by Trisha Telep
Clad in tunics and tartan mantles, and shod with boots of fur, the hunters blended well with the forest greenery. The ornate buckles and shoulder pins of Irish red gold that fastened their cloaks said these were the sons of chieftains.
“. . . Nay, that’s where you’re wrong, Finn. I have heard old Diarmaid boasts but the one treasure,” a man with wild red hair, bushy brows and a merry grin was saying.
“Aye? And what is it?” asked the handsome fellow. He was smiling, his teeth white and even against a wind-browned face and curling black hair. His deep blue eyes twinkled. “A hundred head of cattle? A magnificent red bull? Or is it fine torcs and gold wristbands the old miser’s hoarding?”
“You’re not even close, Colm. Old Diarmaid’s daughter is his treasure. A lovely maid she is, too, they say. It is said the Lady Siobhan’s beauty could make the stones weep.”
“Weep, is it? Ha! I’ve yet to meet a maid whose beauty made me weep. Mind you, I’ve met many an ugly one that had me sobbing into my beer!” His companions laughed. “Enough of your blarney, Fergus. Hand over a bit o’ that mutton, and leave the maids to me. I’m the one who’s wanting a bride, after all!”
Siobhan’s cheeks burned.
“Did you hear that? They were talking about you, mistress!” Aislinn squeaked. “Why, the cheeky devils!”
“Aye,” Siobhan agreed, annoyed. She disliked being discussed by a band of rogues like this as if she was no more than a joint of beef. She was more than her looks, after all. Why, she was better educated than most men in Eire, thanks to the Christian monks at St Kieran’s monastery. The holy fathers had not quite persuaded her to become a Christian, but they had taught her Latin, and how to illuminate their Christian manuscripts with coloured inks and pens. She could sew, weave and play her harp. She excelled at chess, and could dance, hunt, ride horses, and run her father’s household. Even better, she had another skill: a supernatural power that even her father knew nothing about. She had the ability to shape-shift to any form she chose, a magical power she’d inherited from her mother’s bloodline. Such things were best not spoken of, however, for they came not from this world, but the Other.
She scowled, scrunching her face up so that furrows appeared in her brow. She had a mind to show this Lord whatever-his-name-was that she was more than a pretty face! Aye, and so she would!
“Wait here until they leave,” she told her servant crisply, “then take the baskets home. I shall see you anon.” The baskets were filled with the medicinal herbs and plants they had gathered for Siobhan’s healing potions.
“Why? What are you going to do, my lady?” Aislinn asked, suspicious. She was familiar with her mistress’ unusual talent. She also knew that Siobhan’s changing spells rarely worked exactly as her mistress intended.
“Nothing that you need to know about,” Siobhan came back pertly. “Now, hush.”
She closed her green eyes and began to chant the spell: “Fleet of foot, / Yet white as snow / Let this hind / Escape the bow. / By the magic / In my blood / Change me!”
The leaves ceased their whispering.
The air grew very still, as if the forest was holding its breath.
Aislinn held her breath, too.
Within a heartbeat, there was a faint tinkling sound, like fairy laughter, or the silvery chiming of tiny bells.
The fine hairs rose on the back of Aislinn’s neck as light began to stream from Siobhan’s fingertips in a shimmering aura. Siobhan beckoned the light to come to her.
The aura slowly expanded, until it limned Siobhan from her head to her toes.
In another heartbeat, Siobhan dissolved into the sunshine that dappled the leaves, and was gone! The branch beside Aislinn was empty.
Aislinn cursed under her breath, and made the horned sign against evil for protection. Unlike her pagan mistress, she had been properly baptized by a Christian priest.
Almost immediately, Aislinn saw a delicate white doe appear across the forest clearing. She held her breath. It was Siobhan in magical form.
The doe took an elegant step or two, emerging from between two leafy green thickets. Its dainty white head was lifted to the wind. Its velvety nose twitched. Catching the hunters’ scent, the doe turned, and was gone with a parting flirt of her tail.
“Whoa! Did you see that? A fine white doe, it was!” exclaimed Fergus. He took up his bow, swung his quiver of arrows over his shoulder and looped his hunting horn over his belt. “The little beauty’s mine.”
“Not so fast, cousin. You took the stag, remember? This one’s mine,” Colm said firmly. “Eat! Drink! I’ll see you later, at old Diarmaid’s hall.”
“Take your time, Colm,” Fergus said generously. “By the time you get there, I’ll be betrothed to his lovely daughter, not you. Fifty head of cattle, cousin! That’s all he’s after askin’. Why, by all accounts, the Lady Siobhan would be cheap at five times such a bride price! Imagine the sons she’ll give me!”
Still perched in the boughs of the oak tree, Aislinn groaned. She did not want to be nearby when Siobhan found out that her father was marrying her off for fifty cows.
Two
The doe was swifter than Colm expected. She ran like the very wind, nipping and tucking in and out of bushes, springing and turning this way and that, soaring over hollows and ridges, darting between firs and oaks, ashes and birches until Colm was dizzy. He began to doubt he’d ever overtake her.
Why, it was as if the fleeing hind was a mythical creature. A magical doe that could escape a mortal hunter’s pursuit.
Pausing to catch his breath, Colm leaned up against a tree to nock an arrow against his bowstring before he raced on. The challenge to overtake the doe drew him onwards, not the thought of the kill: the tantalizing flag of the doe’s white scut, its small twinkling hooves. The little beast tested his hunter’s skills!
The doe fairly flew before him now, leaping over the tussocks of thick turf, a white streak that nimbly leaped over rocks and deep drifts of russet and gold leaves. It was as if she fled a snarling pack of hounds, instead of a lone and badly winded hunter.
After a half-league at such a pace, he found himself short of breath, weary and wishing for his horse – or even his favourite wolfhounds – to help run the doe to ground.
He was thirsty too, his throat as parched and dry as a bit of old leather. Although it was a crisp autumn day, with the chill bite of winter on the wind, sweat rolled down his back. More seeped into his deerskin boots.
And then, just when he was about to give up, he tripped over a gnarled tree root that snaked across his path and went flying.
With a startled grunt, he landed heavily on his belly. The bow flew from his grip. The arrow sang through the air towards the doe.
With bated breath, he watched its flight; heard the animal’s shrill scream of pain, abruptly cut short.
The white doe plunged between some gorse bushes and vanished – but not before Colm had seen the bright splash of blood that stained its right front leg.
He set his jaw, his expression hard but resigned. He had injured the pretty doe. It was now his responsibility to put her out of her misery. No creature would suffer a slow agonizing death for his misdeeds, intentional or otherwise.
He got to his feet. He drew his dagger from the scabbard at his waist and thrust his way into the gorse bushes in pursuit of the hind – only to trip flat on his face a second time.
He landed across a young woman, hidden in the bushes.
A young woman who was, moreover, the loveliest maid he had ever seen. Her dark-lashed eyes were as green as shamrocks, and her skin was clotted cream.
But at the moment, those shamrock eyes were consigning him to the devil.
“Well, now! And who might you be?” Colm exclaimed, pushing himself up on to his elbows, to look down at her.
She had long curling black hair, and lips like wild strawberries. A mouth made for a man’s kisses.
His body stirred appreciatively.
“Who am I? I migh
t ask you the same question, sir,” she shot back, “since you’re poaching in my father’s forest! Get off me, ye great lummox!” She thrust her palms full force against his chest. She tried, in vain, to slam one or both of her knees into his groin.
He propped himself up, on his elbows, keenly aware that his body was far from indifferent to her charms, despite her efforts to geld him.
“Forgive me. I mean you no harm, my lady. Be still!”
“Just as you meant that poor creature no harm, I suppose?” she said caustically, sitting up and glowering at him. “I pity those you do intend harm, sir!”
He scowled, shooting her a dark look. “I did not intend to shoot the doe, my lady. But I shall find her, and put her out of her misery, my word on it. No living thing shall suffer needlessly by my hand.”
“I’m touched, sir. But you should have thought of that before you released your arrow! The doe fled in that direction,” she told him through gritted teeth, waving a hand towards the west. “Poor wee creature.”
“I shall go after her straight way,” he murmured. Sheathing his dagger, he retrieved his bow from the grass. He hesitated. “If your father owns this forest, then you must be the Lady Siobhan, aye?”
She said nothing.
“Shall I see you tonight at Glenkilly keep?”
She smiled sweetly. “Not if I see you first.”
He grinned. “Ye don’t mean that, Siobhan, my darlin’. You’ll seek me out. All the maids love me,” he boasted with a roguish wink.
“Not this maid!” Siobhan gritted, uncomfortably shifting position. She grimaced. “Now, then. Weren’t you going after that poor doe when you flattened me like an oatcake?”
“I was, aye. I am,” he amended. His eyes twinkled. His smile was merry.
He was laughing at her, the brute!
His grin, his eyes, the very size of him, with those broad shoulders and those muscular horseman’s legs, made her feel weak. Vulnerable. Excited.
“Then be on your way, my lord—?”
“Colm,” he supplied, starting off in the direction she’d indicated. He looked back at her, over his shoulder, adding, “I am Colm mac Connor of Colmskeep, County Waterford. Nephew to the High King – and the man you’re going to marry, mo muirnin!”
Three
“Shall I comb your hair for you, my lady?” Aislinn offered later that same evening.
The sooner her mistress was dressed and gone to join her father and their many guests at table, the sooner Aislinn could get away to join her own friends – the other serving girls – in gossip and flirting with the stable boys and the grooms.
“Aye. Please do,” Siobhan said thankfully. Her right arm ached. She had dreaded the thought of combing out her own hair. It was so long and thick.
Surprised by her unusually gracious tone, Aislinn took up a comb and began ridding her mistress’ hair of tangles, one curly lock at a time. She was surprised to find pieces of leaves and even a strand of moss caught within the inky mane.
With all the tangles gone, Aislinn pinned Siobhan’s hair back behind her ears, with carved ivory combs set with amethysts and pearls. The jewels caught the rushlights and sparkled prettily, a lovely foil for the rich amethyst kirtle she was wearing.
It was her mistress’ finest garment. The long, fitted sleeves ended in deep points at the wrists, but left her creamy shoulders bare. A girdle of tablet-braided silver and purple silk spanned her slender hips, its free ends finished with tassels.
Looking over Siobhan’s shoulder at her mistress’ beautiful reflection in the mirror, Aislinn smiled.
“’Tis lovely you’re looking this even’, mistress,” she said with a sly half-smile on her dimpled face. “Might our special visitors have anything to do with that?”
“Special visitors? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Siobhan lied. “My father told me there would be guests at supper tonight, so I dressed in my finest. I always try to look my best when we have guests at Glenkilly.”
“Aah. Lord Diarmaid didn’t tell you, then?”
“Didn’t tell me what?”
“That these guests are special – suitors for your hand? Didn’t he tell ye he’d named a bride price for ye, mistress? Fifty head of cattle, he’s asked for. Fifty! Oh, my lady, aren’t you excited? The daughter of the High King of Eire could command no higher price from a suitor! Everyone says lords and princes have come from all over Eire t’ make offers for your hand, my lady. Aye, and mayhap from foreign parts, too.”
“My father did what?” Siobhan echoed in a faint whisper. The colour had drained from her face.
“He offered . . . he offered your hand in marriage, for a bride price of fifty cows, my lady. Everyone says that—”
“I don’t care what everyone says! Everyone says I should box your ears, but that doesn’t mean I shall, does it?” Siobhan snapped, but her voice broke. “Or that I won’t! Oh, be off with you, you wretched girl! Leave me be.”
Seeing her mistress’ shock, the pain and tears that sprang into her green eyes, Aislinn felt a sharp twinge of remorse.
She should not have told Siobhan in such a cruel blunt way about the bride price Lord Diarmaid had offered. She’d known Siobhan knew nothing of her father’s plans, but had taken spiteful pleasure in telling her anyway. Still, what was done was done. It could not be unsaid.
“Forgive me, Lady Siobhan,” she said with one last flick of her comb. “Truly, I did not mean to cause you any— Oh! My poor lady, you’re hurt!” Aislinn exclaimed suddenly, apologies forgotten. “Whatever have ye done to yourself?”
Blood was trickling down the pale curve of her mistress’ right shoulder. Finding a linen kerchief, Aislinn dabbed at the red angry wound. It was long, but not very deep, just as if an arrow had creased it.
An arrow?
“Blessed Saint Patrick! The hunter, he shot you, didn’t he, my lady? When you shifted shape?”
Siobhan nodded glumly. “He did, aye. Oh, Aislinn, when his arrow creased my shoulder, the pain broke the spell! It was agony! Is it still bleeding?” She bit her lip as she craned her neck to look over her shoulder, trying to see the wound for herself. It stung like fire.
“Not any more. Be still, my lady, or it will start up again. Did he— Did the hunter say anything to you?”
“Who?”
“You know very well who, mistress! The handsome one! Colm mac Connor!”
“Oh. Him. Yes, yes, he did. Alas, for all his fine looks, he’s a . . . a coarse unmannered lout! A clumsy lummox. Aye, and I told him so, right to his face!”
“Aaah. So you liked him,” Aislinn said with another of her infuriating smiles. “Did ye not?”
“Aye, I did, damn his black heart,” Siobhan admitted with a ferocious scowl. But there was a certain look in her green eyes, for all that. “He’s a handsome devil, sure he is.”
“Aaaah,” Aislinn pronounced again, looking even more pleased. “And what did he say to you, mistress, that has you so riled up? Will ye tell your Aislinn, hmm?” Cook and the other serving wenches would be open-mouthed when they heard about this turn of events. As the harbinger of such juicy gossip, she would be the centre of attention!
“He said that— He said that he was the man I was going to—”
“—aye, aye, going to what?”
“—to marry!”
“To marry? Did he now, the bold wretch! The rogue!”
Aislinn’s spirits soared. She had heard much of County Waterford, which lay to the south of Glenkilly at the mouth of a bay. She would love to live near such a bustling port. It would be exciting, what with all the ships, the comings and goings, the trading, the merchants, and such. Who knew? She might be wed herself, if Siobhan were to wed the nephew of the High King.
“And would you accept his suit, my lady?” she asked eagerly. “Do you think you could love him?” She held her breath as she awaited Siobhan’s answer.
“I think I could, aye,” her mistress confessed tearfully. Her lower lip wobbled.<
br />
“Then why do ye look so glum? It will be wonderful, if this Lord Colm makes an offer for your hand, will it not?”
“He can’t! I could never marry him, no matter how much I might love him!”
“Why ever not? You said yourself that you could come to love him, given time?” Aislinn said, thoroughly confused. She saw her dreams of a fine husband and a Waterford cottage sliding out of reach.
“Exactly. And I can never marry him because I might come to love him!”
“My poor love.” The serving wench pressed her palm to Siobhan’s brow. “The wound has given you a fever, that’s why your wits are so addled. You’re making no sense, my poor lady!”
“Nothing has addled my wits. ’Tis the curse put upon me! Don’t you remember what the skrying mirror foretold on my twelfth birthday? That my husband would die on our wedding day! Don’t ye see, Aislinn? If I marry Colm mac Connor, he’s as good as dead!”
That evening, in the hall of Glenkilly, Lord Diarmaid told the gathering that he had chosen a husband for the Lady Siobhan from among the many suitors who had flocked to his hall. Her prospective husbands had come from as near as County Waterford, and as far away as Gaul and Britain.
The gathering held its breath. The future bride felt sick to her belly as she awaited her father’s announcement.
“My beautiful Siobhan received more than a hundred offers for her hand. One hundred of the finest men! After – but only after – much thought, I have chosen the young man she shall wed from among them. Her husband shall be—”
An expectant hush fell over the gathering. All eyes were fixed on the Lord of Glenkilly. The only sounds were that of the spit, squeaking as it turned, roasting the juicy side of beef that would soon be carved for the celebration feast.
Siobhan peeked nervously under her lashes at the motley assortment of men ranged along wooden benches pulled up to the long trestle tables.
There was a fat fellow who’d come all the way from Gaul sitting across from her. He had a swarthy complexion, and a huge hairy mole on his chin that rose every time he smiled at her, which was often. She frowned. She wouldn’t be too upset if he were to be chosen. After all, she would only be his bride for a day, at most.
