The patter of their feet faded as she strode beyond the ancient standing stone, but her smile lingered. This she had done. Her mother would call it a fine, fair thing. Perhaps it was worth all the trouble she must live through in the years to come, to feel the singing joy of the little people dancing upon these hillsides.
She stepped out of the woods and came to a sudden stop.
Ma and Da had told her that the Sídh could take the form of humans so well that you could pass them thinking they were as whole as yourself. Indeed, the horsemen lined up before her were dressed strangely enough to be of another world. Jerkins of skin hung from their shoulders. They wore threadbare woolen leggings. Blue woad smeared their faces above the mustaches and beards. Their long matted hair was braided through with bits of shell and stone. Only one man stood out, for having strapped grass about his own feet in a sort of prickly boot.
She froze with a shock of recognition. She’d met those eyes before above the stretch of an upraised javelin, right before the world had erupted in a chaos of high–pitched war–cries. Her basket of foxglove, harebells and butterwort slipped out of her hand, for these were Rhys’s half–brothers.
“Get her.”
She heard the words as she whirled and fled. Branches snapped across her arms, whipped into her face and jerked her head back as they snarled in her hair. She raced blindly down the slope, ignoring the tearing of her woolen tunic and the slice of an edged stone through the sole of her boot. Their mounts would never make it through these thickets, she told herself, as she sprung sideways through a cluster of trunks. They’d have to dismount and follow her on foot. She pretended not to hear the crashing of heavier feet behind her, pretended that a woman could outrun a clutch of strong, war–hardened, desperate men. She told herself she would find sanctuary by the standing stones, and if the Sídh didn’t come, then she could swim the length of the lake if she dared.
Someone snagged her hair and snapped her head back hard enough to launch her off her feet. She slipped down the slope until her captor hauled her up against him. He swung a meaty arm around her neck. She clawed at his arm and struggled for breath, but it was like clawing leather for all the harm her nails did on his skin. Too soon, he dragged her back into the clearing and tossed her like a sack of barley upon the stone, where she lay on her knees, choking air back into her lungs.
The toes of two grassy boots came into her vision.
“Where are your bees now, witch?”
She leaned back onto her knees, fighting panic. Screaming would do nothing but frighten the deer and the rabbits. The church, where everyone headed this time of the morning, was a valley beyond. At Mass, people might gossip about her absence, but she wouldn’t be missed. They all knew of her propensity to wander off herb–gathering on a fine day.
She tumbled back at the blow to her jaw.
“Speak! They tell me you can mumble your witchery in Welsh as well as in Irish now.” The leader crouched on his haunches before her. “Where are your demons to save you?”
Pain speared through her neck and over her skull. His face spun in her vision. Blue woad caked the skin above his matted blond beard, the same color blue as his eyes. He’d dressed his hair so it stood up like two horns. Crouched there before her, he looked half–beast, half–man, like a creature she’d seen once jutting out above a doorway to the monastery on the north island.
“No witchery for us now, eh? Has my brother Rhys fucked it out of you?” He seized the hem of her dress and flipped it up, to laugh at her threadbare stockings before she tugged the tunic back down. “Legs like a chicken. For all my brother’s gold, he couldn’t find a better–looking witch?”
Laughter rippled among the men, but it was a nervous laughter, and when she glared at them it died off.
There was power in this fear, the only power she held against such men.
“I think,” the leader continued, his smile dimming, “that you used up all your magic. Otherwise, you’d be summoning your demons to ward us off as you did before.”
Aye, to be a witch. She narrowed her eyes upon the leader with all the contempt she could muster. Oh, to be able to mutter a few unintelligible words and turn this creature into stone, to be able to summon a flock of crows down upon them. A frisson of hate shook her spine. She clutched it as a stronghold against the fear.
“You dare much,” she said, “coming so close to the llys.”
“I dare nothing.” He tugged a piece of straw from his makeshift boot and clamped it in his mouth. “Not from my brother and not from you. God has long abandoned my brother. And now your demons have abandoned you—to us.”
She knew those eyes of ice blue. Rhys’s father must have had the same eyes. Something twisted in her to see them glittering in this man’s face. For all of Rhys’s fury, he had never lost that touch of vulnerability that spoke of hidden torment. She thought, this is what it is to lose all sense of humanity. This is what it is, truly, to be a beast. At that moment if she had a knife or a lance in her hand, she would have skewered this man as she might skewer a cow or a rabbit for food, or a predator for threatening those she loved.
“You have an eye on you, I’ll grant you that.” The leader settled back on his haunches. “More power than that, if you’ve done what they say you’ve done. If you’ve cured our brother Rhys.”
She slurred through a throbbing jaw, “News travels swiftly in these hills.”
“More swiftly than the wind.”
“Then you should whisper. Voices carry. He’ll hear you and he’ll kill you.”
“If he can catch me. Three years he’s been trying to do that.”
“He needn’t bother anymore,” she retorted. “No more does a maimed leader rule the lands of Graig.” She brushed some caked mud from her tunic and tried to rise with dignity to her feet. “You have no standing on your claim to his lands.”
“You speak of what you do not understand. We’re all Welsh sons of a Welsh father—we are entitled to this land.” He yanked the straw from his mouth and raised his voice. “What are we to do with our good fortune, eh, brothers? We’ve captured our brother Rhys’s lucky charm—a skinny heifer, but a prized one.”
“You overestimate my importance.” The words rang with painful truth. “He’d pay more for stolen cattle.”
“Ransom?” He tossed the straw into the dirt. “We have no need of gold in these hills. We slaughter any cattle that we steal—our own cattle.” His lips curled as he stared her up and down. “Rhys won’t part with a kingdom for the likes of your bag of bones, even if you are the only woman who cares to tumble him.”
The men snickered, and this time when she glared they did not look away.
The leader said, “We do have one score to settle. The matter of our dead brother Edwen.”
Somewhere in the trees a crow screeched. She stiffened her spine as she saw the men nodded their agreement, as an ugly eagerness vibrated in the air.
“It’s hardly a match to have a brother’s life avenged with that of a mere woman. A peasant woman, at that.” The man’s smile disappeared, the dark humor in his eyes faded. “Slaughtering her would hardly pay proper tribute. So we’ve only one choice.” His nostrils flared. “We’ll have to make your death spectacular.”
She went very, very cold. She hoped she wouldn’t cry out. She hoped she would have the strength and courage to spit in his face with her last breath. She hoped Rhys would remember her kindly.
“The only way to get rid of a witch,” the leader said, “is to burn her.”
***
While some of the men gathered wood for the pyre, the leader tied her hands behind her back and forced her to kneel on the rock. He draped more skins around his shoulders and made a conical hat with a curl of birch bark. He held a stick with a knot at the end and called it his scepter. Then he pounded the scepter upon the rock, displeased that she would not answer his questions.
Have you ever turned yourself into a rabbit and sucked milk from the teat of a neighbor�
�s cow?
We’ve received reports from good Christians that you’ve been seen flying through the air on Midsummer’s Night.
Good Owen here says he’s seen you do your magic with a dead man’s hand.
One of the other men jerked her hair back whenever the “bishop” roared his ire. Her ribs ached from the whack of his scepter. Warm blood dripped from a gash above her eye. Her throat dried until she knew she couldn’t speak even if she dared. All the while the men pranced about, laughing at the antics of the “bishop” while the pyre they built grew higher.
When aflame, she knew the smoke would be seen from the llys.
A bladder of ale tumbled from hand to hand. The mockery grew ribald. The “bishop” rubbed himself as the accusations grew more and more lurid.
Seducer of priests and monks. A demon’s tongue can have its uses, can it not?
Confess to laying with incubi, to bearing demons of your own, and we’ll throttle you to death instead.
Do you deny laying with the devil while you said the Lord’s Prayer backward?
She listened to it with half an ear, too dazed from the knocking. How many times had she dreamed such a scene? It had always ended with flames at her feet, consuming her and all the devilry people thought her capable of. So here it was, the trial, the pyre, and it had less to do with her than with revenge against the man she loved, a man who couldn’t love her enough.
Poor Ma … Should she hear of this, her mother would blame herself for sending her daughter back to her death. Nay, Ma, I chose it myself. If only she had the kind of power that could send a thought across the seas, but the words lingered in her head and went no farther.
She lifted her face to the blue sky above, knowing it was useless to pray for rain. She was beyond prayer now. How short life could be. It would soon be over, with no more said between her and Rhys.
I love you, Rhys.
Yes, she had loved in this life. Only a year ago she’d dismissed the idea that she would ever be cherished. True, she’d never heard gentle words from Rhys’s lips, but she’d felt the heat of his passion. She’d felt needed, not for her healing hands or for the herbs and comfort she could give, but for being a woman desired.
She had lived a fuller life than most. Fuller than any of these ragged, pagan–looking warriors scuttling about like anxious wolves in a pack. She had healed and been healed, she had loved and been loved, and she would leave this life with a clear conscience.
The first tear oozed out of her swelling eye. It trickled down her face to join the blood spotting her tunic. The leader’s recitations droned in her ears. Her legs ached from kneeling, her knees stung from scraping against rock. The cut on her foot throbbed.
The “bishop” cast out his arms and called for silence only to announce his verdict: Guilty.
He thrust his face at her. The stench of his breath was tinged now with ale that had taken on the sour taste of the bladder. Though she’d not had a drop to drink under the hot sun, though it hurt to move the flesh of her throat to swallow, she sucked through her cheeks and willed one last bit of moisture … so she could spit it straight into his face.
She laughed at the enraged shock in his eyes, laughed even as he backhanded her clear out of her guard’s hands, and continued to laugh in big heaving gulps. Someone hauled her up by the arms and set her on wobbly feet, then pushed her toward the pyre. She shook away from them and walked of her own power toward what she’d known was her destiny since she’d first discovered her gift.
Then she heard the first shout. Still, she didn’t stop, for one shout was like another in this mockery of a trial, and the men had taken to making bloodthirsty war cries. So she stumbled forward and glared up at the pyre and wondered how on earth she was to climb the thing with her hands tied around her back.
She turned to spit mockery at the leader and found the men scattering like so many rats. The leader stood clutching a flagon of mead, barking unintelligible orders and pointing at her, but the men mounted their horses and paid him no mind. She wondered what was happening as she stumbled back over a piece of wood and cracked her elbows on the ground.
The leader threw down his scepter and stormed toward her. He yanked a knife from his belt. Her heels scraped against the earth as she shoved herself back. The stakes of the pyre brought her to a fierce halt. Still he came and she began to pray.
Our Father, who art in heaven… .
She wondered if the steel would slip in soft and cold or if it would strike bone and singe as it sank. She wondered if Rhys would bury her among the Christians in the cemetery on the chapel grounds, or if he would leave her pagan body in an unmarked grave, thinking in his confused way that would be what she wanted.
Hallowed be thy name… .
How quiet the clearing, despite the rustling of horses and the pounding of hooves down the north slope. The world slowed down around her. She noticed the waving of each summer leaf against the sky. She noticed the flutter of a bird’s wings as it dipped over the clearing. She watched the flying of the leader’s laces around his shins as he approached.
Thy kingdom come …
Something tore through the shadows from the southern slope, a snarling black thing flashing through the leaves, all teeth and foam. A blur of something Otherworldly. But it was too late to help, for the shadow of Rhys’s brother was upon her. She closed her eyes against the flash of the knife.
Thy will be done… .
A weight collapsed upon her. It crushed her against the staves. Something trickled warm over her shoulder and she knew it must be her blood. Is this what it felt like, then? A numb, crushing weight upon her and then the slow choke into blackness?
Then the weight lifted and a gust of cool air blasted over her skin and the blue sky blinded her. With a rush she filled her lungs and coughed and coughed, her body bucking with each spasm.
Someone shouted, “Get them—get them.”
Rough hands fell upon her, squeezing all the sore places on her body and making her cry out at the pain, a cry which died when she pressed her forehead against some textured cloth that smelled of hazel–bark and lye.
“You can’t die, Irish.”
The hands on her body trembled. She felt herself heaved up off the ground, up toward the blue sky with its soft, welcoming clouds. She winced open her swollen eye and saw an angel with Rhys’s face.
***
Rhys pounded into the homestead and swept off the horse before his mount skidded to a stop. He slid the bloody bundle of woman into his arms. Carrying her, he strode across the yard and kicked open the door to the mead–hall.
“Water. Linens. Fetch Marged. Now.”
Going sidewise through the portal of his room, he barked for fire. He dropped to one knee and stretched her over the furs. Gripping the edges of her tunic in both hands, he yanked until the cloth gave and then he flattened his ear against her chest.
She was still alive.
He seized a fur and swept it over her body, tucked it tight around her legs, her hips, her waist, her arms. Keep her warm. Make sure she breathes. Cheek the bleeding. He yanked the fur off and ran his hands over her body. Cuts on her arms, her head, her jaw.
Find them, Dafydd. Find them and bring them to me so I can hang them all from the palisades.
He roared up to his full height and stared down at her, battered and bruised and for all he knew hovering close to death. He flexed his hands, raging at his own impotence. He knew nothing of healing except what he’d learned by necessity on the field of battle, where most men died before their wounds were tended.
“Don’t leave me, Irish.”
The words tumbled out of him. He didn’t recognize his own voice. What if that boy hadn’t gone in search of a lost calf? What if that boy hadn’t spied the horses on the hilltop? The lad could have headed to church instead of to the homestead, where only by way of a broken harness Rhys tarried. Had Rhys raced up that slope a few minutes later, that pyre would still be belching smoke to the sky.
/> Luck. Nothing but luck had kept her from death.
“By all the saints, you did find her.” Marged hurried in. “We were all wondering why she wasn’t at church. Father Adda was more than a bit worried, for he was supposed to be giving her some herb for—What happened?”
“Tend to her.”
Marged’s jowls shuddered as she skittered to Aileen’s bedside. “By God’s Glory, my lord, look what they’ve done.”
“Do something.”
“I don’t know the first of such things.” Marged glanced over her shoulder to the pitcher of water on the table by the door. “I’ll wash her, then see to that bump on her head. Seems to me I remember her putting a cold linen upon Roderic’s son when he stumbled on the hillside… .”
Marged’s nervous chattering whined in his ears. He dug his nails into his palms. He ached to grab her and drag her back to the living. Don’t drift off to your wretched faery–place. Stay here with me.
I need you.
“Faith, my lord, you must send for someone.” Marged jerked up from her perch on the edge of the bed. “That doctor from Aberffraw maybe.”
“Myddfai.” This he could do. “I’ll send Roderic to Myddfai for a physician.”
“That’s too long to travel, and I don’t know what to do for her but make her comfortable. What if—”
“Tie mint leaves around her wrist. Put a knife under her bed to cut the pain. Just keep her alive.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get help.”
The sun glowed through the summer leaves that feathered over the shores of Llyn Dyffryn. Rhys kicked his mount past wild strawberries. Lavender scented the crease of the pass and teased him down toward the chapel of rubble–and–stone wedged between mountain and a stream.
The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) Page 26
