The Hart and the Harp

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The Hart and the Harp Page 25

by Sorcha MacMurrough


  But there were a few matters which had to be settled between them, and he was a proud and cautious man. He was determined not to make a fool of himself in front of her and her family. Tiernan would sound out Shive’s feelings. If she seemed amenable, he would ask her if she wished to resume their marriage.

  Tiernan certainly got off to a bad start in his attempt to patch up their differences by declaring, “I still don’t understand what made you do it. Killing not one band of Vikings, but two. Risking your life in such a way. It was a foolish thing to do, Shive, as well you know.”

  Shive bristled visibly. “I’ve told you, Tiernan, I wanted to see justice done. How else could I do that except by ridding your lands of the Vikings my father had brought here?

  “They wanted to split your forces in two, Tiernan, and have you running from one end of your holdings to the other trying to fend off attacks, getting weaker and weaker until my father struck the final blow. Uistean was like a cat playing with a mouse, completely without remorse or compunction.

  “And before you tell me I should have consulted with you before going off after the attack on the village, there simply wasn’t time, you know there wasn’t. I had to catch them unawares before they got away or did any more damage.”

  Tiernan began to protest, but Shive cut him off by declaring, “Now I have a question for you. I want to know why you never told me that I had been poisoned the day of our wedding. Did you know it was my father?”

  Tiernan was completely taken aback by her forthright question. “Shive, really, I...” he began to bluster.

  “The truth, Tiernan,” Shive demanded angrily.

  He stood up and began to pace the room, trying to buy time. “It hardly matters now, since your father is dead.”

  “It matters to me. I need the truth.”

  Tiernan sighed and sat down in front of her across the desk, taking both of her tiny hands in one of his own large capable ones. “All right, Shive, I'll admit that I knew you'd been poisoned. But I had no clue as to who might have been responsible. It could have been anyone here at Rathnamagh, or even at Skeard for all I knew. I suspected your cousins at first, since they obviously stood to gain the most from your death. Yet Ernin and Mahon seemed so honest and upright that I discounted the notion almost immediately.

  “It was suspicious your father Uistean and cousin Parthalan coming to see you. Again, they could have been prompted by some rumour spread about by another. They might have both been innocent, and you certainly wouldn’t have thanked me for casting aspersions on their characters. After all, you had little enough reason to like or trust me when we first wed,” Tiernan said logically, though it pained him to admit just how precarious were the foundations of their marriage.

  “Yet you should have known, if you were innocent of Fiachra’s murder, that only a few people would have been likely to gain from his death and mine,” Shive replied quietly. “You should have talked to me about your suspicions.”

  “But Shive, it was unthinkable! A father killing his own children for the sake of gain? I couldn’t see at the time why he would benefit. In any case, even if I had told you, would you have listened? No, of course not! You would have thought I was disparaging Uistean and Parthalan in order to mend fences between us, or get you on my side in this whole sorry dispute,” Tiernan said in exasperation.

  She sighed and withdrew her hand from his as she leaned back in her chair wearily. “I suppose you’re partly right about that, Tiernan. Nevertheless, if you had confided your fears to me sooner, the attack on your village might never have happened. I’m not a fool, you know. I too was suspicious of everyone. Everyone except you. I did try to tell you I thought you innocent. You wouldn’t listen. You didn’t trust me, did you? You thought it was all a ploy to get me into your good graces, and then strike when you least expected it.”

  Tiernan decided he could hide nothing from her sharp violet eyes. “That’s true, but it didn’t take me long to realise my mistake. I would trust you with my life, Shive. As for not confiding my fears to you, I know it’s been a heavy price to pay for the people of Breachnach. Yet if the Viking attack hadn’t happened, then you might never have been provoked into challenging Uistean and Parthalan for the position of tanaist. A post which I am sure you'll fill more than adequately, if your work at my castle is anything to go by. Now that you're head, I hope our families will be at peace with one another forever.”

  Shive nodded. “I don’t blame you, Tiernan, not really. It’s just that I wanted to get the whole affair straight in my head. Then I never want to speak of it again. I don’t want to keep reliving the past five years, Tiernan. I would rather look forward to the future. I’m just not sure exactly what form we want that to take.”

  “I don’t blame you for being angry with me. I should have told you about the poisoning. I was desperate to protect you when I realized someone was trying to kill you. I would never have forgiven myself if you had died. I’ve been haunted enough by Fiachra’s death over the years. And he was only my best friend, not my cherished wife."

  She blinked in surprise at that but he pressed on.

  “I will also understand if you harbor any other feelings of resentment or unease because of me. After all, if it hadn’t been for my village being attacked, you would never have killed your own father and cousin. And poor Ernin would still be alive.”

  She shook her head and allowed herself to give him a tender look. “You can’t blame yourself, Tiernan. Uistean started it all five years ago, and he's quite rightly paid the price for his perfidy. As for challenging Uistean and Parthalan, it had to happen sooner or later, It was foolish of me to have put it off for so long. I didn’t want to admit to myself what they had done. Perhaps if I had acted sooner, Breachnach would have been saved. Uistean’s and Parthalan’s deaths had nothing to do with you, not really.

  “But at last I finally feel like I can put my brother to rest. His death has been avenged. I would hope that this shall be the end of it. Justice has triumphed over evil, and those who would have benefited from his death and your destruction are now gone forever.”

  Tiernan reached over to stroked her linen-clad forearm soothingly. “Still, it can’t sit easy with you, what you’ve done.”

  Shive shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. But then I think about all the men, women, and children killed on your lands in the past five years. Or about the fact that you were unfairly branded a murderer and base betrayer for the sake of a crime that you never committed. Then I know I made the right decision. I can only tell you again how sorry I am for everything you've suffered, Tiernan. You and your whole family. And how ashamed I am of the fact that I'm my father’s daughter.”

  Seeing the unshed tears glistening in her eyes Tiernan pulled her up out of the chair and hugged her urgently, so urgently he didn't even walk around the desk between them. “Your people have made up for our suffering with all the dead who protected our village and stopped the second Viking attack. They would have destroyed the village as surely as I’m sitting here. You put your own lives at risk to save us. I'm truly sorry about Ernin, you know that, don’t you.”

  She rubbed his broad back soothingly, and released him. “Aye, as am I. I think his death, more than any other, will haunt me for the rest of my life. When I saw him killed trying to protect me, well, it was like a part of myself had died.”

  Tiernan frowned darkly at her words.

  She caught his jealous scowl just in time. “It was like the last link with my childhood had been severed. I won’t ever forget my brother or Ernin, but I suppose losing Ernin was my last rite of passage. I’m a grown woman now. Any hopes or fantasies I might once have had that things could go aback to the way they were five years ago died the day of that Viking attack.”

  Tiernan released her hand and began to begin pacing in front of the desk.

  At length he finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had brought him there in the first place. “Then in terms of our recent past together,
Shive, are you trying to tell me that it's all over? Or do you think we could perhaps try to start again?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Start again? How?” Shive asked, wide-eyed. Her husband's words were music to her ears, but she couldn’t quite believe Tiernan had said them.

  “I know we’ve had our problems, our differences, Shive. But as you said, the past should be put behind us once and for all. We should learn from it, grow, change, and move on. I think we have the potential to have a good marriage, especially now that your father’s enmity, and your brother’s murder, are no longer issues between us. And no, I know you never really blamed me, not in your heart. Yet we've had our doubts and suspicions about each other, have we not?"

  "And about marriage too, don't forget."

  He nodded. “I want to lay the ghost of the past to rest. To try again. Shive, I’ve come here today to ask you to come back home with me. Maybe not now, this minute, or for every single day for the rest of your life, but eventually, and for as long as you want to be with me, if you wish it so. I know you have duties here. As I said, I would never want you to feel you had to choose between me and the whole MacDermot clan. I want you to know you have a home to come back to with me whenever you feel you're ready.

  “But make no mistake about what I’m asking for now. I know what I said when we were first married. Things have changed between us so much since then, I would never want to live under those circumstances. Never, no matter what I said at the time. I want you to be my wife in every sense, Shive, my helpmeet, someone I can rely upon and trust to run my house, and look after the interests of me and my family.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. Was he saying he believed in marriage after all?

  “I believe we can be happy together. I’m willing to do anything to make you happy, my dear Shive. I think we're good for each other. I know we were married at first in order to try to patch up the rift between our families. It’s also true that I want both clans to grow strong under our watchful eyes.

  “But more than anything, Shive, I miss you, and your quiet gentle way. Even the men miss you, bold wench that you are, wearing hose and wielding a sword. So I'm asking you, Shive, will you--" He paused and swallowed hard. "Will you at least consider returning to Castlegarren some time soon? That is if your duties here are not too pressing?” Tiernan asked cautiously, his glimmering eyes never leaving hers.

  Shive was stunned, but delighted that Tiernan was asking her to come back to him. On the other hand, she could think of nothing less romantic than the terms in which he had couched his proposal. He did admit to having grown used to her, but once again, Tiernan was thinking only of the good of the clan. There was no mention of love, admiration, or desire. Tiernan simply stood there with his arms folded, making her a logical business proposal.

  At the same time as these thoughts rankled, Shive knew that beyond anything else in the world she loved Tiernan. How could she turn down his offer?

  True, it was a marriage of convenience, but he had already admitted that he had changed his mind about certain of the conditions he had originally set down with regard to their marital relations. Surely he might change his mind again? At any rate, Shive knew she needed Tiernan as much as the air she breathed.

  These mental deliberations, therefore, only took a fraction of a second before Shive assented tentatively. “I shall come home, Tiernan in a few more days, when things here are a bit more settled. Mahon has to go on some trade runs at the end of the week. I'll come home after he has returned safely, leaving the reins of the estate in his capable hands.”

  “Thank you, my dear girl. I promise you you won’t regret it, Shive.” Tiernan grinned, pecking her on the cheek in a brotherly fashion, lest his passion for her engulf them both.

  Shive smiled sadly. “I only hope you won’t regret it,Tiernan.”

  Tiernan couldn’t hold back then, and began to confess his feelings for her. “Shive, I want to tell you...”

  Shive had simultaneously begun a similar sentence of her own, for she didn’t want to shock Tiernan unduly with news of her pregnancy. At each’s hesitant beginning, they blushed and lapsed into silence again.

  “What were you going to say, Shive?” Tiernan prompted softly.

  “Oh, never mind, nothing that can’t wait until I’m home,” she said shyly. “And you, Tiernan? What did you want to tell me?”

  Tiernan looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  Shive wondered what sort of revelation he was about to make.

  Before Tiernan could speak, the door burst open, and Ruairi came marching into the room like a breath of fresh air. Shive immediately flew into his open arms with a whoop of joy and evident relief.

  “Good to see you, old friend." Ruairi beamed as he looked at Tiernan from behind Shive’s shimmering halo of burgundy hair.

  After placing a smacking kiss on her cheek, he let go of Shive, who quickly offered him a chair. He dragged it up right next to her and gave her a beaming smile.

  She clung to his hand tightly. “I can’t tell you how glad I'm to see you, Ruairi," she said unguardedly. "I’ve been sending messages to you for the better part of a month, without one reply! I have so much to tell you, well, we both do, don’t we, Tiernan,” she said with a shy glance at her husband.

  Tiernan had been scowling blackly at Shive’s and Ruairi’s display of affection for one another, but told himself not to be so unreasonably jealous. After all, they were family, and they hadn’t seen each other for some time.

  “I’d be delighted to hear it all over a cup or two of your wonderful ale, my dear girl. For the moment just let me sit and rest my weary bones. I’ve been touring around down in the south, and have ridden hard to come back here.”

  “Not bad news I hope, Ruairi?” Shive asked worriedly.

  “No, not at all. Quite the contrary in fact," he said with a broad smile which lit his emerald green eyes. "It’s just that I suddenly had a yearning to see my old familiar haunts again and make sure everything was well.”

  “I’m so glad to see the two of you together and looking so happy,” Ruairi added, the surprise, not untinged with envy, evident in his voice. “Shive, you’re positively radiant. Isn’t it marvelous what love can do?”

  Ruairi grinned at them both, and watched their faces fall.

  “Oh dear, don’t tell me I’ve interrupted you in the middle of your divorce preparations,” Ruairi quipped lightheartedly.

  “Not, of course not,” Tiernan said testily. “It’s just that, well...”

  “What Tiernan means is that we've had a difficult past few weeks, and we’re only just now starting to make plans for our future together,” Shive supplied with another long look at her husband.

  “I see,” Ruairi said quietly, his eyebrows knitting. “Of course it isn’t my place to interfere, but I had hoped that your marriage would have patched up the quarrel between you and Shive’s father by now, Tiernan.”

  “It has, Ruairi, though not quite in the way any of us intended,” Tiernan admitted in clipped tones, feeling positively needled by having to share Shive with her cousin.

  He rose now and moved to gather up his things.

  “You’re not going so soon, are you Tiernan?” Shive exclaimed, her disappointment evident for all to see. “Stay for dinner. And I'm sure it will be easy enough to find you a bed for the night,” she added shyly.

  “I know you and Ruairi have many things to discuss with one another, and you can do enough talking for both of us. As for staying the night, well, I don’t think I can ever bring myself to stay in this castle again after all that has happened,” he said stiffly. “I'll see you at the end of the week.”

  “At least let me escort you down to the stables,” Shive offered,, reluctant to part from him again.

  “No, that won’t be necessary. I know my way,” Tiernan said curtly. With a small polite bow, he flung open the door and disappeared.

  “Say goodbye to Cian for me, then,” Shive called after him as
he descended the ladder to the lower story rapidly.

  Shive shut the door sadly and turned to face her cousin.

  “So tell me what exactly has been going on in my absence,” Ruairi commanded with a penetrating stare. His question was really with regard to Shive and Tiernan’s marriage, but Shive was not about to confide in anyone.

  “You mean the messages haven’t reached you about the Viking attacks?”

  “I’ve been travelling all over, and have been otherwise occupied,” Ruairi replied, not quite meeting Shive’s eye.

  “All right, I’ll tell you my news first, then you must tell me yours,” Shive said, sitting down to begin to recount for Ruairi her long saga of woe.

  “I can’t tell you all my news Shive, at least not right away, but soon enough,” Ruairi said, looking more evasive with every word.

  Shive nodded, and commenced her tale. She spent the rest of the day conversing with her cousin, telling him of her battle with the Vikings, and her father’s own plotting and scheming. Then she took him on a tour of the estate.

 

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