Spirit of the Mist (9 page)

Muriel swallowed. “Did any of the men from Dun Bochna come with them?”
 

“That they did! I saw Darragh and Killian, two of the best fighters of Dun Bochna, and two of my closest friends!” He grinned down at her. “Nothing but the best for me; isn’t that true, Lady Muriel?”
 

She closed her eyes. “You say you know them—but even the lowest slave at Dun Bochna would know who they were. Here is my question for you, Brendan: did they know you?”
 

He stared at her. “Of course they will know me. They have come all this way just for me.”
 

Muriel glanced at his face and stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder. “Then I must ask you—where are they? Surely they would have been quite excited to see you, and even now should be talking to you and laughing with you—”
 

“They have not yet seen me. They were taken directly into the hall.” He tried to smile. “I did not think I should shout out to them when they were on their way to see your king.”
 

“I see.” She drew a deep breath. “So, whether they saw you or not, they have not yet recognized you.”
 

He frowned, confusion evident on his face. “As I told you, they have not yet seen me. And when they do, they will know me, just as I said they would.” His face brightened. “Ah, now I think I understand why you are so gloomy! You fear that if they don’t know me, I’ll be proved a grand liar—and if they do, then I will have to return to my home and leave you here.”
 

Her eyes widened as she stared up at him, feeling something like shock at hearing Brendan put her thoughts into words. She looked away, toward the hall, and squared her shoulders.
 

“Either way, Brendan, you will be gone from my life. You will vanish into a life of servitude, working with the slaves and the lowest of the servants, or you will return to your fortress very far away and become the king you claim to be. Have you forgotten that?”
 

There was the lightest of touches at her fingers. She glanced down to see a little bunch of white blackberry blossoms being offered to her—when had he picked them? “Do you see these flowers? They too have become a part of your life, for I make certain to have them waiting for you each morning, there for you to find as soon as you step outside…and it gives me pleasure to place them in your hands whenever I can get them for you.
 

“Listen to me, Lady Muriel. Whether I am a servant or a king, I promise you this: I will find a way to be a part of your life, now and always, just as these flowers have become a part of your life.”
 

She could not bring herself to take the blackberry canes. “Yet once you walk through the doors of that hall—no matter which way it goes—there will be no more flowers for me.”
 

“Ah, but you are wrong about that,” he argued, pressing the white blossoms into her hand. “There will always be flowers, my lady. In one way or another, there will always be flowers.”
 

There was nothing for them to do now but sit and wait outside the hall. Muriel knew that, as always, the two visiting men would be seated on cushions in the clean rushes of the King’s Hall, offered fresh water and plates of hot food, then left in peace to eat and rest until they felt refreshed and ready for conversation with their hosts.
 

The sun had begun to sink below the sea when the doors of the hall finally opened and one of the druids beckoned to them. Brendan leaped to his feet and hurried inside, almost pushing past the startled druid, leaving Muriel to follow.
 

She forced herself to step inside, blinking in the dim light. At the far end, King Murrough sat on his bench, surrounded as always by his warriors and his druids; but in front of him were two strange men dressed in bright wool cloaks and tunics and trousers, with wide, gold bracelets around their wrists and slender torques of twisted gold around their necks. Each of them carried a fine sword and dagger at his thick leather belt.
 

But it was difficult to see the strangers now, for Brendan had all but leaped into their arms, shouting at them and clapping them on the back. “Darragh! Killian!” he cried, as though he were their long-lost brother. “You’re here! It’s so good to see you!”
 

“We knew that if anyone could survive exile, it was you,” said Darragh, grinning as he reached down to clasp Brendan’s wrist.
 

“Though we feared we might not see you again,” said Killian, reaching out to do the same.
 

“I will admit, that thought did cross my mind while I was out on the sea with nothing but wind and rain and darkness for company,” Brendan agreed, releasing them at last. “But thanks to this lady, I am still here in this world to greet you.”
 

All three turned and looked toward Muriel. She could only watch as Brendan stood with the two warrior men who were so clearly his friends and equals. It was clear to her that he had told the truth and was exactly who he said he was—a prince and a warrior, the second son of King Galvin, and the tanist of Dun Bochna.
 

A man who was next to be king… and who would have to rejoin his people very soon.
 

Never had Muriel felt so torn. Part of her fairly sang with the knowledge that Brendan had told the truth, that he had been chosen to be the next king of Dun Bochna, that he was, apparently, a man whom she might marry without fear of losing her magic.
 

And another part of her knew that his being a prince did not necessarily mean that he would love her, or even want to have her as his wife.
 

Since the night of his rescue he had been as charming and kind to her as any man could be, but she had been his only companion in this strange place where everyone doubted who he was. It was not surprising that he might wish to stay close to her for as long as he was here. It could well be a different story when he returned to his own home and no longer needed her.
 

And even if he did become a king, and did love her and did want to make her his wife, there was still the supremely troubling vision that the water mirror had shown her—the image of Brendan as the child of slaves. How such a boy could have grown up to be a prince was a mystery, for no man born a slave could ever be a king, and she did not know how she could ever learn the truth. Muriel gathered her fine cloak a little more closely around her, for the sun was gone now and the warmth seemed to have left the hall. She felt only a chill and an emptiness in its place as she closed her eyes and held her little bunch of white flowers very tightly.
 

The men in the hall went on talking and laughing for a long time, and then got down to making the arrangements for Brendan’s return to his people.
 

Darragh took a fine, soft leather bag from his belt and turned to King Murrough. “We have, of course, brought you the ransom for our prince.” He held out the bag, which one of the druids accepted, and after looking inside it he showed it to the king.
 

Murrough leaned over to look inside the bag, then nodded. “Very fine gold work. We will accept it. Although…” He glanced up at his druid. “I should think that this gold torque alone is not enough to ransom the tanist of a tribe.”
 

Murrough’s druid looked at Darragh. “It is not enough,” he said. “The ransom requires fifteen milk cows as well, or thirty heifers, in addition to the gold that you have brought.”
 

“Of course,” Darragh said. “We left so quickly, racing to get here, that it was not possible to bring down the cattle from the mountains and take them with us. I am sure you can understand how anxious we were to see our tanist again, after having reason to think he was dead.”
 

“That is understandable,” said King Murrough. He motioned the druid away. “Brendan—I know King Galvin well. You may return to your home now and send the remainder of your ransom to me, or you may stay here as our honored guest until it can be brought. I am giving the son of King Galvin and the tanist of Dun Bochna a choice. What is your wish?”
 

Brendan turned and smiled at Muriel. “I would consider it no hardship to stay.”
 

But Darragh and Killian looked at him, and their faces grew serious. “You’ve got to come now,” said Killian with a warning shake of his head. “It will take another two fortnights to get the cattle safely here. You cannot wait that long.”
 

“Why not?” asked Brendan, still smiling at Muriel. “Perhaps I will stay and see how this lady likes me.”
 

“You must hear us,” said Darragh. “King Galvin wants to see you. Your father wants to see you with his own eyes. Now.”
 

Before it is too late.
Muriel heard the unspoken words. It seemed that Brendan heard them, too, for his face grew serious and still. “I understand,” he said quietly. “We will go in the morning, as soon as it is light enough to ride. The cows will be sent.”
 

He looked over at Muriel, his eyes full of apology, and she knew that in the morning Brendan would be gone.
 

She tucked the white flowers beneath her cloak and left the hall, walking in silence back to her house, not wanting to look at him again.
 

Chapter Six
 

It was the darkest night Muriel had ever known, for there was no moon, and the heavy clouds rolling in from the sea had turned the sky into a solid wall of blackness.
 

She stood beside her empty water mirror, running her fingers over its cold bronze surface. The basin would be of no use to her on this night. Even if she had been able to set it up, what could she have asked? It had given her no clear answer to her first question, the one that now would not leave her: whether Brendan was truly king or slave.
 

There seemed to be no doubt any longer that he was what he said he was. His men clearly knew him and recognized him as a prince and a brother and a friend. Yet Muriel could not understand why her mirror had seemed to show the image of Brendan, when he was just a few months old, as the child of slaves. She had never known her mirror to be wrong before. Its message might be difficult to decipher at times, but she had never known it to lie.
 

Muriel knew that she should go to her bed and try to sleep. She was exhausted, and the dawn would come much too soon. But she was consumed by a kind of restlessness that she had never experienced before, and finally walked quietly to the door of the house, opened it, and stepped out into the night.
 

As Brendan had done some fourteen nights previous, she paced through the torchlit grounds of the dun, searching for something but not knowing what it was. She told herself that she would merely walk in the cool night air for a time, then go back to her house and sleep.
 

It was not long before she found herself standing and gazing at the house where Brendan lodged.
 

In the morning he would be gone. He would go back to his own people, where he was a prince, where no doubt he had more than one lady waiting for him. She would never see him again. Standing here, beside the house where he slept, would be the closest she would ever come to him again.
 

She started to go to the house, just to place her hand on it, but stopped herself. Instead, she bowed her head and looked away.
I will not weep! Not now. Not ever. Not for this.
 

“Muriel…”
 

Instantly she turned. Brendan stood behind her in the shadows, his gray cloak stirring gently in the night breeze.
 

“I could not sleep,” he said, walking toward her. “And I see now that I am not the only one. I thought to go to your house and stand outside it, to place my hand against the wall where you lay sleeping…but before I could reach it, I saw you walking here, and now we are alone together.”
 

He reached for her hand. “I regret I have no flowers to give you. I have not yet gone outside the gates.”
 

“I need no flowers from you,” she whispered.
 

“What do you need from me, Lady Muriel?”
 

She turned away, searching for words. “I…need nothing.”
 

“My lady…it is no crime if you do want something from me.” Gently he took her by the shoulders and turned her around so that she faced him. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give you whatever you wish to have—whether one small violet from the woods or a kingdom with borders so wide they reach beyond your sight.”
 

He took a step closer, and then another. He seemed so very tall out here this way, alone beneath the cloudy night sky. Looking up at him as she was, all she saw was his shadowy form with his soft hair blowing in the night wind…and then he leaned down to kiss her.
 

Muriel shut her eyes and pulled away from him, then fled several steps until she reached the massive earthen wall of the dun. She leaned against it with one hand, trying to think only of the packed earth and damp grass against her fingers even as Brendan moved to stand beside her.