Celtic Stars (Celtic Steel Book 4) (6 page)

“By the gods,” Galen spoke out loud, unintentionally.

“What is the meaning of this?” her uncle Ruarc interjected, pounding his fist on the table, and frightening the falcon, Gemma, in the process.

“Calm down,” Flynn interrupted. “Everyone just calm down a bit. There is a perfectly good explanation for this. And I for one am ready to hear it.”

“Gemma,” Patrick spoke up. “Mayhap you would like to explain this a bit,” he nodded toward the bird, who appeared to nod in return. “Galen can you assist her behind the column please,” Patrick gestured towards her clothes and the four foot diameter column on the north side of the council chamber.

“Aye, my Lord.”

It only took a few moments before Gemma returned to the table, fully clothed and wearing her human form.  She filled her goblet with wine and sat down slowly, the weight of what she was about to say consuming her face.

“I am a shifter,” she sighed as a large tear slid down her cheek. “I have been a shifter since I was a wee child. I realized I was a shifter when me family and I were traveling through Burke lands to here. I was able to take the form of a rabbit when the rest of me caravan was taken as slaves to the piers, the shipyards.” Her hands began to tremble. “I did what me grand mam told me, she said, “Gemma, ye pretend really hard to be someone else, something else and ye just may be able to escape.”

“So I pretended I was a wee rabbit skipping and jumping through the brush, under the noonday sun. I heard the others screaming, but I just kept jumping and running. Soon I didn’t hear them as much any longer. I imagined that I had perhaps fainted or passed out, but that wasn’t so. Later, I woke up surrounded by soft fur and warmth in an underground tunnel. I was in a rabbit hole! I must have spent a good day with the rabbits before I realized I needed to figure out how get back to being me, again.”

The tears were flowing freely now and Gemma wiped her face with the edge of her tunic.

“Go on, “ Darina bade her, curiosity written across her face. “Go on.”

“Well,” continued Gemma, seeking approval from the rest of the clan with a passing inquisitive glance. “Well, it took me awhile but I finally was able to shift back into my human form. There I was in the middle of god-knows-where, a little wee babe, dirty and naked and covered in mud."

“What happened?” asked Lucian.

“As I lay behind some brush," she stopped to wipe a tear away. "It was nearing dusk mind ye,” she added, “I was a watchin' the road and a group of merry ladies made to pass by me bush so I began throwing stones into the way, to see if I could catch someone’s, anyone's attention.”

“And did ye?” asked Darina.

“Aye,” I did. “Claira Stewart happened to me and seeing my condition, wrapped her overcloak about me and set me upon her shoulders. The ladies were making their way back to the Island, to the boats after having worked in the fields for the day.”

“Claira is yer mother,” Darina interjected.

“Aye – she became me mam,” Gemma  replied, nodding in agreement. “I’ve no good idea who I really am, I was but a lass of three years I believe at the time.”

“Dear God, without a family and loose in the lands at three,” interjected Ruarc.

Gemma took a long swig from her goblet before continuing. “Later, Claira asked how I managed to escape the slavers. I told her my name because I remember being called Gemma, and then I told her about becoming a rabbit. At first she laughed until I thought she would cry.  I was quite sure she thought I was mad on top of dirty and naked, but it wasn’t a laugh of disbelief, more of a laugh of joy.”

“What do you mean?” Flynn asked.

“Well, the laugh you make when you find something altogether familiar and humorous at the same time, I suppose,” Gemma replied. “Because no sooner had I peeked my head over the washtub she stuck me in that I looked down to see a white rabbit right where Claira had stood just moments before.”

“Claira was a shifter too?” Airard asked.

“Aye.”

“What has any of this got to do with my Daenal?” interrupted Jamie Burke. “Time is a wasting and I’ve got to be moving along,” he spoke sternly as he rose from his seat and alerted his guards to be ready to move.

“Wait, Jamie,” Gemma replied. “Please wait a moment. I can help, I can go to Dragon’s Point. None of you here can climb the face of that rock without getting killed, and ye know this. Ye’ll either drown in the falls or fall and break yer necks. I can get there, I can get right into the lair and see if Daenal is there, and if she is, I can help you figure out how to get her out. Let me be the eyes and ears here. Let me, I know I can do this.”

“And what if ye fail, Gemma?” asked Jamie. “What if the dragon eats ye afore ye can get back to us? What then?”

“Well, Jamie, I know that’s possible. And I am willing to accept the risk. I love Daenal, I wouldn't dream of doing nothing here. Give me until sundown tomorrow. If I have not returned, then ye can count me as gone and ye all can make another plan, determine some other path for her rescue. Just please, at least let me try, for Daenal's sake.”

“I just canna believe this is happening. A witch, a demon, a dragon, a shifter, by the god’s what else will we encounter?” moaned Darina, as she rubbed her swollen belly. “I just don’t know what to think ana'more, I really don’t.”

“Darina,” said Patrick, “Gemma is our best hope. Let her go take a look at what is really going on here. Let her see if Daenal is really there if the dragon is in its lair at all, if she is alive. And if she is,  we will see what can be done.”

“Gemma, will ye take Fanai with ye?” Darina asked, motioning to her falconry hound lying next to her on the floor. “If something were to become of ye, if ye were to need some kind of assistance, Fanai will return and tell me.”

“Don’t ye look at me that way,” Darina spat at a very hesitant Patrick. “This dog tells me all kinds of things, whether ye, believe it or not. It won’t hurt nothing for him to go as far as he can see her and wait. If I tell him that is what he is to do, that is what he will do, I tell ye.”

“Aye, Darina, I will take Fanai  with me.”

***

He sat quietly for  a moment, gazing intently between the crackling fire on the hearth and the woman standing before him motionless. It was some time before he spoke, long moments that tried her patience and caused her to wrestle intently with her hands. Her hands were now clasped crudely in front of her as if they would escape were they given the chance. Her aura had changed since he last “saw” her. No longer a dark charcoal gray, it gave off the illusion of – could it be – happiness? Not sure what to do with that information, Jamie Burke sighed and tugged at his beard clasping his own hands in his lap.

The Burke refugee camp had become a quasi-independent village within the O’Malley territory. For the most part, Jamie was left to independently oversee the Burke clans people with only minimal involvement of the O’Malley Lord, Patrick MacCahan-O’Malley.  It was. Nevertheless, Jamie Burke’s duty to hear all manners brought before him, by a Burkes-man, even if the petitioner was his own mother.

The silence grew thick. He knew she would never speak first, and for a slip of time he reveled in the power he held over this woman. It was easy to hate her and pity her all at the same time. It was not her fault he had been taken from her at birth and sent off to foster elsewhere. Her father was a monster in his own right, and she had followed suit by practicing the black arts and making herself an enemy of their gracious hosts, the O’Malleys.  Her story, though, if true, was fantastical. There was some otherworldly creature holding her hostage and forcing her to perform all manner of cruelty over her own people. All of this was in an effort to find some ancient relic. A relic that would somehow return him, her ex-husband, Easal, who used to be Eaton, to whatever black hole in the universe from which he had come.

He shook his head. It was too maddening to believe. But – the priest bought the story and sold it to Patrick as well. He sold it to the others, including Lucian, the clan scribe and druid priest, and his brother, Airard, from Patrick’s clan in the north, and even the lad, Braeden, rightful heir to the O’Malley lordship. They all believed her, but seeing was not believing for Jamie. Having been blind from birth, he saw people and things in different ways than the others, and he hadn’t yet made up his mind.

Yes, her aura had changed. Either she was making real, significant progress or she had harnessed the power of her black arts to the point she was able to fool even him. He knew about her and Kurt, the former priest although he doubted anyone else knew yet.  He saw it in both of them whenever they were within ten feet of one another. They were drawn to each other like magnets like there was some invisible force bringing them to each other. He wondered if she had cast a spell or if their attraction spanned more than recent history. She had imprisoned the priest before, when she held the power in Burke lands. Back when Easal was still Easal, the captain of the Burke guards and Odetta’s betrothed. Not the empty shell of a person now possessed by Eaton, the evil, manipulative, monster she claimed he now was.

“Well, let’s have it then,” he grumbled.

“My Lord,” she began.

“Jamie, ye may call me Jamie,” he curtly replied.

“Jamie,” she sighed in relief, “please call me mam,” she attempted to say sweetly, but the concept was clearly lost on her. She struggled with her hands before her in such a way as to lose her balance, and nearly tip herself over.

“Don’t hurt yerself,” he stated, smugly. “Odetta will suffice.”

She nodded in submission, curtsied and stood upright, looking deep into his crystalline eyes, wondering what he really saw. Her aura changed to fear and hesitation and Jamie interjected.

“No reason for fear, Odetta, ye’ve made it thus far. What is yer request?”

“Well, Jamie, ’tis not so much a request as it is – advice.”

“Advice? For me?” he chuckled.

“Aye.”

This piqued his interest. “Please, sit ye there,” he said motioning to a stool across from him at the table. “Please, do tell what advice ye have for me, milady.”

“Well, as ye well know, Easal will not rest until the Island of Women is his and he has invaded and overtaken the O’Malleys, with our people here as well.”

“I’ve heard tell,” he nodded.

“Well, I have a way to defeat him. I have knowledge of certain – uh – circumstances that will come upon us and I believe it may be the way – the only way – we can defeat him.”

“We?" he asked, “are ye considering yerself a “we” of the Burkes or a “we” of the O’Malleys?” he added sarcastically.

“Aye, we of this table,” she responded, just as sarcastically. “As yer – uh – family, I care about what happens to ye as well as our people, whether they care for me or not. I’ve got just as much stake in the outcome and overtaking of Easal as ye do. Just as much,” she added, between gasps, “and I’ll not see ye stricken down in battle if it can be avoided.”

“I don’t see how war can be avoided, Odetta, if Easal intends to strike.”

“I know you would see it that way, but that’s why I must tell ye what I know. Ye must know and then ye can decide for yerself how best to move forward.”

“Verra well then," Jamie signed loudly, “what is it ye think ye know?”

“I have a certain aptitude, well – knowledge, rather, that may assist us in the timing of a strike. Ye see, Jamie, I’m a star gazer.”

“By the gods, woman, ye mean to distract me with yer black magic?” Jamie thundered as he rose from his seat. “I won’t have any more of this nonsense….”

“Milord,” a deep male voice echoed behind him. “Milord, I believe ye may wish to hear what Odetta has to say.”

“Airard,” Jamie replied softly to the elderly druid priest laying on a makeshift cot in the back of the great hall. “Airard, what knowledge have ye of star-gazing?”

“Verra little, I must confess,” Airard continued, “However, I do know that it has nothing at all do with magic. I realize this may be a foreign concept to ye, lad, but as of yesterday, so were dragons, I hear.”

“True,” responded Jamie. “Verra well, please continue,” he said, nodding towards Odetta.

“Milord,” she began.

“Jamie, he replied sternly.

“Jamie,” she said, “I have studied the charts for years, since I was but a youth,” she twisted her hands tightly until they turned white. “I had many learned scholars give me instruction, and I can tell you that an event is coming which could make all the difference in the world to us as far as strategy.”

“And pray tell how would star-gazing make any difference in the world?” he responded sarcastically.

“Jamie,” gasped Airard in frustration, “please won’t ye let her finish?”

“Aye, I will let her speak.”

“Jamie, on a certain day, a fort-night and three nights from this verra day, the Sun will be hidden by the moon and make the daylight into total darkness for a few short minutes.”

“An eclipse?” gasped Airard, “Aye – an eclipse, Jamie, don’t ye see?”

“See what?” Jamie asked. “What has this to do with war?”

“Jamie,” Odetta continued. “An eclipse during the daylight hours which turns the light into total darkness is the perfect way to ambush Easal and his men.”

“Darkness?” Jamie asked. “Complete darkness? I’ve done raids afore at night and ye are not at such an advantage as one may think.”