Maire (3 page)

“Pray, good fellows. ’Tis a stronger weapon than this.” Rowan believed this in his heart, but he could not feel the assurance of which he boasted. Indeed, his greatest challenge at that moment was not the hordes amassing in the distance, but to practice as he preached: to rely on God to make his plan work.

At the crest of the hill overlooking the villa below, Maire stood with her foster brothers, as spattered by blood as they.

It’s real.

Her heart pounded hard enough, she was certain, to loosen the red and yellow enamel decoration of her leather breastplate. The years of slaying wooden posts and sparring with her brothers and trainers were over. Instead of splitting the head of a melon this day, her sword had laid open a human being’s skull…and the carnage threatened to explode in her stomach each time she recalled it.

Yet she dared not show her weakness, to let any see that her bones felt as though they were turning to water and her blood to bile. She was Maire of Gleannmara, the princess born to follow her warrior mother’s legacy. While other little girls were instructed in the womanly arts of needlework and cooking, Maire had honed her skill in the arts of war against men half again her size. She could better than hold her own with any weapon.

“What do you make of that, Firebrand?”

“They’re expecting us,” she answered the bearlike man who stood at her side. “’Twill make no difference.”

Eochan was the eldest of her two foster brothers. His size and strength were his greatest assets, as well as his liability. A
blow from him would send a foe reeling into the other world without warning, but Maire had learned that her speed and agility stood a better chance of dodging the advance, enabling her to strike before the burly warrior recovered his swing. Most of the time, that is. Once in practice he’d broken her rib, then nearly collapsed with contrition. The bear had a tender heart.

“No doubt—” he nodded—“you’ve won the morning, to be sure.”

“Over fishermen, not warriors.”

The time had come to prove herself. This very sunrise, when they’d landed on the beach, she’d gone eighteen, the age at which the high king Diarhmott had proclaimed she might become her mother’s successor.

But why, in the name of her ancestors’ gods, had those fishermen taken it upon themselves to defend the church? Her brothers had anticipated no resistance with the sacking of the village’s house of worship. Then suddenly, men with poles and hooks such as they used to make their living, were attacking them. It became a matter of survival to spill blood, although there was no sense of triumph in overcoming men more accustomed to handling nets than weapons. Where were the warriors of the village?

“Well, look at that!”

Eochan pointed to a tall, robed figure striding toward them in the distance. The stranger moved unconcerned, as if out to take in the soft air, which was so thick with mist that Maire’s short tunic of coarse cloth hung damp over her combat-lean form.

“A priest with a sword.” Maire’s curious gaze moved beyond the man to the strange looking rath below.

At least the village priest had a stone tower of sorts in which he’d encouraged some of the villagers to take refuge. No earthen work or even stick fencing protected the odd, rectangular buildings below. The momentum of the Scotti’s run down
the hill would carry her men through the structure like a boulder of destruction. Natural curiosity made her wish she might see it outside the fierce rush of conquest, for the well-kept garden, around which the massive dwelling had been built, was unlike anything she’d ever laid eyes upon.

Her estimation of her foes’ wit dropped, in spite of the beauty they cultivated. A body couldn’t live on flower blossoms, no matter how pleasing they were to the eye. But then there was enough cleared land here to afford both food and pleasure to the eye, she supposed. The blossoms were so vibrant Maire could almost smell them across the distance. It was a relief from the stench of spilled blood.

“He’s too late to help the village, if that’s his purpose. Let’s charge, Maire, and see if his studies have sharpened his skill with that sword swinging at his side.”

“This is different, Declan.”

Instinct told her this as much as anything. Unlike her youngest foster brother, who’d finally caught up with them, she was loathe to start the bloodlust again when she’d scarce recovered from the last. She fingered her warrior’s collar as though she might draw on wisdom from its past. The pure, twisted gold circling her slender throat had belonged to Maeve and been witness to many battles.

“He appears to come to us with a purpose.”

“Aye, to make a sacrifice with his own blood, by the look of it!” the more impetuous of her foster brothers crowed in disdain.

Declan would challenge the sea itself, she thought. Faith, he’d done just that before they embarked. Knee-deep in the surf, he’d slashed at the continuous flow of waves beating against the beach until, winded and full of himself for his demonstration of skill, he’d finally joined the rest.

Now he wiped the blade of his
cloidem
against his
brat
of four colors. The cloidem was sharp enough to split hairs driven against it by the wind, or so he’d boasted in the shipboard revelry the night before. Like most of the men, he wore nothing
else save his cloak of distinction and rank. His fine body was painted, his long, fair hair stiff with lime. With a shout of defiance he shook his sword over his head at the oncoming stranger.

“Best you take heed, pup. The princess has her mother’s instincts.”

“Brude!” Maire was shocked to see Gleannmara’s elder druid coming to the front on a small, shaggy pony. Her face flushed scarlet at the compliment of his presence. Though getting on in years, Brude blessed the voyage with his presence. Still, no one expected the druid to accompany them to the battle-front. With him here to sing a battle song, victory was already theirs.

“And a maiden’s blush as well,” Eochan teased. “So give us the word, Firebrand. What do we do?”

Maire considered the question amidst the spell cast by the druid’s appearance. It was not ordinary for Brude to accompany them on such a minor excursion as a simple raid. It could only be guessed that he’d come to declare Maire equal to the task of ruling her mother’s
tuath.
Surely the spirits of victory were with them now.

“Tell me what you think of yon stranger, child,” the ancient prompted, his brow furrowed with time and cultivated with the wisdom of his ancestors.

Maire braced herself mentally, knowing this was yet another test. The stranger was closer now. He was tall and broad shouldered. His robe filled with the westerly breeze and flowed about his long legs as if to make him appear a giant.

“Those are not the shoulders of a man who spends his days bent over parchment and quill.”

“Good…good,” her mother’s chief advisor encouraged. Despite the strain of his years, Brude’s eyes were brighter than the fires of Beltaine, full of the life force itself.

“Nor is his stride the humble one of a meek worshiper of the Christian God.”

The Christian faith was not unknown in Erin. Many high kings and druids had embraced it. Indeed, people flocked to its gentle call. It was through a Christian holy man’s influence that pagan and Christian alike accepted King Diarhmott on the throne.

Of course, Diarhmott claimed he’d only used the Christian teacher toward his own end. Like many of his clans, the high king felt at heart this Christian god was too meek for their warlike Celtic nature. Nor was he overimpressed with the god’s word as the last few of his predecessors had been. The old laws and gods had served them well enough for centuries. Still, change was good. Change meant growth, though Maire—like every Celt she’d known—was ever wary of its direction.

“What else, child?”

Maire tried to make out the stranger’s face. “His eyes are narrowed, sharp like a hawk’s. He measures our strength with each step he takes toward us.”

“Then he should turn tail and run at any moment now.”

Maire dismissed Declan’s observation, trying to tune in to Brude’s uncanny perception that it might speak to her as well. After all, she was Maeve’s daughter. “No, he wishes to talk, I think.”

She noted the man’s hand resting, unassuming, on the hilt of his weapon. His thumb might be hooked in his belt for all the threat it implied; yet, as he neared, Maire felt the hair prick like cold fingers at the nape of her neck.

“He’s a warrior, no doubt,” she said with conviction, “but there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

“What?” Eochan glanced askew at the insinuation of the unseen, first at Maire and then at the druid, who was nodding in agreement. The giant Scot would charge a legion of fighting men on his own, but he had no backbone for spirits. The word of a druid that the spirits were on his side was all he required.

“I sense it too.” Brude’s pleasure in her perception was clear. “There is a presence beyond the physical with this man. ’Twill
take more than skill alone to deal with him. But have no fear,” he added, upon seeing the graze of alarm on Maire’s face. “That is why I am here.”

The older man slid off his pony and produced a small harp as if by magic out of the volumes of his embroidered robe. “There are many concerns to distract my queen without those of hostile spirits.”

“Did you hear what he said?” Declan whispered beneath his breath.

Indeed Maire had. Brude called her his queen. She’d thought he’d remained aboard ship, yet he’d seen enough of her courage and skill to declare her his queen. Had he used the eyes of a raven?

Maire had never fully understood the druidic power to communicate with certain animals. Indeed, the bard had a pet heron, which waddled after him like a feathered shadow. She’d seen him speak to the bird and heard the bird answer many times, although not in such language as she could understand.

Even as the elder tested the eloquent strings of his instrument, the men forming about them began to chant her name on the wind. They had heard Brude’s words, too. With each repetition, the tribute grew louder and louder. She hadn’t expected this until they returned to Gleannmara in triumph. Part of her bade her lower her gaze and tug at the hem of her tunic in embarrassment, but she’d been groomed for this day. Instead, she stood taller with each rousing cheer, until she’d reached the pinnacle of her height at Eochan’s shoulder, where a golden broach secured his woolen cloak.

“Come listen to an old man’s words, my queen, while your brothers see what this stranger wishes.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to find out?” After all, she’d just been acknowledged as queen.

“He is not what he appears, nor do we wish to appear what we are until we discover his purpose. Let the men find it out. Then he shall deal with our queen.”

Brude was right. Her mother never initially negotiated with her enemy; although once past her emissaries, her opponents found her as formidable as any man. Why encourage the enemy to think there was possible weakness on the clan’s part, with their chieftain being a mere woman? It was only in the combat of weapons that this underestimation was to her advantage—a combat that was imminent.

“There will be no bloodshed,” Brude told her as she watched Eochan and Declan meet the tall figure several yards away. “The strings of Macha are not thick with it, but sing clear as a lark’s song. The day is Gleannmara’s.”

Maire was not so certain. Her brothers’ swords were unsheathed and driven into the ground beside them, ready should any cause arise to use them. The stranger had yet to remove his from its silver-studded sheath. He greeted the Scotti warriors as if they were long-lost friends, gesturing toward the rath below as though in welcome.

“Perhaps the answer to my queen’s problem with Morlach is at hand.”

Maire forgot the stranger and her brothers at the mention of the man who’d been appointed by the high king to oversee Gleannmara until she came of age. Morlach was not moved by the spirits as was the wizened Brude, who now pressed his ear to the melody-rich wood of his instrument. No, Morlach’s motivation was nothing short of greed. The druid-sacrificer-turned-lord-of-his-own-tuath had made it clear that he’d not invested his time and interest in Gleannmara to have it snatched from him by an upstart princess of barely eighteen. He intended to wed Maire and join the two kingdoms.

After her parents had died in battle, Brude and her foster family raised and protected Maire at Drumkilly. She had not set foot on her beloved home of Gleannmara since Brude took her away, beyond Morlach’s reach. But now she’d come of age, which put her beyond the protection of those who loved her. Worse, Morlach exercised his influence over the high king to
win royal favor for the union of Rathcoe and Gleannmara. Her destiny though, was in
her
hands, not Morlach’s, for Maire had made up her mind to die first.

This raid was to provide the opportunity.

T
he master of these farmers wishes the contest between us settled by champions,” Declan said, announcing his and Eochan’s return. “I’d like to offer my sword to my queen.”

“Nay, Maire. I’m the eldest. ’Tis only right that I should be your champion.”

Maire acknowledged neither offer. While her gaze was affixed on Brude, her thoughts raced on, finding voice. “Am I to assume that if he wins, his people and land go unmolested and if we win…what is it he offers that we cannot already take?”

“He says to overrun his lands and destroy his people’s livelihood is of far less value to us than a handsome tribute of twenty-five
cumals
to be paid annually.”

“A hundred head of cattle or its value?” Maire was astonished. It was a kingly prize.

“Gleannmara’s pastures are scant of beef, what with Morlach’s bloodletting hand.”

Maire met the pale blue gaze of the druid. He spoke the truth. The overseer had taken unfair reward for the duty of his appointment by the king. He professed enriching the soil with the blood of their cattle, but his coffers grew fat from the sale of skins and salted meat while the soil produced no more grain than it had before. At first mention of this raid, the men of Gleannmara rallied to Maire’s side, hope in their hearts that she would at long last save them from Morlach’s heavy-handed rule.