by Jules Watson
Her hands hesitated, then came to rest on his waist, sending a jolt through him. In a rush, Maeve pressed her body up against Ruán, and at last he was eclipsed by her familiar heat. It flowed around him until he could feel nothing else.
Words were stilted things between them. Strangely, it was in the melding of their flesh that he touched an essence of her that was greater than her body or mind.
Ruán cupped Maeve’s cheek, frowning as he moved his thumb over the corner of her mouth. Her lips parted, and he tensed, torn. Draw forward; pull back.
Maeve broke the barrier of his thought, kissing the curve of his neck, then trailing her lips into the hollow at his throat. Ruán’s shoulders lowered, his sigh almost silent. Perhaps he should see her only as flesh and pleasure, after all. That must be all she saw of him.
This time Maeve’s body rose up to meet Ruán’s, and she did not fall into darkness. Buried within her, he was engulfed by the scent of crushed grass from their bodies, sheltered in the lee of the thorns. Tiny blossoms were caught in her hair; he imagined them starring her red tresses.
With the cool sun on his bare back, Ruán let himself sink into her lushness. Leaf-bud was barely unfolding, but for the first time he felt the faint stirrings of life around him.
When Maeve gasped and bent back her chin, and he cried out as he tasted the salt at her throat, Ruán’s sight was flooded with a light he had never seen before. A brilliant wave washed away from his body … their bodies … as if borne on their wild shouts.
Maeve lay catching her breath, a hand over her eyes. But, astonished, Ruán propped himself up on his wrists. That light … an intense silver … continued rushing away from them, lapping at the trees and rises in the ground like bright water. Eventually it disappeared, draining back into the pool from where it came.
Dazed, Ruán gazed around at the glimmers left on branch and leaf.
“Farewell,” Maeve said in a whisper.
CHAPTER 15
LEAF-BUD
Four nights later, in the southern hills of Connacht, the leaders of the warrior bands sent to Cruachan by Maeve’s supporters gathered about her. She had three hundred men, but she knew Idath and Felim would have at least double that.
She had ordered that there be no fires, so they broke bread and cold mutton in a damp glade just before dusk. The rest of the fighting men were invisible now, scattered through muddy woods at the foot of a steep ridge, sheltering under yew branches or patched leather and sleeping off the day on horseback.
Among a scatter of granite boulders, Garvan had scrawled a mess of lines in the soil at his feet, showing the rivers and hills that threaded Idath and Felim’s territory where it bordered Mumu.
Maeve stood nearby, looking out as purple shadows flowed down from the sun-reddened hills far above and lapped the trees. Arguments rumbled on behind her.
“They will scout us out,” one of the battle-leaders growled. “We can’t conceal this many men.”
“We can hide our trail among the trees along this river,” Garvan replied. “Look.”
“That way will take too long!”
“What does that matter?” someone else put in. “If we dance close to them and then away, we draw them out. As long as we cut them off from Cruachan, we can keep them busy. They won’t turn their backs on us.”
“Idath’s and Felim’s people have steadings high up the ridges; they will see us from far away. And we don’t know where they are mustering, anyway.”
Maeve stood with her hand on the pale birch tree beside her, straining for the answer in the grating of the branches above her head. She could not seem to turn around, her feet stuck in the loam as if her body longed to melt into the earth.
She should have told Ruán where she was going and asked to be filled with the otter anam—with any power at all.
Now, here in the gathering dark, she felt the urge to voice to him what she could not to anyone else. I am afraid. Her body responded with another cramp of loosened bowels. Blast, she answered herself. Would you rather die?
Sheer bloody-mindedness was all she had left.
Maeve loped back to the fire and snatched the birch stick from Garvan. When she looked down at the map, however, all the lines broke into meaningless shards. She cleared her throat. “We discovered their plans before they were ready, and they will also have to break cover when they come down from high ground. Wherever they muster, they can only approach Cruachan along one of these three valleys … one, two, or three … between these ridges.”
“We are marching blind,” one man grunted, squinting at the map.
Maeve leaned both hands on the stick. The eyes of the warriors were hard in the shadows, like wet stones. “We will know more when the scouts return.”
Their doubt was clear. Turning away, Maeve fought to rein in her pulse. She was a woman, which meant she always had to win against two sides—the enemy and her own men.
The Source that welled through the trees had a different flavor from the lake. The oaks were ponderous, unlike the quicksilver dance of water. Slow-creeping roots spread into loam. Gnarled branches lifted themselves to sun and moon, bearing witness to long wheels of time.
Ruán spread his arms about a vast trunk, his cheek pressed to the bark. There must be a pulse of life force in the tree he would not hear, but could feel. The glimmers behind his eyes were growing more vivid, and starting to hint at shapes, as he had seen in the sídhe dance.
He had to hone that skill for himself now.
He breathed out. If he could slow his heart to the same pulse, then something of his essence—the little sparks that made him—might pass into the tree. And if they joined for a heartbeat and the tree opened to him … could he summon a trickle of Source through the veils? Stir the currents of sparks in the oak, make them resonate as one so the tree drew in Otherworld light as well as water?
His chest barely moved. The swift rush of his spirit must slow into a welling river …
A stick cracked, and Ruán’s hand slipped. No humans came here for fear of the sídhe—except one. He spun about, blood rushing up his body. Then he tensed. It was not her.
The flame before him was bright white, where Maeve was always fiery. Ruán pressed against the oak. He was clad in brown deerskins, and the hazel trees were already putting out their buds. Surely he was well hidden.
He heard the intruder fall to his knees.
“Forest Lord, I see your shining light … at last …” The man’s cracked voice held wonder. “I left offerings, and pray you will overlook my boldness in seeking you. It is only driven by desperation to protect my people.”
Ruán struggled to understand. He was still dazed by the touch of the Source, not yet fully returned to his own flesh.
“I know Eochaid’s daughter seeks your wisdom, and you do not harm her for this. Now I come. With my inner sight I have sought a godly spirit such as yours, this great brightness I now behold. Forgive that I dared leave the groves to tread the sacred ground that you have claimed. Hail, King of Trees, lord over this humble shoot of the oak!”
A druid. Ruán only now recognized his manner of speech, for he’d lived strange lives since he himself bore the oak staff. This man also thought him sídhe. No matter how hard a druid sought, few ever saw a Shining One, let alone spoke to them.
He was about to set this to rest when the old man made some violent movement, his robes flapping. “I would not break your peace, but that my own is broken. If she must be queen, I cannot decide this alone!”
Ruán’s mouth closed.
“Help me. The visions grow more powerful but less clear. And now … the stag and hind are going to clash, and spill blood. But whose blood? Fraech would be a fine king, but dreams of her hammer on me and I do not understand the warning. If she dies, have I betrayed us? Is she tyrant or goddess? Tell me, that I may be a true seer for my people!”
I have come to say farewell.
She had tried to tell him, and Ruán had not heard her.
; Blood will be spilled.
Ruán braced his hand on the oak, forcing his words to flow as once trained. This druid was god-touched, and knew more of Maeve than he himself could fathom. “What did you dream of her?”
“Ah … so much.” The druid spoke aloud his visions, which had grown from baffling glimpses into more vivid pictures. “But it was the dream last night … this one …”
It spilled from the old man in a torrent.
The druid beheld Erin from above, as if he was an eagle. Below, what looked at first like a green island then changed into a great mound encircled by a rampart of stakes. Four enormous spears were set around its edge, as large as oaks, and on each was a vast shield, brightly painted and streaming pennants. Each shield bore the design of one of the four kingdoms: Mumu, Connacht, the Ulaid, and Laigin.
“And then I saw her … Maeve … galloping on a black horse around the outside of the rampart. Her red hair streamed from beneath a crested helm. Four times she circled the mound, and she struck every shield in turn with her great sword, and screamed a war-cry, and the shields rang as they do in battle.”
Ruán was so immersed, he did not realize he was moving forward, step by step, to where the druid knelt.
Inside the ramparts, the druid recounted, he saw people. At first he thought it was a few hundred, but as he looked they became thousands—countless masses stretching back into the mist. All were enclosed in the rampart, and Maeve kept up her fierce war-cries, striking the shields.
“Are they her prisoners?” the druid demanded. “Her victims? I see them all glowing white, as the ghosts of the slain appear when they pass through my visions!”
The panic in the old man stirred Ruán’s pity. He knew what it was like to bear this responsibility. Without realizing it, his hand landed upon the druid’s shoulder.
Ruán’s spirit had not yet returned to his body—the motes inside him had been flowing out to join with the tree—and so with that touch he left himself again without conscious volition. He spiraled down through the vision held in the druid’s own stream of Source.
At last Ruán saw the vast shields, the flashing sword.
The countless souls of people flamed like torches below. And now, at the heart of the fort, he spied something else. A spring gushed from a rocky cleft on the highest point of the mount. He thought of the well the sídhe showed him on the hill, a doorway to the Otherworld. To Source.
It was then he saw Maeve.
She was inside the mound now, a towering figure on the crest beside the spring. Her armor was gone. Her hair was so long the red tendrils tangled in the bubbling water. The folds of her green dress pooled among the ferns at her bare feet. She held a gold cup in both hands.
As Ruán watched, Maeve dipped it into the spring and held the brimming cup above her head in triumph. Her blue eyes blazed straight at Ruán as if she could see him, and at that same moment she tipped the cup and spilled the contents out.
A waterfall poured all over the ground, igniting into a silver so brilliant Ruán could see nothing but that. It flooded the mound, and the people, grass, spears, and shields were all swept up by the glowing wave. It spread over the land before settling into a vast lake ringed by green shores. A pool of light at the heart of Erin—the same light he had seen in the hands of the sídhe.
The Source, gathered by Maeve. She is blessed by the Otherworld?
“She is blessed by the Otherworld.” He spoke aloud without thinking, so faint it did not sound like a question anymore.
The druid exclaimed and clambered up. “I knew it.” The old man’s breath was labored. “I thank you. I saw it in the land, but was unsure. The long dark so gentle, leaf-bud unfurling early … I sensed it in the land!”
Ruán was mute. Gods, he had felt it, too, though he did not realize. A quickening in the woods, a surge through the earth. His heart skipped. What made this? He saw his limbs entwined with hers, their heads thrown back. The silver wave, rushing away. He was paralyzed. Maeve. His heart spoke it.
The druid was retreating. “I must return and await the outcome,” the old man stammered. “But if this is meant to be, my lord, I pray she prevails.”
Once he was gone, Ruán stormed back to his campfire and spread his arms to the sky. “Now you will tell me what I see! Is she a killer … or a life-bearer? Tell me.” His voice rebounded off the trees and collided with itself.
Outside that, silence.
Ruán stalked around the fire, kicking aside anything that met his feet, breaking branches and scattering coals. In his wrath, the glimpses of light and flickers of flame disappeared—he was blind again. “You told me her fate was her own, that if she heard the call of the lake I must not stop her. But now … I spoke out of turn … and I wove her fate with mine!”
His shoulders heaved as he faced the colder air away from the fire. He needed to know his heart clearly so he could find out how to turn it from her. Maeve, the dangerous queen; Maeve the ruthless ruler.
But that wasn’t what he felt the night they let go all barriers between them, and something of his spirit wound with hers. And now he had seen the Source in her hands. “And,” he panted to the sídhe, “you have me talking to myself.”
No answer came.
The sídhe told him that they did not rule people, that they had their own purpose in bringing forth the Source. This was not about them—it was about him. And that made him more afraid.
Ruán gnawed on it into the night, flinging sticks into the fire with great force, but in the face of their silence, he at last curled up in his deerskins beside the coals. As he dipped for a moment into unconsciousness, he glimpsed a young girl, her back slumped. Small and defeated, with tears falling on her hands.
Instinctively, Ruán reached for her, the movement startling him awake. He rolled on his back and then came bolt upright.
The druid’s vision … Maeve was protecting all those souls as she raced around the mound. The sídhe showed her to him as a queen of blades, shields, and blood—despise it or not, there it was. And her people needed her.
At that moment all those hard thoughts fled. With a growl, Ruán buried his head in one hand and ground his fingers into his scalp. Maeve.
She was going to die.
Maeve ducked into her dark tent, waiting as the footsteps of her other warriors faded. Grasping the pole, she let her shoulders sag and her brow rest upon it.
Garvan slipped in behind, his hands brushing her hips. “Your nerves are getting the better of you, spitfire. You cannot break now. We are so close.”
Though she could not see them, the high ridges of the hills out there still prickled her senses. Black buttresses rearing against the sky … closing in on her. They were deep within Idath’s and Felim’s lands now—the scouts had finally spied the warriors that were coming to take Cruachan.
To kill her.
Garvan’s breath was on her neck. “Your blood is battle-high, that’s all. And we know the way to soothe that.” Cupping her belly, he drew her against him. “You have ignored me for too long, but a tumble is as good as a wrestle for cleansing the blood. You can fight me if you want to!”
Maeve stopped breathing. You will not fight me, Ruán had said.
She wrenched herself from Garvan’s grip, backing against the leather. “The scouts have sighted Idath’s men—Connacht-men. How can you be eager for this battle?”
Garvan cocked his head, the starlight falling through the tent flap tracing his puzzlement. “Because this is how it can be laid to rest, at last.” He reached to drag her into a kiss. “Now you will triumph.”
Maeve instinctively shied away, pulling against his hand.
Garvan’s arm fell away. “You used to wrap those thighs about a different man every night and were the better for it,” he muttered. “You get no relief, and you’re a woman who needs it. Do you have some notion that to be queen you must hoard your strength? Lugh’s balls, woman, what else are you saving yourself for?”
The words hung ther
e, but Garvan could not miss the coiling up of Maeve’s shoulders. Sleep with him and be done with it, she cried to herself. It would loosen her, settle her mind.
Garvan was peering at her. “Oh …” He trailed off. “No. Not you.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, her own thought echoing his. No. It could not be so. And yet she could bear no touch, not even Garvan’s. At night, dreams conjured a tangible sense of Ruán’s body fitting hers, curve to hollow. And she sank into him and there was no hardness, no control.
Garvan tugged a hand through his matted hair, his laugh strained. “Well well. I didn’t know you were so fond of that thickheaded bull of yours.”
He couldn’t think she wanted … Ailill?
Only then did Maeve see Garvan’s bleak smile. He didn’t believe that, but knew better than to press her. “If you are going soft at last, spitfire, I’d wait until the battle is over.”
Maeve smiled back, unsteadily clapping his shoulder. “You are greater than a friend, closer than a bedmate.” She gripped his bones. “You are my kin.”
Garvan looked at his feet. After a moment he shook his head and snorted as if amused at himself. “Damn you, Maeve.”
“Now that is a brother speaking.” She ruffled his forelock and filled her lungs. “And I know a better way to rid myself of nerves. We’ll fly up the valley and take them by surprise.”
Garvan’s face fell. “We just agreed to dig in and hold them until the other lords send more men.” He waved his finger near his ear. “Or am I hearing things?”
Maeve went to the tent flap and looked out, flexing her fingers. She was sick of grasping at nothing but fear. She hungered to grip a hilt instead, just so she could move—strike, run, ride. “Idath has committed to a path down the western ravine. We cannot let him change his mind.”
“He won’t! Remember Lugh’s temple. His contempt for you makes him foolhardy. The moment the bastards see our barricade, they will become so enraged they will storm us straightaway. They hunger to rid themselves of you.”
