Part 45 (1/2)
”Balffe?” a hoa.r.s.e voice called up.
”Aye?” He threw the word over his shoulder.
”Any sign?”
His eyes held Finian's. ”Nay.” A series of curses floated up. ”Search the stables.”
Senna squeezed her eyes shut. Finian nodded once and turned her away, guiding her down the stairs behind them.
”My sister,” Balffe called out quietly.
Finian craned his neck to look over Senna's head. ”Is well.”
Balffe nodded.
Finian turned and guided Senna away. Balffe watched from the shadows. A gleam of reddish light from a torch shone on the side of his face, then he turned away.
Chapter 60.
Out on the fields, the gra.s.s was a b.l.o.o.d.y mattress where dead men lay. Brian O'Conhalaigh, locked in a death struggle with an English soldier, gripped the hilt of his sword tighter with a sweaty hand and swung. The blade met bone and the man fell over, his last words an unintelligible groan.
Brian was pulling his sword free of the body when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mace being lifted, hurtling toward his head.
With a shout, he threw himself to the side. He fell across the body of the man he had just killed, and found himself staring into the sightless eyes of another dead man. Beyond him lay another, and another.
He rolled to his feet. The iron ball was coming again and he couldn't move away fast enough. It barreled toward him.
Something changed its trajectory. Instead of smas.h.i.+ng into his skull, it blew by, an inch from his nose. Its owner dropped to the ground in an openmouthed scream that never made it out. Above stood Alane.
Grim-faced, he stuck out a hand.
”Jesus,” Brian muttered, grasping it to rise. ”I owe ye my life.”
”I'm no' worried of that debt. Stick close and you'll repay me soon enough.” He turned back to the chaos raging around them.
Brian looked around in stupefied amazement. The carnage seemed to stretch for miles. The stench filled his nostrils, his feet walked on blood-sodden ground. His arms, his legs, were leaden weights, dragging on him, as if he'd been dropped into an ocean fully clothed. The muscles were cramping and shuddering, but he couldn't stop lifting his blade. He couldn't stop killing them or they would kill him.
A horse galloped by, jarring him. He stumbled and dropped to a knee.
”'Tis only de Valery,” Alane's voice said from behind.
”Oh,” Brian replied dumbly, stumbling back to his feet. He was so thirsty his throat crackled when he inhaled. When he exhaled, it was like hot wind blowing over a burn.
”We're outnumbered,” he muttered.
”Aye,” Alane agreed. ”Let's go,” he said, and plunged down the small hill back into battle.
Weary hotness filled Brian's eyes as he followed him down, but Alane was only approaching a small group of Irishmen who stood in an area the fighting had pa.s.sed by. Brian followed. In the distance, he could see the de Valery knight urging his horse up a hill, straight for the justiciar's standard.
”He'll get himself killed,” he croaked.
The Irishmen turned.
A small band of hors.e.m.e.n appeared on the far hilltop. At its head rode Will, flying through the butchery, seeking Wogan.
His one-eyed captain looked over as they galloped up the hill. ”Sir? Is this the wisest thing to do?”
”No.”
He kicked his horse into one last gallop. At his side rode his squire Peter, the king's crest prominently displayed. The pennant snapped in the morning breeze. Hands were raised, pointing at them. The justiciar's guard turned their horses and unsheathed their swords. Two men wearing Rardove's livery lifted longbows and aimed them at William's head.
The justiciar threw out his arm and shouted something. The bows hovered a moment, then lowered.
”Wogan!” Will shouted, hauling on his horse's reins as they crested the hill. The stallion slid in on his haunches, tossing his head.
”Who the h.e.l.l are you, and what the h.e.l.l is going on?” the justiciar demanded.
Will swung off the horse, ignoring the battle behind them and the swords angled at his neck. ”I've a story to tell, my lord.”
When Finian walked out of Rardove Keep with Senna, Wogan, the king's governor, stood atop the hill, his pennants blowing in the breeze. He was not on his horse. Senna's brother Liam and The O'Fail stood beside him, talking. There was no fighting. Everything was quiet. Even the birds flew away when battle came.
Finian stopped, stared at the sight of the men talking on the hill, then simply dropped to the ground where he stood, holding Senna's hand. She sat down beside him. It was a long time before anyone spotted them.
Senna dragged Finian to Wogan's tent, not so much because she wanted Finian to meet the governor, but because he would not let her out of his sight. And when it became clear Senna was going to speak to the justiciar come a plague of locusts, it became evident Finian would be meeting the king's governor, too.
”There is no such thing as Wishme dyes,” she insisted, after every moment of her time with Rardove had been explored and exhausted in excruciating detail. ”Lord Rardove was mad, I am sorry to say. The Wishmes are mollusks, not some mythical dyes. And certainly”-she gave a tinkling laugh-”not weapons. weapons.”
Wogan did not have a hard time believing her report. But after an hour of nonstop conversation and a few cups of wine, he did see fit to say, ”You're not quite what I expected from a wool merchant.”
Finian, sitting in the governor's tent beside The O'Fail, replied with feeling, ”Ye've no idea.”
Wogan nodded at Finian, a slight smile lightening his somber visage. ”I've found some women can hide many layers.”
”Have you found that to be a problem?” Senna interjected brightly.
”I have found it,” he said, s.h.i.+fting his gaze her direction, ”to be invigorating.”