“Who will spar with me next?” He eyed the surrounding crowd, searching among the artisans, the cattlemen in their bright green woolen cloaks, and the dark Pict slaves in their rags and chains, for the sword-bearing warriors of the Clan Morna. Even the most powerful-looking among them averted their eyes like maidens on their first foray to the Lughnasa fires.
“You’ll not find another to fight you, Conor of Ulster.” The King of Clan Morna spoke from a stump near the entrance to his hut, flanked by two black-robed priests. His white hair blazed like snow against his purple cloak, and his blue eyes glittered more harshly than the jeweled brooch lodged at his throat. “You’ve bested three of our finest warriors. It’s plain to see why the O’Neill chose such a strong champion. It’s no wonder Connacht and Leinster have lost so much land and cattle to that clan these past years.”
“Fat, your men are, as lazy as autumn cows.” Conor wiped the new sword on his mud-bespattered tunic, and then hefted it to the ready. “Is there not one among you who is not as weak as a woman?”
“My men value their swords too highly to challenge you.” The old man gripped the cross hanging around his neck as Conor fixed him with his wild-eyed glare. “You have lived up to your reputation, Conor dochloíte. It’s a small comfort to know that my son died fighting a man as invincible as his own legend.”
“Had I known on that day when I fought for the O’Neill that your son would be the only worthy opponent in this tribe, I’d have spared his life, just so I’d have some sport when I came to claim Morna as my own.”
The old man’s shoulders stiffened. “My son’s blood ran with the pride of generations of chieftains. He would not have allowed you to dishonor him in such a way.”
“Then I would have told the High King to grant me the over-lordship of some other tribe. Your clan was not the only one to fall that day to the O’Neill.” He scanned the gathered warriors of Morna, all immobile but for lowered and thundering brows. There wasn’t one of them Conor feared on the battlefield. He sneered at their striped and checkered cloaks, their dyed eyebrows, and their oiled and frizzed hair. He and his men were as safe here as they were on Tara hill, or home among their own Ulster tribes.
He shoved his sword in its scabbard. “I rule nothing but a tribe full of women, children, and cowards.”
He snatched his cloak from the pile of stones and whirled it over his shoulders as he headed out of the enclosure. His footsteps pounded on the wooden bridge, then drove deep imprints into the muddied earth.
Conor marched up the hill at a pace fast enough to match the thunder of his heart. By the Club of the Dagdá, was there no one in the whole province of Connacht to give him a fight worth the time? It was plain to see why the Clan Morna did not resist when he and his Ulstermen rode over the rise three days ago to claim the overlordship due to him. All the clan’s finest warriors had died proudly, on the battlefield. All that remained were timid girls draped in the torques and scabbards of men.
A breeze topped the rise and thrust cool fingers through his hair. The wind swept away the stench of blacksmith’s fires and the fetid odor of livestock rising from the ring-fort nestled below, near the shores of Lough Riach. He filled his lungs, and then exhaled to get the stink of other men’s fear out of his nostrils.
The whole green expanse of his new kingdom lay before him. Herds of plump cattle dotted the grassy valleys. Mirror-smooth lakes and trickling streams glimmered from behind clusters of apple trees. A herd of sleek, red deer grazed fearlessly near the woods. All this was conquered without a fight. All this was his. He scanned the bristling northern forest emerging from the next valley, the dense woods through which he and his men had traveled. Therein lay the true burn in his blood—therein hid his next conquest.
A woman with hair the color of burnished gold. A woman whose chin tilted like that of a queen, and whose tongue could slice a bard’s wit into ribbons. A woman whose eyes knew all the secrets of the world. One brief encounter in the pre-dawn light, and her angular features, the reedy length of her body, the deep, husky timbre of her voice, all clung to his memory. His loins had burned for her for three days.
But she had disappeared into the mists like some creature of the Otherworld.
A twig snapped behind him. The steel of his sword rang as he wrenched it from its scabbard and whirled to face his pursuer. A wooden cup tumbled to the earth, spilling amber liquid into the ground.
“Now look what you’ve done.” Aidan, Conor’s second-in-command, grimaced at the waste. “Now there’s only one cup of heath mead, and you’ll want that, I’m sure!”
Conor sheathed his sword. “You’ll lose your head one of these days sneaking up on me.”
“It’s not the sneaking that’s got you strung as tight as a lyre.”
Conor grabbed the brimming cup of ale. He quaffed it in one gulp and thrust the empty vessel at Aidan’s chest. “That old king spread his arms for us as a whore would spread her legs. I trust him not—there’s a battle yet to come.”
“Wage it when it comes, then.” Aidan squinted into the cup, and then tipped it upside down to gulp the remaining drops. “Here and now there’s ale a-plenty, and many a widowed Morna wench looking to share her pallet.”
“You’ll grow soft in this place, foster-brother.”
“I’ll grow as fat as a bull, if I’ve my way of it. The old king’s free enough with his food and ale and women.”
Conor paced while the tip of his new sword traced thin furrows in the ground. “The women are probably diseased, the ale poisoned, the food rotting and wormed. You could choke to death on false kindness.”
“I don’t see you refusing the food or the ale,” Aidan remarked, “though there’s been a powerful lot of wondering why you haven’t mounted any of the bondswomen. I lost a fine bit of cattle wagering that you’d be halfway through the tribe by now.”
“They’re as dry as winter grass.”
“She plagues you still, then.”
Conor’s jaw tightened. His abstinence had not gone unnoticed, but he thought the reason for it might. He kept searching the bondswomen who served meals in the mead hall for one with red-gold hair and swirling green eyes.
“Foster-brother, we searched for her until the sun was high.” Aidan’s cloak flapped as he threw up his arms. “We found nothing, not a thread, not a whisper of her passing—”
“She’s hiding in those woods.”
“A fairy can hide in many a place and drive a man mad with wanting.”
“She was no fairy.” Conor seized Aidan’s flailing arm and dug his fingers into the wool. “She was made of flesh.”
“Dancing in the woods? With no one but the Sídh?” Aidan gripped his wrist. “See sense, Conor. No man saw her nor heard her but you, not even the footsteps of her passing, and the ground as wet as a bog.”
Conor frowned and let his brother go. He and Aidan had known each other since they were boys, had fought beside each other in a hundred battles, had made a thousand cattle raids, wenched and drank and sparred together. He trusted Aidan more than any other man—but in this his brother was wrong.
“She’s got you by the rod,” Aidan said. “The people of the clan say she doesn’t exist.”
“She is of Morna—else she would not have run away when she heard my name.” He peered down at the ring-fort, the fields extending beyond it like the spokes of a wheel, the scattering of tiny thatched huts. “They make the sign of the cross at the mention of her name. That’s proof she exists.”
“Unless the old badger is hiding some of the women in the food caves, there’s no mortal woman here who looks like the wench you saw.” Aidan squinted at him. “If there were, I’d have found her by now. You know it’s I who can sniff out the fairest wench in any tribe—”
“If you value your head, walk a wide circle around her.”
“Listen to you threatening your own foster-brother over a woman.” Aidan’s gaze drifted to the blood on Conor’s forehead. “Bewitched or not, I won’t fi
ght a wounded man.”
Conor sensed the blood running down his face, but he did not deign to touch the wound.
“Two-fingers’ width over, and that shard would have blinded you in one eye.” Aidan grinned, revealing a gap in his yellowed teeth beneath his drooping mustache. “The laws forbid a blind man from ruling. That would be the end of all those dreams of high kingship.”
“It would be the last of your hopes of drinking wine in the mead hall of Tara hill, as well.”
“Which is why I sent for a woman to tend you.” He jerked his head toward an old woman who labored her way up the slope. “I’ve a great thirst to spend my old age drinking on the hill of the high kings of all Erin. I’ve fought at your back for too long, Conor—I’ve no liking to see you defeated by a stray bit of sword . . . or by some fairy enchantment.”
Conor’s cloak snapped behind him as he swirled away. He peered off toward the forest, willing it to bring forth the woman who haunted him both awake and asleep. He silently debated how much he should admit, how much he dared to admit.
Finally, he said, “Aidan, she knows.”
“Knows what? That you’re fighting like a madman because she hides from you?”
“She knows,” he repeated, “why no man has ever claimed me as his son.”
Aldan choked on his own spittle. “Now I’m sure you’ve gone mad.”
“You know the name of your father. But who is mine?”
“Not even the Druids of Ulster can give you the answer to that. Your mother took the secret to her grave.”
“And yet no man has ever claimed me as his son.”
“Your father might have died before he saw you rise to power.” Aidan leaned toward him, disbelief raising his brows. “Is this what’s been rattling in your head these past days? Will you ever put a stop to it? We’ve talked of this all our lives, until there’s no more talking to do.”
“I won’t rest,” Conor said, “until I know who lay with my mother in the circle of the Samhain fires—”
“Do not speak of it.” Aidan glanced at the old woman coming near. “Are you beginning to believe what they all say of you?”
“Perhaps I am.” Conor clutched the hilt of his sword, flexing his hand over the fit. “Why else has no other man ever beaten me in single combat? Why no wound has ever bled me dry?” He clutched a handful of his dark hair. “Why no gray hair has ever grown on my head, nor lines wrinkle my face, though we are of an age, foster-brother?”
“Mayhap it’s all the ale you drink, or the meat you eat, or the women you tumble. That’s what keeps you looking like a man of five-and-twenty winters.” Aldan planted his fists upon his brass-studded girdle. “Stop looking past the length of your sword arm for the reason for your good fortune.”
“She knows.”
“That knock on the head has made you daft. But if it pleases you to think this creature knows the mysteries of your birth, then I won’t be able to talk you out of it.” Aidan squinted at the woman who approached. “Thank the gods you’re here, woman. Stitch him up and stop him from sputtering any more dribble.”
Conor sat upon a boulder and with a single, royal gesture summoned the old woman to tend him. She swabbed at his temple with a damp piece of linen as he gazed northward, brooding.
Maybe Aidan was right. What else but an enchantment, this queer burn for one woman? Before arriving on the shores of Lough Riach, he had tumbled willing bondswomen as often as most men took meals—and then went on to think of more important things. There were tribes to conquer, cattle to steal from clans too weak to hold them, battles to be won, a world begging for the tread of his feet. Three days ago, he had won a hard-earned kingship. Yet while the bounty of the lands of the Clan Morna laid spread out before him, all he could think about was finding and possessing the woman who had wrapped foxglove around his wrist in the misty light of the morning.
He tugged up his sleeve. The chain of blossoms crumbled around his wrist. He fingered the dried leaves until a few fell to dust.
The old woman cackled at the sight. “Now I know why you scorn the ladies of Morna so, my lord.” She smiled as she crinkled her good eye, as bright a blue as the springtime sky. “That foxglove chain is an old enchantment. Older than myself. When I was a lass, we used to wrap it around the arm of the man we wanted as a husband, though it’s said it was once used to capture fairies and the like. There’s no more talk of that in these parts.”
Conor passed his gaze over her. A simple iron pin held her dun-colored cloak closed, marking her as of no consequence in the clan. “What are you called?”
“My name’s Glenna.” She pointed a gnarled finger toward the south. “I live in the last hut, beyond the copse of trees.”
Conor saw the hut, isolated and alone, some distance from the rest of the settlement. He had made a point to search it, but it had been empty.
“I was out with the cows when you searched.” She re-wet the linen cloth and wiped new blood from his face. Her bad eye, milky and glazed, rolled oddly. “I’m told that you and your men follow the old ways, my lord.”
He tugged on the foxglove. “What do you know of this that my Druids don’t?”
“That chain binds you to the one who caught you. You must answer her every demand.”
Aidan rose from his dozing with a yelp. “Guard your cattle, Conor, lest the creature, wherever she hides, steals the last calf away from you and trades it for thread and cloth and golden baubles.”
“Must be a fool of a lass,” the old woman said, “to hide herself from a man as fine as you. There’s not a woman in the clan who’d balk at sharing your cloak.”
“This woman wants more than his cloak,” Aidan interjected. “She’s stealing his wits, as well.”
The old woman turned her good eye on Aidan. “Do you even know the lass?”
Aidan countered, “Do you?”
“I know every woman in the tribe. Brought most of them into the world. Maybe, if you describe the lass to me, I can bring her to the new king.”
“You old witch,” Aidan said. “Soon you’ll be promising—”
“Red-gold hair she has,” Conor interrupted. “She’s seen no more than twenty summers. Her clothes were those of a common bondswoman.”
“Her eyes,” the old woman whispered, “did they swirl like the green depths of Lough Riach?”
Conor felt his heart throb as he remembered the way her gaze tugged at his senses. He seized the old woman’s arm.
“Mercy, my lord! My bones are as dry as sticks—”
“Tell me her name.” “
“I cannot! It’s forbidden to speak it!—”
“Her name.”
The old woman winced. “Brigid,” she gasped. “She’s called Brigid.”
“By the gods.” Aidan stumbled to his feet. “You didn’t imagine her.”
“They call her cailleach—witch,” the old woman sputtered. “And she won’t be welcoming the likes of you.”
Conor scowled down at her. “Bring me to her, now.”
“But—”
“Now.”
“She’s the king’s daughter,” the old woman said. “And you killed her only brother.”
Two
Brigid’s eyes danced with mirth. She twitched a willow switch at the weasel-like creature crouched at her feet, teasing the pine marten with a tuft of fur. The little tree-cat swatted at it. With a flick of her wrist, Brigid made the fur jump. The tree-cat leapt back, uncertain, its back arched and its black eyes bright and wary. Then it crouched belly down in the dew-laden grass, ears perked, watching.
“Don’t you want it, maoineach, my precious?”
She flicked the bit of fur over the marten’s head. The creature shot up on its hind legs and cuffed it. He tumbled on his back, and then twisted his sleek body to all fours to bound up again in pursuit of the elusive tuft. Brigid twirled in a little circle around him, mimicking his movements, her laughter riding on the breeze.
“Silly little tree-cat.” Brig
id dipped down and scratched the marten behind its pointed ears. The half-wild creature succumbed to her touch, his beady eyes fixed on the fur. “Since you were a wee, wounded little kitten we’ve been playing this game. I’d think you’d have the sense to know that it’s not a mouse.”
Brigid’s fingers stilled in the creature’s glossy pelt. The sun slanted down through a break in the trees to pool in a little clearing in front of her hut. The birds still chattered their summer melodies in the boughs above. Though the gentle rays warmed her hair, a cold prickle of foreknowledge tickled the nape of her neck. She found herself straining her ears, listening for an imaginary intruder.
“Oh, I have less sense than you,” she muttered, as the pine marten leapt from under her hand and embedded its claws deep into the tuft. “Men always run from my eyes. It’s folly to think that this man is any different.” She lowered her voice. “And I’m a fool to even be thinking on it. It’s disrespect for the dead.”
“Good morrow to you, Brigid.”
The pine marten darted into the woods. Conor emerged into the clearing like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. Sunlight shimmered on the swirls and vines embroidered on his tunic. A curious, jeweled brooch girding his three-colored cloak. The bulge of his upper arm sported a gold band that gleamed the same red-gold as the torque around his neck.
As unpredictable and uncontrollable as it was, her Sight never failed her.
He said, “No words of welcome for your new over-king, lass?”
“I’ve no words at all for the likes of you.”
“Aye, you do.” His laughter mocked her. “Your head’s near to bursting with them.”
Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) Page 3
