Keeper Of The Light

by O'Kerry Janeen

  “I do not need—”

  “I ask you again: what will you do when they come back?”

  With a little catch in her throat, Rioghan looked out over the silvery black branches of the trees, over the dark stones of the circle, over the little shadows that darted and leaped and danced about the clearings. “I cannot let harm come to any of this,” she whispered. “I cannot.”

  “Then what will you do?”

  “I will…ask you for your help, king’s champion Donaill.”

  “And nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give you my help, Lady Rioghan of Sion.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Now that the matter is settled, I will tell you something else. What I said is not quite true. The only thing that would give me greater pleasure would be a chance to know you better.”

  She drew back and turned to glare at him. “I have already told you all there is to know about me.”

  He smiled. “That is not what I meant. I would like…I want…”

  “You would like what?” she asked, with all the innocence she could muster.

  Donaill laughed. “Ah, I see that you can play the game as well as I. I too have always thought it best to hear the words directly, rather than simply guess at what someone might be thinking.” He took a step closer. “I would like very much to know you better—to talk with you, to ride through the forest with you, to walk in the moonlight and sit in this beautiful place with you. That is what I would like.”

  It was Rioghan’s turn to laugh, although she felt a twinge on her heart at his words. A longing. “You have said yourself that you have never found a woman who was unworthy. Why, then, should your interest make me feel special?”

  He cocked his head. “Well…I cannot apologize for finding something beautiful and good within every woman.”

  “And I can well imagine what that something is,” she murmured.

  He seemed not to have heard. “You, Rioghan, are indeed different from any other woman I have met. You are very beautiful, of course, with hair dark as the soft night sky and eyes green as new grass in spring…yet you are also solitary and mysterious, and seem to need no man at all. Surely you know that all of this makes you a great prize.”

  She spun away, her long, heavy cloak swinging about her boots. “Do you think to honor me by calling me a prize? I see your interest in me not as flattery, but purely as arrogance.”

  “Arrogance? I don’t—”

  “Simply another conquest for the king’s champion. That is all I would be, Donaill. I am under no illusions about that.”

  Again he moved close to her, this time taking her by one shoulder and gently turning her to face him. “Ah, but you are wrong. You are so different, Rioghan, so very special…” He reached down and took one of her hands in both of his own.

  She could only shake her head. The forests and clearings were still and silent now, and a faint light had begun to appear in the east. “You are the last man I would want,” she whispered. “Always your status, your position, will be the most important thing to you, and there is nothing more important to the status of a man than the number of women he can draw to him. There will never be enough women for a man who is the king’s own champion. One could not even come close.”

  “One might,” Donaill whispered, leaning down close to her. “One might come very close…”

  Before Rioghan could move, before she could think, his lips were even with hers, and he kissed her, as lightly and as warmly as the dawn sun touches the earth. Then he stepped back and let go of her hand, and when at last she opened her eyes he was gone, leaving her alone atop Sion with her two dogs and the soft gray light of the dawn.

  Chapter Six

  A few evenings later, Rioghan drew back the black cowhide hanging at the entrance to her home and sat down on the edge of her hearth. She looked out into the clearing, holding and sipping a hot cup of honey-sweetened tea. The cave faced west, and so, sitting as she was, she could see the glow of the setting sun and knew it would not be long before the stars came out.

  Each night she had sat here keeping watch, fearing that in spite of Donaill’s promises and bold words the others might come back. They still wanted the gold and treasure they had seen, she was sure, and would only laugh at Donaill’s claim that the Sidhe, or a midwife, had any right to it.

  Rioghan had hardly slept at all these past few nights, certain that Beolagh and his men would return. But at the end of this day, as the sun set, Scath and Cogar—who always remained in the cave with her—lay dozing in the warmth of the fire. The other dogs outside in the clearing sniffed the air and yawned, or rolled in the grass and dry pine needles, or frisked about with each other. They were as calm and relaxed as Rioghan had ever seen them.

  She took another sip of her hot sweet tea. She had spent a long day sorting and preparing her different medicines and poultices and infusions, and should be tired and ready for sleep; but instead she felt possessed by a restlessness that was new and strange to her.

  She had prepared this calming tea for herself, one that usually helped her sleep after long days of work no matter how tense she may have become, but this time it seemed to have no effect. At last Rioghan set the cup aside and walked outside into the deep gray twilight, into the stand of forest toward the stone circle to the west. Scath and Cogar trotted at her heels.

  The path would have been all but invisible to most anyone not of the Sidhe, but to Rioghan it was comfortable and familiar. She walked among the tall pine trees of the twilit woods with long, sure strides, breathing in the smell of the cold damp earth and fresh evergreens, happy to be outside after the long day of working in the confines of her home.

  There was a rustling in the brush off to one side. Rioghan glanced toward it and smiled. “I merely walk,” she said. “I am not going anywhere.”

  A little distance ahead, a small figure appeared from behind the black trunk of a pine. “That is a concern, my lady.”

  She looked toward the figure, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come. She kept walking. “But I do not wish to go anywhere. Do you not want me to stay?”

  Another rustling came from off to the side of the path, another soft voice. “We love you like no other,” it said.

  “Yet you too must make a life for yourself.” This time the voice came from the trees on the other side.

  “My life is here, as was my family’s life,” Rioghan said calmly, brushing aside the low, waving branch of a little pine seedling from the hem of her black wool gown. “Again, I would ask you: do you not wish me to stay with you at Sion?”

  A shadow darted across her path. “We love you as one of our own,” she heard. “Yet you are alone. It is not right that a beautiful young woman should live without a mate.”

  Rioghan stopped and turned to face the voice. “I am content with my life as it is. Are you so sure that I must bring a husband into it?”

  “It is not the way of nature to live so. None should know this better than you, a healer and a midwife.”

  She whirled to face this new speaker on the other side, but as soon as she turned there were only gently waving branches of pine to be seen. “Perhaps I have simply not found the man with whom I would wish to share my life.”

  “Yet you believed you found him once before.”

  She caught her breath, but made herself keep calm. “I did believe that. But I was wrong. He did not love me for myself. He was merely happy to let me care for him and take all I had to give, while he gathered as many other women around him as he could in order to take from them as well.

  “This was his way, whenever he thought I was not there—and if I dared to ask, he would only tell me that I should not be distressed. I was the one he wanted for his wife, was I not? The others meant nothing. They were only friends and acquaintances from the fortress. He swore he could not understand how such a silly, harmless thing could cause me pain.”

  “Yet it was not the mere presence of these women which caused you
such pain,” Rioghan heard. “He chose to deceive you, so that you would not know and could not interfere. And when you did know, his concern was for them—and for himself—and not for you.”

  Rioghan closed her eyes as bitter, painful memory swelled up within her. “He did deceive me,” she whispered. “He deceived me so that he could be with them whenever he wished. And he cared nothing for my pain when I finally got the truth. He could do naught but defend his actions, defend his lies, defend those other women.

  “And oh, it did not suit him that I should be offended. This only angered him—and I became the target of his rage. Not the women who had helped him to poison what I thought we had together. His anger was turned on me, and not on them.

  “Never would he say that it was wrong for him to do any of these things. Never, never, never would he tell me it was wrong.”

  She looked into the soft twilight forest again and took a deep and calming breath. “But that is over now. He is free to be with all his many women, with no troublesome mate to interfere with his life and annoy him with her pain. And I am determined that such a thing will never happen to me again. I will be much more careful next time—if there should even be a ‘next time.’”

  “Why not choose one of us?”

  Rioghan smiled, and went on with her walk. “I love you all,” she said, “but not like that. As brothers and sisters, even as children. One does not marry within one’s own family.”

  “Perhaps not,” said a voice from behind her. She raised her head, but kept on walking. “Perhaps it is true that you should look elsewhere.”

  There came more rustling, first on one side of the path and then on the other, and then a shadow leaned out from the trees up ahead. “But not too far,” said the shadow, before it disappeared once again.

  The woods were nearly dark now. The high quarter moon provided little light, and soft clouds covered most of the sky, yet Rioghan walked her familiar path with no difficulty. “I have already said that I could not look for a mate from among the Sidhe.”

  “Then look to Cahir Cullen.”

  “Then look to this man, Donaill.”

  She stopped, her senses searching left and right, but there was only silence. Rioghan laughed a little, and walked on. “Now I know that you are playing a game with me.”

  “We would not play about this.” The shadow walked alongside the path with her for a few steps before vanishing. “Donaill is a fair man. He has never done us ill. Indeed, he has guarded and helped you, and the Sidhe, all of his own accord.”

  “And for a man, he is not unattractive,” added another rustling shadow.

  Rioghan continued to walk, but shook her head emphatically at the same time. “Attractive or not, he is not a man who would ever be happy with just one woman. He is a great warrior and takes great pride in displaying his prowess. He is the king’s champion and makes sure that all who meet him know this. No doubt he aspires to be king himself one day; no doubt he will do just that. And what king could ever be content with just one woman in his life? It would hardly be fitting for a man of such great stature.”

  She sighed. “Never, dear ones, never could I go with such a man, for I know that I alone would never be enough for him. No one woman would ever be enough.”

  She listened closely, but the shadows said nothing more. There was only the faint rustling in the brush on either side of her from time to time, and the sounds of Scath and Cogar trotting at her heels, until at last she left the forest and returned to the clearing of Sion, this time walking into it from the other side.

  All was silent and still; all was as she had left it. The pack of dogs came to greet her with wagging tails and lowered heads, and then they lay down again just outside the cave. The hearthfire still burned low, and her cup of tea still rested on the stones.

  Rioghan sat down beside the hearth and reached for the tea; but when she tasted it, she found that it had grown cold. She set it aside and folded her hands beneath her black cloak, listening to the silence of the starlit forest and thinking of how it had looked from high atop the mound of Sion.

  Chapter Seven

  Five nights went by, five quiet and uneventful nights that brought little sleep and more long walks for Rioghan…and more cold cups of tea.

  On the sixth night, by the time the three-quarter moon was high overhead, she thought that perhaps she was ready for sleep. But just as she gathered her soft leather cushions and threw back the furs on her sleeping ledge, her dogs began to growl outside.

  Scath and Cogar, always by her side, instantly got to their feet and stalked to the entrance of the cave. Their heads were held low and their hackles were raised. Rioghan followed them out across the darkness of the clearing, her heart pounding, fearing the worst, knowing it could be only one thing.

  She went to the strip of woods that separated the clearing of Sion from the clearing of the stone circle, and there she saw six men on their horses ride in from the deep forest path and knew that she was right.

  “Midwife!” shouted Beolagh, dragging his horse to a stop. “People of the Sidhe! Listen to me! I know you can hear me!”

  “Madra! Madra!” whispered Rioghan urgently, and her snarling dogs turned away from the intruders and crowded back around her in the cover of the brush and towering pines. So far the men had made no move to approach her cave, and she did not want to risk any more of the dogs unless she had no choice.

  “I know you can hear me,” Beolagh said again, trotting his horse around the stone circle as his five men sat still and watched from the center. “We are not here to harm you. I gave my promise to the king’s champion, and we will not attack you—not unless provoked. Neither will we take your gold by force.”

  Rioghan kept hold of Scath’s collar and continued to listen. Though she could not see them, she knew that the Sidhe hid all around her in the forest, waiting, just as she waited.

  Beolagh halted his horse. “But hear me well: you, midwife, and all the Sidhe who live here have long enjoyed the protection and bounty of Cahir Cullen—especially the protection of the king’s champion, Donaill, who quite recently came to your aid!

  “Donaill made us promise not to take your treasure by force—and so we will not. But he did not say we could not accept it if you chose to give it to us!

  “It is long past time that you should give something in return. Sharing your gold with us is the least that you can do! We know that you have no use for it! There is no reason why you should not share it with us!”

  He rode his horse around the stone circle, trying to peer into the dark woods. The only sounds were the snorting of the horses and the low growling of Rioghan’s dogs. No one gave Beolagh any answer.

  “All right then!” The warrior pulled his horse around and circled it in the other direction. “Since you choose to be selfish and ungrateful, and take what we so kindly offer while giving nothing in return, we have no choice but to persuade you another way!”

  As he rode, he pointed his iron sword at each of the nine standing stones. “We will not take your gold, but we have made no promises about this place. If we do not find our share of the gold waiting for us within this circle by the time of the next new moon, we will pull down this circle stone by stone, and leave each to lie in the mud until the grasses grow over them!”

  Rioghan’s jaw dropped in horror. Surely they would not do such a thing—they would not dare to touch the ancient stones, this sacred circle, this place that the Sidhe relied upon so much—

  “We have our own much larger circle, far to the north of Cahir Cullen! There the stones are tall and straight and perfectly aligned. This small and crudely set place is of no interest and no use to us. It will trouble us not at all to pull it down, not if it will teach a lesson to animals who try to hoard men’s gold! I will tell you again: leave the gold for us at the dark of the moon, or this is the last you will see of your circle!”

  Beolagh laughed again, looking back at his men, but in an instant was clutching at his horse’s m
ane as the animal whirled in fright. It had been startled by the appearance of a small figure in black right in front of it—a figure with two dogs, one gray and one black, on either side.

  “You will never touch this stone circle,” Rioghan said to him, her voice low and ominous. Beolagh struggled to right himself in his saddle even as her dogs snarled up at him. “Not now, or in a fortnight from now at the dark of the moon. It has been here as long as—or longer than—the circle that the druids of Cahir Cullen use.”

  “We care not whether it was built when the world was new, or built the day before yesterday!” Beolagh shouted, now sitting upright on his horse once more.

  “This circle is smaller and simpler than your own, it is true,” she went on. “Its stones are not so polished, nor so straight, nor so tall. Yet it is perfectly accurate and has helped the Sidhe to survive since, indeed, the world was new. It allows them to know the seasons to the day, and the correct times to plant and to harvest, and better know their place in the natural world. It is like a home to them.”

  “I do not doubt that it is!” Beolagh laughed. “Animals need no proper homes! They do not need a roof or walls, only a mud floor surrounded by half-fallen stones!” He laughed again, as did all of his men. “If we pull this one down, then you can build another!”

  Her dogs snarled and bared their teeth. Rioghan held tight to their gold- and bronze-plated collars. “You know well that it could never be rebuilt. It was built by the people of magic, those from the northern islands now destroyed in the great flood. They alone had the power to move such stones into place, and they are long gone. It could never be rebuilt.”

  “Then leave the gold, and you will not have to concern yourselves with rebuilding it! Just leave the treasure here, and we will not trouble you again!” As final emphasis to his words, Beolagh cantered his horse to one of the tall standing stones and struck it hard with his iron sword.