“She’s to come with us, then?” Colin questioned.
The leader was silent for a moment while Meghan felt dozens of eyes watching her beyond the meager light of the torch. “Are ye an O’Neill, lass?”
Meghan stared at him. “Who’s asking?”
The leader chuckled. “Ye’re an O’Neill, right enough. So
I’ll be asking ye this: Why are ye in the company of the English?”
Revelin groaned and Meghan glanced down. His eyes were open, gleaming dully in the night. She touched his cheek. What could she say that would save Revelin? “This man saved me life. I know naught of the others.”
The leader stroked his beard. “Ye say ye know naught. Mayhaps we can learn more. Whether they die today or another, I doubt it will matter in the end.” He turned and called over his shoulder, “Bring the others. We’ve questions to put to them.”
When Colin reached down and dragged Revelin to his feet, Revelin groaned in pain. Alarmed, Meghan struck the warrior with her fists. “Leave him be!”
Ualter, concerned by Meghan’s cry, sprang to her aid. He jumped upon the warrior’s shoulders as he bared his teeth in a full-throated growl of rage. The man staggered under the huge animal’s weight and reached for his sword.
“Ualter! Heel!” Meghan cried as she had heard Revelin do. Instantly Ualter obeyed, moving to her side, but the hair on his back remained raised in anger.
The Scotsman shot the girl a look of pure enmity. “Ye’ll carry the lad on yer back for that,” he said, and released Revelin so that he collapsed back to his knees like a sack of meal. “See to him, if ye can, lass,” he jeered. Turning, he strode away.
Meghan knelt beside Revelin and caught his face between her hands. “Are ye hurt bad?”
Revelin lifted his head, though it felt as if a hundred-pound weight was tied to his brow, and his tongue felt like a thick sausage in his mouth. It faintly amused him that, for the second time, Meghan’s intervention had saved his life. “Don’t worry, you won’t need…to carry me, darling.”
The endearment caused blood to rush into Meghan’s cheeks, but her voice was solemn as she said, “Ye’ll nae die this night, I think. Only, I beg ye, hold yer tongue.”
Laughter rumbled in Revelin’s chest. She had told him to
hold his tongue, his thick-as-a-sausage tongue! He looked at her pale face with its enormous blue eyes. She was so serious, poor wee lass, and he so much trouble for her. “Don’t frown so, lass. A man likes a smile on the face of the lass he loves.”
The words were slurred; surely she had heard him amiss. And yet… Meghan felt her heart pounding furiously as she ran her fingers briefly over his hair, caressing the brilliant waves. His eyes were dark like the onyx-green surface of a lough in the moonlight. No, he could not know what he said. “We must go, Revelin. They’ll come back for us, else.”
Revelin had never thought his name especially musical until he heard her say it, the syllables rolling from her lips in a soft brogue. He was about to say so, for suddenly he could not control any of the thoughts that came to his mind, when the sound of hooves neared.
“Here’s yer mount, lass,” the leader said. “Get the lad in the saddle and keep him there. We’ve tarried too long. ’Tis nae a night to be abroad, or so ye’ve seen. No tricks or ye’ll suffer the same,” he added with a jerk of his head.
Meghan looked past the leader to the three horses he led. Revelin’s companions had been gagged and bound, hand and foot, and tossed like so many sacks of barley across their saddles. Flora was nowhere to be seen. Suppressing a shiver, Meghan caught the reins tossed at her.
Revelin slowly rose to his feet.
“Can ye ride?” Meghan questioned anxiously.
“Like the wind, lass, with your arms about me.” He smiled a lopsided grin that bared his teeth. His head ached abominably and he was certain he was bleeding in several places, but that did not matter. He threw an arm about her shoulders and swayed against her. His voice sounded drunk and foolish in his ears but he did not care as he whispered, “I’ll not fail you, lass.”
He smiled as he lifted his boot into the stirrup, grateful that he had adopted the English style of saddle. Without the help of the stirrup he knew he would never have gotten astride. He
was light-headed, dizzy as a leaf in the breeze. He clutched the pommel in one hand and offered his free hand to Meghan. She put her bare foot on top of his boot and swung up beside him.
“Put your arms about me, lass, I have need of the anchor,” he whispered.
Meghan grasped him firmly about the waist as he asked and Revelin smiled again. Why he had ever objected to the pleasure of her embrace he would never know.
The O’Neill clansmen fell into step with them, two before and behind and one on either side. When the one on her right reached for her reins, she handed them over gratefully, for it was all she could do to support Revelin’s weight.
*
The morning was dawning in clear soft shades of green and blue as Meghan sipped the last of the dark ale from her wooden cup and watched the moon slide down behind the low-rolling hills. Not content with the capture of five strangers, two separate O’Neill reiving parties had added over a thousand head of cattle to their band. For two days and nights they had ridden, stopping only for meals at dawn and dusk. She had learned to sleep in the saddle and contain her normal bodily functions until she thought she would burst, but she had little to complain about compared with the others.
She glanced at the other captives and then away. They were tethered to a nearby tree, as were their horses, and though they ate in silence, she felt their eyes constantly on her in damning accusation that it was her fault that they were so mistreated. Only during meals were their hands and mouths freed, otherwise they rode trussed and slung across their saddles. It was better than other methods their captors might have devised, but that fact gave little comfort. A woman’s laughter echoed through the camp, and Meghan knew that Flora had made her own peace with the O’Neills.
Meghan soothingly stroked Revelin’s damp brow as his head lay in her lap. The sweat was a good sign. He had become
feverish within hours of attack, and she had not been able to give him water or tend his wounds until the next morning. She lifted a corner of the peat-moss bandage she had made for his sword arm and saw with satisfaction that the wound had begun to heal.
“Mount up!”
As the order rang through the camp Meghan groaned. Her arms and spine ached from holding Revelin in the saddle. Yet she knew they must rise or be subjected to the same humiliation as the Englishmen. She ran her fingers across Revelin’s brow one last time and bent to lay her cheek on his. “We must ride. Please wake up.”
Revelin stirred, weary beyond measure. “Not yet. Another hour.”
Meghan prodded him. “No, no! Now, Revelin. Now!” She dumped him from her lap without regard for his head and stood up, aware that the Scotsman named Colin MacDonald was striding toward them. He had not approached her since the night of their capture. Meghan eyed him cautiously.
He must want something.
It had been too dark to notice much about him the first time they met, and now she studied him curiously. He wore a long shaggy mantle that brushed the ground, and his fair hair, bare of the steel helmet, flowed about his shoulders. Her gaze lowered to the telltale red leggings he wore and she knew her guess had been right. Colin MacDonald was a
galloglaigh,
a man raised to be a soldier by one of the many warrior clans of the Scottish Isles.
His face was burnt red by the sun, and the irregular features left much to be desired in the way of handsomeness. A long scar cut across the bridge of his nose where a sword stroke had broken it. His skin was seamed by old battle wounds, but his eyes were very alive. His smile deepened as her gaze lingered on his face, and she suddenly realized that he was appraising her in a way that made her very conscious of being female. Disconcerted, she looked away.
“What ails the lad?” he demanded.
Meghan shook Revelin’s arm with her foot but he merely rolled onto his side away from her. “He’s had a fever. He needs rest.”
“He’ll ride.”
Meghan caught Ualter by the scruff of his neck as the brawny warrior bent down and lifted Revelin easily into his arms. Revelin moved restlessly, muttering, “Meghan?” Colin grinned at Meghan through the wiry tangle of his blond beard. “He’s a great babe, yer lad.”
Refusing to join him in a jest at Revelin’s expense, Meghan regarded him solemnly. “How’s yer wound?”
Colin chuckled. “I’d forgotten it.” His expression grew serious. “I came to give ye this back, lass, but I warn ye not to use it again. I might have killed ye.”
When he lifted her skean from his belt and held it out to her, she took it and slipped it into place under her sleeve.
“Aye, that’s the way of it,” he said in approval. He turned and heaved Revelin into his saddle. When he looked back at Meghan, there was warm interest once more in his eyes. “Ye’ll do well at Lough Neagh.”
“Lough Neagh?” Meghan echoed in surprise.
“Ye know the place?”
“Aye,” she answered softly. Was it only a fortnight ago that she had longed so fiercely to return home? Now she had no wish for it at all.
By day’s end the shimmering surface of Lough Neagh shone in the distance. The lake was huge and irregular, its fingers embracing a dozen small isles. On one of the larger was built the O’Neill island fortress. But the O’Neill warriors turned off the path that would have led to the lake’s edge, and, picking up the pace, they rode through the wet woods until a glow in the distance made the men around her give the ear-splitting whoop of the O’Neill war cry.
“What is it? Another battle?” Revelin questioned, jarred awake by the racket.
Meghan tightened her arms about him, her voice dry with trepidation as they halted at the edge of a clearing filled with tents. “Nae. ’Tis only that we’ve arrived.”
She looked beyond the tents to the huge column in the center of the camp. She had never actually seen one before but she knew what it was. Taller and broader than a man, its flame rising more than a foot into the crisp night air, was the great King-Candle, symbol of the O’Neill of Ulster.
Chapter Seven
Meghan gazed about in fear mingled with amazement. The sounds of so many so close frightened her. On every side, people rushed the dismounting warriors, their boisterous voices filled with congratulation. On the journey the clansmen had taken care to keep their distance from Meghan. Now, forgetful of her presence in their joy to be home, they rudely jostled her mount.
Meghan gulped down a cry of fright, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to stop her trembling. Raised in near solitude, she was unaccustomed to the noise and stench of a crowd. The odors of unwashed bodies and stale breath of horses, cattle, and men clogged her nose until she felt she would suffocate. Not even Revelin’s presence could still the terror rising within her. The urge to flee, always poised at the edge of her mind when in the company of strangers, overwhelmed her. As a clansman grabbed the reins from Revelin to lead their horse to the center of the crowd, she slipped backward from the saddle.
She was unprepared for the shock of her legs folding bonelessly beneath her weight. She had believed herself inured to sore muscles. Now, as she dropped into the muck kicked up by the passage of hundreds of hooves, she realized she had not toughened up, only become numb from the waist down.
Revelin turned as he felt her slip away, but the milling crowd prevented him from seeing what had happened to her. “Meghan?” he called out as he turned sharply and started to lift a leg over his saddle. “Meghan, answer me!”
“Now hush, laddie,” he heard Colin MacDonald say behind him. An instant later the heavy weight of the warrior’s sword hilt connected with the back of his skull and Revelin slumped forward in his saddle, unconscious.
“Ah, my God! Ye killed him!”
Meghan’s outraged cry drew Colin’s attention. “Ach, lassie, don’t look at me like that. ’Twas only a precaution. The laddie has a voice which carries, and him a prisoner and all, how would it look?” He sheathed his sword and then reached down to lift her from the ground with a hand on either side of her waist.
Alarmed and embarrassed that he handled her so familiarly, Meghan struggled in the big man’s grasp. “Let me be! I can stand!”
The Scotsman’s grip tightened. “Easy, lass. Ye’re no’ a fool.”
His gruff voice, unusually quiet, held a warning, and Meghan looked up to find a half-dozen clansmen watching her. A prickling of alarm went through her as their predatory gazes held her. They were probing, looking for weakness. If she appeared helpless, they would no longer regard her as a threat. Their wariness was all that kept her safe.
Meghan straightened up, grinding her teeth as blood swept in a stinging rush through her legs and feet. When the stinging subsided, she said, “Let me go.” When Colin released her, she backed away and into the path of a pair of clansmen.
“Watch yer step, lass!” one of them cried. When Meghan lifted her head, he shrank away. “Name o’ God! The
suit trom.
And ’twas me sword arm she touched!”
“Aye, that’s an ill omen!” the second man remarked.
The conversations about them died abruptly as other warriors overheard their conversation. Frightened, Meghan raised her hand to her face.