Spirit of the Mist (5 page)

“We have all enjoyed your story, Brendan. But there is not a word of it that you can prove. You could just as well be a criminal who tells a fine tale—a criminal stripped of all you own and set adrift for your transgressions, to become the property of anyone who might find you.”
 

“If you survived the waves,” added the druid.
 

“King Murrough, I assure you my story is true. I am Brendan, the second son of King Galvin, the tanist of—”
 

But the king abruptly stood, cutting off his guest’s protests. “Tomorrow I will send five men to Dun Bochna to ask about your story. They will be gone at least a fortnight, since they will be forced to ride far inland to get around King Odhran’s fortress.
 

“In the meantime you will remain here. But you shall be neither noble nor slave, with neither weapon nor gold, until we know for certain who you are.
 

“If your story is true, your king and father will no doubt send a ransom and men to bring you home. If it is not, you will go back to the rags we found you in and live out your life as a servant of my people—the ones who rescued you. Which will be more than you deserve should you have lied to us.”
 

Brendan bowed to the king. “I thank you, King Murrough.”
 

“Do not thank me yet,” said the sovereign. He walked down past the firepit and went out the door, followed closely by his druids and his warriors, leaving Brendan and Muriel standing alone in the filtered light of the hall.
 

She looked at him, and he stared back, and for the first time Muriel saw doubt and worry on his face. Not even when he had been lost and facing death out on the waves had she seen anything but confidence in his eyes. Now, though, the supremely confident Brendan was beginning to realize just how precarious his position truly was.
 

“Perhaps you would like to see the ocean from the hills up above the dun,” she said, watching his face.
 

His eyes focused on her. His expression remained serious. But then he smiled and seemed to relax. “Thank you. I would like that very much.”
 

She smiled, too. “Now that you are not so tall, I thought it would be necessary for you to stand on the highest hill to get a view of that same ocean.”
 

Oh, it was enjoyable, the way the stunned expression spread across his fine features. It was clear now that she would be able to keep him at arm’s-length quite easily, and simply enjoy his company for a little while before he returned to his own people. There would be no danger of her head being turned by his tall, fair form, by his strange and beautiful eyes…
 

“I am glad indeed that it was you who saved my life,” he said wryly, “for it must mean you like me at least a little. If you did not, think of how cruel you might be, with a wit as quick as yours.”
 

Then, to her surprise, he sank gracefully to one knee before her in the rushes. “My lady, before you I am never any taller than this. Will you still show me the way to the highest hill?”
 

She blushed. “Only if you get up off your knees.”
 

“Ah, that is kind of you. I am so glad you would not have me travel on my knees. The rocks—”
 

“Would ruin a good pair of leathers,” she snapped, cutting him off. But he got to his feet and stood back a bit, extending his arm toward the door with a little bow.
 

She brushed past him and he followed closely as she walked outside. She was fairly certain she heard him chuckling.
 

Muriel walked with long strides across the grounds of the dun. She looked neither left nor right but simply walked straight across the greensward toward the heavy wooden gates in the outer wall. It helped to keep her mind from dwelling on the tall stranger who followed her.
 

And he is a stranger, she reminded herself. As the king had wisely pointed out, his story was still very much in question. She could not allow herself to forget that.
 

The gates stood open to the day, allowing workers and servants to come and go as they hauled water in and refuse out. Muriel and Brendan walked outside and began the climb up the grassy hillside above Dun Farraige, until they reached the wide, rolling hilltops scattered with oak and willow trees.
 

The great size of the dun could only be properly appreciated from up here. Its two solid, grass-covered earthen walls—one inside the other, with a rain-filled ditch in between—formed vast circles around the twenty round houses and the long, rectangular hall of the king. The buildings had all had their straw thatching repaired, and the rooftops shone golden in the sun above white walls freshly daubed and smoothed with clay to keep out the cold winds from the sea.
 

Along the inner wall were an armory, a smokehouse, and a huge stack of peat bricks for fuel, as well as pens holding glossy-coated horses and a few sleek calves and fat lambs. The whole place held an air of prosperity and plenty—and safety against the elements and against invaders.
 

But Brendan only glanced at the spectacular view before turning back to Muriel. “I do think you must like me, Lady Muriel. Why else would you invite me to come up here with you?”
 

She started to give him a cold reply, but then saw how his blue and brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight, how he was all but grinning. He was baiting her, hoping to see her lose her temper and quite possibly make a fool of herself.
 

Well, it was not going to happen on this day!
 

Muriel merely smiled politely at him. “I thought only to show a small kindness to a lost stranger. If you want to go back to the dun, please feel free to do so. The path is easily found.”
 

“And I appreciate your kindness very much, as I have told you. But are you saying that you would have brought any stranger up here? Was there nothing about me at all that you found attractive?”
 

She only shrugged. “I simply asked you to go for a walk with me. Nothing more. I’m sorry, Brendan, but you have no effect on me at all, either for good or for ill.” And she turned to gaze out at the bay.
 

“You are saying that I do not touch your feelings at all?” He sounded incredulous.
 

“I am saying that I have never let myself get carried away by a handsome face or a set of broad shoulders—much less a sweet-sounding voice. I have learned to control my emotions very well.”
 

“Ah, I think I understand now. You have never known love.”
 

She turned back to face him. “I have never allowed myself to know love. I have been determined that I would never love any man unless I was certain he was the right one. So far I have succeeded quite well.”
 

“So far.” He sounded amused.
 

Muriel raised her chin. “Do your best, Brendan. Talk sweetly to me, gaze into my eyes, bring me little gifts. None of it will make any difference. I will be the one to control my feelings—not you. That is one thing I can promise.”
 

He merely nodded, his eyes shining. They continued their walk.
 

The hills around the dun were sprinkled with color, as though last night’s storm had dropped flowers instead of rain. Scattered in the sunniest open grass were bright yellow dandelions and primroses. Surrounding the largest rocks were thorny gorse bushes, filled with sweet-scented, tiny, golden blossoms, and the star-shaped, purple-blue spring gentian. Nearby were blackberry bushes just beginning to flower in white.
 

At the edge of the shade cast by the oak and willow trees were the pink blooms of foxglove, long and slender. Beneath the oaks in the deepest shade were little violets, purple and blue and white.
 

As a backdrop to the flowers were masses and masses of dark green three-leafed clover with clusters of tiny white blossoms. All of it made a lovely contrast to the gray rocks and gray-green sea.
 

Brendan looked down once more on the massive rings of the dun. “Flowers and clover, cattle and sunshine, and a fortress home where all can live in safety and contentment,” he said. “It is the same at Dun Bochna. And for the same reason, I am sure.”
 

“And what reason would that be?” Muriel almost smiled in spite of herself. He was certainly a grand talker, if nothing else.
 

“Why, its king, of course!” He turned his brilliant smile on her as they walked, his gold-brown hair ruffling in the wind. “King Murrough’s land reflects his own character, his own virility, his own justice. King Galvin’s land does the same.”
 

Muriel turned away from the bright light of his smile and made herself look only at the grass where she walked. She nodded in answer, her face serious. “Of course,” she said. “It is always so. A king’s land is like his queen. If he serves it and protects it and cherishes it, with his mind and his body and his heart, it will bloom beneath his hand. But if he is false—or disfigured—or weak—”
 

“His land will become the same,” Brendan said. “As you say, Lady Muriel, it is always so. No one knows this better than I, who will be king of my own land someday.”
 

She glanced up at him, beginning to smile again. It was almost too easy to hold him at a distance, to keep him in his place. “Yet I see nothing of a king about you, or even of a prince. You have no fine clothes or good iron weapons. There is no tanist’s torque around your neck or king’s gold on your wrists or fingers. All you have are boasting words and fanciful stories.”
 

Muriel thought he would stop and frown at her, give her some indignant response, but he only laughed and spread his arms and went on walking.
 

“Some men might need such things for others to know them as a king, but I am one who does not! Every time I set out, the warrior men follow me; every time I return, I bring more cattle and more wealth; and everywhere I walk, the land blossoms under my feet. You can see this from the flowers which surround us now! Surely even you can agree that I must be a king, when such things happen wherever I go!”
 

Muriel did laugh this time, shaking her head. Anyone else saying such things would simply have been an insufferable braggart, but Brendan was so good-natured that it was difficult to hold his boasting against him.
 

Difficult—but not impossible. She must not begin to allow him so close. She reminded herself again that she did not know what he was, did not know if he was really a prince or just the grandest liar she’d ever met…and as they walked on, she made herself still the longing that had begun to rise in her heart and instead think only with her head.
 

They came to a high open spot where the lush grass rippled in the wind. Brendan reached down and picked a few of the yellow primroses and dandelions, leaving a clear space so that they would not crush any of the flowers, and the two sat down together on the soft, thick grass.
 

For a time there was only silence between them. Muriel was more than content to simply gaze out at Dun Farraige and at the sea beyond, enjoying the warm sun and the fresh sea breeze and the scent of thick greenery and thriving flora. She found that it helped to keep her heart from pounding—and her breath from quickening, if she looked at anything else but Brendan.
 

I will be the one to control my feelings, not you.
Muriel took a deep breath and deliberately looked away from him, out at the glittering bay.
 

“This is indeed a lovely place,” said Brendan. “Now—out there, straight across the water to the north, is the land that I am from.”
 

Muriel glanced over at him, following his gaze to where the mountainous land was visible as a hazy outline. “You are fortunate today that we can see it at all. So much of the time it is hidden in the mists.”
 

“I have found that many things might be hidden in the mists—but you need only wait for the sun to come out and burn the fog away, and then all will be revealed to you.” He grinned, and Muriel could not decide if he was serious or merely trying to bait her again.
 

Brendan turned and pointed off to the east. “There, at the closed end of the bay, is the place where Odhran overthrew a king.”
 

“And where you sent a tanist to his death.” She watched his face this time, wanting to see if he would laugh.
 

Instead, his shining eyes grew serious, and his voice became quiet and soft. “I had no wish to kill him. I had no choice at all, if I wanted to live. But I had no wish to kill him.”
 

He fell silent and looked away from her, out toward the open sea. Muriel watched for a moment, waiting for him to continue.
 

But he said nothing more.
 

“I often come up here in fine weather to do the spinning or the sewing,” she offered, brushing a strand of black hair from her face. “It is a favorite place of mine.”
 

He turned back to her and his smile returned. “Do you come up alone?”