The Last Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (7 page)

The warmth from the fire hit him a moment before Kerrin grabbed him around the waist. “Dad! You’re safe!” he cried.

“Of course. There was nothing on that ship, nothing to worry about at all. Some people had been drinking and talking about old legends but none of that is true.”

“Really?”

“I swear to you. And have I ever lied to you?” Fallon asked.

“Well, you do make jokes. And then there’s your riddles –”

Laughing, Fallon grabbed Kerrin up and threw him over his shoulder.

“Stop your nonsense, the pair of you, and come to the table,” Bridgit ordered.

Fallon put down his grinning son and clambered up the ladder that led to their bedroom – just a sleeping platform with wooden hurdles around the outside to stop anything rolling off and provide the illusion of privacy. He pulled on a clean tunic, his stomach growling as he recognized the smell of roasting lamb.

He arrived back at the table to see Bridgit serving up lamb chops and chunks of potato cooked in the lamb fat. She was spooning plenty of those onto Kerrin’s plate.

“Can we not have them boiled once in a while?” Fallon grunted as he slid into a seat and began to cut open a loaf of bread.

“They’re his favorite this way,” Bridgit said fondly.

“It’s not good to eat them like that each night,” Fallon grumbled. “I bet the Kottermanis don’t eat them like this.”

“More fool them, then,” Bridgit sniffed.

Fallon helped himself to a large spoonful. He had never eaten potatoes as a child; they simply had not existed. But in the last twenty years, they had caught on, until they were a staple of every Gael’s diet. Like many new ideas, they had come from over the sea, from the Kotterman Empire. Their trading ships visited Berry regularly and brought all sorts of wonders. The nobles paid huge sums for Kotterman artefacts and jewelry, but the biggest change was in the food. Potatoes loved the Gaelish climate and were easy to grow. Best of all, they could be eaten so many ways. Fallon wished Bridgit did not indulge Kerrin quite so much by frying them in lamb fat and rosemary. They were delicious but he worried they were making the boy look thickset. And Aroaril knew he had to work hard enough to keep his own stomach from bulging over his belt. Bridgit never let Kerrin do any running around, preferring to keep him inside and working on his letters and numbers than let him race after the other village children.

“Is this lamb?” Kerrin asked, poking at a chop with his knife.

“Aye.” Fallon bit into the tender meat and chewed heartily.

“How can you eat it? They are so cuddly,” Kerrin protested.

“That’s all right. This was an ugly, bald one,” Fallon said through a full mouth.

“Dad!”

“If Aroaril hadn’t wanted us to eat them, he wouldn’t have made them so delicious,” Fallon suggested.

“Would you like a little bacon instead?” Bridgit asked, glaring at Fallon.

“Why can’t he eat the lamb? We hardly ever have it as it is! It’s a good Gaelish dish, not like this Kottermani nonsense!” Fallon said indignantly.

But Bridgit had already crossed over to the far wall, where a side of bacon hung from the rafters, and she sawed off a thick slice.

“He needs feeding up if he’s to regain his strength,” she said firmly.

“There’s such a thing as being too strong. Look at Brendan,” Fallon said pointedly.

But she ignored him and instead slapped the bacon into a pan, which she slipped onto the iron grate that sat over the fire, which she had allowed to die down to embers so it would cook with heat rather than flame. Later she would build it up for the night. Fallon busied himself with his plate.
I know you only want to protect the boy but you’re smothering him with love. He’ll never learn to be a man like this.
He wanted to say something but he knew she would never listen. Not when it came to Kerrin.

“I have to ride to Lunster at dawn, tell the Duchess what happened here. I’m not sure what time I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he said instead.

“Can I come with you?” Kerrin asked.

“To that filthy hole? No, my lad, you won’t be going anywhere near there,” Bridgit said firmly, tipping a sizzling rasher of bacon onto Kerrin’s plate.

“When you are older, we shall all go together.” Fallon winked.

Bridgit sat back down. “Only when I say he is ready.”

Fallon sucked on a lamb bone. It saved him from having to say what he was thinking.

The fishing boat nudged through the waves, heading back towards the lights of the village. The five men on board had been out all day and the hold was filled with fish, a fine catch they would smoke and sell. Work done, they handed around a bottle and sat back, letting tide and wind carry them back home. The boat’s owner, a grizzled old fisherman, had his arm over the tiller but, apart from that, they were only focused on the bottle that was being passed around. He drank deeply when it was his turn.

“Come on, Ahearn! You need all your wits about you to steer us home,” one of his men said, only half-joking. “Don’t want you to steer us into a nest of selkies.”

“You’ve had far too much already if you are seeing selkies, my lad,” Ahearn told him lightly.

“No, that’s what everyone is saying. There’s been boats disappear, others come back empty of men. Folk are saying the selkies are angry with us, that we’re taking all their fish. It’s Zorva’s judgment on the wicked, the priest told me.”

“Well, that’s bloody stupid,” Ahearn growled. “Why would Zorva want to punish the wicked? He likes the wicked!”

“I’m just saying what I heard.”

“Then don’t believe everything you hear. Have you ever seen a selkie?”

“Well, your missus first thing in the morning on the way to get water ain’t a pretty sight,” someone called out, safe in the darkness.

“Another joke like that and this bottle’ll go over the side,” Ahearn warned. “There’s no such thing as selkies. There’s evil in this world, right enough, but it comes from men and women. They fall for Zorva’s promise of power, then use his magic to do terrible things.”

“How do you know all about that?” someone accused.

“You’re too young to remember but we had one like that in the village, near on a century ago. Folk turned up dead, hearts ripped out or worse, skinned, torn apart – looked like it couldn’t have been done by another man. And I guess he wasn’t a man no more. Certainly not a selkie. But my grandfather and other men caught him and killed him and burned his body to ash.”

“Why don’t the church tell us of things like that then?”

“Because they don’t want to tell you the truth, in case some fool decides to try it. To get Zorva’s power, all you have to give him is your soul – and the blood of a loved one. And the more blood you give him, the more power he gives you. To someone with nothing, that might sound like a fine bargain, until they learn what it means. So it’s easier for the church to terrify you with monsters than to tell you the truth about people.”

“That don’t seem right.”

“Right? Next thing you’ll want life to be fair. Might as well wish for fish to fall from the sky like rain.”

“How about you stop talking our ears off and pass the bottle?”

Ahearn lowered the bottle with the sigh and was about to pass it on when he gasped with horror.

“What, don’t tell us it’s empty!”

“The lights – they’re gone!” He pointed.

They all turned to look then: the familiar home fires had vanished into the night.

“And what’s that smell?” someone asked.

“Don’t look at me,” Ahearn answered without thinking.

Then the sail hung limp as the wind died.

“Get the oars out,” Ahearn said but before they could find them in the darkness, the boat thumped into something and stopped.

“What in Aroaril’s name is going on?” someone shouted.

Next moment the blackness blazed into light – and they screamed as they saw the answer.

Fallon found himself relaxing as he joined Kerrin on the rugs, helping him refight the battle of Caragh Lake, more than one hundred and fifty years earlier. The people, outraged by the King’s new plan to tax them for every child, had come together in a huge uprising. Thousands had marched on Berry, demanding the end of unfair taxes. The King had promised to meet them – and then sent out his guards instead, backed by the guards of the nobles. Men on horseback, dressed in armor and carrying lances and swords, had gone up against a mixture of farmers and fishers carrying knives, axes and hoes. It had not been much of a battle.

However, both sides had learned a lesson, it seemed, for the King had quietly dropped the new poll tax afterwards.

“I wish we could have been there,” Kerrin said. “Who were the goodies?”

Fallon glanced at Bridgit, who was pretending to do some knitting but listening carefully. “Nobody was in the right. The King and his nobles shouldn’t have used soldiers against ordinary folk and they shouldn’t have rebelled against the King.”

“Which side would you have been on, Dad?” Kerrin asked eagerly.

“If I was a sergeant of the Duke’s then I would have fought for the king.”

“Well they won, so that’s good!”

“There’s nothing good about a battle, my lad!” Bridgit said warningly.

“I would have rather stood with the people,” Fallon admitted. “The problem was, they didn’t have a leader. They were just groups of men determined to protect their families. It would have been like drawing a sword against Brendan, or Devlin, or Gallagher. I couldn’t do that.”

“How would you have beaten the King’s men, then?”

“I would have led the soldiers into the mud by the river, where they couldn’t charge the horses, and used that against them. The King was sure he was going to win – all his soldiers knew it. I would have tricked them and beaten them.”

As he spoke, he moved Kerrin’s little figures, letting the horsemen get stuck in a rug and then having the ones on foot swarm over them.

“Then you could have won and been King!”

Fallon laughed. “I couldn’t be a King. Only nobles can be kings.”

“Why can’t we be kings? Do they have something we don’t?”

“Well, they are special,” Fallon said, doubtfully.

“Fallon,” Bridgit said warningly.

“We’re told Aroaril chose the Kings himself, making them blessed,” Fallon hastily concluded.

“Enough of this talk. How about a few riddles?” Bridgit suggested, putting away her yarn.

Kerrin was reluctant to leave his toys without fighting at least one more battle, but they soon had him tempted.

“Feed me and I grow, tame me and I shall serve, but turn your back on me and I can devour you and your whole home,” Bridgit said. “What is that?”

“A wolf!” Kerrin said instantly.

“Can a wolf eat your house?” She smiled.

“Maybe if he was very hungry, and you spread some butter on it,” Fallon said.

She slapped his arm.

“A man usually makes him but a woman is the one who tames him,” she added.

Kerrin scratched his head.

“It’s something inside this house, that we see every day,” Fallon offered.

“Something that could eat our whole house, inside it?” Kerrin glanced behind him and then grinned. “A fire!”

“Good one!” Fallon applauded. “My turn now. When I am alive I cannot speak. You can roast me and boil me and bite me and I will do nothing. But if you cut my body I shall make you cry.”

“That’s a lovely one. You couldn’t do one about a cow, or a lamb, for once?” Bridgit said with a smile.

“How do you know that isn’t a lamb?” Fallon challenged.

“Because I know you too well,” she said. “Go on then. What is it?”

“Is it a selkie?” Kerrin asked.

“No, not a selkie. There are no selkies,” Fallon promised.

“We had some for dinner the other night,” Bridgit said to Kerrin.

“Potatoes?”

“No, what else?”

“Onions!” Kerrin laughed. “And they made you cry, mam!”

“Well, we don’t want her to cry at anything else, so it’s time you went to bed,” Fallon said.

“One more?” Kerrin pleaded.

“We’ll each do one tomorrow,” Bridgit promised. “You think up a good one and see if you can fool us both!”

While Kerrin went outside to piss and Bridgit got his bed ready, Fallon sharpened his sword, giving it a light oil before replacing it in the leather scabbard, and then took out his ceremonial tunic. He only wore it a couple of times a year and he had to hunt for it in a chest. Bridgit had stored it with sprigs of lavender and, while it didn’t smell musty, it did stink as though he had been rolling in a field. He groaned and hung it over the hurdles around the bedchamber. Hopefully giving it a night there might stop him turning up at the Duchess’s court smelling like some dandy. This was his big chance and he needed to be taken seriously.

At the base of the chest he found an old practice knife, a wooden blade with a center spine of iron to give it weight, so you could train as if it were the real thing. He stuck it in his belt and climbed down the ladder to where Bridgit was singing Kerrin a song about old heroes. In most houses, the children slept upstairs and the parents downstairs but Bridgit wanted Kerrin to be closer to the warmth of the fire, so they’d switched it around. It meant they had to go to bed as soon as Kerrin was asleep but, that night, Fallon had plans for the bedchamber, so he was eager to get Bridgit upstairs.

“Sleep well, lad.” He ruffled Kerrin’s hair and placed the knife beside his pillow. “And this will keep selkies away from your dreams. It’s a magic blade, blessed by a wizard and a priest so it looks like wood, but it will actually cut through any selkie, even one in a dream. So if you have bad dreams tonight, this will save you.”

“Thanks, Dad!” Kerrin clutched the knife to him excitedly. “I won’t let it go!”

Fallon winked and patted his son on the shoulder. “Sleep well. I’ll see you when I get back tomorrow evening.”

He stepped back and watched Bridgit fuss over their son, until she was satisfied he was almost asleep, then followed him upstairs.

“Why did you have to give him the knife?” she asked.

“To keep the bad dreams away. I have to get up early and don’t want to be woken six times in the night.”

“Well, if he breaks anything with it tomorrow, you will be the one paying for it.”

“He’ll be fine,” Fallon promised.

“Will you be?” she asked. “What is going on?”

“Now there’s a question,” Fallon admitted, lying back on the bed. “I think it is men doing this, and I think they wanted it to look mysterious for a reason.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, but I am going to find out. This could be it, Bridge! This could be what I have been waiting and working for all these years. They’ll find out they picked the wrong village to sail into.”

Bridgit nestled into his shoulder. “I love how this village can sleep soundly because of you, and I have always loved how you make me feel safe. But if they went to all that trouble to make it look like selkies, then it’s part of something bigger. Maybe you should let the nobles worry about it. You do what you do best, keep us all safe here in Baltimore.”

“What? I can’t just ignore something that’s sailed into the middle of Baltimore. This is my big chance to show them how I am, what I am worth,” he said, brushing her hair gently away from his face.

“We know what you are worth. That’s all that matters,” she said. “I have a bad feeling about this. Death will follow that ship.”

He kissed her head. “You have a bad feeling about many things. But they don’t always turn out that way. Besides, I don’t do all that training just so the boys can laugh at me behind my back. I always said I had to be ready when something came – this is it. Whoever did that to the Duke’s ship was sending us a message. It could be any of us, at any time. If I step away, if I don’t try to stop it, then it could be you or Kerrin disappearing next.”

“Now you are the one being foolish. Whoever it is won’t be attacking a big village and, anyway, we’d have plenty of warning to be able to run away if they did. Are you sure this isn’t just about Hagen being made captain of the Duke’s guard? I know the two of you joined together.”

Fallon sighed. “And what if it is?” he said defensively. “If he can be made captain then I certainly can be more than a village sergeant.” He took another breath. He had to tread carefully in this argument. He knew he couldn’t fight with her if he planned to do anything else. “I’m still a mere village sergeant and he’s sitting down having dinner with the Duke.”

“Do you want to have dinner with the Duke?”

He made himself laugh. “Not really. And especially not wherever he is now. I’m just saying you might be right.”

She rolled over to smile at him. “Might be? I think the word you’re searching for is
always
.”

“And how could I forget it, when you remind me most days?” He grinned back.

“I have to remind you – or it would vanish out of your head! So say I’m right again and stay out of what’s going on. We pay the nobles enough – let them protect us.”

He could not bring himself to agree to that. “But I don’t trust them to protect us. That’s the thing.”

She brushed her hand across his cheek. “Then for Aroaril’s sake promise me you will do nothing foolish.”

“When have you ever known me to do anything foolish?” he protested.

“If you want a list then you’ll never make it to Lunster by tomorrow, for we’ll still be going next full moon,” she said with a grin, standing up and crossing to a small chest by the low wattle wall.

Fallon stripped off his tunic and leggings then slipped under the blankets. “Come join me.”

“When I’m good and ready.” She brushed her hair out and then exchanged her dress for a night robe.

“You don’t need to worry about that. I’ll keep you warm,” he said.

“Don’t get any ideas now, Fallon,” she said sharply, sitting on the bed.

“Too late. You know me and ideas,” he said, reaching out for her.

“I thought you needed to get up early.”

“And I do. But I’d ride away with a smile on my face.”

“Well, there is nothing going to happen,” she told him stiffly.

“Why not? I was away looking for poachers and then you spent the last two nights with Kerrin –”

“It’s the wrong time of the moon. We do anything, I might get pregnant again.”

“So?”

“So I’ve decided I’m not going through that again. Not after last time.”

Fallon rolled onto his back and sighed. Last time she had lost the child perhaps four months in and it was only through the help of both Devlin’s wife Riona and the newly arrived Sister Rosaleen that they had not lost her. It had terrified them all, particularly Kerrin.

“You don’t know you are even going to get pregnant,” he tried to point out.

“It’s all right for you!” she blazed suddenly. “It’s not your body that has to go through all this! I’m the one who has to deal with it. It’s not you who has to bear the guilt!”

“The guilt? For what?”

She began to cry then, her anger washed away in an instant. “For losing the children! How many would we have had? Ten?”

“Eleven, with Kerrin,” Fallon said before he could stop himself.

“All because of me. Because I did something, or didn’t do something, or ate something wrong. Or maybe there’s just something wrong with me. I killed them all!”

“Now listen to me,” Fallon jumped off the bed and enfolded her in his arms. “There’s nothing wrong with you, nor was any of that your fault. There’s no fault. Everyone loses children. Look at Gallagher.”

“But none have lost as many as me and still been alive.”

“And that’s a bad thing? You would have preferred to die?”

“Sometimes,” she said, in a quiet voice.

“You would rather leave behind me and Kerrin?” he whispered.

“Sometimes. When I think of all the babes. There must have been something I could have done.”

He hugged her fiercely. “There was nothing. It was Aroaril’s will, nothing more, sent to test us.”

She held him back and he kissed her hair, her face, her tears.

She stopped crying. “I’m lucky to have you. I don’t know how you put up with my craziness,” she said.

“Well, I’m lucky to have you too. And I like craziness. Have you not met my friends?”

She laughed and he took the opportunity to kiss her lips. Even with her face puffy from the tears and hair going in all directions, she looked beautiful to him and he kissed her hard, his hands beginning to roam lower, his body stirring.

She broke the kiss then and grabbed his arm. “I told you, we’re not doing anything tonight. How can you think I’d want to, after what I just said?”

“But you look so beautiful.”

“It’s not happening. And if you don’t like it, maybe you should go and find another woman, one who will give in to men and their ways.”

“But I don’t want another woman! I want you: I’ve always wanted you! And I won’t be made to feel guilty for wanting you,” he growled.

“If you’re not happy, you can go and sleep elsewhere,” she told him, and rolled away.

He looked at her lying there and cursed. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep. He knew he should comfort her but feared anything he said would just make things worse. He began to pull his tunic and leggings back on. “I’ve just remembered, Devlin wanted me to watch out for the poachers who have been taking his lambs. I’ll just go and keep a quick eye on them and then be back by midnight,” he said gruffly.

Bridgit wiped her eyes as she heard him slip out. She wanted to call out to him but held back. Why could he not understand? He was devastated whenever they lost another child but he had no idea what it was like to feel the little life coming out from inside you. Over and over again. Each one took a little more out of her. She knew it was her fault. The old women of the village, who had seen hundreds of babies into this world – and just as many leave it – told her that was nonsense, as did Fallon and the priests. But she knew it. She had worried so about losing the last child that she had brought it on. Now she worried all the time – about what Fallon was doing, but most of all about Kerrin. If anything happened to him, she knew she would just die. Life would not be worth living without him.