The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page A

grip easily, but Padraig held on doggedly. “You think we are the only ones playing this game? There is another side here, maybe more than one side, and they are all playing to win as well. So we have lost this round. We have lost the Prince and that is a bitter, bitter blow. He was a fine man and the hope of us all. But we are still in the game. At stake is not just our families but our souls, so for Aroaril’s sake, Bridgit’s sake and our sake, put down the wine my son and let’s work out what we do next.”
    Fallon laughed harshly. “What do we do next? We wait and see if Aidan wants to kill us, or torture us first. We put our trust in a madman who’s in league with Zorva. What else is there to do?”
    Padraig dragged the goblet and wine out of Fallon’s reach. “Think about why the King has kept us alive.”
    “It has to do with the Kottermani visit,” Gallagher said. “They want us silent until then. And, I guess, all the people too.”
    “Yes,’ said Rosaleen. ‘The Kottermanis are said to be very religious. If the people of Berry realized Zorva had corrupted the King, there would uproar. If the Kottermanis heard that we were allowing worship of Zorva they might invade to stop it. They pray to Aroaril three times a day, not just once every quarter moon, like we do. To a Kottermani, Zorva worship would be a terrible threat.”
    “What does any of this matter?” Fallon demanded. ‘Our families are trapped and now we are too.”
    “So we just give in to despair?” Padraig challenged. “You got us into the mess, true enough. But you can get us out of it as well.”
    Fallon shook his head. “How? You would be better off praying to Aroaril for answers.”
    He could not stand the pity in their faces. He would have welcomed anger but sympathy was more than he could bear.
    “I am going to bed. Maybe the solution will come to me in a dream,” he snarled.
    Behind, he could hear them muttering. Probably blaming him. He left them to it.
    *
    Fallon pushed open the door to his room. The wine was sitting sour in his stomach, but the knowledge of what he had done weighed heavier. Although he might be able to throw up the wine, the guilt would never leave him. He wished he could close his eyes and have this nightmare all over, or at least get Cavan back again.
    “Dad, what is happening? What was everyone talking about?” Kerrin asked, sitting on the bed with his arm around Caley.
    Fallon could not answer. He had no words left. He looked down at Kerrin, whose expression said he knew his dad had all the answers.
    He sat down next to Kerrin and wrapped his arm around his son’s shoulders. Caley ducked her head under his other arm, nudging him in the chest with her nose, her tail swishing against his back.
    “So Dad, what is your plan? What will we do now?”
    He could not answer. He just buried his face in the top of his son’s head and held him close, like a drowning man clutching onto a piece of wood.
    “Dad, what is it?” Kerrin asked, his voice quiet but fearful. “Can I help?”
    Fallon almost laughed then, a strangled grunt of a sound. “I wish you could. But nobody can help me, and nothing can fix the mess I’ve made,” he said thickly. “Now we have to go to sleep.”
    “That’s not true. You need to talk. That’s what Mam would say.”
    So Fallon, as coldly and carefully as he could, explained how thoroughly they were trapped and how he had no idea of a way out.
    He could feel Kerrin’s eyes widen as he spoke but his son said nothing, only reaching around to hug him.
    Fallon could not sit up any longer and laid back on the bed. Instantly Kerrin lay down beside him,
    “I am sorry, son,” Fallon said. “All my life I have tried to do the right thing, live by the laws and now I have killed our Prince, the man who was going to help get Mam back.”
    “It just means you have to get Mam back, not the Prince.”
    Fallon looked up at his son but Kerrin’s face was completely serious. He sighed.