The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  Malachi swallowed.

  The men stood in a death grip, unmoving.

  “Aye, hold him, Malachi! Hold him!” A man entered the chamber, a pistol in his hand also. Then another man came in, and yet another. They converged upon Trevallyan like crows to corn.

  “Will you release Sean O’Malley? Do you tell us where he is, or do you get twisted?” one of the men drilled at Trevallyan.

  Niall shoved against the lock-hold the men had on him, but he didn’t seem to possess the passion to battle it. The light was long dead in his eyes and had been ever since that day at the graveyard; one could almost wonder if he didn’t secretly yearn for the end the men promised. Still, instincts were hard to repress. When the men dragged him across the antechamber, he fought the entire way.

  “Give us Sean O’Malley or ’tis death to you, Trevallyan,” a man shouted, hitting him in the head.

  “Then ’tis death,” Trevallyan cursed as they blindfolded him, tied his hands, and shoved him toward the long, spiral stair that led to the oak.

  Chapter 31

  THE NIGHT was cold; the wind stung like needles, but the rain had yet to come from behind the Sorra Hills. With hands bound behind him, and eyes covered with a black blindfold, Trevallyan stumbled forward, ever closer to the noose that danced in the harsh breeze. Around him, men spoke in low, nervous whispers that got swept away in the wind. A horse whinnied, one no doubt stolen from the Trevallyan stables. A fitting end, Niall thought, to be hung from the back of one’s own steed.

  “Get him up there!” a voice cried out, and Niall was hoisted atop the horse. Without sight or touch, he didn’t know which horse it was.

  And probably never would.

  “Trevallyan!” one of his captors shouted from the ground. “We give you one last chance to bring us Sean O’Malley. Tell us where he is and we’ll be merciful.”

  Niall said nothing. He didn’t fight the scratchy rope that was lowered over his head and slung around his neck; he didn’t whine or beg; rather, he seemed reflective, as if he already wondered about the other side.

  “I can’t say I’m disappointed, Trevallyan,” he heard Malachi say at his flank. “You have nothin’ now. Finally you’re bein’ brought down to size.”

  “Covet what I have, MacCumhal. Covet it, and know that I pray you get it.”

  “Is that your revenge, me lord?” Malachi snorted. “A fine revenge to wish me riches and castles and land.”

  “I’d trade it all for what you’ve had.”

  Disparagingly, he asked, “And what would that be?”

  “What she has given you.…” Trevallyan grew silent. Bitterly, he said, “… one genuine smile, one carefree moment of friendship. I’d give up everything for that.”

  Irrational anger rose to the surface. Fiercely, Malachi said, “Farewell, Trevallyan. I’m glad you won’t be interferin’ no more.”

  Niall felt men bumping against the horse. The steed was nervous in the wind, and someone held down its head. They didn’t want to risk it bolting before they were ready. Ready to take a man’s life.

  “I love her, and I want her back,” he heard Malachi murmur defiantly, his voice strangely mangled with emotion.

  Niall turned his head in his direction, ignoring the catch of the rope at his throat. In a lordly voice, he said, “You love her, MacCumhal? But would you die for her?”

  Malachi didn’t answer.

  Niall released a cynical laugh. “Coward.”

  “Damn you, Trevallyan,” Malachi spat. “Love her in death if you must, for you never loved her in life, I’ll not believe it. There’s no love in your foul Ascendency heart.”

  “I loved her and love her still.” The words were harsh, mournful, difficult. “And I prove it,” Niall said quietly. With finality. “Because I’m not here to die for her. I’m here to die just for the ground she walks upon.”

  Ravenna pounded at the castle door, despairing at the late hour. No one answered, and it was becoming clear that no one would. All the servants were in bed, and deaf to her pleas to open the door.

  The wind cut into her. She hugged the shawl close. There was no other choice but to go around the ruins and try to enter the castle through the kitchens. Trevallyan was still awake, she knew it, because even from the castle road, she could see the light burning steadily in the tower.

  “Bloody hell,” she cursed, and gave the door one last pounding. The stiff breeze whipped at her gown, sending chills through her body. It was harvest weather. Cold and unsettling.

  She skirted the fortress of the castle, feeling like a beggar trying to acquire a ha’penny from an unwilling nobleman. If the kitchen door was latched, as she suspected it would be during these uncertain times, then she would simply have to return to her cottage and come back in the morning.

  The charred crossbeams of the ruins appeared like a skeleton clawing to reach the night sky. She didn’t want to even look at them for they signified too much strife and hatred, but she was forced to as she circled around the castle. The keep was in view and, around that, the kitchen. Heartening, she quickened her step.

  She rounded the keep, saying a silent prayer for the kitchen door to be unlatched. So encumbered by her thoughts, she at first didn’t see the lights, the flickering radiance of torches in a copse.

  But then she spied them, and fear came like an icy blast of wind through her soul. She stared at the lights and knew there was only one thing they could signify.

  Her entire body began to shake. It was an illicit gathering of men in the woods.

  “Trevallyan, we hang you in the revered name of Daniel O’Connell and Home Rule. What say you in your defense?”

  Steady atop the horse, Trevallyan remained silent, obviously scorning the tribunal the men felt compelled to carry out.

  “All right,” the man said, watching him with an expression of begrudging respect, “let your silence be a testament to your guilt. Hang, Englishman, and know that whom you ruled, will one day rule.”

  “I’m an Irishman,” Trevallyan growled. “Take it to your graves that you killed one of your own … and let the remembrance of it haunt you the rest of your days.”

  “Enough.” A man stepped from the dozen who circled the tree. With him, he carried a lantern that rocked in the wind and sent terrifying shadows streaming across their victim’s blindfolded face. “We hang you, Trevallyan, because of the sins of your ancestors. Join them. Go in peace.” He raised his arm. The man who gripped the horse’s bridle watched in dread anticipation for the signal to release the animal and send Trevallyan to his death. All held their breaths. The lantern swung in the breeze, the creak of its brass handle like the screams of the damned.

  “Untie him,” a command came from their midst.

  All looked in the direction of the traitor. All except Trevallyan, who in the wind could not hear the commotion on the ground.

  The traitor was a woman, a beautiful woman, her head and shoulders wrapped in a worn black shawl.

  “Leave here, Ravenna. You cannot save his life.” Malachi stepped forward and tried to pull her back, but she flung aside his arms and stepped forward to the leader.

  “This is wrong.” She looked around at the faces of the men she knew from her childhood. “Patrick O’Donovan—Tim O’Shea—Michael O’Flaherty—don’t you see? If you hang him, you must hang me also.”

  The horse neighed and stamped its foot. Donovan, the man holding him, had trouble keeping him still.

  “Free him!” Ravenna cried out, terrified that the horse would break and Niall would be lost.

  Brutally, she was taken aside. The leader, Michael O’Flaherty, shook her and said, “You cannot help him. Why have you come here, girl?”

  She stared at Michael, a new understanding blooming within her. Solemnly, she gazed at Niall, so far away beneath the oak, his life hanging by a paltry length of twisted hemp. “I’ve come because of a geis,” she said quietly, “and because of what I now know in my heart.” She looked up at O’Flaherty.
“I love him, and I won’t leave until you free him,” she said, the conviction on her face turning it into a mask of marble.

  “Go home. Don’t get involved in this. You can do nothing for him. He is lost,” Michael told her.

  “Nay,” she said quietly, “he is not lost. Because I love him. And I wish for him to be my husband. I thought I could never give him what he wanted because I believed deep down that there was nothing I had worth giving. And I believed he would never need me.” She grasped O’Flaherty’s arm. “But he does need me. You all need me. Without me, he is apart from us. With me, he is one of us. Our marriage will end this strife and bring peace back to Lir.”

  “You expect a lot from your marriage. Too much, I fear,” Michael said contemptuously.

  “I do not expect. I know. What say you, Michael, are you to murder my own dearest love?”

  O’Flaherty didn’t answer.

  Malachi, who stood at her side, shook his head in despair. Angrily, he made for Trevallyan as if he would hang him himself.

  “Malachi!” Ravenna said, running to him. “You must understand, it was never you and I. Killing him won’t change how I feel. You must accept it. I beg of you, go to Galway, and make your life again.”

  Slowly, Malachi’s steps seemed to grow weary. Bit by bit he seemed to surrender his hell-bent vengeance as if finally accepting what he’d feared all along. Hanging his head, he whispered, “Don’t say ’tis over.”

  “Yes, it is over. And be glad,” she encouraged, taking his hand and squeezing it. “Go to Galway and find a pretty woman and make her your wife. Be glad, Malachi, as I am glad.”

  She turned to all the men and pleaded, “Go home and forget this night as I hope to forget it. It’s over. Murdering Trevallyan would mean murdering our beloved Lir.”

  “He’s teh cause of our troubles,” a man shouted angrily from the rear, “and yet you’re comin’ here fightin’ to spare his life.”

  “Yes!” she whispered, her dark, tear-filled eyes imploring the man. “We need Trevallyan. He is a good and generous man and will help us thwart the scourge that has beset our crops. Would you have Lir resemble Munster? I hear the dead are so many there that they block the roads.” She stared at them, defying them to deny her words. When they had no reply, she softly began again. “The Ascendency is not the sole cause of our blight. Lord Trevallyan didn’t make this famine, but he can help eliminate it. Trevallyan has fulfilled his geis; let him reap the rewards. Lir will get better, and he will set things right again.” She looked around at the men’s faces, some she knew, one she even loved. “I’ve come here to beg. I love him. Please, set him free. Don’t destroy me as you would him.”

  The men shuffled about, avoiding her pain-filled gaze. They whispered amongst themselves until finally Michael O’Flaherty walked to the horse.

  “Don’t,” she implored, knowing Trevallyan’s life was now in his hands.

  O’Flaherty seemed torn. She could see he ached to carry out his plans, but she could see, too, his conscience. He was not a bad man. He was just another victim of a cause gone astray.

  “I beg of you.” It was the barest whisper. But it seemed the most effective. Michael O’Flaherty looked deep into her eyes, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Let Lord Trevallyan go,” he said to Donovan, his voice filled with frustration.

  “But you can’t!” a man cried out, shaking his fist.

  “I said, free Trevallyan,” O’Flaherty commanded, flicking his gaze to Donovan, the man who held the horse.

  “God bless you. God bless you,” Ravenna sobbed, weak with relief.

  The men watched her tears in begrudging silence. The noose was slipped from Trevallyan’s neck. Still blindfolded; and ignorant of the battle that had occurred around him, he seemed surprised at his reprieve.

  Ravenna took the horse’s bridle from Donovan. Without speaking a word, she waited until the men had disappeared into the shadows of the woods, bound for home. She would keep their identities secret, and they knew it. The next time she saw them on the road to Lir or in the mercantile, she would be as pleasant to them as if this night were nothing but a bad dream.

  “What goes on here?” Trevallyan said, slipping to the ground.

  A rain began to fall and mixed with her tears. Without untying his blindfold or his hands, she stood on tiptoe and placed a kiss on his hard mouth.

  “I thought we could never be as equals. But now that I have my power, I choose you to be my husband. Will you marry me, Lord Trevallyan?”

  He leaned into her embrace, a groan of inexpressible relief rumbling from his chest. Finding her mouth as if by instinct, he kissed her deeply in the rain.

  He’d found salvation at last.

  EPILOGUE

  Lughnasa

  I gaze with delight

  As the flock of cranes take flight

  Into the blue skies.

  The dream cherished in my heart

  Since my boyhood has come true.

  CROWN PRINCE NARUHITO

  Waka

  RAVENNA RAN down the sweeping lawn of Trevallyan Castle all the while crying, “At last! At last! It has come!”

  Trevallyan leaned against the same oak tree that one year earlier had almost brought him death. He’d been surveying the four fields of Lir that spread out beneath where the castle stood. The feeling it brought was good. The ogham stone still stood sentinel over Lir’s fortunes, but for the first time in years, no potatoes grew in its fields. Instead, sheep grazed along the rocky coast; flax, pale and dry, waved in the breeze that kicked up from the Irish Sea, ready for harvest. Corn grew in one lot, turnips and cabbage in another. Lir was saved.

  “Whoa, me girl. Quit your running. Do you want to shake our babe right from you?” He caught his wife by the waist and placed his hand possessively upon her swelling belly.

  “It’s here!” she said, her eyes ablaze with excitement.

  “Your book? ’Tis finally arrived?” He tried to take the red leather-bound volume from her, but she snatched it from his hold.

  “Nay. Sit. I want to read you the last chapter. You never did know what became of Skya and Aidan.”

  He lowered himself and sat against the oak, pulling her onto his lap. She opened the gilt-edged book and placed a kiss on his mouth. Closing his eyes, he seemed immersed in deep pleasure: the sound of his wife’s voice as she read.

  The wind howled, and the rain shook the tiny cottage that sat deep in the Woods of Hawthorn. Inside, a woman who had no more tears to weep lay quietly with her hands tied to a corner of her pallet.

  Skya prayed for death. The loneliness had become too much. If she could not live among men, then she would die alone, cursing the gift that had long ago saved her sisters from the dragon.

  She lay facing the packed-mud wall of her cottage, unwilling to move; unwilling to even attempt to free herself. She had loved him, and he had abandoned her, as she had always feared he would if she freed him. Now she must accept it, and rather than do that, she willed death to come and sit at her pallet; to take her by the hand and bring her to a better place.

  A gust of wind rattled the batten door, shook the latch, and burst it open. Rain sheeted inside, spraying her, but she paid it no mind. Her thoughts were too filled with dark fantasies for her to even bother to look up. Listlessly, she stared at the wall, the wet spot beneath her cheek where her tears had fallen for two days now turned cold and clammy against her face.

  She closed her eyes and dreamed of laughter and warm hands. As if she willed it, she almost felt a strong hand on her wrist slowly unwinding her bounds.

  Hesitant, afraid that her reverie would disappear should she look up, she fearfully opened her eyes. The touch that she had imagined was real. A man was untying her, but he could not save her. Only Aidan and his love could save her.

  “Go away,” she cried, turning back to the wall, not even caring how the man had found her.

  “I have gone away. Now I’ve returned.”

&nbs
p; Slowly, as if terrified she was dreaming, she turned toward her savior.

  It was Aidan, rain slick on his hair and face, his handsome embroidered bliaud dark with water. Gravely he worked on the knots that held her wrists.

  “Why…?” she whispered, fresh tears, these of hope and cautious joy, filling her azure eyes.

  “A witch’s tears haunt like no other,” he answered, unable to look at her.

  “Is that the only reason?”

  He freed her and took her in his arms. He was cold and wet, but she didn’t care, she clung to him.

  “I tried to flee. I almost got to Clancullen. But then I turned around. My will was no longer my own to command. I was driven by my heart instead.” He took her hand, the one that made magic, and laced his fingers with her own. “I have only one question.”

  “And—and what is that?” she whispered, not daring to believe her fortune.

  “I want to bring you back to your father. Your people will accept you if you are a means to peace. Our kingdoms have fought for centuries, but no more. I want to marry you and unite our families. Still, I must know: Will I be vexed with children like you?”

  She looked at him through her tears. “If they are like me, will you banish them?”

  His handsome face turned stern. Pondering the question, he wrapped her in a blanket as if trying to keep himself from temptation until the wedding night. Once he held her again, he whispered, “Nay, I fear I must keep them, for banishment would only cause their mother grief. You see, she cast a spell upon me and stole my heart. I am forever in her power.”

  His hand lifted to her cheek and brushed away the tears.

  Then he sealed his fate with a kiss.

  Ravenna closed the book and turned her head to look at Trevallyan. He smiled down at her, his still-youthful and handsome face filled with pride.

  “I thought you would get it published. Tell me, is it causing a sensation?”