Flannan had come to find me in the stillroom while Grim was off watching combat practice. Even so, with just the two of us behind a closed door, Flannan had dropped his voice to a whisper as he’d told me. This was not like the old plot, he’d said. There were sympathetic folk, folk who knew the secret, strategically placed in every chieftain’s stronghold and in every Christian monastery in Laigin and the south of Mide. There was a network of reliable informants; a growing number of stalwart supporters. All were ready to stand up and be counted. Their number included folk of considerable authority—councilors and nobles. It had taken Flannan and his loose fellowship years to set it all in place. The birds were vital to the enterprise; every monastery had its pigeon loft. Monks could write in Latin, or use coded messages only decipherable by scholars.

“Stand up and be counted when?” I’d asked, fighting back the urge to say yes. “Where?”

“At the council.”

“The High King’s council? Is the plan that you and I sprout wings and fly to Tara? Even if we could be there in time, the moment any of Mathuin’s cronies recognized me, whether as the wife of the traitor scribe from years ago or the troublesome woman who wouldn’t stop talking about his misdemeanors, I’d be silenced. Permanently silenced. Either killed or thrown back in that hellhole and left to rot.” I’d made myself unclench my hands; forced myself to take a few deep breaths. “Why have you waited so long to tell me this?”

“You’d made it pretty clear you weren’t interested in taking risks anymore,” he said flatly. “I didn’t think it was worth asking.”

It had been like a slap in the face. Had I really changed so much? Had I truly become the coward he’d called me? “Well, you’ve asked now,” I’d snapped. “So explain how we’re supposed to get to Tara before the council.”

“I don’t mean this autumn’s council,” Flannan had said. “Not only would you and I lack the time to travel so far south, but others, too, could not be assembled by then. The plan is that we—all of us—make our ways separately to Mide, to the court of King Lorcan or its environs, or to one of several monasteries that lie close by. We would make our move at Lorcan’s next spring council. The High King should be in attendance. They are kinsmen, as you probably know. At least two of Lorcan’s councilors are sympathetic to our cause. It’s been suggested, indirectly, that the king of Mide would not be averse to seeing Mathuin removed from his position of authority, since he stirs up constant trouble on the border.”

It had taken me a while to find words; my thoughts had been conducting a minor battle among themselves. “Make our move,” I’d said eventually. “What move?”

“Stand up at the council. Make a statement of Mathuin’s crimes, supported by evidence, including the accounts of witnesses. Request that he be formally charged. In the presence of both the High King and King Lorcan, Mathuin will not be able to do what he did last time. At the very least, he’ll need to answer to the accusations.”