Children of Enchantment

by Anne Kelleher Bush

  There were low mutters among those clustered closest to the M’Cullen, and Deirdre sighed. “Think, you fools—d’you want the mainlander to see us divided? You show him our weakness.” She shook her head and waved her hand. “Go on now—the day is late, and I smell dinner. We’ll meet once more tomorrow. Early.”

  There were groans from various sides of the fire, and as Deirdre rose to her feet, the door of the hodge opened, and a mud-spattered messenger, accompanied by two of the nearly naked warriors, stumbled inside.

  At once there was silence. “Messenger?” Deirdre asked even as Roderic recognized the colors of the King’s Guard.

  Roderic rose and held out his hand and the messenger pressed the worn dispatch into his hands. “What news?”

  “Koralane, Lord Prince,” replied the messenger. “Koralane is saved. The forest no longer burns. Your brother Brand sends you this news.” He gave Roderic’s hands another squeeze and a look full of meaning.

  “See to his needs,” Deirdre broke the silence. “Take the messenger, clothe and feed him, treat him as our own.”

  A thousand questions danced on Roderic’s tongue, and he bit his lip as guards approached the messenger. “Read the dispatch, Lord Prince,” the messenger replied to the look on Roderic’s face, as Deirdre’s household guards tapped him courteously on the shoulder. “It will explain much.”

  Roderic waited until the last of the Chiefs filed out of the low doorway of the hodge. As Deirdre reached for one of the jugs of mead, Roderic tore open the seals, his frown deepening with each line.

  “What’s wrong?” Deirdre eyed him over the rim as she swallowed a long draught.

  “The messenger spoke truth. Koralane is saved. But the Lords of Mondana blame you—the Chiefs—and they want blood. Brand suggests we ride to Spogan—you, a few of the cooler heads among you—and there negotiate a peace. Otherwise—“

  “Otherwise it will be war.”

  “Yes.” Roderic took the jug and swallowed. The liquor burned all the way to his belly, where it settled with a pleasant warmth.

  Deirdre looked at him with something like amusement. “I thought our island liquor was too strong for you, Prince.”

  He put the jug down, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “Too strong? No. But someone needs to keep a cool head—I don’t understand why you haven’t all killed each other long ago.”

  “Ha.” Deirdre gestured dismissively. “It’s just the way things are. None of them mean most of the things they say, Prince. For us, what we say is so much noise. It’s what we do that counts.”

  “But tempers are so thin—“

  “They’re like complaining old women. They blather on and on because it pleases them. You don’t understand what was really said.”

  Roderic looked at her. “Explain.”

  “Well.” Deirdre shrugged. “When the M’Cullen mentioned his cows, he knew as well as everyone that it was not an issue here—it meant that we were on home ground, so to speak—that the treaty you have offered us is acceptable, at least to the M’Cullen. And they were getting bored. None of us are used to sitting still so long, Prince. They ‘re usually drunk or passed out if they stay in one place this length of time. You’ll see.”

  “And what about this?” He waved the dispatch in the air.

  “We’ll ride to Spogan in another week or two. And if it’s to be war, it will be war. But it will not be of my choosing.”

  Slowly, Roderic nodded and sank down on the furs. He reached for the remains of the noon meal which had been brought to the hodge, tore a hunk of meat out of the haunch of the roast and bit down, chewing thoughtfully.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Roderic looked up at her. Had it only been a week? They might have known each other all their lives, so easily did they seem to read one another. He trusted her implicitly to maneuver her quarrelsome kin. The real negotiations took place between the two of them.

  “Tell me.”

  Again he hesitated.

  “Come.” She hunkered down beside him and lifted the jug to her lips. Thunder rolled suddenly across the bay, echoed off the cliffs. “What’s wrong? Your mind wasn’t here this afternoon. Are you worried about your brother?”

  “Alex? No.” Roderic shook his head. “I know you are doing all that can be done for him. It’s the other—Amanander. I don’t know for certain where he’s gone, and that troubles me more than I can say.”

  “Where do you think?” She stretched out beside him on the thick furs, her long body lithe in the firelight, less than an arm’s length away.

  Rain pounded harder on the roof as his eyes ran over her. Suddenly Annandale seemed very far away.

  “I think he’s gone to join forces with my brother Reginald in the South … and that he intends to march on Ahga. My wife is there, you see. And Amanander wants her.” He was suddenly conscious of Deirdre’s closeness.

  She wet her lips. “She’s very beautiful, your wife?”

  He nodded.

  “You think you’ll be a while in Spogan, and you’re afraid he’ll attack your city while you are away?”

  He fixed his eyes on the leaping flames. “Yes, that’s always a possibility. I thought for certain we would find him here. I never thought he would disguise himself as Alexander, nor masquerade so successfully.”

  “Listen,” she said. The silence seemed to thicken between them tangibly. “Why don’t you send her away, out of harm’s reach? The Ridenau holdings are vast, are they not? Surely there’s someplace safe and protected she could go. A place he wouldn’t expect to find her. Send the messenger out in the morning. Once you know she will be safe, you can concentrate on the task at hand.”

  Roderic nodded. Deirdre’s words made sense. Even if the Chiefs were pacified, there was still the matter of the Lords of Mondana. He had an opportunity to build a lasting peace in the Northwest, to secure Alexander’s work, and perhaps begin to heal the enmity of centuries. But if he were to leave, if the King’s Army was to withdraw, there would be certain war, and he would be drawn into it once more. “Yes,” he nodded slowly. “There is such a place. Minnis. I’ll send her to Minnis.” He reached for another hunk of meat and heard her moving around.

  He looked up to see her standing naked in the corner. Roderic averted his eyes and got another chuckle. “What’s the matter, Prince? Never seen a woman before?”

  Roderic looked back, ready with a retort, when he saw her body. Her torso was crisscrossed with more scars than his; one breast was missing completely. “Why have you been so cooperative?” he asked instead.

  She pulled a linen shirt over her head. “Because,” she squatted beside him, “it’s in my best interests to settle this as well.” She seized his face in her hands and kissed him, long and hard on the mouth. “What a pretty Prince you are.”

  For a moment, taken off guard, Roderic felt his body respond, then he pulled away and sat up. “No, lady.”

  “What?”

  “I cannot—“

  “Cannot? You looked more than capable to me.”

  “I’ve taken a vow of fidelity until my heir is either born or named. And just as I honor my word to you, so I must honor the word I gave my wife.”

  She did not seem rebuffed. She settled back on her haunches, stroking her chin. “A pretty lady of the court, I iamgine?”

  “Very pretty.”

  “Can’t hold a dagger?”

  “Only to cut her meat.”

  She laughed again, got to her feet, and turned away. “You send out your messenger. We still have much to discuss on the morrow.”

  “One question, though, Deirdre. How has it happened that you have the title of M’Callaster?”

  “My father had no sons,” she answered as she pulled a clean tunic over her head. “My kinsmen gathered like dogs at his dying, but he would not name an heir. And so, when the Challenge for the title was called, I entered the combat.”

  “Didn’t anyone object?”

  “I beat all who ob
jected in the combat.” She laced her breeches. “Our ways are very different from yours, Prince. My only hope is that I will bear a child, so that I might hand the charge of my kin down to one of my own blood.”

  “Is that why—“

  She sat down on the other side of the fire and pulled on her boots. “I kissed you because I want you. If you’d got a child on me, so much the better.” Suddenly, her voice was fierce. “I won this right, Prince, by the strength of my arm, with the shedding of my blood. It was no deathbed gift. I fought harder for my inheritance than you or any other man ever fought for yours.” She reached for her dagger and fingered the hilt.

  Roderic watched the flames, doubting he could agree. “Don’t be so certain, lady.”

  Behind him, he heard the door scrape across the floor. A sudden gust of wind made the fire dance. He looked over his

  shoulder to see Deirdre holding the door open as she slung her plaid over her arm. “Come,” she said with a wink. “Let’s put our cares aside for a little. The boys are spoiling for a fight, and it’s sure to be a good one.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Ahga Castle

  March, 76th Year in the Reign of the Ridenau Kings (2748 Muten Old Calendar)

  The chatter of the women gathered in the great hall was cut short abruptly by the approach of a manservant. Annandale looked up from her sewing and waited as the man bowed deeply in front of her, offering a wooden message tube. “From the Lord Prince, lady.”

  Annandale smiled her thanks and, setting the fabric down, took the message. The women were conspicuously silent as she broke the seals and read the letter. She looked up into Tavia’s anxious face. “Everything’s fine. Roderic arrived in Spogan safely, and he has every hope all will go smoothly.” Annandale smiled.

  The women breathed audible sighs and turned once more to their tasks. Tavia mopped the perspiration off her face with a linen square. “Bring us something to drink,” she called to the servant, who hovered just out of earshot. “By the One, I can’t remember a spring so hot. Does Roderic mention the heat?”

  Annandale glanced down at the thick sheet of parchment covered in Roderic’s now familiar scrawl. The heat he mentioned had nothing to do with the temperature. A rosy blush suffused her cheeks.

  Peregrine sniffed and reached out to steady Melisande, who was beginning to take her first toddling steps. “And does he say when we can expect him home?”

  Annandale shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. The Chiefs and the lords are old enemies.”

  “Then may I suggest, lady,” said Peregrine, her mouth drawn tight, eyes fixed on the chubby toddler, “that we go to Minnis as soon as we can? The heat grows worse each day—surely there is no reason to tarry.”

  Annandale glanced once more at Tavia, who exchanged a pointed look with Jaboa. As Jaboa leaned forward with a question for Peregrine about Melisande, Tavia shrugged. “If another message comes from Roderic, my dear, surely Phineas will see it reaches us. It has become unbearably hot this season—the castle is beginning to reek already.”

  Annandale hesitated. It was true that since the end of Febry, the days had been increasingly, unseasonably hot and that all the inhabitants of the castle and the city suffered for it. The women had gathered here in the hall at this unaccustomed hour in the hopes that the huge windows would invite a breeze off the sea—a disruption in schedule which seemed to annoy Peregrine no end. But in the last months, it had become plain to all the women that far more than the heat made Peregrine’s temper so thin. “Let me speak to Phineas.” Annandale got to her feet. “I know it’s unpleasant. I know we would all be more comfortable at Minnis. It’s just—“

  “We understand, dear,” Tavia said gently.

  With another glance at Peregrine, who still avoided her gaze, Annandale folded up her needlework. She got to her feet, trying to smooth out the creases in her rumpled linen gown. It was the lightest garment she possessed, and it stuck to her upper body like a second skin. She crossed the wide polished floor of the great hall, and as she passed the double doors which led down to the kitchens, she fancied she could feel the heat rising from the great ovens. She followed the long corridor up the narrow stairs to Phineas’s rooms. She knocked.

  The servant who opened the door looked startled to see her. “It’s the Lady Annandale, lord,” he said, bowing her into the room, where Phineas lay propped up on his litter, surrounded by neat piles of parchment. His scribe paused in his writing, and Phineas held out his hand. “Come in, child.” He waved a dismissal to the scribe and the servant. “You’ve read Roderic’s letter?”

  Annandale waited until the servants had left, then she crossed the room and took his hand. His residual pain filtered through her body, and momentarily, a pale blue light flared between them. Phineas sighed imperceptibly, and the lines on his face eased. “Thank you, child,” he murmured. “Now. Sit. We must talk.”

  “Peregrine wants to take the court to Minnis.”

  Phineas nodded slowly. “It is as well, then.”

  Annandale looked at him, startled. “You agree?”

  “Roderic sent me a letter, too—directing me to send you to Minnis. Amanander has vanished again. He has no idea where he might be, and Roderic believes that you will be better off there. We will send you there quietly, with just a small party of men as an escort. If Amanander is foolish enough to attack Ahga, he won’t find you here.” Phineas paused and cocked his head. A few seconds passed, and then he said: “But you don’t want to go?”

  Annandale shook her head and spread her hands before she realized the futility of the gesture. “And I cannot say why exactly.” She felt in the pocket of her apron for Roderic’s letter. “I don’t like leaving you.”

  “It’s more than that, isn’t it?” Phineas prompted gently.

  “Yes. But I don’t know why.” An uneasy feeling nagged like a toothache every time Peregrine mentioned Minnis. There was no rational explanation.

  There was longer silence broken only by the call of the seabirds as they swooped between the towers. “Is it your mother?” Phineas asked.

  At the thought of her mother, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “I try not to think about my mother. Sometimes I can’t—can’t quite feel her, and I wonder if she’s dead. She’s so alone, with no one to comfort her or share her grief.”

  “Could that be it? Why do you hesitate to go?”

  “Perhaps. I just don’t know—“

  “My dear, when Roderic returns, he’ll want to go there.” Phineas reached over and patted her hand. “I miss him, too.”

  “Yes, I know.” She got to her feet and paced to the window, where a sluggish breeze ruffled the curly tendrils which escaped her coiled braids. It was much too hot for a coif. “How is the campaign going?”

  “The campaign is over in all but name. As soon as Roderic can restore some measure of peace to the Northwest, can forge some treaty between the lords and the Chiefs, he’ll be home. It’s not so easy, you see. There’s no more stubborn a lot than the Chiefs of the Settle Islands, and the Lords of Mondana have their own grudges against them. And there are still resentments left over from Mortmain’s Rebellion.”

  “Mortmain,” she echoed. “That’s when it all began, wasn’t it, Phineas?”

  He opened his mouth, and she saw his features harden into place, as though he pulled on a mask. He was going to deny her, she knew, when suddenly the mask dropped away, his sightless eyes shifted behind his closed lids, and his mouth twisted with a grief long suppressed. “It began long before that, child.”

  “Then, if the campaign is over in all but name, what concerns you so?”

  Phineas flushed, then grew pale at her uncanny perception. “Whatever do you mean, child?”

  She knelt beside his litter and took his hand. “I see the messengers come and go. I see the directions in which they ride. Not all go north and west. Some go south and east. What is it, Phineas? I can feel what you feel. You’re worried, too.”

  Phinea
s turned his head away from her on the pillow. “It may not have been wise for Roderic to go to Alexander’s rescue. Things in Atland are very unsettled. I have had a letter from Everard—Abelard’s third son—do you know the name?” When she murmured assent, he continued: “Last spring, I asked Everard to go to Atland, after the rebellion was put down, to ensure that the treaties were adhered to, that the Senadors and the lessor lords did not upset the balance of that tenuous peace.”

  “Why Everard?” she asked. “Isn’t one of the brothers—Reginald—there already?”

  “Yes,” Phineas admitted. “But from the tone of Reginald’s dispatches, while he may be a fine soldier, I don’t believe he’s anything close to a diplomat. Everard’s mother’s family—Abelard met her when he was on a brief campaign in the Dirondac Mountains—have always maintained a cordial relationship with the Muten Tribes in their part of the country.”

  “You thought Everard might be able to help maintain the peace?”

  Phineas nodded. “But it seems that even Everard is unable. I have begun to think that something more is at work, though I cannot put my finger on the problem.” He sighed. “I have written to all the Senadors—as well as the garrison commanders—asking for status reports. And the answers I’m getting back are troublesome, because they don’t agree.”

  “So something is going on?”

  “I have begun to think so.”

  “When Roderic does come back, he’ll have to go away again.”

  Phineas patted her hand. “I’m afraid so, child. But perhaps this time, he could take you with him. It would be wise, I think, to call a Convening of sorts—perhaps at Ithan Ford. Thank the One we can trust young Miles. After all, if you two don’t spend any time together, there will never be an heir.”

  She knew he meant to joke, but his words alarmed her. There was more truth in that statement, and more importance attached to it, than either of them wished to admit. Abruptly she asked: “Roderic has no inkling, does he?”

  “About his parentage? No. As I told you before, until you came, Abelard and I were the only ones who knew the truth.”