Shapeshifter

PART II

THE DARK MAN





FIFTEEN

Finn had been gone seven days. That wasn’t long for the journey to the coast and a battle, Sive told herself— a day longer than he had estimated, but nowhere near long enough to assume “anything untoward” had happened.

Anything untoward. That was how Fergal, the man charged with the dun’s safety in Finn’s absence, had put it. Very delicate phrasing for a man pitted and scarred by battles past, but Sive knew what the words stood for.

Finn dead on the strand, the lapping tide drawing out a red wash of his blood. Finn spitted by an enemy spear or hacked by a sword, his breath coughing out frothy and red, his belly black and festering, his leg green and reeking of poison. Finn and his men outnumbered and trapped, fighting a hopeless battle with ever-dwindling strength.

She must stop. Sive made to leap up from bed, was checked by the new weight of her belly and settled for sitting up slowly. A sweet burden. She would not be leaping anywhere for another couple of months. The child within her rolled and stretched, and she cupped her hand over the tiny foot-shaped bump that appeared under her ribs, smiling as it pushed against her and then pulled back, disappearing into the secret world within her.

She would not rush to the lookout to stare down the road leading east—not yet. She would rise, and dress, and eat, and chat with the women, and attempt to make garments soft enough for a baby out of the rough wool and linen made by the daughters of the Gael. And when she could not stand it a moment longer, then she would go to the lookout and watch.

THEY HAD BEEN LUCKY to have a peaceful winter, Sive reflected. The wind up on the high lookout was raw, but she could smell the spring in it. Spring was in the brighter shade of green in the fields rolling down toward the sea and the busy, boasting calls of the birds. The trees were still bare, but it would not be long.

Life had grown quieter at Finn’s dun after Samhain, when the coming and going of the summer season died down and the men—all but Finn’s own company—dispersed to their own border forts and posts to keep watch over the land.

Sive had worried when Finn said he would not attend the high king’s feast at Samhain.

“Do you not serve King Cormac?” she asked.

“Aye, though he chooses to forget it on occasion.” Finn’s voice was mild, but Sive sensed an old anger.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Finn shrugged. “When the country is quiet, he resents our wages. He sees only the provisions and pay, but not the returns.”

“And when there is war?”

A quick, bright smile. “Then we are the King’s most loyal, most valued, most dearly loved Fianna.”

“And he will expect you on Samhain, to confirm that loyalty, will he not?”

Another shrug. “This year, I have a more pressing duty, which is to see you safe through the night. I will send my best men, Goll and Caoilte, and the King must be content with that.”

Whether he was or was not content, Sive did not hear, but she was glad to have Finn by her side through the long dark of Samhain. The protection over Finn’s dun held though, and the Dark Man did not enter.

And then the winter settled over them. Men cooped up too long can grow restive and quarrelsome, but Finn kept his men busy with training and challenges and patrols. At night the feasting hall was raucous and high-spirited. Sive could hear them sometimes long after she had retired to the white house to sleep. Yet there was poetry and music too, and Sive enjoyed singing with Finn’s musicians. The food grew worse as the months passed, but the music improved steadily.

The call had come on the last new moon. Invasion on the coast, by the men of the Northlands over the sea.

“It’s not far,” Finn had told her. “An easy day and a half to the bay of the River Liffey, and we’ll still be plenty fresh for the fight.”

He turned to her then, his face grave. “Promise me you will not leave the walls of the dun until I return, however long that may be.”

“I won’t. You know I won’t. Don’t worry, Finn. I am safe here.”

“You are my heart,” he murmured, and his kisses chased the Dark Man from her thoughts.

It was not until he was taking his leave that the new fear struck at her.

“Finn…” She clutched at his powerful arm. For the first time she fully realized he might not return. A mortal man: how easily he could be killed, how terribly fragile the skin that shielded him. Men of the Sidhe died in battle, occasionally. But unless they were killed instantly, there were few wounds that could not be healed. Here there were no magic waters, no mending spells, no silver hands. There was terrible pain, injuries that left men crippled and broken, and death. Death as common as nettles.

“Be careful,” she said, unable to find any words to match the enormity of her vision.

He saw it. The blue eyes crinkled in gentle amusement.

“Never fear, girl. It is not my time to die, not yet.” He placed his index finger under her chin and tilted her head so she met his gaze directly. “It is given me to see things other men do not. I will be back here, alive and well.”

She nodded mutely, not trusting herself to speak again without tears.

All these men’s wives and lovers, she thought, as she watched the long line of men striding through the gates and down the road, disappearing into the wooded slopes of the hill and then visible again, now just small dark shapes, snaking across the outlying fields. All of them saying goodbye, over and over, not knowing if it’s for the last time. How do they bear it?

A SMALL HAND plucked at her cloak. “Ma says won’t you come inside now, Lady Sive, and warm up by the fire?” Earnest gray eyes peered up from within a frizzy halo of hair.

She was chilled. Sive had a new appreciation for the rough deerhide that had protected her through three Irish winters, now that she had only her own soft skin and woven cloaks against the weather. She smiled at the girl.

“Thank you, dearie. That sounds like a good idea.”

A haze of peat smoke hung in the air of the house and stung her eyes, but the fire’s red glow and blooming heat made up for it. Searc had pulled a chair up close to the hearth, and she settled Sive into it now, fussing over her as though she were a fragile invalid.

“You must be careful, m’lady, not to overtax yourself or give the baby a chill.”

Sive smiled. She had been in Eire long enough to see that the household women hardly slowed down at all until the very end of their pregnancies. She had seen a hugely pregnant woman heaving tuns of ale into the storeroom, and another cutting peat bricks with her man on a windy day spattered with rain. But they treated Sive like an exotic flower that might droop and drop its petals at any moment.

“Thank you,” she said as Searc tucked a blanket around her knees and pressed a warm mug of sweet mead into her hands. “I’m fine, really.”

Goll’s wife came by soon after and was easily persuaded to join Sive at the fire. She set about entertaining Sive with stories of their men’s adventures and exploits, peppered with her own dry commentary. That was one thing the same in both worlds, Sive had been glad to learn—the mixture of admiration, irony and bawdy humor with which women talked about their men. It was from Ana she learned what had actually happened between Daireann and Finn, how Daireann had made him curse and abuse his men so vilely that all but Caoilte had left him in disgust, and how poor Caoilte had spent the day running all over the country chasing down the Fianna and persuading them to return, until at last Finn came back to himself and could apologize and explain. Ana laughed till the tears ran down her broad cheeks, repeating the outrageous things Finn had yelled out under Daireann’s spell, and that gave Sive courage to broach a new subject.

“You have been a good friend to me here. Can I ask you something?”

Ana was a down-to-earth, plainspoken woman. She would settle the uncertainty that had been stopping Sive’s tongue.

“None of the women ever ask about my life before I came to Finn. I’m not sure if that’s because I should not talk about it, or because you don’t want to pry?”

Ana sighed. “It’s both, my dear. We want to know it all—of course we do. Sometimes I’m so curious about you that I think my head will burst open if I don’t ask!”

“Then why don’t you? I don’t mind telling.”

Ana shook her head, her full lips pressing together as if holding in a crowd of questions. “It’s not for ordinary people to know about the Secret Lands,” she said darkly. “It’s dangerous to know too much. Our men find their way there now and again, and it’s few that ever return. It’s only the druids and suchlike who can survive so much magic.”

Sive considered this, wondering what to say. Surely talking about Tir na nOg was not the same as going there. Besides, the men who didn’t return were as likely to have fallen in love and been permitted to stay as to have met a bad end.

She was saved a reply by Ana’s hand on her arm. “There is one thing though,” she said, her eyes glinting with excitement. “Do you still have the dress you came in? They say it was more beautiful than anything a queen would wear here.”

“I’ll get it,” said Sive. “No, for pity’s sake, it’s only a few steps.”

She was halfway to her chamber when she heard the yelling outside.

“What? What is it?”

Searc was at the doorway, listening. She turned to her mistress, her plain face shining.

“It’s the Dord Fiann! They’ve heard the horn of the Fianna, Lady. The men are returning!”

Sive snatched the blanket from her chair as she passed by and threw it around her shoulders as she hurried to the gate.

THE SWEET NOTES of the horn floated on the air, announcing his homecoming. He smiled in anticipation. By the time he came within sight of the gates, she would be watching for him.

The two dogs ranged about him as he strode up the hill. Hard to look the returning hero at this time of year, he reflected wryly, when you had to skirt around patches of sucking mud on the path and mince across slippery crusts of half-melted snow.

The track emerged from the wooded slopes of the Hill of Almhuin into the cleared area surrounding the dun, and a cheer went up from the walls. He waved, scanning for a willowy figure with hair like red gold. There she was— waving with both arms, her hair a bright banner in the sun. He had forgotten how beautiful that hair was.

A little farther. Would they wonder why he came alone, without the Fianna? Sive would not. She would think he had run ahead in his eagerness to see her. And so he had.

He could see her clearly now, arguing, it seemed, with the great fellow towering beside her. He had his paw laid over her arm, and she pulled against it.

He smiled. She would come to him. He waved again, only for her this time, and then flung his arms wide in a gesture that could only mean one thing.

Sive disappeared from view, and in moments the gate opened and she came flying out to him. Her belly sailed before as she ran, heaving with each step like a ship in a swell.

A bolt of rage took him by surprise. What was it to him who the vixen lay with? Yet the sight of that belly, filled with the get of the interfering mortal who had somehow stood between him and his prize—that was maddening.

Her steps faltered. Losing her breath, no doubt, from that load she carried. Still, he must be more careful. He had come too close to giving himself away. He smiled, pulling the great form of Finn mac Cumhail more firmly over his own face, pouring his concentration into a demeanor of loving delight.

She continued toward him. But even as he reached behind to snatch up his rod and raise it high, she gave a cry and veered awkwardly, sliding in the slick mud.

He could not believe how instant her change was. Before he could bring down the rod over her shoulders, before her slithering turn could become a fall, she was a blur of red-brown fur, leaping away on four slim legs.

Far’s rage was no longer contained, but roared from his throat in a torrent. The illusion melted away, and he stood revealed, no longer the coarse warrior of the Gaels but the green-eyed, subtle sorcerer with the monstrous will.

She would not escape, not this time. The mud bound her; the child’s weight dragged at her. The dogs—not Bran and Sceolan, but Far’s own bound creatures—flung themselves at her throat, and she could not shake free of them.

It was the work of an instant to tighten the looped cord around her neck and drag her back into the woods.

Finn’s men were pouring out of the gate, pounding after them. Far’s lips curled in contempt. Mortals. What did they imagine—that he would stand here and cross swords with them?

Fog roiled up from the earth, oozed from the leaves of the trees, seeped out of their trunks. The air darkened to the blackness of deep night, though the sky above remained bright with sunshine. Strange sounds and cries filled the woods, seeming to come first from one direction, then from another. The frantic men blundered this way and that, fighting their way blindly through the woods, drawn by the illusion of a barking dog or a woman’s cries to one false trail after another.

They would find no one. Far was gone, and Sive with him. She would never lay eyes on Finn again.

Finn Remembers

For years I searched for her. Through all of Eire, every mountain and hidden valley, year after year, I searched. I felt her loss through my waking and my sleeping, as though some evil magic had cut the heart from my chest, and I still living on without it. But the Dark Man had taken her to a place I could not follow. The gates of the Sidhe were closed to me.





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