The Hallowed Isle Book Four Read Free Page B

“One more kiss—don’t waste it. Once we reach the court you may never see me again.”
    â€œLet me go, you silly boy—I’ll be late—” she protested, but she was laughing, and when he held her down and kissed her, she sighed and melted against him.
    It was his turn to laugh, then, as a single smooth movement brought him off the bed and upright. He crossed to the basin he had made her bring to the room, and began to wash. It was little more than a cubbyhole, with a single pallet that would hold two people only if they were very friendly. Butif Medraut had not had a knack for gaining what the Irish liked to call the “friendship of the thighs,” he would not have been here.
    He remembered, with momentary regret, the young priestess who had helped him to escape from the Isle of Maidens. Her kisses had been shy but sweet; it was too bad he had not had the time to take her maidenhead. To seduce one of the girls whose virginity his mother—the hypocrite—was guarding would have been a satisfactory first step to his revenge.
    â€œYou are mad,” said the kitchen girl, who still lay on the bed with her skirts rucked up about her thighs. “The high king does not hand out places at his court to every nameless wanderer. Even the lord Goriat served for two seasons in the kitchen.”
    â€œOh, I have a name,” answered Medraut, “though I have not shared it with you.” In truth, he had already forgotten hers. “But Goriat will no doubt remember you. Bring me to him, and you will have done all I require.”
    â€œOh, you are a proud one!” she exclaimed, lifting her chin with a mocking sniff. “I will bring you to my lord, and see how far you fly when he throws you out the door!”
    Ignoring her, Medraut went to his pack and pulled out the garments he had carried all the way from Dun Eidyn. At the flare of crimson silk, the girl fell silent, her eyes widening as he pulled on breeches of finely woven brown wool and shoes of tooled calfskin whose laces criss-crossed up his calves. The silk unrolled into a tunic, ornamented at shoulders and hem with bands embroidered with silver thread. From the folds of his chequered mantle he pulled a silver torc, and twisting, slid it around his neck, pulled a comb through his dark auburn hair and picked up the mantle.
    â€œWho are you?” breathed the girl.
    â€œTake me to Goriat, and you may learn—” Medraut gave her a sardonic smile. “If you remember what I told you to say. . . .”
    During the time it took for her to lead him from the cubbyhole in the old barracks through the narrow lanes of the fortress to the wide porch before the audience hall he refused to say another word.
    He had learned that Gualchmai was newly wedded, and away on his wife’s lands in the south, and Aggarban still on sick leave. That did not matter. It was Goriat who would be most likely to recognize him, and who must stand, however reluctantly, his ally. He had no difficulty recognizing him, standing with Gwyhir in the midst of laughing warriors, for his brothers overtopped most of the other men by a head.
    Only the court and its servants could enter. He had to depend on the girl to make her way through the men to Goriat. He saw his brother turn, frowning. Medraut grinned. He had told the girl to say a message had come for “Dandelion,” Goriat’s baby-name, but he gave it in the dialect of the north. In another moment both of his brothers were pushing through the crowd.
    â€œIt’s the brat!” exclaimed Goriat, staring at Medraut. Then he looked anxiously around him. “Where’s Mother?”
    â€œWith the holy bitches at the Lake, rump aimed at the moon and nose in the dust, muttering sorceries. . . .”
    â€œOh . . . my . . . mother’s baby boy has fled the nest indeed!” breathed Gwyhir. “I thought that you at least would stay with