Elizabeth McBride (15 page)

"S o you're telling me that there's a woman in charge?"

"Not exactly in charge, Your Highness."

"Exactly what, then?"

A trickle of sweat slid from the man's brow. "She just
thinks she's in charge, my liege."

A heavy eyebrow lifted the golden crown a fraction of
an inch. "My friend, don't you know you should never let
a woman think she's in charge? She'll create more havoc
than a ferret trapped in your breeches."

Snickers bounced off the embroidered wall hangings.
The raftered hall, the centerpiece of the royal fort of Dun
Add, was filled with the men of the king's court, dressed
in silken tunics and shaggy fleece cloaks.

"Things aren't going the way I planned, my liege."

"Apparently not." The king of Dal Riata picked an oyster
from a silver platter that a page held before him.

"The woman is wayward, my liege."

"Wayward women do not interest me." The king drank
a large mouthful of wine, and wiped his chin with his
sleeve. Then he leveled his gaze at the man before him. "I
do, on the other hand, care about the Pictish prince. He is
dangerous. And there is only one way to stop him."

"I need time, Your Highness."

"I've given you time. I've stayed away from Dun Darach
while you made your plans. Now time is running out."

"Then give me an army."

"An army? You can't take care of two score men and a
handful of scrawny women without an army?"

The hall tittered.

"I can. But if you want speed-"

"I want results. You have Drosten mac Gormach in your
lap. Deal with him."

The page slipped to the king's other side and presented
him with a tray of spice cakes. The king selected one and
pushed it into his mouth. "As for the woman, she's not a
blood relation. Kill her or take her for yourself. But whatever you do, for Mary's sake, be subtle. I don't want to
start a war with the Picts."

The king leaned back and closed his eyes. The man
opened his mouth as if to speak, thought better of it, and
backed into the shadows.

It was just before dawn when Mhoire awakened. She had
dreamt all night. But not of the man who slapped and humiliated her. She dreamt of the other one. Whose warmth
threatened to melt the walls she had so carefully erected
inside herself. Walls she must keep up.

She pushed herself to her knees, reached for the leather
bundle that held her personal things, and drew out a small
object. Cradling it in her palm, she tiptoed past the sleeping
bodies scattered around the hall, pulled open the heavy oak
door, and stepped into the courtyard.

The air was thick and the sky lowered, smothering the
light like a lid on a box.

Shadows separated from the gloom. She tensed but
quickly recognized the shapes as two of Drosten's warriors.
Then she sensed movement behind her.

"Mhoire." Grainne spoke from the doorway. "How are
you feeling?"

I am grave. Melancholy. Resolved. "I am well enough,"
Mhoire said, turning. She surveyed the muddy ground near
her feet. "How long has it been raining?"

"All yesterday."

Mhoire looked toward the field still shrouded in darkness. "The rain will rot the seed."

Grainne touched her arm. "I know you are worried,
Mhoire. But we can do well here. The rain will stop. You'll
see."

"I can't go back to Ireland, Grainne."

Nay.

"And I can't marry Drosten. He frightens me." She
looked at her friend. "You understand, don't you?"

"Aye, I do."

"So we must protect ourselves."

"Aye." Grainne nodded emphatically.

"Will you carry a message for me? I can't go myselfDrosten's men have their eyes on me." She gestured toward
the shadows.

Mhoire bent and whispered instructions in Grainne's ear.
Then she pressed a small object into her friend's hand.

Asullen drizzle turned to a steady downpour that lasted
all day. The wind came, too, in furious gusts that bent the
grasses flat and lashed the green sea into frothy peaks.

Inside the gathering hall, everything was orderly. Buckets, pots, ladles, cups and bowls, which the Pictish warriors
had brought with them and which had quietly become communal property, were stacked on planks of stone. Wattle
shutters covered the windows and blocked the chill. Simple
wooden benches, which the men had fashioned in their
spare time, surrounded the central hearth. Rushlights
slipped into iron pegs along the walls cast a golden domestic glow.

Still there was tension. After the rain had forced everyone inside, Mhoire fell to cleaning and tidying in complete
silence, leaving the others to wonder if it was rage or despair that burdened her. Drosten wore an expression of such
seriousness that even little Oran feared to approach him.

Toward evening, one of the sentries appeared on the
threshold, his wet, dark hair like an inverted cup upon his
head. Beside him stood an old man, half-bent at the waist
and clutching a large package wrapped in leather.

He was as thin as a skeleton, and his long, ragged gown
fell loosely from his narrow shoulders to his bony ankles.
His beard stuck out in all directions, and his hair drifted
about his head like dirty snow. The way he held himself, with his head tilted up and to the side, told Mhoire that he
had spent his life listening, and that he was blind.

"It's rainin' cats and old wives out there, so when I saw
him on the path I thought it best to bring him here for
shelter," the sentry said as Mhoire and Drosten approached
from opposite sides of the hall.

"It's the harper!" Brigit shouted. "Harper Neill!"

The old man smiled, and the folds of his skin pleated
deeply. "That I am." He reached an arm out toward Mhoire.
"And who is this?"

She grasped his hand. His fingers were cold as ice but
strong. "I am Mhoire ni Colman, and this is Dun Darach."

"Dun Darach, aye. I meant to go to the chapel and beg
a bit of food from the monks, but this fellow told me it
was in ruins." His opaque blue eyes wandered in their sockets.

"Aye. And we are nearly so. But surely you do not travel
alone, Harper Neill?"

"The fever stole my boy, two years' past."

Mhoire took in his threadbare clothes and his worn
leather boots caked with mud. "How do you manage to
survive?"

"Survive?" An impish smile played about the harper's
mouth. "My dear, surviving is easy for me. You see, I can
make magic." He patted the leather bundle he cradled in
his arms. "And no one wants that to die."

The women sat Harper Neill down on one of the benches
before the fire and immersed his feet in a bowl of warm
water in which red moss had been boiled. Then they
pressed a mug of birch-leaf tea-good for rheumatisminto his knobby hand.

A harper in the hall was a festive event, and excitement
rang through the air. After supper was done, they cleared
the floor around the hearth and gathered in a half-circle.
Harper Neill unwrapped the leather covering from his harp
and hoisted it, curved like the prow of a ship, upon his lap.

A few of the women sang. Harper Neill knew Pictish songs, too, and when he played some of the faster, more
raucous tunes, the men joined in, loudly. Drosten, Mhoire
noticed, never sang, though his lips curved into a smile
when his men bellowed with their greatest enthusiasm.

After half a dozen tunes, Fergus withdrew from inside
his shirt a small pipe made of an eagle's bone.

"Do you know `The Soldier's Lament'?" he asked Harper Neill.

The harper nodded, and the two began to play.

Mhoire would never have guessed red-haired Fergus,
with his beefy hands and snaggled teeth, had such music
in him. The sound of his pipe flowed through the air, as
pure as a mountain stream. Each note was long and mournful, and spoke of loss and yearning, of hardship, and a life
away from home.

The tune tore at Mhoire's heart. And then she looked at
Drosten. He was staring, not at the piper nor the harper,
but at something invisible between the two. The homeland
he had left behind? The peaks of those glorious high mountains? The lush green fields he had tilled in his boyhood?
The faces of his clan? In her mind's eye, Mhoire saw him
among them, and for the first time she realized what he had
given up by coming to the wreck that was Dun Darach.
Everything he knew. Prosperity. Security. Rank. Comfort.

Drosten turned his head and caught her watching him.
She saw the flicker of surprise on his face, but she could
not look away, and for a moment her heart glowed in her
eyes.

"Sing for us, Mhoire!"

She jumped. The song had come to a halt, and all eyes
turned to her expectantly. A flush reddened her neck and
face. "I don't-"

"Please!" little Oran piped up, clapping her hands. There
was a rumble of assent.

The harper raised his hands to his strings. "How about
`The Story of the Snow-Child'? Do you know that one?"

"Well ..." Mhoire looked around. She saw nothing but
interest and anticipation on the circle of faces before her. "Well, if you're sure you want it," she agreed reluctantly.
"Just one verse."

She possessed a soft, sweet voice. It did not carry far,
but held such emotion that everyone fell silent and
stretched forward to hear it. When the harper carried on
without interruption from the first verse to the second and
then to the third, Mhoire, her cheeks flushed rosy as a
robin's breast, stayed with him.

At Drosten she could bestow only glancing looks-fleeting sweeps through long lashes that were unconsciously
coquettish. But he gazed at her, spellbound, with eyes that
were warm and brilliant.

The look did not go unnoticed.

"We must do something about this," Elanta whispered,
nudging Brigit with her elbow.

"Hmm." Brigit's eyes went from Mhoire to Drosten and
back again. "Things seem to heat up between those two,
but they never come to a boil."

"What can we do?"

"We could try ripping off their clothes and throwing
them in the byre."

"Brigit! Be serious."

"Well, I'm half-serious. In truth, all it would take is to
get them in close range and keep them there. I recognize
the look that's burning in their eyes. Lust. Pure and simple."

Abruptly, Elanta stood. "Harper Neill!"

Fortunately, the tune was winding to a close, and its last
few notes were cut only slightly short when the musician
looked up in surprise.

"Play us a dance, Harper Neill!" Elanta shouted.

"A dance is it?" The women murmured their approval.
The men shifted uneasily. Bawdy songs were great fun, but
dancing? What soldier had opportunity to dance, except
over his enemy's grave?

The harper launched into "The Fair-Haired Lass."

It was a ring dance for ladies only. Elanta and Brigit
nudged the men off their seats and had them drag the benches against the walls to create an open space. They
grabbed Mhoire between them, ignoring her feeble protests,
and then all the women joined hands in a circle. Smiling,
they moved to the right, and then to the left. On the second
verse, they leapt lightly, seven times in one direction, seven
times in the other, their gowns lifted high above their
calves.

Watching closely for a glimpse of a well-turned leg or a
bouncing breast, the men decided that dancing was not so
horrible after all. So when Harper Neill dove into a sword
dance, a few of the men were persuaded to attempt it. They
leapt across their crossed weapons, grinning broadly and
hair flying.

Still, Mhoire noticed, Drosten did not participate, though
he threw his head back and laughed with the others at his
soldiers' antics. When Harper Neill began to pluck out a
couples' dance, and little Oran approached Drosten pleadingly, the Pictish leader tried to brush her off.

But Oran would not be dissuaded.

Drosten pointed to the cluster of men standing idle. With
twenty men and only eight females present, there were
plenty of extra partners. Oran shook her head vigorously.
He crouched before her and began to speak with extreme
patience. The child tugged on his arm till he almost toppled
over. Finally, he sighed, rose, took her tiny hand, and let
her pull him out to where the others had already begun to
dance.

He was, indeed, clumsy. Mhoire had to cover her mouth
with her hand to hide her amusement. It was a simple
dance, and Oran's instructions were continuous. "Nay, nay!
This way!" Mhoire heard her say. "Nay, nay! Move this
foot now!" But Drosten's limbs seemed far too big for delicate movement.

No one had asked Mhoire to dance. At first she was
relieved. Then she felt awkward. She was the only woman
not on the dance floor. Even Nila was dancing. Mhoire had
not thought herself to be so very offensive. At feasts and
weddings, she had never wanted for partners. These men, she concluded, must believe her too peculiar to consort
with. She stood alone against the wall and kept her eyes
on the dancers to mask her discomfort. She did not realize
that the soldiers shied from her pride and her beauty.