The Irish Warrior (24 page)

Around the table sat The O'Fáil, his chief councilors, a priest, and a group of Irish nobles. Finian lounged on the bench beside Alane, his relaxed pose at odds with the roiling tension in the room.

Everyone waited when the servants brought food and drink. No one touched theirs except for Finian, but they waited as he drank half a tankard of ale. They waited as he scanned the room after meeting each man's gaze, and they even waited through his subsequent sigh.

“Rardove is amassing an army,” he said. “He wants a war. I say we give it to him.”

The room erupted into shouts and curses.

“There's more,” he added, pushing into the noise. The room quieted. “He knows. Rardove knows about the dyes.”

Silence poured out of the cold walls. He could hear the sharp drops of fresh water in a cistern at the corner of the room.

“How much?” the king asked. “How much does he know?”

“He knows they explode.”

More curses, hands scrubbing jawlines, shuffling boots. Men growing more tense, wanting action. Finian let them sit with the news a minute, then said, “We've one thing in our favor.”

Someone snorted. The king looked up. “And what is that?”

“This.” He took the dye manual from its pouch and held it up. Bound in wood, with pages that could burn, it was as fragile as a leaf. Everyone stared as if he were holding a flame in his hand.

“Good Lord,” the king breathed. “The dye manual. Turlough was sent to retrieve this.”

“Aye, well, I got wind of Turlough's fate while in Rardove's care.”

“And did the rendezvous yourself.” The king looked at him. His bearded head nodded, the traces of a smile evident. “Well done.” He paused. “You missed the wake, Finian. 'Twas a worthy one.”

Finian nodded roughly. “I wish I'd have been here.”

“I know.”

Finian swept on. No time for mourning past losses, else there'd be many more to come. “Without that”—he indicated the manual—“Rardove cannot make the dyes. Not unless he has a dye-witch. And he doesn't.”

He didn't bother to point out that they did. That he had brought back both the dye manual and a dye-witch.

The first breach in his wall. He felt the crack of disloyalty shiver down his bones.

The king reached for the bound booklet. “Hundreds of years,” he said reverently, “and we have the Wishmé recipe again.” He cracked it open and touched the scalloped and tattered edge of a page. “Saint Brendan, Finian, this is well done.” He looked up. “What else did Red say?”

“Not much. He died in my arms.”

The room exhaled a reverent breath of male air, filled with the heady juxtaposition of murmured prayers for his kin and descendents to the fourth generation, fervent signs of the cross, and a boatload of creative curses, which seemed like they ought to cancel out the prayers.

“Which brings us to the only other thing we've got in our favor,” the king said finally. “Rardove will not want anyone to know about this recipe. Can you fathom a hundred rebellious Englishmen in on the hunt for the legendary Wishmés?”

He looked around the room at the grim and angry faces.

“No,” The O'Fáil said firmly. “He shan't even want it breathed about. Which means, if we return his excuse for a war, we'll buy much-needed time.”

Finian looked over slowly. “What do ye mean,
return his excuse
?”

“I mean Senna de Valery.”

He shook his head. “Not a chance. Not if my head were on the block.”

“'Tis.”

He looked over. “Chop it off, then.”

“'Tis all our heads, Finian. Every Irishman living in northern Ireland.”

“Christ's blood, man,” Felim, a noble, muttered. “What would ye have us do? We haven't the men, our castles are in disrepair. Ye said yerself that Rardove was amassing troops. We've no way to hold them back. We need time.”

“Time for what?” Finian asked sharply.

“Jesus, O'Melaghlin, what don't we need time for? To call up allies. To placate, negotiate, convince him we're not wanting to fight.”

“Well, we haven't got that kind of time,” Finian said tightly.

Everyone was quiet a moment. Then the king said what they all were thinking.

“We do if you send the woman back.”

Finian ripped his gaze away. Firelight flashed off his sword hilt as he leaned his spine against the wall and kicked out his booted feet, crossing them at the ankles.

“What do ye expect from us, Finian?” someone demanded. “That we fight for our lives to save an Englishwoman?”

“Nay,” he retorted. “Fight to save yer own.”

“They'd be in little enough trouble if it weren't for her,” Brian, an Irish warrior with a sullen frown on his face, observed.

Alane suddenly leaned forward, shaking his head. “The Irish have been coasting on top of a very deep current for a very long time. Sure as anything, the waves crashing at our shores are no' caused by the lass.” Alane made a sound of disgust. “You send her back, she's like a rabbit in a glade: dead in her tracks.”

“As we will be,” shouted someone, “if Rardove calls up even half his vassals.”

Alane sat back and shrugged. Finian sailed him a grateful look.

“And that's just what he'll do. He'll want war,” a noble said in a grim voice.

“Aye, because he wants her back—”

“Nay! Because he wants our
lands.
” Finian was practically shouting and it was helpful to have Alane's hand clamp down on his forearm briefly.

“And I think you ought to let him have her,” Brian finished irritably.

“And I think ye ought to fall on yer blade for suggesting such a thing, Brian,” snarled Finian. “Have ye heard nothing of what I've said?
This has naught to do with her.
Rardove has been looking for an excuse to launch a campaign against us for twenty years now.”

“And 'tis a most perfect opportunity ye're giving him,” the first noble said.

Finian swung his head around like a raging bull. “And if Senna hadn't given him such a
perfect opportunity,
Felim, I'd be dead.”

That brought silence.

“She's the reason I'm alive. She's brave—”

“And beautiful,” Alane chimed in cheerfully.

Finian retracted his previously grateful look. “The drink has addled yer mind. Yer mother said 'twould not be long in coming.” He looked back at the others. “'Tis wrong to return her to the maggot. She's gotten caught up in something larger than herself.”

“Aye.” A few heads nodded around the table, mostly the younger ones. Alane's was among them.

Brian, the young, argumentative one, pushed back the bench and rose. “And I say curse ye, O'Melaghlin, if this doesn't go well.”

“And curse ye,” Finian growled, rising, too, “if ye could leave a maiden to be eaten by Rardove. She's alone, and brave, and without her I wouldn't be alive. She may be a spark, but Rardove has been laying this kindling for some long time.”

He slammed his fist on the table. It lay there, a sturdy, clenched reminder of his inclinations on how to deal with the matter. He went on, restraint evident in every taut syllable.

“Do ye think I'm putting anyone's life in danger without a thought, Brian?” Finian's eyes glittered hard as he pinned each member of the gathering in his glare. “He imprisoned me and my men, have ye forgotten? He killed every one of them. My men. My responsibility, and they died, to a man. Some were hanged, and that was the kindest way to go.”

His voice quaked for the briefest moment, then rode on, hard and harsh. “The ones I wasn't forced to watch, I couldn't miss hearing. And 'twill be on my conscience long after I tread on my sod of death, ye bastard.”

The room reverberated with silence.

“I'd as soon rip his heart out as spit across the room, and I will.
I will.
”

“We're not forgetting yer capture,” Felim said into the heated tension, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ye do well to remind us of the travails of leadership, for those of us who've had them, we'll not soon forget the grief of it.”

Finian threw his chin up and looked around the room, incensed, belligerent, wont to fight.

There were no takers. After a minute of quiet, during which pages tiptoed in and poured more drink, then slunk out again, O'Hanlon spoke.

“I agree with O'Melaghlin. Rardove is on the hunt for the dyes, and he's got to be taken down. What better excuse than us retaliating in a war he's launched on us?”

“Ye speak well. 'Tis best to deal with the worm on our own terms.” Lifting his mug, Finian threw back his head to down a swallow of ale, then passed it to Alane.

“Ye speak of Rardove as being an insect,” grumbled Brian from the shadows. “But a bug at least is predictable. Ye know what it will do, when, and why.”

His sullen words caught Finian's attention. “Ye know a great deal about bugs, do ye, Brian?”

Brian scowled from across the table. “Aye, I do. 'Tis certain men who are more difficult to understand.”

Finian laughed. “They are as predictable as mist in the morning, they are. Money, power, and women.”

“And no' in that particular order,” Alane chimed in.

“And yerself, Finian O'Melaghlin?” snarled Brian. “Is that why ye're at doing the things ye're doing? For I don't like the idea of having my head served up to some Saxon king because of yer aching rod.”

Finian's hand flashed out around Brian's neck, then dropped immediately when Alane's elbow nudged his ribs. But he did not turn his fury. “Ye're not listening, Brian. 'Tisn't her. She matters naught. She's
nothing.
”

From the shadowy darkness, the king cleared his throat. All heads swiveled to him. “Then why did ye not take her to her brother's manor, and leave her danger there?”

“No one was in residence,” he retorted. That wasn't, precisely, the reason, but no one needed to know that.

“Oh, but aye, someone is very much in residence there now.”

“I saw no sign of it.” It wouldn't have mattered though.

“Well, we did. Smoke. Not three hours ago our scouts reported smoke rising from the de Valery keep.”

“What of it? His reeve.”

“And a whole lot of horses milling around. War horses. And someone shouting orders.”

Finian narrowed his eyes. “I saw no one.”

Brian shrugged, stretching out his hand for the vessel busily making the rounds through the room. Alane intercepted it, took an unhealthy draught, then handed the empty vessel over with a broad grin. Brian scowled and dropped his hand.

Finian grabbed the other flask and splashed drink into his cup, the gurgling loud. His elbows came to rest on his knees as he bent at the waist, the hardened leather of his outfit creaking as he went. Holding the cup between callused fingertips, his hair swung alongside the pewter cup as he studied the ground.

Brian shook his head in disgust. “So now we'll have de Valery and his knights joining the godforsaken Saxon throng looking to cut us down. Well done, O'Melaghlin. Ye're at making us enemies near as well as ye used to make us friends.”

“And ye're at making yer life in peril, Brian,” Finian retorted in a dangerously smooth voice.

Alane unraveled from the bench to stand beside Finian. “Shut your mouth, pup,” he said to Brian smoothly, but with a snarl underlying.

The O'Fáil spoke up from the shadows. “I'll have no disrespect in my home, Brian O'Conhalaigh. Lord Finian deserves no less, and a good deal more. Have you a word to say, say it, and I will consider it 'ere I make my decision. But when I decide, 'tis what we will do. What we will all do.”

The room grew quiet. Everyone watched the king, the king watched Finian, and Finian stared at the wall. He knew that look very well. He'd been the recipient of such considering appraisals for many years, usually after he'd done something remarkably risky and reckless, like indulge in cliff diving, or visiting the grave he'd dug for his mother, when the priest denied her burial in the churchyard.

“I know what I am doing,” he avowed in a solid, steely voice.

“So ye say,” allowed his king. “'Tis the rest of us who don't.”

The rest of us,
meaning him. The O'Fáil. The man who'd saved Finian's life and heart, and was now looking at him in deep disappointment. Could such things cross the border into regret?

The king got to his feet, in a royal enough way to bring the room to silence.

“This is your battle, Finian,” he announced, looking around the room and meeting the eye of every uncle or cousin or other claimant to the throne—and there were multitudes of them, not just in this room, but scattered across northern Eire, full or half-blood descendants of the reigning king—before settling back on Finian.

“You lead the men. 'Tis what you've been trained for. Yours, to win or lose. I give it to you.”

Finian got to his feet slowly. How many years had this been coming? And now the moment was to hand. Kings were not chosen solely by being the last one standing at the end of infighting or intrigue, but they were never chosen without it. Being handed battle command by the standing king settled the matter in a way councils never could.

Hot and cold, the cord that ran through Finian's core resonated at the words. Started so low, to have risen so high, and have his foster father and king's belief in him—it was a potent dénouement to a suicidal life. Finian reached out and clasped his king's fist. “
Onóir duit,
my lord.”

“Nay, Finian. The honor to you. Win this war.”

They laid their plans swiftly. Word was already being carried to the other Irish of the region by swift runners, female Irish couriers who could move between mountains without even the trees knowing they had passed. The disparate Irish armies would head to their traditional muster point for northern campaigns, a burned-out old abbey on a hill above Rardove Keep.