Now she sank to the floor on a keening wail. When Cian knelt beside her, she curled into him and wept out her shattered heart.
Chapter 15
They buried Tynan on a brilliant morning with cloud shadows dancing over the hills and a lark singing joyfully in a rowan tree. The holy man blessed the ground before they lowered him into it, with a fife and drum sounding the dirge.
All who knew him,
and many who didn’t, were there so that mourners stretched across the sun-drenched graveyard and up the rise toward the castle. The three flags of Geall flew at half staff.
Moira stood beside Larkin, dry-eyed. Though she heard Tynan’s mother weeping, she knew her time for tears had passed. The others of her circle stood behind her, and she could feel them, took some comfort from that.
Now two stones would stand for friends here, along with the markers for her parents. All of them victims of a war that had raged long before she’d known of it. And would end with her, one way or another.
At last, she moved away to give the last moments to the family and their privacy. When Larkin took her hand, she gripped it firmly. She looked at Cian, could just see his eyes under the shadow of his hood. Then she looked at the others.
“We have work to do. Larkin and I need to speak with Tynan’s family again, then we’ll meet in the parlor.”
“We’ll head in now.” Blair stepped forward, laid her cheek against Larkin’s. Moira couldn’t hear the words Blair murmured to him, but Larkin released her hand and pulled Blair into a hard embrace.
“We’ll be in shortly.” Larkin eased back, then took Moira’s hand again. She would have sworn she could feel his grief coming through his skin.
Before Moira could move back toward the family, Tynan’s mother broke away from her husband and pushed her way to Cian. Her eyes were still spilling tears.
“It’s your kind did this. Your kind killed my boy.”
Hoyt made a move forward, but Cian shifted to block his path. “Yes.”
“You should be in hell instead of my boy being in the ground.”
“Yes,” Cian repeated.
Moira stepped up to put an arm around her, but the woman shook it off. “You, all of you.” She whirled, jabbing out an accusing finger. “You care more about this thing than my boy. Now he’s dead. He’s dead. And you have no right to stand here by his grave.” She spat at Cian’s feet.
As she wept into her hands, her husband and daughters carried her off.
“I’m sorry,” Moira murmured. “I’ll speak with her.”
“Leave her be. She wasn’t wrong.” Saying nothing more, Cian walked away from the fresh grave, and the lines of stones that marked the dead.
Niall caught up with him as he reached the gates. “Sir Cian, a word with you.”
“You can have as many words as you want once I’m out of this shagging sun.”
He didn’t know why he’d gone to the graveyard. He’d seen more than enough dead in his time, heard more than enough weeping for them. Tynan’s mother wasn’t the only one who looked at him with fear and hate, and here he was out in the daylight with the only things between him and the killing sun some rough cloth and a charm.
His blood cooled the moment he was inside, out of the light.
“Say what you need to say.” Cian shoved back the detested hood of the cloak.
“So I will.” A big man with his usually cheerful face tight and grim, Niall nodded sharply. His wide hand rested on the hilt of his sword as he looked hard into Cian’s eyes. “Tynan was a friend, and one of the best men I’ve known.”
“You’re saying nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“Well, you haven’t heard me say it, have you? I saw what had become of Sean, what had been a harmless and often foolish lad. I saw him kick Tynan’s body from the horse as if it were no more than offal to be tossed in a ditch.”
“To him it wasn’t any more than that.”
Again, Niall nodded, and his fingers tightened on the sword’s hilt. “Aye, that’s what was made of him. And of you. But I watched you lift Tynan’s body off the ground. I watched you carry it in, as a man would carry a fallen friend. I saw none of what was Sean in you. Tynan’s mother’s grieving. He was her first-born, and she’s mad with grief. And she was wrong in what she said to you by his grave. He’d not have wanted you insulted by his blood. So as his friend, I’m telling you that. And I’m telling you any man who fights with me fights with you. That’s my word on it.”