Tír na nÓg Trilogy, Book III: Tír na nÓg

Tess Gets Accusatory

Emer sat by her tower window that evening, waiting, as she'd promised. Her whole body was on edge with anxiety. Setanta--Cuchulain--was coming for her; he'd promised, and she was sure he'd keep his promise. That name, Cuchulain . . . she realized she had heard it before. In the tales her old serving woman told her, stories which she'd thought were just that: stories. But that old woman had told her of a great warrior named Cuchulain who'd grown up the leader of a band of older boys after defeating them all and who, at the age of seventeen, had single-handedly vanquished the entire Connacht army when they'd attempted a cattle raid on Ulster. Her serving woman's stories--had they been true? Could Setanta be that famed warrior? Emer thrilled at the thought. She herself had been trained in arms, though not to the extent she'd have preferred. She could throw a dagger and shoot a slingshot, and she could launch a spear. She'd had some training in swordplay as well, but as she'd grown older, Forgall had forbidden such lessons and steered his foster daughter more toward riding, which he was surely now regretting.

But this man who wanted to wed her--the greatest living warrior? Was it possible? Why had he chosen her, of all people? Surely he could have had any woman in the land. Was that why he'd hidden his identity from her? Perhaps he'd wanted to know whether her feelings for him could be true, uninfluenced by anything she might have heard about him.

"Lady Emer?" droned a voice from behind, and she turned to see Peadar, the strange blind servant toward whom she'd always felt a sense of aversion, at her door. "Your father wishes to speak with you."

"I will come," she replied, then waited for the man to hobble off before slipping on her shoes and descending the crooked stone stairs to her father's greeting chamber on the ground floor. When she arrived, she was slightly surprised to see Forgall conversing with a woman in white robes. But then she relaxed--it was another druid. Or a druidess, in this case.

The woman had long, ash blonde hair, bunched up into thick mats and wrapped in what looked like cobwebs. When she turned to face Emer, the girl saw that along her sallow nose and cheeks were tattooed red swathes, which made her deep eyes raccoon-ish. The age of the woman was difficult to tell; she seemed to defy chronology--her wrinkles indicated she was an elder, and yet her features were too youthful to be old. But strangest of all were the woman's teeth which, when she smiled, revealed themselves as tiny, filed points. The way this druidess looked at her unsettled Emer; it was like the woman had been holding her breath for the girl's arrival. And indeed, when she saw Emer, the druidess clasped her claw-like hands together and cried, "Ah! This is the one, is it? I feel her immaculacy, even as she stands before me. She is unblemished, still; your efforts haven't been in vain."

"Thank Gods," Forgall huffed. "I was afraid that man had touched her."

"It's well, it's well--he has not," replied the druidess, approaching Emer and reaching a hand toward the girl's fair face even as Emer drew back. "Well, but she's unhappy that he hasn't!" the woman whined in her strange, high voice. "Best give her to me before she tries to run off with him."

Emer gasped. Had they discovered Setanta's plan?

"What's your offer?" Forgall tapped his fingers together greedily.

The woman pursed her lips, which made her look like a large child. "Twice your highest, whatever it might be. And you'll have the assurance she's in the best hands."

Emer was beginning to grow nervous. Her father had had several druids visit over the past few weeks, but this was the first one that had so blatantly discussed her in this manner, right as she stood there. "Why do you speak of me this way? Father--what does she mean?" Her thoughts returned to what Setanta had said to Forgall, something about rites and a price for her . . .