Keeper Of The Light

by O'Kerry Janeen

  There were some twenty round houses, made with heavy wicker framework thickly covered with clay, scattered across the torchlit fortress grounds. As always, Rioghan could not help but think of how insubstantial they seemed compared to the cave that was her own home. Donaill jogged his black stallion in and out among the houses until he reached one near the rear of Cahir Cullen’s curving inner wall. Quickly Rioghan slid down to the ground.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him. She could see him better now in the soft light of the torches. His fine features and strong jaw were quite familiar, for she had indeed seen him before at this place; but it was strange to see those same blue eyes and warm smile directed at her.

  “You are most welcome,” he said. “Thank you for coming here to help us.” And with that, he reined his horse in a half circle and rode away.

  Rioghan took a deep breath, lifted her black leather sack to one shoulder, then turned toward the house, signaling her dogs Scath and Cogar to stay outside.

  Two women opened the door as she approached it. “Rioghan, we are so glad that you are here,” the first one said, reaching out to take her by the shoulder.

  “Please, come in, come in,” said the other. “She is here, but we do not know what to do for her.”

  Rioghan followed them into the small round dwelling. A low fire burned in the central hearth, and a scattering of flat stone lamps held flickering flames of light.

  Three other women waited inside, two of them sitting on one of the fur-covered sleeping ledges and another standing near the main fire. All of them were clearly anxious. “Here,” said the one at the hearth, and gestured toward the floor.

  Rioghan stopped. She kept her face very still and calm, but could not stop the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  The young woman, Sabha, lay curled up like an infant on a bed of thick, clean straw. Someone had placed a blue-and-green plaid cloak over her, but she seemed not to notice. “Airt,” the woman whispered in a shaking voice. “Airt…”

  “Airt is her husband,” one of the others informed Rioghan. “But he is here at Cahir Cullen. He is well; nothing has happened. The men took him away from the house when she would not respond to him. He is nearly as distraught as she.”

  Rioghan nodded. “They have been married barely two years. Sabha has been a great help to me whenever I have come here.” She glanced around at the others, then nodded toward the door. “Please go now. Leave me with her. I will do what I can.”

  The women all looked at each other, and then, each with a final kiss for Sabha, they left the round house and quietly closed the door.

  Rioghan moved to sit down in the straw beside her patient. Throwing back the blue-and-green wool cloak covering the younger woman, she leaned down to speak to her. “Sabha, come now and help me. Help me to understand what has happened to you. Come now; sit up—sit up; there, that’s it. Sit beside me and tell me what has happened.”

  The two of them sat together against the sleeping ledge, though Sabha slumped over so that her head rested on Rioghan’s shoulder. “Let me help you,” Rioghan said again. “Tell me what has happened.”

  But Sabha would say nothing except her husband’s name, over and over again. She seemed not to know that anyone else was there.

  Rioghan reached beneath the neckline of her own black wool gown and lifted out a slender chain of gold. The chain was Sidhe made, delicate and beautiful, and hanging from it was a long, slim pendant of polished crystal.

  Holding the pendant with one hand, Rioghan sat up and placed her other hand on Sabha’s head, smoothing the woman’s long dark hair back as she did. “Now, Sabha,” she said softly, “show me what you wish me to know. The crystal of seeing will allow me to see it, too. It will show me what you wish me to know. It will show me all that I need to know.”

  “Airt,” whispered Sabha, and Rioghan closed her eyes.

  Into her mind came the image of a house—this very house, Rioghan realized, for the arrangement of doors and windows and ledges was identical. The same bunches of dried primrose and red clover hung on the wall near the window, the same dented bronze pan rested beside the hearth, and the same gray-black tunic lay in the straw near the head of the sleeping ledge.

  On that ledge, lit now by the pale, filtered light of the late-afternoon sun, were the same fur cloaks stitched together from the skins of badger and hare, and the same soft leather cushions stuffed with straw…but on those furs lay a slender blond woman, naked in the cold winter air, moaning in pleasure and grasping her lover’s back as the young, dark-haired man kissed her hard on the neck, pinned her down, and mounted her.

  There were no gentle caresses, no words of love between the pair. They grunted and groaned and coupled like animals.

  Rioghan realized that there was something strange about this man: there was a faint discoloration to his bare skin, a grayness, as though something unclean, something poisonous, had come over him. She frowned, even as she kept her eyes closed—and then, in her vision, the door of the house opened and Sabha walked inside.

  Rioghan could feel rather than hear Sabha’s wail of despair. The man in these images was her husband, Airt, and on this day he had brought another woman into their house and the furs where they slept.

  Rioghan released the crystal. “Oh, Sabha,” she whispered, and held the other woman like a child. Sabha collapsed with her head on Rioghan’s lap, clutched her around the waist, and wept at last.

  Chapter Two

  Rioghan lifted a small bronze cauldron from the fire and placed it on the hearth. The water inside was boiling. Opening her black leather bag, she took out a handful of dried white-and-yellow flower heads and added them to the pot. A brief search of the house yielded a clean wooden cup and a little honey.

  After the flowers had steeped for a time, she poured some of the cauldron’s mixture into the cup, added some honey, and stirred it with a slender wooden paddle.

  Sabha still lay in the straw, though now she wept instead of chillingly calling her husband’s name. Rioghan carried the steaming cup over to her and sat down on the carpet of straw. “Sabha,” she said, giving the woman a little shake. “Sabha, sit up now. I have brought you something to drink—and I must ask you a question.”

  Slowly Sabha opened her red and swollen eyes, and then she sat up to look at her visitor. “Rioghan,” she said. “Oh, Rioghan—what has he done?”

  “I know, I know. I have seen it all. You need not tell it again. Here…drink this.”

  Sabha took the cup and sipped at the strong, sweet tea. In moments the cup was empty, and she allowed it to fall to the straw and roll away. She turned back to Rioghan. “You said you wanted to ask me a question.”

  Rioghan reached out and took Sabha’s hands. “This thing your husband has done…I can tell you it was not his choice alone. I could see the touch of dark magic on him. This woman, whoever she is—”

  “Coiteann.” Sabha’s voice held the utmost contempt. “She is the servant who makes dyes, and spends all her working time over the reeking dye pots. She is—”

  “I know what she is.” Rioghan glanced again at the dingy, gray-black linen tunic beside her on the straw. It looked as if it had been dyed with some noxious substance: soot, perhaps, or even a little blood. “Not one who is so powerful that she could take him against his will. She used just enough of the dark side of power to persuade him to bring her here, instead of to some hidden place in the forest as he would have preferred. That is why he brought her into your house and into your bed.”

  Sabha closed her eyes. “But why here, why in the late afternoon? They both knew that I would be returning from the hall at just that time!”

  Rioghan shook her head. Fury burned inside her. “Dear Sabha. This woman did know, though she made your husband forget. She planned for you to find them together. She hoped you would divorce your husband and leave him free to marry her.”

  “I think she may well have succeeded…though I hate the thought of giving her such s
atisfaction.”

  “Then consider the question that I ask you now: Do you wish to exact justice? Do you wish to teach them both a lesson they will never forget?”

  Sabha looked straight at Rioghan. Her voice was steadier than it had been. “Tell me what I must do.”

  A short time later Rioghan pushed open the door of Sabha’s house with her shoulder, holding an armload of hare and badger furs, and the black linen tunic against her chest. The other women hurried over to her, but she held up her fingers to request quiet. “She sleeps now, in the warm straw. I have given her a drink to help her rest.”

  “Will she be all right? Is she rational now?”

  “She will recover. Please let her sleep. It is the best thing for her. I will stay until dawn, and we can give her more of the tea that makes her sleep should she need it again.”

  With that, Rioghan let go of the bundled furs and the tunic she carried, and let them fall to the muddy ground. “Give these to the servants,” she said, “and tell them to throw them to your dogs—if the dogs will have them.”

  The eastern sky had turned the faintest gray when Rioghan and her two hounds walked across the yard of Cahir Cullen and approached the tall wooden gates. The gates opened for her just as she reached them, for the night watch was accustomed to her quiet presence and knew that she preferred to leave at dawn whenever possible. A moment later she, Scath, and Cogar were walking down the wide road toward home.

  Long ago—so long that none of them nor their children nor their grandchildren were still alive—the Sidhe had built this road between Sion and the holly grove where Cahir Cullen now stood. The road had been made from beams of timber laid both straight and crosswise to form a true, solid framework. Then the beams had been pegged together, filled in with twigs and rock, and covered over with earth to make a good surface for animals and chariots alike.

  It served humans on foot just as well, Rioghan had found, and it allowed her to make the journey to this fortress with relative ease whenever she was needed. Only in an emergency was the shorter, but more difficult way through the deep forest taken—for while the dense, dark needles of the pines offered shelter and screening even in winter, they could also house terrible danger.

  Donaill had been bold to bring his men down that nearly invisible path in the deep darkness last night. Even Rioghan, accustomed as she was to the forest, always found herself picking her way very carefully through that wild, thick, confusing stand of tall trees and heavy brush, with its uneven ground and haphazard rocks. Yet Donaill had done it without hesitation when someone at his fortress needed help, though Rioghan knew well that even the boldest of men were apprehensive at the thought of meeting any of the Sidhe…especially at night in the dark and misty forest.

  The Sidhe were the small, dark-haired folk who had always lived in Eire. They had built many wonderful things and had their own powers, but their gentle magics and fragile bronze weapons had proved to be no match for the tall, fair, iron-wielding invaders who had overrun their land and killed any who dared to interfere.

  Most of the Sidhe were gone now, either long dead or through having their lines absorbed by the families of Men—but there were still some who existed in secret in the deepest part of the woods, living as best they could and keeping their magic alive wherever they could find a way to do so.

  Rioghan followed the road, this time, and she was soon out of sight of Cahir Cullen. She felt a sense of relief, as she always did, when on her way home…though she made herself ignore the small tug of loneliness, the little sense of loss, that always accompanied her when she bade farewell to the people of the fortress. No matter how much she looked forward to being at Sion once again, there was part of her that missed companionship.

  Yet her true home waited for her at the end of this road, she reminded herself, a safe and comfortable home guarded by some thirty fiercely loyal dogs and surrounded by the gentle and beautiful people called the Sidhe. Rioghan smiled down at her pets and walked faster, anxious to see Sion once more.

  Just as she rounded the first curve in the road, there was the sound of galloping hooves behind her.

  In a heartbeat, Rioghan and her dogs were in the cover of the forest. Her black gown and cloak blended with the bare black trunks and deep shadows of the pines, as did the black and gray coats of the dogs. All three of them stayed very still as a stallion and his rider came around the curve.

  “Rioghan!” cried Donaill, slowing his horse to a trot and then to a walk. “Rioghan! I know you must be near. You could not have gone much farther than this. Please come out. I will take you back to Sion, if you will allow me.”

  He halted briefly, but when he got no answer he urged the black horse on again. “Rioghan!”

  “Donaill.” He turned the horse around to see her standing in the center of the road, Scath and Cogar close at her side. With a wide smile, his blue eyes shining, his heavy red cloak flowing out behind him, he reined his stallion back down the road to halt in front of her.

  Rioghan looked up at him as he smiled down at her, and it seemed that she was seeing him now for the first time. He was a man in the full strength of maturity, perhaps thirty years old, as tall as any other man at Cahir Cullen and with the broadest shoulders and most heavily muscled arms she had ever seen. Even his neck seemed to be carved of iron, the way his stallion’s neck rippled with strength.

  Yet in spite of all of this power, those were slender and sensitive fingers that held the reins. Donaill’s face was shaved clean, and his light brown hair fell past his shoulders, drawn back by a black leather cord.

  Above his wide jaw was a curving mouth and a slim, straight nose, and blue eyes that held gentleness and a glint of humor. “Rioghan,” he said. “I am so glad I found you. Will you let me and my horse, Cath, take you back to Sion? It is a long walk.”

  “It is not so long,” she argued. “But I thank you.” And then, she turned and continued on her way. Her dogs trotted close by her side.

  Donaill urged his horse after her. “It is the least I can do after you have come all this way.”

  “It is no trouble,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “I have come to Cahir Cullen many times, and always I have walked home.”

  “But my lady Rioghan…” She stopped and waited patiently, still looking straight ahead. “I would enjoy your company,” he finished, seeming almost embarrassed.

  Rioghan smiled. She had been waiting for that admission. “Thank you. Then I will accept your offer.”

  As she had the night before, Rioghan took hold of Donaill’s strong wrist and swung up behind him on his black stallion. But this time, instead of making a mad dash through the darkness, the horse walked at a leisurely pace through the cold gray morning, with only Rioghan’s two dogs, a few wintering thrushes, and the occasional raven for company. Rioghan held her black leather bag with one hand and allowed the other to rest on her thigh as Donaill’s horse carried her home with long, powerful strides.

  “I am so glad you accepted my offer,” Donaill began, glancing over his shoulder. “For quite some time now I have wanted to get to know you better.”

  She looked up. “Quite some time? Until last evening you did not even know who I was, king’s champion Donaill.”

  “Well, that may be true. I remember you only as an occasional shadow visiting Cahir Cullen in the night. But now that I have met you face-to-face, I do indeed wish to know more about you.”

  Rioghan smiled. “There is little to tell—little that would be of interest to you. I have the age of twenty-three years, and for all of those years I have lived at Sion.”

  He nodded. “Many of us have wondered about that place. We know it only as a place of the Sidhe, where Men trespass at their peril…though I will admit, I do not know of anyone who has actually been harmed by any of the Fair Folk. There are only the old stories, which do serve, it would seem, to keep Men away.”

  “You are right,” Rioghan said. “The Sidhe’s numbers are few these days. And Sion is
indeed a place of the Sidhe, built by the most ancient of them to provide both a ring of standing stones and a safe place to live within the earth for those who would learn to use the ring—and for those who have the greatest power of magic.

  “Yet as the years pass, it has become forgotten, as such places often do, as the Sidhe’s numbers dwindle. After a time the cave has simply become a home for the Sidhe who remain, and for those who, like me, claim both Sidhe and Man in their ancestry.”

  Donaill nodded. “I was told that a family once lived there, but that only the midwife has remained for the past several years.”

  “That is true. My family is not of noble blood. They were farmers all, and some of them, a few generations back, were believed to be of the Sidhe. For countless years they lived side by side with the Fair Folk and made their home in the caves beneath the mound.”

  “Yet you are the only one left there now. How did that come to pass? Why do you not come to live among us at Cahir Cullen?”

  Rioghan paused. “Your fortress is simply not my home. I have never lived there, and I would never really belong.”

  Donaill shook his head. “King Bran—and everyone there—would surely welcome you and your skills. Would you not like to have other young women to talk to, to work beside, to be with you as companions?”

  She smiled. “Do not misunderstand. I have always found Cahir Cullen to be a lively and interesting place. I do enjoy the company of the other women there. But, as I said, it is not my home. I am not like the others.”

  He grinned. “I can see that you are not. But tell me, please, how it is that you came to live alone at a place like Sion, beautiful though it is?”

  She looked away, her thoughts drifting back. “My parents went to their rest long ago. After they were gone, my brother became a craftsman and found a bride at the fortress of Dun Orga, where they now live. My two sisters feared to live alone in the woods and also made their way to Dun Orga, where they soon found husbands.