Fair Blows the Wind Page 6

  My father had been a bookish man, quiet in manner and gentle of voice. He loved to walk the lonely beaches as I did, and to climb among the rocks. Often when resting he told me stories of the Milesians who had come to Ireland from Spain, long, long ago, and how the Irish were then called Scots from a Milesian queen named Scota. She had been a daughter of Pharaoh, ruler of Egypt. He told me tales of Conn of the Hundred Battles and of the old kings who ruled from Tara, and of the Druids who had been their teachers and advisers.

  He told me the story of how the Danes had settled Dublin. In Gaelic it was Dubh-Linn, or the Black Pond.

  One morning he took up his stick and said, “Come, lad, I’ve a thing to show you,” and he took me out along the shore and up among the rocks to a high place where the ground was suddenly flat, rimmed all around with the ruins of an ancient wall.

  “It was a castle once,” he said, “a fortress of a sort. It commanded,” he pointed the path, “a way up from the sea, yet it was a rare raider who came this way. Most often they came from the east coast and attacked the people who lived there. Only now are we in grave danger here.”

  “We are?”

  “You bear an old name, my son, as do I. Our name is a symbol, and so it has been for many, many years. Yes, one day they will come. Somehow we must get you safely away.”

  “I want to stay with you. I can fight.” I said this with more hope than honesty, for although I had learned to ride and to shoot, to fence and to duel with the quarterstaff, I had never fought except with my fists against the village boys.

  “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 counties 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.
<
br />   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.

  CHAPTER 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.

  One grasped wildly at my shoulder and my shirt tore under his hand. Yet I was briefly free of them and I went up the bank and swung over the wall, sprawling on the earth beyond. My hands closed over dirt and I came up quickly, frightened. They came over the wall at me and I flung the dust into their eyes.

  One man let a fearful yowl out of himself and both men grabbed for their eyes. At that moment I saw a stout stick, a twisted branch broken from the hedge nearby. Catching it up, I swung hard on the nearest man and caught him alongside the jaw, and he went down. Then I closed in on the second, whose eyes were busy blinking the dust away. He threw up a hand as I swung my cudgel but I brought it down, striking him on the kneecap.

  Then I ran.

  Across the pasture into which I’d fallen, past a barnyard and into the lane beyond. On I ran until I thought my lungs would burst, when suddenly before me there loomed a patch of woods bordered by a wall. I went over that wall and into the woods, pausing, my breath tearing at my lungs, to look back. There was no one in sight.

  I plodded on into the forest. I was sick of running and desperately worried, for in all this broad land there was no friend to whom I could turn. Nor had I a place to go. It was lonely and tired I was when at last I seated myself on a fallen tree and began to cry.

  Shamed am I to confess it, but so it was. Lonely and sick with the fear of all that was about me, with enemies all on every hand, I cried. My dear father was in my mind, and my lost home, and the knowledge that I’d no place to go nor anybody to go to anywhere that was friend to me.

  “Are you hurt?”

  It was a girl’s voice, and I sprang to my feet, putting a hand across my eyes to wipe the tears.

  She was standing there, not a dozen feet away, with a great dog beside her, a huge bull mastiff with great jowls.

  “I said, are you hurt? There you sit, crying like a great booby. What sort of boy are you, anyway?”

  “I was not crying!” I protested. “I was tired.”

  “What are you doing here in my forest?”

  “Your forest?”

  “Yes, mine it is, and I did not invite you here. You are nobody I have ever seen. Are you a gypsy?”

  “I am not!”

  “Well, do not be so proud. I think it not a bad thing to be a gypsy. I have often thought it would be a great thing to go riding about in a red-and-gold wagon, eating beside the road. I would have white horses, four of them, and I’d have Tiger with me, and—”

  “Who is Tiger?”

  “My dog. Tiger is his name.”

  “It is a cat’s name. Tigers are cats,” I said scornfully.

  “It is not! Tiger can be a dog’s name, also! My father said it could, and my father knows. Anyway,” she added, “Tiger does not know it is a cat’s name.”

  “He’s a large dog,” I said. And then more politely, “I am sorry I am in your wood. I—I wanted to rest.”

  “You are not poaching? If you were and the game-keeper found you—”

  “I do not poach,” I replied proudly. “I am sorry I disturbed you. I will go now.”

  Yet I did not go. I did not want to go. I had talked with no child of my years in many months.

  She was a pretty child, with large dark eyes and soft lips.

  “Have you come far?” she asked.

  “From very far away,” I said.

  “Your shirt is torn,” she said, “and you have skinned your knee.”

  Looking down, I saw that my stocking was torn and my knee bloody. “I fell,” I said.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I—I have just—” I stopped in time. If I admitted to eating at the tavern all would come out, and for all I knew the tavern keeper was her friend. The tavern could not be that far away. Suddenly I realized they might still be searching for me. “I must go,” I said.

  “It will be night soon,” she said. “Where will you sleep?” She looked at me curiously. “Will you sleep in a haycock? Or beside a hedge?”

  “It does not matter.” I edged away. “I must go.”

  I turned and took a step, then stopped. “It is a nice wood,” I said. “I did not mean it harm.”

  “I know you did not.” She stared at me. “I think you are frightened of something, and I think you should talk to my father. He is very brave.” And she added, “He was a soldier.”

  “I must be going.”

  I started away and then stopped, for there was a man standing there. He was a tall, slender man with fine features and brown eyes.

  “I do not know that I am very brave, my dear,” he said, “but I always hoped to be. Who are you, lad?”

  My eyes went down the way through the trees by which I had come. I needed to be away from here. I did not want to answer questions, nor to have them discover there had been trouble at the tavern, even if it was none of my doing.

  “I was just passing by,” I said, “and wished to rest. It seemed better off the road than on it.”

  He was regarding me very seriously. The girl came up and stood beside him, taking his hand. My father had held mine just that way, sometimes. The thought made tears come to my eyes and I brushed them away quickly and turned to go.

  “Wait.” He did not speak loudly but there was command in his tone. Involuntarily, I stopped. “I asked who you are.”

  “I am nobody,” I said. “I was just passing. I—I must go.”

  “Where is it you go to?” he asked. “My daughter is concerned.”

  “To London,” I said, desperately, wishing to be away.

  “I do not think you will reach London tonight,” he said quietly. “You had better come along with us.”

  “I cannot.”

  He waited, just waited, saying nothing. At last I said, “Some men at the tavern are looking for me. They will rob me.”

  “Rob you?” He smiled. “Are you rich, then?”

  “No. I do not think it matters if one has much. They would take whatever I had.”

  “Who were these men?” he persisted.

  Reluctantly, I explained what had happened, and how the man with the white hair had stopped the tavern keeper from overcharging me.

  He frowned thoughtfully. “A young man, with white hair? Was it a wig, perhaps?”

  “It was his own hair. His face was white, too. Like polished marble. Only his eyes seemed alive.”

  “And he spoke for you?”

  “Do you know him then?”

  “I do not. I think I know who he might have been, but why he is here, in this place, I
do not know. That he even was moved to speak to you, or act in your favor, is amazing.”

  “He did not actually speak to me.”

  The man changed the subject. “Come with us, lad. At least you can have some supper before you go. And we have a good woman here who might do something for that knee.”

  “But if they find me—”

  “Do you think they would come to my house? Lad, do not mistake them. Thieves they may be; cowards, also. Fools they are not…at least not so foolish as that.”

  He turned and started back, his daughter beside him, and I walked along with them. A bird suddenly flew up.

  “What was that?” the maid said.

  “A goldcrest,” I replied, not thinking.

  “Do they have them in Ireland then?” Her father spoke so casually that I replied quickly:

  “Yes…” then realizing what I had said, “and in Scotland as well.”

  He was amused, and it angered me. “The goldcrest likes a place where there are evergreens. He chooses to nest among them.”

  “Are you a Scot, then?”

  I did not wish to lie, and suddenly I realized I did not have to, for long ago were the Irish not called Scots?

  “It is a loose term,” I said, quoting my father. “For some Scots were Pictish and some were Gaelic, and some—” I stopped suddenly, and was silent.

  We had come to the path’s end in an open place covered with gravel where horses could gather for the hunt.

  The manor before us was old, but gracefully built, and I liked it much. Great old oaks and beeches stood about, and there were stables to one side.

  They started toward the great steps but I hung back. The man turned and beckoned me on, but I shook my head. “I cannot,” I said, “my boots are muddy and I am not dressed—”

  “It is my house,” the man replied quietly. “Do you come then. You are my guest.”

  “I am obliged,” I replied.

  He turned and glanced at me. “Now that you are here, will you dine with us?”