The Last Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (45 page)

He saw the man’s face flicker slightly again, the way it had the last time he’d mentioned Kerrin, but then Fallon stood and bowed his head. “Thank you, highness.”

Cavan watched him go and closed his eyes, trying to stop the flood of memories.

Fallon shut the door and called over Brendan to make sure nobody went in.

“He needs some time by himself,” he explained.

But while Brendan agreed and was happy enough to sit back and wait outside the door, Fallon was more concerned. He had no doubt Cavan had been forced to burn a woman as a witch and it haunted him – as well it should, for it was an evil deed. But there had been more than that in the Prince’s eyes. Fallon had the strangest feeling that Cavan desperately wanted to tell him the truth but was even more scared of doing so. What other secrets did this castle hold? What was worse than Zorva worship and burning a woman alive?

He sighed and pushed it aside. Either the prince would tell him, or not. All he could do was support Cavan and wait for the Prince to really trust him. He did wish Cavan did not keep going on and on about how wonderful a father he was. Every time he saw Kerrin, it seemed to end with the boy in tears and Fallon about to lose his temper. Yet he did not know how to change things. He felt he was letting Bridgit down, but there was so much else happening, he did not know how to break through to Kerrin. Still, perhaps this time it would be different.

He pushed open the door to his room to find Kerrin sitting on his bed, pointing his own crossbow at him. His first instinct was to duck away but even as adrenaline flooded his body he saw there was no quarrel in the bow.

“Twang! I got you, Dad! You should have seen your expression!” Kerrin said, falling back onto the bed with laughter.

“What in Aroaril’s name were you thinking?” Fallon roared.

“It was just a joke!” Kerrin said anxiously, his lip trembling and tears starting around his eyes.

“I know it wasn’t loaded but you should never point crossbows at people. Imagine if that had been your mam coming through the door. You might have scared her half to death!” Fallon growled, then kicked himself for invoking Bridgit.

Kerrin immediately started crying, rolling onto the bed and hiding his face from Fallon.

Fallon ran his hands through his hair, fighting the urge to shout and swear. He didn’t have
time
for this. He needed to have men following the Kottermanis and those Guild members. He had to be doing something that would get Bridgit back. He stalked out of the room and ran into Padraig.

“Just the man I’ve been looking for,” he said with relief. “Can you look after Kerrin for me?”

“No,” the old wizard said immediately.

“What? You haven’t got anything better to do!” Fallon said with a growl.

“Neither have you. My daughter saved that lad for a reason. It certainly wasn’t to spend time with me. What do you think she would say if she knew you were leaving him like this?” Padraig asked softly.

At another time Fallon might have shouted at him or just ignored him but after talking to Cavan, he felt the old wizard’s words strike deep.

“I don’t know what to do with him. Bridge was so protective, I never got the chance to do anything with him. Now everything I do or say comes out wrong or makes him cry,” he admitted. “I’m failing as a father.”

Padraig snorted. “Now I was a failure as a father. You have a long way to go before you get close to me,” he said. “The boy just needs your time. Go in there and talk to him. Tell riddles, as if you were at home. It doesn’t matter. But you have to do it now, because the longer you leave it, the worse it will get.”

Fallon smiled ruefully. “I never thought I would hear such good advice from you.”

“Good. Now get in there.” Padraig gave him a gentle shove. “Because I don’t know when I’ll sound so sensible again.”

Fallon stepped back into the room and walked over to the bed, sitting beside the sniffling Kerrin.

He patted his son on the back and sighed. “Kerrin, I am sorry,” he said. “The truth is I am scared. I want your mam back so badly, it hurts. And when I get scared, I do and say things that are foolish.”

All that happened was Kerrin burrowed more into the blanket.

“I have a riddle for you,” Fallon said, searching for a way to conjure up the way they had been before. “What loves the moon and stars but hides during the day and runs away from a torch?”

Kerrin rolled over and looked up, wiping his eyes. “Is it an animal?” he asked in a soft voice.

“No, it’s not an animal,” Fallon said.

“Have I seen it before? Is it hiding in this room now?”

“Oh yes. Many times. And it is hiding here somewhere.”

Kerrin looked around and then under the bed, before sitting up with a smile on his face. “Darkness!” he said.

“That’s right!” Fallon grinned.

Then Kerrin’s face fell. “I am scared of the dark, after hiding in it,” he said.

“Well, maybe if we help each other, we won’t be so scared,” Fallon suggested, wanting to use this moment. “How about if we practice with the swords again?”

Kerrin failed to cheer up in the slightest. “But I’ll never be any good at it,” he said softly.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” Fallon said, and watched his son’s eyes light up with interest. “When I jumped over the side of the ship to fight Eamon, I knew he was better than me. We had faced each other before, in Lunster, with practice swords, and he’d made me look like a fool.”

“So why did you fight him if you knew you would lose?”

Fallon poked him in the chest with his finger. “I didn’t say I knew I would lose. I said I knew he was better than me. But I didn’t let that stop me, because he had to be fought. I found a way to win. I’m not that good with a sword: I know that. You can get better. But you’ll never do anything unless you try. It’s like reading. You couldn’t read anything at first. But Mam kept working with you and it came, bit by bit, and now you read, which is something hardly anyone else in the village can do. It’s like that.”

“Really?” Kerrin asked and Fallon could see ever more interest on his face. He thought about how slow Kerrin had been with the practice sword but how he had been playing with the crossbow, and smiled.

“And how about we try out the crossbow instead?” he suggested.

Now Kerrin’s face came alive. “Can we?”

“Let’s go. We’ll take a few others as well,” Fallon decided. He doubted there would be any trouble in the middle of the day, right in the open, yet he would not take that chance.

He made sure that Cavan was still in his room and then left Gallagher and Devlin to argue about who was in charge while he was away and took half the men down to the crossbow range in the castle courtyard, next to the armory. It was a simple thing, a series of wooden targets set over straw bales at a series of distances, finishing at about fifty yards. Fallon would have done it differently, had he the chance, for fifty yards was almost too close for a crossbow. At that distance you only had one shot – then an attacker would be onto you.

“Get yourself a crossbow and a dozen quarrels and start putting them into the targets. Who knows when we’ll need to shoot them?” Fallon told his villagers, who immediately went about the task, happy to be out of the rooms and in the fresh air.

“What about me, Dad?” Kerrin asked, bouncing from one foot to the other.

“Let’s find you a bow,” Fallon said. He doubted there would be one small enough, but it was easy enough to find an older model and loosen the string so it would not be as powerful. He wished he could find one of the Kottermani ones, for he reckoned they would be the perfect size and power. He guessed he could find someone to make him a small crossbow – but Kerrin would need to show some enthusiasm and a little skill first.

“Try this one. We’ll aim at the first target,” Fallon suggested, grabbing a quiver of bolts.

Kerrin held the crossbow tight, looking it over proudly. The stock was worn and polished smooth, while the arms were scratched and marked. It looked a little like Dad’s own bow and he liked that idea. He had desperately wanted his father to be happy with him but he could not get excited about the idea of fighting with swords. Mam used to go on and on about how dangerous it was, not to mention he could not make his arms move fast enough. By the time he saw where the practice sword was going and moved to stop it, Dad had usually moved his sword and next moment it was touched against him and he was dead again. He so wanted to be good with the sword. He had slaughtered hundreds of baddies while playing with Caley and had rescued Mam dozens of times. The pretend warriors he fought could not stop him. But the wooden sword would not obey his thoughts when he trained with Dad. He wanted to be better but, more than that, he did not want to look silly. Usually when this sort of thing happened, Mam would say he did not have to worry about it, brush her hand through his hair and make him something nice to eat. That wasn’t happening this time.

Anyway, the crossbow was far more exciting. He had often borrowed Dad’s, lining it up on target after target, and thought he could put a bolt into anything. He had imagined how it would work and had enjoyed sitting up high, pretending to shoot everyone who walked past. Best of all, with a crossbow, it was all down to him – it did not matter what other people were doing or thinking about him.

“Put your foot in the stirrup to hold it steady and then hold the string in both hands and pull back, as hard as you can,” his dad instructed. His voice sounded softer now, better than the angry voice he had had when they were fighting with the swords. That voice made things worse.

Kerrin grabbed the string in both hands and pulled up with all his strength, feeling the string come with him. It hurt his hands a little but he wanted Dad to feel happy so he kept going until it clicked over the trigger and he could let go.

“Well done! Good work! Now pick it up and place a bolt in,” his father said, the warmth in his voice making him want to keep going. He slipped in one of the practice bolts, slimmer than the ones he saw his father use and with a completely different head. Instead of a broad, chunky steel head, this one looked more like a needle that Mam used to repair clothes.

“It’s not a war bolt. That head is on there just so it sticks in the target,” Dad explained.

Kerrin nodded eagerly and followed all the instructions carefully. He rested the bow on a bale of straw and looked down the line to the closest target, a wooden outline in the crude shape of a man about ten yards away.

“Breathe out, then, before you need to take another breath, squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull at it, because you’ll make yourself miss. And be prepared for it to jump in your hand.”

Kerrin kept it pointed at the chest of the man outline and breathed out completely before beginning to squeeze the trigger. It was surprisingly stiff and he increased the pressure of his hand, slowly at first but then quicker and quicker as he wanted to breathe. Just when he thought he would have to stop, take a breath and maybe have to give up because he couldn’t do it, the trigger clicked and the bolt hissed away, flying straight and true to strike the middle of the target, exactly where he had aimed it.

“Did you see that? I did it!” he exclaimed, standing up and staring at the target, not entirely believing he had really done it. He glanced over his shoulder to see if Dad had also loosed his crossbow and that was actually his bolt in the target. But Dad was clapping his hands instead.

“A fine shot! Now let’s see if you can do that again,” he said.

“I will! I will!” Kerrin turned to Caley, who had been sitting patiently beside him, and ruffled the fur around her head. “And you’ll help me, won’t you, girl?”

Caley licked his hand and placed her paws up on the straw bale to watch better.

Encouraged by both of them, Kerrin hauled back on the string, loading the crossbow once again, ignoring the way it cut at his fingers.

This time he knew how hard it would be to release the trigger so squeezed harder to begin with, sending another bolt into the heart of the target. At such a short range, even with the loosened string and smaller bolt, it made a satisfyingly loud noise as it struck the wood and the thin metal head stuck solid.

“You could be a natural at this,” Dad said, like Gall had said about his sailing, placing his hand on Kerrin’s shoulder. Kerrin impulsively reached around Dad’s waist and hugged him. After a moment, Dad dropped his arm down and hugged him back.

“Can I try a longer distance?” he asked eagerly.

Dad was unwilling at first but, after he’d placed three more bolts into the target, he was allowed to move to the next target.

“This is so much better than swords,” he told Caley. “I know how to do this.”

And it felt true. Whenever he picked up the crossbow and put it into his shoulder, he knew he could hit the target. That certainly wasn’t true with swords.

He was going so well he even had an audience. Most of the other men had stopped their own practice to watch him and were cheering each strike on the target. At first he had not noticed them but now he was enjoying being the center of attention. He struck the next target in the heart, the bolt going just where he had imagined it, and acknowledged the cheers of the other villagers, before looking over his shoulder to get a smile from his dad.

Fallon almost could not believe the change in Kerrin. He had been tentative and unsure with the practice sword, almost as if he were scared of it. Yet the crossbow was something else. The lad had taken to it as if he had been using them all his life. Although, perhaps he had. Looking at the way Kerrin handled it, Fallon suspected the lad had borrowed his bow more than once and played with it. With every shot, Kerrin grew in confidence and even at twenty yards was putting every shot into the target. Of course it was a completely different situation using a crossbow for real. There was rarely anything as helpful as a bale of straw to rest the bow on, the weight of the real quarrel dragged the front of the bow down and then there was noise, wind and the pressure of your life resting on one shot.