Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) (6 page)

“I … I guess so.” Kelan rubbed the back of his head. “I never thought about it.”

“The new king would take
everything
—cattle, gold, silver, whatever he liked. Who’d stop him?” I went on. “My mother, my sisters, we’d all be left with nothing. That’s Father’s worst fear, and it never leaves him. If he can’t put it from his mind, someday it might distract him in a fight and then—” I shook my head. “He won’t be free of it until he knows someone will keep us safe even when he can’t do it anymore.”

“Someone like you?” Kelan had the kindness not to laugh at me straightaway.

“I hope so. I can’t be the son he needs, but I
can
learn all the things a prince of Connacht would know. I’ll be strong, skilled with weapons. I’ll be so swift to challenge any man who speaks against him that they’ll have to face my sword, not his. I won’t let him have the chance to fight them. When he rides to war, my chariot will race beside his. I’ll do all that”—I spread my hands wide—“because you’ll train me.”

I waited for Kelan’s reply. He remained silent, a young man who had turned to stone. The only sounds were the rushing of the stream, the music of songbirds, and the distant cawing of a flock of crows. At last he took a deep breath. “Well, you’re not asking
too
much, are you?” He tried to sound playful, but it rang false. “Or is there more to your wish? Do you hunger to rule all Èriu? Do you see yourself as our next High King?”

“This is no jest,” I said firmly. “I only want to ease Father’s mind, to have him know my spear and sword will protect us as well as his.”

Kelan sucked in his lower lip in thought. “Your spear and sword … Do you know the first thing about how to use them? Can you even
lift
them?”

“I will, once you teach me.”

He looked as if he pitied me. “Lady Maeve, you should pick a better guide for this road. I’ve trained with weapons since I was seven years old and I’m still no match for most of Lord Eochu’s men.”

“You’re the only one who
can
teach me, Kelan, the only one
I trust to keep such a secret. You’re good enough to kill a wolf with one spear-cast. You saved my life and I’ll never forget that, but”—I brushed his knuckles with my fingertips—“now I have to learn to save myself.”

“You sound like your father.” Kelan leaned back, resting his shoulders against the willow and watching the dance of light and shadow among the branches. “If he doesn’t find a doorway, he batters down the wall.”

“I’m not asking you to do this as a favor, Kelan,” I said. “I’ll repay you. The man who tends my cattle says the herd is thriving. Take twenty—no,
thirty
. Father wouldn’t give me Dubh, but he let him be my herd’s sire for five years, so almost any cows you’ll choose come from the best bull in Connacht.”

“Lord Eochu will give me a different kind of payment if I do this,” Kelan said, but he didn’t sound fearful; he sounded as if he were giving my offer serious consideration.

“Forty,” I pressed. “Forty cattle and a gold torque.”

“And when your father sees it around my neck, how do I explain where I got it?”

“He’ll know, because
he’ll
give it to you. Once I’m trained, I’ll show him what you taught me and he’ll be so impressed, he’ll let you name your own reward.”

“Hmmm, forty cows, a golden torque, and arms-master to the prince-princess of Connacht? Not bad.” Kelan was joking again. It was a hopeful sign. “Wouldn’t that be grand news to send to my father and sister. You remind me of her, Lady Maeve. She’s about your age. I haven’t seen her for a long while, but I do remember how stubborn she can be.”

That’s how you described the kestrel too
, I thought. Stubborn
but clever … clever and stubborn enough to get what it needs to survive.

Like me
.

“I …
hate
 … this!” A rapid series of blows battered at my shield, making my arm sting when I blocked them and bruising my body when I failed. The only times I was able to avoid being hit was when my teacher and I circled one another in the moments before combat. The oak-fenced clearing that was our practice ground lay far enough from Cruachan to let me shout out my frustration with no danger of being discovered. “I … really … really …
really
hate this!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t hate it so much if you stopped talking and started fighting,” Kelan replied lightly. Unlike me, he could speak without panting for breath. He wasn’t even sweating. It wasn’t fair!

Enraged, I lunged for him, raising the heavy stick he’d given me to use as a sword. He sidestepped without a second thought and let me rush past until I tripped over a tree root and sprawled on the ground. “At least you kept your mouth shut that time,” he mused as I sat up and wiped dirt from my face. “That’s progress.”

I left my stick and shield where they’d fallen and hugged my knees. If looks were lightning, I would have turned Kelan into a pile of ashes.

“Don’t give me that face,” he said. “It’s scarcely thirty days since we began. Did you imagine you’d master weapons so quickly?” When I scowled in reply, he added, “You’re acting as if these lessons were my idea, Princess.” Kelan sent his own
weighty “sword” twirling high into the air and coolly caught it before it could touch the earth. “How do you expect to protect your kin if you hate learning how? You have no love for the sword. I can tell.”

“The peasant doesn’t
love
his plow,” I shot back scornfully. “Mother doesn’t
love
her spindle. I don’t have to
love
my weapons. I just have to use them.” I stood up slowly, hampered by pain, and winced as I picked up the sword-stick. “Come on,” I said, facing him in the first fighter’s stance he’d taught me.

He waved aside my challenge. “That’s enough for today.”

I glanced at the sky. “Why? It’s early! We haven’t done spear practice yet.” I didn’t hate the spear quite so much as the sword. Although I despised how foolish I looked when my best efforts fell far short of the target, I considered any weapons lesson that spared me further black-and-blue marks to be a good one.

“Another time,” Kelan said mildly.

“Well, then, can you start teaching me how to track game?”

“Not today either. I want to see you do better with the spear first.”

“That means never.”

“You do sound like my little sister.” Kelan smiled. “She was impatient too. I will teach you how to hunt, Lady Maeve, and in time we’ll seek a way for you to learn how to drive a chariot. We can’t have the prince-princess of Cruachan waging her battles on foot.”

I looked at him hopefully. “Do you mean that, Kelan?”

He touched his torque and nodded. “Lord Eochu’s going to banish me from Connacht if he finds out about
all this, so I might as well make the offense worth the punishment.”

I cast aside my sword-stick and raced to hug him. “I’ll
never
let Father banish you. He’ll have to send me away too. You’re the best, bravest, kindest man in all Cruachan!”

“Well, it’s good to know you’ll keep me safe, Princess.” He returned my hug with a brother’s fondness. “I’d hate to tell Bláithín that I’ve been daring your father’s wrath for nothing. She’s already had plenty of hard words for me about these lessons.”

“She knows?”

“I tried to keep it secret. Blame her for having keen eyes and a sharp mind.” Sheepishly, he added, “Blame me for not being more careful about where I was hiding those.”

He nodded at the pair of breeches I wore for my weapons training. They were Kelan’s, outgrown and somehow not handed down to another boy. I couldn’t wield sword or spear with a dress tangling around my legs and I couldn’t risk having Mother or a servant find those breeches if I kept them in my room, so it fell to Kelan to safeguard them between lessons.

“She found them and wanted to know why I was holding on to clothing I couldn’t use. If only I had my father’s gift for words, I might’ve come up with a believable excuse!” He shrugged and set about wrapping up our practice weapons before hiding them in the boughs of an oak. “No harm done. Bláithín won’t betray us. It would just make trouble for me, maybe even get me sent away. She doesn’t want that, I hope, especially now that I’m about to become the father of her baby.”

“A baby? Oh, Kelan!” He laughed to hear my whoop of joy and to see how happily I danced in spite of all my bruises.

My friend was going to be a father. I hugged the happy news to my heart as I stood with my parents at the Beltane celebration marking the start of summer and my twelfth year. It was a time of revelry, of light coming out of darkness. Every flame in the land was extinguished, to be rekindled from the twin bonfires now blazing at the foot of Cruachan’s ringfort mound. Father had already dispatched the runners who’d carry the blessed torches, passing warmth and light from hand to hand until all the land blazed with renewed life and joy.

I smiled with pride as herdsmen drove our cattle between the fires to purify them and keep them safe from harm in the coming year. I was convinced I could tell which ones were
my
cows, sure that they were the best of the lot. Many of the beasts wore garlands of yellow flowers, the same blooms that decorated our house. Their loud lowing nearly drowned out the sound of human voices raised in song.

“Those are fine cattle, Lady Maeve.” A voice at my elbow made me turn. It came from Lord Guaire of the Gangani, one of the many visitors who’d traveled from other kingdoms for our Beltane festivities. “I keep searching for the black bull among them.”

“There’s more than one black bull in our herds,” I replied.

He stooped just enough so that his lips brushed my ear as he murmured, “But only one that was captured by the most beautiful girl in Èriu.”

This again? Lord Guaire was far from the first of our guests to sidle up to me with honeyed words. From the moment the men of other kingdoms began arriving at Cruachan, the highest ranked among them made it a point to seek me out and
heap flattery at my feet. Did they think I was vain or hollow-headed enough to believe they were wooing
me
? I knew better: I was just the go-between, the one who’d let them wed their
true
love, the kingdom of Connacht.

I wanted to laugh at Lord Guaire, but that would be discourteous. He was our guest, and older than Father. “You must mean Dubh, my lord,” I said. “He died last year in a fight with another bull.”

“That must have been a sad loss for you, my lady, but that’s the way it is with bulls.” His teeth gleamed in the firelight like a hungry dog’s. “The strongest and most experienced always takes the prize.”

“Or the youngest and smartest,” I replied. “The cowherd who witnessed the battle said that Dubh’s rival wasn’t brawny but knew enough to force him onto treacherous ground, where he took a misstep, fell, and broke his leg. Our beast keepers had to kill him. The other bull didn’t need to bloody his horns. I admire brains more than brute strength.” I gave Lord Guaire an innocent look. “Don’t you?”

It took every bit of self-control I had to keep a straight face as he muttered his excuses and left me. Too soon he was replaced by Áed, a prince of the Menapi whose father’s realm lay east of Connacht. He was attended by a matched pair of enormous wolfhounds. The male was so tall that the top of his head came almost up to my shoulder, and he seemed to be forever growling. The female was silent, but she had a wicked look, unlike our more sweet-natured hounds. I didn’t trust either one of them or their master.

“Well, Lady Maeve, have you made your choice?” Áed asked casually. The question took me by surprise. Then I remembered
he was talking about the dogs. As soon as we’d been introduced, he’d offered me one of them. Now he said, “I’d give you both, but I’m afraid they might be too much for an inexperienced girl of your age to handle safely.” He made a silly show of pretending to think before exclaiming, “But if you’d like me to stay with you here and help you manage them—”

“I wouldn’t put you to the trouble,” I said blandly. “If I do accept your generous gift, someone from our household can teach me to control a pair of dogs.”

“With respect, Lady Maeve, these aren’t ordinary dogs,” he persisted.

I raised my brows. “Are you telling me that Lord Eochu, the High King himself, has
no one
in his service good enough to master your wolfhounds? Or are you saying that all of my father’s dogs are ordinary?”

Lord Áed became flustered and promptly found a reason to be elsewhere. His hounds went with him, but he was the only one retreating with his tail between his legs.

Though I’d freed myself of Áed’s and Guaire’s unwanted attention, they weren’t the last pests to swarm me that night. The area around the Beltane fires teemed with highborn men and celebrated warriors. Before the night ended, I felt like I was a honey cake and every one of them was trying to steal a bite. I was flattered and wooed and bothered every time I stepped away from my parents. If my suitors were young, they implored me to watch as they jumped over the bonfires, trying to impress me with their daring and agility. I thought they looked like a bunch of grasshoppers. If they were old, or already married, they insisted on filling my ears with the virtues of their unwed kinsmen. That was just boring.