Keeper Of The Light (18 page)

He moved his sword so that its bloodstained iron point passed right in front of their faces. “
Do you understand me this time?
”

All of them nodded, too beaten and breathless to speak, and climbed slowly to their feet.

“Then go, and do not dare to ignore my warning again. I will not be so gentle with you ever again.”

The six men limped away, leaning upon each other, clearly beaten almost too sore to move. It would be a long walk for them back to Cahir Cullen.

The light had no sooner faded from the sky when Sabha heard a knock at her door. Opening it just a little, she saw what she needed. She closed it quickly and reached for her cloak.

In a moment she was outside and closing the door behind her. “Walk with me, Airt,” she said. After a brief look of disappointment—had he really thought she would invite him alone into the house?—he followed her across the quiet grounds of Cahir Cullen.

“Why have you come?” Sabha asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing. And everything,” her husband answered. They walked until they were nearly to the surrounding earthen wall of the keep, and Airt paused beside one of the cattle pens built against it. He turned to his wife and took hold of both her hands before she could react. “Nothing, because at this moment I am here alone with you…and everything, because we are otherwise apart.”

“It was not my choice for us to be apart,” she said, struggling to keep the catch out of her voice. “The choice was yours alone.”

He looked down. “It was. But I know now that it was the worst choice I could have made.”

Sabha raised an eyebrow. “It has hardly been a fortnight. Can you be so sure of that so quickly?”

“I can,” he said, looking up at her again. “It is…nothing like living with you. She demands my full attention every moment. She insists I do not love her if I do not compliment her often enough, or bring her some gift each evening when I arrive home. She cries, often, over such small things…and when she heard this day that I had spoken with you in the hall…” He sighed and looked away, staring at nothing, and shook his head. “I want to come home,” he said.

Sabha gazed at him, folding her hands to keep herself still. “You could have come home at any time, yet you stayed with her all these many nights.”

He smiled a little, still looking away. “You know it would not be true if I told you I had no affection for her at all. I wanted to make her a second wife, and that alone would tell you that there must have been a certain bond between us. The times were not always bad. And sometimes I still think…I still wish…”

A cold wind seemed to blow over Sabha. Airt seemed to catch himself, and he turned to look straight at her. “I wish to come home.”

Sabha looked up at the rising moon, just as the clouds parted and allowed the full white light to shine down upon her. “Then come home tomorrow,” she said. “The house will be waiting for you in the morning. All will be just as you left it.”

He stepped close, reaching out to put his arms around her, and tried to draw her close. “Could I not come home to you tonight, right now? I have missed you so very much. It was you I thought of, even when—”

Sabha held herself very still and did not return his embrace. “In the morning, Airt. You may come as soon as the sun is fully risen, but you must bring Coiteann with you.”

For a moment she saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You want me to bring Coiteann to our home?”

“She must hear you say that you have chosen me, and only me, and that you want no other woman in your house. She must see for herself that you are happy to walk into our home with me and shut the door in her face. It must be done this way so that there can be no doubt of your choice. Do you agree to this?”

Sabha did not fail to see disappointment flit across his face. “Of course I do. Of course! I will be there waiting tomorrow when the sun rises—waiting for you, waiting for the moment when we can once again—”

“Just bring her with you. She must be here, too.”

“I will bring her. I promise. Ah, Sabha, the sun cannot rise soon enough for me!”

“Nor for me,” she answered, and quickly walked away. Airt was left standing alone among the shadows and the moonlight.

Donaill and Rioghan stood in the torchlit dark of the clearing, holding Cath’s reins and watching as Donaill’s men again followed their beaten foes back down the road. “They will make certain these men do not come back and try to finish what they started,” Donaill said.

“There seems little danger of that this time,” Rioghan said, looking after them down the road.

Donaill grinned. “We did do a better job of giving them something to remember us by this time, didn’t we? But it is more than that. Irial and Lorcan will inform the king, and the druids, and indeed the entire fortress, of what Beolagh and his followers have done.”

Rioghan nodded. “The story that six armed men tried to steal from a lone woman and a handful of Sidhe will not win them much respect, I think.”

“It will bring them nothing but ridicule. And they’ve earned it.”

She looked up at him, intending to thank him for driving away the intruders yet again—but in the light of her torch, she saw that he was blinking and wiping away blood from a cut above his eye. “Here, I will see to that for you,” Rioghan said. “Come with me.”

“Truly, there is no need. None of these six could do any harm to me. I would be too ashamed to show my face if they could!”

“It will be a scarred face, or worse, if you do not let me clean and dress that cut. Please…come with me.”

He said nothing, but only smiled. A pair of shadows reached out of the darkness to take Cath and lead him away, to care for the horse, and together Rioghan and Donaill walked to her home.

Chapter Fourteen

With the men gone from the clearing and the tension eased, Rioghan’s dogs trotted off into the night. Some continued their patrol around Sion, while others lay down to keep watch from the shadows. They were quite unconcerned about the presence of Donaill, and a few of them even greeted him with wagging tails and friendly sniffs. Rioghan glanced at them with a slight frown and then walked into the cave ahead of Donaill, tying back the black cowhide hanging and forcing herself to think only of the business at hand.

“Truly, you need not go to any trouble for me. I can take care of this when I return home.” Donaill bent low to walk inside the cave, and then stood near the entrance with the top of his head nearly touching the ceiling.

Rioghan placed her torch down in the hearth and then moved to the workbench to find her small bronze cauldron and some fresh water. “You came here, as promised, to defend me and my own, and you were injured in carrying out that defense. It is my duty to care for you as I would care for anyone else at Cahir Cullen.”

“Is that all?” he asked.

She paused, but did not look at him, concentrating instead on pouring clean water from a wooden bucket into her waiting cauldron. “What else might there be?”

She knew without having to look that he was grinning at her, and that his blue eyes shone with good humor. Then suddenly his voice was serious. “Where is your gold, where are your beautiful things? The Sidhe’s things? The cave is bare! Did they take them? Surely we caught them in time, before they could get inside this place!”

Rioghan laughed. “They took nothing, Donaill. The Sidhe have hidden away their ancient gold and the beautiful things. No one will ever find them now.”

Donaill nodded, and sat back down again. “I am glad to know that these things were not stolen.”

“They were not.” Rioghan set down her bucket of water. “I thank you for coming here this night,” she said, as she carried the cauldron to the fire. “Though I will tell you, I was surprised to see you. I thought you said you would be gone for some days.”

Donaill sat down on the low stone wall surrounding the firepit and grinned at her, looking immensely pleased with himself. “Beolagh was surprised too, wasn’t he?”

He was all but laughing now, his eyes sparkling and his teeth white in the soft light of the fire. She had expected to see the swaggering king’s champion boasting of his bravery, but Donaill instead reminded her of a small boy who had just played the most marvelous prank. “I knew that something had to be done about him, and quickly. So I made up the story about my leaving for a few days, and sure enough, he took the bait like a hare whose mother never taught it any better.”

Rioghan could not help smiling back at him as she walked to the wooden shelves mounted across the far side of the cave. “It was a good trick, I will admit. And an effective one. Though I am sorry you were hurt in the process.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I have taken far worse than this, and would have taken worse this night if need be.” He looked a bit solemn now, but still his eyes shone, and he got up and walked slowly across the deep straw carpet toward Rioghan. “When we sat together at the feast, I told you that I wanted very much for you to come and live at Cahir Cullen—live among our people and truly be a part of them.”

She turned to stare back at him, almost glowering, but he kept talking before she could interrupt. “Yet I know very well that ignorant men such as Beolagh have treated you very badly. I know you would never come to live at Cahir Cullen so long as anyone is there who would dare to treat you with contempt or disrespect.”

“It is not just I who was so treated. I was also thinking of the Sidhe.”

“The Sidhe have also been ill-used by some from Cahir Cullen.”

“And my dogs.”

He smiled gently. “And your dogs. I do not make a joke of it, Rioghan. I know that two of your magnificent companions met their deaths on the swords of Beolagh and his men. It should never have happened.”

Rioghan took down a little bundle of dried herbs from the many on the shelves along the cave wall. “You are right. It should not.”

He took a step closer, watching as she placed the leaves inside a small wooden cup and began to crush them with the rounded end of a smooth, slender bone. “There is something else that you did not hear,” he said, “something that I want to tell you now.”

She continued to work, making herself look only at the leaves as she ground them to powder, and after a moment he went on. “Just as you walked out through the gates that night, I spoke with one of my brothers. I told him that though I knew I had no choice but to let you go back to Sion that night, I would make certain you would return to Cahir Cullen. That is why I set this little snare for Beolagh, so that I could both put an end to his threats and show you, beyond any doubt, that I do indeed keep my promises.”

Rioghan set down the bone and looked up at him. There was nothing but sincerity in his eyes. She could not help but smile at him, could not help but feel the same warmth and gentleness around her heart that his presence always seemed to bring. “None can say that you do not keep a promise, Donaill.”

“Not even you?”

“Not even me.” Rioghan took the cup of crushed leaves and walked back to the hearth. “Sit down, please, Donaill. It will not be long before this is ready.”

She sat down on the firepit wall, facing the cave’s entrance and the quiet darkness of the clearing. Donaill took his place an arm’s length from her, watching intently as she lifted her small bronze cauldron and poured its steaming contents over the leaves in the wooden cup. “Cahir Cullen is fortunate to have you,” he said. “Many there have had their suffering eased—and, I daresay, their lives saved—because you were willing to come to them.”

Rioghan held the cup by its rim and swirled it gently, letting the hot water mix well with the crushed leaves. “It is no trouble. A healer is of little use if she has no one to heal.”

“But a healer would be of even greater use if she lived among the people whom she served.”

Rioghan set down the cup. “I do live among them. Making my home at Sion allows me to live among both Cahir Cullen and the Sidhe.” She smiled a bit. “And I am not sure that your people would welcome my twenty-eight dogs.”

“Some arrangement could be made for your dogs. Rioghan—”

“Hold still now. This is ready. Let me clean the wound.” She stood over him and dipped a linen cloth into the cup, then reached out to steady Donaill’s head with one hand and clean the cut above his eye with the other.

“Close your eye now…and I warn you, this may sting a little.”

She saw him wince, but went on working diligently to clean the deep gash. “There,” she said, lowering the cloth. “It is well that we got to it quickly. Such a cut can easily fester and grow poisonous…but this one will not, I think.”

He sighed as she finally drew back from him and set down her wet cloth. “My lady, your potion burned worse than fire, but if you say it will keep me well then I am grateful to you.”

“And you are welcome.”

Donaill sat quietly, watching as Rioghan poured the remains of her potion on the edge of the fire and cleared away the cup and linen. She stood at the far end of the cave and waited for him to get up, expecting to hear that he must be leaving soon and returning home.

He did get up, but he walked to the back of the cave and stood beside her sleeping ledge. As she watched, he reached down to gently stroke the soft furs that covered it…the gray-black of the badger, the lighter gray of the wolf, the tan and white of the hare. She stiffened a bit at the sight, feeling as if she herself had been touched, and took a step toward him—but stopped when he looked up at her.