Knight's Lady, page 13
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
Her eyes narrowed at him as she considered. “Just... there is a look about you. I cannot say for certain what it is, but I sense something about you that speaks to me of magic. Something special.”
“Something not unappealing, I hope.” His heart pounded that he might be revealed as Danann.
Dimples appeared, and crinkles of amusement showed at the corners of her eyes. “Very appealing. So terribly attractive I must restrain myself around you.”
Now he had no clue what to reply and so said nothing. This girl was touching him in places he’d never known he had. He shifted in his seat as if he were avoiding an actual finger poking at him. Excruciating discomfort. Leaving the table on a pretext might have been the thing to do, but like picking at a sore spot, he couldn’t just let it alone. He wanted to know what her game was and so looked straight into her eyes, in search of anything that might indicate what she was up to if she wasn’t hitting on him.
All he saw there was blithe interest. Curiosity, perhaps. A desire to know him. He liked that, and it made him smile at her. She smiled hack. Aware of the danger of being seen making eyes at her, he turned his attention to his trencher and ate as if starving.
***
The shivering went on and on. So cold. For Alex the effort required to do anything more than breathe was too much. There were arms around him, but he barely felt them. They weren’t any warmer than his own cold skin. Not Lindsay’s. Lindsay wasn’t there, but she was near. Somewhere close by, and that was the most important thing. That was what kept him struggling to draw breath. Lindsay was there, and she wanted him to live. So he did.
A voice came to him. A man’s voice, and for a moment he thought he’d died. What man? Where was he? Then he remembered. An Reubair. They were in Reubair’s domain, in his dungeon, and Patrick was there. It was the priest who held him. The priest spoke to him, and he swam up through the depths of unconsciousness to hear. Pain and cold assaulted him, and it would have been relief to sink back into unconsciousness, and then possibly into death, but he fought it. Fought the pain. Fought his way toward life.
“Patrick.” His mouth was dry. His lips stuck together, and he curled the upper one to separate them.
“I’m here.” There was light now, and a small warmth of a torch lying on the floor before him. It was nearly expended but gave off enough light to see the walls of the small cell.
“Am I going to die?”
The moment of hesitation told Alex what Patrick thought, but the priest said, “No.”
“Liar.”
Patrick chuckled and adjusted his hold on Alex to put him closer, to keep him just a little warmer.
Alex said, “Lindsay is here.”
“She was.”
“Not here now.”
“Not in the cell now. She had to leave.”
“They took her out.” He panted from the effort of speaking. “How did she get in?”
“The guard let her in.”
Alex fell silent, and through the thick haze of fever the implications of that slowly seeped in. “Why?”
“I don’t know why.”
“Not a prisoner.”
“Certainly she is. You know her better than that.”
The old doubt tried to return, and Alex fought the despair. He did know her better than that. He had to; she was his wife. But he asked, “You sure?”
“They don’t know who we are. She’s the only one here who has recognized us. She’s not betrayed us to them, or we would be dead.”
“Ransom.”
“Not for you, my lord. Certainly none for me. But as for you, were Reubair to learn your identity, he would execute you immediately. The countess has told me what he has planned for her on your death.”
Alex waited for Patrick to continue, and when there was only silence he urged, “Tell me.”
The silence continued, and Alex waited. Finally Patrick said, “Reubair would assassinate you to clear the way for a forced marriage.”
Alex turned to look into Patrick’s face. It was an outrage. Nausea rose and waves of shivering took him. Marriage? Reubair wanted to marry Lindsay? “Over my dead...”
Right. That was the plan. Alex sagged as all the air left him. His eyes closed, and the pain once again began to gain the upper hand. He sank toward the blackness and peace.
“No, my lord. Don’t give up. Stay with me.”
Alex breathed again, but kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to see Patrick. Or the walls of the cell.
Patrick said. “Don’t let him succeed. The only way he can take her is if you die. You must live, and return to Eilean Aonarach, to save her from him. She’s protecting you by keeping her silence. If he learns you’re here, he’ll execute you.”
The priest was right. But something in the dimness of Alex’s fevered mind didn’t ring quite right. “Why forced marriage?”
“Certainly she wouldn’t marry him voluntarily.”
Alex shook his head, and the world swam. “No money.” Lindsay had no property, would inherit nothing from Alex because with no descendant heir his lands and title would revert to the king on his death, and she had no influence independent of Alex. There was nothing for Reubair to gain by forcing a marriage that would be legal in only the most technical sense.
Nine
Morag came to Trefor again that night. He’d given up waiting for her and had rolled over to sleep when a warmth snuggled up to him beneath his blanket. There had been no sound at the chamber door. Her hand snaked around his waist and she pressed herself against his back. He took the hand and kissed it, then turned over again to face her. She pressed her face to his chest and her belly to his, and lay there in the crook of his arm. It was moments like these that made him a sucker for her. Warmth glowed in him, and usually he wanted to stay like that forever. But tonight he needed something besides warm fuzzies.
“Tell me of the faerie lands in Ireland,” he said. “The territory beyond the mists.”
She lay back to look him in the face in the dimming light. “Finias, you mean? The Bhrochan land that is held by the Danann?”
“Is it really? Bhrochan land, I mean. Those folks have a casual relationship with the truth, and I never know what to believe about them.”
“Take care with your words, my love, for ye ken I’m of that clan.”
He wished she’d quit calling him that. She didn’t love him, and he knew it. “You’re only a little more Bhrochan than I am Danann. You look human and should call yourself that.”
She only grunted in reply.
He continued, “Tell me about the lands. What’s the story there?”
“They once belonged to my people, and now they don’t.”
“Who controls them now’?”
“The Danann raider, An Reubair.”
Stunned, Trefor kissed Morag’s forehead so she wouldn’t sense the sudden tension in him. He murmured, “I can’t resist you.”
“No need for resistance.” She kissed him in return. But he wanted to know what he could learn about these lands, for he realized Alex had gone the wrong direction in search of Lindsay. An Reubair wasn’t in the Borderlands: he’d surely taken the countess to Ireland to hide her where the human Alex would never find her.
A soft moan, and he said, “An Reubair? So the hidden lands are really Danann territory?”
“’Tis King Nemed who is Reubair’s liege.”
That was a surprise. “Nemed isn’t Danann, nor Bhrochan. He’s an elf. The only one left of his kind, I think.” Alex and Lindsay had crossed Nemed before; Trefor had heard stories, and they weren’t pretty.
“Indeed, he’s an elf among faeries and humans, and therefore he depends on his alliance with the Danann king, Dagda, for protection of the land he controls.”
Trefor’s ears perked at mention of the Dagda, and his pulse picked up. This was probably not good news. “So. how come Nemed controls it and not Dagda or Brochan?”
“’Tis Nemed as took it from the Bhrochan.”
“How?”
“He tricked us.”
Trefor laughed. “Right. That wily old faerie let himself be tricked. How did Nemed do it, really?”
“No, ’tis true what I’m telling you. He promised the lands as dowry for his daughter, and Brochan was to be her husband.”
“I’m guessing the marriage never took place.”
“In proxy. When the lass was a child. But never consummated.”
“Why?”
“She was killed in the Fomorian war, when most of Nemed’s people met their demise and just as the Danann came to Ireland.”
Trefor knew little about this history, beyond that the Fomorians were beastlike people who predated just about everyone on the planet. He wondered briefly whether “Fomorian” might be Irish oral tradition code for “Neanderthal” but decided it didn’t matter much. The point to this story was that Brochan and Nemed both claimed the land within the mists and somehow Nemed prevailed. “So old Brochan didn’t get the girl?”
Morag lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s talk that Nemed may have arranged the demise of his own daughter to keep him from the land.”
“No way.”
“Aye. For ’tis how the Danann gained their foothold on the land. Nemed gave over large parts of the island, those that are now outside the mists and are controlled by humans, to the Danann. His alliance with them is much more valuable to him than the one he’d promised to the Bhrochan.”
“But it’s crazy. Nobody would have their daughter killed just to get out of an engagement.”
“Well, indeed it would have been easier on the girl to have married her off quickly to a Danann prince, or perhaps to Dagda himself, but Nemed has never been one for niceties, and I think he relishes shocking others in the world.”
Niceties. The way she said that so casually made him wonder about her as well. “I don’t believe even he could have done something like that.” Trefor assumed the horrible stories he’d heard about Nemed were true, but this was beyond anything he’d heard.
“Believe what you like. It’s nevertheless true that he reneged on his arrangement with Brochan and has denied us the land. He’s given over the tenancy to An Reubair, who husbands it to the advantage of King Dagda and the Danann. And, of course, himself.”
“But if there was no marriage—”
“Consummation or no, the land belongs to us, for the marriage was by proxy. ’Tis no matter that the girl died; the covenant was made.”
“Why would Nemed want to trick the Bhrochan?”
“Why not?”
“What has he gained? He had the land to begin with.”
“It matters not what he may or may not have gained. He’s tricked us, and we want our land.”
Trefor said nothing more. One of the irritating things about Morag was that she often thought like a Bhrochan, in circular logic and specious vaguenesses. If she wanted to think her king had a right to Nemed’s land, there would be no convincing her otherwise.
But then she said, “The elf has reason to forsake us for the Danann. His alliance with Dagda is far more useful to him than the one he would have had with Brochan. The Danann, who often pass for human, are far wealthier and more influential among them. And ’tis humans as rule most of the world anymore.”
“Sounds to me like Nemed made a bad deal with the Bhrochan. How did he know back then that humans would one day rule the earth?”
“Why is Brochan so certain you will go to the castle of An Reubair to meet Dagda?”
Destiny. “Okay, if he knew, then why did Nemed make the deal to begin with?”
“Lapse in judgment?”
“Bhrochan spell?”
Morag laughed. “Nae, Brochan only wishes to have that sort of influence over the elfin king. Nobody, man nor faerie, has so much power as to push Nemed with magic. I cannae say why the elf wanted the marriage to Brochan. All I know is that he changed his mind.”
“Or the daughter was killed in a fight he couldn’t stop, and he didn’t feel obligated to hand over his last chunk of Ireland to the truly wee folk.”
She made a soft sound of impatience and changed tack. “You must go to An Reubair’s castle.”
“Why?”
“To fulfill your destiny.”
“We’ve been over this. There’s no such thing.”
“Dagda will be there.”
“So?”
“You must go there, because that is where he’ll be.”
“I absolutely will not go there, because there’s no such thing as destiny and I’m going to prove it.”
“Ye’ll go.”
“What makes you think I will?”
“Because,” she said with the thinnest possible patience, “it is your destiny.”
“Well, if the weather doesn’t improve, I’m not going to make it to Ireland at all.”
She glanced toward the door as if looking outside. “Och, this storm will end. And you’ll arrive in Ireland in search of the mists, which you will find, and you will go to the castle of An Reubair. There you will meet the Danann king, Dagda.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
She said nothing, but only gave him a look.
“Right. Destiny.” He said, ‘‘Hm,” then kissed her and shifted on top of her. This conversation was annoying him, and he figured it would be better to wear her out so she would sleep.
Afterward, he settled into the sheets to sleep himself but then jerked awake with a realization and his heart sank. Alex was in the Borderlands, chasing after An Reubair, who wasn’t there. Dad wasn’t going to save Mom this time. If Lindsay was in Ireland, hidden in the mists, it was left to himself to go get her.
Morag was right. Trefor had no choice but to go to the castle of An Reubair.
***
The following morning Trefor went to the window in the keep tower to have another look at his ships. He would go to the harbor later in the day, but for now he needed to make certain they were still afloat. What he found was promising. The snow had stopped falling, and a sudden rise in the temperature had already done some damage to the ice in the harbor. Decaying piles of snow everywhere were beginning to resemble lace, and the sun glanced off it in blinding streaks. Morag had been right; he was going to make it to Ireland before too long. On the one hand his heart lifted with relief, and on the other he dreaded reaching Eire and having to decide which direction to take his men: to Robert or to find Lindsay.
There were footfalls on the steps below and he recognized the tapping tiptoe as a woman’s. His pulse surged with hope, and he immediately chastised himself for it. Too much interest in the laird’s daughter was an incredibly bad idea, and it might not be Deirbhile in any case. He looked out the window and waited to find out.
It was she. She came into the room from the spiral stairwell and paused when she saw him standing by the window.
Aflutter with feigned embarrassment, she nevertheless approached rather than retreated, and looked outside with him as if she were there specifically for the view. He could tell, though, that her purpose was to visit with him. She knew he came here every morning to observe his ships; any surprise on her part must be a lie. He let her think he didn’t know she’d sought him out.
“It would appear your ships will be free to leave the harbor within a day or two.”
“It would. The snow is slush already and will soon be water.”
“Spring can he like that. Deep ice one day and cold runoff the next. We’ve enjoyed your company: you should come again next winter and be snowed in for more than a few days only.”
Trefor chuckled at her wit, then gazed out at his ships again. “It would be a pleasure.” No, it wouldn’t. Were he to return to Tiree and be snowed in for any length of time, it would be an unmitigated drag. By next winter she would be married to that Geoffrey guy and living somewhere else. On the mainland, more than likely. Then Trefor would be stuck here, wishing to see her pretty face. Nope, next winter he wouldn’t be coming back.
Then he blurted, “Tell me, if you had to make a choice between duty to the king and duty to your mother, which would you choose?”
She considered for a moment, then said, “That would depend. Would doing my duty to the king help my father’s prospects with him? Would doing my duty to my mother hinder them?”
“That’s what’s most important to you? Your father’s prospects?”
“You’ve asked a vague question, and I’m giving a vague reply. Be more specific if you want a better answer.”
Trefor sorted through his situation and cobbled together a question that wouldn’t give too much away. “Very well. Which would you choose: tribute to the king or preventing physical harm to your mother?”
“Would the king he able to help my mother out of her predicament?”
Trefor smiled. This girl certainly wanted to have it all. “No. The king cannot even know about the other situation.”
Deirbhile frowned over the puzzle, an academic one as far as she knew. “So there would be no excuse for not paying the tribute. The king would not be very understanding.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” It wasn’t his own tribute that would go missing — it would he Alex’s — but Trefor would miss the benefit of the service he intended. The notice of the king was to be valued, and Trefor wanted badly to join Robert’s army.
But Deirbhile said, “I would certainly choose whichever course would benefit my family’s prospects. The tribute would be the more important.”
“You’d sacrifice your mother?”
“She would understand.”
“That you value your own skin more than hers?” She shook her head, impatient at his lack of understanding. “Not only mine. That of the entire clan. My father, my brothers, my uncles and cousins. Indeed, everyone who lives on this island. She would understand that the greater good is more important than her life.”
“That would take a great deal of understanding.” She peered at him and smiled. “I should think it a matter of course. The family always comes first. My father leads the clan with every thought to its betterment. Family is everything.”
“The king is not a member of my family. How does obeisance to him become a duty to family?”
