Never had Cormac mac Art seen anyone so pale.
An infant, mayhap; a toddler never out of the house. As this girl of the Danans had never been out of the earth. No sun had ever touched that skin, nor that of her parents or their parents before them, nor indeed any of her forebears, for some five centuries. They and their arcane art had somehow brought with them the light of their goddess, for this chamber was brighter, as though bathed in moonlight. But not sunlight. Aye, the Danans, for so pale was this one that she had to be of those people of sub-Eirrin, despite her great difference from those of the Isle of Daneira.
Though strange, the pearly colour of her hair, ever so faintly tinged with the palest slate blue, was far from distasteful. Cormac had seen ash-blonds afore, though hardly often, and he had seen too those whose hair went grey and even white ere they had lived long enough to gain the wrinkles of age; he thought such hair beautiful.
This Danan’s hair was that hue all over her body, he saw, and she was superbly constructed-strangely no darker round her nipples than the inner shell of a mussel-and attractive by the standards of any people he knew, assuming they judged not beauty by the amount of flesh. Though true, he had not yet seen her face.
Like those of Daneira, this sobbing Danan was slight, lightly boned and extremely short; five feet, if that tall.
Cormac spoke quietly, with deliberate slowness and care for pronunciation.
“Whatever it is that puts sadness on ye, we’ll not be adding to it.”
Up came her head; wide went eyes more pale than ever Cormac had seen even among the Norse. Her sobs ended. Fine nostrils flared as with a little cry she drew back against a wall of rocky earth shored with both wood and stones. She stared, shrinking.
“We bring you absolutely no harm,” Cormac said, uncomfortable in the role of gentleness; it was little practice he’d had. “D’ye understand my words?”
Silent and huge-eyed, weird-eyed, she nodded. Her head was longish, her face thin and with pronounced bone-structure. Like those of a rabbit though nigh without colour, her eyes swiftly shifted their skittish gaze from one to the other of the three men before her. Cormac knew that they were even stranger to her than she to them; they expected the unusual. On impulse, he squatted. Even at a distance of two lengths of his body, he towered over the girl on the floor against the wall, her legs and arms drawn up defensively.
“My name is Cormac mac Art. He of the red beard is Wulfhere. Wulfhere. This is… Thulsa. It’s from… above, that we’ve come. And in peace… oh.”
He had forgotten. From between tunic and mailcoat he lifted the silver chain, with its pendent sign of the Moonbow.
The girl gasped, stared. Her head came forward a trifle to peer at the sigil. Her gaze shifted to the chest of Thulsa Doom. She blinked and tucked her lower lip betwixt her teeth.
“It is as friend of Danu and Her people I come, with my blood-brother and him who is my captive, bonded to me by the Chains of Danu.” Cormac smiled. “We are not monster Gaels come to eat ye! Indeed, we come bearing some gifts, and begging a boon.”
Still she said naught, but only stared.
“It’s slowly I’m talking because it’s apart our tongues have grown, your people’s and mine, across the hundreds of years. Please do the same. It’s of the Danans ye be?”
Long he waited for her reply; at last she said, in a tiny voice, “Aye. Cor… Cormac mac… your hair! And his hair… and so tall ye be, all three!”
Cormac showed her another smile, working very hard at being gentle and confidence-winning. “And to us ye be lovely small, child of Danu! I… it’s on me to ask…” He paused. “See us as friends of yourself, g-will ye be telling us your name?”
She was staring past him with those positively unsettling eyes with less colour than the underside of a cloud. Abruptly realizing that it was not cold as he’d expected, so deep in the earth, he gave thought to the possibility that the Danans of sub-Eirrin wore no clothing. But her legs were drawn up and to one side, heels at her buttocks, thus concealing her privates in apparent modesty. Her arms remained across breasts that he had already seen were firm and high and pointy of tip, like cones of snow.
He asked her again. Her gaze snapped to his face.
“Oh! I make apology-I was staring… the beard of… of…”
“Wulfhere,” the Dane rumbled, and she jerked a little.
“Oh! And what a voice! Your beard is beautiful, my lord Wulfhere. I-my name is Erris. Of the de Danann, aye. It’s handmaid I am, to Queen Riora Feachtnachis of Moytura.”
Queen Riora! This time Cormac’s smile was broad and genuine.
Chapter Nine:
Battle Beneath the Earth
Cormac gazed smiling upon Erris the Danan, handmaiden to Riora, Queen of Moytura. His heart surged and he felt as if a breeze had arisen to blow warm air over him.
A queen ruled here, beneath and within Eirrin; a crowned woman!
The queen of Moytura… Moytura: Magh Tuiredh, the site of the long, long ago battle in which the Danans had put defeat on the Fir Bholgs, the first rulers of Eirrin. As for the other names, Erris and Riora; well, the sounds were familiar, though Rory-Rudraighe-was a man’s name. The naming of people had taken its own course here, he realized.
Cormac mac Art twisted about to share an elated look with Wulfhere.
Grinning, Wulfhere asked, “And do the people of Moytura wear no clothing?”
Immediately Erris of Moytura erupted anew into tears. Cormac resisted the desire to get up and strangle the Dane…
Rising, he pulled around the sizeable belt-pouch he wore, and fished within it while he approached Erris. He squatted before the small huddled form. His touch was gentle, and his hand on her shoulder looked like the shadows of night swallowing the wan glow of the moon. She looked up briefly, stricken and tear-stained; dropped her head to her hands again.
He felt foolish, proffering the necklace from the Doom-heim trove. Jewels they had brought, aye, hopefully to deal with a queen. But of clothing-none. All, every scrap of cloth, Samaire and the others had taken to Tara. Yet now he remembered that he had that to offer her which would cover her nakedness, though he hated with a man’s instincts and urges to see it done. Naturally he and Wulfhere wore cloaks; they had wrapped themselves well in them, each night.
He cupped his palm under the disk of his mantle’s brooch, drew forth the pin, and caught the disk in his palm. Setting them aside, he removed his cloak, placed it over her drawn-up form, to the chin. He tucked it around.
She stilled her sobs, looked up sniffing. For a long while she gazed into his eyes.
“You are kind,” she said.
“Is it kindness to lend clothing to someone who has none? Here, here is the clasp to my cloak.” He considered. “Ye have done wrong, Erris Rioranacht? ye were stripped and…” He looked about, and it came to him. This was not Moytura-not yet! “And cast out!” he blurted.
She nodded, her so-pale eyes watery and leaking tears down the cheeks of her thin face. Looking at him, she tugged the cloak up to cover all of her save her head-and her back, which was against the tunnel’s wall. She told him.
Yes. She had been stripped, and cast forth-but not for wrongdoing. Because she was the queen’s favourite.
Cormac frowned and a coldness grew around his heart.
Erris of Moytura spoke more, and all elation faded from him, and from Wulfhere, until it had ceased to exist and it was only distress they knew.
Riora of Moytura was daughter of Riora, queen. But a year ago the queen had died; her daughter was crowned. Riora, daughter of Riora, was queen of Danan Moytura.
But Queen Riora did not rule in Moytura.
Her cousin Cairluh had plotted with the mage, Tarmur Roag. Cairluh and Tarmur Roag had seized power in Moytura; they ruled.