Firebrand

by Gillian Philip

  I glanced round, glad of a change of subject. Catriona had come down from Conal’s rooms and was standing in the courtyard breathing the open air. Still too shy to go near human beings, she’d spotted a chestnut horse tethered by the stable, and wandered across to stroke its nose and rub its cheeks and ears. Whickering with adoration, it rubbed its face on her stubbly scalp. She was good with horses.

  She looked terrible, though. She was spending too much time in Conal’s sickroom now, watching Grian mend his broken and brutalised body, when her own had so recently been broken too. She’d had enough, I thought. She needed the sky above her and an empty mind and the north wind slicing into her skin. She needed the sun to take that dungeon pallor off her. It wasn’t her fault she looked the way she did.

  I opened my mouth to defend her, but I didn’t get a chance to say a word.

  ‘What the hell are you all thinking of?’ said Orach indignantly.

  Never having been snapped at by Orach in my life, I could hardly move my gaping jaw.

  ‘Hasn’t anyone thought to give the girl some proper clothes?’

  I stared at Orach, and then at Catriona. Sure enough the girl was still in the thin grey shift she’d worn to her cancelled execution. She must have been washing it out each night, because it looked clean enough. That was all you could say for it. Shame washed over me in a hot tide.

  ‘You crowd of thoughtless idiots,’ said Orach, and marched across towards Catriona.

  She was halfway to the girl when I remembered to shout, ‘She doesn’t talk.’ Then Orach had caught the shocked girl by the arm, and was hauling her off in the direction of her own rooms, murmuring in her ear.

  * * *

  ‘Doesn’t talk.’ Orach was contemptuous. ‘Doesn’t talk, indeed. You don’t listen, more like.’

  ‘When did you get that attitude?’ I laced my fingers hungrily into her hair and pulled her face down to kiss her. ‘You used to be so quiet.’

  She propped her hands on my chest and pushed herself up, making me grunt. ‘Arrogant sod. I wasn’t that quiet. It’s just I couldn’t get a word in edgeways.’

  The sky was blue enough to hurt your eyes. Beneath me the seagrass was scratchy against my naked back and the blown sand got everywhere, but I didn’t care. A breeze rustled the clumps of pink thrift, tangled her pale unbound hair. I could smell the sea, and the machair, and Orach’s sun-warmed skin. I blinked against the brilliance of the sun, trying to focus on her intent face.

  ‘How’s Feorag?’ I asked.

  ‘Feorag’s fine.’ Straddling me, she gazed down, expressionless.

  Laying my palms on her thighs, I raised an eyebrow. ‘I take it you’re not bound to him.’

  ‘How astute. I’m no more bound to him than I am to you.’

  I gave her the very slow grin that always broke her down, and sure enough she gave an exclamation of disgust and slapped my ribcage.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said.

  ‘I never said I’d wait around for you, Seth.’

  ‘I never asked you to.’

  ‘Even if you had, I wouldn’t have.’

  ‘That’s why I never asked. You break my heart, woman.’

  ‘Liar.’ She slapped me again.

  ‘I love you, I’m telling you.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ Her eyes softened and she flopped down beside me into the dry salty grass. She stroked my cheek. ‘But I’ll never be enough for you.’

  ‘Right. Of course.’ I rolled to face her. ‘And I’ll never be enough for you.’

  Her fingers drifted across my lips, making me shiver.

  ‘If you say so, Murlainn.’

  I curled an arm round her body and kissed her forehead, suddenly sad. Which wasn’t how I wanted to feel. I changed the subject as always.

  ‘Did she speak to you? Catriona?’

  Orach gave me a long look. It made me uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, did she?’ I prompted.

  ‘No, but she can and she will.’ Orach glanced aside. ‘It only takes someone to listen.’

  ‘I listen,’ I said, miffed.

  ‘Aye. Only to your own echo.’

  We lay in silence for a while, my arm around her, hers lying lightly across my chest. The unseen sea moved, whispering and rushing, beyond the close horizon of our dune. When I closed my eyes, I saw red veins behind my eyelids, and I felt her kiss my skin.

  ‘What will Kate do?’ she murmured.

  I opened my eyes again to the dazzle of sky. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She must know you’re back.’

  ‘Yes. She’ll wait till he’s recovered. Politics.’

  ‘Strictly you’re still exiles,’ she said, and there was a tremor of anxiety in her voice.

  ‘I’ll tell you something.’ My fingers tightened unintentionally on her arm. ‘I am never going back to the otherworld. Never, and neither is Conal, and I don’t care what that witch says.’

  Which was bravado, and pissing in the wind, and conclusive proof that telepathy is not the same thing as foresight.

  * * *

  Orach left the dun again two days later, having volunteered for another week of patrolling the borders. I could hardly believe it. I’d been gone for two years, damn it.

  ~ No promises, she told me, kissing me goodbye. ~ That’s what you say.

  ~ I know, I said, ~ but I’ll miss you.

  ~ I missed you for two years. Know what? It’s difficult, you being back.

  ~ Why?

  She slanted her gaze at me, rueful. ~ Because of the way you look at her.

  ~ That’s over. There’s nothing between Eili and me and there never was. I’ve…

  ~ Sometimes you are just the stupidest man I know. She turned to her horse. ~ I’m not talking about Eili. I’m talking about the full-mortal girl.

  She might as well have hit me in the face with a fish. I was speechless as she gathered her reins into one hand. Reaching out, I gripped her blonde braid, not wanting to let her get on her horse. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. Listen. I can’t bind.’

  ‘You mean you won’t bind.’

  ‘True. Are you dumping me, Orach?’

  ‘No.’ She kissed me again. ‘Let go. We’re leaving. I need to go.’

  ‘You’ll be back, though.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She gave me a droll smile. ~ That’s the trouble with you and me. I’ll always come back and you know it.

  And that’s why I love you, I thought, but I was scowling and in a bad mood by then and I didn’t feel like telling her.

  * * *

  I’d have liked Orach back the next morning so I could give her a piece of my mind. Poor Catriona looked mortified to be wearing proper trews and boots and a decent linen shirt. All Orach’s, of course, as was the leather jerkin that she’d fastened tightly almost to her neck. She kept tugging down the hem of it, as if there was a hope of it covering her scrawny hips, and she kept her face focused on the ground and her arms folded across her chest. I’d never imagined Orach’s clothes could look big on anyone. With her patchy crop of hair, barely more than a stubble of regrowth, you could have mistaken Catriona for a boy. I almost told her so, partly to reassure her and partly to stop her acting so damn silly. She was hardly about to be ravished.

  I was offended on behalf of our own women. What was wrong with the way they dressed? They didn’t like to trip on skirts. They wouldn’t swathe their bodies in dingy fabric out of some bizarre sense of modesty. So what? Sithe men had self-control, even if full-mortal men didn’t. Catriona’s attitude was an insult to Orach and every other Sithe woman—not to mention us men—and I was so indignant I ignored her even when she cast me a nervous glance of supplication. If she wanted my support she could stop acting like a self-conscious child.

  She couldn’t even hole herself up in Conal’s room, because Grian had kicked her out of it. Not because he was fed up with her, but because he thought the same as me: she was spending far too much time there. She was trying to hide, now. She needed some ai
r, and some colour in her thin-stretched flesh. So he sent her out on errands, to take this message or fetch that herb.

  I was about to go hunting with Sionnach and Feorag that morning—these days Eili was wholly absorbed in learning weapons-smithing from Raineach—when Catriona darted out of the doorway like a terrified mouse. We watched her scuttle across the courtyard, ducking her face away from us and hunching her shoulders. Sionnach and Feorag must have been as stunned as I was by her transformation, because they didn’t come up with any immediate smart remarks. When I’d got over my own shock, I hissed in exasperation and flicked my reins to turn the roan. He was far better company, and I’d been smitten by him all over again when he answered my first call and came to me. I wanted to spend time getting to know him, letting him know me. The last thing I needed was the full-mortal girl attaching herself to me again.

  ‘Tell her to come hunting with us,’ suggested Sionnach.

  ‘Get lost,’ I spat. ‘She’d be a pain in the backside.’

  Feorag whistled through his teeth, and his hunting bitch stopped sniffing at Branndair’s rear end and came to him. Branndair gave a low lustful growl, and when I called his name and caught his golden eyes, I swear he almost grinned at me.

  ‘Ach, your wolf’s as bad as you are,’ said Feorag cheerfully. ‘Tell him Breagh won’t be in heat for a month. As for you, the gods alone know when she’ll be in heat.’ He jerked his head towards the corner where Catriona had disappeared. ‘If ever.’

  ‘The hell you…’ I ran out of words to express my scorn. ‘Don’t you start as well. What would I want with her? Look at her!’

  ‘What, like you do?’ Critically he gazed after her. ‘Might do. One of these days.’

  I can’t say why I wanted to smack that thoughtful smirk off his face. All I could do was stare silently at him while I rearranged my thoughts, and after a while he felt my stare and met it.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ I said, and then, because I’d sounded unexpectedly ferocious, I added: ‘For now, right? The girl’s troubled. That’s all.’

  Sionnach gave me a look that made me want to scratch my scalp. I growled at the roan, and it went into a smooth canter from a standing start, and we rode out of the dun gates as they swung wide for us.

  I was looking forward to a hunt. It was a long time since I’d felt quite so much like killing something.

  27

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘What are you frigging well laughing at?’ Eorna glowered up at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can wipe that smile off your face, shortarse.’ At least he’d stopped calling me greenarse, and I wasn’t about to fall out with him over a name-calling, since—unlike Carraig—he was a friend and we liked one another. The liking was buried deep, it’s true, but it was there.

  You wouldn’t think it to look at his furious face now. ‘Did I ever gloat at you?’ he roared.

  Fair enough. I made myself stop grinning. Truthfully I hadn’t been aware I was wearing such a satisfied smirk till he’d mentioned it. Taking my blunt sword from his throat, I let him scramble to his feet.

  The sky was a glassy blue dome above us and we were both dripping with sweat, but I was now beating him by six bouts to one and I’d wondered when he was going to explode. It didn’t help that the warmth of the sun had brought out a few spectators, some of whom had begun to cat-call Eorna. That was largely his own fault, since he’d trained a good few of them and they’d all felt the flat of his sword on their backsides and, if they were male, the whack of his staff between their legs. It wasn’t going to happen to me again.

  Damn, I was good. I grinned again, couldn’t help it.

  ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ He jerked his head. ‘Is that why you’re showing off?’

  I looked round. Sure enough Catriona was standing by the fence, watching, almost smiling. Of course, I’d known she was there. I’d just forgotten. Sort of. It wasn’t as if I cared. The smile left my face.

  She’d got used to her change of image. Nobody pinched her rear-end, nobody wolf-whistled her, nobody mocked. Nobody flung her to the stable floor and raped her. So she’d at last stopped hurrying from shadow to shadow, staring at the ground, her cheeks vermilion and her hands clasped in front of her crotch. I grinned, remembering her discomfort, and found her looking at me again, the shy smile back in place. Yes: still shy, still skinny-racked, but she had a nice backside. Her legs could use some muscle, though. Realising I was staring at them, I spat and turned back to Eorna, bringing my sword to my face in salute and invitation.

  ‘Forget it.’ Brushing sand off his practice sword, he stomped off. ‘So frigging pleased with yourself,’ he muttered. ‘Smug little shit.’

  The gathered knots of watchers dispersed, some of them taking no more notice of me, one or two shouting a compliment. Actually smug little shit was a compliment too, coming from Eorna. I was smiling again, and worse, I was looking straight at Catriona. Again.

  ‘Doesn’t Grian need you?’ I gave her my coolest glare.

  She shrugged, then shook her head.

  ‘Threw you out?’

  Glancing down at the disturbed sand of the arena, she kicked it with the heel of her boot.

  I laughed, couldn’t help it. ‘Did my brother tell you where to go?’

  Her eyes met mine, slewed away, and she laughed her funny soundless laugh.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘Don’t take it personally. He wants you to rest, that’s all. It’s not that he doesn’t like having you around.’

  Hesitantly she nodded.

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘I’m serious. He likes you. He worries about you.’

  She gave me a very direct smile that made me turn my gaze away towards the dun wall. I didn’t know what to say after that; I only wished she’d go away. I had things to do and friends to meet. I wanted to take the blue roan out onto the moor to meet Sionnach coming in, so I could tell him how I’d humiliated Eorna. He’d love it.

  Puzzled, cross, ill at ease, I frowned at Catriona. Her serious gaze was turned on the sea horizon.

  ‘Want to go riding?’ I said.

  * * *

  Cloud shadows chased patches of golden light across the machair and the moor beyond. Catriona sat close behind me on the roan, alive with nerves, unable to cling to me too tightly because of the small leather bag I had slung across my back. I’d put a thin blanket on the roan, since the girl was used to a saddle, but it didn’t seem to make her any more comfortable.

  I smiled. I liked her thin hands clutching each other around my waist, linked so tightly together her knuckles were white. I felt her weight shift slightly as she leaned back and tilted her face to the sun. I was glad she was starting to enjoy herself, but for some bizarre reason I wanted her to lean against me.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  Her scanty weight came forward again, the drag of her arms on my waist slackening. When I glanced over my shoulder her look was questioning, a little apprehensive, as if she was afraid she’d done something wrong.

  Half-turning, I slipped an arm round her and pulled her off the roan’s back. As I swung her forward, her legs kicked wildly and the roan gave an angry snort. I heard her intake of scared breath, felt her fingers snatch at my arms, but before she had time to panic properly I had her astride the roan in front of me. I kept an arm round her waist, and one hand on the reins.

  Through her ribs I could feel the hard beat of her heart. For a minute or more she was taut with fear, but when I said nothing, and did not move, her body relaxed a little. Her hands folded over mine, our fingers linking. At last she leaned her head back into the hollow of my shoulder.

  I liked that. Her body fitted well against mine.

  I thought I should say something but it didn’t seem too important at that moment. It wasn’t as if she could complain about anyone else’s silence. And not long after that, I realised she wouldn’t care if I spoke or not, because she was fast asleep in my arms.

  * * *

  I
rode on because I wasn’t sure what else to do and I didn’t want to wake her. The fact that she was safe with us didn’t mean she’d be sleeping. I knew that fine, I knew it from my own nights. Conal was the only one of us who slept, and that was because his body would let him do little else. His screaming nightmares would come later.

  I didn’t want to take the roan up to the high moor, to the Dubh Loch where his home was. That might be too much of a temptation, with a strange girl on his back, so I rode till I reached the still green pinewood at the Loch of the Cailleach. In the striped golden shadows the air was cooler, the filtered sun less fierce, and the loch glinted with diamonds between the trees. There was only the faintest stir in the air, barely even a breeze, and I let the roan come to a halt and strain his muscled neck towards the water. Tossing his head up and down, he struck the root-tangled earth with a hoof, danced his haunches sideways and gave a screeching whinny.

  Catriona jerked awake, taking a high breath of fear. My arm tightened round her waist, and her fingers gripped my arm till it hurt.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, and then, to the horse, ‘A drink. That’s all.’

  It gave its whickering laugh as I loosed the reins to let it pace forward and drop its muzzle to the clear brown loch. It drank, then raised its dripping muzzle, took a few splashing steps into the water.

  ~ Don’t even think about it.

  Innocently it whickered again, and pawed the water, a hollow wet echo of hoof on stones.

  Catriona’s fingers loosened at last, so I squeezed my hands into fists to get the circulation back into my arms.

  ‘You’re strong,’ I said dryly. ‘It’s all right. You’re safe.’

  I felt I had to keep telling her that.

  ‘Do you know what he is?’ I asked her.

  She nodded her head, fast, frightened.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said yet again. ‘But you have to get off first. Otherwise he’ll take you when I dismount.’

  She let go of me, then, and I helped her swing her leg over the creature’s neck. It glanced back with a wicked look as that happened, but I took no notice. My hand tingled where it had touched her thigh, as if my circulation had stopped again. I shook myself, annoyed, and lowered her to the forest floor. Taking a step back, she watched me dismount, and then she watched the horse’s black malevolent eye.