The Ballad of Rosamunde (4 page)

It was a sweet, hot kiss, a kiss that sent a
torrent of longing through her. It was a kiss tinged with regret,
filled with love, a kiss of yearning and potency. It left her
dizzy. It left her hot.

It left Rosamunde wide awake and blinking at
a ceiling she could not place.

Was she not dead?

It appeared not. She was simply alone. She
touched her lips, caught her breath, and dared to wish for that
second chance.

*

Padraig awakened abruptly, his heart racing
and his breath coming in quick spurts. He was hot and he was tight,
the taste of Rosamunde upon his lips.

He had also slept, apparently, in the
field.

The sun was rising in the east, gilding the
hills and setting the dewdrops ablaze. He stared around himself. He
was alone. He was cold and his clothing was damp with dew. The
stone circle was a dozen steps away, silent in its secrets. The
women were gone, if indeed they had ever existed, and there was no
music echoing in his ears. No lyre, no small faeries, no footsteps
in the grass.

Padraig heard a man shout at a cow as he
drove her along the road to town.

He ran his fingers through his hair and his
tongue across his lips. He tasted the kiss of Rosamunde again,
closing his eyes at the rush of pleasure he’d felt beneath her
touch.

Rosamunde had never kissed him.

Except in his dream.

He had indulged too much the night before.
It was the ale, confounding him, feeding his desire and leading him
astray.

Padraig shoved to his feet, grimacing at the
distance he had to walk back to town. His feet were still sore and
his head ached. He made to brush himself down, removing the twigs
strewn across his clothes, and realized there was something in his
hand.

It was a stone. The stone was round with a
hole in the middle of it. It was the colour of gold. Was this the
golden ring he believed the Faerie queen had given him?

Padraig smiled at his own foolish dream. He
had been in his cups. Still, a stone of such a shape was unusual.
It might be lucky. He was possessed of all of the superstitions of
a seafaring man and a few more besides, courtesy of his mother’s
upbringing in these hills and her respect for the fey. If nothing
else, it would be an error to cast the gift aside where the donor
might witness his rudeness.

Padraig pushed the stone into his pocket and
strode through the damp grass. And as he walked back to his
accommodations in Galway, he savored the memory of Rosamunde’s
kiss.

Even in a dream, it had been a sweet prize
and was enough to put a spring in his step.

*

“
But Rosamunde, she had not died

In truth she breathed still.

She was a captive of the fey

And lost beneath the hill.

Such marvels she did see while there

Such beauty, wondrous still

Still Rosamunde did not wish to be

Captive beneath the hill.”

*

The spriggan Darg was not a creature
Rosamunde was glad to see.

Solitude was better than the company of this
thing
.

That the small fairy had a red cord knotted
around its waist was curious, and surely did not improve the
creature’s mood. It hissed and spat, pinching her to wake her up
then nipping at her heels to hurry her along.

“Make haste, make haste, the king is not
inclined to wait.”

“Where are we going? I thought Faerie was
like limbo.”

Darg chattered unintelligibly, as was its
tendency when it was annoyed. The creature led her more deeply into
the caverns beneath Ravensmuir and Rosamunde was glad to leave her
past behind.

It wasn’t truly the caverns beneath
Ravensmuir, though. Those caves and their pathways were well-known
to Rosamunde, having been her secret passage to the keep for
decades. As a child, she had played in them, learning their
labyrinth, delighting in their secret corners. But they were dank
and made of grey stone, dark and filled with the distant tinkle of
running water.

She did not know the passageways that Darg
followed. Rosamunde had never spied that entry lit with golden
light until the collapse of the cavern and the death of Tynan. She
suspected that Darg had opened a portal for her, but knew not where
it truly was.

This cavern could not be fairly called a
cave or even a labyrinth. Indeed, Rosamunde did not feel as if she
was underground at all. There was brilliant golden sunlight, the
light that had spilled from that unexpected portal. The sky arched
high, clear and blue, over verdant fields. The air was filled with
music and fine singing, and every soul she saw was beautiful.

It took Rosamunde a while to realize that
she only saw nobility. There were aristocrats riding and hunting,
borne by finely draped steeds so majestic in stature that the
beasts rivaled the famed destriers of Ravensmuir. The women were
dressed in silk and samite, their garb of every hue, their long
hair flowing over their shoulders or braided into plaits. They wore
coronets of flowers, and gems were plentiful on their clothing,
even wound into their hair. Many played instruments as they rode.
Golden flutes and silver lyres abounded in this strange country.
The womens’ laughter sounded like music as well.

The men were just as well wrought, tall and
slim, muscular. There was a glint of mischief in every eye. Their
armor shone as if it was made of silver, their banners were
beautifully embroidered and their steeds galloped with proudly
arched necks. Silver bells hung from every bridle.

The land itself was bountiful, the trees
lush with fruit and flowers blooming on every side. Rosamunde
thought she saw fruit of gold and silver, and flowers wrought of
precious jewels, but Darg did not delay their passage so she could
look more closely. Birds sang from every tree, their song blending
so beautifully with the ladies’ tunes that Rosamunde felt they made
music together.

Just passing through the beauty of this
realm, even at Darg’s killing pace, lightened Rosamunde’s heart. It
healed her wounds and made her believe that she might live on, even
without love. It made her think of the future with an optimism that
she had believed lost.

It made her wonder where Padraig was.

It made her wonder how she might get from
here to there.

“Where are we?” she shouted to Darg, who
hastened ahead of her, muttering all the while.

“A foolish mortal you must be, to not know
the land of Faerie.”

Faerie.
Rosamunde was a pragmatic
woman, one who had never believed in matters unseen or places to
which she could not navigate. Was she dreaming?

A butterfly lit on her shoulder, its wings
fairly dripping with color, its beauty far beyond that of any
earthly insect.

Rosamunde realized with a start that it was
a tiny winged woman. The fairy laughed at her surprise, a sound
like tinkling bells, then darted away, disappearing into the blue
of the sky with a glimmer.

“And why do we not linger in this magical
realm?” Rosamunde asked Darg.

“Late we are, late we must not be! Finvarra
waits impatiently.” The spriggan tugged again at the red cord
knotted around its waist. It spat in the grass with displeasure,
then snatched at Rosamunde. “Hasten, hasten, by the moon’s rise, we
must be safely at his side.”

“Who is Finvarra? And why do we go to
him?”

“Questions, questions, instead of haste!
Your queries do the daylight waste! We have far to go without rest:
Finvarra will accept no less.”

They crossed a bridge, the river running
beneath looked to be made of mead. Rosamunde caught a whiff of its
honeyed sweetness and saw a cluster of bees hovering at the shore.
A beautifully-dressed suitor offered a golden chalice of the liquid
to his lady, who flushed, fluttered both wings and lashes, then
accepted his tribute.

“But why do we go to this Finvarra? Who is
he and what hold has he over you?”

Darg spun abruptly, facing Rosamunde with
fury in its eyes. “A match I lost, the price my life. His demand
was you as his new wife. High King of Faerie is his task, a man
whose patience does not last.” Darg wrestled with the red cord,
then released it with disgust. “This bond he knots, it burns me
true; ‘til you are his, this pain my due.”

“You traded me to the Faerie King?”
Rosamunde demanded, bracing her hands upon her hips. “What if I
have no desire to be his toy? Or that of any other man, for that
matter? I will not go complacent to his court, no matter what you
have promised.”

“I pledged my word, I swore my life;
Finvarra will have you as his wife!”

“I think not.” Rosamunde turned her back on
her vile captor, having no inclination to make such a submission
easier. She surveyed the beautiful countryside and spied a man
tending a pair of horses that were drinking mead on the bank. He
was handsome, and his gaze was bright upon her.

His hair was as dark as midnight, and if she
narrowed her eyes, he could have been mistaken for Padraig.

Save that Padraig had neither wings nor
pointed ears.

Perhaps he could aid her in finding
Padraig.

When the Faerie knight smiled, Rosamunde
found herself smiling in return. “I will take my heart’s ease here
instead,” she said to Darg and turned her back upon the
creature.

“No!” Darg screamed, as once the spriggan
had screamed before in Rosamunde’s presence. She glanced back
warily, then ran when she saw the spriggan had become a large and
menacing black cloud. When enraged it could change shape with
frightening speed - the last such eruption had led to Tynan’s death
by shattering the caverns.

“I saved your life, it’s mine to give,” the
spriggan shouted. “I trade it now so I shall live!”

Rosamunde ran as quickly as she could,
feeling the other faeries watching her with bemusement. She could
not outrun Darg’s fury, however. Her heart sank as the dark cloud
enveloped her, surrounding her with fog as black as night.

Then she was snatched from the ground, as
helpless as a butterfly caught in a tempest, and carried away. She
thought she heard someone cry out, but Darg did not slow down.

Finvarra’s wife.
King or not,
Rosamunde had no interest in his attentions. The very fact that he
would trade a faerie’s life for a woman, with no consideration of
any desire beyond his own, was no good endorsement. She struggled
and fought, knowing it was futile, and she wished again for a loyal
friend to fight at her back.

Padraig. How could she have been so
blind?

*

Padraig fondled the strange stone in his
pocket as he returned to the tavern that night. It was falling
dark, the sun blazing orange just before it slipped beneath the
horizon.

He could not dispel his dream of kissing
Rosamunde, and in truth, he did not want to do so. The dream had
lifted the shadow from his heart, made him feel that there might be
some purpose to his life even without his partner by his side.

“You are fair pleased with yourself
tonight,” his sister said as she set an ale before him. She smiled
and propped her hands on her hips to regard him. “A conquest was it
then?”

Padraig laughed for the first time in a long
time. “Naught but a dream, but ‘twas a fine one.”

“I wager it must have been,” she said, her
smile teasing. “You dreamed then of a lady?”

“None other than the Faerie queen,” Padraig
agreed amiably. “And she gave to me a token.”

His sister sobered. “Did she then?” Her
wariness reminded Padraig strongly of their mother.

“A ring with the power to make a man
invisible to others.” Padraig chuckled at the whimsy of it all,
then reached into his pocket to show her the stone. He thought she
would be amused by the evidence of his drunken dream, but when he
pulled the gift from his pocket, it had become a golden ring
again.

Padraig stared at it on his palm and blinked
in wonder. “But a moment ago, it was a stone,” he whispered.

His sister caught her breath and took a step
back. “A Faerie gem.” She crossed herself quickly. “Mind your step,
Padraig. A man does not easily elude the favor of the Faerie
queen.”

Padraig barely heard her warning. He knew
all the tales of the fey, courtesy of his mother. He simply could
not believe that the ring had changed twice.

But then, if it
was
fey, the charm
upon it would hold for the night and not the day. He stood and,
leaving his ale, looked out the door of the tavern. Sure enough,
the sun had set completely and twilight, that time so potent for
the fey, had fallen.

He gazed at the circle of gold. What if his
dream had been true? What if this ring truly did have the power Una
had stated? What if he could reclaim Rosamunde from the realm of
the fey?

What if his dream of that kiss had answered
his question – what was Rosamunde’s honest desire? Did she wish for
him as well as freedom?

But before he dared entering the Faerie
mound, before he dared to abduct a women destined for the High King
of Faerie’s bed, Padraig would be sure of the ring’s powers.

He left a coin for the ale, having no taste
for it any longer. He strode out into the streets of Galway,
slipped down an alleyway, then donned the ring.

To his astonishment, when he stepped back
into the crowded thoroughfare, a man walked right into him,
frowning at the obstacle he could feel but not see.

Padraig spent an hour testing the ring’s
abilities, but it was clear that no human eye could discern his
presence.

Next he would check it among the fey. He
borrowed a horse and rode like a madman to the stone circle where
he had heard Una sing the night before.

*

“
Thus Rosamunde’s lover true

Did meet the Faerie queen.

Thus he gained the magical ring