Maire Read online

  Would that she could whisper away her own burdens so easily. Rising, she unfastened her breastplate and hung it on the wall beside her shield and sword. She hardly knew which quandary to face first—the Cairthan, Morlach, restoring Gleannmara, or making certain of her allies at Tara. Then there was this curious man she’d taken as her husband and his even stranger god.

  Tomorrow she would find out more about it from Brude, so she wouldn’t appear so ignorant as to be talked to like a child. Not that Rowan had spoken down to her. She’d simply felt inadequate. It wasn’t a queenly feeling and she didn’t care for it one jot. Maeve had left a huge legacy to her, a great shadow for her to fill. All her confidence was needed, if not for her own sake then for her people’s.

  “What?”

  Maire blinked, realizing that Rowan had opened his eyes and caught her staring at him. “What what?”

  “What are you staring at?”

  Embarrassment flushed Maire’s face. She’d need neither fire nor warmth the rest of the night given the burn of her skin.

  “You, you kneeling nitwit. I’m waitin’ for you to finish your quiet chant so that I can give rest to these weary bones.” She pointed at the mattress. “I’ll not be laying down like some poor goat on an altar with you kneeling there like that.”

  To her deepening distraction, Rowan chuckled outright. “Ah, Maire, I don’t think I’ve ever known a woman such as yourself before. You’re a walking canon of contradiction.”

  The man talked as if he’d swallowed every book ever written. Uncertain as to whether she’d been insulted or nay, Maire replied, “Now there’s the cauldron chargin’ the kettle o’ blackness.”

  “A walking canon of contradiction.” Sure as the daylight emerged beyond the sea on the morrow, she’d have the meaning of that from Brude before the sun song was finished.

  “We act like a couple too long married and it’s only our second night as man and wife.”

  “What?”

  Rowan tossed back the covers and got into the bed, as if he were in his own home. Thankfully, he wore the loose fitting robe. Maire had heard that many men slept in the clothes nature had given them. She daren’t let her thoughts dwell on that, the way her heart just skipped a beat. Like as not, the sight of Rowan in nature’s glory would stop it outright.

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said, fool, but we agreed that this is strictly a marriage of convenience, so if you—”

  “The way we speak to each other,” the man explained. “I was only referring to our cross manner… or rather, your cross manner. If you’ve a mind to be a stubborn, barbed-tongued Mebhe to my Ailill, have at it. I for one am quite content with things as they are.”

  “And what would a Welshman know of Connaught lore? Mebhe indeed! She was a proud queen with a braying mule for a husband. The man deserved the trouble she gave him and then some.”

  Never mind the harm that came of it, or the bloodshed. Maire held that thought back, for it hardly served her, watching as Rowan folded his arms behind his head on the plump pillows, which had come with the bed. Grand arms, she admitted to herself, made to embrace a woman, to protect her—arms immune to the druid’s satire.

  None of the sores or blisters that Cromthal promised from Morlach marred Rowan’s sun-ripened flesh. The black crisps of hair that lightly covered his skin spoke of virility…

  Maire recovered quickly. Content, he’d said. “And well you should be content. Be thankful you’re not in chains, Emrys, though the night is not yet out.”

  That a priest should turn her insides to a molten mass of confusion made her as irritable as she was disturbed. Lifting the blankets on her side of the massive pallet, she slipped beneath them and turned her back to her adversary. With a fling, she tossed her unbound hair behind her, away from her face.

  “I have thanked God for many things this night, Maire, and that is one of them.”

  She snorted. “Humph! Better to thank me than your god.”

  Maire stiffened at the sense more than the actual feel of fingers winding in her hair. What folly had she committed? This man was making her fey as a swineherd. She’d turned her back on him—her hostage—and that with her stinger still lodged in her breastplate on the wall, a body’s length away. He could strangle her with her own hair, and she’d not…

  She spun over, fists drawn for a life’s struggle and froze at the sight of Rowan ap Emrys lifting the lightest of her curls to his mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was little more than a croak.

  “Thanking you, Queen Maire.”

  The gaze he cast over the tresses he brushed ever so lightly with his lips reflected the lamplight she’d forgotten to put out; although something told her that even darkness would not smother what she saw burning there.

  “And seeing if the fire in your hair was as warm to the touch as it was to the eyes,” he added, his own tone, usually smooth as velvet, disrupted by strain. “Now, good night, little queen.” He smiled, not with humor or with smugness as she rolled away, tugging from his grasp in order to pinch out the smoky tallow flame.

  “Sleep well, hostage.”

  The reminder of his station was the most she could muster, given her inner state of turmoil. She slid back into the large bed, which suddenly felt as small as the wooden cradle her father had made for her. Perched on the farthest edge, she tried to relax, but her mind would not rest, nor would her senses. Every nerve seemed tender as a boil, ready to reel in response to a touch, no matter how innocent.

  The events of her first day as Gleannmara’s queen played across her mind: Cromthal’s face, the visage of Rowan emerging from the sea on Shahar, the outright admiration of the women as the hostage revised Brude’s rendition of Maire’s victory song.

  Scarcely four days a leader and already she was overwhelmed. When no sound stirred outside, save the occasional bay of a hound at the golden moon casting its glow through the vent in the thatched roof, Maire began to think a peaceful sleep was something she might never know again.

  A faint rhythmic snore from the far side of the pallet pricked at her as much as her troubles. Her lips drew into a taut line, her exasperated sigh escaping from her nostrils. For all the foolraide he provoked in his followers, Emrys’s god at least gave them peaceful sleep.

  Neither her mother’s gods nor nature itself would give Maire respite. No more had she relaxed when the effects of the numerous toasts to the success of her reign plagued her. Easing out of the comfortable bed, she padded across the rush-strewn floor. As she lifted the wooden latch, she froze at the sound of someone moving, running away from the other side. With an exclamation of surprise, Maire yanked open the door and hastened through it. She ran halfway around the lodge, stumbling blind, save for the cloud-filtered light of the moon, when she realized her sword was not at her waist. Even her stinger was left behind.

  But the intruder’s footfalls were light, like those of a female or perhaps a small man, and Maire’s skill as a warrior was not limited to weapons alone. Swift as a deer at the bark of a hound, she sprang past the privy, her needs momentarily forgotten, and plunged through the breach in the earthen wall surrounding the royal enclosure. Ahead of her, a female raced toward the cluster of dwellings in the outer rath, her shift hiked above her knees as high as Maire’s, which was shorter for battle.

  Maire caught up with the woman just short of their cover and lunged, tackling her behind the knees. The female went down hard, her breath knocked from her body along with her cry of surprise. She was as wiry as Maire, yet didn’t put up much of a fight. As Maire rolled her over, she crossed her arms over her face as though to protect herself.

  “What mischief were you about at my door, woman?” Maire’s shout drew the attention of the guards who’d been stationed at the entry of the outer fosse.

  “None, my queen.”

  “Uncover your face then and keep your hands above your head, palms to the sky.”

  Maire’s captive was as young
as she, with dark hair and eyes that betrayed her feigned fear. Instinct bade the young queen be wary, even as the guards approached them, swords drawn.

  Her captive’s waist pinned by her weight, Maire quickly searched her for a hidden weapon.

  “I am no threat to you, Queen Maire, I swear by my mother’s gods.”

  “Then why did you run?”

  “’Tis two wenches wrestling in the grass,” the guard in the lead bellowed, yards away from being of use, had Maire needed him.

  “Ah, the Sidhe take ’em for cuttin’ me dream short!” the second swore.

  “Why did you run?” Maire asked again, ignoring the bluster of the fast approaching men.

  “I tend the fire for the king’s lodge and was trying to decide if I should disturb you to bring in the rest of the wood I’d put aside.”

  “Your name, wench.”

  “Brona, my queen.”

  Maire climbed to her feet as the first guard reached them. “Do you know this woman?” she demanded, jerking a finger at the female still on the ground.

  “I don’t know either of ye, and ’twould serve justice if the fairy did take ye, wallerin’ and squallin’…”

  Maire drew to her full height, despite the hard grip of the guard on her arm. “I do not wallow or squall, O’Croinin.”

  “Queen Maire!”

  The laggard slowed in shock. “Gleannmara herself?”

  “I asked if you know this girl, either of you, or have you not yet run sleep’s crust from your eyes?”

  Maire had been busy with her captive, but her sharp ears hadn’t missed the commentary between the approaching guards. How could anyone, save that Christian, sleep knowing that Morlach even now was planning his vengeance?

  “A fine pair of watchmen Eochan has chosen for the night!”

  The first guard hung his head, but the slower of the two afoot was not so in wit. “’Twas no less than them creepin’ clouds what cast the sleep upon us. Morlach’s at work already.”

  Ignoring the man, and the spontaneous chill that raked up her spine at his suggestion, Maire repeated her question louder. “Do either of you know this woman?” She motioned at the sprawled figure. “Go on, get up and turn your face toward the moonlight.”

  The woman did as she was told, slowly brushing her long unbound locks away from her face. It was the other girl with whom Declan had frolicked; the one Maire had not recognized. Her brows were dark and thick, etched against the uncommon white of her face. Yet her pallor was not one of fear. Her features were a mask of composure. Maire found it hard to believe her story of panic.

  “Aye, that’s Brona, daughter of Gwythan.”

  “The old herb woman?” Maire remembered from her childhood the frail, bent creature who collected herbs for Brude. It was a means for the widow to support herself. Maire would have remembered a daughter of this age, but Gwythan was childless. “How did Gwythan come by a daughter?”

  “She found me abandoned in a meadow and took me to raise, my queen.”

  “Aye, that’s the story we heard as well,” one of the guards concurred.

  “Well, regardless of where she came from, I caught her lurking outside the door of my lodge.”

  “I was leaving firewood, lest you needed it in the night. I didn’t knock because I saw the light go out and… well, you and the Welshman are newly wed.”

  Brona’s expression was guileless. The O’Croinin clansmen were not as adept at schooling their features. Not even their rough beards could hide their knowing smirks.

  “And you ran from me because…?”

  “The sound of the latch moving startled me, and I panicked. I didn’t want you to think I had some perverse interest in your wedding bed.”

  If she had panicked, Brona was fully collected now. In fact, it was Maire who began to feel defensive and foolish. She wondered if Brona had told others how ridiculous the Roman bed looked in the lodge.

  “Very well then. I’ll take in the wood when I return,” she announced, ending the affair. “And I thank you for your thought.” She started away and then turned back. “And never run from me again. Running smacks of a guilty conscience.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  After stopping at the privy, Maire returned to her new lodge in a fouler humor yet. Tomorrow she’d have the latrine cleaned and treated with a layer of the moss it had not seen in a good season, judging by the stench. Somehow, she had to restore Gleannmara’s rath to a civilized state—after it was properly fortified.

  As she wiped her feet free of the grass and dirt clinging to them from her barefoot chase, the mound of man, still sleeping like a babe at his mother’s breast when she entered, turned over.

  “Did you catch her?”

  The clear ring of his question in the stillness startled her. “Who?”

  “Brona.”

  “How did you—”

  “I heard her soft approach and the rustle of the wood she put down by the door, but you bolted out like a stone-footed bull before I could tell you of her.” The mattress rustled as he shifted his weight. “I met her earlier.”

  A stone-footed bull!

  “Well I might have heard her myself, were it not for your snorting like a pig in fresh mud. As it was, all I heard was someone running from my door at an unseemly hour. What with Morlach’s mischief sure about, ’twas only natural to give chase.”

  “And you’d give a druid chase barehanded and barefooted, wearing nothing but a slip of linen for armor?”

  “I knew I was equal or better to the figure I chased.”

  “Even if she knew magic?”

  “You’ve more gall than a crazed boar, Emrys, to toy with me in my present humor.” Maire hopped onto the bed and was astonished to collide with her companion. “Get you over to your side! I’m cold and tired and in no mood for your games.”

  “Most women would bid their man move closer to warm them.”

  For a moment, Maire thought certain she would feel the wrap of Emrys’s strong arms about her, the press of his hard body, warmed by the haven of blankets, against her. Panic pebbled her flesh like a blast from Dane’s winter, but it wasn’t because she couldn’t get away. It was because she might not want to.

  “Well warm these first!”

  She struck out with her feet and hands, planting them firmly against the flesh of his shoulders and legs, bared by his turn under the blankets.

  Rowan skidded across the mattress away from her. “Mercy, woman! I’ve buried corpses in the dead of a Pict winter with feet warmer than yours.”

  “Get used to it, husband, for that’s all the warmth you’ll ever know in this bed.”

  Maire snatched back the woolen coverlet and bed robe of wolf skin and snuggled down on the plump pallet, lightly warmed by Rowan’s short occupation. On the other side of the large bed, her disgruntled companion jerked the bedclothes about him, mumbling something about ice. She was still wide awake, but at least now she had something to smile about.

  THIRTEEN

  I tell you, Brude, the man is crazed to think he can make the Cairthan our allies after all these years!”

  Maire was up before the sun song and followed the elder druid back to his hut, trying not to step on his heels. He moved slower in the mornings, as though the stiffness that crept in during the night needed to be worked out in the sun. Beside them, his pet heron stood, its wings at its side as it mocked the rise in Maire’s voice.

  “Ho there, Nemh! Either find your own food or wait till I’ve had mine.”

  Brude brushed by the bird that was his shadow. It nipped at the swirling hem of the man’s garment with its long beak, much like a playful pup. Some said the druid looked like his pet, long of limb and gawky with a curved neck and beaklike nose. Others said the man’s spirit often traveled about in the bird, watching over the kingdom while his human form sat statue-still in meditation.

  “Glas has ruined the fish eater with a taste for grain. It thinks to sleep in my lodge now instead of perched above th
e door.”

  “Brude, did you hear me? Emrys thinks I should let him handle the Cairthan, and him no more than a hostage himself.”

  Brude sighed heavily and dropped to a seat on the stone bench outside his lodge. Like Maire’s, the entrance faced the east, so that the arms of the reborn sun might draw him into its invigorating embrace. To the west went the spirits of the dead, to sleep like the sun until their own rebirth. The lines on the druid’s face told of the many such cycles he’d seen.

  “Glas is Cairthan.”

  Maire did not hide her surprise. “I never knew that.”

  “Glas thinks that if anyone can unite Gleannmara’s people, it is the new king.”

  “He told you that?”

  “In so many gestures, aye.”

  Brude flexed his fingers, fisting them, then releasing. When he finished his morning ritual, every joint in his body had been worked until he was satisfied that his blood made a complete cycle through his veins. Maire never quite understood the why or the wherefore. It was druid training, most likely, not warrior, so she had no need of it.

  “A wise ruler will seek counsel. A king who reins without counsel will be one without a kingdom.”

  “Aye, and the swiftest and strongest don’t always win the race,” Maire countered, recalling the Christian’s words. Why, instead of talking in circles, couldn’t either simply say she should call a counsel of chieftains?

  Brude’s bushy white brow shot up. “Well said, Maire. Few your age realize the merit of those words. Pride is their weakness, their downfall.”

  “I don’t see how giving the Welshman a chance can hurt. I could get more done about here without him afoot to distract me. I don’t need to tell you there’s much to be done to fortify for Morlach’s attack.”

  The other of the druid’s eyebrows joined its mate, a white hedgerow dividing his face above the mercurial gray of his eyes. “He distracts you, does he?”