The Faery Bride (The Celtic Legends Series Book 2) (36 page)

“The only way to get rid of a witch,” the leader said, “is to burn her.”

***

While some of the men gathered wood for the pyre, the leader tied her hands behind her back and forced her to kneel on the rock. He draped more skins around his shoulders and made a conical hat with a curl of birch bark. He held a stick with a knot at the end and called it his scepter. Then he pounded the scepter upon the rock, displeased that she would not answer his questions.

Have you ever turned yourself into a rabbit and sucked milk from the teat of a neighbor’s cow?

We’ve received reports from good Christians that you’ve been seen flying through the air on Midsummer’s Night.

Good Owen here says he’s seen you do your magic with a dead man’s hand.

One of the other men jerked her hair back whenever the “bishop” roared his ire. Her ribs ached from the whack of his scepter. Warm blood dripped from a gash above her eye. Her throat dried until she knew she couldn’t speak even if she dared. All the while the men pranced about, laughing at the antics of the “bishop” while the pyre they built grew higher.

When aflame, she knew the smoke would be seen from the
llys
.

A bladder of ale tumbled from hand to hand. The mockery grew ribald. The “bishop” rubbed himself as the accusations grew more and more lurid.

Seducer of priests and monks. A demon’s tongue can have its uses, can it not?

Confess to laying with incubi, to bearing demons of your own, and we’ll throttle you to death instead.

Do you deny laying with the devil while you said the Lord’s Prayer backward?

She listened to it with half an ear, too dazed from the knocking. How many times had she dreamed such a scene? It had always ended with flames at her feet, consuming her and all the devilry people thought her capable of. So here it was, the trial, the pyre, and it had less to do with her than with revenge against the man she loved, a man who couldn’t love her enough.

Poor Ma . . . Should she hear of this, her mother would blame herself for sending her daughter back to her death.
Nay, Ma, I chose it myself.
If only she had the kind of power that could send a thought across the seas, but the words lingered in her head and went no farther.

She lifted her face to the blue sky above, knowing it was useless to pray for rain. She was beyond prayer now. How short life could be. It would soon be over, with no more said between her and Rhys.

I love you, Rhys.

Yes, she had loved in this life. Only a year ago she’d dismissed the idea that she would ever be cherished. True, she’d never heard gentle words from Rhys’s lips, but she’d felt the heat of his passion. She’d felt needed, not for her healing hands or for the herbs and comfort she could give, but for being a woman desired.

She had lived a fuller life than most. Fuller than any of these ragged, pagan–looking warriors scuttling about like anxious wolves in a pack. She had healed and been healed, she had loved and been loved, and she would leave this life with a clear conscience.

The first tear oozed out of her swelling eye. It trickled down her face to join the blood spotting her tunic. The leader’s recitations droned in her ears. Her legs ached from kneeling, her knees stung from scraping against rock. The cut on her foot throbbed.

The “bishop” cast out his arms and called for silence only to announce his verdict:
Guilty.

He thrust his face at her. The stench of his breath was tinged now with ale that had taken on the sour taste of the bladder. Though she’d not had a drop to drink under the hot sun, though it hurt to move the flesh of her throat to swallow, she sucked through her cheeks and willed one last bit of moisture . . . so she could spit it straight into his face.

She laughed at the enraged shock in his eyes, laughed even as he backhanded her clear out of her guard’s hands, and continued to laugh in big heaving gulps. Someone hauled her up by the arms and set her on wobbly feet, then pushed her toward the pyre. She shook away from them and walked of her own power toward what she’d known was her destiny since she’d first discovered her gift.

Then she heard the first shout. Still, she didn’t stop, for one shout was like another in this mockery of a trial, and the men had taken to making bloodthirsty war cries. So she stumbled forward and glared up at the pyre and wondered how on earth she was to climb the thing with her hands tied around her back.

She turned to spit mockery at the leader and found the men scattering like so many rats. The leader stood clutching a flagon of mead, barking unintelligible orders and pointing at her, but the men mounted their horses and paid him no mind. She wondered what was happening as she stumbled back over a piece of wood and cracked her elbows on the ground.

The leader threw down his scepter and stormed toward her. He yanked a knife from his belt. Her heels scraped against the earth as she shoved herself back. The stakes of the pyre brought her to a fierce halt. Still he came and she began to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven. . . .

She wondered if the steel would slip in soft and cold or if it would strike bone and singe as it sank. She wondered if Rhys would bury her among the Christians in the cemetery on the chapel grounds, or if he would leave her pagan body in an unmarked grave, thinking in his confused way that would be what she wanted.

Hallowed be thy name. . . .

How quiet the clearing, despite the rustling of horses and the pounding of hooves down the north slope. The world slowed down around her. She noticed the waving of each summer leaf against the sky. She noticed the flutter of a bird’s wings as it dipped over the clearing. She watched the flying of the leader’s laces around his shins as he approached.

Thy kingdom come . . .

Something tore through the shadows from the southern slope, a snarling black thing flashing through the leaves, all teeth and foam. A blur of something Otherworldly. But it was too late to help, for the shadow of Rhys’s brother was upon her. She closed her eyes against the flash of the knife.

Thy will be done. . . .

A weight collapsed upon her. It crushed her against the staves. Something trickled warm over her shoulder and she knew it must be her blood. Is this what it felt like, then? A numb, crushing weight upon her and then the slow choke into blackness?

Then the weight lifted and a gust of cool air blasted over her skin and the blue sky blinded her. With a rush she filled her lungs and coughed and coughed, her body bucking with each spasm.

Someone shouted, “Get them—
get them.”

Rough hands fell upon her, squeezing all the sore places on her body and making her cry out at the pain, a cry which died when she pressed her forehead against some textured cloth that smelled of hazel–bark and lye.

“You can’t die, Irish.”

The hands on her body trembled. She felt herself heaved up off the ground, up toward the blue sky with its soft, welcoming clouds. She winced open her swollen eye and saw an angel with Rhys’s face.

***

Rhys pounded into the homestead and swept off the horse before his mount skidded to a stop. He slid the bloody bundle of woman into his arms. Carrying her, he strode across the yard and kicked open the door to the mead–hall.

“Water. Linens. Fetch Marged.
Now.”

Going sidewise through the portal of his room, he barked for fire. He dropped to one knee and stretched her over the furs. Gripping the edges of her tunic in both hands, he yanked until the cloth gave and then he flattened his ear against her chest.

She was still alive.

He seized a fur and swept it over her body, tucked it tight around her legs, her hips, her waist, her arms. Keep her warm. Make sure she breathes. Cheek the bleeding. He yanked the fur off and ran his hands over her body. Cuts on her arms, her head, her jaw.

Find them, Dafydd. Find them and bring them to me so I can hang them all from the palisades.

He roared up to his full height and stared down at her, battered and bruised and for all he knew hovering close to death. He flexed his hands, raging at his own impotence. He knew nothing of healing except what he’d learned by necessity on the field of battle, where most men died before their wounds were tended.

“Don’t leave me, Irish.”

The words tumbled out of him. He didn’t recognize his own voice. What if that boy hadn’t gone in search of a lost calf? What if that boy hadn’t spied the horses on the hilltop? The lad could have headed to church instead of to the homestead, where only by way of a broken harness Rhys tarried. Had Rhys raced up that slope a few minutes later, that pyre would still be belching smoke to the sky.

Luck. Nothing but luck had kept her from death.

“By all the saints, you did find her.” Marged hurried in. “We were all wondering why she wasn’t at church. Father Adda was more than a bit worried, for he was supposed to be giving her some herb for—What happened?”

“Tend to her.”

Marged’s jowls shuddered as she skittered to Aileen’s bedside. “By God’s Glory, my lord, look what they’ve done.”

“
Do
something.”

“I don’t know the first of such things.” Marged glanced over her shoulder to the pitcher of water on the table by the door. “I’ll wash her, then see to that bump on her head. Seems to me I remember her putting a cold linen upon Roderic’s son when he stumbled on the hillside. . . .”

Marged’s nervous chattering whined in his ears. He dug his nails into his palms. He ached to grab her and drag her back to the living.
Don’t drift off to your wretched faery–place. Stay here with me.

I need you.

“Faith, my lord, you must send for someone.” Marged jerked up from her perch on the edge of the bed. “That doctor from Aberffraw maybe.”

“Myddfai.” This he could do. “I’ll send Roderic to Myddfai for a physician.”

“That’s too long to travel, and I don’t know what to do for her but make her comfortable. What if—”

“Tie mint leaves around her wrist. Put a knife under her bed to cut the pain. Just keep her alive.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get help.”

The sun glowed through the summer leaves that feathered over the shores of Llyn Dyffryn. Rhys kicked his mount past wild strawberries. Lavender scented the crease of the pass and teased him down toward the chapel of rubble–and–stone wedged between mountain and a stream.

Rhys burst through the chapel door. Father Adda stumbled up from his seat by the altar, gripping the Eucharist cup and a piece of linen. Rhys strode down the nave, his gaze fixed on the cross hanging over the altar.

The cup clattered on the paving stones as Rhys fell to his knees before the priest.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. . . .”

Chapter Twenty–Two

T
he physician of Myddfai swept into the room in a stench of perfume so strong it set Aileen to choking.

“I have just the thing to put an end to that cough.” The physician reached into his wide–sleeved robe and pulled out a packet. He handed it to a young man hovering behind him. “Boil figs in strong ale, and then add this to the liquid.” The physician bowed at Rhys and smiled wider at her. “The brew is good also for rheumatism and chilblains and for preventing drunkenness—”

“So very useful, this potion of yours,” she interrupted. Propped up against the mound of pillows on Rhys’s bed, Aileen eyed doctor number three who was perhaps the most ridiculous of all, with his long white beard and his eyebrows oiled into curls. “But I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time, doctor, and my lord has wasted his gold.”

Rhys glowered. “I’ve summoned the doctor all the way from Myddfai just to see you, and so he will.”

Aileen shoved up her sleeve to show a series of angry cuts. “This is by far the most damage this body of mine has suffered, and it was done right here in this room by a doctor.”

The physician pursed his lips. “It is clear by your disposition, my lady, that you have no need for bloodletting. Now if you were more melancholy—”