“Erika!” He took a step toward his staggering wife, but his legs buckled and he fell to his knees.
“Have no care for your Viking whore,” Magda said, stepping from behind a standing stone. “You shall see each other in hell soon enough.”
Conor wished for the rage, the cleansing purity of anger, but it did not come. Instead, a heavy stillness settled deep into his bones, numbing the physical pain. He had been wrong about so many things. “Why, Magda?”
“You dare ask me that, Diabhal? You stole my very life the day you let Murrough and my sons die. That is why I took yours.”
Through a haze of pain he heard Erika’s gasp. “You poisoned me! You came to my chamber and put something in the brew Aine gave me!”
Magda’s laugh was frigid. “You were to die as well, but I failed to consider the hardiness of your peasant blood. When that failed to drive you apart, it became necessary to enlist Ronan’s aid once again.”
She turned back to Conor, freeing a dagger from her cloak. “Aislingh’s betrayal and the Viking’s quest for freedom made it simple to inflame the rumors of an alliance between the Angel and Ronan, and Ronan himself supplied the proof to turn you against your precious wife. Now you know what it feels like to lose everything. Even your life.”
Conor tensed, waiting for the path of the dagger before striking.
A scream tore through the damp air, the chilling wail of the bhean sidhe. “You killed my child!”
Shrieking with rage, Erika crashed into the smaller woman. Fear rose like bile in his throat as momentum took them close to the cliff’s edge. He stumbled to his feet and launched himself at his wife, wrapping his arms about her waist just as Magda disappeared over the promontory.
The sound of a snap reached his ears as he fell to the ground. Pain stole his breath and caused stars to dance a jig before his eyes. He heard Erika pleading, the sound of running feet, the slow thump of his heart. Hands were on him, severing his grip on his wife. “Erika? Erika!”
Then she was beside him, the morning rain pelting her cropped hair and mixing with the tears on her cheeks. Her hands cupped his face, but he could not feel them. “I couldn’t save her, Conor. I tried to hold her but she let go.”
It took tremendous effort to reach up, to brush his fingers along her cheek. He left a trail of blood in his wake. “You...you are safe?”
“I am safe. You saved my life.”
Peace drove the last fragment of pain away. “My life for yours. A fair trade. And my...burden is gone. You, you are free.”
Her face contorted in grief or pain he did not know. He wanted to ask her forgiveness, to tell her that he loved her. His hand fell through the remnants of her hair. “Erika. Mo leannán. I think I hear your Valkyries come for me. I was a f-fool to wait so long. I’m so sorry I didn’t...”
The last thing he saw was her tear-streaked face.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Conor, no!”
Her shriek of denial brought more Dunlough warriors running, but Erika paid them little heed. She couldn’t take her eyes from the splintered remains of the shaft protruding from Conor’s chest, close, so very close to his heart.
Ardan dropped beside her. “Sweet merciful heaven, no.”
Blood was a shiny stain on the darkness of Conor’s leine. His heart, his strong, proud heart was killing him with every beat.
“My lady. Oh God, no.”
Ardan’s anguished words galvanized her. She had to act. She had to act or Conor would die.
“Ardan, Ronan had a fire. See if it still burns. If not, you must start one.”
He looked at her dully, his face streaked with rain and tears. “What can you do, my lady?” he asked brokenly. “He is—”
“Not going to die today.” Somehow she forced horror and heartache away. She grabbed his tunic with her unwounded hand. “He thought the same of you, and I brought you back. I will not let him die.”
Ardan lowered his eyes. “Yes, mistress.” He scrambled to his feet. Erika pulled at the ragged edge of her tunic to free a strip of cloth. She pressed it carefully against Conor’s chest. “You will not die, Conor mac Ferghal. I will not let you.”
Ardan returned. “By the saints, the fire still burns. And we found dry wood for it!”
“Thank you,” she whispered, casting her eyes heavenward for a brief moment. She pulled a blade free. “Ardan, take my blade and one more. Put them into the fire until they become red with heat.”
Padraig took his place. “What would you have me do?”
“Send someone to ride for Aine, and to Gwynna and my brother. I need four of you to help me move him closer to the fire.”
He gathered a few warriors and they took hold of their lord. At Erika’s word they lifted him, their movements gentle for men so rough. In moments they placed him beside the fire. He’d neither moved nor spoken, not even a groan. Had she lost him already?
No. She refused to believe it. She would save him. She would.
“Cut his leine away for me. I have to pull the shaft free when Ardan returns with the heated blades. I need cloth to bind the wound, a cart to take him home on.” She looked up at the gray sky. “I need it to stop raining!”
As if obeying her scream, the rain eased to a mist, then stopped altogether. She pulled Conor’s cloak from her shoulders and cast it over him, then prepared to rip the sleeve from her tunic.
“My lady!” Padraig’s hand forestalled her. “You are wounded!”
Erika looked down at the remainder of the arrow protruding from the blood-soaked sleeve of her tunic. She had forgotten it in her grief, but now the pain returned with a vengeance. She gritted her teeth and set herself to ignore it. “My wounds matter not. We must see to Conor.”
Padraig ripped his own sleeve free, several warriors joining suit. He then helped her raise Conor to a seated position, then he began to cut the leine away with unsteady hands as Erika cradled Conor close. Moisture blinded her, running down her face in an unending stream as she cried without sound.
Conor had neither moved nor spoken during her preparation. His face grew paler with every heartbeat. He couldn’t die. What would she do if he died?
She pressed her lips to his cheek, just below his ear. “I know you came here to die, Conor mac Ferghal, but I will not let you. Damn your hide, the people of Dunlough need you, not your ghost!”
“The blades are ready, my lady,” Ardan informed her.
She held Conor tight against her, stroking his hair, his beard, the scar that marked his ability to survive. “You will survive this,” she whispered. “You must!”
She turned to the captains. “I cannot see as I should. Padraig, you’ll need to help me hold him. Ardan, when I say, you are to pull the shaft out, from his shoulder. Can you do this?”
The men nodded. Using a scrap of fabric, she lifted one of the blades from the fire, feeling the heat radiating from the red-tipped metal to her palm. She pressed her lips against her husband’s cheek, her breath drawing in raggedly. “Please forgive me.”
Ardan pulled the remainder of the shaft free of Conor’s shoulder blade. Erika quickly pressed the hot blade against the spurting wound, filling the moist air with the scent of burning flesh and blood. Conor jerked once before moaning and settling back into silence. It was Erika who cried out for having hurt him, feeling the pain as surely as if she’d seared her own flesh.
Her stomach protested the violent action, but she fought the reaction down, fought the palsy in her hand. She dropped the first knife to the damp grass and retrieved the second. It was the dagger she’d worn in her braid, the dagger Conor had embedded in the ground at her feet before banishing her. Her silent tears became huge sobs as she repeated the cauterization on his back, singeing blood and flesh.
Padraig surged to his feet to empty the contents of his stomach. Others joined him. Ardan, a pale shade of green, remained by her.
She could barely speak above the tears and grief that threatened to consume her. “Help
me bind him, Ardan. My fingers are numb.”
With Fionn’s help, Ardan managed the binding, frowning to keep from weeping. Conor’s face was ashen, as if death already claimed him. What would Dunlough be, without its Devil?
Ardan looked to Erika. She cradled her wounded arm in her lap, rocking to and fro as more tears rolled down her bruised cheeks. She had to be at the last of her strength after her ordeal, yet her only thought was for Conor. Ardan knew that if anyone could defeat death, and had time and again, it was the Angel. But what would defeat the look of utter rout in her eyes?
He helped her to her feet as warriors came to lay their lord on a collection of shields. “Have a care,” she cautioned them, her good hand stretched out to them. “You must make careful haste, to get him into Aine’s care. There is no Dunlough without the Devil.”
She still trembled, a leaf caught on a blustery wind. She looked as pale as fog at the start of day, and just as likely to blow away. Her eyes were washed out with pain and tears. “This is my fault, Ardan,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “He should not have come. Why did he come?”
He signaled to Padraig and Fionn as Dunlough’s warriors laid Conor in the back of the just-arrived cart. “My lady, he was on his way even before he received your braid. He loves you, and it near killed him to realize what Magda had done.”
“You’re wrong, Ardan.” She shook her head. If she noticed Padraig and Fionn flanking her, she gave no sign. “The mac Ferghal does not love me.”
“You’re wrong, I’d stake me life on that. God willing, the mac Ferghal will tell you true so there’s no mistaking. But we need to make sure the both of you will survive that long.”
“I’ll return to Dunlough long enough to ensure that your lord lives,” she whispered, swaying with the effort to remain upright. “But I cannot stay. You can see that I cannot stay, not now?”
Ardan’s throat tightened. “I can see that you need Aine’s touch as much as the tigerna does. You’ll be staying at Dunlough. I’ll not have a word otherwise. There is no Devil without the Angel.”
At his nod, Fionn and Padraig immobilized her so that Ardan could break the arrow and pull it free of her arm. She gasped with pain before her eyes rolled back in her head. Padraig caught her before she fell.
Ardan ripped her sleeve to expose the ugly wound then used the soaked strip to slow the blood flow. “Will you put the blade to it?” Fionn asked.
“God, no.” Ardan shuddered at the thought. “I’ll not be risking the Devil’s own wrath by marking the Angel’s skin.”
“Did you see how she commanded the sky to stop raining?” Fionn breathed. “And how the fire still burned despite the weather?”
“Aye, ’tis a right miracle,” Ardan said. “Let us pray that the miracles are not done, and the lord and his lady will survive the day.”
He spread his cloak over her, tucking it about her still form. He stepped back, clearing his throat. “Put her in the cart beside the tigerna,” he ordered in hoarse tones. “Old Aine should be upon us soon enough. Once she makes sure they’ll survive, we’ll lock them in their chamber.”
Both men looked at him as if he’d just danced a jig. “Sure, you’re not serious?” Fionn asked.
“I am. I’ve never seen two people more in need of being locked together in me life. They love each other and need each other, and if it takes locking them in their chamber before they’ll admit it, so be it.”
He could hope they’d be too occupied with reconciling to wonder who’d given the order to imprison them.
“Bring Ronan’s carcass as well. The Angel and the Devil promised his head to the village. That promise shall be kept.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Conor came awake with a start. Darkness greeted him, then pain. It was all he could do not to groan aloud. He was in his bedstead at the dun, and the place beside him was empty.
Physical pain paled compared to the hurt in his heart. Erika was gone. She had heard his confession, heard his pledge of love and rejected it.
He could send after her. He could have a brace of soldiers find her and escort her back. He could use force, put her back in chains to make her stay.
He would not do it. Bad enough that she didn’t love him. He couldn’t bear it if she came to hate him as well.
Perhaps it was too late for that. Denouncing her in front of all, not believing her in his heart despite what reason told him. Throwing her in the pit, allowing her to be captured, using her to get to Ronan... He had done everything to make her hate him but order her outright.
His heart seized as he recalled the scene at the cliffs. Hearing her declare with such calm that he would not come for her. The assurance in her voice had frozen his soul. If she didn’t believe he would come after her, how could she believe that he loved her?
Yet she had loved him once. He clung to the knowledge. Sure he’d heard the words from her lips. Sure a kernel of tender regard remained despite his foolish attempts to thwart it. She had been by his side as he fell, had saved him from death. She had worked with Aine to save his life. Had he not felt her tears scald his fevered flesh? Had he not heard her, deep in his unconsciousness, tell him that she would not let him die? Was that not enough to resurrect her love?
He put his hands to his head, the movement aggravating his wound and causing him to groan.
“You’re awake.”
Erika. She was still here. Widening his eyes, he could just make out her form, sitting on a chair by the hearth. “You are well?”
She looked at him across the expanse of floor, her cropped hair burnished copper in the firelight beneath the drab mantle that covered it. “My arm will heal.”
It was as if she were on the other side of Slieve Torc, so distant she seemed. Was she angry still? She had every right to be, Conor knew. Would she be able to forgive him?
“H-how long has it been?”
“I think it has been three nights and four days since the battle on the cliffs.”
“You are not sure?”
“I was not awake when we arrived ho-here,” she answered. He couldn’t see her eyes in the dim light, but she was so still, so careful in her words. “I tried the door when sunlight filled the room some hours ago. It is locked from the other side. It would seem that we are prisoners of Dunlough.”
“Prisoners?” His chest throbbed and the room spun in maddened frenzy. It took several breaths before his head cleared. “Why would our people imprison us?”
She shifted in the chair then turned her gaze to the fire. “Not you, but me. Ardan’s doing, I think. And Padraig and Fionn with him. They seem to believe you will change your mind, and made sure I would stay until you awakened.”
She rose to her feet, lighting the oil lamps, brightening the room. He saw that she wore a traditional dress, not the trews, and that her right arm was in a sling held to her chest. The cuts and bruises were beginning to fade; the hurt in her eyes looked to be permanent.
“I need to give you answers, and then I will take my leave.” Her voice just reached him across the room. Her back was pressed to the door as if she strove to go through it.
He said the first thing that came to mind. “So you—you believe this imprisonment of ours a futile one?”
“You know that it is, Conor.” Her voice was slow, a weak thing. Her entire demeanor was one of defeat, and that scared him more than anything ever had. “I wanted to give you laughter. I wanted to find a place to belong. I have done neither.”
You have. The words formed in his throat but became clogged on the crest of fear that rose within him. He could not blame her for still wanting to leave, but how could he let her go?
“I carry your child, Conor. I first showed signs at Glentane, after Gwynna’s delivery. True, it seems a miracle, so soon after...” Her voice tangled to a halt.
“But the day after I saved Bebhinn from drowning, that is the day we made our child. I never betrayed you. I would not do that. I will never do that.”
H
e believed her. Even in the great hall, while Magda’s evil worked on his emotions, his mind had believed. His inability to trust had been greater than his ability to reason, and now he stood to lose everything.
“I will go to Glentane for the rest of my time. After I am delivered, you will have your heir, and I will be gone from your life.”
Words. They were just words, yet they cut sharper than any blade ever could. Somehow, he found the strength to speak. “You would leave your child—our child?”
Erika closed her eyes, her mouth open in a wordless groan. Her hands—a warrior’s hands, a lover’s hands—curved over her womb in a motherly gesture that broke his heart.
“It will be the most difficult thing I have ever had to do,” she managed to say, tears breaking free of her will.
“Then do not do it.”
The words were finally free. He had spoken them, had finally begged her to stay. An agony to say them, a torment to await her reply.
Tears spiked her lashes as she shook her head. “I cannot stay, Conor.” Her voice was a mere fragment of a whisper. “Not now. We are not meant to be. Not in this life.”
His heart sank. “Why?”
Her smile was sad. “We were enemies. Better for you had we remained such.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because you never believed in me!” she cried. “You never believed that I chose to marry you, that I wanted to be a true wife to you.” She shook her head. “I wanted to love you, Conor. I wanted to make your heart light, to make a true home and a true marriage. You would not let me.”
“I couldn’t let you!”
He struggled to rise, just managing to right himself and plant his feet on the floor, ignoring the shaft of pain that pierced his shoulder. Pain be damned—he would rather bleed to death than lose her this way.
“After Aislingh, I could never believe that happiness was supposed to be mine, that love was supposed to be mine. I knew naught but guilt and betrayal and darkness. I didn’t believe, couldn’t believe you could love me. I didn’t think I deserved it. I know I don’t deserve you.”
A Promise Kept Page 30