Cillian laughed. "Nowhere near. 'Tis just a raiding party."
In my head, I knew it to be true. The Dalriada hadn't armed in full force since they helped restore Drustan mab Necthana, my own thrice-times-great-grandfather, to the Cruarch's throne—and then crossed the Straits to aid the D'Angelines in beating back the invading Skaldi. Many thousands had fought in that war.
But thousands was only an abstract number. When one is accustomed to solitude, fifty howling lads can seem a great many.
"Go on." Cillian nudged me fondly. "I've got to join this lot. You'll find Aislinn in the great hall."
I dismounted and fled.
I found Aislinn in the laundry, supervising the boiling of linen bed-sheets. "Moirin!" she greeted me warmly. "I'm glad you've come; it means the world to Cillian. Did you try to dissuade him?"
"I did," I admitted.
"So did I, but Father would have none of it." She cast a critical eye over a sheet hung on a rack. "Is that quite dry?"
"Aye, my lady!" a sweating maid gasped.
"Well and good." Aislinn tugged it loose. "Come, you can help me cut bandages. When the damage is tallied, I reckon there will be some sore heads—and likely worse. It will be a point of pride for them to claim they were tended by the hands of a princess of the Dalriada and one of Alais the Wise's own descendants."
"Will it?" I asked.
"It will," she assured me.
It was good to have something to do. We retired to a quiet salon. Aislinn hummed to herself, shears flashing. I did my best to emulate her, sawing away at the clean fabric in an effort to create even strips. We tidied up the loose threads and coiled them into rolls and laid them in a basket. Her mother was nowhere in evidence, for which I was grateful.
"So," she said after a time.
"So?"
Her grey eyes were keen. "Will you wed my brother?"
I flushed. "Please don't ask that of me."
"Do you love him?"
"Yes, of course!" I'd been all right while we were working in silence, but now the stone walls of the salon began to close in on me. It was hot. I tugged at the bodice of my dress—it was the green dress Aislinn had loaned me a year ago, she'd made me a gift of it—and struggled for air. "It's just that I'm not meant to live this kind of life."
"So it seems." Aislinn summoned a maidservant to bring a jug of cool water. I drank gratefully. "Moirin….. please don't take this amiss. I'm not my mother to imagine that you've enchanted Cillian to some dire purpose. It's quite simple. You're a rare and lovely creature and he dotes on you."
I set down my glass of water. "But."
"But he is the son of the Lord of the Dalriada, not a country peasant without a care in the world beyond the next day's meal. Gods forbid, if something were to befall my father, Cillian would be my heir. He cannot run off and live in the woods with you—yet while you string him along, he will not look at any other. If you cannot make a life with him here, I wish you'd make a clean break of it."
"My mother said as much," I murmured.
"Your mother sounds like a wise woman," Aislinn said.
I felt betrayed. "You claimed you were glad I came here."
"And so I am," she said steadily. "Today, because I wished to do you the courtesy of saying these things to your face. On the morrow, for Cillian's sake. I do not ask you to spoil his moment of triumph. But will you think on what I've said?"
Little though I liked it, it was fair. "I will."
She kissed my cheek. "Thank you."
There was a great feast that night, platter after platter emerging from the kitchen. The long table was thronged. Uisghe flowed freely, and when the food had been picked over by the ravenous horde, there was music to accompany bloodthirsty songs bawled at the top of the young men's lungs. Lord Tiernan watched it all with an indulgent smile. It was hot and sweltering and awful and I hated every minute of it.
Many of the would-be warriors passed out from drink and began snoring where they lay, Cillian among them. I brushed the auburn hair from his brow and kissed him, preparing to make my escape. I couldn't face the prospect of trying to sleep in the tiny guest-chamber.
"Moirin," he said blearily. "Don't go."
"Only to the stables," I assured him. I'd slept there before. "I'll be here in the morning."
He uttered a faint snore in reply.
The guard on duty let me out without comment. I'd been here a few times by now, and they were accustomed to the witch's daughter's strange ways. Outside, it was cooler by far. I slipped out of the hated pinching slippers and breathed deeply, feeling free and easy in my skin for the first time in many hours.
As always, there was a part of me that longed to flee—but I'd promised Cillian I'd be there. He'd worry if I left, and the worry was a distraction he didn't need. So I made my way to the stables and made myself a bed of loose hay in an empty corner. It was prickly, but fragrant and clean-smelling, and the warm presence of dozens of horses dozing in their stalls was comforting in a way that human presences seldom were.
There, I slept.
I awoke in the dim hours before dawn to considerable commotion and scrambled out of my makeshift nest, dodging horses and men. Despite the night's excesses, the raiding party was assembling.
I found Cillian yawning beside a chariot and conferring with its driver. He gave me a glad, sleepy smile when he saw me, his eyes crinkling and his dimples showing. "There you are. I thought mayhap I dreamed you."
"Ah, no. I promised."
"So you did." He plucked a few stray bits of hay from my hair. "You look a mess. A gorgeous mess. Kiss me for luck?"
I did, pressing myself close to him, ignoring the hoots and envious comments it provoked. "Come back safely, will you?"
"Marry me if I do?" Cillian teased. I didn't answer. He gave my hair a gentle tug, then cupped my chin and kissed me again. He tasted of stale uisghe, and underneath it, his own familiar self. "Ah, Moirin! Don't take it so seriously. I told you, it's just a bit of sport. We'll be back before you know it."
"I pray you are," I murmured, shoving him away. "Go on with you."
They went.
They went in a great thunder of hooves, laughing and boasting and shouting to one another. I suppose it was a fine and glorious sight, all of the glossy horses, proud chariots, and long-limbed young men, but it still seemed foolish to me. I came from a dwindling people, and we cannot afford to risk our lives for sport.
It felt strange to be at Innisclan without Cillian's presence. I declined an invitation from Aislinn to pass the hours learning the fine art of embroidery and decided instead to explore the Academy's library. With all the lads away on a raid, it was quiet and empty. I found a history of the Tiberian occupation of Alba and settled in to read it, noting the differences between it and the stories my mother had told me.
I'd been there an hour or so when a fair-haired lad hobbled into the room leaning on a crutch, one leg in a splint—one of the Academy's scholars whose injury had prevented him from taking part in the raid.
"Oh!" He flushed at the sight of me, having taken a while to notice. "Sorry, I didn't see you there."
I smiled. "I'm good at not being seen."
"You're the—" His flush deepened.
"The witch's daughter?" I suggested.
He laughed self-consciously. "My mother would tan my hide for bad manners. Forgive me. I'm Fionn."
"Moirin," I said.
Despite the crutch, Fionn managed a bow. "Well met, my lady."
He selected a text of his own and for a time we read in companionable silence. I caught him stealing glances at me. As the day wore on, sun slanted through the windows, turning his fair hair to spun gilt. It looked as fine and silken as a girl's, and I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to run my fingers through it. I tried not to think it, but that only made it worse.
"Will you be studying here?" he asked politely after a while.
"No." I shook my head. "I think not."
"Pity." Fionn smiled. His lips were not as full as Cillian's, but they had a firm, pleasing shape. "You would be a splendid addition."
I wanted him.
The realization jolted me. It was an impersonal desire—I didn't even know the lad. But he was pretty and well spoken, and the urge to exert the power of my gift over him was there. And in that moment, a deeper awareness took root and blossomed in me. It wasn't only Cillian's life I didn't want. It was his possessiveness. My mother had said it. He wants you, all of you, all to himself.
She was right.
Aislinn was right.
I sat there dumbstruck at the obviousness and simplicity of it. I had no wish to belong to Cillian and Cillian alone. Mayhap it was the prompting of the goddess my unknown father served, or mayhap it was only that I was sly and fickle after all. Whatever the truth, I could never be the wife he wanted, proper or otherwise. And it wasn't fair to string him along like a trout on a line. I needed to let him go. To set him free to find someone who could love him with her whole heart as he deserved.
"Moirin?" Fionn inquired. "What is it?"
I was staring at him without seeing him. "'Tis naught," I said, collecting myself with an effort. "Forgive me, I was woolgathering." I closed the book I had been reading, rose, and replaced it carefully on the shelf where I'd found it. "My thanks," I said, inclining my head. "You've helped me to discover an important truth."
He stared back at me, nicely shaped lips parted. "I have?"
"Aye." I paused beside him to run a lock of his fair hair through my fingers. It felt as nice as it looked. "Aye, you have."
"Wait!" Fionn called after me as I left, reaching for his crutch, but I ignored him. I felt wretched and scared all at once, but I felt something else, too. As much as my heart ached at the thought of losing Cillian forever, in one guilty corner it soared with a newfound sense of freedom. I would wait. I would pass another night here. I wouldn't spoil his triumph. For one more night, I would be his and his alone.
But on the morrow, I would make an end to it.
"Moirin." Lady Caitlin greeted me sourly in the great hall, carrying a basket laden with the rolled bandages Aislinn and I had made.
"My lady." I gave her a rueful smile. "Have no fear, you'll be rid of me soon enough. I mean to leave your son alone."
She, too, stared. "You do?"
"I do," I said. Just saying it gave me a pang. I steeled myself against it, my eyes stinging. "Only grant him this night's happiness, I beg you. Please believe me when I tell you I take no pleasure in breaking your son's heart."
Her throat worked. "I would like to."
"Then do," I said simply.
Ah, stone and sea! I would that our tale, Cillian's and mine, had ended thusly as I'd written it in my head—hurtful, yet fair.
Would that it had.
It didn't.
The raiding party returned without fanfare, driving two dozen head of cattle before them. We turned out to meet them. It was a triumph— it should have been a triumph. But the ebullient young men who had departed before dawn were quiet and subdued. Even the horses plodded, heads held low and bobbing with weariness and the semblance of defeat.
One chariot…..
"No!" I breathed, clutching Aislinn's arm. "Ah, no!"
Even beneath the cloak that covered him, I knew his shape. There was no part of Cillian I did not know. One arm was outflung, jouncing with the chariot's jostling, pale and sinewy and freckled. The chariot-driver looked miserable.
My knees gave way. "No," I whispered.
"Forgive me, my lord, my lady," the miserable chariot-driver was saying. "I did my best, but—"
His mother wailed.
"—flung loose and trampled…."
I ached all over. The words flowed over me, meaningless. Cillian was dead. I'd spent the day thinking about giving myself to some lad I didn't know while Cillian was dying.
"Get out." A hand knotted itself in my hair, wrenching my head upward. On my knees, I gazed into the blazing eyes of Lady Caitlin. "All he was trying to do was prove himself to you! And it wasn't enough, it was never going to be enough! All the while, you meant to leave him!"
"My lady!" I protested.
She shook me violently. "Get out!"
I got to my feet. No one spoke.
"I loved him," I said. "I did."
A few cattle lowed, a plaintive sound. In the chariot, Cillian's body lay unmoving. I uncovered it, flinching at the sight of his dented skull. Blood had dried in his auburn hair. I kissed his cold lips. "Good-bye," I whispered.
"You should go now," Lord Tiernan said in a stony voice.
It was unfair—and yet it wasn't. I had tried to dissuade Cillian from taking part in the raid. But I hadn't loved him enough to wed him. And somehow it seemed to everyone including me that his death was my fault because of it.
Bowing my head, I started walking. When I had gone far enough that I no longer felt their eyes on me, I summoned the twilight and ran, blind and mindless with grief.
It wasn't long before I heard the sound of hoofbeats.
"Moirin!" Aislinn shouted. She passed by me, a shadowy figure on a silvery horse in the twilight—but then she turned and circled back. "Gods be damned, Moirin!" Her voice was raw. "You can't have gotten that far! Show yourself!"
