Spirit of the Mist

by Janeen O'Kerry

  The wind eased, but still the rain came down. Behind him, wisps of steam drifted up from the burned-out houses and buildings of the dun, rising up into the rain like mist and disappearing into the darkness.

  He could only hope that this was not all that was left of his former kingdom. Surely the people must be hiding somewhere. Surely the fire could not have consumed them all, leaving no trace! Brendan moved on, following a wet and muddy track that led across the fields to the edge of the forest.

  Suddenly he stopped. A flash of lightning showed him what he had almost stumbled over: the body of a man.

  He crouched down to look at it, turning it over, his heart hammering as he looked at the face. Again the lightning came, and he saw that this was not one of his men. It was one of Odhran’s.

  Brendan stood up and looked closely at the rain-drenched ground. The lingering ripples of lightning showed him that he was surrounded by bodies. The invading army, driven out of the fortress by blinding, choking smoke and weighed down with stolen treasure, had run straight into an ambush.

  Brendan looked up at the trees just as a dark figure stepped out from beneath them. It moved straight toward him, first walking, then running, slipping and sliding on the muddy ground, until it was right in front of Brendan, and then his father reached out and grabbed him and held him in a tight embrace.

  “They’re all here,” Gill said, stepping back from him. “All the people, all the horses, and most of the sheep and cattle. Even all the gold Odhran’s men tried to steal!”

  Lightning flashed again, more distant now, and Brendan saw that what Gill had said was true. There beneath the dripping trees he saw the familiar faces of the men and women and children who had once called him king, and behind them milling cattle and nervous horses, and heaps of bags filled, with treasure.

  All the people were soaked by the storm, and shock and loss were evident in their eyes; but they were alive, and Brendan knew that they would begin rebuilding their homes almost as soon as the storm was past.

  But there was one person whose face he did not see…one person who would have run to him if she had been there beneath those trees. And he to her.

  “Muriel,” Brendan said. “She is not here.”

  Gill shook his head. “She is not. Surely she is waiting for you down on the beach.”

  “Of course she is,” Brendan said, but his voice caught.

  “She is down on the beach, waiting for us, exhausted from bringing in this magnificent storm. Darragh, Killian, come with us! Come with us to the beach! She is waiting there for us to find her!”

  Down the path that led to the sea, a path now more like a running river as torrents of rainwater poured away from the dun, the four men slipped and slid in hopes of finding one more life. Half running, half jumping, all of them covered with mud, they raced all the way until finally leaping to the sand.

  “Muriel!” Brendan ran out onto the narrow beach, past the curragh still sitting where they had left it. The tide was high and the waves crashed into the sand at their highest point. There was no sign of Muriel.

  The rain began to lessen. As Brendan ran down the darkened beach the lightning became more and more distant, the flashes farther apart, as the storm began to die. “Muriel!” he called again.

  Surely she would answer. Surely she knew he was here for her, and would stand up from among the rocks wet and cold from her conjured rain. She would run to him and take comfort in his arms.

  But there was nothing here but the crashing waves and the fading, faraway rumble of thunder.

  He stopped, and for the first time in his life knew fear far greater than any he had ever faced in battle. He had been willing to sacrifice himself, if need be, to end Odhran’s tyranny and drive him out of Dun Bochna.

  He should have known that Muriel would be willing to do no less to save the place that had become her home, to save the people who had become hers, all because she loved him.

  He could only wish that he could have given his life if it would have saved her own…for nothing would be harder than finding her lifeless on the beach, or never finding her at all.

  Then came one last rippling flash of lightning. In it, Brendan saw a small white-clad figure lying motionless in the foam at the edge of the sea, the waters rushing back and forth over long, dark hair.

  “Muriel,” he whispered and dashed to her side.

  He knelt down beside her and half lifted her up, pulling her close to him, trying to warm her cold, still body with whatever life he had left to give. Her head fell back. Her eyes were closed, her wet hair still in the grip of the rushing sea, her skin cold and pale.

  He ducked his head and pressed his ear to her chest, listening for any sign of life—the slightest breath, the faintest heartbeat—and as he hugged her close, rocking her back and forth, unable to speak, he felt the slow beat of life within her. It was faint but steady, and then a gentle arm came up to fall across his shoulder.

  Brendan lifted her up, away from the cold, dark sea. He took her back to the path, back to the burned-out fortress that had been his home, holding her close every step of the way.

  “Strange how we were so desperate to put a fire out just a short time ago,” said Killian. “Now all we can think of is to start one again.”

  Brendan smiled. He sat beside Muriel in the dark remains of the King’s Hall, propped up against one wall on a pile of the driest rushes they had been able to find.

  She lay with her head resting against his side, tucked in beneath a stack of half-damp, half-scorched woolen cloaks scavenged from the least damaged of the houses. Alvy sat close on the other side of her, constantly smoothing Muriel’s cloak and hair.

  Her eyes remained closed, but there was a faint touch of color to her cheeks, and her breathing was soft and regular. The awful chill was beginning to leave her body, replaced by the warmth of his own.

  “Is the fire started yet?” Alvy asked. “She must have a fire!”

  Killian continued working at the firepit with his flints. The sparks flew each time he struck the stones together, but at last he shook his head. “Far too wet,” he said. “Nothing here to burn. It’s all drenched.”

  “You’re welcome,” Muriel whispered and turned over on her side to move closer to her husband. She slid deeper beneath the heavy cloaks atop her.

  Brendan grinned. “She’s right, you know. We asked for rain, and we got it. We have nothing to complain about.”

  Cole got up from where he was sorting through the rushes, pulling out any that weren’t too wet, and walked toward the door. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said and walked out into the quiet night.

  Brendan looked down at Muriel again and kissed her forehead—and then became aware that someone else had walked into the hall.

  It was Loman, who had been the most highly placed of King Galvin’s—later Brendan’s and later Colum’s—druids. Right behind him came all the rest of the druids, and then the dun’s warriors. Brendan eased out from under Muriel and stood up as everyone else who lived at Dun Bochna, it seemed, crowded together inside the burned-out hall.

  “Brendan,” Loman said, stepping forward.

  The black sky above his head, visible through the half-fallen roof, glittered with stars and shone with moonlight now that the storm had gone. “Before anything else is done, we must know for certain what your future holds.”

  Brendan looked down and glanced back at Muriel. “I understand,” he said. “I will leave you just as soon as she is well. We will return to her family at Dun Farraige, or perhaps build our own rath out in the forest. I will ask what she wishes just as soon as she—”

  Loman held up his hand. “You do not understand,” he said. “We have come to ask you to take your place here, as our king.”

  “King,” repeated Brendan.

  He looked around the room at the familiar, anxious faces staring at him with such expectation; then he started to take a step toward Loman; then he stopped and shook his head.

  “We
know all too well that I have not the blood to be king,” he said. “I am the son of slaves. That is no shame to me, for my father is a fine man no matter what his station…and though I never knew my mother, I have no doubt that she was equally worthy of honor and respect. Yet there is no escaping the fact that, by the law, I am not one who can ever be considered to rule you.”

  He studied them again, looking at the druids and the warriors and the women, and even at the waiting servants standing in the shadows and the darkness. “Why would you say such a thing to me? Has the smoke affected you? Or are you joking, to lift the spirits of your people after such tragedy as we have witnessed tonight?”

  Loman smiled sadly. “Brendan, I beg you—listen to me. We have known you since your birth. We know what sort of man you have become. You were the one closest to the heart of King Galvin, the one he himself wanted to be king after him, as did all of the free men of Dun Bochna.”

  Brendan looked down and paced a few steps across soaked and blackened rushes. “All this was true before,” he said. “Before, you knew what I truly was, and you gave me no choice but to leave. Now you say you want me to be king! Why have you changed your minds?”

  There was the low sound of conversation as the people turned to each other and began to whisper. Then, from within the ranks of the warriors, a solemn, gray-haired man appeared—a man with wide shoulders and the air of a warrior. It was Fergal, Galvin’s brother.

  His long plaid cloak was scorched and blackened, his fine tunic torn and filthy with soot and smoke, but there was no mistaking that this man was one of the nobility, one of the warrior class. He was a man who could have been a king himself. The crowd fell silent as he began to speak.

  “In this one year, Dun Bochna has known three rulers. First was Galvin, who had served for so long and so well. Then Brendan, young and strong and laughing and fearless. Last was Colum, a gentle, peaceful man.

  “We lost our first king through age and sacrifice; the second through an accident of birth; the third through treachery. It seemed to us that we were cursed, meant to have no king at all.

  “Yet we find that you, Brendan, once our beloved prince, have returned to us—though we had every reason to believe we would never see you again.”

  Loman moved to stand beside Fergal. “Though born a slave, you became the son of King Galvin,” the druid said. “Though captured by an enemy and set adrift to die, you returned home in triumph. And though banished and disgraced through no fault of your own, you returned to us and wrested our home from the grip of an outlaw, braving shipwreck and fire and a rogue king’s army to save us…and save us you did.

  “Three times you were taken away from us, and three times you returned. It appears to us, Brendan, that if any man was meant to be our king, that man is you.”

  Brendan looked at all of the gathered people staring back in the shadows of the moonlit hall. He could feel their anxiety as they awaited his reply. He turned and gazed down at Muriel, sitting up now and listening intently, and he reached out his hand to her.

  Slowly she got up, wrapping her old blue cloak around her ragged linen gown, and walked barefoot over the rushes to stand close beside Brendan. He reached out and put his arm around her waist, pulling her close.

  “I have my mother and my father to thank for bringing me to you the first time,” he said. “But it was this lady, Muriel, who saved me from the sea when Odhran set me out there to die. She used her powers over that sea and the creatures who live within it to bring me home once more…and to bring the storm tonight that kept our home from burning to the ground.”

  He looked down at her again and gently kissed her forehead. “If I am a king—if I am alive at all—it is only because I found my queen. I already know the love you must have for her, and with her at my side I will serve you as your king for all the days left of my life.”

  “King Brendan!” cried a voice from the darkness of the hall.

  “Queen Muriel!” said another.

  Brendan held her close once more, and then looked up at Fergal. “There is something I would ask of you.”

  “You honor me by asking,” the man said. “What is it that I can do?”

  After helping Muriel back to the warmth of the cloaks and rushes, Brendan stood tall. “You, Fergal, are the brother of Galvin, who was the best of kings for the people of Dun Bochna. And I know well that you, too, would have made a king of equal worth.”

  Fergal gave him a slow nod.

  “Everyone here knew King Fallon and Queen Grania, and knew how Dun Camas was overrun through treachery and cowardice. I would ask something of you now, Fergal. I ask you to go to Dun Camas and give them what help you can—including, if need be, serving the people there as their king.”

  A slow smile spread across Fergal’s face. “I will leave for Dun Camas in five days’ time,” he said, and the hall was filled with sounds of approval as the people all spoke to each other and then crowded around Fergal.

  Then they all turned and fell silent as a figure appeared in the doorway, one holding a flaring, snapping stick of wood serving as a torch.

  Brendan reached for his sword…and then relaxed as he recognized Cole. The one time slave stood just inside the door and stared in bewilderment at the great crowd gathered together.

  He raised up his makeshift torch. “I told you I would find a fire,” he said. “The roof of your house had fallen in, but when it did, it sheltered part of the hearth from the storm. There were still a few embers glowing there.”

  Brendan and Muriel looked at each other and smiled. The hall erupted into shouting and laughter, and soon it was bright with a newly kindled fire blazing in the great central hearth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Nine and thirty days passed—long, busy, sunlit days spent in the rebuilding of a kingdom.

  All of the people of Dun Bochna came in from its every corner to help: the farmers from their raths in the forests and fields, the herdsmen down from the mountaintop pastures, the warriors who kept watch at the borders.

  They joined the men and women who lived in the fortress itself to reconstruct the burned-out houses and armory and King’s Hall. Everyone, from servant to druid to warrior to noble, pitched in to help.

  They carried bundles of hazelwood sticks and buckets of clay to build new walls. They hauled wagonloads of oats and wheat straw from the freshly harvested fields to make new roofs. And as the buildings took shape, the craftsmen and spinners and weavers went to work creating new tools and cushions and boots and cauldrons and cloaks and tunics and gowns to replace those damaged and destroyed by the fires.

  The pens went back up along the inner stone wall, and the horses and the cattle and the sheep were safely inside once more. New gates were built from strong oak timber and hauled up into place by twenty strong men.

  And then one morning, the gates stood open.

  The leaves on the oak, willow, and rowan trees had begun to turn to the reds, golds, and deep purples of early autumn. The blackberry bushes were heavy with clusters of berries; the apple trees dropped fresh green fruit to the windblown grass. The newly rebuilt dun, its buildings gleaming white with new clay, their straw roofs shining like gold in the morning sunlight, sat waiting for its people to return.

  But on this particular morning they all stood gathered together on the top of the hill beside the great fortress, beside the open space of sand and ash that once again held a great stack of wood awaiting sunset and torches.

  The bonfire would be even larger this time, for among the wood was much of the debris from the night the fortress had burned. If ever there was a night when a great fire should burn, it was this one—this autumn equinox.

  At the highest point of the hill, Brendan stood surrounded by his warriors and his druids. He stood tall among them, his golden brown hair ruffled by the cool sea breeze. Over his black leather trousers and soft gray tunic he wore a newly made cloak woven of blue and purple and white, a cloak so wide that it was gathered in five folds acro
ss his chest—yet it was fastened with a plain bronze brooch, no finer than one a servant might wear.

  As Brendan watched, the crowd parted and allowed a group of six people to walk through. At the head of the little group was Muriel, and in both hands she carried the king’s gold sea-dragon torque.

  Her gown was of the softest and finest wool, yet, like Brendan’s tunic, it had been dyed only in a plain shade of gray. Her cloak was like his too, blue and purple and white, but fastened only with a servant’s bronze brooch.

  The two fortnights spent out on the island had left her weakened and thin, but under Alvy’s care her beauty and health had once again been restored. Her black hair fell in waves to her shoulders, her fair skin glowed, and her blue eyes shone bright as she looked up at Brendan.

  Just behind her walked Darragh and Killian. Following them, dressed in the bright wool plaids and fine golden brooches of free men, were Duff, Cole, and Gill.

  Muriel stopped in front of Brendan. He smiled down at her for a long moment, as if the two of them stood alone together. She started to give the king’s torque to Loman, but Brendan placed his fingers on her hand to stop her. Instead, he turned to Loman himself and took the small and delicate queen’s torque from the druid.

  Pulling the ends of the gold torque slightly apart, he slid it around Muriel’s neck, gently placing the heavy gold so that the beautifully made sea-dragon heads rested on her collarbone just above the neckline of her soft gray gown.

  He took hold of both her hands, and smiled at her. Then he released her, looked up at the crowd, and began to speak.

  “It is well, I think, that my own kingmaking should be held at the time of the autumn equinox, for that is a time of equality and balance. Today, the day is equal to the night; neither is greater than the other.