Chapter Fifteen
It was only a few hours later that everything changed.
I had slept hard for about two hours or more and awoke sometime very late—or early, as the case may have been—feeling parched. I immediately felt for Fionn in the dark and found him sound asleep beside me.
We had gone directly to bed the night before, refusing Lord Ehlbert’s offer of ale, Fionn telling him that I was too tired and pleading the lateness of the hour. As a result, I hadn’t had much chance to look around or familiarize myself with Lord Ehlbert’s house or find any water for my bedside.
It was a habit of mine to have water at my bedside at night, because I apparently slept with my mouth open a little, according to Fionn, who was highly amused by it.
Anyway, I sometimes woke during the night with a dry mouth, so I kept a glass of water by my bed, just in case.
This time, I’d neglected to do that, so I either had to suffer until morning or go in search of some water.
I decided to go downstairs and hopefully find a ewer of water or even a wooden bucket in the kitchen for drinking purposes.
I hadn’t paid much attention the night before to the layout of this house, but I’d done business once with a nobleman who had lost his fortune and wanted to get started in trade to try and restore at least part of it.
He wanted to keep his involvement in trade a secret, so we had met privately at his home, as he had wanted none of his friends and acquaintances to know about our meeting.
Anyway, this home was similar to that one in a way, though Lord Ehlbert’s home was on a busy street in town and the nobleman’s had been in the countryside.
I thought I could find the larder or kitchen somewhere on the lower level.
I took a candle, lit it from a wall sconce burning in the hallway, and made my way down the stairs.
I’d been struck the evening before by how nicely furnished it was, seen by candlelight, at least, and by how large it was for a private home.
Most homes then were only a few rooms, though my uncle’s had been big enough for his entire large family.
He was, however, only a prosperous tradesman.
This house was not as large as a castle, but it was still the home of a nobleman and quite spacious.
It had many rooms, spread out over three floors, but I thought the kitchen would be on the ground level.
At any rate, I did find one with a metal ewer full of drinking water, quenched my thirst and took a small mug of it with me to make my way back upstairs.
I was still on my way when I heard the screaming and shouting begin.
It sounded like Tadgh’s voice—and even more alarming, one of the voices sounded like my lord’s.
On the floor where we were staying, there were mostly bedrooms, I was fairly sure, and the loud shouting seemed to be coming from one of the rooms nearby.
I left the water in my hurry and ran up the staircase and down the hall.
A door sat partially open, so I rushed to it to look inside—and reeled backward in shock.
Fionn was standing beside a bed, his sword drawn, his back to the door. The covers on the four-poster bed were twisted and falling on the floor, as if someone had exited the bed quickly. Tadgh, bare chested, was on his knees in front of Fionn, looking pale and shaky.
“It’s not what you think, Your Grace. Please…let me explain!”
I ran over to take Fionn’s arm and pull him around to face me, but when he whirled to look at me, I saw that his eyes were wild, shocked—and absolutely furious.
But most surprising of all, he yanked his arm away from me viciously, raising his sword to point it at me and aiming it directly at my chest.
“Unhand me, demon!” he shouted at me. “Get back or I’ll kill you!”
I was too shocked to move, and I stood there, trembling in front of him.
“Fionn? What is this? Why do you draw your sword on me this way? Why are you here in Tadgh’s room?”
He continued to regard me grimly, suspiciously, his eyes sparkling with some strong emotion and his voice, when he spoke again, was low and menacing.
“Answer me quickly, demon, or I’ll kill you here and now and paint this room with your blood.”
I gasped and backed slowly away from him as he steadily advanced on me. “Last chance, fiend. Speak to me,” he cajoled me in a seductive voice. “Don’t be shy. Lie to me again. You’re good at that. Convince me not to kill you.”
“Fionn, please! Stop it! You’re frightening me!”
He continued to advance on me, his eyes gleaming hatred and shooting sparks of fire as he stalked me. “I said, last chance, you lying son of a bitch,” he snarled in a voice that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard from him before.
I could back away no farther and was too afraid to turn my back on him and run.
This was like some kind of nightmare, and I couldn’t wake from it.
This must have been what he was like in battle, but I’d never seen this side of him before.
If I’d tried to run, he’d have been on me in seconds, cutting me down.
But I had to say something, so I finally forced out a question.
“W-what do you want me to say?”
“Tell me what you are! Give me the truth, for once, damn you, or I swear to the goddess, I’ll…”
From behind him, Tadgh suddenly rushed him, slamming the hilt of his own sword down on Fionn’s head.
My lord’s knees buckled, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he sank down to the floor almost in slow motion.
I gasped out loud and tried to catch him to break his fall a little, but we both went down in a heap.
I managed to roll him over and get my ear down to his chest, thankful that I could hear his strong heartbeat, though it was beating like a wild bird flapping its wings.
From somewhere I heard the sound of more men shouting frantically and running toward us from downstairs.
For security’s sake, Captain Darragh and some of his men had spent the night here at Ehlbert’s home in the servants’ quarters, rather than at the camp, and we must have been making a great deal of noise indeed to rouse them.
Tadgh was pulling on my arm, trying to disentangle me from Fionn’s body and get me back to my feet as more people began to crowd into the room.
Suddenly, I was pulled roughly away from Tadgh by my arm, and I was stunned to see Captain Darragh, his face a mask of rage as he threatened Tadgh with a short sword and tried to push me behind him.
Meanwhile, some of Fionn’s other officers, who had arrived along with Darragh, knelt beside Fionn with soft cries of dismay and concern as they tried to rouse him.
As for me, I was still trying desperately to get back to Fionn myself. I managed to wrench my arm away from Darragh and threw myself down beside my lord again. Whether or not he’d suddenly gone mad and even if he still wanted to kill me, I couldn’t bear to see him hurt that way.
“No! Braden, get away from him!” Tadgh was shouting. “He was going to kill us both!”
Darragh pushed him away from me and back down onto the bed, shouting something harsh and ugly sounding at him in the Faery language. His expression was murderous.
By this time Ehlbert had arrived with his own sword and several of his male servants, all of them armed. Ehlbert was outraged as he saw Darragh pushing Tadgh around, and he got between the two of them as Tadgh tried to surge back to his feet.
“Get your hands off my son, damn you! Explain yourself, Murian dog! What the fuck is going on here?”
Everyone was shouting and shoving each other around in the narrow corridor and inside Tadgh’s bedroom. It was pure madness, and I was afraid there was about to be bloodshed.
“Stop all of this, please, and look to the king! Why isn’t he waking up?”
Tadgh flushed but raised his chin defiantly. “Why do you care?”
“Because he’s my husband, damn you!”
“Then why did you come to my bed in the middle of the night?”
“What?” I said, recoiling and pulling away from Tadgh. Frantically, I looked back toward Darragh in shock. “It’s a lie! I never went to him. I was in bed with Fionn and got up to find some water. When I came back, they were already fighting in Tadgh’s room.”
Tadgh reeled in surprise, and if he was acting, then he was doing a good job. “ Braden, stop lying! Don’t be afraid of him. Fionn already knows.” He grabbed for me again. “He saw us together, Braden. It’s too late for excuses and lies.”
I jerked his arm away from him. “Let me go! I’m not lying and I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I was in bed with my husband, and I only went downstairs to find some water.
I was returning when I heard all the shouting.
” I tore myself away from him and went back to kneel beside Fionn, whose eyes were fluttering, as he seemed to be coming around.
I reached out a hand to stroke his cheek, but he flung it away.
“Get off me, damn you!”
“Fionn, it’s all lies. I was never here with him! You have to believe me.”
“And not believe my own eyes? I saw you with him, damn it. I should kill you both!”
“N-no, it’s a lie…I didn’t do anything. You have to listen to me.”
Darragh was helping him to his feet and both of them were looking at me like I was dirt under their feet. It hurt so much that I stumbled back into Tadgh, who immediately put his hand on my waist and pulled me behind him, as if to protect me.
“He’s not listening, Braden. Save your breath.
” Tadgh was saying, still looking stunned, as if something vital inside him had suddenly drained away and now reaction was beginning to set in.
As far as everyone knew, he had been caught with the king’s consort.
He touched a wound on his neck and then sat down hard on the foot of the bed, looking dazed.
His father rushed over to him, pushing me aside and shooting me a black and angry look.
“Look at his throat, Lord Ehlbert,” one of the servants said, and everyone peered closer to see two large puncture wounds on the side of it, with blood seeping steadily from each one.
Blood was beginning to drip down onto his chest, and he gazed vacantly back up at his father, uncomprehending what had happened to him. He wasn’t the only one.
“What the fuck have you done to my son?” Ehlbert roared at Lord Fionn, who snarled at him from the door.
“That wound on his neck didn’t come from me, you fool! It must have come from the one lying on top of him when I came into the room.” Here he looked deliberately from me back to Fionn and all the eyes in the room followed his gaze.
“His loud moans awakened me. That’s the only reason I came in.”
Ehlbert flushed and gave Fionn a belligerent glare. “We only have your word for that.”
“The word of your king should be enough, damn you. Look at your son, man. Do you think I’m a fucking bloodsucker?”
Obviously angry, but perhaps knowing what was good for him, as men like Ehlbert always seemed to do, he looked down and refused to look back up at Fionn.
I tried to open my mouth to say something—anything to defend myself, because if Fionn weas innocent, then it would be me they accused of biting Tadgh’s neck.
“It’s all a lie,” I said, quietly this time, hopelessly, sinking down on the bed as my knees went weak. I knew Fionn had already made up his mind and then closed it against me.
He shot me another filthy look and then ignored me.
“Again, look to your son. When you’ve bound his wounds, put him to bed.
Call a physician but don’t let the fool bleed him.
He’s lost enough blood already and needs time to recover.
We’ll talk in the morning before I leave.
I’d go now, but it’s the middle of the night and I still have a certain demon I need to take care of.
” He came over to me and yanked me up off the bed by my arm, then turned to leave, still gripping me.
He stopped when we reached the hallway and called back more advice.
“Better put guards on your doors for the rest of the night in case he manages to break free.”
I glanced back over my shoulder as we left too, and I saw Tadgh watching us go. He looked dazed and ill, and his men were binding the wound at his neck. But I had far greater troubles of my own.
Fionn had gripped my arm and was half-dragging, half-marching me back to our bedroom, with Darragh trailing behind us. He shoved me inside the room to fall on the bed and then stood over me looking down, storm clouds and lightning in his eyes and a snarl curling his lips.
“I need some distance and some time to think about what I should do with you.” He reached inside his shirt for the iron symbol of his goddess that he was wearing around his neck.
That was new, and nothing I’d noticed him wearing before.
Perhaps he put it there before the battle—had that only been earlier that morning?
Anyway, he quickly strode over to me to hang the symbol around my neck.
If he expected me to beg him to take it off and writhe in pain and torment, then he was badly disappointed.
It did burn my skin a little where it touched it and felt very heavy.
It made me feel a little sick, too, but nothing I couldn’t bear.
What I couldn’t bear was the way Fionn was looking at me.
“Tie him to the bed, Darragh, and post a guard outside this door and one by each exit.” He looked down at me. “You should have stayed gone when you flew out Tadgh’s window.”
“When I what? Do you even hear yourself and the things you’re saying? I was never in Tadgh’s room until I heard you shouting at him. And I don’t fly!”
“Stop lying, damn you! I saw you there with my own eyes!”
“No, you didn’t. You couldn’t have! Because it wasn’t me.”
He pulled back his hand to strike me then, but instead he slowly lowered it, glaring at me for a long while.
He reached down instead to pull off my boots—I guess he thought it might slow me down if I managed to escape.
He stood there afterward for a long moment staring down at my feet, before he turned abruptly and took off toward the door, taking my boots with him.
When he got there, he stood for another moment before leaving.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, not bothering to turn and look at me.
“You’d better be prepared to tell me the truth then, or I won’t be responsible for what I do to you. ”
He left then, and Darragh checked the bindings on my wrists once more. He followed him out, giving me a savage, menacing look of his own as he left and slammed the door behind him, leaving me alone, shocked and devastated by all that had happened in such a short span of time.
I had only a few hours until he returned. And though it would probably kill me, I knew what I had to do.