The Irish Warrior

Rardove had had to kill her, of course. Track her down and strangle her before she made it to the ship. He’d had no choice. He could not let her escape with the recipe.

But in the end, she’d had no recipe. He’d found nothing on her person, nor back at the castle. No coded instructions, no written clues on how to re-create the fabulous, dangerous dyes she, the last of the dye-witches, had crafted for him.

And now he had the daughter. She sat in a chamber above him, around a sweep of stony stairs, driving him mad. She was a living, breathing problem. A woman he couldn’t possibly contain. She was nothing like her gentle, loving mother, except in looks and the capacity for treachery.

Except…she said she could make the dyes.

But in some dim, honest corner of his mind, Rardove knew even this would not assuage the awful, pounding pain in his heart.

His hands rose to cup the sides of his head, as if to ensure the insides did not spill out. The room was a melding of chalky light and bulky shadows. His pointed fingertips almost touched over the crown of his head as he bent under the pain.

That night, the winds blew chill and the stars sparkled brightly. On the hills with his men, Finian called for music. The king stood a few yards away, back in the shadows, silent. On the eager green turf the musicians worked their craft. Thoughtful looks were etched on their granite faces as the music spilled out, harvested from centuries of brave deeds done by men now rotting in their graves.

Finian stood at the edge, a moment of stillness amid weeks of action, and the realizations crowded in thick.

All these years, what every Irishman knew was that The O’Fáil had an expansive belief in Finian O’Melaghlin. Endless, enduring. But perhaps, after all, it had its limitations.

Or rather, perhaps it reckoned on his limitations.

Finian could wield any weapon, fight any war, carry any negotiation through to its unforeseeable end. He could make his mates laugh and his women swoon. He could sing a passing tune, lift bricks of peat, and he alone could provide the necessary leadership to guide the tuatha to safety and prosperity again. He had everything a king and councilor and warrior required.

He had not, though, believed he had what Senna required.

And mayhap the king had known that all along. Mayhap ’twas part of what he believed in. Counted on. That Finian was flawed.

Senna saw him not as a warrior, not a potential king, but as a man full. And perhaps it would do. Perhaps he did have it in him.

So he stood at the edge of the circle of warriors and stared across the windswept land, intent on a rescue.

Perilous and foolish, it mattered naught. He would claim Senna come high waves of protest from all the shores of his life.

In Rardove’s chamber, bent over the long trestle counter, as she’d been for the last ten hours, Senna lifted her head. Every move she made, lifting and moving, measuring and boiling, was like a taste of her mother.

She felt like a wraith, a g

hostly shadow of her own past, right down to how she pushed the hair off her brow with her inner forearm, the only part of her arm not stained with dye. Just like her mother.

The missing pages were laid out beside her, utterly, awfully comprehensible. Her mother had indeed been a weapons-mistress. A consummate one. And Senna understood the coded language as if she were reading a ledger. Such things were in the blood.

In front of her lay a small fragment of wool. Her wool. Her special crafted wool, from sheep that her mother had begun breeding twenty-two years ago, woven in the intricate pattern that had seemed simply complicated, not meaningful. Now it was dyed with the Wishmés.

It shimmered and guttered light and the absence of light as she lifted it between the tips of two fingers and held it in the air. You’d hardly know it was there.

It hadn’t taken years after all.

Her eyes started filling with tears. Oh, she was filled with such awfulness. And such goodness. Like in her womb right now. That was goodness.

She’d not thought it possible. The ravages of a night of “wedded bliss” had resulted in three physicks concluding she was barren.

Finian brought her back to life.

She sat on the floor, settled her spine against the wall and pulled a lantern closer. Sliding out its horn covering, light blazed forth, spilling pale yellow light in a wedge. Her lap, the side of her leg and her low boot were illuminated. That’s all she needed.

She would destroy the pages, for certes. But first, she planned to study them one last time, commit the entire thing to memory. Every image, sketch, word would be etched in her mind.

She was really very good with documents.

After, she would burn the pages.