by Laura Parker
Yet, even as he gave up to the rich dark agony, his body resisted, coughing to eject from his lungs the fluid that threatened to choke him.
“Shh! You mustn’t make a sound!”
The cool small hand that touched Killian’s cheek and then pressed against his mouth surprised him and disturbed the rhythm of his spasm, and his coughing stopped as his eyes flew open. Looking down at him through the dimness was a pair of serious sea-green eyes set in a child’s face.
Deirdre smiled as she saw his eyes open. In the flickering light of the candle she held, he did not seem nearly as frightening or as huge as he had in the stables. Not that it mattered. Perhaps, if she protected him, the wee folk would in turn protect her family.
She began awkwardly petting his sweaty cheek. “You must hide yourself, fairy. The English have come.”
Killian blinked, unable to fathom her speech. Who was she, this child awash in a sea of golden crisp waves? He tried to lift his head but pain shot through him again, making giddy eddies in his brain and muddling his thoughts.
Where was he? Nothing in the dimness looked familiar. The curved walls were of stone and had no windows. Was he in prison? If so, what was a child doing with him?
Gradually his attention wandered back to the child bending over him. “Who are you?” he whispered.
“Shh! English!” She looked up as footsteps sounded in the room overhead.
When they faded, she bent close to him and said, “You’re a fairy. I know it because I conjured you. Only I didn’t mean it. Save yourself and remember that I was the one who helped you.”
The last thing he thought he could do was move, but suddenly the child at his side began shoving him.
I must be mad with pain, Killian thought as the girl shoved ineffectually at him. It was not possible that she thought him a spirit. Perhaps she was the fairy. ’Twas said fairy women were golden-haired and as tiny as children. If only his head and chest did not hurt so badly he might be able to sort things out.
“I mean you no harm. I can prove to you I’m a friend of the wee folk,” Deirdre exclaimed in excited tones that her whisper scarcely muted. Reaching up, she began unfastening her bodice.
“There!” she cried, leaning over until her shoulder was only an inch above his nose. “You see? I’ve been kissed by the fairies!”
Before Killian’s blurred gaze swam a red mark no bigger than a ha’penny. It rode the crest of her small round shoulder. Why she should show it to him he could not imagine.
Deirdre pushed him again. “Please leave! They’ll hang us all if they find you!” she whispered thickly as tears roughened her voice and filled her eyes.
Through the thick mist of pain her words struck a rational chord within Killian. Yes, the English soldiers would certainly hang the men of this household if they found him hiding here. He could not do that to them, to the child, who had offered him aid.
Rousing himself with a strength he had not expected to possess, he rolled from his side to a sitting position. The bandages held, though piercing pains robbed him momentarily of breath.
“Aye! Flee!” Deirdre encouraged, pulling on his sleeve as though she could lift him single-handedly.
Killian sucked in air and hoisted himself to his knees, moaning softly when he would rather have cried out his agony. The room began to spin slowly but he fought the vertigo. “Where…do…I hide?” he whispered.
Deirdre stood up beside him as the clatter of more boots entered the Great Hall beyond the hidden door. “Don’t you know?” She looked around wildly, half-expecting an exit magically to appear, but the flickering candlelight revealed only roughhewn walls. The room was barely seven feet deep and three feet wide. It was not meant to house a man for more than a few hours.
Air!
Deirdre looked up and saw the black cavern of the air vent in shadow behind a protruding boulder in the ceiling.
There was another way out of this hiding place, one long forgotten until she had stumbled upon it while playing by herself several months before. It was an air shaft. She had found she could climb it by putting her back against one side and bracing herself with hands and feet on the other. As agile as a monkey, she had climbed its height to find that it led to a false bottom in an upper-floor room. When Brigid found out about her discovery, she had blocked the exit and forbidden Deirdre ever to use it again. But if Deirdre could climb it, so could this man.
She grabbed him by the sleeve and pointed. “Up there! You must climb up the shaft.”
Killian raised his head and looked at the narrow opening and knew he would never have realized that it was there if not for the child. Even so, he doubted he could rise to his feet, much less climb the shaft. Yet, he had to try.
Deirdre watched him place one foot under himself, her heart hammering so violently within her chest that she was certain it would become audible. He was sweating; it ran down into his eyes and pasted his thin beard to the hollows of his face. When he tried to rise, he began to shiver, his face graying with the strain.
“I cannot!” he muttered through clenched teeth and collapsed back onto his knee.
“Aye, you can!” Deirdre whispered urgently. After leaning her candle against the wall, she reached out to place his right arm about her shoulders. “Try again. Hurry!” she commanded, using her father’s authoritative tone of voice. She could not say precisely why, but perhaps because she had willed him here, she knew she could make him do as she bid.
Killian accepted her support to please her and found to his great surprise that she was the anchor he needed. The ceiling was too low to allow him to stand upright. Raising his left arm, Killian felt for the opening and measured its diameter with his hand. It was less than three feet across. He knew that even if he were not injured, he could not hoist himself high enough off the ground to enter the shaft and get a purchase with his knees and feet.
“I can’t…make it, lass.”
“You can with help,” Deirdre said softly. Before, she had used a chair drawn in from the dining table, but now they did not have that luxury. Without a word, she dropped to the ground, tucked her knees under her chest, and balanced herself with her hands.
Killian stared at her as though she had lost her mind. He could not use her as a step stool. His weight would break her back.
“Hurry!” Deirdre hissed just before the candle flame guttered and left the passage in utter darkness.
Killian did not move. The sudden darkness had cost him his sense of equilibrium and the swirling void made him feel like a man on the edge of a precipice.
“Take your boots off,” Deirdre encouraged, growing impatient with the stubborn man. “I’ve borne Ian O’Casey on me back and he’s twice the size of you.” When he did not answer, she felt around in the dark until she found his feet.
“Lift,” she directed, and when he did, she tugged the first of his boots off. When the second was removed, she pulled on his leg to direct him to her. “Climb! Now!”
Suddenly, boot steps sounded again, this time much nearer.
Deirdre swung her head toward the hidden doorway. Someone had come into the dining room. Before she could encourage him again, she heard a scraping at the hidden door. They had been found.
Killian, too, realized that they were about to be discovered, and his instinct for self-preservation took over. He ripped a piece of cloth from his tattered clothing and stuck it between his teeth. Once more he reached for and found the shaft. Gently he felt for the child with his toe.
“Brace yourself, lass,” he whispered and placed his foot on her back. If he was careful and did not tax her too long, perhaps she could hold his weight for a moment. There would be only one chance.
The scraping ceased and was replaced by the whack of a gun butt or an ax against the stone doorway.
Killian hoisted himself up into the shaft with a lunge meant to take some of the weight from the child beneath him. The impetus launched him hip-high into the flue, and he slammed his back against the wall as hi
s left hand shot out to brace him there. Stars exploded behind his eyelids as pain jabbed him like a knife blade, but his cry was muted by his gag.
For a moment, he hung suspended, his muscles quivering and seeming to melt under the pressure of his weight. Then, miraculously, he felt her hands direct his feet to her shoulders and she supported him from below.
“Climb!” called the childish voice from the darkness below.
If it had not taken too much effort, he would have thanked her, but all his concentration was upon following her orders. It seemed to take hours, years, to move an inch, yet she stayed beneath him, pushing and supporting him until he had one knee braced against the cold damp stone.
A little more, he told himself. Just a little more and he would be out of sight. His back was being rubbed raw by the wall and he could feel a trickle of what might be blood or sweat down his flanks. Straining until he thought his eyes would pop out of his head, he lifted his loose leg up and pressed it against the wall. There, he was stuck, wedged in like a peg in a hole.
A moment later he was prodded in the behind. “Take your boots,” she called up to him. “And do not move!”
Killian caught his boot tops between his thighs and pulled them up, too exhausted even to speak, much less to move.
*
Lord Fitzgerald had thought he could restrain himself by visiting his wife’s rooms while the English searched his home, but when he heard the work of axes in the Great Hall he lost his temper.
“What on God’s earth do ye mean, demolishing me property?” he cried as he strode into the room where two English soldiers were applying axes to the back of the fireplace.
Captain Garret looked up with a satisfied smile. “We’re searching, as you so graciously gave us permission to do.”
Lord Fitzgerald clenched his fists. “I did not give ye permission to pull me house down about me ears! Cease that at once!”
“Forgive me, but I cannot,” Garret replied. “Your cousin was kind enough to recall that there was once a hiding place behind this wall. A priest hole, he tells me.”
Lord Fitzgerald raked his cousin with a blighting glance. “Ye’ve a queer memory, cousin. Ye’re in error.”
Sir Neil mopped his brow with a handkerchief and then smiled uncertainly at his cousin. “You will remember that I once spent a summer here when we were children. We played behind there.” He pointed to the fireplace. “Your father found us after hours of searching. We had tripped the lock and could not get out.”
Lord Fitzgerald nodded sharply. “Aye. Me father blistered both our behinds for the lark. I’d have thought the memory would have dampened yer interest in the place.”
Captain Garret turned back to his host. “Have you perchance learned the method to open it?” He indicated the fireplace. “My men and I are tired and anxious to be away to a place that offers the basic amenities of civilized life. If you cannot help us, I am ready to resort to gunpowder.”
A muscle began to twitch in Lord Fitzgerald’s face. “Ye bloody bastard!” he snarled and took a step toward the English officer, who drew his pistol. “I would regret shooting you, Lord Fitzgerald, but I will do it without hesitation if I perceive myself in danger from you. You may cooperate or not, but I will see behind this wall before I leave here today.”
Lord Fitzgerald hesitated, not because he feared being shot. He might be willing to take a ball in the shoulder if it would prevent the wall from opening, but it would not do that. There was nothing left to do but bluster his way through this. “Ye’ll pay for every bit of damage ye’ve done, see if ye don’t!” Without waiting for the officer to put away his gun, he walked purposefully to the fireplace and reached for the head of one of the ornate andirons. When he twisted it, the latch set into its base made an audible click, and a small stone door inside the fireplace opened a crack.
Captain Garret looked slightly bemused when Lord Fitzgerald turned to him. “So simple. I suppose your servants were unaware of it. I threatened one with hanging, yet none of the others would confess to its existence. If not for your cousin’s timely memory, ye might have lost an able servant.”
“Some men believe there are things worth dying for,” the Irish lord answered darkly.
“And surely things worth living for,” Captain Garret finished and nodded at his men. “If you should be hiding a criminal, I can’t promise—”
The scream that erupted from the depths of the fireplace brought the soldiers to alert as they grabbed for their muskets and Captain Garret drew his pistol. A second later, the door swung open with a loud scraping as Deirdre burst into the room.
“Da! Da! Do not let them kill me!” she screamed as she launched herself into her father’s arms. Giving up to the panic that had been choking her, she pounded her father’s chest with small hard fists. “Hide me! Hide me! The English will kill me, they’ll kill us all!” Twisting and kicking, she sobbed hysterically until lack of breath made her collapse against him.
Amazed to find Deirdre in the hole and as frightened as he had ever seen her, Lord Fitzgerald could only think that something terrible had happened in the attic while he had been pacing his bedroom floor, refusing to follow the English about like a guest in his own home. Anger showing in his eyes, he said, “What did ye blackguards do to me daughter that she’s hid herself where she might have died?”
As surprised as his Irish host, Captain Garret could think of no good answer. “We—we did nothing. I haven’t seen the scamp since she left the front hall.” Badly startled by her tirade, he turned to his men. “Did any of you see or speak to the child?”
Deirdre hiccuped a breath, twisted about in her father’s arms, and pointed at the captain. “He’s a devil! He roasts children for his supper. He’ll roast me if I don’t hide!”
“Dee. Deirdre, me darlin’ girl,” Lord Fitzgerald crooned against her ear, trying to calm his distraught child with the stroke of his hand. When she quieted to a whimper he turned to the captain. “There’ll be no more of this! Ye’ve had yer fun. Ye’ve stirred up me household and frightened me daughter half to death. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t come down with brain fever behind it. I hope ye’re satisfied. But, whether or no, ’tis enough. Ye’ll leave me home or I swear I’ll shoot ye meself, and the treaty be damned!”
“Perhaps you’ve seen enough, captain?” Sir Neil suggested.
Captain Garret looked from Lord Fitzgerald to the opening within the fireplace. “Do you see anyone?” he asked the soldier nearest the secret door.
The man ducked his head in briefly and then looked back. “No, sir. Nothing.”
“I see.” The English officer surveyed the father and daughter, unable to still the niggling doubt that something was amiss and yet knowing that he had proceeded as far as his authority permitted under the circumstances. If he continued the search and no man was found, he would be shown to be an even greater fool that he was at present. If this were a plot to embarrass him, the livid look of rage on Lord Fitzgerald’s face proved that he had no knowledge of or part in it.
“Very well,” he said shortly. “Return to your posts, men, and see that you are prepared to ride immediately.” He then turned stiffly to his host. “For the inconvenience, I apologize. I trust you will be ready to accompany me to Cork within the hour?”
Gently rocking his still-crying child, Lord Fitzgerald stared at the Englishman before speaking. “Here’s me hope for ye, captain. That one day ye’ll have a daughter of ye’re own. When ye do, then every time ye gaze on her ye’ll think of this hour and remember, and that’ll be me revenge.”
The curse was mild enough but even so the hair lifted on Captain Garret’s scalp. He bowed stiffly. “An hour, Lord Fitzgerald. We’ll wait in the yard.”
Lord Fitzgerald watched without emotion as the Englishmen filed out of the room. Only when Brigid hurried in, closing the door behind herself, did his daughter stir in his arms.
“Me lord! I’ve lost Deirdre. She isn’t—Oh! There ye are, and me that worried
about ye!”
Deirdre lifted her head from her father’s shoulder and amazed him with a bright smile. “I had to save him, Da. He’s up the air shaft,” she whispered, and motioned toward the hole.
“He’s—But how?” Lord Fitzgerald exclaimed.
“I gave him a boost, on me back,” Deirdre answered as she wiggled to be free.
A series of expressions crossed Lord Fitzgerald’s face, among them wonder, disbelief, and pride. “Ye did that? Ye might have been shot!”
Deirdre put a finger to her lips. “I wished him here. I do not know how to wish him away. The English would have hanged him.”
“Wished him—?” Lord Fitzgerald shook his head. “Dee, lass, what are ye saying?”
“The black-haired lad…I wished for such a man just this morning. I told Brigid all about it. Well, he’s come, and one day I will marry him.”
To humor her, her father said, “Oh, aye, lass. He’s every father’s wish for his daughter’s husband. He’s a murderer and wanted by the English.”
Deirdre paled. “Ye’ll not betray him?”
“Of course not,” he answered quickly. “’Tis not an Irishman among us I’d turn over to the likes of Captain Garret. Only ye must be brave a little longer. Go now with Brigid and change yer dress. And when ye have, ye must ride in the carriage with yer stepmother and wee Owen and never, never mention to them what happened today. Will ye swear it?”
“I swear.” Deirdre cast a last look at the priest hole. “Will I see him again?”
Lord Fitzgerald gave his daughter a long, considering glance. She was young, but she did not behave as a child. In many ways she was uncannily mature, and romantic enough to have taken a fancy to a handsome face, and he had no doubt that the lad scrubbed up to good effect. The fact that she had risked her life to save this stranger would join them in a bond that was better broken at once. Deirdre was his pride and joy. He would allow no common rapparee to steal her affections.