by Sarah Hegger
Roderick grunted and stared at her. “You didn’t sleep last night.”
“Were you spying on me?” They needed to set some rules of engagement.
His flat stare was the Roderick equivalent of an eye roll. “Why would I need to spy on you when I have you rattling around in my head?”
He had a point, and she settled for a dismissive glare as she washed her face. “Tell me about the furor.”
Roderick hesitated, but so minutely she almost missed it. “The healers are angry with Fiona. They’re threatening to thwart her authority.”
“Why?” Thwarting would probably lead to more trouble, and the healers were a gentle lot for the most part.
“There has been a development.” Roderick cleared his throat. “In the village.”
Maeve’s belly dropped. Please, Goddess, no more murders of innocent women. She waited for him to tell her more.
“No more hangings.” He opened her bedchamber door and spoke to someone on the other side. Shutting the door, he breathed and turned to her. “It seems there is contagion within the village.”
“Oh, bloody hell!” This couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Indeed.” Roderick straightened his hauberk.
Maeve sat on her bed, her weak knees demanding she do so. “The healers will want to go to the village.”
“It is within the nature of healers.” Roderick shrugged.
Healers paid dearly for their gift. They drew the disease and hurt of others into themselves, and then transmuted it into the earth. They willingly took on the pain and illness of others and did it whenever they were needed. “They need to help,” Maeve said.
A knock came at the door and an apprentice entered with a tray for Maeve. Sweetly round with big brown eyes and glossy walnut hair, the girl batted her lashes at Roderick. “Guardian.” She giggled.
“Blessed.” He gave her his smoldering half smile. The same one that had been wreaking havoc in girlish hearts since…probably since he’d been doing it. And as he was older than dust, that amounted to a lot of hearts fluttering. Well, he could cut that out in her chamber. She sent Roderick a repressive stare and turned it on the apprentice for good measure.
Undeterred, Roderick gave the girl a reassuring smile and ushered her out the door. “The healers have been arguing since Fiona announced her decree over breakfast.”
“Decree?” Maeve stuffed her mouth with bread and cheese as she dressed.
Roderick helped himself to the tray as well. “Fiona has announced that given what happened with the hangings and the demands from the village that Baile Castle is shut. Nobody comes in and nobody goes out.”
Maeve stared at him. Not only had Fiona overstepped her bounds, the healers would never accept they couldn’t help allay the suffering in the village. And nor should they. It went against everything they stood for as cré-witches to hide in their castle whilst suffering went on around them. Goddess had created them to succor and protect her creation.
“We need to get to the hall.” Roderick folded his arms. “If you’re done stuffing your cake hole like a plowman.”
Maeve took a deep breath, refusing to acknowledge his rudeness and finished dressing instead.
As she headed for the door, Roderick fell into place behind her. A big man, he made barely a sound as he followed her down the stairs towards the great hall.
The buzz of angry voices reached them from the top of the central staircase.
“The council has decided.” Fiona’s strident tones cut through others. “This discussion is pointless. You already know the answer to your request. You merely refuse to accept it.”
Maeve winced. That wouldn’t go down well.
The angry roar in response to Fiona proved Maeve right. She reached the entrance to the hall, and paused, taking in the lay of the land.
Clear divisions separated the hall. A strip of floor separated both sides of the argument physically. Unfortunately, Fiona’s side appeared more populous. Surely so many of her fellow witches couldn’t believe in isolation.
On the opposite side sat the healers, all of them, united in their desire to cure the sick. The bonded witches stood with the healers.
Standing close to Lavina, Thomas looked up and the look he gave Roderick was grim.
The council, arrayed at a table behind Fiona on the dais, appeared to be in complete agreement.
“The council’s decisions are final.” Fiona sneered and let her gaze stray over the hall. “It isn’t up to any of you to question them.”
Head healer, Joy, stepped to the front of the group. “You go too far, Fiona.”
“We don’t go far enough.” Edana tossed her head. “None of us goes far enough if we sit here and tolerate this defiance.”
“Tolerate?” The question escaped Maeve before she could stop it.
Ever mindful of her safety, Roderick moved closer to her.
And not a moment too soon, as all gazes in the hall swung her way.
Maeve faced Fiona. All the attention had her knees knocking and she sent them a quick reprimand. “Since when do we speak of tolerating defiance? We’re not subject to each other’s rule.” She gave a respectful nod. “Even you’re there to guide, and not to rule.”
“Being bonded has given you a voice, it seems.” Edana sniffed. “What a pity none of us care to hear it.”
Roderick stepped in front of Maeve. “You should hear her, for so speaks the spirit walker, and we should heed her for she knows the lore better than any of us.”
A mutter of agreement rose from the healers’ side of the hall.
Whilst Maeve appreciated the support, the very division was wrong. Cré-witch shouldn’t stand against cré-witch. They strove for harmony and balance in all they did.
“I’ll grant you she can quote the lore to all of us.” Edana waved an airy hand. “She could quote the lore to us until our eyes crossed with boredom.”
Fiona’s side of the hall chuckled.
Fiona held her hands up for silence. “Spirit walkers understand the lore only inasmuch as it pertains to the dead. They know nothing of the troubles besetting the living.”
“I beg your pardon.” Angry color suffused Joy’s cheeks. “I would suggest that the person who knows nothing of which they speak, here today, is you.”
Fiona’s eyes glittered as she faced Joy. “You would say that. You would side with whoever agrees with you.”
“You dare question my honesty?” Joy’s voice rang across the hall.
“Indeed.” Fiona drew herself up. “I dare that and a whole lot more. I do so with the very authority this coven granted me.” She gestured to her side of the hall. “And I have the support of the majority of our sisters.”
Joy paled and then went a dull brick red. She opened and closed her mouth, before resuming her seat.
The rest of the hall just sat there. Maeve couldn’t believe they were going to let this lie.
Sheila’s voice shook as she said, “You can’t stop us from attending to those who need us.” But her defiance sounded hollow, without substance.
Fiona thought so too, and the smile she turned on Sheila made Maeve’s blood run cold.
“Do not make that mistake,” Fiona said. “In this time of crisis, the council has tasked me with protecting the coven. And I’ll do so by any means I deem fit.”
Maeve stared at the council. Not one of them looked up from their keen scrutiny of the table in front of them.
“Then you had best prepare yourself to make good on that threat,” Joy said. “Because there are people in that village who need us, and no power in this life, or the next, will stop us from giving them that help.”
Fiona’s eyes flashed fire. “Be careful, Sister,” she said. “That sounded remarkably like a challenge.”
They all felt the shift in the air as Fiona reac
hed for her magic. A faint metallic stink underlay the mint and raspberry scent of Fiona’s magic.
Shock held the hall immobile. To even think of using your magic against another witch was so forbidden it took the hall a precious moment to understand the nature of Fiona’s threat.
Not Roderick, though. He already had Maeve by the arm and out of the hall. By the time she recovered enough to protest he had her halfway up the staircase, and the prickle of working magic had disappeared.
“She…” The words escaped her ability to wrestle them into order.
“Aye.” Roderick looked grim. “She was ready to toast the lot of you.”
“But…” No witch, not since the lost one, had or would consider breaking the second highest rule of all, a rule that had only been added because of the lost one. Maeve shuddered. Even thinking of her made Maeve cold to her middle. The lost one’s conscienceless bid for power over three hundred years ago had nearly been the end of the cré-witches. It was a lesson none of them could afford to ignore.
Chapter 10
Maeve couldn’t stand by and let the villagers die. She had failed Rebecca, Jane and Molly. She wouldn’t fail the other villagers. Pacing the caverns, she searched for something, anything, to help them.
To help the village meant either openly disobeying Fiona or getting to the village in secret. The idea rushed through her mind and she almost laughed. The solution was right there before her.
Roderick stepped into her path and folded his arms. “No.”
“No what?” The idea had barely even taken root.
He leaned closer until they were almost nose to nose. “You aren’t to lead the healers through the secret passage to the village.”
“Why not?” She wanted to stamp her foot or shake the stubbornness out of him.
He jabbed a finger toward the village. “I don’t care about Fiona’s decree. Alexander is in that village, and I’ll wager my balls so is his bitch mother. You’re not going there.”
“But I can sense them. If either of them reaches for their magic, I can smell it now.” She needed him to understand how much it meant to her. “I’ll stay away from them. I know those villagers. Some of them are my friends.” Her words seemed to bounce off him. “And the villagers know the healers well. They won’t betray us.”
“I don’t share your faith in the villagers.” His face showed no emotion, but his eyes were frigid. “And I would never make the mistake of underestimating Rhiannon again. It’s impossible to know how deep her rot infects the village.”
“I’ll be careful.” She wasn’t getting through to him. “Please, Roderick, I won’t be responsible for more death if I can help it.”
Empathy pulsed down their bond. “You’re not responsible for those women dying. Fiona is.”
“But I didn’t do anything either.” She opened the bond to show him her hurt. “This time I can act. I can stop people from dying.”
Roderick shook his head. “I understand, but I can’t allow it.”
“Allow it?” She smacked him with an emotional blast. “Since when do you allow me to do as I want?”
Roderick lifted his sleeve and pointed to his coimhdeacht markings. “The day Goddess put these on me. They give me the right to do anything to keep you safe, including this.” He drew himself up. “I forbid you going to the village.”
“For—forbid me?’ She could barely get the word out. “By what right?”
“By Goddess granted right.” His expression hardened. “And I’m going to stay right on your heels to make sure you obey me.”
He would too.
Their stalemate lasted throughout the day and into the night.
After dinner, Roderick walked her to her chamber. Once inside, he tossed a cushion on the floor and lay down by the fire.
“What are you doing?”
He rolled and presented her his back. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I know what it looks like.” The desire to kick his perfectly shaped bum sharpened in her. “And you aren’t sleeping in my chamber.”
“Yes, Maeve, I am.” He sat up and pinned her with a hard stare. “Right on your heels.”
He lay down again.
Maeve sat on her bed a long time and stared at his back. She didn’t like her chances of being able to sneak past him.
A change in strategy was needed.
Clearing her mind, she went about getting ready for bed.
Roderick’s back rose and fell, and his eyes were shut.
She relented and laid a blanket over him.
“Thank you.” He glanced up at her. “Go to sleep, Maeve. In the morning we can find a way to change Fiona’s mind.”
That was a futile task if ever she’d heard one. Fiona wasn’t going to change her mind. Maeve had deep, dark suspicions about Fiona. Suspicions she didn’t even want to share with Roderick yet, but beneath the normal smell of Fiona’s magic, Maeve had caught the stench of blood magic.
Morning found Roderick still in her room, but now Maeve had a plan. If you couldn’t go through a rock wall, over it or around it, you had to burrow beneath.
It took three days for him to relax his vigilance. Three days in which she counted the minutes that sick villagers didn’t have.
He seemed to accept her compliance as his due and had been discussing options with Thomas and the other coimhdeacht. Discussion Maeve wanted to scream her frustration at but didn’t. She already had the solution.
Presently, Roderick was lounging at the cavern entrance, eyes closed, and soaking up the sun.
Roderick was wrong but arguing with him was like shouting at a stone. She knew the villagers, had met many of them during her monthly visits. They didn’t all feel like those awful men.
And the village needed help, and that came before any consideration of personal safety.
As she fumed and waited, contagion galloped unchecked through the village. Already it had carried off its first victims. Last night they had gone to sleep with the sickly sweet stench of burning flesh carried on the wind. At least the villagers knew enough to burn the bodies. But there shouldn’t have been any bodies. If the council had only allowed the healers amongst the villagers, they might have prevented it. They still might prevent it if bloody Roderick would take himself off for an hour or two.
Maeve had a brief, but fierce, fantasy of shoving him off the cliff edge. Although she didn’t really wish him harm. Or much harm. At least not the irreparable type of harm. She merely wished he would stop being such a stubborn ass, which was akin to wishing the moon was made of gold, and thus brought her back to her shoving fantasy.
Roderick yawned and stood.
Maeve was momentarily distracted. For a big man, he moved with feline elegance.
Roderick nodded at the bailey above them. “I thought I might get in some arms practice,” he said. “The coimhdeacht need to be prepared for anything.”
“Because of the lost one.” Maeve nodded. She agreed with him about being prepared.
“If you’re sure you’ll have no need of me?” Enough sarcasm laced Roderick’s question to assure her that her lack of enthusiasm over his presence hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Yes! Finally. If she suddenly became sweet and amenable it would raise his suspicions for sure. So, she shrugged and stuck her bottom lip out. “I’m sure I can muddle along without you.”
He stared at her, none of his thoughts evident on his face. “Everything I do,” he said, “is done to protect you. Believe it or not, my intention is rarely to vex you.”
“Rarely? But not never to vex me.” If she’d been more in charity with him that last might have made her laugh.
He shrugged. “I’m but human. Occasionally temptation gets the better of me.”
This time, he succeeded in making her laugh. “Go and play with your sword. “
; “I will.” He grinned at her. It wasn’t something he did often, and she was glad of it. Roderick had a disconcertingly appealing smile. “I’ll try not to cut anything vital.”
“Don’t try too hard,” she called after him.
His boots scuffed against the stone stairs as he climbed to the bailey.
Keeping all thoughts out of her mind, she waited for him to disappear. Then she waited some more, until his attention shifted off her.
Her awareness of him was dim, but she could sense he wasn’t concentrating on her. Keeping her thoughts deliberately blank, she ran up the stairs to the bailey. She grabbed the arm of a journeywoman hurrying past.
“Spirit Walker!” The woman jumped as if death beckoned her and her brown eyes widened. “Can I help you?”
“Yes.” Maeve spoke quickly, aware that Roderick’s concentration on her had intensified again. “Get a message to Sheila,” she whispered. “Tell her if she and whichever healers she trusts the most wish to go to the village, they’d better get here now.”
The journeywoman gaped at her, and several horrible seconds dragged past.
Roderick’s questioning pulse probed at her mind, and she deflected it with a child’s song. She had no idea if it would work or not, but it was all she could come up with.
Then, the journeywoman nodded. “I’ll tell her.”
“And make sure Roderick doesn’t find out.” Maeve gave her a shove.
Roderick’s presence drew nearer.
Moments after the journeywoman scuttled off, he rounded the corner of the castle toward her. His shirt was flung over his shoulder and sweat beaded his belly and chest. By the love of all Goddess had created, it was a sight to behold.
A pair of apprentices stopped and stared at him. Then huddled together and giggled.
“Ladies.” Roderick flashed his grin at them.
Her need to crawl all over him was replaced by the need to kick him. Maeve met his gaze and held it. “I thought you were at arms practice.”
“I was.” Tilting his head, he studied her from toe to tip. “But you’re up to something. Something you don’t want me to know about.”