Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) (15 page)

“Here, Maeve, lean on me.” Odran put his arm around my waist. I slumped against him and rested my head on his shoulder, even though he was still cradling the fox in his other elbow. I swear, I caught her smirking at my weakness!

Enough
, I thought. I took a long, deep breath through my mouth, then blew it out forcefully.

“There, I’m better now. Let me stand on my own.” I pushed him away gently. “Thank—”

I saw them then. Their eyes glittered at me from the makeshift beds Odran had constructed for them out of pine boughs and scraps of cloth and even a broken bowl. He had also built up miniature holding pens around those comfortable resting places so that none of them could escape too easily.

A small badger bared its teeth at me even while it shivered. I wondered what lay beneath the fabric strip binding its middle.

A pair of squirrels chattered to each other from nests attached to separate house beams.

A hedgehog stuck its nose out of a notch-shaped break in the upended clay pot sheltering it. The pot was positioned on a slab of wood and the wood was ringed by a thick, wide fence of brambles.

Odran saw me studying the arrangement and couldn’t help bragging, “That is one of my best inventions. It keeps Muirín and Guennola from bothering him while he heals.” He set down the fox, who eyed the hedgehog’s ringfort sourly before sauntering off.

“Now I see why this place smells worse than a tanner’s trough,” I said. “So many animals! I didn’t think Muirín and Guennola could produce that much stench on their own.”

“I wish I could care for them better,” Odran said. Pride in how he’d safeguarded the hedgehog faded from his voice as he admitted his failing. “I should scrub this place more thoroughly, but when? It takes so long to walk here every day, and then to be back to Cruachan in time for dinner! I have to use my time giving them fresh water, finding their food, and treating their wounds and ailments. If one of them has managed
to roll in his own filth, I have to deal with that immediately. I clear away their droppings as often as possible, but—”

“The smell gets
into
things,” I finished for him. I surveyed the small enclosures. “Tomorrow I’ll bring soap and some more rags. Try gathering some flowers to scatter on the floor. We won’t be able to undo this stench in a single day, but we can make a start.”

“You want to come back here with me?”

I shrugged. “If I can. Mother might have work for me. If that happens, I’ll try to escape long enough to leave the cleaning supplies for you to take here on your own. I can hide them under the willow, though I do hope—”

“But you’re afraid of wild creatures!” He sounded so vehement about it that I had to giggle.

“Don’t you listen? I don’t mind those.” I indicated the squirrels and the hedgehog. “However, I’m not going to touch
that
one.” The badger snapped at me when I pointed at it, then subsided into a permanent state of grumbling. “Nor your fox nor your stoat. By the way, where is Guennola?”

Odran went farther back into the house to a place where the roof was almost entirely intact and the shadows hid many things. I heard him shifting some heavy object, followed by a yelp of pain. He returned with the stoat on his shoulder and his forefinger in his mouth.

“The miserable ingrate bit me again,” he muttered around it. I coaxed his hand away from his mouth and examined his finger in the light. It was red, and I could see the prints of Guennola’s teeth, but once again there was no blood drawn.

“Just as you said,” I remarked. “She nips you, but she doesn’t
break the skin.” I gave the stoat a look of admiration. She hissed at me. Again. I suppose even stoats have their traditions.

“I put her in the same sort of thorn-ringed enclosure as the hedgehog,” Odran said. “It was the only way I could feel confident that she wouldn’t do him any harm when I’m not around.”

“Why is she here at all?” I asked. “And Muirín too. You have the stoat penned up safely, but your fox was free to greet us at the door. If you don’t tether her, won’t she run away?”

He whistled and Muirín came at his call. Odran picked her up again, just long enough to sink his thumb and forefinger into her neck fur and fish out a strand of braided leather that hung from a loop concealed by her pelt. The end was gnawed through. “Obviously the thought has crossed this vixen’s mind. It was luck that brought us here before she could act on it. I can trust her untethered if I’m nearby, but I won’t chance losing her or having her bother the ailing animals when we’re apart.”

“You ran a big risk. I know how much you love Muirín and Guennola, so why keep them here?”

“It’s not the first time. Since I found this place, I’ve been leaving them here for a day or two at a time so they don’t outstay their welcome at Cruachan.”

“Really? I never noticed.”

“No one did except Father.” Odran’s face fell. “How could he help that, sharing a sleeping chamber with us? Whenever he became aware that they were missing, it was as if the High King had heaped his hands with gold. You should have heard him: ‘If those beasts are gone, it’s the gods who’ve freed you
from them. Animals have no place with us unless they earn their keep. Now you can devote your attention where it rightfully belongs.’ Oh, the
hope
in his voice when he told me that!” He shook his head. “And the look of doom he wore whenever I brought them back.”

“Are you carrying them back and forth just to provoke your father?” I wouldn’t have put it past him, and I wouldn’t have blamed him for it either.

“I didn’t intend it to be so. That would be like burning down a forest to find a stone. It doesn’t take much to ignite Father’s wrath. All I wanted was to prevent your parents from hating my pets as much as he does. Our stay with you will be the longest time we’ve remained with one host. Every other stop along our road has been for two or three days at most. Even after so short a stay, I’ve heard the royal mistress of the house complaining about the smell. I’d rather bring Muirín and Guennola out here and give your servants a fighting chance to defeat their scent markings.”

I glanced after the fox, who had vanished into the recesses of the round house. “I guarantee they’ll succeed, even if they have to tear down the great house and rebuild it overnight. My mother can be very
firm
about cleanliness. So can I. We should get started. Where do you keep the things you use to clean up the animals’ waste?”

He nodded in the direction that Muirín had taken. “Back there, but—”

I ignored him, already on the hunt and eager to help. It didn’t strike me as odd that Odran was shielding, nurturing, and trying to heal wild creatures. He wasn’t the same as ordinary boys, so I couldn’t hold him to the same measure of
behavior. That would be like trying to force a bull into a badger’s sett. I heard him call my name and hurry to catch up to me. His hand closed on my upper arm.

“Be careful, Maeve.” His breath was warm on my ear. “If your eyes aren’t used to the dark, you might stumble and fall. Please, stand still and let me bring you what we’ll need.”

“No need to bother,” I said cheerfully. “There’s more than enough light to see by once you’re back here. It only looks dark from the front part of the house. I can see Guennola’s nest, and there’s Muirín, watching me from under that bench, and over there—”

My heart and my breath seemed to stop at the same time. My eyes filled with a sight that was both the most awesome and the most pitiable I’d ever beheld. Wings that should have been stretched out to catch the wind were folded around a small, dapple-feathered body. A strip of cloth held one of them immobile. Taloned feet grasped a wooden perch, and a hooked gray beak with a black tip parted to confront me with a sharp
kee-kee-kee!
The kestrel’s eyes met mine. A bright yellow ring encircled each eye, matching the color of the small stripe bridging its beak. As I stood captive to that bold, unwavering stare, I saw the impossible: a flare of brilliance rose from the depths of those dark brown eyes, a moment of light in the darkness like the kindling of the need-fire on Beltane eve.

“You see it too?” Odran’s voice broke my trance. “I thought I was the only one.”

Her name was Ea: fire. Odran called her that when he first saw that unearthly flame that flashed and faded in her eyes. I agreed it was a good choice.

“What have you named the other creatures in your care?” I asked as we walked back home together.

“I don’t give them names. I’m going to release them when they recover. If you name something, it’s bound to you. Isn’t that right, Muirín?”

He shifted the little vixen from one arm to the other. We were crossing the bog causeway and if he let her trot along with us, she might take it into her head to dash away and explore. Odran didn’t want to chase her over deceptive ground, where a layer of greenery covering deep water might support her weight but not his. His care for her welfare meant he couldn’t hold my hand on the way back. (Not that I needed him to guide my steps, but I couldn’t help wishing for it anyway or feeling a little envious of Muirín.)

“Does that mean you’re going to keep the kestrel?” Part of me was appalled at the possibility.
Is she so badly injured that she’ll never fly again? How can she live, exiled from the sky! This will break her heart
. Another part of my spirit was thrilled to imagine how matters would play out if Odran couldn’t set her free.
If he keeps her now, that means
I’ll
be the one to have her eventually. He can’t leave her on the crannog forever. Samhain will come. He’ll have to travel on with his father, and Ea will be mine!

Had I entertained such a selfish thought, even for a heartbeat? The memory of a raptor’s unfettered flight shamed me so deeply that I almost didn’t hear Odran answer:

“Ea isn’t mine to own, and Flidais, goddess of wild creatures, would punish me if I tried to steal her. That bird doesn’t need me the way Guennola and Muirín do. She’s old enough to know how to fend for herself, to hunt, to nest, to find a mate
someday.” We reached the end of the bog and he let the vixen run on her own feet again. “I don’t know why I felt compelled to name her, but it’s done.”

We passed the rest of our return home talking about Odran’s hideaway on the crannog and how we would arrange things so that he and the animals could remain unmolested in that far-off refuge.

“We can be thankful that Lughnasadh comes soon,” I said. “Your father will accompany mine to Tailteann and you won’t be shouted away from your dinner every night.”

“I get enough to eat. Don’t worry about me.”

I would have believed his easygoing reply if his skinny body wasn’t contradicting every word. I’d seen spiders with sturdier legs.

I dropped my voice and played the cunning schemer. “Yes, but if you stay through the entire meal, you can slip leftover pieces into a pouch and bring them to the creatures the next day. I’ll do the same. That way we won’t have to hunt for food for them, and that will give you more time for seeing to their other needs.”

“That
would
be nice.” Odran studied his hands; the nails were black with embedded soil in spite of repeated washings. He couldn’t catch mice for Ea to eat, so he grubbed in the dirt to fetch her beetles and earthworms. His other meat eaters got the same fare.

“I have another idea. You’ll teach me how to take care of the animals so that I can go to the crannog in your place. Think how happy your father will be to see you back at your lessons!”

“Maeve, are you moonstruck? I can’t teach you all the healing skills you’d need to look after them on your own. And have
you forgotten that poor badger? He must be kept clean and comfortable, fed by hand when he won’t feed himself. How do you expect to do that when you fear his teeth and claws?”

I stopped walking and clasped his hands. “I’d bury my fear and do what was needed. I saw how tenderly you treat those beasts, Odran. Why do you do it?”

“There you go, sounding like Father again.”

“Odran, I’m serious.” I dug my fingers into his hands as hard as I could, for emphasis. “It’s like the way Fechin cares for his horses, but they’re always going to be a part of his life. These are wild things you’ll release and never see again.”

He smiled sheepishly. “I don’t know why I do it, Maeve. It’s as much a mystery to me as why I gave Ea her name. Something in my spirit drives me to help them. Do you think it’s a weakness? Am I so afraid of death that I have to fight it on all of these small battlefields?”

Cowardice?
I thought.
Father’s best warriors should learn courage from you!

I squeezed his hands again, this time more gently. “I understand. It’s confusing, but … but it’s the same for me. After seeing the creatures in your care, I’m still afraid of some of them, and yet I know … I
know
that I’d risk any hurt they might give me if I can help them.”
And you
, I thought.

So it was decided that Odran and I would become partners in ministering to the injured animals. Agreeing on the details nearly set us at each other’s throats. We talked and debated and argued and fought about them all the way back to Cruachan.

It galled me that I couldn’t go to the crannog on my own until Odran took me there at least twice more. He wanted to be reassured that I wouldn’t get lost on the path and that I
could fulfill each animal’s needs. I accepted the second part readily, but I resented the first. The fields and forests, the bogs and lakes of Connacht were my home. I didn’t need a newcomer to guide me through
my
land. So what if I’d never found my way to that abandoned crannog during any of my rambles? I wasn’t being reasonable; I was being mad.

Odran had his own mouthful of gristle to swallow: I made him consent to resume lessons with his father. He began by doing so on alternate days, when I was with the creatures. Then I informed him it would be even better if I spent two days with them to his one.

“Just until our fathers depart for Tailteann,” I cajoled. “We don’t want people noticing that there’s a pattern to our absences. If they do, they’ll begin to ask questions.”