By the time this strange party reached them, Brendan had managed to stand, though Muriel could see the trembling in his legs. She, too, got to her feet, and stood beside her husband as the old king approached.
“King Fallon,” Brendan said in a voice that was soft and steady. “I am glad that you are here. I am your servant:…what may I do for you?”
The king turned to face him, his scarred and sightless eyes directed at Brendan. “I too am your servant,” he said. “I am here to see what I might do for you. If I can be of help to you, then my life might still have some purpose.”
Brendan almost laughed. “There is nothing that anyone can do for me, though I thank you for your kind words. My life is not what I thought it was…and now it is over.”
“As is mine,” said Fallon. “I too am a man who was once a king, who in the space of a single day lost everything.”
The entire group was silent for a time. Muriel could see the renewed grief in Brendan’s eyes, even as he began to speak. “Your kingship was wrongfully taken from you by a cruel enemy. There is no doubt of who you are—of who you were. You were born a free man of the warrior class and then became a king. I have never been anything more than the son of slaves, no matter how fine my clothes or how heavy my gold, or how loudly I boasted of the marvelous deeds I had done.”
“I am told that you are also a strong man with a beautiful young wife who offers you love,” Fallon said. “It is too late for me to begin again. I will never have anything more than the memories of a life well lived until it was taken from me by lies and needless cruelty.
“Those memories can offer me some comfort. You, though—you must listen to the message of the sea. You tried to give yourself to it, as King Galvin did, but it refused you. The waves threw you back.”
“Perhaps the sea rejects a slave who is not worthy of a king’s death.”
“Perhaps the sea rejects a young man who should be seeking life.”
Brendan closed his eyes. “I do not know what else to do. I cannot remain here. If I go and hide in the forest with my wife, how long will it be until Odhran learns where I am? How long until his men find me and put an end to what they started?” He grimaced. “They patrol the forests relentlessly. The instant they know that I am no longer king, they will expect me to go straight to my wife’s family at Dun Farraige—but that is one thing I will not do. I will not live out my days on the bread of my wife’s family, who will smile politely but never see me as anything more than a servant.”
Muriel looked away.
“You could go somewhere else. There is the whole of Eire to choose from,” said Darragh.
Brendan shook his head. “And how shall we get there? Boats have no place to land except sheer cliffs for a very long way on this coast, unless we go straight to Dun Camas. If we travel overland, we will have to pass close by Odhran’s borders. They will be watching—and waiting.
“If we camp in the forests, his patrols will find us. If we hide at the rath of some herdsman or farmer, it would cost them their lives if Odhran finds out they sheltered us. I will not put my own people—any people—in such jeopardy. I will not. I will not!”
“Does the sea tell you nothing else, Brendan?” Fallon spoke up.
Brendan glanced at the waves, then looked at the old king again, frowning. “I know only that it does not want me. That I seem to have no place on either land or sea.”
Queen Grania came forward to stand beside her husband and placed her hand on his arm. “Then you should seek a place that is neither land nor sea, Brendan, and make your home there.”
Neither land nor sea… Muriel studied this small, gray-haired woman with the peaceful blue eyes. What a queen she must have been!
“I was not always blind,” Fallon said. “Look out across the ocean. Look beyond the waves. What do you see?”
After a moment, Brendan turned his head and stared far out to sea. He looked past the waves breaking all around, looked out to the horizon. “I see an island,” he whispered, still staring at it. “I see the Island of the Rocks.”
“And an island,” said Grania, “is not land, for it is separate and removed and isolated; but neither is it the sea, for it is solid and dry and unmoving. Perhaps this island holds your answer.”
“It could provide us with a refuge for a time,” Muriel agreed. “Odhran would never find us there. We could stay there in peace, and then think on what we should do next.”
Slowly Brendan turned to look down at her, and there was something like anger in his eyes. “What we should do?” he asked. “There will be no ’we.’ I would never allow you to be subjected to such a life. I once took a curragh with my men out to that island! The waves were so high, the cliff walls so steep, that it was impossible to land. There is nothing there but scrub grass, howling wind, and screaming birds!
“Queen Grania is wise. I thank her for her counsel. The island may well be the place where I should go. But not you, Muriel—never you.”
Muriel shook her head, her voice equally firm. “I have already told you that my life is with you. You will never be separated from me again, no matter what you do.” She stared hard into his blue and brown eyes, and held his gaze until at last he looked down. “If you leave to live alone in the forest among the wolves, I will be there with you. If you walk over the edge of the cliff of Dun Bochna, you will find me falling through the air alongside you. If you go to the Island of the Rocks, I will sit beside you in the curragh. There will never be a time for you, Brendan, from this moment forward, when I am not with you, no matter what you choose to do.”
Her husband started to answer, but it was clear that her words had struck him hard. He could only look back at her, his shattered heart and broken life clearly visible in his eyes…and yet Muriel was sure that she saw a trace of hope in those strange eyes, too.
One of Dun Bochna’s warriors stepped forward.
“A landing there is possible. Difficult and dangerous, but possible. There is a cove on the north side. I, too, took a curragh out there once, with a few of my men on a fine summer’s day, and we managed it.”
“I, too, will go with you to the Island of the Rocks, Brendan.”
Brendan looked up at King Fallon. “You…would go with me?”
“I would. That is what I came here to tell you. I, of all men, have perhaps the closest understanding of what has happened to you. And I no longer have any purpose in life…but if I can be of help to you, then I will once again have a reason to go on living.”
Brendan could only look at him, his head nodding ever so slightly.
“I will go too,” said Queen Grania, “for, like you, Lady Muriel, it is my wish to remain with my husband. Like yours, mine well knows that there is nothing he could do to keep me from being there.”
Darragh and Killian took a few steps forward. “We will go with you as well,” said Killian. “No matter what you are now, you have always been a friend—and you are certainly now a man in need of friends. We will go and stay for as long as you have need of us.”
Muriel slipped her hand into Brendan’s.
Gill came forward last of all, with the two other servant men. “This is Duff, and this is Cole,” he said, nodding at them. “They too were slaves under Odhran until they were set free by you. The three of us will go with you too, Brendan—if you will have us.”
Brendan raised his head and drew himself up a little straighter. “I do not warrant any such love and respect and service as you have offered me this day. I should refuse it—but I will confess, there is nothing I would like more than to have your company for a time, out on the island called the Rocks.”
With a sigh, he lowered his head and pulled Muriel close. He held her tight with his strong arms as the wind from the sea blew over them.
The sun was just past its height when Darragh, Killian, Gill, Duff, and Cole came walking down the path from Dun Bochna to the beach. Above their heads they carried two long black curraghs. Muriel quickly noted that the boats w
ere old and battered.
Behind the group walked Colum, with two druids and a few of the dun’s warriors. The men all carried leather sacks that looked to be bulging with supplies. A small figure hurried out from behind the last of the warriors.
“Muriel!” Alvy cried. “Oh, Muriel! What is it that you mean to do?”
The two women embraced, one tall and dark-haired, the other small and fragile with locks of white. “I cannot leave his side,” Muriel whispered. “I cannot. He is my husband, and I love him, and he needs me so.”
Alvy peered up at her, looking hard into her eyes. “Are you sure? Are you sure that it is love, and not—not the beginning of loss?”
Muriel smiled. “I know that it is love,” she said. “I can only hope that it is not the beginning of weakness.”
“I understand, dear one, I understand…but must you go to those islands, so far away from everything?”
“’There is no place else for us. This is our best chance. We will return—perhaps not until the spring, but we will—”
“Take me with you! I cannot let you go so far away alone. Please, take me with you!”
Muriel’s eyes welled with tears. “Oh, Alvy, you cannot. I would never let you—”
“I am only an old servant woman. No one would miss me. Let me go, and end my days caring for you!”
“Ah, but servants can be much loved and much cherished too,” Muriel whispered. “Please—stay here for me, and be safe, and promise me that you will be here waiting for us when we return. I will certainly have need of you then!”
“I will always be here for you. Always…”
Alvy stared up at her. Finally Muriel nodded. “I will come back. I promise.”
The two hugged each other again, and then Alvy stepped back and turned away. “I will return now. I cannot bear to watch you leave—Oh, dear one, stay safe, and come home soon!”
As the retreating Alvy brushed past him, Brendan walked up to Colum. “You are very generous, Prince Colum,” Brendan said. “You are under no obligation to me.”
“I find it hard to forget that you were my brother,” Colum replied, and the two men clasped hands and smiled grimly. “Now—these curraghs are old, but seaworthy. In the sacks you will find food, water, extra cloaks and tunics, fishing hooks, and a few utensils. Darragh and Killian have their daggers and swords, and you must take your sword as well.”
Brendan released the other man’s hand. “I thank you. I will not forget this.”
“I only hope it is enough.” Colum glanced out to sea. “Are you certain you want to try this? Surely there is somewhere else you could go. Surely it would be better to just go with your wife to her people, and start your life over in that place.”
Brendan shook his head and began gathering up the sacks of supplies. “I will be the one to care for my wife. I will never require her to take care of me.”
“If you do make it out to the Rocks, you will have to leave before the autumn equinox,” warned one of the druids. “After that, the waters are impossible to cross. It will be difficult enough for you as it is. You are probably already too late.”
“I am sure that you will be there for only a short time, until you can decide on something else you wish to do,” said Colum as Gill and the other men loaded the rest of the supplies into the boats. “We wish you no ill. I, for one, regret that you cannot stay.”
Brendan dropped a leather sack of grain into the first curragh. “There is no place for me here. Or at Dun Farraige.” He turned back to Colum and looked hard at him. “You are tanist here now, and soon you will be king. I am nothing but a slave and have no right to speak to you. Even so, I will tell you to beware of Odhran. He has been quiet for a time, but he will return, probably when you least expect it. You must stay strong if you want to keep him away. You must be a warrior, not a bard, if you hope to defeat a man like that.”
To Muriel’s surprise, Colum only laughed. “I know how you feel about him. And it is no wonder Odhran found you such an annoyance. You would have antagonized anyone with your constant raids.”
Brendan frowned. “I am not sure you understand. If King Odhran is not at your doorstep right now, it is only because those constant raids earned his respect and taught him a lesson. He is power hungry, and you must deal with him as—”
Colum interrupted. “Yet you were never able to defeat him. You succeeded only in making him an enemy who hates you.”
“Colum—” Brendan placed his hands on the side of one curragh and looked hard at his brother. “Do not underestimate him. Do not think of Odhran as anything but the most dangerous foe.”
“I have been thinking on it. I may try a different method of keeping the peace. I want to offer him an alliance.”
“An alliance! Colum, he would never accept it. He would take it as a sign of weakness. I tell you, you must not think of doing such a thing!”
Colum must have heard the fear and desperation in Brendan’s voice, for he smiled and then shrugged his shoulders. “It was only a thought,” he said. “And Odhran is just one of many things that I will have to cope with.”
“Ask yourself what your father would have done. You cannot go wrong with that sort of guidance—Galvin was a good king.” Again Brendan reached out, and this time he and Colum embraced each other. “I thank you for your generosity,” he finished. “You will not see me again.”
Then Brendan turned away and his little party stepped into their boats. Gill, Duff, and Cole got in with Brendan and Muriel, while Darragh and Killian went with King Fallon and Queen Grania. The warriors on the beach pushed them off into the sea until the waves lifted up their crafts, and then the men began paddling for the distant misty island called the Rocks.
Their two wood-framed leather boats, light as birds on the tumultuous sea, dipped and rose on the ever-heightening waves. Muriel could only grip the sides of her curragh’s wooden framework and try to focus on the floor instead of on the wildly heaving ocean.
She was aware of Brendan, Gill, Duff, and Cole paddling swiftly and patiently, driving their little craft up over each wave and then bracing back to ride it down the far side—up and down, up and over, up and down, up and over, again and again—and very soon Muriel felt her head aching and her stomach rebelling.
One by one, all of them found themselves hanging over the sides of the boat, more violently ill than they could ever remember. One glance back showed Muriel that the occupants of the other boat were faring no better.
Yet by sheer force of will the men managed to keep their curraghs heading for their island destination, which loomed above them: a tall, sharply pointed mountain with a wide base.
Mercifully, the sea calmed somewhat and the boats crept closer to their destination. As they did, Muriel realized that it was not just one island she was seeing, but two. A second sat directly in front of the Island of the Rocks, and there was a long stretch of water in between. They were approaching that one.
The front most island was smaller, but it too had a steeply pointed mount, one whose peak was covered in a thick coat of dirty white—the legacy of the thousands of seabirds nesting there. As the group’s curraghs passed by, the birds began darting and wheeling overhead and swooping down low over them.
Muriel ducked and threw her cloak over her head.
In what seemed to be nothing more than a final assault on Brendan’s dignity, the swarms of birds flying over them soon covered the boat and all of its occupants with spots and blobs of droppings. Muriel felt that she would rather face those terrible sickening seas again than this rain of filth they now endured from the hordes of shrieking birds.
Perhaps the sea knew what it was doing by forcing them to pass by this place. There was no way for anyone to tell who was in these boats, for any who came this way—from the highest king to the lowest slave—would be forced to hide themselves as they passed or suffer the worst of insults. In their two little boats, there were no kings or queens or warriors or slaves. There were only nine desperate peo
ple using all their strength to reach what they hoped would be a place of safety.
Somehow, the boats continued to advance, and they got out from under the birds. The island called the Rocks now lay directly ahead. The seas grew worse again, now that they were out of the scant shelter of the birds’ island, but the boats moved on, approaching the second isle, which now looked much larger than it had even from the distant shore.
It towered above them. With a sinking heart, Muriel saw that this terrible place had no beach but only sheer rock cliffs dropping straight down to the sea. High, high up, there seemed to be a few level spaces where grass grew, but Muriel saw no place where they could land their boats. The others had said it was possible, that it had been done before at a cove on the north side— And then a dreadful thought leaped into her mind.
Perhaps those warriors of Dun Bochna had told them a landing was possible while knowing only too well that no one had ever succeeded here, knowing full well that their ex-prince’s fragile leather-covered boat would be smashed to pieces on the rocks, and Brendan and his party would never be seen again.
It would certainly solve the problem of what to do with a man who should never have been called a king.
But surely those men would do no such thing! Brendan might now be nothing but an exiled servant, but he had been their friend and brother and tanist and king. Surely they would find a better way than this if they wished to send him to his death—wouldn’t they?
Muriel looked up and saw only the terrible mountain of rock towering over their boats and the enormous waves smashing its vertical sides, and she knew that it might be the last thing any of them would ever see.
At last their little boats turned north and made their way around the island. As they moved from behind the towering mass, they were struck full force by the cold winds that ceaselessly tore at the Rocks
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