by David Waid
“Caitlin and me have no home to go back to,” Eamon said. He looked at Caitlin, who nodded back. “We’ll come.”
“That’s two, then. What of our third?”
Teresa blinked at the question. “Why would your people teach us?” she asked. “They want us to fight for them, yes?”
“An’ sure, they do not,” said Nairne drawing herself up. “No more than they want to control the sun or seasons. They can teach you, aye. They can help. But only if ye want it.”
“There is a man,” said Teresa. “My old tutor, an Englishman. I think he will be looking for me. To take me to Paris or home to Genoa.”
“There’s much we can do to help ye understand this power, but we’re no devils to hold ye against yer will. With the bags Eamon saved, we’ve money to send ye in safety and comfort. Do ye want to go home?”
Teresa stared at the others, studying each in turn. “Maybe not yet,” she said.
“Glad I am t’ hear it. Then we must be on our way. Heaven knows we won’t have answers for the first traveller who sees this.”
Nairne and Caitlin gathered their things beside the great pile while Teresa and Eamon went to fetch the horses they had ridden in on. In the barn, they found the inkeeper’s son. The boy was dead, his shirtfront dark with blood. Another victim of the Maestro and his brethren. When they brought him to the knoll and laid him by his parents, Nairne’s mouth pursed in anger.
“There’s been enough death to last us this lifetime and three more besides,” she said.
The ground had frozen and was too hard to dig graves, so they used stones from the pile, creating smaller cairns for the three. A tiny pile of rocks was erected for Branagh as well, though there was no body to lie beneath it. Lashed planks served as crosses, which Teresa wedged between rocks and Eamon spoke one of the prayers Father Rhys had taught him in what seemed another lifetime.
Afterwards, Teresa sat in front of Nairne on one of the horses, holding the reins while Caitlin climbed up in front of Eamon. The sun had crested the horizon. In the frozen forest around the inn, water dripped from the branches and life stirred. Turning inside of Eamon’s arms, Caitlin watched a tiny starling hop from branch to branch uttering its whistling chirp as the their troupe passed through the knotted gate in the hawthorne palisade and followed the road north for Dublin.
36. Port of Exit
Leinster
Sairshee stepped between trees, careful of making noise. The only sound now was that of her own breathing and Nuada’s, occasionally the jingle of the great black stallion’s harness as she led him forward.
Yet, a moment earlier, traveling on the road south out of Bray, she’d heard something. Not her imagination, she thought. Nuada grew nervous, too. He had pawed the ground when she stopped to look behind. Dismounting, she led him to cover among the night shadows and low-hanging branches on the side of the road.
Her plans had come apart. The situation was worse than her most dire fears. The investment of her blood and emotions meant she felt it when the Harenin spirit was destroyed. That alone would have sent her into flight, but worse: she knew who had done it. She’d worked with the Maestro enough to know his power. And she felt the swirling signature of others, as well. She’d sent her Harenin for the boy, and found the Maleficarum instead.
Damn her luck. After achieving the greatest power in history, they would come for her. If she were lucky, she would die. Not even the mantle of the Leinster king could protect her now, only distance. This is why she ran and would keep on running, as fast and as far as she could.
Straining her ears, she caught no whisper of pursuit. In the copse by the road, the only sound was wind among the branches and pine needles. The clouds had broken; the sun had breached the Irish Sea. Sairshee guided Nuada back to the road and took off at a gallop, heading south for the city of Wicklow: port of entry, port of exit. The doorway to a wide, anonymous world.
THE END
A note from the author
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David Waid