Deception's Pawn (Princesses of Myth) (3 page)

Seeds

I
SCARCELY TASTED
my first breakfast at Dún Beithe. I was too filled with embarrassment to take more than a bite of bread. My mind refused to let go of the mortifying scene with Kian no matter how much I tried to think of something else. To make matters worse, when the girls and I dutifully presented ourselves to Lady Lassaire and wished her a good morning, she hurried forward to take my hands and drag me to sit beside her. It was a hospitable gesture and she meant no harm by it. The trouble was, sitting next to her also put me next to Kian.

Kian!
Kian, who’d just seen me less than half-clothed. Kian, the young man Devnet believed now held my beloved kestrel, Ea. The single person I
needed
to speak with was now the one I couldn’t even look in the eye.

I nibbled my lower lip nervously, keeping my gaze firmly fixed on the uneaten food before me.
What if Devnet’s wrong about the bird?
I thought.
He told me he’d seen Lord Artegal’s son with a kestrel that wore a red braid around one foot. I wove that token for Ea from a lock of my own hair—but am I the only person who’d do such a thing for a favorite creature?

I remembered Odran, the dark-haired, gentle son of Master Íobar the druid. He had a passion for healing animals, a gift that must have come to him from Flidais, goddess of all wild things. Odran understood why I placed that plaited bracelet around Ea’s leg. It wasn’t a sign of ownership, master to slave. It was a mark of affection, friend to friend. Couldn’t Kian feel the same, do the same for a cherished animal?

Odran …
 My mouth went dry and my lips grew warm with the memory of how we’d kissed. The abandoned crannog where we’d met to care for the ailing animals became our refuge, a place where our first hesitant attraction turned to the sweet pleasure of tender kisses. I’d wished it could last forever.

But Odran’s father had other plans. He wanted his son to follow him on the druid’s path. If that failed, he wanted to force us into marriage so that he could enjoy borrowed power as the High King’s kinsman. I refused to let him have his way, and the innocent animals paid for it. Now they were gone. The ones that failed to flee were slaughtered by Master Íobar’s slingstones as he avenged his wounded pride. I saw my Ea soar away, only to be struck down in midflight. I thought she was dead until Devnet brought news that she might be the wounded kestrel Kian had found and healed.

Master Íobar hauled his son away to Avallach, the island where he’d be taught the druid’s path. I would never see Odran again.

I
needed
to see Ea. I needed to know that Master Íobar’s
cruelty wasn’t powerful enough to destroy something so beautiful and free. I needed the memories of Odran that rode on her strong and graceful wings. I needed—

“Lady Maeve?” Lord Artegal leaned forward in his place on Lady Lassaire’s other side and craned his neck to look at me. “You’re not eating. Are you well?”

Before I could answer, Devnet intervened. “I fear Lady Maeve is glum because she’s thinking about the farewells to come later this morning.” He gazed at me fondly and added, “Lift your spirit, Princess. There are no final partings between friends as long as we hold each other’s hearts. That’s the truth I know; do you accept it?”

I lowered my eyelashes and smiled. “I must believe what you say, Devnet. I’m not foolish enough to call a bard a liar.” My reply drew laughter and cries of good-humored approval from the household. I even thought I heard Kian murmur “Well said” from his place beside me, but when I dared to glance at him, he twitched his head away.

We had our goodbyes after breakfast. I’d been brought to Dún Beithe by Father’s trusted charioteer, Fechin. Now he was driving back laden with gifts from Lord Artegal to the High King. His body bore the scars of countless battles at Father’s side, but his courage crumpled when it was time to leave me.

“Fechin, are you going to carry on like this all the way home?” I hugged him tightly, then held him at arm’s length. “Look at you! Your face is soaked with tears and your nose is—ugh. You’d better clean that stuff out of your mustache before you go.” I kissed him repeatedly anyhow.

“This is how I am, Lady Maeve,” he mumbled. “I’m too old to change my heart. I’ve known you since you were a baby.…”

“Well, I’ve known you since I was a baby, too, but you don’t hear
me
carrying on about it,” I said, trying to jolly him out of his sorrow. “If you don’t stop crying, you’ll use up every drop of moisture in your body, turn to dust, and blow away. Then what will I have to live for?” I linked my arms around his neck and pressed my cheek to his. “Don’t do that to me, dear Fechin. You know I’d die without you.”

A wobbly smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Not so. Not while there are good-looking young men in this world—warriors, nobles, kings who’ll want you for their bride. You can’t break all those hearts if you die young, may the gods avert it!”

“Oh, where’s the challenge in that?” I joked. “Men’s hearts break too easily, and then they cry, and then their mustaches get all covered with—” I made such a revolted face that Fechin had to laugh his tears away.

One of our men came to fetch him with word of a horse that was acting strangely. When Fechin went off to look at the beast, Devnet approached me. “Time for our farewell, Princess.” He spoke as if announcing a great festival.

“Why do you sound so happy about it?” I asked, hurt.

He lifted my chin with a fingertip calloused from years of weaving music on the harp’s strings. “Would you rather I took up where Fechin left off and flooded the earth with my tears? No bard likes to be the shadow of another man’s song. Besides, I fear that once we’re on the road back to Cruachan, you’ll have tears enough of your own.”

I couldn’t manage more than the most pitiful of smiles. “I wept plenty this morning. I hope I’m done.”

“Done with weeping? In this world? That’s up to you,
Princess. You’re free to choose your battles, your triumphs, and your tears.”

“Is that how it works?” I asked, leaning my head against him. His clothing smelled like home.

I heard him sigh. “Only in my songs.”

Lord Artegal, his wife, his son, and the most important members of his household stood with me at Dún Beithe’s gates as my people rode away. I didn’t shed a single tear, but smiled sincerely as I waved and called out good wishes for a safe journey. The crowd with me echoed my shouts, but the clamor faded as men and women trailed off to resume their work. I held my place, outlasting even Lord Artegal. The smile never left my lips and my eyes never left the dwindling procession until they were completely out of sight. I was still smiling when I went back into the ringfort.

Gormlaith and the others were waiting to greet me on my return. She studied my face closely. “You didn’t cry.” She made it sound like an accusation.

I shrugged. “That would have been bad luck. Better to send them on their way with a smile, to ward off mischance on the road.”

“I never heard that before.” Ula sounded suspicious.

“Do any of the women here cry when their men ride out to risk their lives in battle or on a cattle raid?” I asked.

“No, but—”

“Oh, Ula, let it go,” Dairine said, linking arms with me. “Just because
you
cried whole floods of tears when you were left here doesn’t mean everyone’s such a baby.”

“I was nine years old,” Ula said stiffly. “And besides, Bryg
told me that when you came here, you wept louder than Aifric ever did, and she yowled over
everything
.”

“Who’s Aifric?” I asked. It was the second time I’d heard her name.

An uneasy silence fell over the three girls. Gormlaith looked ready to have the earth swallow her whole. Ula, cool and proud, was the one to answer me at last.

“Aifric was a fosterling here for longer than any of us. She was only three when her parents gave her to Lady Lassaire to raise. They were noble, but ranked almost as low as Dairine’s father.”

“My father
earned
his rank!” Dairine exclaimed, furious. “He’s one of Èriu’s foremost warriors. He wasn’t born into a soft bed like yours.”

Ula took the gibe as if it carried no more weight than a falling flower petal. “Aifric’s mother died the year she came here, and her father the year after that. All she had left were some cousins, and they saw no reason to take her away from Dún Beithe.”

“She was happy here,” Gormlaith said quietly. “We were friends.” She fidgeted with the end of one of her tiny braids. “Like sisters.” Those words came out barely above a whisper.

I was confused. “Where is she now? Did she marry and leave?”

Again, no one answered my question until I raised a new one: “Did she fall sick and die?”

Dairine tossed her head, sending her three black braids flying. “We’re all going to die if we don’t hurry up and join Lady Lassaire,” she said, artfully brushing my words aside. “Come
on, Lady Maeve.” She tightened her hold on my arm and broke into a run.

As I stumbled along beside her, I managed to say, “I’m not
Lady
Maeve to any of you, Dairine.”

“Oh? Is that why Ula and Gormlaith haven’t been using your proper title? I thought they were just being their usual bad-mannered selves.” She seemed disinterested.

“I asked Gormlaith to call me Maeve when we first spoke early this morning and Ula must have overheard. You were still sleeping.”

“Well, that’s as good a reason as any for letting me be the last to know.” She laughed, short and sharp as a fox’s bark.

I pulled back, forcing her to slow down. “I didn’t mean to slight you, Dairine,” I said. “I want all of us to be friends. It was an oversight.”

“Who said it wasn’t?” Dairine was all smiles. Despite this, I wasn’t reassured.

We found Lady Lassaire in the great house, seated by the hearth. Two of her women attended her, and a little girl dressed in yellow stood by with a basket of raw wool almost as big as she was. The distinguishing color of her dress marked her for a slave, the first one I’d noticed at Dún Beithe.

“There you are, my darling girls!” Lady Lassaire exclaimed, hurrying forward to meet us. Her thick, silver-blond hair was neatly braided into a single plait that hung down to her hips. If she’d worn it loose, I think it would have reached her knees. Her small, slender body moved with the grace of an elfin woman from the Otherworld, and when she spoke it was like hearing a little songbird chirping pleasantly in the sun. She
drew me away from Dairine and embraced me, her cheek soft against mine.

“Welcome, my dearest Maeve,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind my calling you by your name alone? I think of all my fosterlings as the daughters I was never fortunate enough to have. Don’t worry: Everyone else at Dún Beithe knows that you’re to be called
Lady
Maeve.”

“It’s not that important,” I murmured. “I like being just Maeve.”

Her pale-blue eyes opened wide in surprise. “Oh, but it
is
important, dearest! It’s a mark of respect. You’re too young to understand how vital it is to maintain such things, but trust me, it’s something we must
all
defend.”

I understood more than Lady Lassaire suspected, though I doubted my view of the matter was the same as hers. “It’s like the hero’s portion,” I said.

“Yes, exactly!” She was delighted. “When Lord Artegal gives the best serving of meat to his bravest warrior, it’s not just a great honor, it inspires the other men.”

Inspires them to do what?
I thought.
To pick fights? To avenge insults that were never given? To shed each other’s blood?

Dark memories came back to me: My dear friend Kelan who’d agreed to my request and taught me to use men’s weapons; the feast at which the warrior Caílte was awarded the hero’s portion but claimed he heard Kelan say it was undeserved; the challenge to a duel between men so unfairly matched that it was just another name for Kelan’s execution. And behind it all, Father’s grudge against my friend for giving me those lessons, for helping me grow bold enough to face danger, to stand
and protect another person’s life instead of running away and saving my own. He knew I’d hate him if he killed my friend himself, so he forced Caílte to put his hand into the fire.

He didn’t know that I would learn the truth.

I swallowed the bitterness of the past and smiled at Lady Lassaire. “I understand. Thank you.”

The little slave girl gave us handfuls of wool and carding combs. We set our hands to the task of turning the tangled fleece into long, soft fibers, ready to be spun into yarn. I thought that doing such a basic chore would be the same here as at home, but the longer I sat in the company of my three fellow fosterlings, the more I realized the great but subtle difference between Cruachan and Dún Beithe: The girls in Mother’s care were older than I and were always gossiping about things I thought were trivial. Those who didn’t shut me out only befriended me because they saw the chance to profit from being friends with the High King’s daughter.

Now here I was after less than a day at Dún Beithe, but already I felt included. The other girls knew my rank, knew Lady Lassaire’s attitude toward how important such things were, yet how had they treated me? As Maeve, only Maeve. If they saw me as the High King’s daughter, they never would have dared to play hide-and-keep-away with my dresses. I was still smarting from that morning’s deathly embarrassment, but the sting was soothed away when I recalled how all of them had rallied around to take care of me after their prank got out of hand.

Was this what it was like to have friends at last?

When we were done carding wool, it was time for the midday meal. It was entirely informal, just how Cruachan did such
things. At that time of day, Dún Beithe’s cook and her helpers had food ready for anyone who wanted it. People drifted in and out of the great house, either sitting down by the hearth to fill their bellies or carrying off bread and meat and cheese to eat elsewhere.

My friends and I took our food outside. Ula led the way, declaring we’d climb the ringfort walls so that I could have my first view of the country around Dún Beithe. Poor Gormlaith had a clumsy time of scaling the sloping earthwork walls and trailed the rest of us. She seemed to have difficulty keeping her balance while holding on to her meal.