Pride of Lions (38 page)

She could taste blood in her mouth.

She leaped to her feet and ran toward the rowan trees.

Donough was jarred by the impact as his sword grated against bone. The man whose ribs he had just laid bare shrieked in pain and spun away from him, staggered, fell. Donough temporarily switched the sword to his left hand and gave his right arm a vigorous shake to relieve the shock.

At that moment a florid young man with a button nose and sweat-drenched yellow curls flung himself forward, screaming a battle cry. He swung a mighty sideways axe blow at Donough's neck, meaning to decapitate him.

The attack caught Donough off-balance. He flung up his right hand instinctively, deflecting the blow, and heard the axe boom against his iron helmet.

For a measureless moment there was no pain, only a blinding white light. Donough rocked on his feet. In his left hand his sword seemed incredibly heavy; he could hardly lift it. When he tried to launch a counterblow dizziness washed over him and his effort was weak, badly aimed. The man leaped nimbly out of range then came toward him again, grinning in anticipation of an easy kill.

Fergal cut him down from behind. Catharnach fell without ever knowing what hit him.

Fergal caught Donough before he collapsed.

"Over here ... this way ..." He half-carried his cousin away from the fighting toward the shelter of a copse of trees.

Donough still had not realized that he was injured.

He could not understand why the countryside seemed to be spinning around him. In his ears a roaring rose and fell like the voice of the sea; he was very nauseated.

Looking up, he tried to focus on his rescuer's face. "I'm not seasick," he mumbled. "I don't get seasick anymore, Fergal."

The other laughed without humor. "We're a long way from the sea. You're axe-sick, you are.

And it looks like you've lost a hand."

Cera was frantic with anxiety. He was badly hurt and she did not know where he was, nor was there time to find him.

She had tasted his blood in her mouth.

Until long after moonrise she was scouring the fields and forests for every form of medicament that might be of use. Gathering them with the appropriate signs and spells, she carried them to the bank of the stream. There she built a large fire. When the heat was enough to warm the sap in the nearest trees and thick smoke was billowing out over the swift-flowing water, she consigned her collection to the flames.

For the second time in his life Donough had lost consciousness as the result of a battle injury, but this time he did not wake up with his head in someone's lap. Nor was his awakening painless.

"Sweet Jesus," he groaned as he became aware of an agonizing throbbing all along the right side of his body. His arm felt as if it were being crushed between giant jaws.

With an effort of concentration, he recalled the battle. He had a dim memory of an axe flashing in the sun; then nothing. He groaned again.

Footsteps approached and he heard Fergal's voice as if from a great distance. "You're awake then? God be praised; we thought we'd lost you."

"Fergal?" Donough's tongue seemed to fill his mouth, making it hard to speak clearly.

His cousin squatted beside him, saying, "Don't try to talk, save your strength. If you really are going to live, we'll make a litter for carrying you."

"Malachi ..."

"Celebrating victory. He'll start for Dun na Sciath tomorrow."

"I can't ..."

"Of course you can't, it's too far. We'll take you on to Thomond, it's much nearer and you'll be safe there. Drink this, then rest."

Fergal held a cup of water to his lips and Donough sipped obediently, though even that effort made his arm throb.

He slid away into a buzzing darkness.

By dawnlight he learned the extent of his injury. When he awoke, in spite of the pain he made himself unwrap the bloodstained cloth someone had bound around his right arm. The fingers of his left hand were stiff and clumsy as if shrinking from their task. Before he had finished a clammy sweat formed on his forehead.

Then the arm lay revealed.

It was so purple and swollen at first he could not tell its true condition, only that the contours were wrong.

He peered closer. Nausea swept over him again.

Most of his hand was missing.

The axe had sheared off his fingers at an angle from between thumb and forefinger to just above the knob of wristbone. Only the thumb itself remained. Stubs of splintered bone and severed tendon fibers protruded from a crust of dried blood.

Donough could only stare.

Fergal bent over him. "Nasty," he commented.

"Ronan said you would probably die."

Donough gritted his teeth. "Tell him I appreciate his faith in me."

With a laugh, Fergal straightened. "Och, you're better. You shouldn't be, but you are.

Cumara!" he shouted. "Come here and take a look at this."

Cumara joined them, looking, as always, worried. He examined the exposed injury, then shook his head. "Ronan told us the hand would fester and we would have to cut off the whole arm."

Donough's toes curled in anguished anticipation. "Not my arm, you don't! It isn't festering, see?"

"It doesn't appear to be," Cumara reluctantly agreed. "But it should. We had nothing with which to treat the wound, all we did was wash away the worst of the blood with water from a stream.

I cannot understand why ..."

"I am healing to spite Ronan," Donough interrupted. "Where is he?"

Fergal's scowl of disapproval told the story. "He's gone with Malachi. Said he was a warrior and you would not be fighting any more battles, so ..."

"S." The pain in Donough's arm was excruciating, but no less than his sense of betrayal. He was determined to let neither show.

Keeping his face stony, he said, "The next time we go to war we will be better off without him."

"The next time?" Fergal looked quizzical.

"There will be a next time," Donough promised.

"I've only lost part of a hand. I'm a long way from dead, no matter what Ronan thinks."

He looked at Cumara. "I shall need some place to rest and heal. Can we go to your house on Lough Derg?"

"I gave it up to someone else when I joined you," Mac Liag's son replied.

"There's Kincora, of course."

"Not yet. Not until I walk through those gates with the full approval of the law."

"What about Kill Dalua?" suggested Fergal. "The physician of the Dal Cais can take a look at that arm, though in truth there seems little for him to do. And the good brothers can care for you until you recover."

Donough started trying to rewrap the arm, but he was too clumsy. A solicitous Cumara took over the task.

Looking the other way, Donough said, "Kill Dalua would not be my first choice, but I suppose it's the best under the circumstances. And I won't need a litter. If you will lead my horse, Fergal, I can ride."

The rebuilt monastery at Kill Dalua was Cathal Mac Maine's pride and joy. The abbot went on a tour of inspection almost daily, feasting his eyes on sturdy oak gates and freshly quarried stone walls. If the new structure looked more like a fortress than a monastery, the resemblance was intentional.

Cathal now thought of Kill Dalua as a Christian stronghold against the pagan forces arrayed against him.

When the injured Dalcassian prince was brought to him to recover from his injury, Cathal welcomed him effusively. The abbot's disenchantment with Teigue continued, and having Donough under his influence for a time was a heavensent opportunity.

"You will be the first guest in our new guesting house," a beaming Cathal informed Donough.

"Anything you require, you have only to ask for.

We are now brewing some very fine mead from our own honey and apples, and I shall see that a jug is kept by your bedside to ease your pain."

Cathal was too friendly, instinct warned Donough. But he was wounded and weary and it was enough to lie beneath a linen sheet, listening dreamily to the angelic voices of the brothers as they changed their offices.

The abbot assigned several monks to tend to his needs. Foremost among them was a young local man called Brother Senan, who had a round Thomond face and a great gap between his front teeth, about which he was inclined to make jokes.

Under Brother Senan's watchful eye Donough slept, ate, slept again. The arm

healed with astonishing rapidity. Sometimes, as he lay on his bed gazing out the window at the sky beyond, he thought of Cera.

She could feel him; much closer now. At least he was still alive. But she could feel a darkness, too, like a bruise in fruit. An injury. In spite of all her efforts he was damaged, and the knowledge tormented her.

She spent more and more time away from the cabin among the oaks. She could not bear to be under a roof or within the embrace of four walls.

She did not confide in Padraic. A change had taken place within her; she wanted to confide her inmost thoughts only to Donough. Everything of value in herself was his now.

Her longing reached out to him.

As his health improved Donough began to read voraciously, demanding books be brought to him from the abbot's library. His mind was as restless as his body was lacking in vigor. He resented the periodic exhaustion that still incapacitated him, although Ferchar, chief physician of the Dal Cais, assured him it was normal for someone who had suffered such an injury. "Just rest and give yourself time," he counseled.

But it was hard to rest, hard to feel life going on without him.

Donough spoke to Brother Senan. "The abbot said I could have anything I wanted, so I need you to do something for me."

"Of course," the monk agreed as he put a fresh sheet of linen on Donough's mattress.

Smoothing the fabric over the bag of feathers he felt a momentary envy, but he quickly extinguished it and thanked God instead that he was allowed to sleep on a plank.

Donough was saying, "I want to send word to Cera Ni Padraic that I am injured and would like to see her. She's the daughter of my father's spear carrier; she lives near Ennis."

Brother Senan flashed a pleasant, gap-toothed grin. "If she sees my smile first, she may forget all about you," he warned.

"I'm willing to take that chance," replied Donough, grinning back at him.

When Senan dutifully reported the request to the abbot, he was startled by Cathal's response. "Forget we ever had this conversation."

"Forget? But Prince Donough wants ..."

"He doesn't know what's good for him. A woman like that has no business coming within a day's journey of Prince Donough, and I mean to protect him from her."

"But what shall I tell him?"

"Don't tell him anything. Let him assume the message has been sent--and ignored."

Senan was a scrupulously honest man and any deception troubled him, but he was obedient.

While Donough waited for Cera to come to him, he began working to restore his strength. Every day he pushed himself harder, ignoring the order to rest. It was bad enough that Cera would find him maimed; he did not want her to see him weak as well.

He was a warrior. He could not think of himself as anything other than a warrior. And a warrior must fight, so he had to relearn the use of weapons.

Cumara had gone with Fergal to the latter's home during Donough's recuperation, so Brother Senan was pressed into service. The bemused monk became a training partner, helping Donough adjust to using his sword left-handed.

The weapon was made for a right-handed man, however.

The hilt was awkward in his left hand, the balance of the blade was wrong. "I'll need a new sword," Donough told Senan. "Send word to Odar the smith, at Kincora. Have him come to me and we shall discuss its forging."

Odar soon arrived and a long afternoon was spent in discussion of hilt shape and blade balance. The forge at Kincora was heated white-hot; a new weapon was manufactured. The final result, when Odar delivered it to Kill Dalua, was handsome and well balanced, but Donough could not help thinking how little it resembled the sword of Brian Boru.

"With the sword in my left hand I have to carry the shield on my right arm," he said to Senan, "which may be of advantage. When my hand is hidden behind the shield, no opponent can tell I'm injured. And listen here to me, Senan: Why not bind a knife to my right wrist, with the blade like an extension of my thumb? That way if I lose the shield I'll still have a weapon in either hand."

"Except you don't have two hands."

"I shall make a hand and a half enough," Donough replied.

As he gained in strength, he undertook daily practice sessions in the orchard beyond the refectory. Brother Bressal complained that it disturbed his bees and would lower honey production, but the other monks made a point of visiting the orchard as often as they could, for the pleasure of watching. They were sworn to God, but they were born of a warrior race.

To a man, they admired Donough. He never spoke of his mutilation and made no excuses for it. Nor did he try to conceal it, except when carrying the shield. The rest of the time he displayed his damaged arm as freely as the other, and soon no one took any notice of it.

When the sunlight took on the golden slant of autumn and harvested apples piled high in baskets, Donough began to wonder when Cera would arrive.

She had waited as long as she could, but at last she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, kissed her father good-bye, and set off eastward, feet white and bare beneath the hem of her red skirt.

Cera trusted her intuition to lead her to Donough as surely as instinct brought mated birds back to last summer's nest.

She could feel him. Three days' determined walking should take her to him.

When she appeared outside the gates of Kill Dalua she found them closed. But a bronze bell had been set up in a niche, and she rang this energetically.

A small panel set flush in the left-hand gate slid open with a squeal of wood, and a tonsured head peered out.

"I want to see Prince Donough Mac Brian," Cera announced.

The monk regarded her owlishly. "Your name?"