Maire Page 24

  The younger man’s composure crumbled. “I swear, ’twas mixed by your own recipe and dropped unnoticed into his cup while the table awaited the wedding company.”

  “You took care to be certain it was his cup?”

  “I asked the steward which was the groom’s seat, so that I might leave a message by his chair. As I feigned putting a fold of paper beneath his goblet, I stood so the steward could not see the goblet and sprinkled the poison in it. I tell you, I made no mistake. Perhaps the chant Emrys said over it before drinking—”

  “Bah, meaningless words, nothing more! Emrys is no fool. He’d take no wine he hadn’t seen poured from the same bottle as the others.”

  “So you think he poured it out?”

  “Have I trained you since you were weaned from your mother’s breast for nothing?” Morlach glared at his apprentice in utter disgust. “One of the king’s hounds died last night, of some sort of gut-wrenching fit.”

  The alarm on his apprentice’s face faded. “Aye, that’s it. Emrys poured it out.”

  “Pity the whole of the dung-sniffing lot didn’t lap it up. I’ve no more use for dogs, than for incompetent students.” Morlach’s gaze narrowed as he turned the force of his rage on the apprentice. “You failed me.”

  “I could not force the man to drink!” Cromthal protested.

  “Perhaps you should have poisoned the entire flagon.”

  “But others—”

  “Emrys would be dead.” Morlach smiled and gave a humorless snarl that turned the rest of his words into a hiss. “And I would not be disappointed in you.”

  “I have done all you asked!”

  “And yet Emrys lives.”

  Cromthal tried to shrink away from the accusation. “But if the Christian’s god was powerful enough to make Gleannmara’s company appear as deer—”

  “Bah!” Morlach exploded. “’Twas druid magic, not the work of a god, you witless gnat. Or maybe the priest possesses magic.”

  “Well—”

  “No, the priest is too humble to seize secrets of illusion and put them to work. But Brude… Gleannmara would be helpless without.…” Morlach’s words trailed off into a dark contemplation.

  “But there was the prophecy,” Cromthal reminded him. “Our ancestors, Logaire’s seers, foretold of the coming of the priests who would drive the serpents from Ireland.”

  The master druid tore himself from the seductive thought tantalizing him. “What?”

  “The prophesy of Logaire’s magi foretelling—”

  “We serpents of knowledge will not be driven from our own home by these charlatans! First Diarhmott gives them heed and now you, one of our own does the same.” He slammed one fist into the other. Spinning abruptly, Morlach held his hand over the flame of the candle lamp. It seared the flesh of his palm, yet he smiled as though it were a maid’s caress. “Look you trembling whelp, for as I snuff out this flame, so I will destroy all who cross me, be they druid, priest, or upstart usurper. I command the power of life and death!”

  With a vengeance, Morlach slammed his hand downward, crushing fire and wax, grinding it into the rough grain of the table until it, too, gave way.

  Dodging a lamp as Morlach kicked it toward him, Cromthal was grateful he was not within the druid’s reach. The knot over his eye had barely healed. All that remained was yellowish discoloration about a red scar. Once he’d nearly worshiped Morlach and his words, yet now he was no longer certain of the man’s power or principles. And it wasn’t the abuse alone that placed doubt in the apprentice’s mind.

  He’d heard talk in the House of Synods regarding this Christian faith, and Morlach was right to some extent. Many druids would not be driven from the green island. They spoke of turning their life and study of truth to this faith. The ancient accounts of the star of the east and the blackening of the sun on the day of Conn’s death had been recalled from distant memory and shaken out for all to consider in this new light. A Christian priest even tutored the royal daughters.

  “Brude and this priest will pay for their work in destroying my plan—” Morlach closed his eyes, and Cromthal had the uneasy impression the druid was envisioning some terrible retribution—“as will Emrys and his queen.”

  Cromthal’s stomach felt as though it were suddenly filled with cold stones. “Think not rashly, master. Remember it is forbidden to spill the blood of another serpent, unless per his wish.” The blood of a druid was his life, and if his life forsook him, so knowledge forsook the brotherhood, at least for this lifetime.

  The anger that emerged from Morlach’s opening eyes was hot enough to force the apprentice back a full step. Ebony glowed bright only when it was afire.

  “A serpent does not think rashly, fool. It lies in wait for the right time and opportunity. Then, and only then, does it strike.”

  The s of the last word came out like a hiss and raised the hairs on Cromthal’s body with its foreboding.

  “Take two of our best bowmen and follow Gleannmara. When the time is right, rid us of Emrys and his priest.”

  “But the priest is a serpent of knowledge too! Not a druid, perhaps, but he has studied many years—” Cromthal thought twice about mentioning the shape-shifting deer again and changed his tack. “And he has the ear of the Christian god.”

  “He studied myths and lies, for what has he to show for his labor—that wooden cross hanging about his neck?” Morlach waved one hand over his fist, and when he opened it, a nugget of gold glistened in the sunlight shafting in the window. “I prefer gold to wood, don’t you?”

  Cromthal nodded, but he did not agree with what his master suggested. Morlach would have to kill Father Tomás himself. He stared at his companion as he would look death itself in the face, with both fear and revulsion, and wondered how he once could have felt love and respect for the man. Rathcoe no longer belonged to the fraternity of knowledge, but festered like a cankerous sore in their midst.

  “Then I’d best be on my way,” Cromthal said aloud, breaking his traitorous train of thought before his master detected it. “Nightfall will give us our best opportunity. No one will know from whence the arrows came.”

  Turning without appearing too eager, he ducked through the opening of the tent, his master’s words following him, raking at his spine like fingers of ice: “To fail is to wish for death, Cromthal. Remember this well.”

  Maire stared into the campfire, listening to Brude and Father Tomás speak about the Synod of Patrick. Nearby Ciara, Garret, and the others who were not standing guard already slept. Grasping battle tactics came easier to the queen than these political and spiritual issues that the Christian priests, druids, and kings changed in the old Brehon Laws, to bring them in line with the teachings of Christ. Try as she might, she was hard pressed to listen as to why paying the price of an eric for a transgression was better than simply killing the offender.

  Humane and God-worthy as such a law seemed, Maire considered it futile as long as there were those who had no respect for either life or God. The image of Morlach’s face, laughing in contempt, took shape in the crackling blaze. Maire blinked and stared again, but this time only the lapping tongues of the fire were there. She let out her frozen breath of relief.

  “I think the old bishop of Armagh was wise indeed to invite the input of all,” Brude said, looking across the same fire at Maire. “It serves neither man nor the one God to obliterate all trace of that which is familiar to the common man.”

  “God asks only for His rightful recognition as the only God and Creator of all,” Father Tomás agreed. “How He is honored is not nearly as important as the fact that He is given all honor. Scripture bids us make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”

  “So when we light the fires at Beltaine, we no longer honor Bel, the sun god?” Maire asked, drawn in by confusion.

  “The taine is a symbolic cleansing element of God, Maire,” Rowan explained patiently. “Fire purifies gold and makes steel stronger.”

  “Like the eating of communion
bread is to remind us of Christ’s sacrifice of flesh—and the drinking of the wine represents the blood He spilled for us. As food nourishes our body, our remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice nourishes our spirit. Understand?” Father Tomás looked at Maire expectantly.

  She nodded, trying to gather it all in. “So it’s still all right to light the fires at Beltaine and run the cattle through them—”

  “Except the fires now represent God’s cleansing and strengthening power, not Bel’s,” Rowan reiterated.

  “And Bel’s been takin’ all the glory for it.” She scowled, looking at Rowan. “Then why—” Maire stopped, overwhelmed. “I don’t know as I’ll ever understand it all!” She swore, shoving to her feet.

  Brude laughed, and Maire felt a frustrated heat seep into her face in response.

  “Ach, Maire, you want to learn everything all at once. You walked and crawled within the same day. But this is different. It’s like learning to be a queen or a warrior; it will take a lifetime of effort, trying earnestly each day to make it better than the last.”

  “And if we make a mistake,” Rowan added, “then we just admit it and try again. God knows we are human and as such, imperfect.”

  “Well, if He loved us so much, why didn’t He make us perfect to start with? Seems like there’d be a lot less confusion and trouble all around.” She kicked a log into the campfire and stretched.

  “We are made perfect, Maire,” Rowan insisted. “It’s our God-given ability to choose whether to listen to Him or not. And that ability to choose is what is imperfect.”

  “So we’re not perfect.”

  Clearly thrown off by her logic, Rowan glanced at Tomás and Brude for help. Brude picked up the gauntlet. “Would you have the people of Gleannmara follow you because they want to or because you gave them no choice?”

  “Well, I’d have them want to follow me, sure, but if they’ve not got the good sense to, I’m better off without ’em,” she declared in a huff of indignation.

  “I hope you will visit Gleannmara frequently, Father,” Rowan said. He sucked in his cheeks as if to stay his combined humor and exasperation.

  With a hard glare at her husband, Maire turned and walked to where she’d made up a bed of leaves close by. She’d learn the gist of this faith, if for no other reason than to squelch her husband’s overblown opinion of himself.

  As she reached down for the blankets, something whooshed overhead and landed straight in the midst of the fire. “What was th—?”

  Before she finished, a second followed it, straight into the fiery abyss.

  One of the watchmen’s shouts echoed in the forest beyond. “Halt in the name of Gleannmara!”

  The group about the fire instinctively broke for the cover of the trees, taking those rudely awakened from slumber with them. Whoever fired the bolts at them had obviously never held a bow before. For that much, Maire was grateful.

  “Stay where ye are!” she shouted as Rowan risked leaving the cover to join her.

  The unseen enemy was entirely too close. Only magic could have gotten them past the double guard Rowan posted— Morlach’s blackhearted magic. A third bolt released. Maire heard it before she saw it. To her horror it streaked straight toward Rowan.

  Father God, save him!

  Her fists clenched. She was more aware of the nails biting into the flesh of her palms than the fact that she just uttered her first uncoached prayer to the one God for the safety of the man she loved. Unable to close her eyes, to shut out the unthinkable, she watched. From her vantage, the bolt looked as though it went right through him and thudded into the fire just beyond.

  “Have ye lost what little wit your mother gave ye?” she fumed, pulling aside his cloak to hold it in the light cast from the fire. Surely the arrow had passed straight through it. That, or it had swerved around it. But there was no sign that harm had come anywhere near him, save the memory of what she saw. Swallowing nothing but air, she latched on to angry relief, which was far more comfortable than the other chilling emotions clamoring for control of the moment.

  She pinned her husband with a glare. “I’m in no need of coddling like a wet babe!”

  “No, you’re not, but I’d feel better if we remained together.” Tugging his brat away, he pulled her under its wing, like a mother hen tucking in its chick. “Maithre and Garret are safe with Tomás and Brude in the cover of the rock.”

  “And how would ye feel with a bolt in yer spleen?”

  Loathe as she was to admit it, the warmth of his nearness, the scent of the woolen material—man, wood smoke, and the fresh forest air—was welcome. They waited for further sign of the enemy so close to them, but all they heard was the confusing exchanges of the guards.

  “Over there!”

  “No, I see them. This way!”

  “The bolt came from there. I heard the blackguard fire it!”

  A rivulet of ice shivered up Maire’s spine, setting every nerve in her body on edge. But a queen could not afford the luxury of either panic or comfort.

  “Split in four directions—” Maire’s order came out simultaneously with Rowan’s, word for word. Smiling, he nodded to her to proceed. Crom’s toes, like as not they were about to be slaughtered and here, in the midst of her alarm, she was feeling giddy as a lovestruck cow because they’d share the same thought.

  “And work your way out,” she finished, steeling herself against all the confounding feelings. “We’ll go this way.”

  Still, Maire didn’t object when Rowan shoved her behind him and took the lead. If a bolt passed seemingly right through him—or around him—then clearly something was protecting him. That Holy Spirit perhaps? That had to be it! She caught herself looking at the ground, but it was too dark to see her own feet, much less the footprints of a ghost.

  Ach, Holy Ghost, I’m scared. Please don’t let the dark spirits harm us.

  Her second prayer was as spontaneous and unwitting as the first. Maire’s focus was on taking care to stay with Rowan in the cover of tree to tree, her gaze sweeping the forest around them.

  It wasn’t until the guards gave up their chase and made their way back that she breathed normally and straightened from her crouched position.

  “Well?” she asked Cellach of the Muirdach.

  “’Twas like chasin’ a black fairy, all shadows and smoke.”

  “Aye,” his brother Dathal chimed in. “First they was here, then they was there…” He shook his head.

  “They just split up,” Rowan said with the voice of authority. Apparently, like Maire, he sensed the fragile thread of reason about to snap among the men. “I’ll wager my sword arm that the bolts we find in the fire came from no spirit’s bow. But come see for yourselves. Then get back to your posts.”

  The bolts were real enough, though the fire had done its best to consume them. Brude held the remnants of one. Then as if it had spoken to him, he stiffened, then turned and headed away from the campsite. Rowan and Maire joined him, as well as the guards. A hundred or so good strides into the thick of the shrouded forest, he came to a stop, knelt, and picked up a discarded crossbow.

  “This is its mother. Morlach’s men were here.”

  In the torchlight, the red and black paint of the crossbow gleamed.

  “Rathcoe.” Rowan’s comment was accepted without surprise. He looked around, but the trees would tell no more, at least not in the dead of night. “Resume your positions,” he said to the guards.

  “Shouldn’t we kill the fire?” Maire suggested grimly.

  “No. They’re gone, in good speed, it appears,” Brude answered, his lips hinting at amusement. “I imagine they’ve seen enough tonight.”

  “Seen enough?” Maire scowled. “Then they’ve seen more than I have.”

  “No doubt, child, no doubt.”

  Maire waited for Brude to go on, but he turned back toward the campsite.

  “Did you see anything?” she asked Rowan as they fell in step behind the druid.

  No less bewildere
d than Maire, he shook his head. “No, but know this one thing, little queen, and rest in it tonight: God is protecting us and He never sleeps.”

  “How can He do that?”

  “Because He was, He is, and He will always be.”

  Maire met his answer with a flat stare. “Now that’s a druid answer, if there ever was one.”

  Still, she tried giving thanks to the one God for sparing them harm thus far and asking Him for rest, uncertain that anyone or anything really heard her. It didn’t matter, she supposed, whether this God was there for Rowan or Father Tomás or any one of them—-just so He was there.

  The following morning, however, when she awakened, having dropped off into sleep almost the moment she tugged her blankets about her shoulder, she knew Rowan was right. God had watched them while they slept.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Gleannmara was a welcome sight as it rose on the horizon ahead of the travelers. Unlike the last time Maire approached her home, she was met at the gate by a cheer from the guards. Inside the outer rath, some of the inhabitants raced up to greet them. The reception was enough to make Maire’s heart dance like the blue and gold banners overhead.

  The reason for the eager welcome was obvious. The rath and its buildings already showed the benefit of the work she’d assigned before leaving. Men—those who weren’t already in the fields—were busy whitewashing and repairing. Unlike the first time she set eyes on the place upon her return from Emrys, it looked alive.

  Two men opened the newly hung doors at the entrance, swinging them back and forth, as if daring the greased hinges to squeak before the queen. As the entourage dismounted and the horses were given over to the stable hands, Lianna emerged from the hall, a bright smile on her face. Behind her came more of the women, both noble and servant, sleeves rolled and skirts hiked to free the feet for work.

  “They look none the worse for their work.” She half expected a rebellion on her hands after the initial reaction with which her orders had been received.

  Rowan leaned over, agreeing. “You gave them work to do, aye, but you also gave them back their hope and pride.”