The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance Part 16

"And wealth," she conceded, taking up her mantle. "Come, I have need of herbs from the garden."

Finn had forgotten the rich, musky scent of mortal women and the heat that pooled in his loins at the brush of soft skin against his callused palm. He'd been living in a perfect world of perfumed air, a timeless world without need or desire. Until now, he hadn't missed the human impulse to reproduce, to make his surroundings better, to create new out of old. He wasn't certain he wished to return to those driving urges again.

Except escorting the exquisite Princess Anya to the kitchen garden reminded him of how much he'd lost when he'd left his humanity behind.

"Do you believe in heaven?" she asked, lifting a reed basket and carrying it to the herb bed. "The priest says Maeve and my brother are watching over their babe from the clouds."

"I am no priest, but yes, I believe Others watch over us," he said honestly. "That does not mean they can help us if you think the ghost of your brother will slay your enemies for you."

She granted him a scowl and crouched down to clip her herbs. "Your urgent message?"

Lost in the sharp scents of herbs and earth and woman, Finn had forgotten what he'd intended to say. The sun here was not the warm, golden light of the Other Side, but he enjoyed the brisk bite of the wind against his skin, recalling the days of flesh and blood and what he could do with them. "You must catch salmon with bait," he told her, recovering his rattled wits.

"I don't eat salmon," she informed him. "I do not eat the creatures of the field or sea. They have a right to live as much as I do."

It was his turn to scowl. "And such fasting allows you to see things that you have no right to see. You saw me the other night when you should not have. Why do you not accuse me of being a demon?"

"If you are a demon, then I must accept that Patrick is one, too, and that I will not. If mortals see you, then you are real and as human as I. It is only the Others, the ones I glimpse through the Veil who are not human. Do they urge me to eat salmon?" she asked with curiosity.

"No, they bait me as they bait you," he growled. "But they must approve of you if they have brought Patrick here."

She nodded serenely as if they spoke of what meal they would have that evening and not the mysteries of the universe. "Thank you for being honest and not telling me I am imagining what I see. The priest would say that I speak with angels, or he would be forced to call me a heretic, but I know it is arrogance to believe we know everything. I certainly don't know what you mean about salmon and bait."

He crouched to help her with the basket, and an arrow hissed past his head, into the earth beneath the keep's wall. Before she could so much as cry out, Finn flattened the Princess beneath him and rolled with her under the shelter of a garden bench. He could feel her heart thumping wildly, in tandem with his. He had not come here to die so ign.o.bly.

The arrow had come from the bailey. Finn scanned the ramparts, noting scurrying figures but no archer.

"I can't breathe," the Princess said from under him. "If we're being attacked, I need to reach my knife."

Beneath him, she felt soft, warm, and curved in all the right places. Finn longed to forget archers and lose himself in her flesh. Lifting his weight on both elbows, he let his hips press against hers. Dodging death raised his appreciation of life. "I see no more archers. You may have a traitor among your sentries. And if you cannot reach your knife like this, then you are very badly trained."

"You would teach me better?" Her fair features expressed more curiosity than fear.

"I would, after I throttle the traitor." He rolled off her. "You are the bait. Choose your salmon and wiggle."

Not wishing for further argument while someone wished to kill him, Finn flung the baffling woman over his shoulder, picked up her basket and carried both into the safety of the keep.

Four.

Choose her salmon and wiggle, Anya mused that evening, sitting at the head table, picking at her mushrooms and carrots while the others feasted on fish brought up from the sea. What a strange thing for a man to say, but then, Finn was not really a man, or was he?

He'd certainly felt as solid as any man. If she'd questioned his faeness before, she certainly could not after being shoved from the chapel, rolled under a bench, and carried over a brawny shoulder. Finn mac Connell was all muscled man.

She darted a look to the warrior apparently enjoying his meal. He'd smelled like a man when she'd been lying under him. He'd felt so alive, she could have sworn he'd been aroused. And she'd been too stupefied by her unexpected desire that she'd hardly understood that he could have died out there.

The meal was quieter than usual. While mead flowed freely and the feast was fit for a king, they'd hung one of their own this day the first death of the battle ahead. The traitor had been caught and tried and justice done swiftly, as it must be. The archer had been kin of Connolly's.

"There will be war, won't there?" the late Queen's lady-in-waiting asked from the seat at Anya's right. Cailleagh had been lady to Anya's mother as well as Maeve. She wore the black of mourning for the many lives lost this past decade.

There would be no war if Anya married Dubh and gave him all the wealth he lacked. His lands were rocky and not suited for farming. He fought viciously for every field of fertile ground he could claim. She understood how he thought and why. But his thinking was of the past. These days, they must fight the enemies that threatened from outside, not each other.

"There is always war," Anya agreed. "It is choosing the right war that matters."

If she married Dubh . . . She would have to kill him before he killed Patrick. She had been trained to defend herself, but she had never killed, for self-defence or any reason.

Her gaze strayed to the big man apparently enjoying the feast. He was of Faerie but not one of them. He was much too solid, too real. Surely, if he could enter the Other World, he had gifts far stronger than her own. He had protected her with his life, as he would protect Patrick.

She knew now what she must do, even though it broke her heart. She stood. Few noticed or cared. She quietly departed for the stairwell. Finn followed, as she'd known he would. Even though he'd been as lost in feasting and drinking as the others, he halted, for her. And for the infant.

She left him at his post on the landing and entered her chamber where the maids entertained a wide-awake babe. A beautiful babe, one she would claim as her own, if she could. Smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world, she took the child king into her arms and cuddled him. He swung his little fist as if to touch and explore her. She already adored him with all her heart and soul, and tears filled her eyes as she carried him from the chamber, down the stairs.

Without questioning, Finn followed in her footsteps, outside to the secluded garden where she'd told her brother he could not build because the Good Neighbours rode through this place. A hidden door allowed them to pa.s.s through the wall unhampered. Her brother had laughed and called it a Faery gate, but she had felt the appreciation of their unreal Neighbours and known that the pa.s.sage had been the right thing to do. The Others had inhabited this land well before mortals.

When they were alone in the moonlight, Anya turned and held the child out to Finn. It took all the strength in her to do so. "Take him where he will be safe, until he is full grown."

As usual, he did not do as told but studied her with wariness. "A babe needs a woman to care for him. I cannot."

"Salmon eat bait. If I am to be swallowed whole, then I cannot guarantee the child's safety. I would rather die than lose him that way." Tears sprang to her eyes, tears she hadn't allowed herself to shed since she'd known the mantle of responsibility would fall on her frail shoulders. "I thank you for offering me this chance to escape my fate, but I see now that I was being selfish."

"The child is mine," he said resolutely. "I wish him to grow strong and true and take the place that is his birthright. He cannot do that from a place of weakness."

"Yours?" Surprised, she gazed into the babe's wide dark eyes, seeking a resemblance, but the warrior was hard and stern and the babe had yet to develop such character. Patrick gurgled and sucked his fist. And she loved him. Weeping, she offered the babe again. "I cannot protect him from Dubh. He is ruthless and single-minded. You must see that. If anyone must be sacrificed, it is I, not the child."

At her words, Finn stared as if she had suddenly developed a halo and wings. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles and stared into her eyes. "Niamh?" he asked in a disbelieving whisper. "Have the Others brought me to you? I swear, no other would sacrifice herself for our son."

Memories settled on Anya like a soft mantle, warming her heart and thoughts as she turned them inwards. "No one has called me that since . . ." She tried to recall. "I had a nurse once, a nurse who took me to see our Good Neighbours riding. They called me Niamh." She looked at him oddly. "You know me?"

"From another time and place." Finn stroked her face boldly, tenderly, testing the quality of her hair and skin but studying her eyes. "You do not look the same, but your heart . . . your heart is mine."

Anya did not understand his words so well as his expression. Heart thudding at her daring, she stepped forwards, stood on her toes, and tested a kiss against his chiselled lips. And to her amazement, they softened.

"My bait, no others," he whispered against her mouth, pulling her against his chest, with the child gently crushed between them. "You will wiggle only for me."

The intoxicating liquor of his kiss prevented her from laughing at his odd idea of courtship words. Before she fell too far under his magic spell, she pushed away. "How?" she asked, unable to form full phrases while her head spun, for it did seem they were meant for each other. She could feel it in that place that recognized what lay beyond this world.

"They knew," he said obliquely. "They knew I merely survived with them. That to live, I must make things better, and their world is too perfect for an imperfect mortal. They knew this world needs me more than theirs, and they brought me to you. Mortality is a price I willingly pay."

"You can stay?" she asked, holding her breath in fear, widening her eyes as she studied the rugged, broad-minded man who held her and looked upon her as if she were the answer to his prayers. How could any woman resist such a man?

"I can," he said with certainty. "Together, we will buy Dubh's lands and put his tenants to work so that we all might grow wealthy together. So someday, Patrick may inherit peace."

"Yes," she sighed happily, as the babe gurgled in delight. "Yes, and we will be good neighbours to everyone, even to those we cannot always see. Where have you been all my life?"

With a roar of joy, Finn lifted her and the babe in his mighty arms and swung them around in the moonlight. "I've been here, with you, inside your heart all these years!"

Beneath the spreading oak by the hidden gate, an invisible, elegant troop of riders nodded approval at the joyous couple before turning their mounts and galloping into the mist rising from the sea.

Shifter Made.

Jennifer Ashley.

One.

Baile icin (near Dingle), Ciarrai, Ireland 1400.

"Smith."

Niall knew without looking up from his anvil that the woman who addressed him was Fae, or Sidhe as the villagers called them. He could smell her, a bright, sticky-sweet stench that humans found irresistible.

He kept his head bent over his task mending a cooking crane for a village woman was far more important than speaking to a Fae. Besides, his name wasn't Smith, and if she couldn't call him by his real name he saw no need to answer.

"Shifter, I command you," she said.

Niall continued hammering. Wind poured through the open doors, carrying the scent of brine, fish and clean air, which still could not cover the stench of Fae.

"Shifter."

"This forge is filled with iron, la.s.s," Niall cut her off. "And Shifters don't obey Fae any more. Did you not hear that news 150 years ago?"

"I have a spell that keeps my anathema of iron at bay. For a time. Long enough to deal with you."

Niall finally looked up, curiosity winning over animosity. A tall woman in flowing silk stood on his threshold, her body haloed by the setting sun. Her pale hair hung to her knees in a score of thin braids, and she had the dark eyes and slender, pointed ears common to her kind. She was beautiful in an ethereal way but then all Fae were beautiful, the evil b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

The wind boiling up from the sea cliffs cut through the doorway, and she shivered. Niall raised his brows; he'd never caught a Fae doing a thing so normal as shiver.

He thrust the end of the crane into the fire, sending up sparks. "Come in out of the weather, girl. You'll be freezing in those flimsy clothes."

"My name is Alanna, and I'm hardly a girl."

She had to be if she responded to Niall's condescension, or at least naive. Fae lived so long and never changed much once they were fully grown that it was difficult to tell what age they were. She could be twenty-five or four hundred and fifty.

Alanna stepped all the way into the forge, darting nervous glances at the iron the anvil, his tools, the piece of crane he was mending. "I've been sent to give you a commission."

"You were sent were you? Poor la.s.s. You must have offended someone high up to be handed the thankless task of entering the mortal world to speak to a Shifter."

Her cheeks coloured but her tone remained haughty. "I've come to ask you to forge a sword. I believe you were once a sword maker of some repute."

"In days gone by. Now I'm a humble blacksmith, making practical things for villagers here and on the Great Island."

"Nonetheless, I am certain you retained your skill. The sword is to have a blade three feet in length, made of silver. The hilt is to be of bronze."

Niall drew the crane from the fire, set it on his anvil, and quickly hammered the glowing end into shape. "No," he said.

"What?"

He enunciated each word. "No, I will not make such a d.a.m.n fool weapon for you."

Alanna regarded him slack-jawed, a very un-Fae-like expression. Fae were cold beings, barely bringing themselves to speak civilly to non-Fae. Fae had once bred Shifters to hunt and fight for them, and they regarded Shifters as animals, one step below humans.

This woman looked troubled, confused, even embarra.s.sed. "You will do this."

"I will not."

"You must."

Was that panic now? Niall thrust the iron crane back into the fire and got to his feet. The Fae woman stepped back, and Niall fought an evil grin. Niall was big, even for a Shifter. His arms were strong from a lifetime of smithy work, and he'd always been tall. Alanna would come up to his chin if he stood next to her; her slender hands would get lost in his big ones. He could break her like a twig if he chose, and by the fear in her black eyes, she thought he'd choose to.

"Listen to me, la.s.s. Go back to wherever you came from, and tell them that Shifters take orders no more. We are no longer your slaves, or your hunters, or your pets. We are finished." He turned back to pump the bellows, sweat trickling down his bare back. "Besides, silver won't make a decent sword. The metal's too soft."

"Spells have been woven through the metal to make it as strong as steel. You will work it the same as you would any other sword."

"I will, will I? Fae don't use swords in any case your weapon is the bow. Not to mention the copper knife for gouging out other beings' hearts, usually while they're still beating."

"That is only the priests, and only when we need to make a sacrifice."

"Sacrifice, you call it? Seems like it's not much of a sacrifice for you but hard on the one who's losing his heart."

"That's really none of your affair. You need to make the sword for me. What we use it for doesn't concern you."

"You are wrong about that." Niall lifted the crane again, quickly hammered it into its final shape, and thrust it into his cooling barrel. Water and metal met with a hiss, and steam boiled into the air. "Anything I make has a little part of meself in it. I'm not putting that into a sacrificial weapon you'll stick into helpless animals or humans or Shifters who never did any harm to you."

Her brow clouded. "A piece of yourself? Blood or a bit of skin . . .?"

"Not literally, you ignorant woman. I don't christen it with blood, like some Fae priest. I mean I put a bit of my soul in everything I craft. G.o.ds know I wouldn't want Fae touching anything that's come close to my soul."

Her face flamed, and her look was now . . . ashamed? "Shifter, I have to take this sword back with me at first light."

Last light was now streaming through the door, the spring air turning even more frigid. "And where would I be getting time to craft such a thing before morning? Sword-working is a long business, and I have sons to look after. I'm not doing it, la.s.s. Go on home and tell them you couldn't bully the big, mean Shifter."

"d.a.m.n you." Alanna clenched her fists, eyes sparkling. "Are all Shifters this b.l.o.o.d.y stubborn? I thought I could do this without hurting you."

Niall looked her up and down. Fae could work powerful magic, without doubt, but not much in the human world. They'd given up that power to retreat to the safety of their own realm, while Shifters had learned to adapt and remain in the world of humans. Fae still had magic out here minor spells, glamour and misdirection, not that they didn't use those to lure human beings to their deaths.