Deception's Pawn (Princesses of Myth) (23 page)

I stopped running and rubbed my eyes, still weary from weeping. “You make it look easy, Ea,” I said, glancing up to where the kestrel hovered just above a nearby line of trees. “I wish you could tell me your secret.” I blew my breath out sharply and shook dust from my dress. “Well, I’ll work on that, but now we should go home.”

That was when I realized I hadn’t brought the lure.

She did return to my hand … eventually. The light was fading when Ea had had enough of flight and finally deigned to notice the frantic earthbound girl calling her name.

“I suppose I should be flattered,” I told her as I secured her hood. “You only come back to Kian for food. I must be special to you.” She let me know just how special I was by leaving a white stain on my armguard. “Don’t tell me you’re on Bryg’s side too,” I said wryly.

Kian was waiting for us in the little hut. “Where have you been?” He sounded more worried than angry. I explained what had happened and showed him my stained armguard, hoping he’d smile. He took it from me and set to cleaning it, but he still looked grim.

“Everyone is talking about you,” he said as he rubbed Ea’s droppings from the leather. “You and Connla this time. Doesn’t it bother you that your friend likes him?”

“Does no one in this place do anything
but
gossip?” I exclaimed. “Your father really ought to try finding a bard to serve him permanently. That way the folk of Dún Beithe wouldn’t have to provide their entertainment at my expense.”

“It isn’t funny, Maeve.”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t take friendship
or
love lightly, and I hate having a crowd of idle gossipmongers making me look like someone I’m not. That includes you, Kian.”

“Me? I didn’t carry tales about you.”

“But when you heard these newest rumors, did you object? Did you challenge them? Did you speak out and say they weren’t true?”

“How would I know if they’re true or false?”

“Because you know
me
,” I said fiercely. “Or I hoped you did.”

“Maeve—”

“Did you even bother talking to
Connla
before you threw all of this in my face? You might not trust my word, but you call him your brother. If he defends me, will you accept the truth?”

Kian bent his head over the stained armguard and scrubbed harder. “I’m sorry. I should have done that. It’s my own fault for forgetting how Bryg can be.”

Bryg?

“Is she the one who told you about Connla and me? She wasn’t even there!”

“It’s my fault for believing her. I didn’t think about how she acts sometimes.” He looked up. “What did you do to get on her bad side, Maeve? Whatever it was, apologize and make amends as fast as you can.”

“What are you talking about? Make amends for
what
? The only thing I can think of is—is—” I paused.
Should I tell him that she wants him for her own? He’s had years to take notice of her as more than just another of his mother’s fosterlings. If he hasn’t done it by now, he won’t do it to spare me her spite. And what if my words make him treat her differently, with pity everyone can see? She’d be humiliated. I won’t do that to her. I’ll settle our quarrel fairly, or not at all.

I spread my hands. “I guess I can’t tell you any reason for her behavior after all.”

“Think harder, then,” Kian said. “It may be something small and easily fixed. I don’t like the idea that it’s the same business with Aifric all over again.”

“Gormlaith’s closest friend, the one who ran away?” The back of my neck tingled with apprehension. “What did Bryg have to do with that?”

“I shouldn’t say. You’ve made it clear that you loathe talebearers.”

I laid one hand on his arm. “Tattlers take joy in spreading rumors. No one has to invite them to open their mouths. If you can tell me anything that will help smooth matters between Bryg and me, please speak.”

He looked doubtful, but he did as I asked. “From the day she came here, Bryg ruled the other fosterlings. She was good-natured enough with everyone else, but with them, she always had a sharp tongue and she used it to take over.”

I remembered seeing Gormlaith, Ula, and Dairine rushing to serve the bard’s daughter. Now I understood it was done out of fear. “If you’re not her friend, you’re her target,” I observed.

Kian nodded. “She was sweet as long as things were going her way. I have to say, I don’t know why she started picking on Aifric. That girl was like a blade of grass, bending in any direction the wind blew, always going along with whatever the others wanted. She was especially obedient to Bryg. There were times when she seemed to be testing Aifric, giving her all sorts of tasks, making her jump at every whim, seeing how far she could push her before she fought back.” His mouth turned down. “Aifric was no fighter. A lot of people talked about how painful it was to watch.”

“Then why didn’t any of you
stop
watching and do something about it?” I demanded.

“Uh … the one time I asked Aifric if she was all right, she said yes.” He caught sight of my disappointed expression and shouted, “Well, what was I
supposed
to do? She said she didn’t need any help and she avoided me after that. I couldn’t tie her to a post until she admitted what was wrong, could I?”

“Did your mother notice any of this?” I asked gently.

“I don’t know.” He finished cleaning the armguard and set it aside. “She doesn’t like hearing bad news or having to deal with problems.”

“So she pretends they aren’t there,” I said.

He didn’t disagree, but he looked embarrassed. “She wants everyone to be as happy and contented as she is. Is that such a terrible thing?” he snapped, on the defensive, his mother’s reluctant champion.

“It was terrible enough for Aifric,” I replied. “Wasn’t that why she ran away?”

“You don’t know anything about it. You weren’t here.”

“But you were, Kian, and you do know the truth of it. If you don’t, why are you urging me to beg Bryg’s pardon for—for—for
what
? What have I done to her? Aifric was clay in that girl’s hands. Did she ever live a single day
without
an apology on her lips? And yet she still suffered so much that she had to flee.” I raised my chin. “You don’t have to worry on my account. That won’t happen to me. I’m going to find her and put an end to this.”

“How?”

He looked so nervous that I had to laugh and say, “By cutting her head off. How else? Be a good friend and lend me your sword.”

I found Bryg and the other fosterlings in our room, getting ready for the evening meal. I was about to speak to her when I was jolted by the sight of the half-sewn dress I’d abandoned earlier. It lay across my bed, fully stitched, the fabric unwrinkled and spotless. The last time I’d seen it, it was a wad of cloth beside me in the dirt.

“Who did this?” I asked in a hoarse, uncertain voice.

“Do you like it?” Bryg asked, oozing charm. “We felt so terrible about teasing you that we all worked on it together. Try it on. It’s the perfect shade for your eyes.”

“Here, Maeve, dear.” Ula brought me a bowl of water. “Take off that old gown and wash yourself. I’ll braid your hair. You’ll feel much better.”

“You have to sit next to me at dinner,” Dairine said. “I’ll die if you don’t. I’m going to make sure you get the best of everything that’s served tonight, no matter what. Please? It’s the only way I’ll know there aren’t any hard feelings between us. You know, if you think about it, the whole thing was actually funny.”

“What about you, Gormlaith?” I said in a low, steady voice. “Don’t you want to tell me how calling me names and forcing me to eat dust was all one great big hilarious jest? Are you going to make a peace offering that will turn this”—I spread my grubby, bedraggled skirt—“and this”—I pointed at the scratch across my cheek—“into puffs of sunstruck mist?”

The blond girl began to tremble. “I didn’t want to do it, Maeve. I don’t think you told Lord Kian false tales about yourself. I don’t think you’re a liar. I—”

“You don’t think at all.” Bryg silenced Gormlaith with a backhanded slap on the arm. “Why did you tell us all of those wicked things about our friend if you knew they were false? Maybe we should start calling
you
Two-Tongues, you fat sow.”

“Maybe you should just
stop
,” I said. “I want to talk to you.” I turned to the other girls. “If you want to make up for what you did earlier, give me time alone with Bryg now.”

“What are you going to do to her?” Ula asked. She sounded more curious than concerned.

“Just what I said: talk. Do you want me to take an oath that I won’t hurt her?”

Bryg uttered a short, defiant laugh. “I’m not afraid of anything
this
one can say or do to me. Get out, all of you.” The three girls did as she ordered without a backward glance. The
bull hide swung back into place after them. Bryg plopped herself down on her bed and cocked her head at me. “Talk.”

“Why, Bryg?” I said. “Why have you been making the others treat me like this? It goes beyond the pranks they pulled on me when I first came here. If I’ve done something against you, you’ll have to tell me what it is, but if the only reason you’re playing these evil games is to prove you can, I’ll—”

“—tell your father?” Bryg cut in. “First you’d better make sure he wants to hear what you have to say. Lord Eochu is a mighty man, but a choosy one too. He has a little wooden box in which he keeps the world exactly the way he wants it to be. If you try to put something in or take something out that doesn’t suit him, he washes you away.”

I stared at her. What was I hearing—the words of a poet or the ranting of a mind gone mad again? My anger ebbed. I was alarmed for her sake.

Bryg saw and misinterpreted the anxious look on my face. “Scared, Maeve? From what Kian said, I didn’t think you
could
be frightened. Where’s the highborn lady brave enough to face a vicious wolfhound’s jaws?”

“He—he told you about that?”

“That?” Bryg echoed scornfully. “That’s only a
crumb
of what I know. You weren’t content to be born a girl. You wanted a man’s skills. You forced weaponry lessons from one of your father’s young fighters. What chance did a good, honest lad stand against a spoiled, artful, conniving princess? He couldn’t say no to you.

“Did you have fun playing a warrior’s part? You must have loved it when all of Cruachan praised your courage for fending off the beast. As long as you fed your pride with their admiration,
did you care if your recklessness enraged the High King? You’d stained his vision of how the world should be, how a daughter should act, and thanks to you, he had to cleanse it—”

“Bryg, hear me, that wasn’t—”

“—with my brother’s blood!”

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

A Chill in Springtime

T
HAT NIGHT
I ate my dinner without tasting it. I sat with the other fosterlings, but I sat alone. The four of them chattered and giggled and gobbled their food with hearty appetites. I nibbled my portion, but memories of Kelan soon left me gazing numbly at the food.

I kept stealing sidelong glances at Bryg, searching for some sign that her revelation about Kelan had marked her as deeply as it scarred me. All I saw was a happy, smiling girl who sometimes caught me looking at her and responded with a friendly face. Her eyes held no trace of the unforgiving hatred she’d sent blazing over me before she went raging out of our room. She even spoke to me several times, asking if I was enjoying the meal or if she could hand me another piece of bread.

“Bryg, please let me explain what happened,” I said, leaning close so as not to be heard by anyone else. “Kelan was my dear friend, almost like a brother to me too. I never wanted him to die. I didn’t
seek
a fight with the wolfhound; it was
a vicious animal that attacked for no reason. I used the skill Kelan taught me to keep it from harming the girl he loved and the baby she carried. I didn’t know my father would—”

“All right, Maeve, I’ll bring you some more meat,” Bryg chirped and jumped up, leaving me to waste my breath on her empty place. She didn’t return, but spent the rest of the meal far from me, fawning over Lady Lassaire.

I tried to talk to her again when we were all back in our sleeping chamber. She yawned in my face. “I’m so tired. Can it wait until morning?” I couldn’t say yes or no because she slipped into her bed, covered herself head to toe, and made snoring sounds so loud and crude they let me know better than words that she was done with me. Gormlaith, Ula, and Dairine followed her example. I was alone in the midst of company once more.

They cast me aside. We five were still together at meals, at lessons, and at night, but that changed nothing. Bryg and the others built cobweb walls between us, barriers that were barely visible to the eye, startlingly strong when I tried to get past them. The girls I’d thought of as my friends shut me out at every turn. They never said a word to me, and if I tried talking to them, they suddenly had important things to do elsewhere.

I thought I could get around their tactics by speaking to them when we were having lessons with Lady Lassaire. Kian’s mother might own the magic for making problems turn invisible, but she’d
have
to notice if I asked one of the girls a direct question and was frozen out. Even
she
would need to open her eyes to the tension and hostility thrumming among her fosterlings and do something about it.