by Erin O'Quinn
After we lost sight of the brilliant lake waters, I began to feel more like a stranger here in my own land. There were no herds of calm cattle being guided and cajoled by drovers, only clusters of long-haired, wild-looking sheep that regarded us, thoughtfully chewing, from a safe distance. Where there were no clusters of hills, the ground was gorse filled and somewhat boggy.
Once in a while I would glance behind me, seeing my little army riding steadily and silently. I did not slow down or invite conversation. My concentration was on the angle of the sun, my mind calculating how long we had to ride before we would have to stop for the night.
It must have been about four hours after midday when Gristle drew his horse alongside my pony, and he spoke as we rode. “Lady, we need to start looking for a place to hide our horses. Glaed and I will ride ahead. We will circle back within half an hour.”
I nodded, and the two armsmen rode off at a gallop. I continued to ride, thinking about our mysterious destination, until I heard the soft whinny of a horse near me. I turned and saw that Michael was drawing abreast of me on his dappled gelding. And sharing the saddle, clinging to his midriff, was Jay Feather. I suppressed a smile seeing the two of them. “Michael, you and I have not had much chance to talk ever since you came to Derry. I am truly sorry.”
“We could not have predicted these events,” he said. “Worry not, Caylith. We will have long hours to talk, and laugh, and sing when Liam is returned to us.”
I remembered that Torin, like Jay, had no horse to ride. “And what of your cousin?” I asked. “How fares he without a horse?”
“He and Ryan are taking turns at riding. Both men are used to the rigors of life on the road. So one walks while the other rides. They are so full of stories to tell each other, I think they know not the miles eaten by their boot soles.”
I addressed Jay. “Have you seen your clawed kinfolk, my friend?”
“Talon and Claw keep watch overhead, Cay. I will call them down when we stop for the night. They may have a tale or two to tell—who knows?”
We rode in silence for another quarter of an hour until I saw Gristle and Glaedwine approaching. Their horses were trotting at an easy pace, and they caught up with us in a few minutes. “Milady,” said Glaedwine, “we have found a likely place to encamp and leave our horses until we return.”
“Then we will all follow you and Gristle. Carry on.”
Within one hour we were in a large area surrounded by a circle of six or seven small lakes. I delighted in the sight, looking down at it from a hilltop before we descended into the green-and-blue haven. Here was a perfect holding spot for our horses. We needed to leave one or two Glaed Keepers to take care of them so that they could graze freely and no thieves would seize them. But they would have a wide expanse of grass and several little lakes to drink from.
When at last everyone was assembled in a grove of aspens, larches, and rowans, I addressed my friends. “I need two men who will be our eyes and ears, staying behind as a guard against the approach of our enemy while we seek Sweeney’s rocky holdings. Those men will also serve to keep a wary eye on our valuable livestock. Glaedwine, please make sure your men understand my words, and select two volunteers from among the dozens who will no doubt be eager to watch our flank.”
Grinning, Glad spoke to his Saxon comrades. I saw that none stepped forward. “Use your powers, my friend, as ‘bright keeper’ of stalwart men, and let me know when you have found our rear guard.”
Turning again to the assembled men, I said, “Only to remind you, my friends. We will light no fires. We will eat of the land, even as the birds and goats. We will have a sentry, changing every two hours, around the perimeter of this lake-encircled piece of heaven. If you see or hear any sign—any sign at all—of Liam’s captors, I must know.
“When we wake in the morning—one hour before dawn, please—we will eat our gathered nuts and berries as we walk. And we will walk with merry purpose to the rescue of our dear friend Liam. We will walk with stealth, with speed, with all our talents as warriors.”
I turned to Glaed. “Please address your men, Glaed. I am going to seek food and then a resting place for the night.”
This was indeed an ideal spot. The clusters of berries on the rowan trees were just at the peak of their juiciness, and late-eating birds were still feasting among the branches. I saw wild apple trees growing here and there. But, true to their nature, the apples were small and sour. Nevertheless, they would be a treat to our horses. I gathered my tunic up into a deep fold and began to gather berries and sour apples.
Sitting under a larch, I ate sweet rowan fruit until my stomach warned me to stop. I took my skirt full of apples to distribute among the horses, starting with my darling pony. And when I was through, I gathered more fruits and set them aside for the morning.
Darkness was upon us quickly, for the overhead canopy did not allow sunlight to linger after sunset. I heard a voice from the shadows.
“M’lady.”
“Yes, Glaedwine,” I answered.
“To let you know. We have two, um, eager volunteers who will stay behind. We have a phalanx circling our encampment who will be relieved every two hours, as you directed.”
“I am grateful to you as always, my friend. Before you seek your rest, I would like to speak a personal word or two, if you do not mind.”
I could see only his outline, looming large in front of me, and I had to imagine his long, shining mustache and his sun-flecked eyes under great shaggy eyebrows. “Glaed, when all this is over, I want you to know that there is a way under Brehon law for a liegeman to surrender his troth.” Of course, I had no idea of what Brehon law said, or why that would even be relevant to our own liege-vassal relationship. But it would allow Glaed a way to save face.
He was silent for a long time. I waited. “Please go on, M’lady.”
“Under Brehon law,” I lied glibly, “the troth of marriage can supersede the troth of a vassal to his lord, if the lord so agrees.”
“Or lady,” he said in a low voice.
“Exactly. Now I would sleep, good armsman. I bid you a fair and a good night.”
He left, and I spread my woolen brat on the ground beneath the sturdy larch. The cushion of resilient needles and the warmth of the large cloak were enough to afford me comfort from the soughing wind, and I lay curled up listening to the sound it made through the overhead canopy of leaves. In my mind, Liam came to me gently, kneeling in the crumbly earth beside my soft bed. “Hello,” he whispered. “I love ye.” And smiling, I welcomed him with a yielding kiss. “A chuisle, mo chroí.” I sang under my breath, “O beat of my heart.” And then, drawing him close against me, I slept.
I awoke from a deep sleep, feeling somehow refreshed. My head was clear, unlike yesterday when I could not remember why I was lying among trees and sleeping Saxons. Today I woke with two words crisp in my mind. “Liam. Today.”
In the darkness, I felt for the little blanket I had placed near my pony’s saddle and gently unrolled it, my fingers easily finding the soft red-fox tunic. I quickly shed my old tunic and slipped the new one over my shoulders and down over my hips. I cinched the supple, new leather belt around my waist and slid my weapons through.
Now I had a choice between the foxtail or the warm brat. Either one would cover my too-exposed breasts, and so I selected the bushy foxtail. If I needed to call upon my alter ego as Macha, the tail would complete my illusion. I rolled my old tunic, the belt, and the brat back into the small coverlet. I left it and NimbleFoot’s saddle and blanket under the larch.
Today there would be no morning bath, I knew. We were to leave one hour before dawn by my own instruction, and now was that time. I called out into the darkness, “Gristle. Glaedwine.”
“I am here, Lady,” came Gristle’s dry voice.
“How long until we depart?”
“Another ten minutes.”
“Then meet me with our men by yonder lake, a hundred or so feet ahead. I would fill my wineskin.”
Squatting at the bank of the tiny lake, I dipped my wineskin into the water. And then a familiar voice spoke. “How long have ye been watching me?”
I caught the jest immediately, and I smiled into the predawn darkness. “Not long, Torin.”
I finished filling the ’skin, and then I rose. I could just see his outline some three or feet from where I stood.
“I am happy we may still share a jest or two together, lass. Else I am stripped of half me conversations.”
I laughed. “What is life without laughter?” I was glad that he could not possibly see my eyes, for it was still difficult for me to confront Torin without my seeing, and hearing, his brother.
“When do ye think we will be at Sweeney’s bally?”
“If a bally be three buildings, O brother, we will be there perhaps by midday. Ahead of Liam’s captors, I think, if we move swiftly this morning.”
“I cannot see ye, Cate, but I know by your shadow that ye would be Macha again today. I am glad, for I was hoping the fox would strike again soon.”
“Yes. Jay has told me that a group of foxes is called a ‘skulk.’ Very appropriate. I hope that together we may all strike Sweeney today as a skulk of foxes.”
Then the assembled small army was standing along the lake shore, ready to move out. “Stay close together,” I said, raising my voice so that everyone could hear. “I plan to follow Gristle, and thus I hope everyone else will follow or stay close to me. Let us eat as we move. Glaed, please translate into the Keepers’ tongue. And right after he speaks, Gristle, carry on.”
Within the next minute we moved as one darker shadow moving among shadows. I kept my senses fastened on Gristle’s lean form, sampling rowan berries from a pouch at my waist as I moved. Many years before, my first armsman Fletcher had showed Brindl and me how to move close to the ground, like our very prey, and all my old training came back as I melted into the terrain just behind Gristle.
Our pace was fast, and yet I did not feel fatigued when at last Gristle turned and said, “We rest here.”
The morning was almost two hours old. We all sat, drinking from our wineskins, in a small clearing ringed by rugged oak trees. Jay sat with his back to the rough bark and called down his corvine friends. They caroled and whistled and squawked among themselves for a few minutes, and then I saw both birds rise at once, seeking a high oak branch.
I inclined my head to him, silently asking him to share any new knowledge. “Liam’s captors are more than an hour behind us, just beginning to stir their horses. If we keep up the same pace as before, we will be ready for them when they ride into their homestead.”
I turned to Gristle, who had heard Jay’s words. He nodded and said, “Time to go.” He moved quickly and purposefully ahead, and we all followed.
The next time we stopped to rest, the crow and magpie sentries told Jay we were closer to an hour and a half ahead of Sweeney’s men now. The word spread quickly among the men, and when we set out again, I could feel a palpable excitement move through our closely woven ranks.
One more hour, my heart sang. One more hour and we should see the high bluffs, the rocky beach head, the little cluster of buildings that would tell us we had arrived. Then I heard Jay’s voice at my elbow.
“Caylith, I would speak as we walk.”
I turned to him and nodded.
“I have been thinking,” he said slowly, “that it is possible to take Liam before Sweeney’s men have brought him to his prison. We have more than fifty men. Liam’s captors number only two.”
“Jay, my friend, I am loath to say it, but we need to take Sweeney as well as Liam. If we save Liam right away, Sweeney will be forewarned when they do not arrive, and there is every possibility that Sweeney will elude us again. I believe he has a well-planned means of escape. As long as Sweeney is still alive, there will always be dangerous plots against our people or against Liam’s clansmen.”
We walked quickly and silently for awhile, Jay’s shorter legs keeping up with my impatient stride. “What if I had a plan to capture Sweeney in his own teach?”
“Would that plan involve our friends Talon and Claw?”
“It would.”
“Then I would hear it.”
Jay spoke quickly and urgently for ten or more minutes while we walked. I turned his words over in my mind again and again.
“Jay, I will confer a while with Gristle. Stay close and I will speak with you again soon.” I stretched my legs a bit until I caught up with my armsman and I began to speak with him as earnestly as Jay had just done with me.
“Too risky, Lady. Far too risky,” Gristle said at last.
“How else can we capture Sweeney?” I asked him.
“If necessary, we will bludgeon his teach into pulp, and Sweeney with it.”
“What if he has an underground escape tunnel, and he is a mile away by the time we knock his house down? And what of his cohorts? Do we bludgeon them, too? Or do we take Jay’s advice and use a bit of trickery?”
“Nay, Lady, I advise against using a pair of birds to bring down a murderer.”
“And yet they brought down the most powerful druids in Éire.”
“Because of your own quick wit and their own deep fears.”
“Well, then, O armsman, let us revert to our former plans—to confront Sweeney’s men as they guard Liam’s prison. But surely that will rouse Sweeney. And he will most certainly find a way to get away while we noisily knock our cudgels against the heads of Liam’s captors. I say we take Liam back easily and quietly, and then we use trickery to take Sweeney. I say Jay is right…again.”
At last Gristle glared at me as he had a hundred times before, but this time I saw a tiny glint of concession in his flint-hard eyes. “Very well, Lady Caylith. I take your point. Let us all three confer and try to make this plan work.”
We all stopped, and Gristle, Glaed, Jay, and I squatted in a circle and talked.
The first part of our plan was simple. We would wait until we were within a mile or so of Sweeney’s holdings. Talon and Crow would let us know. We would simply lie in wait for the riders and quietly take them. I would use my potion to heal Liam—as best I could—and we would leave him with his brother and two cousins, who would take him back to the lake haven where our horses were hidden. A small number of Glaed Keepers would bind and retain Sweeney’s men while the rest of us approached the holdings, truly a skulk of foxes.
But after that, we had no plan for taking Sweeney or his men. How many were they? Where were they? We would have to set up an observation post on the bluffs, as we had already decided to do, and devise a more precise strategy then.
Gristle was even more cantankerous than usual, for he hated uncertainties. Would we be in the midst of taking Sweeney’s men only to have a score or more reinforcements arrive and attack us? If I was right, would Sweeney already have disappeared by the time we entered his teach?
I hear a familiar rustling over our heads, and the black-on-black form of Talon landed on Jay’s shoulder. Then the slightly smaller Claw, squawking and scolding, landed on the other shoulder.
Jay looked at us, his blue eyes clear and serious. “Caylith. Gristle. Here is the last area where there is a cover of trees. This is where Sweeney’s men will ride before the bay spreads out and the trees disappear. Here is where we may take them down.”
Glaed called his men and spoke urgently, and soon the Glaed Keepers were absolutely invisible among the trees. I called Torin, Ryan, and Michael together and explained what we were about to do.
“We have about half an hour before Liam will ride through here, bound and no doubt hurt. I know all three of you are keen to rescue him, and so am I, but please—let Glaed and his mercenaries take the initiative. This tactic is one they know well, and it will be so fast that the slit throats will not even know what has happened.
“As soon as I have administered a potion to Liam, I would like you three to take him back to where our horses are hidden. Liam will need to rest quie
tly, and so I need you to keep him still and safe until we join you.”
Torin said, “Attack not the messenger, but what if ye do not join us?”
I glared at him, but I knew he was right to ask. “Give me twenty-four hours to get back to you. And when you get to the seven lakes, Ryan, send the signal using my own sign. Send it every hour, send it from the highest hill you can find. The king needs to know that Liam is safe—but I do not want Sweeney to see the smoke.”
Torin persisted. “Cate. How are we to know that ye be safe?”
“Brother Torin, I will be in the company of fifty skilled mercenaries, and the most talented armsman of the last two hundred fifty years. I fear more for you and your clansmen than I do for myself.”
“Not good enough,” he grumbled. “I shall have to answer to me brother if ye’re hurt. Give us a secondary scheme in case twenty-four hours is not long enough.”
“Very well,” I answered, thinking fast. “Tomorrow at midday makes twenty-four hours. At that time, if I have not returned, you may send as many clansmen in to rescue me as you can find, using any stratagem you may devise.”
Torin looked at his cousins, and they nodded to him. “That is a promise,” he said.
I was touched by Torin’s concern. I knew that my plan did not mean much, for the only available clansmen would be Torin himself and his two cousins. If they came to my rescue, who would take care of Liam? They would no doubt figure that out later, after I had gone.
“Now, my friends, it is time to melt into the trees.”
“We will wait like a swarm of foxes,” said Torin with his characteristic touch of humor, and I graced him with a slight smile.
“For Liam,” I said.
“For Liam,” they chorused, and in a few moments I could not see them at all.
Chapter 25:
The Bluff
“Owen Sweeney waits, but he knows not that he waits for his enemies.” The armsman spoke to a group of people crouched so low to the ground that we might have been a strange kind of moving mist. “We must now go around to our left—to the west—where we will see the high bluffs over his holdings on the beach head. Here is where our fox-like stealth will be needed more than ever before—we need to be invisible against a background of rocks, and more rocks.”
