Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) (33 page)
Read Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) Online
Authors: Lisa Ann Verge
Oh, and the two went at it, the master and the Irishman, my master roaring his displeasure and the little man talking back with no mind to the danger to his own hide. Octavius, he said his name was, recently come of Ireland, though what he was doing wandering in this place so far from sea or road was a puzzle to all. He was having none of my master’s rudeness—none at all. Never did I hear any man talk to my master the way this little tattered fellow did. He even made my master pause a moment with the shame of finding such a harsh welcome in a fellow Celt’s house.
Then my lord made to stomp off to that lair of his he lets no one into, when Octavius called out and made a comment on the lights he saw upon yonder lake. Ah, you know the one, the enchanted lake with the faery isle my master has been trying for years to build a castle upon. The Irishman was trying to engage my master in conversation, after all the harsh words that had passed between them! The little man began talking of faery rings and dancing lights and all such things—not a strange conversation for a Midsummer’s Night, for all the people of Graig had been talking of the old days this night. But my master interrupted the Irishman as I knew he would. My lord scoffed as he does at all un-Christian imaginings and mocked the little man, which sent the Irishman to true temper at last.
“Listen to you, believing only what you can see,” the Irishman said. “I’d curse you for your ignorance, but for all that leather upon your face there’s no hiding that you’ve been cursed already.”
Didn’t that set my blood to freeze! For no one dared to make mention of it, though all men knew of the curse upon my master. One look at that masked face set my heart to choking me. I thought my lord was to take the creature in his two warrior’s hands and strangle the life out of him. If it weren’t for the Welsh blood rushing thick in his veins he might have done the same. Instead he spoke quiet like the wind in the trees before a storm—like to make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck—and banished the creature into the night.
Before the words were full out of my master’s mouth I made to hurry out and stop such discourtesy—to take the Irishman aside and give him food and shelter in our kitchens, humble though they may be. It was no fit night for man or hound.
But the Irishman stood his ground by the warmth of the hearth and smiled, he did. It was the smile that stopped me—as did the look in his bright black eyes. My heart dropped to my stomach. It was Midsummer’s Night, after all, and Christian though I am, I’ll not mock the old ways. This creature had come from the air itself.
The Irishman said that he knew a healer unlike any other who lived on an island off the west coast of Ireland
. A woman who had healed every ailment she’d touched. A woman with a touch of faery blood who could cure my master’s curse with a pass of her hands. A miracle worker, like to be a saint.
I felt the heat of my lord’s anger, for hadn’t he made a hundred thousand pilgrimages and seen every charlatan and witch from Myddfai to Paris, all to rid himself of this curse?
On the Aran Isles, the Irishman continued, as thick as mud to my master’s silent rage. By the name of Aileen Ruadh. Aileen the Red.
Then what happened I never could be sure, for it happened so quickly I wondered if my old eyes had deceived me, or if he had just moved so quickly that I hadn’t noticed the closing of the door. For one moment, the Irishman was there, standing as whole as you or me before the red glow of the hearth fire, and the next moment there was a sparkling around him, and suddenly there was naught but a wisp of smoke and an echo of laughter that chilled my skin from my scalp to my toes.
After a moment, my master threw open the door and sent the wind howling through the house, spewing bright red embers across the paving stones. Then he was back and glaring up at the smoke-hole while the wind tossed his black hair wild.
I saw a light come into his eyes. I’d seen that light before, long, long ago, before the curse, when the master was young and handsome and still full of blind ambition. It was like before he set off with
Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales, to burn the English off Welsh soil for the last blessed time.
And a shiver went through my soul for the likes of Aileen the Red.
~ excerpt from THE FAERY BRIDE, book 2 in the Celtic Legends Series, copyright 2013 by Lisa Ann Verge ~
About the Author
Lisa Ann Verge
is the critically acclaimed RITA-nominated author of sixteen novels that have been published worldwide and translated into as many languages—quite a switch for this former chemist. She started her career writing emotionally intense romance about hot men and adventurous women, and now she also writes life-affirming women’s fiction under the name
Lisa Verge Higgins.
A finalist for Romantic Times’ book awards five times over, Lisa has won the Golden Leaf and the Bean Pot, and twice she has cracked Barnes & Noble’s General Fiction Forum’s top twenty books of the year. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three daughters, who never fail to make life interesting.
Visit Lisa at:
To the memory of my grandmother
and always,
to
Tom.
Publishing History
Print edition published by Zebra Books, 1994
Copyright 1994, 2013 Lisa Ann Verge
Digital Edition published by Lisa Ann Verge, 2013
Cover design
and Digital Formatting by The Killion Group
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