Healer

by Linda Windsor

  Father God, this is calling black white if there ever was such a case.

  But Brenna wanted them to be guests. That counted, didn’t it?

  “I dinna like this,” Dara grumbled.

  Ronan slowed only slightly, yet he was hardly winded when he reached them. Nor did he believe Brenna’s claim. “Get away from my wife, Gowrys. What mischief are you about?”

  “She’s my cousin, as well, is she not? Daughter of my father’s brother?”

  “She’s an O’Byrne now.” Ronan inserted himself between Donal and Brenna, ignoring the Gowrys’ hand upon his dagger. “Honorably wedded, bedded, and carrying Tarlach’s heir in her belly.” Her husband’s hand was also on his blade.

  “And our murdered chieftain’s heir as well.” Nose to nose with Ronan, Donal refused to back away. “Like your brother murdered my eldest son.”

  Around them, some of the crowd had risen and gathered, more interested in the prospect of a good fight than a puppet show. Brenna wanted to pull Ronan away, but Donal might take advantage of the distraction. Already the other two clansmen hefted dining daggers to match O’Toole’s. One misspoken word and someone would be maimed.

  “That was wrong, no doubt,” Ronan admitted. “But stealing my wife is no way to settle this.”

  “Nor is taking my only son left hostage for a wrong we did not commit,” Donal responded.

  “Father!” Daniel of Gowrys approached, his arms loaded with mangled pies heaped upon loaves of bread and a large chunk of cheese dangling from a string about his wrist.

  Gowrys backed down from Ronan’s hard glare, dagger hand dropping to his side. “Son.” Emotion cracked the grizzled Donal’s voice.

  “The laddie’s put on weight,” the red-haired Gowrys observed.

  “Nay wonder. Lookit what he carries,” his kinsman quipped.

  “This isn’t over,” Donal growled beneath his breath to Ronan.

  “Oh yes it is.” Brenna motioned to the food. “Will you and your men join us for a repast? Dara, help Daniel, please.”

  “I’m not hungry.” Donal may not have been, but the expressions on the other men’s faces told Brenna otherwise. All three bore the look of a hard winter, wiry and broad of frame but gaunt beneath their bearded faces. And their clothing naught but rags holding rags together, a stark contrast to Glenarden’s well-dressed party.

  It took a moment to unload Daniel so that he could greet Donal properly. Just their hug softened Donal’s belligerent humor a bit more. “You look well, Daniel.”

  “I am well treated.” Daniel glanced at Brenna. “Especially since Lord Ronan arrived with our kinswoman as his bride. For the first time in all my days, Father, I’ve a hope for peace.”

  The Gowrys exchanged dubious looks.

  “What of my brother Alyn?” Ronan interrupted. “We’d like to see if he is as well treated as our hostage.”

  “He’s treated as well as any of us can afford to treat him,” Donal said, “given both our homes and cattle have been unjustly ravaged.”

  Daniel had told both Ronan and Brenna of how difficult it was to scratch a living in the highlands. Without the good ground that was once theirs beneath the lake rath, their winter stores barely kept man and beast alive. Cattle they needed for breeding died of starvation and served as food. Hides would be as good as they could bring for trade at the fair.

  “My brother was wrong, though he did what was reasonable, given I’d disappeared from where he left me, leaving only blood and arrows fletched with your red and green.”

  Donal snorted. “It was not us.”

  “I believe you,” Ronan told him. “And I do not need the Pendragon’s order to give you back your son—”

  Brenna’s heart skipped in anticipation.

  “—when you return my youngest brother.”

  The surprise on Donal’s face turned to distrust. “And why should I trust your word?”

  “I will guarantee it.” Brother Martin’s voice boomed behind them.

  Brenna had been so engrossed in the exchange that she’d not seen the priest approach them.

  “Meet Daniel, O’Toole, and me at the tavern this night. ’Tis a neutral place well patrolled by the Angus’ guards, so both clans need not worry about violence.” Ronan extended his hand. “This blood feud has lasted long enough.”

  “I agree, Father,” Daniel said.

  Donal ignored him. “This will not change what the O’Byrnes owe us for their wrongful attack.”

  “Let the Pendragon decide that,” Martin said. “It is as I’ve told you, Donal. With Joanna and Llas’s daughter at Glenarden, the promised peace is close at hand.”

  So that was the pressing matter the priest had sped away to after he’d left her.

  “We have a mutual enemy who would keep that peace out of reach,” Ronan said to Donal. “The one who left me dying with the Gowrys colors run through me. He is more responsible than Caden for the outrage against your clan.”

  After an eternal pause, Donal replied, “Tonight, then.” But suspicion weighed heavily on his demeanor. With a jerk of his head, he said the word “Go,” and his men fell in behind him as he walked away.

  “Wait!” Brenna stopped them. “You might as well take these pies.” Before they could refuse, she gave one to each man. “They’re as much as crushed from too much pie and not enough Daniel to carry them.”

  The carrot-topped man grinned at her desperate stab for humor. “Thank ye, milady. If your husband dinna—”

  “By all means.” Ronan’s clipped reply displayed none of the relief washing over Brenna.

  With his men smoothly eased from his control by Brenna’s generosity, the Gowrys chieftain shot a defiant look over her head at Ronan. “’Twill take more than a pie or two to settle this.” With that, he led his men away.

  How long the lot of them watched the colorful sea of fair attendees, even after it swallowed the Gowrys, Brenna had no idea. But Ronan’s grasp on her shoulders would surely leave bruises.

  It was Bron’s hail that finally cracked the shell of anxiety enveloping them.

  “Lady Brenna, look!” The lad hobbled over on his crutch, fairly bubbling with excitement. “Do you see it?” He pointed to the stage, oblivious to the drama that had transpired. In front of the covered cart, a man led about a shaggy black and white pony for people to examine, while two others hung a sign from the wagon.

  “He says it’s the prize for the archery contest tomorrow morning.”

  The boy’s longing was so palpable, Brenna hugged him. Or perhaps it was for breaking the tension. But she saw Bron riding the pony from village to village, leather sacks with his drawings and supplies hung over its flanks, his crutch slung from the saddle. She wanted it for Bron as much as he did. As much as she longed for peace among their clans.

  “Sir, may women take part in the contest?” she called out to the man with the pony.

  The man afforded her a curious head-to-toe look, but only after he spied Ronan and Egan flanking her did he reply. “Only if she can pay the fee and shoot a straight arrow. Can ye do them things, lassie?”

  “Caden is going to leap for joy at this,” Ronan griped behind her.

  She spun about. “Is it well with you, milord? For you are all I care about.”

  Ronan grinned. “Who cares for Caden? I can refuse you nothing, mo chroi.”

  Joy shot Brenna through. Or was it love’s own arrow?

  “Aye, sir,” she shouted back at the skeptical pony man. “I can do both.”

  Caden laughed out loud at Brenna’s announcement that she was competing in the morrow’s archery tournament. It covered the cold fury gripping him when Tarlach accepted Ronan’s proposition to exchange the hostages without protest. As always, Caden was in the wrong. It was his fault that Glenarden would be seen as owing compensation to their sworn enemies.

  “I did nothing wrong,” he fumed.

  “Brother, I am not saying that you did, given what you knew,” Ronan said. “You did the wron
g thing for the right reason.”

  Tarlach held up his good hand to Caden. “Let your brother finish.”

  The knife at Caden’s waist burned there, just as the desire to use it upon both his father and brother burned in his mind. He could hear nothing else but the thought fueling the flames. They deserve to die.

  “Caden.” Rhianon put a cool hand on his bare arm. “Let us leave this matter. I need to walk, lest I go mad with boredom.”

  Madness. By his father’s lips, that’s what it felt like. Caden had never liked Tarlach, but he loved him. Tarlach was his father in every way but heart. Caden swallowed, but his parched tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. What was wrong with him? If he did not rid himself of the dagger this moment, it would blister him.

  “For our child,” Rhianon enticed with a whisper, “I need escape the smoke of the fire.”

  Our child. The one his wife pleaded be kept secret, for fear the witch would do it harm to protect her own. Caden would have shouted the news, but he dared not. He’d seen half of Glenarden bewitched by Brenna, his father and brother to the point of insane judgment.

  Caden stood up from the plank table assembled by the fire, nearly flipping the board nearest him. His fingers fumbling as though listening to two masters, he managed to remove his dagger from its sheath. But instead of sending it flying at Tarlach or his brother, he buried it in the thick oak, bringing an abrupt end to the conversation.

  “You know my feelings. Give them nothing they don’t deserve.”

  Relief washed through him, for the burning stopped. He stared at the silver-handled dagger Rhianon had given him as a wedding gift as if it belonged to someone else.

  But the voice of his wife, Caden knew, and he would follow it anywhere. “Come, Love. ’Tis a lovely night.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “I’ve never been inside a tavern, have you, Daniel?” Brenna asked, walking behind Ronan, her arm linked with that of the Gowrys lad.

  Alert to any nuance of danger, Ronan looked past the patches of torch and firelight to the night beyond as he escorted his wife and Daniel through the camps and stalls of the fair. His keen gaze glided from one group of revelers to another for any possible hiding places for brigands.

  Ronan was still put off by the events of the afternoon. The sight of Brenna being carried off by the Gowrys that afternoon, feet flailing, had knifed Ronan through with a two-edged blade—one of panic and one of naked fury. Tonight, apprehension riddled him, though the other blade was not far from him. Against all logic, he’d agreed to let Brenna accompany him to the exchange of hostages. He, and more amazingly, Tarlach, yielded, albeit grudgingly, to her argument that a greater power accompanied her than their muscle and steel.

  How Ronan’s fury had vanished at the touch of her hands still made him wonder. He’d been primed for a fight—no man, friend or foe, would lay hands on his wife—not for the reconciliation that spilled from his lips. Nor had she needed his or Egan’s help. Her protection had been a dog, a crippled child, a widow woman, and her Shepherd, she insisted, before he and his champion could offer it.

  Could her Shepherd—God—be as tangible as she believed? For, while Ronan walked like a man on edge, her childlike enthusiasm for life and all it brought was undaunted. Even now she approached such a simple occasion as exploring the nightlife of the fair as a grand adventure full of wonder.

  Maybe there was something to Caden’s accusation that Ronan was bewitched. Or as addled by Brenna’s lack of guile as Caden was by Rhianon’s manipulation. Ronan at least still carried his dining dagger and kept both hands free for the dirk in each boot in case of an ambush.

  Father God … Humor tugged at his lips as he reached out to Him who was higher than his understanding. He even called God as she did, now that he ventured to call at all.

  The sight of Brother Martin waiting with Donal and three other men under the painted Red Lion tavern sign cut his prayer short. The benches set in front of the two-story building to accommodate the overflow of customers were all taken. Dust kicked up by the reveling clientele floated in the light of lanterns strung overhead from tree to tree. Music and laughter wafted out through the open doors and windows, revealing a crowd thick as hornets on a hive inside. Two of Strighlagh’s guardsmen chatted near a corner post.

  Ronan continued to scan the area, looking for any sign of additional Gowrys, but given that their chief was the only one who wore the colors, it was hard to tell, even in daylight.

  “Ronan!”

  It took Ronan a moment to recognize his youngest brother. Alyn broke from the group, rushing to embrace him. Ronan could feel the young man’s ribs through the linen of his tunic. Yet his face was flushed and, from what Ronan could tell, his eyes were bright … overly so. Alyn had not yet learned to hide his feelings well.

  “I thought you were dead. We all did.”

  “I was left for dead but was rescued.” Ronan turned to introduce Brenna as the rest of the Gowrys party caught up to them.

  “I know,” Alyn said. “Brother Martin told us the whole wondrous story. Can you believe how God has worked in our lives?”

  God. Dare Ronan fully accept what his younger, less-jaded brother did? What Brenna did? That God was working through the circumstances and events of their lives? Yet here he was, married to the enemy he’d hunted until just months ago and now ready to negotiate with her kin to help stop a twenty-year war. What other explanation could there be?

  Even more, he was offering prayers to her God under his breath, as if it were second nature to him.

  “This,” he said, “is Lady Brenna of Glenarden, the lady who changed my heart forever.”

  Alyn bowed with all the grace his tall, gangly body would allow. “Milady, at last I meet you. And you look nothing like a wolf.”

  Ronan allowed himself a chuckle to Brenna’s melodious laughter.

  “And I at last meet you, Alyn of Glenarden,” she replied. “You put me to mind of your eldest brother.”

  “We take after our mother. Caden is the golden Glenarden.”

  “Let’s make the exchange and be done with it,” Donal of Gowrys said. Like Ronan, his gaze darted about to shadows with equal distrust. Or was he looking for a sign from an accomplice?

  “Daniel, you are free to join your kinsmen,” Ronan said. “But we hope that you will not be a stranger to Glenarden. Cú will sorely—”

  Something set off an inner alarm, that sense of being watched … closely. As Ronan turned, a hooded, cloaked figure shot up from the nearest bench and plowed into him, sending him sprawling off balance. The hiss and thud of an arrow registered in an alder just beyond them.

  Had the man just attacked him or saved him?

  Charging through Ronan’s confusion came one main thought. “O’Toole! Get Brenna to cover.”

  “Cover them all,” the unknown man ordered, his deep voice ringing with authority. “In the name of the Pendragon.”

  The men previously seated with the stranger rushed to form a circle about O’Byrne and Gowrys alike. Beyond, the two guards had broken away from their conversations and raced off in the direction Ronan’s mystery figure pointed, as if they’d been waiting for this to happen. As O’Toole steadied Ronan on his feet, the stranger removed his hood, revealing a mane of white hair and piercing gaze beneath the snowdrift on his shaved high brow.

  “By the Father’s grace, Merlin Emrys,” Brother Martin exclaimed.

  The priest started toward his friend, arm extended, but Merlin held up his hand. “Later, friend, once we reach a safe place. All of you—come with us to the Eccles.”

  The walk to the small church that served the valley of the Forth near Strighlagh seemed to take an eternity, given with each step, Brenna expected another arrow to fly at them. At Ronan. The thought of losing her husband nearly made her sick to her stomach. She clung to his arm like moss to a tree, as though she might somehow protect him and at the same time draw upon his strength.

  The red and green fletchi
ng on the arrow stymied everyone, including Donal of Gowrys. This time, it wasn’t the word of Glenarden against Gowrys about a mutual enemy; it was proof. Merlin Emrys, on hearing of the mutually agreed-upon exchange from Brother Martin, anticipated such trouble. So he’d had men watch both clans carefully to be certain no one from either side was at the source. Unfortunately the guards who pursued the would-be assassin—or searched the direction from which the arrow came—found no one.

  The old church reminded Brenna of a great overturned boat made of dry masonry. At Merlin’s instruction, only Ronan, Brenna, and Brother Martin entered the structure through the single door from its west end. The rest remained with the royal advisor’s men outside. Inside, the wall rose, half again a man’s height, before it curved inward and upward, narrowing to a point, or upended keel, overhead. A small stone altar stood opposite the door, hollowed out to hold water. Lamp stands to either side illuminated the gable wall.

  “For as many wonders of God’s creation that meet the eye, there are even more that do not,” Brenna whispered to Ronan.

  “What?”

  “If the recollection of my studies serves me, this church is strategically located where two underground streams cross. This alters the nature of the water placed in the cup, making it more beneficial to health … like the healing waters of our—”

  A rustling of fabric in the silence of the great chamber drew Brenna’s attention from the candlelit altar to the sides of the room, where a group of robed figures filed out of the shadows. Merlin Emrys bade her party stand just inside the door, while the figures formed a half circle to either side of the altar. Half were clad in red, the other half, when Merlin shed his cloak and joined them, in white. At the center a tall, fair-haired hulk of a man in both red and white robes trimmed in gold took the seat that one of the others placed in the center of the half round.

  “Arthur of Dalraida,” Brother Martin whispered to her. “Born of the Lions of Judah in red and the Josephs of Albion in white.”

  Brenna nodded. A king of kings after the example of Christ, with twelve warrior and priest-like disciples.