Lady of Conquest (15 page)

A cool wind washed over her as she fell to her knees and, for the first time, heard the thunder rumbling in the distance. She was still on her knees when the storm came swelling over the hills. Waves of rain broke over her, plastering her dress to her body. She raised her face to the sky, letting the rain wash away her tears before they could fall.

The rain had stopped. Conn was sitting in the curragh waiting to be rowed to the ship when Nimbus came sliding down the rocky hill, more on his rear than on his feet.

A soldier stepped forward to block his path. Nimbus darted between his legs. Hearing the soldier’s cry, Conn yelled, “Let him pass.”

Nimbus waded into the sea and caught the rim of the bobbing curragh in his small hands just before the waves washed over his head. With one arm Conn hauled his dripping form into the boat.

“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” he asked, ducking as Nimbus shook the water from his hair like a dog.

Nimbus gave him a sly smile. “I’ve a message for ye.”

Conn arched an eyebrow. “And what might that be?”

Nimbus scratched his head absently.

“Unless you are interested in sailing to Britain, I’d suggest you remember.”

“Well ... I do believe the young lass’s words were—”

“Young lass? What young lass?”

“. . . tell the king that I understand. Today he was only a man. Tonight he must be a king.”

Conn sat back on the bench and stared into the thin layer of water in the bottom of the boat.
Today I was a king. Tonight I am only a man.
He had spoken such words himself once. To a woman who had haunted him ever since that warm, windy Midsummer’s Eve. His throat tightened at the memory of a golden mask, shadowed eyes, lips crushed like rose petals beneath his. He reached for Nimbus’s collar just as Nimbus dove over the side of the curragh and beneath the waves like a sleek seal.

“Nimbus!” he bellowed.

A small head surfaced a few feet from shore.

“Who was she? You must tell me.” Conn stood. The curragh rocked in the foaming surf.

Nimbus rolled to his back and kicked toward the shore, paddling cheerfully.

“Who gave you the message, Nimbus? If I could get my hands on you . . .” Conn waved a fist in the air.

Nimbus crawled out of the water and danced a little jig on the rocky beach.

Conn put his hands on his hips, his lips compressed to an angry line. “As king of Erin, I command you to tell me who gave you that message.”

Nimbus stared up at the two soldiers who suddenly appeared on either side of him. With a small bow of surrender he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Why, Gelina, of course, sire. Who else?”

Nimbus grinned as Conn sat down so abruptly that the curragh overturned, dumping the king into the chilly sea.

As the soldiers dove into the water after him, Nimbus clambered up the steep hillside, whistling all the way.

Summer Is Gone
 

I have but one story
—

The stags are moaning,

The sky is snowing,

Summer is gone.

Quickly the low sun

Goes drifting down

Behind the rollers,

Lifting and long.

The wild geese cry

Down the storm;

The ferns have fallen,

Russet and torn.

The wings of the birds

Are clotted with ice

I have but one story
—

Summer is gone.

— Author unknown

9th century

The weather continued mild throughout the long summer. The seas yielded no word from Conn, and the fortress fought valiantly to maintain its fragile equilibrium. Three battalions of the Fianna patrolled Tara and the outlying area, keeping a watchful eye for Eoghan Mogh and his men. To everyone’s relieved surprise, no attack had reared its ugly head. The farmers returned to their
buailtean
to camp, watching over their cattle with increased vigor. The crops grew tall on the flat plains of Erin. Sheep scampered over the rolling meadows, their coats growing thick and strong as shearing approached. On a hot day with the sun beating down on her head, Gelina sat in the courtyard, her bare feet dangling from the trapeze. The swing was motionless; not even a wayward breeze stirred it. Her body was as still as the swing, a familiar brooding look on her features. She gasped and clutched at the ropes as she found herself sailing into the air. Hearing a familiar laugh, she dropped to the ground in a low crouch and spun around.

“Curses, Nimbus! Are you trying to kill me?”

“No. But I’m sick of ye mooning around like a ghoul.” Fire lit his eyes as he shook her shoulders, which were at just his level when she crouched. “Let us play, Gelina,” he said grimly.

She had to laugh. “You make playing sound as much fun as the grave, you fool.”

He let a grin replace his frown. “Can ye still do somersaults?” He clambered up on her shoulders and caught the trapeze in his small hands.

“Oof! If you’d quit walking on me, it would be easier.” She stood, giving him a boost onto the narrow bar.

“What we need,” he said, “are two trapezes. I could let go of one and ye could catch me from the other.”

“Or vice versa,” she added with a nasty grin.

He ignored her, executed a double somersault, and landed flawlessly on his feet. Gelina caught the bar and hoisted herself upon it. The trapeze gained momentum with each swing of her legs. She dropped and hung upside down from her knees to find three giggling faces watching her.

Righting herself, she looked down guardedly at Conn’s paramour, who stood with two girls who couldn’t have been much older than Gelina herself. The golden balls fastened to the ends of their spiral curls tinkled as they shook their heads in laughter.

A short plump girl with eyebrows dyed a startling black against her ivory skin called out, “Are you sure Conn did not foster a son instead of a daughter?”

They cackled loudly as Gelina’s face flushed red in a response she could not stop. She put an awkward hand to her short curls, longing to tear out the girls’ elaborate combs and pins.

“Now, girls,” Sheela’s simpering voice chided them, “we must not make sport of those less fortunate than ourselves.” She shook her head in mock sympathy, her dark curls bouncing. “With so little to work with, ‘tis no wonder the waif wears men’s clothing.”

They burst into new peals of laughter. Gelina’s right hand itched for a sword.

“Bitch.” She spoke the word in her normal tone of voice, hardly aware she had said it aloud until she recognized the silence that greeted her.

The three women gaped, their mouths circles of shock. Nimbus’s applause broke the silence. He stepped out from the shadows to stand before the uninvited audience.

“The fair is over, Sheela. Move on.”

To Gelina he suddenly appeared a giant as he stood with hands on hips, facing the women. Sheela smirked as if she itched to say something but she herded the girls forward. Their laughter echoed back to Gelina as they disappeared into the fortress.

She sat silently on the swing as Nimbus turned around. “Where did you learn a word like that?” he asked.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Would you care to hear more?”

Her legs began to swing, letting the trapeze gain dangerous momentum as her voice swelled. A stream of obscenities, some of which Nimbus had never even heard, poured from her lips. He watched, his eyes round saucers of disbelief, as she finished her tirade with a triple somersault and landed with arms outstretched on the hay, breathing heavily.

He walked over to her prostrate form and softly asked, “Are ye well?”

Her eyes flew open but she halted her abrupt reply, remembering his timely disposal of Sheela. “Nimbus?”

His voice was softer than usual as if he was afraid of setting off an explosion he could not stop. “What, Gelina?”

“Will you teach me to fix my hair?”

“Ye don’t need baubles and combs. Ye’re just fine as ye are.”

He extended a hand and breathed a sigh of relief when she took it. A quick heave was all it took to pull him into the hay on his head. Repeating a few curses he had heard her use just minutes before, he emerged with straw poking at all angles from his hair.

“Teach me to fix my hair, Nimbus!” He did not miss the note of pleading in her voice.

He climbed to his feet with a gallant bow. “How could I refuse a child of the king?”

Gelina smiled at his reply.

Darkness.

A coarse blanket of murky blackness smothered him, muting every sound but the ceaseless whisper of the ocean beneath his ear. He had lain in darkness for so long that he could no longer tell when his eyes flickered open. Splintery planking pillowed his head, scratching bloody furrows in his cheek with each dip and swell of the ship. The excruciating throbbing of his bound hands and feet had finally subsided to merciful numbness. Although he sometimes ached to cry out loud, he refused to give his captors the satisfaction. Conn of the Hundred Battles lay in weary silence, dreaming of the sunny days that had preceded this endless night. Dreaming of the freedom he’d taken for granted before he’d ended up in the slavehold of a Roman ship.

Two ships had set sail from Erin that day of the picnic. The lightweight sailing boats had carried scores of the Fianna. Conn had commanded the foremost ship while a solemn Barron Ó Caflin captained the other. Excitement rippled through the men as they set sail from the wild and rocky coast. The sea spray that peppered their faces only whet their appetites for adventure. Many a moon had come and gone since the men of the Fianna had taken to the sea. Conn joined in their exuberant chant as the coastline of Erin melted from view.

A cool breeze fraught with brine washed over Conn as he leaned on the ship’s rail. A ghost of a smile had haunted him ever since Nimbus had delivered his cryptic message. He still could not quite comprehend that the lips pressed to his in such delectable surrender that warm and windy Midsummer’s Eve had been Gelina’s. Could not believe that she had been the mysterious siren who had bewitched him with nothing more than an innocent kiss. The first thing he should do when he returned to Tara was thrash her for disobeying him, he told himself sternly. But as the memory of every drunken caress he had dared, every brush of his lips against her sweet flesh, came back to him with blistering force, his scowl melted into a rueful grin. If she’d been wearing a sword beneath her cloak that night, he’d have been done for.

Perhaps he should have brought her along on the voyage. He laughed aloud to imagine the Romans’ reaction to his child-woman, sword-wielding daughter of Erin.

A shout from one of the men perched on the catwalk interrupted his reverie. “Ó Caflin has signaled that there are fresh kegs of ale below the deck. May we?”

“Only if I get the first mug,” Conn called back.

As the kegs were rolled onto the deck and tapped, the men sent up a rousing cheer. Conn turned up the first mug with the others quickly following suit.

A pleasant warmth slid down his throat and into his stomach. A peculiar dullness coiled through his brain like a drowsy serpent. His eyes narrowed in confusion as he watched his men drop one by one to the deck in a motionless sleep. A dizzy laugh escaped his lips. His laugh faded to a hollow echo as the deck slammed up to meet him.

He had lain there, paralyzed by poison, while the unfamiliar ship drew alongside them. While the masked men swarmed over the decks of
his
ship, methodically cut the throats of
his
men. He could do nothing to help them, nothing to save them. He could only lie there, listening to their dying gurgles, and wait for some unseen enemy to cut his throat. When he realized that it had to be one of the Fianna who had betrayed them all, he almost yearned for the greedy bite of the blade.

Instead, they had bound him hand and foot and dragged him across a deck slick with the blood of his fallen comrades. Only when they shoved him against the rail did he see another ship approaching from the east at a rapid clip. Only then did he see the Roman flag rippling from its topmost mast. Only then did the darkness claim him.

“Gelina, ye look divine.”

“Very funny, Nimbus.”

Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she felt less than divine. Her hair, which now curled past her shoulders, stood on end, each strand painstakingly wrapped in rags by an oddly patient court jester. She awaited the fruition of their efforts. Her silk shift felt soft and cool against her sun-darkened skin.

“I look like a fool.” She stomped her foot.

“I resent that.” Nimbus turned away, arms crossed, lower lip protruding.

“Oh, I am sorry, Nimbus. I forget that you are a fool!” She looked truly repentant; his lip protruded another inch.