The Irish Bride

by Sarah Woodbury

  “You made sure Steffan understood what to do?” Godfrid said to Gareth.

  “I told him to follow Arnulf but stay well back. He knows.”

  Godfrid grumbled to himself, knowing he shouldn’t nag his friend.

  “It is Jon, Cadoc, and Llelo who have the most to fear—besides us, I mean. That’s why they are together, to leave Steffan free to move about without anyone recognizing him.” Gareth glanced at Godfrid with a sympathetic smile. “We sent them east, anyway. They’re probably miles away with no idea what’s happening. We discovered this clearing only because of the noise.”

  “I hate that I didn’t know about these fights before yesterday.”

  “I hate that my son is in the middle of it.”

  Godfrid put a hand on Gareth’s shoulder, suitably chastened. “He’s a smart lad.”

  “With far too much confidence.” Gareth’s growl sounded very much like Godfrid’s own. “We should move again. We’ve been in this position too long.”

  Just then, one of the patrolling men appeared to their right, his eyes fixed on a point just past where they were hiding. But after a moment, his eyes slid away, and he moved on. Meanwhile, Goff had been conferring with one of his underlings. Then, with a laugh, he held up his hands to quiet the hubbub of the crowd, which had grown restless with no fights to watch.

  “We have an exciting change to the program! One of our best warriors has found his way here today and has agreed to give a lesson to a first-timer.” He waved a hand and Sitric came forward ... followed immediately by Gareth’s son, Dai.

  “No.” Gareth made a move to rise, but Godfrid put a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  “We don’t know what this is yet. They aren’t going to hurt a boy in front of citizens of Dublin. Even if they know who he is, they definitely wouldn’t risk my wrath by harming him.”

  Gareth subsided and then watched with held breath as Sitric took Dai through the basics of sword fighting. To Dai’s credit, he pretended to be far less proficient than he really was, though here and there he showed the flashes of brilliance that had convinced the Dragons to take him on as their squire. Sitric played ignorant too, cursing at Dai in Danish as if he had no idea who he was.

  “What do we do?” It was Llelo’s voice in Godfrid’s ear this time, and he nearly jumped a foot, instantly angry at himself for being so focused on the fight he’d allowed Gareth’s son to sneak up on him. Then again, Llelo had been learning from the best. He knew how to move quietly. Who knew how long he’d been watching their backs.

  “Nothing, Llelo,” Gareth said. “Not yet.”

  “Cadoc is nearby, and he has twenty arrows in his quiver.”

  “And there are a hundred men in that clearing, most who have done nothing wrong.”

  “But it’s Dai!”

  Godfrid, his heart still pounding, lifted a finger. “Not yet.”

  Llelo put his back to the trunk of an ancient tree to their right. He blended in so well, even in the moonlight, that he was hardly more than a shadow with eyes.

  “Where are the others?” Gareth asked.

  “Around the other side. They know to remain hidden.”

  Dai continued to accept instruction from Sitric, and then three more younger men joined the ring, causing Gareth to breathe easier. Goff knew many of the men present were no longer here to learn to be warriors, but to watch while others fought, so soon the lesson ended, and Dai and the others filed out of the ring.

  Goff raised his hands again. “Are we Danes?”

  The crowd answered with a roar.

  “Tonight, our first featured fight pits one of our own against a true contender.” Goff made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “We have the Templar versus the Galway Grogoch.”

  Into the ring walked a man dressed in the regalia of a Knight Templar. While his garb was unnervingly similar to what Harald had worn in death, his face was covered by a full helm, so they couldn’t tell his identity, though in size and shape he resembled Arnulf. He was followed by a smaller man wearing a mask over his face with slits for eyes. The disguise couldn’t fool Godfrid, however. It was unmistakably Conall.

  Gareth clenched his hands into fists. “It can’t be a coincidence that three of our own have already been included in the arena. We’re blown. We’re completely blown.” He turned to Llelo. “Get back to Dublin, as quickly as you can. We need reinforcements.”

  “The guards at the palace gate will laugh at me,” Llelo said. “My Danish isn’t good enough to explain, and they’ll never let me see the king, even if they remember I’m your son.”

  “Wake Cait,” Godfrid said. “They’ll let her in without question.”

  As Llelo scampered away, Godfrid checked the sky, having no real idea how many hours had passed, but thinking it must be getting on towards two in the morning. They were only a mile from the city. If Llelo hurried, he could be at Godfrid’s house within the half-hour.

  Godfrid just needed to keep whatever was happening here from getting more out of hand—and Conall alive—until Brodar arrived.

  Chapter Thirty

  Day Three

  Conall

  “Where are you taking him?” Iona grabbed the man’s arm before Goff’s followers could hurry him off.

  “It’s the event of the night,” one of them said.

  Conall put a reassuring hand on her arm. “I’m fine.” As it turned out, the sack was really a mask, with slits for eyes, and he could see perfectly well.

  Iona looked back at him with concern, but he squeezed her hand and allowed himself to be marched away. Fortunately, the onlookers left her alone, and the red-haired man who’d talked to them gave Conall a nod, as if to say, don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her for you.

  The big question in his mind was if he was here because he was an Irishman or because he was a very particular Irishman. Conall’s only consolation was that neither the man he was fighting, who, since he was dressed like a Templar, Conall assumed to be Arnulf, nor Goff, the organizer, behaved as if they had any idea who Conall really was. Either that, or both were excellent mummers, an unlikely prospect. He couldn’t believe even someone as arrogant and righteous as Goff would deliberately harm the nephew of the King of Leinster.

  Unless, of course, the point was to start a war. He hoped his friends were watching but knew better than to interfere, not until they knew more. From the somewhat welcoming pats on the shoulders he received as his guards guided him through the crowd to where the participants waited, his abduction appeared—amazingly enough—good-natured, prompting a tentative sigh of relief on his part.

  They didn’t know.

  He adjusted the hood so he could better see out the slits, and then someone thrust a metal sword into his hand. It was too heavy for him, designed for someone twice Conall’s size, which might have been the point. Rather than keep it, he dropped it amongst a pile of other weapons, laid out near where the participants gathered before they entered the ring, and pawed through them until he came up with two short swords—daggers really—and hefted one in each hand.

  He could feel the Danes eyeing him with actual interest now. Maybe they’d chosen him for the ring because he was an older Irish fellow, someone to despise, and they wanted someone easily defeated. Suddenly, they were wondering if they’d made a mistake.

  Good.

  They didn’t know it, but Conall had fought at the Battle of the Liffey. Perhaps he hadn’t fought well, per se, but he’d lived. As he’d watched the men work in the ring tonight, it had dawned on him that the way they were training was all very well and good for raiding, but it wasn’t battle training. Men on a raid fought one-on-one, usually against less skilled opponents. In battle, the shield wall was all. What they were doing here would be useful once the battle became a free-for-all, but everyone would have to survive the shield wall first.

  The Irish were not known for their shield walls, which is one reason the Danes had defeated them time and again. Conall’s people were notoriously undiscipline
d.

  He decided tonight he would show these Danes what that meant.

  When he’d met Arnulf yesterday, he’d noted his physique. Now in full Templar armor, he loomed over Conall and could have wielded the sword they’d first given him, confirming Conall’s suspicion that he was supposed to lose. He wasn’t going to forfeit before he’d started, however. He had too much pride for that, and he set his feet determinedly in the ring and forced himself to take even breaths.

  He held the daggers as if they were swords. Though he’d taught Cait to fight with the knife reversed in her fist, with the point towards the ground, that was because a woman’s strength came from her legs. Conall wasn’t constructed like the man who faced him, but Arnulf’s mistake was to be wearing so much gear. Maybe if they’d both been wielding a two-handed sword, as in battle, it would have made sense. But Conall had brought knives to a sword fight, and he knew the identity of the man who faced him. Arnulf hadn’t been born to the life as Conall had been, and that knowledge told Conall to act first.

  He dove forward, somersaulting the eight feet between himself and Arnulf, and came up on one knee with his knives crossed in front of him. Arnulf parried, but the intersection of the knives caught the blade. As Conall rose to his feet and flung his arms wide, he ripped the sword out of Arnulf’s hand. A moment later, Conall had hooked his right foot around Arnulf’s left knee and brought him to the ground. And a moment after that, he had his knives to Arnulf’s throat.

  A gratifying silence descended on the crowd. Then a few people started to laugh.

  Conall said, “Do you yield?”

  Arnulf had both hands up. “I yield! I yield!”

  “Take off your helmet.”

  From the sidelines, Goff said, “That isn’t our way—”

  But Arnulf was already fumbling with his helmet. The face revealed, however, was not one Conall recognized. This wasn’t Arnulf, but a different fresh-faced young man with dark hair and darker skin, whom Conall had just humiliated for no reason.

  Conall stepped back, dropped both blades to the ground, and walked out of the ring.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Day Four

  Dai

  “You were rooting for the Irishman. I could see it.” Vigo nudged Dai and spoke low in his ear. “Why?”

  Dai blinked before coming up with an answer on the spot that wasn’t even a lie. “He was so much smaller than the other man, I didn’t think it was fair. I’m not so big myself yet.” He bit his lip. “The Irishman was very good.”

  “He was good at street fighting, typical for an Irish sailor. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so good in battle.” Vigo tapped a finger to his lip as he watched Conall greet some men who approached with their congratulations. Conall moved towards where Iona waited for him, tugging off his mask and putting on the hat he’d worn to the fights. Pulling it down low over his eyes, he put his arm around Iona’s shoulders and walked off into the darkness.

  Dai was thinking that Vigo should be thinking that there were too many foreigners at the fights tonight. He also remembered where he’d seen Goff before: coming out of Vigo’s shop right before Dai himself entered it. He hoped Cadoc and Jon were close enough to notice and remember too.

  For his part, Vigo had already lost interest. He tugged on Dai’s elbow. “I don’t know how it was that Fate brought you to me yesterday. As it turns out, I have need of you. Come.”

  Dai didn’t argue. He was here as Vigo’s guest. He thought he’d performed well in the ring, especially given that it was unexpected. At first, he hadn’t liked pretending to be a worse swordsman than he was, but he’d managed to find a perverse sort of pleasure in being very bad—and then suddenly improving there at the end, so Sitric, and thus Goff, could feel he’d taught him something.

  His parents had worried when he was younger how easy he found it to lie. Dai could see, maybe, he could be a little bit concerned about it himself—except today, it had been very important he be good at it. And Conall, effectively, had done the same thing. Now that he was a man, Dai saw the difference between lying to protect the role he was playing or the people he loved and lying to his parents.

  They left the crowd, with a new fight starting behind them, and walked north through the woods, over a rise, and came out next to a byre for cattle, set on the edge of a field. A split rail fence ran around the lean-to that protected mounds of hay from the weather, but was open to the elements on two sides.

  No cattle were in it at the moment. Only Steffan, on his knees with his hands bound behind his back. A man Dai didn’t recognize stood before him with his arms folded across his chest and a glaring look on his face. A younger man with a shock of white-blond hair stood a few feet away, looking somewhat worried. Horses and men were clustered off to one side, dressed in Irish fashion, but most of the men around the byre were Danish.

  Vigo touched the younger man’s shoulder as he went by. “Thank you, Arnulf. You can go now.”

  Dai tried not to gape as a look of relief crossed Arnulf’s face, and he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Unless this was an elaborate ruse to entrap Dai, Vigo really did trust him with details he might not mention to anyone else. It did really seem that Vigo didn’t know he’d sold Arnulf out. At the same time, Arnulf’s respect for Vigo was clear, along with the fact that the two of them knew each other well.

  “Why are you here, Donnell? I thought we talked about this. You weren’t supposed to come tonight.” Vigo spoke in fluent Gaelic, Dai’s other new language. This was another surprise, and Dai tried not to stare. This couldn’t be Donnell, the prince of Connaught ... could it? Regardless, Vigo’s words were not respectful, as befitting a prince.

  “And where else should I be?” Donnell replied. “I’ve been curious as to whether you would keep your end of the bargain. I’m wondering now if you haven’t betrayed me too.”

  Vigo scoffed. “I have not.”

  Donnell gestured to Steffan. “You say that, but you allowed strangers in your midst.” Both men’s accents were similar, but slightly different than Conall’s. “And Diarmait is still alive.”

  Dai dropped his head so nobody could see his face. He wasn’t supposed to know Gaelic, of course, and he was glad he was standing out of either man’s line of sight, a few paces behind and to the right of the two men so he could see their faces in profile. Dai’s father had spoken of the political situation among the Irish clans, and the hatred Diarmait held for Donnell and Rory, who themselves were locked in a battle for edling to the throne of Connaught and the High Kingship. If this was Donnell, who did that make Vigo?

  The prince turned his head and lifted his chin to indicate Dai. “And now you’ve brought another!”

  Vigo motioned for Dai to come forward. “He’s a newly freed slave. Welsh. He can translate.”

  Donnell grumbled, but he gestured Dai towards Steffan. “Tell the captive who I am.”

  Dai was saved by how hard he’d been working to keep his face impassive, along with the time needed to translate the Gaelic into Welsh. As it turned out, Donnell hadn’t been speaking to him but to Vigo.

  Unaware of the emotions roiling Dai—or that he spoke Gaelic too—Vigo said to him in Danish, “This is Prince Donnell, heir to the throne of Connaught—and the High Kingship, he would have me tell you. He would like you to translate our words into Welsh for the benefit of this cretin.” He kicked out a foot at Steffan’s thigh.

  Steffan winced but then immediately smoothed his expression again.

  Dai nodded quickly, not having to feign that he was genuinely overawed. His eyes went to Steffan, who raised his head to look up at him. Steffan had an abrasion on his jaw, perhaps from a ring when someone had backhanded him across the face. His nose wasn’t broken, which was some consolation, and Steffan’s brown eyes gazed calmly back at his captors.

  Really, Dai had decided long ago that he wanted to be Steffan when he grew up. But first he had to get him out of this. He glanced at Vigo. “Who is he? Why is he captured?”
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  “He is one of the Welshmen who came with Prince Hywel from Gwynedd. A member of the patrol caught him in the woods, spying on us.”

  “He’s a Dragon?” Dai made his eyes go wide. “You’re sure? Maybe he’s a former slave like me, wanting to learn how to fight?”

  “With that gear?” Vigo shook his head. “He knows how to fight already. Besides, I saw him in the street when they arrived. There is no chance he’s here just to watch, and I want to know why before—” he broke off, and made a gesture. “Enough! You ask too many questions. Tell him to whom he is speaking and ask him why he’s here.”

  “What’s this? What are you saying?” Donnell was impatient with the Danish, which he apparently didn’t speak at all.

  Vigo put out a calming hand and reverted to Gaelic once again. “The boy asked if the man before us is one of the Dragons.”

  Donnell looked extremely put out.

  Dai took in a deep breath, not having to pretend to force himself to calm and to think. Then he did as Vigo had first bid, explaining to Steffan about Donnell and adding, “They want to know why you’re here.”

  “Tell them I’ll talk if they tell me what gave me away. My guess? Someone back in Dublin sold us out, either someone in Godfrid’s house or Conall’s. Someone working for this mochyn.”

  Dai shook his head. “I can answer that right now. Vigo recognized you from when we arrived.”

  Steffan looked pained. “I thought his shop was off the main street?”

  “It is,” Dai said. “He still saw you.”

  “So why doesn’t he know you?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to ask.”

  “Find out what they want.”

  Donnell was looking fierce. “What is he saying?”

  Dai hastily spoke in Danish to Vigo. “He wants to know why you captured him. He was doing nothing wrong.”