by JK Ensley
The deathly pale maiden leaned down, whispering icy words into his ringing ears. “This is Iole Máni. It ensures my kill.”
“Gealach,” Brodder yelled.
When her sparkling black eyes met those of her new father, she unceremoniously released the deadly weapon, simply let it fall to the ground, then flipped off the terrified man’s frozen form. Skipping over to stand beside her beloved King, Jenevier casually clasped her hands behind her back, innocently, harmlessly; as if nothing unusual at all had happened.
“That’ll be all for today, dear daughter.” Brodder’s deep words were warm and loving. “Go now, while it’s yet light. Run along and gather the coveted petals you need for your splendid tea. I’m looking forward to sharing a cup with you tonight as we sit by the fire, Lass.”
Her smile beamed. Jenevier hugged him around the waist, squeezing him tightly as he gently kissed the top of her head.
Snatching up her empty basket, she was whistling a sweet tune by the time she skipped around the corner, disappearing from their stunned view.
It was a painfully long moment before anyone released their held breath, or allowed their tense shoulders to relax.
“What the hell was that?” Luag demanded.
“Forgive me, Brothers,” Brodder mumbled. “I didn’t realize the extent of her skills. I viewed her talents merely as an amusing play thing, a rather cute entertainment of sorts.”
“Just how much, exactly, do you know about her skills, her talents as you call them?” Gráda inquired, concern hardening the scared look in his eye.
“Not much more than you, I fear,” the King admitted. “It happened quite by chance, actually. The first day you arrived at our home, when you first laid eyes upon her, she had disappeared from our bed, same as this morning. I couldn’t find her.” He sighed as he looked to the clouds, remembering that terrifying feeling of raw panic. “I searched. I yelled. I fretted. Nothing. My hunt for the fair maid was in vain. I began to take my anger and frustration out with my sword.” He slowly took in each man’s questioning gaze. “When she returned, that’s how she found me. Swinging away, trying to gut a wooden man.” He shook his head, sighing. “I scolded her for leaving me, even promised her punishment if she ever did thus again. When I went back to attacking the dummy, she drew a blade from the rack and challenged me.” He motioned with his head toward the training gear. “I know now… she was only playing with me, toying with a grumpy old man,” he whispered. “That’s when your approaching hoof beats halted our blades. Everything else about her talents, you have borne witness to yourselves, gentlemen.”
“I know not what she is, but she’s no mere colorless maiden.” Brian spoke as he yanked his broken nose back into place, wiping the drying blood with the backs of his hands. “That much is obvious.”
“That much was obvious before this little display here,” Finnean said, snorting out a half laugh. “I’ve met many maidens, Brothers. But as of yet, none have been able to sprout lethal claws from their dainty wee fingertips.”
“Or speak the wound closed those selfsame claws rent,” Gráda whispered.
“Or bind and unbind with mere words,” Eògan added.
“Do you believe her to be a demon?” All eyes turned to Finnean as he spoke. “Do you think… mayhap she was abandoned here after the bloody war?”
“No, Finnean,” Brodder said softly. “Ease your troubled heart, Brother. I heard her hit when she fell from the heavens. She wasn’t upon Val Hal before I found her lying there, unconscious amongst the stones.”
“Then she is no demon,” Luag said. “I watched as they sprang from the dirt and all the dark places of this world.” His jaw line visibly hardened. “Not one fell from the sky.”
“Perhaps she’s an Angel,” Eògan said, child-like wonder obvious in his gentle voice.
“Minus wings?” Gráda said with a snort.
“I know not,” the large flaming haired man continued. “I’ve never met an Angel before.”
“And you haven’t met one this day, either,” Luag answered.
Finnean rubbed the back of his hand across his creased brow, exasperated. “One thing’s for certain. She isn’t newly created. She was worried about that—that her creator had cast her aside before he was yet done. Worried that the very one who made her couldn’t even bear to look upon her, didn’t love her.” His troubled gaze locked with Brodder’s. “I tell you now. Our wee lass is a woman with a past, an obviously bloody past.”
“And just why are you suddenly turning on her? Hmm?” Brian asked. “Why do you think her past is dark? What do you base your reasoning upon, white brother?”
Finnean looked at his young friend, incredulously. “After what you’ve witnessed, you can still ask that?” He smiled as he snorted, shaking his head. “I do not claim to know the creator. But I’m fairly certain a new creature isn’t formed complete with superior battle skills, built-in weapons, and draped about with rare adornments the likes of which I have never seen before.” He took a step closer to Brian, lowering his voice. “And I would never turn on her, ever. Got that? I care not if she’s dark or light. She is mine, Brother. Now back off.”
Brodder nodded his head, ignoring the two warriors’ heated glares and hissing words. “Finnean speaks true.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve heard her in the wee hours of the night. I would lie awake, listening for her forgotten voice. The maiden whispers of strange things in her sleep. Things lost within her muddled mind. She is tormented by loss. Yet I cannot make out her true misery. Perhaps it’s only nightmares, dreamscapes of a weary soul.”
“I’ve also heard her make reference, absently it seems, about what can only be attributed to past experiences,” Gráda confessed.
“As have I, Brother.” Finnean spoke up again. “She indeed has a past. Something horrible must’ve happened to cause her to lose any memory of it.”
“Or…” Everyone turned to Eògan as he spoke. “She did something so horrible her mind locked it away, protecting her, ensuring her innocent heart remained intact.” He looked to each of them. “Does anyone know what Iole Máni means?”
The befuddled men were still shaking their heads when her tinkling voice caused them to jump.
“Where’d you hear that name, Brother?” she said as she rounded the corner and approached the red-haired man, smiling sweetly.
He took a step back, startled. “Name? Is it a name?” he asked.
“I believe so.” She cocked her head to the side, a look of profound confusion furrowing her brow. “Something deep inside me… it whispers about it, calls out that name. Where did you come by it, Brother?”
Eògan lightly touched her forehead, using his fingertip to press out the wrinkles her bewilderment had put there. “Remember you not, wee moon?” He smiled softly and she visibly relaxed. “You whispered it within my ear as you held a dagger to my throat.”
Without thought, still staring at her giant red-haired friend, her left hand automatically went to her hip, grabbing only air. She turned in a circle, trying to look behind her.
Brodder laughed, placing a large hand upon her shoulder, ceasing her twirling. “Here now, Lass. What’re you trying to do? Spin about like a top?”
“My blade,” she murmured absently, reaching then to her shoulder.
Finding nothing there as well, she began turning the other way, looking behind her.
“You carry a blade, Princess?” Gráda narrowed his eyes as he closely watched her bewildered movements. “Perhaps two?” He paused. “Mayhap you carry one at your hip and the other across your back?”
Jenevier stopped, a completely different look now living within her strange snowflakes. She stared at Gráda, desperately searching his eyes for the answers she could not find within herself. Then… as suddenly as she had begun searching for the blades, she forgot them.
“I know not.” She smiled at the man she had once set out to kill. “Why would you ask me such a thing, Lord Gráda? Why would you presume anything so a
bsurd?” She giggled playfully. “Me? Armed as a warrior and carrying a basket of rose petals?” She crinkled up her nose at him.
“There’s much you do not believe you know, wee Gealach.” Brodder gently patted her back. “Come. Make me some of your delicious tea while we discuss all the things we do not believe we know.”
As always, his kind laughter caused her warm smile. Placing his hand at the small of her back, the King gently guided his new daughter back into their home.
*****
“Things we know.” Gráda said the words aloud as he wrote them down.
1) Fell from the sky.
2) Absent memory and voice.
3) Talon-like claws, deadly. He underlined the word deadly twice.
4) Obsessed with rose tea.
“What’s tea got to do with anything?” Brian asked.
“You never know what might turn out to be an important piece of the puzzle,” Gráda said, rolling his eyes at the younger man’s naivety.
The rhythmic sound of her pestle grinding against the mortar played in the background as each man told of odd little things he’d heard her say or watched her do. She paid them no mind, absently humming as she wrapped her freshly crushed ingredients in a clean cloth, making a cute little bow with the string she used to tie it off.
“She can heal. She can curse. And she can bind.”
Brodder’s warm voice brought an unconscious smile to her snowy face.
“She fights like an elite warrior, yet she’s not above playing dirty,” Brian added. “Perhaps she learned thus from her opponents, perhaps not. One thing I do know. Someone taught her to fight without honor, death being the only intended outcome. That wee lass takes no prisoners. They all die, period.”
“Then she works alone, more than likely,” Eògan said. “If she allows no prisoners, perhaps it’s because she has no way to hold them, no cavalry at her command.”
Jenevier let out a tiny giggle. Finnean glanced at her delicate back, watching fondly as her grinding chore put a tiny twisting movement to the curve of her hips. He smiled.
“Or…” The men froze when her giggles gave way to her tinkling voice, she didn’t turn to face them. “…perhaps it’s because they deserve the death I bless them with,” she said. “Why drag trash along behind you? Escorting is not my purpose. No need for playing around with them. That only leads to trouble, little sister,” she said in a much deeper, mimicking tone. “Get in. Get it over with. And get out.”
Her soft hums returned then, filling the room. The troubled men sat in silence, six sets of bewildered stares circling the table, trying to rationalize away what they were increasingly finding too obvious to ignore.
Gráda continued writing the ever darkening list.
“So, she sheds more light than we cared to know,” Luag whispered. “If our minds are alike concerning the maid, Brothers, let’s just speak the truth of it. She’s more than likely a mercenary. An assassin, perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” Brodder whispered, worriedly.
Eògan snorted, crossing his massive arms over his broad chest. “Pray, tell me. Who would be mad enough to choose such a wee thing as that to be an assassin?” He motioned with his head toward his new little sister. “And what grown man would take such a thing seriously?”
“Who indeed?” Luag continued his thought. “Such would only prove to make her the perfect weapon. She’s just a wee thing at that—delicate, beautiful, child-like. And every ounce of her… completely lethal.”
“This is madness,” Brian whispered.
“Or brilliance,” Luag said. “Answer me this, Brothers.” He motioned toward Jenevier’s turned back as he spoke. “In the midst of battle, that fragile wee thing skips through the heated mêlée, approaching you, all smiles and curls. Tell me. What would you do?”
“I’d tuck her behind me,” Eògan answered quickly. “Protect her from danger. Do all within my power to remove her from peril, minus thought.”
“If I saw her there, those silver curls bouncing amid a sea of crimson covered steel, I’d run to her,” Brian said. “My blade would drip with the blood of all who dared come near.”
Gráda smiled before he spoke, a distant look in his eyes. “I would be her shield, her defender. Without question, I would sacrifice all to obtain her safety. Any cost, I’d gladly pay it.”
Each man silently nodded in agreement.
“I’d bed her,” Finnean said absently.
Brodder’s sharp intake of breath nearly strangled him, he started coughing. The snow-crowned warrior’s cheeks flushed when snorts and chuckles surrounded the table.
“Holy hell, Finnean,” Brian said, softly laughing as he shook his head, rolling his eyes.
“Each man answered true his heart,” Luag continued. “No matter how inappropriate.” He shot an amused glace at his still blushing brother. “Now tell me this,” he whispered, leaning in closer. “If she were sent there to claim your head, how hard of a time would she have with the task?”
The laughter and amusement ceased as each man played out the gruesome, yet undeniable, scene in his head.
“Like taking candy from a wee babe,” Brodder mumbled.
“Aye, that it would be,” Luag said.
“Ha!”
The pondering warriors all jumped at her sudden outburst.
“Do not take me lightly or try to explain me away. Yes, I am an abomination, to be sure. Yet dreadfully, morbidly, necessary. It took six long years, Brothers. Six torturously long years.” Her pestle stopped moving. Her back straightened. “It wasn’t as easy a thing as you might think.” She laughed softly, slipping into a strangely accented voice. “Nae a bone left within me that’s nae been snapped. Ye cannae imagine six longer years than those. Aye, Brothers, I thought them tae be worse than hell… until I strolled through hell…” Her words trailed off, her pleasant hums returning.
Brodder turned to stare at the speaking girl, her back to them, humming as she made her rose tea.
“What took six long years, wee lamb?” he asked.
She didn’t answer the curious King.
“Gealach?”
Jenevier turned toward him then. “Yes, Father?” Her voice once again her own.
“What took six years, little one?”
She cocked her head to the side, crinkling up her nose. “Six years? I know not. Is it a riddle?”
When he didn’t answer, she turned back to her aromatic task.
“Perhaps she’s mad,” Gráda whispered. “Mayhap she’s a witch. A witch driven insane by her own dark magic.”
“She’s not a witch,” Finnean growled through gritted teeth.
“Then what explanation do you offer?” Gráda countered.
“I’ve never heard tell of a witch trained in the ways of battle. They don’t go about claiming to command the arts of war,” Brodder said. “If she were a witch, she’d use spells, not swords.”
“There we go, all done.” She wiped her hands together as she turned to face her troubled family, finding and holding Finnean’s adoring gaze as she approached. “Come, my enchanting Guardian. Let’s take a stroll through the trees while our brothers grumble and quarrel amongst themselves over their recent summonses.” She held her hand out to him, smiling. “Come, Varick. Walk with me while the tea steeps.”
As soon as the words left her lips, Jenevier froze.
Finnean’s chair crashed to the ground when he jumped up, catching her as she swayed.
Chapter 13
Drostan
(DRAH-stun)
“Gather your men, Drostan. Make haste. We attack tonight.”
“Tonight? But, my Queen, all your troops have yet to arrive. We still have to gather provisions. And your generals haven’t even received their assignments. They know not whom they command.”
He cowered under her cold glare but held his ground.
“I said your men, Drostan,” she hissed. “I wish to have the maiden. You will retrieve her for me, forthwith.”
He bowed low, fist over his heart. “I understand, My Liege.”
“Do you? Do you truly?” she said, her eyes as cold as the Underworld. “What you need to understand, good Drostan, is this… You need not return without the maiden. Die in your quest or succeed. There is no other option. You’ve been there before, have you not? To the old cabin home?”
“I have.”
“They are there now—the old King and his trusted five. Do what you must. Failure is not an option.”
He was staring numbly down at the dull cracked mortar lacing gracefully between the hewn stones of the throne room floor when she breezed past him to her chambers. He rubbed his booted toe over a crumbling spot, knocking the dusty dry flecks away. He sighed.
Drostan didn’t relish taking up arms against the unsuspecting men gathered together in the old King’s secret home.
Brothers all. He groaned inside his troubled mind. How shall I spill the blood of the ones I once treasured, counted as family? Would that I could find a release from her vile sort of magic.
His broad shoulders were slumped when he exited the castle, making his way to the darker, forgotten places of this realm.
*****
The rusty door latch creaked as it popped open, allowing the welcoming scents of burning wood and dark ale to fill his nostrils. The gathered shadows stirred with his arrival.
“Have the necessary preparations been seen to?” Drostan asked. “Are we of one mind in this?”
Silence was his only answer.
“This will not to be a bloodbath,” he continued. “We’ll bide our time, wait for the perfect moment. Our objective is to retrieve the maid. If we can do that without drawing our blades, we will.” He eyed the loathsome group before him. “Do you understand me, gentlemen? No one is to make a move unless I say so.”
The crimson-clad assembly followed him from the tavern. They moved like shadows, shades of the night, one with the darkness.
There were no trees near enough for mortal eyes to spy from, none surrounding the old cabin home. The wicked party had dismounted long ago, leaving their steeds within the forest, tying them securely there and proceeding on foot. A slight rise in the landscape was their only available cover. There, they waited.