Healer (30 page)

Ronan winced as Caden’s sword found the meat of his thigh—and leapt away when Caden, distracted by Brother Martin’s loud and angry Latin verse, failed to follow through.

“Spiritus, ego te ligo in nomine Jesu, potestate ….”

Brenna repeated the prayer in her native tongue, this time keeping her distance as she circled Caden. “Spirit, I bind you in the name of Jesus, by the power of the cross and His blood ….”

Ronan watched for another chance, the right slip. With their distraction he might overcome Caden’s incredibly sharpened battle prowess.

At long last men from the camp had heard the sound of combat and rallied at full run.

But Brother Martin stayed them with an authoritative, “Back!” between his rants, for such a prayer as this Ronan had never heard.
“Et per intercessione omnium sanctorum, te impero recedere, Caden 
…
”
the priest continued.

“And by the intercession of all the saints …” Brenna joined in.

“Brenna, get away from him,” Ronan ordered.

Instead she boldly seized Caden, who seemed stunned, even ill, from behind again. Brother Martin laid his hands upon him as well.

“I command you to leave Caden of Glenarden and return to thy lowly source.”

Ronan wanted to pull her away to safety, but Caden faded by the breath, by the groan, by the unseen power that ran him through the gut and dropped him to his knees.

“Spirit, I bind you in the name of Jesus,” healer and priest began—one in Briton, the other in Latin.

Caden’s eyes rolled back in his head, but it was his rippling abdomen that riveted the attention of all who’d gathered. The hair stood up on Ronan’s neck. It was all he could do not to back away as some of the others did.

“Return unto thy lowly source.…”

Arching backward so abruptly that Brenna just escaped, Caden fell to the ground, writhing and groaning in agony.

Both Brenna and the priest followed him, keeping their hands on his body.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” they finished together.

Caden coughed. It was the only sound in the eerie silence.

Then an unearthly scream erupted from a cluster of rocks near the falls. Some of the men turned to run, while others stood motionless, hands on the hilts of their weapons.

Keena raced out from cover, tearing at her hair with her hands and racing up and down the bank.

Following the nurse was Rhianon. The lady was blanched of color and as oblivious to their audience as the crone. “Cease, Keena. You must gather your wits!”

But Keena whipped a blade out from her sash and turned on her young charge. “Back,” she hissed through her scant remaining teeth. “Back, or I’ll kill you.”

Rhianon stilled, shocked. “Keena, nay. You must—”

Keena raised her blade at her audience. “Curse you all, your God and your saints,” she shrieked. Except it wasn’t the voice of an old woman, but of something dark and otherworldly. The same something that had haunted Caden’s voice. Its timbre stroked Ronan’s spine, lifting the very hairs along it.

“I’ll kill you, all of you,” the crone warned. Whatever it was that forced her backward, she slashed at it with all her fury. “Take that … and that.”

Even as she went over the edge of the fall, she cursed at it … or them.

“Keena!” Rhianon’s scream echoed to the highlands and back. She rushed to the precipice and peered over at the river below in horror and disbelief.

For a moment no one moved, save Brother Martin and Brenna, who continued to pray over Caden in a mingle of Latin and British.

Ronan grappled for his senses. “Seize her!”

But everyone else was held suspended by what they’d just witnessed.

Rhianon stiffened at the sound of Ronan’s command. Her gaze shifted from panic to calculation as she took in the men’s reaction. Or lack of it.

“I’ll do it.” Just as Donal of Gowrys moved forward, Rhianon pointed an imperious finger at him. The chieftain stopped in midstride, halting anyone else of a mind to follow.

“The first man to touch me will suffer the same fate as my husband,” she warned, her voice bordering hysteria. She ventured a hasty glance over the edge where Keena had disappeared. “And now that my nurse is gone,” she declared, growing bolder, “I’m even stronger.”

“This is no ordinary foe, Glenarden,” Donal said to Ronan, almost apologetic.

Using Caden’s discarded sword as a crutch, Brother Martin rose on stiff knees.
“I’ll
face her.”

“Do you think I fear
you
, Priest?” Rhianon scoffed.

Benevolent to her contempt, Martin walked toward her, smiling. “You have nothing to fear from me, child. It is my Lord who makes you tremble so. Let us praise Him together.”

He cast the weapon aside, arms widening in invitation. As did Rhianon’s eyes. Furtive glances from priest to precipice showed her clearly torn between the appeal of the two options.

“Praise God Almighty,” Martin sang in a fine baritone. “Ruler of Heaven and earth.”

Rhianon put her hands over her ears.

“Praise Jesus, Son and Demon Conqueror, Victor over death and sin—”

“Curse you, Martin.” Rhianon accented her defiance with a stomp. And with a sweep of her bloodied skirts, Rhianon spun and leapt over the fall.

The scene grew still as a tapestry. There was no trip of the burn over the rock ledge. No bird song. No movement of man or beast. No scrap of weapons against leather or mail.

Until Caden groaned and tried to rise.

“Be still,” Brenna cooed in a voice that gentled wolves.

But not the wolf in Ronan.

Ronan sprang at his brother’s prone figure and pressed his weapon at Caden’s throat.

It was only Brenna’s sudden and tight clutch of the sword blade alone that kept Ronan from ramming it into that place where his brother’s life still beat without right.

“Let it go, Brenna,” Ronan said.

“Aye,” Caden said in gravelly agreement. “I deserve no less.”

“I’ll not let you do this, Ronan,” she said.

“Do it, Brother,” Caden implored. “Let this be done between us.”

Brother Martin joined them. “Remove your hand from the blade, Brenna,” the priest told her. “This is Ronan’s test, not yours.”

“Test?” Ronan echoed.

“It is your choice to make. Will you submit to God’s will, or insist on your own?” Martin asked. “Will you remember your blessings or your rage? Will you feed the beast within you as you fed Caden’s, or starve it with gratitude for the miracles that have taken place in these last hours?”

Miracles.
They tumbled across Ronan’s mind.

The Gowrys and that crazy priest spewing from the tall grass on the other side of the burn. Ronan thought he’d hallucinated at first.

The image of Tarlach rising like an ancient phoenix from the wagon bed with battle-axe brandished and letting it fly straight at Heming’s head.

His men lying asleep and unharmed thanks to the herbs that had been meant to render them helpless. Had they not slept through the fighting, it would have been hard to discern the Gowrys from his captors.

Heartened by Ronan’s hesitation, Brenna stroked Caden’s wild, flaxen hair off his face. “In the name of Jesus, thy spirit be healed, Caden of Glenarden, freed by Him who has fought the battle for you and won.”

“Thy spirit be healed.”

The strange voice in Ronan’s head conjured the image of Faol—one moment bearing his teeth at Ronan and the next, laying his snout on Ronan’s hand. Healed of his distrust. Forgiving.

Then there was Brenna’s pardon … and Arthur’s.

Father God, I cannot be so merciful. I do not have it in me.

“I
am in you.”

God? In
me?
Even as he wondered, Ronan could feel, could see in his mind’s eye, the beast lie down. Thus enabled, he withdrew his sword from Caden’s throat. The beast was still wary, but willing.

“A willing heart is all I need.”

Ronan became aware of the men gathered ’round them, watching him. Waiting for him to lead them. To be worthy of their loyalty. He sought out Egan O’Toole and Donal of Gowrys.

And suddenly birdsong burst from the trees beyond them, celebrating the new day. The frolic of the burn resumed.

“Bind him soundly,” Ronan ordered, taking the caution of kicking the discarded daggers away from his brother’s reach. “Arthur be your judge on This Side,” he told Caden gravely, “and God on the Other.”

Epilogue

Brenna tried to reduce the swelling in her tear-swollen eyes with cold water before rejoining the people of Glenarden and their guests at Tarlach’s funeral feast. She’d forgiven Tarlach but never dreamed she’d grieve him so. It had been two weeks since they’d returned to Glenarden. Two weeks since the Christian burial the family and Brother Martin had given the old chieftain in the glen that Tarlach had ceded to the church years before at the behest of his wife, Aeda.

Ronan’s mother would be pleased to see that her hope of an outdoor chapel was soon to become a small church—the beginning, perhaps, of a monastery. Brother Martin’s new helpers were most industrious.

The door to the small bedchamber that she and Ronan still occupied opened, admitting her husband. Concern darkened his gaze as he took in her sadness.

“The feast is near its end,” he told her. “Are you ill?”

“I wish I’d known your mother,” she lamented. Faith, would this waterfall ever cease?

An empathetic smile creased his lips. “She would have loved you.” He closed the distance between them and placed his hand on her abdomen. “Perhaps you and the little one should rest. There is no need for you to endure Caden’s judgment.”

With the feasting complete, it was time for the business Merlin Emrys and the queen were to officiate. How sad that they should mourn the father and condemn his son on the same day.

Brenna shook her head. “I …
we,”
she insisted, “are fine. It’s my eyes that won’t stop watering. Poor Vychan has had all the preparations fall on his shoulders—”

“Vychan is glad to have his household return to order,” Ronan assured her.

With the fair at last ended, it was only natural for the Glenarden’s friends and family to pay their respects and for Arthur to deal with Caden’s murderous treachery. The prodigal himself had remained in Glenarden’s prison, shunned by all save Brenna and Brother Martin, who’d prayed for him daily.

Brenna would be there to speak on the broken man’s behalf, whether Caden wanted it or not. “I shall blame Ailill for my distress,” she announced halfheartedly, turning to rummage through her medicine bag.

Ronan’s fervent “Aye” echoed her sentiment.

During the course of the feast, the bard’s dramatic rendition of the peace and battle betrayal had sent shivers up and down Brenna’s spine and wrenched her heart. In perfect rhyme and meter so as never to be misrepresented, Tarlach, the redeemed murderer, emerged as the hero. It was, as he’d said himself, a fitting end.

“There,” she said, pulling out a small jar. She opened it and dabbed a little of the drawing cream under her eyes. “If they look like red puffing toads after this, then so be it.”

“Those eyes could never resemble anything but the blue of a highland lake.” Ronan took time to kiss each one before they entered the hall proper.

Brenna chuckled. “Now who’s the poet?”

The hall was filled with delicious scents of food, drink, and fresh threshing. As Ronan escorted her to her seat next to his in Tarlach’s tooled leather chair, Merlin Emrys, Martin, Egan, and Alyn rose. Such attention caused Brenna’s cheeks to warm. It still seemed unreal, this new life of hers. Yet there was Queen Gwenhyfar at her side taking in every aspect of Brenna’s appearance with her slanted green gaze.

“Worry not, Lady Brenna. All expectant mothers develop an odd connection between the bladder and the eyes,” she confided behind her ringed hand. “I remember well my term with Lohot.”

Arthur’s heir, now a warrior in his father’s warband.

“That would explain it then, Your Highness,” Brenna replied.

“To Joanna’s daughter, I am Anora.”

“Anora.” The queen’s given name? Then Gwenhyfar
was
a title, wife to the Arthur, even if Arthur happened to be this one’s given name as well.

“I am honored … Anora.”

The appearance of the guards in the main hall entrance with Caden, arms bound behind him, cut their conversation short. Cut all conversation in the hall off completely, so that their footfalls on the plank flooring echoed their approach to where the Glenarden and his guests sat. Ronan stiffened next to Brenna. Since he’d walked away from Caden the day of his capture, he’d not allowed her to speak of his brother in his presence. Caden was dead to him, even if he still breathed.

Merlin Emrys gathered his staff and rose on stiff knees to leave the table and face the accused alone. Shed of his cape, the older man was not nearly as imposing. Still tall, his shoulders were bent from the weight of time and the service he’d dedicated to the Creator God. But when he spoke, he swelled with authority.

“Caden of Glenarden, you stand accused of the lowest treachery and grievous ambition. This is your chance to defend yourself. Do you understand?”

“Aye,” the prisoner responded.

Caden looked horrible. He’d lost weight. His normally clean-shaven good looks were shaggy and filthy with neglect from refusing the bathwater and soap provided him by Brenna. But it was his eyes that told it all. They were empty, truly empty this time. No hate, no jealousy … no hope.

“Did you not conspire to murder your father and brother … and any who sought to stop you from becoming chieftain of Glenarden?”

“I did.” Caden’s answer was as hollow as his gaze.

“Had you any cause beyond greed and ambition?”

“I did not.”

Brother Martin cleared his throat. “If I may, Merlin.” At Merlin’s nod the priest spoke on. “Many, including myself, were witness to a most unusual circumstance. From my knowledge of Scripture, this man had been possessed with a demon summoned by necromancy.”

A wave of uneasiness rippled through the onlookers.

“He wasn’t himself,” Brenna chimed in, half-rising from her bench. At Merlin’s reproving look, she sat back down. Better Brother Martin testify. He was the knowledgeable one.

Brenna herself could hardly recall what had happened that morning. Just this driving desperation to help her husband, to stop Caden. But the moment she’d laid hands on the man, she saw, not Caden, but something so hideous it still turned her blood cold. It frightened her, for in her soul, she knew no sword or stone threatened it. Only the praise of God, the declaration of Jesus’ name. In desperation she had grasped at God’s Word, repeating what came to her mind, praying from the bottom of her faith.

“The only demon at fault was me,” Caden said.

“I saw it,” Brenna blurted out. She caught her lip belatedly.

“We,”
Martin said, sending a glance of approval her way, “fought it with praise and prayer.”

“Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand,”
the merlin quoted from Luke.

“If, and I mean
if,”
Ronan emphasized, “there was such a demon in my brother, then it had food to feast upon.”

“He speaks truth,” Caden agreed, adding with sarcasm, “as always, the
good
brother, aren’t you, Ronan?” The man would not help himself. “You said yourself, Brother Martin, that no demon could possess a man filled with the Holy Spirit.”

“I also said that you were by God’s grace given a second chance to invite it in.”

“I wouldn’t dirty His linen,” Caden replied.

“So you are unrepentant?” Merlin Emrys asked the prisoner.

“If you mean, do I regret what I did, then, aye, I do. So much so that if you champion any real justice … or mercy,” Caden added for Martin’s sake, “you will give me death.”

Now the room buzzed with anticipation. Merlin Emrys’ face gave no hint of what was going on behind the steel of his gaze.

“That is what you have requested,” he said after a lengthy pause. “But that request is denied.”

Ronan shot to his feet. “What?”

Brenna closed her eyes.
Father God, help me crack the shell he’s put about his heart.

“In time.”

“You are hereby exiled from Glenarden,” Merlin announced. “Return by penalty of death.”

Several protests rose from the men who had been drugged by Caden, who believed him responsible for the Glenarden’s death and nearly their own. Others more loyal to Caden contested the objection, declaring Rhianon and her nurse the real villains.

Ronan sat stone-like, his only movement the twitch of muscle at his temples.

Brenna placed a hand on his arm. “I pray that if our son is ever in serious trouble, that God will extend the same mercy to him … for I could not bear it, otherwise.”

The twitch stopped. The veins hedging it faded with the unclenching of her husband’s jaw.

“You are a hard woman to argue with,” he said without looking in her direction. Instead Ronan watched his brother being led out. Alyn, who until now had remained silent, left the table to rush after his exiled brother.

“God has plans for you, Caden,” Brother Martin called after them. The promise from Jeremiah rang loud and clear above the din of dissension. “Plans to prosper, not harm you. Plans to give you hope, Caden. If you will but call to the Father, He will harken.”

“God may harken,” Ronan drawled laconically, “but it will be a long time before I can find forgiveness in my heart for what Caden’s done.”

Brenna folded his hand over hers and kissed it. “Then I shall spend a long time tending that heart until it’s fully healed.”

For her Shepherd’s plan was for
all
of His children.