A Rose in Splendor

by Laura Parker

  The sound of a horse slowly picking its way across the ground nearby pulled Teague O’Donovan from his prayers. No one ever came up to visit him on these nights unless there was danger. He rose slowly to his knees from a position of prayer in the mud and saw a rider approaching. He waited, kneeling in the shadow of the huge stone, knowing that if he did not move the rider might pass him by without ever detecting his presence.

  The rider paused, twisting about in his saddle. “Teague O’Donovan,” the rider called out softly as he looked blindly around.

  Teague lifted back the cowl of the heavy robe he wore and rose to his feet with relief. “Here! MacShane!”

  Killian threw a leg over his saddle and slipped to the ground before the shadow that was the priest. “The English know you’re abroad. You must take my horse and ride south!”

  Teague put a hand on Killian’s arm. “How do you know? Have they been to Liscarrol?”

  “No. Oadh O’Donovan came.”

  Teague nodded slowly. “Then there’s time. I thank you for the warning, but I do not believe I could be safer than I am here in the open with the rain and darkness to cover my tracks. By morning, it will be as though I never passed this way.”

  “Thanks to your kinsman, you will nae have the luxury of the night. O’Donovan’s a Discoverer.”

  It was a foul thing to call a man, even an enemy. It was an insult few would suffer at a kinsman’s expense. When Teague did not decry his statement instantly, Killian knew he was believed.

  “How long have you suspected him?” Teague asked quietly.

  “He’s a thief, a coward, and a murderer. I suspected him of everything,” Killian said.

  Teague shook his head again, though he knew it could not be seen. “I, too, wondered. Recently there’s a malignancy to the air when O’Donovan is near.”

  “Aye,” Killian replied. “O’Donovan will have given them directions here. I’ve brought the horse. Take him west until you reach Bantry Bay. There are men there who will take you across to France.”

  Teague fell back a step. “They will betray me. They are O’Donovan’s men.”

  Killian squelched the prick of annoyance at the quaver of fear in the priest’s voice. “Think, man! Would O’Donovan tell them of his dealings with the English? They’d murder him if they knew he’d betrayed even one of them, and he has. I’ve learned much there these last weeks.”

  Fear trickled down his spine like rain. “I am not a brave man, MacShane. I do God’s work because I fear not to. Perhaps He despises my good deeds because they are a product of my fear rather than my faith. If I remain, fear rattling my teeth in my head, perhaps then He will disdain me no longer.”

  Killian loosened a string of oaths that made the priest in Teague shy away. “Damn you for a martyr! But you’ll not be so on my property.”

  He ripped his cloak from his shoulders as he continued. “What do you think the English will do to my wife and the others if you’re found on Liscarrol land? Will you have their murders on your conscience because you fear you’re nae brave enough to suit your impression of a warrior priest?”

  He stripped off his jacket and then his shirt, throwing them at the priest’s feet. “Take off your robe and put on my clothes. Do it, damn you, or I’ll throttle you myself!”

  Because he had never been able to defend himself against MacShane, Teague stripped off his robe and began replacing them with Killian’s finer garments.

  Killian slipped on the sodden, malodorous robe made of unwashed wool and muttered an oath as shivers of cold raced across his skin. “’Tis like old times, Teague, when we were lads shut behind the monastery walls. I feel the weight of my sins hard upon me. Let us hope they do not catch up with me this night. I do not relish greeting Saint Peter in a monk’s disguise.”

  To Teague’s amazement, Killian laughed, low but easily. “You were always the brave one among us,” he whispered.

  Killian grinned. “’Tis because I feared that nothing would ever happen to me, locked behind those cloistered walls.”

  “While I feared constantly that one day they would open and eject me,” Teague admitted bitterly. “You’re the better man.”

  Killian sobered. “How can that be when God chose you? You’ve taken the harder road, Teague; I’ve no doubt of it. And if saving you goes a little way toward mitigating the harm I’ve done, then you’ve that to your credit besides.”

  Teague stared through the dark at his childhood friend, humbled and flattered in the same instant. “Your lady wife, I misjudged her. I thought she’d come to stir up the ancient beliefs. I—”

  “Tell her yourself, another time,” Killian said tersely. “Give me your boots.”

  “I wear none,” Teague answered.

  Killian considered relinquishing his but changed his mind as he thought of covering the rocky, boggy ground on foot. Bending over, he began to rubbing his boot soles with a sleeve of the robe.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Giving me boots your scent,” Killian answered. “Your robe should lead the hounds my way once they pick up your scent from this spot.”

  “What will you do if they catch you?”

  Killian chuckled. “’Twould be more than O’Donovan hopes for, but in less than an hour I will be safe abed beside my wife while your robe lies on the bottom of the river, weighted by stones. The hounds may lead them to Liscarrol but they won’t cross the bridge.”

  The daring plot made even Teague smile. “Perhaps you, not your wife, has a bit of magic. I’d nae have thought of that.”

  “It has yet to work,” Killian reminded him as he pressed a gun in the man’s hand and pushed him toward the horse. “Ride back to the crest of the hill and then turn west, over Nowen Hill, toward Bantry.”

  Teague looked down. “You’ll be in my prayers every day of my life.”

  “Live long, then, Teague, for I’ve need of Divine forgiveness,” Killian retorted cheerfully and slapped the horse’s rump.

  “Bless you, my son!” Teague called back as the horse moved back up the hill.

  “Ride, Father, like the hounds of hell pursue you,” Killian murmured as the man and horse disappeared into the night.

  *

  Deirdre lost sight of the rider after he crossed the bridge, but some sixth sense sent her up the side of the hill where Mass had been said. It seemed not unreasonable that Father Teague might still be nearby. But she had none of the advantage of daylight or guides or a pony. As she traversed the rocky ground on foot she hoped she would not become hopelessly lost.

  “Merde!” she swore as she stepped up to her ankle in a muddy hole for the third time.

  Rain was falling again, a soft steady hiss that drowned out the small sounds of the night and made her view of the ground before her even more difficult. Her woolen skirts greedily soaked up the brown water until they dragged at her like weights and her back began to ache from the strain. As if in mockery of her misery, a star occasionally winked at her from a break in the clouds. She waded on, arms outstretched to keep her balance.

  She knew she should turn back, that an irrational moment of surprise had brought her out on a very dangerous night, but she could not shake the bond with her dream. It had ridden at the edge of her consciousness for as long as she could remember. She had not been asleep this time, had not even been daydreaming. Killian had been real. She had seen him leave.

  Finally the crest of the hill loomed ahead, its irregular stone shape a welcome sight. And then she heard the rumble.

  The wind whipped up suddenly, whistling past the stone tor and raking her hair back from her face. In its wake, the wind carried the thunder of hooves.

  The specter appeared out of the gloom of night, suddenly cresting the hill and then plunging down it directly toward her.

  Deirdre stopped, her heart pounding in rhythm to the hooves, and she lifted her arms with the cry, “Wait! Wait!”

  Teague O’Donovan expected to encounter no one on the hillside. Killian’s
warning had come soon enough, he told himself. But suddenly there was a figure blocking his path, waving its arms and crying out in alarm.

  “Stay away! Stay away!”

  He tried to rein in, but the horse, frightened by the sudden voice before him, reared and then plunged on down the hillside.

  He did not see the figure again, but the chill in his veins told him that he had seen one of the Daoine Sidhe. He rode on, crossing himself and praying fervently that he would never again encounter one.

  Deirdre lay in the grass a long while, her eyes open to the night. She did not feel pain. The horse’s hoof had caught her a glancing blow. By all rights, she should have been trampled to death. Once more, she had encountered her dream. Yet, this time it had been different.

  She stared at the sky above her, at the many stars spangled behind the thin veiling of scattered clouds.

  It had not been Killian.

  The rider had turned to her at the last moment, his head gleaming palely in the gloom. The man had been fair-haired. It could not have been Killian.

  The faint squishing sounds of footsteps nearby brought her alert. Her heart in her throat, she stared at the dark sky, wondering if she would be discovered. But the footsteps passed by in the rapid rhythm of a person on a journey elsewhere.

  When the footsteps died, she sat up only to gasp in pain. Her shoulder! The horse had not missed her entirely. She forced herself upright, gritting her teeth as the pain knifed down between her shoulder blades. Very carefully she moved her hand, then bent her arm at the elbow, and finally lifted her arm, sobbing a little when she realized that her shoulder was not dislocated.

  Moving stiffly, she rose to her feet. There was no point in going on. The rider and the footsteps had convinced her that the hillside was too dangerous a place to remain.

  She made her way down much more quickly than she had made her way up, using Liscarrol as a beacon. The rain had ceased again, and this time the starry night held its own against the wind-borne clouds.

  Deirdre did not stop until she reached the river and saw the figure of a man standing in the tall grasses that grew along the bank. Too afraid to cross the rickety bridge lest it creak under her weight and alert the man of her presence, she crouched behind a rock and waited, her teeth aching from clenching them against the pain in her shoulder.

  As she watched, the man pulled a robe-like garment over his head. Was it Father Teague? She nearly called out but fear held her back. She heard him shuffling about in the dark and then a short silence followed. He repeated his actions several times and then he stood. She heard a gentle splash followed by a second, louder one, and she knew that he had dived or fallen into the river.

  She waited, shivering in her damp clothes, until she heard a scrambling sound on the far bank and realized that he had swum across. He was a dark hump moving up the riverbank and then he disappeared.

  Every muscle in her body protested as she rose from her crouch, but then she dropped back again as another shadow detached itself from the river’s edge.

  Deirdre rubbed her eyes with a weary hand. Was she dreaming? Was she delirious, or did Liscarrol swarm with spies and secrets?

  When she lifted her head again, she was surprised to see a man on the bridge, sauntering across its creaky surface as though he were an expected guest. It was too dark to see his coloring or clothing.

  Once more, she rose painfully to her feet. If she could just reach the house, the turf fire, the warmth of Mrs. Ross’s porridge, she would never disobey Killian again. Her thoughts were childlike and she knew it, but she hurt so much, was so tired and frightened. When she was a child, there had been Da and Darragh and Conall to keep her from making mistakes. Perhaps Killian was right. Perhaps she should go back to France where she would not cause him any more anxiety.

  Her cheeks burned, but the rest of her body felt icy cold as she hurried across the bridge. Mrs. Ross waited inside, she told herself, but as she neared the castle the shiver worsened until she heard the strange sound of her teeth chattering.

  Something was wrong. The very scent of danger was in the air. Had the black-cloaked rider appeared in the yard before her now, she would have sighed in relief, for it would have been preferable to the feeling of clear and present danger that puckered her skin and made her stomach quiver.

  She backed away from the front door. Not that way, her instinct whispered. Too quiet. Too still. Something is wrong.

  She glanced at the darkened stable in the distance but there was no sound, no sign of life. Colin and the others had disappeared. If the English soldiers had come, it would be impossible to hide the fact. The danger lay somewhere else.

  Where were the two men she had seen? Who were they?

  As another draft of anxiety swept her, Deirdre reached for the O’Neill skean, pulling it free. Brigid had warned her of danger, and she had thought that the danger was bound up in her phantom horseman. Now she was no longer certain of that fact.

  Keeping in the shadow of the castle walls, she made her way to the servants’ entrance in the rear. The kitchen was dark. Mrs. Ross had finished for the night. Deirdre crossed the floor, her heart beating frantically against her ribs.

  The opening to the narrow stairwell yawned menacingly before her but she stepped in after only a moment’s hesitation and began to climb. As she reached the second floor she heard voices coming from the Great Hall and with a leap of joy she recognized one of them as Killian’s. She tucked her skean away and would have stepped into the room had not a second voice stopped her.

  “So Cousin Teague’s safe away. Och! ’Tis sad news, I’m thinking. The English will be expecting to capture a priest. O’Donovan’s never steered them wrong yet.”

  O’Donovan!

  “What will you do?” she heard Killian reply in his most careless of voices. “Conjure one from thin air?”

  “Strange, yer saying that, for ’tis exactly what I will do, laddie. It came to me at the riverbank that one man or another, who’s to tell them different?” There was a pause while something was flung upon the floor.

  “Teague’s robes. You followed me,” Killian said.

  “’Twas a bit of luck, that. I was spying on the castle in case Teague came back with ye. A clever disguise. ‘Tis what put me in mind of another trick. Ye’re of a similar height with Teague, for all he was as thin as skimmed milk. The English want a priest; I will give them you.”

  As Deirdre heard Killian’s laughter, chills raced along her spine. She pressed herself to the wall. A cold breeze yawned up past her and she turned to look down the stairwell but it was too late. A blackness rose up before her and a hand pressed the scream back in her throat.

  “You forget I’m a married man,” Killian said.

  O’Donovan chuckled in return. “So ye’ve come to Ireland with a wife? Who’s to say different if I tell the English ’twas a trick to cover yer papist preaching ways? Bring a wife and nae man looks for the priest in that. The English will look at one another and wonder that they had nae thought of that deception before. Clever? Aye, O’Donovan’s a clever man. Did I nae tell ye so?”

  “I’ll deny it.”

  “Sure’n ye will, but the English believe in law and order. They’ll be wanting a confession before ye ever come to trial. Torture’s a terrible thing, I hear. Ye may find yerself believing the truth of the charge before ye know it. Not every priest’s a man of iron and honor. Some go to the stake with their heads high, others cry as pitifully as any wee bairn. ’Tis the same with thieves and smugglers and—”

  “Discoverers,” Killian offered.

  “Well now, I’d nae be knowing that sort. Still ye should know, none in the valley will testify for ye. They’d be confessing that they know the identity of a real priest, and for that they’d hang.”

  “You seem to have thought of everything.”

  “I’ll be taking that as a compliment. Come the morning, I’ll be telling the valley that ’twas ye who were the Discoverer, and O’Donovan did nae more
or less than best ye at yer own game!” He chuckled at his own cleverness.

  “What of my wife?”

  O’Donovan shrugged. “I’m nae a man to bother the Sidhe, but she’s a clever sort and could make trouble. She seems a high-strung lass. Who knows but what the news of yer arrest will nae make her mad. One mad lass drowned outside her door a few weeks past. I would nae be at all surprised were yer wife to fling herself in the river and drown herself dead!”

  “She’d be a stupid bitch to do that. Ye’re growing lax, O’Donovan. The lady was spying on ye.” Cuan O’Dineen stepped from the stairwell, pushing Deirdre before him with a hand still clapped over her mouth.

  “Deirdre!”

  O’Donovan swung his pistol toward Killian. “Do nae bestir yerself, MacShane. The lady’s right as rain, isn’t she, O’Dineen?”

  The smaller man gave a single ominous bob of his head.

  Deirdre strained against the hard hand gripping her, but Cuan whispered low, “Yer husband’s a nervous man.

  ’Twould nae do for him to get his head blown off for lack of manners on yer part.” Deirdre stilled. “Aye, better, yer ladyship.”

  “Hurt her and I’ll kill you,” Killian said softly, his gaze swinging between the two men.

  “Such heat,” O’Donovan said mockingly. “’Twould sound better were ye properly dressed, MacShane. Yer lady wife is blushing with shame to see ye standing as God made ye.” He kicked the robe with his boot toe. “Put it on, lad. May as well wear it now as later.”

  Killian bent to pick up the sodden garment. O’Donovan had found him before he could dress after his swim.

  O’Donovan swung about as voices came from the yard below. “That’ll be the soldiers.”

  “Nae, that’ll be our people,” Cuan O’Dineen answered.

  O’Donovan swung toward Cuan with a startled, angry look. “They were told to keep to their homes tonight. Any man out will be hunted by the English.”