Maire Read online

  “But it bothers you, child. You see his face at night, and it keeps you from sleep.”

  “What doesn’t keep a queen from sleep?” How could a man she’d never laid eyes upon till this day know such a thing? “And I’d not kill Rowan, so what has it to do with this?”

  The stubborn pose her chin struck made the priest chuckle. “I think we’ve got a long night ahead, Brude.”

  Maire’s mentor put his hand on her shoulder. “’Twill not be the first we’ve spent on lessons to make you a wise ruler, will it?”

  Maire shook her head in resignation. At least she and priest agreed on one thing: it was going to be a long night. Between Morlach’s calculating glare, Rowan’s insinuation that he’d just as soon not have her as his wife, and this Christian god—not to mention the man Jesus—sure, she’d never sleep again.

  Yet, Brude’s unfolding story of the ancient royal druids of the east, who’d seen a great star and followed it to a small village called Bethlehem, banished her need for sleep before she knew it. The sign in the heavens meant, so the legend said, that a King of all kings had been born. This was the Jesus they talked about.

  “And how did the man save me when I never knew him? Why, if he were alive, he’d be old as a Sidhe elder.” It was said some faeries were older than the earth itself.

  “But He knew you, Maire, as He does to this day. He is God’s son.”

  “And for all we know, the faeries may be his servants. Tomás calls them angels or messengers.” Brude seemed to be thinking aloud. Mayhap he, too, still worked this revelation out in his brain. “At least the good faeries. But hold your questions, child, till the story is done.”

  If it challenged the druid’s head so, what chance did she have of grasping all this?

  Thankfully, priests were teachers and their stories made it at least interesting, she thought as Brude and Father Tomás began the telling of an old legend. Maire had many times before heard the story of the great king Conn’s death, for this was one of Erin’s most beloved rulers.

  Conn had been inadvertently wounded in a friendly contest when his opponent threw a trophy at the king. The stone-hard, lime-preserved, shriveled brain of a worthy enemy, which was considered the essence of the man, lodged in the back of Conn’s head. The best of healers could not heal the wound completely. Because Conn was such a good ruler, the Celtic law that a king be in perfect physical condition was overlooked. However, the healers warned the king, who was still possessed of all his faculties, that he must not exert himself overmuch lest the incurable wound kill him.

  One day, a few years after when Conn saw how the sun turned dark in the sky, he summoned his magi to explain it. The druids who studied the heaven and stars told him that the King of all kings had been executed on a tree by his own people, and the one true God in the sun turned off its light in His grief. The kindhearted Conn was so moved and outraged that he took vengeance on the sacred grove of oaks, smiting the mighty and ancient trees until he collapsed in death and despair.

  So this Jesus was the King of all kings! Now she saw the significance, although it was beyond her ken how this one god forgave the traitors for killing his son, much less that this Jesus asked that they be forgiven as he died. Despite Brude’s earlier warning, she couldn’t hold her tongue.

  “I’d have knocked them down with thunder and burned them in their boots with lightning!”

  “But you didn’t create them and love them as God did.” Father Tomás’s eyes were kind. “We are His children. God loved us so much, that He gave His life on that cross as payment for every sin that was ever committed by man and every sin that ever would be committed.”

  Maire reflected on the man’s words. “But I thought you said it was his son, Jesus, that died, not him.”

  “Is not the son a part of the father?” Brude reminded her.

  Maire liked it better when the druids pondered such deep things. “Aye, I suppose.”

  “The Christian God exists in three forms,” Tomás explained. “He is the Father in the heavens. He is the Son, who came to earth as man for a while, and He is the Holy Spirit, which comes to dwell in those who accept Him as their Lord and Savior.”

  “A shape-shifter?” Why didn’t the man just say so?

  “Of a sort, except that all three are one. God is like water,” Brude elaborated, as much for himself as his student. “Water is water, whether it’s frozen as ice, running in a stream, or steaming the air wet over a boiling pot.”

  There was some reason in that, Maire mused, trying hard to grasp it. And if Brude believed this, then so would she.

  “This god is greater than Morlach?” She wanted to make certain she understood on her own terms.

  “Morlach manipulates God’s creations, but God created them. The powers of the druid come from this masterful order of things created by the Master of all. It is a dangerous and evil knowledge when used for one’s own glory instead of God’s,” Brude explained.

  “Which,” Tomás added, “is why we discourage Christians in dabbling in such knowledge, for we humans cannot know for certain whether it comes from light or darkness. You see, we all have that sixth spiritual sense to some degree, Maire, but it is like fire—a good servant and a poor master.”

  “We lack God’s discernment to know which spirits are good and which are bad, because one can parade as the other and easily fool us.” Brude gave her a moment to mull this over, his keen gaze searching her own, apparently watching to see if the seedlings of knowledge that he and Tomás had sowed were taking root. “So, what do you think, Maire?”

  Maire shifted uncomfortably, loathe to disappoint her mentor. “I want no part of this mystical knowledge,” she began reluctantly, “and while I accept this Christian god… or all three of him, I just don’t think much of this spirit living in me.”

  “But it is your friend,” Tomás assured her, “the one who tells God what troubles you when you hardly know yourself or can’t make sense of it with words.”

  Maire nodded. This was much to digest. To ask more questions would only make the night longer. In truth, her head ached now.

  As though the priest sensed her desperation, he paused, then asked, “So you will confess your sins to God, all those boils that plague your memory with regret?”

  She would gladly if this god would take away that dying fisherman’s face from her mind. “Aye, I’ll confess what I know.”

  Tomás smiled. “It’s all God expects. He expects us to do our best, not to be perfect. Only His Son was perfect.”

  “Well, he sounds a reasonable enough God.” Maire hesitated. Old fears instilled since youth, especially about spirits, died hard. “But will you two stay with me when I talk to him, at least till this spirit has settled in?”

  To her surprise, Father Tomás rose and gave her a huge hug. “We will pray with you, Maire, for when you invite God into your heart, He is there in an instant.”

  Maire followed their lead and knelt on the floor, folding her hands as she’d seen Rowan do. She was tired and confused, not to mention uneasy, but this was something that had to be done. It was best for Gleannmara and not just because Brude said so. Her conviction came from somewhere else, from deep within, rather than without.

  Suddenly, the casement burst open, banging forcefully against the wall. All that saved the precious glass from shattering was the tapestry hanging next to it, which bore the brunt of the impact. Were she not so frozen with fear, Maire would have bolted to her feet. Instead she clasped her hands even tighter.

  “Please tell me that’s this holy spirit comin’ in,” she asked Brude in a voice too tiny for a whisper.

  “Or perhaps just the wind,” Tomás suggested as he closed it and ran the bolt through its keeper.

  “When light enters in, Maire, darkness must flee. It is nothing to fear.”

  When you invite God into your heart, He is there in an instant. Her eyes flew open with wonder. Wind or spirits, Maire knew with more conviction than she’d ever felt,
that Brude spoke the truth! Slowly, fearfully, she began to pray what was in heart and mind at that very moment.

  Father God, wherever and whatever Ye are, I feel Your presence. I don’t understand it, mind Ye, but by my mother’s eyes, I know this spirit of Yours is here. It’s as though You’re both inside me and wrapped around me at the same time!

  The wonder of it gave Maire cause to stop. It was as close as she’d ever come to recapturing the warmth and protection of her own father’s arms. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but when she went to wipe them away, Brude stopped her.

  “Do not wipe away the tribute of your love and sincerity before God. ’Twas He that gave them to you.”

  Maire glanced askew at Brude. How could he know what she was feeling, why she cried, when she couldn’t explain it herself? She might have asked, but it seemed impolite to speak to someone else while talking to the One who created druid and queen alike.

  Not that she knew what she intended to say—only that she was afraid of what lay ahead and needed all the help God could offer that she might see it through as a good queen to her people. And as a good wife to the husband she would acknowledge before Him on the morrow…

  When she had laid all her concerns before her God’s invisible throne, Maire found that it had not been a frightening experience at all, but a blessing beyond her mortal ability to express.

  Later, for the first night in many, she slept sound as a babe in its mother’s arms—but the arms were not Maeve’s, they were those of Rowan’s God, of Brude’s God—of Gleannmara’s God.

  Rowan tossed the blankets off his bed and, not for the first time that night, knelt beside the gilded carved box with its overstuffed pallet. Princely trappings would give him no more rest than a pauper’s this night. His knees ached, despite the thick rug of eastern design that cushioned his weight on the floor.

  “Father, this marriage…”

  Rowan wanted to do God’s will, but knew his tone belied it. He’d yet to be convicted that this unholy union was God’s will. What if he considered it for selfish reasons, like taking Maire with her beguiling combination of innocence and bravado as a wife in every sense? Now that was hardly a priestly pursuit.

  Again the list of nobler reasons began to unfold in the troubled man’s mind: the true union of Gleannmara with an heir of both clans of her soil, the only way at present to continue to keep his word to protect the queen and her land from Morlach’s greed and ambition, a chance to make the tuath and its people—his people—prosper in peace.

  Rowan beat his brow against his fist, trapped by his own web of deceit. He’d let Maire and her people think he was their king according to their law when he knew in his heart that he was not so in the only law that mattered: God’s law.

  Still, he rebelled, seeking to follow the light his way. All his learning came to naught when put to the test of this fire. The heat of it made his forehead ooze with perspiration. He wanted to spread the Word as one of God’s priests. That was how he saw himself, not as king to a pagan queen—even if she was the most desirable woman he’d ever known.

  “See, God? This is hardly a saintly reaction.”

  Jumping to his feet, Rowan went to the window and pulled it open. A brisk night wind washed over him, yet the baser heat that claimed him each time he thought of Maire would not yield to it. Somehow, the little queen had gotten under his skin, into his blood. And he would spill it to save her, he vowed to the stars glittering in the clear night sky.

  But was he prepared to marry her, to take her as a Christian wife in all the scriptural senses? Hanging his head, Rowan closed the door, as if the heavenly reminders of the sun’s ever-present light scorched his conscience. Jaw jutting, he padded back to the bed and flopped back onto the mattress.

  No, he was not so prepared. He would have the marriage annulled when Morlach was no longer a threat. Death was the eminent path Morlach chose for himself. It was just a matter of time. As for Gleannmara, time too would prove to Niall and Cairthan alike that working together was to their best interest. When the tuath prospered, then he could pursue his godly studies with a mind uncluttered by husbandly or lordly concerns.

  Relieved, he closed his eyes. No consummation, no valid marriage. There was still a way to meet his obligations and pursue his calling. Of that he was certain now, at least in his mind. His heart, though, not as easily swayed by reason, held out for further debate.

  NINETEEN

  The ceremony was performed the next day after the nunday repast. Unlike that of the Celts, the Christian marriage favored no particular season, such as Tailtain’s spring fair, where contracts were made, or Imbolc, when the ceremonies took place.

  Rowan’s Cairthan mother attended Maire, helping her dress and preparing her to become a bride.

  “You’re a beautiful bride,” Maire’s mother-in-law-to-be told her. “What a glorious mane of hair you have.” She crowned Maire with a wreath of early blossoms and bowed her head for the happiness of the newlyweds.

  Maire peeped through half-lidded eyes at her reflection in the mirror. Mane was an appropriate choice of words, for she felt like a horse with four legs struggling in a full hobble of skirts. She’d far rather don the short leine she usually wore. As for glorious, there was a sure bounty of hair when it was freed from the leather-wrapped braid she wore daily for training and battle. It was as close to the unbound tresses of an unmarried maid as her calling customarily allowed.

  It wasn’t until she saw her intended groom that Maire gave any credit to Ciara’s admiration of her appearance. Rowan’s grim gaze took on new light when she entered the queen’s chapel where the wedding was to take place. Suddenly, seeing the look in his eyes, for the first time she could remember, she felt beautiful. It was a new and pleasing experience. Now if she could just be a good wife, given her lack of training for it.

  When Maire heard Rowan vow to love her no matter what happened until she went to the other side, something heart jarring came over her. She watched his face—the way his jaw squared, the added depth of his gaze, which was fairly churning with a fierceness of emotion she’d never seen before, the movement of his bloodless lips as his rich and deep “I do so solemnly swear” passed through them.

  She’d not yet said a word of commitment, still she was already one with him. She knew his anxiety, his frustration, the way the vows were strained pure through his heart and soul before they were fit for God’s ear. And then it was her turn. Rowan’s gaze enveloped her so that she hardly saw the priest.

  For the first time in her life, Maire feared she might swoon—or worse, lose her stomach like a sniveling weakling before Diarhmott and the court of Tara.

  “Do you so swear, Maire of Gleannmara?” Father Tomás’s words echoed inside her skull, bouncing about to the pounding of her blood. Invisible hands wrung her throat so that her words scarcely made it out.

  “Aye, I swear, same as him.”

  The corner of Rowan’s mouth curled ever so slightly, but it was enough to snap the fingers binding her throat so that she could breath—even smile back. His hands, folded over her own, tightened, and the warmth was a balm to every screaming nerve in Maire’s body. Once again she had the sensation of being enveloped, but this time it was by the same power that heard her prayer the night before. She wondered if Rowan felt the hug of the Holy Spirit too.

  Of course, scores of questions continued to arise regarding this Christian God she had accepted above all others, but she dared not voice them lest she spend another ordeal of hours with Brude and the cleric. Her mind was full enough for now with this God’s spell.

  Later, at the wedding feast, the spell was broken by the abundance of distractions. A swirling quandary of emotions heaved within Maire’s stomach, threatening what little she consumed from the bread plate she shared with her groom. Soon they would share more than the meal.

  When it came time for music and dancing, Rowan led his bride to the center of the hall where they were joined by others. One anxiety gave way to
another, as once again her legs struggled within the skirts of her wedding dress, each one tripping upon the other. It required her full attention to keep from sprawling like a drunken cow among the lovelier and surely more graceful maids that surrounded them. Yet an occasional surreptitious glance at her husband reassured her that Rowan had eyes only for her.

  Even after they were separated by the merriment to take other partners, she caught his smile meeting the curious glances she cast over her shoulder. That smile took out her knees with its warmth. Tripping over a second set of invisible feet, she sprawled headlong into Declan’s arms.

  “Ach, look at me,” she cried out in dismay. “I dance like a clumsy nag. The footwork of swordplay comes natural, but this confounded dress is nothing less than a hobble in disguise!”

  “You let your heart free, Maire, and it will guide your feet.”

  “But what if my heart isn’t sure?”

  “Then ye dance like a clumsy nag.” Declan couldn’t keep his face straight for long. With a laugh, he eased her back into step. When he saw Maire was really disturbed, his tone grew helpful. “I would wager the lasses at Gleannmara might help you more there than I, lass. Though by the way your husband looks at you, I don’t think it’s your dancin’ he’s thinkin’ about.”

  Her foster brother didn’t need to elaborate. Maire wouldn’t even think about what could happen when they were alone, finally blessed by the Christian God. Would the bargain they’d made be forgotten?

  “Lianna is a sunny-hearted lass, but that Brona is grace itself.” Declan’s wistful words drifted into her thoughts. “Reminds me of the moon, giving less of herself than the sun, yet her secrets call out to man, beggin’ to be discovered.”

  Maire stumbled from her contemplation. “Brona? Gwythan’s foster daughter? Ach, cupid’s arrow has already run Eochan through. Tell me there won’t be two weddings at Drumkilly instead of one.”

  “Now don’t be gettin’ those ideas. I’m not about to ask her to live in my heart and pay no rent, although the blanket doubled is warmer.” Declan grinned, devilment aplenty in the pale blue of his eyes. “Ye know well enough what I’m talkin’ about. No doubt ye took a chill this mornin’ without Rowan and his blanket to warm ye.”