Rose of the Mists (16 page)

Oh Lord! A patriot!
Revelin chuckled and shook his head.
What next?

By mid-afternoon the lush green countryside was silver-laden with mist. The shower had not lasted long. The retreating clouds, streaked with reds and golds from the reappearing sun, sailed rapidly toward the east. Below in the wide valley and up the lower slopes of the hills the myriad shades of green were winged with the brightness of violet blossoms, bitter-yellow tormentil flowers, spikes of blue milkwort, and clumps of rich pink fairy foxglove.

The sensuous beauty was lost on the surveyor of the scene. Sir Richard stood atop a rise shielded by a stand of elms and stared angrily at the three figures in the clearing below. Revelin sat in the grass with his sketch pad balanced on his knee while the girl lay at his feet. She was curled up like a kitten on a cloak, her legs tucked up under her and her hands providing a pillow for her cheek. Just beyond her, Ualter stretched out, a shaggy gray rug on the green sod.

Sir Richard’s jaw tightened. When the party paused for their noonday meal, Butler announced his intention of sketching the low rolling hills that surrounded the glen. When Meghan followed, he had thought it wise to watch the pair, fearing a tryst in the making. He silently commended young Butler for not touching the girl, but he would have felt better had he been able to understand the words spoken between them.

“Damn foreign gibberish,” he muttered. He had thought Butler unfamiliar with the Gaelic. So had John. Why had the man hidden his skill until the chit appeared? As he watched, Butler suddenly laid his charcoal aside.

Revelin’s glance moved from his pad to Meghan’s free-flowing river of inky waves, then on to her dirty bare feet and finally back to her face. Her profile was startlingly graceful, the bones sharp yet delicate, spare but pure of form. She presented an undeniable challenge for an artist.

His pad was covered with drawings. He turned his pictures this way and that, squinting critically at them, and then grunted in disgust and tossed the pad aside. Something was missing. A pretty face could be captured on paper but not Meghan’s illusive beauty.

Revelin bent and picked up a lock of her hair that the breeze had entangled about his ankle. “You’re too young to know what you do to me, lass,” he whispered as he carefully disentangled himself. Disentangled, yes; he must free himself from the seeds of desire that she had unconsciously planted and that he, damn him, was nurturing in moments like these.

“I can see you’ve used your time to advantage.”

Revelin did not move. He had not heard Sir Richard’s footfalls approach, but Ualter had and raised his head. When the dog made no further move, Revelin knew it was one of his party.

“I’ve done about all I can here,” he said and casually flipped his pad closed. When he looked up, he knew he had acted too late. Sir Richard’s expression was bitterly cold. He had seen the sketches.

Annoyed, Revelin picked up his pad. “We should move on. Before the mists gathered I thought I saw smoke beyond that north hill.”

Sir Richard’s gaze shifted to the distant rise. “I was told the countryside swarms with the Irish. I wonder that we’ve not seen them ere this.” He looked back at Revelin, his light eyes bright. “Would you know why they’ve left us unmolested?”

Revelin met his stare evenly. “I’ve warned them off, or haven’t you noticed? I ride ahead and tell them we’re only spies, and, of course, they open the pathway.”

Sir Richard sniffed. “You did not tell us you were conversant in Gaelic.”

Revelin smiled slightly. “You did not ask me.”

Sir Richard nodded slowly. “Is there something more I should know?”

“Were the clans aware of us, you’d know of it.”

Sir Richard stared at Revelin, aware, as he often had been these last weeks, of the energy and vitality of his youth. It was a palpable presence, deserving of obtaining its glory. “You have a brilliant future before you. With the queen’s backing you will find your power at court greatly enhanced when you return. To maintain it you will need friends. I believe we are destined to go far together, Butler. You and I, forged in a bond for the greater glory of God, what wonders we may accomplish.” He glanced at Meghan and away. “Don’t jeopardize what we may yet achieve for a common pleasure.”

The ice-water stare scrutinizing him made Revelin uncomfortable. Once before he had heard that urgent plea in this man’s voice and wondered at its cause. Now he felt a flush creep up his collar. No, he must be mistaken. He was reacting to his discomfort over the pictures he had drawn when his mind should have been on business.

“Now that you speak of it, we’d do well to seek shelter for the remainder of the day. In Ulster the night is kinder to strangers.” He bent and lightly shook Meghan’s shoulder. “Come, lass, ’tis time to go.” She did not move. “Meghan, lass?”

For reasons he did not understand, she was exhausted, but they could not afford to be stranded in the open while she slept. The smoke of that distant fire was from a large blaze, perhaps a party of reivers. Under Atholl’s watchful stare, Revelin scooped her up and carried her back to the horses.

Meghan awoke with a start. She was seated side-saddle before Revelin, her bare legs dangling over his right thigh while his left arm held her securely to his chest. Beyond his shoulders, a dim soggy dusk was settling on the land.

“Top of the day to you, lass. Or rather, what’s left of it.”

Meghan looked up into Revelin’s deep smile only inches above her. His eyes glittered like dark jewels in the twilight as he said, “You’re a wee bit damp, but other than that, you’ve slept as snug as a babe in her mother’s arms.”

Only half-awake, Meghan sighed and closed her eyes. She felt every bit as safe as his words claimed. His arm supported her back and his hand was on the slim curve of her waist. The heat of his body pervaded hers beneath the cloak that covered them both.

Without thinking about it, she turned her head into the opening of his jerkin where his skin lay bare and nuzzled the heated skin. He was so pleasant in so many unsuspected ways. His body smelled different from her own. The tang of his sweat
was undercut by his rich, faintly musky scent, which made her toes curl. He was as warm and fragrant as a loaf of newly baked bread, and she wanted a taste of him.

Her nose was cold, like an icicle, yet Revelin’s skin burned at the touch. He felt himself becoming aroused. When her tongue slyly reached out and licked the arch of his throat, he gasped softly. It was not real. He had imagined—Oh Lord! She did it again.

“Meghan?” His voice sounded so strange that it embarrassed him. “Meghan…lass…you mustn’t—”

The sound of horses cut through the thick, sweet torment of his desire, and in an instant he was alert to danger.

Specterlike, out of the mists rose wave after wave of riders on unshod horses. The unholy war cries that issued from their throats rent the stillness with a terror that could chill blood in living veins.

As John’s shout of warning echoed back to them through the mist, Revelin reached for his sword, but his way was blocked. Meghan sat across his lap, her hips between him and a free draw.

“Damn!” He kicked his mount, jerked the reins to turn him, and dug his heels unmercifully into the beast’s flanks. There was no alternative but to run, yet he doubted they would escape. At best he hoped to find shelter for Meghan before returning to aid his companions.

As they raced across the open valley Revelin bent his head, his lips against Meghan’s ear. “I must release you. Hide!” Without checking his horse’s stride, he lifted and tossed her from his saddle. He turned and shouted at Ualter, who ran alongside, “Ualter! Stay!” He did not look back as Meghan tumbled with a shriek into the waist-high reeds. The muffled tattoo of hooves close behind signaled that they had been seen.

The rider was closing fast, more certain of his way in the mists than Revelin was. To outrun him was useless. Only in combat was there a chance of survival. Revelin wheeled his
horse and freed his sword in time to check the first blow aimed at him.

The rider wore a shirt of mail, an iron cap, and leggings of leather, a specter of a medieval knight in this modern sixteenth century. In his left hand was a burning faggot, and torchlight ran in steely flames along the bared sword in his right.

As Revelin urged his mount forward, lifting his sword to deliver a blow, a second rider appeared out of the fog, and the pair of warriors sandwiched him between their flashing blades. He braced himself for a cut of steel that would sever his head from his shoulders. It did not come. Instead, the flurry of blows and thrusts bent him low in the saddle and then toppled him, bleeding, bruised, and stunned, onto the soft wet grass.

Meghan rose groggily to her feet. The fall had dropped her into the slime of a bog and her feet sank up past her ankles as she struggled to stay upright. The thunder of the hooves and whooping battle cries surrounded her. It was the dream—or was it?—that had come following Una’s death. Who would die this day?

“Revelin!” She tried to run but the ooze sucked at her legs, holding her back. Ualter ran in circles about her, his paws kicking up mud and muck as he tried to herd her back into the reeds. “No! No! Leave me be!” she cried, pushing him away. Ualter quieted, eyeing her intently as she looked about.

The glimmer of light, a torch carried by one of their attackers, drew her attention and she waded toward it, her heart thumping wildly in her breast. The cool air stung her lungs, and the mists played cruel tricks before her terrified eyes. She saw Revelin’s horse and then it disappeared. She slipped her skean from her wrist and wrapped her small hand about its leather hilt.

“Revelin!” she cried, straining toward the rider bearing light. “God have mercy! Revelin!” She dodged between the stomping, impatient hooves of two battle steeds as one warrior bent over his prize.

“English!” the warrior said, spitting. Lifting the nodding
head by its yellow hair, he dipped the point of his blade toward the exposed throat.

“No! Don’t touch him!” Meghan flew at the warrior, her dagger poised to strike, and sank the blade into his left shoulder where his mail gaped away from his neck. He groaned in pain and went down on one knee, but he did not collapse. Recovering more quickly than seemed humanly possible, he grabbed Meghan by the throat with one hand, and with the other reached up to pluck her weapon from the top of his shoulder.

“Are ye bad hurt, Colin?” the torch bearer asked.

“Nae! ’Twill take more than a sting to bring low Colin MacDonald,” the other called jovially. “And it earns me a colleen, besides. Let’s have a look at her. A bonny piece—the devil’s foot!” the injured warrior whispered. “I’ve caught me a changeling!” Releasing Meghan, he crossed himself and murmured a prayer.

Meghan lifted her face for the torch bearer to see; he expelled a string of profanities, backing his horse a step.

“Have a care if ye would live the rest of yer days in God’s grace,” she cried fiercely, pointing to Revelin’s inert body, which Ualter pawed. “If ye’ve hurt him, ye’re cursed till the day ye die!”

She scarcely knew what she was saying. They might well slit her throat and leave her body to rot beside Revelin’s, but her ugliness and their fear of it were the only weapons left her.

The warriors exchanged glances. “I’ll fetch Ever,” the rider offered, and the second man nodded. The battle had ceased as quickly as it began, leaving an eerie silence.

The injured warrior lifted his sword and pointed it at Meghan’s middle. “I’d nae be running away if I were ye. I dinna murder women and bairns, but I could make an exception for a changeling who’s drawn me coin.”

Meghan recognized his accent: it was Scottish. She squinted at him. Could it be that she had attacked a
galloglaigh?
Her gaze moved to his shoulder where the chain mail was reddening
with blood. “A bandage of peat moss will stop the bleeding,” she said softly before dropping to her knees beside Revelin.

His skin was cold to her touch where moments before it had seemed heated by embers. Her hand shook as she reached for a pulse, and a tiny whimper of relief escaped her.

“Is he yer lad?” the soldier asked, his voice curiously kind.

“Aye, he’s mine,” Meghan answered and tenderly lifted Revelin’s head into her lap. Ualter whimpered and stretched out beside his master.

Meghan looked up as other warriors neared. The leader was wrapped in a mantle of saffron yellow, which she recognized as the clan color of the O’Neill, her clan. “Let’s have a look at ye,” he offered. “On yer feet, lass.”

Meghan did not rise. Revelin was stirring, his head moving from side to side in her lap, and his nearness gave her courage. “If ye’ve business with me, ye’d best climb down. ’Tis nae like an O’Neill to forget his manners before a woman.”

A murmur passed through the throng of men behind the chieftain, but he did not dismount. Colin, who had held her at sword’s point, bent over and lifted her chin high. “Shine the light on her, Farrell.”

The wind-whipped flames lit Meghan’s face, distorting the angles of cheek and nose and staining her birthmark reddish-black. An involuntary gasp escaped the men closest to her.

“Ye see! She bears the mark,” Colin proclaimed.

The leader urged his horse forward and leaned from his saddle as he strained for a better look at Meghan’s features. “Aye, she bears the mark.” He sat back and sheathed his sword. “As to whether or not she’s the one, we’d best ask the one man who’ll know.”