Spirit of the Mist

by Janeen O'Kerry

  Now his cloak was brilliant blue; now his tunic was blue and green and yellow and cream; now he wore a fine iron sword at his hip. He galloped away on that powerful horse, followed by twenty men who were equally well dressed and armed.

  Now he looked like a prince…if not a king.

  The image faded as the men rode off into the mists. But then she saw Brendan’s face again.

  This time he was pale and exhausted, chilled and soaking wet, his hair cut short and dripping with water. He looked as he had when she had found him on the storm-racked sea, dressed in rags like a slave.

  A slave.

  Her fingers shifted slightly on the cold sides of her bronze basin. Show me who you are. Show me what you are!

  Again came the image of Brendan as he was right now, all in gray and black, standing as still as stone, held in thrall by moonlight and magic. Then the vision wavered and dissolved into the form of a crying infant no more than a few months old, lying on a heap of straw in the corner of a rough shelter, dressed only in a tattered square of undyed wool tied around him with an old rough cord.

  In a moment the infant was lifted up by a woman who was clearly a slave of the lowest class, for she wore only the poorest and roughest dark wool and had rusted iron bands around each wrist. The child rested its head on her shoulder and quieted, then opened its eyes and looked up—and Muriel saw one brown eye and one blue eye.

  She jerked her hands away from her serving basin. The water inside wavered and darkened, and the images vanished.

  The moon settled toward the western horizon and the sky in the east began to lighten with the first touches of dawn.

  Muriel was still standing at her mirror when she heard the thunder of hooves outside. As if waking from a deep sleep, she closed the wooden shutters of her window and hurried to throw open the door of her house.

  She was just in time to see five riders gallop out through the open gates, out into the morning light and onto the path that would take them to Dun Bochna. It would be at least a fortnight until they returned—fourteen nights of wondering whether Brendan was the prince he claimed to be, or if what Muriel’s mirror had shown her could possibly be true.

  The days were at once the longest that Muriel had ever known and, at the same time, were not nearly long enough.

  Brendan was quartered in a house with three other men. All of them were craftsmen, workers in iron and bronze and wood. As such, they were neither servants nor nobles; they were men who lived just as King Murrough had ordered that Brendan should live until they knew for certain what he was.

  The craftsmen’s day began early. Brendan served as a mere helper to them, hauling loads of wood for their fires and carrying buckets of seawater for quenching hot metal. But he must have found time to slip out each day before the work began, for every morning when Muriel stepped out of her house she found a small bouquet of fresh wildflowers on the stepping stone just in front of her door.

  Always the flowers were newly gathered from the hills above the dun, always still damp with dew. Some days there would be bright yellow primrose and gorse; others might bring the pinks of foxglove and violets; still others would deliver pretty combinations of blue and purple violets and gentian, or white blackberry canes with white violets set off by deep green clover.

  In the afternoons Brendan would often come to sit with her as she worked at her spinning and sewing. They might stay in the hall with the other women if rain threatened but would walk out to sit on the grassy hilltops if the weather was fair, there to enjoy the warm summer sun and cooling sea breeze.

  She would sew, and he would talk, and so many times she would find herself laughing more than working. His stories were varied and wonderful, but consisted mostly of Brendan’s heroics and Brendan’s bravery and Brendan’s great victory in stealing half of King Odhran’s cattle. Brendan would walk around her, gesturing and talking and acting out each part; and she would watch, smile, and laugh.

  Muriel knew the chance she took whenever she spent time with him, for on each successive day he became more a part of her life and it became more difficult to hold him at arm’s length. Yet again and again she allowed him to stay at her side. Again and again she told herself that it was only for a short time, that soon he would be gone and she could safely forget she had ever known him, just as he would no doubt forget about her.

  On the evening of the fourteenth day, as the shadows began to lengthen, Brendan finished yet another tale and came over to sit down close beside her. “Tell me, now,” he said, a little breathless, as she worked at stitching together a fine white linen gown. “You have watched me and listened to me for all these many days. Do you still believe I am only a slave?”

  She set her mass of white linen down on the grass. Brendan sat near enough to touch, his golden brown hair and gray cloak blowing in the wind, his blue and brown eyes shining down at her.

  For the first time, she reached out her hand to him. He stayed very still as she brushed a strand of sunlit hair from his eyes. Her hand lingered near his brow, and she drew her finger lightly down the edges of his hair and onto the smooth, warm skin near his left eye, the eye that was blue. She paused for a moment, stroking the skin again, marveling at how very soft it was.

  “Have you never touched a man’s face, Lady Muriel?” he asked, peering up at her, his eyes bright with laughter.

  She froze. “I have not,” she whispered and started to take her hand away. But he caught hold of it lightly, gently, and brought it close.

  “I am glad to know this,” he said and bowed his head to touch his lips to the backs of her fingers.

  The world around her seemed to grow misty and disappear. She saw only his closed eyes and gentle face, felt only the heat and surprising softness of his mouth as he caressed her fingers.

  In the distance, far below near the gates of the dun, came the faint sound of galloping hoof beats. It seemed of no consequence to Muriel, who found she was no longer capable of moving; her entire body had gone warm and soft. But Brendan opened his eyes and looked up past her shoulder.

  He sat back. Muriel blinked, for the light of day intruded on her once again. But as she watched him stand up and take a step toward the fast-approaching hoof beats, she knew without having to look that King Murrough’s riders had returned from Dun Bochna.

  Brendan raced down the path, finally having to let go of Muriel’s hand, for she could not bring herself to move any faster than a walk. She found herself terribly sad. He ran for the open gates and dashed across the lawn, in and around the houses, and quickly disappeared from Muriel’s sight.

  She hurried a little to catch up to him—and found him standing with his hand against the wall of one of the houses, staring at the closed doors of the King’s Hall. Seven horses were being led away as Muriel walked up to stand beside him.

  “They’re already in the hall, waiting for the king,”

  Brendan said, still watching the doors. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to them.”

  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 breat
h. “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. Th
e 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.”