He brushed his fingers over the healing gash in his head. The low throb of headache was all but gone, leaving him with nothing but questions. What lay beyond the veil of his lost memory? Skills, tools, knowledge that might help him in this quest? And he had no delusions: Redmayne was a formidable foe. To match wits with the Englishman, to defeat him, would take every resource at Ciaran's disposal.
He struggled to open himself to the flickering impressions, sifting through the shadows for the tiniest spark that might light some memory, illuminating everything. Gradually it came, in tantalizing glimpses.
Small—he was very small. Sorrow was crushing the breath from his lungs, while tears flowed down porcelain-smooth cheeks. Beautiful—the most beautiful lady in the world, and someone was taking him away from her. He wanted to kick and scream and run back, to stay with her forever. But he knew the men would only take him anyway, with their hard hands and their fierce eyes. And her tender heart would be bruised forever by his cries.
"I'm not a baby anymore, to be clinging to a woman's skirts." He forced his best scare-the-dragon smile, but it couldn't scare away the fear in his own chest. "They have swords." He'd jabbed a grubby finger at what looked to be a giant forest of thick-muscled legs and bone-cracking fists. "They promised to teach me everything, how to lop off enemies' heads. I'll fight an' fight an'..."
Sobs cut him like the sharp stone he'd stepped on once in a stream, the sound made far worse because she fought so hard to silence it. Then the biggest man of all roared.
"You robbed me of my wits for a little while, woman. Bewitched me. But I came to my senses. Rid myself of you. I can only be grateful I discovered what else you stole from me, thief that you are! My son!"
Ciaran's mother cried. "The marriage between us held nothing but hate! I feared you would hate him, too. He's innocent. A child. I beg you—"
But no plea on earth could have stopped the big man. Ciaran knew it though he'd never set eyes on that towering figure before.
"The boy is mine," the big man snarled. "You'll never see him again."
One beefy hand closed on his arm, pinching so tight that the next day a bruised ring would be pressed into his skin. Then he was being dragged away. Rage and helplessness balled up inside him. He was a boy, but he wouldn't be dragged about. They were determined to make him a man. Then his first act would be to make certain his mother remembered him standing tall.
He kicked his father in the leg with all the force he could muster, pain exploding in his toes. But it was worth it. The big hand released him in surprise. He straightened his spine and stalked ahead, leaving of his own free will. Leaving everything warm and safe and loving.
"I will make you proud of me," he vowed as he walked out of the doorway. "I will come back someday, Mother, I promise."
The words were so clear, and the emotions as vivid as a new scar against white skin. He struggled to picture some detail, anything that might give him some visual idea of where he'd been taken from, what his mother had been wearing, or what the men who came to take him away looked like. The tiniest detail that might give him some idea as to when it had taken place. Thirty years ago? Or was he mad enough to consider the possibility that it had been nine hundred years since his mother and his father had turned to dust?
His struggles were futile. He could only feel the pain of the small boy he had been awakening again in the darkest, most hidden reaches of his heart. Is this what regaining his memory would be—an excruciating journey with all the pain he'd suffered made new?
"Ciaran?" Fallon's gentle voice reached out to him, and he turned to her, every emotion still in his eyes.
"They took me away from her. And I never saw her again."
"Never saw who?"
"My mother." He searched Fallon's face, almost desperate, as if she might hold the answers to the questions welling up inside him. "The legend, Fallon—does it say anything about that?"
"Ciaran's childhood is lost. It was as if he'd merely stepped from the mist a man, a warrior."
"Do all the hero tales begin that way?"
"Usually there is something special, some story that marks a man a hero from boyhood. Cuchulain killed a ferocious wolfhound that attacked him. But afterwards, he realized the household would be unprotected. He stood watch until another hound could be trained. His name means Cullen's Hound."
"But there's nothing about Ciaran?"
"Only that he had no ring fort of his own, nowhere he returned to when the fighting was over. The High King tried to reward him with the finest of conquered lands, but Ciaran refused. He said he had no need of a home."
Because his mother was dead. She'd been so fragile, outcast for his sake. Every day he'd spent away from her he'd fought, struggled to hone himself into the best, the finest, the boldest fighter of all. He'd wanted so much to bring her someplace safe and care for her. But by the time he'd been old enough, strong enough to wrench free of his father's grasp, it had been too late. She'd died, weak with hunger, sick with fever. Alone.
He wanted to shove the memories away, longed for the blissful oblivion where he could begin again, with no mistakes, no regrets to haunt him.
Yet the memory wouldn't be halted. It charged on, despite his pain. A cloth-wrapped bundle thrust into his hand by the crabbed old woman who had buried her.
He closed his eyes, seeing his trembling fingers fold back the material. And for the first time he saw—actually saw—a fragment from his past: the ancient dagger, gleaming there, gold and exquisite.
Anger, outrage and confusion mingled with tearing grief.
"Why did she not sell it? It could have kept her fed, warm, until I came to find her!"
"Some things are without price. No man who ever fought with the dagger fell to an enemy. She believed it was magic."
Magic. More magic. He wanted to rage at her, bellow at the fates. He wanted to fling the dagger away.
"She tried to cling to life, to give it to you, certain you'd return because you'd promised you would. She spoke about you every day, watched the horizon. 'He cannot keep my son from me forever. My son vowed he would come back to me. He vowed it.'"
She'd been waiting for him all this time? While he'd been piling up brave deeds, proving himself again and again to men who meant nothing to him. While he'd been reaching higher, higher, no honor he'd attained enough. If he could just master one more art of swordplay, one more contest of the intellect, she would be so much prouder of him.
The knowledge was agonizing. He could have come to her so much sooner, if he'd not been attempting to prove himself to the father he despised. He'd been a vain fool, and it had cost his mother her life.
"Fling the dagger into the fire. What do I care about it after all it has cost me?"
"Do you not see, you brainless boy? This dagger was all she had to give you. Her only legacy. She loved you beyond any price—her honor, her life, her very soul. She wanted to give it to you, when you returned. This symbol of her love you can carry with you forever."
But he'd wanted her. He 'd wanted to see pride shine in her eyes. He wanted a chance to tell her that no matter what cruel things his father said, he'd never forgotten her gentleness, her courage.
"We were poor," Ciaran said aloud. "My mother and I. But I never realized it. When they took me away, I had everything I could want, and yet I had nothing. Does that make any sense?"
A tiny crease appeared between Fallon's brows. "All my life I've lived in a mansion, with every servant at Misthaven House at my beck and call. Hugh would buy me whatever I wished—gowns and trinkets and sweetmeats. I never went to bed hungry. And yet, sometimes I would go to one of the cottages. They'd give me sour milk and potatoes in a crude bowl by the peat fire. And I'd look around at the faces—a ma and da, brothers and sisters, a lazy cat dozing by the fire. And I would have traded everything I owned just to have the chance to climb up on someone's lap and feel their arms around me."
Their eyes met, held. Understanding. So complete it was terrifyin
g. He wanted to stop the horses, to go to her, slide her down until she was in his arms. He wanted to stroke her hair and tell her she would never be alone again, his brave, generous-hearted Fallon. There would always be someone to hold her when the night grew too dark, the cry of the wind too lonely. He would be there to hold her. But those were promises he couldn't make, no matter how much he might wish it. He couldn't be certain... And now, he knew with heart-shattering clarity how high a price such uncertain vows might cost him.
"The dagger—my mother gave it to me. Where would a gentle lady have gotten such a weapon? It might have been handed down through the family, I suppose. Or collected, somehow. But—"
"But?"
"It would have been far easier if—" He stopped. Was he utterly mad to even consider the possibility? Yet she was peering at him with those eyes, ancient and wise as the first winds ever born, yet at the same time as gloriously new and fresh with wonder as a babe's.
"If what, Ciaran?"
"If she got the dagger when it was... new."
He saw a tiny shiver work through Fallon, but not the unrestrained joy he might have expected. He was admitting there was a possibility her wild tale was true, that he was the man she'd said he was from the beginning. Yet her pleasure was tarnished with something akin to resignation, and a soft sorrow on those lips that had tasted so sweet, so right beneath his when he'd claimed them with his own.
Because if he was the legendary Ciaran, she could never follow him into the kingdom beyond the mist. Did she realize, though, his bold, beautiful lady, that that might be the least painful sort of parting? A far worse one would be to walk away from her as a mere mortal man, to wander the world, a hunted fugitive, a smuggler, a dishonored criminal, gazing up at the heavens every night and knowing that Mary Fallon might be watching the stars, might be thinking of him, yearning for him, the way he yearned for her.
He looked away from Fallon, already feeling that rending of his spirit, and was stunned to see the walls of the castle ruin rising up before them. Caislean ag Dahmsa Ceo, Fallon had called it. Castle of the Dancing Mist. And the mist did seem to dance about it, ethereal, exquisite, until the shattered walls became oddly graceful, the slender fingers of stone seeming more powerful in their destruction. The single soaring tower that had escaped whole was a triumph.
Fallon had found him here, battered, confused. Whatever secrets shrouded his past, the key was here.
Ciaran drew rein and dismounted, tying his horse to a low-lying branch. Then wordlessly he picked his way through crumbling stone softened by wisps of grass, delicate clouds of wildflowers, all the sharp edges worn away by wind and rain and the loving hands of time.
Did he belong to this place? To this land that had cast a spell upon his heart? Or was it only that he suddenly wanted to, for Fallon, for mischievous, elfin Caitlin Dunne and Siobhan Moynihan with a babe in her belly and grief for two sons shadowing her lovely eyes?
"This castle—it isn't ancient enough to have been built when Ciaran first lived," he said quietly. "You say Ciaran returned to build it centuries after he'd first been bewitched. Why would he do such a thing? He couldn't live in it, Fallon. He had to leave it behind, empty. What could he hope to accomplish?"
"The legend says that each time Ciaran was summoned back to the land of mortals, his heart bled. He could see that three hundred more years of pain, of suffering must pass before he could return again."
Ciaran looked around him, knowing what the hero of legend must have felt—the helplessness, the anger, the same emotions he himself felt whenever he thought of leaving Fallon behind.
"He argued with the fairy king, fought with him, tried every means he could think of to outwit him. But the king was too cunning. At last, in desperation, Ciaran came up with a plan, a way that the people could feel his presence even when he wasn't able to help them, a way that he could shelter both their bodies and their spirits."
"By building a castle? Fallon, I don't understand how that could make any difference."
"This is holy ground, Ciaran, from long before St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, even before the triple goddess and the horned god of the druids. There are places like this, scattered about the earth, places where the pulse of all life can be felt. Men give it different names throughout time. Call it what you will—Olympus, Eden, the druid grove, like the one at Chartres—but if you open your heart, trust your senses, you can feel it."
He could. The pulse traveled from the earth, tingling through his boot soles, sending rivers of sensation up his legs. It seeped into every fiber of his being, a sense of union with every creature who had lived before, every joy and sorrow, betrayal and love. Echoes of life.
"There were caves beneath this place, secret passages since time began, where generations had stored their treasures. There were paintings of men hunting on the walls, bits of pottery, gold torques, bronze ax blades. Crosses have been carved in the stone, and messages written in ogham script at the time when the standing stones were new. Ciaran built his castle here as a shelter, to protect the treasures of ages from being plundered. All treasures. Not only objects, but people, too."
Ciaran reached out, gliding his fingertips over a carving in the stone, as if he were trying to memorize a lover's face.
"There was a time here when bards were outlawed, hunted. The English claimed the sounds of the harp and the pipes stirred up the spirit of rebellion." Her lips curved in an aching smile. "It may be that they were right. Yet, all of our history, every tale of love and valor, the very soul of a whole people, was twined in the threads of that music, Ciaran. It would have been more merciful just to sink Ireland into the sea than to try to steal the tales and the music away."
Tales like that of a hero bewitched away to Tir na nOg by enchanted cherries, loves like the star-crossed Deirdre and Naosi, brave deeds of Cuchulain. Was it possible that Fallon was right? That such stories were far more precious than any gold or jewels or land that a conqueror might plunder?
"A man could be killed for playing the harp or the pipes—even for speaking Gaelic, their own language. Just one more of countless attempts to turn them into proper English subjects."
"A murder of the soul," Ciaran said, turning toward her.
Fallon's delicate brows rose, and she nodded, slipping her hand into his. "A woman named Eilish Fallon was the keeper of the brooch then. She summoned you back—Ciaran back—and begged him for help. She was an artist, they say, and couldn't resist capturing his face on canvas. It's said she memorized one feature at a time while he worked on the castle, and spent every night trying to capture it, failing then trying again. He disappeared before she was finished. I saw the portrait once when I was a little girl."
"You saw it? Then you know what Ciaran looks like?" Every muscle in Ciaran's body tensed. "Is he... Am I..."
"In the end, Eilish couldn't capture the likeness well enough to satisfy herself. So she began again. In the only image that survived, his face is half-turned, the mist swirling, so you can't see all his features."
Ciaran couldn't stem the bitter sense of disappointment. "Then the thing is worthless."
"No. His expression in the portrait is so wistful it broke my heart. It made every woman who saw it want to love him, and every man who saw it want to become a hero. Ciaran built the castle over the labyrinth of caves and added his own maze of souterrains—tunnels—beneath. It's said that no enemy of Ireland can escape it once he enters, and no one who loves the land can ever be lost. Fiachra O'Riordan, one of the greatest bards who ever lived, took shelter here. For fifty years he taught his students here, passing on the epic poems, the ballads, the history. Legend says that he went blind from being in the darkness so long, and yet he didn't mourn the loss of his sight. He said that within the heart of Caislean ag Dahmsa Ceo, he found a brighter light than any he'd ever known."
"But didn't the English hunt him here? You can't keep such a place secret for hundreds upon hundreds of years."
"Once, it's said, th
e soldiers attempted to find him. But he merely wound through the passages, drifting out notes to lure them after him. One passage leads to the sea, a drop off so sudden that you don't know you've fallen until you strike the rocks below. So skilled was Fiachra with his harp, he hurled the notes beyond that opening, made them dance upon the air. The soldiers followed and crashed to their deaths. Sometimes, when the moon is full, people say you can still hear the faint sounds of his clarsah's strings being plucked. But you mustn't follow, lest you join the soldiers who crashed to the stones.
"Then, when Cromwell came, he slighted the castle, bombarded it, wanting to turn it to rubble. His Roundheads butchered everything, everyone in their path. A woman took shelter in the souterrains here, and as the cannons pounded, she gave birth to a son. When her son grew to manhood, he became the savior of the people Cromwell had left to starve in Connaught. He banded them together, taught them how to grow food on the barren, rocky ground, kept the fire of hope alive inside them."
"And now this place is a den for smugglers? Common criminals like this Silver Hand?" The thought sickened Ciaran, as if something holy had been defiled. The fact that he might have defiled it was almost unbearable.
"In some ways, Silver Hand is a hero. He smuggles out the wool the English won't let us sell. They've blocked our trade in an effort to protect their own farmers—shackled us by that means as they have so many others. Because of Silver Hand, people are able to survive."
It made Ciaran feel a little better. He turned his gaze out to sea.
"If the assizes ever catch him, or Redmayne's soldiers—"
Disaster, again, for these brave, beleaguered people, Ciaran thought. But the greater danger was losing this castle with the hopes of the ages woven through its broken stones.
What would happen if Redmayne succeeded in tearing it down? The captain's plan was diabolical, brilliant, the possibility that he might succeed unthinkable.
"I'll stop Redmayne, Mary Fallon," Ciaran vowed. "I swear it."
Her Magic Touch (Celtic Rogues Book 3) Page 21