by Terry Madden
It was in the square he overheard two men talking about the Red Bog.
“Fiach’s drainin’ it,” one man said. He loaded sacks of flour onto a handcart.
“Why?” asked the other.
“The bugs.” The big man swabbed his brow. “They come from the bog. Breed in the water and all.”
“They can’t stop it now. The swarms are well past the bog. Fools.”
They were right. Draining the bog would have no effect on the swarms. There must be some other reason to do it. What was it Lyleth had said? The blood of the twelve knights became the water that circled the cromm cruach? Connor had a distinct feeling it wasn’t Fiach who’d ordered the bog drained.
With one of Fiach’s coins, he bought some whortleberries in a cone of green leaves and popped them in his mouth as he walked. He might have sighed out loud with the burst of flavor that filled his head. God, he loved this place.
He had wandered from the market to a row of weavers’ cottages. Women sat on their stoops with cloth for sale, their drop spindles twirling in succession. One of the women glanced to the end of the lane, then back at Connor. He looked, but no one was there. Yet it was easy to read the young woman’s face. Someone was following him.
He dropped a silver coin in her hand, and she gave him a length of green cloth. He draped it over his shoulder and walked away.
He stepped inside a tavern across the street.
The few patrons glanced at him, and their conversation came to a halt. A stranger in town. Just like in the movies.
“I’ll have ale,” he told the barkeeper. What else was on the menu here besides ale?
He took a seat with a clear view of the door. But they didn’t come from the door.
An arm closed around his throat, and a knife was pointed at his eye. “You’ll not make a sound, or I’ll stick ye. Where is she?”
Connor turned his face away as he drove his elbow into the man’s gut. The knife sliced his cheek before it fell to the floor. Connor spun and let his fist go. It made loud contact with the guy's jaw. His foot landed in his crotch just as he realized there were two of them.
The other guy drew a weapon that looked like the love child of a sword and a dagger. Thin and sharp and short. He slashed at Connor.
He was used to fighting drunks with switchblades, but this guy wasn’t drunk, and that wasn’t a switchblade.
The tavern had cleared out.
Connor picked up a chair and brandished it, hoping to snag the blade in the legs.
“Tell us where she is and we won’t hurt ye much.”
“Who?”
But the first guy had recovered his feet and came at him again. Connor was forced to break the chair on him as the second guy lunged with the knife-sword.
Connor knocked his arm away with a stiff-armed block, then bear-hugged him, making his blade unusable. Forced into hand-to-hand combat, Connor hoped for a slight advantage.
Pulling the guy backward onto a table, the assailant had to drop the blade, or it would break his wrist as it hit the table. Connor’s back lay in a puddle of ale. He rolled right and landed on top of the guy who was bigger than the first one and had bad body odor.
Connor found the stone soothblade at his belt and held it to the guy’s throat. “Who” was the only word he managed to say before something crashed down on his head and everything went black.
**
When Connor came to, there was no one in the room but the fat barkeeper. The two thugs were gone.
“What happened?” he asked, feeling his head pound as he tried to stand.
“I called the guards,” the barkeeper said. “The two bastards were gone when they got here. Now, get out.”
Connor had a sudden sinking feeling. Where is she? They were looking for Lyleth. Which meant they might have found Dylan.
By the time Connor found his way back to the alehouse, news had come from the battlements of the city walls. An army was approaching. They carried the flag of the water horse. Talan’s army. All gates were closing, and people in the alehouse were speculating why Fiach would order his city closed to the king’s army when the king himself was inside the fortress.
“What’s happening?” The alewife dried her hands on her filthy apron and followed Connor to the room he shared with Dylan. “They come here looking for ye,” she said.
“And what did you tell them?” Connor asked.
“Them ruffians? I said ye’d gone to market. Both of ye.”
“Who are they?”
“How should I know?” the big woman said. “But ye might want to find another place.”
Connor burst into their rented room to find Dylan playing a board game with the alewife’s son.
Connor gathered their things, which were few, and with an arm around Dylan, they headed out the back door of the alehouse.
“And what do you think to tell Fiach’s guards?” Dylan asked as they moved slowly through the back alleys toward the fortress.
“We’re messengers.”
“From where?”
“From the Isle of Glass, of course.”
The gates to the fortress of Caer Emlyn lay within the city walls. Townsfolk had gathered outside, seeking either answers or refuge or both, fearing the king’s army meant to attack for some reason. Getting inside might be harder than Connor had thought. Dylan leaned on him heavily. Just the walk from the alehouse had tired him. He had insisted that Connor strap on his sword, not realizing that men on the other side don’t routinely learn how to sword fight. But Connor strapped it on anyway to settle Dylan’s mind, and for show if nothing else.
“I bear news for the ear of my lord, Fiach,” Dylan argued with the guards. “I must speak with him alone.”
“Who sends such news?” the guard asked. By the look on his face, he’d pegged Dylan and Connor as beggars. Connor had decided it was best if Dylan did all the talking since his accent drew undue attention.
Dylan said to the guard, “I have information—”
“Grasshoppers? We know of the grasshoppers. And we know of the king’s army.”
“No, please.”
“Go beg somewhere else!”
Two guards grabbed them by the neck and tossed them into the gutter. Connor landed face-first in a pool of rain and horse piss.
“Shit!”
He got to his feet, wiping his face on his cloak. He offered a hand to Dylan.
“Your face,” Dylan whispered. “You’re gray again. And your face is bleeding.”
Connor touched his cheek where the knife had caught him. It came away red. Connor had recently arrived from the land of the dead. This had to be an advantage.
He found a horse trough and splashed himself, then wiped at his face with his cloak, rubbed to be sure he’d removed any streaks of brick dust.
“What are you doing?”
“Just play along with me.”
He walked back to the guards and said, “My servant wished to protect me, but I see I must reveal myself.”
The guard clearly saw Connor’s pallor, like wet modeling clay. He imagined the bright red blood he felt trickling down his cheek made him look even scarier. He said evenly, “I bear a message from the Otherworld.”
“Otherworld?” The guard was transfixed. A crowd began to gather.
“I wear the flesh of a dead man,” Connor said, thumping his chest. “I stepped from the Red Bog fully alive. I’ve come as a messenger from my lord, Nechtan. He sends word to Fiach alone.”
Mutterings and gasps.
“If Fiach wishes to end the pestilence, he will hear me.”
Not just two guards, but a small battalion accompanied them through the gates, through a vast outer ward and into the hall which was on the third floor of the keep. Connor couldn’t help but think of early medieval castles, simple and yet so elegant in the stonework. Carved rafters and hearths people could sit inside. It helped to distract him to consider the architecture rather than what he would say to Fiach.
But Fia
ch wasn’t the only one waiting for him in the hall. There was no mistaking the man sitting beside him. He was an older version of the one Connor had met on a battlefield six years earlier. Connor could never forget that face. It was burned into the synapses of his brain with frightening crispness.
Connor had watched an ice-born warrior strike the head from this man’s shoulders. And yet here he sat. Sallow and sickly, but alive. He could only be Talan.
Things started to fall into place in Connor’s mind.
On that day, Talan had worn a helm of polished silver studded with gems, and when the ice-born warrior brought him down, his head and his helm had been separated from his body by the fall of an axe. But not for long. Talan had risen from the bloody snow, taken up his head and fitted it neatly to the stump of his neck.
Nechtan’s nephew was no man. But he was the king.
“What news from the land of the dead?” Talan asked. “How fares my dear uncle?”
Fiach was talking to Connor with his eyes, urging him to hold whatever he had to say for later. Connor couldn’t agree more.
“He is well, my lord.” Connor offered a jerky imitation of the strange bow of the Ildana, a dip of the head and showing of the palms. But what was the lie to be?
He swallowed hard, licked his lips, worked over at least five different possibilities at once.
“Well, messenger?” Talan leaned forward in his chair.
Dish had described Talan as a cocky, inexperienced adolescent who had no need of a razor. Clearly, six years had passed in this world as well as the other, for the king was a man now, his dark hair falling over his shoulders, a single thin braid tied with tinkling silver bells over his left ear, just like Fiach’s. A symbol of something, no doubt, maybe prowess on the battlefield. A simple circlet was the only indication of Talan’s royalty, and his crystal blue eyes seemed to focus on some unseen horizon, not on Connor.
“You do speak Ildana?” Talan repeated slowly.
“Somewhat,” Connor managed to say. Then a bit late, “Sir.” He sensed that Dylan had remained at the entrance to the hall when he had seen Talan. At least, Connor hoped he had, for Talan would know him as the man he had knifed in the back after drowning Elowen.
Talan got to his feet and circled Connor. Only then did Connor see the little girl standing behind his chair. Angharad.
Talan was taller than Connor, but slighter of build, his arms and legs thin as a praying mantis. Connor began to think he’d be this bug’s next meal. There was a smell about him. Rot masked by a sweet spice and rosewater, a smell that might as well have originated with Connor’s own body.
“Speak then,” Talan commanded. “What news do you bring from my uncle?”
One single lie presented itself to Connor with persistent clarity. And Dish would surely be proud of it.
Chapter 17
Lyleth had seen little beyond the kitchen since she’d arrived in Caer Emlyn. Fiach’s seneschal had introduced her as a new kitchen maid, so wandering too far was unwise, for there were many in this castle who would know her on sight. Wearing the cap and kerchief of a servant helped somewhat, and she begged the cook to keep her in the kitchen rather than serve at table. From the corridor that linked the kitchen to the hall, she was able to glimpse Angharad sitting beside the empty space where Talan usually sat. Angharad wore a sullen face and picked at her food, her legs swinging from the bench. Fiach had begged Lyleth to be patient, he would arrange for her and Angharad to meet when it was safe to do so.
This was her third day of waiting, and now the entire fortress speculated at the arrival of Talan’s army. Had he summoned them out of fear that Fiach knew about his devotion to the Crooked One? Did he think Fiach would defy him? Talan intended to stomp out any rebellion before it could start. It was nothing but a show of force today, but he was positioned for a siege if Fiach turned on him.
But now the coming of the army was overshadowed by the arrival of a messenger from the land of the dead. Connor. He had defied Lyleth’s orders to wait for her in the alehouse. He’d better have good reason for it.
“Gray all over, the man is, with eyes like a demon. What was his message?” the cook asked a servant.
“The king hears him out in private like,” said the serving girl, “for ye knows what he says, eh? He points a finger, surely. For there be those what say Talan killed Nechtan.”
“Killed him again, ye mean,” said the cook with a laugh. “Can’t kill what’s dead already.”
Supper was over when the cook called Lyleth to her, saying, “The lady summons ye. She waits in the herb garden.”
The lady? Had Fiach sent his wife with a message?
Lyleth found the lady Seryn seated on a stool beside a hedge of rosemary in the kitchen garden, a square of soil bounded on all sides by castle walls which protected the well at its center. Though her belly had yet to swell, Lyleth knew Seryn was with child.
Lyleth showed her palms.
“I should perhaps kneel before you, Lyleth,” Seryn said, “vanquisher of death.”
“An incorrect title, lady. It conveys the notion that it is a repeatable act.”
“You’ve tried then?”
She wasn’t the first to ask Lyleth if she’d tried to bring Nechtan back a second time.
“It seems I was but an instrument in the hands of the green gods.”
“Your actions changed the destiny of this land.”
And changes it still, Lyleth thought.
Seryn said, “Perhaps they will need to wield your magic again one day.”
Lyleth dearly hoped they would not.
Seryn was small and impish like many of the folk from the Southern Marches, her dark hair so thick it looked almost like a cap, woven with ribbons of gold and freshwater pearls. Her smile was given freely and certainly concealed no guile or envy. Reading her required little of Lyleth’s skills. She was full of a bright hopefulness and tender compassion, two qualities Lyleth had always admired. Seryn must have concluded that Fiach had brought Lyleth here to rekindle their love, a feat that would require far more reparation than simply allowing her to see her daughter. After all, Fiach had once tied Lyleth to Nechtan’s corpse and left her for dead.
“I have come only to be near my daughter,” Lyleth said. “Fiach has been kind enough to offer me that chance.”
“As he has told me.” Seryn took Lyleth’s hand and motioned for her to take the other stool. “You loved him once.”
Were all southerners so blunt?
“It’s been many years. Impossible things separate us.”
“But love cannot be scrubbed away. You love him still as he does you, for that is the nature of love.” She revealed her innocence. Perhaps Fiach had failed to tell his wife that he had tried to kill Lyleth.
A worm moved up the woody stalk of rosemary beside Seryn.
Lyleth said, “I give my word that once I’ve spoken with my child, I shall leave. But my identity must be kept from the king. I beg this of you. One mother to another.”
At the mention of her impending motherhood, Seryn tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. “Tell me what you see in my child’s future, druí.” She placed Lyleth’s palm on her belly, hidden beneath folds of scarlet farandine.
Her hand rested on the fine threads that covered Seryn’s belly. She felt the worms spinning the silk, drawing threads from their bodies. Umbilical starlight. Steeped in madder root, crushed and boiled. Birthed on the banks of a distant river, its blood drained and mixed with mordant. But she didn’t want to know the thread’s soul. She wanted to know the babe beneath the tangle of silk and dye, beneath the skin of Seryn’s belly.
Lyleth’s hand became instantly warm. She let her eyes close and opened her mind to the images that flashed before her. A boy. Wracked with an incessant cough, he wheezed and produced sputum the color of bile. A treatment of steam to open his lungs and—
“There you are.”
The door slammed shut between Lyleth and the child. Drawing her hand away
from Seryn, she looked up to see Fiach, his hands on his hips as if he’d found two lost children.
“It appears you’ve made each other’s acquaintance.” He offered his hand to Seryn, who took it and got to her feet. He pulled her close to him. Was that meant to signal his affection for his young wife? Or to protect her from Lyleth?
She wanted to ask him about Connor, why he’d come and what Talan would do with him. But Connor was not her concern, only Angharad mattered.
He said, “Your daughter awaits you in the root cellar, Lyleth. Everything is arranged. You leave tonight.”
Lyleth showed her palms and started back to the kitchen.
The root cellar was at the bottom of a narrow spiral of stairs, and though the day was hot, it was like burrowing in snow. It smelled of apples and parsnips and dirt. Angharad was singing to herself in the dark. Lyleth held out the candle she’d brought to light the room.
And there she was.
She had grown since their parting on the Isle of Glass three months earlier, and she had lost a front tooth. But she fit warmly into that empty space in Lyleth’s arms.
At last Lyleth was able to ease her embrace, wipe away tears and brush back the loose hair from her child’s face. “I’ve missed you so.”
“It’s not been so long.”
A creature the size of a hare peeked from under Angharad’s skirt. Yellow spots covered its glistening black skin like stars. A lizard, or maybe a salamander, though it was far larger than any salamander Lyleth had ever seen. Its skin was not wet as a salamander’s would be, but shone with scales like polished stone. A collar of folded skin ruffled behind the creature’s ears, and Lyleth imagined it could fan this skin in a frightening way. Its golden eye rolled about in the socket until its gaze rested on Lyleth.