Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  He had known she was following him – that had to be it. This was what he had wanted from me, a cover to put off some woman he had grown tired of. I was surprised he was going to such lengths; I’d never seen him have any trouble before telling anyone they were no longer welcome in his company. It appeared to be his default setting.

  “Gideon,” the voice came again, an insistence that suggested she was not leaving without speaking to him.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” he said, stepping fractionally closer to me so that his body was pressed against mine as he held me against the wall. One leg was nudging between mine in a way that was all too suggestive and way out of line. I stiffened and began to push him off.

  His body was hard and strong and his breath was warm against my ear as he breathed a word of warning into it. “Do we have a deal?”

  I scowled at him but let my body melt. Whatever game he was playing was not about me but about the woman behind us; the more I went along with it, the sooner it would be over.

  I lifted my arms and embraced him, moaning as he placed his lips against my neck in response to a kiss he wasn’t giving me. His hands roamed through my hair and cupped my head. I gritted my teeth against the invasion. He was barely touching me and only in the least intimate of places but his hands were talented. Given the practice he had, by all accounts, notched up, they should be. I couldn’t take much more of this.

  A featherlight touch ran up my face, the tender investigation of a lover’s features. I bit my lip as I felt my breath hitch. I could feel his breath expand in his chest.

  “Gideon,” the voice came a third time.

  His dark head lifted and he turned his head to eye the woman rounding the corner.

  “What do you want?” he growled, conveying his displeasure at the interruption. I winced for the poor discarded fool who continued to chase him.

  “I would like to speak with you.” The voice was cool and calm, if somewhat annoyed. “You make it difficult.”

  “Well, as I said, I’m a little busy at present,” he said, turning to face her and bringing me around as he did so. One hand was on my shoulder, the other laid possessively just above my chest – not inappropriate enough for me to protest, but enough that anyone looking at us would be in no doubt of our intimacy.

  Fidelma’s face was genuinely surprised as she took me in.

  “Cassandra?”

  The High Druid was who he was avoiding? My face burned. What must she think of me? Despite our brief previous acquaintance, we hadn’t really spoken since her arrival. I had hoped it was because she didn’t want to be seen to favour Devyn, though I was aware she was also working with Ewan and Marcus in the healing chamber. I couldn’t meet her eyes now. What could she want with Gideon? Surely not… She was ancient.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. I looked up to see which of us she was addressing as I squirmed inwardly, but her gaze was directed over my head.

  “What does it look like?” came the insouciant answer. I was going to kill him. What was he playing at? I was mortified.

  “It looks like you play childish games,” she sighed sadly.

  “If you say so, druid,” he said dismissively.

  She stepped towards us and took his hand off my chest, for which I was grateful, despite the odd fleeting moment of—

  No, there was no fleeting moment of anything. The sooner this oaf was no longer touching me, the better. The fact that even a corpse would welcome his clever touch was irrelevant.

  My relief was momentary as he rested his hand back on my stomach.

  “The time for childish things ends soon.”

  With one last look at the man behind me, she was gone.

  As soon as her footsteps faded, I threw off his hands and whirled about.

  “What in Hades was that?” I hissed. But I pulled up short as I took in the expression on his face. Gideon, whose impassive features rarely revealed more than his usual cavalier smirk, looked like a crushed little boy as he stared in the direction Fidelma had taken.

  “Gideon?” Without thinking, I lifted my hand to his face to soothe the pain I saw there.

  His hand caught mine before it could reach him though, a more familiar arrogant expression now in place.

  “What’s this? You interested in a little more, Cat?” He stepped closer to me once again, this time for nobody else’s benefit but his own.

  “Aargh.” I ground my teeth, refusing to acknowledge that his proximity was bothering me. “My name is not Cat.”

  “You wish me to call you by the name the Romans used for you? No, my lady. I will not. The Griffin calls you Cass; it is not so dissimilar and you don’t object to him?” An eyebrow challenged me to explain why Devyn was allowed to be the exception. “Besides, I like it. You are a hissy little thing.”

  “Get off me.” I had never felt more in need of hitting anyone in my life. The desire to knock the knowing smirk off his face was overwhelming.

  “As you wish, m’lady.” He stepped away. “But if you ever need a little warming on a cold night, I’d be happy to oblige.”

  And with a knowing wink that said he was well aware that I wasn’t as indifferent to him as I pretended, he was gone. Insufferable, odious, arrogant—! My brain couldn’t supply the adjectives fast enough for my fury. What was that all about? I loathed him. Whatever was between him and Fidelma baffled me but was not my greatest concern.

  The lingering warmth of his touch on my belly was wearing off and I rubbed the heel of my hand across my front just to wipe away the last traces. The whole thing had been strange. Druids. The only thing even more incomprehensible than a Celt.

  That evening, there was a change in tone from the almost casual question-and-answer sessions of the preceeding evenings.

  “Lords and ladies, you were assembled here to judge the case of Devyn Glyndŵr who broke his oath to the Lakelands. Lord Devyn, you gave your oath to Mercia following your father’s exile, is this true?” the High Druid asked.

  “It is.” Devyn stood tall and alone in the centre of the room.

  “What was that oath?” Every bone in my body tightened at Fidelma’s question. They had spent the last few evenings concentrating on what had happened since Devyn left, and now they were going back to the beginning to discuss the offence itself.

  “To serve the Kingdom of Mercia until my last breath.”

  “An oath you then broke?”

  “Yes.”

  Even though everyone in the room was more than aware that Devyn had left his lord, there was still an audible intake of breath as he responded.

  “Why did you forsake that oath?” Fidelma’s attempt to remind the court of his good intentions was cut off as Lord Montgomery interjected. As an Anglian, his stance had been much more martial than the others’ throughout the trial, focusing on obedience and allegiance and so on.

  “What does it matter why he broke his oath? His word was given – the highest bond in our society. If I cannot believe in the integrity of the fealty and promises given to me or the loyalty that I owe to my people in return, then all would fall asunder.”

  “He was a child when he gave his word,” Llewelyn objected.

  Fidelma leaned across the table, raising her palm for silence.

  “Devyn Glyndŵr, do you feel you were too young to be bound by the oath you gave?”

  “No.”

  What was she doing? Dammit, why wouldn’t Devyn say anything to defend himself?

  “Why then, did you forsake it?” the druid probed.

  “I believed I had a prior obligation.”

  “What was that?”

  “My duty to the Lady of the Lake is gods-given and, as such, I believe takes priority over my sworn word,” he replied matter-of-factly. He wouldn’t lie to this court, I realised, no matter how crazy his answers would appear to them.

  The lords looked at each other.

  “What duty could you owe to the lady so many years after her death?” Fidelma had tested me in
Londinium and had deemed me no more than a powerful latent. She had no idea that he had succeeded in his quest. This line of questioning about why he had abandoned his oath to chase ghosts would make him look reckless at best and utterly unhinged at worst.

  “I did not believe her to be dead.” Devyn’s tone was implacable and it was easy to visualise now the intractable boy he had once been, whose insistence on the impossible had so maddened a grief-stricken court.

  Rion Deverell’s face was stony as he became the centre of attention, all curious to see what he made of Devyn’s insistence that his mother and sister weren’t murdered all those years ago.

  “You believe the lady was captured and kept in Londinium all these years?” Fidelma clarified.

  “Yes.”

  This time, the High Druid herself looked at Deverell for his reaction.

  “If the lady were alive, your father would have said so. As the Griffin, he would have been able to sense her. He would have been driven to go to her,” she reasoned with Devyn. “He wouldn’t have faded into his exile under house arrest.”

  “My father’s duty was over. Mine is not,” Devyn stated blandly.

  “Are you saying that the lady’s daughter is alive?”

  “I believed she was,” Devyn answered, stepping around the question.

  “You felt her and you were compelled to go to her?” the druid asked.

  “No. I couldn’t sense her, but I knew she was still alive.”

  “How?”

  “When I was sixteen, some of the gifts of the Griffin manifested. I believed it proof that she lived.”

  “So, you went to Londinium,” Fidelma completed for him.

  Devyn bowed his head, his back straight but his head lowered in deference to the court.

  “Yes.”

  “Where you have stayed until now.”

  “Yes,” Devyn answered simply.

  “And in these many years you searched for the new lady, did you find any trace of her?” Lady Emrick asked.

  “I thought I would be able to sense her once I was in Londinium, but no, m’lady, there was no trace that she was alive through the bond we had shared when she was a baby,” Devyn answered carefully. For years, he hadn’t been able to sense me, the bond between us having been broken since the day my mother died. His only clues had been non-magical ones he found inside the city’s databases, something in the perfection of the records alerting him that they were manufactured. It had been enough to give him the belief that there was more to me than met the eye, despite my lack of magic.

  “Yet you did not return home?” Lady Emrick pushed.

  “I had to be sure.” Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he had refused to give up on me.

  “And are you sure now?”

  “Yes, m’lady.”

  Gideon’s eyes flashed across at me, deeply frustrated at the farce playing out in front of us.

  “Your participation in the tragic events that took place in the borderlands stripped your family of all honour. The King of Mercia took pity on you and allowed you to foster in his home and learn alongside his son so that you might still have a life worth living. You swore that oath of loyalty freely and it is to your shame that you walked away and broke what was left of the lord’s heart. He did not live long after your desertion,” Lady Morwyn recounted.

  Devyn had remained rigidly controlled but this was news to him, and he swung jerkily to face Deverell, looking for confirmation. The King of Mercia did not even deign to flick his eyes in Devyn’s direction, but that was confirmation enough.

  Nobody had thought to tell him. Deverell had chosen to say nothing, though he must have known what a blow it would be to the boy who had grown up in their home.

  As for myself, I dismissed the flicker that ran through me. I didn’t have time to deal with learning how my father had died, right now.

  “Do you have anything to say in your defence?” Fidelma asked, her eyes flicking lightly to me.

  Still stunned at the blow, Devyn said nothing. Our hopes were pinned on his transgression from years ago being blamed on his youth and his commitment to his responsibility as the Griffin. Bronwyn’s eyes locked with mine, her grim expression telling me to stick to the plan to avoid adding the complication of my resurrection and our subsequent decision to prioritise Devyn’s health over my safety.

  But surely once they knew he had succeeded in finding me, his transgression of leaving would be forgiven? It certainly sounded like his being the Griffin, and the responsibilities that came with that, overrode any other promises of loyalty he might give.

  The jury of peers removed themselves from the room to deliberate.

  They were not gone long, and on returning they were sombre and difficult to read.

  The High Druid, lords and ladies lined up behind the table and remained standing.

  “The court has reached a decision.”

  My stomach sank as I took in their grim expressions.

  “Hear me out first, I beg you,” Llewelyn interjected. “I have no son. Give my nephew into my care and I will—”

  The druid lifted her hand and Llewelyn was forced into silence.

  “I have already heard your proposition, Lord Llewelyn. Your appeal is refused.”

  What was she doing? Why wouldn’t she let him appeal? He was Devyn’s last chance. Fidelma looked to her left and right to make sure none of the other nobles planned any further intervention.

  “As Lord Montgomery and Lady Morwyn have said, integrity and fealty are central to our laws and society. Devyn Glyndŵr, you have repeatedly broken this most fundamental pact. Your word cannot be trusted and you sit beneath the worms in the ground. We all live in service to a higher goal – to the gods, to the land, to the water, to the air. You serve none of these and so none will serve you. You will be taken from this court and the axe shall end your life, whereupon you shall be burned so that no trace of you remains to burden the earth. That is the court’s decision. Sentence to be carried out immediately.”

  I couldn’t have heard correctly. Death? My hands pushed the hair off my face and I looked up, but I couldn’t see. My skin felt as if… They couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t let them do this.

  I stepped forward. Marcus’s hand tried to restrain me but I pulled away and swung myself out onto the floor.

  “No!” I was fairly vibrating with anger. My voice was shaking with it.

  Devyn attempted to stand up and speak, but I couldn’t hear anything over the roaring of surf and thunder in my ears. I would bring this castle down on top of the lot of them.

  All eyes were on me as a wild wind whipped through the hall.

  “You cannot kill the Griffin,” I stated.

  Lord Montgomery laughed dismissively. “Griffin? There is no Griffin. “

  “Devyn Glyndŵr is the Griffin,” I repeated.

  Llewelyn barely reacted, his hollowed eyes still registering the verdict. The King of Mercia watched remotely from an expressionless face. The other lords looked at each other in confusion.

  “My child, you don’t understand. That title is no more; it was given to the protector of the Lady of the Lake.” Lady Emrick hesitated. It was a heavily guarded secret that the lady had died all those years ago. It was a subterfuge Devyn owed his life to – that all the Britons relied upon to protect them from the council and the imperial legions. Killing the Griffin and his son would only have added substance to any rumours of the lady’s death. The Britons had managed to keep it quiet for years, to ensure that knowledge of it never made it as far as the walls. Or so they had thought. I was more convinced than ever that the praetor knew all too well that the Lady of the Lake was dead because he was the one who had killed her.

  “The lady is dead, and her line is broken. There is no new female heir to her power,” Lady Morwyn explained gruffly. “With no lady to protect and his oath broken, the Griffin’s life is owed to no one but himself.”

  “And this court finds that an Oathbreaker has little use for
it himself,” Lord Montgomery said, his lip curling as he spoke.

  “His life is owed to me. He is my Griffin.”

  I turned my back on the nobles and crossed to Devyn. His intense, dark gaze burned into me as he stood and we locked eyes for a moment before he nodded. My life might still be in danger, but he would not lay his neck bare for the axe if it meant leaving me unprotected. The storm of shouting and speculation was no more than a murmur to us, background noise inside our private bubble.

  I turned, my hand taking Devyn’s as I faced the crowd. A deathly hush fell.

  Rion Deverell had left the high table and now stood in front of us. He was preternaturally still.

  “Your Griffin?” he said tonelessly.

  I met the stormy eyes that were the only indication of the emotion swirling inside him. Gideon had made his way onto the floor and stood at his lord’s shoulder, his face stoic, showing no indication that he knew anything.

  “My Griffin.”

  “I found her,” Devyn said from beside me, his hand squeezing mine as he finally delivered the news to my brother that he had succeeded in the mission he had set out on almost ten years earlier. The mission that had caused him to break the very oath for which he had just been condemmed.

  “It’s true, Rion,” Bronwyn added as the wind died in the hall. “He wasn’t sure when we were in Londinium. He’s sure now.”

  “How?” Just one word, chipped in ice.

  “The bond has returned.”

  Deverell’s eyes narrowed.

  Gideon stepped forward, his mouth twisted. “I’ve seen it. She has powers. The hounds didn’t drown the way we said; the Severn took them for her. She pulls in more energy than I’ve ever seen before. The air, the water… the earth itself responds to her. “

  The blue eyes in front of me locked with mine as he froze. Then his eyes flicked to our interlinked hands.

  Suddenly, our hands were wrenched apart as Devyn went flying across the floor as a result of Deverell’s fist connecting with his face.

  Gideon reached for the king as he yanked Devyn to his feet in apparent preparation for striking him again. Gideon held Deverell back, whispering in his ear, his muscles bunching as he restrained him. I swear it felt as if the ground shook from the forces contained in that embrace.