She went to him, closing her hand around his and drawing it away from his wounded side so that she might see. He was bruised, the skin mottled purple where blood had leaked out of his veins.
Even with this brief contact the young Sessair warrior made her feel alive. It was a dangerous sensation.
The frisson of her touch stirred something inside Sláine.
He didn't recognise it at first. He simply enjoyed the sudden charge he felt shivering through his body.
"What in the name of Danu have you been doing to yourself?"
That was considerably more difficult to answer than it should have been. He grinned sheepishly, hoping it said everything even though it said nothing. "I got into a fight with the river." He spread his hands wide, wincing even as he did so. "As you can see, the river won."
Her fingers probed at his side, lingering over the swelling that had risen to protect his damaged rib. He tried not to show how much it hurt.
"Stop being such a man. You're allowed to actually breathe you know."
He hadn't realised he had been holding his breath. He laughed at himself, the wind coming out of him in a sharp hiss as her fingers caught the sharp edge of broken bone.
"Mother, maiden and bloody crone!" he gasped, pulling back from her touch.
Her laugh was joyous.
"What's so damned funny?"
"You," she said, "big bairn. All huff and puff but you're nothing but an overgrown child when it comes down to a bit of pain. Come on, let's get your wound dressed and bound. That'll give you an excuse for being here should one of my beloved's soldiers find you." There was something about the way she said beloved that didn't ring true to Sláine's ears.
As she bathed and tended to his wounded side Sláine grew more and more certain what that first frisson he had felt at her touch meant. It was a silent agreement between them: a secret pact.
Niamh pressed a poultice against the bruise. It stung but he wasn't about to make a sound. He bit down on his lower lip and stared straight ahead at the wall. He was Red Branch. He would not allow himself to be mocked by a woman, no matter how enchanting she was.
He caught her hand as she wound the bandage around his chest.
She looked up at him.
She was a delicate thing. He remembered at first mistaking her for one of the Sidhe. It was not an unreasonable misconception. Her features were so fine, sharp even, giving her the haughty aspect of one of the fey folk. He tangled his fingers in her hair and savoured the way her lips parted in a slight surprised sigh as he tilted her head back. Her tongue flickered across her lips nervously.
"Don't worry," he said reassuringly. "I've done this before."
She laughed at that, leaving him no option but to kiss her to shut her up.
Sláine gave himself to the kiss, tasting her on his tongue.
She was different to Brighid. He hadn't really expected her to be the same, but her tongue was more urgent, more desperate and far less assured than the Daughter of Danu's but for all that it was more intoxicating.
The difference, he knew, would be his downfall.
At first it had been lust, pure and simple, and glorious.
They were like animals, reduced to the most primal level of action and reaction. They touched, probed, explored and satisfied each other in ways neither had imagined. He found himself drawn to her again and again, knowing that any night the warlord and the king might return from their mission but he didn't care. For now he came to Niamh with impunity. He sought her company to satisfy the aching need inside him that had been there ever since the skull-swords came to Murias.
For a while he lost himself. She became the lifeblood coursing through his veins. She became the fire he needed to survive. She became the one thing he had missed more than anything since his coming of age: a friend. She gave him love and from that he drew strength.
This was why the selkie had saved him, he thought, and he truly believed it. Danu had guided the creature to save him for no other reason than to see this love born and to bear fruit.
He gave himself to her, learning every inch of her body, every curve and crease of skin, every sweet fragrance and moist secret.
In those hours they were together he found heaven, but emptiness always returned when he was alone.
He found himself imagining that they might be together like this forever, that he might find happiness in her arms. It was a stupid and naive dream and it was shattered the moment Grudnew's guards hammered down the bedroom door and found them caught up in the heat of the delicious act.
The men dragged him out of the bed, not caring that he was naked. "Cover yourself up!" one of them shouted at Niamh.
"Don't talk to her like that!" Sláine objected, earning a swift cuff across the mouth that split his lip. He tasted his own blood and felt anger surge up from nowhere to overwhelm him, but before the warp-spasm could take him the second soldier drove the butt of his axe into the back of Sláine's skull, dropping him to his knees as easily as if he had been nothing more than a rambunctious child. A second blow sent a wave of blinding pain through his head and had the world dissolving before his eyes.
They hit him again and again.
Distantly, he heard screams and voices, Niamh's screams, and somewhere amid the swarm of voices, Grudnew's outraged command to beat him to death.
Eleven
House of Chains
Consciousness returned brutally. His body was a fire of pains.
He was chained to the pillory in the square. Five guards stood watch. One of them saw he was awake and levelled a savage kick at his side, driving his boot into his still tender ribs. Sláine gasped and slumped against his bonds.
"Not so mighty now, are you, warped one?" someone taunted.
Sláine lifted his head to see who had come to torment him. He had expected one or two people but a line stretched as far as he could see, and at the front of it, relatives of Conn and Cullen Wide Mouth come to goad him now that he was no threat.
"I've petitioned the king for the right to wield the headsman's axe. Believe me, boy, nothing would give me greater pleasure."
It went on like this for hours, Sláine fading in and out of consciousness to the taunts of people come to harangue him. He had never imagined he could be the target of such undiluted hatred, but he saw the truth in their eyes the truth, they were frightened of him. This outpouring of hatred was nothing more than their fear finding a way out of them.
He wished he could have found it in himself to pity them, but he couldn't.
As the day wore on he found himself wishing more and more desperately that he could find a way to ram that fear right back into them, with a hatchet, axe or sword if necessary.
He saw his father lurking on the edge of the crowd and wondered spitefully if the old man was happy now.
Then he thought of Niamh and realised that he would never see her again. The thought opened a channel directly between his and the Goddess's flesh, his anger acting as a conduit for Danu's magic. He felt the first faint surge of the earth's power and surrendered to it.
"I don't think so, warped one," one of the guards said, quite matter-of-factly, clubbing him about the head until he slumped senseless against the pillory. His chains were the only things keeping him from sprawling into the dirt.
Dian came to him after dusk.
There were only two men guarding him. His wardens bowed deferentially to the young druid as he approached them.
"I would have a moment alone with the prisoner," Dian said, his voice flat. Sláine looked at his friend, feeling a surge of hope. Dian had come to save him. He would find a way to make everything all right.
The guard shook his head. "The warped one is to talk to no one before his sentencing; the king's orders."
"That is barbaric, soldier. The prisoner is an old friend of mine. I would prepare him to meet the ruler of the Underworld. He is paying for his crime in the mortal realm, would you have him bear his shame into the afterlife? Perhaps you would
condemn him to an existence as one of the half-dead?"
"No but-"
"Don't shame yourself by finishing that thought soldier. Give me a few minutes alone with my friend. You may watch over us, of course, but I would have a little privacy. The ritual of preparation is not usually one for living ears."
"Of course, holy one." The guard nodded. "Come on, Hrothgar. Let's go to the fountain and quench our thirsts for a few minutes, shall we?"
"Aye," the other guard said.
Dian watched them leave and waited until they were far enough away before he whispered, "I begged you, Sláine. I actually begged you not to do something stupid and you have to go and rut with the king's chosen bride. Are you insane?"
"Quite probably."
"What in Danu's name were you thinking?"
"I wanted to hurt him," Sláine said honestly. "I wanted to take something precious from him because he had robbed me of my retribution."
"You and your stupid bloody retribution. What good has it done you, eh? You're an idiot, an absolute bloody idiot."
"Have you come here to berate me or to help me, Dian? I don't need a lecture about keeping it in my breeches. I've got rather more pressing things to worry about, like the axe Cullen's rat bastard of an uncle is sharpening. I don't intend to die here."
"I don't see how you have much say in the matter," his friend said. He reached into the folds of his cloak and withdrew a small finger-sized phial. "Drink this, it will ease your passage into the underworld."
"What is it? Poison? I'm not taking my own life."
"It will save you the pain and humiliation of the headsman's axe," Dian urged.
"You act as if I am already condemned."
"You are. Grudnew will not let you live after this. You know that. The king is a proud man. You have made a fool out of him, cuckolding him in his own roundhouse."
"So, you haven't come to save me then?"
"There is nothing I can do, save what I have already offered: a quick and painless death. It is more than many folk would afford you, Sláine. You are not a popular man."
"Well, as much as I am grateful for the offer, I'm going to have to refuse."
"You always were a stubborn idiot, may Cernunnos have mercy on your soul."
"Now that's a pleasant thought. I have to say I had hoped you'd come to do something more useful than read me my last rites. Pity."
"Pity is what got you into this mess. I should have made damned sure that you couldn't do anything stupid when Grudnew bade you stay behind. I won't go so far as to say it is as much my fault as it is yours, but I bear a burden of guilt. That is my shame. Farewell, my friend. Travel safely into the long dark night." And then, despite the sombreness of the moment, he grinned, "And say hello to Wide Mouth for me." He pressed the phial into Sláine's hand. "Just in case you change your mind," Dian said.
There was no talking to him, so Dian left Sláine to wallow in his self-inflicted misery. Friendship or not, there was no way of helping him. Grudnew would not - could not - allow his affair to go unpunished, and the very act of punishment demanded exactly what that punishment had to be. Grudnew punishing Sláine meant that Sláine's indiscretion was being recognised by the king. It was a vicious circle. It couldn't be brushed under the rug. If the king recognised the crime there could only be one outcome: the headman's axe. Dian knew that it was impossible for the king not to recognise Sláine's dalliance with his chosen bride. To do so would have been the ultimate weakness. No king could afford that.
Sláine clutched the small glass phial his friend had brought him.
It was deathly cold in his hand.
Just thinking about it made him feel ill.
There was nothing reassuring about it.
Suicide was not the way.
There had to be another solution, but he couldn't for the life of him see it. It couldn't end like this. Danu had saved him for a reason. He needed to keep telling himself that. To die now, like this, was nothing short of stupidity.
"But then," he muttered grimly, "who said the fool had to make it out alive?"
There was no such guarantee, not even in Tall Iesin's stories. Sometimes the fool died for no good reason other than to make the point that they were fools in the first place.
He was alone. He didn't know if the guards were actually gone, or if they had simply backed off into the darkness. He felt no accompanying surge of hope with the realisation. They had left him because they knew he had no fight left in him and fully expected him to drink Dian's stinking poison.
He wouldn't give them the satisfaction of taking the coward's way out.
He would face his judgement and be damned if that was what the fates had in store for him. He was not a coward. He was determined not to die like one.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, much deeper into the night, he was not surprised to see a beady eyed crow perched on the thatched rooftop of the nearest house, studying him. Sláine stared down the bird. "Come to gloat have you, bitch?"
The bird cocked its head and cawed loudly, almost as if it was laughing at him.
His head lolled. He didn't have the strength to worry about the damned bird. Let the crone send her pets to watch him die, and let them go back to her with disappointing news.
"This fool's not about to die, you tell your mistress that!" Sláine grumbled.
"Oh, really?" said a voice out of the darkness. He couldn't see the speaker but he knew the voice: Grudnew.
Sláine's hand tightened instinctively around the glass phial. He knew exactly what Dian had risked in bringing it to him. He could only imagine what the king would do if he thought retribution was about to be spirited out of his hands by the druid's poison.
Grudnew stepped out of the shadows. "Those damned birds always give me the creeps. There's just something about them. I don't trust them and I don't like them."
Sláine didn't say a word.
The glass phial felt huge in his hand and he was certain the king knew it was there.
"So what am I to do with you, young man?"
Still Sláine didn't say a word.
"Come dawn I must return, do you understand what that means?"
"That I have a few hours before the axe falls to pray for a miracle."
"That's about the size of it, laddie. It's a pretty pickle you've got yourself into, for sure." Grudnew knelt beside Sláine so that they might be eye to eye. This was not an official visit from his king. This was the compassion of a good man torn up by the stupidity of a child. "I've always liked you, you know that, but you've given me no choice. You have shamed me, the woman who would have been my wife, and yourself. Make no mistake about it, there are no winners in this mess, lad, only losers. Everyone touched by your stupidity suffers. Of all the women in Murias you had to rut with my chosen bride? I can't believe it was love, and I refuse to believe it was something as base as lust, so that only leaves some stupid sense of self-righteousness. That's what it was, wasn't it? You wanted to hurt me because you thought I had done wrong by you. You stupid, stupid boy. Did you really think I would never know?"
"I didn't think."
"That's the damned truth, isn't it? Your grief is no excuse for this betrayal of trust, Sláine. You must understand that. No king could hope to retain the respect of his people after what you did. To cuckold a king..." He shook his head sadly. "I should have you hanged, drawn and quartered by a team of oxen come first light, but out of love for your mother I'm offering you an alternative: exile." The king paused, letting the full implications of his offer sink in. "It isn't redemption. It isn't even a reprieve, not really. If you return to Murias your punishment will be waiting for you. The insult won't be forgotten, but the Land of the Young is vast and there is no reason we cannot live on in ignorance of each other. If you choose to run, I make you this promise: I won't send hunters after you. It would be pointless. The chances of finding you out there would be next to impossible. You've been trained by the best we have. You cou
ld evade them if you set your mind to it, so why bother with the charade? I'll make no bones about it, laddie. If you choose exile over death you'll be turning your back on everything you know. You'll forfeit your place not just among the Red Branch but also among the tribe. You'll never see your friends or family again, you'll be dead to them, but you will be alive. It's not much, but it is more than I should offer you, Sláine. So, tell me, what do you chose?"
Sláine held out his hand and opened it, offering the king Dian's poison. "I choose life."
"Good."
Sláine expected the king to free him of his bonds but he didn't. He stood, brushing the dirt off his knees. "My parting gift to you, Sláine Mac Roth. Use it wisely."
Then the king was gone and he was alone and just as helpless as he had been before Grudnew's visit. He didn't understand until he heard voices a moment later.
"The dead man deserves a few hours to compose himself before the long walk. Give him some peace. He isn't going anywhere."
"Yes, my lord," the guard said in a way that made it clear he didn't agree with his king's assessment of what their prisoner deserved.
He heard them walk off together, their footsteps getting fainter and fainter until they had faded away. He dropped the phial, grinding it underfoot. It wasn't an option.
He pulled at his chains.
They were no less constraining for the lack of guards.
He pulled at them again, harder, until the metal cuffs bit into the soft flesh of his wrists, drawing blood as he strained against them. There was absolutely no give in the metal. He felt his anger rising. What was this? Some last cruel trick to punish him by getting his hopes up? To make him think he might survive only to have his own weakness humiliate him again? Could Grudnew be so cruel? Were they standing in the darkness even now watching his futile attempt to escape his chains?
He surged to his feet, pulling with such sudden ferocious motion that the entire pillory lurched a full inch up out of the dirt. He threw his fists forward again as if punching out at invisible phantoms. The pillory jerked another inch out of the dirt. He punched again and again, feeling his anger spiral with each swinging blow at nothing. The chain grated and squealed against the hasp securing it. He hated the sound more than anything - it was the sound of captivity. It was more hateful even than the crow's mocking caw.
The Exile Page 14
