‘But my brother suffers,’ he bit out in a furious undertone. ‘Let me go and save him. I must. Stay here if you wish, but I can’t just stand aside and watch him die for something they think I did.’
She manoeuvred herself in front of him. ‘Hold true to your earlier arguments. Danr will understand why you did not rush in waving your sword when we free him. He will want to find this Lugh as much as you. He will want everyone punished. Believe that the rule of law still exists around Dun Ollaigh. He’ll survive until we rescue him. Go now and you will ruin the best chance you have of catching Lugh.’
He collapsed against her. His frame was tense with the internal struggle he faced. Her arms came about him and held him tight.
‘I know. I know,’ she murmured in his ear.
‘We must rescue him. Somehow. Before everything else.’
‘Agreed, but what you said earlier about keeping my presence a secret must be so.’ Her calm measured voice made his heart ease.
‘So what do we do now?’
‘Wait until the cover of darkness. They have had their fun. They will leave him tied to the post. The petition against him will have to be presented to my father. I know these people, I know how things are done here.’ Ceanna bristled. ‘We do not simply enact rough and ready justice in this kingdom. There is a rule of law and procedures to be followed. Even Feradach and my stepmother will want to see lip service paid to the law. Time is on our side. Just.’
‘And if we can’t rescue him that way?’
‘When did you become such a doubter? Rescuing people is what you do.’
Like the first taste of cloudberries or the song of the first blackbird outside the longhouse in spring, a nearly forgotten but oddly familiar warmth spread through Sandulf. He’d passed through the winter solitude of suffering and now he bathed in the light of someone who truly believed in him and his ability. ‘Together?’
‘I guarantee it.’ She pulled his hat further down over his forehead. ‘If you’re ready, we make our way back to Vanora and wait.’
He glanced once more at where his brother was tied to the post. ‘What will happen today?’
‘Normally they’ll keep him tied to the post until the lord can make his judgement, provided my father is well enough. As your brother is a foreigner, they might even need the permission of Giric, the King’s Regent. Danr will survive until then. If he is your brother, then he is as hard as tempered steel, just like you.’
Sandulf watched the now-empty street. The shouts had subsided. What Ceanna said made sense. Law and order existed here. It was not the anarchy of battle. With patience, it was possible he could achieve both his aims.
He took her hand, clung to it like a drowning man clings to a spar and raised it to his lips. ‘Thank you.’
Although there were days in the summer when it never became truly dark, now that it was autumn the days were starting to draw in. She had seen the fields they travelled through and knew it should be a decent harvest, but the crops had not been brought in, as they should have been. If her father were still alive, he wasn’t commanding his stewards in the way he had once done.
She pushed her thoughts about management of Dun Ollaigh away and racked her brain to come up with a plan of how to rescue Danr. Sandulf was going to need her help. And she wanted to give it, no longer because she wanted to be indispensable, but because she had seen the naked longing in Sandulf’s face. She knew what it was like to lose a brother.
When they came to where the ponies were tethered, Vanora was nowhere to be seen.
‘Vanora!’ Ceanna called softly. ‘Come here, girl.’
Ceanna heard a low whine and desperate yipping. She followed the sound to where Vanora was tied up outside the tavern. She rapidly undid the rope and turned to go.
‘My lady! It is you! By all the saints in heaven! We thought you were dead. Your father came out of Dun Ollaigh for the first time in months for your funeral. That was three days ago, then this here dog of yours turns up without a by your leave and takes one of my pies and I hardly dared to hope. It can’t be Lady Ceanna in her grave without her dog, I told myself. Where that dog is, you will find her. It is a bad business if they put someone else in your grave and made your father weep like that.’
Ceanna pivoted to see Bertana, the tavern keeper’s wife, standing there, behind her. ‘But who said I was dead?’
The woman enveloped her in a tight hug. ‘We have been so worried. Urist told a tale about an ambush with you being attacked, but I knew about that corpse he’d taken and how that lady who died in childbirth hadn’t been buried. And I wondered... And your poor father weeping. I thought he’d expire from the trauma of it all and they’d be having another funeral in a matter of days. But my husband told me I was being foolish.’
Ceanna looked up at the skittering clouds. Her father was alive three days ago and well enough to attend his daughter’s funeral. She blinked rapidly until she had her emotions under control. ‘You knew about the corpse, the one Urist used as a decoy? But said nothing to my father?’
The woman shrugged. ‘Urist’s woman always had a big mouth. She told me after you left. Urist always has an eye for the main chance, but this scheme has him living in Dun Ollaigh and dining on the choicest meats, according to my cousin. I told my sister that he is playing
