The Collector 3: Cauldron

by A. J. Matthews

  “It’s a kind of magical restriction on a quest, that’s taken on oath, one the person taking it is bound to obey or face horrible consequences.”

  “You can’t seriously be thinking of accepting it!”

  “So what else can I do!” he snapped, sitting upright and glaring at her. “That fucking cauldron is the key to getting out of this place, this crazy land with its nymphomaniac queen and overblown warrior caste, and back to our own time and country.” He stabbed a finger at her. “And there’s the small matter of your grandfather to find and possibly rescue!”

  “Do you think I’ve forgotten about him?” she asked in a low voice. “I can fucking well assure you I haven’t!” She reached over and grabbed his hands. “Matt, there must be some other way of finding the tower. Tell the queen to stick the geas idea up her butt, and we’ll work out the puzzle ourselves!”

  “Are you so confident you can find the tower?”

  “No, but it’s got to be worth a try.” She swallowed. “If it doesn’t work, we can always come back and try crawling to her.”

  He snorted. “Yeah, I can just see her accepting that. Deny her this, and she’s more likely to cut our heads off!” He stood up and brushed the dust and grass off his pants. “I’m going to tell her I’ll accept the geas.”

  “You do, and I won’t sleep with you again!” she said, getting up.

  “Where the hell did that come from?” he asked the open sky and looked down at her. “We may have fucked yesterday, but we’re not exactly an item, you know!”

  “You bastard!” she said, clenching her fists. She fought to restrain her temper and nodded slowly. “Okay then, go take the quest. Fergus looks quite the stud-muffin; I’ll get him to keep me company at night!”

  “Fine!”

  “Fine, then!”

  Fergus had been watching the scene unfold from a safe distance, hidden behind a croft boundary fence. He nodded in satisfaction, and took off at speed to reach the hall so he could slip in and be ready with a proposal he knew the adventurers couldn’t refuse.

  * * * * *

  Matt and Kate entered the hall and walked up to the dais. Maeve lounged on her throne like a great tawny cat anticipating a new toy. Matt bowed to her, and after a moment, Kate followed suit.

  “Well?” Maeve asked in a drawl. “What is it to be?”

  “We have no choice but to accept the quest, and therefore I accept the geas, Majesty,” Matt said, his voice bitter.

  “Why so glum, Matt O’Brien?” She stroked her bare thigh where it showed through a long slit in her skirts. “Are you so tired of me you don’t wish to be by my side?”

  “You are a beautiful woman, Majesty, but the decision is soured because I have no choice. Any man who values his freedom values the right to choose, and you have denied me that.”

  “I’m a selfish woman, O’Brien,” she said, and reaching out a finger, tipped his face to regard it. “Ailell, my husband, would tell you that.” She nodded, her eyes glinting, then sat upright with a fluid motion. “So, to business. You Matt O’Brien do hereby swear by all the rules of geas that you will accept the quest I lay upon you with all its terms and conditions. If you break the oath, then may the gods have mercy on your soul ‑‑ for I surely won’t!”

  “I do hereby swear to honor the geas, that I shall accept the secret word in exchange for sharing your bed,” he ground out, and as he finished speaking, Kate felt pins and needles run over her entire body. She shivered, and caught a glimpse of a still figure watching from the side of the hall. She turned her head to look and saw Fergus Mac Nessa regarding her with a knowing smile, his harp clutched in his hands. He gave her a half-bow before turning his attention back to the queen.

  “The geas has been accepted and is now in force!” Maeve pronounced, holding up her hands, and all her warriors and servants there assembled nodded gravely. It was no light matter.

  Maeve gestured for Matt to move closer, and he stepped onto the dais. She put her hand up behind his head and drew it down so she could whisper in his ear. He blinked, drew back and looked at her; she nodded. “Such is the word. Speak it to no other until you reach your goal, on pain of death. Now go,” she said, and waved Matt and Kate away with a look of profound satisfaction. They bowed with reluctance and withdrew, to talk over what to do next.

  Fergus sidled over to them before they had exchanged more than a few words and bowed. “If I may interrupt?” he said. “I have a proposition for you, Katherine. May I speak to you in private?”

  Matt looked at him with disgust and stalked off. Kate looked at his retreating back, then turned to the bard. “What do you want?”

  “You heard the queen speak of the giant that guards the treasure,” he said. “Such a creature would take a great champion to defeat it, and, with respect, I don’t think Master O’Brien is up to the task.”

  “Maybe you’re underestimating him,” she said, folding her arms.

  “Perhaps, but I know what I see.”

  “Is that all you want to say?”

  “Don’t be so hasty!” he said, patting the air with a calming motion. “I’ve not finished.” He held up his harp. “There is a saying, ‘music soothes the savage breast,’ and my music upon this harp will do just that.” He strummed a chord, and the plangent notes shivered on the air.

  Her skin prickled again, and she regarded the harp with suspicion. “It doesn’t look anything special,” she said.

  “Looks aren’t everything, Katherine. Did you not feel the power when I strummed that chord?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just so. With my song and my music upon this harp, I can soothe the guardian of the tower until it falls asleep. With care, you and your big friend can creep into the tower and take the cauldron without waking the giant.”

  “I’ve heard such stories before,” she said. “Are you one hundred percent sure it’ll work?”

  “Of course!” He smiled. “Once your friend has spoken the word, I shall step forward and play. The giant will fall asleep before it can do any harm, helpless before the charm of music.”

  “It sounds good; we could use all the help we can get.”

  Fergus tapped his chin. “There is one condition,” he said.

  “Which is?” she asked, looking at him with a sinking feeling in her breast. Somehow she just knew what he was going to say.

  “In return for my help, you must sleep with me.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mór didn’t stick around to see the adventurers set off for Moygara the next day, the bard in tow. Once matters had been set in hand, she was content to let them take their course while she tended to other business. She was feeling tired and in serious need of rest and recuperation. Slipping past the guards on the rear gate, she made her way up the track and into the woodlands.

  The area around the royal ráth was as safe as anywhere could be in the wartime conditions, and she was safer yet. News of her reputation got around, and few would dare meddle with a Druidess of her caliber. She hummed a tune as she walked through the woodlands, heading for the shack and a long, well-earned rest. It would take seven days and nights before word of the success or failure of the expedition got back to the ráth, and she would be there to hear the news in good time. She felt a nasty smile tugging at her mouth, and let it out to play. The odds were extremely good that the adventurers would fail, which suited her very well.

  It was as she was passing through a glade set on the northern slope of the hill that something caught her attention. The glade had an excellent view over the rolling hills and woods, and from it she could also see down into the valley. A chariot moved there, passing through a broad swathe of grassland shaded by the edge of a wood. She stopped and peered down at it, judging the distance to be a half-mile or so, and wondered which proud warrior owned the vehicle. From the way it traveled over the uneven ground it was a light war chariot, and bore the standard compliment of two men. As it emerged into the sunlight, she saw the color of the two ponies p
ulling it, and she went rigid with shock. One was black, the other white.

  She watched the vehicle pass out of sight, heading steadily north. It vanished through a gap in the woods, and she shook her mind free of the shock.

  The two guards on the rear gate stared with astonishment as the Druidess came pelting along the track at a speed a much younger woman would envy. Something in her face told them to fling the gate wide and stand aside, or face dire trouble.

  Mór ran into the hall, oblivious of the astonishment her hurried flight attracted, and ran up to the dais. Maeve rose from her throne, hands by her side and stared at the older woman. “What’s wrong?” she cried.

  “Cuchulainn!” Mór gasped, reaching the throne. The energy which had propelled her thus far faded, leaving her to collapse in a breathless heap at the foot of the throne.

  “What?” Maeve’s face went white.

  “Cuchulainn.” Mór grasped the hem of the queen’s robe and glared up at her, and dragged enough air into her aged lungs to speak. “I saw Cuchulainn in his chariot. Over the hill. The Hound is back!”

  * * * * *

  The adventurers rode three abreast with Kate in the middle. They made steady time north on a broad, but ill-defined trail. She didn’t speak to Matt for the first hour. From the first time he’d mentioned sleeping with the queen, she’d accepted the necessity, but since then it had seemed a flagrant breach of the trust that had built up between them. He obviously sensed something wasn’t right but had given up after a few abortive attempts at conversation and rode instead in palpable silence. From his washed-out appearance, the magic hadn’t been a total success in protecting him from the debilitating effects of all-night sex.

  She was glad of his silence anyway, as she was thinking of casting her travel spell again. No one had invented the saddle overnight, much to her disgust, and the trail was already proving arduous to her still delicate butt. But she hesitated to cast it, unsure what Fergus would think.

  The bard twisted in his seat and pulled his harp from amongst the roll of baggage hung on the pony’s haunches. Plucking a few chords he cocked his eye at her, grinned, and launched into “Shenandoah.”

  “Oh, brother!” Matt groused and guided his pony off to one side until he was almost out of earshot.

  “Have I offended Matt?” Fergus asked, looking over at the hunched figure.

  “Who cares?” Kate replied with a sour smile. “He’s been acting like a bear with a sore head and cock since he rolled out of the queen’s bed this morning.”

  “I’ve seen many a man in the same condition,” he said, nodding. “Few ‑‑ if any ‑‑ have matched Matt’s heroic prowess. Maeve’s screams kept me awake into the small hours.”

  “You and me both!” she grumbled. “Still, it was all for a good cause. She gave us the magic word and let us set off on this quest, with good company too,” she added, winking at him.

  Fergus blinked at her, and the ghost of a frown flickered across his face before he smiled broadly and bowed in his seat. “You’re too kind, oh dusky beauty.”

  “You’d not believe the trouble you’d be in if you called me that back where I come from,” Kate said.

  “It sounds like a most strange place. I’d like to see it some day.”

  “I’m not sure that’ll be possible. We got here by magical means, and I’m fucked if I know how we’re going to get home again.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, but sounded less than sincere.

  “Fergus, I’m not real sure I can live in this land like those born here. No offence.”

  “None taken. You’re looking so sad. Would you like to sing? A good song lightens the heart and gladdens the spirit.”

  She nodded and sighed. “You’re right. I’m on a real downer. Okay then, hit it daddy-oh!”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just play.”

  They ran the gamut of songs she’d taught him the previous evening, and she did feel better by the time they’d closed the jam session with “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

  “I didn’t know you were such an authority on folk music,” Matt said, surprising Kate. She started and looked around to see he’d ridden up unnoticed and was regarding them both with jaundiced eyes. “Maybe I’m just picking up some vibes from the land itself,” she said in a cool tone.

  “Whoa! She speaks to me!”

  “Why should I not?”

  He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I was under the impression you were pissed at me for sleeping with the queen.”

  “We knew you had to do it, but I don’t have to like it.”

  Fergus glanced at them both and steered his pony away. Anyone watching would think something very odd was going down in their little party. Kate conceded to herself that the spy’s perception wouldn’t be very far from the truth.

  “We agreed!” Matt snapped.

  “We did.”

  “I thought you cared for me.”

  “Huh?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Where did that come from? You’re the one who reckoned the last fuck we had wasn’t anything serious!”

  “When did I ever say that?”

  “You didn’t?” She blinked. His words raised a kind of echo in her mind, an echo that had a saw-edged buzz to it.

  “No,” he said. “I loved what we did.”

  She so wanted to believe he felt something for her but the echo in her mind grew to a point where it distracted her from considering it.

  “Maybe I was wrong in some of the things I said or did,” Matt said softly, “but I do care about you.”

  “Oh, that’s rich!” Kate glanced at Fergus then back to Matt. “Is it because you’re jealous? I’ve been paying Fergus more attention so now you want to claim me! Yet you fucked the queen without too much hesitation I could see!”

  “It wasn’t like that, and I’m not jealous of Fergus.” He drew a deep breath. “I had to sleep with the queen to get us out of here. I was forced to sleep with her! Kate, I said I cared for you then, and I mean it now.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” Kate replied. “Matt, I really do like you, and I thought I could handle you and the queen, but ...”

  “If you really do like me, and you’re not just yanking my crank, then you’d accept what I had to do and forgive me!”

  “I think the Queen-Bitch of Connacht yanked your crank often enough last night!” she retorted, her anger flaring again. “From her screams, I think you went above and beyond the call of duty with that one, Matt.”

  “I did what I had to do,” Matt said again. Kate tilted her chin up and away, refusing to look at him. Matt snorted and twitched his reins, steering the pony away again.

  “That’s right, walk away!” Kate called after him. “Just like a man!”

  Cuchulainn watched the party from the vantage point of a low hill off to one side of the track. His god-like vision enabled him to see the cross expression on Katherine’s face, and the miserable one on Matt’s. He hunkered down in the shade of a tree and considered the matter. It looked like morale in the party was low, but at least they were heading in the right direction.

  One sore point with him was the presence of the bard. Fergus Mac Nessa was a known quantity in most of the courts of Eirin, and because of that, he was barred from quite a few of those. Espionage would only gain its name from the French; spying was as old as humanity. Cuchulainn wasn’t quite sure how much the bard had been involved in his own unexpected journey into the strange future of his land, but he suspected he’d played quite a significant role.

  He crept back through the undergrowth and rejoined Laeg. Mounting the vehicle, he nodded to the driver, who clicked his tongue. The ponies took up the strain and trotted away along the game trail that ran through the woods. Cuchulainn had faith in Katherine and Matt, but he would watch over them all the same.

  * * * * *

  Kate decided not to use her magic that day, and by the time the afternoon began its first imperceptible fading into evening, she was regret
ting it. Her head ached, her butt ached, and her thighs were tired from clamping onto the pony’s flanks. The one thing she was thankful for was the way the landscape had become more level. Going uphill and down dale had been one of the worst parts of the journey. “Are we going to make camp soon?” she asked, squinting up at the sun. “We don’t want it to get dark before we set up.”

  The men had rejoined her, Matt still seemed to be in his brown study, which hadn’t lifted at all in the course of the day. Fergus, on the other hand, had proved a lively and witty companion, venturing jokes and snatches of doggerel that had her in fits. The dark looks Matt shot the other man only served to reinforce the attraction she felt for the bard. That had led in turn to a desire to sample Fergus’s other qualities. If Matt could sleep with the queen, then surely she would be entitled to seduce Mac Nessa. It was only fair. As soon as the thought swept through her mind, Kate furrowed her brow. It wasn’t like her to seek a petty revenge like that. She shrugged, hoping it was only a passing fancy.

  But a seductive voice in her mind was whispering. You want to do it with Fergus! You want him between your thighs. Show Matt O’Brien that he isn’t the only one who can screw around! Kate shook her head. It was like trying to get rid of an annoying insect. The crazy thought would fly off for a few moments then the seductive buzz would start all over again.

  When a suitable glade appeared, with a stream coursing down the nearby slope, they halted and made camp for the night. Kate found she was looking around, searching for and rating different places for an amorous assignation. She shook herself; something didn’t feel right, but the warm thought of Fergus’ cock sliding inside her replaced the treacherous voice with one that said, Go for it. She tried to ignore the feeling by helping to set up camp for the night.

  Matt built a fire using a tinderbox. In spite of her cooler feelings toward him, she was impressed by his field craft. Fergus fetched water from the brook and set it on a forked branch over the blaze to boil. She watched his capable hands, the ready smile he flashed, the way the deepening dusk and reflected firelight enhanced his attractive features.