‘I see,’ he replied, coldly. ‘The same kind of joke that places the Long Laird’s servants in a lice-infested hut, with rats for company?’
The same kind,’ she agreed. ‘Let us make a new start, Connavar. I see I misjudged you. The fault was mine. Can we begin again?’
Conn sheathed his sword, took back his cloak from Parax, and bowed once more. ‘Indeed we can,’ he agreed, casting a glance at Fiallach, whose face had turned grey with anger. Drawing his dagger he cut the ropes tying the two men.
‘Have you broken your fast?’ Llysona asked him.
‘Not as yet, my lady.’
‘Then you and your servant can join us in the hall.’ Llysona swung on her heel and walked back through the doorway.
Fiallach strode across to where Conn stood. ‘Don’t think this is over,’ he hissed. ‘You are mine. By all the gods I swear it.’ Then he followed the lady inside.
‘You may not be good at making friends,’ whispered Parax. ‘But by Heaven you are second to none when it comes to making enemies.’ .
Tae rode beautifully, the white gelding responding instantly to each delicate touch on the reins or movement in the saddle. ‘He is wonderfully trained,’ observed Conn, as they crested the last rise and rode up to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea. ‘Did you train him yourself?’
‘No. My cousin Legat trains all our mounts. He has a way with ponies. I swear he speaks their language. No whip or stick. He talks to them and they seem to understand him.’
‘My father was said to be like that,’ said Conn, noting the young man’s name. He would need expert horse handlers for his new herds. The breeze picked up, blowing in from the sea, cold and fresh. Tae’s dark hair billowed out like a black banner, exposing her long neck. Like a swan, he thought, a beautiful swan. ‘Let’s move back into the shelter of the trees,’ he said. ‘We’ll tether the ponies and look around.’
The wind here was broken by the tree line. They dismounted and Conn walked back to the cliff edge, climbing down and sitting on a jutting rock. From here he could see the river and the distant estuary. There were many landing places along the shoreline. Tae joined him, and he drank in the beauty of her walk, tall and proud, with an unconscious grace.
‘It is beautiful here,’ she said. ‘This is one of my favourite places.’
‘Aye, beautiful,’ he replied. He turned away and stared down at the shimmering water below.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I am seeing longships move up from the sea, and beaching along the shore. The land falls away from the west, and the only warning Seven Willows will receive is when the first of the raiders crests the hill a mile above the settlement.’ He scanned the cliffs then returned to the ponies. They rode south along the cliffs, the ground steadily rising. At last they reached a point where the distant stockade could be seen. ‘There should be a tower here, constantly manned. And over there a ready-laid beacon fire. In the day it could be doused with lantern oil. When lit the smoke could be seen from the stockade. That would treble the warning time.’
‘Yes, it would,’ she agreed. ‘But the raiders have not landed here in ten years. That’s a long time to leave someone sitting in a tower.’ She smiled as she spoke.
‘It is a puzzle,’ he said. ‘Further north the river narrows, and there are fewer landing sites and only small settlements. Yet they have been raided several times in the last two years. It makes little sense to me.’
‘Perhaps the Seidh favour us,’ she offered.
‘Obviously.’ Moving back towards the east they dismounted again at the edge of a small wood overlooking the stockade. ‘I would place four towers, one at each of the corners, and have bowmen trained to man them. And a wide ditch dug out around the settlement, studded with sharpened stakes.’
‘I have a question for you,’ she said.
‘Ask it.’
‘Would you have killed Farrar and the others, or was it just a clever ploy to make Mother see reason?’