Part 11 (1/2)

”Aye. I know two things.” He held up two fingers.

An infinitesimal smile tipped up her mouth. ”Which two?”

”I know they are sticky, and I know they are always behind us.”

”Sticky?”

”Aye. They stick, if ye let them, like pitch.”

First one cheekbone, then the other rounded and lifted into a much larger, genuine smile. ”Indeed. They stick,” she echoed softly.

”But I also know they are not here. Not now.”

Her eyes were on his. ”No,” she agreed. ”They are not here, now,” and the husky, considering tone of her agreement was the most beautiful thing he thought he'd heard in decades of tossing awful things over his shoulder and walking on.

Morning sun lit up the side of her face. In the prisons, in the bailey, even in Rardove's candlelit hall, she had been all reflected light and shadow. But here, as the sun rose and the shadows shortened, she was like a drop of dew on a flower, bright and glittering.

”Rardove is likely ruing his error in judgment about now,” he remarked, mostly to himself, for in the daylight, one could see what a jewel had been tossed aside.

She snorted. ”For certes. He could have had a lucrative showing in the wool trade. Instead, he speaks to me of marriages and dyeing.” She shook her head.

Finian sat up straight. ”Rardove spoke of dyeing?”

”Aye. Some mad notion of his.”

”The Wishmes?”

She was mid-nod before she stopped, abruptly. She looked at him with a new, considering regard. ”The Irish know of the Wishme indigo?”

”We know,” he said in a flat voice.

”Legend.” Her words tumbled out quickly. ”Rumors, all. Wishmes. The Indigo Beaches. Rardove lands are not the Indigo Beaches of legend. Pah.” She pushed a length of hair behind her ear and picked up another stick.

”Now Rardove lands,” he said quietly, tamping down on the churning in his gut. ”Upon a time, they were Irish lands.” Rardove lands,” he said quietly, tamping down on the churning in his gut. ”Upon a time, they were Irish lands.”

Indeed. Upon a time, they were his his lands. His family's. lands. His family's.

Still, he ignored the urge to grab her by the shoulders and demand to know how much she knew and why she knew anything at all, because when it came to the Wishmes, the more one asked, the more one revealed. And it was worrying enough that this lick of English flame knew of them at all.

He resigned himself to saying simply, ”The Wishmes have been forgotten for many years now.”

”But they are just legend.” Oddly, it sounded like a question.

Even more oddly, he answered it. ”What do ye think, Senna? Do ye think Rardove would cause all this trouble for a lie?”

”I think Rardove is past mad.”

He laughed. ”Be they truth or no, Senna, the Wishmes have a way of ruining people, and ye're better off far away.”

She looked over at him. Her eyes shone in the morning sunlight. ”I've seen them,” she admitted in a low voice. ”I have seen the Wishme dye.”

His heart sped up. ”Have ye?”

She nodded. ”Rardove had a sample, a piece of linen dyed with the indigo. Have you ever seen the color, Finian?” she asked, her voice low and eager. ”'Tis the most astonis.h.i.+ng shade of blue...”

”'Tis alchemy,” he replied, unable to stop himself.

Something like enthusiasm was wending its way into her voice, lightening the dark sternness that occurred when she spoke of her business. ”I can hardly describe it. If someone could recreate that color, it would be...”

He waited for the last word to slip from her lips, wondering what she might say. He'd grown up near these beaches, listened to the tales of the old dyers and their lost, secret recipes. Like alchemists of beauty, the wizened old Domhnall and sharp-tongued Ruaidhri were as legendary to Finian as Fionn mac c.u.mhaill, Tristan and Isolde.

Upon a time, the dyers of the Indigo Beaches had wrought such stunning shades of royal blue that the Roman Caesars heard of them. In the end, though, the Caesars were unconvinced a trip across the Irish Sea would be worth the additional warfare. And right they were, Finian thought grimly.

So the Irish dyers had worked their art in peace; but, growing wary, they closed the circle of initiates, allowing fewer and fewer to practice the craft, or even see the color, until finally the eye-shattering indigo was crafted only for the High Kings, only upon their coronation on the rock at Tara, a rare and royal privilege. Over time, the Vikings came, and the Normans, and the secrets were lost.

Until Rardove came. Twenty-one years ago, when Finian was ten, Rardove came and stole everything, including the t.i.tle-although not the secret-of the Indigo Lands.

And now, for the first time since the Roman Empire fell, word was leaching out again: rumor of the Wishmes and their magnificent, consecrated colors.

So Finian waited to hear the words fall from Senna's lips, seeing the color of blue in his mind's eye. He felt a kins.h.i.+p with her, for her appreciation of their beauty, a feeling of connectedness he had not known for a long time. How would she choose to describe the shade his ancestors created in secret? Glorious? Astonis.h.i.+ng, again? Pretty? Simply, 'blue'?

He did not for a moment expect the word that did did fall from her lips. fall from her lips.

”Lucrative.”

He felt like someone had stomped on his chest. He lay down and shut his eyes. ”Go to sleep, Senna.”

Throwing his forearm over his face, he hovered in the familiar state of half repose, half alertness, his mind wandering over paths of the past that were not restful at all.

Senna sat at the edge of the ridge. Blue-gray shadows still stretched long, but a russet-gold, grainy dawn light was nudging its way farther into the corners of a small hamlet far below.

She cast a furtive glance over her shoulder. Finian's hands were crossed behind his head, his head resting on his palms. Long black hair spilled out over his wrists and onto the gra.s.s. The skin on the underside of his arms was paler than the rest, the faint outline of carved muscles beneath pressed into the silky skin. His long body stretched out across the spring gra.s.s, his powerful legs crossed at the ankles. His breathing was deep and regular.

She crept closer and lay down, near him but not touching. She cradled her injured hand to her chest by habit more than pain. She put her head on the hard ground and smelled the cool dirt and pale green points of gra.s.s. She looked up into the sky and watched the day take its bright, wild shape. It was endless and blue. Mayhap too endless, too blue. Too much for her.

Even so, she was unable to still the excited pounding in her chest.

For the first time in a long time, she knew knew she was alive. she was alive.

Chapter 16.

”I will kill her. I will flay her skin into strips and toast them over the fire.”

The steward Pentony watched impa.s.sively as Rardove, recovered from his sudden gut affliction, had been on his way out for a morning hunt when the maid brought the news that Senna was neither in her room nor the dye hut. A minute later, the guards from the prison came up as well, holding their bashed heads and groaning.