Cara sat inthe coziest chair in the seating area in front of her room, a warm woolen blanket draped over her andThe History of the Trojan Warcracked open in her lap. Astrid and Gormla had gone to the market in town, searching for silks that wouldn’t cost enough to give Sitric palpitations. The Fianna, apparently having enjoyed their adventure aboard the Ostman longships, hurried down to the harbor at daybreak to continue training, Sitric with them.
After speaking with Sitric yesterday, they’d returned to complete the betrothal at her behest. As per Brian’s wishes, when she married Sitric, he would become king of Thurles, her sister remaining as steward in Sitric’s absence. The kingdom, meager though it may be, would remain in their family, giving both Cara and her sister security after the debacle with Aodh and giving Sitric a position within Brian’s kingdom and a smattering of more fertile lands.
She should be thrilled to have achieved all that she’d hoped for and to have recovered some small part of herself along theway. Try though she may to be proud of her accomplishments, Cara felt wretched.
The door to Niamh’s room opened beside her, giving Cara a start. “You’re up late,” Cara commented, furrowing her brow. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Oh, aye,” Niamh replied gently, shutting her door behind her. “I stayed up too late last night.”
Cara nodded, looking back to the beautiful book in her lap. “I’m familiar with that problem.”
Niamh let out a soft laugh, grabbing herself a blanket on her way to the chair across from Cara. “I’ve not read that one all the way through,” she commented, pulling her legs up under her and draping the blanket over her lap. “Do fewer people die at the end than at the beginning?”
“More, actually,” Cara said.
“My father spent a fortune on a tutor. He was not terribly pleased when he learned I hadn’t finished all my reading.”
“I didn’t realize you were a noble.” Cara mentally chided herself for never having asked after Niamh’s family before. The woman had been tending her own family’s aches and pains for years. Cara realized then how little she knew about someone she’d lived beside for six years.
“Oh, I’m not,” Niamh replied hastily. “My father is a merchant.”
Cara wondered at that. She knew the healer lived in a cottage with her mother and maid—which, she realized belatedly, explained why Niamh and her motherhada lady’s maid. But she’d never heard of a father. And Niamh spoke as though he yet lived. “What happened to him?”
Niamh’s lips tightened. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “He left.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cara told her. “I’m sure you were devastated—I cannot imagine it.” She’d fallen apart when Torna had left, andhe’d been in her life but briefly. Cara couldn’t begin to fathom what she’d be like now if it had been her own father who left.
“Thank you.” Niamh wrapped her arms about her knees, which remained tucked tightly beneath her brown woolen blanket. “It made trusting people difficult,” she said, her voice oddly tentative. “With Dallan, for example, I was so afraid that he would leave me and break my heart that I left him before he had the chance.”
Ah. So that’s what she was getting after. Cara sighed, growing weary of everyone else giving her advice on Diarmid. “I’m glad that it worked out for you and Dallan,” she replied, “but I don’t see how it could for me. My family’s kingdom isn’t worth spending my life with a man who hurried to bed the first serving maid he could find.”
Niamh’s eyes narrowed. “Do you mean Maeve?”
“I do.” Cara’s chest tightened at the thought. “Everyone saw him there with her.”
“That’s what you believe happened? That he went down to the alehouse and bedded her?” Niamh shot out of her chair, laying the blanket over it and reaching for Cara. “Let’s go.”
Cara bristled at the unexpected command, but closed her book and stood, sensing Niamh wouldn’t relent until she cooperated. Moving far more leisurely than Niamh, Cara folded her blanket and walked her book back to the storage chest in her room.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Niamh strode toward the door.
“To the alehouse.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Cara held backher protests as she and Niamh went down the now-familiar split-log road into the heart of Dyflin. Though she felt this exercise entirely unnecessary, Cara knew that Niamh wouldn’t drag her all this way, to see this woman in the flesh, for no reason. Niamh was nothing if not kindhearted. So Cara kept her fretting to herself.
It was the first time Cara had actually been to the alehouse in Dyflin, though she’d heard more about it than any sane person could take. The men frequented it, finding it an entertaining change of scenery from Sitric’s grand halls. Even Sitric himself enjoyed the place.
“Niamh!” A petite, brown-haired woman rushed to embrace the smiling wisewoman. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Actually, I need a favor, if you can manage it.”
“For you, anything.” The woman hadn’t hesitated even a moment before giving her vehement response. “I could never repay you for what you’ve done.”
“Maeve, I’d like to introduce you to Cara,” Niamh said, gesturing in her direction. “If you feel up to it, I need her to hear about what happened that night. From you.”
Maeve paled, but nodded, wiping her hands on her creamy apron. “You mean with Diarmid and Sitric?”
