“Yes. The two of them always sided against me. They were the ones who went most often to my father. It was Father Bricius who suggested they send me to the abbey after Alt Clut.”
“Did you ever see them together?”
“Ula and Bricius? Yes, but he was her priest, her confessor.”
“And your confessor, too?”
“Yes.” She gulped. She had been such a fool. She had told Bricius everything she feared and… Now lots of small memories flowed through her mind.
A sense of dread began to steal over her. She closed her eyes. Fragments of overheard conversations, the way they had been so close sometimes when Aoife and the girls had entered the room, the way Father Bricius had looked at Ula. Perhaps Tormod was right. Except that would mean… She opened her eyes and looked at Tormod.
“Father Bricius came to Car Cadell with Ula,” she said. “You think they have been working together?”
He was silent for a long moment. “It’s a possibility. It’s always a possibility. I am sure she betrayed you, and the timing…” His gaze shifted off hers. “You said Lady Ula’s brother owns the land to the south? The one whose ships attacked us?”
“Lord Marcant. Yes.”
“Is it possible he was also responsible for this? That he wants this place for himself? And our village?”
“Lord Marcant is a greedy man,” Aoife said. “It would not surprise me if he was behind this.” Aoife looked around her and shuddered. “Who would want this place now? It’s cursed. The unconsecrated dead have lain here for days.”
Then she shuddered again, a sudden sensation of excruciating pain in every limb, her eyes, her ears. She must have screamed, although she didn’t remember doing so, as when she came back to her senses, Tormod had a hand over her mouth. One or two of the warriors had stopped to watch them, but at a signal from Tormod, they resumed their clearing-up duties.
“Shh, you are safe,” he said. “My men will think I am murdering you. Or worse, that someone else is.”
“I’m sorry. I felt them being tortured.” Aoife took a deep breath and pushed away from the comfort of her husband. There was no reason to stand here. She sensed Tormod behind her and knew she was safe with him defending her. She walked into the courtyard and then kept on walking towards the gates. Away from the past, away from all the pain, fear, and death.
She made it all the way to the side of the loch before she had to stop and be sick. She knelt down and retched more than once and was grateful when she felt Tormod’s arm around her and a cool cloth wipe her forehead and her mouth. And then she felt it. A small flutter in her belly. She ran her hands across her stomach and looked up at Tormod.
“The child,” she said, smiling at him. “I felt it move.”
“Even in this place of death, hope for the future is with us,” Tormod said, leaning close to her and kissing her forehead. “Come, I will take you to see your father’s body, see if Rhiannon is amongst the dead, and then we will leave this place. Forever. There is nothing for you here now.”
“No, there is not.” She put her hand out and cupped his face. “But there is everything for me with you.”
“Come, let us do that and leave.” Tormod smiled and kissed her. Then he took her hand.
After taking one last look over the loch and a deep breath to clear her mind and settle her stomach, she turned and walked hand in hand with him towards the fort.
“They have laid your father out on the table,” Arne informed them as they reached the doorway to the great hall.
Tormod’s hand tightened on her own and she steeled herself to see her father for the last time. She took another breath of fresh, clean air and stepped through the doorway.
The hall should have felt familiar—she had lived for almost twenty years going in and out of it on a daily basis—and yet it felt like a foreign place. She breathed through her mouth, although nothing could stop the stench of death from reaching her. Her attention was drawn immediately to the top table where a body lay, covered in a cloth. The closer she got, the more her steps slowed. But she didn’t stop. She needed to do this. She needed to see with her own eyes and know for sure.
Blood pools, dark and sticky on the floor, indicated where bodies had already been taken away from around the table.
“The women are here,” Arne said, gesturing to a group of three bodies. Aoife steeled herself and looked at them, breathing out a relieved breath when none of them were Rhiannon. Then she turned back to the body on the table.
“Where was my father found?” she asked.
Tormod looked at Arne, who indicated a spot close by.
Aoife nodded. That was where he had fallen in her vision. She gripped the edges of the cloth covering her father’s face. She was prepared for what she would see beneath it, and for the first time she prayed the sight would trigger a vision. Something to tell her how and why this had happened. A vision that would settle the future for her.
She pulled back the cloth, a loud sob escaping her throat as her father was revealed. She wasn’t sure what she had expected. His face almost looked peaceful. She went to pull the cloth further down, but Tormod stepped forward and stopped her. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she allowed them to fall.
A second later, her prayers were answered. She leaned against her husband, closed her eyes, and let the vision slide over her.
