Knight's Lady, page 21
part #1 of Tenebrae Series
But, no, Patrick said Lindsay was nursing him back to health.
But, then, why nurse him in a cell? Why not put him in a room with a hearth and a bed? If she was giving cooperation to Reubair for the sake of her husband, surely she could have cut a better deal than this.
Trefor was missing something, but he couldn’t get a handle on what it was, and he felt stupid for it. He decided to take a chance on a chat with Reubair and maybe gain some insight.
***
It wasn’t easy to catch the laird alone. It seemed he never went anywhere without Lindsay, and his interest in keeping the king entertained made him busier than most folks in the castle. After a day or two of frustration Trefor finally made a formal request for an audience while Dagda was occupied with his own administrative tasks. He would have to deal with the presence of Lindsay and the attendants, and word his questions with extreme care.
To Trefor’s surprise, the response to his request was an invitation to the privy chamber at midmorning. As he entered, Reubair’s priest was leaving and the faerie laird was setting aside his rosary and Bible. Trefor had heard Reubair was Christian but until now hadn’t believed it. He didn’t know whether to be surprised or figure it explained some things.
When Reubair saw Trefor, he went to lounge in a chair by a table and gestured to another of the chairs. Lindsay was already seated in a cushioned chair by the hearth, looking at him with that bland gaze that now seemed habitual with her. Like she didn’t give a damn about anything on earth, particularly him. Easy enough to believe. He sat in the indicated chair, one of the small wooden ones from the table.
Reubair asked. “How has your visit been these past days? Everything satisfactory, I suppose.”
“Your hospitality is unmatched anywhere, my lord.”
Reubair nodded, as if that were a given. Trefor could see his welcome in the castle was already wearing thin and his host expected him to move along now that Trefor’s business with Dagda was concluded.
So he had to invent new business. “Now that my allegiance is established, I must look to my future within that pledge.”
Reubair grunted in agreement but said nothing. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Trefor continued, “I would have a faerie wife.”
Lindsay’s head turned slightly, and from the corner of Trefor’s eye he could tell she was surprised by his words. Good. It warmed his heart to learn she did have some sort of interest in his life.
Reubair said, “You have no land. No prospects.”
“On the contrary, I have prospects. I have relations in Scotland, connected to the king. My cousin is a countess.” He nodded toward Lindsay. Now he waited to hear whether Reubair considered Trefor’s relationship with Alex a plus or minus.
Reubair seemed reluctant to reply but finally said, “Have you heard from your cousin the earl recently?”
“No. I confess I haven’t visited since last summer.”
Reubair’s mouth pressed tight, and he examined his fingernails. Lindsay turned away toward the fire. Trefor wondered why Reubair had asked the question if Alex was in his dungeon. And why had Lindsay reacted to the answer at all? What had she thought he might say? The truth? That he’d been sent by Alex to take her away from this place? Surely she didn’t think he was that stupid.
Then it came to him. The piece of the puzzle that had been missing, and which when slid into place suddenly made every bit of this make sense. Reubair didn’t know Alex was in the dungeon. Somehow Alex and Patrick had been taken prisoner and Reubair didn’t know it. The realization took Trefor’s breath away for the power it gave him. Lindsay was hiding Alex. She probably thought Reubair would kill him.
And she was absolutely right.
Trefor looked over at Lindsay. Was she scamming Reubair? Acting as a willing consort? Or was she truly being held by a warding spell? He said to Reubair, “To be sure, I wouldn’t hope for an excessively advantageous marriage, so long as my wife were of full Danann blood. I understand that Cruachan is not your favorite human—”
“I’ve little fondness for humans in general. In my wide experience they’ve proven a disappointment.”
Trefor glanced over at Lindsay and stammered a little over the insult. Then he said, “Well, yes. I understand that my ancestry is a drawback, and that my connection to the earl doesn’t help my case much beyond that he is, in turn, connected to the Scottish king.”
“True. Alasdair an Dubhar is in some power but is not well liked among the Danann.”
Trefor arranged his face to appear surprised. “All Danann, you say? I thought I heard that he was a personal acquaintance of the goddess Danu herself. His wife has a Psalter I heard was a gift from her.”
Reubair looked over at Lindsay, who nodded affirmation. Trefor had a moment of relief that she was cooperating with him. Reubair replied, “The countess is, by all accounts, a direct descendant of the goddess. I’m certain Danu doesn’t care who Lindsay is married to.” A hesitation, then Reubair added, “Any more than I care.”
The edge to Reubair’s voice suggested something Trefor hadn’t considered. That Reubair might be trying to seduce Lindsay, but hadn’t succeeded. If that was the case, it begged the question of why. Trefor looked from Reubair to Lindsay and back, and his mind turned with what this meant to himself. That Alex was a prisoner, and that Reubair not only wanted him dead but had the means to that end at hand if he but knew it. That Trefor was now pledged to the faerie king and would do well to have the good favor of this powerful Danann. That Alex had never done anything for him, and was unlikely to in the future. Trefor’s heart skipped with these realizations. He sat back in his chair and struggled for an insouciance that was imperative but at the moment seemed impossible.
Fifteen
That night when he slipped into bed, Trefor knew he was riddled with bad energy. It exuded from him like an odor, but there was nothing he could do about it. The knowledge he’d obtained that day was too powerful. It pointed him in too many directions. There was too much he wanted to do with it. He lay beneath the woolen blankets, staring at the hearth, for a long time before he finally dropped off to a restless sleep.
Sometime later he was awakened in darkness by a warm body pressed against him. Morag. He recognized her by the familiar shape of her and her habit of slipping a hand between his thighs to rest there. But this time he didn’t roll toward her. Instead he took that hand and held it so it would do no harm.
“Is there something wrong, my love?” She kissed the back of his shoulder, as if nothing had changed between them.
“You know there is.”
“Och.” The harsh expression was softened in her throat, and to him sounded moist and intimate. “The king. He likes me because I appear human but am not entirely, and likes to show me off as a possession. To demonstrate his power over them.”
“So, he doesn’t know you’ve been sent by Brochan?”
“I wouldnae underestimate him. He might know it, but then he might not. Which is neither here nor there, for ’tis not as if I dictate policy to him.” She freed her hand from his and stroked his forearm. Smoothed the hairs on the back of it.
“But you keep tabs on him.”
“Tabs?”
“I mean, you keep track of where he is and what he’s up to. And you report back to Brochan everything you see and hear.”
“If I do, that’s Dagda’s concern, is it not?”
Trefor supposed it was, but having sworn fealty to him, there was a niggle of conscience at the back of his head for it. He shook it off and changed the subject. “Why are you here’?”
“As you said, to keep... tabs—”
“I mean, why are you in my room? Here in the bed?”
“I wished to see you. I want you. I should think that would be plain enough.” To illustrate, she reached around him again to run her fingernails across his belly. He nearly shivered at the charge that ran through him. But an image of Morag with Dagda quashed it right away. He captured her hand again.
“I don’t believe you. I think you’ve got something else on your mind.”
“And if I did? Would that be reason to not take advantage?”
“Yes.”
She made another harsh noise of disgust, less soft this time, and raised up on hands and knees over him. “‘Tis naught but a desire, and you need not think it a demand.”
“What is it you want?”
She kissed him, and he let her. Then she said, “I wish you to kill Dagda.”
For an instant, Trefor thought he would be ever so happy to kill the man sleeping with Morag, but then he shook off the thought as craziness. He wasn’t so terribly enamored with the red-haired witch. Really, he wasn’t. Obviously she had chosen this moment to tell him this because she knew he wanted her and figured he would be jealous. She was manipulating him, and that made him not want her so much.
But she kissed him again, and he let her again. Her mouth was insistent, her tongue an assault on his senses. She played with his favorite places and made him breathless. The longer it went on, the more he wondered why not kill Dagda. He rolled over on top of her and pressed himself to her.
“Why?” If he was going to do that for her, he needed to know what her interest was in it.
She spread her legs and wrapped them around his waist to draw him in. He obliged, and slipped in easily. “Tell me,” he insisted as he began to move.
“He needs killing.”
“Not good enough.”
“’Tis the land. The Bhrochan require their land back.” Again with the faerie lands.
“Why kill Dagda?”
“He’s a guest of Reubair, who is a vassal of Nemed.”
“And I am...?"
“Danann.”
Trefor went still. There it was. The Bhrochan needed a patsy. They wanted him to kill Dagda, for if a Bhrochan — even one who was mostly human — did the deed it would cause a war. One the Bhrochan probably couldn’t win. “If a Danann kills him, the upheaval is internal and not between the two factions of faerie. And I end up executed for murder. Treason, actually.” His desire for Morag left him like a hemorrhage, and he slipped off of her and to the side, to prop on an elbow.
She pressed, with a tone of encouragement. Excitement rose in her voice. “Only if you’re caught in the assassination. Get away with it, then the blame rests on An Reubair for failing to protect his guest.”
Were that likely to accomplish the Bhrochan goal, Trefor was certain the king would have been dead days ago, at Morag’s hand and under Reubair’s protection, and Morag would have been safely away. “You want me to believe there would be civil war over bad hospitality?”
“Oh, aye! You know there would!”
“And why does Brochan think this would be a good thing?”
“The land, Trefor! The faerie lands that belong to the Bhrochan! We could take them back in the midst of the fight!”
Trefor didn’t see how. A tiff over a visit gone bad just wasn’t upheaval enough. It was clear to him that if he attempted an assassination, Morag would make certain he was caught and blamed, to make it clear Dagda had been killed by another Danann. And she would make it appear he was in league with An Reubair to boot. Lindsay’s presence and her appearance of attraction to him would lend itself handily to that. For a moment he wondered if Morag knew Alex was downstairs, but didn’t dwell on it lest the witch learn it by reading him. He said, “You want the Danann to take up arms against Nemed.”
“Aye.”
“Dagda is already at odds with Nemed. Because of his race.”
“But the king willnae attack. He understands what the Bhrochan also understand: He cannae hold the land by himself. But if he were to die, particularly were he assassinated while in the household of Nemed’s loyal vassal — Reubair — the Danann would have no choice but to respond. Without Dagda, the Danann would take the land from Nemed, but they cannae hold it.”
“Why not, if Reubair is taken down? He’s Nemed’s military strength. Are the king’s followers that disorganized?”
“Unstable. Aside from the fact that Finian Danann hold themselves as better than those who live in burrows or among humans, the king has no clear heirs. Many sons, but none living who could take and hold the entire Danann against Nemed, who has allies among the nobility in addition to Reubair. Brochan would make claim to the land as his rightful property according to the wedding contract, and it would go to him without so much as a second thought, as diplomatic appeasement to keep the Bhrochan at bay during the Danann troubles. Neat as you please. No fight. No blood.”
“Except Dagda’s. And Reubair’s.” And mine.
“Two who deserve their fate.”
Fate. That word again, and Trefor knew how she felt about his own. He hated what he was hearing. Then Morag told him something that caught his breath and turned his thinking inside out. She said, “And once the land is ours, you will be the prince of it.”
Trefor blinked. “Huh?” Prince. He’d been called that by the Bhrochan many times, but never knew why.
“If your skill in the assassination is good, and you escape unscathed, you will receive this place as its lord. You’ll be a Danann prince to keep the Danann people at peace with the new Bhrochan settlers, but trained and loved by the Bhrochan, pledged to us, to manage the lands to our benefit. And I will be your consort.” She moved her hips against him and grinned.
God help him, that made some sense and it clouded his previously clear view of the situation. Could it be the Bhrochan meant what they’d been telling him all along?
Did Morag really expect him to take over in faerie Ireland?
The prospect was heady, and his heart thudded in his chest.
“You’re serious?”
“Of course I am. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Never. I’ve always sent you where you needed to be, and told you what was true and good. I’ve always loved you, Trefor, and by all accounts will do so well into the future. You can trust me, my love. You can believe that everything I tell you is true, and the course I show you is in your best interest. Killing Dagda is what you must do, and it will mean prosperity for you. And for me, for I’ll be right here beside you the whole time.”
She looked up at him with the most sincere eyes he could have imagined. He sifted through the confusion of wanting to believe her, knowing he just wasn’t lucky enough for this to be real. He’d learned early on in life that anything that looked too good to be true probably was a lie, but this had just enough credibility to ring right. And he figured he had just enough control over the events that he might be able to make her prediction happen. All he needed was to get away with the assassination, and he could maneuver himself into the very position she promised him. He could make it happen, and that boggled him.
He kissed her again and pressed himself against her once more as excitement filled him. He felt good. For the first time in his life he felt in control. He had a power he’d not had before his months with the Bhrochan. This just might work.
***
Alex could tell it was light out. He wasn’t sure how he could tell, but the darkness seemed a little less dense now. Unless it was just a torch two rooms down. But an extra torch might mean more people up and about, and that might mean daytime. He took a deep breath to speak, and said, “Patrick.” Then he expelled the rest of the breath in a sigh, exhausted from all that talking.
“Aye, sir?”
Daylight. Patrick knew it, too, for he only called Alex “my lord” when he was certain there would be nobody to hear. “Patrick, are you still praying for me?”
“Every day, sir.”
“Pray for yourself?”
“As often, to be sure.”
“How long has it been since she was here?”
“I cannot say, I’m afraid. The passage of time is a fluid thing.”
Alex certainly knew how malleable time was, and only wished he could manipulate it himself. Stupid faeries. “Think she’ll be back soon?”
Patrick shook his head. Alex couldn’t see it, but sensed it. Heard it, possibly, just the faintest sound of the priest’s neck against the collar of his shirt. Then he said, “You haven’t asked about your cousin.”
Alex didn’t give a damn about the “cousin." He wanted to know about Lindsay. He wanted to be with her. Wherever she was, he wanted to go to her. “What’s going on? What is that blasted faerie doing to her?”
“An Reubair?”
“Is she all right’? I’ll kill him if he’s hurt her.”
“She doesn’t seem hurt. She seems quite well. He appears to be treating her like a guest.”
Alex was quieted by that. Reubair was treating Lindsay well. It made him wonder why. It also made him wonder why he and Patrick were still alive. Then he remembered their captors didn’t know who they were.
Patrick said as if he’d heard the doubt in Alex’s heart, “She loves you more than her life.”
“That’s not possible. Nobody could.”
“You don’t think a human being could sacrifice his or her self for another? I happen to think it’s entirely possible. Our entire faith is based on it.”
“I can’t imagine Lindsay doing it.”
“Of course she would. And without thinking twice.”
“I said I couldn’t imagine it. It would be unthinkable for her to sacrifice herself for me, because then I would be alive without her. I don’t want her to even want to give herself for me.” He began to gasp. Too much speaking.
Patrick said, “Hm,” as he considered that. “So... you would give yourself for her. Or, at least, you would wish to be killed instead of her.”
Alex summoned his breath again and said, “I’ve always been ready to die, and for less reason. Don’t want to go on without her. Especially, I don’t want to live knowing there was something I could have done to save her.”
