Irish Moon (6 page)

Beeswax melted faster than
tallow. Or was it the other way around? Breanne couldn’t
remember
,
but
quashed the urge to ask Finn for verification and decided that of
either substance, this one had burned well long enough to warrant
seeking Heremon out. The beeswax was nearly all puddle, the flame
dwarfed with so little wick left to consume. Heremon hadn’t
shown.

Breanne blew the candle out. The darkness
spread out around them. It was colder and the moon looked to be on
its descent. She should return to the keep. If her mother had
looked in on her, there would be more than hell to pay. Breanne
stood and brushed at her gown. She nudged Finn with her toe to wake
him.

“We must go. You were right. Heremon hasn’t
come.”

The cat yawned and stretched but didn’t rise.
“I’ll wait here.”

She realized that he
thought she was going to find Heremon. She’d intended
to
,
but the cold
and the dark, along with a nagging rawness in her chest, changed
her mind. Finn lay his head back down and peeked up at her through
one eye. He didn’t have to speak a word for her to hear the
gloating. She could see it in the slit of his eyes, the swish of
his tail, that he thought her a self-centered coward.

Mayhap he was right. Was she here only to get
in her long awaited lesson? Was her concern for Heremon truly
because of his strange behavior or in fact a result of her
discontent at missing out on five new herbals and praise for her
Grimoire? Was he acting strange at all or had she conjured it all
as a convenience?

“I don’t know where his home is,” she ground
out, knowing full well that she had just taken his bait. “I need
you with me.”

Swish. Blink.

“Please.” She’d look in a window, mayhap
knock, say hello, farewell and be warm in her bed within the hour.
And if he chose to stay, then she’d be there all the sooner.

After staring at her at length, eyes
squinted, Finn leapt to his feet, stretched and pounced in a
westerly direction toward the sea.

Breanne clamped her jaw and trudged after
him, letting her cape drag and catch as it pleased along the
way.

The trees grew sparse as
they neared the edge of
the
forest. The piney scent of it mingled with the
salty sea air pushing up the Slieve League cliffs. When the crisp
blue of ocean came into view, Breanne stopped. She didn’t have to
peer over the dizzying three-furlong drop to sense its danger. She
could hear it in the quality of the waves hissing against the rocky
walls.

“How much further?” she asked Finn, her voice
quaking.

He ignored her and inched to the edge.
Breanne’s breath caught, her belly clenched watching him. Terrible
by day, the stony precipice felt horrific and cavernous by night.
She could almost see his small, fat body plummeting to the bottom
to his death and it made her ears ache and skin crawl.

Right as she readied to
call him back, he stopped. Breanne looked up and down the coast for
a dwelling of any size or shape
,
but saw none. The cliffs made her feel naked and
she turned around for escape into the cover of trees. Then she saw
it.

The home was modest and
exactly what she’d expect of a man such as Heremon. She went to the
stone house and resigned to knock. With no light inside, it was her
only option. Breanne rapped her knuckles on the splintering wood
door. It sounded hollow. She glanced to verify Finn hadn’t
plunged
,
then
knocked again, harder. The skin on her knuckles protested the
combination of cold and hard colliding.

“He’s not answering,” she called to Finn.

He eyed her over his shoulder for a moment
and finally joined her. A wind picked up and whipped at loose
tendrils from her braid. “Could we have missed him?” she asked.
“Mayhap he came as we went?”

Either way, she’d come and could now go. All
she needed was certainty that Finn knew she’d tried.

“Is it locked?” Finn asked, his tone strange,
almost caring.

Of course, he had known Heremon much longer
than she. Longer than she’d fathom a guess at. Though Heremon never
gave her such detail, she gathered that Finn’s curse began some
time ago, long enough ago for him to have been through five other
priestess hopefuls only to have them fail him.

Breanne tried the door. The dark wood slab
fell open. Silence. Finn looked at her in agitation and Breanne
stepped inside. Warmth enclosed her body and she understood how
chilled she had become. Her skin prickled gloriously and she
stepped further in. She could hear Finn follow and suspected that
he might actually be uneasy.

They left the door ajar and Breanne lit a
candle off the remaining, almost ashen embers. Four additional
candles made the room fill with enough light to see two things
clearly. Heremon was not present, which they confirmed after
searching the adjoining rooms, and something was wrong. Breanne
didn’t know if wrong was the right word to define the gut feeling
she had. Amiss might be more suitable, or different, but nothing
appeared to be out of the ordinary, no fallen chairs, no signs of
departure.

Neither spoke the
words
,
but
Breanne knew Finn sensed it, as well. He took as much care as she
in keeping all movement quiet and delicate. After a fast search,
she went through each room again, trying to pinpoint evidence to
support her increasing worry. She came to a stop. Cool air brushed
in at the open door on her. She frowned at Finn. He hadn’t joined
her on the second turn, sat shaking his head for the twentieth
time.

“Where do you expect he’s gone to?” she
whispered.

“Mayhap nowhere. Have you not thought to try
the fourth door?” His voice bounced off the walls.

“What door?” She turned, scanned and found
it. She couldn’t believe she’d missed it. Leave it to Finn to sit
and watch her muck along, missing the obvious.

The door was well hidden by shadows and a
long narrow table piled high with books. Seeing that the door was
not so obvious made her feel somewhat better. Breanne cleared the
table, slid it away and tried the knob. It turned easily and she
peeked into the darkness. She needed a candle.

“What was that?” Finn’s voice was a whisper.
His ears tucked back and he crouched, looking into the night.

Breanne froze in place, hand an inch from a
candle. The hair on her neck tickled with fear as she watched the
cat slink low and creep to the door. Surely, it was Heremon
returning, she told herself.

Finn stole into the darkness, forcing Breanne
to choke back the tremble rising in her throat and follow. Her eyes
penetrated the shadowy obscurity, rushing to adjust to the lack of
light. Movement in the grass caught her eye and she followed the
small form that could only be Finn’s.

By the time he neared the edge, she could
fully see. She wanted to call his name but remained quiet, trying
to calm the thudding blood in her head. The breeze shushed the tall
grass around them, a hiss barely audible above the low roar of
waves so far below them. The sounds concealed her clumsy movements
as she crouched to the ground midway between the cliffs and
cottage.

Time slipped like fingers drumming a surface.
Breanne’s pulse steadied along with her breathing as she eyed Finn.
She wondered how far down the coast they’d been this afternoon.
Could she have simply walked a spell and found Heremon right there
in the bright of day had she not given in to her temper?

He was toying with her again. After so many
moments of Finn hunched, hind legs readying over and again, what
else could it be? Breanne sat upright and exhaled in annoyance. Not
that he would hear her, or care. She moved to rise. Then she heard
it. Faint and low, but definite. She heard a grunt. Finn stood
taller and peered down over the lip of rock.

“Heremon,” Finn said, his voice full of
anguish so sincere it brought Breanne forward.

She went flat to the ground and belly crawled
to him. They were so high up, her head and vision swam a little
just at the thought of what lay below.

“Oh no,” she gasped, feeling the same anguish
she’d heard. “Heremon. Can you hear me? Heremon?” The Druid’s
figure didn’t move. “Heremon,” Breanne called again, using her
hands to cup the sound and help push it down and out toward the
man. The rocky, moss covered spot he lay on looked impossible to
reach. How in the son of the lord’s name did the old man get
there?

“Can you get to him?”

Finn paced, testing the rocky edge, but
couldn’t seem to find a suitable angle. Then in a streak of fur the
cat bounded down and landed a breath away from Heremon’s limp arm.
Breanne put her hands over her eyes, then down to her mouth. The
moaning sound came again.

She glanced toward it, the left, saw nothing
and returned her attention to Finn and her teacher. “Is he
breathing? Oh, what have I done? I knew. I knew and I stood there
rather than trust myself as he’s always telling me and now he’s
hurt.” She scooted closer. “Is he breathing?” she called
louder.

Finn flashed her a look of panicked anger and
sniffed Heremon. The slope he lay on became more clear as Finn
tried to negotiate it and help without moving him. Hot tears
dripped down her face, the gusts off of the ocean hitting them
cold.

Please be alive.

But the longer Finn sniffed and peered, the
larger her certainty became. He was not. She knew it and it numbed
her, panic and fear leadening her mind.

Finn leapt back up and hung his head. “He’s
gone.” The misery in his voice surprised her. She’d never seen the
beast show any emotion outside of annoyed, amused or bored. Later,
thinking back she would feel a small shame for her surprise and for
her sudden complete lack of her own utter sadness.

Somewhere someone had moaned. Matter of
factly, her mind told her this. She stood and walked in the
direction she’d glanced moments ago. The wind brought the sound.
The wind also had pushed it down to bring their focus to Heremon,
but the low sound of pain they’d heard was not his. The numbness
seemed to aid her in these conclusions, helping her walk without
fear and listen.

Behind her, Finn yowled, as close to a human
wail as she’d ever heard from a hurt animal. But, she stepped on,
unmoved in any emotional direction. Three immediate needs showed
clear and foremost in her mind. She first must locate the source of
the second sound. Next, after assessing its source, she must take
appropriate action. Third, she must get Heremon off of that sloping
ledge before he fell from it and washed out to sea.

The second meant considerations and decisions
unlike the other two. Once she found the person making the sound,
should she dispatch that person? Was he or she lying wounded from
battling Heremon? Or could they have witnessed her teacher’s tragic
demise and need even more priority and help than Heremon?

Breanne lifted her skirt for her boline. But
it wasn’t there. It lay in the grass somewhere south of this place,
tossed and forgotten when she’d stormed back to the dun.

Another step brought answers. There in the
brush, Breanne saw the gleam of skin, a man’s leg. She rushed to
the form and found him, eyes closed and body askew. No more than
breeches covered him from the elements and her startled eyes.

Chapter Four

He moaned again. She observed no marks on him
save a few scrapes, no wounds to speak of. She knelt at his side
and felt his head. A fever.

Breanne looked back to Finn. He lay on the
ground, curled over himself and yowling into the wind. She could
see he would be no help and hunted the area for fallen branches.
She retrieved four, tore her cape from the shoulder fastenings and
worked the branches and material together. She didn’t have time for
perfection. Heremon needed her and this man would die if his fever
couldn’t be reduced fast.

Somewhere in her mind, a
voice ordered her to leave for help, insisting he was too big for
one woman to haul anywhere
,
let alone to Heremon’s home that might not be
safe. Breanne ignored it. If she left him, he would die.

She rolled him from the bed of heather onto
the tied branches and dragged him, headfirst to the small stone
cottage. The man lay limp, unperturbed by her clumsy hauling of his
person. Her muscles screamed in pain from his dead weight’s pull on
them.

She managed to get him in and the door
closed. She laid him flat, near the fireplace and piled two small
wood pieces on top of a peat moss clump. The fire lit, she scurried
through the house, ransacking cupboards and drawers for Heremon’s
herbs. He was a Druid priest for Christ’s sake, where were his
herbs, potions? Her mind tangled with hurry and panic and she
forced herself to stop and think.

He moaned again and she
returned to his side. Only
after
she
paused next to him did she notice how
out of breath she’d become rushing as she had been.

She placed her hand to his brow. Damned but
he was dangerously hot. Breanne wiped beads of sweat from his brow.
Then she remembered: the door. Grabbing two candles, Breanne rushed
to the forgotten room and flooded with relief when the light
revealed shelves brimming with jars and bowls and papers and
books.

Breanne set both candles on the long table in
the center and searched through the glass bottles. The labels were
hard to read but she found what she was looking for at last. Finn’s
mewling carried softly from outside. Her heart, no longer so numb,
ached for him. She couldn’t fathom the agony he must feel to loose
Heremon. Her own sorrow would come soon enough, she knew, and set
to grinding the herbs while she had the wherewithal to do so.