Deception's Princess (Princesses of Myth) Read Free Page B

he was going to present to you and give them to your sisters instead.”
    Cattle! We’d all forgotten about Father’s promise to reward our good behavior with five cows apiece. We scrambled after Mother like a tumble of puppies.
    A fire blazed high in the stone-ringed central hearth of the king’s great house. Men sat crowded on the benches that lined the walls or stood packed hip to hip, feasting and drinking. I expected we’d have to struggle through their midst to reach Father’s seat, but they moved aside for us like grass bending in the wind.
    “Ah, there they are!” Father exclaimed when he saw us. “My prized, beautiful daughters. Come here, girls.”
    We arranged ourselves in a row before him while he told the assembled men of Èriu of his promise to us. “You can’tmake peace with women using sword or spear, so you must buy it,” he declared, red-faced and grinning. “Five cows each was a fair price, but I’ve changed my mind. My daughters have come up in the world. They’ll each have ten cattle”—we six danced for joy while the warriors loudly approved their new High King’s generosity—“except for Maeve.”
    I was stricken. “Father, why—”
    “Patience, my spark.” He beckoned our bard to step forward. “Sing for us, Devnet, a new song. Give us something different, the tale of how the Fair Folk put a prince’s heart in a girl-child’s body.” He pointed at me.
    “Yes, my lord.” With a mischievous look, Devnet began to sing about my adventure with Dubh. I was so enchanted to hear a bard transform me into a heroine that I forgot my distress over losing those promised cows. He took some liberties with the tale, toying with it so merrily, so blatantly, that his listeners had to know it was all a joke. When he reached the point where I grabbed Dubh’s tail, he claimed I used it to swing myself onto the bull’s back and ride him to Tara and home again. His song served up the truth as well. Though he praised my courage, Devnet reminded everyone that I owed my life to luck, and he didn’t forget to include a comical account of how I stepped in a pile of the bull’s manure. I would have blushed if I hadn’t been giggling. There was no real malice in his words. He had everyone else in the hall laughing and cheering for me until the end, when he described my “noble warrior’s stink, her fair skin adorned with the brown smear of triumph.”
    Father rewarded our bard with a gleaming armband, then had me sit in his lap. “You see, my friends? All of my daughters shine, but my youngest shows a champion’s heart. Mark me,someday she’ll be a prize worthy of none but the greatest lord in Èriu.” He smiled at me. “It’s a shame I can’t reward your exploits with the hero’s portion, my spark. I’ll have to give you twenty cows instead.”
    “Nineteen,” I corrected him solemnly. “Nineteen and Dubh.”
    He laughed, praised my courage, and said, “How could any man deny you whatever you desire, Maeve?” But days later, when I first went out to see my newly given herd, there were twenty cows and no sign of the bull.

M Y SISTERS HAD said things would change for us now that Father was High King. They were right, but they never guessed how soon those changes would come. Clothru was sent out to fosterage by midsummer. Eithne and Èile, as next oldest, soon followed. Mugain went just before the first hard frost. In spite of how often they’d teased me for being the baby, I cried like an infant when each of them left home.
    Derbriu was the last to go. On that sad morning, six years after our other sisters had been put to fosterage, I became the lone princess in the High King’s house. Father drove away with Derbriu by his side. Mother’s women chattered ceaselessly about what a fine place the king had found for his sweet-voiced daughter. She was going to be raised by a noble family of the Ulaidh whose realm included Emain Macha, a site of sacred power.
    All I knew was that my