Spirit of the Mist

by Janeen O'Kerry

  “Ah, I think I understand now. You have never known love.”

  She turned back to face him. “I have never allowed myself to know love. I have been determined that I would never love any man unless I was certain he was the right one. So far I have succeeded quite well.”

  “So far.” He sounded amused.

  Muriel raised her chin. “Do your best, Brendan. Talk sweetly to me, gaze into my eyes, bring me little gifts. None of it will make any difference. I will be the one to control my feelings—not you. That is one thing I can promise.”

  He merely nodded, his eyes shining. They continued their walk.

  The hills around the dun were sprinkled with color, as though last night’s storm had dropped flowers instead of rain. Scattered in the sunniest open grass were bright yellow dandelions and primroses. Surrounding the largest rocks were thorny gorse bushes, filled with sweet-scented, tiny, golden blossoms, and the star-shaped, purple-blue spring gentian. Nearby were blackberry bushes just beginning to flower in white.

  At the edge of the shade cast by the oak and willow trees were the pink blooms of foxglove, long and slender. Beneath the oaks in the deepest shade were little violets, purple and blue and white.

  As a backdrop to the flowers were masses and masses of dark green three-leafed clover with clusters of tiny white blossoms. All of it made a lovely contrast to the gray rocks and gray-green sea.

  Brendan looked down once more on the massive rings of the dun. “Flowers and clover, cattle and sunshine, and a fortress home where all can live in safety and contentment,” he said. “It is the same at Dun Bochna. And for the same reason, I am sure.”

  “And what reason would that be?” Muriel almost smiled in spite of herself. He was certainly a grand talker, if nothing else.

  “Why, its king, of course!” He turned his brilliant smile on her as they walked, his gold-brown hair ruffling in the wind. “King Murrough’s land reflects his own character, his own virility, his own justice. King Galvin’s land does the same.”

  Muriel turned away from the bright light of his smile and made herself look only at the grass where she walked. She nodded in answer, her face serious. “Of course,” she said. “It is always so. A king’s land is like his queen. If he serves it and protects it and cherishes it, with his mind and his body and his heart, it will bloom beneath his hand. But if he is false—or disfigured—or weak—”

  “His land will become the same,” Brendan said. “As you say, Lady Muriel, it is always so. No one knows this better than I, who will be king of my own land someday.”

  She glanced up at him, beginning to smile again. It was almost too easy to hold him at a distance, to keep him in his place. “Yet I see nothing of a king about you, or even of a prince. You have no fine clothes or good iron weapons. There is no tanist’s torque around your neck or king’s gold on your wrists or fingers. All you have are boasting words and fanciful stories.”

  Muriel thought he would stop and frown at her, give her some indignant response, but he only laughed and spread his arms and went on walking.

  “Some men might need such things for others to know them as a king, but I am one who does not! Every time I set out, the warrior men follow me; every time I return, I bring more cattle and more wealth; and everywhere I walk, the land blossoms under my feet. You can see this from the flowers which surround us now! Surely even you can agree that I must be a king, when such things happen wherever I go!”

  Muriel did laugh this time, shaking her head. Anyone else saying such things would simply have been an insufferable braggart, but Brendan was so good-natured that it was difficult to hold his boasting against him.

  Difficult—but not impossible. She must not begin to allow him so close. She reminded herself again that she did not know what he was, did not know if he was really a prince or just the grandest liar she’d ever met…and as they walked on, she made herself still the longing that had begun to rise in her heart and instead think only with her head.

  They came to a high open spot where the lush grass rippled in the wind. Brendan reached down and picked a few of the yellow primroses and dandelions, leaving a clear space so that they would not crush any of the flowers, and the two sat down together on the soft, thick grass.

  For a time there was only silence between them. Muriel was more than content to simply gaze out at Dun Farraige and at the sea beyond, enjoying the warm sun and the fresh sea breeze and the scent of thick greenery and thriving flora. She found that it helped to keep her heart from pounding—and her breath from quickening, if she looked at anything else but Brendan.

  I will be the one to control my feelings, not you. Muriel took a deep breath and deliberately looked away from him, out at the glittering bay.

  “This is indeed a lovely place,” said Brendan. “Now—out there, straight across the water to the north, is the land that I am from.”

  Muriel glanced over at him, following his gaze to where the mountainous land was visible as a hazy outline. “You are fortunate today that we can see it at all. So much of the time it is hidden in the mists.”

  “I have found that many things might be hidden in the mists—but you need only wait for the sun to come out and burn the fog away, and then all will be revealed to you.” He grinned, and Muriel could not decide if he was serious or merely trying to bait her again.

  Brendan turned and pointed off to the east. “There, at the closed end of the bay, is the place where Odhran overthrew a king.”

  “And where you sent a tanist to his death.” She watched his face this time, wanting to see if he would laugh.

  Instead, his shining eyes grew serious, and his voice became quiet and soft. “I had no wish to kill him. I had no choice at all, if I wanted to live. But I had no wish to kill him.”

  He fell silent and looked away from her, out toward the open sea. Muriel watched for a moment, waiting for him to continue.

  But he said nothing more.

  “I often come up here in fine weather to do the spinning or the sewing,” she offered, brushing a strand of black hair from her face. “It is a favorite place of mine.”

  He turned back to her and his smile returned. “Do you come up alone?”

  She paused a spell, blinking. It was as if she saw nothing else but that beautiful smile. “Ah, sometimes,” she said, looking down to pick a few blades of grass. “At other times Alvy comes with me—or, on the best days, perhaps a few of the other women. But most often they prefer to stay closer to home. But alone I find this a place of great beauty, and of peace.”

  “I am not surprised that you would enjoy looking out toward the sea,” said Brendan. “Straight down that bay, nearly at the place where the ocean begins, is the place where I am from—Dun Bochna. You have been looking to me all this time, Lady Muriel.”

  She turned her head very slowly to stare at him, then asked, “And when you looked out from your shores, do you mean to tell me that you were looking at me in turn?”

  He looked a bit surprised, and before he could answer she smiled coolly and turned away again. “I thought not.”

  “But I was looking to you,” he argued, reaching for her fingers. She dropped the grass she was twisting and moved her hand beneath the folds of her cloak. “I knew that you were out in the world somewhere,” he continued. “And I hoped that I would find someone like you before—”

  “Before you exhausted yourself with all the other women you encountered?”

  “Before I had to take my place as king,” he finished patiently. He got to his feet and stood very tall, forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him. He still held the bright yellow primroses and dandelions he’d plucked. “I will need a queen. And I have not yet found one.”

  “Your speech is well rehearsed,” Muriel snapped. “You must have used it many times. It seems strange to me that such a fine and handsome man as you—as I am sure you will try to tell me—can find no woman who will have him.”

  She waited for his response, but he merely
turned and walked with long, graceful strides toward the nearby rocks. The wind stirred his golden brown hair around his face as he paused in front of some brush. “You misunderstand me,” he said and broke off a little branch of gorse, heavy with golden blossoms. “There were plenty of women who would have accepted me. I have not yet found one that I would accept.”

  “Ah. I see. Well, Brendan, I suppose you will simply have to keep on searching.”

  “Perhaps,” he said finally, adding a few stems of spring gentian to his collection. Arranging the blossoms carefully, he walked around the rocks to some blackberry brambles. In a moment, a slender cane filled with tiny white flowers joined his primrose and dandelion and gorse and gentian.

  “You are forgetting what King Murrough just said!” called Muriel peevishly. “It is possible that you will never leave Dun Farraige. You might stay here and live out your life as a slave.”

  The man smiled back at her, carefully adjusting his bouquet to avoid the sharp thorns of the gorse.

  “If that happens, perhaps I could persuade you too to be a servant, and live alongside me. It would be a simple life, but a happy one, so long as we were together.”

  Muriel watched him as he worked with the flowers—and as she watched, it seemed to her that he no longer wore his fine black leather and soft gray wool, but the rough, undyed garb of a slave. There was no shining brooch at his shoulder now, only a plain bronze pin. And he seemed cold and despondent and underfed, nothing like the strong, young man who had stood above her a moment before.

  A cold shock ran through Muriel. Her face grew hot and her hands felt cold. “Being a slave is nothing to laugh about,” she whispered, turning away and fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.

  He walked to her and leaned down a bit, trying to catch her eye. “My lady, that possibility is so very unlikely that the only thing I can do is laugh about it. Clearly you are no more a slave than I am.”

  Still, she could not look at him. “The king’s men leave in the morning for Dun Bochna. It will not be long until they return, and then we will know the truth.”

  “You already know the truth, for I have told it to you: I am the tanist of my father’s kingdom and in time I will be its king.”

  The fresh breeze blew over them again. Muriel took another deep breath and firmly reminded herself that this Brendan was an unknown, a mystery, as insubstantial as the mists and as shadowy as the gray cloak he wore.

  He was the last man she would ever want to know…much less marry.

  Chapter Four

  Brendan walked away from Muriel, this time toward the willow trees. From the edge of the shade he took blooms of the foxglove—long and slender and deep pink—and then he moved to the deepest shade beneath the trees to pick a few tiny violets—blue, purple, and white.

  He walked back to Muriel and sat down in the grass beside her, toying with his bouquet. She waited for him to give it to her, but the idea seemed not to occur to him. “It would seem that I have told you all there is to know about me,” he said. “I would like to know more about you-”

  She shrugged. “There is little to tell. I have lived here all of my life. I am the daughter of a warrior who served the previous king of Dun Farraige and died in his sixtieth year. My mother’s life ended some ten years after my birth. I was left in the care of Alvy, one of the king’s servants, and she has cared for me ever since.”

  “And there is no man in your life? Aside from me, of course.”

  “There is no man in my life at all. Including you.”

  He frowned, but she could see the merriment in his eyes. “It is hard to believe that no man of Dun Farraige—or anywhere else—has wanted to make you his wife.”

  “Why, perhaps they have, Brendan. That is not something you would know. But I will tell you this: I will be the wife only of a king, or I will be no man’s wife at all.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he grinned all the wider. “I see! Well, Lady Muriel, I cannot fault you for wanting only the best in a husband—though it does limit your choices somewhat. No matter, though. You can marry me. I am going to be a king. I am already the tanist—”

  “As you have told me and everyone else many times!” She almost laughed. “A tanist is not a king. I am waiting for a king.”

  “And you have never considered any other man?” Brendan shook his head. “Has there never been some good man who was simply a warrior and not likely to be chosen king, or a well-spoken bard or learned druid, who loved you and wanted to make you his wife?”

  He smiled. “I could never believe that any man who saw you would not find himself drawn to you…just as I am.”

  Muriel tried to answer, but her voice caught, for all she could see were his strange shining eyes and all she could hear were his words. “There—there have been others,” she said at last. “But I knew the fate which awaited me if I allowed myself to love them…and so I kept them well away, good men though they were.”

  “Even as you do with me.” He gazed at her, and his expression grew thoughtful. “Many women hope to marry a king, but I have never known one who insisted she would have no other. Yet I see by your eyes that you are quite serious. Tell me—why have you come to such a decision?”

  She turned away. “I have my reasons. But they would be of no interest to you.”

  “Oh, but you are wrong! I am more than interested. And I will wait until you are ready to tell me.” He leaned over and picked a handful of three-leafed clover, adding it to his little bunch of flowers and carefully arranging it to his liking.

  Muriel stared at him as he worked. “Then you shall wait until the day I learn that you are truly a king—or you will hear nothing from me.”

  “I am indeed the next king of my people,” he continued, working the clover in and out among the bright yellow primrose and gorse and the blue and purple violets.

  “And you forget that even if—if I had not already been named tanist, I still carry the blood of kings. My own father rules at Dun Bochna, and even if I were only a nephew or a cousin of his I would still be one who could be named king by the free men of my tribe.

  “There are not many who stand eligible to be a king, whether or not they are ever chosen. Is this not enough for you?”

  “It is not,” she whispered. “Only a true king will I consider—only a man who already wears the torque of kingship and has been chosen and accepted by his people. A tanist is not a king. It can be no other way.”

  Brendan shrugged. “No matter. You will soon learn that not only am I to be a king, I am exactly the kind of man that a woman like you has need of.”

  He looked up at her and grinned, as though he expected her to smile back. Instead she got to her feet and began walking straight down the path to the dun. His surety that he would win her heart was infuriating! “Farewell, Brendan. The next time I notice you heading for certain death on the rocks, I will be sure to send a school of eels instead of a pair of dolphins.”

  “Wait…please!” She could hear him scramble to his feet and hurry through the grass behind her. “I am sorry. It is the truth that I am to be a king, as I said—but it is also the truth that I am no druid and can be as crude with words as a poet would be with a sword.”

  Gently he touched her shoulder. “I would like to give you this.”

  She turned around, and Brendan held out the lovely little bunch of flowers he’d made. It was as pretty a gift as any she had ever received—though the last thing she wanted was to let him know that.

  She folded her hands, held her head high, and eyed the bouquet briefly, then cocked her head to study him. “I am offered gifts all the time. Why should I be impressed with yours?”

  He considered her words, but his strange eyes were bright with something like mischief. “You need not be impressed with them at all, Lady Muriel. You need only carry these flowers and enjoy their beauty and their sweet scent. They are simply a small emblem of my gratitude to you for rescuing me from the sea.”

  �
�I see. Yet I did not do it for thanks.”

  “Of course not. Ah, I understand now!” He grinned. “You need no gratitude. I will throw them into the sea—the place where I would be now if not for you.”

  Her eyes widened as she watched him walk toward the cliff, nothing but deadly rocks and pounding sea far below. “Brendan—”

  He turned, his face questioning, waiting patiently for her to speak.

  “I will accept your gift…if you still wish to give it to me.”

  Smiling, he walked back to her and held out the colorful little bouquet. A bit of clover fell to the grass as she took it, still warm and damp from his hand. “I thank you,” she said. “I suppose if I could rescue a stranger from the sea, I could do no less for such lovely flowers.”

  “I am very glad that you have rescued both.” He paused a moment, then looked at her in genuine curiosity. “So…if I promise not to offend you again, will you tell me why you will marry no man but a king?”

  She ran her fingers over the soft petals of her flowers. “Perhaps I will tell you. Very soon you will either be a slave or you will be gone, so I suppose it does not matter.”

  He smiled. “It matters to me. Please, Lady Muriel—tell me why you will have none but a king.”

  She glanced at him, then turned to stare out to sea. “Did you not wonder how it was that I was able to help you last night?”

  He paused. “I suppose I have not,” he answered. “I suppose I was merely grateful that you saw my boat when it came ashore on the beach, and that you brought the men to lift me out and take me to your fortress.”

  Muriel turned back to face him. “Do you think I spend the dark and rainswept nights alone on the shore, anxiously waiting for boats with men in them to come and land at my feet?” She brushed her hair back from her face. “I was safe inside my house. How do you think I knew you were out there, tossing on the rough sea with your death only moments away?”

  “I must confess…I do not know.”