Chapter 7
The Highlands
Year 3 of the reign of King Uthgar
Exile year 6
Nial ducked under the flap and entered his wife’s tent.
“Well, I’m home.”
“So I see,” Samara suEilidh said, looking up for a moment from a pot she was stirring that was sitting in the coals of her fire. “You’ve set the boy on his course, then.”
That wasn’t a question, and Nial didn’t take it as such.
“Two days ago at dawn. They’ll be nearing the Crease by now.”
“Such a silly name for a pass,” Samara said, lifting the spoon from the pot and examining what was on it.
“Eh, that’s what it looks like for most of the way down,” Nial observed. “Like a fold in a piece of cloth. It’s not until you near the bottom that it opens wider.”
Samara took a piece of cloth and folded it around the handle of the pot to lift it and set it aside on a piece of slate to cool. Then she lifted her face to her husband. He froze as he saw the ice in her eyes.
“Our sons are gone from us; Duncan for twelve more years, Llêw now for perhaps three. My tent is empty of family, but for me and thee. And you allowed it; you even aided it. You insisted that Lorana give Duncan his clan marks, not me, or even Llewass the healer—only she gave him far more than that, didn’t she? What did she do to our son that you gave her nine of your prized horses for it, hmm, when one scraggly colt would surely have been enough?”
She stood and faced Nial, hands fisted on her hips. “Why did you not fight harder for Duncan? Why did you allow them to exile him? You could have swayed more of them. I know this.” She paused a beat. “I know this, Nial. So tell me, now that my tent is as barren as my womb, why? What did your brother Jamesh tell you that brought you to this?”
That last took Nial aback. Of all the questions she could have asked, that was the most unexpected.
“What makes you think Jamesh told me anything?”
The slap Nial received was proof that Samara had lost none of her strength in the last few years of sitting on the clan council as a leader more than a doer in the clan. The force of it knocked Nial’s head to the side. His cheek was left burning, and his ear ringing.
The ice in Samara’s gaze was gone, replaced by coals that poured light out of her brown eyes.
“Do not think me a fool, Nial corAnuwn. Your father may have been the wisest man in the clan, and you may be the greatest strategist in any of the clans fit to sit a horse today, but you’re not the only one who can see which direction the wind blows, or who can pluck a hair from a bush and know what horse has passed by. I knew the night you returned from his deathbed that he had told you something. Your eyes were dark holes in your head. For months you would look to the night sky for hours, and shake your head before you came into the tent. Or you would stare off to the south or west and mutter something I could never understand. I waited for you to tell me what he’d laid on you. I waited for over a dozen and eight years for you to speak. And you never did—not even to me, the one person in the clan who has stood with you and watched you and over you and guarded your back for over two dozen years. I understood when you said nothing to others, but you said nothing to me! Whatever it was—is—I could have helped! I can help! You know that!”
Her impassioned speech came to an end. She raised a hand that Nial was surprised to see was shaking and drew the back of it across her mouth. It touched him to know what she had seen and known all these years.
“So tell me now,” Samara resumed in a lower tone, “tell me what your brother laid on you all those years ago.” She folded her arms, and waited.
Nial took a deep breath. He had little hope that this would end well.
“I can’t,” he began, then hurriedly held up his hands as Samara’s face distorted with anger. “It’s not that I will not, Samara, it’s that I cannot. I swore an oath—one that I literally cannot chance breaking—that I would not reveal what was said to me before something happens.”
“An . . . oath . . .” Samara’s voice was hard. “I am part of you, just as you are part of me. What kind of oath will bind you against me? I think you don’t want to tell me. I think you are enjoying this little secret of yours. Well, may much joy of it come to you.” She began to turn away.
“My brother knew me well,” Nial said in a soft tone, one that caused Samara to turn back to him. “He knew that we two are one. He knew I could swear on my own blood, my own life, on the names of our parents, on the name of the White God himself, and I would immediately turn to you and share it. He knew he could call the White God, or the old gods, or the earth itself to witness, and you would still have known before the sun set that day.”
Nial swallowed. His tone was a bit uncertain when he continued.
“He bound me by the one oath he knew would force me to keep his words to myself alone.” Nial swallowed again, and stretched his hands out toward his wife. “He made me swear on your blood, your life,” his hands turned to fists and dropped to his sides, “and then he called both the White God and Ilmar Himself to witness the oath.”
Samara paled, and placed the back of her hand against her lips again. “He did that? He bound you with that oath?”
“He was my brother, my older brother, Samara, and I loved him as much as Llêw loves Duncan, maybe more. He was dying. He asked, and I gave—and then he told me his word—and oh, how I regretted the giving of that oath! But once given, it could not be taken back. Once spoken, the words could not be unsaid. And it’s many a time I’ve wanted to tell you of what Jamesh said, but I would not and will not chance your life—not with that oath!”
Nial took a deep breath, then another, fighting for calm. When he arrived at it, he said only, “Once Jamesh had said his word, an ease came upon him, and he passed in peace.”
“Leaving you to carry his burden.” Samara’s voice was stark.
“Aye.”
She crossed her arms and turned away from him, walking around to the other side of the fire.
“Leave.”
Nial inclined his head to her, gathered his cloak and his bags, and left his wife’s tent without a word.