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IRISH MOON
By
Amber Dayne
© copyright July, 2007 by Amber Dayne Cover Art by Eliza Black, © copyright July 2007 New Concepts Publishing Lake Park, GA 31636 www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Tir Conaill, Ireland 1315
“Quiet, Finn. I canno’ hear with all your purring.” Breanne pressed her ear back against the gap between the heavy door and the stone wall. She swore the cat was doing it apurpose, goading her into leaving. He did not quiet so she barely heard the voices discussing her future.
Finn licked his chest, ignoring her, but at least he remained in his wood floor seat this morn. Nearly every other one for the last fortnight they’d come to her mother’s chamber door to listen. And each became a waste when Finn grew restless and left, forcing her after him empty handed. Her mother’s only rule of tolerance for the large cat taking residence with them was that he never be left on his own, a sure opportunity for mischief and destruction.
Today he stayed, and Breanne’s ever patient eavesdropping sounded as though it might bear fruit. For once, her instincts might prove accurate.
“I see no reason to press her,” her mother, Ula, said.
“She is well past a marrying age. Good men have asked for her hand. I am running out of excuses to give them.”
Breanne O’Donnell strained to hear her mother come to her defense. Soon, Niall would be Ula’s husband and have fatherly authority over Breanne. For now, he spoke merely as guardian and chieftain.
Ula replied softly but clearly. “She is interested in her studies and has only half completed her apprenticeship with Heremon. Allow her two more years to completion. Then, I promise, we’ll see her settled.”
“Two more years? She’s seen nineteen already,” Niall said, his voice rising. “You encourage the lass too much. Following the old ways puts her at risk.”
Breanne winced, put pressed her ear closer, careful not to breathe so loudly. It was worse than she’d feared.
“But, she may not be able to tell a husband of her training and I can’t deny her Ovate status, not when she’s so close. Even Heremon has come to agree it is her calling.”
“She is a healer. It is well known that Heremon is tutoring her in herbs and tonics. Why shouldn’t a husband be aware of the same? Dinna’ forget, there is her inheritance to be seen to.” Niall’s voice rose to a bellow.
Breanne pulled her head away a moment. She chewed her lip, knotted a strand of strawberry blonde hair around her finger. Her stomach clenched at the memory of her childhood home, left so many years ago.
“The keep is hers to do with as she will. Why not discuss the property with her instead? Mayhap she will rent it or even take residence in it, taking a guard along to protect it.”
“A husband will protect her.”
She would protect herself. Were she born a few hundred years before, she’d be allowed a hermit’s life if she wished. She’d be allowed to fight as a warrior, though she’d never choose to. The damned English Pale seemed to be influencing even their own northern tuath nowadays. Before long it might spread across the Giant’s Causeway to encroach the Highland clans.
“Ula, she’s been asked for again. If I excuse her unmarried state much longer, people will think me soft or worse of her.”
Breanne wanted to walk in and demand answers. Who had asked? Quinlan, another? When had she been asked for?
“I don’t want to force her. She is no princess. Her marriage will not end a war or cause one. She should choose. And let them talk.”
Breanne silently thanked Ula. Her mother was the only one she had to stand up for her, and was doing it well. Being stubborn went against her mother’s demure and nurturing nature, so her firm words bespoke the issue’s importance to her, as well.
There was a moment of silence. All she could hear was her heart thumping hard enough that her throat quivered. “Shane Ferguson is a good man, comes from a good family. A husband will give her a family, Ula.” His voice became softer. “And allow us one, as well.”
Finn’s tail swatted her skirt, shushing across the floor, leaving her unsure she’d heard the last of it right. She couldn’t have. Her mother was no longer young and though she bore Breanne at sixteen years, nineteen were certainly too many years for a womb to wait.
And allow us fun, as well? Some, as well? She searched her brain for a suitable word to make sense of what she couldn’t have heard correctly.
Alarm shot through her at the light tap of footsteps coming up the wooden stairway. She could not remain there. Besides, Heremon surely awaited her in the grove. If she arrived again late, she’d be punished with another deplorable jar dusting.
Five long years of study and she was finally nearing the topics that had sparked her ask to become an Ovate within the nigh extinct order. The Druid master didn’t like waiting and though her mother hadn’t finalized the decision, Breanne could not risk lingering.
She stood summarily, scooping Finn up with her, and shot down the hallway to the stairs. Few men lingered in the main hall, most busy outside practicing in arms, but of all of them, Quinlan was the last she likened to see. Reaching the bottom stair, Breanne scowled and lifted her chin, continuing her fast pace, hoping to look unapproachable.
She failed. Quinlan’s face lit up upon seeing her and he stepped in pace beside her. She glanced sideways and forced a small smile on her face. His smile grew and lit up his face. “I’ve been looking for you, Breanne. I thought you might enjoy an afternoon ride.”
“I canno’,” she said faster than she intended. He was so handsome he was nearly pretty with his copper brown hair and bright blue eyes. “I have preparations for the wedding to attend to,” she lied. Not only were her lessons to be kept private, she feared he would offer to escort her. She had absolutely no romantic interest in him. Not anymore.
“These are for you,” Quinlan said, suddenly in front of her and shoving a handful of lavender and heather to her nose, forcing her to stop.
Breanne’s mouth fell open to speak, but she found she could barely breathe. They were lovely, the very kind of bouquet she’d picked as a girl to bestow upon herself, pretending they were from him. Suddenly her childhood dreams of becoming Quinlan’s wife took on a sickening feeling.
“Thank you,” she said. She smiled weakly and inhaled their scent. She didn’t want to hurt him. She searched his eyes, didn’t want to see them filled with pain at her rejection.
He smiled, showing even white teeth and her stomach grew more sickly. He was handsomer than St. Kevin himself.
How could one simple kiss change so much? She hated the question and the truth of it even more. One kiss that she’d dreamed of she would now remove from existence, uncast, were she able. The memory of it only worsened her urgency to leave him.
Thankfully, they were in plain sight of others in the hall, assuring he couldn’t kiss her again. It was bad enough that most were snickering and cooing over the obvious sign of courtship.
Quinlan stared at her a long awkward moment until she gestured past him. His face flooded with color. He stepped out of her way, coughing into his fist. She glanced uncomfortably away, no words coming to her, and gave up the effort. What could she possibly tell him to ease such palpable tension between them?
She ignored the pang in her chest at his crestfallen face, held Finn a bit tighter and left through the kitchen. Outside in the crisp spring air, Breanne slipped through the postern in the fortress yard, confident none saw her exit the small gate.
The lightness her escape of the bailey walls typically offered her didn’t come. The unusually sunny spring day was perfect for a ride. Or for a walk. Alone. If she hurried, she could reach the grove in time.
She wore a green cape attached at the shoulders of her lighter green gown to help blend and disguise her rushing form. She’d made the steep walk in worse weather, with less time to spare, and feeling less harried than she felt now. A funny nagging feeling in her belly seemed to grow with each step.
“A husband. The last thing I need now is a husband. Who could I possibly marry, let alone why?” she asked Finn through panting breath.
“Quinlan appears to be ready for the call of that duty,” Finn answered, the lisp of his feline mouth coating an extra layer of sarcasm. Once away from the keep, Finn made up for his forced quiet by having opinions and sharing them at every opportunity.
“You are a vile beast,” Breanne said and dropped the enchanted cat inherited with her third year of lessons.
He landed expertly and trotted after her. “He’s perfectly enamored with you. Anyone can see that.” Finn’s tone brimmed with gloating sarcasm.
“Oh? Even besotted, enchanted cats?” Breanne kicked a rock his way, knowing it would miss. She hated how right Finn was.
“France did well by him, I think,” Finn said. “He’s gotten some pluck since he returned.”
She’d hardly name the silly doe-eyed look as pluck. But, it seemed the only one Quinlan bestowed on her since his autumn return from six years abroad. Finn kept in stride with her, pouncing from rock to grassy dirt with springy ease.
“And what would you know about it?”
She knelt at a bush and retrieved the chalice hidden there. Setting the bundle of flowers down, she bent over the stream and captured water into it. Its encrusted rubies and sapphires warmed and brightened in the sunlight.
“You’re not my first mistress,” Finn said, teetering on a rock to dip his mouth to the water. “Do recall that I did exist long before you came into my life.”
Breanne resisted the strong urge to push him in.
“Pluck. I would have used a more explicit word, myself.” They’d each grown up during the six years and apparently his feelings for her were now adult in nature. “Brute comes to mind.”
Not a fortnight ago, he’d cornered her outside her chamber and kissed her soundly, pressing into her. His attraction was more than obvious, stabbing her hip. Although a curt slap had ended his assault, it had done little to dissuade him since.
“Mayhap he’ll ask for you.”
“Bite your tongue. I would rather marry you.”
“How terribly flattering. But, no possible since you cannot see fit to lift the curse, and after last night’s miserable failure, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”
Breanne ignored the jab and his sour tone. She told herself again that she had so much more to learn, that it was still early to be expecting the kind of magick he needed to come readily. As Heremon always told her, magick takes more than talent. It takes persistence and study and practice, practice, practice.
“Hush now, you old lecher, we need to focus,” she said.
If a cat could roll its eyes, Finn nearly did, but quieted nonetheless. Craggy hillside met lush valley, carpeted with heather and grass. The gurgle of water grew louder. The grove lay ahead. Breanne paused at the base and breathed in a gulp of air to clear her head. If she joined Heremon preoccupied with Quinlan or the conversation between her mother and Niall, he might send her right back where she came from.
Likely, Finn was saving the rest of his teasing for the jaunt home, as usual.
Breanne exhaled, filling her heart with love and asked the goddess and ancestors for a blessing. She thanked the land and trees and asked for their welcome.
Spring leaves shivered under the cool answering breeze and the two entered the grove in silence. The trees and bushes blocked out the cool air and warm light, giving way to a dim comfort. The place never lost its spell on her. Any doubts that ever grew about her choosing this path in life shrank away here.
She approached the largest oak and knelt before it, spilling the water out of the chalice onto its roots with a silent prayer. Finn licked himself, lapping loudly. Breanne finished her offering and glared at her companion.
“For a victim of curse,” she said. “You are certainly more and more insolent. Is it so much trouble to be reverent toward that which will aid your release?”
Finn yawned.
Breanne shook her head and continued to Heremon’s altar. The old Druid stood with his eyes closed and his face tilted skyward, one hand on the large stone slab. Seven white candles’ flames lit the small clearing. Heremon’s dull athame lay at rest, on a folded red wool square, with the white handle pointing south, blade north.
Breanne sat before him and waited for acknowledgement. Finn trotted after a flitting object that she hoped wasn’t a fairy. Of all the magick this grove held, a fairy would be the best to see true. All things secret, Heremon promised, would reveal themselves in time. With less than two years remaining in her tutelage, she couldn’t see why all the things she worked for still failed to happen.
“We have much work to do,” Heremon said and joined her on the mossy forest floor. “I have received the prophecy and we must prepare. A stranger will join us, become one of us.”
His pale eyes bounced as he spoke. Was he still in trance? Her cleared head flooded with unease.
Breanne watched and waited for him to continue. Her stomach tightened up with the same sick feeling from before when she had listened in shadows to Niall O’Donnell’s words. A husband will protect her.
She would protect herself.
“He is yours to keep,” Heremon said. “See the emeralds, know the key.”
Breanne’s mind halted. Her heart skipped. She knew better than to read the literal into any vision’s meaning but several ideas formed in her head unbidden. Surely, his words could not be linked to Niall’s.
Heremon had assured her that once she began seeing, she would better understand the nature of second sight and that it in fact made the future less clear than before. But, how could foreknowledge not help in life? She hoped to soon know the truth for herself.
“Tell no one.” Heremon’s hands shot out, clenched her knees. She moved back, startled. His eyes danced, looking through her. “Protect him.”
Another presage, or did the first continue? Protect what? But it would be pointless to yet ask. Not until he became lucid again. By the look of his eyes, it wouldn’t be long. The cloudiness in them receded, the shaking slowed. Within a moment, Heremon’s irises returned to dark green and focused on her face, adjusting to the light.
“Breanne.” He blinked at her with surprise. “When did you arrive?” He let go of her knees as though they’d not been touched at all.
“But a moment ago. You greeted me, Heremon. Do you not remember?”
He looked past her and tilted his head as though listening to the wind.
“The storm last night,” he said.
“Yes, it has passed already. The sun shines clear with not a single cloud.”
He looked back at her, his forehead wrinkled with trouble. “I’ve promised you a lesson, haven’t I?”
Not again. She nodded patiently. His graying red beard was a tangled unkempt mess and helped distract from the fraying, torn blue cloak he preferred. Distraction seemed his nature of late and still he had managed to become the wisest, oldest Druid priest in all of Ireland, well, leastwise the north of it.
“We are scheduled to review my Grimoire, my most recent attempt to free Finn, and you were to give me five new herbals.” She left out her least favorite, gathering, hoping he’d forget, and refused to feel bad for taking advantage of his daze.
“Yes, yes. We haven’t much time though.” His voice faded with each word. “We will meet again tonight at the spring. The moon is waxing to fullness. The end of it nears.”
Breanne scowled, not only because he seemed about to cut their lesson short, but because his words weren’t making much sense.
“The end of the moon? Not near at all, Heremon. For if the lunar cycle has a fortnight to wane….”
“What’s this? Are you still here, then? Off with you. We mustn’t tarry.” He shooed her with his hands, standing briskly.
Breanne’s frown deepened. Heremon was truly out of sorts. With last night’s failed experiment and a week since the last lesson, which she was hardly able to sneak away for with of all her mother’s nuptial arrangements, she couldn’t help feeling keenly disappointed.
She stood, ready to argue for at least an hour of his time. She needed it. With all the husband discussion and wedding plans and changing friendships in her life, the one thing that kept her levelheaded was her Ovate training.
Breanne took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Heremon blew out his candles and tossed each into his deerskin bag, dropping one in his haste.
“Heremon, I can see you have important things to attend to and I can’t relate how truly appreciative I am of all your time and wisdom, but I beg of you, please allow me my lesson,” she said, trying to sound at once imploring and firm.
He didn’t reply as he scooped up the fallen candle, shoved it inside and cinched the drawstring.
“At least tell me of the herbals,” she said, her hands wringing, voice trembling. Breanne bit her lip. She was not going to tear up.
Tears would seem weak, desperate even, and though she was weak with desperation, such displays would not build Heremon’s confidence in her. The tolerance of a woman learning anything, let alone studying the old ways, lessened with every passing year and she considered it her duty to never appear unsuitable because of an inability to control her emotions.
Heremon walked past her, his gaze on the mossy ground, head tilted. His mouth moved silently.
“I will write down the herbals and study them for our meeting tonight,” she said to his back, following after him.
He didn’t answer her, didn’t even glance up and acknowledge her. Breanne stopped and let him go. A single tear slid down her cheek and she clenched her hands into little fists.
“That was fast,” Finn said.
Breanne swung around and pinned him with her eyes.
“What?” he said, a licked paw hanging mid-air.
“He left.” She threw her hands up. “Simply rescheduled our lesson, gathered his ceremonials, and walked away as though I wasn’t standing right here in front of him. In all my days and nights, I have never seen a person act so strange. Not a soul.” She threw her hands again, letting them fall hard and heavy against her gown.
“The man is old, Breanne. His mind likely went soft and I assure you he was never quite right,” Finn sounded unconcerned.
She might’ve stamped the grassy dirt but to what good?
“I feel something terrible may have happened,” Breanne said. “Or will. If you’d seen him, you’d not be sitting there as though you haven’t a care in all the world. You’d be after him and frightened.” Breanne’s voice rose with each word but the cat wouldn’t stop looking so damned unaffected or take her seriously.
Finn blinked. “You feel?”
“Heremon had a prediction and is now wandering about, talking to himself, as though he didn’t see me or hear me.”
“When will you meet again?”
“He said tonight, but I am not sure he knew what he was saying. I will not be surprised if I come tonight, assuming I am able to sneak away with all the clansmen underfoot, only to find the forest empty.”
“The grove is never empty,” Finn said, his gaze fixed in the air rather than on her, tail swishing arrogantly.
Breanne blew a stray hair from her brow. “You know that I mean--Heremon not present. I canno’ believe he knew what he was saying, not with the way he said it. Had you not wandered, you’d have seen with your own eyes.”
“And I didn’t. Can we return to the keep now? I’m hungry.”
Breanne turned around and eyed the barely discernable path Heremon left by.
“No,” she said.
She jutted her chin upward and trounced after the old sage, telling herself that something was very wrong and he needed her. And if she happened to secure a quick tutorial on the five herbals, secrets that would potentially (finally) unlock her own potential, all the better.
The idea quickened her pulse. Her long formed hope to practice true magick had recently taken on a desperate feel. Instead of sheer excitement over dreams of the magickal and wondrous accomplishments, the threat of an uncertain future loomed like a hungry wolf in a dark corner where light used to shine.
Heremon’s path wove in and around pine and the occasional blessed oak tree, deeper into the forest, toward the coast. Her worry grew as her irritation with Finn dissipated. She wished she’d grabbed the cat. She could have snatched him up and under her arm without a scratch in seconds. If she had, she’d now be happily arguing with him instead of fighting to keep prickling fear at bay.
She’d not taken this path before. She knew where Heremon lived, in theory, knew the lay of the land she’d been born to and explored through to adult years. So there really was no reason to be frightened. And she had her sheathed boline dagger strapped to her thigh as well as the confidence to use it lethally if necessary.
Thinking of the blade and imagining lifting her skirt, retrieving it, and slashing through whomever or whatever happened upon her in the dense foliage, worsened the quiver in her veins. She stopped her careful tracks and palmed the sharp weapon, paying no mind to her fingers’ slight tremble. The action helped a bit, as did a long deeply indrawn breath and prayer to Morrigan.
Continuing after the trail of winding footprints and sunken moss spots that mapped Heremon’s path, Breanne’s fingers traced the carved pattern on the dagger’s handle. The side she felt held a pointy-tailed, horny dragon. A lion adorned the other side, but she needed the dragon, which represented the Otherworld, magick, to her. Mayhap its ever-elusive magick, a protection better than any man, would aid her.
The copse of pines and birch gave way and glimpses of ocean took the place of sky in the gaps between them. Breanne slowed her pace and realized how hard she was breathing. She paused at the edge of trees and caught her breath, scanning the open area for a dwelling. When she found none she stepped further, feeling exposed but alone, and followed the remaining marks Heremon left behind.
“Are you lost?” a whisper said.
Breanne swung about, weapon ready, shards of panic snapping through her. To the left, the right, her eyes shot. Nothing. Nothing more than the trees and grass and sounds of spring humming met her searching gaze.
A deep chuckle carried upward from her ankle and immediately Breanne’s fear changed to anger. “Finn! You scared me, you evil thing.”
A deeper, purring chuckle with no apology. “I couldn’t resist after watching you sneaking along with that ridiculous excuse for protection held like your life depended on it. Truly, Bree, if you’d seen yourself….” His chuckle broke into coughing guffaws.
Breanne could kick him, she really could, if not for the fact that he was stuck as a creature more helpless than she. And if she weren’t so nice a person as she was. Even so, the idea was worth fantasizing, however briefly and unrealistically as she could. Breanne dropped to the ground and wiped her sweaty brow, the boline forgotten.
“I swear I dream of the day that I will no longer be the source of your twisted amusem— .“
“Shh. Did you hear that?” Finn said, suddenly recovered and his ears pricked low.
Breanne frowned, listening. The distant rush and crush of waves below the cliff, the chirp of birds and crickets, leaves rustling behind, no more. Her eyes narrowed on Finn. Paying no mind to her skepticism, he crept forward, nearing the cliff.
Breanne watched and crouched lower herself, unwilling to move and risk the noise of her gown and limbs alerting someone or overbearing whatever the cat’s ears had picked up.
Finn inched closer to the perilously sharp, rocky edge. Breanne breathed shallowly and strained her senses to detect something, anything within the sunny, spring day around her.
He looked back at her then pranced sideways, arching his back. The hair along his spine stood up as he hissed at the cliff’s edge.
Breanne crawled as close to him as she could, without allowing the deathtrap waters to reach her line of sight, on her belly.
“What?” she whispered. “What do you see?” She couldn’t bring herself to look over the sharp edge.
He hissed again and she slammed her head to the ground, heart pumping, and ready to retreat back to the woods fast. She closed her eyes. Something touched her hair. She screamed out the last stitch of air in her lungs and blindly raced back to the woods.
Finn’s chortle of laughter brought her to a stony halt. She should have known. Not bothering to turn back around, she stormed through the brush and returned the way she had come. If she didn’t move fast, she might end up living out that kicking fantasy despite the threat of tumbling over the edge and plummeting into the dark waters after him. Although, he’d be tumbling first.
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