The Irish Warrior

Red’s eyes flickered open.

“Oh, Jésu, man,” Finian exhaled. He lifted him up farther, stretched his own legs out and rested his compatriot on them, cradling his head.

“Are you a’right?”

“Good God, Irish,” Red croaked. “No, I’m not all right. I’m about to die. I’m just waiting on you.” He swallowed around what was obviously a parched throat. “Trust the Irishry to be late.” He squinted at him. “Why you? Where’s Turlough?”

“Dead.”

“Poor bastard.”

Finian reached to his side and yanked free the leather skin of water. He held it to Red’s mouth. He drank deeply, but slowly. Most of each suck went sliding down his cheek and chin. He was fading fast.

“Haven’t the sisters been seeing to ye?”

“For whatever good it’s done, aye. The Mother Superior though,” Red gave a grim smile. “She was bloody wonderful.” Red’s eyes met his, half-lidded from weariness and pain, but sharp as ever. “Five days ago, when I got here.”

“Forgive me.” Finian shifted him and he groaned. “I was captured.”

“I suppose that’ll do. Quickly, now. I was out of bed, trying to get it before I go to meet my Maker. You’d never have found it otherwise. It’s over there.” He pointed to the wall. “There’s a spot, low. Dig it out.”

“The recipe?”

“In all its fatal glory.”

Relief heated Finian’s limbs. It felt like the old days, when he and Red would meet, their interests crossing paths; and trading intelligence, Finian for Ireland, Red for Scotland, both against Edward. Ever against Edward’s insatiable appetites for kingdoms that weren’t his.

Finian lowered Red to the ground when it became obvious he could never endure being lifted back to the cot. Then he dug where Red had directed him, with careful movements, excavating a small hollow in the stone walls that separated the dormir rooms. A stream of rubble funneled onto the floor, making a little dusty pile. He shoved his hand into the hole, the skin of his wrist scraping against the sharp, gritty stone. He pulled out a small manuscript, like a miniature treatise, bound between thick wood covers.

“This is it?”

Red nodded weakly. His eyes had been shut, but he opened them. “Aye. The recipe, coded.”

“How did you find it, after all these years?”

Red closed his eyes again. “Doesn’t matter. Open it.”

A strange reluctance stayed Finian’s hand, then he swept the bound pages open.

The colors hit him first—the reds and yellows and blues of the illuminations filled not only the margins, but entire pages, bright and brilliant. Images of plants in all shapes and colors, beaches and shells. Birds. Deep bowls and pestles and huge vats. Oak trees and burl wood, and tiny insects crafted with lines so small and precise he had no idea where they found a brush so fine. And…dancing.

Dancing women and men, strands of flowers and curving lines and copulation. Heads thrown back, in various poses of pleasure, their bodies were so skillfully painted they actually looked to be gleaming with sweat.

These illustrated figures were having more fun than some living souls did. The abbess would not be pleased to be the conduit for passing it along.

Finian looked up, brows raised. Red nodded, then shrugged.

He kept turning pages, focusing on the text because the drawings were not, at least initially, informative. They were arousing, though. He focused on the words. Flowing Latin script, letters and words, hugged corners here and there, and occasionally filled the center of a vellum sheet. Numerals as well, surprisingly…

“Arabic,” Red croaked, following the direction of Finian’s perusal.

“Aye,” he said, feeling slightly tossed about.

But whether in Roman or Arabic, they were certainly measurements. Distances, miles, amounts, dilution rates. Everything was figured here.

But erotic imagery and computational guide aside, most of the work was sketches. They looked like architectural blueprints, of castles and water wheels and mills. Trajectories and trebuchets. Explosions.

This was a military manual.