She knew he was playing on her emotions. She couldn’t let him distract her. “Highglen is isolated and vulnerable. There’s a solid upriser contingent in the city. Their people would rise up. All they lack is a leader.”
He bit. “On what authority do you come by such a statement?”
“A sympathetic free trader from Highglen.”
Colm eyed her, listening.
“Princess Hada has gone there,” Meg pushed. “She’s claimed her inheritance, Castle Highglen. She and her brother’s regent are divided, wrestling over the country’s governance. Colm, she’s nineteen.”
“So simple?” Colm said condescendingly.
“It is! Don’t ignore me.” Before he could argue, she went on. “We can get there, infiltrate, take the city before Huwen mounts his cannons on wagons!”
“You don’t understand, do you?” he responded. “Maybe. Eventually. When King Dwyn realizes Commander Fearghus has hung himself with his idiocy and nepotism, perhaps the men will come to fight behind my banner. But until then—”
“Sieur! You must—”
“Do you never quit, Sieura?”
Behind him, the door opened, and a woman peered into the room. “Oh! Colm, you—”
“I bid you good day,” Colm said, striding toward the woman in the doorway.
Meg drew in a sudden breath. Fearghus’s wife. The woman, comely for her age, gray-peppered hair still full and now disarrayed fetchingly about her face, wore only a sleeping robe.
The woman startled in recognition when she saw Meg. A flicker of disgust dried on her face. “Colm.” She gave him a pointed look and disappeared back into the bedroom.
He paused in the doorway. “Your concern is irrelevant, Magiel,” he said. “This war is bigger than any individual. You—all of us—need to do our jobs.”
***
Meg left Colm’s rooms, mind racing, a cascade of questions slowing her steps. Tonore’s talk of internal disputes, Colm undermining Fearghus. Fearghus denying Colm the swords and horses he needed to secure the band’s rations. To what end? With what ramifications?
At the kitchen of the house of healing, she dipped a cup of water from the bucket, intending to take it to the girl spinning wool at Janat’s side as her sister slept. Or raved. Fearghus’s wife in Colm’s chambers—private chamber. How long had he been cuckolding his commanding officer? Gods, she needed a moment to pray. To understand.
She checked with Nia. The convalescents were stable. Janat had woken, and Nia had given her a mild worldling tea to ease her vomiting, as Meg had instructed. Janat had rested then, weeping, and slept again. A number of the wounded had been discharged, and more were doing well enough to sit up, some even helping with small chores at supper. Nia told Meg to rest.
Rest.
That would not happen. Meg’s anger only mounted as she drew inevitable conclusions. Before she relieved Janat’s minder, she needed to go to Fearghus’s home.
Fearghus’s steward directed her to the granary. The commander was seated at a rickety table in the candlelight, fingers stained with ink, as a clerk inventoried sacks of oats. Deep fissures lined his leathery face and his fingers had thickened with years, but he was hale and his eyes were bright beads in his face: sharp. He glowered at her arrival, then returned to the tiny figures in neat columns on a sheet of rough parchment before him.
“Fifteen sacks with only a touch of rot,” his clerk called out.
Fearghus bent over his record and scratched with a quill. “What do you want?”
“Do the lives of your men and the souls of the people of the seven kingdoms of Shangril,” Meg clipped, “rest on the whims of your jealousy?”
The commander’s fingers stilled. A breathlessness descended on the circle of candlelight within the granary and the clerk’s head whipped around, hands motionless on the pile of grain sacks.
Fearghus lifted his head and, catching the clerk’s eye, nodded toward the door. The clerk hurried out, and the stir of air from the closing granary door flickered the candle.
Fearghus set his quill in the ink well and straightened on his stool, his lined face coloring subtly. He tightened his jaw, as if to prevent his eyes from softening. His voice was low. “He flaunts her?”
Regret at her harsh words constricted Meg’s throat, dried her denunciations.
“What has Colm told you?”
“That you refused him the equipment—”
Fearghus waved his hand in dismissal. “He blames me. Of course, he does. For holding back a few blades to defend Glenfast in his absence. He blames his men, too, did he tell you that? He blames your sister, though in that case I agree.” Fearghus leaned back against the wall and folded his hands over his spare stomach. “He blames everyone for his failures but himself. It’s no wonder men don’t rally to his call.” He eyed her. “Now he impugns my wife?”
Meg shook her head, unable to meet his gaze. “I...saw her. In his chamber.”
The silence in the shed admitted the distant sounds of wind and men and dogs. A shine sprang into Fearghus’s eyes. “I do not govern the uprisers of Elsen on the basis of revenge against my generals,” he said huskily.
No? Then— “Sieur, I beg you. If you have no politics with upriser factions, petition King Dwyn to send men to take Highglen.”
“This, again?” He glared at her. “I said, ‘no,’ and I mean, ‘no.’ We defend Glenfast and our remaining forces are directed at Coldridge. There are no men to waste on a third fortress.” He let out a short breath. “Meg, I like you. But you’re a woman. A healer, not a tactician. You have no place at the councils of men. Battle strategies are not your concern.”
“It is my concern! It is my life and my sisters’ lives, and my peoples’ lives and souls—”
“It is your concern to heal, make potions to strengthen our soldiers, and pray for victory.”
“You focus on one hill, one village, and lose sight of the central goal. I see things—”
He stood. “Your predictions, Magiel, have no validity.”
“I’m not talking about seeing the future. I’m talking war plans. We must procure the Ruby Prayer Stone for the good of the people. To do that, the uprisers need a place of strength from which to speak on equal footing with the royals. A fortress. A citadel. A defensible castle from which to expand our influence.”
“And you think I don’t know that? Right now, I need cabbages to prevent scurvy.” The commander leaned on his table. “I need generals—and magiels—who recognize their place and do as they are commanded.”
She breathed fury at him. The idiot. The arrogant, stupid idiot.
“But—Sieura Falconer—neither of us is about to get what we desire. Go home and care for your charges.”
CHAPTER 3
Powerless! Meg was powerless.
The crunch of her boots reverberated off cobbles and walls as she crossed the dark square before the great hall.
Powerless to convince Colm or Fearghus. But they were only field commanders. Dwyn Gramaret, King-in-Exile, held the highest authority over the uprisers. He’d listened to Meg in the past.