The cobbles were bleached white where the sun shone directly over the four children running across them. Their laughter bounced off the stone walls and echoed back to the adults that might laugh at their youthful exuberance or frown at their lingering immaturity. They were six years old, give or take, and racing back to the training school eager for new lessons. A blond boy led them and only when he ground to a halt did the others stop behind him. A quick signal with his hand and they were silent, a wave lined them up precisely along the edge of the building on the corner of the narrow pathway onto the road they travelled. Their leader peered around the corner then whispered back to the shorter dirty faced boy behind him. In turn he whispered back to the brown-haired brown-eyed girl that was clearly his sister, and she passed on the message to the youngest girl with thick red plaits. An assortment of agreement, glee, and anticipation lit their eyes. This new game was to be much more fun.
From around the corner at which they crouched, another boy came. He was older by a few years, dark and tall. It didn't matter. No sooner had he stepped across their path but the blond boy was out like a loosened arrow slamming him down into the dirt. It brought a peal of very different sounding laughter from the other children, now moving in to surround the bewildered older boy. He picked himself back up. It was hard to look dignified with gravel stuck to his skin and a fresh and slightly bloodied tear in his clothing where his knee hit the ground, but he tried anyway. The blond boy sneered at him.
"School is that way. Where are you going?"
The dark-haired boy looked vaguely in the direction he nodded. "Not there."
The brown-haired girl spat. It landed just short of their prey's feet. She grinned over at her brother. "Ma s'right. He's in bread."
There was a flicker in the boy's eyes. A fire quickly quenched. He turned to the girl, a sneer forming. "You don't even know what that means."
She stomped her foot. "I do so!"
"Hey! Don't you look at my sister like that, freak!" The first kick fell home.
When the second one was blocked, the leader as good as cackled. "So it can fight! What is it, freak - you'll defend yourself but not Armengar?"
The voice that spoke next was timid as the girl with her plaits coming undone pushed in beside the blond boy. "My Daddy says it's selfish. We've all got to fight. Why don't you?"
The older boy blinked at the red-head now staring intensely at him. It seemed like a genuine question... but he knew better. She didn't want to hear a genuine answer. He didn't get a chance to give it to her. The blond boy nudged her in the arm in a manner that knocked her a few steps but at the same time was almost tender. "Don't be stupid, it's coz he's a coward, right?"
She nodded quickly back at him. "Right." She turned to the boy in the centre. "You're a coward." She had all the answer she would get and she was content with it.
The tall dark haired boy rolled his eyes, getting tired of this oft repeated scene. "Are you done? You're late for school."
"No!" The blond boy shoved him in the chest, then puffed out his own. "We're not. Not until you fight me." He didn't seem to notice how the tall boy moved not even a step.
"Ah yeah! Get him! And you can punch him like this... and get him down... and..." The younger boy began to demonstrate the great moves he felt should be utilised on the enemy in their midst.
"I have things to do. I don't want to fight you." Even as he said it...
"FIGHT ME YOU FREAK!"
Launching himself at the older child, his anger flared and quickly turned to panic as his blows were deflected and he found himself staring past a hand hovering over his nose to a strangely impassive face beyond. Then the two brown-haired children were there, throwing their blows and between the three of them they bore their prey to the ground and unleashed kicks into his prone form. The fourth child hopped nervously about the fray, looking for an opening but never quite finding the one she wanted... a voice rang out from the school, calling all the children in. Now there was something they feared and the four children quickly regrouped to get back before it was forced to call again.
The boy slowly uncurled himself as their footsteps grew fainter. Slowly, his ragged breathing eased out and his eyes opened. He expected to be alone again when he looked up, but that wasn't quite how it was. There lingering at the ambush point was the red-haired girl and she was looking back at him. For a moment their eyes met and she... wavered. It looked like she might even have ventured a step back toward him, but they were never to know.
"Come on Rua! Hurry up or we'll be in trouble!"
Her attention quickly swung to the voice echoing from beyond their view. This time when she looked back at him standing once more to his feet her eyes went everywhere but to his.
"I hope the Calebii kill you." She turned on her heels and ran toward where her name was being called more impatiently now.
"Rua? Rua, what is it?"
There was a light shaking of her arm as Rua opened her eyes adjusting to the dark and trying to focus. Lugh's face was deeply etched with concern where it watched over her.
"You were tossing something fierce - were you dreaming?"
She rubbed her eyes. "I don't-" Dust, feet, fists, and intense eyes. "Yeah. I woke you up. Sorry."
His hand moved to her face. "Don't worry about that. Are you okay?"
Rua dragged up a smile from somewhere. "Just a dream." She sat up. "Probably ate and drank too much at the banquet."
Lugh frowned, wholly unconvinced. "Are you sure? You seemed distressed."
She nodded, swinging her feet out of their bed. "Sorry I woke you. You should go back to sleep. I'm going to take a walk, clear my head."
His look was one of incredulity. "Rua it's the middle of the night!" Next he groaned, remembering something. "Does this have something to do with what Mactire said to you?"
Her eyes swivelled to meet his. Suddenly she had no difficulty focusing at all. Everything was suddenly very clear. "You know it might just." She bit her lip, considering it. "Yes. That's it exactly. Damn him anyway." When Lugh's hand touched her shoulder, she took it. "He's wrong, Lugh."
With a gruff nod Lugh too began to get out of bed. "I'll come with you."
"No." Her hand tightened on his. For the briefest of moments she noticed how odd a word it was for her to say to him. She remembered then to smile. "No. One of us should get some sleep. I won't be long, I just need some air and some room to think."
"Oh. If you're sure." He looked hurt and part of her wanted to quickly wrap him in her arms, tell him she was sorry and she wasn't going anywhere and everything was just fine... it was by no means easy to pretend she did not notice. She leaned over and kissed his cheek.
"I'm sure. I'll be back soon."
He relented and released her hand but the clenched lower jaw said he was none too happy about it. Well there was little she could do about that now. It was just one more thing. She pulled on some clothes and left him curled back in his own pretence of sleep.
The night air was fresh. It had a chill to it as Summer was reaching its end but that too was welcome. There was so much in her head right now. So much never said because there were far more important issues to deal with. Except they weren't more important. They were exactly the same and things were getting far too complicated now to pretend that was otherwise. She had to face him. Rua moved through the streets, not consciously aware of where she was going, but not at all surprised to find herself on that same corner. Oh there had been other corners too, other times, but this was the one that proved Mactire's point and it was time to turn that around. Even if it was the middle of the night.
She had to face him. Her footsteps slowed the closer she got to Cosaint's home. He never once questioned her or called her on the fact that she conveniently chose to forget that up until earlier that year her eyes never saw him. Always he treated her with respect and courtesy. He never brought it up and neither did she and that was good enough for her... right up until tonight. Mactire was wrong. People could change. It had only been a year and Rua... she didn't even recognise herself sometimes. But for all her new found ideals... she had to face him. She couldn't tell when she reached the door whether it was her knuckles on the wood or the pounding of her heart that beat the louder.
Eyes snapped open as a breath was caught in mid exhalation. A moment's hesitation and then a hand slowly snaked out towards a pouch beside the bed. Slowly, lightly, feet were placed on the floor...
Her fist stopped a hair's breath from the door. There was no sound of movement inside at all in the long minutes since she knocked and it was getting very late indeed... except tomorrow she might not be able to go through it. She knocked again, louder this time. When the door opened mid rap she almost stumbled inward on the half-clad Cosaint. His eyes questioned her before his lips could.
"I need to know something before we go any further with this. Are we friends?" She blurted the words out, caring more that they were said than that they were well chosen.
Cosaint blinked. He looked at her a long moment, not so certain he believed she was really there. The pause was creeping into discomfort before he finally stepped back with the slightest of nods and opened the door. "Perhaps you had better come in."
Rua stepped inside and the door closed behind them. He lit a couple of candles before leaving her standing with her arms folded around herself in the middle of the front room. After a moment his voice drifted out from his bed chamber.
"That's a most odd question, Rua. Care to explain?"
She looked around her. It was difficult to see much in the flickering candlelight. A chair, a small bookcase, a handful of sealed letters on the table. Non-descript and tidy in a way her own home never could be. Nothing to distract her from following through on what she came here to do. She gulped, hoping he was distant enough not to notice.
"I know it's late. I'm sorry to wake you." She let her arms swing down and stepped towards the bookcase. She looked at the print on the spines but read none of it. "Things have changed so much. There's so many people I'm pretending I know how to be right now." Closing her eyes, she pivoted to face his room. She opened them again and said, "That I can't pretend anymore to be other than who I was. I can't pretend the past never happened."
There was a shuffling inside the room, then Cosaint stepped out now fully dressed. "Come on. Let's walk."
Not a word passed between the couple as they walked. Nothing more than an odd glance came their way from the two or three other people also afflicted by sleeplessness that night. Before long they were outside a stone building. It looked like all the others around it. It was only the ever so slight relaxing of the muscles in Cosaint's chin that gave away there was anything special about it. He opened the door for her and they went inside. It was a small entrance hall with a number of doors leading from it. Cosaint picked up a lantern and lit it and they walked down the middle until they reached some wooden steps. Down the steps was the main hall; quite a large training area surrounded with benches and weapons racks against the walls. The weaponry itself was... for the most part quite unlike anything Rua had trained with in her time. She never knew Cosaint to be as centred as he seemed right now. At least one of them was at ease. She turned around to him.
"So this is..."
He nodded with a half smile. "This is where I grew up. Aonarach Hall. Yes." The smile then left his features and his expression turned both inquisitive and earnest. "Now will you tell me what's going on?"
It wasn't cold but she shivered anyway. She folded her arms back up and held onto her upper arms. "Mactire said I should talk to you about some of the ideas we share - I take it we spoke about much the same things."
Turning to walk over to the wall where he lit a mounted lantern, he glanced back over his shoulder, as he adjusted the chain which held the shutter. "I have trouble believing you came in the middle of the night to discuss that - why don't you tell me what's really on your mind."
Rua tried to meet his eyes, held contact for the briefest of moments, but she couldn't hold it. Looking back to the floor she rubbed her arms. "He said the people were sheep and they'd do whatever Fraoch told them. That's what started me thinking and now I can't get it out of my head."
"So", Cosaint started back across the floor to where she stood, and a somewhat amused tone creeped into his voice, "overcome by the poignancy of his metaphor you felt you had to take to the streets in the dead of night to tell me..."
With a deep sigh, Rua released the lock she had on herself and let her arms fall to her sides. She looked up to him. She had to face him. "It's true. We were. Most of us still are... I was. That's what I wanted to talk about. What we're doing... I need to know."
Coming to stand a short distance in front of her, he rubbed briefly at his eyes and then looked at her once more. "Forgive me if I'm a little slow Rua. It's late and I haven't been awake all that long. You need to know what?"
The words struck her and she nodded, warming more to the conversation now as her own words began to trip over themselves. "That's it exactly. Can you? Forgive me I mean? We never... spoke about it before but... I did everything that was expected of me, everything I thought I should do. Everything to make them all proud. I never saw myself as a cruel child, but I was. I remember it." She frowned, certain she was going about this all the wrong way. Even in the dim light the twitching of his facial muscles told her Cosaint was having as much difficulty with it.
Long seconds passed, as he seemed to consider her words intently, and a broad range of emotions flickered subtly across his face. Finally, he seemed to reach a decision. "Why don't you sit down? Tell me about it. Tell me what is really on your mind."
With a feeling of near relief Rua sat on the nearest bench. There was something almost grounding about it. "You were there, Cosaint." When she looked up to where he was still standing, she instantly regretted it. The look returned in his eyes was... chilling. Her breath caught in her chest as she quickly looked away.
When he spoke, his voice was calm and measured, but there was a biting coldness to it. "I think you'd better clarify exactly what happening you are referring to Rua."
This was a mistake. Coming here at this time of night, opening up all these old wounds now when they were both perfectly happy to let them lie. Why could she not have left well enough alone? Why couldn't she have let her husband console her back to sleep? Why did she have to go and change everything? Everything her eyes darted to around the room from the strange angular blades to the wooden balance beams demanded that she answer his question.
"I think I was six, the time I remember most. I was with Liam and Nuala and Aonghus. We were friends back then. We... ambushed you. It was stupid, we didn't understand - we couldn't understand! I'm sorry, I wish I could change it but..." She hadn't noticed her voice was rising in pitch and her words were jumbling together until his next question cut in with a thrust worthy of the training the man had received here.
"How many of you. This is very important."
"Four." She never felt so small.
"Four?" There was surprise in his voice and possibly something else...relief? "No, I don't think I do remember. Tell me about it." Looking at her he slightly raised an eyebrow and corrected himself. "Actually no, take a few deep breaths and then tell me about it."
Taking some comfort in that the edge had dulled from his tone, she did as he said and breathed slowly for a moment. It seemed to settle her and she continued. "I only realised tonight after what Mactire said how hard I was trying to forget it." She paused. Sitting beside her now, he waited. "You're really going to make me say it, aren't you?"
An ungiving silence was her only reply.
She knew this wasn't going to be easy but damn, did it really have to be this hard? She pulled herself together as best she could. "Alright then. Here it is. We were on our way back to the school and Liam saw you approach. He made us-" She stopped. That wasn't quite right. "He didn't make us do anything. He got us to hide out of sight and wait for you - he pushed you. He wanted you to fight him, when you wouldn't... well he fought you. Nuala and Aonghus joined in. I... and while something prevented me from hitting you..." She gulped and met his eyes. "I was still there. I never tried to stop it. And I said things too."
"What kind of things did you say, Rua?"
Her shoulders hunched to her ears and her hands gripping the edge of the bench, Rua examined the floor. "I called you a coward. I can't imagine how I could think that now when I was the coward." She grimaced at a spec of dust (or was it a shadow?) on the floor. "I also said I hoped the Calebii would kill you. Stupid ignorant things."
"I see..." When he spoke again there was an almost mocking query in his voice. "And do you feel better now that you have told me this?"
She looked up at him utterly surprised by his reaction. "No! No I don't! I feel terrible. I was the coward - looking back now, you were the bravest of all of us. It was stupid. I was stupid. I was everything Mactire accuses our people of. I went along with Liam because I didn't want him to turn on me, I didn't want to get in trouble. No, I don't feel better at all!"
Rising to his feet, Cosaint ran his hand through his hair and took slow measured paces about the hall. "So allow me to see if I understand this." His voice became more ardent with every passing word. "You wake me up at some obscene hour so you can bear your soul to me? You tell me stories of cruel children from my past in the hope of gaining some sort of forgiveness, so you can feel better and go back to living your happy life?" Turning back to her, he seemed somehow much larger and more intense than ever before. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I can't forgive you."
The blood drained down from her head so fast, Rua was sure she would faint. Her head swam as she tried to look at him but instead saw four of him, one beside the other, surrounding her. How she managed to rise to her feet she did not know. Her first three or four attempts to speak were abortive. Damn but she hadn't expected... she hadn't thought... she was an idiot and she deserved every word of it. What eventually came from her mouth was a stutter. "Oh...I'm...sorry. I'll get out of your way. Sorry."
"Sit down Rua." His voice carried an authoritative snap to it. "I have listened to you and now it is time for you to hear what I have to say."
She did as she was told.
Stepping slowly backward into the centre of the hall, there was yet a disconcerting directness and fervour in his comments and intonation. "Mactire says you are a sheep. I say that it is your choice whether you prove him right or not. Look around you Rua. This is where I spent the formative years of my life. This is where I learnt to fight and not to fight. This is where I sheltered from the rest of Armengar, and it is from here that I finally stepped out to meet our people head on. And this is where I learnt the lesson I will cherish more than any other in my life." His arms came down to rest at his sides, and when he spoke again it was almost a whisper. "This is where I learnt that maybe everything I believe is wrong. This is where I learnt that maybe I am a coward."
She seized upon his last words. "How can you say that? You're the least cowardly of all of us - to stand up against it all the way you did, to... take the cruelty you've had inflicted upon you. And after all the things the people of Armengar have done to you, you still fight for them whether they realise it or not!"
"Yes, I do." There was no attempt at rebuttal in his tone. "Maybe I'm afraid to do anything else. Maybe."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
A grim smile split his face. "What do you think I see when I look in a mirror Rua? Do I see a cowardly freak who turned his back on his people? Do I see a noble hero who clinged to his ideals when all around him reviled him for it? Or do you think maybe I see a frightened child, bleeding from cuts inflicted on him by a group of youngsters who were late for school?"
Rua pondered it a moment, then shook her head. "I don't know. All I know is what I see when I look at you. Not a cowardly freak or a frightened child, not even a noble hero. I see a man struggling to make sense of all that has happened to us in the last year and trying to find the best way through it, not just for himself but for Armengar too. I see a man my daughter admires almost as much as her own father. I see a man who somehow I've become dangerously involved with..." She hung her head. She had no right to expect him to tell her all was forgiven. Perhaps they could continue to work together as they had - she could only hope she hadn't destroyed that too. "We're not friends. I know that."
"No, you don't." He sounded exasperated now, almost like the tone she used with her children if they refused to behave. "I don't think you understand Rua. What I see when I look in the mirror is me, and it took me a long time to see that."
By Heramacles, she was tired. Too tired to try understand the circles he spoke around her. She looked at him, hoping he might continue.
A long out-breath was pushed out over his teeth, and the next words came almost haltingly at first, as if he was considering each syllable in turn. "Rua, here in Aonarach Hall, we cherish many things. We cherish life. We cherish the knowledge that there are choices to be made. But above everything else, we come to cherish one very important point - we cherish the knowledge that we are fallible." Crouching now in front of her, his mouth was stretched in a fanatical grin and his words were soft and yet thick with emotion. "It is the most terrifying thing you will ever come to admit, and it is the most beautiful realisation you will ever make. Do you understand why I can't forgive you now?"
"Truthfully? No."
"Because it isn't my place to do so," he spoke the last as if it should have been obvious to her, but then quickly interjected before she could take offence. "Don't misunderstand, I appreciate that you came to talk to me. The past is important. But only because it is what brought us here. Ultimately, the only forgiveness worth a damn is the one that will allow you to accept who you are. Only you can forgive you. Do you understand?"
It sounded like a cop out. He didn't want the responsibility so he bounced it back to her... except wasn't that exactly what she was trying to do waking him up in the middle of the night? But of course she needed to hear it from him - he was the wronged party. How could she even consider forgiving herself if he still bore a grudge for it? And he did bear a grudge, even if he wouldn't admit it to himself. Perhaps not against her but the coldness she had witnessed earlier... a coldness that lifted when more details came. There was something he could not forgive. Perhaps that was a big enough something he had no ill will left over for six year olds who knew no better. Except it wasn't just six, was it? There were other times - even as recently as a year ago - when Cosaint simply did not exist in her world because he didn't meet her standards of duty and honour and loyalty. And the loss was hers. Maybe if she had dared be seen talking to him she would have found her own path all the sooner. Maybe she could have seen someone other than a traitor's daughter, Mactire's student, or Lugh's wife in her own mirror long before now. She ended her latest scrutiny of the floor.
"Yes. I think so."
She had barely uttered the last word when the hall was plunged into darkness. Silence swallowed Rua whole, and in a moment's panic she realised that she had no idea where Cosaint was.
Hissing out of the inky shadows, a sibilant near whisper uttered three words "Not Good Enough".
"Cosaint?" she called. Her only answer was the sound of steel sliding over leather, as somewhere out in the dark a blade was drawn from its sheath. A tremble of fear coursed her spine as she realised just how little she really knew about the man out there in the dark. Cautiously she rose up from the bench and edged her way along the wall.
"Are you sure the door isn't locked?" a voice called out of the dark, freezing her to the spot. "It would be terrible to let me know where you were, only to find that there was no way out."
Halting where she stood, Rua forced herself to calmness, forced herself to think straight. She was still an Armengarian soldier, despite her recent feelings on that. Thinking back over the contents of the hall, she started to make her way towards one of the weapons racks.
"Go ahead, there are plenty of weapons there. Some of them, you may even be familiar with."
Freezing on the spot again, Rua's thoughts raced. Something was very wrong here. Over the years, her life had been threatened on many occasions. In the Calebii invasions when she charged headlong onto the battlefield, during the Gathering of Nations when she and Caoimhe had guarded Mactire during the Nosta Kor attack, and more recently, though she would never admit it to Lugh, every time she stepped into a ritual circle. Something was very different here. Taking a deep breath she made her decision.
"Here I am," she said and stepped out into what she felt to be the centre of the hall.
Light flared up behind her, and turning on the spot she saw Cosaint removing the shutter from a lantern.
Trimming the wick, he regarded her with an open question on his face. "If you had been wrong, you'd be dead now. How were you to know that I wouldn't kill you?"
Her shoulders fell back down and she visibly relaxed. "Because it's you."
A slight smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "That is not an answer, but it will do for now. In fact, it might have been the best answer you could give. Do you understand what I mean now? You could have been wrong, and your children would be sleeping at home without a mother now. Do you still think you are a coward?"
She met his eyes and held the contact. The adrenaline rush had done her good and she stood tall. "I know I'm no coward. But I was back then. I know that too. The first decision I ever truly made for myself was to change."
Staring right back into her eyes he regarded her steadily for a good minute. Then, finally, he seemed to have found what he was looking for and gave a slight nod. "Come on, we've kept the tenants of the hall awake long enough."
A flicker of confusion played with the shadows on Rua's face for a moment. "Oh I thought we were alone."
"But we were alone Rua." His voice was thick with injured sincerity, but a half smile threatened to form at the edge of his mouth. Comprehension dawned and Rua smiled back. Cosaint's grin spread fully across his face. "Only my friends would know otherwise."
Light shimmered down to illuminate hands with a paleness that belied months spent working under the summer sun. Muted noises from the world above were drowned out by the surging of limbs as they kicked for the surface. Hair cut short nonetheless flowed freely, and coursed in differing directions with each change in pace.
With a gasp Cosaint's head broke free of the water, and he allowed himself to drink in deep lungfuls of air. The sun beat down harshly on this river pool beneath the Armengarian plateau, though a cool breeze played across the surface of the water. Having caught his breath once more, he set off with determined strokes towards the shore where he had left his clothes waiting, and yet stopped just short and considered.
It was good to swim. It was good to lie suspended in the water, buoyed by the river and with all weight cast aside. It was good to lie just beneath the surface and feel as though the entire world were held at bay by a clear barrier; one existence separated from the next with none of the troubles of one crossing over into the other.
It felt like freedom.
With a sigh he pulled himself out of the water and quickly began to dry off his soaked limbs. Here on the exposed riverbank, the chill wind played mercilessly across his back and raised a chattering in his teeth. With quick, graceless movements he pulled on his trousers and his jacket, then turned to sit facing the water.
Slowly the events of the previous day drifted back into his mind as he gazed at the sun dancing over the ripples. A smirk broke over his lips as a thought came to him. Less than twelve hours ago, he was certain that he would be sitting here now in a foul mood. Certainly the conduct of his people at the Volksraad had raised bile in his throat, and his dreams for the future had been buffeted about like a hawk caught out in a storm. Yet life was full of surprises.
Months before he had marvelled at the love Rua had shown for her children. Now he delighted in the strength she had shown in coming to him the night before. She gave him hope, for like all Armengarians she was a product of her training. And like all Armengarians, she was so much more.
You think they are sheep Mactire? A question asked to an absent colleague, it nonetheless carried with it an air of challenge. Come then wizard and find what happens when a sheep breaks from the flock.
Standing he turned to look up at the citadel, and between barely parted lips he framed a quiet question.
"Are you ready now Mactire? Are you ready to see the Lions of Amnor?"
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