Spirit of the Mist (2 page)

“Look at him,” remarked Flannan as Muriel hurried to catch up. “Ragged clothes of worn linen. No sword. No dagger. No gold at his throat or at his wrists. Hair cut short. Not even a pair of boots on his cold, bare feet. And I suppose that’s his boat out there.”
 

Muriel followed the warrior’s gaze and saw the battered remains of the stranger’s curragh smash against the rocks in the moonlight, breaking up into small pieces.
 

She turned away from the sight and back to the others. “You said he was an exile. Perhaps he was taken prisoner in a battle and—”
 

“He’s a criminal,” interrupted Ronan, hauling up the unconscious man’s arm to get a better grip on it. “Battle prisoners are not exiled. They are held for ransom, if noblemen, or simply kept as slaves or soldiers if they are not.”
 

“He is no criminal,” Muriel whispered.
 

“You are so sure? I don’t think—” But his words were cut off as his burden suddenly arched his back, twisted around, and wrenched himself out of all four men’s grasp. The captive fell facedown to the beach.
 

He was quick, but he was also numb with cold and exhaustion. Dun Farraige’s four warriors had him surrounded and at sword point before he could get to his feet. They shoved him down on the sand, where he sat very still with his hands braced at his sides.
 

Muriel moved past the swords and stood over him. Though he was pale and shivering with cold, he was nonetheless wide awake and surprisingly calm. He looked up at her and smiled, as if the two of them were alone together.
 

“I did see you,” he said. “You were no dream. I feared you existed only in the delirium of a dying man, but you are real—and that makes me very happy.”
 

She could only stare back at him, seeing nothing but those eyes. The moonlight revealed that one was blue and one was brown. Never had she seen anyone with eyes like that.
 

Still smiling up at her, he got slowly to his feet. Even in his weariness Muriel could see that he was tall and strong and broad-shouldered, and he carried himself like a warrior. He seemed not to notice as his four captors glared at him and pushed their sword points closer.
 

“Please, can you not put those away?” said Muriel. “He is unarmed. He is no threat to you.”
 

“We don’t know what he is,” said Ronan.
 

“We know,” said Flannan in a growl. “He is an exile. A criminal. A slave.”
 

The stranger glanced over at Flannan, looking him fearlessly in the eye. “I am no slave,” he retorted with a laugh. “My name is Brendan. I am a prince. I am the tanist of Dun Bochna.”
 

Now it was his captors’ turn to laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry! We should have known! You certainly do look like a prince,” said Flannan with a sneer. “Such fine clothes, such fine weapons!”
 

“A broken-down boat for a steed, and a school of eels for an army!” added Ronan.
 

Muriel looked up at Brendan, but he simply waited patiently for the laughter to subside.
 

“You were found adrift without even food or water, as the law requires,” said Ronan at last, when the others quieted. “Who would do such a thing?”
 

Again the man named Brendan looked straight at him. “Odhran.”
 

This time the men of Dun Farraige were silent. They glanced at each other and back at Brendan. “We’ve had our own dealings with King Odhran,” said Flannan.
 

“Something will have to be done about him soon,” added Ronan.
 

“A more false and wrongful king I have never heard of, not even in the old tales.” Flannan looked closely at Brendan once more. “Tell me, tanist, just who is your tribe? And who is your king?”
 

“Surely you know of Dun Bochna—and of King Galvin, king for more years than I have been alive.”
 

Flannan looked closely at him. “I do. But Dun Bochna is at least five days’ ride from here, on the other side of the bay. You must have drifted for a good long time.”
 

“I was not set adrift from my home. As I told you, I am no criminal.” Brendan glanced away, out to the dark sea, out at the rocks where the little pieces of his curragh clung to the waves.
 

“I will confess that I am not sure how long I was at sea,” he finally admitted quietly, and Muriel saw how much he still shivered. “I only know that there was no food, and no water, and I fought the waves for a very long time.”
 

“Please! We’ve been out here long enough!” she cried and reached up to wrap her cloak around his shoulders. “What sort of hospitality is this that Dun Farraige offers to an unarmed stranger, leaving him hungry and cold at our shores? Come with me. We are taking him back with us right now!”
 

The four men of her dun looked at each other. Finally Ronan and Flannan each pulled one of Brendan’s arms across their shoulders and began helping him walk toward the hill.
 

“All right,” said Ronan. “We’ll take you back to the dun. In the morning King Murrough and his druids will decide what’s to be done with you. If you are a prince, as you say, then you will be treated to the finest hospitality we can offer. But if you are a slave—well, then, your life will never hold uncertainty again.”
 

Chapter Two
 

The men shoved open the door of Muriel’s little round house. Inside, Alvy nearly dropped the iron poker into the hearth fire. “Mistress!” the old woman cried, hurrying over as quickly as her bent back would allow. “I was so worried about you—Oh, what is this?”
 

Muriel stepped into the deep clean rushes on the floor of her house and moved Alvy back near the shuttered window. “Put him there,” she said to Ronan, pointing across the room to the fine rope-and-wood-frame bed against the white clay wall.
 

Ronan and Flannan pushed their way through the door, still supporting Brendan between them with his arms up on their shoulders. They got him to the bed and let him fall on his back to the straw-stuffed mattress, his long, bare legs trailing off to one side. A fur on the bed was left beneath him.
 

“Thank you,” Muriel said. She hung her wet wool cloak on a peg in the corner. “We will take care of him and bring him to the king in the morning.”
 

The two warriors glanced at her, then at each other, then filed out of the house. Muriel closed the door tight behind them. Alvy remained where she was, safely behind the central hearth, staring wide-eyed at their guest. “Lady, what is this? I have never seen this man before! Who is he? And what’s wrong with him?”
 

Muriel hurried over to the bed. “His name is Brendan,” she answered, easing the man’s long legs up onto the mattress. “His boat wrecked on the beach. He nearly drowned.”
 

“He doesn’t look like much,” Alvy commented, coming closer. “So pale…dressed in rags…no gold…” She paused. “Is he a slave?”
 

“He’s not a slave. I’m sure of it.” Muriel got her arm beneath Brendan’s shoulders and helped him to sit up. “Alvy, pull that wet fur out from under him—that’s it—and bring another. Stir up the fire, too. He’s cold to the bone. We’ve got to warm him up, or else—”
 

“Thank you for your help, Lady Muriel,” whispered Brendan. “I am so sorry to trouble you…”
 

Muriel took the dry, warm fur that Alvy held out to her, and smiled briefly. “It is no trouble. We could not leave you out in that storm. But if you don’t get these wet clothes off and let us warm you, we may as well have left you there on the beach.”
 

He gave a slight nod. Slowly he reached up for his ragged linen tunic as if to begin pulling it off but then his head fell forward and his arms dropped back to the bed.
 

Quickly Muriel eased him back down. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. His skin was paler than ever, and his lips were almost blue. Most frightening of all, his shivering had stopped.
 

Muriel pulled her small knife from the small leather scabbard at her belt and used it to rip away the man’s wet tunic.
 

She started to tear open the heavy linen pants, but an indignant voice stopped her.
 

“My lady! You cannot!” Alvy came bustling over and lifted the knife from Muriel’s hand. “Here. Let an old servant woman get the britches off him. You go and stir the fire, and see about getting him something hot to drink.”
 

With some reluctance, Muriel got up from beside the unconscious Brendan. There would be no use trying to argue such a thing with Alvy, protective as she was. Muriel could only smile as she moved to the hearth, and take care to keep her back turned to the bed.
 

There was the ripping and tearing of old cloth. Muriel started to glance back, peering out from beneath her long, dark hair, but then quickly turned away at the sound of Alvy’s voice. “Muriel! Is the fire stirred up yet? He is still cold, so very cold!”
 

Muriel busied herself by placing the last two bricks of peat on the fire. She stirred the blaze with the iron poker, feeling warmth spread out from those small crackling flames.
 

She set down the poker and held her hands over the fire, realizing just how cold and tired she was herself. For a time she simply stood by the hearth and watched the wispy blue smoke rise up into the night through the narrow slot in the center of her dwelling’s thatched roof.
 

Finally she heard the rustling of a heavy wool cloak as Alvy wrapped it around the man’s unconscious form. “All done, lady! And here is another cloak and a few more sealskins to cover him with.”
 

Muriel turned around. The man called Brendan was tightly tucked in beneath a heavy stack of woolen cloaks and gray-brown furs flecked with black. Only his face showed in the soft light of the fire, and she was relieved to see that he did look a little better. There was a bit of color coming back to him now, and his breathing seemed to be deeper and more regular. He would live. He would recover.
 

She would see those strange eyes again.
 

With the relief of knowing he would survive came another wave of fatigue. The long time spent in the cold, wet night, the use of her powers to their greatest limit, the struggle to save a dying man—all of it seemed to catch up to her at once.
 

There was a familiar and gentle hand on her arm. “Come, dear one,” said Alvy. “I’ve made you a warm bed in the rushes, near mine. We’ll find him another place in the morning, and you’ll have your own good bed back.”
 

“Thank you, Alvy. I’m just glad he will live.”
 

“Oh, he will. And… Lady Muriel? I caught a glimpse of him while getting his wet clothes off. I’d say he was worth the trouble.”
 

Muriel smiled as she looked back at the old woman, but shook her head with some sadness. “Perhaps he is worth it for someone,” she whispered, “but I cannot dare to hope that he is what he says he is. And even if he were…”
 

“And what does he say he is?”
 

“A prince. The tanist of his people.”
 

“Tanist!” Alvy stared at her. “The next…king?”
 

Muriel shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. He could say anything, sick with cold as he is, and it could mean nothing.” She looked away. “He is only a stranger in need of help on a storm-wracked night. In the morning he will be gone. I cannot allow him to be any more to me than that.”
 

“Well, he is a pretty one, though,” Alvy said, glancing at him again. “And there are so few men that you could safely look to. If it’s true about who he is… then perhaps he will be worth it to you, too.”
 

Muriel smiled gently. “Thank you again, Alvy. Good night now.” She turned away and lay down on the furs in the rushes for what remained of the night, still seeing Brendan’s eyes as they had looked in that bright flash of lightning out in the storm.
 

Muriel awoke to find herself lying on the floor, nestled beneath a stack of furs in a thick pile of rushes, just as the gray light of dawn began to fill her house. For a moment she was puzzled. What was she doing sleeping in the rushes?
 

Then she remembered. In an instant she threw off the worn fur coverings and got to her feet. Cautiously she moved toward the bed, almost afraid to look—and then she let out her breath.
 

He was still there, sleeping soundly, warm and safe in her bed, snugly wrapped in her own good wool cloaks and softest sealskins. His fair skin looked normal now, warm and alive, with just a touch of redness at the cheek. His golden brown hair, cut short to the level of his chin, lay smooth and soft on the feather-stuffed linen pillow. And his breathing was light and steady, she noted as she watched the slight rise and fall of the black-flecked furs that covered him.