“Let’s watch Ula,” Albyn proposed. “She must believe she’s escaped suspicion in your father’s death, and perhaps she’ll grow careless and inadvertently reveal her guilt.”
“I’d rather watch a spider weave its web,” Egan replied darkly.
Albyn had not meant to depress Egan’s mood and hastened to distract him. “Come dine with us in the great hall tonight if you’re able. It will build confidence in your cause if the others see you.”
“Aye, I know the mere appearance of weakness will harm me as greatly as another knife wound. I’ll be there tonight rather than feed the rumor that I’m too weak to appear. I just can’t promise I’ll be able to swallow what I’m served.”
“As long as you are there, it will be enough,” Albyn replied.
After Albyn had gone, Egan continued to pace. He had spent too much time in bed the last two days to crave more sleep. Sleep was for old men, not a young one bent on outwitting his brother.
The flight would be difficult at best and at worst fatal, but he could not escape the horrible suspicion that there would be yet another test before he was allowed to reign in peace. He had once been the most confident of men, but perhaps he had merely been stupid not to have anticipated how much could go awry.
Oriana walked along the bluff thinking she had always been occupied with the business of living, but now her days stretched out before her without a single chore to do. Not that caring for Egan did not demand her full attention, but it did not require the same effort as walking from dawn to dusk, or foraging for grain in a field a farmer and his kin had picked clean.
The Dál Cais had food aplenty and handsomely carved chests overflowing with finely tailored garments and a treasure in gold and jewels. But she stayed only for the joy of being with Egan. He was the love of her life, and she would cease to exist should she lose him.
As she returned to the bailey, her attention was immediately drawn to a cloud white mare tied outside the stable. A wiry red-haired lad was combing out her mane with long, furious strokes, and while agitated, the horse was tethered on too short a rope to escape his brutish attentions.
“She needs a lighter hand,” Oriana called out as she approached him.
Startled by the rebuke, the boy lost his grip on the comb. He made a hurried grab but succeeded only in flipping it into the air where it tumbled out of reach before landing in the dirt. He then got down on his knees to retrieve it, but pulled away rather than risk being trampled under the mare’s dancing hooves.
He sent Oriana a frightened glance, and when she continued to walk toward him, he ran for the forge, where the smith was working at his anvil with a lively clanging beat.
Oriana had not meant to terrify the stable boy, but neither could she have kept quiet and allowed him to abuse the horse. She ran her hand over the mare’s smooth white rump and spoke to her softly. “You’re such a pretty thing and shouldn’t be treated as though you were a shaggy old sheepdog who had muddied his coat.”
The mare tossed her head in apparent agreement and, growing calm, ceased pulling on her tether, which allowed Oriana to scoop up the comb. She ran it carefully through the mare’s mane and worked out the snarls without causing the horse any further distress. Delighted to have some useful work, she hummed happily to herself and failed to notice Albyn’s arrival until he laid a hand on her shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he leaned down to whisper. “You ought not to be working in the stable.”
“I’m not actually inside the stable now, am I?” Oriana replied. “Nor am I working. The stable boy was mistreating this mare, and clearly she’s someone’s precious pet. As long as she looks her best, I doubt her owner will care who combed her mane and tail.”
Afraid she had been observed, Albyn glanced over his shoulder and was relieved to discover the daily routine of the fortress had continued uninterrupted all around them. Two girls were drawing water at the well, another carried a basket toward the vegetable and herb garden. There were men stacking firewood, while others unloaded a wagon filled with sacks of grain. He heard the squeal of a pig and the crowing of a rooster.
Several men exchanged bawdy boasts as they rode out to hunt. There were so many guests, many horses had been penned outside the fortress walls. But this particular mare had been singled out for a special purpose.
Oriana was obviously enjoying herself, but when her attentions were completely misplaced, he could not withhold the truth. “This mare is not a pet,” he explained. “When Egan becomes king, there will be a ceremonial marriage between him and the goddess of the land. He’ll slay this white mare, and her flesh will be cooked and eaten. Some kings are rumored to have mated with the white mare before sacrificing her, and to have bathed in the broth boiled from her meat, but I doubt Egan will carry his ceremony to those extremes.”
Albyn’s description of the mare’s intended fate sickened Oriana clear through, and she let the comb slip from her fingers. Surely it had been a Druid who had devised such a disgusting ceremony rather than a king.
Albyn caught the comb in midair and slipped it into the mare’s mane, where it stuck like a woman’s comb. “I will walk you to your chamber,” he announced. Should she object, he intended to carry her.
Oriana took a step toward the keep, but she was too confused to walk quietly. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she complained in a frantic whisper. “If the mare is a s
ymbol of the goddess, then sacrificing her and eating her flesh should outrage rather than please her.”
Albyn took a firm grip on her upper arm. “If you care nothing for your own life, then for Egan’s sake, do not question the Druid’s rituals. Most especially not to a Druid,” he emphasized.
“I believed the Druids could at least think, but clearly you have no logical response to even the most obvious question.”
“What makes you so knowledgeable to the gods’ desires? Have you ever met one?”
Oriana regarded him with an enigmatic smile. “Aye, once. But you should be contemplating your own life, not those of the gods.”
“I do little else,” he confessed. “But you must tell me which god you saw and where.”
“This is not the time,” Oriana responded, and moving ahead of him, she led the way to Adelaine’s chamber.