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Hamid ibn Shanfara strode the island tirelessly in his white robes and turban, wailing Moorish and Celtic battle songs and constantly inventing immediate rhymed accounts of events that were still going on as he chanted them. Farrell stayed closer to Mathgamhain of Cliodhna, dutifully cheering the Irish lord into every encounter, bearing messages for him and his household, and casting increasingly wistful glances at the refreshment table each time he was swept past it, That’s where I make my stand, boy. Bury me where the braunschweiger’ll wave over my grave.
It was like being at a League tourney that went on forever, without dancing or jugglers. In a certain fashion, matters obeyed the vague rhythms of a real campaign, lurching back and forth between the various outworks and the shore, but continually breaking off for i
There was no sign or sense of Aiffe, nor of Nicholas Bo
“Me, too,” Farrell said. But he was hot and grubby and unable at present to think seriously about anything but beer. While Mathgamhain’s men were choosing a new captain from among themselves, he wandered away among the trees until he came to a clear-trodden path that he thought led to Glendower’s Oak, where the slain and the captive alike went, and where there might be something on hand other than William’s stickily dangerous mead. The woods seemed thicker and wilder here, laced with deep, luminous alleys, and the air tasted of old silence. Farrell began to play softly as he walked—a Latin drinking song that Chaucer had known—and presently paused to retune the lute to a more suitable mode. But for that halt, he might not have heard Aiffe’s voice directly ahead of him nor had time to lie down by the path among tree roots and long grass. He could not see her, because his cheek was tucked hard against spongy bark and his eyes were shut. He knew beyond the absurdity of it that she would find him if he opened his eyes.
“Nay, this is mine,” she was saying, “this is my triumph and no other’s. But for the piffling form of it, I’d face them singlehanded, with no knights at my back, no father to serve as my front and weary me with counsel. And no dorky Nicholas Bo
Silken old laughter responded to hers just as the lute had done. “What, no sweet Nicholas Bo
“I was never your stupid apprentice,” she answered angrily. “You’re in this world because of my power, but you’ve got none of your own—I know that for sure, anyway. And yeah, I do think I’ve learned just about all you’ve got to teach me, what do you think about that?” The voices had stopped approaching, and Farrell opened one eye a little way.
She was standing no more than fifty feet from him, facing Nicholas Bo
Aiffe snorted, derisive and uncomfortable at once. “Maybe yes, maybe no. She’s your old woman, your big thing, you handle her. I’ve got no problem with her, except that she’s too strong. I don’t like people to be that strong.”
Nicholas Bo
Aiffe sighed and giggled, letting the cape fall from her. “Why do you always want to do this? You don’t get anything out of it; you think I don’t know? Why do you want it?”
Nicholas Bo
Farrell began to crawl slowly backward, away from the path, but he had covered only a few yards when a heavy body pinioned his own, kneeing the breath out of him, and a hand went over his mouth. Ben whispered, “Don’t move.” Farrell squirmed his head to the side and saw him, face dark with dirty sweat, helmet askew and one of the horns badly chipped. Aiffe was chanting, the cold words whining out of her in the same rhythm with which Nicholas Bo
“How did they get here?” he asked. “Simon’s had people patrolling the shore all day.”
Ben shook his head, immediately professorial, even wearing bear claws. “Simon’s been watching the only three places where a rowboat can beach. That’s not patrolling. Patrolling is when you keep an eye out for things like kayaks. They just slipped in from the Marin County side, easy as you please. Who needs magic?”
The leaves whirred softly overhead, like bicycle pedals, as they made their way back across the island. A Cooper’s hawk ripped down through the slanting light, striking for something almost at their feet, then flapped up into an ash tree, where it sat panting hard and staring at them furiously. Farrell said, “That’s not just your garden-variety quickie going on back there. That is machinery.”