“Why?” Fearghal lowered his voice. “Brihan, ye should ha’ known I would aid ye. ’Tis in my best interest.”
“No’ perchance in mine.”
What does that mean?Ardahl pondered as a servant came in, offering food and more drink. Brihan waved him away.
Ardahl’s back twitched. He felt sure they were being watched.
“Dacha,” Fearghal pressed, “makes a gey dangerous neighbor.”
“Ye can see that, can ye?”
“Aye, I can see that. Yet long ha’ ye held that place and no’ raised a hand against us. Now ye come spilling blood. Ye must know I ha’ to retaliate.”
That brought Brihan’s gaze to Fearghal’s face.
“We, who were once friends,” Fearghal pushed, “are now enemies. I wished for the sake o’ old understandings to talk wi’ ye first.”
Emotions moved suddenly in Brihan’s stern face, as if it would crack. Grief filled his eyes.
In a voice so low Ardahl could barely hear it, he said, “He has my young son. Dacha does. Taken wi’ a number of other lads at the beginning o’ spring. Out larking, they were, on our own lands. He has but ten winters.”
A deadly silence fell.
Savagely now, Brihan said, “The other lads, three o’ them, ha’ all been sent back one by one. Slain. No’ just slain but killed in—in the cruelest o’ ways. They suffered before they died.”
Children.
“Ah,” Fearghal said.
Brihan’s gaze once more came up to meet Fearghal’s. “The message was clear. ’Tis no’ an alliance I ha’ wi’ Dacha but a kind o’geis.”
“Have ye tried to get your lad back?”
“How? He is at the heart o’ Dacha’s stronghold. One wrong move on my part—he will be dead afore we reach him.”
“Aye.”
“Ye must see, Fearghal, that while I did no’ want to raise a weapon against ye, and while there is nay honor in it—”
“I do see, aye.” Fearghal also had young children.
“My wife—” For an instant, Brihan’s voice failed him. “She is distraught. Ill wi’ it. She saw the bodies o’ the lads returned.”
“As any good mother would be.”
“He is my only son. We ha’ a crop o’ daughters, but—”
“I am certain that despite his torment o’ the others, Dacha is treating him well. ’Tis in his best interest to do so, aye? If your son dies, Dacha loses his hold over ye.”
“I do try to believe that.”
Fearghal scowled. A hostage made for a perilous situation.
“Dacha,” said Brihan abruptly, “has made up his mind to conquer all of Armagh. From his own lands to the sea. He has ambitions about which he is no’ shy of boasting—to rival theArd Rihimself. His druids and mine have cast stones in his favor. What am I to do?”
“If he conquers my lands, Brihan, he will take yours also.”
“He will leave me to the last, until I am o’ no’ more use to him. Then he will no’ only cut my son’s throat, but mine.”
