The Irish Warrior Part 11

"Aye. I know two things." He held up two fingers.

An infinitesimal smile tipped up her mouth. "Which two?"

"I know they are sticky, and I know they are always behind us."

"Sticky?"

"Aye. They stick, if ye let them, like pitch."

First one cheekbone, then the other rounded and lifted into a much larger, genuine smile. "Indeed. They stick," she echoed softly.

"But I also know they are not here. Not now."

Her eyes were on his. "No," she agreed. "They are not here, now," and the husky, considering tone of her agreement was the most beautiful thing he thought he'd heard in decades of tossing awful things over his shoulder and walking on.

Morning sun lit up the side of her face. In the prisons, in the bailey, even in Rardove's candlelit hall, she had been all reflected light and shadow. But here, as the sun rose and the shadows shortened, she was like a drop of dew on a flower, bright and glittering.

"Rardove is likely ruing his error in judgment about now," he remarked, mostly to himself, for in the daylight, one could see what a jewel had been tossed aside.

She snorted. "For certes. He could have had a lucrative showing in the wool trade. Instead, he speaks to me of marriages and dyeing." She shook her head.

Finian sat up straight. "Rardove spoke of dyeing?"

"Aye. Some mad notion of his."

"The Wishmes?"

She was mid-nod before she stopped, abruptly. She looked at him with a new, considering regard. "The Irish know of the Wishme indigo?"

"We know," he said in a flat voice.

"Legend." Her words tumbled out quickly. "Rumors, all. Wishmes. The Indigo Beaches. Rardove lands are not the Indigo Beaches of legend. Pah." She pushed a length of hair behind her ear and picked up another stick.

"Now Rardove lands," he said quietly, tamping down on the churning in his gut. "Upon a time, they were Irish lands." Rardove lands," he said quietly, tamping down on the churning in his gut. "Upon a time, they were Irish lands."

Indeed. Upon a time, they were his his lands. His family's. lands. His family's.

Still, he ignored the urge to grab her by the shoulders and demand to know how much she knew and why she knew anything at all, because when it came to the Wishmes, the more one asked, the more one revealed. And it was worrying enough that this lick of English flame knew of them at all.

He resigned himself to saying simply, "The Wishmes have been forgotten for many years now."

"But they are just legend." Oddly, it sounded like a question.

Even more oddly, he answered it. "What do ye think, Senna? Do ye think Rardove would cause all this trouble for a lie?"

"I think Rardove is past mad."

He laughed. "Be they truth or no, Senna, the Wishmes have a way of ruining people, and ye're better off far away."

She looked over at him. Her eyes shone in the morning sunlight. "I've seen them," she admitted in a low voice. "I have seen the Wishme dye."

His heart sped up. "Have ye?"

She nodded. "Rardove had a sample, a piece of linen dyed with the indigo. Have you ever seen the color, Finian?" she asked, her voice low and eager. "'Tis the most astonis.h.i.+ng shade of blue..."

"'Tis alchemy," he replied, unable to stop himself.

Something like enthusiasm was wending its way into her voice, lightening the dark sternness that occurred when she spoke of her business. "I can hardly describe it. If someone could recreate that color, it would be..."

He waited for the last word to slip from her lips, wondering what she might say. He'd grown up near these beaches, listened to the tales of the old dyers and their lost, secret recipes. Like alchemists of beauty, the wizened old Domhnall and sharp-tongued Ruaidhri were as legendary to Finian as Fionn mac c.u.mhaill, Tristan and Isolde.

Upon a time, the dyers of the Indigo Beaches had wrought such stunning shades of royal blue that the Roman Caesars heard of them. In the end, though, the Caesars were unconvinced a trip across the Irish Sea would be worth the additional warfare. And right they were, Finian thought grimly.

So the Irish dyers had worked their art in peace; but, growing wary, they closed the circle of initiates, allowing fewer and fewer to practice the craft, or even see the color, until finally the eye-shattering indigo was crafted only for the High Kings, only upon their coronation on the rock at Tara, a rare and royal privilege. Over time, the Vikings came, and the Normans, and the secrets were lost.

Until Rardove came. Twenty-one years ago, when Finian was ten, Rardove came and stole everything, including the t.i.tle-although not the secret-of the Indigo Lands.

And now, for the first time since the Roman Empire fell, word was leaching out again: rumor of the Wishmes and their magnificent, consecrated colors.

So Finian waited to hear the words fall from Senna's lips, seeing the color of blue in his mind's eye. He felt a kins.h.i.+p with her, for her appreciation of their beauty, a feeling of connectedness he had not known for a long time. How would she choose to describe the shade his ancestors created in secret? Glorious? Astonis.h.i.+ng, again? Pretty? Simply, 'blue'?

He did not for a moment expect the word that did did fall from her lips. fall from her lips.

"Lucrative."

He felt like someone had stomped on his chest. He lay down and shut his eyes. "Go to sleep, Senna."

Throwing his forearm over his face, he hovered in the familiar state of half repose, half alertness, his mind wandering over paths of the past that were not restful at all.

Senna sat at the edge of the ridge. Blue-gray shadows still stretched long, but a russet-gold, grainy dawn light was nudging its way farther into the corners of a small hamlet far below.

She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. Finian's hands were crossed behind his head, his head resting on his palms. Long black hair spilled out over his wrists and onto the gra.s.s. The skin on the underside of his arms was paler than the rest, the faint outline of carved muscles beneath pressed into the silky skin. His long body stretched out across the spring gra.s.s, his powerful legs crossed at the ankles. His breathing was deep and regular.

She crept closer and lay down, near him but not touching. She cradled her injured hand to her chest by habit more than pain. She put her head on the hard ground and smelled the cool dirt and pale green points of gra.s.s. She looked up into the sky and watched the day take its bright, wild shape. It was endless and blue. Mayhap too endless, too blue. Too much for her.

Even so, she was unable to still the excited pounding in her chest.

For the first time in a long time, she knew knew she was alive. she was alive.

Chapter 16.

"I will kill her. I will flay her skin into strips and toast them over the fire."

The steward Pentony watched impa.s.sively as Rardove, recovered from his sudden gut affliction, had been on his way out for a morning hunt when the maid brought the news that Senna was neither in her room nor the dye hut. A minute later, the guards from the prison came up as well, holding their bashed heads and groaning.

Rardove had flung his gloves to the ground and taken a few enraged spins around the room, shouting and cursing.

It was still dark inside the hall, a dreary, damp darkness. A thin sheen of moisture smeared itself across everything: musty bits of straw scattered across the floor, wary faces, a hound's glistening black nose, poised quivering in the air as the rumor of violence entered the room.

A faint gray dawn light shouldered its way through the windows slitted high along the walls, but the ashen illumination only accented sullen shadows lurking within the pits of the jagged stone walls. In the fireplace, a fire flared up in occasional bursts of enthusiasm, but even these flashes of brilliance finally succ.u.mbed to the raw dampness pervading the hall.

Rardove's roar drew his attention back. "G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.i.t.c.h! b.i.t.c.h!"

Pentony's hand surprised him by lifting to scratch at a phantom itch on his scalp, then along his inner arm. He stared down at it as if it were possessed. Restless movement connoted nervousness or agitation, both of which were as foreign to him as naivete.

He forced his hand to hang at his side, its proper resting place. For nigh on thirty years his body and heart had been frozen, stilled from such dangerous revelations of emotion.

Such efficient invisibility had once allowed him entry into the highest places. Bailiff in the king's service and then cellarer for the abbot of Tewkesbury, the most powerful obedientiary in the abbey, he'd been in charge of the lands revenues and church patronage. He had overseen every aspect of the abbey, from the kitchens to the brewery, from maintenance of the buildings to provisioning of foodstuffs, fuel, and farm stock. All lay brethren, servants and tenants, had come under his direction. All monies were at his discretion.

Both positions had been prestigious and lucrative. His fall from the grace of G.o.d-or at least the prior of Tewkesbury-had been almost as great as his sin, but he regretted nothing. Certainly not parting company with men of G.o.d who wielded their piousness like a weapon.

He glanced down at his wayward hand again. It hung deceptively still, but he could feel the urge toward movement p.r.i.c.kling up the inside of his wrist.

"And G.o.dd.a.m.ned Irish savages! savages!"

The baron's bellow bounced around the room, followed by a wine goblet. Pentony watched as he turned his rage on a more likely and responsive victim, wincing as Rardove's boot thudded against a dog's ribs. The hound leapt up, yipping, then slunk away. Another pewter cup bounced off the wall and sounded a flat clang clang before it fell as quiet as the dog. before it fell as quiet as the dog.

"As G.o.d is my witness," Rardove said into the sudden silence, "I will kill them both."

"My lord," Pentony murmured, "I have readied the men to search."

Rardove barked in harsh laughter. "How in G.o.d's name did she do it?"

"The men are at the gate, ready to be gone on your command."

"She is a G.o.dd.a.m.ned sorceress, sorceress, I tell you, bedeviling plans years in the making. I had O'Melaghlin right here"-an angry flick of his finger indicated the cellars below-"and I would have had that d.a.m.ned recipe. Now he's gone, and he's got my dye witch." Rardove cursed again. "Search her room. And send a contingent north to find them." I tell you, bedeviling plans years in the making. I had O'Melaghlin right here"-an angry flick of his finger indicated the cellars below-"and I would have had that d.a.m.ned recipe. Now he's gone, and he's got my dye witch." Rardove cursed again. "Search her room. And send a contingent north to find them."

Pentony took a step forward. "They may not be going north, my lord."

Rardove rounded on him. "Not go north?" he shouted. "In which direction does the Irish king O'Fail live? His foster father?"

"North." Pentony said it flatly, as if not a single emotion was present. Which none was. It had been too long. "I am simply saying we ought not to underestimate O'Melaghlin. If you send a few men sou-"

"And where did they find that sc.r.a.p of O'Melaghlin's tunic?"

"Along the Bhean River. To the north."

"Exactly. O'Melaghlin is chief councilor to the O'Fail. He's their spy, their negotiator, their G.o.dd.a.m.ned battle commander. He's their fycking head. fycking head." He flung his gloves on the table and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a jug of wine. "He went north."

He didn't even bother pouring it into a cup, just lifted the fluted lip to his mouth and drank, then slammed the vessel back on the table.

"And if he finds out who Senna is, that she is the last in the line of Wishme dyers...?" He smashed his fist on the table again, making plates skip. "And if King Edward finds out?"

This was asked rhetorically, Pentony a.s.sumed, or else he'd have given a reply. But they both knew quite well what the king of England would think if he found out Rardove had been keeping secrets. That he'd found a dye witch and was trying to make the recipe without the king's knowledge.

Seeing as Edward had granted Rardove the land twenty-one years ago for this express purpose, on Rardove's express promises, he would not be pleased at all.

Rardove never should have let King Edward in on the secrets of the dyes. Royalty was best enjoyed from a distance.

But then, without the promise of the dyes, King Edward would never have granted Rardove the land in the first place, not after the renegade Rardove had marched in and seized the land without royal permission. The promise of perfecting the Wishmes into weapons was the only thing that stayed the king's hand and invested Rardove with the barony.

Now matters had turned desperate for the English king. The Scots were showing their rebellious side. Banding together, signing treaties of mutual aid with France, they were all but declaring war. The old inducements-burning, plunder, swords through the heart-all seemed to have lost their persuasive power. Edward needed a special weapon to herd the Scots back into the fold. Rardove was to give it to him.

The Wishmes were a battle commander's alchemy. Awe-inducing in shade, they were also violently incendiary. Powdered and heated, they created an explosion that could burn so fast and hot it would incinerate a man. Or a building.

Or...Scotland.

There was no way Edward could win a long-lasting military victory against the Scots, not if the barbarians kept fleeing to the hills at the first sign of pitched battle.

But he could could start blowing things up, in small batches, things like recalcitrant n.o.bles and native aspirants to the throne of Scotland. start blowing things up, in small batches, things like recalcitrant n.o.bles and native aspirants to the throne of Scotland.

He would not be pleased to discover Rardove was trying to perfect them as a weapon behind his back.

"What do we know about that other contingent of Irish?" Rardove snapped. "The one we captured?"

"He broke," Pentony reported with distaste and, to his surprise, realized he didn't know if the distaste was more for the breaking, or the means by which he was broken. "It seems that while you were...meeting...with O'Melaghlin, he was on his way to a rendezvous with Red. The outlaw."

Rardove's head snapped around. "While O'Melaghlin was here."

"Drawing your eye."

"You are suggesting he was here to distract distract me?" me?"

Pentony shrugged. "Perhaps."

Rardove emitted another series of foul curses, then turned to the matter at hand. "The Irish were to meet with the spy-b.a.s.t.a.r.d Red? About what?"

Pentony didn't bother to comment. How could they possibly know the purpose of the meeting? And in any event, Red was not the outlaw's true name. No one knew that. But Red's intrigues were renowned, for all that they usually concerned faraway Scotland and England, and the man had been like a phantom for almost twenty years, foiling plans of King Edward in his campaigns against the Scots. Now Red was turning his attention to Ireland? That could not be good. For King Edward.

"Where were they to meet?"

Pentony shook his head in reply. "We do not know. The Irishman died before he could say."

Rardove shook his head, perhaps disgusted at his soldiers' inability to moderate the severity of their beatings with more finesse. He snapped his gaze to Pentony. "What are you waiting for? Send for Balffe. He goes north, to capture O'Melaghlin and the b.i.t.c.h."

The soldiers were gone within twenty minutes, draped in armor and swords and their lord's rage. The huge, hulking figure of Balffe, riding at their head, was the last thing Pentony saw as he watched from atop the gate tower.

Thick-quilted gambesons and a layer of boiled bull-hide provided the first layer of protective bulk for the men. Then came the mail hauberks, small, overlapping iron rings that covered the torso and hung to midthigh, slit along the sides to allow for movement. Overlaying this they wore steel breast-plates and backplates, riveted in place. Steel helms covered their heads, saving for the ominous slitted eye openings. Steel greaves and poleyns for covering legs, s.h.i.+ns, and feet completed the ensemble.