Eoghan showed him the way back to their céad’s barracks, and Conor’s stomach clenched a little tighter with every step. Easy for Riordan to say his loyalty should lie with his céad. He already knew these boys. Or men, really. To these seventy strangers, Conor was just an outsider.
Smoke curled from the hole in the thatched roof when they arrived, light spilling from the open door along with the rumble of male voices. As Conor climbed down the steps into the cavernous space, the noise quieted.
Eoghan didn’t seem to notice. “Lads, this is our new novice, Brother Conor.”
Anyone who hadn’t already been staring stopped what he was doing. Conor’s skin prickled under the scrutiny. Was he supposed to say something?
Instead, he just gave a nod and turned to Eoghan. “Where do I sleep?”
“Choose an empty bunk.”
The noise resumed around him as the men turned back to their tasks. Some swept the hard-packed floor, while others sketched or wrote with charcoal nubs on scraps of birch bark. They all looked strong, fit, and much older than Conor. A few gave him appraising glances as he passed, sizing him up and dismissing him just as quickly.
He didn’t fit here any better than he had in Tigh.
He stopped at the first empty bed he found and sat on the edge of the mattress. The routine seemed to be winding down, his céad mates removing shoes and tunics and settling onto their bunks. He hesitated. It wasn’t as if he could hide his thin scholar’s body forever, but he wasn’t sure he was ready to make a fool of himself.
Conor looked up when a pair of trousered legs came into view. The boy was about Conor’s age, tall, muscular, with black hair and eyes nearly as dark.
“You’re the prince.”
Eoghan had said the same thing earlier, but this felt like an indictment.
Conor cleared his throat. “Not anymore, I suppose.”
The boy looked him over, then his mouth tipped up in a sardonic smile. “Nice boots.”
Conor looked down again, confused. Then he realized the Fíréin all wore soft, simply laced shoes. His fine, calf-high leather boots marked him as a nobleman as surely as if it had been branded on his forehead. He flushed.
“Tor, you coming? It’s your turn.”
Tor threw a glance at a younger boy a few bunks away, where he waited with a cross-shaped game board. King and Conqueror, Conor guessed. “Aye. I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Conor with a smirk. “Sleep well, princeling.”
Conor frowned at the boy as he swaggered away. A few others chuckled as if they were in on the joke. He scanned the area for Eoghan, but his only friend had already been swallowed into the huge room.
Slaine strode into their midst, and the sound died instantly. He glanced around, his gaze settling on Conor just long enough to say he had noted his presence. “Lights out, lads.”
Instantly, a half dozen men rose and snuffed out the rush lights, sending a waft of acrid smoke into the air even as they plunged the clochan into semidarkness. Only the small fire in the pit illuminated the rest of the céad as they settled down for the night.
Conor stripped down to his trousers, hung his tunic on the peg above his bed, and climbed beneath the scratchy wool blanket. Almost immediately, soft snores filled the room. He sighed. He would never be able to rest with the racket of seventy men snoring. Perhaps he should pray a bit first.
He only made it through the opening words before sleep took him.
Sounding horns intruded on his dreams.
Conor burrowed deeper under his blankets, trying to escape the noise, until a rough but familiar voice growled, “Up now, boy!”
Conor gasped as the blanket was ripped away, the cold air hitting his bare skin, and jerked upright. He rubbed his gritty eyes and struggled to speak through his tight throat. Surely he couldn’t have slept more than an hour or two. “What time is it?”
“Time to get up.” Slaine grabbed Conor’s tunic from the peg and tossed it at him. “Convocation, breakfast, then Reamonn. Quickly now.”
Conor donned his tunic, his pulse pounding in his ears from the urgency in Slaine’s orders. Most of his céad mates were already dressed, a few still combing and braiding their hair. Some headed up the steps into the gray morning.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed and thrust them into his boots.
His toes squelched into something cold and wet.
Snickers from across the room drew his attention. Tor and his game partner. Perfect. He should have anticipated something like this. No wonder the other lads had laughed at him.
He pulled his muddy feet out of his boots, marched to the cold fire pit, and emptied the lake from them. Wordlessly, he shoved his feet back in, trying not to grimace. The leather was ruined, and the sand would likely give him blisters, but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing their prank had hit its mark.
Conor lingered as long as he dared, letting the others go before him. Eoghan waited for him outside, an appraising look on his face. His eyes dipped to Conor’s boots, and a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“So I’m to be the new target,” Conor said as they moved toward the amphitheater. “For how long?”
“Tor and Ailbhe like to test the new boys. They’ll keep pressing until you put a stop to it.”
“And how do I do that?”
“Beat them. At archery. At staff practice. While they sleep.”
Conor chuckled at his friend’s wicked grin. Then he remembered the game Tor and Ailbhe had been playing the night before. “King and Conqueror?”
Eoghan’s grin widened, and he thumped Conor on the back hard enough to knock the breath out of him. “That’ll do, princeling. For a start.”
Conor quickly fell into an unvarying routine of labor and worship: up at dawn, morning devotions in the amphitheater followed by a quick breakfast, then off to his morning work. Sometimes he tilled or planted. Other days, he hauled nets on Loch Ceo, carried water from the lake, or performed any number of other duties that left him aching and exhausted. Still, he never complained, and he never stopped, turning his mind to Aine or a harp composition he would never play. His stoicism garnered curious looks but never praise: after all, he was just doing what was expected of a Fíréin brother.
Afternoons passed with easier but no less tedious pursuits: braiding wicks for the chandlers, gutting fish in the cookhouse, or washing dishes in one of the many troughs for which he had carried water. In the evenings, he whittled small chunks of wood into the approximation of game pieces for King and Conqueror, working as quickly as he could manage to put together his own game board. So far, he’d woken up to find a frog, a centipede, and some unpleasantness from the goat pens in his boots.
“You’d better do something quick,” Eoghan observed one morning. “Your footwear won’t endure much more ill treatment.”
Conor grinned. “This is my last piece. And it’s time for a little retaliation.”
He didn’t have time to propose a game of King and Conqueror to Tor and Ailbhe that night. They were far too busy trying to locate the smell coming from where he’d smeared the goat dung on the undersides of their mattresses. The rest of the céad roared with laughter while they tore apart their spaces looking for the source.
And in one instant, Conor’s status in the céad shifted.
Tor wasn’t first to approach him for a game, though. That honor went to Larkin, one of the older of the men, soon to take his oath of brotherhood. He settled onto the bed while Conor briefly explained the rules, then asked half a dozen simplistic questions before proceeding to eliminate Conor’s army in thirty-six moves.
“Never underestimate your opponent,” Larkin said. “Even if he gives you reason to do so.” He glanced back to where Tor watched them and gave Conor a significant nod.
The warning made him nervous, but the retaliation Conor expected didn’t come.
That was the reason behind the backbreaking routine, he realized. The veneer of peace over Ard Dhaimhin was something of an illusion. Conflict and resentment still simmered beneath the surface. Most of the time, though, the men were too exhausted to do anything more than trade pranks or snide comments. Still, Conor held his breath, waiting for Tor’s dislike to erupt into something more.
The first time Conor saw a man whipped bloody in front of the entire assembly for striking a brother in anger, he understood why it never would.
Physical labor and discipline might have been the life’s blood of Ard Dhaimhin, but he soon learned daily devotions were its beating heart. The Fíréin required all members to attend evening convocation, but most of the oath-bound brothers attended the morning gathering as well. Sometimes Master Liam led the service, but other members of the Conclave, including Riordan, also took their turns. It was an awe-inspiring sight, all those men, all believers, gathered in one place to study the word of Comdiu. Every time they raised their voices in unison for the invocation, it sent chills across Conor’s skin.
“It’s something you never get used to,” Riordan said. “I had to hide my faith for so long, it still seems incredible to worship openly.”
Conor studied his father’s profile. The convocation was the one time of day he saw him alone. They rarely spoke, but Riordan seemed to be content to just sit quietly together. “Is that why you stayed all these years?”
“I stayed because it was the one place I knew you’d always be able to find me.”
Conor turned back to the rapidly emptying amphitheater. “I’m glad.”
And surprisingly, he meant it.