Fachtna nodded but Britha wasn’t looking. ‘I could keep you warm and tell you tales of the Otherworld,’ he said. Neither of them noticed Teardrop over by the fire turn to look at them.
‘No,’ Britha said.
‘You will not lie with me for knowledge?’ Fachtna asked. She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Then it will just have to be for the pleasure of it.’
‘If I was going to lie with someone for power and knowledge, it would be with your friend,’ Britha said, still not looking at Fachtna because she was pretty sure that she would have to hit him if she did. She did not see Teardrop smiling as he turned away from them to look back into the flames. ‘As for pleasure, you already bore me. That is not a good start.’
‘I like a woman with spirit,’ Fachtna said.
And I’d like a man who could sing a different song, Britha thought. She tried not to think about Bress. She was not blind to his evil but there was something there, a sadness that had somehow touched her. And he was beautiful.
Fachtna broke her from her reverie by grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. ‘Let’s find pleasure together!’
‘Look, I’m sure this works with young landswomen—’
Fachtna covered her mouth with his. Britha was momentarily surprised. Then she felt his tongue against her lips. She opened her mouth.
Fachtna cried out and staggered away from Britha, his mouth bloody. He looked up at her, anger in his eyes. Britha spat his blood into those eyes. Momentarily blinded, Fachtna did not see the punch coming.
His nose felt much harder than she was expecting, but he was from the Otherworld, she reminded herself. She was, however, both surprised and satisfied by the strength of her punch. She heard the crack of the nose giving under her knuckles. The force of the blow picked Fachtna off his feet and he hit the ground by the shoreline hard.
Britha jumped on him. Landing sideways, she jammed a knee into his throat and tore her sickle out of her rope belt. Fachtna was starting to move, to counter, when he felt the blade of the sickle against his nether regions.
‘You are no warrior!’ Britha spat through bloody lips. ‘You are a childling grown large and I have gelded men for less! I lay this geas on you: if you ever touch a woman again without her words of permission, what little manhood you have will shrivel up and roll down the legs of your trews to be eaten by worms from the earth! Do you understand me, boy?!’
Fachtna opened his mouth.
‘That’s enough,’ Teardrop said quietly. Britha turned to look at the swollen-headed man, his skin reminding her of smooth varnished wood. ‘Britha, please.’ Something in his tone made her anger subside. She got to her feet and grabbed her spear, stalking past Teardrop. ‘He would not have—’ Teardrop started.
‘He touches me again, and I’ll cut the fingers off that did it and then the cock that made him want to.’
Fachtna watched her go. Teardrop moved to his prone friend and stood over him, leaning on his staff.
‘She is quite a woman,’ Fachtna said through a mouthful of blood, seemingly ignoring the pain. Teardrop just nodded. ‘I think I’m in love.’
‘You’re not in love. You can’t have her, and that makes you moonstruck.’
‘No, it’s love,’ Fachtna said, relishing the thought of the pursuit.
‘We’ve been friends for a long time now,’ Teardrop said. Fachtna nodded. Teardrop rammed the butt of his staff into Fachtna’s groin.
Fachtna howled in agony.
‘Don’t touch her again,’ Teardrop said, leaning down towards Fachtna as he rolled from side to side clutching his groin.
Britha heard the cry of pain, she suspected everyone in the harbour had. She did not look back but she did smile.
Teardrop stared over at the fort on the promontory. Beyond the gap in the rocks all he could see was darkness, a black sea and a black night. This country had beauty, there was no denying it, but he missed his home. He missed the wide-open plains, the thick woods teaming with game, but after his wife and his four children it was the sun that he missed the most.
He touched his head. He could feel its weight pressing down. He tried to block out what the crystal wanted to show him. It felt like there were thousands of screaming spirits somehow just out of sight, hiding. Those that didn’t scream whispered obscene things to him in impossible tongues. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember the words of the chant. He let it run through his head over and over again. A string of simple syllables but with power, sometimes the words were enough for peace.
‘Are you here because you want to be? Or to anger Fachtna?’ Teardrop asked with his eyes closed.
‘Do you think I care about Fachtna?’
Teardrop thought on the question. ‘No. No, I don’t,’ he conceded. ‘But I think you want something.’
‘I do,’ Britha replied.
Teardrop opened his eyes and turned to look at her. Since he had tasted of her blood and she of the crystal, he could see the demon blood burning inside her, and if he concentrated enough he could make out the thin strand of the Muileartach’s gift as well.
‘I want your power.’
‘Do you not have enough power?’
‘It’s not for me; it’s for my tribe. I will trade for it.’
‘What would you trade?’ Teardrop asked wearily.
‘What do you want?’
‘The secrets of the dryw?’ he asked, going through the motions.
Britha gave this some thought. The knowledge and the magics that had been passed down to her in the groves were secret. There was a powerful prohibition against telling them to outsiders. On the other hand, this man undoubtedly had power. Britha reasoned that she would be able to add what she learned from Teardrop to the power and knowledge of the groves. She was also prepared to face whatever punishment she would incur for betraying them. After all, she had failed her people; she had to do whatever it took to bring them back. Besides, when she had obtained what she wanted of Teardrop, he could always be dealt with.
‘Perhaps,’ she answered. Teardrop turned to look at her. She wasn’t sure what she saw in his face, his strange features were so difficult to read. Sadness, perhaps, disappointment.
‘The secret of woman’s magics?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.
Britha went cold. That was another matter altogether. Betraying the magic of women to a man was everything the other ban draoi had taught her to guard against. Men were simpler creatures than women and there were just some things they could not and should not know, and if Britha angered the other ban draoi, nobody could wreak vengeance on someone like a woman could. Their magic was darkness, life and blood. They were connected to the moon and the land itself in the same way that men were connected to the sky. The consequences of betraying the dryw would be dire but she feared the ban draoi more.
She moved closer to him, took his free hand and placed it against her groin, and looked him straight in the eyes.
‘That would depend on which secrets you meant.’
Teardrop could feel the heat of her, ever through her robe. Her smell filled his nostrils. He wasn’t blind to her. He felt the stirrings of lust, but that just made him feel further from home. He wondered how much younger than him she was as he wrenched his hand free.
‘A seduction? You would pay for mere power with your body?’
‘It’s my body. I use it how it pleases me. There’s little payment involved it if pleases both of us,’ Britha said fiercely. Sex was an intrinsic part of her rites as well as a pleasure. There were many different reasons for having sex.
Teardrop turned away from her and looked out past the rocks at the darkness. The squirming in his head made the darkness come alive for him. This place was so strange and distant.