He led me toward a gated bridge that spanned the castle moat, which was filled with still black water, its surface like a mirror. We passed through the gate, and I noticed a disturbance of the water’s surface, as if something large moved beneath.
I gasped, and he said, “Pike.”
The tip of a fin rose and cut a wavy line through the water. “They must be enormous!” I exclaimed.
“Indeed,” he replied. “Some larger than a man.”
I shuddered and moved farther from the bridge’s railing.
“We will wash ourselves here and then return to Brú na Bóinne and the others?” I inquired, as I was finding it difficult to recall conversation from even a moment ago. I brushed again at the hair or spider thread that tickled my face.
Before he could answer, I heard the peeping call of a kestrel and glanced up. The speckled hawklike bird spiraled down slowly toward us, and Finvara held out his arm. After a graceful landing, the creature tipped back her head, and I saw that her beak held a small folded paper. Once my companion had taken it, she lifted off again. He opened the note and, after a quick perusal, refolded it and tucked it into his pocket.
“Let us go in,” he said.
“What was in the note?” I asked.
“Nothing important,” he replied with a shake of his head. “My greatest concern at present is getting you dry.”
His tone was light and easy, but as I studied his profile, I got the sense this might not be genuine. Moreover, I could not be sure whether I was speaking to Finvara or Duncan, and the strange tickling sensation on my cheek distracted me unrelentingly, making me forget the things I wanted to ask him.
The only course of thought I seemed able to follow had to do with his person. I could admire the smoothness of his chestnut skin. Study the fine, light freckles across the backs of his hands. Trace the full lines of his lips and compare the color of his eyes to the sea. All these thoughts I could follow without difficulty, and after a while I grew fatigued and let my questions fade into the background.
Stately woodland fairies, like the ones at Brú na Bóinne, guarded the inner gate. They stood silent, their spears crossed before the entrance. They uncrossed them as we approached, allowing us to pass.
Stark though the fortress appeared outside, within were luxuries and comforts similar to those that adorned the house of Angus and Caer. As we walked around the perimeter of a great hall, creatures like the ones we’d caught in their Christmas revels flitted like mice around columns, tables, and chairs, their bright laughter echoing through the hall.
It all had the quality of a dream, and I began to feel heavy and slow. I was grateful when at last we reached a chamber door, which the king opened, ushering me inside. He spoke to someone in the corridor for a moment before joining me.
“Rest, lady,” he said. “A bath will be drawn, and fresh clothes brought. After that, refreshment, and we will talk of what comes next.”
“My lord, I fear that …”
I broke off, unsure what I had been about to say. He waited, but finally I shook my head, feeling that the effort of recalling it was too great.
“You are tired,” he said, brushing my cheek with the tips of his fingers. “And cold, I fear. Not for long.”
He bent then and touched his lips to mine. I felt a pulling inside me, as though I needed to get away, yet his mouth was soft and warm, and he smelled of heather, with just a hint of the spice of evergreens. His hand came to the small of my back, and the scant space between us closed. His body, too, was warm, but with edges firm and strong, reminding me of …
He drew back and I closed my eyes, drawing a long, shuddering breath. I felt his hands on me as he eased me back onto the bed.
I sank onto the crimson coverlet, and he moved away, leaving the chamber and closing the door behind him.
I woke with a start, clear-eyed, and sat straight up. My breath came fast, almost in panic, and I struggled to remember where I was.
I found myself on a great, soft bed. Flames crackled in the chamber’s fireplace. Glancing down, I found that I was dressed in a gown of medieval design: dusty plum, with embroidered flourishes at the neck, above the elbows, and along the edges of the draping sleeves.
Recalling now where I was, I wondered who had dressed me—as well as who had bathed me.
As I rose from the bed, I caught my reflection in a glass. The gown’s fabric was soft and supple and thin, revealing the lines of my body in a way that brought warmth to my cheeks. My hair had been washed and becomingly arranged.
Behind me in the glass, I noticed a table next to an armchair, and on it rested a goblet and a plate of small cakes. I also saw a slip of paper, and I went immediately and picked it up.
Keep up your strength, my dear Miss Q. —Duncan
The note did much to relieve my anxiety. Finvara had been kind, and true to his word, but there was something about this place …
Suddenly, I remembered. I was not supposed to come here!
Do not follow Finvara back to his court, the earl had said in a fit of jealousy.
I had made up my mind to follow his advice despite his ungentlemanly behavior, and yet here I was.
I picked up the goblet and one of the cakes and crossed to the window to look out. We must have climbed many steps to arrive here, as my chamber appeared to be situated in the top of a tower. Oddly, I remembered none of it, only that a great fatigue had come over me the moment we crossed the castle threshold.
Nibbling at the cake, which tasted of honey and cream, I stared out over the tops of the trees and thought that I could make out the frosted-white ridges of ocean waves in the distance. The window was barred but in no way covered to keep out the elements. The outdoor air was still and comfortable, with neither breeze nor bite.
I sipped the mead and remembered something that made me choke. Had I not kissed Duncan? Or Finvara?
Closing my eyes, I shook my head. I had dreamt it, surely. And yet even this thought made me uneasy.
Glamour. The voice of my ancestress reached me as if she approached from a distance.
I recalled the tickling feeling on my cheeks that had so annoyed me. And I recalled that I had felt it once before—aboard the Queen of Connacht.
Mortals are easily deceived, Finvara had said when he spoke of disguising Enbarr. And mortal I was. How could I have been such a fool?
I plunked the goblet down on the windowsill and went to the door, just as Finvara opened it from the other side.
“My lady, I am pleased to see that you are—”
“Let me pass,” I demanded. “I’m going back to Brú na Bóinne.”
I pushed past him as he replied, “I fear that won’t be possible.”
Ignoring him, I stepped across the threshold—and found myself suddenly alone and unmoored. Floating in a field of black perforated by thousands of pinpricks of light, hard and clear as diamonds. I spun about, digging my arms into the emptiness, like a swimmer, and panicked upon discovering no way back to where I’d been.
I cried out, or thought I did, but no sound escape my lips.
We are trapped in the Gap.
I listened to the sound of my own breathing, quick and shallow. Trapped? I demanded. How can that be? My thoughts churned furiously, and I remembered something important. Can you not free us? Can we not pass between worlds?
No longer, came the reply.
Suddenly, a hand gripped my arm, and I stumbled into a firelit chamber—I had returned to the room in the tower, and Finvara stood eyeing me gravely.
“That is dangerous, my lady,” he said. “Please do not attempt it again.”
“I want to leave here, my lord,” I insisted.
He frowned. “As I said, that’s impossible now.”
“How so?” I demanded.
An enchantment was cast on your breakfast, Cliona infor
med me mournfully. Your mortal body is trapped here, and I along with you.
“Blast!” I cried, realizing the truth of it. I spun away from my captor, squeezing my hands into fists as I stared into the fire. I had walked right into a well-known fairy trap for the second time.
“Diarmuid will kill you for this,” I said, my voice rising in anger. “You must know that. He will be overjoyed that you have given him an excuse.”
In the silence that followed, I could not hear him breathing, or any other sound but the crackling of the fire. At length, he replied. “I have his word that he will not.”
I turned on my heel, glaring at him. “What are you talking about?”
His arms were folded, one elbow resting in the opposite hand, one thumb and forefinger rubbing the tip of his sand-colored beard. His eyes were round, his expression clear, as he studied me. Even now I felt the pull of his beauty, worldly and preternatural at once. I fought this physical and untrustworthy response, clinging desperately to my anger.
“Well?” I demanded.
“Do you wish to see the note he has written?” he asked in velvet tones.
“Note!”
He reached into his pocket, and he handed me a bit of folded paper. The kestrel. My fingers trembled as I opened it.
I think—at least, I hope—that there is one thing on which we can agree: she does not belong in battle. Her ancestress may be powerful, but her mortal form is fragile. Nothing in her experience could have prepared her for the danger and horror of war. Confine her somewhere safe, somewhere comfortable, and I will not seek vengeance when I come for her. If you need further reason to acquiesce to this request, consider the possibility that after my role in this is revealed, she may never wish to see me again.
—Meath
I turned and flung the note into the fire. A sob welled up in my throat and came forth more like a gasp.
Damn him, he is right! I thought. I shan’t. Hot tears ran down my cheeks.
This is not Diarmuid’s doing, said Cliona.
“How well I know it!” I said aloud. “He wouldn’t dare. Only Edward is capable of this. And you.”
I rounded on the king. “You,” I repeated. “I care not what agreement you’ve made with him. I demand that you release me.”
Slowly, the fairy king shook his head. “For once, I agree with him. I would not for all the world see you bloodied and broken. You will be safe here.”
“And what of your word? You promised to help them.”
“And so I shall. I will be rejoining them as soon as my preparations are complete.”
I stared at him, incredulous. “You’re leaving me here alone?”
“Not alone. My servants will attend to your every need,” he repeated. “Food, drink, entertainment—you have only to ask.”
“A curse on both of you!” I cried, shaking with anger. “Get out!”
“Lady,” he pleaded quietly, “let us not part in this way.”
“Let us not part at all,” I tried once more. “Take me with you and I will forgive you wholeheartedly for your part in this.”
I thought for a moment that I had shaken his resolve, but if so it was fleeting. I could see the effort it cost him to turn from me, but turn he did, and left me alone, closing the door behind him.
I picked up the delicate table beside the armchair and hurled it at the wall. It exploded satisfyingly against the stone, the pieces clattering to the floor.
Never feel that you are abandoned. The earl’s parting words echoed painfully in my mind. I sank to the floor, covering my face with my hands.
ONE GOOD DEED
Ada
Finvara did not come again. My only visitors were servants who brought my meals. When they entered the chamber, I could see guards outside my door, and it seemed an unnecessary precaution. Did the king fear that Edward might change his mind? Might he? No, I realized, it was Diarmuid he feared. My only hope for escape lay in a circumstance I had dreaded up to now: that the earl might be overcome by his ancestor.
The king cannot keep you in Faery indefinitely, Cliona said. Else you would waste away.
Which meant that eventually I’d have a chance. But would it come before the battle?
As I paced between window and chamber door—the activity that occupied most of my time now—I could not help wondering about what had transpired between Cliona and Finvara in the past. He clearly believed he had a claim to her. Had he reason for that? Cliona had implied she’d chosen between them. I thought about how I’d watched him, admiring his comeliness, and how I’d permitted him to kiss me. Had it all been glamour?
I have long known Finvara, Cliona replied to my train of thought. Longer even than I’ve known Diarmuid.
I halted in my pacing. “Have you?”
He visited me in my childhood and even into my maidenhood. Like my mother, I could always see the gentlefolk.
“You were a fairy seer.” Cliona had, of course, been born before Diarmuid’s seal exiled the fairies. But fairy folk had a reputation for shying away from mortals.
He proposed to carry me off, many times. And I had been tempted, handsome and honey-tongued as he was. But my mother had warned me against him, and I would not go. When I married, my husband put a stop to my wandering, and I thought I would never see King Finvara again. But he sent a servant from his own house, and it was she who arranged for the coracle, and the horse that carried me away from my husband’s hall.
“The king helped you escape your husband!”
He did, though it did not end in the way I expected. It is often the case when one accepts gifts or favors from fairies.
“He caused your death?” I said, aghast.
Not in the way that you mean. There are forces more powerful than Finvara. It is myself I blame. I have ever been fond of the fairy king.
This information shined a very bright light on the hostility between the two men at Brú na Bóinne. “But you chose Diarmuid.”
I chose Diarmuid, yes. I should be by his side now, and he would wish me to be so. He will come for us.
I had no doubt about that. But how long would we be confined here? If I had to stay in this tower, waiting and wondering, my very sanity would be in peril.
“There must be a way,” I muttered.
With some difficulty, I unlaced and cast aside the plum gown and again donned the armored dress, which Finvara’s servants had cleaned and returned to my chamber.
“The banshees!” I suddenly recalled, rushing to the window. “Mightn’t we call them?”
I called them when first Finvara began weaving his spell. And they did try to warn you, but it was already too late. The fairy king’s enchantments are old magic—very powerful. Neither I nor the banshees can counter them.
Sighing, I moved to the bed and sank down. I tried to recall everything I’d read about charms against fairies, and fairy enchantments. But in all the stories and accounts, I’d never read of anyone returning from Faery without being either released by the fairies or aided by someone on the outside. Abduction enchantments were strong, especially when sealed by food or drink.
There were a few things I might try—turning my clothes inside out, making the sign of the cross—but I could not know whether these charms had worked without again trying to escape, which was obviously risky. I had my doubts Finvara’s spell would be so easily defeated.
Again I paced, staring first into the fire and then out at the forest, exhausting myself by fretting. I had been at this some time when I heard a noise near the door. I turned, expecting a servant, only to find Billy Millstone standing in my chamber.
“How do you come to be here?” I demanded, taking a step backward. I glanced around the chamber for my spear, though I’d already made a thorough search for it earlier.
“Shush, lady,” he hissed. “Billy’s after helpin’ thee.”
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br /> I frowned, momentarily hung up by his odd dialect. “Helping me?”
“Ach, aye,” he said, gesturing. “Make haste now.”
I stared at him, wary. “Why would you help me?”
The redcap grumbled with impatience. “’Twas thanks to thee that oul Billy was spared.”
“Spared from what?”
“‘I’d flay thee alive, Billy,’ says the king, ‘if not for the lady askin’ me to show mercy. Count yerself lucky.’ And so I do, lady. And grateful too.”
My gaze flitted from him to the door. How had he bypassed the guards?
“How are we to get out?” I asked, afraid to hope.
“Sure it’s the same way thou camest in!” he replied, as though I’d asked something foolish.
“But the enchantment …”
The enchantment has opened a door to the Gap, explained Cliona. Billy has used it to come to you, and he can use it to get you out.
Mightn’t this be a trap? I wondered.
She was silent a moment. The alternative is to remain here.
“Are we after waitin’ here to be caught?” demanded the redcap.
“I’m coming!”
He turned for the door before I reached him, and as he stepped toward it, I took hold of his jerkin. I braced myself for the spinning sensation, and it came. But a moment later I stood on the deck of his tugboat.
“Heavens!” I cried in surprise and relief. I stared at Billy in wonder. “I am in your debt, sir.”
He muttered something unintelligible and made for the wheelhouse. I followed.
“How did you know I was Finvara’s prisoner?” I asked. “How did you manage to get free of your captors?” Billy took hold of the navigator, and I said, “Where are we going?”
He made an exasperated noise and whined, “Just be still a moment, lady, or Billy will get addled.”
I stood fidgeting, waiting for him to finish. Dare I trust him?
Have we a choice?
We had, and we’d made it—whether for good or ill would soon enough be revealed.
“Where are we going, Billy?” I repeated when he’d concluded his fiddling with the device.
The Absinthe Earl Page 25