by Erin O'Quinn
“Oh Cat,” he said, his voice husky and low. “Ye break me heart with your beauty.”
“Shush, Liam, kiss me,” I said into his mouth, and we explored each other’s lips and tongue as though for the first time.
I thought that last night’s emotional confrontation and frank talk had fired us anew, as though our eager bodies needed any more kindling. But I welcomed it. I could hardly wait until I got home this evening to his arms.
“Remember, O warrior. Have your bata ready tonight.”
“Ah, ’tis ready now, Cat.” And he began to remove my trousers.
“Wait, wait,” I said, laughing. “Our visitors will knock at any moment. Put on your bríste, you scamp.”
“I embarrass ye?” he asked, his eyes roguish. “Ye deserve that…ye invite strange men into our home so early in the day.” But he slowly drew on his breeches and we ate our breakfast in easy silence.
“What time—?” he started to ask. And at that moment the wooden knocker sounded at our door.
Liam answered the door to Murdoch’s tall frame. He stepped back with a smile. “Maidin maith, a chol ceathrar.”
I could see that his cousin was surprised at Liam’s warm welcome, but he was also pleased. He held out his hand, and Liam grasped it, then leaned forward and clapped him on the back. I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes, so taken was I by Liam’s way of showing me his love and trust.
Torin, behind him, walked to Liam and roughly pummeled his shoulder.
“Good morning, lads,” I called. “Have you time to eat breakfast?”
“No time, Cate. We need to leave now, for Swallow needs me horse. She wants to attend a meeting of crazy women all dressed in men’s clothing.”
At that, we all laughed. I tore off two large pieces of pan bread and handed one to each of them, and we walked to the haggard just as the first rays of the sun were breaking through the larches on the far hills.
I stood next to Murdoch’s handsome palomino stallion and stroked his long white mane. “What is your horse’s name?”
“That is Fintan—White Fire.”
“Appropriate,” I murmured. His pure white mane and tail showed up well in the part darkness, and I could see as I stood close to him how the shafts of the wakening sun played off his tawny gold coat.
“Please saddle NimbleFoot,” I told Murdoch. “Let him get used to your touch before you mount him.”
We stood watching the tall clansman with the diminutive pony. He did seem very small at that moment—or was it that Murdoch was so very tall?
In a few swift moves, Murdoch had thrown on the blanket, then the saddle, and had cinched it underneath. He seemed hardly to touch the pommel before he was astride my pony. NimbleFoot reared back, dancing for a few moments on his rear legs, while Murdoch calmly kept the reins loose and let the pony have his head.
Almost immediately, NimbleFoot calmed and tossed his head, whuffling very low. “Good boy, beauty boy.” Murdoch stroked and talked to him, and soon he was as calm as I had ever seen him.
“Ye have the touch, Muiredach,” said Liam with approval in his voice.
“Let us ride then,” I told the men. “It should take not long to judge his ability to carry your weight.” I walked to Liam and lifted my head for our farewell kiss. “I will see you perhaps an hour before sundown. I love you, a mo thaisce.” He really was my treasure, and I stroked his cheek with light, lingering fingers.
He kissed me—a suitably public kiss this time—and lifted his arm in a farewell gesture to all of us. I leapt astride Fintan and followed Liam’s kinfolk through the pines to the road beyond.
We cantered down the familiar path slowly enough to exchange scraps of conversation.
Torin leaned forward toward me to be heard clearly. “I wonder how your pony will take the extra weight of supplies. He seems not to mind that heavy lout on his back.”
“You are right, Torin. I wonder how we can test his endurance?”
“Ride with me, Cate,” said Murdoch. “Torin, will you take Fintan while both of us ride the pony for a while? Let us see if he can carry—what?—a hundred pounds in addition to my own.”
I dismounted and handed the palomino’s reins to Torin. Seizing Murdoch’s proffered hand, I leapt behind him. NimbleFoot did not seem to notice, for when he began to move he did not alter his gait or move his head in distress as I had seen him do in the past.
Meanwhile, I became slowly conscious of holding onto Murdoch’s belt with one hand as we rode. He turned his face to me, his voice almost lost in the wind as we moved more and more rapidly. He leaned his head toward me, and his mouth was very close to my own as he spoke. “Liam trusts me.”
“And so do I,” I answered him.
One of his hands rested for a moment on mine. He squeezed it once, and then he let it go. We spoke no more until I told him, “Stop here.” He reined the pony back. I jumped down, and Torin rode up beside us.
“I think ye have a booley companion, lad,” he told Murdoch.
Murdoch nodded. “We will make it work.”
“Torin, we must part from you right here,” I said. “The teach where Nuala is staying lies just the other side of yonder low hills. Will you tell Swallow that I will be only a little late?” I stood caressing the neck and mane of the palomino.
Torin sat looking at me for a moment before he spoke. “I will, a chara mo chroí. Until I see ye, fare ye well. Muiredach, come to me teach at sundown. If I am not home yet, just come in an’ treat it as your own home.”
He turned the reins and bent low to his horse’s head, and we watched him disappear quickly into the early morning haze.
Again I mounted Fintan. Before we signaled our mounts to move, Murdoch spoke my name and held me with his flashing eyes. I was alarmed by his expression—grim jawed, the image of his brooding father. “I see it now, Cate. Torin loves you also. I think you know that. Why then did you invite us both to dinner with your husband?”
I sat bold upright in the saddle, stiff with denial. “You are wrong. Torin and I have formed a—a close bond. He helped me find and take care of Liam after he was taken hostage. How can you say there is such a sinful feeling between us?”
“I see it,” Murdoch said grimly. “Perhaps not in your eyes. But Torin is smitten. Anyone but his brother can see it. You see it. I ask you again—why in the world did you throw us both together with your husband, like—like dogs in a fight?”
I sat there mortified, knowing he was right, and I felt an uncomfortable heat start at my forehead and work itself down my neck.
“Because I am stupid. Because it never entered my mind that it was the wrong thing to do. Because I like you both so much.” I knew that if I sat there any longer, my emotions and my eyes would betray me again. I dug my heels into Fintan’s side, urging him forward, and Murdoch was forced to follow my rigid back all the way to Persimmon’s house.
The hour was early, and I hoped that we would not cause too much upset to Nuala or the twins, Quince and Persimmon. I had thought about coming here last night almost on a whim, with no advance warning to the two women. I did not even know whether Persimmon already had a swain, as her sister now did, and whether she or Murdoch might resent my interference.
Both young ladies had been entertainers at Grandfather’s long house, acrobatic dancers who seemed to weave the music with their bodies the way a master weaver would run a weft through a tapestry. The women were blessed with alabaster skin and flaxen hair, and with eyes blue as a sky swept clean by rain. The differences between them were so slight as to hardly be noticed. Quince was somewhat taller than her sister, and Persimmon’s eyes were a shade deeper. Persimmon wore her hair shorter, just above the shoulders, perhaps as a signal that she wanted to be seen as an individual.
When we emigrated to Éire, the twins decided to become caretakers of those around them who seemed less fortunate—the sick, the elderly, the confused. At the moment, their house had been converted into a kind of shelter for three women�
��Nuala and two other women whom I had never met.
My dear friend Luke, a young man I had grown up with, had asked me to introduce him to the lovely Quince. That was back in February or March. And ever since, she had been attending his Latin classes at the school. I knew they were drawn to each other, for I had seen them from a distance a few times after church, walking with hands interlaced and heads close together.
Now, tethering Fintan on a rowan sapling near the house, I felt a deep trepidation. What if I were doing the wrong thing? I decided that even if Persimmon ignored Murdoch, then after all, he was here to visit his grandmother—no harm done. I stood at the door and waited for the sober-eyed Murdoch to join me. We had not spoken since he had confronted me with my irresponsible actions, and I still did not feel like speaking to him.
When he stood beside me, I knocked on the door. After a few minutes, Persimmon answered, sleep eyed, smoothing her tousled hair.
“Why, Caylith. I am surprised to see you—yet pleased, of course. Good morning. If you are here to see Quince, she has already left for her Latin class. And—oh! Hello.” She became aware that Murdoch was standing behind me and off to the side of the house, for the coward had hidden there as soon as he saw Persimmon.
“Ah, may we come in?” I asked, almost shyly.
Persimmon looked down to make sure that her pretty robe was drawn tight and stepped aside. “Of course. Do come in.”
We stood looking at her. The morning sun coming through the small eastern window had lit her fair hair until it seemed a halo around her shapely face. Her eyes, still drowsy from sleep, seemed full of both humor and friendliness.
“Um, Persimmon, I have brought my—our kinsman Murdoch.” I had almost said, “my friend.” I felt myself flushing a little. “Murdoch MacOwen. His grandmother Nuala Sweeney is here, is she not?”
“Oh! Of course! How rude of me. Please sit down, and I will bring her to see you.”
“Um—Persimmon. Perhaps we could sit a moment first and—and let Nuala have a few more minutes of sleep. I am sorry to come so early, but our riding companion was on an early schedule.”
“Well. I am sure we could sit and visit for a bit. I have just made tea if you would like. Murdoch? Would you like tea?”
Murdoch had been strangely silent, and I was almost afraid to look in his direction. He was not a shy man, so why did he not speak? I looked at him at last, and I saw that he seemed frozen in place, his dark eyes riveted on Persimmon’s lovely, almost ethereal face.
“I feel…I feel I know you somehow,” he said slowly.
“That is possible,” she said easily. “In another life, I was a dancer. Perhaps you saw me at the court of King Leoninus.”
He shook his head—not in denial, but as though to wake from a dream. “Ah, I think not, pretty lady. I thought it might have been in Gallia, where I spent—or misspent—part of my youth.”
Again, her response was natural, a light laugh and a toss of her head. “No, my own misspent youth was far from that exotic place. Tell me a bit about it.”
I stood. “Please do not think me rude. But I have a meeting this morning.” I glanced down at my trousers. “We call ourselves the Triús. We dance also, but with shillelaghs.”
Persimmon laughed again, a warm, rippling laugh that filled the room. “Caylith, I would not be surprised at anything you did. I am sure Brindl must also be in the Triús. Yes?”
“Yes,” I told her, and I, too, laughed. “I would love to share a cup of tea with you some other time.” I turned to Murdoch. “I will take NimbleFoot back until you need him.”
Murdoch stood. “Fine, Cate. I will certainly see you before I leave. I, ah—Well, thank you for…everything.”
We stood awkwardly for a moment, Murdoch staring at the floor, and I turned back to Persimmon. I held out my hands, and she grasped them warmly. “I am very glad you came with Murdoch. Please return whenever you want.”
I left the twins’ little house, hardly glancing at the attractive flower-and-herb garden. Making sure my shillelagh was thrust firmly into my belt, I untethered and mounted NimbleFoot. As Torin had done earlier, I bent low in the saddle, the wind now at my back, and I urged my pony into a swift gallop. I wondered after a while why I was biting my lower lip in vexation, and I tried to smooth the wrinkles from my mind as I rode into the new day breaking over Derry.
Chapter 10:
Captive Heart
The five small women who called themselves the Terrible Trousers met every Thursday, one or two hours after sunrise, at the teach belonging to my oldest friend Brindl and her new husband Thom. I had known Brindl since her birth, a fat baby born to play with the two-year-old, mischievous Caylith. Actually, she was the daughter of my nurse Chessie. The two of us had formed an unbreakable bond through the years, even before Mama allowed us to run free on the expansive grounds of our ancestral villa.
Always drawn to the outdoors, I had made Brindl into my companion and coconspirator as we hid from parental authority and played out our childhood fantasies of gnomes and trolls and fairies and any other larger-than-life figure from our bedtime stories. After the villa was sacked and burned and her betrothed was killed by raiders, Brindie had fled with me. She had stayed resolutely by my side, and here she was still.
As soon as I rode up, I saw her standing in her private hurling field with her shillelagh drawn, quietly facing Magpie Feather. The sight of a very short woman facing an even shorter woman, both in the stance of a wary warrior, smoothed my furrowed forehead and made a smile tug at my mouth. Both were dressed in the plaid triús that gave their name to our club. The trousers were molded to the calves and thighs, then flared out at the hips and drawn in at the waist with a strong strip of leather.
No more than six feet away another set of warriors faced each other—Brigid and Swallow. Brigid, taller than any of us, held her shillelagh in the frozen posture of a mad axe wielder as Swallow lifted hers in an attitude of stout defense. It warmed me to see such outrageously beautiful women practicing skills befitting a seasoned warrior.
We were unlike most men’s fantasy of what a woman should be. Not only did we dress each Thursday like any cattle drover, we were not hesitant to reveal our questing minds nor our spirit of heady adventure. I suppose that is why the local women did not quite know how to approach us and why we tended to cluster together.
The exception to that image of warrior woman was Magpie. A scant four and a half feet, she was a skilled weaver, seamstress, jewelry maker, and mosaic creator, and she had a dozen other talents we never even talked about. Her hair, lustrous red, flew at every angle to her heart-shaped face like the seed head of a demented dandelion. That look, coupled with her jade-green eyes, made many people think we were near twins.
As I thought about it, all my friends were exceptional. Brigid had been schooled at a high-level institution in Londinium and had the brains and most of the training of an ollamh, a high scholar. Swallow was one of the Feather Clan’s small army that had fashioned both the bodies and the sails of our emigrants’ currachs from animal skins. On the storm-tossed voyage to Éire she had been my steady arm, my advisor and companion. Brindl was not just my childhood companion but my former tutor in Latin, arithmetic, and geometry, and even sewing and dance. Her lively brain soaked up knowledge unlike anyone I had ever met. And she, much more than I, was a true warrior. She had dedicated the last three years of her life to marine training at the side of her quiet, serious husband Thom. Together, those two could take down a squadron if they had to.
I dismounted, tethered my pony, and walked to the field to greet my friends. I waited for each pair of bata wielders to finish the practice set they were performing. Soon all five of us were hugging and greeting each other.
“I am sorry to be the last one here,” I told my friends. “A–a kinsman of Liam’s arrived yesterday, and I found myself riding with him and Torin this morning to visit his grandmother.”
Swallow’s gold-flecked eyes—almost the image of Brindl
’s own—sparkled at me. “Lough told me about the ride and about the palomino stallion. I can hardly wait to see such a beautiful horse.”
“He looks like NimbleFoot.” I smiled. “But you would never mistake one for the other. Come, my friends, let me show you some of the tricks that Liam taught me…” I stood, reaching out my hands, and each of the women joined hands with me until we formed a quiet circle.
My own skills with a shillelagh were born of my training with a short stick at the hands of one of the best martial experts in the known world. I had been fortunate to win the allegiance of Gristle, my armsman for almost three years. His history before that was even more astonishing, and as I thought about him, I realized a bit guiltily that I had not been to visit him or to train for almost two months.
Liam had right away seen my expertise with the fighting stick, and even before we were married we had begun to train together. He had a remarkable quickness of movement and caginess of technique that I wanted to learn. He in turn was keen to learn the breathing techniques that Gristle had shown to be the secret of every highly skilled warrior.
So I was teaching my friends first the breathing and then some of the fighting techniques that would vanquish an unwary assailant—or even a wary one. We started, as we did every week, by standing in a six-foot circle, joining hands and breathing. Just breathing. I had shown them how to take in air slowly, slowly as though there were only a tiny bit to spare, and then how to expel each breath just as gradually until the focus of the mind was on air alone, nothing more and nothing less.
As we breathed, I had told them what to expect. Time itself would become fluid, and the very earth we stood on would lose all resemblance to mere dirt and rocks until a new dimension opened. In that new place, there was no here, there was no when. The eye would see not an opponent but the mind of an opponent—his deep motives, his target—and be able to counter any attack.