Keeper Of The Light Read Free Page B

and spends all her working time over the reeking dye pots. She is—”
    “I know what she is.” Rioghan glanced again at the dingy, gray-black linen tunic beside her on the straw. It looked as if it had been dyed with some noxious substance: soot, perhaps, or even a little blood. “Not one who is so powerful that she could take him against his will. She used just enough of the dark side of power to persuade him to bring her here, instead of to some hidden place in the forest as he would have preferred. That is why he brought her into your house and into your bed.”
    Sabha closed her eyes. “But why here, why in the late afternoon? They both knew that I would be returning from the hall at just that time!”
    Rioghan shook her head. Fury burned inside her. “Dear Sabha. This woman did know, though she made your husband forget. She planned for you to find them together. She hoped you would divorce your husband and leave him free to marry her.”
    “I think she may well have succeeded…though I hate the thought of giving her such satisfaction.”
    “Then consider the question that I ask you now: Do you wish to exact justice? Do you wish to teach them both a lesson they will never forget?”
    Sabha looked straight at Rioghan. Her voice was steadier than it had been. “Tell me what I must do.”
     
    A short time later Rioghan pushed open the door of Sabha’s house with her shoulder, holding an armload of hare and badger furs, and the black linen tunic against her chest. The other women hurried over to her, but she held up her fingers to request quiet. “She sleeps now, in the warm straw. I have given her a drink to help her rest.”
    “Will she be all right? Is she rational now?”
    “She will recover. Please let her sleep. It is the best thing for her. I will stay until dawn, and we can give her more of the tea that makes her sleep should she need it again.”
    With that, Rioghan let go of the bundled furs and the tunic she carried, and let them fall to the muddy ground. “Give these to the servants,” she said, “and tell them to throw them to your dogs—if the dogs will have them.”
     
     
    The eastern sky had turned the faintest gray when Rioghan and her two hounds walked across the yard of Cahir Cullen and approached the tall wooden gates. The gates opened for her just as she reached them, for the night watch was accustomed to her quiet presence and knew that she preferred to leave at dawn whenever possible. A moment later she, Scath, and Cogar were walking down the wide road toward home.
    Long ago—so long that none of them nor their children nor their grandchildren were still alive—the Sidhe had built this road between Sion and the holly grove where Cahir Cullen now stood. The road had been made from beams of timber laid both straight and crosswise to form a true, solid framework. Then the beams had been pegged together, filled in with twigs and rock, and covered over with earth to make a good surface for animals and chariots alike.
    It served humans on foot just as well, Rioghan had found, and it allowed her to make the journey to this fortress with relative ease whenever she was needed. Only in an emergency was the shorter, but more difficult way through the deep forest taken—for while the dense, dark needles of the pines offered shelter and screening even in winter, they could also house terrible danger.
    Donaill had been bold to bring his men down that nearly invisible path in the deep darkness last night. Even Rioghan, accustomed as she was to the forest, always found herself picking her way very carefully through that wild, thick, confusing stand of tall trees and heavy brush, with its uneven ground and haphazard rocks. Yet Donaill had done it without hesitation when someone at his fortress needed help, though Rioghan knew well that even the boldest of men were apprehensive at the thought of meeting any of the Sidhe…especially at night in the dark and misty forest.
    The Sidhe were the small,