Chapter 7 #2
Not a great idea, he thought. He was coming to like her too much. And he was young and in very healthy shape and he’d always recognized the fact that Deidre was a stunningly beautiful woman and now he was discovering that he liked and admired her and . . .
Lie down beside her? But she is obviously so distraught!
He inhaled on a long breath. Reminded himself who he was, not even in relation to their positions in life, but as a human being made up of what he hoped were ethical and moral fibers.
He was not, he assured himself, going to pressure Rí Eamon’s daughter in any way, shape or form.
“Come, then. We will rest together, and you can tell me of your dream.”
And so they lay down together. Her head was on the pillow as she stared straight ahead at nothing in the darkness. He propped himself up on an elbow at her side, watching her, waiting for her to be ready to speak.
“Deidre . . . what is it?” he asked softly at last.
She had never shown the least fear, no matter their circumstances.
The dream had shaken her as no sword or promise of blood had ever done in battle.
“The worst was that I couldn’t tell! It had come to pass, Kylin, just as we’ve seen it, in dreams, in visions.
The battle takes place here, in the valley by the great mounds at Tara.
We’re there, my father is there, other rís are there and we have a great horde of our own, and we’ve hidden in the passages, watching, waiting, and we’re able to stop those trying to slip through, but I’m coming along a passage and there is so much darkness and then there’s Angus in front of me and James of Munster behind me and .
. . I can’t tell if one is a traitor and one is not!
Or if they’re both traitors, or if both are there to help me.
But I still don’t know who has been helping the enemy through, bringing them inland through the rivers.
Because we’ve tried, of course, we’ve all tried, we’ve caught many .
. . but the traitor in our midst has helped and the numbers the jarl has garnered are many, so many.
And James and Angus are both rushing at me, swords, axes drawn, and I can battle one but not two and I just don’t know . . .”
“Deidre, Deidre, think of it this way,” he said gently. “The dream was like so many of the strange, magical things that have been happening. It’s telling us something, telling us something that’s incredibly important.”
She looked at him at last, eyes huge and beautiful, somehow brilliant even in the darkness. He longed to cup her chin, to stroke her cheek, ease the strain from her strong and elegant features.
“That I am to die?” she whispered.
“No. That we are to study the two men, set spies upon them, watch them carefully.”
“You think that the dream is telling us that the traitor is one of those two men?” she asked.
He nodded gravely.
“But what if I am wrong? What if it was just a dream because we are here, because we are more afraid of the traitor within our own ranks than we are of an enemy horde?” she asked softly.
“I don’t believe that.”
“But it could be.”
“Still, nothing lost,” he assured her. “We know we must be wary. We know that we must watch people. And, of course, it will be difficult. In life, we tend to like James of Munster, long known and respected, and as for Angus . . . well, he can be a great deal tougher to trust.”
“But being such a hard man to deal with does not make him evil. And yet, what if it is neither of them and they believe that I . . . Perhaps someone who is after me just thinks that I should just be eliminated for causing such strife in our world?”
“Both men bear watching,” he said. “That does not deter anything that we’ve planned.
And, of course, when we return . . . we can talk to your father again.
He has the greatest wisdom about the island, the past and all the people.
And then we can talk again about the dreams and the visions, finding the cauldron, the spear and the stone.
We will let his wisdom guide our tactics as we move forward. ”
“My father may not believe that the Tuatha Dé Danann and the fairies of old could possibly guide us today. For him it may be that the sword is a sword, the spear a spear, the cauldron a cauldron and the stone . . . well, it is really just a pebble.”
He had to smile at that.
“A very powerful pebble. And your father is a wise man. He will not discard all that has happened. You know that better than I.”
She nodded. She managed to almost smile.
“Thank you!” she whispered.
“For?”
“For not hating me for waking you up, for dragging you into more blood and danger, for . . . for being you,” she said softly.
“Ah, Deidre, we fight the same fight! And I thank you for being you.”
Her eyes closed at last, a smile curling her lips.
He waited for her to speak again, and then he realized that her eyes were remaining closed, that her breathing had eased . . . she slept.
“Well, lass,” he murmured. “If only such a state would come so easily for me.”
But he lay beside her, and he felt her incredible warmth, felt all that had come between them. He wished that he dared hold her. Just hold her. But he knew he would want more. And more.
At long last, he eased himself down beside her.
He wasn’t sure at what point the dream came.
Maybe he had just fallen asleep. Maybe he had known rest for a while.
HE DIDN’T FEAR his dreams; the dreams were from a greater power than any warrior knew, be it that they came from the fairy world, that of the Tuatha Dé Danann, or the angels of the new order they embraced so fervently on their emerald isle.
It didn’t matter to him; he knew that a higher power was helping them, and he would embrace all dreams.
That night he even tried to summon the battle dream.
While falling asleep, he kept thinking about all he knew regarding the burial passages of those who had come in truly ancient times.
He imagined the twists and turns beneath the great mounds, honored as sacred by those who had followed in the footsteps of the ancients.
He thought about the battles to come and each of the players in such battles that he had met or knew thus far.
And yet, when sleep and darkness claimed him, he did not dream of the battle.
He dreamed of her smile, of the way she looked at him. He could hear the soft melody of her laughter, see the flash of her eyes when she teased him.
He felt the softness of her incredible fiery hair slipping through his fingers like skeins of silk from the far Eastern lands . . .
Felt the softness of her fingertips, the sweet warmth of humanity and femininity of her body.
And then he awoke, frozen.
Because the last had not been a dream.
She had turned and twisted in the night as she slept, and now she was curled against him. Her head rested upon his chest along with an arm. The length of her was a beautiful curve against him. So soft, warm . . .
Trusting.
He didn’t want to move. He was frozen on the one hand, and yet his body was heating at the touch.
He didn’t need to dwell on his action long. Her eyes opened; she apparently realized her position and quicky sat up, looking down at him in abject apology.
“I’m truly so sorry! First, I woke you up and now . . . I’m so sorry. I never meant to ruin your sleep. Oh! Did you have the same dream?” she asked anxiously.
“Nay, Deidre, not this time.”
“Because I didn’t let you sleep at all,” she said worriedly.
“I slept. Seriously, I slept.”
She looked at him with such concern that he had to reach up and touch her face gently with his fingertips.
“Deidre, it’s fine, I was fine. You added warmth against the dampness of the night,” he said lightly. He abruptly withdrew his fingers and stood up. “And, Deidre, you’re feeling all right now?”
“Much better. It was just so very . . . unnerving to me at first. And, I admit, I believe that what we see are events that are to come.”
“You will never be left to wonder in such a situation. Not alone,” he vowed.
“My sword . . . my sword of light will protect me. I think that my fear is in siding with the enemy—and killing a friend! Or thinking that the enemy is the friend, and finding that I’m prey to someone I trusted.”
“Whatever comes,” he promised quietly, “I will be there.”
“I know.” For a moment they shared something in a look that was more intimate than the hours that had gone by.
“Morning has come!” she said.
“Aye, that it has,” he agreed. “We need to move quickly. We don’t know when this is all going to happen, and we need to reach your father.
Declan now has others going out across the country, so we needn’t take the precious time, but I wish your father’s council on all that we feel must be done and how we’re so convinced that the battle will be here. ”
“Aye, we must move! But—”
He interrupted her with a soft laugh. “Cillian will have seen to it that we have bags with bread and cheese and dried meat packed for us for the journey. And I’m anxious to . . .” He hesitated.
“To what?”
“Well, there’s a stream that leads off the river in a richly wooded area on our way.”
“You wish to swim?”
He realized she was teasing.
“A bit of a bath that doesn’t come in a bucket?” she asked. “That sounds wonderful! Except that’s a while away . . . ah—” she exclaimed, looking around his room “—there’s the water. Wait. Your water. I’ll return to my own room for water.”
“You’d be welcome to my water,” he told her.
She smiled and headed to the door. “Oh, no! Please. Bathe the best that you can in that bucket. We do ride close to one another!”
She left the room, and he smiled as she left, watching her. Then his smile faded slowly as he wondered if he’d ever wake again to find that she was next to him, body to body, in the night.
Then his imagination took hold, and he couldn’t help but envision different ways in which he might find them together, the warmth of her body more directly against his.
He gave himself a serious mental shake. It was morning. They were on a mission.
And the mission was life and death.