Crystal Rose (36 page)

He glanced past the girl to her opposing escort, the Abbod
Ladhar, happening to meet the older man’s eyes. A chill rattled his spine.
Ladhar was a hateful man in the truest sense of the word. Ruadh glanced away,
signaled one of his kinsmen to take his place beside their prisoner and urged
his horse forward to pull level with Sorn Saba.

The younger man looked over at him. “She’s a rare beauty,
that one.”

Ruadh raised his brows and Sorn twitched a glance back over
his shoulder.

“The little sorceress. Such striking color! Those blue, blue
eyes and that black hair. Rivals my sister, she does.”

“Bored with the Lady Dearg, are you?”

Sorn’s eyes widened. “Cautious of her. Have you seen her,
this morning? A mass of bruises.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Do you
think maybe her husband discovered her infidelities?”

“If he had, you’d be the one wearing black and blue.”

Sorn’s face hardened, making Ruadh believe, for a moment,
his boasts of battle experience. “I assure you, friend Ruadh, I am most
discreet. Who else but her husband would have had cause to beat her so?”

Ruadh shook his head, suspecting it was not marital
infidelity that had won Coinich Mor her bruises.

oOo

The Abbod Ladhar was as perplexed as he was furious.
Twice, Feich had the apostate Saxan in his camp and twice he dismissed him as
if he had not admitted to his heresies. And the girl! He had her, yet made no
move interrogate her about her Mistress’s plans. Ladhar had even demanded that
she be turned over to the Osraed for trial, but Feich merely laughed at him and
told him he over-reached.

The long return trip to Creiddylad was made no shorter by
the knowledge that the forces at the Regent’s command had been drastically
reduced and that they were no closer to capturing Taminy and tearing Airleas
from her grasp. Meanwhile, Feich and his Dearg Wicke still Wove and Ladhar
still slept poorly.

In the wake of Feich’s decree against Taminists, crowds once
again milled outside the gates of Mertuile, one contingent protesting the bans,
another protesting the protest. Fights broke out often, necessitating the
intervention of armed guards.

While it comforted Ladhar that Feich was at last doing
something about the Taminists and their sympathizers, he could not believe that
the Regent’s decrees were any more than a ploy aimed at eliciting some response
from the Wicke herself—a response Ladhar alternately feared and pretended not
to care about.

A week passed—a week of riots, put-downs and arrests.
Mertuile’s gaol began to fill with Taminists and their allies, people Daimhin
Feich showed little interest in. He gave the Abbod and his cleirachs access to
the prisoners, but they were, for the most part, ordinary citizens. Misled to
be sure, mesmerized most likely, but among them, Ladhar recognized no one from
among the Wicke’s close circle of apostles.

The girl, Iseabal, was kept by herself in a chill, spartan
chamber in the lower levels of the castle proper. Neither the Abbod nor any
other Osraed was allowed to interview her. Only Daimhin Feich was admitted to
her cell.

At the end of his first week back in Creiddylad, the Regent
changed his tack with regard to the Nairnian cailin and moved her to luxurious
quarters near his own. Further, he allowed her to dine with his household,
which now included Eadrig and Blair Dearg and Coinich Mor, in addition to his
young cousin, and the Deasach Banarigh’s little brother.

On the occasions when that household also embraced Ladhar,
he watched the girl with hawkish intensity. If that unnerved her, so much the
better. The Deasach boy also kept close watch on her. Perhaps he expected she
would suddenly rise up and perform some bit of magic at table. She did not.

One evening, after a fine supper, the Regent invited his
guests, the young Wicke included, to his private salon. The men of Dearg,
preferring more active after-supper entertainment, excused themselves and
joined their kinsmen in Creiddylad.

Coinich Mor stayed, but tucked herself silently into a
corner near the hearth, from which vantage point she watched everyone else in
the room.

They sat, drinking hot cider and listening to the harsh
winds of early winter assault Mertuile, while Feich tried to engage his pretty
hostage in conversation.

“Your Mistress liked this room,” he told her, after
observing how continually awed she seemed by her surroundings. “We came here
with Cyne Colfre more than once during her time here. Did she ever speak to you
of that time?”

The girl blinked at him as if bemused by his sudden
amiability. “She spoke of it,” she said at last. “She called it a time of
confusion.”

Feich offered a wry smile. “For me, as well. I was . . . very
fond of your Mistress.”

“You tried to kill her.” The girl’s eyes were pools of ice
that made even Ladhar shiver.

“She seemed a threat to my Cyne and my country. Later events
proved me right.”

“No sir. They did not. Taminy had nothing to do with
Colfre’s death.” She laid subtle stress on her Mistress’s name, as if to imply
that someone other than Colfre had had something to do with it.

Feich’s eyes glittered. “She abducted the Cyneric—”

“She did not. Toireasa and Airleas came to us of their free
will. She means no harm to Airleas, as you well know. She means only to
strengthen him to see to it that when he does take the Throne, no one will mold
him to their own desires.” Her voice, soft and measured, quivered a bit as she
said the words, but her eyes were unwaveringly direct.

Feich shook his head and glanced at Ladhar. “I appreciate,”
he told the girl, “that you wish to believe no ill of your Mistress, but she
has proven herself to be Evil incarnate.”

“She has proven only to be your adversary, Regent Feich. I
suppose that must make her seem evil to you.”

Everyone in the room was astonished by the girl’s audacity.
Ladhar saw on other faces the same look he knew must be on his own. Only
Daimhin Feich took the remark blandly, his face set in a benign smile.

“Unfortunately, I must regard you as evil as well, poor
child. You are undeniably under her influence. If you were to disavow your
Mistress, however . . .”

“I can’t do that, sir.”

Feich shrugged. “Then you will most likely die . . .
eventually. Hanged, perhaps, or burnt, or drowned.”

Her lovely face paled to the color of cream, but the girl
only said, “I’m prepared to do that.”

Feich shook his head. “I admire your courage, child. But
what a deplorable waste. How can you love one who would so cruelly ignore your
plight?”

“Taminy doesn’t ignore me.”

“Ah, well, if you wish to plead that she’s unaware—”

“She’s not unaware, Regent. She knows where I am and under
what conditions. She’s always with me. Always.”

Feich perked up at this, his eyes lighting with interest.

“You are in communication with her?”

“Yes.”

“Yet, she does nothing to free you.”

“Perhaps my freedom is not required.”

An odd thing to say, Ladhar thought, and a part of his mind
began trying to work out what it meant.

Late that night at Ochanshrine, he came to the beginning of
an understanding, for Daimhin Feich arrived there, the Nairnian cailin in tow,
and demanded to be admitted to the Shrine.

What choice had he? He let them in, following them down into
the Osmaer Crystal’s sacred bowl.

The girl was clearly terrified. Wrapped in a long cloak that
did not cover the soft skirts of her sleeping gown, hair in wild disarray about
her shoulders, she glanced about with frantic eyes—eyes that were willing to
beg even Ladhar for aid.

Meanwhile Feich, obviously excited, prattled like a
schoolboy. “I asked if she had a crystal, and of course she did—a tiny thing,
barely worthy of the name, belonged to some mouldering Osraed. But she could
fire it, Ladhar! Damn, but she could fire it! So I gave her Bloodheart and the
damned thing all but ignited in her hands. Those sweet, magical hands!”

He kissed them both, knotted as they were into fists, and
dragged the poor girl down another three or four steps.

“And I thought, if she can do that with puny, flawed rocks,
then—” He broke off, staring at Ochan’s Crystal.

Yes, it too had ignited, even as Feich’s imperfect
Bloodheart. Ladhar thought his legs would refuse to support him. He sank to the
nearest bench, overcome, mesmerized as on that horrible night . . .

Feich, exultant, dragged the girl the rest of the way down
the aisle, forcing her into close contact with the Stone.

The Stone burned.

“Now, Wicke! Show me how you Weave with this crystal. Show
me your Mistress! Let me see her! Does she sleep? Does she Weave? Does she feel
your distress?
Show
her to me!”

The girl strained to pull her hands free, struggled to put
some distance between herself and the Osmaer Crystal, but Feich had the
advantage of physical strength and spiritual frailty. He cared little if he
terrified her or caused her pain. He twisted her to face the Crystal, shrieking
his commands in her ears, shaking her until the cloak slid from her shoulders.

The commotion drew an audience; Osraed and cleirachs
appeared in the upper doorway. Ladhar felt their eyes on him. They hung back,
seeing him there. Surely if the Abbod Ladhar was witness to this spectacle they
need not interfere.

“Show me Taminy-Osmaer!” cried Feich for perhaps the
twentieth time, and the girl, sobbing, put up her hands as if in prayer.

Did she Weave? Ladhar would never be certain, but all at
once he found himself engulfed in aislinn mist and he was seeing—dear God the
Spirit!—he was seeing Bevol’s Wicke, herself, right there in the Shrine. She
appeared, suspended over the Osmaer Crystal, or superimposed upon it, her hair
bound as if for sleep, dressed in a robe of blinding white. Light poured from
her in waves and her lips moved soundlessly.

Ladhar found his own lips were in motion, as well, releasing
a flood of desperate prayer.

Feich moved to approach the aislinn image, reached his hand
out as if to touch it, but it folded in on itself, disappearing into an
envelope of darkness.

The Regent howled. “Bring her back!” He turned to the
quaking girl, who responded by collapsing into a trembling heap at his feet.
Feich kicked at her. “Bring her back! I want to speak to her!”

“I can’t! Please, lord, I can’t!”

“You mean you
won’t
.
Very well, you stupid child. You’ve condemned yourself.” Feich turned to
Ladhar, who was only now getting his own trembling under control. “In the
morning, I’ll return, Abbod. And when I return, I will have the strength to
take up that Stone of yours and Weave through it.”

He dragged the hapless girl from the floor, then, and all
but carried her from the Shrine.

Ladhar could only stare after them in mute horror. Daimhin
Feich meant to get his hands on the Osmaer Crystal and, short of hiding it,
there was nothing he could do to prevent that. He turned his eyes to the Stone,
silently beseeching its unseen Mistress to aid him.

If ever you have
listened to me
, he told Her,
I bid
you listen now. Send me your two saints, your aingeals, to keep Daimhin Feich
from abusing Ochan’s Stone.

oOo

“Fhada!” Leal rattled the door of the Elder Osraed’s room
a second time. “Fhada!”

The door opened and Fhada gazed out at him, bleary-eyed, a
tiny light-globe clutched in his hand.

“Leal! Meri’s Breath, what is it? What’s happened?”

“We must go to Ochanshrine.”

“What? Now? . . . Wait . . . How go to Ochanshrine? We’ll be
caught—”

Leal waved his hands, stoppering the uneven flow of words
that poured from Fhada’s mouth. “I don’t know how . . . yet. We’ll find a way. I
only know we must go.”

Fhada shook his head. “But why?”

“To retrieve the Crystal. I had an aislinn—a vision. Taminy
appeared to me and told me that the Osmaer Crystal is in danger. We’re to try
to get Abbod Ladhar to let us take it and conceal it.”

“Conceal it?” murmured Fhada. “Conceal it from whom?”

“From Daimhin Feich.”

Fhada blanched. “He’s still a danger, then.” He ran a hand
through his unruly hair. “When shall we go?”

“Now. We must be there before dawn. We’re to take the Osmaer
and replace it with this.” Leal raised his hands into the glow of Fhada’s
light-globe, revealing the crystal he held. Large and clear, with a slight
golden cast at its heart, it looked very much like the Osmaer.

“Where did you get that?”

“From Taminy before she fled to Halig-liath. It was the
Osraed Bevol’s. It’s smaller than the Osmaer—but not by much—and the facets are
very similar.”

“Similar enough to fool Daimhin Feich?”

Leal smiled, a tickle of exhilaration fanning his heart.
“With a little help from Aine and the rest of us, I think it just might.”

oOo

She hadn’t meant to make the Stone light—she had wanted
nothing so much as to appear powerless in its presence—but she could not
dissemble before the Stone of Ochan. At first, she’d credited her lack of
control to her fear of Feich. He seemed a cauldron of violent impulse,
terrifyingly near a boil—a man of ferocious wants—but when the aislinn Taminy
appeared over the Crystal as if her Eibhilin body contained it and grew from
it, Iseabal understood that her lack of control was irrelevant.

It was Taminy who worked through the Osmaer Crystal, Taminy
who consoled her and calmed her fears with words of love that were meant for
her ears alone. So, when Daimhin Feich railed at her and demanded that she
Weave, again, the aislinn Taminy, she knew she could not.

She was afraid for her life by the time they returned to
Mertuile. Feich’s rage, rather than being spent, seemed to feed on itself and
grow. He dragged her through the castle halls past blank-eyed guards from whom
she expected no help and got none. The noise of their passing roused his young
cousin from slumber and, for a brief, agonizing moment, Isha felt the young
man’s distress and thought he might intervene. But he let them pass by him
without comment, his face grimly opaque.