Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) (5 page)

That was good, but it was only a start. If I was ever going to be truly free, I needed a way to persuade Father that the daughter he loved was more than just a prize to be awarded. I thought of how he treated Mother. There was more than love between them. He joked with her, teased her, but he also went to her for counsel. He called her beautiful, but he called her clever too. Anyone with eyes and ears could stand witness to how much he respected her for her wisdom. He gave her full authority over his holdings while he was gone.

I wanted him to give me the respect he gave to her. I didn’t need it to make choices for a kingdom, or even for a household, just for me. The sooner Father came back, the sooner I could set myself to gaining it. I could hardly wait for his return.

I never suspected what that homecoming would bring.

On the cold, foggy day when Father’s chariot returned to Cruachan, I’d finished my sewing lesson early, to Mother’s satisfaction, and rewarded myself with a solitary ramble. I was well away from the ringfort and saw his horses long before any of our watchmen.

“Father!” I darted from the roadside, waving my arms. “Father, it’s me, Maeve!” I was careful to identify myself loudly. I knew how fast a warrior could fling a spear, especially if some mysterious shape suddenly came at him out of the mist. “Welcome home!”

My greeting fell away into a great silence. The fog played tricks on my eyes and ears, making it look like there was only one man in the king’s chariot.
Why is Father driving himself home?
I wondered, peering at the oddly shrunken shape holding the reins.
Did something happen to Fechin? How awful! Father says there’s no better man for his horses
. I prayed it wasn’t true.

The gods seemed to listen. I heard Fechin’s familiar voice rise tentatively over the horses’ slow footfalls. “My lady? Where are you?”

I came closer until we could see each other. I saw the sadness in his eyes a moment before he saw the terror in mine: Fechin was driving the High King’s chariot but his master was not there. My chest filled with pain and a great wail of grief rose to my lips.

“Lady Maeve, no!” Fechin clutched the reins in one hand, his other making rapid hushing motions. “Lord Eochu’s with us. He’s alive. He’s coming home and”—he bit his lip—“he sent me ahead, that’s all. You have nothing to fear.”

“Where is he, Fechin?” The strange, harsh quality of my voice startled me. It echoed between us as if we were standing inside the curved iron walls of a giant’s cauldron.

“Coming, he’s coming, I swear! He’s riding in a wagon, along with the tribute his subject kings gave him when we were all at Tara for the Samhain rites.”

“Father would
never
ride in a wagon. No warrior would. What happened to him? Tell me!” I was afraid, uncertain, and it made me sharp-tongued.

Fechin blinked, then frowned at my demanding tone. I was too caught up with worrying about Father to explain,
apologize, or even hear what I sounded like. “You’ll be told when you need to know—when and
if
! Now step up or step aside and let me pass. I’ve been sent ahead with a message for Lady Cloithfinn.”

I chose to go with him. It wasn’t because I craved the thrill of a chariot ride. I wanted answers
now
, and was sure I’d get them when Fechin spoke with Mother.

Once we were within the ringfort, Fechlin threw the chariot reins to the first able-bodied man he saw and raced into the great house. By the time I ran after him, he was deep in conference with Mother. They spoke in whispers, and when I tried to creep close enough to hear what they were saying, a line of her attendants blocked me.

“Let me pass!” I cried, trying to shove my way between them. They ignored my protests. Three of the women laid hold of me and began leading me firmly away. I struggled in their grip and even kicked one of them by accident as I shouted, “Mother! Mother!”

“Maeve, stop acting like a wild thing and
go
.” Mother’s voice was tense and strained. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“It’s about Father. It
does
.”

Mother didn’t bother to debate with me. She ordered her attendants to take me to my chamber and keep me there. By the time I was allowed to emerge again, Father and the rest of his party were home. He greeted me with all of his old warmth, but when I begged him to toss me high, he smiled wistfully and said, “You’re too old for that now, Maeve.”

The grand homecoming feast was delayed. He spent the rest of that day and the next in his sleeping chamber, with his highest-ranking men going in and out. Every face was grave.
My home became a place of whispers, where each conversation was an exchange of secrets. I learned none of them.

When Father finally left the confines of his room, he looked tired and preoccupied. I caught Mother looking his way many times with an expression of worry carving notches beside her mouth and between her brows. When I asked her what was wrong, she dismissed me angrily. Something had made her mad at the world.

I don’t know what’s done this to you, Mother, but I’ll find out
, I thought.

Determination turned me from Maeve the Wanderer to Maeve Stay-at-Home, Maeve Bide-by-the-Fire, Maeve Mouse-in-the-Shadows. Mother was pleased to find me suddenly devoted to learning the ways of loom and spindle, needle and thread.

She didn’t notice that I always found a way to do my work within eavesdropping distance of our household’s most notorious gossips, male and female. I thought I was being very wily, but no one spoke about what I wanted to know.

I had no better luck when I tried approaching the men and boys who’d hounded me in Father’s absence. No matter how I tried to draw them out, they put up walls and took their earliest chance to flee me the way I’d once fled them.

My drive to uncover what was hidden soon became a force that was driving
me
, taking me down a bad road. I even tried taking advantage of Kelan’s good nature. He turned away from my incessant questions with an apology and such an unhappy expression that I immediately regretted what I’d done.

I was lingering in a doorway, trying to catch a conversation between two of Father’s attendants, when a voice behind me
said, “Hear anything that interests you, my lady?” Our bard’s soft, lilting murmur made me jump and utter a little shriek as if he’d bellowed in my ear. Devnet laughed as the two men stared at me before taking their talk elsewhere.

“What an odd occupation you’ve adopted,” he went on. “Can’t a princess find better entertainment than eavesdropping?”

“It’s not entertainment. There’s something I need to know and I can’t discover it any other way. I’ve tried.”

“Have you tried asking me?” His smile was almost as kindly as the warmth in his deep blue eyes. “No need for that. I can guess what’s driving you to play the spy. You’re fretful over your father.”

“How did you know?”

“Knowing you.” He passed one hand through his unkempt silver hair. “Knowing how much you and he love each other. Lord Eochu has six daughters, but only one is his spark.”

“He came home in a
wagon
.” I blurted the unthinkable, the unnatural. It was like accusing the sky of sending a rain of fishes or the earth of giving birth to a harvest of swords.

“So he did.” The bard’s face grew serious. “Because of how direly he was wounded at Tara, and of how close he came to death.”

My jaw dropped. If Devnet hadn’t flashed a warning look at me, I would have filled the house with my cry of dismay. He jerked his chin, silently bidding me to go with him outside. There, far from any witnesses, he told me everything.

After Father placed Derbriu in her new home, he rode to the sacred hill of Tara for the Samhain rites. A close kinsman of Lord Fachtna, the High King my father had slain, confronted
him, declaring he had no right to rule. The poison-tongued creature swore that Father’s claims of treachery against Lord Fachtna were false, a weak excuse to kill him and satisfy his own ambition.

“Such words could not stand,” Devnet said gravely. “The two men fought with all the lesser kings to witness it. Lord Eochu sent his challenger to feed the crows, though not before the man nearly did the same to him. It was only thanks to the druids of Tara that he survived. It was a long recovery, and neither peaceful nor complete. Your father’s loyal warriors and allied kings had to cut down more than one hand raised against him while he lay helpless. His healers were outraged when he insisted on going home before he was fully mended, but he wanted everyone here to see he was alive before some false rumor of his death could spread to the ears of power-hungry men or reach Cruachan and wound those he loves. If the price of that was to come back in a wagon like an ailing woman, he paid it willingly.”

I began to tremble. “Father … Father almost died?” I had a gruesome vision of unknown hands removing Lord Fachtna’s embalmed head from our great house’s lintel and replacing it with Father’s. Floods of tears streamed down my cheeks before I realized I was weeping.

Devnet regarded me with compassion. “This is why Lord Eochu commanded us to preserve your ignorance, child. He was certain the news would undo you and he loves you too much to burden you with men’s business.” A rueful smile twitched one corner of his mouth. “Did I ever tell you of the dream I had before you were born? I woke from it convinced you’d be the valiant son your father longed to have—a son
to make him secure in his kingship, a son to free him from worrying about the unknown fate you, your mother, and sisters would face if he died in battle. It’s worse now that he’s High King. The eagle atop the tallest tree makes the easiest target. Your father is my friend as well as my lord, Lady Maeve. He’s told me many times how much he loves his daughters, but he
needs
a son. Sons provide for their families in the hunt, protect them in war, and bring them honor by their bravery. They say that when Lord Eochu killed Lord Fachtna and took his head, his son Conchobar saw it all without shedding a single tear.”

He sighed. “My dream was wrong, Princess, but it remains with me. Though you weren’t born a boy, that deceitful dream of mine still made me seek a boy’s courage in you. When you were five years old and dared to challenge that bull, I felt justified, but now …” His shoulders rose and fell. “I should have heeded your father and shielded you. I’m sorry my mistake hurt you so deeply.”

“I’m not hurt.” Indignant, I dashed away the tears with the back of my hand. “And I don’t need to be shielded. I’m
not
weak.”

“Perhaps you’re not, for a girl. But a girl is what you are, to your very heart.” His old, ingratiating smile returned. “A pitying heart, I hope? One that cares enough to keep this talk of ours from your father’s ears and spare me his laughter for clinging to a meaningless dream?”

What king would dare to laugh at a bard?
I thought. “I promise to do as you ask.”

“You’re a good girl, Maeve. Thank you.”

I watched him return to the great hall and thought,
What’s the use of being a good girl when my father needs a son?

I
WAS GOING
to become a boy. It was as simple as that.

Well, not
that
simple. I’d need help, and there was only one person I could rely on for it: Kelan.

I managed to catch him alone and begged him to meet me outside the ringfort. He agreed once I assured him I wouldn’t keep pecking for answers about Father.

“Someone told you, didn’t they,” he stated. I nodded sheepishly. “That’s what I thought.” He sounded resigned. “Just don’t slip and tell Lord Eochu the name of the luckless boy who blabbed. If you scooped him clean of secrets, at least you can spare his hide.”

“How did you know it was a boy?”

His look as good as said,
Don’t make me waste time answering a silly question
. But I swear by all I love, at that age I asked it honestly.

I decided it would be best if Kelan and I weren’t seen
leaving the ringfort together. I gave him directions to meet me in a safe place I’d discovered, a sweet refuge under the protective springtime canopy of a willow tree. It grew on the bank of a stream that ran close enough to Cruachan to be handy but far away enough from home to remain my secret.

The moment that Kelan pushed aside the curtain of sword-shaped leaves, I poured out my plan.

“You want to become
what
?” He stared at me as if an owl had popped out of my head.

“A boy,” I said, then realized that in my eagerness, I’d misspoken. “Not to
become
a boy. It would take the Fair Folk’s magic to do that. I want—I need—to learn how to
act
like one.”

“You mean wear breeches?”

“I need a boy’s
skills
, not his clothes. If you put a horse’s harness on a frog, it can’t pull a chariot. Kelan, listen—I’m doing this for Father’s sake. I don’t want him to go on thinking he’s our family’s sole protector.”

“But he’s not. The warriors of Connacht would shield y—”

“Not if Father fell. They’d follow the new king then, true?”