Spirit of the Mist (14 page)

Brendan walked into the hall just as the bards’ poem ended. He held a large bouquet of flowers still wet from the rain, a beautiful and colorful gathering of primrose and violet and clover. He walked behind Muriel, set the flowers down before her, and calmly sat down at his place again as though nothing at all had happened.
 

The hall was silent. Muriel peered up at the king and queen. King Murrough looked vastly amused, and Queen Orla was smiling. “I should say that the hall’s decor is indeed complete,” remarked the queen, who caught Muriel’s eye and gave a small nod toward the flowers.
 

Slowly, as if not certain they were safe, Muriel picked up the bouquet. “Thank you, Brendan,” she said. “Though you need not have gone to so much trouble.”
 

“It was no trouble, Lady Muriel.”
 

“Please, go on and continue with the feast,” said the king. “I agree with Queen Orla. Such beauty was worth waiting for.”
 

All of the guests began eating once more, not seeming to mind too much that their food had gotten quite cold. When they were finished with the beef and fish and bread, and the plates had been cleared away, King Murrough glanced at the servants and Alvy quickly set them to assembling the last course.
 

In a few moments the last dish was set before the guests. It was a flavorful mix of boiled dried apples mixed with crushed hazelnuts, with drops of sweet honey scattered over the top.
 

“This is good, very good,” commented the queen. “But I will be so glad when the autumn equinox is here. The second harvest is always my favorite one, I will admit.”
 

Muriel smiled. “The harvest of fresh fruits,” she said. “I miss them too. I think everyone does. But I will agree; this is delightful.” She started to take another bite—but then realized that Brendan had not touched his own plate and sat gazing at the king once again.
 

The king cocked his head. “What is it now, Brendan?”
 

“King Murrough,” he answered, “I have eaten until I can eat no more, drunk honey wine until I can barely lift my cup, admired the magnificence of your hall until I know that I will never see its equal, and so enjoyed the company of all who are here that I know I will never encounter any better. And yet—”
 

“And yet again, you feel that something is lacking.” The king remained in good humor. All the others leaned forward at their places, waiting to see what their guest might do next.
 

“Yet again.” Brendan sighed, and then glanced down the table at his men. “Darragh,” he said to the first one, and Darragh reached into a small leather case at his belt. He handed something to Brendan, who placed it beside the flowers before Muriel.
 

She saw a circular golden brooch in the shape of a leaping dolphin. It was made like the one Brendan himself wore, only this one was a little smaller, suitable for a lady’s hand to work. Muriel looked up at him, but again he had turned the other way.
 

“Killian,” he said, and now Killian took something from his belt and handed it over. Another bright object joined the dolphin brooch beside the flowers, and this time it was a wide, flat, curving bracelet made of gold. On its shining surface were etched the phases of the moon, with the breaking waves of the ocean underneath them.
 

Like the brooch, the bracelet took her breath away.
 

Now Brendan reached into the case at his own belt and drew out a small and slender torque, clearly intended for a woman’s slim neck. It was made of thin gold rods twisted together and shaped into a circle, but left open a little at the ends. Capping the ends were the heads of sea dragons, those ancient and powerful creatures that none had ever seen but that were well known from the many stories still told about them.
 

It was a smaller and finer version of Brendan’s own torque.
 

Muriel stared down at the three shining objects before her. “What is this, Brendan?” she whispered, though she knew very well what it meant.
 

In answer, he lifted the flat leather case from his belt and carefully poured out the contents on the wooden flat in front of Muriel. In a moment the brooch and the armband and the torque were lost beneath a heap of shining gold and bronze and copper objects—the same rings and brooches and armbands and beads that Brendan had shown to her upon his arrival, just before he had been taken prisoner once more.
 

He stood up and turned to the king and queen. “This lady, Muriel, is the one who has my life. Were it not for her, I would have been claimed by the storm and banished forever to the depths of the sea. She gave me my life…and now I would like to give it to her, if she will have it.”
 

Muriel sat very still. Brendan reached down to her and very gently took her hand, then raised her up to stand beside him. “Lady Muriel…I want to offer you both my love and my life. Will you return to Dun Bochna with me, there to be my bride?”
 

She started to speak, but her breath was coming fast in this warm, close room, and staring into his blue and brown eyes she could say nothing.
 

Now she must make her decision. Now he had offered precious gold and bronze to the king as her bride contract, and offered to her three of the most beautiful golden pieces she had ever imagined.
 

Brendan had returned for her, as he promised he would, and given her gifts that only a prince—or a king—could give. If she turned away from him here, in front of all the people of her tribe, she would never have a chance to change her mind at some later time. He would have no choice but to return home with his offer of marriage publicly refused, and Muriel knew that he could never make her another.
 

“Muriel,” he said again. “Will you come with me and become my wife, become my queen?”
 

King Murrough stood up, his gold cup in hand. “What say you, Lady Muriel?”
 

“I say…” she began in a whisper, but her voice caught. She was aware of the silence in the hall, and the suspense, and the many eyes staring at her. And she was also aware, across the firepit, of the shocked and disapproving face of Alvy.
Do not, do not! He is not a king yet! Do not!
 

Still looking into one blue eye and one brown eye, still feeling the warmth of his skin and breath, Muriel heard herself whisper, “I say…that I will go with you to Dun Bochna, and I will be your wife.”
 

Brendan grinned and leaned forward to give her the gentlest of kisses.
 

“Drink to Brendan, tanist of Dun Bochna, and his bride, the Lady Muriel!” shouted the king.
 

“Brendan and Muriel!” cried the assembled guests, and this time she returned her lover’s kiss.
 

Seven days later, Muriel rode a small bay mare through the late spring afternoon with Brendan at her side on his prancing gray. Behind them rumbled a four-wheeled wooden wagon pulled by a team of large black oxen, with two servants walking alongside with long switches to keep the slow animals moving.
 

The wagon was piled high with boxes and leather bags holding the many bride gifts that the people of Dun Farraige had given to Muriel: plates and cups of gold, wooden buckets for water, sealskin furs and black cowhides, woven woolen cloaks, many linen and woolen gowns, soft folded boots and leather belts, golden brooches and bracelets, bronze cauldrons, an assortment of iron household utensils, stuffed leather pillows, and even a dismantled loom.
 

At the front of the wagon sat a druid, Bercan, whose task it would be to make the final delicate negotiations of the marriage contract. And high atop the wagonload of treasure rode Alvy, balancing herself among the furs and pots, as though she had appointed herself its guardian and must prevent its falling at every bump and jiggle.
 

Following the wagon was a bawling herd of black cattle. This was the rest of Muriel’s wealth, given to her along with the household goods as wedding gifts from her sisters and their husbands. Behind the cattle rode Killian and Darragh, along with five warrior men dispatched by King Murrough to accompany them, all working to keep the cattle together and moving along the path to Brendan’s fortress home.
 

Muriel rocked along with her mount’s easy strides, comfortable on the padded leather saddle, her feet dangling at the horse’s sides. It seemed to her that her day—her life—could not get any happier than this. She was on her way to be married to a handsome young man who would one day be a king, a man who loved her, and she was going to his home with a magnificent dowry of cattle and goods.
 

She had all she could ever wish for, all she would ever need. It all seemed so perfect…perhaps too perfect.
 

Muriel tried not to hear the small voice at the back of her mind that kept on whispering,
He is not a king yet… He is not a king yet…
 

On the evening of the second day of the journey, the group made a comfortable camp beneath the willow trees not far from a stream. The hobbled horses grazed among the cattle on the rippling grass, the animals closely watched by the two servants. Soon the cows and the bay and the gray and the chestnut horses all faded into hazy shadows as darkness fell.
 

Muriel sat on a leather cushion beside her loaded wagon. In front of her, a fire crackled nicely in the stone-ringed pit that Brendan had built. On the other side of the flames Alvy tended to the newly killed hare cooking in a small bronze cauldron hanging by a chain from the iron tripod.
 

“Just a bit longer now; it’s nearly ready,” Alvy called, then held out a wooden bowl. “Oh, Muriel—would you walk down to the stream and see if you can find a bit of watercress to go with the meat? Take this and fill it, if you can, and there will be a fine meal for all of you.”
 

Muriel quickly stood up. “Of course I will,” she said, smiling, reaching for the bowl.
 

“Oh, but it’s dark down there. Go with Brendan; have him take a torch for you.”
 

“I’ll ask him.” But as she turned to call his name, Brendan stepped out of the darkness carrying a long, heavy stick of wood with a grease-soaked scrap of old linen wrapped around it. He touched it to the flames, glancing up at Muriel as he held it. “You wished for a torch, my lady?” he asked.
 

“I did,” she said, coming over to rest her hand on his arm. “And some watercress as well.”
 

“Then come with me, and you shall have both,” he said, raising the smoldering stick and blowing on it so that a little flame took hold. Arm in arm, Brendan and Muriel walked into the darkness of the trees, toward the sound of the cool running stream.
 

Chapter Nine
 

Brendan went first, holding the faintly glowing torch out ahead of them and picking his way down the nearly imperceptible path. Muriel followed closely, using the flickering light of the torch and the pale, distant glow of the stars and waning crescent moon to find her way, though the light of the stars and moon was equally wavering as the high clouds flew across them.
 

As she walked, Muriel stepped on a twig. It cracked in the darkness and caused a sudden rustling in the bushes somewhere off to one side of the path.
 

Both she and Brendan stopped. Brendan raised his torch and peered into the darkness, in the direction of the sound, but after waiting many moments they heard only the breeze high in the trees and the soft rushing of the stream far ahead in the darkness.
 

“Just an animal of some sort,” said her betrothed, continuing on. “Most likely otters or hares, frightened of you and your snapping twigs.”
 

Muriel smiled, watching his strong shoulders as he walked ahead of her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not well accustomed to the forests. I’ve spent all my life at the edge of the sea, and that’s where I am most at home.”
 

She saw him glance back. “And in just a few nights your home will once again be by the sea, at Dun Bochna. I hope that you will come to love the place as much as I do.”
 

Muriel stepped close to him as they walked, feeling the strength of his body as he led the way down the ever steeper path. “I already do, Brendan. It is your home, and so I—”
 

There was another rustling and a small crash in the bushes, this time on the other side of the trail.
 

Brendan halted so abruptly that Muriel found herself pressed up against his back. He dropped one arm and braced her with it. “Stay still,” he commanded.
 

“I stepped on no twig this time,” she whispered.
 

“I know. Stay still.”
 

Again they listened, and again there was nothing. “A deer, come down for water and startled by the sight of us.” Brendan started off again, holding the torch a little higher and moving it from side to side. “The watercress must be quite good here. It’s a popular place we’ve come across.”