Erinsong Read Online Free PDF Page B

Laughter rolled out of the open door. Then
a swirl of color splashed before his eyes
and he caught a glimpse of very different
image—a glittering ala baster palace and a
high-domed structure too celes tial to
have been made by human hands.
    He lowered the buckets to the ground, swaying
dizzily. Was that a memory? Had he actually seen such magnificence
or was he gifted with an active imagination?
    The image wavered and
dissolved, and he found himself gazing
once more at the motley collection of buildings that made up the king of Donegal’s stronghold. No
moat, no defense except a waist-high stone wall broken in so many places it wouldn’t keep out a determined cow.
    Why did he notice that? Was
he a warrior? A raider? Did he have a
family to protect and support? His head ached when he tried to
force a memory. So far all he’d gleaned of his former life was a
few dis jointed images and a snippet of a
song.
    Surely more would come.
    Keefe turned in a slow
circle. No other habitation was visible
from the king’s hilltop, but curls of smoke rising above the trees betrayed the presence of several crofters’ cottages within a day’s walk of
the keep.
    Keefe shouldered his burden
and carried the water to Brenna at the far
end of the courtyard. She was busy adding woad to a large cauldron
near the en trance to an anteroom attached
to the keep. Through the open door, Keefe
saw several standing looms, piles of wool
to be carded, spindles and distaff. It was a homey room, rich with the scent of lanolin and alive with vibrant colored cloth, obviously the
exclu sive haunt of women in the
keep.
    “Where is your village from
here?” Keefe asked, pouring water into the waiting cauldron. Maybe
the name of a settlement would jar loose a
memory.
    “Me what?”
    “The nearest town,” he
said. The grimace on her face told him she still didn’t understand
the ques tion. “You know. A town, a place
where people live close
together?”
    “ And why would we be wanting to do that?”
    “For trade, for
protection.” He felt his way, thread ing
through unfamiliar corridors in his mind search ing for the right path. Something about the way the Irish
farmsteads sprawled over the hills and dales with no visible connection, no sense of a settlement, didn’t seem right to him, but he couldn’t say
why. “A town is where merchants and
craftsmen set up shop to sell their wares.”
    “Ye mean a fair, surely.”
Brenna stirred the water and seemed
satisfied when it turned a rich blue color. “ Of course we have a fair on both Samhain and Beltane. Everyone comes, the young and the old.
‘Tis merry enough, but I wouldn’t want to
be living there.”
    “Why not?”
    “After the contests, the
men are drunk for days. If we lived every
day as we do at fair time, we’d get no work from them at all.”
    “So you have no village.
This is all there is to your father’s
kingdom?” Keefe swept his hand in a wide arc to indicate the
decaying compound. “Seems to me any
Irishman in possession of a high spot can call himself a king if he likes.”
    Brenna bristled, her gray
eyes frosting over. “Me father is head of
the Donegal clan with three hundred men at
his call. He settles disputes and passes judgment.” A spurt of
indignation colored her cheeks with flame. “Many’s the blood feud
he’s put a stop to, and it’s a wise man as
can do that. Brian Ui Niall is king of far
more than this keep. I’ll thank ye not to speak lightly of me father and him sparin’ your neck only last evening. None but a fool berates what
he doesn’t understand.”
    He cocked his head at her.
Brenna was loyal, he had to give her that.
“Are you always so easily
irritated?”
    “Only by an irritating
man.” She turned her attention back to the vat of dye and stirred
it furiously. Blue liquid surged over the sides and splashed onto
the flagstones. Color rose in her face, making the sprinkling of freckles across her nose less
noticeable. “ Fetch me some peat