Enchantress Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the courtyard.
    “I am Dagda,” said the Irishman. “I am the child’s guardian, and have been since her birth, even as I was the guardian of her mother, Maire Tir Connell, God assoil her, a princess of Ireland. The child is trueborn, but her stepmother seeks the father’s inheritance for herself and her expected child. Though I am a freedman there was nothing I could do to prevent this wickedness. I will not, however, leave my little lady, slaver. Where she goes, I go. ”
    For a moment Fren was nonplussed. He had never heard of such a thing outside of the East. A man caring for a female child? “Are you a eunuch?” he asked Dagda.
    The big man laughed loudly. “Nay,” he said. “I have all my parts.”
    Strange, thought Fren, but then as he gazed upon the huge Irishman, he realized that here was a stroke of truly good fortune. This Dagda would take upon himself the entire care of the child, and keep her quite safe until he could return to Constantinople to sell her to his client. Still it would not do to appear too easily cowed. “You may come along, giant,” he said pompously, “but I will expect you to earn your keep by helping me with other things. Charity is for the church and rich lords, and I am neither. Is that understood, giant?”
    “It is understood, slaver,” replied Dagda, and his blue eyes twinkled with amusement at Fren’s attempt to control the situation.
    The trader reached into his saddlebag, and withdrew from it a small leather slave collar to place about Mairin’s slender neck, but Dagda’s big hand stopped him. Startled, he looked up at the Irishman questioningly.
    “Would you spoil her skin, slaver? It is delicate beyond anything you’ve ever known, and that collar will mark it.”
    Fren thought for a moment. The giant was correct for he had seen marks a slave collar left about the neck. Such marks could spoil the child’s value, and it would really be a shame to mar such lovely skin. “Very well, Dagda,” he conceded, “but she must wear it when we are in the marketplace. I will not have you slipping off with my property, and me unable to prove it.”
    Dagda nodded and again his eyes twinkled with the infuriating knowledge that it was really he who was in control of the situation, and not Fren. A young boy led a large horse to the Irishman, and the slave trader’s eyes widened.
    “You own your own horse?” His admiring gaze slid over the big beast’s velvet brown coat.
    “Brys was the last gift that my lady’s mother gave to me before she died,” came the answer. “He will be no expense to you, slaver. He is good at foraging.” Vaulting into his saddle Dagda reached back down to draw Mairin up before him.
    Fren scrambled onto his own horse. There was still two hours’ light left, enough to travel several miles toward the coast. As they rode across the drawbridge of little Landerneau castle Mairin stared straight ahead, never once looking back, and Fren thinking it odd said to her, “Do you not wish a last glimpse of your home, girl?”
    She fixed him with a strangely adult gaze, and her voice was devoid of all emotion when she spoke. “Why should I look back, slaver? That castle is my past. I look to the future.”
    Fren shivered. There was something about Mairin that almost frightened him. He looked over at her, but she was once again staring straight ahead. Dagda, however, had a small smile upon his lips, and when his blue eyes met those of Fren they were brimming over with mirth. The slave trader felt a bolt of irritation shoot through him. The child was his property, and yet she behaved like a queen! Then he shrugged. A quick trip to England, and then he would return to Constantinople. Once there the brat would learn her place quickly enough as the play-thing of some rich man, and there would be nothing that that big Irish giant who called himself her guardian could do about it. In Constantinople Fren had powerful friends, men who called him by his rightful