Emerald Prince (32 page)

“
Fàilte ri
Wolf Haven, Brother Camber. May I suggest we begin again, with a clean slate?”

Camber did not respond, but looked thoughtful at his offer.

“I promise I shall answer all your questions honestly,” Liam said with a wry smile. “Well, as honest as an Irish outlaw is able.”

He saw a corresponding twinkle in the monk’s sky-blue eyes, before Camber raised his own goblet and touched Liam’s in a gesture of truce.

Chapter Twenty-two

D
ARKNESS PREVAILED, REFUSING TO
lend benefit of sight. The ebony depths rejected mercy and pulled her down, down into a chilling embrace.

Màthair. Athair.

She called out to her parents. She stretched out her arms, reaching for them, longing for them. Crying for them.

Her adult mind relived the sea’s cruel claim. I’m finally joining you, in your watery grave.

Two dim figures floated before her. A blue-eyed man, a pale-haired woman. Both had shimmering, kind countenances. They beseeched her to join them. “We’ve waited a long time, sweet colleen. Come home with us.”

Alianor bolted awake, the oppressive darkness in the room much like the abyss left in her mind. She gasped, choked for air. Trembling, she sat up, hand at her throat. The sensation of drowning was real, but there was no water here, and cool air filled her grateful lungs.

She stared into the void of night, trying to banish the last remnants of sleep clouding her mind. Bit by bit, she recalled her dream. It impressed her with its vividness for she remembered the words she had cried and those of her parents with aching clarity. She was sure she had suffered the same nightmare before. Two misty figures hovering over her — their words she understood, the meaning she did not.

Why would she dream of her parents in a watery grave? They died from the plague, not by drowning. She had this same haunting experience when she nearly drowned hours before. Was fear distorting her mind? Provoking this strange dream-nightmare?

Recalling the images of her dream, however vaguely, puzzled her further. They did not look as she thought her parents did. She remembered Walter mentioning both Lord Geoffrey and Lady Maud had dark hair and dark eyes. Had her child’s mind somehow confused them with someone else? Someone she might have known? If so, who? Why?

Deep inside, she sensed she somehow knew the two people. They seemed familiar to her, comfortable in the way one feels with people they know well. The woman had hair the color of her own, a silvery-blonde, and the man’s blue eyes matched hers and Camber’s.

Dreams were not literal, Alianor believed. But a dream resurfacing twice in the span of a day was disturbing. Images came unbidden to her, as if the near-drowning opened a floodgate of buried memories. Memories of what? She feared the answer. She only knew it had to do with water — crashing, pulling, claiming her breath, robbing life.

She cut off the thought at the source and rubbed her pounding temples. Alianor decided stress had prompted the nightmare, as it had the day before. She heard rain dripping off the abbey roof. She shrugged aside the dream, and the memory of fighting back waves of terror and a wall of water.

A soft knock drew her attention to the door. “Yes?” she called out, relieved by the distraction.

Felicity opened the door and poked her head inside. “Are you all right, milady? I thought I heard you call out.”

Had she? Alianor wasn’t sure. “I had a bad dream, mayhap I cried out. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

Stepping inside the room, Felicity closed the door behind her. She set the candle she held onto the table. When she reached the bed, she sat on its edge and took Alianor’s hands in her own. “What sort of nightmare, child?”

“I don’t know, but it’s so strange, like I’m dreaming somebody else’s dream. There are two people, a man and a woman, and I seem to know them, but cannot put names to their faces when awake. There is rising water, icy cold, and I’m afraid … so afraid.”

“You’ve had this dream before.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, twice in the past day. And I’ve had it before but I had forgotten.” Alianor shivered and Felicity wrapped the blanket from the bed about her shoulders.

“O my! You are freezing,
maighdean
, and look so fearful pale.” Worried, Felicity touched Alianor’s damp forehead. “I pray you aren’t courtin’ a fever. Should I send for Brother Camber? I heard him tell Uilleam he’s skilled in the healing arts.”

“No, I am fine. Do not waken my brother; he has traveled far and is weary.”

Felicity still looked worried, but nodded. “As you wish.” She bit her lip, looking preoccupied. It was Alianor’s turn to listen, and she squeezed the older woman’s fingers in her own.

“What’s wrong, Felicity? There is something troubling you.”

“Aye.” Felicity sighed, her tone apologetic but her eyes filled with relief. She took a deep breath and blurted, “I wanted t’ say Uilleam is a good man, milady. He bears his people’s troubles upon his shoulders. ’Tis a great weight and drives him t’ do things he would otherwise not do. I fear you saw the worst of him today, and it troubles me.”

Alianor reached out and hugged Felicity, the sadness tugging at the woman’s face breaking her heart. “Do not worry,” she said, though the reassurance was shaky even to her own ears. “I know what is in Liam’s heart.”

Felicity smiled. “I believe you are in his heart, milady.”

“I cannot presume it, nor should you.”

Worry crinkled Felicity’s expression and tears glistened in her eyes. “Lady Alianor, do you think your
Sasunn
King will send soldiers after Uilleam? Will he be crushed amidst these troubled events you suffer?”

Aye, Alianor thought. Likely de Lacy had already sent a missive to King John, angrily relaying this latest turn of events. It was only a matter of time before the King sent someone after her. She didn’t foresee de Lacy giving up his claim on her, he had said as much. He would see her his wife, or see her dead.

Alianor shivered. Liam was already an outlaw in the eyes of Irish kings. Now, King John too had reason to subdue Caomhánach and his followers. Destroying Liam would strengthen the royal stranglehold already creeping across Ireland, and take away one of the few things remaining for the people to believe in.

De Lacy would tell King John of Liam’s influence over the common folk of Connacht. Any power wielded other than England’s was regarded as a threat. The King would take malicious delight in destroying Ireland’s fragile hope for the future. He was not a man who believed in or respected legends, unless they lauded him.

Alianor’s heart ached. If Liam was the Emerald Prince, his people needed him even more than she did.

She drew a ragged breath. This was hard beyond belief, for she needed Liam as surely as the air she breathed. She remembered how he had once plucked pale blue flowers for her at the lough, and how quickly the
grà ì ceathach
had wilted in her hand, once its tender roots had left the nourishing soil.

Like the love-in-a-mist, her heart needed the warmth of Liam’s love to survive. Otherwise, she would wither and die. She felt the faint hope of a future unravel like a tapestry, knowing what she must do.

“No, Felicity,” she whispered, making a silent vow to God, a vow to put others before herself. “I won’t let de Lacy or the King claim your Emerald Prince.”

“How can you stop them, milady?”

“There is only one way.”

F
ELICITY STARED AT
A
LIANOR
in trepidation. “You don’t mean —”

“Yes. I must leave.”

“’Tis folly, milady! The King will not look kindly upon you even if you surrender.”

“Surrender?” Alianor was surprised. “No, Felicity, I’ve no intention of making it so easy for Lackland, nor am I returning to England. There may be somewhere I can go. My lord husband Walter had a dear friend, a fellow knight as honorable and strong as he. I know he has holdings south of here, in Leinster.”

Felicity’s gaze searched Alianor’s. “Can this man help you?”

“I pray so. He is one of the few men left with whom the King will not trifle, for he is too respected and powerful. I do not believe he would turn me away, for Walter’s sake if not my own. Had he not been away from court when the King ordered me to Ireland, I daresay I should have flung myself at his feet and begged for aid.”

 Alianor expected Felicity’s face to reflect relief at this news, but instead the small woman sighed and looked down. Puzzled, Alianor waited. She sensed something monumental was about to happen when Felicity covered her face with her hands. “Oh, milady, I cannot look you in the eye.”

“Why not?”

Alianor tried to pull the woman’s hands down from her face, but Felicity shook her head. “’Twas wrong of me t’ keep it from you for so long, but I had to be sure.”

Confused, Alianor could only stare as Felicity jumped up and said, “Wait here, milady, I shall only be a moment.” She was gone before Alianor could protest or question her further.

She waited as bidden, her mind swirling with worry and anxiety at her strange outburst. She was on her feet, dressed and pacing, by the time the other woman returned. Felicity carried a small box in her hands, one like the kind fashioned for holding daggers. Alianor looked at it, curious. Did Felicity intend to give her a weapon to fend off a demon like de Lacy?

She was unprepared for what Felicity revealed when she lifted the lid. She gasped as the candlelight shimmered across the gleaming gold of a beautiful Celtic cross, a green jewel set in its center; an emerald.

Alianor’s hand went to her throat. “Is it …?”

Felicity nodded. “
Seòd Fios
, milady. The Jewel of Knowledge.”

“But ’tis just a legend, a faerytale.” Alianor took a step back, afraid to even look at it. Certainly she would not touch it, even though the woman proffered it to her.

“Is it? Do you not wonder, milady, about the dreams you have, about the people who haunt you? Why you feel you know them, and sense their loss? How is it you can sing in Gaelic and know the legend of Ailinn?”

“An Irish bard who once came to c-court —” Alianor stammered.

Felicity cut her off. “Nay, milady,
I
told you the tale.
You
are Ailinn.”

A
LIANOR SANK DOWN UPON
the bed. Her knees trembled and she feared they might buckle beneath her. A fervent gleam lit Felicity’s eyes — the woman believed every word she spoke. Or was she merely a bit mad as Liam had hinted?

At her stricken silence, Felicity set the box on the table beside the candle and came to sit beside her again. “Listen t’ me, child,” she said. “For many years I have borne this burden in secret, until Eire, and you, were both ready t’ take up the cause. You remember I told you a wee bit about my life afore at the convent.” She waited until Alianor nodded. “’Twas all true, including the story of the wee girlie with silver hair — Ailinn.” Taking a deep breath, Felicity continued:

“Ailinn and her little brother Faolán came t’ St. Mary’s, orphaned they were after a terrible shipwreck where their parents died. The rest on the boat perished; only the two children survived. I was assigned t’ tend them, for they were both ill from injury and shock. To my surprise I found the wee girlie wore a great golden cross on a chain about her neck.” Felicity nodded towards the box.

“I knew then Ailinn was a descendant of the Faery Queen Fand, and a true daughter of Eire. But I knew if the prioress saw the cross, she would take it from the child, so I hid it away and told nary a soul.

“When she recovered, Ailinn was able to tell us their first names, but little else. She spoke only Gaelic and could not tell us a surname, or remember if she had any kin. The boy Faolán would not speak at all, but scream he would, like a bloody banshee, whenever the nuns tried t’ bathe him.

“Only Ailinn could calm him at those times. Though soon enough, the prioress insisted they be kept apart and schooled in proper manners and the King’s English.” Felicity shook her head. “Same as she forbade the old stories, the prioress would not allow Gaelic spoken there. But Ailinn was quick t’ learn a new tongue, for she was bright as I said.” She looked at Alianor. “
You
were uncommon bright, milady.”

“Felicity — you believe Camber and I are these children — Irish by birth?” Doubt raced through her mind, clouding her judgment. It was too preposterous.

“Believe? ’Tis no doubt of it.” The woman sounded offended Alianor would question the claim. “I saw your brother’s birthmark earlier this eve and I knew for certain. The cross on his arm — I have seen it a’fore. The wee laddie Faolán bore the same mark. There’s no mistaking it.”

Alianor worried her lip in thought. “If this is true, how did we get from Ireland to England? How do you explain Sir Geoffrey and Lady Maud, our parents there?”

“Remember I asked you once if your Walter had ever been t’ Eire?”

“Yes.”

“About a year after you two arrived at the convent, fate played its hand. Faolán had never gotten over his fear of water and had creative ways t’ avoid it, but the prioress had equal resolve the lad should be submerged in a tub and scrubbed clean regardless. These pitched battles were oft violent. One day, the laddie escaped her clutches and ran out the door. He managed to get past the convent gates and into the streets, naked as the day he was born.”