Nechtan was in good humor. After several hours of doing what he loved, he was ready to claim the silver. Thirty cumhals worth of silver. A hoard for such an easy task. Nothing pleased him more than the thought of enough coin to keep him in meat and mead for a long time. He might even get to buy the steading he always dreamed of. The one with a redheaded seeress to produce babies for him. As captain, he would get a half-share. More than enough to fulfill that dream.
Night surrounded him in its enveloping cloak. He walked without a torch. The path to the campsite was wide, and his eyes were good in the dark. He found nothing alarming about night animals snuffling and breaking twigs and the sounds of moving foliage. He’d grown up the son of a forester and would have been a forester himself if he’d not been snatched by a warband and trained as a warrior. Before the raid, he spent many nights like this, guarding the charcoal mound and getting to know the night noises intimately. Relying on his eyes and ears. Learning a skill used often in his current profession. A skill many fénnid lacked.
He stopped when he reached the campsite, staring into the dancing firelight. A problem was fermenting, evident in the tension humming around the clearing. Sharvan and Gráinne were seated close, heads together, talking in lowered voices. The other warriors were sitting around their fires, watching intently, an air of suppressed excitement emanating from them. Suddenly losing his good mood, Nechtan felt the weight of a lost battle pressing down on him as he glowered from the darkness. While dreaming of a steading and a redhead, he’d forgotten the fear, forgotten how easy it was to go from a successful captain to a poor and hungry one. He was now captain of a band of warriors with empty bellies and sharp swords. He would never have taken the field if he’d known what would happen after Gáirech. He supposed it was an easy conclusion when looking back. He preferred to look ahead and leave the past in his wake. The others in the fían did not have similar goals. They preferred to look back and whine about how unfair the world was to them.
Sighing, he loosened his dagger and walked into the clearing, asking, “What’s amiss?”
“Where’ve you been?” Sharvan asked with a snarl, no pretense of subservience.
Nechtan stopped beside the fire, deciding it was time to elect a new lieutenant. Sharvan would have to meet an unfortunate end first, but it was time for Gráinne to be elevated. She showed more intelligence than the giant. He was big and strong. Fast. No one would argue with him, but leadership required something extra. It was something Sharvan did not possess.
“You deaf?”
Nechtan sighed. Over the years, he’d learned that the only thing worse than a dense warrior was a dense warrior who considered themselves an intellect. Gráinne was staring into the forest, deep in contemplation, lips pressed tight. No backing there then, he realized.
“You forget who’s captain here. I see you’re feeling the pain of the last few days, so I’ll let it pass. Just once, mark me. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s amiss.”
“Why did you sneak out of camp?”
“My movements are no concern of yours. It seems, Sharvan, you’re having a crisis of understanding. I’m captain here. You’re nothing but a fénnid. A large and slightly dim–”
“Watch yer mouth,” Sharvan interrupted.
Nechtan put a hand on the hilt of his sword and took a step forward, hoping the threat would be enough. Sharvan made to stand, but Gráinne took hold of his wrist, restraining him by her will.
“While you were gone, I went scouting to Caer Leb,” she said. “The druid is already dead. Shot with an arrow from the forest. By a master archer, they say.”
So, Gráinne leads the dissent. She scouted. She came back and excited the warriors.
“Already dead? What do you mean, already dead?” Nechtan asked innocently.
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“Don’t try that,’ Sharvan hissed. “You think we’re thick as palisade trunks? You did it. You mean to rob us of the purse.”
“You think I killed the greybeard to keep the purse. Why, then, am I here? Why am I not halfway to the sundered oak?”
He smiled at the confusion on the giant’s face. Gráinne stared at him, fingering her sword hilt, her eyes unfathomable.
“So, where were you?” she asked.
Rather than answer, Nechtan spat into the fire. He might understand their insubordination. They had also been knocked on their arses by the battle, but that did not mean he would be lenient. He grasped the hilt of his sword and was about to draw it when one of the guards hissed, “Rider approaching.”
Nechtan crossed his arms and waited for the rider to enter the glade. He was not surprised when a warrior in a boiled leather vest and a fur-lined helm, carrying a lance, reined in beside them.
“Which one is Nechtan?” he asked, scanning the crowd, eyes lighting on Sharvan.
“That’d be me,” Nechtan said, scowling over the fire.
It was bad enough for this warrior to ride into the camp uninvited, but mistaking the brainless giant as captain just added an insult to the existing offense.
“For now,” Sharvan whispered, loud enough for all to hear.
Nechtan ignored him. He would deal with the mutiny after dealing with the warrior.
“Who’re you? What do you want?” he asked.
“What, no invitation to dismount and join you by the fire, Nechtan. Bit discourteous, isn’t it?”
“Until I know who you are, you’re not welcome.”
“Come, warrior, join us in camp. I offer meat and mead in welcome,” Gráinne said, causing Nechtan to raise his eyebrows.
He cursed himself for a fool. For her to invite a stranger into the camp after her captain had refused meant only one thing. She’d been expecting the visit. He looked at her and wondered what her motives might be. He supposed the one she invited to join their camp knew the truth of it. Shrugging, he sat on a log close to the central fire, holding out his palms as though warming them. The visitor dismounted and joined him.
“Like I said, who are you, and what do you want?” Nechtan asked. “You can rest easy now. I will not kill someone who has been offered welcome at my fire.” At least not until I know what you want.
“I’m Cet macMagach, Queen’s Champion of Connacht.”
Nechtan wondered when the queen became entitled to have a champion. Things were following a sorry path in a kingdom when the king was a drunken fool, and the queen commanded enough respect to have a warrior declare as her champion.
“And how long have you known Gráinne?”
The warrior darted a look at Gráinne before saying, “I don’t know any Gráinne.”
Nechtan had known the warrior would deny it, but he could not think of a quicker way to confirm his suspicions. Gráinne was fidgeting. Sharvan was peering at those sitting around the fire, confusion once more etched into the creases around his eyes. Nechtan suspected the man’s mouth was open but could not be sure because of the abundance of beard.
Not such a brainless shite he can’t recognize clear implications, Nechtan allowed. “What do you want, Cet?” he repeated.
“I’m here at the queen’s behest. She has a commission and requires a strong fían to carry it out for her.”
“Another one?”
Cet shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand you.”
“We are already on a commission for the queen, which has been carried out but not yet paid. She is offering another before paying for the first.”
“I know nothing of that,’ Cet shook his head. “All I know is she’s offering forty cumhals for a task.”
So, that is Gráinne’s game. She went to Caer Leb not to scout but to meet this warrior. She sold me for the promise of silver. To a one, the faces of the warriors sitting around the fires lit up at the amount of silver offered. He wanted to scream at them to open their eyes and recognize a trick when it was presented to them. “She already owes us thirty cumhals–”
“Which means we’ll get seventy when we’re done,” Sharvan interrupted.
The warriors all mumbled assent. Like Gráinne, they were being governed by greed.
“I say as captain, we cut our losses. The Cailleach is trying to trick us out of our purse. Normally, I’d meet that type of deception with the sword. That said, she is far too powerful, surrounded by her ráth, with an army protecting her.”
“What makes you think you’re captain?” Sharvan asked.
“Not following, Sharvan.”
“When you was away, trying to steal our pot, we had a vote. They elected me captain.”
Nechtan glowered at the warriors around the camp, who stared back, hard-eyed. He did not have a friend among them. He realized he would be lucky to escape the night alive. He stood and held his hands up, palms empty, forward, the sign of peace no one could misunderstand.
“I shall ride away, no hard feelings,” he said, hoping Gráinne or Sharvan would not realize he was a threat to them until long after he’d ridden out of the camp.
As Nechtan rode away, listening for any sound of pursuit, he could not help but laugh at the irony. Sharvan and Gráinne had used his killing of the druid as an excuse to usurp power, but he was nowhere near Caer Leb when Kathvar was killed. He’d only known about it because he went into the settlement to investigate the commotion when returning from the redheaded whore where he’d spent his last coppers.