Prologue
Renegades Cove, western edge of Britain
1177
“CHRIST ON THE CROSS, you saved our arses tonight, Tadhg.”
Fifteen-year-old Irish renegade Tadhg O’Malley dropped his plunder atop all the other plunder as the revelry went on in the huge sea cave.
“Didn’t particularly want to, Rowan,” he retorted. “But you had my share of the booty stuffed in your breeches.”
The others exploded in laughter.
They were a ragged bunch of Irish man-boys, to be sure. Long-haired, wearing leather jerkins and knee high boots, the three of them were barely a year older than Tadhg. But all of them were strapped with more blades than had been on their kinsmen who’d fought—and lost—against the English five years ago. All had the simple, compelling confidence of men who’d accomplished every deed they’d set out to do.
All of them dark, clandestine, and highly lucrative.
Golden-haired Rowan grinned at Tadhg and cupped his hands over his ample groin. “Aye, that’s where all the good stuff is,” he quipped, and the others roared in laughter again.
Tadhg did not.
A fire burned in the sandy clearing at the cave’s center, flanked by a handful of iron-banded chests, some half-tipped over in reckless abandon. A barrel of wine and one of ale sat on their sides, dripping from their spouts, well-tapped.
Like pagan warriors, the other three spread out and settled in front of low fires and the long spill of moonlight that came down through the cave tunnel, before it opened into this main chamber, then ventured back into even deeper darkness. High-ceiling ventricles of stone opened off the main chamber, filled with eerie echoes that no one ever followed, save one, the tunnel that lead to the hot spring.
His brothers in all but blood laughed and clashed their mugs together in triumphant, self-congratulatory celebration. Another night of spoils for these dispossessed heirs of once-great Irish families.
Their leader, Fáelán mac Con Rardove, exiled princeling of the ancient Rardove tuatha, gave one of his rare, heartfelt grins, and gestured to the high black rock used alternately as table, dais, and outlaw throne.
“It’s all yours tonight, little brother. We’d be dead if it were not for you.”
Tadhg scoffed but moved deeper into the cave, which upon a time been their home, but in recent years had become storage bin more than lair. Over the last half decade, they’d acquired money, dark renown, and an apartment in the city where much of their business was now conducted, the hub from they executed all manner of dangerous, illicit, or outright illegal deeds for well-paying customers who preferred to remain anonymous. But they still came here at times, to retreat, to store booty, and occasionally, simply to remember.
Once a band of noble exiles from Ireland, they were now a band of wealthy criminals. And none of them were over sixteen.
Fáelán sat down beside the largest pile of booty and poured them all more drink, and they toasted again.
Fáelán had had a price laid on his head five years ago when his father had lost his lands and titles, and he’d fled Ireland, followed by the sons of two other great Irish lords who’d also lost their lands and lives. It had been an exodus of young princely Irish blood, and the laments had been sung across Ireland.
Tadhg came with them when they launched themselves into the sea. Followed his tuatha’s leader, Fáelán, followed him into exile. Followed, he thought, true greatness.
In truth, they were all great. Fáelán, Máel, and Rowan, sons of noblemen and Irish princes, with lineages stretching back to the time of Brian Boru and further, into the mists of legend, to Cú Chulainn and the Red Branch warriors.
All of them but him.
Which is why he did not toast now. He did not toast, and he was not noble. Tadhg was cousin to Fáelán, but not of the Rardove derbfine, the four degrees of blood kinship to the king that allowed a man to rise to the head of the family and become chief. Tadhg could never become The Rardove. He could never be great. Whereas Fáelán was practically built for the role.
As Tadhg passed deeper into the cave, Rowan thrust a mug of ale in his hands. It sloshed over the sides as he swung it up.
“That was a close one, little brother,” Rowan said, lifting his brows and nodding toward dark-eyed Máel, who’d just ducked into the cave. “Another moment and he’d have been taken from u