The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (21 page)

She knew her family thought her soft in the head for believing in the old tales, so she’d learned not to speak of what she saw. Instead, she had trained to become the tough, decisive ruler required of a king’s daughter. That did not stop her from hearing the
bean sí
’s cry and feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck as the spirits walked.

Maeve whispered incoherently and attempted to squeeze Anya’s hand. The rising wind rattled at the windows. Murmuring a prayer, Breeda, both maid and midwife, shook her head sadly while removing sheets soiled by birthing.

Outside the richly panel ed door of this tower room, guards waited, guards who would report to the household with great joy if an heir was born to their recently murdered king, Anya’s brother.

If Maeve did not bear a son, those same guards would lay down their swords and swear fealty to a man Anya despised with al her heart and soul. The man whose consort she would become once the heir was reported stil born, and she became the last remaining O’Brion to defend her family’s keep.

“Sleep, Maeve,” Anya said soothingly, shoving aside her own fears to reassure the dying Queen. “You have done wel . You’ve borne a son and heir. You have done your duty. Rest easy.” Not quite a lie. Heaven would surely not deny her for easing a dying woman’s heart. Feverish, Maeve stil fretted at the sheets.

For her father’s people, Anya was prepared to stand steadfast and do her duty, but her soul would surely wither within her, piece by little piece, once she was wedded to the Beast who had kil ed so many of her family. As he had kil ed her father and brother.

The tears slid off her cheek to fal on the simple tunic she’d worn to aid in the birthing. Turning away from Maeve, Anya gazed helplessly at the stil , cold form, swathed in white linen, in the cradle at her feet. Even in death, a king’s heir would not lie naked. The boy had dark hair, like his mother. Born early, he’d been too frail to breathe so much as a single breath. Her nephew, the king-who-was-meant-to-be, had passed from the womb directly to heaven.

As she wept over the dead infant, the air over the cradle began to shiver with translucent blues and reds.

Recognizing that ethereal shimmer, Anya pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, hiding her gasp. She had not seen this so close since childhood, when others had laughed at her foolish visions. She was no longer a child, but stil , she was aware when the fae pierced the Veil between this world and the next. She knew when the faerie court went riding.

To her knowledge, they had never before entered the castle.

Muttering and shaking out fresh linen, the midwife had her back to the bed. Only Anya could see the cradle rock. Transfixed, she watched the shimmer form a fog that hid the child within. Surely, a dead child could not move? Her heart raced, and she feared to stir.

The mist parted, and a man appeared. Biting her tongue to keep from crying out, she studied the apparition standing tal , straight and strong. Hair the dark red of drying blood fel to his shoulders. A scar marred his harsh jaw. No smile softened his expression, but as he leaned over the cradle and rocked it, the streak of a single tear glistened, as if he wept for the dead King.

Standing again, he caught her eye, nodded and vanished.

In the cradle, the new King whimpered hungrily.

Anya froze, until the midwife swung around at the sound. She breathed again that she was not imagining what she had seen. Or heard.

Seeing the cradle rock, Breeda cried out to al the blessed saints and hurried across the room, her gnarled hands wrapped in her apron, her face lit with disbelief.

“It is a miracle, Breeda,” Anya whispered. Terrified her anguish had led her to visions of what she wanted, and not what
was
, Anya leaned over to touch the crying child. The
live
child. She could feel his warmth and solidity. Tufts of dark hair crowned his delicate skul , just as she’d noticed earlier. She unwrapped his perfect limbs, and strong feet kicked at his covers. A tiny fist popped deliberately into a rosebud mouth.

But even though his limbs had been hidden, Anya knew this was not the puny infant that had been delivered dead a few minutes ago. This one was healthy and strong.

Committing the first lie of her new life, Anya placed the changeling against the Queen’s breast.

“Your son, Maeve, your beautiful son.”

The Queen died with a smile of peace upon her pale lips.

And the
bean sí
wailed again.

Two

Fionn stood outside the stone bailey wal of the grand castle that had been built on the hil where his timber fort had once stood. With the passage of time in the Other World, he’d buried the melancholy of losing al he knew and loved. But now, he had to let his son go – to mature in the human world where he belonged. He grieved mightily at the loss of his boy.

Below him, he could see that the Druid Oak was gone, no doubt reduced to ash for a winter fire as people forgot the old ways. The greensward had worn to a barren hil of rock beneath the passage of so many horses and carts – prosperity took its tol . At the foot of the hil , a ditch had been half completed – a fine defence once it was finished and fil ed with water. Aobinnhe had been kind in choosing a time when his son could return to his rightful position.

He could leave now. Should leave. He was no longer chieftain here. He was from the past, a time forgotten. He had watched from the safety of the Other World as battles were fought and won, new gods were worshipped, new families ruled. Time did not change the dimension he inhabited.

He was the same now as he had been then, but the human world had moved on.

But he stil possessed a warrior’s fierce heart, and a warrior protected his own. Fionn had heard the
bean sí
’s cry, seen the worried face of the lass inside as she sat beside her dying queen. Al was not wel here.

The lass had not been frightened when he’d appeared.
Fionn smiled for the first time in a long, long time. He wanted a woman of courage to care for his son, a woman who might understand that the old ways had passed but the gods lived stil beyond the Veil.

Aware of the pounding of the distant sea and the rising dawn, Fionn cal ed his horse from the Other World and waited for the sounds of jubilation and mourning to ring inside the castle.

His duty to his son was not yet done.

“Your Highness,” the elderly steward said, interrupting the prayers in the Queen’s chamber.

The steward had come from the formal courts of France and could not be convinced that the Irish did not bow to titles. He lost his bearings and grew confused unless he was “my lording” or

“your highnessing” someone, and Anya had grown accustomed to his ways. She looked up from rocking her nephew, no longer annoyed with the man. How could anyone be annoyed while holding the future in her arms?

“Yes, François, what is it?”

“There’s a knight outside, says he’s been sent by the High King to serve the new O’Brion. His mantle is lined with fur, and the fibula must be pure gold! Shal I bring him here?” The last was asked dubiously since the upper chamber was fil ed with keening women.

Honouring a knight of the High King would be Anya’s first duty as the new King’s guardian. She had to play the part of ruler wel or lose the respect she must command until the child could lead on his own. A daunting task for a gentle woman who would feed on dreams if al owed, but one to which she’d been raised.

“I wil meet him in the hal , of course. Summon Garvan, if you wil , and any of the other knights with him. Have the kitchen provide suitable fare for a man who has travel ed far. I wil be down shortly.”

Anya’s Norman mother had introduced many of the French ways to the O’Brion stronghold, but Conn the High King was pure Irish warrior. His men would not be gal ant knights. Cal ing for scented water and her richest tunic and mantle, Anya pondered whether or not she should accept this “gift” of service. Did Conn mean for his knight to rule the O’Brions in the absence of a male O’Brion leader? If so, did she dare turn him away?

The maids wrapped silver ribbons in her long, blonde hair and one fastened the triple spiral gold fibula to her blue wool mantle. Anya owned nothing so fine as fur but would not have worn animals on her back anyway. Even her shoes were of matted felt and not leather. Her kingly brother had laughed at her odd ways, but her mother had seen the caul when Anya was born and accepted that her daughter was more attached to the natural world than most.

“Jewel ery, please,” she told the maids eagerly arranging the red and gold striped train of her best gown. She might eschew fur, but her people produced the finest linens in the world.

“The queen’s jewel ery?” one maid asked hesitantly.

“It was my mother’s,” Anya agreed. “Let us impress the High Court with our elegance so they do not think us weak barbarians.”

By the time she’d been fastened into torque and bracelets of gold delicately wrought to fit slender throat and limbs, Anya was anxious to meet the knight sent to honour her nephew. Anxious

– and afraid.

She bent to kiss the infant nursing at the breast of a wet nurse. None would believe her tale of the child’s birth even should she relate it, so she had not spoken of what she’d seen. Straightening her mantle, she proceeded down the four flights of stairs to the castle’s great hal . Conscious that this would be her first appearance as the O’Brion leader, she held her head high and her shoulders straight, determined to make her ancestors proud.

Surely the whole army had turned out to meet the newcomer! The hal was packed with men mil ing about, pounding each other on the back, elbowing each other to silence as she entered.

Her father and brother would have been right there with them, pounding and shouting.

She swal owed hard as the room silenced. Breeda held the train of her striped gown from the flagstone floor. No rushes rotted under the toes of the O’Brion ladies these days. The silence continued as Anya climbed to the dais where her father, and later, her brother, had sat at the head table. Two ornately carved, high-backed chairs faced the hal , with the enormous hearth at their backs.

Garvan, as her brother’s best friend and chief warrior, dropped to one knee and held his blade across his chest, declaring his fealty to the O’Brions, if not necessarily to her. Behind him, al the other men did the same. Except one.

Tal er than any other man in the hal , wider of shoulder, an auburn-haired stranger in fur-lined mantle stood in the shadows of the hearth, watching her as if she were some new form of animal, not quite cat or dog. Anya wished she’d worn her hair up so she might look older and more commanding, but she’d been in a hurry – to meet this disrespectful oaf?

Instead of wearing his sword belted at his side, she could see he wore his weapon hung over his back like an uncivilized churl, despite al his finery. And his clothing was very grand, indeed, although not as fine as the form that wore it.

Realizing she stared, Anya settled into Maeve’s slightly smal er chair and beckoned the newcomer to approach the dais. She spoke three languages. She hoped he spoke at least one of them.

He stepped from the shadows of the hearth into the light of the candlelit iron chandelier and made his bow, not quite so courtly a one as Garvan’s, but fair enough. When he straightened, the light fel ful on his face, and Anya inhaled with shock.

His jaw was scarred in the same manner as the vision she’d seen last night over the cradle. His stature was as broad and tal as she remembered. What meant this? Was he a ghost? Or a portent?

She had the urge to reach out and touch him, to test his reality, but that would cause others to wonder if she’d lost her mind. Her grip tightened on the gilded chair arms. She wore a short sword in her girdle, and her father’s spear leaned against his chair. Her dream world clashed with reality.

She was trained to face threats with weapon in hand, but she had
seen
this man weep for the child.

Deciding she did not act from a position of strength, she waited silently, as taught, learning al she could before showing her hand.

“Your name?” she asked in the language of her father’s Irish ancestors.

The handsome stranger hesitated at her question, as if considering how much truth to offer.

Then bowing his head with respect, he replied, “Finn mac Connel , my lady.” He spoke the old language and used the old name of
mac Connell,
son of Connel . Connel s were once legendary gods and kings to whom the O’Brions had sworn fealty. These days, simmering enmity separated their descendants.

“I see,” she said cool y, although her thoughts raced ahead of her to dire situations that might require that the King place an enemy in her father’s stronghold. Or did the stranger lie? “Did His Majesty send a message with you?”

Again, the hesitation, as if he pondered every word before speaking it. She did not trust a man who could not speak from the heart. And she could not trust a man who had appeared in a vision, like one of the elusive, ever mischievous, Good Neighbours.

“His Majesty wishes to show his friendship for the new King of the O’Brions, and to offer his protection. I am at your service, my lady,” he final y replied with bold authority.

In this, she believed him. The vision had watched over the babe with tenderness. For al she knew, the next king of the O’Brions was fae born, since he was most certainly not Maeve’s. It did not matter. The child was al that stood between her clan and destruction. He needed al the protection she could summon.

She must see the boy christened immediately.

“Garvan.” She turned to the captain of her smal army. “Have we a place for the King’s man?” Garvan stepped forwards eagerly. Before he could say
aye
, the stranger had placed himself between Anya and her knight quicker than she could think.