He could not tell her that with which Dornach had entrusted him, so he shook his head.
She refilled his cup with heather ale.
“I ha’ some word for ye. I ha’ been feeling my way around the settlement, talking—well, let me admit,gossipingas the others tend to do, finding out about Brasha.”
He searched her face. A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “And, Liadan, d’ye no’ usually, like the others, gossip?”
She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Nay. I despise such chatter. I am making an exception for the sake o’ truth.”
A rare woman, indeed.
“One can discover much through gossip. And the folk of this tribe do love to speak o’ one another. Above all things, I think. Of course, one must then decide what, of all that’s heard, is true.”
“What ha’ ye determined?”
“Much. Some of it”—she hesitated—“painful. Some o’ it, to be honest, hurts my heart. I have a good friend, Soni, whose sister is close wi’ Brasha. She told me Brasha was seeing Cathair before ever she took up wi’ Conall last year.”
That, in itself, was not surprising. The young folk of the tribe, living in essence within a closed society, tended to make and form relationships many times before settling and handfasting. And Brasha, being quite beautiful even if she did have a waspish tongue, was much sought after.
Conall had scarce believed his luck when she turned her attention to him. Even though Conall, like all his family, had been well favored.
Liadan leaned still closer. Her blue eyes, so like Conall’s, sought Ardahl’s. “She has apparently returned to seeing Cathair now.”
Ardahl remembered Brasha running forward to touch Cathair’s hand when they’d headed out to the battle on the border. “Aye, so.” It made him uncomfortable then; it did still.
“The true heart o’ the gossip, though, is that Brasha was still seeing Cathairwhileshe was wi’ my brother.”
“Are ye certain o’ that?”
“As certain as I can be wi’ gossip. No one wanted to talk about it. ’Tis one of those ugly things that are shoved into the shadows. Conall was well liked. And no one wishes to get on the wrong side o’ Brasha.”
Slow anger stirred in Ardahl’s heart, ramping up the doubt and rage already there. Conall had been happy with Brasha. At least, he had until shortly before his death, when something had changed.
“She was cuckolding him? All the while?”
Liadan shook her head. “Or cheating on Cathair. ’Tis difficult to know how to view it.”
Ardahl said nothing, letting his anger burn.
“Whatever the case,” Liadan whispered, “you will admit there is something wrong in it. Much wrong.”
“Aye.”
“Add to that the fact that I have been haunting the places Brasha likes to linger, at the spring and the training field, in order to insinuate myself and catch a word wi’ her. Here and there, ye see, so she will no’ get suspicious. There is a sharp mind behind those sly eyes of hers.”
And a clever one, so it seemed, in the head of Mistress Liadan.
“I began by being all sympathetic toward her, saying how much she must miss Conall and be grieving for him. How much she must ha’ loved him. How much we all loved him. I looked for”—Liadan hesitated and drew a breath—“I looked for a mite of genuine feeling when she spoke of him.” Now anger showed in her eyes. “I found none. Naught but indifference. As if she had never cared for Conall at all.”
Ardahl absorbed that as best he could. “Yet,” he said unsteadily, “she lay wi’ him. More than once.” Conall had been ecstatic about it.
I will ask her to handfast wi’ me, Ardahl, just as soon as I can.
His eyes met Liadan’s again. “It meant much to him.”
“Aye. We were taught”—she fumbled a little—“one does no’ lie down wi’ a partner wi’out first giving one’s heart.”
Suddenly Ardahl felt sick. Conall had given his heart to Brasha. And all the while—
