“Nae too weel. The older one be sickening something fierce and the wee one has condemned the lot of us to seven kinds of hell.”
“And weel we deserve them,” cried Lagan who got no argument. “Has naught been done? Has no one tended to them?”
“Aye, they be fed and watered regular,” protested another man but weakly.
“I gave them extra blankets last eve but I fear the wee one be right when he says they will only be used as a shroud,” added the first man.
“Hold!” The silence that immediately met Parlan’s bellow was a tense one. “What lads?” he snarled.
“Artair raided the Ferguesons,” Lagan explained, knowing that would displease Parlan because it was done without his consent. “As we rode back to Dubhglenn, we chanced upon twa laddies in Mengue colors and seized them.”
“How wee are the laddies?”
“One must be nearing twenty, mayhaps a year or twa less,” replied Malcolm. “A man by some’s reckoning but still a laddie by mine. The other cannae be more than twelve.”
“What ransom has been asked?”
“None,” Lagan answered reluctantly. “They rot in the pit awaiting your return so that ye can decide upon it.”
Malcolm and Lagan followed Parlan as he strode into the keep. Several other men followed hesitantly. When Parlan’s request for Artair met with the word that the young man was sleeping off yet another long night of whiskey and women, Parlan’s fury was a glory to behold. Usually brave men scattered before him as he made his way to the dungeons where the sound of a soft keening greeted his ears.
The grate was speedily opened, and Parlan looked into the hole, a lantern held inside its depths. He saw a small, slightly-built boy holding a larger one, rocking and weeping softly. The elder boy was evidently dangerously ill. Suddenly the small lad became aware of the intruders and looked up. Even streaked with filth and tears, the small face had a delicate beauty that seemed strange for a boy. It was not even marred when that face was contorted into a snarl of hate and rage. Parlan noted all of that as he struggled to control his ever-growing anger with his brother.
At any other time the dark, imposing face peering down at her would have made Aimil at least hesitant, but she had no thought of caution when she held her dying brother in her arms. “Carrion! Filthy corbies! Ye have come too early to pick at this flesh.”
“Get them out of there. Now!” Parlan snarled as he moved back from the pit’s opening, his voice clipped with fury.
Chapter Two
For a moment Aimil doubted that she had heard right. It quickly became apparant that the Black Parlan himself was there, biting out commands in a deep voice that barely escaped being a very feral snarl. With her brother’s vital needs at the fore of her thoughts, she neither asked nor cared if they meant to free her too. Once Leith was lifted out, she started to sit down again.
“Ye as weel, laddie,” Parlan called, failing to keep all his fury at Artair out of his voice despite his efforts to stay calm so as not to frighten the boy.
She slapped away the hands that were offered to assist her, scrambling up the rope by herself. The time spent in a pit in which she could barely lie down had sapped her strength, but she refused to reveal that. In fact, she had practiced some odd exercises several times a day to keep her strength up for Leith’s sake. It had served its purpose for she was able to stand without wavering badly. The last thing she wanted was for these men to espy any weakness in her.
“Dinnae touch me, swine,” she hissed when, as they began to leave the dungeons, a hand moved to assist her.
Parlan was unused to being spoken to like that but he quelled an instinctive burst of anger. Later, he would even find amusement in the thought of the seething, somewhat filthy boy. For now he only wanted to ease the dangerous situation Artair had created. Despite the dirt, there was no mistaking the richness of the boys’ attire, which meant that they were of a high standing within the Mengue clan. An incident such as this could easily provoke a blood feud that could last for generations. That was the very last thing Parlan wanted or needed.
When they reached a room that could be secured from the outside, the MacGuins hastily attended to Leith who was for the most part, unconscious. Aimil stood out of the way but watched their every move. Even though the tending was late in coming, she could appreciate the speed with which the men stripped Leith, bathed him, and lay him on a clean bed to nurse his wounds. By some miracle the wounds had not yet festered even though they had not healed as much as they should have. There was yet some danger for Leith.
“Your names,” Parlan rapped out, no longer worried that his anger would frighten the boy.
Aimil did not quail beneath the man’s penetrating, dark gaze. “Shane and Leith Mengue. ’Tis Leith ye have almost murdered.”
Swearing colorfully and with admirable diversity, Parlan continued to help in tending young Leith Mengue’s wounds. He too saw it as a miracle that the boy’s wounds had not festered filling his blood with a deadly poison. Even if the boy lived, which seemed imminently possible now, such harsh treatment of the Mengue heir could provoke the very feud Parlan hoped to avoid. The little Mengue boy certainly looked eager to begin one, he mused.
A man of his times, Parlan did in truth like a good battle or the thrill of a raid. It was the blood feuds he detested, feuds where hate passed from generation to generation, with the initial cause for the feuds becoming distorted, even forgotten. More often than not, the cause was one where, if it had occurred within the clan, a settlement would have come about quickly between the original antagonists. Instead whole clans tore at each other, killing each other wherever and whenever they were able, using up their resources in a long, bloody, seemingly unending feud. What truly annoyed him was how those feuds so often interfered at a time when unity was desperately needed, such as against an enemy like the English.
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when Artair stumbled into the room, but Parlan’s fury had to wait to be vented.
Aimil recognized the man who had ordered that she and Leith be put into the hole, knew from things said that it was this man who had kept them there, who had drunk and wenched while her brother slowly died. Her delicate hands curled into claws, and she lunged at Artair.
Artair saved his eyes only by a quick raising of his arms. Two men grabbed Aimil before she was able to inflict much damage but it was a few moments before she stopped hurling curses and threats at Artair, and was calm enough to be released. In the confusion the feminine manner of her attack went unnoticed. When she moved to stand by the head of the bed where Leith rested, she was not ready to forgive any MacGuin. But she did note that Artair was getting anything but praise for his actions from Black Parlan. It was clear that he had acted completely of his own accord, something that was clearly an old bone of contention between the two men.
“I see ye found the prisoners,” Artair began weakly for Parlan’s face was dark with rage.
“I nearly had naught but corpses. Did ye never think that they might be worth more alive?”
