Chapter 12
DEIDRE WAS WORRIED about staying. In her mind, they should have been headed back right away, ready to be there to help her father, Sigurd and Aidan should the attack they were expecting come before their return.
But just as the news of their “betrothal” had spread so quickly neighbor to neighbor, she also believed they would hear when enemy boats were approaching now that there were men on guard daily, searching the far horizon.
Still, she and Kylin were given the same rooms they’d spent their nights in during their recent visit.
And it was while they were walking to their rooms that Kylin spoke to her quietly, saying, “It will be a good thing to be here tonight for Declan’s banquet, now in our honor.
Any of the noblemen still here will speak with us and I can’t help but feel that somewhere along the line, we’ll discover something that will help us. ”
She nodded. “I know that you’re right,” she said softly.
“Angus wasn’t . . .” Kylin began.
“Any more obnoxious than he usually is?” Deidre asked, smiling up at him.
“Exactly. I know he isn’t happy. Though I’m not sure what he thought that a marriage would gain him. Your father leaves behind an extremely competent son.”
“An alliance. That’s what all men seek, isn’t it?”
“Not all men,” he said, shrugging.
“A leader’s responsibility, so I’ve been told,” Deidre said.
He shrugged once more. “All men don’t need to rely on others, nor do all men seek constantly to take more and increase their worth or importance. Some find happiness in what they have.”
“And may need to fight to keep it,” Deidre murmured. She let out a soft sigh. “All right, Kylin. I will do my best to be charming and inquisitive and watchful. But come the morning—”
“I know. I also know just how good your brother is. Have faith in his lookouts, and in the fact that it seems news can travel across land like the speed of morning’s light.”
“Ah, the young lovers themselves!”
Deidre knew the voice. They were just heading up the great stairs when they heard the call.
Turning, she frowned. If she remembered correctly, Eion of Connaught had said that he was returning home.
“Eion,” she said pleasantly. “I didn’t think that you were still here.”
“I’d started home, but turned around,” he told them. “There is something that I felt I needed to talk to Declan about.”
“Good to see you, Rí Eion,” Kylin said politely. At the expectant look on the man’s face, he asked, “Was there something else . . . ?”
“Ghost stories,” Eion said. “Legends . . . and missing men.”
Deidre saw Kylin frown.
“Do you care to speak further about this—with us?” Kylin asked him.
Eion looked around, as if trying to determine if anyone else was near them in the area of the great stone stairway.
“Come, let’s head up. Our beds for the night have been assigned, Rí, and we may speak privately,” Kylin said.
Eion’s eyes swept the area again and then he nodded.
“I may sound like a child, or ridiculous, or . . . well, not worthy of my county. But things have happened, and it seems like more in recent months.”
“Please!”
Their quarters at the ard-rí’s castle were pleasant and the three of them hurried into Kylin’s room. There was one chair. Kylin didn’t have a chance to insist she take it, because Eion caught her arm, begging, “Deidre, please. You’re a great warrioress, aye, but still . . .”
“Thank you,” Deidre said simply. She was not about to argue over a chair.
“Do you know the hills of Derue?” he asked.
She had heard stories, of course. The kind of stories kids liked to tell at night, filled with ghostly legends and creepy scares.
“I know where they are,” she said.
Kylin was frowning. Well, his mother was Irish, but maybe not a storyteller as so many parents and grandparents loved to be.
And maybe Sigurd was impatient with such stories—ghosts, banshees and leprechauns were fun for children, something pure legend and make-believe—when there was so much so very real to be feared.
“I know of these hills. I’ve been by them traveling to different counties,” Kylin said. “And aye, they’re supposedly haunted not by the spirits of the ancients or the Tuatha Dé Danann, but by demons and devils and evil beings.”
“Most of us grew up hearing the old tales,” Eion said.
“But it’s been brought to my attention that people have disappeared—traveling too near the hills and venturing into some of the cairns within them.
” He hesitated, inhaling deeply. “Two men I had sent ahead disappeared. A third . . . we found him bloodied and broken, screaming about an evil that came after him at night.”
“An evil? An enemy?” Kylin asked.
Eion shook his head. “My man swore that he was attacked by a demon or a screaming banshee that breathed fire and came by night. The men had taken shelter at a rugged overhang. The two men with whom he rode were simply gone, disappeared, their weapons left behind in a heap. By the time we reached him and tried to help him, it was too late. I lost three good men.”
“And you think a ghost—or a demon—is responsible?” Kylin asked.
“I don’t know what to think. I know that I’ve heard the stories of many who have disappeared of late. They disappeared when they were traveling on or near the hills at Derue. And as he lay broken and dying, the warriors who found my man said that he kept crying out, ‘Banshee, banshee!’”
Deidre looked at Kylin. “That makes no sense to me! A banshee warns of death in legend. A banshee isn’t a monster, rather a woman who cries out in warning and to take the tears of others.”
“Maybe the ghosts aren’t ghosts and the demons aren’t demons at all. The hills of Derue are particularly close to Tara,” Kylin pointed out.
“There is something there,” Eion said. “And that’s why I turned back!”
“All right, we’ll head there tomorrow morning,” Kylin told Eion.
Deidre looked at him in surprise. She was worried about home.
But then again, if something was going on at Derue that had to do with what they were certain was going to be a planned and brutal offensive, they needed to find every possible enemy hideout filled with those set to spring into action when the invaders from the sea arrived.
“First, let’s get ready for Declan’s great banquet, get some sleep, so we can start out early—and carefully,” Kylin said. He looked at Deidre.
She knew he was right. She nodded her agreement.
“I will accompany you tomorrow?” Eion asked.
“Aye,” Deidre said. She’d grown up knowing Eion; she had seen his care for others through the years.
It was his man who had been killed and most likely, the two missing men were dead as well.
There wasn’t a way to tell, but sometimes they had to take a chance on people.
And if she was going to take a chance on anyone, it was going to be Eion.
“And men? Do I bring warriors?” Eion asked.
“One. Select one man. We can split into teams of two. I’d say we’re a scouting party more than anything else and we’ll need to be all but invisible as we try to discover what is going on.”
The rí nodded his agreement and started to turn away. He looked at Deidre. “You don’t . . . you don’t believe that a demon banshee might just rip us to pieces, too?”
She hesitated. She thought of the shimmering being who had pointed out the sword and saved her life. Angel or fairy folk from the old Tuatha Dé Danann, she didn’t know. But she had heard banshee stories all her life.
They came in warning. They lamented before battles. She had never heard a tale of a banshee being any kind of a demon. If goodness existed, so did evil. But in this case, she just didn’t believe that supernatural creatures were killing men.
Men were too adept at killing men themselves.
“Nay, Eion,” she said. “Do banshees exist? I don’t know the truth. But in this case, I do not believe that they are the evil demons creating death and destruction.”
Eion smiled. “You have a great sense about you, Deidre, and I believe in your word. I will bring my man Magnus with us. Like you, Kylin, he has the blood of a Northman in his veins—his grandfather longed to stay and settle here, and his wife came from your father’s own land, before coming to Linns. ”
“I know Magnus. He is a fine fellow,” Deidre assured him. “He knows how to fight, and more importantly, he knows how to move quietly when necessary.”
Eion frowned suddenly. “What of Rí Cillian? I heard that you arrived with him. And, of course, the hills border his lands. Perhaps—”
“Cillian is stalwart, Declan’s greatest leader, and they are just about atop one another in their homes,” Kylin reminded him.
“We’ll speak with him, but I believe that he’ll agree we need to be careful and move in a small group ourselves.
That, or we raise great troops and that could cause a bloodbath of the men we will need later. ”
“As you say. I will see you at the banquet, then,” Eion said, “where, of course, the ard-rí means to see that your betrothal is celebrated!”
Deidre forced a sweet smile. “Aye, and, of course, we’ll all learn what we might learn about other events on the isle.” She nodded at them both and hurried out of Kylin’s room, seeking her own.
Her saddlebag had been brought here by one of Declan’s men. She had packed so sparsely. She hadn’t intended on any royal occasions, but at least she had packed one fine tunic, linen as her others, but dyed to a deep and striking green, as beautiful as the landscape around them.
She washed quickly, changed, freed her hair from its ties, and brushed it long and free over her shoulders. She had just convinced herself that she had done the best that she could under the circumstances when there was a knock at her door.
Kylin, of course.
“Well, my beloved,” he teased softly. “Are you ready? Should we go on down, and . . .”
“And . . . ?” she queried.
“You look quite spectacular, I must add. Truly beautiful,” he said, before grimacing and letting out a soft sigh.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Am I not—”