The Bealltainn rite of confinement was what Sören had subjected Fillan to during the night. As the sunrise bathed the dolmen in light and dissipated the morning mists, the Norwegian explained to him that it was a test passed down through the ages. The Brotherhood of Assassins in Scotland was the only group who still practiced it. It was a rare legacy of the intriguing organization that the mercenary followed, and which he had put each member of his group through.
Sören had congratulated him, but Fillan had simply given him a blank stare before heading to the training ground.
Kyle was waiting for him there with a firm stance, as if she hadn’t doubted for a moment that he would pass the test. She tried to apologize, but he cut her off. He was angry with her because she tricked him. This rage had provoked a formidable ferocity which allowed him to hit her several times. Once the session was over, he left her there without a word, without a look, creating a wall of awkwardness between them.
Now that the festivities were over, Deorsa had advised them to leave Dalkeith shortly after noon to reach Leith, a port city near Edinburgh, as quickly as possible. There, they could cross the mouth of the Forth to reach Scone faster. The English were advancing, and the group had to maintain its lead.
It took a day, during which Fillan sulked ostensibly, before the first houses of the city suburbs came into view. Everyone pulled down their hoods, even Fillan, who had been given a coat by the leader of the mercenaries before leaving Dalkeith.
“Edinburgh is only a few miles away,” said Sören, slowing them down for all to hear. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find that every corner is crawling with English spies or Lann Fala, so let’s stay cautious.”
“What did the old snake say?” Kyle asked, speaking of Deorsa.
“He wasn’t too sure, so let’s avoid getting ourselves noticed too much.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?!” Edan bellowed.
“Because you screwed up big time in Dalkeith,” retorted the warrior in annoyance. “Seducing the baker’s wife and blacksmith’s wife at the same time, seriously?!”
“In his defense,” Fergus said, “he didn’t have much success with either of them.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, music man! Just because I’m not as good as you for…”
“That’s enough,” Sören interrupted. “Kyle is right. If Patrick de Graham’s son hadn’t intervened, you would have ended up rotting in a jail, so keep to yourself.”
The throngs of refugees were growing, forcing their horses to tighten together in formation. Fillan and Kyle’s knees touched, but they avoided each other’s gaze.
“Once we enter the city,” resumed Sören, “Edan, Fergus, and I will go to the docks to find someone who’ll give us passage to cross. Moira, Kyle, and Fillan, you’ll wait for us at the Shor’O’Forth inn. No need to make that face, Kyle. Better to go there than anywhere else. Either way, you’ll have to stay on your toes.”
He suspected that the Norwegian was misinterpreting Kyle’s reaction. What bothered her was almost certainly getting stuck with Fillan, who was acting as if she didn’t exist. The two groups separated shortly after passing the city gates. The young man, the druid and the warrior dismounted to progress through the main thoroughfare. The bustle of all merchant towns surrounded them. A ceaseless ballet of barges, merchants, travelers, and beggars jostling and shouting at each other surrounded them.
The clamor of Leith contrasted with the terse silence that fell over the trio.
“I’m feeling some tension here,” said Moira, wedged between her two fellows.
“Oh, that?” Kyle said. “It’s just Fillan the simpleton, who sulks at the entire Earth because of the rite, even at the woman he kissed during the night of Bealltainn!”
Fillan felt himself turning crimson.
“Well, look at that!” Moira laughed. “He does have some strange ways. But don’t you worry, my boy, Kyle isn’t just anyone.”
As he caught the murderous look she shot him, he was convinced that he’d never find such a character like her again in any town.
“Don’t hide behind your horse,” teased the druid. “We know you’re there!”
“I don’t like people using my feelings to trick me, that’s all,” he replied, trying to be as cold as Sören might have been, but emotion shook his voice.
“Because you think I kissed you for fun, just to kill time before we stuffed your head in a bag?!” Kyle fumed, turning red with anger.
He didn’t say anything.
“Don’t move,” she yelled, kicking him hard in the butt. “This will put you in your place! It’s about time I give you a piece of my mind!”
“Stop it right now!” thundered Moira, noticing that passersby were watching them. “I don’t want to put up with your bickering, just because you are both incapable of seeing what’s so blatant to everyone else.”
“Oh, yeah?” asked Kyle, playing smart. “And what’s that, Miss know-it-all?”
“That you both desperately dream of repeating your nocturnal experience, but you prefer to behave like children.”
This time, Kyle also turned crimson.
Satisfied with the effect, Moira led them inside the Shor’ O’Forth, where the joyful and drunken tavern atmosphere was aplenty. There were so many people that no one paid them any attention. They sat in a corner of the room and ordered beers that they sipped to blend into the background.
A long time passed without any of them saying anything.
“I’m going to go…” began the druid, looking for an excuse she could use to escape the discomfort of the two young people, “…to the bar!”
“I’ll come with you!” Kyle replied, jumping up.
“No, you stay there!” ordered her friend, before disappearing into the crowd.
Fat sailors began to sing horribly out of tune.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” asked Fillan, trying to drown out the cacophony.
“When I said you were a simpleton? Absolutely!”
“I was talking about—”
“I know what you were talking about,” spat the young woman furiously. “And you’re a moron if you think I only kissed you to help Sören take you to the dolmen. I did it because I wanted to, that’s all. Ask me a question like that again and I’ll dump my beer all over you.”
She hit him in the shoulder, and he pouted as he pulled a splinter from the table.
“What was Moira implying when she said that you weren’t just anyone?”
“Nothing at all.”
She was lying, just like every time he asked a question of her, but she had moved closer to him. Their knees were touching, and she stared at him less gloomily, as if waiting for something.
“I thought you would at least try to apologize for ignoring me since yesterday,” she finally sighed. “I underestimated your stupidity.”
“But I…”
“You are a simpleton,” she concluded, getting up to go join the druid.
He followed her with a questioning gaze. Since when had he become so bad with women that he found himself sputtering like a kid? He swallowed his beer in one pull to forget his stupidity, and observed the regulars who drank and ate happily. Seamen raised their mugs and sang louder, and their high notes sounded just like suffering seagulls. Someone told them to shut up by throwing a stool, which provoked an angry wail from the innkeeper.
Fillan let himself be lulled by the memory of the taverns of Berwick where the mood was not that different. Among the crowd, a movement of red hair caught his eye. He stood up suddenly when he recognized the way Ailéas walked and almost fell over his seat. The young woman left the establishment and he rushed after her without thinking.
The twilight breeze, laden with spray and the smells of the city washed over him. He spotted the long, tawny hair making its way through passersby to turn down a road adjoining the inn. Fillan felt his heart beating so fast it might burst as he ran to join his twin.
He caught up with her in the alley and tugged her arm, forcing her to turn around. In the middle of the hair, two frightened blue eyes appeared in the half-light. He hastened to let go, so she didn’t start screaming. It was not his sister, he was wrong. He apologized profusely and let the young woman run away at full speed.
As he retraced his steps, he cursed himself internally. Ailéas was dead—he had to face it and move on. This was what Bealltainn had taught him.
Absorbed by his thoughts, he only saw the man walking towards him at the last moment, a red cape flapping in the darkness.
A Lann Fala! he thought, his body freezing.
He dodged the first arc of the dagger, then freed himself and looked for his sword, but discovered he had made a terrible mistake before the fight even began: he had left it inside the inn.
He leapt aside to dodge another attack before punching the warrior in the face. Bones in his knuckles cracked, and the man groaned. The Lann Fala struck another blow with his dagger, then another with the reverse, which Fillan dodged. With a nimble kick, he sent the blade flying in the air before grabbing it with his fingertips.
The man gave a frightened cry and tried to flee, but Fillan, whose very being cried out for blood and vengeance, stabbed him frantically. The Lann Fala collapsed with a frightened howl. Fillan struck, again and again, the memory of his sister’s dim eyes popping up in his head with every stab he landed, with every trickle of blood that spurted out.
He only stopped when a hand prevented him from doing more.
“Have you lost your mind?” Sören growled.
Fillan did not understand, but when he got up and looked at the body, he almost collapsed. The man he’d taken for a Lann Fala was just a lousy robber.
Rage and fear had blinded him.
“He attacked me… I thought he was a Lann Fala…”
Someone yelled down the main thoroughfare to call for help.
“Edan,” Sören said to the bald man standing at the end of the alley, “you leave with the others, and we meet at the docks! We’re going over the rooftops!”
They climbed up before setting off at a demanding pace, disappearing in the black heights of the city. In front of them, the path opened towards the north and the dark mouth of the Forth, waiting for them like a dark maw. They’d only gotten one street away from the inn when the first guard sounded the alarm. The chaos spread below, and they doubled their pace, jumping from roof to roof.
They reached the port out of breath, and the rest of the band joined them with the horses and their belongings.
“We have to go!” yelled Edan. “The guards saw us leave; I wouldn’t be surprised if they follow us!”
Without wasting a second, a man who looked more like a bandit than a boat captain invited them to board a holque*.
Once on board and leaning on the rail, Fillan tried to calm the thumping of his heart as the wind swelled the wide sails of the ship.
“Sören just told me what happened,” said someone softly.
Kyle settled next to him.
“How do you feel?”
“Like someone who just killed a man!” He threw his arms in the air.
“That bandit would have killed you.”
“Nope! I managed to disarm him, and he tried to run away! I was so sure it was one of Cornavii’s men that I slaughtered him.”
“Do you want to hear some advice?” asked Kyle calmly, grabbing Fillan’s trembling fingers and gently wiping away the sticky blood that covered them.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope!” she retorted playfully. “Calm down and don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s the first time you weren’t paralyzed by a fight, and you didn’t kill an innocent.”
“You don’t understand! I acted like a rabid beast!”
“You did what you had to. Many others would have done the same. Do you imagine that Edan would have patted your bandit on the back? I myself have experienced times when anger blinded me.”
“And what did you do?”
“I learned the balance between rage and reason,” she explained, grabbing the carved bone hanging from Fillan’s neck. “It’s not for nothing that I gave you this. Ogme is a good example of this balance. For the moment, it’s no use to torture yourself: what’s done is done,” she continued, before depositing a kiss on his cheek and leaving him to his thoughts.
He gazed for a long time at the dark waters of the Forth, which shone with the reflections of the moon. The further they sailed from shore, the more the lights of Leith shrank until they were no bigger than sparkling dots. A few gusts whistled through the masts, like a funeral oration. Fillan decided to clean his bloody hands, which had finally stopped shaking.
Something inside him screamed and demanded revenge he couldn’t take. And this violence frightened him.
* A holque is a sailboat primarily used for river and sea travel. It is normally limited to coastal areas.