Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
LOCKE
That concession came far too easily.
Locke eyed the bárd warily. “Truly?”
Moss-green eyes, simmering with barely leashed hatred, met his own. “What is it that you have to offer?”
Misgiving swirled in his gut as the bárd took a slow, deliberate step forward . “Easy now,” said Locke, keeping his blade pressed against Rory’s throat. “Wouldn’t want my hand to slip.”
“I think you’re lying,” said Finn, and Locke felt Rory stiffen in front of him in response. “You won’t kill her.”
“Perhaps not.” Locke kept his voice mild and light, even as he dug his fingertips into the crook of her arm. “Perhaps I’ll just take an eye instead.”
The two strangers – a dark-eyed woman and a red-haired man – hissed in unison. “Kill him, Rory,” the woman snarled. “Kill this bastard right now and –”
“She can’t.” Locke nudged her forward a few steps, forcing himself to ignore her wince as the tip of his knife pricked the skin of her throat with the movement. “Weren’t you paying attention? No shadows, no murderous fog – nothing.”
The bárd stared at him, expression stony. “You did something to her,” he said. “You fed her something, at the feast.”
“I’m sorry, Finn,” Rory said. “The Bright One put it in the wine.” Locke felt her shiver. “I would imagine not for much longer though, Lord Locke. Best bargain for whatever it is you want, while you still can.”
He lowered his head so that his lips brushed against the shell of her ear as he whispered. “Is that a word of caution, my lady, or a threat?”
“Continue your dillydallying,” she said softly, “and you’ll find out.”
Locke grinned and let the sword at her throat relax ever so slightly. “I told you that I came to parley for peace, and I meant it. Can we agree to lay aside our mutual disdain and our differences for a few moments and discuss our options?”
“You have a sword held to Rory’s throat,” the dark-eyed woman cut in furiously. “No.”
“Dil,” Rory said. “Let Finn handle this – you need to listen to him.”
“I’ll listen when this trash and his traitor father are both rotting in hell –”
“His father,” said Rory, “is dead. I killed MacMurchada myself.” Despite himself, Locke flinched. “My apologies,” she said, not at all remorseful. “I thought you knew.”
“I knew he was dead.” Locke cleared his throat gruffly. “Didn’t know it was you.”
The dark-eyed woman slashed at the air with her hand. “Enough,” she snarled. “Finn, this man has threatened to cut Rory’s throat and yet dares ask us for peace? Kill him for his impudence alone.”
“Quiet, Dil,” Rory said. “Let’s hear what he has come to say.”
“No!” The woman – Dil – threw her arms into the air. “Why are you protecting this man? He’s a traitor and a murderer!”
“Well, she is my wife, after all,” said Locke cheerily. “Isn’t that true, my lady? Do you remember what you swore to me – to be the sword in my hand and the shield at my back?”
“I am not protecting him,” said Rory, then turned her shimmering silver gaze to him, rife with disdain. “And I am your wife in name only.”
Locke tsked, still not taking his own eyes off where Finn loomed nearby, the others lurking nearby, their daggers ready to strike.
“Oh, I think you and I both know differently.
But regardless," added Locke, “our marriage is in fact very crucial to overcoming that nasty piece of work, Aoife, so you might want to hold off on rejecting me until you hear what I have to say.”
Finn stepped forward, arms crossed over his chest. “What do you have to offer, MacMurchada?”
“Hope,” said Locke. “I know a great deal about Ironstring’s plans for éire, in regards to the forthcoming invasion of Connacht. The new king, Rory’s father’s bastard-boy –”
“Eóin.”
“That’s the one. He’s in over his head, I know that much.
The war is not going well for my new brother-in-law – half-brother-in-law?
Honestly, I’m not sure of the relationship, seeing that the dearly departed Pól seemed to have as much fondness of extramarital affairs as my own father, though with far less disastrous results. ”
“Get to the point, Lord Locke,” his wife said softly.
“As I said,” Locke continued, fingers still resting on Rory’s elbow, not hard enough to hurt her, but firm enough to remind both her and her companions that his blade was still poised to strike.
“I know about Ironstring’s plans for Connacht – where, how, and when he means to attack, and, I should warn you, the latter is very soon. ”
The red-headed man shot Finn a wary glance, who nodded once. “We know about the planned attack,” said the man. “I spoke with Eóin, the king of Connacht, a few days ago. They are prepared for the invasion.”
“Are they? Because Eóin, from what I have heard, is a mere boy, untried in the ways of war, and I can assure you that he is no match for the cunning and cruelty which he will face from the combined might of the general and his damned wife.” Almost imperceptibly, Rory shivered in front of him, and Locke bit his tongue.
A thoughtless, foolish thing to say, considering how poorly her brother, the first boy-king of Connacht, had fared against them.
“He may think that he knows what they are about, but I promise you that he does not.”
Finn stared at him, stone-faced and unreadable. “Then what, pray tell, are they about?”
“That’s smart.” Locke nodded. “Ply me for information now, find out what I might know, and then kill me. Very clever. Only problem is, I have conditions for said information.”
The bárd prowled forward, as ominous as the sídhe-wolf from a few nights ago. “You won’t care much for bargaining when I take your teeth from your head.”
“Most likely not,” Locke agreed, flipping the blade around so fast it was a blur of silver before pressing its tip underneath Rory’s chin. “But I think it would be in both our interests to keep this friendly, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s it,” Dil snarled, lunging forward. “I’ve heard enough –”
Locke’s sword dug deeper into Rory’s throat, a thin line of blood trickling down her neck.
Dil halted abruptly, seething with rage, and he smiled.
“Careful, lass. You might have weapons, but your mistress, alas, does not –” His breath left him in a choked rush as Rory’s foot came up into his groin, at the same moment that she wrenched her arm free of his grip and caught his wrist in her hand, twisting it in on itself as she spun away from his blade.
He stumbled forward, half-blind from the agony between his legs, then yelped again as the heel of her hand slammed into his nose.
“How silly of you, Lord Locke,” he heard her say as he staggered backwards, blood spurting from his nose, groin throbbing in pain. “To forget what I told you when we first met – I am myself the only weapon I should ever need.”
Shaking his head, Locke wiped at his nose with his forearm while fumbling to adjust his grip on his sword. “Now, my lady,” he said. “This is very unwifely behavior of you.”
Rory held up her hands, one palm facing him, the other holding back the bárd and the others, who were already advancing on him, blades drawn. “Lower your sword,” she said to him. “If I didn’t believe that you had information that could aid us, then I would never have brought you here, Lord Locke.”
“It warms me,” he said through gritted teeth, “that you thought so highly of me.”
“Granted,” she continued. “I had thought that extracting such information from you would involve Finn’s fists and Dil’s knives –”
“It still can,” snapped Dil.
“—but regardless, I do intend to hear what it is that you have to say, and if it is worth the price of your miserable life, then I shall let you have it.”
“How generous of you.”
“Nothing’s worth that much,” Dil grumbled, dark eyes flashing with menace, but the bárd nodded once, curt and clipped, in Locke’s direction.
That was his signal, he supposed. Locke licked his lips before leaning forward to spit blood on the ground.
It was now or never, to strike a bargain that would both spare his life and restore to him the birthright his father had so selfishly sacrificed.
“I know something about the witch – something extremely significant, that you will never know if I die here before you today.”
There. Her gray eyes darkened to a smoldering silver. “The Bright One.”
“Yes indeed. We’ve become chummy, you know, over the past few years. Delightful creature, really –”
“Tell us,” said the bárd abruptly, and Locke bared his teeth in a defiant smile.
“Do you know, I don’t think I will.”
The bárd took a single, swift, vicious step forward, halting as soon as Locke raised his sword in silent warning. “Tell me or I will make every agony you’ve ever felt in your life seem like a mere shadow of pain.”
“Very scary,” Locke said. “A top-tier threat, as these things go. Were I a beardless boy –” this with a pointed look at Finn’s smooth-shaven chin “– I’d be shaking in my boots.”
“You insolent –”
“It also,” Locke said flatly, staring at Rory, “involves your brother.”
Rory raised her hand, and the bárd froze immediately, glowering in rage. “What do you want, Lord Locke, in exchange for this information?”
“Well,” said Locke. “First off, I’d like not to die today, if that’s not too much to ask.”
“It is,” said Dil, who was looking more and more murderous by the minute.
“Dil, be quiet.”
“No,” Finn said, low and menacing. “She’s right. He’s a traitor, and the son of a traitor. We don’t need him, a bhréone.”
“I am not a traitor, cannot control the ill-luck of my parentage,” Locke interrupted, shoulders tight, “no more than I can command the waning of the moon or the tides of the sea. No one, living or dead, would be found innocent if judged by the sins of their fathers, Finn.”