Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) (34 page)

“People of the Mounds, I seek you,” I said in a calm, reverent voice. “I am Maeve, princess of Connacht, daughter of Cloithfinn and Eochu Feidlech, who is High King of Èriu. Let me shelter here, and if the price of your protection is that I never see the sun again, I accept it.” I straightened my shoulders, walked around the white slab, and crossed the boundary between worlds.

I didn’t stop until I was entirely shrouded by shadows, with not even a strand of my hair or a thread of my hem touched by the moonlight falling across the threshold to the mound. I
had entered a gateway to the Otherworld without any protective charm, such as a branch of the sacred rowan tree. There was no enchantment to shield me from the Fair Folk, if they decided they didn’t want me in their realm uninvited. The few weapons that I had to defend myself were purely human—my walking staff and my knife. If the People of the Mounds sent monsters to destroy me for my brashness, I wouldn’t survive, but I wouldn’t die helpless or without teaching them that I was a hard mouthful to swallow.

I don’t know how long I waited in the darkness. I didn’t want to enter the Otherworld completely; I merely wanted to wrap its peace around me and muster my thoughts. I cocked my head toward the depths of the mound. The silence was a solid thing. Hearkening in the other direction, toward the mortal world beyond the white stone, I heard the faint rustle of a stray breeze over the grass, the song of night insects, and nothing more. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, I saw the fires.

There were three, burning far away across the meadow, deep within the shelter of forest beyond.
Am I seeing this?
I wondered as I slowly emerged from the mound and laid one hand lightly on a carved slab before the entry. Yes, there they were, so small at that distance, but real.
Are they his? Morann’s? Is Devnet with him?
I had to know.

Before I stepped away from my refuge, I thanked the People of the Mounds for their kindness. Even though I’d seen nothing within the gateway, I left feeling as though the powerful deities of the Otherworld had offered me the guest-bond. I was grateful.

Lord Morann’s encampment boasted
five
fires, not just the three I’d seen from the shadows of the mound. All that light made it difficult for me to get close enough to take in everything that was going on without being detected, but I managed to see enough. Besides his twelve warriors he’d brought a pair of servants, his charioteer, and—

Yes, there was Devnet. Our bard sat flanked by two of Morann’s fighting men, eating his dinner at the smallest fire, far from his captor. His ankles were bound. When he finished eating, one of the guards secured his wrists as well.

“Not too tight, friend.” It sounded like he’d held on to his good humor despite everything. “I’d like to be able to play my harp again someday, even if it’s just for the instant before your chief cuts off my head.”

“There’ll be none of that, don’t worry,” the guard tying Devnet’s wrists said. “It won’t be long until we meet up with Lord Eochu. Once his daughter comes to us, you’ll be let go.”

“And you think that will be the end of it?” Devnet chuckled drily. “How many kings do you know who’d simply let a bard go free after treating him like this?” He indicated his bonds. “Lord Morann knows the power of a song. He won’t want that weapon turned against him, especially after he used it so skillfully to slander my sweet princess. There’s only one way to be sure I keep silent, just as there’s only one way for him to turn my lady Maeve back into the prize she was before her brothers were born.”

The first guard’s brow creased. “What are you saying?”

“What I heard Lord Morann himself say when I was still his guest and not his hostage. He asked if the three young princes were well when I left Cruachan. When I told him yes, he drank
to their health but added, ‘We must be glad for them while we can. Born so small, so soon, who knows what their future will be?’ ” Devnet made a face. “That was when I made the mistake of
hinting
that such talk might be called ill-wishing. He used my words as an excuse to justify
this
.” He held up his bound hands.

“You’re spinning tales,” the second guard scoffed. “How could Lord Morann harm the princes of Connacht? It’s impossible.”

“You’re young enough to believe that,” Devnet replied. “But I’ve lived and traveled long enough to know that ambition has a way of trampling anything in its way, including what’s ‘impossible.’ I’m glad I won’t be there to see it happen. They’re such sweet babies.”

I slipped away while Devnet’s guards barked at him to shut his mouth. If I hadn’t been so horrified by all I’d heard, I would have laughed at this one
true
impossibility: compelling a bard to be silent.

I crossed the meadow of the gateway mound and paused for another look at the stone-crowned hill that hid a path to the Otherworld. What would I have found if I’d followed that dark passageway to its end? I knew I could be brave, but would I ever be brave enough to do such a thing? Would anyone—king, warrior, bard, or druid—have the courage to confront the Fair Folk face to face, in all their ageless power? There had been some, and the bards sang their praises, but much more often those who encountered the People of the Mounds feared and fled.

Feared and fled
. The flash of an idea struck me. I knew what I must try in order to save Devnet. “Thank you,” I whispered
to the Fair Folk in their hidden realm, for my heart told me this inspiration was their parting gift to me.

I retraced my way to the campfire where Father’s men were still talking. Their tongues froze when I stepped into the light.

“Lady Maeve?” Daire regarded me with clear mistrust. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Of course it’s her, you idiot!” Ruadan recovered from his shock enough to punch Daire in the shoulder. “What do you think, we’ve captured a shape-shifting bean sidhe?”

“You
captured
nothing,” I told him stiffly. “I’ve come to you of my own will.”

Ruadan looked chastened. “I’m sorry, Princess. It’s good to see you. Now we can head back to Cruachan in the morning.”

“Yes,” I said. “With your king’s honor restored and our bard Devnet rescued. Let me sit by the fire—last night’s rain ate my bones—and I’ll tell you how you’ll all earn my father’s favor for life, more cattle than you have hairs on your head, and enough gold to bury each of them up to the tips of their horns.”

Here’s magic: if you give commands as if it’s your right to do so, you will be obeyed, or at least be heeded. The three warriors listened as I told them my plan, their eyes growing wider at every word.

When I finished, Daire was the first to speak. “You say you saw twelve fighting men in Lord Morann’s camp?”

I brushed his question aside. “Even if there were a hundred, it wouldn’t matter. I’m not telling you to fight them.”

“You’re telling us to cut our own throats,” Caílte growled. “The risk is too great. You could be killed.”

“You mean
you
could be killed if anything happened to
me,” I told him tartly. “Don’t worry—I’m only valuable to Lord Morann alive.”

He shook his head stubbornly and addressed his companions. “Too much could go wrong. We have to take her back to Cruachan. I’ll carry her there myself if I must.”

I lowered my voice so that all of them were forced to listen closely to every word. “Lord Morann’s camp doesn’t lie that far from here. Lay one finger on me and you’ll see how well a scream carries on a still night. His men will be on us, take me, kill Devnet, and leave your king looking weak, gullible, and unfit to rule. Do you serve Lord Eochu or only your own fears? I am ready to risk this. Will you admit you have less courage than a girl?”

That did it. They were mine.

The moon was sinking as we crossed the meadow. I gestured to where Morann’s campfires still burned. My men nodded and went ahead of me to scout the best positions for what they’d have to do. Alone, I took the bag of ashes I’d gathered from their fire and rubbed them through my hair to dim its telltale red. I spat into my hands, worked more of the ashes into a paste, and smeared it over my face. Next I snarled fistfuls of grass and wildflower stems through my curls.

I must look dreadful
, I thought.
Like something not quite human
. A wicked grin curved my lips.
Perfect
.

My one regret was that I wasn’t standing close enough to view Morann’s campsite when I loosed the eerie, sobbing cry of the bean sidhe, the uncanny woman of the Fair Folk whose voice foretells death. I wish I could have seen his face when I howled his name and his doom.

At least I was able to hear how badly his voice shook as he commanded all his warriors to seek the source of that unearthly wailing. He was so ensnared by his own terror that he left them no chance to raise sensible objections—what good is it to pursue a creature of the Otherworld?—and as his loyal men they could not disobey.

I ran while they were still retrieving their weapons and lighting torches. I sent my voice trailing behind me, trying not to laugh while I continued howling portents of Morann’s death. If any of them were sharp-eyed enough to catch sight of me before they gave chase, they’d see a wild phantom, not a girl.

When I broke from the forest, I sealed my lips and kept them sealed as I raced across the meadow. I’d fulfilled my part in the plot, rousing Morann’s hounds and luring them away. Now I had to throw them off my scent or everything was lost. Labored breath and pulsing blood filled my ears. I never paused to listen for the sounds of pursuit. I had no time to ask myself if my pursuers were close enough behind me to guess my goal. With a few hasty words to beg the Fair Folk’s pardon for this second invasion, I plunged into the mound.

I barely had time to enjoy the silence sheltering me when I heard the warriors’ approach. They raced past the entrance to the mound, the flare of their torches such a brief wink of light that at first I thought my eyes had fooled me. I learned better soon, for they came back, this time pausing just on the other side of the gateway’s guardian slab. One of them stared down the passageway so intently that I thought he’d spied me, even as deeply as I’d burrowed into the dark. My palms turned
damp and I trembled in spite of myself. I leaned against the rough stone wall to stay upright under his penetrating gaze.

“Are you sure she went in there?” one of his comrades asked. “Because I could swear she blew away on the wind.”

“I saw what I saw,” the first man snapped, but he didn’t sound certain.

“If she did, she’s gone,” a third warrior declared. “Gone back to her own people. We won’t see her again. Not if we’re lucky.”

“
Was
that a bean sidhe?”

“What else could it be? Would any
human
girl go roaming the land at night or enter a fearsome place like that?” He gestured at the entrance to the mound with his spear.

“Maybe … if she was a wandering madwoman.” The first man was the kind of hound who didn’t let go easily once his jaws closed on his prey. “We should go in after her, to be sure.”

“You first.”

No one moved.

That was good, but I wanted something better: I wanted them gone. How to encourage that?

Guennola’s angry hiss was easy to imitate. I cupped my hands to my mouth in order to amplify the sound and put a healthy breath behind it. The passageway into the mound added volume to the stoat’s cry as well, making it echo loud enough to bring Morann’s men to attention.

“Did you hear that?”

“What was it?”

“Something in there.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it was a trick of the wind.”

I took a fresh breath and gave one of Muirín’s sharp yelps, then followed it with a rapid series of barks. It wouldn’t have fooled another fox, but that wasn’t my goal.

“Listen now! It
did
come from the mound.” The men gaped at the passageway but not one of them dared to stir a step past the white stone barrier.

“What was it? It sounded like a dog.”

“Not a dog … a fox, I think. But that hissing—”

I pitched my voice low and growled like a badger. The long, rough, rumbling call rolled out of the mound like thunder. Each new animal’s cry that I added to my performance pulled the warriors’ nerves tauter. It was unnatural to hear such a variety of beasts in one place, especially when that place was a route to the Otherworld. I paused only long enough to mutter a renewed petition to the Fair Folk, imploring their leniency for what I was doing on their threshold. I hoped that if they didn’t find my presence insignificant enough to overlook, they’d find my ploy amusing enough to divert their retribution.

I dropped to my knees, scrabbling for stones on the passageway floor. I flung one, then another, then as many as I could throw in rapid succession. None of my missiles needed to hit a target. My aim was simply to make the men imagine that they’d stirred up the true inhabitants of the mound and now the warriors of the Fair Folk were massing to drive them away. As the last stone left my hand, I filled my lungs as deeply as I could and fairly screamed my Ea’s familiar cry: