Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) (14 page)

Instead, the dawn found my sleeping chamber empty and my racing feet carrying me through the mists to the shelter of the willow tree.

“W
HAT TOOK YOU
so long, Odran?” I asked when he parted the willow branches and came to keep our meeting. I spoke casually, as if his arrival was as unimportant as a worm showing its head aboveground.

“That’s a strange greeting.” He sounded amused. “I was trying to follow some good advice a friend gave me last night. It takes more time to get where you’re going when you have to look ahead, behind, and all around for every step you take.”

“Were you followed?”

“Not unless the hunters on my trail have the magic to turn themselves invisible.”

“Like you’ve been doing.” I hadn’t meant to speak of how he’d been avoiding me. I definitely didn’t mean to be grouchy as a badger when I said it. So much for treating him coolly!

“Maeve, I’m sorry.” He sat beside me and reached for my hand.

“Don’t do that!” I snapped, hugging myself away from
him. “I don’t want that stoat of yours to slither out of your sleeve and nip my finger until it’s bloody.”

“Guennola is fairly well behaved when she bites,” Odran replied. “She’s lost patience with me countless times, but those sharp teeth of hers have never yet broken my skin and made me bleed. I don’t know where she learned to do that.
I
never tried to teach a stoat self-control. Anyway”—he linked his hands behind his head and leaned back against the tree trunk—“she isn’t with me now.”

Was he telling the truth? His stoat was a very thin, small creature. It couldn’t have been longer, from nose to tail tip, than my forearm. The animal might be lurking inside his garments, disguised as a bulge of the fabric. I eyed Odran scrupulously, waiting for the telltale twitch and squirm beneath the cloth that would reveal Guennola’s presence.

“I know what you’re doing, Maeve,” he said. “Do you want me to prove she’s not here by shedding my tunic?”

I would
not
let him faze me. “Your fox doesn’t seem to be with you either. What will you strip off to prove
that
?” I replied drily.

He opened his mouth and closed it again, at a loss. I tasted a sweet sip of a small victory.

“Enough about your beasts,” I went on. “Last night you said you had something to tell me. You asked me to come here and here I am. I have better places to be, so speak. What do I need to hear from you?”

“An apology,” he said, holding my gaze with his own. “That, and an explanation.”

“What could you have to apologize for or explain to me?” I forced myself to break the hold of his eyes.

“You know that answer, Maeve. You said it yourself before we sat down to dinner last night.”

“You’ll have to remind me,” I said, covering my wounded feelings with an artificial show of dignity. “I have a poor memory for unimportant things.”

He let my barbed words pass. “You said that I’ve been making excuses to avoid your company. You’re right, and I regret it. I want your forgiveness—”

“Is that all? Are we done here?”

“—but first I want to tell you why I behaved so rudely. It’s your choice whether you hear me out or not. You can leave now and never say another word to me except farewell when Father and I travel on to Avallach. You’re free.”

I bent my head, prideful stiffness melting from me like a cloak of sun-touched frost. “I’ll listen,” I said.

“Of all the stupid things I’ve done—and Father would be happy to recite the full list—keeping you constantly at arm’s length was the worst. The day I met you was the first time in my life I believed I’d made a friend. That was new to me. I had no such bonds back home. The boys who studied with Father never invited me to join them in play after our lessons and I was too shy to ask. The others—the young warriors in training—had no use for me except as the object of their ‘jests,’ or when they tried turning my creatures into targets for their weapons.”

“That sounds familiar,” I said, half joking. “I’ve had two friends in my life, and one was my sister Derbriu.”

“I can’t imagine you being too bashful to find companions,” he said with a faint smile.

“There’s a wide gap between
can’t
and
won’t
, Odran,” I told
him. “I don’t see the good in heaping up friends like pebbles, just to have a pile of them. Mother doesn’t understand that I’d rather be happy alone than miserable in a crowd.”

My declaration bewildered him. “If that’s how you feel, why are you so angry with me for staying away from you?”

“Because—” The tip of an invisible knife touched my throat. “Because you’re the first person I’ve known since Kelan that I’ve wanted for a friend.”

“Who’s Kelan?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, the greatest lie of my life. “He’s dead.”

“May his soul know joy in the Land of Youth. I’m sorry you lost someone special to you.”

“He wasn’t my sweetheart,” I said sharply.

“I never said he was. Can’t he be special to you anyway?”

There was such innocent sincerity in Odran’s question that I wanted to throw my arms around his neck. I had to settle for covering my face with my hands and exclaiming, “
Thank
you. If you only knew how sick I am of being teased about that sort of thing!”

“I have some idea,” Odran replied. “We both got a taste of it last night. Your father has a powerful sense of humor. He almost had me believing he was serious about you and me becoming—”

I flung my head back and uttered a groan of pure aggravation. “If I were in love with anyone—if I even cared the slightest bit for a boy that way—why would I want to be taunted for it? I’d only have to lose him, unless he were a prince, a king, or a warrior famed enough to be given the High King’s daughter as his hero’s portion.” I slumped against the tree.

“Poor Maeve.” Odran’s hand stole over mine so gently that I was scarcely aware of his touch at first. When I did notice, I made no move to escape it.

“Poor
you
,” I countered. I turned my hand palm upward, let my fingers interweave with his, and leaned toward him without thinking. Away from his creatures, he smelled deliciously of fresh air, warm bread, and apples.

“Poor us?” he suggested lightly. We both laughed and let it numb us to the truth: Unless the Fair Folk granted us a heavy measure of their magic, our lives were not our own. Our fathers held them.

“Let’s make a bargain, Odran,” I said. “From one captive to another. Let’s be true friends from now on. You’ll leave us before Samhain and I’ll never see you again unless one day my royal husband says, ‘There’s a new druid joining our household, Maeve. He’s the strangest man you ever saw, with a fox for a torque and a stoat for a bracelet!’ ” I realized I was still holding his hand, squeezing it warmly.
What am I doing?
I released him, embarrassed, but reluctant too. I couldn’t make sense of either feeling.

“At last, a future worth praying for,” Odran said. “I’ll take that bargain, Maeve, but first I still owe you the reason why I acted so badly toward you.”

“You don’t have to do that. It never happened. We’re starting over, remember? Now let’s find something fun to do. Do you want to go fishing again? Oh, I know! Come with me and I’ll show you my cattle. There’s a wonderful bullock in the herd, lastborn son of Dubh, the best bull Father ever owned.”

“I’ve heard of Dubh,” Odran said. “Isn’t he the black bull
you tamed when you were three years old and rode all the way to Tara?”

“That’s not exactly what happened.”
Bards. Honestly. Devnet’s song had traveled far and changed shape dreadfully in ten years
.

“Probably not.” His wonderful blue eyes doubled the effect of his smile. “If a creature as small as Guennola scares you now, getting close to a bull when you were three would’ve been terrifying.”

“I wasn’t three—I was five—and I wasn’t terrified until things got out of hand,” I said. “Also, I am definitely not afraid of animals.” I hesitated over that half-truth, then amended it. “I mean, I’m not afraid of
our
animals, the ones we keep, the horses and cattle and pigs and dogs.”

“Just wild things, then?”

“Not all of them. I’d be an awful coward if I were scared of creatures like hares, deer, hedgehogs, and squirrels. It’s the ones with an appetite for meat that I’d rather not encounter.” And that was
another
near-truth to be corrected. “Except … except for the hunting birds. When I see them soaring or hovering or even when they make a kill, I wish I could hold them with my eyes forever.”

I’d never spoken to anyone of how fiercely I loved the way a hawk’s wings wrote
freedom
across the open sky. Why was it so easy to say such things to him? I fell silent, wondering if he’d laugh at me.

He wasn’t laughing. He stood up and offered his hand. “Come with me, Maeve.”

I clasped his hand again; it felt right. So did following him without question. We left the willow tree and the stream. We
raced like leaves on the wind. Our eyes scanned the landscape, but Mother’s she-hounds must have had other business occupying them, for we were safe, alone and unobserved. Open country gave way to forest. Odran moved through the venerable oaks as if they were all his partners in a mystic dance. He never once let go of my hand, and I danced with them too.

The forest ended and we could no longer see any trace of Cruachan ringfort behind us. A few straggling trees seemed to mark our path to the edge of a bog. The sun warmed the green blanket of moss and added brilliance to the staggering flight of blue, orange, white, and golden yellow butterflies as they dipped and rose, seeking nectar from thickets of purple bell-shaped flowers.

“This way. Mind where you step.” Those were the first words Odran spoke to me since we began this journey. He showed me a wooden walkway laid out on top of the bog. It looked very old and decrepit, and was so narrow that we had to go in single file, still holding hands.

“Is this where you’ve been going every day?” I asked. “No wonder we never see you. This is a world away!”

“It only seems that way because you don’t know our destination,” Odran replied over one shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

The walkway split into two. Odran led us onto the left-hand path, which soon brought us out of the bog and into another stand of trees. These were young pines, hardy and able to thrive near bog land. We stepped out of their fragrant shade to meet a fresh, moist breeze and to see a small lake rippling at our feet.

“We’re here, Maeve. Look.”

Odran pointed to a spot a little farther along the lakeshore where a double row of thick, sturdy pilings marched into the water. They supported a wooden walkway like the one that had taken us over the bog, and ended at a large, circular platform supported above the water by more of the anchored tree trunks. A round house rested there, its thatched roof showing so many holes that it resembled the hide of a mangy dog.

“This is where you’ve been coming?” I demanded in disbelief. “To that tumbledown crannog?”

“It’s sturdy where it counts,” Odran said staunchly. “The roof’s the only part that’s gone to ruin, and even so, we have plenty of places inside that are safe from the rain and can be made snug against the cold.”

“We?”
I echoed.

He took my hand again. “Let me show you.”

I let him conduct me across the causeway to the crannog. The wind shifted as we approached, blowing landward and bringing a familiar scent. I wrinkled my nose: I knew where I’d smelled this before. As Odran plunged eagerly through the house’s gaping doorway, I found myself dragging my feet and pulling back until my hand slipped out of his.

He turned a questioning look on me. “Are you frightened, Maeve? I swear, you’re safe here.”

“I’m not afraid. It’s just … that smell is so—”

As I spoke, a familiar face showed itself around the doorpost. Odran’s little red fox peered up at me with a smear of blood on her muzzle and such a smug expression that I immediately exclaimed, “Oh no! Muirín’s eaten Guennola!”

“I’d like to see her try getting away with that. There’d be a lot more blood than this, and more than half of it would
be hers.” Odran lifted the fox into the crook of his arm and scratched her between the ears. She closed her eyes in bliss. “She’s probably found some mice. They venture out here to steal food and end up becoming food themselves.” He looked at me. “As for the smell, it’s worse in there. I must be accustomed to it, but if you find it too much, you should stay outside. I’m sorry I brought you on such a tiring journey for nothing. It’s just that after what you told me today, I thought you’d be pleased to see—”

“I may not be used to the stink, Odran, but I can endure it. I was able to put up with it while I was waiting for you in your room last night, wasn’t I?” I pulled my shoulders back. “And for your information, it would take a far, far longer road than our little stroll today to tire me. Now stop treating me like I’m a buttercup petal and stand aside!” With a fine display of bravado I strode past Odran and into the house.

He was right: the stench
was
worse inside, in spite of the gaps in the roof that let in gust after gust of cleansing air. My stomach heaved. At first I was glad that I hadn’t eaten anything that day except some wild blackberries picked on the road to the crannog, or had more to drink than a few handfuls of water when we encountered a brook. Then I grasped the dreadful fact that it’s better to just throw up than to stand reeling while your stomach tries to empty itself of nothing.