The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 43

Tara jogged beside him in silence for a while. "And then?" she ventured.

Ulick glanced at her. "And then we explore this land together. Or Eireann. Whatever ye wish. As long as we can do it together."

"Sounds like a plan." She grinned at him, and ran a little faster.

The Skrying Gla.s.s.

Penelope Neri.

The Village of Glenkilly, southeast Ireland 853.

Prologue.

"Siobhan! It's your turn! Come!"

"I don't want to. I'm frightened!"

"Frightened, mo muirnin? There's nothing to be frightened of! What could go wrong on your lucky day? 'Tis but a mirror, after all," her mother soothed, stroking Siobhan's tangle of black curls.

"Aye, a mirror that shows the future where my face should be, Mother! I'm thinking 'tis better not to know what lies ahead," she added with a wisdom that belied her years.

"Oh, very well then. Ask it a question instead. What would you see?" Deirdre thought for a few seconds. "I know! Bade it show us your wedding day!" She smiled. "And your future husband. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Knowing her mother would not give up until she took part in her fortune-telling games, Siobhan rolled her eyes and sighed. "Very well, Mother."

Taking her seat, Siobhan gazed deeply into the skrying gla.s.s. Her lovely face was grave, her expression intent, her brow furrowed.

The large oval looking gla.s.s was framed in silver. The precious metal had been exquisitely cast with crescent and full moons, stars, and all the constellations of the heavens, including the sign of Scorpio; the lucky star under which Siobhan had been born twelve years ago that very day. However, the polished silver oval that should have reflected her face was instead as black as a raven's wing.

At first, Siobhan saw nothing in its inky depths, although she stared, unblinking, for what seemed an eternity.

She was about to give up when her mother motioned her to try again.

"You must ask it your question aloud, daughter. Bid the gla.s.s reveal your future husband on your wedding day!"

Siobhan nodded. "Very well. Show me, mirror!" she commanded. "Show me my husband on our wedding day!"

She stared into the mirror's ebony depths. Did the future even hold a husband for her? she wondered. Perhaps not. Perhaps she was destined to die a young and tragic death, like one of the martyred Christian saints the monks at the monastery had told her about?

But then, a grey mist began to boil and gather within the mirror's dark depths, like billowing smoke.

Little by little, the silvery fog cleared, revealing a tableau of figures and an unfamiliar place.

Her mother's watching maids gasped.

Siobhan saw three tall men in the looking gla.s.s. They stood around a low couch on which sprawled a fourth man. He was bare-chested, deathly pale and very still. Siobhan could not make out his features, but his terrible battle wounds were plain to see.

The gorge rose up her throat. It was all she could do to keep from retching.

"A Druid healer has been summoned, min jarl," murmured one of the men. "He will be here before sunset."

"Too late for this brave warrior," said a second man. ''He is already dead. By Odin, three of our finest fell like trees before his sword! He will feast in Valhalla this night!"

The little tableau began to blur and dissolve. The three men slowly disappeared. The fourth image that of the dead man lingered for a heartbeat more, then he too, vanished.

Blackness returned to the looking gla.s.s.

Siobhan jumped to her feet. Horror and sorrow contorted her lovely face. "No!" she cried. "No! It cannot be!"

"Siobhan! What is it? Mo muirnin, sweetheart! What did you see?" Deirdre cried. "Was it your bridegroom? Tell me!"

Siobhan did not answer. Rather, she fled her mother's bower.

The Lady Deirdre and her serving women stared after her, wondering what great tragedy the skrying gla.s.s had foretold for their chieftain's daughter.

It was on that day, the day of her twelfth birthday, that Siobhan vowed she would never wed.

The looking gla.s.s had shown her that she was cursed. She'd surely become a widow before she was ever a bride.

One.

Never, in all her eighteen summers, had Siobhan seen a man more handsome than this one. The look of him made her heart beat so wildly 'twas a wonder it did not soar from her breast like a frightened bird.

For the first time since her twelfth birthday, Siobhan wondered what it might be like to take a husband.

Her companion gasped. "Oh, mistress, will ye look at that one!"

"Shush, Aislinn! He'll hear you!" her mistress hissed. "Besides, I'm not blind, girl! I see him well enough!"

From their perch in the ancient oak, where they had climbed when they heard the hunters coming, Siobhan and Aislinn held their breaths as the man and his party hounds, horses and all halted directly beneath them.

Clad in tunics and tartan mantles, and shod with boots of fur, the hunters blended well with the forest greenery. The ornate buckles and shoulder pins of Irish red gold that fastened their cloaks said these were the sons of chieftains.

". . . Nay, that's where you're wrong, Finn. I have heard old Diarmaid boasts but the one treasure," a man with wild red hair, bushy brows and a merry grin was saying.

"Aye? And what is it?" asked the handsome fellow. He was smiling, his teeth white and even against a wind-browned face and curling black hair. His deep blue eyes twinkled. "A hundred head of cattle? A magnificent red bull? Or is it fine torcs and gold wristbands the old miser's h.o.a.rding?"

"You're not even close, Colm. Old Diarmaid's daughter is his treasure. A lovely maid she is, too, they say. It is said the Lady Siobhan's beauty could make the stones weep."

"Weep, is it? Ha! I've yet to meet a maid whose beauty made me weep. Mind you, I've met many an ugly one that had me sobbing into my beer!" His companions laughed. "Enough of your blarney, Fergus. Hand over a bit o' that mutton, and leave the maids to me. I'm the one who's wanting a bride, after all!"

Siobhan's cheeks burned.

"Did you hear that? They were talking about you, mistress!" Aislinn squeaked. "Why, the cheeky devils!"

"Aye," Siobhan agreed, annoyed. She disliked being discussed by a band of rogues like this as if she was no more than a joint of beef. She was more than her looks, after all. Why, she was better educated than most men in Eire, thanks to the Christian monks at St Kieran's monastery. The holy fathers had not quite persuaded her to become a Christian, but they had taught her Latin, and how to illuminate their Christian ma.n.u.scripts with coloured inks and pens. She could sew, weave and play her harp. She excelled at chess, and could dance, hunt, ride horses, and run her father's household. Even better, she had another skill: a supernatural power that even her father knew nothing about. She had the ability to shape-s.h.i.+ft to any form she chose, a magical power she'd inherited from her mother's bloodline. Such things were best not spoken of, however, for they came not from this world, but the Other.

She scowled, scrunching her face up so that furrows appeared in her brow. She had a mind to show this Lord whatever-his-name-was that she was more than a pretty face! Aye, and so she would!

"Wait here until they leave," she told her servant crisply, "then take the baskets home. I shall see you anon." The baskets were filled with the medicinal herbs and plants they had gathered for Siobhan's healing potions.

"Why? What are you going to do, my lady?" Aislinn asked, suspicious. She was familiar with her mistress' unusual talent. She also knew that Siobhan's changing spells rarely worked exactly as her mistress intended.

"Nothing that you need to know about," Siobhan came back pertly. "Now, hush."

She closed her green eyes and began to chant the spell: "Fleet of foot, / Yet white as snow / Let this hind / Escape the bow. / By the magic / In my blood / Change me!"

The leaves ceased their whispering.

The air grew very still, as if the forest was holding its breath.

Aislinn held her breath, too.

Within a heartbeat, there was a faint tinkling sound, like fairy laughter, or the silvery chiming of tiny bells.

The fine hairs rose on the back of Aislinn's neck as light began to stream from Siobhan's fingertips in a s.h.i.+mmering aura. Siobhan beckoned the light to come to her.

The aura slowly expanded, until it limned Siobhan from her head to her toes.

In another heartbeat, Siobhan dissolved into the suns.h.i.+ne that dappled the leaves, and was gone! The branch beside Aislinn was empty.

Aislinn cursed under her breath, and made the horned sign against evil for protection. Unlike her pagan mistress, she had been properly baptized by a Christian priest.

Almost immediately, Aislinn saw a delicate white doe appear across the forest clearing. She held her breath. It was Siobhan in magical form.

The doe took an elegant step or two, emerging from between two leafy green thickets. Its dainty white head was lifted to the wind. Its velvety nose twitched. Catching the hunters' scent, the doe turned, and was gone with a parting flirt of her tail.

"Whoa! Did you see that? A fine white doe, it was!" exclaimed Fergus. He took up his bow, swung his quiver of arrows over his shoulder and looped his hunting horn over his belt. "The little beauty's mine."

"Not so fast, cousin. You took the stag, remember? This one's mine," Colm said firmly. "Eat! Drink! I'll see you later, at old Diarmaid's hall."

"Take your time, Colm," Fergus said generously. "By the time you get there, I'll be betrothed to his lovely daughter, not you. Fifty head of cattle, cousin! That's all he's after askin'. Why, by all accounts, the Lady Siobhan would be cheap at five times such a bride price! Imagine the sons she'll give me!"

Still perched in the boughs of the oak tree, Aislinn groaned. She did not want to be nearby when Siobhan found out that her father was marrying her off for fifty cows.

Two.

The doe was swifter than Colm expected. She ran like the very wind, nipping and tucking in and out of bushes, springing and turning this way and that, soaring over hollows and ridges, darting between firs and oaks, ashes and birches until Colm was dizzy. He began to doubt he'd ever overtake her.

Why, it was as if the fleeing hind was a mythical creature. A magical doe that could escape a mortal hunter's pursuit.

Pausing to catch his breath, Colm leaned up against a tree to nock an arrow against his bowstring before he raced on. The challenge to overtake the doe drew him onwards, not the thought of the kill: the tantalizing flag of the doe's white scut, its small twinkling hooves. The little beast tested his hunter's skills!

The doe fairly flew before him now, leaping over the tussocks of thick turf, a white streak that nimbly leaped over rocks and deep drifts of russet and gold leaves. It was as if she fled a snarling pack of hounds, instead of a lone and badly winded hunter.

After a half-league at such a pace, he found himself short of breath, weary and wis.h.i.+ng for his horse or even his favourite wolfhounds to help run the doe to ground.

He was thirsty too, his throat as parched and dry as a bit of old leather. Although it was a crisp autumn day, with the chill bite of winter on the wind, sweat rolled down his back. More seeped into his deerskin boots.

And then, just when he was about to give up, he tripped over a gnarled tree root that snaked across his path and went flying.

With a startled grunt, he landed heavily on his belly. The bow flew from his grip. The arrow sang through the air towards the doe.

With bated breath, he watched its flight; heard the animal's shrill scream of pain, abruptly cut short.

The white doe plunged between some gorse bushes and vanished but not before Colm had seen the bright splash of blood that stained its right front leg.

He set his jaw, his expression hard but resigned. He had injured the pretty doe. It was now his responsibility to put her out of her misery. No creature would suffer a slow agonizing death for his misdeeds, intentional or otherwise.

He got to his feet. He drew his dagger from the scabbard at his waist and thrust his way into the gorse bushes in pursuit of the hind only to trip flat on his face a second time.

He landed across a young woman, hidden in the bushes.

A young woman who was, moreover, the loveliest maid he had ever seen. Her dark-lashed eyes were as green as shamrocks, and her skin was clotted cream.

But at the moment, those shamrock eyes were consigning him to the devil.

"Well, now! And who might you be?" Colm exclaimed, pus.h.i.+ng himself up on to his elbows, to look down at her.

She had long curling black hair, and lips like wild strawberries. A mouth made for a man's kisses.

His body stirred appreciatively.

"Who am I? I might ask you the same question, sir," she shot back, "since you're poaching in my father's forest! Get off me, ye great lummox!" She thrust her palms full force against his chest. She tried, in vain, to slam one or both of her knees into his groin.

He propped himself up, on his elbows, keenly aware that his body was far from indifferent to her charms, despite her efforts to geld him.