Warrior's Daughter by Holly Bennett Read Free Book Online

below and beyond our own. The thought came to me unbidden: she is lovelier than my mother. Immediately I tried to take it back, but I couldn’t. My mother’s beauty glowed with life and strength, like the sun on a summer’s day. But Deirdriu had the fragile unearthly delicacy of the first blush of dawn or the first snowdrop of spring.
    She dropped her head and the star winked out. But I could not forget what I had seen nor stop wondering what burden had left its dark mark on her eyes.
    We rose at dawn to see the men off, and for the first time I understood what an army was. Men and horses, chariots and wagons, more than I had ever imagined, tossed and churned like a vast sea. An ocean of men, I thought, and indeed they did seem to float on the thick morning mist that steamed from the earth and hid the turf in a silvery drifting cloud. When the men clashed their weapons against their shields and shouted for Conchobor, the din seemed to shake the earth as well as the air, throbbing up through my legs and deafening my ears. On his word they thundered south across the plain, all in their companies, and it was not until the last tiny speck had vanished over the last hazy hill that my mother pulled her gaze back from the horizon. She smiled at me and squeezed my hand, but I could tell it was hard for her to turn away and walk back to the walls of Emain. Her heart had ridden out with Ulster’s champions to the Cooley Hills, and it was only I who kept her body from following.
    “They call her Deirdriu of the Sorrows.”
    On the slow walk back to the gates, Emer consented to speak of the queen.
    “I would rather you had not known of her. But if we are to stay in Emain, doubtless you will hear talk.” We walked in silence for some time. I suppose my mother was searching for a way to tell the story that would not upset a young girl, but it couldn’t be done. And yet I knew if I waited long enough, she would continue, and so she did.
    “There was a prophecy about Deirdriu, before she left her mother’s belly, that she would be beautiful beyond all others, and that she would bring death and jealous discord to Ulster,” my mother said. “So Conchobor, thinking perhaps to forestall any fighting over her, had her raised in an isolated place, out of sight of all men, to be his bride when she grew to womanhood. And in due time, she was brought to the king to be wed, barely out of her girlhood and innocent of the world.”
    My mother sighed. “And then the prophecy came true.”
    As soon as he laid eyes upon Deirdriu, the king was desperate with desire. But Deirdriu’s eyes, which had never seen a man her own age, rested upon the lovely face and limbs of the young warrior Naoise. She loved him deeply, and he her, and so they fled Emain Macha together, sailing finally to the shores of Alba where they lived together for some years.
    Conchobor’s men bitterly resented the banishment of Naoise and his two brothers, who had gone with him, for they all three were loved and admired by all of Ulster. But Conchobor burned for Deirdriu. And so he sent Fergus as a messenger to Naoise, saying that he was forgiven and that he and his brothers—andDeirdriu too, of course—were welcome back in Ulster. And Fergus, unaware of the king’s treachery, gave his bond for their safety.
    Perhaps you have guessed how this story ends. I did, but then I had Deirdriu’s pale, still face to help me. Conchobor set his men upon Naoise and his brothers and killed them, and the king took Deirdriu to his marriage bed. And that is why Fergus was not among the men of Ulster. Outraged at the king’s betrayal of his honor, he had left Emain Macha and ridden to Connaught, where he offered his service to Maeve and Ailill.
    “But Deirdriu will give the king no pleasure,” concluded my mother. “She will not eat with him, or speak with him, or smile in his presence, or even look upon him. Her heart is with Naoise, you see, whatever the king wills.”
    I pondered