Chapter 6 #2
She nodded and they started back, saying their goodbyes as they met with others along the way.
At the stables they collected their horses. Guards at the wall and throughout were tense, watching. But that was as it needed to be.
They were riding awhile in silence, making their way carefully through the forest that surrounded the ard-rí’s castle, before Kylin turned to her.
“You—you killed the man attacking Declan with the little stone you found?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Did you retrieve the stone?”
“Of course.”
Kylin looked ahead, smiling. “The great stone. Who might have guessed that it would be . . . a pebble!”
“Strange gifts may be even stranger than we imagine,” Deidre said. “You protected me from an attacker with a cauldron!”
His smile broadened. “Ah, but it’s a big cauldron made of metal.”
She’d been smiling with him when memories of her dream returned. “Kylin, as it was happening, as those men attacked Declan, I was dreaming before they created whatever clatter that awoke me.”
“Oh? There are no more gifts from the Tuatha Dé Danann,” he mused. “We have the sword, the spear, the cauldron and the stone.”
“But maybe the dreams are gifts, too. We both had dreams sending us to the woods south of Tara. And now . . .”
“What was your dream?”
She lowered her head. She wasn’t sure she should tell him about the two of them rollicking through the meadows, playing in the stream, winding up in one another’s arms.
“Newgrange,” she said simply.
“The ancient site?” he asked. “With the burial passage?”
“It was beautiful. Our island is so beautiful, Kylin, so green and lush with the meadows and mountains and the rivers and streams and seashore and . . .”
“And?”
“There was a mighty attack. Men, scores of men, their battle cries rattling the very air as they descended from the mound.”
“And while Tara and Declan are in County Meath, its ruler, considered to be a rí beneath Declan, was not among those in the council the ard-rí was having before we arrived,” Kylin noted.
“Well, I believe those men were there to speak with him about trading. Perhaps Cillian, the Rí of Meath, had not yet been approached.”
He turned to her. “His home is closer to the shore and is not too far north from our own. Just a twist northward for another day.” He let out a breath.
“Our village is in capable hands. Though Declan will see that he is reached soon enough, we can make it to the shore area, for Cillian must be warned. His lands are right on the coast. An invasion might well strike there soon.”
“Onward to warn Cillian!” she declared.
“With the same grave care that we warned Declan that he must take,” Kylin said.
“Of course.”
Again, they rode in silence.
Then Kylin laughed suddenly.
“What?”
“There we were, with Declan promising a great repast before we set out again. And we left so suddenly after the attack. And now . . . don’t you ever feel hunger?”
“Well, I was fine until you mentioned it!” she told him.
He was quiet for a minute. “There’s a village a bit ahead, inland. I doubt that much ill might arise and I know a few men from there who come to train with us. We’ll stop.”
“And you’re sure we will be welcome?”
“The land is between a few counties—Meath, your father’s lands.
But the men from that village train with us, and I believe that their first allegiance there is to your father, for they are closer to your home than they are to either Cillian or Declan himself.
We can’t travel day and night without sustenance.
We must take the chance and with caution.
And, I think it’s important that we warn everyone that we can.
There is little of value in the village.
There is no monastery, no place where anyone might find great riches.
Still, the people must be warned. Perhaps they will want to send women and children to reside behind your father’s walls.
They are hard workers—they will earn their keep. ”
“All right. Aye, then.”
Kylin knew the way easily enough and they were soon approaching a small farming village.
He was known there; a man tending a field saw them as they approached and came out to greet them.
Kylin introduced him to Deidre. His name was Liam.
Deidre thought that he might be close to fifty years.
The farmer was tall, broad-shouldered, with lightly graying bright red hair and dancing green eyes.
She could well imagine that he trained well as a warrior, though he was now tending a great field of turnips.
“We’re on our way to see Rí Cillian,” Kylin told the man.
“Seeking an audience,” Deidre told him.
“Aye, and what about?” Liam asked worriedly.
“We believe that there is a great invasion about to come our way and we are doing our best to see that all are warned and prepared. And here, we wish for you and your people to know as well, that you may make your choices,” Kylin told him.
Liam bowed his head, looking at Deidre.
“My loyalty is to your great father. I have trained with the men of your village, and I will be prepared to fight, as will all able-bodied men here. But we will consider our women and our children, though . . .”
He grimaced. “Not all our women and children. We have two here, Doreen and Mary, who have been trained as you, Deidre, daughter of the great Rí Eamon! So they, too, will be among our number. You’ve still a distance to go to reach Cillian’s home. May we offer you something here?” he asked.
“My friend, I was so hoping that you might!” Kylin grinned.
Liam hopped over a wooden slat fence to join them, and Deidre and Kylin dismounted, following him toward the row of small, dispersed houses that lay ahead.
They came to the first house and a woman came out, having seen them approach. Again, they went through introductions. The woman was Clare, wife of Liam. She quickly called out a teenage boy to tend to their horses and assured them that they must come in and join them for a meal.
The house was small, sparsely furnished, but Clare had just been setting out a meal and it appeared to be a fine one. Fresh fish seared over an open fire, accompanied by great bowls of turnips.
Of course, they had to explain to Clare again that they feared an attack. She was distressed.
“We have three grown sons who will fight for our land,” she assured them. “But Shamus is just a boy, and my girls are young as well.”
“Then they must go take shelter behind my father’s walls,” Deidre advised.
“But . . .” Clare began, looking at her husband. “For how long? How will we repay him for his generosity? And . . . when do we know to come home?”
Deidre smiled softly at the woman. “The attack will come soon, and before the main thrust, there may be those who come by here, pretending to be travelers seeking trade, or perhaps those who are on pilgrimage to any of the monasteries. My father will see to your safety, and I can see that you do not like to be idle—and what you do with fresh fish is quite amazing! I believe you will be fine there. And that it will not be long before you can return home.”
“Then I will go and speak to others,” Clare promised.
“We will come back through this village,” Kylin promised. “And we will escort those who choose sanctuary behind the castle walls.”
Clare looked at her husband and nodded.
“We will prepare,” Liam promised.
The food was good, and, Deidre realized, it was even better that they had stopped to speak with Liam and Clare.
The small villages might be just where the enemy started.
It wasn’t until they had headed out, riding the last stretch of land before they reached Cillian, that Kylin spoke thoughtfully.
“It seems that Angus does accept that there is a problem, though . . .”
“Though?” Deidre pushed.
“Though maybe he thought that the two men who came to lure Declan out to be killed were really our people and that our duplicity is so great we were willing to sacrifice our warriors to prove our own innocence,” he said.
She frowned, pondering that suggestion. “Angus is determined, outspoken. He’s .
. . all right, way too invested in himself for me.
But just because of those various traits that make him unlikable in my mind, I really don’t think that he’s the traitor.
I think he wanted the world to run smoothly, for trading to explode between our countries.
He didn’t want to accept the truth, but .
. . now he has to think that it’s at least a possibility. ”
“Perhaps,” Kylin agreed. He shook his head. “I just don’t understand. In the past, attacks on the villages have been savage and brutal, but swift.”
“And, as with your father, and with some men not as fine as your father, many, many have come through the years and we are truly a mix of all the peoples who have come to this island through hundreds—no, thousands—of years. We have our ancient mounds, we have our legends, and even we who feel we have been here forever now came from places on the continent. As you know, birth doesn’t make a man.
The choices each man—or woman—makes create the individual.
And we, as human creatures, tend to rationalize our choices as being for the best.”
“And sometimes, people are just greedy and covet what others have,” he reminded her. “Except . . .”
“Please. Except what?” Deidre asked.
He was looking ahead as he rode. And he smiled. “Sometimes, our pasts, our teachers, leave their mark. In the world my father left, the only good enemy was a dead enemy. Your father teaches mercy. And because of his mercy, we have learned something we might not have known.”
“Ah! He learns!” Deidre said lightly.
“Then again . . .”
Deidre raised her brow.
“There was once, on the continent, a young nobleman who practiced mercy. He allowed a man to live. And that man turned around and took his savior’s life.”
“Merciful—and careful!” Deidre said. She reined in, as Kylin had done.
They had come to Newgrange. The great, ancient mound, found within the hills of Tara, lay before them. And as she watched Kylin, she smiled.
He sat atop his horse, staring straight ahead.
Yet, she wondered what he saw.
And she remembered the dreams . . .
“Kylin?” she said softly.
He shook his head and said quietly, “It was as if they were real!” He dismounted from his horse, staring toward the great hill.
Deidre did the same, setting a hand on his arm as she stood by his side.
“You saw them. The warriors racing over the hill, ready to do battle,” she said.
He turned to stare at her, startled.
“You see them now—”
“No. In a dream last night. Right before Declan was attacked.”
He nodded slowly. “If we both saw the same thing, even in different ways, they’re going to come charging over the hill.
They’ll reach this area using the river.
They’ll come in small parties, trying to appear as if they are among us.
They will meet up with whatever Irish forces the jarl has managed to coerce into fighting for him,” Kylin said thoughtfully.
“So, Declan and Cillian will be the main focus of the attack.”
“If you want to succeed, you take down those who will readily fight to the death, risk it all, to save the ard-rí.”
“We’re seeing visions of what is probably going to happen,” Deidre murmured. She looked at him. “But when?”
“Sunset,” he told her. “The sky . . . Attacks often come by the morning’s light. This one is coming at sunset. I saw the sky.”
“Sunset—when?” she whispered.
“We need to get to Cillian,” Kylin told her.
“And we are not far! Around the great mounds, his castle lies to the west—”
“And many will come by the river. We’re going to need to be prepared to flank them. As they make their forward thrust, we’ll corner them.”
“Will they use the passage tombs?”
He smiled at her. “Not if we’re there first. Onward! Time to find Rí Cillian and get our defense moving!”