Chapter 17 #3
“And take her riches, work her people to the bone, leave them nothing while he demands the best in wool, in linen, in all that our farmers can grow?” Deidre demanded.
“Deidre! How kind that you are worried about me! Suffice it to say that Jarl Swen had great respect for me and my abilities—when the rest of you worried that I wouldn’t be capable of keeping my father’s lands together!”
“That’s not true—my father complimented you often on your abilities,” Deidre said.
“And kept me in my place! He wouldn’t consider an alliance with Angus—or me,” Berach said.
He laughed. “And no one knew. No one suspected little old me. That made it all so easy. Don’t lie!
Until this minute, you probably suspected Angus at heart.
Or even Eion. I mean, Angus made no pretense of friendship. He—”
“Was he angry at me, oh, aye. But has he ever failed Declan? Not that I know anything about,” Deidre snapped.
“And James of Munster—”
“A man who has stood by the ard-rí since he came to power.”
“And then Eion, perhaps just pretending at his great friendship,” Berach suggested.
He laughed. “Never in time, my love, never in time. If you live—and if I don’t disfigure you—I might keep you around for my amusement.
Never a bride now, never a wife. I’d not honor you so.
But . . . maybe I’ll try not to chop up your face. ”
“Maybe you should think about just trying to stay alive,” Deidre suggested.
“Oh, the great warrioress is going to take me down!”
“Not until you tell me how you knew to come here,” Deidre told him.
He laughed. “Because you were idiots not to suspect that a man of my power might have spies following you, Cillian, Kylin . . . all those of your ilk! You think that you will be part of a small force taking the Northmen from behind when they surge over the hills. But they have men beyond who will be behind you. Oh, wait! You won’t be there, because you’ll be lying here, in the dark, oh, how fitting!
The daughter of the great Rí Eamon dying in the sacred place that is already filled with the dead.
Oh, all right, again, I say, I may not kill you.
It will be amusing to hold my power over you. ”
“Ah, Berach, you may well perish due to your own arrogance,” she told him, shaking her head. “Does Jarl Swen know just what a braggart you are?”
“Alas, I’ve not managed to get to the man in time to tell him what I learned about you and Kylin and this sacred ground, but—”
“Oh, you are an idiot! He doesn’t even know that you’re in the passageways?”
At least those coming at us haven’t been warned! And even if he takes me down, I can’t believe that his warriors, sneaking around the passageways, could take down Kylin and my father’s warriors.
“Did you think that the jarl himself would risk his life out here? Lass! That’s why I am to be ard-rí. I am the one who will win this battle and thus my title and my land,” Berach insisted.
“So, you believe that your men will take down Kylin?”
“Of course. If not, where is the man? And how do you know that he isn’t a traitor himself?
Ah, but wait, not a traitor. A man faithful to his father’s people.
Perhaps I should have played this a bit better.
I should have told you right away that hoping Kylin would come save you was simply stupid—the man is with me.
He has been pretending that he is so loyal to Eamon, so loyal to Declan, and the land.
No, no, his true love is his father’s people, people of the sea. ”
“Interesting, aye. Many people have come from the Northlands and those people have become our people. The people of the North are often wonderful, just like the people of éire. Human nature being what it is, no matter where one is born, some are kind and true and some are not,” Deidre told him sweetly.
“Your beloved is a traitor!” Berach announced.
“Sorry. I don’t believe you for a single second,” Deidre said.
“Don’t you?” he whispered evilly.
Don’t I?
No. Never. And it was true. In her heart, in her soul, she knew that Kylin would never betray her, her father or her brother.
Or his own father, for that matter.
She laughed suddenly. “You’re trying to tell me that Kylin is a traitor—when you’ve already told me that you have men in the passageways who will kill him and therefore, he can’t rescue me. If he’s a traitor, he wouldn’t need killing and he wouldn’t rescue me. Now, here’s the thing . . .”
“What?” Berach demanded.
“I don’t need rescuing.”
She drew her silver sword, facing him, smiling.
As she had hoped, in a fit of rage, he lunged for her.
She deftly stepped aside, spinning to send her blade sliding against his midriff.
He screamed in pain and fell back.
But her blow had just been a glancing one.
And she had never seen such hatred and rage in anyone’s face before as he gathered himself and spun around to face her.
In a line, right beneath his rib cage and over his weapons belt, she could see a thin red line.
She had drawn blood.
And, of course, he was furious. Berach had kept his true self nicely hidden, respecting the ard-rí and older men who held the title of rí, but she could see now that he had been expertly handling a role.
He wanted more. And he felt that it was owed to him.
Worse, he couldn’t bear the idea of being beaten by a woman. He already hated her because her father had let it be known that she would make her own choice in life.
“You will pay for that!” he shouted at her.
Despite foaming at the mouth with rage, he managed to laugh.
“What do you get? You could have been the wife of a rí, you could have picked any of us with your youth, your silky hair, your brilliant eyes . . . and perfect body, a ready machine for a man to sire a handsome son. And now you’ll be nothing!
Oh, wait. Dead, quite possibly, so it won’t matter. ”
“I did draw first blood,” she reminded him.
“And I will draw last!” he swore.
She waited. Ready for him.
Again, he stepped forward, lunging, certain that he could pierce her right through the heart.
But she dodged and spun again, this time, just missing his midsection by a hair.
“I didn’t want to marry you—or any man offered to me—but neither did I want to have to kill you,” she told him.
“You—kill me?”
She shrugged. “All right. Try again,” she taunted.
That time he came straight at her, sword raised, ready to strike down at her with all the muscle and weight in him.
But as his sword fell, hers seemed to glisten with silver light, deflecting his.
As he had warned, she felt the power of his weight against it. Still, she had fought bigger men with her magic sword.
But he was angry and impatient, and he continued feints that allowed her time to duck and parry.
As he fought her, she became aware of a greater rush of noise coming along the passage.
She noted briefly that Kylin was on his way to her. In the second during her duck and spin then, she saw that he had battled a man coming behind him . . .
And there was another sneaking up.
“Kylin! Behind!” she shouted.
He spun, his sword swinging.
But she couldn’t see any more because Berach was rushing her again.