Genonn glowered at Kathvar’s hissed invocations.

The others in the roundhouse were mumbling in time with the hiss. Genonn knew they were making noise for the sake of it. Aside from himself, only Kathvar and Fedelm knew the words. Despite being concentrated, the druid was grimacing beside the bier, his usual claim to frailty. Genonn wanted to cry, ‘He’s a fraud!’ but he would not. His father would view such an outburst as a betrayal, as would the other mourners in the roundhouse. It did not matter that his father had betrayed him first; Kathvar believed in obedience, not mimicry.

Finally falling silent, the old man climbed slowly to his feet, marking the end of the ritual. As Kathvar buckled on his sword belt, Genonn stared through the roundhouse door at the retainers standing beside the stones, heads bowed respectfully, waiting to carry the baskets up the hill. Those in the roundhouse would carry the bier. Fergus was to rest gazing over Cooley, where he died.

“Let us carry him up the hill,” Kathvar said, dragging Genonn’s eyes back into the roundhouse.

“Us, Father? Do you not mean you? Will you not watch while the rest of us toil up the hill with Fergus and the stones, shooing us to more haste because your mutton awaits?”

Kathvar turned away, but not before Genonn caught the hurt in his downturned eyes. He clenched his teeth. He had not wanted it to degenerate into another fight but, as always when Kathvar was involved, could not stop himself. He wondered what Imrinn would do. His brother never allowed their father to get the upper hand. Genonn had yet to learn the method. Perhaps it was a skill reserved for the second-born son?

“You, then. Why do you always take a literal meaning from my words?” Kathvar sighed.

Apologising, Genonn pleaded grief and a heavy mind. As he turned to join the queue of mourners, Kathvar said his mind was also heavy. Genonn knew what was on his father’s mind differed from the others in the roundhouse, which was confirmed when the old man said, “Come with me to Caer Leb. Take up the role you trained so hard for. With the coming troubles, we could easily find a suitable position.”

“Troubles, Father?”

“I know you think me foolish, but they will come.”

“I helped keep Queen Medb in her place, but I will never again take up the staff.”

“But why? It is a noble calling.”

“You know why. I beg you to accept it.” I saw you hang an innocent man, and now you pretend it did not happen.

“You are needed now more than ever. The Romans are coming. We need to be strong.”

“Who needs this strength, the Elder Council or the people?”

“We all need it, Genonn. There is no distinction. The Council represents the will of the people.”

“The will of the people? Maybe that’s true, but I disagree with your methods. It would be hypocritical of me to return,” Genonn said, pulling at an earlobe. “Besides, I burned my staff. I threw it in the smith’s fire when I picked up Fíoch.” He patted the hilt of his ornate sword, which still felt out of place, even after twenty years.

“A staff is easily replaced, boy. Ten years of training is not.”

He still sees me as a boy.

Genonn put his clenched fists in the small of his back and stretched, suppressing a groan. He glared at Kathvar standing in the queue, his wispy beard tucked into his belt, company for the sword many feared. Signs of frailty and strength cohabiting, the frailty naught but a ruse.

“I will not take your druidic name,” he spat out and then regretted it.

Druids spent years training their replacement, who would carry on their legacy and name. Losing a trained successor, for whatever reason, was a severe blow. Because Imrinn had stopped his studies, Kathvar no longer had an heir; Genonn did not need to compound that loss with spite.

“I have another in mind for the training,” his father said, turning his back, his shoulders stressed.

Genonn could not be sure, but Kathvar seemed to feel more pressure now than ever before. Maybe Imrinn’s blurted abandonment and rushing away was taking a toll. He tried to ease the tension by asking, “Should we not wait for Conall?”

“Conall is long gone,” Kathvar said.

“Gone where, Father?”

“Gone with that mad brother of yours, who cares where? You saw them galloping away, Genonn. Do not tell me you did not. They are not coming. They have other concerns.”

“You are just smarting at Imrinn’s announcement.”

The old man did not reply, but his face hardened. Without an heir, the Council would select someone to replace him. Meaning that Dornoll would choose someone, and Kathvar would do anything to prevent the druidess from appointing his successor.

“Your father is right,” Cú Chulainn interrupted. “Conall is not coming.”

Although still little more than a boy, Cú Chulainn was already chieftain of Dún Dealgan, and Genonn knew he was not someone to be lightly crossed. Despite that knowledge, he could not help but press his point, “Oh. How do you know?”

“He would have been here by now. My father holds stock in the rituals and would not be late.”

“He might have been delayed.”

“Conall is not coming,” Cú Chulainn repeated, shaking his head. “I know him well. Nothing would delay him.”

Genonn felt a need to argue and tell Cú Chulainn to wait for his foster father. He wanted everything to run as the rites demanded, not because he thought the Tuatha would hear but because Conall would like it to be so. He had been Fergus’s closest friend. He loved Fergus and should be present as they built the cairn so he could speak his parting words.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“These are your lands, Cú Chulainn,” Kathvar said. “It is for you to decide.”

Genonn wanted to grab his father and shake him, tell him to stick to his own affairs and tell him he had been interfering for far too long. Instead, he sighed and turned away.

“There has been enough delay,” Cú Chulainn said. “Fergus is sure to be wondering at the cause. We proceed.”

Genonn turned back as the bearers gathered around the bier and hoisted it aloft. He was muttering under his breath when Fedelm took his wrist, saying, “I saw them ride from Gáirech after they found Fergus. There was haste and anger in their departure. They are not coming. I am sure, Genonn.”

Her flaming red hair and tear-stained cheeks made him squeeze his eyes shut and shake his head. Her skin was so white that the tear tracks were only visible because she had blacked her eyes, and the black was running.

“Why does that make you think they are not coming?” he asked, trying to distract himself.

“They were chasing Ailill. If the king’s army doesn’t arrive in Crúachain before them, I fear Conall will attack, and Tuatha damn the consequences. If he attacks, they will tear him into pieces.”

He will die, Genonn read in her sympathetic eyes. “What are you saying?” he asked.

“Conall is consumed with a need for revenge. He won’t stop until Ailill’s dead.”

“Consumed with a need for revenge, is he? And there’s the rub.”

“What do you mean?” Fedelm asked, arching her eyebrows.

“It wasn’t Ailill who ordered Fergus murdered.”

Fedelm opened her mouth to ask his meaning when the procession started, and she closed it with a snap, frustration evident in the tightness of her lips.

***

Conall was about to pull his mare around and ride back into the forest when a woman appeared beside the palisade, heading for the forest path. She was tall, walking with purpose. Seeing her reminded him of the small postern gate in the rear of the settlement. He guessed the guards had not warned the king after all. Despite being cowled, with her hood up, Conall knew her. Few women in the Five Kingdoms matched their men for height. And those he knew were either warriors or Queen Medb.

Conall swung down and tied his mare to a tree.

He soon lost sight of the figure flitting between the forest trees. It did not matter. He knew where Medb would go, having spent time with her and Ailill when he was in exile. After more than a year living in the Royal Enclosure, he knew she bathed twice daily, morning and evening. She was trying to wash something away. She claimed she needed to be cleansed, and he believed her—this time, at least.

As she did each morning, Medb was going to the river. The little clearing where the sun shone through the canopy. Where she would have some privacy in which to torment her skin to the cusp of drawing blood—he knew the way because he followed her one morning to see where she went. He’d hidden in the undergrowth and watched her scrubbing furiously at the imagined filth.

He moved through the forest slowly, checking each footfall before he placed it. He did not want to make Medb aware of his presence. Give her time to formulate some way to trap him with the power of her voice. Conall had met few women who carried that power. Medb was one of them. Perhaps the strongest of them.

By the time he reached her, she was already bathing, lying with her back propped on the bank opposite. Despite her years, the queen was still a handsome woman. Conall stopped by the glade’s edge and stared at her as she washed. Languid, easy strokes had replaced panicked scrubbing. He did not doubt she knew he was there, her ease for his benefit. Watching as she pretended ignorance, he wondered about Imrinn’s fears. Was Medb playing him? Was she laying a trap for him? He knew many a warrior would fall for her wiles. Many already had. She used her body as a weapon most could not resist.

But not Conall. He was immune.

Attraction, or lack of it aside, he found her calm a surprise—shocking, especially if she knew him to be there. It had only been a handful of days. She was not acting like a woman who’d had the blood of her lover wash over her like some crazy sacrificial rite. She was different from the woman who ran screaming into the Red Branch camp. There was none of the agitation. He knew she was a strong woman—no one had ever denied her fortitude—but was she that strong? Was anyone that strong?

He could not believe it was only a handful of days since he last interrupted her bathing. After she’d left the battle, she searched for a pool. Water was obviously her preferred comfort method, as some children would use a blanket. Cú, Laeg, and himself had discovered her and confronted her because Cú wanted to know if she was involved in the murder of Dervla, his first love. The queen denied any part in it, which the lad accepted. Conall did not. Medb was inherently evil, and the sooner she met an end...

Who better to give it to her than me? he thought as he walked out from under the trees and said, “You seem calm.”

She started, covering her breasts with her forearm before relaxing and saying, “Oh, it is you, Conall. The guards said a warrior but did not name you.”

So, you thought of laying a trap. “And yet you came here alone. Not a sound action, I think.”

She laughed, dropping her arm into the water. “I am the Witch Queen. I have nothing to fear from mortal warriors like you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Fedelm told me the manner of my death, and it was not by the sword.”

Conall glared at her as she started washing anew, sure in her power over men. It was a power she had exercised for many summers. Fearsome. But sometimes fallible. Mac Nessa had not felt it. Conall believed her claim that the King of Ulster raped her on the banks of the Bóand. He’d seen the furious scrubbing. Besides, Mac Nessa was the type who would use sex as a weapon. Especially when he felt threatened by the victim. She begged for mercy for her son, and he raped her as punishment for her insolence.

“You are a long way from home,” she said, her smile fixed in place and her languid strokes continuing. The modesty of moments before forgotten.

“Aye, that’s the truth. Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”

“I know why you are here. You seek payment of the blood debt. Ailill’s life is forfeit. I do not know why you are here,” she said, spreading her arms and indicating the glade. “Did you think I would help you in some way? Sneak you past the gate guards, perhaps? Poison the sot in his bed?

“I cannot help you, Warrior of Ulster. I will not betray those I love, even if they have proved weak and turned to the flagon. Unlike you.”

“Unlike me how, Lady?”

“You do betray those you love. Can you not recall the last time you interrupted my bathing? What I said to you? Surely you do. It has only been a matter of days.”

“Much has happened since,” he said, clenching his fists so hard his knuckles were white. He should have killed her then. He told her he would kill her if she threatened those he loved. Now, she was doing just that.

“I agree, much has happened. But even a warrior as old as you must remember only a few days ago.”

“I remember, Cailleach.”

“Ah, so now you resort to insults. I do not find it insulting because I am a witch. I trained in the black arts in the lost city of Babylon. But you know that, Conall. It is no secret.”

“I know you tell people you’re a witch and traveled to Babylon. I don’t believe it. Witches are something used to scare wayward children.”

“You would wager so much on that assumption? The assumption you think you know what I am capable of?”

“I know you’re capable of murder. I don’t need to know anything more.”

“If you know, then why are you still here?” she asked, rising from the water, arms by her sides, smirk on her tilted head.

Conall wanted to scream a war cry at her. Lop off her head to hang from his belt. If he did not, not only would he be putting others at risk and breaking his solemn oath to protect those he loved. But how could he kill an unarmed and naked lady? Even with all her claims to be a user of the black arts and otherworldly power, claims Conall knew to be nonsense. Her power was in the irresistibility of her voice. She might not be innocent, but she was vulnerable, unarmed, her infamous dagger tangled up in the dress she’d discarded on the bank. Killing her would go against all he held to be honorable.

“With you here, my people are safe,” he almost whispered, almost pleading.

“Are you sure? Do you think I am incapable of reaching beyond my immediate surrounds?” she asked, smiling, a question in her eyes as well as on her lips. Needing no further convincing, he turned and ran for his mare. He had to get to Dún Dealgan and ensure his friends were safe. He had to put her lie to the test.

She laughed as he ran. He could hear it echoing after him even as he untied his mare and swung into the saddle. He fancied he could still hear it as he began galloping down the east road. East for Dún Dealgan.