Chapter 8
THERE WAS ONE thing Kylin seemed to know very well and that was the terrain over which they traveled.
They’d been riding about two hours from Cillian’s land when he nodded toward a path Deidre could barely see at first. It appeared to wind into a grove of trees and disappear.
“We’re riding to a tree?” she teased him.
“Just wait. Follow me.”
“Hmm. I’ll have to trust in you.”
“A little late for you to be having doubts,” he told her, grinning as they made their way, single file, through a dense thicket.
But then they emerged upon a narrow stream bank.
It had to be a little offshoot of the river, but it was stunningly beautiful, crystal-clear water bouncing off stones here and there, moving gently beneath the sky.
The day itself seemed to enhance them; the sky was blue with no sign of clouds or the fog that could drift in so quickly.
Here and there, branches grew out over the water, dripping soft green leaves.
The embankment itself was grassy, lightly spotted with areas that were clear, constantly kissed by the rush of the water.
“Well?” Kylin inquired dryly as they dismounted at the end of the trail with the entirety of the scene before them.
“It’s beautiful!” she admitted. “I mean, so much of our landscape is beautiful, but this is . . . spectacular!”
“I thought you might like it, but . . .”
He looked perplexed. She wasn’t sure why at first, and then she knew. He wanted to strip down, to get really clean after their days of being in the saddle, carrying their message to the ard-rí.
“I can go there,” she said, pointing downstream. “And you can go here.”
He shook his head. “We are not . . . promised or together in . . . that way. I will not do anything . . .”
She smiled. She’d never seen him awkward in this manner.
“I trust you,” she told him.
“I don’t,” he said simply. “I didn’t mean .
. . I have it. I’ll leave you with the horses here.
No one can reach this area except from across a great ravine on the other side.
I will be quick while you stand guard, and then I shall be with the horses, near enough to hear if you so much as whisper a cry, but at an . . . appropriate distance.”
“As you say,” Deidre said, smiling. “But I do trust you. We’ve put our lives in one another’s hands.”
“Please, for once, let’s just do it my way.”
She turned away, stroking her horse’s neck and allowing a pat for Kylin’s extraordinary mount as well.
“Go!” she ordered.
While he bathed, she kept an eye on the trail that had led them here while talking to the horses.
She was tempted to watch him, and at one point she did.
She couldn’t help but glance his way. The lower portion of his body was in water.
His hair was long and plastered against his skin.
He was sluicing the water over himself, obviously in heaven at the pleasure, despite what she knew had to be a bit of a chill in the stream.
He was an extraordinary man: broad shouldered with striking features, a strong chin, sharp cheekbones . . . well-set eyes. He had always been so, and yet he had always been someone set at a distance in her mind.
Because she hadn’t trusted his father, not because the man had ever given any of them a reason not to be trusted. Just because of the man’s birth, because raiders who had come from his homeland had come time and time again.
It was a lesson in learning to judge a man for himself, and not for the place from where he had come.
And now she was liking his son—and everything about him—too much!
She forced herself to give her attention back to the horses. And in a matter of minutes, he emerged, hair still wet, skin carrying a bit of a sheen, but fully dressed and booted and ready to give her a turn in the water.
“Take as long as you wish,” he told her. “Unless, of course, someone comes, and I will have plenty of time to tell you. I know these woods. There’s the little trail. And other than that, you’d need to be a snake to get through the brush and the trees unseen and unheard.”
“Thank you!”
She hurried from him to the shore. And she understood his ecstatic expression as she stripped and stepped into the stream.
To feel the fullness of the water, ever cold, embracing her skin, was wonderful.
She dove into it, running her fingers through her hair, over her scalp.
She found bits of gravelly earth with which to scrub.
And it did feel like a little bit of heaven.
Emerging at last, she dressed and rejoined him.
“Thank you!”
“Ah, a pleasure for us both.”
“Pure sensation.”
He laughed suddenly. “We need to be careful with such words!”
Mounting her horse, Deidre shook her head as she looked down at him. “Sometimes, you are almost annoyingly moral,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon. I do my very best—”
“You do very well,” she said softly. “Come, then, we need to reach home!”
He mounted and nudged a bit ahead of her to lead the way out, though it was rather obvious as there was no other way to go.
They left the narrow trail behind at last and rode abreast. She was thoughtful and worried, thinking about the dream that had so disoriented her during the night.
Running to his room.
Finding rest . . .
Finding such security and peace as she curled against him. Innocently, at least as far as her conscious mind went.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“I just keep thinking about the dream. Of being in the passageway. Not knowing who was the enemy and who was to be trusted, and then wondering if I know anything at all, if I’m suspicious without cause and—”
“Someone will betray us,” he said flatly.
“No, I’m curious. I don’t doubt your father. I doubt the man who gave him the information. What if he told us that someone would betray us just to sow seeds of mistrust among us?”
Kylin shook his head. “Talk to my father. The man with whom he spoke was truly grateful to be alive. Your father is truly a great man, merciful by nature—and by intelligence. I don’t believe the man lied.
And it’s not just his word that we go by, Deidre.
Only you and I know how strange this has been.
I’d like to think it was me, but the sword saved your life when you discovered it.
And then we found the cauldron. The spear—and the pebble, as you say.
It all means something, Deidre. And I think we have it right. ”
She let out a sigh. “Angus was . . . angry with my father. First, I suppose there isn’t a man out there who likes being told no.
He thinks my father is an idiot and very wrong.
To Angus, a woman’s role in this world is to go where she is told, create alliances and birth heirs.
That is not so rare. Many, many—maybe most—leaders would feel that way.
But I’m still uncomfortable with him, which, of course, makes me suspect him, when maybe I shouldn’t. I don’t know!”
“And then again, maybe we are wrong in our interpretation.”
“It’s neither man?” Deidre asked him.
“The dreams aren’t always crystal clear. I wasn’t in your dream, so I don’t know what you saw. But it’s possible that they were both there to defend the passages.”
She nodded slowly and said thoughtfully, “The men we saw—James of Munster, Angus of Ui Neill, Eion of Connaught and Berach of Linns—maybe none are guilty. Now we’ve also seen Cillian, but his destiny is so tied in with Declan’s that I can’t imagine he’d do anything against the man.”
“There’s something about Cillian . . . I don’t believe that he’d go against Declan, either.
I mean . . .” He looked at her with a pained grin.
“We may have some magical or heavenly help coming our way, but we’re mere mortals ourselves.
Now, hopefully, we’ve gained some sense of human nature and our instincts and abilities to judge others are sound, but . . .”
“But we have no guarantees.”
“Ah! But we do have fathers. And soon, very soon, we can set this whole thing before them.”
That was true. They had only a few hours to go.
In that time, they talked a bit, and were silent a bit.
And it was all right to be silent with Kylin.
It was comfortable. She realized how easy it was to be with him, and despite herself, she kept envisioning the naked half of his body she had witnessed as he bathed.
She chided herself for such foolishness. Then his words came to her mind.
They were mere mortals.
She was a mere mortal.
And with all those instincts, maybe it was natural that she would find herself attracted to such a man. Something, of course, that she didn’t dare think about at this time!
He lifted a hand and paused a few times as they rode, listening to the world around them, always wary lest an enemy await in ambush and fall upon them.
But the ride was uninterrupted. They stuck to the forest trails and in time, they heard a call out from one of the warriors ever on guard around their communities.
“Dragger!” Kylin called. “It’s Kylin and Deidre, returning!”
“Ah!”
One of Kylin’s father’s men appeared on the trail before him, a man of Sigurd’s age, and a warrior with the look of his people with a full head of golden hair just beginning to whiten and a beard to match.
Once upon a time, I would be leery of such a man.
Now she understood that a man’s birth did not make the man.
“Grateful I am to see you,” Dragger told them, riding to meet them. “And your mission?”
“We reached the ard-rí. Our people are warned throughout the land,” Kylin assured him. “But we don’t know who our enemies are.”
“Someone out there is in league with the jarl.” Dragger shook his head. “We’ve been careful since you left. Lady Deidre, your brother has kept a firm watch upon the sea and Sigurd has used us to guard the forest and stream. There has been nothing—it has been quiet. But I wonder . . .