Shapeshifter (12 page)
Suddenly she was released from his gaze. The handsome face became dreamy and faraway. His hand clutched at the pendant at his neck.
“She stirs,” he murmured. “She reveals herself at last.” His lips curled into a small, private smile. “And where have you ended up, my pretty one?”
Finally Daireann understood. Her fear was subsumed in her rising anger. The blood rose hot in her face, her legs grew strong again with rage.
“It’s
her!”
She fairly spat the word out. “This has all been about her! You never gave her up at all.”
The green eyes locked on hers once more. His smile was cruel and careless. “And yet you proved to be of little use. A waste of time, in fact.”
Red with humiliation, Daireann could hardly wait to be rid of the sight of him. But she had never been one to give up the last word.
“Go to her then,” she snarled. “Spend your life chasing after your precious Sive, for all it is to me.” She turned, trying mightily to sweep grandly out of the room when everything in her wanted to run.
And as she went through the door, talking more to herself than to Far, she said, “I hope she
has
gone to Finn. Better him than you.”
THE HOUNDS' STEADY baying changed to a sharp, urgent barking. Good—they had found it at last. Finn and his men broke into a jog, hurrying after the dogs’ call. A lone wolf was no easy prey. This one, lacking a pack to hunt with, had come out of the wilds to rampage through the herds instead. Judging by the string of sheep and calves it had killed, it was no sickly, feeble outcast.
It would be well dark before they returned home. The dark came earlier now, and with it the cold. It would be Samhain soon, the night the spirits walked abroad and the barriers between Eire and Tir na nOg dissolved. Finn felt a hard knot tighten in his belly at the thought. On that night, he would not leave Sive’s side, nor the gates of his dun.
He was anxious to get back to her now. Thinking logically, she was even less likely to venture beyond the gates at night than on a fine sunlit day, but fears are not always logical. Finn did not like to be away after nightfall.
He did not, in fact, like to be away from her at all, and it was only her urging that had persuaded him to rejoin his men on their hunts. He would not roam the country with them, as before, but took his grudging place with those who remained behind to hunt the bogs and hills surrounding the Hill of Almhuin.
Finn’s thoughts were interrupted as they came upon the hounds, ringed around a bristling gray wolf. It was a scene of furious noise and vicious threat, the dogs all hackles and teeth, the quarry red-eyed and desperate. As they approached, it broke and rushed at the smallest of the dogs. Finn knew the other men felt the same jolt of nerves as he did—up close, the sheer power of a full-grown wolf was stunning. His heart swelled with pride as Bran and Sceolan flew in, throwing themselves like projectiles at the wolf ’s flank and dragging it back. Brave hearts both, they were, and as dear to him as any two-legged friend.
Finn took little pleasure in the rest, though he did not allow himself to lose focus. Caoilte got the kill, but a hunt is a group effort. Just as on a battlefield, a moment’s inattention can get a man, or his comrade, killed. It was not until the long hike home that Finn allowed his impatience to surface.
Finn had not needed Sive to point out that the men were restless and uneasy that he stayed at home. He saw it well enough, and it annoyed him. Were they not grown men, well able to manage a hunt on their own? Did they, the most skilled and hardened fighters in Eire, need him to be their nursemaid, when he had a more important task before him?
Of course, they did not have the knowledge he had. To their eyes, he was simply captivated by his little love nest.
They should know and trust him better. For it was given Finn to see beyond what normal eyes could see, to sense truths that were veiled from other men. And he knew the Dark Man watched his wife. Finn felt the man’s brooding presence, lurking beyond his gate. The Dark Man watched and waited.
Finn fell back to relieve the man carrying the front end of the pole that sagged under the wolf ’s weight. He hoisted it onto his back, taking the brunt of the burden, and quickened the pace. He needed to get home.
DID IT NEVER STOP raining in this infernal land? Far hunched his shoulders in irritation against the rivulets that wormed their way between his cloak and the back of his neck, and shrank farther under the yew that was supposed to be sheltering him.
He grew weary of this chase. At first the surprising stubbornness shown by that timid slip of a girl had amused, even pleased him. Nothing wrong with a challenge, and she was, after all, a prize worth some effort. Now, as the end drew near at last, he resented every additional hour he had to spend here. But if she thought he could be deterred, she would soon discover her error. Each day that she eluded him made it more imperative that he succeed. It was personal now, his need to prevail a greater spur than the interesting weapon she would become for him. He would
not
be thwarted by a mere girl.
His chance would come. He had only to keep a grip on his patience a while longer. He would not risk an encounter with Finn mac Cumhail, though it pained him to give way to a mere mortal. The blond giant was clearly more than he appeared, for he had once withstood the magic of another great sorcerer of the Sidhe, a man by the name of Aillen, and killed him.
But Finn could not stay locked in his white hovel forever. One day he would leave, and when he did, Far would be ready.
Meantime, there were preparations to take care of. Far pulled his cloak tighter and continued to follow the pathway Finn and Sive had taken just that morning, his sharp eyes examining every outthrust branch and muddy footprint. The dogs were easy. The dirty creatures left gobbets of gray fur behind wherever they went. But men shed too. A thick yellow hair, a drop of blood on a bramble thorn. Even a clump of fibers from Finn’s cloak would serve, if he had worn it often enough.
Far continued on his methodical path. No one, not even the magpie winging over the trees to Finn’s white dun, noticed his presence.
FIFTEEN
F
inn had been gone seven days. That wasn’t long for the journey to the coast and a battle, Sive told herself— a day longer than he had estimated, but nowhere near long enough to assume “anything untoward” had happened.
Anything untoward
. That was how Fergal, the man charged with the dun’s safety in Finn’s absence, had put it. Very delicate phrasing for a man pitted and scarred by battles past, but Sive knew what the words stood for.
Finn dead on the strand, the lapping tide drawing out a red wash of his blood. Finn spitted by an enemy spear or hacked by a sword, his breath coughing out frothy and red, his belly black and festering, his leg green and reeking of poison. Finn and his men outnumbered and trapped, fighting a hopeless battle with ever-dwindling strength.
She must stop. Sive made to leap up from bed, was checked by the new weight of her belly and settled for sitting up slowly. A sweet burden. She would not be leaping anywhere for another couple of months. The child within her rolled and stretched, and she cupped her hand over the tiny foot-shaped bump that appeared under her ribs, smiling as it pushed against her and then pulled back, disappearing into the secret world within her.
She would not rush to the lookout to stare down the road leading east—not yet. She would rise, and dress, and eat, and chat with the women, and attempt to make garments soft enough for a baby out of the rough wool and linen made by the daughters of the Gael. And when she could not stand it a moment longer,
then
she would go to the lookout and watch.
THEY HAD BEEN LUCKY to have a peaceful winter, Sive reflected. The wind up on the high lookout was raw, but she could smell the spring in it. Spring was in the brighter shade of green in the fields rolling down toward the sea and the busy, boasting calls of the birds. The trees were still bare, but it would not be long.
Life had grown quieter at Finn’s dun after Samhain, when the coming and going of the summer season died down and the men—all but Finn’s own company—dispersed to their own border forts and posts to keep watch over the land.
Sive had worried when Finn said he would not attend the high king’s feast at Samhain.
“Do you not serve King Cormac?” she asked.
“Aye, though he chooses to forget it on occasion.” Finn’s voice was mild, but Sive sensed an old anger.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Finn shrugged. “When the country is quiet, he resents our wages. He sees only the provisions and pay, but not the returns.”
“And when there is war?”
A quick, bright smile. “Then we are the King’s most loyal, most valued, most dearly loved Fianna.”
“And he will expect you on Samhain, to confirm that loyalty, will he not?”
Another shrug. “This year, I have a more pressing duty, which is to see you safe through the night. I will send my best men, Goll and Caoilte, and the King must be content with that.”
Whether he was or was not content, Sive did not hear, but she was glad to have Finn by her side through the long dark of Samhain. The protection over Finn’s dun held though, and the Dark Man did not enter.
And then the winter settled over them. Men cooped up too long can grow restive and quarrelsome, but Finn kept his men busy with training and challenges and patrols. At night the feasting hall was raucous and high-spirited. Sive could hear them sometimes long after she had retired to the white house to sleep. Yet there was poetry and music too, and Sive enjoyed singing with Finn’s musicians. The food grew worse as the months passed, but the music improved steadily.
The call had come on the last new moon. Invasion on the coast, by the men of the Northlands over the sea.
“It’s not far,” Finn had told her. “An easy day and a half to the bay of the River Liffey, and we’ll still be plenty fresh for the fight.”
He turned to her then, his face grave. “Promise me you will not leave the walls of the dun until I return, however long that may be.”
“I won’t. You know I won’t. Don’t worry, Finn. I am safe here.”
“You are my heart,” he murmured, and his kisses chased the Dark Man from her thoughts.
It was not until he was taking his leave that the new fear struck at her.
“Finn…” She clutched at his powerful arm. For the first time she fully realized he might not return. A mortal man: how easily he could be killed, how terribly fragile the skin that shielded him. Men of the Sidhe died in battle, occasionally. But unless they were killed instantly, there were few wounds that could not be healed. Here there were no magic waters, no mending spells, no silver hands. There was terrible pain, injuries that left men crippled and broken, and death. Death as common as nettles.
“Be careful,” she said, unable to find any words to match the enormity of her vision.
He saw it. The blue eyes crinkled in gentle amusement.
“Never fear, girl. It is not my time to die, not yet.” He placed his index finger under her chin and tilted her head so she met his gaze directly. “It is given me to see things other men do not. I will be back here, alive and well.”
She nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak again without tears.
All these men’s wives and lovers, she thought, as she watched the long line of men striding through the gates and down the road, disappearing into the wooded slopes of the hill and then visible again, now just small dark shapes, snaking across the outlying fields. All of them saying goodbye, over and over, not knowing if it’s for the last time. How do they bear it?
A SMALL HAND plucked at her cloak. “Ma says won’t you come inside now, Lady Sive, and warm up by the fire?” Earnest gray eyes peered up from within a frizzy halo of hair.
She
was
chilled. Sive had a new appreciation for the rough deerhide that had protected her through three Irish winters, now that she had only her own soft skin and woven cloaks against the weather. She smiled at the girl.
“Thank you, dearie. That sounds like a good idea.”
A haze of peat smoke hung in the air of the house and stung her eyes, but the fire’s red glow and blooming heat made up for it. Searc had pulled a chair up close to the hearth, and she settled Sive into it now, fussing over her as though she were a fragile invalid.
“You must be careful, m’lady, not to overtax yourself or give the baby a chill.”
Sive smiled. She had been in Eire long enough to see that the household women hardly slowed down at all until the very end of their pregnancies. She had seen a hugely pregnant woman heaving tuns of ale into the storeroom, and another cutting peat bricks with her man on a windy day spattered with rain. But they treated Sive like an exotic flower that might droop and drop its petals at any moment.
“Thank you,” she said as Searc tucked a blanket around her knees and pressed a warm mug of sweet mead into her hands. “I’m fine, really.”
Goll’s wife came by soon after and was easily persuaded to join Sive at the fire. She set about entertaining Sive with stories of their men’s adventures and exploits, peppered with her own dry commentary. That was one thing the same in both worlds, Sive had been glad to learn—the mixture of admiration, irony and bawdy humor with which women talked about their men. It was from Ana she learned what had actually happened between Daireann and Finn, how Daireann had made him curse and abuse his men so vilely that all but Caoilte had left him in disgust, and how poor Caoilte had spent the day running all over the country chasing down the Fianna and persuading them to return, until at last Finn came back to himself and could apologize and explain. Ana laughed till the tears ran down her broad cheeks, repeating the outrageous things Finn had yelled out under Daireann’s spell, and that gave Sive courage to broach a new subject.
“You have been a good friend to me here. Can I ask you something?”
Ana was a down-to-earth, plainspoken woman. She would settle the uncertainty that had been stopping Sive’s tongue.
