by Laura Parker
The boy nodded miserably. “’Twill be a week or so, I’m thinking. They must send to Cork for the magistrate.”
“Well then, I must do something in the meantime. I will not wait upon the pleasure of the local authorities.” Killian dropped a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Find O’Donovan for me. Do not begin a lie, lad. I know you know how he’s to be found. I do not ask you to betray that confidence. I ask that you get a message to him that I must see him at once.”
When the boy was gone, Killian went to the chapel where he kept his pistol in the niche that had once housed the Blessed Host. He had secreted the gun there along with the powder and shot he had had on him when they lost all their other belongings. He had no alternative but to go with O’Donovan to meet the French smuggler. His share should be enough to keep Liscarrol supplied until he could find a way out of the Bill of Discovery.
“What are you doing?”
Killian looked up and smiled at Deirdre. “Going hunting,” he said shortly and pocketed his weapon.
Deirdre licked her lips nervously. Killian had left her side before she awoke at mid-morning and she had not immediately sought him out. She had not been seeking him out at this moment, but now that they faced each other, she knew she should say something. What could she say about her actions of the night before that would neither sound foolish nor yet be a lie? “I slept well,” she began uncertainly.
“And glad I am to hear it,” Killian replied smoothly. Deirdre’s eyes were downcast and her cheeks were too pale for his liking, but he was determined not to mention the events of the night before if she did not do so first.
“I believe I must have been walking in my sleep during the night,” she added softly.
“So it would appear,” Killian answered. What had she seen before daybreak that frightened her so much that she must keep it a secret from him? Always before, even when she had thought that he was the horseman who had struck her, she had come running to him with the accusation. “You are feeling better now?” he asked.
“Aye.” Deirdre raised her head and made a small helpless gesture with her hands. “I feel so foolish.” She looked at him solemnly. “We are yet a little like strangers to each other.”
Killian nodded. “But we shall learn, acushla, we shall learn. We have time.”
Without him saying so, she knew that that was his answer to her need for privacy just now. He was satisfied that she could not tell him everything. In time, when she felt stronger, she would confide in him. Perhaps she would even reveal what Brigid had told her of the legend of the ancestor.
“I will be gone for a few days.” Killian curved an arm about her waist and turned her toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To slay a dragon for my lady fair.”
Deirdre slanted a doubtful gaze at him. “You must be bored beyond reckoning. Conall and Darragh would not have been half so patient. They always kept their visits to Nantes short so that they would not grow so ill-humored from lack of activity that they would bicker with Da.”
“There, you see, you know me better than you think,” Killian answered, grateful that she had not taxed him with questions of where and why he was going.
He smiled above her head. “A gift rarer than pearls, a complaisant wife.”
“I will not ask you where you go, only that you return, and quickly.” Deirdre kept her head lowered. She did not want him to see the selfish tears that stung her eyes. He deserved to do as he saw fit. She mustered her brightest voice as she said, “Does the dragon guard a great fortune?”
“I devoutly hope so!”
She looked up in amazement. “You would not do anything wrong?”
Killian stopped and pulled her against him so that she could not see his face. “I would not do anything to harm you. If I flirt with danger, it is because it pleases me. Do you understand that?”
Deirdre nodded. She did understand. “How could I not…a woman with soldiers for family?”
Killian bent and kissed her quick and hard before releasing her. “Colin and his family will help you. Give me a few days. I will return.”
*
Fey struck at the tall grasses by the river with a stick. MacShane had gone away and, not only would he not allow her to accompany him, he had asked her to look after Lady Deirdre.
She swung viciously at a newly sprung nettle plant, neatly loping off its head. “That, for the care I’ll be giving her!”
She hunched her shoulders, dissatisfied with the vague unease her feelings caused her. She had never before regretted her feelings, only used them as valid reasons for her actions. She could not give up her jealous dislike of Lady Deirdre, not when she had MacShane’s love. Their talk had not changed her feelings in the matter, just made it painfully clear to her how utterly hopeless her feelings for him were.
She looked up as rooks’ cries sounded overhead. On graceful expanses of shiny black wings, the flock swooped out of the sky and settled in the hedgerow which grew up near the bridge. Their raucous cries and preening irritated Fey. She wanted to be alone with her dark thoughts. Without really thinking about it, she ran screaming toward the birds, beating the hedge to drive them off. They took flight immediately, all indignant cries and flapping wings.
“Are ye that daft, lass?”
Enan appeared suddenly at the end of the bridge and came toward her, his face flushed with anger. He snatched the stick out of her hand and broke it over his knee. “’Tis certain ye know nothing of the ways of the Munster. The man who claims a rookery on his property is a man folk respect. If the birds are run off, a man’s luck will leave with them.”
Fey stared at the gawky young man. In the month that his family at been at Liscarrol, he had not spoken a single word to her. Now he spouted rebuke.
Her chin jutted out. “I can do as I wish!”
“Not when it endangers another man’s luck,” Enan answered promptly. He shook his head and dislodged a reddish shock of hair which dipped across his brow and into his eyes. He pointed a finger at her. “Look at ye, strutting about in a man’s breeches when ye should be properly dressed in skirt and shawl. Aren’t ye ashamed?”
His words made Fey even angrier. “Ashamed? What would ye be knowing of anything, ye whey-faced cow herder!”
“I know a lass when I see one,” he answered, his jaw jutting out to match her own.
Almost unwillingly, Fey noticed that his chin bristled with fine golden whiskers. He was a head taller than she, and though his shirt hung shapelessly from his shoulders, those shoulders were broad and sinewy. He was not handsome but not ugly, plain-faced but for his bright blue eyes.
For reasons she could not understand, her observations made her even angrier. She turned away and picked up a new stick and began deliberately to lop off the heads of the yellow-leafed plants which grew near the water’s edge.
Enan watched her in frowning disapproval for a moment but he said nothing until one leaf flew up and then drifted down into the water.
“Och! Stop!” he cried and reached out to grab her wrist. “That’s bainnicin! Ye’ll poison the fish!”
Fey lurched away and then swung her free fist up to strike him hard on the nose. With a yelp of outrage, Enan clapped a hand over his offended nose. “’Tis bleeding,” he cried accusingly.
Fey jumped back as he bared his teeth in anger, and her feet slipped on the slick grass that sloped down to the water. With a squeal she flung her arms out to catch her balance, teetered a moment uncertainly as she continued to slide backward, and then fell spread-eagled into the river.
Enan watched her flounder a moment, waiting for her to right herself, but suddenly he realized that she was not staying afloat very well. She could not swim. With a curse of disgust, he flung himself into the water after her.
“Ye damn stupid bitch!” Enan yelled near her ear as he caught her by the collar. “Ye could’ve drowned, and how would that have looked for me? ‘Drowned the lord’s ward, did ye, Enan?’ Like as not they’d
have hanged me over the small loss!”
Fey allowed herself to be dragged toward the shore, too limp with fear to protest. When he loosened his hold, she panicked and grabbed him too tightly about the neck.
“Leave go!” Enan cried, shoving her away and scrambling onto the bank. Only then did he remember that she could not swim and had sunk beneath the surface again.
Wading back into the waist-high water, he reached in and grabbed the wrist of the figure floating just below the surface. “’Tis the last time I’m sav—!”
Fey suddenly broke water near the riverbank a few yards away, spewing water and curses in equal portions.
Enan’s rosy complexion turned ashen as he looked down at what he had drawn toward him. He almost released his unwanted catch, but a part of him told him he should not. When he looked up again, Fey had gained a slippery footing on the bank. “Get me Da!” he cried. “Hurry!”
Fey turned back, annoyed to be shouted at when she had already nearly drowned. “Get him yourself, ye fu—! Oh God!”
*
Deirdre turned about in surprise at the pelting footsteps on the stairwell. An instant later, Fey appeared on the second floor, streaming water from every part. “Ye must come! There’s a woman! A woman drowned! Enan’s fishing her out! Come!”
Deirdre hurried after Fey, a prickling of fear along her spine. Killian was not yet two hours gone and already there was trouble. What should she do? What was expected of her? She had not thought of the responsibilities Killian’s absence had placed on her, only the loneliness his going had brought her
When they reached the bridge, others were there before them. Colin stood in the reeds with Enan while his wife and companions stood behind. “What’s happened?” she called from the bridge.
“A poor bedeviled soul is drowned,” Colin called back.
“Do you know her?”
Colin shook his shaggy head. “Nae! And there’s not a man among us would forget if we had.”
A cold salt-tinged wind, blown miles inland from the shore, enveloped Deirdre. “I’m coming down.”
“Nae, m’lady. Ye won’t want to do that, I’m thinking,” Colin’s wife answered, and a murmur of assent from the others echoed her words.
Deirdre paused at the edge of the bridge. In truth, she did not want to look upon a drowned stranger, but it seemed the appropriate thing to do, the thing her father or Killian would do. What if the woman was known locally and inquiries were made about her? She should have a description of the hapless soul.
“Ye shouldn’t want a look, m’lady,” Colin cautioned when Deirdre stood beside him.
The upper half of the body was covered by Colin’s coat and Deirdre smiled at him in thanks. “I appreciate your concern, Colin, but as my husband is not here, it is my duty.”
Colin shook his head and reluctantly bent down. “One quick look and I pray ye’ll nae regret it,” he said and lifted the coat.
Deirdre did not scream. She could not. It was the face of her phantom. In a few short hours the water had bloated the face until it was nearly featureless. Yet, the ravages of disease clearly remained. A huge tumor had swollen one side of the woman’s head and begun eating away at her cheek, lips, and chin.
Deirdre whirled away, a hand to her mouth. The phantom had been real. “Send for the priest.”
“What priest would that be?” Colin’s wife asked cautiously.
“Do not play ignorant with me,” Deirdre snapped, her heart beginning to slow. She turned to Colin’s wife. “I know there’s a priest about. He’s related to O’Donovan. He came to see me my first day here. Send someone for him immediately.”
“He won’t bury her,” Colin’s wife stated flatly.
“Why not?” Deirdre questioned.
“Because she’s drowned.”
“What possible difference could that make?”
“I saw her when they dragged her out. A lass like that, what man would have her?”
Deirdre understood. “You think she took her life?”
The woman nodded once. “’Tis a mortal sin, that.”
“But none of us know that,” Deirdre answered. “She might have slipped in the grass in the dark of night with none to see and none to hear her.”
“I slipped in just now,” Fey offered glumly, but when Deirdre turned to offer her a smile of thanks for her support, Fey looked away.
“Send for the priest. We will let him decide. Until then, wrap her in what you can find and have a man dig a grave in the old cemetery.”
“’Twas the French pox done that to her,” Deirdre heard Colin’s wife whisper to her son. “Ye want to be shy o’ that sort.”
Deirdre bit her lip to keep from shouting at the woman. The victim’s face had been distorted by a tumor. Her brothers had been fond of relating all the details of their visits to foreign places, both the beautiful and the gruesome. In Spain, they had seen whole communities where people with disfigurements of the body, tumors and diseases of every sort, gathered in hopes of miracle cures. The woman had been dying of such a disease.
She came to Liscarrol seeking my help, Deirdre thought with a shiver. Why my help?
Had she killed herself when she was refused, or had she simply drowned because her legs were crippled and—
“The bairn!” Deirdre swung about suddenly. “Did you find the bairn?”
“What bairn, m’lady?”
“The woman had a child with her, a babe in arms.”
“How would ye be knowing that, m’lady?” Colin questioned in amazement.
“Because I saw her,” Deirdre blurted out before she could think better of it. The men exchanged glances and Colin’s wife moved back a step, crossing herself.
“Begging yer pardon for asking it, m’lady, but when would that have been?” Colin asked.
Stung by his open skepticism, Deirdre was about to reply when she realized how her answer might sound. The woman had drowned during the night. If Deirdre was the last to have seen her, she might become suspect or accused of mischief. Killian had told her she could not be too cautious or too careful. She might be a noble lady, but she was also Irish and Catholic. There were those who would use any excuse to get rid of her, she was certain.
“There was a bairn. I know it. Look down stream, half a mile if you must, but search. The bairn might have been saved.” She turned quickly and started up the slope to the bridge and no one said anything more.
Before she had crossed the bridge, a cry went up from one of the men and Deirdre turned to see a man in the reeds along the bank holding aloft a dirty ragged bundle.
“’Tis a bairn right enough!” he cried. “A lad it is! And alive!”
Deirdre retraced her steps hurriedly until she was staring at the pinched, ill-fed face of a fair-haired baby boy. She took him from the man, who was glad to be released of his burden. “I knew it!” she whispered, cradling the babe gently. “Poor wee lamb. You’ve come close to losing all this morning.” She turned to hold the child out for the others to see but they backed away from her, their faces averted. Deirdre turned angrily to Colin. “What is wrong? ’Tis only a babe.”
“’Tis a miracle,” Colin’s wife murmured and crossed herself, and many of the others followed suit.
Colin looked at the young woman with eyes as wide as a child’s. “How did ye know about the bairn?”
Deirdre looked into his bemused face. “Is it not enough that I did?”
He reddened and nodded. “Ah well, the lad thinks so! We’ll be sending for the priest then.”
Fey ran after Deirdre, too intrigued to keep up her resentment of MacShane’s wife. “How did you know?” she asked breathlessly.
Deirdre glanced at the girl and decided the truth was best. “I saw the woman last night in the stable yard. I thought she was a ghost. She was terribly disfigured. I wish now I had told Killian the truth. He might have found her and saved her life.”
Fey’s mouth went askew. “’Tis nae so good as the tale Enan’s ma will
tell.” She smiled at Deirdre. “They think ye’ve the gift of the Sight, and ’twas that that saved the bairn.”
Deirdre shook her head. The very thought of it made her feel cold. “Foolish talk.”
“Is it?” Fey kicked at rock. “Brigid would nae say so.” She had Deirdre’s full attention now. “Ye did nae think of me listening that night Brigid fell down in a fit. Ye were too concerned with old pisspot to think of me in me bed sitting and watching. Brigid said ye had the Sight and the mark proved it. And here ye’ve found a bairn what should have drowned by all rights. Ye’ll nae be changing their minds.” She jerked her head back toward the river bank. “Only I’m nae so gullible as the rest.” With that, she turned away.
*
Pausing in his labor, Killian wiped the sweat from his brow. It was chill on the sea, the dusk painted with cold shades of purple and gray, yet perspiration squeezed from every pore with his exertions. He and O’Donovan would be working under cover of night, emptying the hold of the French smuggler into the numerous fishing smacks that were tied up alongside it like piglets suckling a sow.
“Ye must work for yer supper here, laddie!” O’Donovan called down jovially from his position on deck.
“Getting too old for it, are you?” Killian called back.
“I’ve done me share over the years, done me share,” O’Donovan answered. “Why do ye nae chuck yer shirt, MacShane? ’Twould be cooler.”
Killian looked up with a grin. “And have you steal it?”
As O’Donovan roared with laughter, Killian relaxed and went back to work. He bore certain scars that he showed to no man. Once he had been afraid of Deirdre’s reaction to the lash marks he bore. The first time they made love, in Nantes, it had been too dark for her to see him properly. But, the night they loved again in Paris, she had put him at ease.
“You’re a proud man,” she had said. “I’m not so surprised you bear scars as a result. ’Tis no shame in them, but I own I would kill those who did this to you.”
Killian smiled as he lifted another hogshead. Her kisses had seared his skin as surely as the lash had, and with them, he had felt absolved, freed, of the stigma of having been sold to the galleys.