Firebrand (6 page)

Halfway to the rock my wrist was caught in a hard grip.

‘Don’t break your sword hand, you little fool.’

My blood thundered in my eardrums, and my wrist trembled in his grasp as he crouched and glared into my eyes. I couldn’t tear my hand away; he was too strong, and I was too unbalanced by anger. The clash of minds was almost painful.

‘Shush,’ he said at last. ‘Shush.’

Like he was talking to his horse, his wild mad demonhorse. And just like his horse, I found myself calming down, my heartbeat slowing, my breath easing in my aching lungs. He relaxed his grip on my hand as he examined it, then tugged a handful of moss from the boggy ground, pressing it to my bruised and skinned knuckles. It felt wet and cool, as soothing as his touch, and I shut my eyes in case I was going to cry.

‘You little idiot,’ he said again, more gently.

I didn’t care how often he called me a fool; it was the rest of it that was like a shard of steel in my chest. Perhaps it was the truth in them, but I had no idea words could hurt just like a blade.

‘Hell, Seth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that, it was stupid. It’s not true. You’ve a right to hate more than you do.’

Falling silent, he sat down beside me, and I dragged myself up to sit next to him, letting him dab my hand with the wet moss. The torque slipped up and down his wrist as he cleaned away the blood, and he watched me watching it.

‘I’d give it to you,’ he said at last, ‘but it isn’t what you want, is it?’

I shook my head.

The autumn sun was warm and I was so tired now, but it was fine, he didn’t seem to expect me to speak. When he let my hand go, the silence between us was easy again. A last bee blundered in the heather, blades of grass quivered in a tiny breeze, a buzzard keened in the updraft. Drowsy, I found myself leaning against Conal’s shoulder, but he didn’t make the mistake of putting an arm round me, so I didn’t pull away. We stared out at the shining horizon and the islands, suspended above the firth in a crystal sky.

‘You’re a good fighter,’ he said at last, quite casually. ‘You need to control yourself but you’re good. You need to work on your short sword. Eorna can help you with that, and the crossbow. Oh, you put up a good mind block, by the way, but sometimes it’s a
little crude. Too obvious. I was terrified for you the other night. Get Eili to teach you her tricks, will you?’

I turned to stare at him, but he had lifted my hand again, and was examining it very intently. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked.

Sighing, he pressed the damp moss against my skin. It felt warm now, the same temperature as my blood.

‘I have to go away, Seth.’

‘
What?
’

‘I have to go. Kate’s called on me, she’s requested me from Griogair. It’s not really a request, by the way. I have to go and be one of her captains now.’

‘She can’t do that!’ I yelled.

Conal laughed wryly. ‘She can do what she likes, Seth. She’s our queen.’

‘Only by consent!’ As if I knew anything about politics.

‘She has it,’ he pointed out.

‘She can’t do this,’ I moaned again, trying desperately to think why not. ‘Alasdair Kilrevin is planning raids, everybody knows it. Griogair needs you.’

‘Griogair can deal with Kilrevin by himself,’ said Conal. ‘He always does.’

Pulling away from him, I turned to look at him properly. ‘What’s the witch up to?’

‘That’s enough.’ He met my eyes. ‘Forget what you saw, Seth, forget what you heard. Kate had a wild thought, and a wilder idea: monarchs do. That’s why they have counsellors, to talk them back to reality. That’ll be one of my own duties now. Griogair was her captain and her counsellor in his time, and now it’s
my turn. Don’t be always angry at your rulers, Seth. There’s no point. It would drive you mad.’

‘Not as mad as her,’ I muttered.

He hissed. ‘Don’t think that way, not ever. It’ll be fine. And, hey!’ he added cheerfully. ‘You’ll have Eili to yourself. She’ll forget all about me.’

No, she won’t, I thought. Any more than I will. ‘You’re proud of this, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, of course. I don’t want to go, believe me, but I’m proud of it. It’s not forever, Seth. A few years. That’s all.’

Yes, and a few years was nothing to us, so why did I feel this terrible ache of abandonment and despair? Furiously I fought back tears—twelve years old and weeping, what kind of shame would that be?—and Conal at last put an arm round my shoulders and hugged me fiercely. I didn’t shove him away. I could feel his mind inside mine, his strength leaking into me. I wanted it to be enough, but it wasn’t.

‘You said you were always going to be there for me.’ I could hardly speak, and I rubbed my arm across my face.

‘Seth, I will
always
be here if you really need me. Reach out with your mind if you do, and I’ll hear.’

I gave him a sceptical look. ‘You will?’

‘We’re brothers by blood, Seth, of course I will. Don’t you know that?’

I just looked at him.

‘No. No, you don’t know anything about family, do you? Well, it’s true, okay?’ He raked his fingers through my tangled hair. ‘Look. I have something for you.’

Leaning down, he lifted a roll of soft fabric he’d dropped in the heather, and carefully unfolded it. Inside was what looked like a bundle of leather straps, till he lifted it by a forefinger and they fell into shape: a bridle, black leather and absolutely plain, but soft and smooth and beautifully made. The bit was solid silver. I stared at it in silence.

‘There’s a colt at the Dubh Loch,’ he said, when it became clear I wasn’t going to speak. ‘A blue roan, a beauty. Evil-looking beast; it killed a man the other day. It needs mastering.’

I didn’t dare to think. ‘But you’re leaving,’ I mumbled.

‘But I’ll help you do it when I’m home again,’ he said, ‘and besides, the creature isn’t mine to master.’ Dryly he added, ‘You and that horse are made for each other.’

I reached out a trembling hand to touch the cheek-piece. It felt soft as lambskin beneath my fingertip. ‘You can’t give me this.’ My voice felt scratchy in my throat.

‘Why not?’

Because I haven’t been given anything before, I wanted to say, and I don’t know how to be in another person’s debt. I don’t know how to thank, I don’t know how to be grateful. I don’t know how it’s done.

‘You don’t have to do any of that,’ he said roughly. ‘Just take the damn thing.’

I did. The straps slid between my fingers like thick silk; my skin tingled with the touch of it. It was new, perfect, and I realised this wasn’t some leftover thing
he’d kept in a kist for years. He’d commissioned the bridle: he’d told the tanner and the smith exactly what he wanted, and he’d told them to make this thing especially for me.

I stood up abruptly and ran from him, hurtling down the rock-strewn slope so carelessly I was in danger of breaking my neck. The tide was half in across the white sand but I ran through it anyway, getting soaked to my thighs.

When I reached my cramped room between the dun gate and the tannery, I slammed the door and leaned against it, breathing hard. The bridle was still clutched in my fingers, and now I laid it carefully down. Then I crawled onto my bed, pressed my face hard against the pillow and wept silently into it, for kindness and love and the loss of it all.

‘So what happens now?’ I asked Eorna. Stumbling to my feet, I dusted the sand of the arena from my clothes and limped to the fence, leaning on it while I got my breath back. My entire body ached like a giant bruise, and my head was still ringing from the blow he’d caught it with his hilt. The bastard wasn’t even out of breath.

‘What happens now,’ he said, ‘is you unwrap your blade and spend an hour sharpening it. Then you might have a chance in hell if you ever have to use it, you useless greenarse. Assuming you don’t cut yourself first.’

He was unwinding the cloth from his own sword as he spoke, and I eyed the naked blade with wary respect. It had hurt more than enough getting hit with the bound-up version.

‘And then,’ he added, ‘you get your scrawny backside back here so we can practise with short swords. Your father won’t thank me if you get skewered in your first battle.’

‘My father won’t give a shit,’ I told him.

He shrugged. No argument. ‘Your brother, then. And when I say your first battle, I don’t mean the next one coming. You’ll only get in everybody’s way. I never saw such a hopeless piece of crap in my life. What have you been doing with your time?’

I knew fine I wasn’t that bad, but Eorna never smiled
and he never praised me; indeed he was relentlessly obnoxious. Practically a soulmate. I liked him.

‘Not what I meant, anyway,’ I said. ‘I mean, what happens with Kilrevin?’

Eorna’s good-looking face darkened. ‘Kilrevin will raid the dun lands to pick a fight, and your father will kick his impudent backside, and if Kilrevin is lucky Kate will exile him for another few years to the otherworld, to live with the full-mortals. And it’s
Alasdair
Kilrevin to you, greenarse. You may as well show the bastard some respect, since you’ll never show him a naked blade at the rate you’re going.’

I ignored that. ‘What’s so bad about exile? Doesn’t ever seem to bother him, does it?’

Eorna shrugged. ‘It’s not that easy. You’ve never met a full-mortal, have you, short-shit? They don’t get along with the likes of us. Never have. They don’t get along with
different
.’

‘We’re not different,’ I said.

‘No, but they are. They can’t…’ He tapped his temple with a forefinger, lost for words to explain it. ‘They can’t do this.’

It took me a long moment to realise what he meant, and then I gaped at him. I remembered, now, what my mother had said:
the otherworlders are cripples
. Suddenly I knew what she was talking about.

I couldn’t imagine such a disability. ‘They can’t?’

‘No, and if you ever have to live with them, you won’t let on that you can, either.’ He shook his dark blond head, growling. ‘It’s terrible over there. They’re all ruled by priests of one sort or another. Their women
are downtrodden like you wouldn’t believe, they put them in skirts all the time and they can’t even fight, they just breed,
all
the time. Aye, and they burn them. They burn their women for wearing trews, they burn them for picking herbs. Men too, mind you. They’ll burn men too if they don’t like the shape of their backside.’

‘You’re making that up,’ I told him scornfully.

‘It’s true, I’m telling you. They can’t bind themselves to a lover, either, not of their own free will. Not at all, if they want one the same sex. Even a man and a woman need permission from priests, and then they’re not allowed another lover. Not ever.’

‘You’re joking,’ I said, my jaw wide.

‘And you’re a naïve greenarsed infant. Take it from me, you want to stay on the winning side here, so you never have to be exiled. Which means being fifty times better than you are right now, and that’ll do no more than keep you alive. Eili MacNeil could whip you into butter, you dirty waste of space.’ He was glowering at his own blade then, so he didn’t see the shudder go through me at the mention of her name, the flush race into my cheekbones. ‘Aren’t you thirteen now? When are you planning to grow, shortarse? Same time you plan to learn to fight? Now piss off, you’re wasting time. Mine and yours. Back here this afternoon, and I want to see your blade sharp enough to cut thrown silk, or I’ll give you more than a hiding. Get to work.’

I didn’t take Eorna that seriously. I knew I was better than he told me, knew that he knew it. He was fond of me in his own surly way, and he only wanted me to
be safer, so in my arrogant youthful idiocy I decided at that moment that I’d be at the battle. Not fighting, maybe: I believed him when he said I’d get in the way. But I’d watch. I wanted to see what it was all about, I wanted to teach myself some tricks, just by observing the experts. I was tired of being called
greenarse
and
shortarse
and besides, I wanted to see my father hand the traditional whipping to Alasdair Kilrevin. I wanted to see the brute routed.

He was already burning crofts close to my father’s lands, taking the cattle and slaughtering the inhabitants, and he was doing it simply to taunt Griogair. Griogair hadn’t risen to it yet, but everybody knew his glacial control was close to cracking. The atmosphere in the dun was unnaturally still, febrile with bloodlust and nerves. You could feel the tense thrill of longing in the air, like a wire running through every vein and every mind. All the fighters wanted it begun, every man and woman, and there would be no real peace till it was finished.

Maybe Griogair was wound as tightly as the rest of us; maybe that would account for it. Maybe he was just looking for a distraction from the irritation that was Kilrevin, but whatever the reason, he began to appear near the arena fence while Eorna was putting me through my paces. At first he gave us little more than a passing glance; later he would wait to watch, for minutes at a time. Sometimes he said nothing at all, then snorted and walked on to more important business, but on one or two occasions he shouted something to me. Never with fondness or paternal concern, it’s true, but
he was at least addressing me directly. The first time it happened I came to an abrupt halt in such astonishment that I almost fell, and then Eorna finished the job for me and struck me to the ground with his staff, a blow that put an end to my training for the day. In my daze of pain I remember seeing my father spit, shake his head, and walk off towards the stables.

I thought he wouldn’t bother to come back, but three days later he was leaning on the fence again, giving me a disparaging look as I ducked from Eorna’s slash.

‘You!’ he barked.

Respectfully Eorna backed off, and I stood there and stared at my father.

‘What’s the armour of a Sithe?’

‘S—speed,’ I managed to choke.

‘What is a Sithe’s defence? What’s your shield?’

‘Speed,’ I mumbled, and when he glared at me I gabbled, ‘and speed.’

‘Greaves? Breastplate? Helmet!’

‘Speed,’ I replied, my voice now high-pitched with nerves. ‘Speed! Speed!’