Andrew Offutt - The Sign of the Moonbow

“So we’re found out, and your enemies have my friend and my prisoner, and are my enemies,” Cormac snapped. “They will shortly come here, for they know too that Dithorba is free, and surely his powers are known to your cousin and the mage. Dithorba! Where lies a place of safety for us all?” He glanced about at the pitiful little group of people become his responsibility. “A safe place with food;” he added, for it was obvious the prisoners had been fed but whimsically.

“Lughan… is dead,” the older woman said, rising from the naked body.

Riora came to the Gael, who had spoken so swiftly and decisively while Balan and her advisers remained as if in shock. Cormac noted again how Balan watched, frowning, and he saw the man’s Danan-pale knuckles go even whiter around the short sword that had been Elatha’s.

Balan has an eye for the queen, and mayhap there’s been aught between them, for sure and she’s a passionate woman , Cormac thought, and he’d not be forgetting.

It was Torna who spoke, the only one among them who bore some fat. “The rear room of the Inn of Red Rory! Ye know it, Dithorba.”

“O’course. But… if he be not loyal?”

Balan shrugged, stepping forward with some dignity despite his nakedness. “Cite me our choices,” he said, and all were aware of the sword in the naked man’s hand.

It was at Cormac Dithorba glanced; the Gael kept his eyes on Balan. Dithorba devised his meaning, and he too looked at the Guard commander for decision.

“My lord Torna first,” Balan said, “as he must seek to make… arrangements, with Red Rory.”

Dithorba took the hand of the queen’s chief adviser. They disappeared. The queen continued to press herself to Cormac, all heedless of his chainmail-and Balan. Cormac was most aware of that man, and of the others as well. Dithorba was soon back, alone; all seemed well at Red Rory’s.

“Lady Queen? Will yourself come now?”

“Take Balan,” she said, and turned only partway from Cormac, from whom she took not his hands.

“See that Commander Balan is clothed and armed immediately. Balan: have thoughts of raising a force of men for us.”

Balan had opened his mouth to speak; meeting his queen’s eyes and hearing her last words, he nodded and said naught. His gaze raked Cormac as he took Dithorba’s hand, and then they were gone. Cormac had not put his hands on the blue-gowned Riora, while hers had not left him.

Again Dithorba returned; this time he took young Captain Tathill. Six females remained, and Riora and Cormac. Instantly Tathill was gone, she stretched herself long to seek Cormac’s lips with her own, all heedless of the watching girls and woman. He saw that the woman of middle age was aware of his discomfort. She gave him a small understanding smile across the top of her monarch’s head.

When Dithorba returned once more, the discomfited mac Art wrapped powerful fingers around the queen’s azure-sleeved arm, and let her feel their strength. “Take the queen now, Dithorba.”

“No!”

Riora’s voice was loud and peremptory. Regaining her composure swiftly, she turned and coolly bade Dithorba take the others first. Her arm remained around the Gael, on the side of him away from Dithorba and her women. He wondered if she felt safe with him but had doubts about the Inn of Red Rory and was thus a wise ruler aware of her own value, or… if she wanted merely to continue possessively holding him she had called her champion.

Embarrassed and looking as if in some pain, Cormac shot Dithorba a look. The old man would not meet his gaze; he was less capable of making demurrers to his lady queen than the tall, rangy man she presently clung to. And with her free and no emergency on them, Cormac dared not countermand her or attempt even to argue. A sensible reason for her tarrying here was too obvious.

Dithorba took Tathill’s sweetheart, who was definitely in need of bed and blankets and whatever these people had of poultices and potions. Five remained; four were young and well-formed. The usurpers and Elatha the Whip had obviously been more than pleased to imprison the queen’s fetching handmaidens with her.

As they were taken unnaturally elsewhere, Riora pressed to Cormac and her lips were warm and soft and partway open, seeking and moving on his mouth. Her hands found his, drew them inward to her breasts. In seconds the links of his mail were marking his knuckles, for she pushed herself in forcefully as if her goal were the crushing of her bosom. Her breathing heightening, Riora had no care for the presence and eyes of her girls; Cormac had, but he was soon made to forget.

He responded helplessly to Riora’s insistent lips, her urgency… aye, and Cormac mac Art responded to the flattery, to the fact that this warm body crushed so urgently to his was that of a ruler of men… other men. His pulse began to be a drum in his temples.

“Ah! Alone but not alone-I want you, Cormac mac Art! You must remain here, remain in Moytura with me! ”

Cormac sought words and sought not to be stiff. “Much… remains to be done, lady Queen, ere the crown is restored to yourself. The future is far from now and it’s injury ye do yourself by this behavior before your… intimates.”

“Intimates! I have no intimates-my lessers!” She thrust herself back from him, though with both hands still on his arms. Her faintly tawny eyes flashed and seemed to flame. “You dare much, Cormac the Gael!”

His face worked. How to tell any woman, much less a queen, that she put much discomfort on him, that he was embarrassed for her? And this was a dangerous woman as well, passionate and swift to change her mood. His melancholy troubled look was not mirrored in her features, which drew and writhed with emotion. Was it anger? Was she acting? He did not know. He could not know; he knew this woman not at all. Certainly she could be cruel as a cat: witness Elatha’s slow, agonized death.

Though he’d never have expected such a feeling of himself, he was glad that he wore mail and that Dithorba had brought the gown for her to clothe her nakedness.

He was still seeking words when he heard the noises.

Far away behind her, chains rattled. That scrape and creak was of a great door’s being opened. Now he could detect the murmurous undertone of several voices, male. Aye, and those tiny clinks; he knew the sound of weighted scabbards sliding and thumping against mail under the impetus of the wearers’ steps.

Cormac’s arms rose and his wrists turned so that his hands moved over and in close on both her forearms. Riora mistook his intent, apparently not having heard the coming of men, though he was not sure whether her eyes shone or glittered. He forced her hands from him.

“Men come,” he whispered, looking past her into darkness, that part of the dungeon that was a corridor leading, to steps and the great door for sealing in prisoners. “They descend steps-hear ye, Queen Riora? Armed men approach, nor can they be other than minions of your cousin Cairluh. Get ye behind me. Ye have my dagger still?”

She heard them then, and in a rustling whisper of skirts Riora hurried to the iron-toothed table whereon lay the bloody corpse of Elatha. Swiftly she returned, bearing Cormac’s knife. It was marked with blood. The sound of muttering men drew closer and Cormac could see on the wall well up ahead the dance of yellow light; torches borne by striding men.

“Elatha!” a voice called, but the shouter was too far up the passage to be seen.

Coming instantly after that call, Dithorba’s appearance a few feet away brought a jerking response from Cormac mac Art.

“Give me the dagger, lady Queen Dithorba! Men come. Take her and hasten back for me, man!”

Riora clung to both dagger and Cormac while Dithorba looked confused. The Gael’s hand leaped out to grasp her slim wrist. Riora gasped, and his dagger clinked to the floor. Immediately he flung the queen of Moytura to Dithorba, and Cormac was quietly talking the while.