Chapter Six
IN THE MORNING Cilean looked tired and refused to speak to Jura. Jura tried to reassure her friend but Cilean turned away.
The women marched to the field and Jura could feel her blood pumping with anger. Her arms would be torn from their sockets before she lost an event.
The lots were drawn and to her horror Cilean drew Mealla in the wrestling match. The other contestants were visibly relieved, especially because Mealla didn’t seem to realize that the matches were games. She played to win.
Jura tried to whisper encouragement to Cilean, but Cilean glared at her. “This should please you. Now you will be queen. Do you mean to poison Rowan and give the throne to your brother? Or is it Rowan himself that you want?”
Jura straightened her spine. “If you cannot beat a Zerna, you do not deserve to be queen.” She moved away from a scowling Cilean.
On this last day she had to win only three times and the last game would be against Cilean—if Cilean won the wrestle.
If Cilean lost, then Jura would have to fight Mealla, and Jura knew that, win or lose, she would not like the outcome of that match.
She would become Rowan’s wife or Mealla would become queen.
Cilean had to win.
Jura won the first three games easily. She outran one of the Irial trainees then placed six arrows in the dead center of the target to beat a Fearen girl who had surprisingly made it to the finals.
The third game was harder: she had to leap a pole set high above the ground.
She made it but just barely. She nearly wept with relief when the heavier Zerna woman knocked the pole down and so lost the match.
Now all that remained was Cilean’s match with Mealla and Jura had to fight the winner.
Cilean’s match with Mealla had already begun and the crowd recognized this as the most serious contest. From the look of the two women, it was like an eagle fighting a hummingbird.
Mealla outweighed Cilean by at least fifty pounds and Cilean’s main defenses were intelligence, speed, and agility—none of which meant much when an oak tree was wrapping its limbs around you and crushing.
Jura joined the line of contestants along the palisades wall and watched the match. She did not shout like the others, but quite calmly prayed with all her being.
Mealla wrapped her big arms around Cilean’s ribs and squeezed.
“Gouge!” Jura whispered. “Go for her weak points. Don’t let her beat you.” She willed her words to reach her friend and Cilean seemed to hear them as she pushed her thumbs into Mealla’s neck and the pain caused the bigger woman to release.
Jura’s breath released as the two contestants circled each other. Involuntarily, she looked up into the stands to see Rowan looking down at her. His expression was one of concern. Behind him Daire was also watching Jura. She looked back at the match.
Mealla threw Cilean to the ground then started to jump, but Cilean was too fast as she rolled away and Mealla fell onto empty, hard ground. Instantly, Cilean was on her, twisting her arm behind her back.
Mealla’s lack of agility played against her as she could not reach Cilean to push her off. She was trapped.
Cilean held Mealla down for a long while, until the crowd began to scream, “Forfeit! Forfeit!” After a long time of agony for Cilean, Mealla did forfeit the match.
Cilean stood, but her face was not triumphant. It was gray and ashen with pain and exhaustion and she raised only one arm in victory, keeping her other arm to her side.
Jura knew her friend was hurt and ran to her side to see how much damage was done. “Quiet!” Jura commanded when Cilean started to protest. “Lean on me but do not let the crowd see you leaning. How bad are you hurt?”
“At least three ribs are broken,” Cilean said quietly, her voice catching. “Should I forfeit to you?”
“No, we will start our match immediately. I will lose it within moments. If you rest, you will not be able to stand. Now turn and smile and wave at the crowd. It will be over very soon.”
Jura’s heart was pounding wildly as she took up her pole in preparation for her “fight” with Cilean.
She had no intention of trying to make the fight look good.
All she wanted was to get it over with, to have her friend declared the winner, then at last she would be able to escape the Englishman’s hold on her.
She and Cilean marched to the center of the field side by side.
“When the match begins, lift your pole and hit my head,” Jura whispered. “I will fall and you will be the winner. Do it quickly. Do not risk a rib through your lung. Understand me?”
Cilean nodded. There was almost no color in her face.
The two women faced each other in the center of the field. The crowd was silent now, for this was the deciding match.
Trumpets were raised and blown and the match began.
Jura moved to her left. “Hit me,” she whispered.
Cilean just stood there, her eyes glazed with pain. Bruises were turning purple under her skin.
“Hit me!” Jura said, beginning to circle. “Think of your precious Rowan. To get him all you have to do is hit me once. Or do you want me to have him? You want me in his bed, touching him, caressing him?”
Cilean raised the right side of her pole to strike, and Jura, out of instinct and years of practice, lifted her pole to defend herself.
The reverberations of the clashing poles shook Cilean and her hand dropped as Jura’s pole lightly clipped her on the temple.
It was too much for Cilean’s broken body.
She fainted, her body crumpling at Jura’s feet.
For a moment all was silence as Jura and the crowd stared stupidly at Cilean’s inert body. Then Jura fell to her knees just as the crowd began to chant, “Jura, Jura, Jura.”
“Cilean!” Jura screamed over the noise. “Wake up! You must win.” She began to slap her friend’s cheeks but Cilean was dead to the world. “Cilean!” Jura screamed over and over again in desperation.
The crowd reached them and hands began to pull Jura away from Cilean.
“No, no,” Jura yelled. “She has only fainted. There was no match. Cilean did not forfeit. I did not win. Cilean is the winner. Cilean, wake up and tell them.”
No one heard her as she was lifted onto men’s shoulders. Irial trainees ran to Cilean to protect her from trampling feet and watch Jura being carried away. They were jubilant that an Irial had won.
Jura kept screaming and pleading, trying her best to get away from the men carrying her, but she was treated like a bag of grain and paid as much heed. The noise of rejoicing was too loud for her to be heard.
By the time they reached the city walls she was frantic. She couldn’t make anyone understand. Cilean had won, not her. Cilean was to be queen.
Sitting on horses just inside the gates were Daire and Thal’s daughter Lora. Both of them were scowling at her.
“I didn’t win,” she shouted toward Daire, but she couldn’t hear her own words over the noise. She tried to get down and run to Daire, but the hands on her body held her fast.
By the time they reached the inner wall and Thal’s old stone castle, she was stunned into silence. This really wasn’t happening to her. This was a nightmare.
Thal stood in the doorway, supported by Xante. He lifted one thin hand and gradually the crowd quieted. “Welcome, daughter,” he said. “Your bridegroom waits inside.”
“No!” Jura yelled into the quiet. ‘Cilean won, I—”
Thal’s face showed growing anger but it was Xante who interrupted her. His voice boomed out. “Humility and loyalty are good qualities in a queen.”
The crowd cheered at his words and carried Jura inside the castle, where a priest and Prince Rowan awaited her.
The Englishman stood beaming at her as if he were an idiot while Jura tried to protect herself from the hands fumbling at her body while they lowered her.
She was given no time to bathe or change but merely dropped to stand beside the English usurper, and the priest began the wedding ceremony.
She wanted to say no to him, wanted to tell him that he had no right to be in her country, but then she looked at the crowd around her.
Their blood was up. They had been drinking for three days now and they wanted to see a proper end to their festivities.
The priest was looking at Jura and, slowly, every other eye turned toward her and she swallowed.
Now was the moment of decision. If she turned and walked out now, the consequences could be great.
The different tribes could say the contest was a farce—and if this man Rowan was to lead them, he could never do so if a woman refused him at the altar.
They would laugh at him. She had competed and she had taken a chance of winning.
“Jura,” Rowan said softly from beside her. “Do you want me or not?”
She turned to look at him, and those eyes of his, deep, fathomless blue, seemed to see inside her.
She turned back to the priest. “I will take the man,” she whispered through dry lips.
A deafening cheer went up and Jura heard no more of what the priest said. Rowan turned to her and pulled her into his arms. He whispered something to her but she couldn’t hear him, and when he tried to kiss her, she turned her head away.
Her movement seemed to please the crowd.
“You’ll have to win her, prince or no,” someone called.
Jura used the moment to push away from the man who was now her husband and make her way through the crowd to a side door. The crowd was laughing at her but she didn’t care. She had to get away and find Daire and Cilean and talk to them.
· · ·
“You’re a fool, Rowan,” Lora shouted at her brother. “There is still time, you can repudiate her. Set her aside now before you go to bed with her.”
Rowan was eating, as he had been doing for the last hour. For the past three days he had watched the games too intently to be able to eat. His one concern had been that Jura win, and he had not been able to eat for worrying that she wouldn’t. “Jura is what I want,” he said, his mouth full.