“They’re nearly home,” Glenna murmured. “Later than we’d hoped, but nearly home.”
“I’ve had the fires lit in your room and Larkin’s, and baths are being prepared. They’ll be cold and wet.”
“Thanks. I didn’t think of it.”
“When we were in Ireland, you thought of all the comfort details. Now it’s for me.” Like Glenna, Moira watched the skies. “I’ve ordered food for the family parlor, unless you’d rather be private with Hoyt.”
“No. No. They’ll want to report everything at once. Then we’ll be private.” She lifted her hand to grip her cross and the amulet she wore with it. “I didn’t know I’d be so worried. We’ve been in the middle of a fight, outnumbered, and I haven’t obsessed like this.”
“Because you were with him. To love and to wait is worse than a wound.”
“One of the lessons I’ve learned. There have been so many of them. You’d be worried about Larkin, I know. And about Tynan now. He has feelings for you.”
Moira understood Glenna didn’t mean Larkin. “I know. Our mothers hoped we might make a match of it.”
“But?”
“Whatever needs to be there isn’t there for me. And he’s too much a friend. Maybe having no lover to wait for, no lover to lose, makes it easier for me to bear all of this.”
Glenna waited a beat. “But.”
“But,” Moira said with a half laugh. “I envy you the torture of waiting for yours.”
From where she stood Moira saw Cian, the shape of him coming through the gloom. From the stables, she noted. Rather than the cloak the men of Geall would wear against the chill and rain, he wore a coat similar to Blair’s. Long and black and leather.
It billowed in the mists as he crossed to them with barely a sound of his boots against the wet stones.
“They won’t come any sooner for you standing in the damp,” he commented.
“They’re nearly home.” Glenna stared up at the sky as if she could will it to open and send Hoyt down to her. “He’ll know I’m waiting.”
“If you were waiting for me, Red, I wouldn’t have left in the first place.”
With a smile, she tipped her head so it leaned against his shoulder. When he put his arm around Glenna, Moira saw in the gesture the same affection she herself had with Larkin, the kind that came from the heart, through family.
“There,” Cian said softly. “Dead east.”
“You see them?” Glenna strained forward. “You can see them?”
“Give it a minute, and so will you.”
The moment she did, her hand squeezed Moira’s. “Thank God. Oh, thank God.”
The dragon soared through the thick air, a glimmer of gold with riders on its back. Even as it touched down, Glenna was sprinting over the stones. When he dismounted, Hoyt’s arms opened to catch her.
“That’s lovely to see.” Moira spoke quietly as Hoyt and Glenna embraced. “So many said goodbye today, and will tomorrow. It’s lovely to see someone come home to waiting arms.”
“Before her, he’d most often prefer coming back to solitude. Women change things.”
She glanced up at him. “Only women?”
“People then. But women? They alter universes just by being women.”
“For better or worse?”
“Depends on the woman, doesn’t it?”
“And the prize, or the man, she’s set her sights on.” With this, she left his side to rush toward Larkin.
Despite the fact that he was dripping, she hugged him hard. “I have food, drink, hot water, all you could wish. I’m so glad to see you. All of you.” But when she would have turned from Larkin to welcome the others, he gripped her hard.
Moira felt her relief spin on its head to fear.
“What? What happened?”
“We should go in.” Hoyt’s voice was quiet, and tight. “We should go in out of the wet.”
“Tell me what happened.” Moira drew away from Larkin.
“Tynan’s troop was set upon, at the near halfway point.”
She felt everything inside her freeze. “Oran. Tynan.”
“Alive. Tynan was injured, but not seriously. Six others…”
She took Larkin’s arm, digging her fingers in. “Dead or captured?”
“Five dead, one taken. Several others wounded, two badly. We did what we could for them.”
The cold remained, like ice over her heart. “You have the names? The dead, the wounded, and the other?”
“We have them, yes. Moira, it was young Sean taken. The smithy’s son.”
Her belly twisted with the knowledge that what the boy faced would be worse than death. “I’ll speak to their families. Say nothing to anyone until I’ve spoken to their families.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. No, this is for me. You need to get dry and warm, and fed. It’s for me to do, Larkin. It’s my place.”
“We wrote down the names.” Blair took a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “I’m sorry, Moira.”
“We knew this would come.” She slipped the paper inside her cloak, out of the wet. “I’ll come to the parlor as soon as I’m able, so you can tell me the details of it. For now, the families need to hear this from me.”
“Lot of weight,” Blair declared when Moira walked away.
“She’ll bear it.” Cian looked after her. “It’s what queens do.”
She thought it would crush her, but she did bear it. While mothers and wives wept in her arms, she took the weight. She knew nothing of the attack, but told each and every one their son or husband or brother had died bravely, died a hero.
It was what needed to be said.
It was worse with Sean’s parents, worse to see the hope in the blacksmith’s eyes, the tears of that hope blurring his wife’s. She couldn’t bring herself to snuff it out, so left them with it, with the prayers that their son would somehow escape and return home.
When it was done, she went to her rooms to put the names into a painted box she would keep now beside her bed. There would be other lists, she knew. This was only the first. And every name of every one who gave his or her life would be written down, and kept in that box.
With it, she put a sprig of rosemary for remembrance, and a coin for tribute.
After closing the box, she buried her need for solitude, for grieving, and went to the parlor to hear how it had been done.
Conversation stopped when she entered, and Larkin rose quickly.
“My father has just left us. I’ll go bring him back if you like.”
“No, no. Let him be with your mother, your sister.” Moira knew her pregnant cousin’s husband was to lead tomorrow’s troop.
“I’ll warm you some food. No, you will eat,” Glenna said even as Moira opened her mouth. “Consider it medicine, but you’ll eat.”
While Glenna put food on a plate, Cian poured a stiff dose of apple brandy into a cup. He took it to her. “Drink this first. You’re white as wax.”
“With this I’ll have color, and a swimming head.” But she shrugged, tossed it back like water.
“Have to admire a woman who can take a slug like that.” Impressed, he took the empty glass, then went back to sit.
“It was horrible. At least I can admit that here, to all of you. It was horrible.” Moira sat down at the table, then pressed her hands to her temples. “To look into their faces and see the change, and know they’ll forever be changed because of what you’ve brought to them. To what’s been taken from them.”
“You didn’t bring it.” Anger lashed in Glenna’s voice as she slapped a plate down in front of Moira. “You didn’t take it.”
“I didn’t mean the war, or the death. But the news of it. The hardest was the one who was taken prisoner. The smithy’s boy, Sean. His parents still have hope. How could I tell them he’s worse than dead? I couldn’t cut that last thread of hope, and wonder if it would be kinder if I had.”
She let out a breath, then straightened. Glenna was right, s
he would eat. “Tell me what you know.”
“They were in the ground,” Hoyt began, “as they were when they set upon Blair. Tynan said no more than fifty, but the men were taken by surprise. He told us it seemed they didn’t care if they were cut down, but charged and fought like mad animals. Two of our men fell in the first instant, and they gained three horses from us in the confusion of the battle.”
“Nearly a third of the horses that went with them.”
“Four, maybe five of them took the smithy’s son, alive from what those who tried to save him said. They took him off, heading east, while the rest held their line and battled back. They killed more than twenty, and the others scattered and ran as the tide turned.”
“It was a victory. You have to look at it that way,” Blair insisted. “You have to. Your men took out over twenty vamps on their first engagement. Your casualties were light in comparison. Don’t say every death is one too many,” she added quickly. “I know that. But this is the reality of it. Their training held up.”
“I know you’re right, and I’ve already told myself the same. But it was their victory, too. They wanted a prisoner. No reason else to take one. Their mission must have been to take one alive, whatever the cost of it.”
“You’re right, no argument. But I don’t see that as a victory in their column. It was stupid, and it was a waste. Say five for the prisoner. Those vamps had stayed and fought, they’d have taken more of ours—alive or dead. My take is that Lilith ordered this because she was feeling pissy, or it was impulse. But it was also bad strategy.”
Moira ate food she couldn’t taste while she considered it. “The way she sent King back to us. It was petty, and vicious. But playful in her way. She thinks these things will undermine us, crush our spirits. How can she know us so little? You’ve lived half her time,” she said to Cian. “You know better.”
“I find humans interesting. She finds them…tasty at best. You don’t have to know the mind of a cow to herd them up for steaks.”
“Especially if you’ve got a whole gang to handle the roping and riding,” Blair put in. “Just following your metaphor,” she said to Cian. “I hurt her girl, so she needs some payback for that. We took three of her bases—should add we cleared out the second two locations this morning.”
“They were empty,” Larkin stated. “She hadn’t bothered to set traps there, or base any of her troops. Added to that, Glenna told us how you played with her while we were gone.”
“Sum of it is, this was tit for tat. But she loses more than we do. Doesn’t make it any easier on the families of the dead,” Blair added.
“And tomorrow, I send more out. Phelan.” Moira reached out for Larkin. “I can’t hold him back. I’ll speak to Sinann, but—”
“No, that’s for me. I expect our father has already talked to her, but I’ll see her myself.”
She nodded. “And Tynan? His wounds?”
“A gash along the hip. Hoyt treated the wounded. He was doing well when we left them. They’re secured for the night.”
“Well then. We’ll pray for sun in the morning.”
She had another duty to see to.
Her women had a sitting room near her own chambers where they could sit and read, or do needlework, or gossip. Moira’s mother had made it a cheerful, intensely female space with soft fabrics, many cushions, pots filled with flowering plants.
The fire here was habitually of apple wood for the scent, and there were wall sconces of pretty winged faeries.
When she was crowned, Moira had given her own women leave to make any changes they liked. But the room remained as it had in all her memory.
Her women were there now, waiting for her to retire for the night, or simply dismiss them.
They rose when she entered, and curtseyed.
“We’re all women here now. For now, in this place, we’re all only women.” She opened her arms to Ceara.
“Oh, my lady.” Ceara’s eyes, already red and swollen from weeping overflowed as she rushed into Moira’s embrace. “Dwyn is dead. My brother is dead.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Here now, here.” She led Ceara to a seat, holding her close. And she wept with her as she’d wept with Ceara’s mother, and all the others.
“They buried him there, in a field by the road. They couldn’t even bring him home. He had no wake.”
“We’ll have a holy man consecrate the ground. And we’ll build a monument to those who fell today.”
“He was eager to go, to fight. He turned and waved at me before he marched off.”
“You’ll have some tea now.” Her own eyes red from weeping, Isleen set the pot down. “You’ll have some tea, Ceara, and you, my lady.”
“Thank you.” Ceara mopped at her damp face. “I don’t know what I’d have done these past hours without Isleen and Dervil.”
“It’s good that you have your friends. But you’ll have your tea, then you’ll go to your family. You’ll need your family now. You have my leave for as long as you want it.”
“There’s something more I want, Your Majesty. Something I ask you to give me, in my brother’s name.”
Moira waited, but Ceara said nothing more. “Would you ask me to give you my word on something without knowing what I promise?”
“My husband marches tomorrow.”
Moira felt her stomach sink. “Ceara.” She reached over, smoothed a hand on Ceara’s hair. “Sinann’s husband marches with the sunrise as well. She carries her third child, and still I can’t spare her from his leaving.”
“I don’t ask you to spare me. I ask you allow me to march with him.”
“To—” Stunned, Moira sat back. “Ceara, your children.”
“Will be with my mother, and as safe and well as they can be, here, with her. But my man goes to war, and I’ve trained as he has. Why am I to sit and wait?” Ceara held out her hands. “Peck at needlework, walk in the garden when he goes to fight. You said we would all need to be ready to defend Geall, and worlds beyond it. I’ve made myself ready. Your Majesty, my lady, I beg your leave to go with my husband on the morrow.”
Saying nothing, Moira got to her feet. She moved to the window to look out at the dark. The rain, at last, had stopped, but the mists from it swarmed like clouds.
“Have you spoken with him on this?” Moira asked at length.
“I have, and his first thought was for my safety. But he understands my mind is set, and why.”
“Why is it?”
“He’s my heart.” Ceara stood, laid a hand on her breast. “I wouldn’t leave my children unprotected, but trust my mother to do all she can for them. My lady, have we, we women, trained and slogged in the mud all this time only to sit by the fire?”
“No. No, you haven’t.”
“I’m not the only woman who wants this.”
Moira turned now. “You’ve spoken to others.” She looked at Dervil and Isleen. “Both of you want this as well?” She nodded. “I see I was wrong to hold you back. Arrangements will be made then. I’m proud to be a woman of Geall.”
For love, Moira thought as she sat to make another list of names. For love as much as duty. The women would go, and fight for Geall. But it was the husbands and lovers, the families inside of Geall that made them reach for the sword.
Who did she fight for? Who was there for her to turn to the night before a battle, to reach for that warmth, for that reason to fight?
The days ticked away, and Samhain loomed like a bloodied ax over her head. And here she sat, alone as she sat alone every night. Would she reach for a book again, or another map, another list? Or would she wander the room again, the gardens and courtyards, wishing for…
Him, she thought. Wishing he would put his hands on her again and make her feel so full, so alive, so bright. Wishing he’d share with her what she’d seen in him the night he’d played music and had stirred her heart as truly as he’d stirred her blood.
She’d fought and she’d bled, would fight and bleed again. She
would ride into battle as queen, with the sword of gods in her hand. But here she sat in her quiet room, wishing like a blushing maid for the touch and the heat of the only one who’d ever made her pulse quicken.
Surely that was foolish and wasteful. And, it was an insult to women everywhere.
She rose to pace as she considered it. Aye, it was insulting, and small-minded. She sat and wished for the same reasons she’d held back sending the women on the march. Because it was traditional for the man to come to the woman. It was traditional for the man to protect and defend.
Things had changed, hadn’t they?
Hadn’t she spent weeks in a world and time where women, like Glenna and Blair, held their own—and more—at every turn?
So, if she wanted Cian’s hands on her, she’d see that he put them there, and that would be that.
She started to sweep out of the room, remembered her appearance. She could do better. If she was about to embark on seducing a vampire, she’d have to go well armed.
She stripped off her dress. She might have wished for a bath—or oh, the wonderfully hot shower of Ireland—but she made do washing from the basin of scented water.
She creamed her skin, imagined Cian’s long fingers skimming over it. Heat was already balling in her belly and throbbing along nerves as she chose her best nightrobe. Brushing her hair she had a moment to wish she’d asked Glenna to teach her how to do a simple glamour. Though it seemed to her that her cheeks were becomingly flushed, her eyes held a glint. She bit her lips until they hurt, but thought they’d pinked and plumped nicely.
She stood back from the long glass, studied herself carefully from every angle. She hoped she looked desirable.
Taking a candle she left the room with the sheer determination she wouldn’t return to it a virgin.
In his room, Cian pored over maps. He was the only one of the circle who’d been denied a look at the battlefield, either in reality or dreams. He was going to correct that.
Time was a problem. Five days’ march, well, he could ride it in two, perhaps less. But that meant he’d need a safe place to camp during the daylight.
One of the bases the others had secured would do. Once he’d taken his survey, he could simply relocate in one of those bases until Samhain.
Get out of the bloody castle, and away from its all-too-tempting queen.
There’d be objections—that was annoying. But they could hardly lock him in a dungeon and make him stay put. They’d be leaving themselves in another week or so. He’d just ride point.
He could ride out with the troops in the morning, if the sun stayed back. Or simply wait for sundown.
Sitting back he sipped blood he’d laced with whiskey—his own version of a sleep-inducing cocktail. He could just go now, couldn’t he? No arguments from his brother or the others if he just rode off.
He’d have to leave a note, he supposed. Odd to have people who’d actually be concerned for his welfare, and somewhat pleasant though it added certain responsibilities.
He’d just pack and go, he decided, pushing the drink aside. No muss, no fuss. And he wouldn’t have to see her again until they caught up to him.
He picked up the band of beaded leather he’d failed to give back, toyed with it. If he left tonight, he wouldn’t have to see her, or smell her, or imagine what it would be like to have her under him in the dark.
He had a bloody good imagination.
He got to his feet to decide what gear would be most useful for the journey,