The Realm of the Sun

A Noble Cause

          Maeve sat contemplatively at a table in her bedchamber, holding a pawn over her chessboard. She dangled the wooden piece between her thumb and forefinger.

         "Have you formed a strategy yet, Your Majesty?" Sir Riordan asked from across the room, his thin, rodent-like face puckered as he waited impatiently for her to finally share her ideas. Maeve placed the pawn on the table beside the chessboard.

          "We need a new head knight," she said decisively, "Cillian is far too..."

          "Squeamish?"

          "Worse. He's absolutely incorruptible. He cannot fight well if he doesn't believe in the cause. And he couldn't lie if his life depended on it. We need someone with more strength, more willpower...someone more fierce. We need..." she trailed off as a strange smile bewitched her red lips, "we need Fergus mac Roich."

          "Who?" Sir Riordan looked up from his quill and parchment.

          "I've heard rumours of his greatness, of his uncanny strength. Some of the knights of Leinster speak of him often," Maeve explained calmly, sitting back in her chair, suddenly more relaxed, "yes, yes I think he's just what we need here at Tara."

          "Do you wish to send for him?" Sir Riordan asked, without questioning how Maeve knew what the knights of Leinster were saying. She toyed with the wooden game piece once more, twirling it around on the small oak table.

          "I'll need more information," she said, moving the black knight piece from the other side of the board one space toward her, "Riordan, will you fetch me that soldier from Leinster...the young one..."

          "Saontainn?" Riordan asked, "The one with all the freckles?" His only reason for knowing precisely who the queen intended was because Saointainn had made a startling impression on the entire army the day before. He had shot an arrow to the very center of the target with a blindfold secured on his head.

          "That's the one. Bring him to me, he may be able to provide some valuable testimony for Sir mac Roich," she said as she moved the ivory queen piece diagonally across the board and knocked over the black knight, picking up the piece to briefly examine it before bringing it to her side to hold hostage.

          "Yes, your majesty..." Sir Riordan's eye glanced out the window by which he stood and caught a figure emerging on the moor, "someone is approaching the castle."

          "Are they armed?" she asked, raising an eyebrow but too focused on her game to turn and see for herself.

          "I cannot make it out...it's a woman," he squinted, narrowing his gaze on her auburn hair that flowed in the wind behind her, "It is Princess Eirianna, your majesty."

          Maeve's vertebrae aligned and her eyes focused intensely on her board.

          "Fetch me the Leinster boy," she demanded in a flat, punched tone.

          "Your majesty," Riordan bowed and made his hasty exit.

          Eirainna's legs were sore from beating against the saddle and she longed for her bed and a warm bath. Not wanting to make a formal entrance, she rode to the stables where she planned to put her horse away herself and enter the castle by way of the trap door. But one of three young soldiers standing guard, two of whom she had never seen before, insisted he help her off her horse and take the animal to the stables himself.

          "Are you sure? I'm quite used to doing it myself—"

          "It is my duty to serve your highness. Her majesty Queen Maeve has appointed us to this guarding position and we are honoured to do it," he uttered as though reading from a piece of parchment. Eirainna tried to smile, but found it extremely difficult.