The huge black stallion's hooves thundered on the road, its steel shoes striking sharp notes against the paved stones of the Roman-style road leading home. The horse's rider gave the beast its head and the two raced ahead of the column of weary travelers they led.

"Hiyah, Toirneach! Hiya!" Lorcan mac Donnough shouted, urging the brute to greater speeds. A shout of dismay drifted on the air from the party of riders and hoof-beats sounded above the clanking racket of the company's single cart as other riders gave chase. Lorcan couldn't suppress a grin as he imagined his mentor's face, mouth working in his full beard as the chancellor struggled to make some word of protest.

Onward they raced under a high sun and crystalline blue skies, a gloriously warm day here in the south. The wind of their passage buffeted his face and pulled his blond-brown hair free of its loose thong. He snatched it before it could fall away. To the left the River Shannon was a great, wide channel pouring its way to the endless seas beyond, to the right rolling rills beginning their march to the mountains that separated the rest of the Shannon River basin. But ahead was a hill, and as they neared the crest Lorcan caught sight of his quarry.

There, far away enough yet to be hazy in the distance fluttered a blue and yellow pennant atop a great square stone tower. And beside it, the scaffolded structure of the new tower being added to Bun na Raite Castle.

Lorcan pulled back on the reins. "Home!" he exulted. Toirneach hauled up short and shouted with his master, the charger's cry as loud as every other part of him. They spun around in a circle or two as the other riders caught up. In the lead of his pursuers, Lorcan saw the sour lined face of his bodyguard, Old Finn mac Cullough. The soldier's expression was contorted into a disgusted grimace and he was shaking his head. He slowed as he approached, letting the other rider pull ahead.

There was something very common about Sir Domnall mac Tamhais, leader of the party's escort of Kingsmen. Lorcan always thought the fellow would look right at home riding an iron plow behind a pair of sturdy horses or oxen, rather than adorned in the livery of his grandfather. The plowman's face was split into a wide grin as he swept up the hill and sighted the castle as well, and he too reigned in his charger with a twirling canter, his sable black cloak flaring around him, the bronze of his troll-faced death mask flashing where it hung on the horn of his saddle.

"Hail, Kingsman," Lorcan nodded, looking again at the castle. "Do you suppose my brother is back yet?"

The knight chuckled. "He might be. The queen should be due back this week from her visit to Ulster."

"Do you think he did well?" Lorcan tried to keep his demeanor steady where it regarded Tadgh, but it was hard to remain calm about it. His first mission as a member of the Kingsmen! Lorcan wanted a black cloak for himself. They were the symbol of the elite, the very best of King Lachlan's soldiers and knights, and very nearly a tribe unto their own.

When new stories were told, they were stories of the Kingsmen. They were like Fionn mac Cumhaill's Companions, heroes who rode the length and breadth of the Emeralid Kingdom, righting wrongs and always protecting the honor of their brothers of the cloak and the word of their lord.

Or at least that's what he'd thought when he was much younger. Years at court tended to wear that image away. He supposed it's what always happened if you actually lived with the heroes of stories; you found out they were men too. Still, there was always that hint of the amazing about them, and that his brother got the chance to actually be one was beyond exciting.

"I remember my first outing with the Kingsmen, milord. He did fine." Domnall grinned and glanced sideways at Lorcan. "They had Orem mac Leod leading that bunch. It'd take half the Devil's own-with the Dullahan himself leading-to waylay that man."

Mac Leod was second only to the king's favored man, Iacob ua Caellaigh. A finer fighter did not exist in all the realm. When Moorish assassins had tried for the king's life on his visit to Galicia with the Holy Father, it was Iacob who had saved King Lachlan's life by slaying all six in single combat.

"Bah," grunted Old Finn as he joined them. "What are you thinking running off, boy? It'll be another hour in the practice yard for you tonight" the old soldier said.

His gray horse looked as tired as he did, but then the man always looked tired, and never, ever was. He was old shoe leather and gristle, with a hand that gripped like iron bands, and a perpetual shadow of stubble on his face, no matter how often he shaved. He sucked at his teeth and spat out through the gap on the left side, a gift from some unnamed Norman's axe handle on a battlefield in Leisnter.

Lorcan wanted to protest, but long experience had taught him better. He noted the glint in his bodyguard's eye. Finn had read his incipient rebellion plainly. Best to change the subject entirely. "Who are you excited to see?" he asked of Sir Domnall.

The kingsman chortled, face burning. "Oh my brother to be sure."

Finn snorted. "It's not his brother, milord. It's his wife! I'll bet they've got lots of reunion to celebrate."

Domnall shook his head and chuckled more, his pale skin flaring like a torch at night. Lorcan blushed in response as soon as he realized the direction of Finn's comments. Sir Domnall's wife was… a very present person.

"Careful, mac Cullogh. I'll find a way to hitch you to her cousin."

Finn barked a laugh. "Too far above my station, sir knight! And thankful am I for it. That one's a right harridan, she is. It's a woman with wide hips and a fiery temperament for me."

"The red roofed inn off of Baker's street for you tonight, eh?" Sir Domnall teased. It was Old Finn's turn to blush, though his was accompanied by a lecherous leer.

The clanking of the cart increased in volume, and several more riders joined them at the top of the hill, taking a moment to stop and look at their first sight of home in several weeks. A gentleman among them rolled his eyes at Old Finn and Sir Domnall. "Please tell me the two of you are not discussing whores in front of his highness?"

His voice was smooth and rich, like aged uisige sipped over a long sitting by a tall fire, and while he wore dark clothes, his cloak was rather like Lorcan's. A deep blue rather than sable black, it was trimmed with ermine. His tunic was fine velvet rather than Old Finn's coarse wool, and his legs were clad in suple leather with doeskin boots. A silver torc with gold highlights glittered around his neck, and unlike most of the men he grew a fine, full beard that was always neatly combed, and still mostly the same color as his head, except the two neat rows of gray whiskers that rand along either side of his chin.

Finn grumbled while Domnall bristled. "My wife is no whore, Lord Niall."

"Indeed, Sir Domnall." The older man spared a withering glare for Old Finn. "Fair Breena would be scandalized to hear herself compared with a soldier's pastime."

As Lorcan was beginning to feel just a tad smug over escaping the corrective wrath of his mentor, Lord Niall mac Ronan turned a gimlet eye on his charge. "And you, Prince Lorcan. We are yet hours away from home. I would demand that you comport yourself as a prince ought, at least for a little longer. The last thing that I need is a band of road agents waylaying my King's grandson while we are in sight of his majesty's towers."

"Well we are in sight. There can't be any road agents around here. It's perfectly safe."

"Ha. Then lets try it this way…" Lorcan fought to keep his eyes from rolling, to keep a petulant sigh from escaping, to stop any of a dozen nearly involuntary reactions that would set his mentor's ire on him further. "I shall expect you to give his majesty a full accounting of our visit to Wexford and your observations of the court of Count Kerwin. You will detail for him our conversations on trade and his concerns about increased English piracy."

The "but-" slipped from his lips half formed. Lord Niall's eyebrows climbed and a smile appeared in the immaculate beard.

"And, you will present a case to his majesty outlining the positive and negative aspects of a further alliance with Count Kerwin via a marriage twixt his daughter and you." The twinkle in the chancellor's eye was utterly unfair. He was enjoying this far too much.

The images that flashed through Lorcan's mind at this were enough to shrivel his guts. Young Dunflaith would be a pretty girl when she grew up, especially with those hazel eyes. But at ten years of age the girl was already convinced she was a woman and had spent every possible moment of the royal party's visit to the county as close to Lorcan as possible. He'd been flattered at first, thought it cute, but by the second day he'd realized that the other men's smiles were less than kind to either of them. He'd jumped at the opportunity to go on a hunt with her brother Morgan, the Count's heir.

"My lord," Lorcan began. He hesitated. The left eyebrow was creeping back up after both had settled mere moments ago. "My lord, I already have an hour of practice in the yard with Finn."

"Exercise is good for the soul, your highness. Should we add a written form of your presentation to the king? In Latin, perhaps?"

"Yes, Lord Niall," Lorcan sighed.

"Good. Seoman will accompany you to take notes and help organize your presentation."

"Yes, my lord," said a bookish fellow somewhere between young man and old boy sitting astride a horse at the chancellor's elbow where a knight might expect his squire to stand. The scribe's apprentice nudged his horse forward to a respectful, if short, distance from Lorcan's own.

"Enough, let's be on our way," Lord Niall said. He gave a curt nod to Sir Domnall and nudged his bay gelding out to the side of the road.

"Alright you lot!" the Kingsman bellowed in his battlefield voice. "Move out! Move out!" He kicked his charger into a high stepping canter toward the castle at the mouth of the River Raite, and the rest of the party followed.

Lord Niall was right, they were still at least a few hours away from home with the cart carrying their remaining supplies and the chancellor's brehon. Throughout the whole plodding ride all Lorcan wanted to do was race forward again on Toirneach and not look back. But he had Seoman riding near him the whole way, poking and prodding for that report.

They rode through ever more settled territory. The closer they came the more people gathered, until they crested the final low hill and looked down on the town sprawling around the base of the castle. The stone bridge was a wonder to behold on its own, crossing the lazy waters of the Raite, glowing copper in the evening's lowering sun.

The village spread out in a broad blanket of haphazard buildings that seemed stuck between huddling in the castle's shadow and eager to get away from it. Their character differed too from the small farms they had passed on their return trip. Far from the castle people still built with earth, living in low mounds piled onto wooden frameworks, with the better examples fronted by dry-fit stone. Here at the castle, though, the standard was half-timber construction with plastered walls, with the best houses and structures fitting oilskin windows and or wooden lattices.

People in the streets made way for the party with haste, though there was little need. Here and there they gave greetings, and a few hailed soldiers or one of the lesser clerks for news, asking where they'd been. For all of that they caused only a small commotion. While kingsmen were a sight, the party contained just three, and familiarity breeds contempt. The sight of a kingsman here was not a once-in-a-year event.

Lorcan pulled back on Toirneach's bridle as they neared the gates and gazed once more at the mighty fortress. He found it more impressive each time he came back to it, and knew he was dallying.

With short movements he marked a notch into the horse's saddle with his belt knife, the eighth one, as they rode through the open gates. That marked eight completed trips with Chancellor Niall to this place or that in the Kingdom. Be it as close as Wexford or as far as the northern rocky shores of Alba, each time he couldn't resist comparing the castles or towns he visited with his mentor and each of them came up short when compared with Bun na Raite.

Wexford paled in comparison. Part of the structure there was still wooden palisades and unfinished yards. Only the main structure, the strong central tower and its attendant great hall, were made of stone. It would be great, one day, Lorcan supposed, but it didn't compare to the soaring walls and bluff tall towers and sprawling yards of his home.

Long ago, this castle had been humble. A simple fort on the mouth of the river in the days when the Vikings raided Eireland with impunity and names like Ivar the Bloodless and Eirik One-Eye had been words of terror to the local tribesmen. Back when the Eire could still be defined as tribes. Before the Ua Brien's changed things.

Back then Kincora, farther up the river, past Limerick, had been Brian Boru's home and the seat of all power in Eireland. As one of that man's descendants, it was still part of the family, and one of his favorite places to spend a few weeks in high summer. As it happened most summers, Chancellor Niall felt the need for a retreat from court about then, too. Lorcan indulged in a brief daydream of sitting on one of the big rocks with a fishing pole in hand while Finn grumbled. Not that he enjoyed tormenting his bodyguard sometimes. Not at all.

While Wexford had not been their farthest ranging trip, it had been one of the more memorable. He felt heat on his neck when he thought of the Count's daughter. It was embarrassing. To have a little girl dogging his heels for two weeks acting like she wanted to be his wife? Who knew, maybe she did, but it seemed a game for the so-called grown men. He was a mere three months away from his majority, just eighty seven days, from that happy time when even his old bodyguard could stop calling him "boy".

"God's crooked toes, but it rankles," he thought. He flinched away from the imaginary lash for his internal profanity.

They rode through the outer gate with its thick, high walls and long tunnel with its copious murder holes, past the iron-banded wooden lattice gate that the Frankish visitor had called a "portcullis" and beyond the thick oak doors with their near full-grown tree for a cross bar and into the wide lower courtyard. The sun rode low in the eastern sky, mere inches above the western wall, casting everything in long shadows and somber orange-yellows. The prince glanced up at the main keep and thought of his bed, then of Finn's grim promise of exercise, and his shoulders drooped.

Guardsmen hailed them, but with the banked embers of enthusiasm, not the roaring fires Lorcan had hoped to find. Few of the castle occupants were visible, and those that had come out seemed as cautious as the guardsmen. People exchanged nods, lifted hands fleetingly, but many averted their eyes too fast. Save for menservants and grooms, few were eager to meet an eye or trade more than the requisite greeting.

Lorcan exchanged glances with Finn, Seoman, and Sir Domnall. He could tell from their crinkled brows and pursed lips that they all felt it, too.

A commotion sounded from further in the castle. In a flash of color, Sir Domnall's wife, the Lady Breena ua Leaha, came sweeping down a flight of stairs leading to the middle courtyard with a young maid in tow. Her gown was held high enough to see she'd donned boots before coming into the horse yard, but then dropped as she raced into her man's arms with a joyous cry.

The big plowman laughed, a giant grin splitting his face as he picked her up and embraced her, spinning a few times. They moved off to the side while a pair of grooms took the kingsman's charger to the stables.

"Your highness?" came the tentative query from below his knees. Lorcan looked down to see the father-and-son grooms that most often cared for Toinearch, because the brute seemed to respect. The why of that eluded the prince's understanding.

Both dressed in woolen tunics belted at the waist and long trousers of the same, though these were a plaid, reflecting their family. They had some of the Ua Brien colors, but not all, and showed far more green than would Lorcan's formal kilt. Tomas and his son had come to the castle with his mother's gift of the horse.

The stocky, somewhat bow-legged man ducked his head, a grin on his face. It was subdued, but it was greater friendliness than anyone else had shown. The great black snorted and shifted under the prince, but Tomas cupped the horse's nose in a hand and stopped his anxious shifting. The beast lipped the offered hand.

Lorcan dismounted and gripped the harness near Toirneach's head and met one liquid brown eye. "Behave," he admonished. The horse flicked an ear as if to say he'd think about it, and nickered. If he did so, went this promise, it wouldn't be because the princeling demanded it.

"Yeah, right. I'm still not convinced you aren't half-oxen. Thank you, Tomas, Timothy." The elder took the reins from Lorcan while the younger helped untie the saddle packs. Young Timothy was still unnerved that Lorcan, alone of all the nobles, insisted on carrying his own bags and helping with this process, but he no longer complained. That was a small victory to his accounting.

It was something every kingsman did when Lorcan watched them. They even went to curry their own horses from time to time, and so did he. Finn also encouraged him to help clean his own horse's stall from time to time, something he was far less eager about. But, again, the kingsmen did it, so he did it.

"Why is everyone so jumpy, Tim?" Lorcan asked the boy. He finished handing off the last of the bags to the prince before answering.

"Riders, milord. Come in a few hours afore you an' th' chancellor. Horses lathered, rode 'em to Hell and back, were ya t' ask me. Th' king called a big meetin', we heard. Lord Marshall rode in less'n a half turn ago, and-"

"What? Ha ha!" Sir Domnall's happy, incredulous shout ripped through the courtyard. Everyone flinched and turned to look at the beaming kingsman, even the two of his fellows just descending the stairs with their war helms closed, displaying their own fearsome visages. He didn't notice.

"A child! We're having a child!" he bellowed. He shouted again, wordlessly, and lifted his wife once more into a circle, kissing her repeatedly.

No one responded. Domnall looked about, his expression resembling a hurt puppy's. Then he noted his comrades and his face fell.

The two masked kingsmen resumed their walk, heading straight for Chancellor Niall. "My lord," the first one said while the other continued on to Domnall. He wore the bansheigh mask of Sir Iacob. The King's black hand, and deadliest of that entire order.

Chancellor Niall dismounted with practiced ease, the gray spots on his beard tugged into an almost comical frown. His gray eyes clouded with concern. The two bent their heads together and the blood drained from Niall's face. He snapped his fingers at Seoman and the two left, following Sir Iacob without a backwards glance or comment to anyone in the yard.

Sir Domnall put his arms around his wife with great care, embracing her long and hard. He touched his forehead to hers once. She gripped him hard, her mouth seeking his for one small kiss. Then the kingsman followed his companion back up the hill to the high hall, slipping on his troll-faced war helm as he went.