Brighid's Quest

by P. C. Cast

  “But I don’t find the thought of pleasuring him abhorrent.” She whispered the words aloud, and then put her face in her hands. Was she turning into some kind of horrid freak of nature? Or…Oh, Goddess! Could it be that she had fallen in love with Cuchulainn?

  She wasn’t entirely sure which would be worse.

  If she loved him that would certainly explain why her reaction to what she’d thought was Cuchulainn’s growing desire for Ciara had been so completely negative. She hadn’t been prejudiced against the winged woman—she’d been jealous of her! And then there was the ease with which she’d called his shattered soul into her dreams. With a groan she remembered Cuchulainn’s almost nonstop ribald teasing. Did some part of the warrior recognize her innermost feelings? It was possible—he had been in her dreams, which meant on some level he’d had access to her subconscious. Didn’t it?

  She didn’t know enough about this…this world of spirit and emotion. Trying to understand it was like trying to capture smoke and shadows! She was sure of very little except that the most damning evidence against her was the kiss, or more precisely, her reaction to it. His touch had made her forget who and what they were. Human…centaur…none of it had mattered when their lips had met and she’d inhaled him.

  She groaned again. Etain had been there! In some way the High Priestess had been with her during the soul-retrieval—encouraging and advising. Did she know what her son’s touch had made Brighid feel? Heat rushed into the Huntress’s face.

  Think logically! Etain’s lifemate, fashioned for her by Epona, was a centaur. Etain would not be shocked to learn that a centaur desired a human. And she must know that her son was a passionate warrior. Everyone knew that before Cuchulainn had fallen in love with Brenna he had rarely slept alone. Etain would not judge Brighid harshly for enjoying the kiss that restored her son’s soul to his body.

  But what would Epona’s Chosen think if she knew that the Huntress’s desire for her son hadn’t ended there?

  There was no sense in thinking about it. It had to end there.

  So Brighid made her decision. If Cuchulainn still thought he desired her, she would seek and gain Elphame’s permission for a temporary sojourn to Guardian Castle. By the time Brighid returned, the warrior’s passions would be back under control, and he would, doubtless, have found a human woman eager to share his bed.

  Actually, there was an excellent chance that when she returned to the castle today Cuchulainn would be back to himself, and probably worrying about how she would react to seeing him again. She’d focus on putting his mind at ease. She’d assure him that what passed between them last night would not affect their friendship. She would simply pretend that she’d felt nothing more for him than fleeting desire while they had been caught up in the intimate act of the soul-retrieval. Maybe they would even laugh about it together over a goblet of Etain’s excellent wine.

  The thought of carrying on such a pretense made her feel sick. She loathed dishonesty. It was against her nature to lie. But she damned well was not going to lose her home and the peace she had found at MacCallan Castle because of an impossible love.

  A twig snapped and the Huntress instinctively slowed her movements and tested the wind that blew softly into her face. She grimaced—boar. The beasts were always rank with mud and anger. She drew an arrow from her quiver and felt the stillness of the hunt blanket her tumultuous thoughts. This was something she knew she could control. She would take the boar, thank Epona for its sustaining life, and then be too damned busy dressing it out and hauling it back to the castle to obsess over Cuchulainn. She’d made her decision. There could be no future with the warrior, so she would protect herself and her place at MacCallan Castle. She would deny her feelings for him. Someday the denial would become truth.

  As she’d predicted, the boar had made a wallow near the bank of the small stream. With the eerie silence of an experienced Huntress enhanced by the power inherent within her blood, Brighid crept closer without the boar detecting a single sign or scent of her. When it lolled half up in a sitting position, she notched the arrow and took sight. The arrow twanged and sped to its bloody bed, and as it pierced the boar the forest exploded with an unearthly shriek of pain. The Huntress was rushing forward before the sound died. She surged through the stream to where the boar’s body should have been and gasped in horror.

  The raven lay on the muddy ground with a bloody arrow piercing its chest.

  “Mother!” she cried, sinking down to her forelegs beside the twitching bird.

  Avenge me! The words screamed through Brighid’s mind, and then the bird lay still, its eyes turning milky with death. Brighid’s hand did not tremble as she stretched it out to touch the blood-soaked feathers of the dark bird. The instant her fingers made contact with the raven its body vanished, and Brighid found herself kneeling beside the dead boar.

  “Oh, Epona, what does it mean? What has happened?”

  There was no answer from the Goddess, and, feeling lost and alone, Brighid made herself bow her head and speak the traditional words to honor the spirit of the fallen boar. As she dressed the corpse and readied it to be carried back to Clan MacCallan she was filled with a terrible, unspeakable sense of dread.

  32

  “BRIGHID! BRIGHID! BRIGHID! I’ve been watching for you!” Liam began chattering at her as soon as she passed through the front gates of the castle.

  “The boy’s been waiting all morning,” the sentry called down.

  Brighid tried to shake off the sense of unease that had followed her from the forest. She flashed a strained smile up at the man. “But has he been waiting quietly?”

  The sentry’s hearty laugh was answer enough.

  “I didn’t know I had to be quiet inside the castle,” Liam muttered as he fell into step beside the Huntress. Then his eyes went big and round as he inspected the well-wrapped carcass she had strapped securely to the tether lines she dragged behind her. “What did you get?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “No!” She spoke sharply when he started to pull up a flap in the leather skin in which the boar was wrapped. “Use your sense of smell.”

  “But I don’t—” he began, but one look from her silenced him. “I’ll use my sense of smell,” he said.

  “Good. Use it all the way to the kitchen.”

  “I like the kitchen. It always smells good in there, and I like Wynne. She’s really pretty with all that red hair and—” Another pointed look from Brighid made him clamp his lips together. “I’ll scent the animal.”

  Brighid returned the friendly hellos from Clan members as she followed the grassy path to the rear kitchen entrance. She didn’t worry about unexpectedly meeting Cuchulainn. She knew he wasn’t inside the castle walls. How she knew it she didn’t damn well understand—but she could Feel his absence.

  More good news, she thought, feeling like she was coming to the end of her tolerance for mysterious signs from the spirit world. The centaur’s jaws clenched. She just wanted to be a Huntress—to live and hunt and have a secure, predictable life.

  Just as she entered the gate to the kitchen gardens, she noticed several of the older winged children bent over wilted looking rows of herbs and vegetables, digging, weeding and watering. She only had a moment to wonder how they had convinced the overprotective Wynne to allow them into her precious gardens, when Liam’s voice bubbled up like an irrepressible spring.

  “It smells like…like…like—” Liam took another big, audible sniff “—like mud and anger!”

  Brighid stopped and looked back at him. “What did you say?”

  He scuffed his taloned feet in the grass. “It smells like mud and anger?”

  “How do you know that?”

  He looked up at her with big eyes and shrugged his shoulders, wincing only slightly as the movement made his bandaged wing stir. “I don’t know. It’s just what it smells like to me. Is that wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “That is exactly right. Boars always smell like mud and anger.” B
efore he could begin hopping around in victory, she took his arm. “Be still and close your eyes.”

  Amazingly enough, the boy actually obeyed her. He froze and closed his eyes. She glanced around. The winged children were so busy prodding and pampering the plants that they hardly spared her a glance. For the moment, at least, she and Liam had some measure of privacy.

  “Breathe deeply in and slowly out. Three times,” she said, watching him closely.

  He did as she commanded.

  “Now, picture a boar in the forest.”

  “I don’t know what a boar looks like,” he said hesitantly.

  “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to picture the animal. Just think about the way it smells. Can you do that?”

  He nodded his head vigorously.

  “While you think about the way it smells, imagine the forest and imagine that you’re looking for an animal that smells of mud and anger. Tell me what you see.”

  Liam’s brow wrinkled as he concentrated. Then his brows shot up. “I see a bright red splotchy light!”

  She couldn’t believe it. The boy had the soul of a Huntress. She smiled. She had a winged apprentice who seemed more centaur than Fomorian, and she was in love with a human man. The smile grew into laughter. And she had wanted an uncomplicated life? Obviously Epona had other plans for her.

  Liam peeked one eye partially open at her. “Did I say something funny?”

  “No, my young apprentice. You said the exact right thing. Again. I’m just laughing at life.”

  “Why?” he asked, opening both his eyes.

  “Because sometimes it’s either laugh or cry. I prefer laugh. How about you?”

  He grinned. “Laugh!”

  “Och, there ye are!” Wynne stood, hands on hips, legs planted wide, in the rear doorway of her kitchen. The cook’s smile flashed. “I can tell ye honestly, Huntress, that I am greatly pleased that yer back home where ye belong.”

  Brighid’s laughter still danced in her eyes. “Thank you, Wynne.” She nodded her chin in the direction of the busy winged children. “I was just wondering how they managed to win their way into your sacred gardens.”

  “The bairns seem to know a thing or two about plants and herbs and such, and I thought to keep their wee hands busy. Besides, it has been a long, dry spring, and my herbs need the extra pampering.” Her imperious gaze swept over the gardens and the children. “But donna fash yourself. I’m keeping my eye on them.”

  Little heads turned up with toothy smiles. Brighid was surprised to see Wynne’s face soften in response.

  “You like children,” she said, more than a little shocked.

  Wynne’s emerald gaze came back to the Huntress and her full lips tilted up. “I canna deny it. I like the life bonny young ones bring to a castle.”

  “Huh,” Brighid said, thinking that Wynne wouldn’t like it so much if she’d been alone with seventy of them.

  “Donna use that tone with me, lassie, not when I see what is following ye around.” She pointed at Liam.

  Brighid cleared her throat. “Wynne, have you met my apprentice?”

  “No, but I’ve word of him.” She gave the boy an appraising look. “Another good Huntress ’tis always welcome in a kitchen.”

  “He’ll be a good Huntress,” Brighid said, causing Liam’s chest to swell. “Someday,” she added before the boy exploded.

  “Well then, young Liam,” Wynne said, moving out of the door frame to join them. “What is it ye have brought me?”

  “Boar!” Liam said proudly.

  “Did ya now?” Wynne clapped her hands together. “Wild boar! Goddess ’tis good to have ye home, Brighid! Bring it in—bring it in.” Her gleeful tone changed quickly to that of a warrior in command. “But mind where yer walkin’! Have a care with the young mint and basil shoots. This horrid dry weather has practically shriveled my garden to death.” When the Huntress and boy moved too slowly, she tapped her foot impatiently. “I dinna mean for ye to turn to molasses! Get the beastie in here. ’Tis none too soon for the dinner meal.”

  “Are we to move carefully or quickly?” Brighid said.

  “Both, of course!”

  Smiling at Wynne’s familiar bossiness, Brighid pulled the carcass into the kitchen, soaking in the warmth of the enthusiastic greetings called by the army of scullery maids. The rich smells and the bustling activity chased from her mind the last vestiges of the unease brought on by the vision of the fallen raven. By the Goddess, she loved this part of her life! It Felt right to provide for the Clan—and to be a part of a family unit. Liam was an unexpected element, but the boy had a gift. He could actually see animal spirits. So she’d just weave him into the fabric of her life.

  And Cuchulainn? He was equally as unexpected. Perhaps there was a way to stitch him into her life, as well.

  No. She was being foolish. Cuchulainn was already a part of her life. He was her Chieftain’s brother and her friend. That was the role fate had relegated to him. Simple. Logical. Predictable. Just the way she liked it.

  But wasn’t there even the smallest possibility that he could be more?

  “Brighid? Can we go, too?” Liam’s expectant question broke through her tangled thoughts.

  “Go?”

  “Aye, aye.” Wynne made rapid shooing motions with her hands at them. “Be gone. We donna have time to step ’round ye.”

  Brighid snorted at the cook, but before disappearing out the rear door she snagged something that still lay with the great carcass.

  “Come, Liam.” She headed to the door. “Getting in the way of a busy cook can be more dangerous than tracking wild beasts.” Out in the garden she tossed the lump she had been holding to her apprentice, who caught it neatly. “Speaking of tracking, do you know what that is?”

  Liam sniffed it before he answered. “A hoof.”

  “Of?”’

  “The boar, of course,” he said.

  “You know that now. You can smell it, and you know that I pulled it from the carcass. But would you know it as a boar’s hoofprint if you saw it in the forest?”

  Liam stared at the grisly relic of Brighid’s hunt. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s go find out,” she said. Then paused as they left the kitchen gardens. “How is your wing?”

  “It feels good,” he assured her. “I’m not tired at all.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What would Nara say if I asked her the same question?”

  “The same thing, I promise.” At her doubting look he added. “Ask her for yourself. She’s out with the rest of them.”

  “Out? Where?”

  “Where Wynne said, remember? That way—” he pointed to the south “—outside the castle. Everyone’s there setting up camp and trying to decide where to build the new buildings. I’d be there, too, but I thought I should wait for you.”

  “You did well,” she said absently. Already her senses were reaching, tendril-like, to the grassy plateau southeast of the castle. Easily, clearly, she Felt the brilliant golden light that was Cuchulainn’s spirit. Get it over with. You can’t live here and avoid seeing the man. “Yes, let’s join the others. And I’ll give you your first lesson in tracking.” She glanced down at the boy. He did look better, and he seemed to be moving more easily. But his wing was still bandaged securely to his back, and his color was paler than she would have liked. The centaur sighed and reached down to him. “Come on. Climb up.”

  His smile tugged at her heart. She lifted him to her back and felt one of his warm little hands rest on her shoulder. She knew without looking that the other hand still clutched the bloody hoof stump. His weight was slight and easy to bear and she found that she liked the feel of his hand on her shoulder and how he chattered about boars and hooves with the same excitement she had felt when she had been a young apprentice. She didn’t even mind the surprised smiles and stares the sentries gave her as she trotted back out the front gates.

  “Can we go fast?” Liam asked, leaning his chin on her shoulde
r and talking directly into her ear.

  She probably should have said no, that his wound was still too raw to be jostled, but she Felt the lure that was coming from the golden light. She would certainly surprise everyone if she galloped up with a laughing Liam astride her back. No one would expect such behavior from her.

  Perhaps it was time that she did a little of the unexpected.

  “Hold tight,” she said over her shoulder and launched herself forward. She did, of course, keep one hand on the boy’s leg to steady him, but she was pleased to feel the child settle into a deep, firm seat and hold tight to her. He didn’t bobble around and flail his arms annoyingly. Actually the boy stuck to her like a particularly persistent tick, an image that made her smile. When she pounded around the bend in the land and the southern plateau opened up before her, she ignored the workers, and widened her stride, cutting in and around the clumps of humans, centaurs and New Fomorians, and was rewarded with Liam’s whoop of excitement.

  She didn’t slow until she caught sight of Elphame’s distinctive figure. The Chieftain was part of a small group standing near the cliff, which fell dramatically down to the shore far below. Their heads were bowed over a large wooden table situated under an awning meant to serve as protection from the crisp sea wind. Brighid recognized Lochlan’s tall, winged shape, as well as the old centaur Stonemaster, Danann. Beside him stood a wide-shouldered, amber-haired warrior who made her heart squeeze in her chest.

  Once she saw Cuchulainn she didn’t have to tell herself sternly to go over there and get this first meeting over with. The truth was, she was drawn to him, as if his golden light was a beacon guiding her home. The Huntress galloped up to the small group in a rush of pounding hooves and boyish giggles. She slid to a stop beside Elphame, who laughed in surprise.

  “Brighid, Liam, I was wondering when the two of you would join us,” Elphame said, eyes glittering with humor.

  “Brighid got a boar! It smells like mud and anger. And I got its hoof!” Liam proudly held up the bloody stump like a trophy.