Chapter Eight
Take Heed
Siena, June 26, 2011, Washington D.C. · Neave, October 3, 1564, Ulster, Ireland
Time stood still, fixedand dreamlike, then began to part and fuse with no regard for my wishes. An imminent vision, a persistent intruder. I opened my eyes, struggling to will it away, fighting to put off the heartache of Aedan’s departure to the faraway, hostile land—
I froze. While certainly not hostile, Texas was also far away.
The sharp outlines of the fan blades slashed the ceiling into uncompromising straight angles. He’d never been the type to stay put. I turned to the bassinet—our little son smiled in his blissful sleep, oblivious to doubt and loneliness, fear and disquiet. If I had other past lives, Ryan had to have been part of them. A transient, impermanent part, like rain. Here today, gone tomorrow to caress another soil. While I lingered, waiting and wilting, as he lived his life to the fullest, doing whatever the heck he pleased. How pre-feminist indeed.
I muttered something rude to the little voice that reminded me I was the one doing what I pleased by staying behind to paint, while he was working his ass off at a job that provided a stable paycheck and health insurance.
I would have sulked longer were it not for the pull that grew so strong, it shoved me into the vision like it was a practiced hand and I a frisbee.
***
There was no wakingfrom this nightmare. I was a ball of screaming pain on Aine’s narrow bed.
Stomp, stomp, clomp.
His heavy footsteps advanced through my screams. Nearer and nearer they came. Louder and louder.
My scian lay within my reach. Take it, take it! But I couldn’t grasp it with hands that had gone numb.
Stomp, clomp.
Run, run!But I couldn’t rise with legs that forgot how to move.
Stomp, halt.
Heavy breathing outside the small chamber.
By the door, Aine lay in a heap of skirts soaked in her life’s blood, her sightless gaze fixed on me. Slowly, she raised her head. Her face was the color of new snow, and scarlet streamed from the side of her mouth, brightening the floor.
“He’s near, a leanbh...” Her words were but a murmur on the wind.
But this was wrong—backwards.
“He’s gone to the new world,” I whispered. “We’d banished his ghost.”
Aine’s eyes glittered emerald-green, the silent warning in them louder than any scream. He’s coming back... Take heed...
Würger kicked the door open.
“And who have we here?” His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
I awakened coated in icy sweat, heart racing, cheeks wet with tears. Beside me, Aedan lay sprawled on his back, one hand tucked under his head, another resting on his abdomen.
Take heed... I buried my head in my hands, trembling like a leaf. But it was only a night terror, the likes of which still tormented me now and then. Würger wasn’t coming back. And even if he dared, Benburb was impregnable, impassible, guarded by an army of deadly gallowglasses. Take heed...
Lightly, not to wake him, I stroked Aedan’s hair, bent to his chest to breathe into his soul, “Don’t go, a chroí.”
He pulled me near. “What’s this now? Weeping for me, and I’m alive?”
I inhaled his scent—the essence of a chieftain with a made-up mind.
“An ill portent...” I choked out. “Don’t go, my Aedan.”
He drew in a long breath. “I would that you didn’t fret so. It’s but a policy visit, a rún. No warfare, no raids, hmm? I’m coming back,” he echoed Aine’s words—did she only mean to comfort me? “With the Tudor queen as my ally.”
Always so sure of himself, but life was full of treachery, pain, and sorrow. How fleeting was his nearness.
I steeled myself against my unraveling. “What makes you so certain she’d turn an ally?”
Something in his dimpled half-smile made my heart stop.
“How comely you look with your brow furrowed so.” He placed a kiss on the bespoke part. “This isn’t a conversation suited for my wife, but I’ll have you at peace. The queen is but a woman, my Neave.”
He brought my hand to his lips, eyes creasing with apology. Not apology—amusement! A wave of black jealousy hit me so hard, I nearly drowned in it.
I jerked my hand away.
He narrowed his eyes. “A woman she might be, but d’you fancy that’s the sort of visit I intend?”
Did I? My Aedan was now the Prince of Ulster, a title won and kept by his sword. He’d stop at naught for Ireland and for his swelling ambitions, which to his mind, were one and the same. I dug my fingernails into my palms. Would that he kept the notion to himself instead of letting it loose into our bedchamber.
His lips brushed my jaw, breath warm on my neck. “You’ve earned chastisement for doubting me, my Neave.”
Our eyes met for a heartbeat before I dropped my gaze, slumping beneath a tide of relief.
“M’lord.”
A clever resolution to this dreadful exchange and a sizzling memory to keep me warm at night into the bargain. My limbs hummed with the sweet mixture of thrill and contentment. No other woman could slake my Aedan’s need while slaking hers, too.
His steady hands on my skin dissolved the nightmare into the mist as I lay on my belly, soft and pliant. He caressed the small of my back, skimmed my buttocks, sending a tingle of foretaste throughout.
“Am I not a man wed and bound by vows, my Neave?”
His slap was a hard kiss, sweeter than honey.
“You are, m’lord...” I breathed.
“And what is my chief reason for traveling to London, my Neave?”
The hand landed on the other cheek, warm and firm.
“Policy, m’lord...”
He raised my hips, pushed my legs apart with his knee.
“Say it again, my Neave, so I know you understand.”
“Policy...”
“You’ve it right, my Neave.” His hand came down, brushed past my behind. “D’you fancy my only means of policy is to bed the wicked gall bitch?” His fingers stroked, invaded, rocked me to their perfect rhythm. “And me wed and bound by vows?”
I could fancy nothing now. “Aedan...”
“Your chastisement is not yet done.” His hand abandoned me, then descended with a bite. A sweet, hot sting that left me wanting more. “D’you then?”
“I don’t...m’lord...”
“Effective as they can be, these aren’t my only means, my Neave.” His lips grazed where his hand had been a moment past. “Besides, you’ve spoiled all women for me—always and forever.”
He gave up on chastisement then, opting to demonstrate the precise effectiveness of his means.
His scent lingered on our sheets as he dressed in black stillness—whiskey and thyme soap, safety and love. If only I could go with him instead of waiting and wondering, fretting and brooding.
“I’ll arrive at the Tudor court in my saffron léine and hirsute, withal.” He brushed a long, dark lock from his face. His hair had grown so long, I could plait it—and often did—but he’d not shear it. “My gallowglasses, too, will come in their saffron and shaggy mantles, bare-legged and bare-headed with their Irish forelocks. And armed to the teeth, my Neave. Let the English shudder at the savagery they so eagerly seek in us.”
I’d not see him off—a bad omen to be sure. So, I stood on my tiptoes at our chamber door, my arms wrapped round him, his chainmail digging into my skin. Why chainmail for a policy visit? My insides heaved, blank and weightless.
“You’ll be in grave danger, at her mercy,” I whispered.
He studied my face, and the truth of my words sobered his gaze. But he rearranged his features to make light.
“The greatest danger to me will be a sore hand,” he said against my lips, “what with the nightly cockstand at the notion of your sweet, rosy rump two hundred leagues away, a mhuirnín.”
Through the window, the blackness shifted into the gloomy mist that billowed through the trees and choked out the sun. Fifty of Aedan’s fiercest gallowglasses sat their mounts, ready and waiting. A deadly legion of saffron and iron.
Too soon, the Prince of Ulster mounted Tuireann, javelin at his side, blue mantle flung back from his chainmailed shoulders.
Without delay, I went to fetch Betha and Ronan’s nursemaid, Siobhan, to set off for Castle McConway. What use was there to stew at Benburb? What good to relive nightmares?
My infant daughter in my arms and Betha at my side, I settled into the coach. Ronan and Siobhan took their places across, the little boy stone-faced with mounting discontent.
“I’ve no wish to visit my grandsire!” He slammed the bench with his small hand. “I ought to be riding with da to London! Am I not a man and an O’Neal, withal! I oughtn’t be here with you, womenfolk, like a suckling babe.”
He attempted a derisive look for the wide-eyed Aine, but his softening gaze and a single fluttering dimple had ruined the effect.
I sighed at my child’s exulted language. Aedan’s insistence on having him attend council hall meetings was making him grow up all too fast.
“You’ve it right, a leanbh,” I said with gravity. “You ought to be traveling with your da, in the company of men. But who, then, would watch over us, womenfolk? Your da has left you here to keep us safe, mind.”
Ronan’s face lit up, but he swiftly regained composure. I smiled into Aine’s silky head. So much like his father.
“True enough.” He grabbed the edge of his seat to keep from sliding as a wheel hit a boulder. “Da did bide me to mind your safety while he’s away.”
“And I thank you, my wee love.” I peered into his earnest eyes, the color of the winter ocean. “I surely feel safer with you at my side.”
The torrential rain descended before we reached the half-way mark to my father’s castle. Thick and heavy, it pounded on the roof and turned the road to sludge, slowing the horses. It wasn’t long before we came to a full stop.
Aine asleep in my arms, I turned to Betha. “Sure as anything, the horse has lost its shoe in the mud.”
Sighing, she drew her cloak tight about her shoulders and peeked from the coach. She withdrew outright, face white, lips moving with no sound.
“Men...” she choked out.
“What men?” I stared past her through the window, pressing the warm bundle to my chest.
The men were peasants from the looks of it. A dozen of them at least.
“Mayhap they’ll help with the horseshoe,” I breathed, not believing it. Take heed...
“Mayhap we’re done for, m’lady.” Siobhan pressed Ronan to her small, trembling body.
“Nonsense, we have armed guard with us.” I dug my fingernails into my palms to steady myself. “And the penalty for assaulting members of the noble family is death by crochadh. It is known.”
The rain muted the men’s approaching voices and laughter.
“They’re laughing, see?” I said. “They’re here to offer help—”
Someone threw open the coach door. A gush of wind pierced my bones and turned my blood to ice and stomach to lead. A waking night terror. A portent come to life. I swayed in my seat. He’s gone to the new world. My insides twisted and roiled. We’d banished his ghost.
I moved my gaze to Betha. She stared at him with horror not nearly equal his due.
“Top of the morning to you, Lady Neave O’Neal,” said Würger in broken Irish.
But he made a rotten Irishman. His once white léine was the color of old snow, and his torn, stained brat was too small for his thick torso and massive arms. The change didn’t end there—he’d styled his straw-like hair into an Irish forelock and shaved off his drooping mustache. But it did little to improve his appearance and utterly failed to make him look a native.
There was no blood on his clothes this time. Only filth.
His dead eyes glinted against the murky haze. “Surprised to see me, I wager!” He switched to English. “How do you, princess?” He leaned into the coach, and the stench of stale urine, mixed with rain made the world go dark in the corners of my eyes.
I crushed Aine to my chest. She awoke and began to wail.
He regarded the babe. “And who have we here?”
I gagged. His voice was just as I remembered, just as I tried so hard to forget. Rough and guttural, like the hounds barking.
“The O’Neal’s offspring?” He shrugged and turned to Ronan.
“What...b-brings you here...?” I squeezed out, dizzy with the need to distract him, to call him away from my son.
My trembling arms made Aine cry harder.
“I have come for what is mine, princess.” He trained his beady eyes on Ronan. “Quite a bit later than would suit me.”
But Aedan was still in Ulster, likely no more than a few leagues away. And what of my guard?
“He’s not yours...” My voice was a shrill wail of a bean sídhe, cracking at the seams.
He smiled—a hideous rictus that didn’t reach his eyes. “Calm yourself—I am not here for you. But I will not have you tell falsehoods to my son in my presence.” He turned to Ronan, face softening a monstrous fraction. “Have you any English, boy?”
Ronan, who had been staring unblinking, stood and faced him. “What’s your affair here, man?”
Würger nodded, satisfied. “Ah, so you do. You are coming with me, boy. You have lived in this savage land long enough.”
But I rode with mounted guard—five gallowglasses, armed with long Irish swords. Frantic, I glanced past his bulk. Outside—only Germanic mercenaries styled as Irishmen.
My heart thundered in my chest, rose into my throat, choked me from the inside. Something rolled down my cheeks. I ought’ve sent a party ahead. I ought’ve remained in the safety of Benburb. I ought’ve taken heed.
“Take...m-me...in...h-his...stead...” Bile burned my throat, each word hoarse and jerky as a rusty axe.
He raised his brows. “What would I want with you?”
“To do...do with me...as you like...”
He laughed. “You are not much of a bargain now, princess. My own flesh and blood—” He spread his hands to indicate a scale, “—a used-up whore.” He sneered. “Do you take me for a connoisseur of used goods?”
“Come, son.” He turned to Ronan. “It is time I take you home.”
“He’s not your son!” My scream drowned out Aine’s wailing.
Würger’s face turned the color of raw beets. “Do not make me strike you before the child. This little fib you have been telling your husband and anyone willing to listen may have served you well. But you and I know the truth.”
“Look upon him...” I sobbed. “He’s not yours!”
He scowled. “Ja, he has the look of you now. But he is thick of bone and wide of shoulder. He’ll come to resemble me with time.”
The world swayed and blurred. I clutched at my heaving chest, but there was no air left in the coach.
A small axe with a shiny blade and an ornate handle materialized in Würger’s hand. “See what I have for you, boy? A small present. A Germanic axe—Germanic like you. Do you want to play with it?”
Ronan shot a wary glance at the axe. “I’ve no need of your present, man. We’ll be on our way.”
“Good boy—”
A lurch of the barrel-like body, a flash of the massive arm, a child’s squeal of shock and protest.
The scream died in my throat. Würger was gone. And so was Ronan.
Gone.
I flew out of the coach. Slipped in the mud.
A dozen horses galloped away like demons.
I didn’t feel the guard’s hands lifting me, didn’t see the blood dripping from his neck, didn’t hear his words.
“Go after them!” The rain muffled my terrible wail. “And don’t you dare return without my son! Don’t you dare come back without him!”
It was when the guard sank to the ground that I saw his mates’ corpses, butchered like cattle.