Galan stood upon the walls of Dun Ringill and looked west over the glistening waters of Loch Slapin. The moon was out, casting its friendly face over the sleeping isle, turning the lake into beaten silver. It was a breathtaking sight but Galan was blind to it.
Grief twisted his gut. He was in turmoil.
He could not believe his father to be the beast that Tea described—he would not. His parents had been happy together. To Galan’s eyes, his father had always seemed devoted to his wife, and had never appeared to covet another woman.
They were lies—but lies his wife believed.
Despair settled over Galan’s broad shoulders like a stone mantle. This was his fault—he had been a fool to hope for peace, to believe he could end the blood feud between Dun Ardtreck and Dun Ringill. The Eagle and The Wolf could never be friends. There was so much hate between them, too much blood spilled over the years. There were too many who nursed hate in their breasts like a canker.
It cannot be the truth.
Loc, like his sister, must have thought that Galan knew of this incident. The new Wolf chieftain was a brave man indeed to try and forge peace under such circumstances. Galan’s throat constricted—Loc must have wanted peace very much to sacrifice his sister to the enemy he saw responsible for the rape and murder of his own mother.
Galan’s fists clenched at his sides. I won’t believe it—not without proof.
Someone must have hated his family very much to have carved an eagle into Fina’s flesh as a message for her husband.
Galan was determined not to let this be; such accusations could not lie.
Tomorrow, I will get answers.
He knew exactly whom to ask.
***
A windy dawn greeted Dun Ringill. It whipped the dark surface of the lake into frothy peaks and gusted across the exposed hilltop, blowing straw, fowl feathers and dust into Galan’s face as he strode out of the fort and into the village below.
Folk called out to him and waved as he passed, but Galan did not slow his step. He had not been able to sleep the night before. Eventually the night’s chill had forced him indoors but he did not return to his alcove. Instead, he had sat by the hearth in the center of his feasting hall, surrounded by slumbering bodies. He had spent the night brooding, and by the time the sun rose over the hills to the east, his mood was black.
This morning, he would have answers.
The hovel he sought sat on the outskirts of the village, just yards from the stone defensive wall that ringed the fort. The dwelling was smaller than most and its thatch roof had been patched in many places. Galan walked past a neatly tended vegetable patch and small fowl coop, stepping through a rambling growth of herbs before he reached the door to the dwelling. The scent of baking griddle bread and the stronger aroma of burning peat wafted out.
Outside the door, Galan paused. He had not been to see the bandruí in a while. He had glimpsed her briefly at his father’s burial; a slight, cloaked figure at the back of the crowd. Muin had relied heavily on Ruith over the years, following her divinations and insights, especially after the loss of his wife. Yet Galan had never felt entirely comfortable in the seer’s presence; and he hesitated now on the threshold of her home.
“I know you’re there, Galan mac Muin,” a husky female voice greeted him through the wattle door. “Come inside. I won’t bite.”
Frowning, Galan pulled the door open and stepped into the hovel, squinting as his eyes got used to the dim light.
The bandruí squatted next to the fire pit, tending a wheel of bread she was toasting on an iron griddle. She wore a dark, long-sleeved tunic, and her greying hair braided into many plaits hung around her face. Ruith was nearing her sixtieth winter, but Galan could see she had once been a beauty. She had high cheekbones, piercing dark-blue eyes and a proud stance.
I wonder if Tea will look like her when she ages, he thought suddenly before catching himself. He did not want to think of his wife now. He needed to focus.
“Good morning, Ruith,” he greeted the seer.
She motioned to the stool on the opposite side of the fire pit. “Sit down.”
He did as bid, not taking offense at the familiar way the bandruí spoke to him. It was her manner. Ruith was not like other folk; she was a part of the soil, the air, the grass. She was Dun Ringill’s conduit to the gods and the world beyond.
The seer met his eye as he settled himself upon a stool, her mouth curving into a smile. “I saw you ride in with your new woman yesterday.”
Galan inhaled slowly, fighting the growing tension in his chest. This was why he had never felt comfortable with Ruith; he preferred plain speech. The seer rarely spoke about things directly.
“She hates me,” he admitted finally. “I thought it was because of the blood feud between our peoples, but last night I discovered there is more to it than that.”
Ruith met his eye across the fire. She flipped the wheel of bread over so it could cook on the other side. “Go on.”
“She accuses my father of raping and murdering her mother.”
The bandruí’s gaze widened at this, and relief crashed over Galan in a great wave. The seer did not know of this tale—it had to be a lie.
“When was this?” she asked.
“Ten years ago, I believe.” Galan paused here, thinking back. He would have been around fifteen at the time, yet he could not remember any incident that would have implicated his father.
“What did she say exactly?” Ruith asked finally.
Galan told her, word for word, what Tea had spat at him. When he spoke of the mark The Eagle being engraved into the dead woman’s flesh, the bandruí’s gaze narrowed. She removed the bread from the griddle and placed another wheel of dough on to cook.
“Your father knew Fina,” she said when the silence had stretched out so long that Galan had begun to think she would never reply. “They met when they were very young at a gathering of the tribes. She was from the northern tip of the isle, from Dun Skudiburgh.” The seer paused here, her gaze meeting Galan’s. “Muin spoke to me of her once—they bonded at the gathering. He’d hoped to wed her but the feuding between our tribes made their union impossible.”
Galan stared at her. He had not come here expecting this. He had wanted assurance that his father and Tea’s mother had never met, not that they had once been lovers. Bitterness soured his mouth.
“So you think he could have murdered her?”
The bandruí raised a finely arched eyebrow. “You’ve come here looking for guarantees I can’t give, Galan. I knew your father well, but I cannot account for all his actions.”
Galan inhaled deeply, fighting his growing frustration. “Then, knowing him as you did, do you think he’s capable of it?”
Ruith cocked her head. “Your father was proud and could be brutal at times. I think he regretted losing Fina. I know not if he secretly raged over it.”
Galan clenched his jaw before answering. “You can’t help me, can you?”
The seer flipped the second wheel of bread off the hot plate and rose to her feet, dusting flour from her hands.
“I can cast the bones, and ask them for you?”
Galan shook his head, rising to his feet with her. “No, I’ll leave you now—thank you for your time.”
Ruith had known his father better than anyone—better even than his mother had. After his mother’s death, Galan had wondered if they had been lovers, such was their closeness. So if the seer could not be sure that his father was innocent of this atrocity, he could not cast Tea’s words aside as lies. The bones would be no further help to him.
Ruith watched the chieftain leave. Her gaze slid over his tall, broad-shouldered form in frank admiration. Galan wore plaid breeches this morning and a leather tunic, leaving his muscular arms bare. His long dark hair spilled down his back; its color and sheen made her think of a selkie—creatures that lived as seals in the sea but took human form on land. Male selkies were thought to be incredibly handsome in their human form, with great powers of seduction over women.
For a brief moment, Ruith wished she was a young woman again. She sensed he was a man who knew how to please a woman in the furs; his father had been such a man too. Galan’s wife was a fortunate woman indeed—although she clearly thought otherwise.
Ruith knew Galan’s worth; she had watched him grow from infant, to child, and then into a man. Out of the three sons, Galan reminded her of Muin the least. He had far more of his mother in him—a silent strength and a deep wisdom. Muin had ever been of a more reactive temperament, far more like Tarl. He had gone at life like a bull whereas his eldest son was watchful, farsighted.
Ruith let out a gentle sigh. Muin. She missed him. They had been friends for many years, and then after his wife’s death, he had found solace in her furs. The nights now felt cold and lonely without him.
Pushing aside thoughts of her dead lover, the seer’s attention shifted back to the young Eagle chieftain. She had not been surprised when Galan had accepted the Wolf chief’s peace offering. He was a warrior but knew that leadership was about more than war. Ruith was pleased Galan had chosen peace, although she knew many at Dun Ringill did not share her relief. Folk here had suffered because of the People of The Wolf; it would take them a while to forget.
What will come of this union?
Curious, Ruith drew the leather bag containing her ‘telling bones’ from her skirt and poured them out onto her palm; the pieces of bone, inscribed with the symbols of her people, rattled as she weighed them in her hand and squatted once more beside the hearth. Thinking upon Galan and is wife—a woman of the People of The Wolf—she then cast the bones on the dirt floor. The light was dim inside her hovel so Ruith had to climb down on stiff knees to read them properly.
The two bones depicting The Wolf and The Eagle had fallen close to each other—a good sign. Perhaps this handfasting would bring peace after all … yet some of the other bones worried her. The Bent Arrow upon a Crescent Moon had fallen directly above the symbols of the two tribes, and up against it, the mark of the Serpent.
The seer sat back on her heels, her gaze narrowing. She was glad Galan had not seen these bones, for her divination boded ill.
Her reading spoke of death and betrayal.
Galan left the bandruí’s hovel with a heavy heart and strode up the incline back toward the squat shape of the fort. He had been sure Ruith would set his mind at ease, but she had only raised more questions.
Father knew Fina. Doubt niggled at him. He did not want to believe Tea, but the bandruí had sown the seed now and it began to germinate. He would not speak to his brothers of this; they must never know. If Tea did speak the truth, he would have to learn to live with it. However, his hopes that she would one day thaw toward him had shattered. She thought she had good reason to hate him.
Galan had almost reached the entrance to the fort when he spied Donnel approaching. His youngest brother’s face was unusually serious this morning, his muscular frame tense with purpose. The wind ruffled his short dark hair as he waved to Galan.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Galan stopped. “Why—is something wrong?”
Donnel shook his head. “Not sure—guards at the defense have spotted riders approaching from the south-east.”
Galan went still. “How many?”
“Thirty, at least.”
“Cruthini?”
Donnel nodded. “I think so—they do not look foreign.”
Galan relaxed slightly. The invaders who lived south of the great wall were a threat to their lands, but they had never ventured this far north. Even if the riders were Cruthini, folk of the lands north of the wall, he had good reason to be wary. “Gather the men,” he ordered, turning on his heel toward the stables. “We’ll ride out to meet them.”