Veil of Time by Claire R. McDougall Read Free Book Online Page B

heard it spoken of creatures half woman, half man. Perhaps this is what was found.”
    Talorcan looked puzzled. “Do you mean in stories sung by the bards?”
    Fergus shook his head. “Not in stories, but real, a creature with all the parts of a woman and yet with the parts of a man, too.”
    Talorcan patted his back. “Too much fraoch drunk too quickly?”
    Fergus nudged his brother-in-law in the ribs. “I am telling only what I heard.”
    They followed Illa up higher, to where the fire burned high and hot against the dark sky, almost starless tonight because of the bright face of the moon. Murdoch spotted them and came running in his wide stride, the belly of his tunic taut around a growing stomach. His hair dark and curly, his eyes set deep below his brow, he stood an inch or two below his brother.
    “Come!” he shouted. “Come here.” He grasped his brother by the hand, ignored Talorcan. “What of your travels? But come and make your jump. The fire is dying.”
    Fergus and Illa followed him, Talorcan dragging behind. Fergus had not yet shaken that touch of death by the stones, so he ran straight at the fire and launched a leap that only just carried him to the other side. He barely cleared the charred wood and slipped on a rolling log that brought him down and covered the back of his tunic with ash.
    Fergus stood up, embarrassed, hearing Murdoch and the little girl laughing.
    “It’s a woman he needs,” Murdoch said. “She would put the spring back in his jump.”
    Fergus dusted himself off. “Is there no end to this?”
    Murdoch’s face grew dimmer, too. “The Briton didn’t suit his majesty?”
    Fergus gave his brother a shove, so that he, too, wasnow among the embers and covered in dust. Talorcan laughed. Illa stepped back; she knew the king well enough to expect the anger that often followed the tightened muscles of his jaw. But Murdoch got up and gathered himself.
    He tapped Fergus on the shoulder with a broad hand. “Next time, my friend, you will pay for that.”
    Fergus waved him off and set off towards the hut of the druidess. Illa took Talorcan’s hand; she knew to lag behind when her father had that look about him. Perhaps what he had to say to Sula was not for the ears of others.
    Fergus stood at the door and called Sula’s name. It was a few moments before she opened the door. If she was pleased to see him, little showed on her face, old grandmother of the people, actual grandmother to some of them. She barely nodded him in, and after the glare of the fire and the moon, it was hard for him to make out where the old woman had gone. He picked up an unfamiliar scent over the musty smell of Sula’s incense. He had heard that Roman women bathed in essence of flowers, but this was not any flower he knew of, and then, when the stranger came into focus by the far wall of the cell, she was not like any woman he had ever seen either.
    He started to move towards the shadow, but Sula held him back, feeling for the godstone about his neck, smiling when her fingers found it.
    He caught her hand. “Thank you,” he said. “Your blessings kept me safe, even in the Valley of Stones on Samhain. On foot.”
    She patted his arm. “You make yourself easy prey for the wandering dead on the night of Samhain, half dead you are.”
    “No,” he said, “there is still life, just burning a little dim.”
    He wanted to tell her more about the night ride, about the owl and the voices he had heard. But his eye kept moving to the stranger coming in and out of focus by the far wall. Her hair was short for a woman’s.
    “What is this?” he asked. “Man or woman?”
    He inched forward for a closer look. The woman did not seem young, and yet her face was smooth and appealing. Around her eyes she wore the dark lines he had seen in drawings of Scotta the Egyptian princess. Her defiant look held him, expecting him to look away. But he would not.
    “Take off her leg wrappings,” he said, “and we will see if she is