.
Within days, though, it hardly mattered. Clouds roiled off the coast of the Silver Sea and spread eastward into an angry gray ceiling. When the skies opened, they loosed ceaseless sheets of rain that sounded more like the roar of a river than a winter downpour.
The storm’s cold crept through the walls and condensed on the thick glass windows. Fires burned in hearths, and servants worked through the night to keep braziers stoked with glowing coals. Aine moved her usual studies down to the hall next to the fire in an attempt to dispel her constant chill.
“No patients today?” Niamh asked as she took a seat beside her sister, her sewing basket in hand.
“The roads are flooded. It will be a miracle if anyone can get in or out of Lisdara for the next few weeks.”
“Thank Comdiu for that.” Niamh sighed as she withdrew the strip of embroidery she’d been working on for the last month. The gold knotwork would eventually edge her wedding dress, Aine knew. Just as she knew it was not weariness that kept her from completing it.
Aine pitched her voice below the rain. “When must you decide?”
Niamh lowered her hands to her lap, crumpling the delicate work. “It’s decided. I’m to marry Lord Keondric.”
“When?”
“Within the year, unless we’re at war. Calhoun said he will not have me be the young widow of another man’s clan.”
“That’s a kindness, at least.”
A sardonic smile twisted Niamh’s face. “Clever of our brother, is what it is. He ensures Keondric will send above and beyond the men he’s required to provide for the war, and if he’s killed, Calhoun can give me as a prize to another victor.”
Aine wanted to argue, but she couldn’t discount the idea. Calhoun was kind and honorable. But he was a king, and he looked to the safety of his crown and his people above all else. His beautiful sister was a powerful bargaining tool.
“At least you get a rest,” Niamh continued. “You’ve done nothing but work since we’ve come back from Dún Eavan.”
Aine shot Niamh a wry smile. “You sound like Ruarc.”
“Then Ruarc is right. You haven’t seemed happy.”
The comment startled Aine. It had been so long since she had thought about being happy, even the word sounded foreign. She hoped for contentment, perhaps, or peace, but happiness seemed out of reach.
“Have you thought about returning to Aron? Maybe it would be easier after . . . you know.”
Aine studied her sister. Sometimes it was difficult to remember Niamh knew nothing of her gift or what had really happened when she drowned in Loch Eirich. “I’ve thought about it, but distance won’t change anything. And at least here I can do some good.”
“You couldn’t heal in Aron?”
“Aronans are suspicious of anything that seems too much like magic. Healers who aren’t effective don’t draw many patients, and those who are too effective fall under suspicion.”
“I can see why you’d stay then,” Niamh said. “Healing badly or not at all doesn’t seem like much of a choice.”
Niamh went back to her sewing, and Aine stared into the crackling flames, her book forgotten in her lap. She’d never truly considered returning to Aron, even after Conor had left. It seemed like a poor way to repay Calhoun for his welcome and his support of her studies. Besides, Lord Balus had said she was bound to Seare’s future, not Aron’s.
The flames leapt and twisted in her vision, mesmerizing her with their changing patterns of orange, red, and blue. The sudden roar of rain on the slate roof drummed out the fire’s crackle, filling her ears and echoing in her head. Aine looked toward Niamh in alarm, but her sister seemed unaware of the storm’s increased fury. Then the room went black.
Aine froze. Her heart pounded, and her frightened breath rasped loud in her ears. Water ran in rivulets down her face, plastering her hair to her head. She no longer sat in her chair at Lisdara, but instead huddled in the bushes, peering through a canopy of leaves at a coastal village. Waves churned against the rocky shoreline, threatening the boats that had been pulled up and overturned for safety.
Through the rain, she saw the waves had already caught several large vessels and pulled them out to sea. But no, the boats were moving toward shore, not away, untouched by the ocean’s roiling surface. They cut through the water and bumped against the shoreline. Aine rose from her hiding place for a better view.
Men poured from the boats, and she ducked back into the bushes, her heart thudding again. They were foreign-looking, dressed in brightly dyed tunics over leather-strapped trews. They carried iron-studded bucklers and heavy broadswords, even larger than the great swords Seareanns used in battle. Sofarende.
Aine could not bring herself to loose the shout of warning lodged in her throat. She watched as half a hundred men divided into groups and descended on the thatch-roofed homes, kicking down doors. Then came the screaming. Men burst from the cottages, only to be cut down mercilessly by the warriors.
Within minutes, the scene again fell eerily silent. Instead of looting, though, the invaders gathered in the center of the village. Aine shifted for a better view.
One of the men jerked his head in her direction and then strode toward the clutch of bushes where she crouched. Aine clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle her involuntary whimper. He stopped just feet in front of her, and the bushes parted. She shrank back.
A fine-boned, angular face peered down at her from the folds of his hood. Seareann features, not Lakelander. He held out a hand. Blood smeared the black spirals tattooed across the back of it. Fear spiked through her. She knew what those meant.
“Come out, little one,” he said soothingly. “I won’t hurt you.”
Aine crept out, drawn against her will by the thread of
command in his voice, at once beckoning and repellant.
“What’s your name?”
Aine opened her mouth to answer, but a young boy’s voice came out instead, tremulous, frightened. “Teag.”
“Teag,” the druid repeated pleasantly. “Tell me, Teag, how did you know to hide out here in the rain when everyone else was inside?”
Aine—or Teag, she now realized—shrank back. She didn’t want to answer, but the words came out anyway. “I saw it. No one believed me.”
“Extraordinary. Well, Teag, I’m very glad I found you.” The man knelt down and gestured for her to come closer. He murmured something in a language she didn’t understand. Then faster than she could even see, the man drew a dagger and plunged it into her chest.
Agony blanked her vision, and Aine fell back, paralyzed by pain and terror. A second man came to the tattooed man’s side.
“He told no one of consequence,” the druid said.
“Good.” The new warrior bent down and wrenched the knife from her chest, then handed it back to his companion. Blood gushed out of her in a warm flood. “We’re done here.”
They rejoined the group, leaving her behind. Now Aine knelt beside the boy, separated from his thoughts. Sorrow washed over her when she saw how young he looked, perhaps only ten, with a thatch of light brown hair and a scattering of freckles across his nose. He looked up at her with recognition. “You saw, my lady?”
“I saw.” Aine’s voice broke, and tears spilled down her face. “You did well, Teag. You were very brave.”
“I didn’t call you here. He did.” He raised a trembling hand. Aine turned, but she saw only empty space. When she turned back, the boy was dead.
“Aine!”
She jerked as strong hands shook her. She blinked at the familiar sensations: the warmth of the flames, the dancing firelight, the hollow roar of rain on the roof. Ruarc knelt before her, and Niamh and Leannan hovered behind them. Her sister looked terrified.
Oath of the Brotherhood Page 17
