Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Diarmuid

Spring departed and the sound of Cara's scream was forgotten, replaced by the memory of her soft kiss. As summer faded, Aonair relived the thrill of sliding his hand over her bottom. When the snows of winter had turned the world white, he would have sworn he'd put her revulsion, her rejection of him, totally out of his mind.

The fire had long since died, and the room grown so cold the water froze in the basin, when Eoghan shook Aonair awake. “Get to your horse.”

Old Donal let them out quietly through the side gate. Aonair knew better than to ask, but Eoghan for once was in a sharing mood. “He cheated me.”

Eoghan took the river road, it being broad and easy to travel in the dark. Perhaps an hour past midnight, Eoghan slowed his mount and turned down the narrow forest path to the charcoaler's hut.

Aonair closed his eyes.Why? Diarmuid is all puff.

Amid a screaming wife and crying children, they pulled him from the hut. Eoghan tied his hands together, looped a rope about his neck and tying the end to his saddle, dragged him away. Diarmuid struggled to run after the horse, slipping often in the snow. Aonair followed, calling out to Eoghan to ease up. “I don't want to go over the side in the dark.”

“How can you be so big and such a wimp?”

Nevertheless, he slowed to a walk. Twice Diarmuid fell, almost strangling himself, and twice Aonair, leaning over in the saddle, jerked him up onto his feet. It took better than two hours to scale Mt. Laoch. As they reached the top, he began to beg. “Please, Master Eoghan, please. I didn't mean no harm by it.”

“No, you meant to take my money.”

“I'll give it back. I swear.”

Eoghan dismounted. Aonair recognized the spot, but perhaps Eoghan didn't. Besides throwing people off, he didn't spend a lot of time up here. “Let me do it,” Aonair asked.

His brother laughed. “What's this? Words I thought never to hear. Is my baby brother growing up? Like to have a taste of killing?”

“Sure.”

Like a court dandy, Eoghan bowed and, with a wave of his hand, said, “As you wish.”

Aonair dismounted, grabbed Diarmuid, who was whaling like a newborn, and shoved him over the edge.

They returned to the castle as dawn lit the sky. Lord Laoch called from the door, “Boy, you've got rents to collect today.”

“I've been out all night with Eoghan.”

“Have you forgot who's lord?”

As Aonair turned his mount around, Eoghan laughed.

Aonair rode hard for the village, turning only when the road curved out of sight of the castle. He followed the river, riding by two women fetching water. Despite the cold, at the sight of him and his horribly disfigured head, they ran screaming into the river, shouting, “dragon-touched.” His wide path had him approaching the top of Mt. Laoch in the late morning. Aonair tied his rope to his mount and lowered himself down onto the icy ledge beside Diarmuid. In truth, he was sorely glad to see him; he had thought Diarmuid might slip off it, though at the widest part, it was a good twelve feet across.

“Stay away! Stay away!” Diarmuid’s eyes were wide with terror.

“Calm down, you fool. I'm here to cut you loose and help you climb up.”

Diarmuid quailed, inching backward away from Aonair, until he stood on a part of the ledge so narrow he was forced to stand on tiptoe.

“Come here.”

Diarmuid shook his head. “You’re dragon-touched.”

“That beast killed my mother, and you think I am in league with it?”

“No one survives a dragon. You're evil.” He spit his next words. “You're magiced.”

“Right now, I'm a man with a knife and a rope, and you are standing on a ledge.”

It was so cold their breath turned to smoke, yet sweat dotted Diarmuid's forehead. Aonair's clothes covered most of the scars. Certainly his scarred shins, and his right arm and shoulder were hidden. With his hood he tried to hide his scalp. But the pink, puckered skin encroaching on the right side of his face, his burned off right ear, and his grotesque hand were still visible.

“Diarmuid, let me help you.” Aonair stepped toward him, reached out his hand.

Diarmuid’s face turned as white as the dead. His eyes rolled back in his head.

“No!” Aonair tried to grab him as he fainted, falling silently over the side. Moments later a dull thud announced his death.

Aonair gripped the rope with hands suddenly gone weak. He struggled to climb; his feet slipped on the icy cliff face. Twice he slipped, his feet churning against the mountainside. “Rith, back up! Rith!” His horse saved him. As Aonair sat trembling on top of Mt. Laoch, Rith nuzzled off his hood and licked the top of his head. Aonair laid his cheek against Rith’s broad, warm neck. “Why didn't I hide among the rocks and throw the rope down.” He answered his own question. “Because his hands were tied. I should've asked Padraig to climb down and save him.”

Only with Rith's help was Aonair able to stand. Rith knelt to let him mount. Slowly, Aonair wound up the rope and looped it about the saddle. As Rith picked his way down the mountain, Aonair clutched the saddle horn, the horror of Diarmuid’s death had taken his strength. At the bottom of the mountain, as Rith turned for home, they passed a large beech, its trunk deformed with crusty knots.

“Whoa.”

Aonair did not dismount as much as fall from the saddle. He laid his hand on one of the knots, feeling its rough, bulging surface. A long-forgotten memory replayed itself.

“Look, Mother,” he had pointed, “tree warts.” Aonair had stood beneath the knot. Now, he squatted, wedging himself under it, peering out, seeing her laugh, the sun shining down on her long, curly hair. “You can't catch me.”

“Aonair!”

He'd laughed; she'd chased him. He'd run into the forest and, finding a deer path, ran along it, coming to a meadow . . .

It had been full of yellow flowers.

Rith whinnied behind him. Aonair fell to his knees in the snow. “Diarmuid!” Spit pooled in his mouth. He beat his clenched fists against his head. “You've known me for years. Could you not just once have taken my hand?”

Late in the afternoon, the wind kicked up. Aonair washed his face in the snow, mounted and turned Riff back toward the village. Dutifully, the men brought out the rents while the women hid in their huts, the children with them. Having collected the lord's due in the village, he turned Rith toward the forest path, because he must, of course, also collect from the charcoaler's wife.

“Where is he?” she asked, her hands worrying the apron about her waist.

Aonair looked at the ground. “At the bottom of Mt. Laoch.”

She labored to breathe, gasping. Her hands shook; her whole body convulsed. She came at him, daring to strike the dragon-touched beast with her fists. Her oldest, no more than four, threw charcoal at him.

Aonair arrived home late, missing supper. In his room, by candlelight, he entered the amounts in the household accounts. As he locked the money in a chest chained to the stone, Lord Laoch knocked on his door.

“Enter.”

“Eoghan told me you stepped up today, killed the thieving bastard yourself. Well done.”

Three nights later, when the torches had been lit on the walls, and dinner long eaten and forgotten, Aonair's brother, the second oldest, Padraig, limped back and forth across his bedroom, stopping to bend, to twist, trying to ease the ache from his back. Hearing the portcullis creak as it was raised, he stumbled to the window. Aonair rode out. Bam. The gate dropped back into place.

Padraig rubbed his bearded chin. He hustled as best he could, down the back stairs and out into the cold night, wincing with each step at the pain that shot down his crippled leg. Entering the stables, he called out, “Boy!” No answer.

Surely, he is abed.

Moonlight glinting off iron caught his eye. He stumbled forward, foreboding filling the pit of his belly. On a rail beside Rith's stall lay Aonair's knife and his mace.

As Padraig rushed across the courtyard, the wind kicked up. A few splats of sleet hit him in the face. He burst into the great hall where Eoghan sat having a second supper. “Go after him,” he shouted.

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“Who?”

“Aonair! He's gone into the village.”

“At this time of night?”

“You fool. It's Diarmuid.”

Eoghan shook his head as if to rid his brain off the ever-present confusion that was his brother.

Padraig grabbed the meat out of Eoghan’s fist and tossed it on the floor. “You're the fault of this. Aonair dies tonight because of you.”

Eoghan rose to his feet. “You dare much.”

“Me? You have killed your brother, and you sit eating like a boar, snout in your food.”

Eoghan shook from head to toe, his hands clenched in fury.

Padraig shouted all the louder. “Aonair's gone into the village!”

“So, he can handle ten men.”

Padraig slapped the knife and mace down on the table. “Unarmed? I tell you; he wants to die. He's going to let them kill him.”

The tavern was well lit, with smoke tumbling out of the chimney. Dismounting, Aonair tied the reins to the saddle. Rith whinnied.

Aonair slapped him on the rump. “Home.” But the stallion walked only a few steps and turned. “Home.” Aonair pointed to the road.

The horse shook his head.

Abruptly, Aonair charged the horse, who backed up, hooves dancing, protesting with grunts and snorts. “Go!”

As Aonair turned away, the horse ran toward him. “What?” He dived out of the way. As he picked himself up, a grin lightened his face, and Rith whinnied again, laughing with him.

“You're right, old friend. This is madness.”

He took a step toward the horse. Loving the game, Rith shied away . . . even as Diarmuid had on the ledge. In his mind, Aonair saw it again, Diarmuid’s eyes rolling back, his face as white as death. The weight of it fell on him, as if Diarmuid himself had dropped with a thud onto Aonair's shoulders. He turned and strode through the tavern door, banging it open.

A fire roared, making the room overly hot. It smelled of cider and toast. Every man in the place, of which there were fourteen, stared at him. He went to the cider barrel, grabbed a mug and dipping it, helped himself. He sat at the end of a table on a bench a mere foot from another man he well recognized as the blacksmith's eldest. The man got up and passing by Aonair, knocked his shoulder. Aonair's cider sloshed onto his face and down the front of his shirt.

Aonair closed his eyes. Be quick, damn you.

From across the room, a voice called. “Look, it's the runt of the litter.”

Standing by the fireplace, another spoke in a low, ugly sneer. “Must have been a litter of hell hounds.”

Laughter rang out and abruptly died.

“How is it that you survived a dragon?”

“He's a demon, he is.”

A mug hit the back of Aonair's head. Still, he didn't move, didn't turn.

“You know what I think?” A man weaved toward Aonair, slapped his hands down on the table and leaned in. “I think . . . you killed Diarmuid.” He spit, hitting the pink, puckered scars on Aonair's head.

They attacked him first from behind, a fist crashing into what remained of Aonair's right ear. Another's fist landed between his shoulder blades. They came at him in waves; two hauling him off the bench drove their fists into his belly. When he fell, three kicked him and one jumped up and down on his back. When he tried to stand, another brought him down with an iron poker across his shoulders. Two on each side, they seized him, dragged him across the floor, and as they would have roasted his face in the flames, Eoghan crashed through the door, Rory and Padraig two steps behind.

Riled, the villagers dropped Aonair and turned their wrath on his three brothers. Rory put his sword through the mason. Padraig fared not well at all. He threw a clumsy, slow fist. His intended victim moved, and Padraig, off balance, broke his hand against an oak beam. Eoghan swinging his mace, cracked the skull of one and scattered four more. As six scrambled for the door, Rory thrust his sword into the arse cheek of the last man out.

When the villagers had all scurried to their holes, Eoghan sat on the floor, his brother sprawled across his lap. Aonair gasped for breath and looked up into his brother's face. Eoghan held him now as he had held him then in the river, when half of his head was charred black. Thirteen when Aonair was born, it had been Eoghan who had lifted the toddler onto his shoulders, and Eoghan who had taught him to ride, and it had been to Eoghan's bed that Aonair had secretly fled when the lightening flashed and the booming thunder woke him.

“What's this? Afraid of water falling from the sky?”

Eoghan carried Aonair out of the tavern, laid him gently on the ground and mounted his horse. “Hand him up.”

Rory lifted him. Clutching his brother to himself, Eoghan turned his horse toward Laoch castle. Whinnying, Rith followed.

“You need healing as well,” Rory said, pointing to the hand Padraig clutched against his chest.

“I've needed healing since I was born.”

As his war horse slowly trod up the hill toward Laoch castle, Aonair whispered, “Why didn't you let me die?”

“Because you're my brother.”

Aonair laughed, coughing, and spitting up blood. “And the beatings?”

Eoghan's arms tightened about Aonair. “Will you never listen? How many times have I told you? The night I found you after the attack you told me that the dragon spoke to you. He said—”

Aonair finished the sentence. “'How convenient, Aonair, that you have come to me.' That didn't happen. You made it up. I don't remember the dragon talking. All I remember is a black mouth—"

Eoghan finished the sentence. “With black teeth and a black tongue and the air shimmering with heat and the flames coming toward you.”

Eoghan had found his mother's corpse no more than burned meat on bones. He'd called for Aonair until his voice gave out. As the sun began to set, he'd galloped his horse in a great circle, knowing that with the dark would come the wolves. When he hadn't found him, he'd returned to Castle Laoch, rousing every able-bodied man for the search. At midnight—he'd almost missed him— a shower of lights, landing in the water, caught his eye.

He'd drawn back on the reins, whispering to his horse, “Hold up.” He couldn't see anything different, but . . . the lights drew him forward. He'd urged his horse into the stream. He'd almost walked his horse right over his brother.

“Aonair!”

“Eoghan! Help!”

Throwing himself from the saddle, he'd knelt beside the horror that was his little brother. The right side of Aonair's head was black and bleeding, his arms and hands a terrible sight, the bottom half of his right leg . . . in one place he could see the bone.

Now, he held him close to his chest, speaking softly to him, as he had spoken that night. “Aonair, you were ten years old and a dragon came out of his pit; he roused himself to kill you—not Mother, you. If a dragon fears you, you're not evil, you’re good. And your life has a great purpose.”

It was Eoghan who undressed Aonair and laid him in his bed. Normally, the task would have fallen to Padraig, but with one hand in a cast, he was now, as Lord Laoch announced, “Even more useless.” Throughout Christmastide, Eoghan tended Aonair as he would have a lame horse or an injured sheep, with gentle hands and rough words. “What's this? You went wee all by yourself?”

 

 

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