Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
LOCKE
Locke watched as his soon-to-be wife disappeared into his tent, the flap fluttering shut behind her without a sound.
His wife, whom he had watched torture a man – his own cousin – into a fit of madness without so much as lifting a finger. His wife, who commanded entities of shadow and death he’d thought only existed in legends of centuries long past.
His wife, who hated him – and who would no doubt lie awake and watch him in the night as he slept, unconscious and defenseless.
Not that being conscious had done énna much good.
Locke raised his flask and took a fortifying swig of whiskey.
Across the campfire from where he had been positioned to keep watch on Locke’s bride, Tadhg eyed him. “Nervous, are you?”
“On the contrary,” Locke lied. “I’m eager for it. It’s been awhile since I’ve been properly tumbled. At least a few months.”
“Before winter solstice, by my count,” Eamon said. “That black-haired wench from Ulaid.”
“It’s a bit odd,” said Locke, “that you’ve been keeping track.”
“Just trying to simplify my life. Could be my duty one day to track down all your little curly-headed bastards to bestow on them their inheritance.”
Tadhg nodded sagely. “Could be sooner rather than later,” he said, “if he doesn’t please his princess tonight.”
“That won’t be an issue.” Eamon and Tadhg exchanged a skeptical glance, and Locke huffed. “Oisín’s beard. I think I’ve bedded enough women to know what I’m doing.”
Eamon pursed his lips. “Never bedded a woman like that, though, have you?”
“Not to mention,” said Tadhg. “There’s that giant of hers. Might be a bit rough, having to follow that,” with a meaningful look at Locke’s crotch.
Locke took another long drink.
Eamon shifted on his feet, the smoke wafting across his face as he stared into the campfire. “Do you suppose énna will ever stop screaming?”
“No.” Locke winced as he saw the alarm ignite on their faces. “That’s not – I didn’t mean ‘no,’ I meant ‘I don’t know,’ it was all rather vague, what happened to him, exactly, what with the darkness and the shadows and –”
“And the screaming,” said Tadhg. “We all heard the screaming.”
“Like a pig being slaughtered,” added Eamon.
“A dozen pigs.”
“Two dozen.”
“That’s enough, thank you.” Locke eyed his half-empty flask longingly. Probably should remain somewhat sober if one is planning on wedding a shadow-fiend. At least she was pretty enough. It wouldn’t be a hardship, bedding her.
So long as she didn’t flay the very skin from his bones in the process.
Another desperate drink. “I don’t know, precisely, what happened to énna,” he lied. “But let’s all remember that énna has never been known for being the toughest of men, mentally speaking.”
“Got scared by a screech-owl once.” Tadhg scratched his beard as he reminisced. “Thought it was a ban síde.”
“Exactly, he was frightened of a screech-owl, now I can’t imagine it would take much to push such a man over the edge into madness, do you?”
Tadhg and Eamon exchanged another pointed look. “You vomited,” said Eamon. “When you came back to the camp, after it happened.”
“Twice,” Tadhg said, not at all helpfully.
“It is very annoying,” said Locke, “what a couple of nosy, hovering mother-hens the two of you are. Here I am, trying to reassure you, and you simply won’t be reassured because you can’t keep your damn noses out of my damn business.”
“It’s our damn business, too, if your wife kills the lot of us in our sleep tonight.”
“Oh, sod it.” Locke chugged from his flask, heaving a deep sigh as the whiskey burned its way down his throat and into his belly.
“Listen, lads – she is not going to murder us.” It came out far more confident than he felt.
“For whatever reason, she has agreed to this charade, which means that, again, for whatever reason, she needs us. She has sworn not to harm you, I made very sure of that, so you can both stop your fretting.” He raised the flask again, only to find a few drops remaining.
“The gods damn it, can someone please, for the love of Oisín’s beard, bring me something else to drink? ”
Eamon huffed out a sound that was part-laugh, part-sigh. “Come on,” he said, clapping his hand on Locke’s shoulder. “Sit for a bit and have a bite. We’ve got supper ready for you. Lamb stew, with red potatoes –”
“Baby carrots –”
“And brown bread.”
“Whiskey?” Locke asked hopefully.
“Whole jugs of it,” Eamon assured him, and Locke reached up to grasp his friend’s hand in his own.
“The gods bless you.”
“Figured you’d want to eat now rather than later,” said Tadhg.
Locke exhaled slowly. “Probably for the best, to do the thing and then the two of us get inside to – well, to do the thing.”
“Sure,” said Tadhg, steering Locke towards the table, already set with bowls and spoons, a large cast-iron pot with steam wafting over the rim. “Also, we thought, well – might be our last chance, the three of us breaking bread together, sharing a meal.”
“Could be dead by this time tomorrow,” agreed Eamon. “You, me, all of us.”
“We’re not going to die,” said Locke, sitting down with an irritated huff.
Eamon and Tadhg clinked their mugs together. “Sláinte mhaith,” said Eamon brightly.
“Sláinte agatsa!” Tadhg cheered, then both turned in unison to look at Locke apologetically.
“We’d toast to you as well,” Eamon explained, “but we doubt it’d do much good.”
“Because of how she’ll most likely kill you before the dawn,” said Tadhg.
“Both of you,” said Locke, “can kindly go to hell,” and then promptly finished another flagon of whiskey in three, desperate gulps.
An hour later, he was standing underneath the shade of the great oak tree, watching his soon-to-be wife walk towards him, flowers in her hair, white gown flowing loose and soft around her ankles.
A lovely, ethereal sight, her flame-red hair falling over her shoulders, framing the cream-colored curve of her cheeks, her silver-dark eyes steady and calm, latched onto his face, as she drew near.
She halted in front of him, her nose wrinkling. “You reek of whiskey,” his blushing bride said in disgust.
“Nonsense,” he said. “Haven’t touched a drop.”
He was, in fact, more than a little bit fluthered, having worked his way through three-fourths of a jug at supper – his last meal, his former friends cheerily kept reminding him – while at the same time consuming very little food.
Her eyes narrowed into serpentine slits. “Pathetic,” she said. “I refuse to marry a drunk.”
Locke leaned forward, lip curling. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned with why a man felt the need to get well and thoroughly knackered before working up the stomach to marry you in the first place.”
Her eyes flashed with silver fire, but before she could speak, the bárd stepped forward from where he lingered behind her, clearing his throat.
“Steady, Rory,” he said, and even through the whiskey-haze clouding his brain, Locke didn’t like that at all, this mysterious man with those broad shoulders and gorgeous green eyes addressing his bride so intimately.
She was to be his wife, damn it, not the giant’s.
“I think I can steady my wife well enough on my own, thank you very much.”
“What does that even mean, you utter fool –”
The bárd raised a warning finger, and Rory fell silent, lips tight. “Take an hour, Lord MacMurchada,” he said, his smooth voice ominous and low. “Take an hour and collect yourself, and then and only then will you wed the princess of Connacht.”
Locke stepped closer, chin raised, the whiskey giving him a boldness he did not necessarily feel. “I don’t know who you think you are, you ugly fecker, but I’m here to tell you that I don’t take orders from you or any man.”
“Save the Albion king,” the bárd said, the venom evident in his voice. “You seem to have no qualms in dancing to his tunes.” A deliberate pause. “Traitor.”
Locke swung back and punched him in the face.
His knuckles exploded in pain, and he bent over at the waist, swearing. Gods damn it, the man had a jaw like iron.
“Take an hour,” the bárd said again, seemingly unaffected at having taken a fist to the face a moment before.
His mouth wasn’t even bleeding. Locke felt an unreasonable surge of outrage.
He knew how to throw a punch, damn it. What kind of unnatural beast was this bárd?
“Collect yourself, MacMurchada, and do not ever so insult her again, as to present yourself in such a shameless state before her.”
It pierced through the sullenness his whiskey-addled senses had given him. Shameless, indeed.
Because suddenly he was ashamed, drowning in it, that he had relented to his fear and his nerves to seek refuge in the bottom of a bottle, like the most weak-willed of men. He nodded once, tight-lipped, and stumbled away towards where Eamon and Tadhg hovered in the background, wide-eyed and aghast.
“Steady now, Locke,” said Eamon, his hand sliding underneath Locke’s elbow. “Are you hurt –”
“Get me some water,” he said brusquely, and then ducked behind a row of tents to sink to his knees, his head in his hands, cursing the day he was born to a father who only cared enough to pass down to his sons the very worst parts of himself.