[Celtic Legends 01.0] Twice Upon a Time Page 7

Och, but the spirit of Niall forgive her, she wanted Conor here. How he filled the clearing! His laughter shook the very trees. He crossed wits with her with the same bright, teasing ease which he would cross swords with a foster-brother. She felt like a flower closed against the world—and Conor was the sun, coaxing her to open up, tempting her to show her face to his warmth. Even as she struggled and fought, she felt herself bursting into full bloom.

  A flash of red fur bolted from around the hut, tumbled down the slick path, and wrapped itself around her legs with a low, frightened moan. The trembling wolfhound pup lifted liquid eyes to her face.

  “Hush, precious.” Brigid dipped down to trail her fingers through his coat. “It’s nothing but the whispers of the Otherworld. They mean no harm to you.”

  The pup trotted around her ankles as she poured half the milk into the butter churn standing behind her hut, and half of what remained into a wide-necked bladder she had tucked into her girdle of bells. She tilted the bowl to her lips and let the froth slide down her throat. The pup yipped piteously, until Brigid laid the wooden bowl on the ground and let the wolfhound lap up what remained.

  “The light of morning becomes you, lass.”

  For a moment Brigid wondered if he were just another specter conjured by her unruly Sight, but then the boughs parted and bathed him in a bolt of light. His dark hair glistened with moisture, as if it was newly washed, and the ends twined against the twisted rope of gold encircling his neck. Garnets flashed from his fist-sized brooch, and from the pounded gold girdle cinching his tunic at the waist. His scarlet cloak flapped against his calves with the force of the breeze.

  She bent over to pick up the bladder of milk so that her hair would slide forward and veil from him her blush. “You’re brave to be walking about on Lughnasa morning.” She hugged the milk-warmed skin to her midriff. “Did you not fear you’d lose the path and wander into the Otherworld?”

  “Perhaps I have.” His treacherously handsome smile widened, as he slid his gaze down the length of her body. “No fairy-queen could weave a stronger enchantment than who I see before me.”

  “You’ve the mists in your eyes.” She flipped several gold-tipped plaits over her shoulder, trying in vain to stanch a swift rush of pleasure. “You’ll whistle another air, Conor, once I’ve set you to your task.” She gestured to an axe whose blade was buried in one of the logs of the woodpile. “You’ll need that today.”

  “More woodcutting then.”

  “Aye.”

  “That proves your magic, to have a king rising at the crow of the cock to do a slave’s work at a maiden’s bidding.”

  “It was you who demanded another game yesterday eve.”

  “Aye, and I’ll demand another again.” His shadow fell upon her with all the power of a Druid’s hand. “Fate will be upon us both soon enough. It’s only a matter of time before the dice turn my way.”

  “Don’t be holding your breath. I won’t have you passing out at my feet for lack of air.”

  She brushed past him into the hut, wondering how he could treat the inevitable battle with such levity, when it would undoubtedly mean his death. Niall had done the same thing. Oh, she understood little of the way of warriors, and the day was too fine and bright to dwell on that which she couldn’t change. Better to continue on as they had these past days, pretending that nothing had changed, that fate, in the end, would somehow turn a kind face.

  She tugged a flagon half-full with mead from its hook on the wall and replaced it with the bladder of milk. She tossed the mead in a basket of woven rowan bark, added the fidchell board, and then dribbled in hazelnuts and yew berries and a loaf of barley bread. Conor’s shadow darkened the doorway.

  “Are you mad, woman?” Conor hefted the ball of fur. The puppy licked his muzzle and lolled out his tongue. “You’re feeding milk to the spawn of the most ferocious wolfhound in Erin?”

  “The pup wanted it.” The air thickened with Conor’s presence within the small confines of the hut. “I’ll not deny him.”

  “I brought the pup to defend you, and you raise him on cream and honey.”

  “It’s only you I need defending from, and he licks your boots as if you’re his sire.”

  “There are other dangers in these woods.”

  “Aye.” She hurried by him into the open clearing. “I’ve avoided them well enough these seven years.” She eyed the axe and then glanced at the pup in his arms. “Will you be cutting wood with the wolfhound, then?”

  “Not much good he’ll be at that, or anything else, until you start cutting his teeth on raw meat.” He set the pup on the grass and then jerked the blade out of the wood. “Feed a wild creature milk and he’ll grow as tame as a lamb.”

  “Then perhaps you should have a sip.” She headed towards the forest higher on the hill. “Of the two of you, it’s you who more needs the taming.”

  His yelp of laughter echoed through the clearing. The sound buffeted away the mists. Suddenly the sunlight poured down around them like amber rain, and Brigid wondered why it always seemed that Conor carried the daylight upon his shoulders.

  “You’ll be hoping in vain, lass.” He settled the axe handle on his shoulder and fell into pace beside her. The pup yipped and leapt around their feet. “It’s been one-and-thirty summers since I suckled from a breast for milk.”

  The innuendo robbed her of breath. “If you have one-and-thirty summers, then I’m the Morrígan.”

  He swept down in mock obeisance. “Then Hail, O raven-queen of war.”

  She tried not to grin.

  “Do you think a man could rise to a kingship without seeing ten or fifteen years of battle?”

  She squinted at his skin, stretched across his wide-boned face. No lines fanned out at the corners of his startling silver eyes. No gray salted his rich auburn locks. Yet she had been hearing about Conor of the O’Neill since she was a little girl. How like Cú Chulainn, that legendary Ulster warrior who once battled against Connacht. Though the warrior of yore had lived barely thirty summers, he had never grown a beard.

  Cold fingers slithered up the back of her neck. It was said that Cú Chulainn had been the son of Lúgh of the Long Arm, a god and one of the Sídh.

  “You’re not the first to think me too young to hold a crown, but I’ve battle scars enough to prove my mettle.” He petted the hilt of his bronze-sheathed sword. “And the iron to prove my words.”

  “The years have barely touched your face.”

  A gleam lit his eye. “Aye, and there’s no less life a-burning in me for the wear of time, either.”

  “It explains why you keep coming back here. There’s no bringing to heel an old and grizzled hound.”

  “Haven’t you yoked me well enough? You’ve got me doing your bidding as easily as a Briton slave.”

  “It’s your honor that sets you on my path so early. I beat you in brandubh yesterday at sunset, and you’ve yet to pay the price.”

  “Aye.”

  “You see? You can put reins on a horse, but that doesn’t mean you can ride him.”

  “If you’ll be wanting a ride, lass—”

  “And there you go again. All the milk from all the cows on all of Erin couldn’t tame you.”

  “You don’t want a man who can be tamed. We both know that.”

  Their gazes met and her bones softened like beeswax left in the midsummer sun. He had no right to stare through her with those clear gray eyes. Ruthless, he was, to seek her out and seduce her, when a thousand women would go willingly to his pallet, when he knew she was destined for another, when he knew that her heart yearned for more than just the merging of their hungry bodies. Could he not see how she lived on the edges of the world? Could he not see how strongly she ached for a place she could belong—a place she could call home?

  Could he not see the danger?

  He said, moments later, “If it’s wood you want, lass, we’ve passed enough good oak for that.”

  She shook her head. “It’s a special wood I se
ek. You’ve a pyre to build on the top of this hill.”

  “A Lughnasa fire?”

  “Aye.”

  “There’s no need of that. My own Druids are lighting fires near the ring-fort.”

  “That won’t do any good.” She hitched up her tunic as the path steepened. “Your men will go, I’m sure, but my people are too full of fear to dare.”

  “Then they won’t come here.”

  “They come every year. They may be Christian now, but their Celts’ blood still hears the call of the fires.”

  She stopped and peered around the bristling young tree trunks until she found what she sought. “There.” She dropped the basket upon the moss. “That yew and oak, the ones twined with woodbine. That’s the sign of the gods’ blessing. Those trees must be sacrificed for the fires.”

  Conor’s mood darkened. He wrestled off his mantle and then tossed his brooch atop it. “Let’s be done with it, then.”

  The yew and the oak had trunks no thicker than the span of a man’s hands. With five or six strokes of the axe, the oak creaked, snapped, and thudded to the forest floor. She sensed anger in the stiff line of Conor’s shoulders as he whirled around to the yew, and there was a fierceness in his swing, but she held her tongue. It was disrespectful to speak at the cutting. When the yew crashed to the earth, golden light flooded down from the hole left in the canopy.

  She gathered Conor’s discarded cloak and brooch as he tucked the saplings one under each arm and headed to the height of the hill, raking the earth behind him with their crowns. He tossed the wood across an open plain, and snapped the branches off as if they were nothing but kindling. She settled in the shade, watching him. The wolfhound pup trotted over to curl in her lap.

  His eyes flashed a dangerous, stormy gray as he bound one clutch of sticks. “You should have found me another task, Brigid.”

  “A man as bold and brawny as you should have no trouble with a bit of tree.”

  “It’s not the woodcutting I object to.” He tossed the bound branches aside. “For you, I’d do it. But I’ve no mind to do work for the likes of the people of Morna.”

  “I’m the last of the Druid blood, as thin as it is.” She shrugged and scratched the wolfhound behind its ears. “It’s my duty.”

  “You owe nothing to them.” He tugged the yew into the sunlight, his back running dark with sweat. “They’ve exiled you and scorned you and called you cailleach. Yet you still light these bonfires, so the cowards can sneak to the hill like thrice-wed men sneaking off to seek their bondswomen’s beds.”

  He set to the other trees’ branches. Slivers of wood flew as he snapped off bough after bough. Her ears rang with his words. It felt good to hear another say what she dared not even think, but she was ashamed of that feeling. Morna-born she was, and cast out or not, she could not deny her own blood.

  She tilted her chin. This Ulsterman knew neither his mother nor his father. If he could not understand the blood bonds of kin, then she’d argue another way. “If I don’t do this thing, Conor, then no one will. The ancient rituals will die.”

  “They won’t die.” A branch snapped in his hand. “Even in the shadows of Patrick’s church, in Armagh, I’ve seen highborn warriors make sacrifices in ancient pools.”

  “That is worse,” she argued, “for that church lies on an old sacred place, stolen from us.”

  “I’m no Druid,” he growled, “and I’ve no tongue for such things.” He hefted the axe in his wide-palmed hand. “This I know: The priests are foreigners. They come here now but their ways will die.”

  Brigid ran her hand over the pup’s soft coat and held her tongue. Conor was a warrior and held close a warrior’s code. The weak would die and the strong would survive, the good and the right would always emerge champion. But she lived amid the gray mists, and knew the uncertainties of the world. Strength did not always lie within the thickness of a man’s arm.

  Conor finished chopping the wood, and then wrestled the piles into two bristling pyres. Silently, she handed him the flagon of mead. Grasping it by the neck, he tipped the flagon and swilled his fill while rivulets of it ran down his neck. She smelled the faint, salty perfume of his sweat. A pulse throbbed in his throat. She imagined she could hear his heart beating strong and sure in his chest.

  “I’ve paid the price.” He thrust the dripping flagon into her hands. “Now, lass, we’ll sit to another game.”

  She met his clear gray gaze. He had not taken a blade to his face this morn. A sprinkling of dark bristle shadowed his jaw. Sweat glistened on his brow and flecks of bark and tiny slivers of wood speckled his skin. She yearned to run her fingertips over his cheek . . . just once, just to feel this man’s skin.

  “Another game, then.” She pulled away from the blinking blindness of him and headed toward her yellow cloak, spread on the grass in the shade. “I’ve plenty of tasks awaiting a man’s hand.”

  Brigid dropped the flagon of mead, vaguely thinking that the skin was still heavy though Conor had surely drank the most of it. She pulled the fidchell board out of her basket and laid it on the cloak between them. Above, the ash tree stretched its boughs to guard them from the mid-morning sun. Burrowed in the leaves, two blackbirds lilted their full lay. When she pushed aside the woven basket to make room for her legs, two ripe red apples suddenly rolled out from behind it.

  She bit into one of the crispy apples, savoring the sweetness of the fruit. She held it out to Conor as he made the first move on the fidchell board.

  He examined the apple, but did not take it. “There’s not an apple tree in all of Ireland that has dropped its fruit yet.”

  She lifted a brow. “Isn’t there?”

  “Aye. And I’m in no mind to be caught in your web of enchantment again.” He nudged the board with his hand. “I’m planning on winning this game.”

  “I can’t have you playing on an empty stomach.” She took another bite with relish. “But if you insist, I’ll keep the apples to myself.”

  He glanced at the other apple, lying in a saffron bed of folds. “I suppose it won’t help to scorn a gift from the gods.”

  A light breeze swept over the hill as they played, bringing with it the faintest perfume of heath. The holly rimming the slope quivered and rustled, but every time she turned, there’d be nothing there but the sway of a bough or a tremor of a bush. It was too bright now for the Sídh to be dancing in the shadows, even on Lughnasa day, but she sensed their presence around her. She wondered what made them so bold.

  Then, in the distance, above the chattering of the birds, the sweet sound of lyres drifted high on the air. She glanced at Conor, but all his concentration focused on the fidchell board. She strained her ears, listening to the hollow echoes of revelry in the Otherworld, as the fairy music surged and ebbed. The sound grew so loud she could hear voices raised in shouts and laughter; she could hear the stamping of dancing feet and the slosh of liquid as the Sídh sipped honeysuckle nectar from cups made of foxglove blossoms.

  “It seems your magic has worked against you, bean sí.”

  The music stopped. The chattering of blackbirds above deafened her. She blinked blankly at Conor. He was grinning and a light gleamed in his gray eyes.

  She leaned over the board. “My turn, is it?”

  “Nay.” He lifted the apple, which was still whole, though she knew he had taken several bites. “It’s my turn now.”

  Color ebbed from her cheeks. Her pegs were scattered all over, many lying upon the saffron cloak. She did not remember making a single move.

  Her eyes flew to his face. “You’ve won.”

  “Aye.”

  The sunlight dimmed as if a high, thin cloud passed across the sky. She sank back on one hip and narrowed her eyes. “There’s mischief afoot here.”

  “You won’t be trying to go back on your word now, lass.”

  “I keep my word.”

  She had no choice. The time had come to pay the smith for the magic he had forged into the blade. She felt the dar
kening of the wind around them. She smelled the first wispy, salt-sweet breath of the Otherworld. If they tempted fate on Lughnasa day, the gods themselves would rush through the thinning veils and put a halt to it. And she wanted Conor’s company, if only for one more day, just one more day of light and laughter.

  She looked him straight in the eye and tried to veer him away from the inevitable. “Well, Conor. You’ll want to know about your parentage, then.”

  “My parentage?”

  “Surely that is why you’ve been coming here all this time, doing a slave’s work and wagering at fidchell.” She chose her words carefully, for all she had were suspicions—nothing revealed to her through her visions—but if she were clever, she could draw his interest away from slaking his desire and bringing upon them the fury of the gods. “You’ll want to know about your father.”

  His body tightened. A bluish pall fell over the hilltop. A furtive, shifting breeze fluttered the hem of his tunic. Abruptly, he rose to his feet. He whirled his back to her, his bronze sword sheath banging against the metal bosses of his girdle.

  “A full moon ago, such a thing I wanted more than anything.” His eyes snapped to hers. “Now, you remind me of that which I’d completely forgotten—something I’ve searched all of Erin to know.”

  Her lashes swept down in shame. “It’s too great a thing for a man such as you to forget—”

  “Aye, but I have. Your eyes . . ..” His hands curled into fists. “They plunder a man’s senses.”

  “My eyes have been faulted for worst things, but I’ll take no blame for your own forgetfulness.” Her back stiffened. “It’s enough that you remember now, when the time has come to have your questions answered. If that be your price—”

  He swept away the fidchell board with a swipe of his hand. The pup leapt from a sound sleep as the wooden pieces scattered over him.

  “Look at me, woman.” Conor pitched down before her. He seized her by the chin and probed her eyes. “Lies don’t sit well on your tongue. You know nothing—nothing but suspicions—and I’ve had a bellyful of those.” His grip tightened. “You cannot delay the inevitable, not anymore.”