Firebrand (24 page)

‘I don’t know… I…’

‘I love your brother, Seth. I love Conal. I will always love only Conal. How could you imagine I’d ever…’

She managed to stop herself, but the unspoken words hung in the musty stable air, all but audible.

Settle for you?
That’s what she didn’t say.
How could you imagine I’d settle for you?

Shaking her head, she skewed her gaze away. ‘I’ll go to him. When I’m twenty I’ll go to him, and he’ll accept me. I know it.’

‘He considers you a child!’

‘For now he does.’ She shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. ‘But he’s already in love with the woman I’ll be. He may not know that yet, but it’s true.’

Staring at her, I knew it was. She turned then, embarrassed
more than angry, and walked away, pulling the stable door quietly shut behind her. I sat on, mired in shame and loss, aware of what I’d destroyed, and felt my heart disintegrate.

There is nothing like shattering a heart to make it stronger. I knew better now how to armour it, that’s what I told myself as I sat there, terrified to go back out into the evening light in case the whole dun would be standing there laughing at me. I knew we’d get over it in the end: the Sithe live too long for it to be any other way. Between Eili and me it would never be quite the same again, but we’d get over it.

That’s what happened, of course. Since we were children she’d always tried to be kind to me: now she tried too hard. Her kindness was fenced about with a deliberate distance, and I was humiliated by that more than anything. I’d never make the same mistake again, that wasn’t my way, and it offended me that she thought I might. I knew my place in her heart: a good bit above Orach and Feorag and somewhere beneath her dead father and her horse; a thousand fathoms below Conal. I’d been taught my lesson and I’d never needed teaching twice.

All that, though, was in the future. For now I stood up and opened the stable door with a trembling hand. My clann was not waiting in thick ranks to mock me, of course, and at last I breathed out a shaky sigh. There was only a last rider nodding to me as he led his mount towards the stables, and my shadow. My
shadows
. Hell’s teeth. The priest had had none: I’d managed to accumulate two.

Catriona had busied herself with a small sharp knife and a little piece of ash wood, but I knew she was watching me from the corner of her eye. I thought of walking away, and letting her follow as usual, but there was something comforting about her silent stillness. I went across and sat down beside her. She looked at me keenly, then went back to her whittling.

I leaned back against the wall, and stared at the armoury on the other side of the courtyard. Branndair laid his muzzle on my thigh, and I stroked his head. A sentry coughed and spat on the wall above us, a horse whinnied to its returning friend, and someone shouted an order. The sun was low and the shadows were long, the air clear and sweet. It felt peaceful sitting here. Damn, but I was glad to be back. Even though…

‘I just made a fool of myself,’ I blurted.

Catriona glanced at me, smiling a very little. The setting sun gave her pale bruised face some colour, and you could see she might have been pretty before the priest got to her.

‘What are you making?’

Shyly she held it out to me. It was a little wolf, I decided after a moment. It wasn’t very good, but I don’t think that was because she didn’t know what she was doing. It was like the writing of someone with a broken hand: crude and stilted, but you could see a skill had been learned and was still huddled somewhere, licking its wounds and healing itself.

I took the hand that held the wolf. This afternoon Sionnach had looked at her, and glanced at me with a wry smile, and said
She’s a strong one
. I’d been taken
aback. To me she was the shivering pathetic creature who’d thwarted my only chance of saving my brother.

Now I looked at her fingers again, and this time she didn’t jerk them away. I separated them and laid them flat against my own hand. They were still swollen, the nails distorted and horribly discoloured. I realised why she irritated me so much: she made me ashamed. She had suffered with my brother and I hadn’t. She had comforted him in the darkness when I couldn’t.

‘The little man,’ I asked her, ‘the one they all talked about? Was it him?’

She nodded, then shook her head.

‘Him and others?’

She nodded.

‘One day,’ I told her, ‘you’ll show me what they looked like.’

She raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s easy, I promise. One day you’ll show me, so that some other day I can find them. Do you understand what I’m telling you?’

She looked first into one of my eyes, and then the other. It was a strange sensation, as if she was seeing right inside my brain though I couldn’t quite meet her gaze. Then, slowly, she nodded.

‘That girl,’ I said, nodding towards the stable. ‘Just now. I love her and I thought she might love me back, but she doesn’t. What an arse I am.’

She looked down at her pale hand against mine.

‘You know what I like about you? You’re not going to tell anybody. About me being such a fool.’

Her wounded fingers curled round my hand. She
drew it to her lips and kissed it, then put her arms round me and hugged me. Getting to her feet, she pressed her crude little wolf into my grip, and walked away.

I was taken aback when I stood up at last, and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she’d stop haunting me now. Or maybe not. Glancing down at the crude little wooden wolf, I wondered if she really was a witch. Maybe she’d cast a spell on the thing to make it keep an eye on me, so that she didn’t have to. I smiled and held it out to Branndair.

‘What do you think?’

He eyed it mistrustfully.

‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s not very good, is it?’

Deep in his throat he gave a soft whine, then stretched, claws scrabbling on the stone. The dun was all in shadow now, and the sun had vanished entirely. Shivering, I remembered how long it was since I’d slept, and how tired I was. I wondered where Orach was, and at the same time I was glad she wasn’t around. My emotions were hopelessly tangled, and after two years I didn’t know how she’d react to me anyway. For all I knew she’d be bound to Feorag by now, or someone else. For all I knew she could be bound to a woman.

In my rooms I looked around. They were unchanged, veiled in a thin layer of dust, and my bed smelt musty. It was a thousand times better than anywhere I’d slept in the last two years: too good, and I knew I couldn’t sleep here, not yet. Picking up a blanket I shook the dust out of it, then took my bridle down from its hook by the door. I ran it between my fingers, then hitched
it over my shoulder and backed out of the room, closing the door softly. Branndair glanced up at me, waiting in silence. I thought of my old room beside the tannery, but I changed my mind.

The guards in the corridor outside Conal’s room still didn’t speak to me, but they stopped their murmuring talk and watched me as I went past. Ignoring them, I settled myself against the wall right outside Conal’s room, rolling myself in the blanket and curling up on the floor. That felt better. There was rush matting between me and the cold stone, and that was all I needed. Inside the blanket I clutched the bridle against my chest, and Branndair slumped down alongside me. I could feel the warmth of his body radiating into my bones, the rhythmic beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his ribcage. I could smell his wolf-breath close to my face. Then I couldn’t feel or hear or smell anything, and there was only the black oblivion of the best sleep I’d had in two years.

* * *

If I expected anything, I’d expected to feel a lot colder when I woke, especially since Branndair was no longer beside me. Sleepily I reached out my mind: he was fine. He was out in the dun, being fed with the hounds: Sionnach had come and taken him. My body felt limp and immobile. The last time I’d slept this long unmoving, I’d woken to pain and cold, still exhausted, knocked senseless by my own brother. Now, though the floor was hard beneath me, I felt warm
and drowsy, as if I’d slept away all pain and cold and misery. A couple of skins and another blanket had been tucked around me, and my head lay on a soft folded plaid. I was surprised they’d bothered, but I was grateful anyway.

Pushing myself up on one arm, I blinked. The guard had been changed. A man and a woman now efficiently blocked the access both to me and to Conal’s room: Carraig and Geanais. I could sense the flinty shield of their minds, their sharp questioning defences. Beyond them, barred from Conal and from me, a small figure crouched against a corner of the wall, wrapped in a blanket as I was. She was awake, and someone had given her a cup of something warm that she held in both her thin wounded hands, but the guards ignored her.

I shoved off my wrapping of hides and blankets, and got to my feet, shaking off sleep as I hooked my bridle back over my shoulder. My body was stiff and I ached, but it was a good ache. Carraig glanced at me and nodded.

‘Let her through,’ I said.

Carraig looked at Geanais, and she shrugged, then jerked her head at the girl. Catriona stumbled to her feet, still clutching the cup though a little of her drink spilled, and edged warily between them.

‘You couldn’t let her near his door, or what?’ I said.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Geanais. ‘Of course we couldn’t.’

‘We let her through to give you blankets,’ added Carraig, as if that was some great concession.

‘And there was me about to thank you for them,’ I said.

‘I doubt you’d strain yourself,’ said Carraig.

I called him something filthy, straight into his head. He gave me two fingers and went back to his conversation with Geanais.

Catriona was hovering uncertainly, staring at Conal’s door.

‘Here,’ I said. Beckoning her, I opened his door silently. As it swung wide I stood back and let her look in at him. He lay absolutely still, his face hollowed out by the thin light filtering through the shutters, but his breathing was slow and deep and regular. His fingertips twitched, that was all. I drew her back out and closed the door.

‘See?’ I said. ‘He’s all right now.’

She nodded.

‘And you are too,’ I added. ‘You can stay here with us if you want. It’s fine.’

She smiled briefly, then studied my face. Lifting a finger, she touched my cheek questioningly.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes. I’m all right now too.’

I thought about Eili, and realised it was the first time she’d crossed my mind since I’d woken. That was reassuring. I wondered where Orach was. I wanted to see her now.

‘You must be hungry,’ I said, taking the cup from Catriona. It was milk warmed with whisky, I could smell it, but it was drained to the dregs. ‘I’m starving too. He’s fine, you know. We can leave him.’ I raised my voice. ‘Even with this pair of arses, we can leave him.’

This time it was Geanais who gave me two fingers.

I took Catriona’s hand in mine and pushed past
them. ‘I’m due in the arena anyway. I want something to eat first.’

Carraig gave a bark of laughter. ‘Eorna said to let you know he considers it a moral victory, greenarse. Seeing as you never showed up.’

Turning on my heel I snatched a fistful of his hair, and shoved my face close to his. I heard Catriona’s small frightened gasp, and the light rasp of Geanais’s dirk coming half out of its sheath, but I didn’t look round. The dirk was still half-sheathed and that was how it would stay. Her movement had been instinctive but I knew she wouldn’t dare. None of them would. Ever again.

I stared right into Carraig’s eyes. ‘What did you call me?’

He didn’t speak.

I tightened my fingers in his hair till he winced. ‘What’s my name?’ I hissed.

He was silent for only a moment more. Then he said, ‘Murlainn.’

I let him go and left him to exhale. I didn’t have to look back to know that Catriona was following at my heels. At the bottom of the stone steps I stopped and turned to her, and she came to a sudden halt, almost banging into me.

‘What time is it?’ I asked her sheepishly. ‘Isn’t it morning?’

Her gaunt face was lit by a huge smile as she shook her head. As her hand went to her mouth her breath came out in a little soundless snort that should have been a giggle.

I returned her grin. ‘Did I overplay that a bit?’

Her hand was still stifling her silent laughter as she shook her head again.

‘Come on, then.’

There would be no breakfast. As soon as I stepped outside I realised it was early evening and that I must have slept for nearly twenty-four hours. The late summer sun was still bright in the sky, and there were people in the great hall already starting to drink. In the kitchens I scavenged cold venison and bread and oatcakes for us both, then took her up to the parapet. We sat and ate in companionable silence, looking out at the long shadows on the sunlit machair, and I thought that life could get no better.

Taking my bridle off my shoulder, I started to rub oil into it with a cloth I’d picked up as we passed the stables. The bridle was dull and stiff with disuse, but I was happy to have the work to do, and pleased with the way it softened and shone for me. Catriona wrapped her arms round her legs and watched, occasionally lifting her gaze to the machair and the sea and the far hills.

‘Why won’t you speak?’ I asked her.

Looking away, she shrugged. Then she gave me a rueful smile.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Fair enough.’ I liked it anyway. She was peaceful to be around. Like Sionnach, only more so.

Behind us there was the click of Branndair’s claws as he padded up the stone steps to join us. I gave him the scraps of my venison, and scratched his ears where he liked it, and he settled himself down, head in my lap.

I was relaxed enough almost to fall back to sleep again, but she was fidgety and restless at my side, and eventually I opened my eyes and rolled my head to look at her. ‘What’s wrong?’

She looked back towards the dun, then, beseechingly, at me. To be honest I was growing impatient, and it came quite naturally to slip inside her mind. It was only when she jerked back with a scared gasp that I realised it wouldn’t seem all that natural to her.