“Where’re you off to?”
“I want to see if I can make any sense of those old tree scrolls.”
Niona snorted. “In The Mem’brances of Trees? There’s nothing in those old scratchings about trixies. Why—”
“I’m not going to see what it says about trixies. I want to see what it says about unnatural children.”
“The only thing that even comes close is that nonsense about a child who can’t be slain by hand of woman, hand of man.”
“Yes,” replied Catrione. “And I’m afraid that that’s exactly what Deirdre’s child is.”
7
Long before the watchtowers of Eaven Morna were visible above the treeline, Morla smelled the fire pits full of roasting meat. Her mouth watered and her belly rumbled. With any luck, she might go to bed full three nights in a row. Custom and honor demanded a guest eat before anyone else, and so Morla had, for the first time in a long time, eaten her fill at every stop.
As she crested the top of the hill, she heard the muted shouts of the riders on the playing fields echoing off the shallow hills. She wiped a splatter of mud off her cheek as the memory of herself on those fields flashed through her mind, charging across the flats after the round pig’s bladder, swinging her long curved stave over her head. She’d been good at those sorts of games, if nothing else. It was on those playing fields she’d first noticed Lochlan. Her heart contracted unexpectedly at the memory.
He’d been but newly knighted, a warrior not yet in his prime, but strong and eager in the way of the best of the young men who clustered around Meeve like bees after honey. She remembered the way his blond hair, darkened to brown by his sweat, whipped around his face, nearly blinding him, jeopardizing their victory. She’d ripped a streamer off the sleeve of the nearest lady and had handed it to him, not as a favor, but as a mop. Their first laugh had been shared at the look on the startled lady’s face.
Morla flapped the reins and tried not to think about how Meeve had tapped his shoulder the following Beltane before Morla could. She’d hated her mother’s court from the day she’d returned from her fostering on the Outermost Isles to that cold dawn more than ten years ago when she’d left as a bride bound for her husband’s holdings. No matter that Fionn had turned out to be a kind, generous man, just a few years older than she, straight and fair as his name implied; a bit quiet, his conversation mostly limited to the complexities of raising sheep. Her mother knew all about him, of course, but Meeve was too busy celebrating Morla’s marriage with Fionn’s father to think such details important enough to share with her daughter. Morla supposed it was just as well the groom had not accompanied his father. Meeve would probably have bedded him, too, if she hadn’t already. Morla had wondered, more times than she liked, if her husband had bedded her mother, but she’d never summoned up the courage to ask. Or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to know.
A gust of wind brought the smell of seaweed from the swampy flats along the coast, and another memory burst through her mind, of the beach at low tide, the waterline heaped with brackish seaweed thick with tiny shells, of herself perched on one of the huge rocks overlooking the sea, arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the horizon until she was sure she could see into the OtherWorld. The beach below the cliffs of Eaven Morna had been the only place she’d felt at home.
Meeve’s court, whether at Eaven Morna, Ardagh or anywhere else, was nothing like the spare life Morla had become familiar with, carved out by the fisher-chiefs of the Outermost Isles, whose halls, perched high on the windy cliffs, were always vulnerable to the raids of Humbrian pirates. Meeve’s court was extravagant; Meeve herself flamboyant and rowdy. She was always ready to take a new man to her bed, never concerned about whose man he might otherwise be.
Morla had felt like a misfit from the first day of her return. She wasn’t good at word games, she couldn’t play an instrument, she knew no poetry except the rough songs of the fisherfolk. Her hair was a nondescript brown. She lacked Meeve’s high color in her cheeks. Long-limbed like Meeve, her body was sturdier and lent itself more to trews and tunics than the elaborately embroidered bodices heavy with jewels her mother’s ladies favored. She knew over a hundred ways to prepare twenty different fish, a fact Meeve never failed to mention with a laugh and a knee slap. The only bright spot had been her friendship with Lochlan. Despite knowing next to nothing about her mother’s choice of a groom and Dalraida’s dismal reputation, Morla’d been glad to leave.
It had been ten years since she’d been back. She bent low over the horse’s neck and tried not to remember the tide of humiliation she’d felt watching Meeve lead Lochlan, already flushed and panting like a hungry dog at the honor of being chosen by the great queen, out of the keep. Instead Morla focused on the torches winking from the tops of the towers and across the upper edge of the outer curtain wall. Then the wind shifted direction and her plaid flapped in her face. The banners of both Mochmorna and Brynhyvar fluttered proudly in the wind, announcing to anyone who might have cared that Great Meeve was in residence.
From high atop the gatehouse, a shout went up, more torches flaring in a long line across the battlements. Men pointed down. They’d seen her. She wondered, fleetingly, if any would recognize her and again Lochlan’s face intruded like an unruly hound’s. Ten years was a long time in the life of one of her mother’s knights. Meeve tended to wear out even the most vigorous. The bards even sang songs of the ones said to have died of exhaustion. Surely he wasn’t still there.
Morla slowed the horse as the great keep loomed closer. Her stomach clenched painfully and she wasn’t sure if it were anticipation of meeting Lochlan or the realization that even as poverty ground away at the lives of all in Dalraida, Meeve lived in luxury. The burnished torches were set in sconces that looked like gold, the walls were in fine repair and everyone along the walls and at the base had the relaxed, happy air of satisfaction that only bellies filled regularly and often ever had.
She pulled the horse to a stop at the gatehouse, and a guard stepped out, squinting up at her in torchlight that burned so brightly the shadows on the ground and on the walls were nearly dark as those at noon. “Your name, Cailleach?”
Morla swept the plaid off her head, wondering if the hard life in the uplands of Dalraida had been as cruel as that. She noticed the suppleness of the leather, the polished glint of the pike blades, the fat, round rumps of the horses led in and out. No creature had gone hungry here in a long time.
“Cailleach?” he repeated. “Your business?”
The doughy aroma of baking bread wafted from the kitchens and her mouth watered. In her haste, out of habit, she’d picked up the plaid she’d grown use to wearing, but that most likely was unfamiliar to all at Eaven Morna. “I’m Morla,” she replied. “Morla MaMeeve,” she repeated, when she saw the name meant nothing to him. “Morla, the High Queen’s daughter?”
He stared at her blankly until another guard, this one a grizzled older man with a sergeant’s stripe across his chest, poked him in the back with the butt of a spear and elbowed him in the ribs. “You dunderhead, this is Morla, the princess. One of Meeve’s lasses—it’s been a long time, hasn’t it, lassie?” he finished, peering up at her in the flickering glare.
“It has, Fornaught,” she answered, pleased—amazed, even—that she remembered his name. She slid off her gelding, and as her stiff muscles protested, a flicker of color and the sudden flap of a gaudy banner caught her eye—red, a white so pure it looked blue in the shadows and an indigo so intense, she recognized it by the descriptions of it alone. Made only one place in the world, the city-state of Lacquilea, from ingredients expensive and rare, it was known to cost a queen’s ransom. Fat tassels of braided silk in all three colors embellished the polished wooden pole, which was chased in gold and topped with a gold replica of some kind of bird of prey. The crest on the white portion was Meeve’s Great Goddess, how many cattle did that cost her? she wondered, looking around. More gold flashed in the torchlight, and she saw the courty
ard teemed not only with Meeve’s knights, but also with unfamiliar, dark-skinned warriors dressed in unfamiliar garb, throwing dice and drinking from Meeve’s deepest goblets, laughing and talking in a language she did not know. Meeve was entertaining foreign guests.
She almost stumbled as she dismounted, and Fornaught reached to steady her. “Come on, girl, I’ll take you to your mother.”
But before she could move, from out of nowhere, a long body thudded into her so that she nearly fell, but for the pair of strong sweaty arms that wrapped around her in a bear’s embrace. “Morla? Is that my sister? Morla, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Bran?” she whispered, as she steadied herself. She had never expected her younger brother to be here. Thirteen years younger than she, he should be still in the last year or so of his fostering. But he was fumbling at his neckline, and from under the sweaty, stained layers of linen and leather, he withdrew a dazzlingly white seashell on a leather cord, souvenir of the last day they’d spent together on the beaches below Eaven Morna. “Look, Morla, I’ve kept it all these years.”
Fornaught tapped Bran’s shoulder. “Master Bran, shouldn’t you be at your shoeing?”
Bran glanced over his shoulder, a pout curling his full red lips, but ignored Fornaught otherwise. “Morla, I’m so happy to see you.”
Her throat thickened as she stared at Bran. At fourteen, he was maybe an inch or two taller than she, skinny as a newborn calf. His hair, once as yellow and downy as new flax, had darkened to a sun-streaked nut brown. There was almost nothing left of the baby he’d been but the expression in his dancing eyes. Meeve’s court had been tolerable until Bran had gone away for fostering. “Come, I’ll take you—” He tugged at her arm, exuberant as a puppy.
“Hold, Bran,” she said. “Let me look at you—I never thought you’d be here. Did you give your foster mother so much trouble she sent you back a year early?”
“Ha, Mam sent for me, but I’ve scarcely seen her. Maybe now that you’re here, she’ll listen to me—I’ve not seen her in days—”
Foreboding flickered as Morla wondered why Meeve would send for both of them. Before she could ask anything, Fornaught coughed pointedly and stamped his spear. “Young master, you’ve caused more than enough trouble already with Master Mordram, don’t you think? Now that Morla’s here, you don’t want to give him an excuse to work you late, do you? Off with you now.”
“Come see me later, all right? You look for me in the forge?”
“I’ll look for you in the forge,” she replied. “You go now—I don’t want you getting into trouble on my account, all right?” With another sulky pout, Bran slunk off.
“I’ll see you later,” called Morla. She turned to Fornaught. “What do you mean, he’s caused trouble?”
“Oh, he ran off a couple days ago. Caused a lot of ruckus—had to turn the castle upside down looking for him. Looked high and low and they didn’t find him till two days later, almost.” Fornaught shrugged. “He’s a typical lad who’s not happy being set to real work. Come with me, now.”
She felt like a puppy trotting in his wake, and heard her name whispered over and over, lifted up and rolled through the crowd like a curiosity. They entered the first ward and Morla gasped. Surely no house of TirNa’lugh could blaze as brightly. Light shone from every window, illuminating the fountained courtyard, the wide swaths of carefully tended cobbles. She felt the weight of many eyes. The scent of baking bread and roasting meat filled the space, and her mouth watered.
“Come,” said Fornaught, leading her past a fountain from which dark purple wine flowed. There was a crowd clustered around it, filling goblets, dipping into baskets filled with fruit and cheese. They were laughing and drinking and toasting each other and they turned to stare. She glanced down, realizing suddenly how shabby and worn her clothes looked compared to the tunics and kirtles all around her. With every step, the realization that her mother’s court lived in luxury while she and her people toiled in abject poverty, their plight mostly overlooked, fanned the anger the sight of the silk banners and golden torches had ignited. She found it hard to breathe, but Fornaught seemed not to notice. He led her across the courtyard, into the long wooden arcade branching off the main hall that led to her mother’s private apartments. The corridor was deserted, but at the far end, the warriors stood with crossed spears in front of the closed doors.
As they entered, the doors swung open, and a fat, red-faced man leaned out and beckoned.
“Ah, that’s good,” said Fornaught. “Looks like Meeve’s still within.”
The polished breastplates, the oiled leathers on the guards made Morla ever more painfully aware of her worn leather trews, her sweat-stained shirt, her thin doublet, her frayed plaid, as he led her down the corridor. She recognized Briecru, Meeve’s former First Knight as she stepped across the threshold into a room more sumptuous than anything she’d ever seen in her life. Her muddy boots sank into the thick pile of a carpet woven in such intricate patterns of red and blue her eyes couldn’t quite focus on it. In front of the hearth, huge tasseled cushions were piled beside a white cloth, on which lay abandoned the remains of a feast so lavish, it could’ve fed half a village in Dalraida. A whole roast goose lay breast up, one leg torn from its carcass, a gold handled knife stuck carelessly in its crisp brown breast next to platters of fish, a ham and a haunch of meat, baskets of bread and crumbled cakes, bowls of berries and the tiny, sweet grapes that grew along the coast. It was more food in one place than Morla had seen since last year’s harvest was brought in. Saliva filled her mouth and her stomach rumbled ominously.
Briecru’s first words puzzled her. “Great Herne, couldn’t you have found one a bit younger? Where’s she from—up in the hill country?” He regarded her with a wrinkled nose and a furrowed forehead. He’d grown fat, Morla saw, his belly bulging over his belt, his mustache long and lustrous as a gold fox’s tail. Dangling from his belt was the bull’s tail that signified the office of Chief Cowherd. He had indeed come up in the world and he didn’t look as if he’d ever set foot in a byre in his life.
“Briecru? You look like a merchant.”
But he didn’t seem to have heard her. He only gripped her upper arm, and said, “Pinch your cheeks and bite your lips to put some color in them—let’s hope Her Majesty’s too drunk—”
Through the partially opened door of Meeve’s bedroom, Morla heard her mother’s throaty laugh. “Send her in, whatever she looks like, Briecru.”
“We can put a sack over her head—that’s not the end we care about,” shouted another voice, a male voice.
Fornaught’s eyes widened and he grabbed unsuccessfully for Morla’s arm, as she, not understanding, allowed Briecru to propel her through the opened door. She gasped as she stepped across the threshold. The room was in gloom, the windows opened to catch the cool salt breezes off the sea, and the bed was a rumpled pile of skins and furs and sheets, on which three tangled bodies uncoiled audibly. Morla’s jaw dropped at the sight of her mother entwined with a tall, dark-skinned stranger and a tanned knight with tangled brown hair tumbling around his shoulders.
Lochlan, she thought as her eyes swept helplessly down the length of his muscled torso to the dark nest at the base of his rampant red phallus.
Meeve turned with a toss of her faded red hair and a look like the Marrighugh. “By the Great Mother herself, girl, is that you, Morla?”
She met Meeve’s startled eyes, ignoring the gasps and sputters of Meeve’s bedmates. “Hello, Mother.” In a kind of daze, she spun on her heel and slammed the door behind her.
“Ah, Morla, I didn’t recognize you…” Briecru began, but she simply stormed passed him.
“Morla,” Fornaught reached for her as Meeve appeared on the threshold, wrapped in an assortment of furs and sheets.
She looked at Morla in the outer corridor. “Come with me.” She spoke over her shoulder to Briecru as she started up the spiral steps that led to the roof. “You’re a fool, Briecru. Calm the ambassador
. I think he’s taken some sort of fit.”
The air had cooled considerably, and the draft had a chill that cut through Morla’s damp leather. A gust slapped the fabric of the pennants in her face and she slapped them away.
Meeve leaned against a battlement, gazing out over the sea, her mouth pinched down at the corners. “Well, daughter. Your sense of timing, as usual, leaves something to be desired. But I’m sorry you had to witness that. We were…playing a game the ambassador suggested—a foreign game—and expecting—”
“Someone else.” Morla felt dizzy. “Judging from the message, I thought someone was dying.”
An odd expression crossed Meeve’s face. “Are you cold? Here, have a fur—yes, here you are, take it.” Meeve never took no for an answer. She tucked the dark brown fur around Morla’s shoulders, smoothing it over her braids. “There, that’s pretty on you—you should keep it.”
Impatiently, Morla pushed her mother’s hand away. “I don’t need a new fur, Mother. What is it you want?”
“Always so direct, aren’t you? You might go further, Morla, if you could learn to be a bit more subtle. Not to mention courteous.” Morla flushed as Meeve continued, “But since we’re being blunt, I’m dying, Morla.”
“What?” Morla stared at her mother’s thin white face, her wild red hair whipped by the wind, skin white as a ghost’s against the dark furs, certain she could not have heard correctly. “What did you say?”
“I’m dying, Morla,” Meeve repeated, as if she expected that to explain everything.
“Of what? Who says? Are you sure?”
“We’re all dying, Morla, some of us faster than others, that’s all.” Despite her light patter and teasing tone, the words rang hollow and false. But the hard look on Meeve’s face, the hollow, hunted light in her eyes, confused Morla. “That’s why I sent for you. I need your help.”
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