Conor jerked his head from Balor’s grip. Glaring balefully at the Fomórai lord, he rubbed his cheek. Balor loosed an angry burst, and Brecan demanded to know what was being said.
‘My lord say this man is thief. Take a thing of great value. Thief must pay for crime. He must die.’
‘He is my man,’ Brecan said. ‘I will deal with him. I will see that—’
The Fomórai king swung away and with a bark and a gesture brought five of his retinue on the run. He shouted again and two of the men drew their swords, two rushed in and seized Conor by the arms, and, as Conor struggled in their grasp, the fifth relieved him of his weapons and the contents of his sparán.
‘E-re! E-re ugur,’ Balor shouted, and pointed to the low building beside the wall of the ráth.
‘Stop!’ shouted Brecan, growing red in the face. ‘What is this? What are you doing? You cannot—’
‘Lord Balor say he is now captive. Wait for execution.’
‘Release him!’ shouted Brecan. ‘We came here in peace to discuss our treaty. No fighting, no violence—that is what we agreed. This is my man—under my protection. There will be no execution. Tell him. Make him understand.’
The Scálda translator turned a stony face to the Brigantes king. ‘He understand this. My lord has spoken.’
Over Brecan’s outraged protests, Conor was hauled bodily away. He dug in his heels, but a sharp blow to the head gave him to know that any meaningful resistance was not only futile, but likely to end in injury. Far better to keep both wits and strength intact and await a better opportunity.
Across the yard to the low house, they marched him. The argument between Brecan and Balor continued, but Conor turned his attention to the ill-made hut, taking in every detail, searching for any chink of weakness he could use to escape. The door of the flimsy keep was secured by a simple hasp fastened with an iron spike; the door was a few wide scraps of untrimmed timber bound together. One of the guards pulled the spike and yanked open the door and gave Conor a shove that sent him sprawling onto the dirt floor. The door banged shut on the angry voices in the yard, but Conor was no longer listening. He was aware of only two things: the suffocating stench of excrement and urine, and the sight of a dozen or more faéry chained to the back wall of the hut.
Conor saw the faéry captives and was overcome with the sense of having seen this before—the only difference being that previously he had found only two of the faéry locked in a storeroom; this time there were fifteen or more—male and female together, some standing, some sitting on the dusty floor, but all staring with dull-eyed interest at him. Dressed in the shimmering jewel-coloured raiment favoured by their kind—now much abused by filth and hard wear, their hair limp and pale skin grey and ashen—they nonetheless retained much of their noble bearing and the extraordinary beauty of their race.
Thoughts collided in Conor’s head, so many and so quickly that he could only gape at the tall, silent, regal beings huddled before him. One thought jostled its way to the fore, and it was this: free the faéry and his own deliverance was assured. Dismay and desperation fled, their encircling shadows driven back by the dazzling light of this bright hope. Save the faéry and he would save himself.
‘Do not be afraid,’ he said, pushing himself up off the floor. ‘I am here to help you.’
This, he thought, was worthy of at least some small reaction, but produced not so much as a flutter of interest, much less a welcome.
‘Tylwyth Teg?’ asked Conor, moving a step closer. ‘Who is leader here?’
The faéry looked at him impassively, or at each other, but none made bold to answer.
‘Who can speak to me?’ He looked from one to another. ‘Does anyone understand me?’ Conor searched their faces. ‘Anyone?’
One of the females stretched out a hand and pointed to a male seated on the floor nearby. ‘Can you understand me?’
The faéry unfolded himself slowly, stood, and shuffled forward as far as his chain would allow; towering head and shoulders over Conor, he stared down at him with filmy eyes and an expression of unspeakable sadness. ‘Who are you?’
‘I am Conor mac Ardan, a warrior of the Darini.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Like you, I have been taken by the Scálda. They mean to kill me, but if we work together, we can save each other. We can escape.’ He put out a hand to those who stood looking silently on. ‘All of us. I can help you.’
The faéry shook his handsome head. ‘No one can save us.’
Conor moved a step closer. ‘What is your name?’
He gazed at Conor with sad eyes and just when Conor thought he would not reply, he said, ‘I am Loucetios, Lord of the Kerionid.’
Conor tried the name, muddled it, and his attempt brought a frown of distaste to the lips of the faéry, who said, ‘Call me Lenos—if that is easier in your mouth.’ He spoke with elaborate condescension, as if to a slow-witted child for whom he was having to make enormous allowances. ‘You can help us?’
‘I can.’
The faéry lord thrust out his chin in defiance. ‘For all I know it is a trick of the Vermin King.’ He jerked his head toward the door, indicating Balor Berugderc beyond.
‘On my life, you can trust me,’ Conor told him, placing his hand on his chest. ‘I am of the Dé Danann. I am not one of them.’
Lenos’s face squirmed into an ugly sneer. ‘On my life! So he says! What do you know of life and death? It is our lives that are stolen day by day—not yours. You know nothing.’
Confused by this response—so different from Rhiannon’s—Conor was taken aback and more than a little annoyed by what seemed to him a veiled but unwarranted and unjust accusation. ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded. Lenos turned his face away. ‘Tell me. I want to understand.’
The faéry lord rounded on him. ‘Then look and see! How many?’ He pointed to the other Kerionid who stood looking on, silent in their misery. ‘You see how we are? Once, not long ago, there were thirty of us. Thirty! Now only sixteen remain. Why? Because each day the Vermin King comes and takes one of us out to be slaughtered at the hands of his butchers. When they brought you, we thought they had come to steal another life.’
Conor saw the problem at once. ‘They would force you to trade your lives for the secret of your magic,’ he surmised. Rhiannon had intimated as much during her captivity.
‘Trade our lives for our geasan, yes—and like everything the vermin say, it is lies. When they gain what they want, they will kill us anyway.’
‘Not if I can prevent it,’ Conor said, his tone adamant. ‘That will not happen. Trust me. I have done this before.’ He quickly explained about finding other faéry captives in another Scálda stronghold, how he and his friends had freed them. Avoiding any mention of the unfortunate Tanwen’s demise, he moved closer to examine the iron chains binding the faéry. The lengths were wrapped high and tight around the waist, biting into the flesh; individual links were as thick as a finger and so narrow Conor could not wedge so much as a finger into the spaces to pry them apart. ‘I’ll need a tool of some kind,’ Conor told him. ‘But as soon as I can find a way to break these chains, you will be able to use your magic again and we can escape.’
‘Magic,’ repeated Lenos in a tone of disgust. ‘Are all Dé Danann as ignorant as you?’
That brought Conor up short. ‘Why? What did I say?’
‘Look around you, blind one.’ He flung a hand at the surrounding walls. ‘The entire ráth is iron!’
‘The hoops!’ Conor whirled around—like the encircling walls of the ráth outside, the hut was reinforced by an overlapping ring of iron chariot rims. Now, at last, he understood the curious construction of the stronghold: the frail wickerwork walls were never meant to keep anyone out, but to keep the captives in. He had indeed been blind. ‘I am sorry,’ he sighed. ‘I should have known.’
Lenos gazed at Conor, his anger drained away—as if he had not the will or energy to fight anymore. ‘The ráth is killing us—slo
wly. Every day the poison eats away at our hearts and every day we grow weaker. Even without the chains, our geasan can have no power here.’
In that simple declaration Conor heard hopeless resignation, a surrender to defeat.
But Conor was far from defeated. ‘Then we will make good our escape without your magic.’
The faéry lord turned and spoke to the Kerionid gathered behind him. A brief discussion ensued. Meanwhile, Conor crossed to the door and pressed his face to the tiny gap between the door and frame. The Scálda guards had returned to their shady place across the yard; he could see no one else around. He pressed against the door with his shoulder and felt it give slightly; a strong kick would break it open. Getting out would pose little difficulty, the work of a moment; getting his hands on a weapon might pose more of a problem.
First, however, he had to find a way to free the faéry from the killing constraint of the iron chains. A quick inspection of the hut revealed that, other than the stinking cess hole off to one side, the hut contained nothing that might further his purpose. Next, he examined the chains; moving from one docile prisoner to another, he quickly learned that each captive was linked to the one on either side by short lengths of chain, and various sections secured to one or another of the chariot rims lining the walls of the hut; these in turn were each bound to every other rim. Crude, but effective, Conor concluded, with no obvious weakness.
‘I will find a tool,’ Conor told Lenos. ‘Something to break the links.’
‘If the Vermin King does not come for you first.’
‘Well,’ reasoned Conor, ‘there is nothing I can do about that. But…’ His eye fell upon the chains binding the faéry lord, and he brightened. ‘Perhaps you can help me there.’ He quickly explained the plan just then forming in his mind.
‘It is dangerous. Likely, you will get killed in this deception of yours.’
‘Then I will die,’ Conor replied lightly, ‘but I will have sold my life at a price and you will be no worse off than you are now.’
Lenos thought about this for a moment. ‘You are a brave one—for a mortal. I will do as you say.’
They discussed this some more, refining the plan as they went along until both were satisfied that it was as good as it could be made under the circumstances. They were not long finished when there came the sound of footsteps outside the door of the hut. Conor and Lenos took their places, ready to play their parts. Conor lay down at the foot of the faéry lord and closed his eyes.
‘Hisst!’ whispered a voice from outside the door. ‘Conor, can you hear me?’
Conor jumped up, ran to the door, and pressed his ear to the plank. ‘Cethern?’
‘We’re working to get you out. Be patient. One way or another Brecan will gain your release.’
‘Let me out now,’ Conor countered. ‘Before they come back.’
‘I can’t,’ said Cethern, already backing away. ‘The dog-eaters are watching. Two of them are coming this way now. Don’t do anything to make them suspicious.’ His voice trailed off. ‘We’ll get you out.’
A heated exchange followed; raised voices in the yard—slightly one-sided since neither the king’s champion nor the Scálda guards could understand the speech of the other.
Conor returned to where an anxious Lenos stood watching, and explained what the king’s champion had said. ‘There is hope,’ Conor concluded.
‘For you, perhaps,’ Lenos replied. He looked down at the chain tight around his waist and then raised sad eyes to Conor. ‘But there is no hope for us.’
‘I will not abandon you, Lenos.’ Conor heard in his own words the echo of Rhiannon’s vow to him, and there was a rightness to it that seemed more than simple conviction—inevitability, perhaps, or destiny.
An uneasy day faded to an anxious twilight, but still the Scálda guards did not return. As night deepened over the hills and around the ráth, there came raucous voices from inside the hall and echoing across the yard outside. Conor pressed his eye to the gap once again and saw that the guards had made an enormous fire in the centre of the yard and were cooking hanks of meat on spits as jars of ale made their way hand-to-hand among the guards. More or less the same seemed to be taking place inside the round house, for oily smoke seeped up through the thatch of the high-peaked roof. A celebration, no doubt, to mark the successful completion of another negotiation. Conor took this as a good sign, for it meant he would soon be released.
He could not have been more wrong.
37
The faéry, silent in their suffering, huddled together for the night and Conor stretched himself out on the ground nearby. Thirsty, hungry—the scent of the roasting meat brought the water to his mouth and reminded him that he had not eaten anything but a scrap or two of bósaill in the last day. He reached into his sparán for more, but the leather pouch, like his stomach, was empty. Turning his mind instead to thoughts of Aoife and how he missed her and whether he would ever see her again, he eventually drifted off to sleep listening to the hushed, willowy sound of faéry speech as they conversed softly with one another …
… and was awakened again sometime later by loud voices outside the hut. Rolling onto his knees, he crawled to the door. Through the crack, he could see that the fire in the yard had been built up again; against the ruddy glow of the embers, six or so of the Scálda guards: two or three of them armed with spears; another held a rope.
‘Lenos!’ said Conor. ‘Wake up. They’re coming.’
‘I am awake. How many?’
‘Five. Only two have weapons, I think.’ Conor moved to take his place at the faéry lord’s feet, as planned. When the guard came to rouse Conor, Lenos was to throw a loop of his chain around the Scálda’s neck by way of distraction, allowing Conor to disarm him.
Conor quickly arranged himself and a moment later there came a scrape at the door as the spike was lifted from the hasp; two guards entered the hut and crossed to where Conor lay pretending to be asleep with Lenos standing over him. But, their plan was scuttled at the outset. Rather than seize Conor, which he expected, they first struck the faéry in the chest with the butt of a spear, driving him back. The second guard pressed the point of his spear blade into Conor’s side. Lenos had no chance to distract either guard, and Conor, suffering a grazing cut to his ribs, was dragged by his feet from the hut. Once outside, the guard with the rope dropped a knotted coil around Conor’s head and pulled the noose tight around his throat. A second spear was placed against Conor’s spine and the captive was hauled to the fire ring in the centre of the yard where several more Scálda had gathered to watch.
Out of the darkness, another of Balor’s bodyguard came forward, leading two horses—one of them Búrach; Conor’s bag was still tied to the stallion’s back. Fighting the icy dread that squeezed his heart like a fist, Conor gulped air and forced himself to remain calm as the first horse was led up and Conor’s left wrist was lashed to its halter by a rawhide strap; he resisted with commendable strength—a struggle rewarded by the tightening of the noose around his neck. Clawing at the rope with his free hand, he fought to breathe. His sight grew dim and began to fade. He was on the point of slipping into unconsciousness when the pressure eased. Breath and vision returned, but he was now tied to the horse.
Then they grabbed his right wrist and began attaching the rawhide strap to Búrach’s halter. Perhaps, as some kind of Scálda jest, they thought to torture him with his own horse. Conor drew breath and gave out a mighty shout. ‘Help!’ he cried, his voice ringing out in the quiet yard. ‘Cethern! Help!’
As soon as his right hand was joined to Búrach’s halter, the Scálda began leading the animals in opposite directions, one slow step at a time. Conor’s arms opened wide.
‘Cethern! Brecan!’ he shouted again. The tightening of the noose choked off any further attempt to rouse his friends.
Unable to breathe, he nevertheless fought against the ever-increasing pressure on his arms. The horses took another step and his ligaments began to stretch. Pa
in streaked through him in a blazing fireball. He threw back his head and uttered a strangled, half-garrotted scream—much to the amusement of his Scálda torturers.
Conor’s field of vision narrowed, became a single point of light surrounded by darkness. But his hearing remained as keen as ever. He heard the laughter of the guards and their jeering voices as they urged the horses on another step—but one more and his arms would be ripped from his body. He felt the muscles in his shoulders stretch and the bones began to separate. His previously injured shoulder gave out a meaty pop as a weakened sinew gave way, sending a cascade of pain shimmering through him.
Conor summoned the little left of his breath and said, ‘Búrach, here!’
The horse, hearing his master’s voice, stopped, and made a half turn toward him. Conor felt the bonds loosen. The pressure eased instantly. One of the Scálda guards cried out and Conor, in his dazed state, imagined his arm had been pulled off. But then the noose slackened. Air rushed back into his lungs and he gulped it down in greedy draughts and scrabbled at the noose with unfeeling fingers of his suddenly free right hand.
His head cleared and the black veil lifted. He looked around. He was on his knees, his left hand still tied to Búrach’s halter, and his horse stood over him. One of the guards lay dead on the ground a few paces away, his head all but severed from his shoulders.
In the light of the fire, he could see Scálda warriors running here and there, frantic, shouting. Their cries awakened Balor’s fighting dogs. Scenting blood, the vicious creatures started howling and hurling themselves at the bars of their cage. The once-quiet yard was awash in confusion and, strangest of all, no one was paying any attention to Conor. With a colossal effort, he climbed to his feet and swung himself up onto Búrach’s back.
Mounted now, he looked around for the gate. A face loomed up out of the darkness at him. Conor kicked at it and its owner grabbed his ankle, shouting, ‘Conor! It’s me!’
Conor ceased struggling. ‘Cethern!’
‘Here—take this!’ he cried, shoving a sword hilt into Conor’s hand.