He took a slow drink, and because she knew him, she saw he held in his own temper. And that added the first licks of fear.
“Tell me this, did you seek out Breen yesterday?”
“Breen? Well, of course, as Minga asked me, and Kiara as well, to show her and her friend warmth and welcome. Why would you slap at me so for it?”
“You sought her out to tell her you and I continue to share a bed, and when I shared one with her it was of no matter. I don’t take kindly to being used in a lie to hurt another.”
“This is nonsense. Nonsense! Oh, sure and I should’ve known better than to offer her a bit of kindness.” She swirled around the room as Keegan stood, quiet and still. “I should’ve known better than to hold my tongue when she raged at me and called me foul names.”
“Did she now?” Keegan responded before setting the tankard aside.
“I told her plain that what had been between us was in the past, and that I loved another, but she wouldn’t relent, so jealous, so furious she was. Now she’s twisted it all around, hasn’t she? Running to you to speak these lies.”
“So these are lies?”
“Of course!” Eyes wide, she put a little tremble in her bottom lip. “How could you think … Didn’t I apologize to you only yesterday? Though you’d hurt me, I gave you my regret for how I behaved. And though, even upon our first meeting, she gave me a look that chilled me, I went to offer her friendship and whatever help or companionship she might want or need while she’s in the Capital.”
Again, Shana pressed a hand to her heart. “And she flew at me, with such fury I thought she might strike me.”
“And did she fly at you before or after you told her she held responsibility for the fallen?”
She dropped her hand to her side. It burned, Shana discovered, the anger. But more scalding, the realization she’d misjudged her quarry. “Why would I say such a horrible thing?”
“Why indeed, Shana?”
“I tell you I did not, would not. But I see, oh aye, I see you take her word over mine, this woman from the outside, this woman you’ve known only months. You take her word over that of one of your own.”
She snatched up his tankard, drank to wash the bitter taste from her mouth. “She’s bespelled you, that has to be the truth of this. All saw the anger of her power this day.”
She heaved the tankard at the wall. “You are bewitched, and how can any trust you as taoiseach when one from outside, one with the blood of Odran, grips your will in her hand?”
When he let the silence hold a moment, another, she felt another lick of fear. When Keegan took time to hold his temper, when he chose his words deliberately, they could bite.
“Have a care, Shana, with what you say to me here. Have a care before you make accusations unfounded and untrue. As if you say them to others, make them to others outside this room, you won’t like the consequences.”
His words shocked her, but no more than the cold look on his face, the hard ice in his eyes. “You—you threaten me?”
“I warn you. I am taoiseach, and your taoiseach tells you now to guard your words. I tell you to keep good space between yourself and Breen Siobhan O’Ceallaigh. I release you from the courtesy of offering her welcome.”
At her sides, Shana’s hands fisted until her nails dug into her palms. “You would bar me from the Welcome tonight?”
“I won’t, no, as it would bring shame on your parents. But I warn you, for their sakes and your own, keep clear of her. She’ll only be in the Capital for a short time. I trust—must trust—that whenever she returns, you’ll have settled yourself.”
“I am settled, Taoiseach.” She spoke coldly now, her face like stone. “I am well settled. And I tell you in turn, you’ll regret your alliance with such as her.”
When she turned away, he let her storm out.
Twice now, he thought, Shana had clearly shown him what she was. So he regretted, very much, his alliance with such as her.
But considered the matter closed.
He walked over to pick up the dented tankard, and holding it, studied the map of Talamh on the wall.
And there were so many things, so many far more important things to worry about than a former lover’s ire.
With Brian on duty, Marco insisted on taking Breen down to the village. The long walk pleased Bollocks—and gave him another chance to jump in the river.
And it gave Breen a chance to see life in the Capital outside the castle.
She decided people gathering around the well equaled Talamh’s version of the office watercooler. Men and women chatted away while they filled jugs and buckets. Others leaned on the well, taking their ease while they talked.
Clothes flapped on lines behind cottages; sheep and cows grazed in pastures.
She watched a man and woman unloading bricks of peat from a wagon, and a woman—ripely pregnant—carrying a basket of fall vegetables into a pub where the music of a flute piped out like laughter.
Though the air blew brisk, the sun beamed, and that combined to create an ideal autumn day. Shopkeepers brought wares out into stalls to tempt passersby with more vegetables as colorful as a carnival, baked goods and leather goods, wooden toys and bowls and spoons, trinkets and jewelry, ribbons and buttons.
Shawls and scarves, caps and sweaters hung from pegs while in the next stall a cobbler hummed as he hammered the sole of a boot into place.
“Brian says it stays pretty busy,” Marco told her. “People come in to trade or set up a stall, maybe visit the castle grounds or some of the local sights.”
“It’s all bigger than I imagined.”
And full of life, she thought. Energy, movement.
“If we have a chance to come down again, we should bring something to trade. I made a few bracelets, but I didn’t think to bring them today. I’ve got a charm bag in my pocket, and a little bag of crystals. I’ll put something more together for next time. I’d like to find something to give Nan.”
As she thought of it, she saw a woman sitting in a rocking chair. Raven-black hair piled in a loose knot on top of her head, and a pumpkin-colored shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
As she rocked, she worked snow-white wool with knitting needles and tapped one booted foot to some internal rhythm.
The sign over her head read OF THE WISE.
She paused her knitting only to crook a finger at Breen.
As Breen stepped closer, she saw the red dragon flying over the field of white wool.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s for my great-grandchild who’ll come into the world by Yule. My twelfth she’ll be, and for each I make such a blanket so wherever they go through their life they know the dragon flies over Talamh.”
“A wonderful gift.”
“I know you,” she added, and set the knitting in the basket beside her chair. “You’ve the look of those who came before you. I, carrying in me my last child of seven, stood on the road right there when first Mairghread rode to the Capital as taoiseach. And so I stood when your father made that ride.”
She rose. “Come inside, Breen Siobhan. You and your friend and your fine dog there are welcome.”
“I don’t have anything to trade today,” Breen began as they followed the woman inside. Then she stopped, simply looked.
“You like what you see?”
“It’s wonderful. It’s a wonderful shop.” Though smaller by far, it made Breen think of the Troll cave.
“Wow.” Marco turned a circle. “It smells amazing in here.”
As he spoke, a black cat—who’d sat so still on a table Breen had taken it for a statue—leaped down. Instead of giving chase, Bollocks sat while the cat circled him.
“My Sira won’t harm your boy there. She’s only showing him who’s in charge.” With a laugh in her voice, the woman spoke to the cat in the old tongue.