The Dowry Blade (26 page)

‘So does Phelan,’ Tegan said despairing.

Sorcha came out from the Queen to join them beside the unlit hearth.

‘If it is Phelan, what will Grainne do?’ Brede asked.

‘What would you do if someone you trusted, as much as Grainne trusts him, turned against you?’ Sorcha asked, and shuddered. ‘I know Phelan, although he has forgotten me. There’s more than trust between those two. Grainne loves him. Phelan is – was a brother to us both. It can’t be true – you’ve seen them together – how he is with her – how can it be possible?’ Sorcha asked. She shook herself. ‘Phelan will be back to report in a few hours. Tegan, you must watch for him, we cannot afford to be surprised. Brede, do you have that sword safe?’

‘You know I do. It’s under my bed.’

‘Under your bed? Dear Goddess. You are more used to handling swords than I am; you’d best have with you – and keep a close grip. We can’t risk Phelan getting even one hand to it.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

‘Is everything as you want it?’ Brede asked.

Grainne gazed uncertainly around the room. Sorcha had moved a table, partially obstructing the space between the door and Grainne’s seat.

‘Pull the shutters closed.’

Brede went to the window, and stared down at the river. She pulled the shutters across, the sun blinding her briefly as the gap between them narrowed. She was reminded of the sun through the shutters in the inn, and smiled to herself, although these shutters were unrotted, and covered with fine blue paint.

The shutters cut out some light, disguising the intention of the moved furniture.

‘The sword,’ Grainne said urgently.

Brede crossed to the side chamber, brushing close to Sorcha as she went. She seemed scarcely aware of Brede’s existence, drawing slow, steadying breaths into her lungs, preparing herself.

Brede discarded the red cloak, giving a critical glance to the blade. She wondered if Phelan would actually recognise it in the dimness of the Queen’s chamber. Passing near the door, she heard Riordan’s voice, faintly, from the foot of the stair. Sorcha’s head jerked up, and they scrambled to their places.

Brede had barely straightened into her position when Phelan walked in. He didn’t look in her direction, used to her presence. He did not see the sword.

Grainne shot Brede an agonised look over his bent back as he leant to kiss her cheek.

‘Well cousin, young Lorcan’s face was indeed a picture.’

‘Never mind his face, Phelan. What did he say?’

Phelan pulled his gloves slowly from his hands, inspecting Grainne.

‘You are unwell?’

‘What did he say?’

Phelan sighed.

Doubting Phelan, Brede listened more carefully than usual, listening not for the words but the tone. And she heard.

‘He said no.’

‘No? Why?’ Grainne’s voice was husky, barely a whisper.

‘He said that if you were weak enough to offer, he wanted capitulation not accommodation. He said that he will be at your gate within the week, and expects to find that gate open. I told you he wouldn’t wait.’

Phelan walked as he spoke, restlessly turning in the awkward space, which he had yet to notice, and which he should have observed at once.

Brede gripped the hilt between her hands the more securely. She was certain now, and angry, but she wasn’t sure that Grainne understood.

Sorcha closed the door quietly.

Grainne could not bear the tension. She couldn’t hear what Phelan was saying. She smiled thinly, and did not try to hide the shaking of her hands.

‘I am not myself today, old friend,’ she said faintly, interrupting him. ‘You’ll have to save the rest of what you have to tell me for tomorrow.’

A look of concern passed over his face.

‘I will leave you then, cousin,’ he responded quickly, stooping to kiss her frozen face. ‘A swift recovery, my dear.’

He turned, coming face to face with Brede in the confined space. Brede hefted the sword slightly, cradling the hilt in the crook of her arm. It was a perfectly normal movement, the sort any guard might make, in preparation for moving aside. Conveniently, it drew attention to the sword, to the fact that it was too long and heavy for her, and consequently, to what manner of sword it was.

And Phelan saw what manner of sword it was. He schooled his reaction quickly, but not sufficiently.

Grainne nodded, and Sorcha sang a short phrase of song. If there were words, Brede did not decipher them, they were not meant for her.

Phelan’s eyes moved, a frantic darting from the sword to Sorcha. Recognition lit his eyes and his breathing quickened. No other muscle in his body would respond to his bidding. Brede swallowed uneasily. She had seen Sorcha use this spell before, on the enraged horse. The same nervous twitching that set sweat on Macsen’s hide, now tortured Phelan. Brede stepped around his motionless body, avoiding any contact and passed the sword to Grainne.

The Queen used the Dowry blade to balance herself as she slowly rose to her feet. Grainne nodded to Sorcha once more, her teeth gritted against the pain in her body, the pain and disbelief and anger in her mind.

Sorcha’s song forced Phelan to turn and face Grainne. His face was bathed in sweat as he fought Sorcha’s bindings. Brede took the sword from his belt and found two more blades in his clothing.

‘Well,
old friend
,’ Grainne said, her voice hoarse with rage. ‘I am well served: A horse breeder and a witch for guards, and an old mercenary for my eyes. Would that I had friends also. It seems I must search amongst my enemies for people to trust. Where would I have to look to find your friends, or your conscience?’ she sighed, and lowered herself back into the chair, unable to stand longer. ‘Do you like your handiwork, does it please you to see the life sucked out of me?’ She flicked a finger in Sorcha’s direction. ‘Let him answer.’

Sorcha’s voice shivered over a few notes. Phelan coughed violently. Sorcha had abandoned her disguising softness, all her concentration for the spell. If she chose, she could stop his breathing, or still his heart.

Phelan sucked air into his lungs unsteadily, aware of that possibility.

‘Is this how you treat your loyal friend – your kin?’

‘Are you loyal? Are you?’

‘You know I am. What cause have you to doubt?’

‘What motive have you to betray? You recognise that sword, Phelan.’

‘Of course I recognise it.’

‘Why? You’ve never had reason to see it, I haven’t had need of it since I came to be ruler, and Aeron never so much as glanced at it once her marriage ceremony was over. It has been kept hidden all that time. How did you come to know where it was?’

‘I’ve always known.’

‘And who stole this blade and gave it to Lorcan? Who gave
my
sword into the hands of a patricide? And who spread the rumour that it was missing? No one knew it was gone but you. I told no one else. Whom did you tell?’

‘It was not I.’

Grainne closed her eyes against the calm denial. ‘Can you make him tell the truth?’ she asked Sorcha.

Sorcha had been expecting this. She took her time before she answered.

‘It is possible.’ She frowned at Grainne’s eager movement. ‘But it is difficult. If he tries to lie, you will know. But Grainne, I can’t keep him to it for long, do not ask too many questions.’

Grainne nodded. She almost believed that Phelan was lying to her, almost; but she needed certainty before all those years of love could be put aside.

Sorcha’s melody was as fierce as walking on knives. Grainne winced at the sharp clarity of the sound, capable of whittling the most heart-deep secret from an unwilling mind.

‘Phelan. What did Lorcan say?’

‘He said what I t…’ Phelan’s eyes widened in horror. He gagged on the remainder of the sentence, and his entire body shuddered.

‘What did he say?’

Phelan’s mouth worked, trying to find a way around the knife-edge insistence of Sorcha’s song.

‘He laughed,’ he said at last.

‘Who are you working for?’

‘No one.’

That came so easily that Grainne looked at Sorcha questioningly. Sorcha spread one hand in a shrug and changed the tone of the song a shade.

‘Does Lorcan believe you further his cause?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you?’

‘Yes.’

Grainne pushed the sword slightly.

‘You took this?’

‘Yes.’

‘And Lorcan struck off Ailbhe’s head?’

‘Yes, but I wish I might have done it.’ Those words came easily, in a rush.

‘Why?’

‘I loved Aeron.’

‘We all loved Aeron. Why work against me for Lorcan?’

‘He is her child.’

That tremor again.

‘What else?’

Silence, as Phelan struggled against the spell. At last he spat out the words.

‘He is
not
...Ailbhe’s.’

Grainne stared in disbelief at the tears coursing down Phelan’s face.

‘Yours?’ she asked at last. ‘
Yours
?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does Lorcan know?’

‘No.’

Grainne’s hand tightened around the blade of the sword across her knee, drawing blood. She glanced at the cut then raised her eyes to him.

‘So the poison was you,’ she said at last.

Phelan fought once more, but at last the word hissed from him.

‘
Yes
.’

Grainne couldn’t believe it. ‘You?’ she asked weakly, and again, ‘You?’

‘Yes,’ Phelan whispered. ‘Yes it was me.’

Grainne shook her head. Even with his confirmation she couldn’t bring herself to credit the idea. She watched the tears still streaming down his face. Pain? Remorse? It was beyond her understanding, and she still needed to know who had been party to Phelan’s schemes, who could have had sufficient influence to warp the mind of someone she still thought her dearest friend and ally.

She asked her many questions in the teeth of Phelan’s sobbing, and Sorcha’s white face and clenched fists. Grainne buried his answers in her mind, hearing names she dreaded to hear, more people she once trusted, condemned unwillingly by Phelan’s tortured voice.

Brede couldn’t watch Phelan writhe in the grip of the spell; she hated to listen, but couldn’t shut out the horror of it, a horror made worse by the cold beauty of Sorcha’s voice. Beautiful: not the words, not the tune, but the voice...

Brede watched Sorcha, and recognised her for what she was at last; not a witch, but a power wielder, a terrifying and dangerous being. This woman she had lain with – this woman – Brede tried to peel away her horror, struggling to feel anything for Sorcha in the face of this nightmare, and saw the strain in her wide unblinking eyes. There was a lack of personality in that look, as though Sorcha had lost herself in her song.

Brede dragged her eyes away, looking at Grainne, almost as tormented as Phelan; relying on her anger for strength. Sorcha did not have that support. Brede watched her mouth shaping words that destroyed, watched the shaking of the hand that rested against Phelan’s shoulder, watched the tears streaming down Sorcha’s face unchecked; and saw that the spell was failing.

‘That’s enough,’ Brede said, desperate to make herself heard against the confusion of sound already battering at Grainne.

Grainne couldn’t hear her. She had reached the all-important question; her voice was fierce, clear against the frightening whirl of noise, the strange unearthly voice of Sorcha’s spell.

‘
Why
?’

‘I would have been satisfied to have been your consort,’ Phelan said, easy now with the truth, willing to tell her this, glad even. ‘I knew you were too old to have a daughter, I knew I would be safe. I would have been proud to have been at your side, I would have been glad to destroy that upstart Ailbhe for you, and we could have raised Lorcan together –
but you scorned me
.’

Sorcha stopped singing. Her hand fell away from Phelan’s shoulder; she staggered as she stepped back, and collapsed.

Grainne glanced swiftly at Phelan’s unmoving body and, reassured that he was still in Sorcha’s thrall, she closed her mind on the last of her questions.

‘How long will this spell hold him?’ she asked.

Sorcha had to make an effort to answer, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. ‘Until I end it – but you had best bind him,’

Grainne was satisfied. She beckoned Brede to her, holding out the sword.

‘Put this away,’ she said, ‘then find Tegan and Maeve, and set them to find those this traitor has named; bring someone back to take my – cousin – to the dungeon.’

Brede took the sword, wondering if leaving it under her bed, as she had done for the last months would suffice, and decided that it would not. She hurried down the stair and out into the practice yard in search of Tegan, with the Dowry blade still in her arms.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Brede left the Dowry blade safe with her riding gear in the stables, hidden under a pair of saddle cloths. Then she went about Grainne’s business with a heavy heart. There was no sign of Tegan, but she found Maeve quickly enough.

‘Maeve, I have orders from the Queen.’

‘What orders?’ Maeve asked, puzzled by her abruptness.

‘You are to place Phelan in confinement, and there are others, including some under your command.’

‘Phelan?’ Maeve paled, wiping her hand across her mouth. ‘And who else?’

‘Madoc, Doran, Chad, Oran, Murdo and Ula and their crew,’ Brede glanced quickly down, ‘and Killan.’

Maeve hesitated between disbelief and horror, stunned at the names; surely there must be a mistake? She pulled herself together quickly, as Brede reeled off thirty more names.

‘Households as well where relevant?’ she asked, and when Brede nodded, turning her eyes away, ‘I’ll make the arrangements, then I’ll come for Phelan myself, if he can be left that long. Word of his – confinement – would send a warning to the others.’

‘He’s not going anywhere.’

Maeve shot Brede a look, taking in her grim expression.

‘Is Tegan...?’

‘How could you think it?’ Brede’s eyes widened. ‘Tegan warned us – although – where is she?’

Maeve shook her head, she had no idea. Her mouth twisted in fear and frustration, missing Tegan: she couldn’t delegate some of those arrests to junior officers. She nodded to Brede, and calling to Corla, grabbed up her smarter cloak as she strode away to collect her troop together.

‘I’ll be with you presently,’ she said to Brede, calm and in control of the situation for now, despite the sickening doubt in her mind.

As soon as Brede had gone, Maeve shuddered, not knowing how she could bring herself to give those orders. She caught Corla’s anxious glance and straightened her shoulders.

‘We’re to take certain people into custody,’ she said, ‘but it must be done with the utmost courtesy, no dungeons, just well-guarded guest rooms. And find someone who knows where Tegan is. I need her here.’ Corla went at a run. Maeve watched her go, for something to focus on while her mind shuddered with uncertainty once more. When Grainne came to her senses, Maeve did not want the embarrassment of having ill-treated her prisoners – and if Grainne did not recover good sense, how long before someone remembered that many of those alleged traitors were friends of Maeve’s – intimate companions – how long before Maeve herself was under arrest?

Grainne stared at Phelan. The immobility, the silence, dragged at her memory, forcing her to consider every nuance of every word he had ever spoken, every action, every touch, every kiss, every gift. She caught her breath.

‘Your midsummer wine.’

Phelan would have liked to turn his eyes away from her, but he couldn’t.

‘You drank the same poison you gave me?’ Grainne thought about that midsummer wine, thought about Brede handing her the glass. If Phelan had drunk the same, he must have an antidote. Then she thought about him taking her hands, both her hands in his, in his mockery of fealty, asking his yearly question, and when she gave her annual refusal, he had handed the glass back –
no
– there was no antidote, and there was no poison until she refused, and each time she refused – Grainne shuddered.

‘I trusted you. I trusted Aeron – why would she – she would have told me – Lorcan is truly yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You would not have me.’

‘No, Phelan. Do not try to blame me.’ Grainne covered her eyes. Her mind painted pictures for her, casual laughter at Phelan’s teasing protestations of love; that absurd leap from the roof to escape his more amorous advances. And he had still hoped? She couldn’t believe it. And he had asked her to hand-fast every year for fourteen years, and he had not, could not have started poisoning her that long ago.

‘What changed?’ she asked. ‘What made my refusal worth poison?’

‘You were always so self-sufficient.’ Even though Sorcha no longer held him to truth, Phelan told it, exhausted and past caring. ‘I thought if you were weaker you would rely on me, need me, want me. But you stayed strong, despite everything. The more I hurt you, the stronger you got, and the more I loved you, and wanted you more.’ He laughed, and would have shaken his head, if only he could, and he would have wept, but Grainne might then think he was lying still, and he would not have her misunderstand him now.

Maeve nodded to Inir, and Cei. Inir because he, like her, loved Killan; Cei because he did not. She could barely wait to saddle her horse. Inir pulled the tangle of reins from her hands.

‘Roof?’ he asked. She blinked, looking across the river at the mill and nodded. They set off running towards the fastest possible route for their goal.

Brede stayed away as long as she dared. At the door to Grainne’s quarters she stopped. She didn’t want to go back in.

Would she have done this if she were Grainne? Would she? She could smell Phelan’s fear, his humiliation, his distress; it disgusted her. And worse, there was Sorcha. She took a steadying breath and pushed through the door.

A constant tremor shook Phelan’s limbs. Sorcha was sitting at Grainne’s feet, her face buried in the Queen’s skirts. She lifted her head as Brede entered, and turned a tear-stained anguished face towards her.

‘Maeve will come,’ Brede said, feeling nothing for Sorcha, wanting an end.

Grainne inclined her head stiffly, refusing to lower her guard now. The smell of fear was so tangible and rancid that Brede gagged. She went to the balcony shutters and threw them open. She filled her lungs with the clean warm air, and stared wistfully down at the riverbank below. Brede sensed angry movement behind her, and turned, her heart pounding. Phelan hadn’t moved. The Queen looked straight into Brede’s furious fearful eyes, and let her objection die.

Wing Clan
, she reminded herself, pulling her gown closer about her neck, against the faint breeze that stirred the foetid air. She felt cold to her marrow, but she couldn’t expect a nomad, used to the Plains wind, to understand that.

Phelan felt the breeze against his back, and was grateful. The tremors faded.

Inir checked that his sword was loose in its scabbard for the fourth time. He glanced at Maeve, her face pale as the moon, and as impassive.

‘We’ll take this as gently as we can,’ she said softly.

‘We need someone up on the wall,’ Inir suggested. Maeve glanced up.

‘We do? You think he’ll run?’

‘You know he will.’

Maeve fought a constriction in her throat.
Did she
?

‘Is there something I should know?’ she asked.

Inir loosened his sword again.

‘If we’re right to be arresting Killan, he has been fostering our confidences, he has been betraying us, you and me, not just whoever it is he thinks is his enemy.’

‘
If.
’

‘Maeve, you know it, I know it. It makes sense doesn’t it? As soon as you rejected him, he turned to me. He wanted a conduit for information about what we were doing, what the duty rota was, how many guards. He had no reason to be here, he had no real work. We were duped, used.’

‘He’ll try to run.’ Maeve moved into shadow.

‘We may have to kill him.’

Maeve nodded slowly, considering whom she could trust to do that, if it came to it.

‘Could you?’ she asked, her voice unrecognisable.

Inir wiped sweat off his palms and shook his head.

‘You?’

Maeve raised her head again, sighting along the edge of Killan’s roof. She considered what she might have told Killan that he could use, and her heart twisted with grief, and anger, and doubt. She weighed him in the balance of her heart.

‘If he makes me.’ She gripped the hilt of her sword, thinking about Killan’s hands twining into hers, thinking about her blade in his flesh. She shuddered. ‘I’ll take the wall. Wait for me.’

Inir stood motionless in the alley, his eyes flickering from the lighted window in the attic, to the wall above, until he saw Maeve silhouetted against the evening light. He turned to Cei, pointing down the street.

‘If he goes for the roof, he can get down at the corner. Stay here. If he gets by me, stop him, if he gets to the roof, go there and meet him.’

Cei nodded curtly. Inir cleared his throat, and leant on the door, pushing his way into the poorly lit stairway. He made his way up the familiar narrow treads which seemed even more precarious now. At the doorway he hesitated, listening. Killan was not alone. Nothing for it, he rapped briefly on the doorpost and pushed through the curtain.

There was a swift giggling scuffle from the bed. Inir caught sight of a woman who he was relieved to not recognise, and Killan untangled himself from his bedding laughing.

‘Inir! I thought you were on duty tonight.’ Killan sounded warm, welcoming, slightly drunk.

‘That I am,’ Inir replied, pleasantly, sauntering to the middle of the room, putting himself between Killan and the sword belt draped over the only chair. The woman pushed hair out of her eyes, and reached for the clothing strewn beside the bed.

‘So, this is business?’ Killan asked, his voice levelling into caution. The woman glanced up sharply, thrust her unclothed feet into her boots, grabbed her breeches, and sidled to the doorway. Inir held the curtain aside for her.

‘I’m here to arrest you, Killan,’ Inir said softly, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. ‘Please don’t make this difficult.’

‘Difficult?’ Killan threw back the bed covers, revealing his utter nakedness. Inir let his eyes wander over his body, his hand groping for the back of the chair and the shirt tangled with the sword belt. He threw it at Killan. Killan nodded slowly and drew the shirt over his head. ‘I owe you that.’

‘This is deadly earnest, Killan. I hope it’s a mistake and will be sorted out by morning, but I must assume it isn’t.’

‘Breeches, boy,’ Killan said tersely, searching under the bed for his boots. Inir caught the breeches up for the floor, and for a second his eyes were not on Killan. There was a knife in Killan’s boot top, and there was a knife in the air, and Inir was flinging himself sideways, and Killan was out the window. He didn’t get far, Maeve’s blow struck him to one side of his neck and he crumpled at her feet. She crouched beside him, turning his unconscious face toward the light. She stroked the side of his face absently, then peered in through the damaged shutter, at Inir lying in a tangle of clothes.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Inir fought to his feet. ‘Just feeling stupid. I hadn’t drawn my sword.’

Maeve shrugged.

‘We both wanted not to have to. Come and help get him in.’

Inir came to the window.

‘Are we going to get him dressed?’ Maeve considered the bared thigh by her foot, and curled her toes against the urge to kick Killan really hard.

‘I don’t think so, no. Let’s get him bound up and out of here. He’ll be awake by the time we’re in the street, I expect. What’s the humiliation of walking Broad Street in nothing but a shirt compared to what he’s dealt out to us?’ Inir shook his head unhappily. ‘I really thought he cared for me.’

Maeve sighed.

‘I think perhaps he really did – and for me, but it didn’t make a difference, beyond making it easier to get us to talk to him.’

‘Do you think you ever said anything really damaging?’

Maeve closed her eyes and nodded.

‘Probably. Perhaps even enough to get me hanged.’ She gazed at Inir, ‘You?’

Inir nodded. They looked at each other. Maeve uncurled her toes. ‘If you’re thinking what I am, about the drop from this roof, and the silence of the dead, I hope you realise that as a sworn officer of the Queen’s bodyguard our first duty is to bring justice to this – piece of shit, whatever the consequences.’

Inir nodded, ‘Duty,’ he said firmly.

‘That’s right.’ Maeve leant and yanked Killan away from the drop, towards the window. Inir reached to help her haul him in over the sill.

‘Bastard,’ he said coldly.

Maeve leant once more through the window and whistled for Cei. She saw his shadow detach from the corner.

‘I have to get back,’ she said quietly and stepped back out onto the roof. She measured the leap required at the end of the alley, glanced quickly at Inir to make sure he was coping, then ran, and leapt.

At last, footsteps echoed on the stone stair outside. Brede went to the door, sword at the ready.

Maeve stepped back slightly, seeing the drawn blade.

‘Steady,’ she said, making a half question of the word, recognising how on edge they all were, her own heart pounding and her breath uneven gasps which were not solely the result of her break-neck rush across the roofs of the city.

She glanced furtively at Phelan’s immobile form, then expectantly at Grainne, as she bent her knee into an approximation to a bow.

Grainne gestured her upright, then rested her hand on Sorcha’s shoulder.

‘It is time,’ she said.

Maeve couldn’t understand Phelan’s unresisting silence, but recognised that Sorcha had something to do with it. So it was to Sorcha that she looked now.

The warriors drew their swords, ready to escort their prisoner. Sorcha forced herself to her feet. She looked Phelan in the face, searching for something – remorse, or perhaps forgiveness. She saw only loathing. She mustered her resources, sang a few notes, and set him free.

Phelan felt the sudden jumping of muscles at last his to control, but not controlled. He forced the trembling into a dull shudder, fighting the urge to let his knees bend under him. He looked around slowly, relishing the movement. It was as he thought; the room as he remembered, the escort as he anticipated. He stepped toward them, warriors he once commanded, now ready to kill him, unarmed and bound though he was, should Grainne give the word. He was certain that she would not give that order; she wanted him alive for now. Phelan took another step forward, testing the strength of his legs; sufficient for what he planned. His eyes swept over Sorcha, and he shook his head slightly.

‘I would not have thought this of you,’ he said, his voice rasping on the last word. Sorcha flinched away.