Rollan said, “Sweet merciful chicken. What are they training for? Becoming a princess?”
“War,” Lord MacDonnell said.
“War against princesses?”
“War’s useless if you don’t know how to live with peace,” Lord MacDonnell boomed. “Not very long ago, Glengavin had the best soldiers in Eura. But our skill was meaningless. We were almost destroyed by war. All we did was murder each other, and for nothing. Cattle! Glory! We were great warriors, but we didn’t know what to do if we weren’t fighting.”
Meilin raised an eyebrow. Finn would have liked to hear this description. “So you turned to the arts.”
“Exactly,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Now we spend equal time on training in the arts as we do keeping our muscles fit.”
“That’s a sweet story,” Rollan spoke up. “But what about those musicians last night? The ones that are now scrubbing pots?”
Cheeky, Rollan, Meilin thought. Be careful.
But Lord MacDonnell merely said, “Disorder leads to war, and I won’t risk more war. My castle, my law. It’s not difficult to follow the rules.”
They stopped to watch two men who were laughing and playing chess.
Lord MacDonnell said, “Will you young heroes know what to do when the battle is over? You’re spending your childhood saving the world. What happens when it’s saved?”
“We should be so lucky,” Meilin said.
Conor said, “I know what I will do. I will return to my family’s farm with enough money to pay off our debts, and then I will take my place among my brothers as a shepherd, just like my father before me.”
No, Conor, Meilin thought. You’re forgetting Briggan. You can’t take a wolf among the sheep.
Rollan’s eye briefly caught hers, and Meilin knew that he was thinking the same thing.
“My lord,” Meilin said, “speaking of saving the world — the Great Beast, Rumfuss. There’s a rumor he’s locked in your gardens.”
MacDonnell continued to stare at one of the chess players for a moment, then turned to Meilin. “Indeed he is.”
He said this very simply, the same way one might say, “It’s a touch rainy today,” or “I’m wearing new shoes.”
She tried to sound quite collected. “We really would like to speak with him.”
MacDonnell shook his head. “Only I am allowed to hunt in the gardens. Even if your hunt is just for a word with the Great Beast. It’s for the best — he’s a miserable, grumpy creature. He’d likely trample you.”
“Sir, it’s important,” Conor said. “It’s why we’ve come all this way.”
“To collect the talismans. To recapture the power of the Great Beasts. To destroy the invaders.” MacDonnell said all this dismissively, like he didn’t believe it. “Finn told me last night why it is you seek Rumfuss. The Greencloaks are wrong, if you ask me. No man-made machination could possibly fix soured relationships with spirit animals. Sometimes, things have simply gone too wrong.”
“How can you believe that with such conviction?” Meilin asked.
MacDonnell frowned for a moment, then drummed his fingers together. “I’ll tell you a story. When I was a boy, I was cruel and proud. I was the son of a warrior lord. I knew who I was. I knew what I had coming to me.” Lord MacDonnell’s gaze was far away. “I dreamed of the animal I would summon to be my spirit animal. The North is full of animals that would increase my glory. And yet, when my summoning ceremony happened, I didn’t call a hound or a horse or even a fighting badger. I called a hare.”
Meilin remembered her own Nectar Ceremony. She had been so stunned and disappointed to see a panda instead of a more agile animal.
“I was furious,” Lord MacDonnell recalled. “A hare! An overgrown rabbit!” Now he ducked his head, and Meilin realized that his expression was one of shame. He had to consider for a long time before he could continue. “I tormented my spirit animal. At best I dismissed him. At worst I taunted him. I knew I was being terrible, but I didn’t care. Part of me wanted him to lash back at me. To prove his mettle. But he was loyal to a fault — he swallowed my harsh words and did my bidding like a servant rather than a spirit animal.
“One morning, I woke and he was gone. I had driven my spirit animal away.” Lord MacDonnell closed his eyes. “Since then, there is a hole in my heart that nothing can fill. All joys and entertainments seem empty, and I’ll never know what the hare and I might have accomplished together. I am going through the motions of leading my people, but nothing truly matters to me. I’m a shell. A creature that was Lord MacDonnell.”
I will never let that happen to Jhi and me, Meilin vowed. I must treat her better.
“But part of being a leader,” MacDonnell said, straightening a bit, “is thinking about what you want in the future, not what you wanted in the past.” He motioned to the chessboard. “This game teaches that strategy. I train my men to be masters of it, so they might succeed where I have failed.”
“Chess?” Rollan scoffed. “All chess ever taught me is that I should always play cards.”
MacDonnell ignored this and turned to Conor. “Play a round with me?”
Conor’s head jerked up, utterly horrified. He stammered, “Oh, I don’t . . . I’m not really good at chess.”
Lord MacDonnell was already pulling out a chair at one of the unoccupied chess tables. He arranged his kilt all around the chair so that nothing too embarrassing was showing. “As I said, Briggan is a great leader. And this game is a lesson all leaders should learn.”
Meilin, not at all convinced, offered, “You can do it.” But she was thinking: Not him! Conor was the least schooled of any of them, except for maybe Rollan. And at least Rollan had street smarts. What had Conor ever learned of strategy and leadership in a sheep pasture? He was going to blow their chance to hunt Rumfuss.
“You summoned Briggan, Conor. That means your destiny demands that you become a great leader,” Lord MacDonnell said. “Begin.”
Conor moved a pawn across the beautifully painted chessboard. Lord MacDonnell charged out with a knight. Conor inched out another pawn. Two moves later, one of his pieces fell to Lord MacDonnell. Conor slid his queen out to defend himself. Lord MacDonnell peacefully murdered one of Conor’s bishops. Conor threw more pieces in the direction of Lord MacDonnell’s king. Lord MacDonnell took several more victims.