Spirit of the Mist (15 page)

They continued on, this time with only the quiet night and the sound of the soft wind in the leaves of the trees to accompany them. When they reached the edge of the cold running stream, Muriel gathered her skirts and crouched down beside the water to search for the cress while Brendan stood guard with the little torch.
 

In the faint and wavering light, she worked as quickly as possible to pick the clumps of wet, shiny green leaves, careful to leave the fine white roots so that more would grow. “Brendan, please hold the torch steady! I cannot see—”
 

The light almost vanished entirely as he whirled around. “Brendan!” she cried, and instantly he reached down to pull her close beside him. Her wooden bowl tumbled to the muddy bank of the stream, spilling out its contents as it fell.
 

“Shhh,” he told her. “We are surrounded.”
 

Brendan pulled his iron sword and stood waiting with his guttering torch in one hand and his blade in the other. Muriel stayed very still. She tried to look past the glare of the flickering little flame into the darkness that lay heavy on the trees and bushes around them, but she could see nothing.
 

Then came a steady rustling of leaves and breaking of twigs. First it was to one side; then it was to the other; then it was in front of them—and Muriel pressed close to Brendan as a line of people moved out of the dark forest to stand in front of them.
 

She took a step back, nearly stumbling into the water, waiting for Brendan to go on the attack…but he did not. He stayed very still as the little group of people took one step toward them, and then another.
 

Brendan held his torch high and moved it left and right. Muriel caught her breath as she was finally able to see what it was that had been following them.
 

She had been expecting to see warriors, most likely the men of Odhran’s kingdom come to take their cattle and rob them of their goods and force them all back to Dun Camas as prisoners. But these people staring back at them were not warriors.
 

Muriel saw pale and staring faces half-hidden behind the bushes and the branches of the trees, the faces of people dressed in plain, dark wool so old that it was hardly more than rags. Their tunics were tied around them with old pieces of coarse rope, and their boots were simply old scraps of leather and wool held together with the same worn rope—those who had boots at all.
 

They carried no weapons that she could see; not even the smallest dagger. Counting carefully, Muriel saw that perhaps seven of them were men, with four women and three children.
 

These people were not warriors. They looked like nothing more than the lowest slaves.
 

Brendan lowered his sword. Muriel moved out from behind him and stood close by his side. “Who are you?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as gentle as she could. “Why do you follow us?”
 

One of the men found the courage to move forward a few steps, pushing aside the thickly growing bushes to stand on the path in front of Brendan and Muriel.
 

He looked to be tall and broad-shouldered, and strong in the manner of those subjected to a lifetime of hard work—though a bone-weary exhaustion was evident as well. His face was hidden by a worn woolen hood and by a strip of old leather tied around his head so that it covered his left eye. Staring in tense silence at Brendan, he suddenly reached toward him with one hand, as though Brendan were someone that he knew.
 

Brendan gripped the hilt of his iron sword. Instantly the man let his hand drop. “We are here to be your slaves,” he said and looked down at the damp earth again.
 

“Slaves?” Muriel asked, staring hard at the hooded man and trying to make out his face. “It appears that you are already slaves. How is it that you are out here alone in the forest at night, following us like outlaws?”
 

The man looked up at her then, though she could still see little of his half-covered features. “We are not outlaws.”
 

“Then why do you hide yourselves and stalk travelers who pass by?” asked Brendan. “Will I have to fight to get past you?”
 

The hooded man stood very still for a moment, then stepped back into the shadows of the trees. “We fight against no one. We have only come to offer ourselves to you.”
 

Brendan sheathed his sword and stepped forward to stand right in front of the man, who was nearly as tall as he was. Holding up the torch, he inspected the stranger’s rough clothes, his worn-out boots, the rusted iron collar at his neck and the iron bands around his wrists, and the dirt and grime and sweat that had plainly been with him for a very long time.
 

“You are Odhran’s slaves,” asserted Brendan.
 

The man nodded and glanced back into the forest toward his waiting companions. “Escaped from the mountaintop when you and your men came to take the cattle that night. We’ve hidden in the woods since then.”
 

Muriel took a deep breath. So these were the slaves she had seen in her water mirror on the night of Brendan’s successful cattle raid. She had never given a thought to what might have happened to them, merely assumed that they had gone back to Odhran’s fortress and the endless toil that was their lives.
 

“We have no slaves at Dun Farraige,” she spoke up. “There are servants, but no slaves. I recall seeing only two men in my life who wore the iron collars and chains of slaves, and they were paying the price as required by the law for crimes they had committed.”
 

“There are no slaves at Dun Bochna, either,” said Brendan. “So now you must tell us what crimes you have committed, to be forced to serve as slaves for Odhran.”
 

The tall man raised his chin, though his face remained hidden by the darkness and the hood and the old leather strip. “None of us has ever done any crime—except to be born as rock men, as people of the land. A man like Odhran considers us to be less than the cattle that graze on his mountaintops. He can do whatever he wants with us—work us, chain us, starve us, put us to death. It’s all the same to him.”
 

“And so you hide in the woods rather than go back to Odhran.” Muriel took a step toward the hooded man.
 

He turned his head in her direction, and it seemed to her that he smiled, though she could not see his face. “We would rather live alone on the poorest land than go back to Odhran. But we are not hunters. We have no weapons. There are children among us, and we have little in the way of food or shelter.”
 

“There would be a place for you at Dun Bochna,” said Brendan. “It is my fault that you are alone and starving.”
 

“Not your fault, Prince Brendan. We are grateful to you for giving us even the smallest chance to live. If you want us…we will go with you to Dun Bochna and work for you there.”
 

“Come with us if you wish, but it will be as servants, never slaves. The work is hard, but the food is good and has no limit, and the roofs leak only a little and will keep you dry in a bed of soft rushes on most nights.”
 

“It sounds like a life good enough for a king. If you’ll have us, we’ll be happy to live and work for you.”
 

“Then come this way.” Brendan raised his torch and started up the narrow path with Muriel close after him. Behind her she could hear the hooded man and the others whispering to each other. “We’re going with them!” the mothers told their children. “There will be food! A warm bed in the rushes! We’re going with them! We’re going home!”
 

A few days later, as the sun shone high in the sky, Muriel and Brendan rode side by side through the gates of Dun Bochna. Following them were a wagonload of goods, a small herd of sleek black cattle, and a ragged group of men and women and children who now had something like hope in their eyes.
 

Muriel sat up tall on her horse, trying to take it all in. She was well aware that the walls of this fortress were only half circles and that the far end of the place dropped away in a sudden sheer cliff straight down to the sea. She could scarcely imagine such a thing, but was anxious to see it anyway. Like everything else in her new life, it was strange and frightening and wonderful all at once.
 

The people of the dun began to gather around, anxious to see their tanist and his bride, and to see the rough newcomers they had brought with them. Servants came to take the horses and see to the wagon and the cattle, and as Muriel dismounted she turned to look at the silent group of former slaves.
 

They had all gathered close together, acutely aware of the many eyes staring at them, and looked at no one. “Just wait here,” Muriel said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Someone will come for you soon.”
 

“Father!”
 

Muriel turned at the sound of Brendan’s happy voice. She saw him run toward a gray-haired, red-cloaked man walking slowly toward them, his warriors close at hand.
 

The two men embraced, and Muriel could not help but notice how Brendan towered over his aged, gray-haired father—and how Galvin had a round face and gray eyes, while Brendan had fine-cut features and eyes like no one she had ever seen before…
 

But she pushed all such thoughts aside as Brendan stepped back from the king and reached out to her. “Muriel, come and meet my father, King Galvin,” he said. “Father, this is the Lady Muriel of Dun Farraige, come home with me to be my bride.”
 

He took her hand and drew her forward to stand before the king. The older man stepped forward to kiss her gently on the cheek. “Welcome, Lady Muriel. I welcome you home as my daughter.”
 

Muriel smiled back at him, genuinely touched by the sincerity of his words and by the affection shining in his old eyes. “Now,” he said, “come with me to the hall, where food is waiting. You can eat and rest and then tell us of your journey.”
 

“I would like nothing better,” Muriel said, smiling over at Brendan. Together they set out for the King’s Hall, but it was a slow procession, for they followed in the hobbling footsteps of King Galvin. Muriel was struck by just how frail and petite the king of Dun Bochna really was. One leg clearly pained him, and he moved with both the stiffness and the weakness that came with great age. And more than once she saw him angrily shake off the hands of the warriors who tried to help him along.
 

A chilling thought came to her as they followed his slow and painful steps. How much longer could he hope to serve his people as their king? Any man who wore the torque of kingship knew, in the back of his mind, that a king could no more be infirm than he could be blind, or maimed, or false.
 

The land required that any man who ruled her be as strong and as vital and as life-giving as she herself was…and if the day came when he was not, it was a true king’s duty to do what must be done to make way for the new young king who would replace him.
 

Yet this, too, she pushed from her mind. She and Brendan were here at a time of great happiness, the eve of their marriage, and it seemed that everyone’s spirits were as bright as the summer sun which shone down upon them. This was not a day for serious thoughts, which, she knew, would come all too soon anyway. But not on this day—not on this day!
 

Inside the shadowy hall, Muriel found a row of polished wooden slabs set in a neat row on the clean straw of the floor, set with shining gold plates and cups and laden with wooden bowls of steaming crab and lobster, plates of fresh wheat flatbread, and cups of rich golden butter and dark sweet honey.
 

As Muriel and Brendan settled down on the furs to begin the meal, waiting politely until King Galvin was comfortably seated, Muriel glanced around the long rectangular hall. It was much like the one at Dun Farraige—servants worked along the back wall and at the central firepit, preparing the food and cleaning up afterward. A few of the women sat together at the other end of the building, working at embroidery and smiling and whispering about the noble gathering before them. But then Muriel caught sight of two other people sitting quietly together in the farthest, dimmest corner.
 

They appeared to be an aged man and woman. She had nearly white hair and his was iron gray. The woman was combing a basket of dark brown wool to smooth and clean it, and then passing the combed pieces over to the man so he could spin them into neat lengths of thread.
 

These were servants’ tasks, yet this couple did not appear to be servants. Even from a distance Muriel could see the fine clothes they wore—good linen dyed in bright blues and greens and even purples—and catch the gleam of gold at the man’s fingers and the woman’s wrists as they worked.
 

She touched Brendan’s arm. “Who are they?” she whispered. “They do not appear to be servants.”
 

He followed her gaze, and then smiled, but there was sadness in it. “That is King Fallon, and his queen, the Lady Grania. They came here after being forced out of Dun Camas by Odhran.”