Spirit of the Mist (28 page)

Muriel came over to examine their goods. “Wet it is, but not soaked through. Whatever is in the center is still usable. We’ll have to be careful not to disturb what is nearest the outside, and it will protect the rest. And as for the clothes …

She held out the skirts of her own woolen gown. “All of us are soaked. Everyone should take off their cloaks and tunics, and…and lay them over the rocks for the wind to dry. Place some smaller rocks on the corners to hold them down. We’ll get them as dry as we can before sundown.”
 

Rummaging through the sack with clothes, she found two woolen cloaks and three tunics, mostly dry. “Here,” she said, carrying the first of the cloaks to Grania. “I know that you and your husband are soaked. Perhaps you could share this, and I will do what I can to dry the ones you are wearing.”
 

“Thank you,” the queen said, accepting the cloak. “Just allow me to warm up a bit and I will help with whatever I can.”
 

She could see that the older woman was shivering. “Do not worry yourself,” Muriel told her. “Sit close to your husband beneath the cloak. There will be food ready soon. That will help.”
 

Muriel took off her own cloak, untied her belt, and lifted off her soaked blue-and-cream-plaid woolen gown, leaving her standing in her wet linen undergown. Quickly she pulled on one of the plain dark brown tunics from the bag. Intended for a manservant, it was so long that it reached down past her knees. She sighed and smoothed it.
 

Turning, she caught Brendan looking at her with something like renewed shock in his eyes. “I never thought to see you wearing the sort of thing that I must now wear,” he whispered. “I am sorry.”
 

“It is only a tunic, Brendan,” she said, walking over to him. “And it is mostly dry. I feel a little better wearing it, I got so wet from sitting in the prow of the boat.”
 

“But you should be wearing the most beautiful linen and the finest wool. You should have gold earrings and wristbands and brooches. You are a queen, and you should not be dressed as a servant!”
 

His voice was beginning to shake. Muriel turned to him and placed gentle fingers on his arm.
 

“The first time I saw you, you did not have clothes that were even as fine as this. You wore no gold, no weapons—yet I knew, by your spirit and your strength and your courtesy, that you were no slave and no criminal.” She stared into his eyes. “You told me, at that time, that you needed none of the accoutrements of a king to know that you were one. And I will tell you now that if I am a queen, it is because I am loved by and bonded to a king—and I do not need pretty gowns or gleaming gold to know what I am.”
 

He tried to speak, but there were no words; and so they held each other close on the windswept rock, each one drawing comfort from the warmth and presence of the other.
 

After a time, Muriel raised her head. “We will make a life here, Brendan. It is risky, that is true, but it is better than the certainty of having Odhran hunt you down. There is no doubt that is exactly what he would do.”
 

“I am not worth such a risk, perhaps.” He shook his head. “I should never have let this happen. I should never have allowed you to come here… Not any of you; but you, Muriel, most of all.”
 

“But we are here, and we are here by choice.” She caught his arm and shook it a little. “We need your help, Brendan. There is much to be done. Please—help me, help us all. We will not be here forever. We need only manage here for a short time, until we think of something better. Then we will go home.”
 

He looked at her and slowly nodded. “I brought you all here… I suppose I’d better make a home for you as best I can.”
 

Muriel smiled a little and turned away to see to the clothes.
 

Soon their campsite was decorated with cloaks and tunics spread out over the rocks to dry. The wind blew strong and cold in this place, though it was summer.
 

Muriel fervently hoped that the broken curragh could be turned into some sort of shelter—if the three men could manage to drag it up all this way.
 

If they returned at all.
 

She closed her eyes and told herself not to entertain any such thoughts. Their only chance of survival was to maintain hope; for if they abandoned it, they might as well walk together over the edge of that cliff right now.
 

Muriel walked back to the rock face where the others sat. “We need a fire,” she said to Brendan. “Is there anything to burn?”
 

“Fire,” he repeated, and gazed around the site. “Fire…”
 

She followed his gaze, and with a sinking heart she realized what he was seeing. The bare ledge held virtually nothing that would burn. The few tufts of grass that they could gather would be consumed in moments.
 

“There are no trees on this island,” Brendan said, as though from very far away. “There is no peat. We will risk our lives just to get a few scraps of driftwood or a handful of seaweed, all in the hope that we can dry it out enough to get it to burn at all.” He shook his head again. “At least we will not have to worry about the fire destroying our shelter. We have neither roof nor flame.”
 

“All right then,” Muriel said, hoping to distract him. “We’ll have to manage without fire for a time. People have done it before. The weather is warm enough and we have food to last for a while. So…our other thought is for water. Drinking water.”
 

He made a small sound that was something like laughter. “You certainly ask for a great deal, my lady! Food. Dry clothes. Fire. And now you also want water to drink?” He waved his arms and walked a couple of steps. “Look around you. The place where your husband has brought you to live does not even have water. There is no stream, no spring. We will have to hope for rain—and when we get it, we will then have to hope that we do not die from cold and sickness when we all stay soaking wet for days at a time.”
 

He turned away and placed both hands against the mountainous rock face, looking away so that no one could see him. “What have I done?” he said so softly that only Muriel could hear him. “What was I thinking, to come out to this terrible place and bring eight other people with me? How can we possibly hope to survive? How can we possibly hope…

He let his forehead rest against the rock and fell silent, his fingers clutching at the cliff. Muriel went to him and stood close with her arms about his shoulders, resting the side of her face against his broad back, and tried to find some words to say. She could think of nothing that might help, so she merely stood with him and tried to think of offering him what strength she could, the way she had learned to draw strength and comfort from him.
 

After a time there was a touch at her shoulder. Muriel looked up but saw only Darragh and Killian at the other end of the rock face, setting out containers for rainwater and pretending that they did not notice Brendan’s grief. Fallon still sat against the rock face. Muriel turned around the other way—and there stood Queen Grania.
 

“Prince Brendan,” said the queen, “please turn to look at me.”
 

Muriel stepped back. Brendan raised his head and slowly turned toward Grania. “I am happy to face you, my lady, though ashamed at the same time…for I am certainly no prince.”
 

Grania pulled the rough brown cloak she wore a little more tightly around her. The sun was beginning to set behind the island, and the shadows were lengthening. “You must hear me,” she said in a voice that was a little thin with age but strong nonetheless. “You must remember that if we are here, we are all here for the same reason: to help you.”
 

He turned away again. “I am not worthy of help.”
 

“None of us would be here if we believed that.” Grania touched him on the shoulder, and he faced her once again. “We are here on the most worthy of endeavors—to save a wounded king and help him to recover.”
 

“King? I am not a king. That should be clear to you and everyone here. It was certainly clear to Odhran and Colum and everyone else back on the mainland! I had all the wealth and privilege and accolades that went with being a king, but they were all undeserved, for we now know that I carry no noble blood at all.
 

“Now I am paying the price for that deception, unwitting as it was, and so are all of you who came with me!”
 

“But what of the many victories you have had?” Grania asked. “What of the many good things you have done for all the people of Dun Bochna?”
 

Brendan laughed—a short and bitter sound. “I have no answer for those things, Queen Grania. Perhaps the gods chose to amuse themselves one day by allowing a slave to grow up thinking he was a prince. Now they are laughing as he finds out what he really is—a man of no worth at all, a man who should have spent his life tending sheep and making buckets, not pretending to be a king.”
 

“You must never say that again, Brendan. If this place teaches you anything, it will teach you that you are indeed the king of those who depend on you for their very lives. We will help you, but you must also help yourself…and when you are ready, we all shall return.”
 

He stared down at the frail and tiny queen, and then looked at Muriel standing right beside her. “You are right,” he said and took a deep breath. “You are both right. It may have been a mistake to come here, but we are here now… and I cannot afford the luxury of weakness or complaint.”
 

Grania smiled up at him. Muriel felt a great relief as she saw a spark of life come back into his blue and brown eyes.
 

She turned gratefully to Grania. “We are going to have great need of you in the days to come. It will take more than just strength and endurance to cope with this place. It will take wisdom, too, and generosity of spirit.”
 

Grania laughed. “I hope it will be enough, my dear, for I can offer you little else. I cannot carry heavy loads, or drag wood to build a fire, or make my way down to the sea to catch fish…but I can tell you what I know about being a queen, though you need little in the way of instruction.”
 

Muriel shook her head, even as Brendan stood behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I know nothing of being a queen, even though for many years I had hoped to marry a king.” She reached up to cover Brendan’s hand with her own. “The only thing I know to do is love my husband and stay at his side, that we might face whatever happens together…no matter what it might be.”
 

“And that, dear young lady, is the best advice that I could give to any queen. You have already learned that he cannot rule alone—that he needs you at his side. A king needs a queen to make him complete, and together they will be far stronger than they could ever be apart.” Grania smiled. “It may sound simple, but often it is only the wisest of men and women who understand this.”
 

“I will try my best. I promise,” said Muriel. And then all three of them jumped as a scraping, clattering sound came up from the path which led to the sea.
 

All of them froze for an instant. Then Brendan and Darragh hurried to the top of the path—and there they saw Gill and Cole and Duff appear, each one dragging a heavy piece of the broken curragh up the impossible path.
 

The three ex-slaves collapsed almost as soon as they reached the top. “We’ve got it,” said Gill, closing his eyes and raising himself up on one elbow as he gasped for breath. “Though it’s a bit scratched and scraped, I’m afraid.”
 

“It is a treasure,” Muriel said, crouching down beside him. “It means a little shelter. And maybe even some firewood.” She smiled at him, at this man who was Brendan’s father, and gently touched his face. “Thank you. We all thank you.”
 

He said nothing, only smiled at her in return and reached up to lightly touch her hand.
 

By dusk, the little ledge had been transformed into something resembling a camp.
 

Cole and Gill had stripped the heavy oiled leather from the curragh and finished the job of breaking up its heavy wooden frame. They spread the wood out not far from the ledge, allowing the wind to dry it so that it might serve for torches or even firewood.
 

Duff and Killian then each took one of the daggers and worked diligently to cut nine narrow strips from the curragh leather. Each person could spread one beneath their cloaks when they lay down to sleep, in an effort to keep out a little of the damp. The remaining torn and ragged pieces of leather were draped over their food supplies and weighted down with rocks to protect their food from rain as much as possible.
 

On the highest rocks of the campsite, anything and everything that could possibly hold rainwater had been set out—the small bronze cauldron, the two wooden cups, scraps of curragh leather pressed down into the crevices and depressions of rock, and, of course, the bronze basin that was Muriel’s water mirror.