“No … you must not fight. You must escape, and then one day you will come back here and claim what is truly yours.
“The name must continue to live, even though it must live in hiding. This castle,” he gestured about him, “was built of huge timbers once. Twice it was destroyed, and then it was built of stone. Again it was destroyed and again rebuilt. The last time it lay as you now see it, but if the stones are down and the walls are gone, we still live. You must come back here, my son. Someday you must come back.”
A few short years later, he was dead, killed by the invader, and I was a fugitive, hunted through all the countries of Ireland.
My mother’s people were of the Tuatha De Danann, who ruled Ireland before the coming of the Milesians, a wise and strong people, noted for their arts and knowledge. So my people were doubly old in the land, and my name was known throughout Ireland.
Hard had been the years of my flight! Hard the very days after I landed in England! The village folk stared at me as I walked through, and the dogs barked and ran snapping at my heels, but frightened though I was I did not turn, but walked on through the village and away into the land.
That night I slept in a corner of a stone wall, and in the morning started on. The bit of food I’d brought from the boat lasted me through the day. Twice I turned down lonely lanes and then reached a muddy road and passed an inn. I’d a bit of money and my belly demanded attention, yet I hesitated for fear of stirring curiosity at a lad going his way alone.
Most inns would not wish my custom. Yet my hunger was such that I turned from the road and went up to the door.
It was an impressive place, with timbered galleries, a courtyard, and stables. I went into the common room, glancing into the kitchen as I passed the door. It seemed to glitter with copper kettles, brass candlesticks, and a row of pothooks at the wide fireplace.
There were evidently few travelers on the road, for there were but four men within the common room, one of them a stout, older man with gray hair who shot me a quick, appraising look out of kindly blue eyes. A pair of men who might be locals were sharing a bench and drinking to each other from the same tankard, as the custom was. The fourth man was slim and handsome, a man with prematurely white hair and lean features that might have been carved from marble, so white they were, and so expressionless save for the eyes. The eyes were very large and almost black.
He had glanced up when I came in, then paid me no attention.
I had slept in my clothes and they were rumpled. I must not have looked well, for the tavern keeper, a burly, brusque sort of man, came forward. “All right! We’ll have no—!”
Young I might be, but I’d not been born to a castle for nothing. “Ale,” I replied coolly, standing my ground, “and a bit of bread and cheese. If you have a slice or two of beef, so much the better.”
I pointed toward an empty table near the stout old man. “I’ll have it there,” I said and, ignoring him, I walked over and seated myself.
He hesitated, taken aback by my manner, so unlike a lad from the lanes or the farms. He started to speak. “I have little time,” I told him. “I am expected.”
He left the room and a maid came quickly throwing me a curious glance. She hit the table a swipe with a cloth and then put down a tankard of ale. “A moment, sir, and we’ll be having the rest.” Then under her breath she whispered, “If you’ve naught to pay with, better run now. He’s a fierce hard man!”
Placing a gold coin on the table, I heard her gasp. In a moment the tavern keeper was there and he reached for the coin. “Leave it,” I said. “When I’ve eaten you can take of it what is necessary.”
The white-haired man in the blue coat had turned his head and was regarding me. The last I wished was to draw attention to myself, but neither did I intend to be robbed or bullied. It was little enough I had, and each penny would be needed.
The tavern keeper turned from the table, his face and neck flushed with angry blood. He liked it not, being spoken to so by a mere lad, and had there not been others present it might have gone hard with me. Yet he was worried, too, for my manner told him what sort of person I was, and he wanted no trouble.
The food came soon, and I ate slowly, taking my time. Every morsel of food tasted good, and the ale did likewise. After a bit the old man got up, bobbed his head in a brief nod to me, and went out. A moment later I heard the creaking of a cart and glimpsed them pass the door, a covered cart drawn by a donkey. The old man walked alongside and a big dog trotted behind.
The tavern keeper came in again. “That’ll be sixpence,” he said.
The man with the white hair was gazing out the door. “Fourpence,” he said, absently.
The tavern keeper started, glancing swiftly at the white-haired man. “It’ll be sixpence,” he said under his breath.
“Fourpence,” the white-haired man repeated.
The tavern keeper took up the gold coin and left the room. I waited and waited, but the white-haired man waited also. Finally, my host returned and placed a stack of coins upon the table.
“Count them,” the man with the white hair said. “Is it that you think I’d cheat the lad?”
“You would,” the man said. He got to his feet. He was not a tall man but lean and well set up.
My coins were a half-crown short. I held out my hand for it, and with ill grace, he put the coin in my hand. “Now be off wi’ you!” he said gruffly.
“I shall,” I said, then added, “The ale needs a bit of aging.”
Once outside, the man with the white hair stepped to his saddle. He lifted a whip in salute, then rode away. Hastily, I made off down the road in the opposite direction. I had gone no more than a few yards before the two locals who’d been drinking in the tavern came to the door and looked up the road.
It was lucky for me they looked the wrong way first, for I saw them, knew what they were about, and ducked through the hedge. Once on the other side, I legged it along the back side of the hedge, then across the corner of the field and over a stone wall.
Behind me I heard a shout and knew I’d been seen, so crouching low behind the wall, I ran not away from them but back toward the lane. I heard them crashing through the hedge, but I reached it on the road above them, ducked through a hole, and crossed the lane and ran swiftly away from them.
A low wall loomed before me and I took it on the run, ducked behind a haycock and then a barn. There a dog saw me and began barking furiously but I kept on, knowing they’d be after me now. I’d no doubt the tavern keeper had put them on me.
Small though I was, I’d had practice in running these past months, and in dodging and hiding as well. I came out on another, smaller lane, and ran along it, holding to my own direction.
There was a village somewhere ahead, but I knew not whether that be good or bad, simply that it was there and I must consider it.
Then the village was before me but I went around a haycock along the back side of a barn and down a wild bit of hillside away from the village. Now I ran no longer, but moved from cover to cover, keeping an eye out for them.
I’d lost them, or so it looked. I came to another lane and followed it away from the village. But the lane suddenly betrayed me, taking a turn around a low hill within sight of the village. For there they were, the two of them, and no chance for me to get away.
They spread out a little and came at me.
8
To flee from them was impossible, for their legs were longer than mine. It was a sunken lane with stone walls on either side, and as they closed in toward me, I suddenly bolted between them.