“You didn’t know my mother sent for me?” The expression that passed across his face was as unreadable as a cloudless sky. “She told you I was coming?”
“We knew you were on your way,” he answered in such a way that made her wonder if he really did or not. “But your arrival was not expected.”
“I could see Mam had other things to think about.”
He made a noncommittal little noise that might have been construed as an assent and Morla wondered why it was she found herself listening so intently to every nuance. It was because there were so few, she realized. He was like a blank slate, his impersonal pleasantries and conversation as smooth as new-milked cream, as thin as yesterday’s buttermilk. He was not at all as she remembered. And then she did remember. Briecru had been First Knight of Meeve’s Fiachna when she’d arrived from her fostering. He occupied the place that Lochlan did now. At the end of his term, Meeve had not taken him as her Beltane-husband for a year and a day as had been her custom. Instead, she’d made him her Chief Cowherd, effectively putting him out to pasture. Morla had been married by that time, but the story had filtered as far as Dalraida.
Briecru could not refuse. He’d no lands, no herds, being the fifth or sixth son of a very small chieftain somewhere on the coast of Gar. And so he’d accepted what amounted to public humiliation, stepping aside in favor of other men. Meeve didn’t see it that way, of course. Morla had known from the first exactly how her mother saw it. Meeve believed she’d identified something unique in Briecru, something that suited him, in her estimation, for the role she wanted him to play.
In a few moments, he’d led her up two flights of curving stairs and paused with her before a door. “Here you are, princess.” He appeared to hesitate.
“What is it, Briecru?”
He glanced both directions down the deserted corridor. “I’m not sure what your mother told you, Morla, but you know, she’s not well.”
Had Meeve not said no one knew but Lochlan? Though it certainly made sense Briecru would know—he was nearly as intimate with her as her knights—a strong intuition warned Morla to choose her words with care. “I’m glad I have an opportunity to ease her, then,” she answered and pushed against the door.
He understood the dismissal at once and bowed. “I’ll send a maid up with water for you directly, princess. Do come down and join the revel when you’re ready.” With another bland quirk of his lips, he was gone.
Morla pushed open the door and found herself in a pleasant-enough room, with a wide bed and a chest and a chair beneath the window. Her window looked directly down into the courtyard where the dancing was just beginning. A game was in progress, some sort of a wagering game that involved drinking and coin tossing into the pool in the center of the courtyard. She looked up as a few raindrops spattered on the glass pane. The lowering clouds and darkening dusk didn’t faze the crowds, who surged, then parted, as an enormous roasted ox was wheeled in on a cart hauled by six men.
Meeve had found a place on the ambassador’s lap, who’d recovered sufficiently from the shock of Morla’s arrival to don a Brynnish tunic embellished with intricate knotwork studded with tiny gems, his full black beard combed and oiled and spilling over his broad chest and large belly. Meeve took her jewel-studded goblet from her cup-bearer, pinched the boy’s ripe young cheek, then raised the goblet in a toast.
Morla glanced away, through the crowd. Briecru was standing on a stone landing, halfway down a stone staircase that led directly into the courtyard, staring up at her through the glass. His gaze made her feel uneasy and she stepped back, out of his sight. She dodged behind a curtain, her eyes fixed on her mother. Morla’s jaw dropped. The ambassador wasn’t holding a goblet—he was holding a chalice, a druid chalice, made unmistakably of silver. Could Meeve have taken it from the Heather Grove’s storehouse? No, Morla decided, surely not. Druid silver was protected by special wards and spells. No one touched druid silver.
The crowd was shouting at Meeve, encouraging her to drain the goblet to the dregs. She grinned in response, then tilted her head back. The crowd roared encouragement as Meeve’s throat worked. At last she sat up, belched and overturned the goblet to show it was empty.
Then another cheer rang out as a white-aproned cook stepped up to the ox and began to carve huge slabs off its side. Meeve was kissing the ambassador now, and he was greedily sucking the wine off her tongue. No, Morla told herself again. Meeve would not have taken the chalices from the Grove. But something told Morla that she had, and she understood why Meeve sent Connla and the other druids away. Morla stepped back, troubled, and turned away, even as she felt Briecru’s gaze following her into the room.
Beneath the overhang, Briecru watched as Morla disappeared into the shadows of her room. The musky scent of Meeve’s perfume still filled his nostrils, and from his vantage point, her red-gold mane of curls spilling down her back gleamed in the flaring orange torchlight. Her linen gown was heavily embroidered in gold and silver thread. Unguent stained her lips and cheeks and she appeared almost healthy. Meeve believed herself to be sick of the same creeping cancer that had killed her mother and all her aunts and she assumed herself to have at least another year or more. But Briecru was confident she’d be gone by MidWinter. The poison was doing its work. He bowed as she caught his eye, applauding in the direction of the fountain.
Meeve’s engineers had rigged it so that purple wine splashed out of the spigots embedded in the rocks above the fountain. The wine flowed down the rocks, mingling with the fresh water bubbling up from the underground spring at the fountain’s base. A crowd holding goblets to catch the wine had gathered. Some simply scooped up liquid and stood slurping it in great gulps, while others called for more goblets. Baskets of soft white bread and huge wheels of hard cheese were passing through the crowd, and in a corner, a young bard—a mere stripling—began to warble. Meeve put every other chief in Brynhyvar to shame with the richness of her feasts. It could have been a ritual day—the only thing absent were the druids in their capes of beaten silver.
He heard a footstep and the rustle of the silk hangings on either side of the doorway. Someone had come to stand behind him. “There’s going to be a shortfall in the next few shipments,” he murmured. “Please tell your master.”
“Oh?” Encipio Sulpanus, secretary and interpreter for the ambassador, Diodorian Lussius, crossed his arms over his chest. Briecru noticed he was careful to stay out of sight of the merrymakers in the courtyard.
“Morla’s back. Meeve will be paying attention for the next month or two—I won’t be able to send the full shipment until the first harvest is in, and maybe not till the second—”
His voice was suddenly choked off in midsentence as the Lacquilean dragged him by the neck through the open doorway behind the curtain. “We’ve a bargain, Brynman,” Sulpanus hissed in his ear, his black beard tickling the edge of Briecru’s earlobe; the edge of something sharp poked into his back and Briecru stifled a little cry. “I don’t care where you take the grain from.” He poked the sharp point into Briecru’s rib again, and Briecru jerked against the other’s hairy forearm. “We can find another, you know. This land’s crawling with would-be traitors.”
With a muffled curse, Briecru wrestled himself free. “How dare you—” he sputtered as Sulpanus sheathed his knife. “You won’t soon find someone who has Meeve’s ear the way I do.”
“You won’t soon find someone who can deliver the means to kill her, either.” Sulpanus’s breath was hot in Breicru’s ear.
“That poison’s not exactly working as quickly as you said it would, either—look at her—at this rate she’ll still be here next summer.” He gestured to the courtyard, where Meeve was sharing a bowl of wine with Diodorian. It was silver, he saw, and so big the two could drink from it together. They looked like pigs dipping into a trough, he thought, as he stared for a moment, transfixed by the image of the queen of all Brynhyvar lapping up the wine audibly, her upper lip stained dark and purple as goblin gore. She
disgusted him.
“Give her more.”
“How can she possibly be encouraged to wear more—she reeks like a Humbrian whore as it is.”
“Tell her the ambassador especially enjoys the scent of her perfume.” Sulpanus’s eyes met Briecru’s evenly, and he touched the hilt of his knife in a gesture as significant as it was small. “Be sure to tell her I said so, too.”
Meeve was highly susceptible to compliments of every kind, but Briecru doubted even Meeve could be induced to put on more than she wore already. She had once or twice complained that the scent of it interfered with the taste of her mead. “Even so, it’ll take time—”
“Then stop coddling her. Get her blood stirred up—put some pressure on her. The poison’s weakened her—she’d never live to fight a war.”
Briecru glanced down into the courtyard, where Meeve was engaged in a drinking game with three of the Fiachna, who were lined up below her on a wooden dais. “She’s doing everything in her power to prevent—”
“Surely there’s something you know to do, something that might even be construed as a misunderstanding, but against which a real hothead might react?” Sulpanus’s voice was smooth as fresh-risen cream, and he was no more a real secretary and interpreter than he, Briecru, actually herded cows.
Briecru opened his mouth, then happened to glance up and once again saw Morla’s pale face pressed against the glass, dark eyes fastened directly on her mother. There was an opportunity he’d overlooked. He looked back to Sulpanus. The man had disappeared, and not even a curtain moved to suggest that he’d ever been anything but alone on the balcony. He’d recognized the hunger in her eyes even before he’d recognized her. He knew exactly how lean the shipments had been going to Dalraida, because Meeve’s fatal flaw was that once she delegated something, she forgot about it. An alliance with Morla might work to his benefit even before Meeve was dead.
Something against which a real hothead might react…The land was full of hotheads, hotheads always ready to nurse a grievance and look for ways to create new ones. However, not many had the resources to challenge Meeve. There was really only one—Fengus of Allovale. He and Meeve had chased each other around and around Brynhyvar, fighting over anything and everything from breeding rights to pasture lands, from tributes to ferry fees. Once convinced she was dying, however, Meeve had decided peace with Fengus should be achieved at all costs. This did not mean that every kinsman and woman in Meeve’s considerable kin-holds agreed. There was a wedge here, he knew. It was simply a question of finding a way to thrust it in.
Morla had backed away from the window once more. Lean and hungry Morla—he remembered the last communication from her detailed the death of her bull and asked her mother to send new bull-calves. Fengus-Da possessed a legendary bull, the Black Bull of Avellach. He smiled as it occurred to him just what to do to set Fengus raging across the land and collapse Meeve’s fragile peace. He smiled as the people drank a toast to Meeve, and he was quite certain that Morla, if she watched, did not drink.
8
“Should we keep digging, Cailleach?” Athair Emnoch leaned on his shovel and mopped his brow as Catrione trudged up the Tor. The other diggers paused and looked at her expectantly. The day was not at all overcast and the worst weather appeared over, but it was hot, and the sun was strong. “The more we dig, the more there is to dig—it’s as if the earth itself’s resisting.”
Catrione put her hands on her hips and looked around the Tor. No one appeared to have made any significant progress at all. “I suppose that’s exactly what’s happening, Athair. All right. We can’t outdig the khouri-keen.” As the men set their shovels down with sighs and stretches, Catrione scanned the landscape stretching out around the Tor. The ragged line of people struggling up the road toward the Grove had increased to a steady stream as news of the goblin attack had swept across the countryside. Where’s Tully when I need him?
Athair Emnoch came to stand beside her. “So what now?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, trying to gauge his expression. His face, like his voice, was carefully blank, but his eyes followed the refugees to the camp rapidly forming outside their gates. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. “I’ve sent ravens to the druids at Ardagh, and to any left at Eaven Morna. Meeve’s knight said Connla was still there.” She drew a deep breath. Everyone looked as tired and dirty as she felt. “Tell the others—clean up, rest for a bit. There’s a lot of frightened people down there, and we’re needed.”
Niona came striding over, her shovel on her shoulder. “Was there anything of use in the Mem’brances, sister? Anything at all of any use?”
Catrione bit her lip. She wanted very much to tell her, yes, that the scraps and scrolls of bark contained the answers. “I don’t know yet. I want to talk to the still-wives. They spend more time working with the scrolls than any of us. As I said to Athair here, I’ve sent ravens to Ardagh and Eaven Morna asking for help.”
“And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime—in the meantime, we’ll try to make some sort of order out of the chaos building in our courtyard. Take some time to rest, though. All of you.” She raised her voice and looked at each digger in turn. “We’ll convene later, at supper.” A cloud of dust on the road drew her attention. It disgorged a familiar-looking troop of horses and riders. Tully was back from his expedition. “Now I need to go speak to Sir Tully.” Before anyone could speak, she strode down the Tor, feeling as if Niona’s eyes bored into her back.
She found Tully in the stables. “It’s hard to tell,” he began. “There’s no—”
“Then we must assume that Fengus-Da’s wrong, at least in this instance, and prepare for goblins.” Catrione shook her head. “Tully, there’s no point in you hanging around. I can’t go with you. I can’t leave now.”
“Your father’s orders were to bring you home.” Tully folded his mouth into a hard thin line and folded his arms across his chest.
A seed of suspicion stirred to life as she stared up at the grizzled warrior, so carefully cloaked against her druid Sight in gray mist. He’s hiding something, she thought. “What haven’t you told me, Tully?” She stretched her mind deliberately, expanding her awareness beyond her physical limits, delicately probing the surface of all the knights present, slipping across their minds like the brush of a butterfly. Tully was prepared and therefore nearly impossible to easily penetrate. But close enough, she sensed a rough patch of energy, indicating that someone was holding something else back. Like information. She applied an extra touch of pressure and in the stall to their right, a young knight popped up over the wall.
“There’s the man you are to marry,” he said. The words tumbled out like coins and he clapped his hands over his mouth.
Catrione stared at him. “A man I am to marry?” She looked back at Tully. “Is this true?”
Slowly Tully nodded, even as he spoke over his shoulder through gritted teeth. “Haven’t I told you again and again to keep your head empty around a druid? Any druid?”
“I have no time for Father’s games, Tully. You go back and tell him that.”
“These aren’t games, Catrione. He’s worried about you, about the land.”
“Who is this man he wants me to renounce all my vows for and marry?”
“Meeve’s oldest son.”
“Deirdre’s little brother? Bran? He’s a child. He can’t be more than ten—”
“There’s another one, apparently. One no one bothered about—he was off on Far Nearing, somewhere. But Meeve’s decided to bother about him now. And your father thinks its a way to wed two great parts of Brynhyvar into one. You see, Callie Cat, what you don’t understand is he and Meeve agree for once.”
The world has turned upside down. Catrione blinked. Reality had taken on a slippery, slimy feeling, as if the strands that held all things in place were in danger of simply dissolving into nothing.
Don’t you ever wonder if someday a man will come…Deirdre’s voice
whispered through her mind, and for a moment she was thirteen. Don’t you ever wonder if someday a man will come and make you want to leave forever? Tiermuid had come and made them both want to stay. What if he comes back? whispered the voice of the demon who lived under her skin. Catrione pressed her hands to her temples to block out the interweaving whispers. “I will not leave, Tully.”
“Then we’re staying. Don’t worry about feeding us—we can take care of ourselves and provide for others, too. But Fengus-Da wants you safe. I do, too.” He looked around at others, who peered over the stalls, clustered in the aisle. “We all do. And since we don’t dare kidnap you…there’s not much else to do.”
For a moment, despite everything, she was tempted to laugh. She opened her mouth and a soft voice whispered through her mind: Father. Catrione looked around, turned her head. Father? she wondered. Father’s coming. “Tully, did you say my father’s coming?”
He shook his head, looking puzzled. “No, my lady. I said we were staying here.”
Father’s coming. The voice was less than a sigh. “All right, Tully. Of course you can stay. I—I have work to do.” She hurried back to the still-house, head cocked, all her druid senses opened. A gray void stretched out before her Sight, a mostly empty landscape populated here and there by an occasional shimmer. Father’s coming. Did you ever think there’s a man you are to marry? The words echoed through her in Deirdre’s voice, reverberating up and down her spine until she clamped her hands over her ears and stamped her foot. “Enough!” she cried. She opened her eyes to see a courtyard full of refugees watching her. Her gaze was drawn to the Tor. As a monstrous possibility occurred to her, she picked up her skirts and ran to the still-house, where Baeve and Bride were pounding out decoctions. They looked up when she entered and Baeve put down her pestle. “What’s wrong, Catrione?”
“We have to look at those barks again—the Mem’brances—That child, Deirdre’s child. I think Tiermuid’s coming back, and all those references to the child who can’t be slain by the hand of woman or man…I think…I think Deirdre’s child—I think it’s the child foretold.” Her breathing was coming in great gasps, her heart was pounding against her chest.
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