"Is there anyone else following you, woman?"
Blathnaid shook her head. "You saved me... how can I ever thank you? What can I do?" She was still on her knees, looking up imploringly at the guard. She did a very good job of ignoring the blood on his sword. "Just tell me."
"You can start by shutting up."
She did.
"Nostrum, read the scene. I'd like to know if there are any more surprises out there."
The one called Nostrum sheathed his sword. He walked slowly in a sweeping circle, crouching occasionally to examine something more closely. The man wouldn't have to be particularly adept at reading the road to know that they were a set of tracks short. Keegan's heavy feet left deep heel and toe impressions, while the fop's slightly rolling gait left side-heavy prints, Blathnaid walked on her toes, and then there were Sláine's, even heel and toe depressions. They all left distinctive tracks. Nostrum walked backwards, lightly, on his heels. He nodded twice to himself as he came to a halt directly below Sláine, precisely where he had abandoned the road for his current perch.
Sláine watched the man, studying how he moved. A thoughtful warrior could learn a lot about his enemy just from watching him move, for instance if he favoured a certain side or ticks or any of many other hints that were there to be read.
The man moved well. There was a grace to his movement that belied his size.
"At least one more, Bragg." He pointed up the hill at the outcropping of granite that Sláine was hunkered down behind.
"He's gone," Blathnaid blurted. "He was my man, we had a fight. He ran when those ruffians jumped our wagon. He's probably run all the way back to Poulawack by now."
"Oh, do stop lying, woman. Do you imagine for a moment that I believe a word that comes out of your mouth?" Bragg said, cuffing Blathnaid across the face. She rocked back on her knees, spitting blood.
I wouldn't if I were you, Sláine thought.
"Poulawack," Blathnaid repeated, stressing the word. She couldn't help herself. She glanced up the hillside to where Sláine was hiding. Sláine cringed inwardly. Thanks for that, nothing like making my life easier. The fact that she didn't weep pitifully but rather had the presence of mind to repeat her message to the man in hiding was all a battle-hardened veteran should need to know she wasn't what she seemed.
Sláine knew that she was trying to tell him that she would meet up with him back at the village. Poulawack was almost exactly halfway between where they were and Crumlyn. A safe distance away, but not so far that they would never find each other again.
Bragg slapped her again, hard enough to send Blathnaid sprawling in the dirt.
"When will you learn to listen, woman? I said shut up!" He turned to Nostrum. "Go find the fool and kill him. I don't want any loose ends."
Sláine didn't wait around to be "tidied up".
Sláine moved quickly and quietly, but took great pains to be sure his track was readable.
He wasn't in the mood to be tracked by more enemies. The ever-present threat of Grudnew's hunters was more than enough to worry about.
He wanted Nostrum to catch up with him, but under his own terms.
One truth Gorian had instilled in all of his Red Branch warriors was that you didn't want an enemy at your back. Sláine led the guard a merry dance through the undergrowth. Time and again, Sláine thought bitterly, the distance kill would have been easy with a gáe bolga. The guard might have been a skilled tracker but he was a terrible sneak. More than once he stepped out against a starkly contrasting sky, the sun at his back, making him a perfect target. Unfortunately Sláine had no such long-range weapons, but he was far from helpless. He had Brain-Biter. His father's old stone axe was hungry to crack some skulls.
As the hunt wore on Nostrum grew more and more reckless, running in places in his haste. Sláine could only wonder what kind of taskmaster would inspire such an unthinking need to please in his men. Sláine led the man further and further away from the safety of his comrades. The weather began to change around them, growing decidedly colder. At first faint wisps of fog curled up from the ground but within half an hour a thick rolling mist was coming off the grass. The mist formed haunting shapes out of the trees and low dragging branches, distorting everything. The shadow-shapes corresponded with no known beast of reality but that only made them more unnerving. For a moment he thought he saw the antlered silhouette of Carnun, the Horned God. The chimera sent a shiver the length of Sláine's spine. He offered a silent prayer to Danu as he doubled back on himself, knowing that soon the mist would be so thick he would be able to stand on Nostrum's shoulder and breathe in the man's ear without the guard having the slightest inkling he was there until the very last second.
Sláine scanned the shadow-shapes, looking for one that best suited his purposes. He picked one that looked vaguely human - a combination of shrubbery and thick-boled tree, a knot of which looked disturbingly like a crooked nose - and wedged Brain-Biter in place so that when Nostrum neared he would see man and axe in one deceptive illusion. He moved away, hunkering down to settle in for the long wait, praying the illusion would hold long enough to fool his erstwhile hunter.
He heard Nostrum come stumbling and tripping through the mist less then a quarter of an hour later. Sláine didn't dare breathe. He watched the man freeze at the sight of his shadow shape and then draw steel, ready to fight. It was an eerily silent fight. Nostrum rushed his imagined foe and thrust his sword violently into the unyielding wood. There was a moment of unreality as he obviously thought he had felled his quarry and wondered why the man wouldn't fall before he realised his mistake. Sláine felt no grief that the man's final thoughts were of failure. Most people in his experience died the same way, coming up against the ultimate leveller. He stepped up behind Nostrum, grabbed him by the head and snapped his neck like a twig.
He took the man's purse. He didn't bother counting the coins. He was sure that there would be enough to see him through while he waited for Blathnaid to find him in Poulawack.
He didn't want to imagine what would happen to her when Nostrum failed to return.
Sláine rubbed his chin, feeling the whiskers that were growing in.
Not for the first time he longed for a good sharp knife and a tablet of lye to lather up and clean himself with.
The road didn't allow for such luxuries.
He realised that she wasn't coming back. He wondered, not for the first time, where she was. Had she become Bragg's lover, using her charms to wheedle her way out of trouble and into his bed? For her sake he hoped not. A man like Bragg would almost certainly be a cruel mate. Then again a little cruelty was almost always better than the alternative: being worm food.
He had spent a month in Poulawack, working his way through the coin he'd lifted from Nostrum's corpse. He was flat broke. He found himself some work as a heavy for a moneylender, Gosta Vern, and his wife Maeve. It was an ideal arrangement for a while. Vern needed muscle, of which Sláine had plenty. Sláine needed money and who had more of that than a moneylender?
He watched Vern work.
The man had an uncanny knack for guessing exactly what was the lowest number of coins someone would accept for their golden torcs, silver brooches and other trinkets but Sláine quickly came to realise it was no supernatural gift. Vern had a highly polished bauble he placed strategically on his desk, between himself and the borrower. As he made his opening gambit, he would look down at the bauble as if considering what exactly he was about to offer, and he would gauge the reaction in their eyes without ever appearing to actually look at them. It was ingenious. People were far less suspicious and guarded with their reactions when they thought he wasn't looking. Time and again Vern made a killing just by watching the reflected dilation of would-be borrower's pupils.
Vern was an oddball. He didn't trust others with the safekeeping of his money, and had a taste for the little luxuries of life, like silk over wool. He paid a small fortune to bring in the most exotic clothes from outside the Land of the Young and never
wore them, preferring his grubby old coats and his dirt-smeared shirts. He would take in markers and issue IOU's for goods he imported through various traders like old Mannix, inflating the price by as much as six times so that he fleeced as much profit as possible out of every deal. He was a character, all right. One night Sláine woke to the bang of the back door and a bitten-back curse. Vern had been out by cover of moonlight burying bags of his money in the back yard. It was funny really, the moneylender swore blind he owned the money, but Sláine knew better: the money owned him.
Occasionally Vern sent Sláine out to collect when debtors reneged on repayments. These visits were not something he particularly enjoyed. Word got round that Vern had a new heavy, and after Sláine had battered eight coins of interest out of the miller, Tooker, locals began to be a lot more circumspect when it came to settling up in time.
He knew he couldn't stay in Poulawack indefinitely but it was home for a while.
He found himself walking through the streets, savouring the feel of the rain on his face. It made him feel alive. The curious dichotomy of the wet and the summertime's heat was seductive. He exercised hard, running until the pain hit his sides and the breath tore at his throat. The running became a ritual, as if by forcing himself to run further and faster he could somehow leave all the pain and the sadness of exile behind, but of course there was no escaping it.
On the eve of Mabon, the fall equinox, Sláine found the maiden with the garlands in her hair. He wasn't the least bit surprised to see her. Their lives seemed to be inextricably tied so it was only natural she would come to him again. This time she was sitting beneath a weeping willow making a chain of flowers to wear as a crown.
His heart soared at the sight of her.
She was every bit as beautiful as he remembered. More so, even: the fall of her hair across her face, the shallow rise and fall of her breast as she breathed, the grim determination in her eyes as she worked the delicate stems into interlocking links. Danu looked up and smiled at him. It was more than simple beauty. The maiden had an aura about her; an intimate warmth that made the recipient want nothing more than to fall down and offer devotion to the Goddess, body and soul. Sláine's head swam. He wanted so desperately to scoop her up and sweep her off her feet, to feel her slender-fingered hands against his chest even as he buried himself in her kiss and her flesh.
And then: You're too late, my love, always too late.
The maiden had lured him up to the hillside to witness the attack on Murias. In her own words he had needed to see it, not to prevent it, not to save lives but to see them lost.
He needed to know why.
Why had she done that to him?
He fell to his knees.
"Why?" His voice cracked.
The Goddess's eyes moved over him, from his hands clenched as if in prayer, to his chest and up to his face. He saw for the first time that she had peculiar bird-like eyes. They made his heart feel as if it would stop beating in his chest. He almost welcomed the sensation. This close Sláine could feel the intense heat coming off her body. He licked his lips, mouth suddenly parched. It was impossible to master a coherent thought in her presence. Images of bare skin leaked into his mind, memories of Brighid, Niamh, Bedelia and even Blathnaid, naked and willing, offering themselves up to him: the wetness of their flesh, the urgency of the coupling, the sheer physical release they offered. He was giddy with the power surging through his blood and bones. It had been so long since he had truly felt the earth's serpent coiling within him, and it wasn't through anger or pity or even abandonment. It was her, Blodeuwedd, the maiden: the beautiful, innocent, aspect of Danu. It was always her.
How could he ever surrender that willingly? How could he give up the devotion of the flesh the Goddess craved?
He couldn't and he knew it.
"It's an enchantment," the maiden said, "a simple magic but no less wonderful for it. Each of the flowers represents a quality I want in my future husband. They are all different. Tonight when I sleep wearing the crown I will dream of my true love."
He didn't recognise all of the blossoms but there was a surprising variety of blooms in the maiden's floral crown.
"I had no wish to punish you, my beautiful Sláine. You must believe that." As she said it, he really did believe her, but then as Mannix had always said, he was a fool for a pretty face. She put the crown of flowers on his head, and kissed his brow. "Dream of your true love tonight, Sláine Mac Roth. Let this be my gift to you, and my apology."
And he did.
He dreamed of himself walking through a leafy door into a chamber deep down in the belly of the earth where Danu waited for him, naked and willing.
"You came," the maiden said, her voice inside him, filling him completely. "I knew you would."
The walls of the chamber were the deep rich red of succulent clay, filled with moisture and unable to contain it completely.
He said nothing.
Creatures of the forest gathered at the foot of the huge bed, squirrels, badgers, voles, mice, roe deer and a single horned stag; all of Danu's children. He was an outsider here.
"No my love, you are not an outsider. This is where you belong, with me, inside me. I am hungry, my beautiful one. I want you."
She held out her hand to him, drawing him onto the bed with her.
The maiden wore a sheer gown, so thin that every contour of her flesh - the rise of her hip and fall of her breast - was plain to see. He savoured the sight of her, surrendered to it. The others, Niamh, Brighid, Bedelia, Blathnaid, were pale shadows beside the maiden, flawed and imperfect. He had no idea why he had been chosen - or even when - that was unimportant.
He fell into her arms. He felt the power of the earth enter him, inciting him to lose himself in the wild abandon of passion. Everywhere their bodies touched danced to the thrill of earth power, burying him alive in a landslide of sensation.
"Oh my beautiful boy," she whispered in his ear.
Fourteen
Captured
"Wake up, you sorry son of a bitch!" The sharp end of a boot thundered into his side, lifting Sláine bodily from the ground.
He grunted and rolled over.
He had fallen asleep beneath the maiden's tree.
The dream left him.
He opened his eyes to see an unusually ugly face leering down at him.
"There's a pretty penny on your head, warped one. Strikes me the king of the Sessair wants you very badly."
He grunted again but before he could move Ugly had hammered another kick into his gut and a third between his legs, reducing the world to a sunburst of pain. When his vision finally settled down he saw a guilty-looking Gosta Vern standing beside Ugly, wringing his hands. The moneylender nervously scrunched up a roll of parchment.
"Sorry, lad. It's business. Nothing personal, you understand. Word came from the north that Grudnew had put a bounty on your head. Hunters were showing this drawing of you around the village. Someone was going to earn a pretty penny off your scalp, so Maeve and I figured why not us?"
Of course it's personal, Sláine wanted to scream. How could it be anything but?
"I hope I am worth it," Sláine said, wincing as he tried to move. Why was Grudnew pursuing him so relentlessly when the old man had promised to turn a blind eye if he ran? It didn't make sense to him, but of course it did. The Sessair King had been humbled. To hold his head up he had to be seen to be doing everything possible to bring Sláine to justice. Grudnew didn't really care if he was caught, only that it looked as if he cared to his people, which, in a ridiculously roundabout way meant doing his utmost to bring Sláine down. It didn't matter that it was a charade, it was every bit as deadly as the real thing. It would end though. The king's death was sealed the day he took the throne. Seven years. That was a lot of looking over the shoulder, and a lot of running. Understanding it didn't make him feel any better about his current predicament.
Ugly put the boot in again.
"Best not move, lad. The hunters were
pretty specific about their king wanting you alive, but Welkin here, well he's got no compunction about sticking a knife in your face if things start to get nasty."
"Just give me an excuse, warped one," Ugly sneered.
"Are you in a hurry to die, ugly?" Sláine spat. He didn't recognise the thug but assumed Vern had hired him as his replacement. It made sense, since a moneylender would always need muscle.
A fifth kick from Ugly sent Sláine scrambling across the dirt. He roared in pain. Anger flamed beneath the agony, a brilliant red flare that latched on to the residual magic in the earth from where the maiden herself had sat weaving her crown of flowers. It surged into his veins, warping his flesh as it struggled impossibly to bind the sheer immensity of Danu's power. He surged to his feet, arms outstretched ready to throttle the life out of Ugly and the moneylender.
"They mentioned that, as well," Vern said, quite matter-of-factly. Sláine saw the moneylender slip the crumpled picture back into the folds of his grubby coat and pull out a small, thin, stick. He put the stick to his lips and blew sharply.
It felt like a gnat's bite on his neck, a sudden painful sting. A blush of heat followed the initial bite. The heat intensified quickly. Sláine felt his heart lurch and his vision blur nauseatingly. Reflexively his hand slapped up at the sting, pressing the poison-tipped dart deeper into his warped flesh. His legs buckled beneath him even as he lurched forwards another step, and he collapsed into Ugly's waiting arms.
"Good job the old man wanted you alive," Ugly goaded, "because killing you would be too easy."
The world rolled around Sláine, the ground rushing up to meet his face. He felt the sheer violent delight of the earth power ripping out of his skin. The energy of raw lightning twisted his body, contorting it. His muscles tore free of bone and tendon. His back arched, the bones in his spine stretching as the warp took full frightening hold. There was nothing he could do. He had no control over his own body. His legs refused to move. For all their size, his arms flopped uselessly at his sides. The power raged impotently within him with no hope of release. The toxins suffused his system, leaving him alert, enraged, seething with pent up earth power, and completely and utterly helpless.
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