by Jules Watson
“Come and smell these blooms,” Maeve said, “and talk to me.”
“I can talk while I gather supper.”
She went silent, but the next moment there was a flare beside him, and she caught his legs and dragged him toward her.
“Careful!” Ruán braced himself as he toppled on his back, trying not to fall on top of her.
Maeve propped herself up on one elbow, nudging a berry between Ruán’s lips. He pressed them together, but she only squashed the fruit until it burst and dribbled down his chin. Ruán licked it away, tucking an elbow behind his head.
The blaze he saw around him now was not the sun, it was her.
Ceara.
Ruán’s limbs settled into the ferns. She lives. Thank the gods. Thank the land. A secret pleasure welled in his heart. I didn’t kill her.
Maeve traced his lips with a finger, her breath berry-sweet. Ruán became aware of his pulse growing slower, stronger. He knew she must have sensed it, for she bent and kissed the beating vein in his wrist. This pool of sunshine fringed by whispering trees was set adrift, he thought unsteadily. It was a moment of time outside their real lives, their greater desires, as it always was.
She must have thought it, too, for he heard her whisper something into his skin. Take me away …
From the weight of sorrow, the darkness in her dreams.
And for that brief time, he could. Then he would wake, and she would be gone, and he would be left in peace again and his mind might clear.
Ruán tilted Maeve’s chin up to his mouth, his fingers tangling in her curls as he held her head, parting her lips with his tongue.
This time, wounded in body, she was not frantic or lustful. She melted beneath him, so fluid and abandoned he did not know where she ended and the wild began.
The lake must have seeped into her, too, as she lay here all these days.
Her limbs molded to his with gentle absorption, though he kept his weight from crushing her side. Her face fitted the curve of his neck. Every time he thrust into her, he was diving into silky water.
The salty film over her shoulders and breasts tasted of the lake. When the pleasure broke, Ruán’s awareness dissolved and another snatch came of a moment beyond.
The rushing wave of light that encompassed the land was him—and this time it was all of Erin he cradled. The strength of his arms formed the bounds of her shores, his blood the waters that gave her life.
And then it was gone.
Lying on his back, something dripped onto Ruán’s shoulder. He twitched, mumbling and turning his head into the ferns.
“It is ale—and still you will not rouse?” Maeve took another sip, planted her lips on his, and as his mouth opened, cold liquid flowed in from hers.
He swallowed and exclaimed.
“There.” She sat up, linking her arms about her knees.
Even through the haze of sleep, Ruán perceived the change in her. There was a ragged edge to her flame now. “What is wrong?”
“I walked a long way along the shore while you slept, and …” Her arm tensed. “If I can make it that far now, then I have to get home. I am a fool and have stayed too long.”
Ruán knew that taut seam in her voice. While he slept, fear had slunk along the shores of the lake behind her. “You are wounded—”
Her breath exploded. “Yes, I nearly died! And imagine if I had been slain … what would happen to them all …” Her voice cracked. “It has all changed now, after what I saw. There isn’t any more time to lose. There never was, no matter what I want for myself.”
Ruán listened to her rising voice, smelled her sharp sweat. Together, they were a rampart rising between them again. “Maeve, how were you wounded?”
She paused, blowing shreds of fern from her fingers. “I ordered a cattle raid on the Ulaid.”
“You attacked the Ulaid at Beltaine?” It was a sacred time, celebrating life.
She went rigid, then groped and flung on her discarded tunic as if she wanted some armor between them. “Conor raided my lands to steal our sacred bull.”
His pulse was a louder drumbeat now. “And what,” he said softly, “were your raiders seeking?”
“Proof of a weakness in the Red Branch.”
“Why?”
Her sigh was forceful as she twisted toward him. “So I can bring them and Conor down.”
Something was tearing inside Ruán. He sat straight to ease his chest. “If you attack the Ulaid in force, you condemn many to death. Not just warriors, but innocent people.”
“My warriors do not kill crafters and farmers!” She clambered to her feet.
“Herders defend their lands and cattle, Maeve, and crafters their homes.” He jumped up after her, ferns clinging to his bare thighs. He tried to rein in his rising temper. “Defense is one thing. You had to fight your rivals, or die. But attack the Ulaid in force, unprovoked, and you risk a war breaking out that will draw everyone in, from the poorest cottars to the greatest kings. You risk all of Erin!”
“How dare you question me?” Their harsh voices flushed a blackbird from the branches and it flapped away. Maeve hobbled over the grass, shoving one leg into her trews.
Ruán was struggling with the storm in his head, unable to think. And then the hurt bloomed, and he finally understood that pain. They had shared a wonder together, opened to each other—and still she would choose to be this.
Kin-slayer. Sword-wielder.
An unreachable person who rose again before him, armored and bloody.
He was swamped by betrayal. He had poured all of his light into her, taken what was torn and knitted it back together in one of the greatest moments of his life. He wove the very sparks that made him with her own life force. And now, again, she would throw that wondrous form of flesh and spirit before a deadly blade.
Ruán swiped up his tunic and drew it over his head. “Do not speak to me like a servant. Or is that all I am?” He faced her, lips tight. “Am I just another man to fill you, distract you, like the others?”
She gasped, her flame blotted out by a darkness that was terror. “By all the gods—I will kill Conor now before he kills me!”
The explosion faded into silence. Ruán’s blood was pumping. Could it all come down to that?
Maeve plucked up the saddle-blanket and tossed it back down, cursing. “I was wed to Conor. He wants to be high king of Erin. His pride is savage, only few see it because of his cunning.” Her words tumbled out, senseless. “Don’t you see? The flight of Deirdre has dealt him the final blow. He is seeking a way to prove his strength to his men again, to show his power.”
“You don’t know this—”
“I do! He has always been Connacht’s greatest threat, and I won’t risk my land based on scruples you wish I had!” They regarded each other, breathless. “It’s not the same for you,” she hissed. “You are safe here.”
He gestured at his blindfold. “Was I safe from nobles like you, who never care about the havoc you wreak?”
She stifled an exclamation. “I care.”
“Do you?” He was dragging on his trews, fumbling with the laces. “Because from the moment you took that sword from your father, you have been seeking out danger and bloodshed. Anyone would think you crave it, thrive on it.”
“I do not crave it.” Bitterness seeped through her voice. “I never chose rape at the hands of men who saw me first as a prize and then as a threat they should destroy.”
Ruán laughed, grinding his palms into his temples. “Listen to yourself! What are you going to do, kill every man in Erin so no one can hurt you again?”
Her obstinance beat upon his senses. He growled, sweeping in to grasp her face between his hands, caging her cheeks. Their legs entangled, hot breath mingling. “Open your eyes, Maeve! Use that strength of yours to build, not tear down.” He caught his breath as her tears ran into his fingers. “I feel such fire in you—use it to make something no one has thought of before. Conor has ringed his territories with ramparts; you c
an do the same. Find a way to forge the strength of the other kingdoms into something greater than one tribe alone. That is what will make you unassailable.”
Maeve’s back went rigid. Her flame, now a turmoil of black and red, sent up a desperate flare. “Gods, you are right. The kingdoms must band together to attack Conor. It is the only way.”
With a curse, Ruán thrust her away. He took a step and turned. “What are you doing here with me, Maeve? I am not a warrior. I am not a lord. I cannot give you anything to make you safe from men like Conor of the Ulaid. You choose that life …” He sketched a hand at his eyes. “But I left that world long ago.” He dropped his hands by his sides. “So tell me what I am to you. What we are.”
And if she answered … he would know for certain himself.
That pause was full of struggle. “It does not matter.” Her voice was ragged, despairing. “Whatever I try to hold for myself … it will be torn away from me by Conor and men like him. So no one … no one can be anything to me.”
Ruán’s chest deflated, and he nodded, his chin down.
“There is not only my life to consider …” She faltered. “I have people to protect—”
“People you put in danger every day by setting them on the battle-path. Can’t you see it? Your fear of Conor takes your sense.”
“I do not fight for me, I do it for them.”
“If that is what you tell yourself at night.”
Maeve choked back a cry and struck him in the chest, her fist on his breastbone.
That blow forced all the hurt out of Ruán, and in the shocked silence that ensued, a calmness poured over him. His mind cleared into a dawn of understanding.
He had saved Maeve’s life three times: the sacred number of the gods. Connacht needed a strong ruler, and she had stopped the kingdom from disintegrating—that was undeniable. She was born to be a shield, a sword. That was what her druid dreamed, only Ruán had not fully believed it. He couldn’t fight his way through that … but as she said, it did not matter.
He would make it not matter.
And now he knew what to grasp for—his fate was only ever to help the Queen of Connacht to her throne.
Ruán went light-headed, his ears ringing. Maeve had brought the life and vigor back into his body. He helped her to power. It was a bargain, as she had always said.
A bargain fulfilled.
The glimmer of the sídhe washed through Ruán. He heard their singing, faint as wind in the reeds. “I miss the one who opened to me, and wept in my arms.”
“If I weep, I break—and people die.” But in Maeve’s voice was the force of will she was marshaling to speak this way. She wrapped herself in the saddle-blanket. “Perhaps the Shining Ones did help me to my hall, but kings who fail to protect their flock are sacrificed to the gods.”
“If you were blessed by the sídhe, it is because of the surrender that has happened in your heart, not the blade in your hand. For someone so brave, it’s the one truth you will not face.”
Maeve was backing up. “The Red Branch wield a weapon we do not understand. The only way to be safe is to attack Conor when he is weakened.”
Pity throbbed in Ruán, and his reply emerged with tenderness. “And all you do is stoke his wrath higher.”
“No! You do not understand.”
“Ceara—”
“No.” The despair in her whisper pierced him, the hopelessness of a wild thing ensnared. “I know what I have to do.” With a catch in her throat, Maeve spun about and hastened away.
Ruán heard the faltering of her step, the wound paining her. There was nothing to do but let her go.
He sat down cross-legged, his face lifted to the sky as he tried to slow his breath. He could muster no sight, could only cling to the lifeline of the sunshine soaking through him.
At his heart, though, there was only ice.
At the stables of Cruachan, Maeve was easing Meallán’s saddle off when Finn burst through the open doors. The girl’s face was bone-white, her eyes glittering. She went to fling herself at Maeve and stopped a hand-span away, rocking on her toes as if she did not know which way to fall.
Maeve drew breath, her eyes lifting to her daughter like someone in darkness seeking the glow of a fire. She had passed the funeral pyres of the men who died in the raid on her way across the plain, the ashes still smoldering. The reek clung to her hair, to her dead heart.
But more deaths would come if they did not stay strong.
“I …” Finn’s voice cracked. Her face was all twisted up, a cub in pain.
It stirred Maeve’s instincts, piercing the fog around her. She curved her palm behind Finn’s head, then stepped close to crush her child into her chest. “I told you I was hard to kill.”
Finn’s breath leaked out of her, her brow upon Maeve’s breast. “But you did not run away from the warriors, as you promised.”
“No.” Maeve stared over Finn’s shoulder into the dusty shadows of the stable. Her eyes were glassy. “I could not live with myself if I ran away. It is my duty to stay.” Her embrace tightened around the one in her arms, so vulnerable as she huddled against her. She was meant to shelter them all … she made an oath. “I brought the wrath of the wolf upon you, so it is I who must fight. I have to be more ruthless than he is, lunge first, or he will defeat us. I have to be …”
“Mother …?” Finn raised her head.
Maeve’s lips parted and she looked into Finn’s puzzled eyes. Blinking, she brushed a strand of Finn’s copper hair from her brow. “Go tell Fraech I am back and that I will see him tomorrow, when I have rested.” She turned and left, her head pounding so hard she could barely see.
As sheets of rain blew in, Maeve sought out Garvan to assure herself he was alive, watching him from afar training on the waterlogged meadows with the men. She slipped away before he saw her, and managed to evade Tiernan and everyone else as well, pleading that she needed her sleep.
Her throat aching, she eased herself into her bed in her bedchamber, ignoring her soaked hair and chilled body.
She could not face anyone. No one must touch her raw skin or drag her back with their questions, not yet. She conjured again every touch in the sunshine, the way he murmured to her, the taste of his lips. She could hoard that …
She was staring into the sputtering lamp when Ailill came lumbering up the stairs.
“Lugh’s ball’s, but what were you thinking?” Ailill unhooked his dripping cloak and threw it over a chair. “What madness possessed you?”
She squinted at him, her eyes gritty with unshed tears.
“As soon as I heard of this fool raid, I rode back from Laigin. I only wished I’d caught you before you left … damn and blast it, Maeve!” He grabbed the jug of watered wine on her dresser and drank from the spout. The rain and mist had turned his spiked brown mane into a limp tangle.
“Ailill—”
He slammed the jug down, wiping his beard. “And then we feared you dead, until some scraggly brat ran in with a mysterious message for Tiernan, and scampered off before anyone could find out where he came from!”
Ruán of the marsh. Maeve pressed her temples, closing her eyes. If she clenched her belly, it curdled her sorrow into anger at Conor instead. Make the deaths of Lassar and her men count for something. Use what they won against the Ulaid.
If she did not, she betrayed them all.
She eased herself to her feet, her legs weak. “There is something wrong with the Red Branch. They ambushed us and should have beaten us easily, but most of us escaped.” She bit her lip, eyes on the lamp-flame. “Most.”
“They nearly killed you, you rash idiot!”
Maeve’s head went up. Good gods … he did not care like that?
A flush crept over Ailill’s heavy cheeks, veiling the web of ale-veins. His glance was defiant. “If you die, I lose all that you promised me.”
Ah. She nodded, scraping her wet hair back with one hand. “I have seen the Red Branch train at Emain Macha. This time they wer
e broken, and Cúchulainn could not hold them. I saw it with my own eyes—that is what the deaths of our warriors bought us. This unrest among them has dealt a fatal blow to their strength.”
Ailill’s glare faded.
Maeve balled her fists over her chest. “Now is the time to throw everything we have at Conor and bring him down! Go back to your father, and this time ask him for men. We need more than a war-band. We need an army.”
Ailill folded his burly arms, planting his feet. “My father is still too afraid of the Red Branch to risk an outright defeat, you know that.”
Lassar’s face loomed before Maeve. More of Connacht’s young ones would die. “You must do this.” Sweat broke out over her lip. “It is our only chance.”
“Must?” Ailill advanced on her, reeking of horse and ale. “I don’t know why you think I’ll do your bidding when you hardly ever share your thoughts with me—let alone your body!”
She blinked, her sight coming back into focus. Ailill looked peevish, his eyes small and hard beneath bushy brows. “I am a queen,” she said, “not a hearth-wife. That is what your women are for—you certainly brought enough of them with you.”
“You used to be true to your promises.” Ailill clamped her arms, his tone darker. “I will play the part you charged me with when you play yours.”
Maeve’s nostrils flared as she bent her head up at him. Everything she had buried at the lake now came rushing up her body.
She pushed him away and, turning, ripped off her damp tunic and trews, breast-band and clout. Her wound was a branding iron pressed to her side. Balling the clothes, she flung them at the wall with a gasp of frustration. All her promises had been given away, one by one, to forge the shield for her people.
And so now she did not own a moment of peace for herself.
She had spoken vows to her husband, too. An ally. She made herself remember that, though it felt empty to her now. She faced Ailill, crooking her hands on her naked hips, her chest heaving. His eyes went wide as he saw the bandage. Then his gaze dropped lower.
