by Robert Adams
"Now, Harold, take that girl's right hand and look well at what is upon the flesh of her palm."
Rupen stood up to see the better as Harold held the opened hands of Ita and Manus close together in the bright firelight, scrutinizing them from several distances and angles. Then he shook his white-haired head in amazement, saying, "Save only for the disparity of sizes, they are almost identical, in shape and in coloring, as well."
Bishop Manus nodded. "Just so, Harold. Now you know why I became so agitated. This Ita can be of no ilk save that of Mac Dhomhnuill. And she looks of just about the right age to be the little grandniece for the repose of whose innocent soul I have for so long prayed. Nor can any of you imagine how my poor bereft brother will rejoice at this blessed occurrence. His Grace of Norfolk will know well the gratitude of Clan Mac Dhomhnuill, ere long, and you, too, my dear friends."
And so, a month later, down the road from the north came such a cavalcade that the citizens and garrison of that city once called Jorvik brought in their kine and barred their gates, thinking that the thrice-damned Scots once more were sending an invading army into England. Beneath a crested banner of finest silk, it bearing a motto in Latin—Per Mare per Terras—and borne high aloft on a gilded ash-wood lance shaft, rode a richly dressed man. Although his face bore the marks of age and war and sorrow, his body looked muscular and firm and he easily handled the reins of a tall, prancing stallion.
Behind him, his banner, and a score of bodyguards rode above two hundred knights and noblemen, their squires, sergeants, and attendants. Two hundred mounted axemen preceded and flanked a long and rich train of waggons, a herd of spare horses, and a larger herd of skinny cattle of the long-horned and -haired breed of western and northern Scotland.
To the inestimable and very evident relief of the folk of York, this host of Scots camped on the site of the old Royal Army camp, well outside the walls. Only the old man and some of his guards, nobles, and knights actually entered the city, riding straight to Yorkminster and the archepiscopal palace.
Thanks to the efforts of Harold, Rupen, and Jenny Bostwick, the girl who was brought into the room, wherein were assembled Aonghas Dubh and his principal vassals, along with Bishop Manus and a selection of the Scottish clergy just then in York, Archbishop Harold, and Sir Rupen, looked far less the part of a recently freed slave concubine and far more like a young maiden of good breeding.
Rumbling in a basso voice that sounded not in the least aged, the fearsome Lord of the Isles said in his native language, with tones that none of his many enemies ever had heard or would, "Come you to me." Stripping off his doeskin-and-gold-thread riding glove, he held out to her a scarred and sinewy hand the palm of which bore the same red-purple mark as did her own and that of the bishop.
Now, at Bishop Manus's firm insistence, Ita had been kept completely ignorant of the fact that this great lord was coming, and this day had been held secluded and alone in a distant part of the palace, so that she might have no inkling of the identity of the man she was being taken to meet. Therefore, the near-miracle that followed came as a shocking surprise to all who saw and heard it, those who could understand Gaelic, that is.
His hand still extended, Aonghas rumbled yet again, "I say, come you to me, little fair one."
Then, it happened. Ita's forehead wrinkled briefly, while her lips shaped soundless syllables, and then she said, questioningly, "Seanair? Seanair tarbh?"
Bishop Manus, among others of the Scots, paled and gasped, then he grasped his pectoral cross while his lips moved. But his brother roared out a wordless cry and in two long strides was upon Ita, his powerful arms crushing her frail form to him, while unashamed tears of joy cascaded down his lined, scarred old face and his thick, massive body shook to the intensity of his sobs, as he gasped out her true name over and over again, "Eibhlin, My little Eibhlin, joy of my heart, Eibhlin, yes, you are back where you belong, Eibhlin, with your Grandfather Bull. Eibhlin, and no foul Irish pigs will ever take my little Eibhlin from me again, Eibhlin."
Fully spanning her waist with both his hands, he raised her above his head and turned about so that both of them faced his amazed vassals. "Look upon her fairness, clansmen," he said in a voice that rattled the leaded panes in the windows, "for she is of our ilk. Look upon my dear little granddaughter, Eibhlin Mac Dhomhnuill, restored to us by God and a Sassenach Duke, assuredly our Lord's implement. Look upon her! Now, down on your knees, all of you, and afford her her due homage, for she is Princess of the Isles and from out her loins will come your next chief and regulus!"
Sitting at meal later that day, the two brothers flanking the Archbishop and Ita-Eibhlin beside her grandfather, the old regulus explained, "Seanair tarbh, Your Grace of York, means Grandfather Bull. Before she was stolen from us, it was her chief pet name for me, as it had been her poor young murdered brother's before her. It was only some eight or nine years ago she was taken, and we of the Mac Dhomhnuill ilk are noted for our memories. I wore today those clothes I wore when last she saw me . . . or as close to them as I could find, hoping that her Mac Dhomhnuill memory might cause her to recall them and recognize me. And, as you all saw and heard this day, she did. She can be naught save what I proclaimed here before my clansmen, Eibhlin Mac Dhomnhnuill, Princess of the Isles, her husband to be the sire of the next chief and regulus."
Livid with rage, Kogh Ademian, president and chairman of the board of the Ademian Enterprises conglomerate—the ultra-sensitive nature of the defense equipment manufactured by some of the companies within that conglomerate giving him a great deal of power with certain governmental agencies and persons—glared at the three men standing before his monstrous desk and snarled, "And I say, bullshit, damn you! It ain't no way on God's green earth that none you fuckin' college boys can get me to believe that my oldest son, my own fuckin' older brother, two of my nephews, and nine other people can just flat, poof, disappear off a fuckin' lawn of a fuckin' lit-up river place with a half a hundred fuckin' Ayrabs watchin' them! It's just fuckin' impossible, and if you three fuckers can't see that, then you all of you is got shit for brains. Hear me?"
State Police Lieutenant Marty Gear, who had come along to see the big-shot Armenian at the request of the two federal agents who had come up just as dry as had he and his investigative staff in the search for even a trace of the missing musicians and dancers, had not liked the loud, arrogant, and abusive swell from first meeting, and he liked him even less now. He had never taken kindly to being cussed at and called dirty names by anybody—man or woman or punk kid, black or white or whatnot, rich or poor, American or foreigner. When the two federals said not a word, looking down at their Corfam shoes and moving not a muscle, Gear decided it was up to him.
Clearing his throat, he asked, "Mr. Ademian, has it been any letters or calls you've got from anybody as might've snatched your kinfolks and the rest?"
"Well, thank God for good old-fashioned honest-to-pete cops." snorted Kogh Ademian. "Lootenant, that's the least dumb-ass thing I've heard since you three stooges come in here. Naw, it ain't been a fuckin' word from no fuckin' body. I done put feelers out all over the whole fuckin' world, checkin' up on anybody we can think of might of had a reason or thought they had a reason for to try and hold my fuckin' feet to the fire for somethin'—the goddam Russkies, of course, them and the Chinks and that fucker Castro. Then too, we got feelers out at all the damn fuckin' nitwit groups—the PLO, the IRA, all them fuckin' Commie nigger groups in Africa, the SDS and SNCC and CORE and RAM, them bomb-happy Basques with the ETA, the TPLA, and I don't know what-all. I even got a fucker checkin' out the fuckin' Cosa Nostra, fer God's sake! I've done ever' last thing I can. Now what're you three fuckers doin', huh?"
Lieutenant Gear held his peace this time, figuring that it was now the turn of the feds in the barrel. But neither of them spoke for long moments.
"Goddam you, you dumb cocksuckers, I asked you a fuckin' question!" Ademian urgently prompted. "Is one of you gonna answer me or have I gotta start makin' fuckin'
phone calls to some fuckers who will make you answer me?"
The senior of the two agents took the ball and tried to run with it. "Mr. Ademian, sir, every square centimeter of that estate on the Potomac has been gone over extensively and repeatedly by different teams, each one starting out from scratch, and nothing of any value or significance has been turned up. All the servants, the caterer and all his people, every man, woman, and child who was a guest at that party has been questioned exhaustively, most of them more than once, and exactly the same story has been gotten from all of them."
"Exhaustively?" growled Kogh Ademian. "Until who was exhausted, you or them Ayrab fuckers? And what the fuckin' shit you bastards expect them to say? That they had my boy and my brother and my nephews and all them took off by somebody?"
"Shit, you candy-ass motherfuckers sound dumber and dumber ever' time you open your friggin' mouths! Them Ayrabs ain't gonna tell you what really went down out there long as you all is nice and polite to them. Ayrabs and Turks, they got no respect for folks what's polite. What you gotta do is take them fuckers down in a basement someplace and beat the holy livin' shit out of them till they comes to tell you the fuckin' truth. You ain't got the guts to do it, I got some men that will! Just give me the word."
"Mr. Ademian," said the senior agent in evident alarm, "what you, ahhh . . . suggest is completely illegal by federal statutes and by those of every state. We cannot and would not ever perpetrate such horrible interrogative practices. As for you and your men, you were well advised to leave well enough alone. Some of those people have diplomatic immunity, you know, and I think—"
"You think." snapped Kogh scornfully. "Mr. shithead, you don't know how to think nothin's not in a fuckin' lawbook somewheres. So, okay, I won't take my men Ayrab huntin' . . . for a while, yet. But you take diplomatic immunity and shove it straight up your fuckin' asshole, mister. You get the truth out them fuckin' Ayrabs fuckin'-A quick, or you all gonna be out panhandlin' down around the bus depot in D. C. after your fuckin' unemployment has run out. And mister, you ask anybody knows Kogh Ademian and they'll tell you I don't threaten nuthin' I ain't prepared to fuckin' do!"
"You find out what happened to my boy, Arsen, and my brother, Rupen, and all and you find out goddam fast or I'll nail your fuckin' hides to the fuckin' wall. Now, get the fuck out of my office and get to work!"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Adams lives in Seminole County, Florida. Like the characters in his books, he is partial to fencing and fancy swordplay, hunting and riding, good food and drink. At one time Robert could be found slaving over a hot forge, making a new sword or busily reconstructing a historically accurate military costume, but, unfortunately, he no longer has time for this as he's far too busy writing.