by Erin O'Quinn
We hugged each other warmly, for we had become friends almost from the moment we met. “That léine is lovely on you, Cay. I shall have to find you a few more.”
“You will only spoil me, Bree. What use have I of pretty clothes?”
“Never forget that you are a duchess,” she answered, and just then she sounded exactly like Mama. Of mixed native and Faerie stock, my mother once enjoyed the life of a wealthy villa matron and often proudly reminded me of my own part-Roman lineage.
Brigid always favored blue, and tonight she wore a léine as pale as a robin’s egg with lovely sleeves in layers of lavender blue and flax flower. It was made of wool, dyed by some master tailor almost to shift and glow in the light of fire and candles. She seemed to read my mind as I lightly stroked the material of her sleeves. “This material was made by an old friend of my father’s in Londinium, years ago. I finally had it sewed onto an old gown.”
“You make me want to have nice clothing,” I admitted, and then I changed the subject. “Brigid, come with me tomorrow. I am going to visit Mama, then Gristle.”
“I would love that! Your mother thinks like I do in many ways, and yet she still surprises me. And Gristle? Do you think I need to learn the arts martial?”
“In word, Bree, yes. How can it hurt to learn a few self-defense tactics?”
“In January’s wind? With no weapon?”
“Yes, and yes,” I laughed. “I have an extra shillelagh. You will enjoy it, my friend. In fact, we will stop on the way and invite Brindl, too.”
“Brindl,” she said and she smiled widely. “If that delicate, gorgeous flower can wield a three-foot spatha, I can at least pick up a bata.”
I was delighted, and it showed. As much as I treasured my training with the dour Gristle, I liked even more to share martial techniques with my friends, starting with Liam. Every time we trained together, it seemed to sharpen our hunger for each other. I snapped my mind shut on that subject, for we would be alone together soon enough, and my memory of our encounters was keen enough to set an ember into sudden flame.
I poured dark beer into the waiting cups, and Brigid helped me take them around to the lounging men. Liam had taken up a position on the floor, leaning against the table, and his cousin Michael sprawled beside him. When our homestead was finished, I would have large benches with high backs spread with soft animal pelts, like the soft “couches” in Sweeney’s comfort room. Until then, we would all have to tolerate a bit of discomfort.
The talk was all in Gaelic, and I did not mind at all. In fact, it gave me a chance to watch my friends and delight in their company without having to contribute. Liam seemed alive with humor, his eyes dancing and his mouth curved in a constant smile. He looked at me and our eyes locked for an instant, loving each other, and then he threw back his head in a throaty laugh. Brother Galen had, no doubt, uttered a near blasphemy or a ribald jest.
Michael was a man I had met in the shipyards of Newport, back in Britannia. I had been seeking a man, any man, from “Eire-Land,” as I used to call my new home, who could build vessels to sail across the Hibernian Sea. I was intent on emigrating to the unknown isle with my group of pilgrims, escapees from Faerie and Britannia, too. The ones from Faerie were running from a poisonous mist that was ending all life in that enchanted land. And the emigrants from Britannia were escaping the certain invasions of Saxons and other waves of foreigners, all filling the gap left by the retreating Romans.
Michael had hidden his history from me, for he had himself “escaped” from Éire to Britannia, running from a tormented personal life. I persuaded him to build us a tiny fleet of ten currachs. Those little boats were thirty-passenger vessels made of light wickerwork and stretched with tanned animal pelts, the same kind of craft he was an expert at building back at Lough Neagh, his home in Éire.
In an ironic twist of fate, it turned out that Michael was a cousin of Liam, and I rediscovered Liam on the longship with Michael sailing back to Éire. He was bringing Michael home after five years of self-exile, at the same time that I was on the same ship, parting from an old suitor.
I rose from my bench and said one simple word, “Supper,” and everyone stopped talking. Liam helped me, placing the roasted fish on a long wooden trencher and setting it on the table. He even arranged a few extra sprigs of rosemary on the plate. I had placed wooden bowls on the table, and by sign language I bid my guests to ladle their own stew from the cauldron on the grate.
We ate largely in silence, a testament to the savory meal. Several times during supper, we all lifted our cups in a mute testament both to friendship and to the delicious food. It was a close group that evening, for Liam and I shared a small bench, and so did Michael and Brigid. Galen’s bulk more than filled the third.
At last, when we had all finished, Brother Galen stood. “A toast,” he said, “to marriage. To the two blushing couples. I wish ye many years of hard loving and good living. Sláinte!” He repeated his words in Gaelige to Liam. At his words, we all four really did flush somewhat, and we lifted our cups in laughter.
Then Liam and Michael settled back down on the polished floor while Brigid and I cleared the table. I listened to the musical cadence of Gaelige flowing around me and moved as though in a happy dream. Brigid started to say something. I put my forefinger to my lips gently, as though to say, “Hush.” She smiled, understanding my need for silence, and she listened to her blue-eyed husband as I listened to Liam, both of us brimming with quiet joy.
Her absence from Michael had lasted five years, and thus she had even more reason to rejoice in his company. Liam and I had parted for about eight months, driven apart by the same misunderstanding that Michael and Brigid had suffered—both of us at the mercy of the deceitful kinsman Fergus MacCool. That was a story still being told, and I shut out all thoughts of him tonight.
I rejoined Liam, sitting close to him on the shining wooden floor. It seemed to shift and move in the reflection of myriad candles placed around our tiny home. Either the floor was moving subtly, or else I had already drunk too much barley beer.
“…mo bhean chéile,” I heard Liam say. My wife. I wondered what he had been saying about me, and I looked up at Galen for translation.
“Nothing, lass,” the monk answered my look. “I think he just likes saying the words.”
I reached out and put my hand lightly on his upper leg, feeling his long muscles move under the leather. “Fear agus bean chéile,” I said, pronouncing the words carefully. Man and wife.
Again our eyes made love while a babble of lilting words, like the swift waters of the River Foyle, swirled and eddied around us.
Chapter 4:
In Barley Beer Veritas
I quirked an eyebrow at Galen, silently asking him to broach the subject of his lessons with Liam. I saw that Liam’s cup, Brigid’s, and my own were still half-full of beer. Michael and Galen had already refilled their own cups with the strong brown stuff. And so I settled back against Liam’s chest, listening to him and Brother Galen. Michael, already well trained as a translator for Liam and me, fell into an easy rhythm of repeating Liam’s words to me as he spoke.
“Liam, me boy, what think ye of the Christian commandments?”
And Michael began to translate, almost as Liam spoke. “I think Christ speaks to me heart more than the great sorrowful Moses.” Liam paused a moment to order his thoughts. “Moses had to govern a multitude, and so he had to give the people a graven tablet. And on the tablet God had written ten great rules to follow. But when Jesus spoke to the people about God’s laws, he spoke only of two.
“I think Jesus spoke of two commandments because the two laws held every other law within them. He was a plain speaker, much like meself. Why speak of ten when ye can tell of two?”
“I am confused, Liam,” I said. “What are the two commandments?”
“Matthew wrote it all down,” Liam said simply. “He was there when Jesus spoke. He told the people, ‘Love god with all your heart, your mind and your sou
l. This is the first rule. The second is almost the same. Love other people as ye love yourself.’ And that is all Jesus said, but I think he was pulling all the ten ancient rules into a few simple words for us to live by.”
I thought about the story Father Patrick had told me about the day he was taken captive by Hibernian slave traders, and I spoke now to my company. “I remember Pádraig’s words to his captives, when he thought he would be killed on the spot. He told me they were standing with their vicious spears ready to thrust into his heart, and he knelt and raised his voice in great joy.”
I remembered what Patrick had told me, almost word for word. “‘Love thy God, thy father, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind.’ And lo, did the savages lay down their spears and speak in wondering voices about this strange young man who seemed to laugh at his own imminent death.”
Liam looked down at me with amazement. “I never heard that story, Caitlín. Pádraig was ready to die, all for the first great commandment.”
“That is not all,” I told him, sitting upright, suddenly remembering. “When Jay Feather had his vision on the shore of the Hibernian Sea, Father Patrick strode to him through the waves, telling him the pilgrims needed to follow him to Éire. Jay told us how Father Patrick was smiling and how he had raised his hands to the sky. He said, ‘Love your neighbor as you would love yourself.’ And then he turned westward and walked straight into the sea. This vision was told by someone who had never heard a word of Christian gospel.”
A long silence followed my words. At length, Galen said, “Now we know something about our bishop we may not have realized before. He sees the world as Jesus saw it, and for the same reason—for the simple, overwhelming love of God.”
Liam took me by the shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “I am almost ready to accept Pádraig as a messenger from Christ. Ye make me see a wisdom I had not seen before. It is all about love.”
“Oh, Liam, I am glad. But what about your father?”
He looked puzzled. “What about me father?”
“The great king Leary is said to hate Father Patrick and all he stands for.”
“Ye know already that the king’s mind was poisoned by his druid advisors, Cat. He will not rebuke me, for he loves me. He will not choose me own god, just as he would not choose me own wife.”
He said it with the same finality as when he had said, “I will cook the fish.” There could be no argument to a simple truth.
Michael then spoke to his cousin, not bothering to speak Gaelige. “Liam, me boy, the lovely Brigid has never bid me go to church. But if it is all the same to ye, I could come with ye on the Sabbath and learn a bit more.”
Liam grinned and settled back against the table leg. “Fill me cup again, mo ghrá, for I feel a song inside trying to come out.”
I rose and brought the wineskin to my guests. The men all accepted another cup, while Brigid and I still nursed our first one. My tongue had never quite appreciated the subtlety of strong, sour barley beer. Tomorrow I would tease Liam about his massive headache, but tonight he needed to break loose in song.
Liam started with Michael, singing a rollicking song about sailors at sea and their ready maidens on shore. And Brother Galen lent his baritone on the chorus.
Pitch and roll, boys, pitch and roll
But save a bit for me bonny soul.
And tug the ropes and trim the sail
When ye come home, boys, on me bonny tail.
An’ it’s row, row, row, boys
Bring your lusty groin.
An’ ho, ho, ho, boys
Póg mo, póg mo thoin!
Brigid and I were both flushing deeply, but the men seemed not to care a whit. They sang one song after another. Every time Liam lifted his sweet tenor voice, I leaned more closely into his warm chest, captured completely.
Fair colleen from Connell-Derry
lay your hair around me breast.
Tie your braids into me heart
and never, never let us part.
A mo chailín, an-dheas chailín
Red-haired lass from Cenél-Daire.
He sang as though the song were written just for me. I felt tears brimming just behind my eyes, and I blinked them back, burying my head in his soft shirt-tunic, loving him.
An hour or so later, I saw by the diminished girth of the wineskin that it was almost time to bid our guests farewell. I rose from my place next to Liam and spoke to Brigid.
“Tomorrow, Bree, be sure to wear triús, or something similar. You need freedom of movement, and you need to stay warm. I will come ’round about two hours after sunrise.”
Michael, who had not yet learned our plans, looked at his wife with some bemusement. “Why would ye wear men’s trousers? Unless ye want me to dress in a gúna?”
We could hear the slight slurring of his words, and Brigid and I laughed outright, keeping our little secret. “Put on your boots, me lad,” she told him affectionately. “It is time to ride home.”
“An’ sure if I could find them, I would put them on,” he said, gazing down at his feet. No one told him he was still wearing his boots, and everyone set up a great howl of laughter.
At last everyone had left, and Liam was still sitting on the floor, his back to the table. I stood near him, wondering whether to bid him come to bed or try to help him up.
“Come,” he said, looking up at me. He patted the floor next to him, and I sat gracefully, folding my legs so that my léine billowed around me. He reached for my waist and held me, looking into my eyes. “Want you,” he said simply, almost roughly, and he leaned his face close to mine. I was already aroused by his sweet singing, and I surrendered my mouth, opening it to accept his probing tongue. As soon as I felt his hot moving mouth, a surge of fire started in my toes and moved to my groin, then spread into my very bum and through my stomach.
Soon I was sucking and licking as frantically as Liam, and he pushed me slowly to the floor, leaning over me. “Want you,” he said again. His hands at my shoulders, he fumbled a bit with my léine, a testament to his second beer. Normally, he could slip off my tunic as though it were insubstantial as gossamer. I helped him, shrugging it from my shoulders and bringing it down over my hips. I was breathing very heavily, as though I had never had a lesson in deep breathing, and I felt at that moment that I could not control it at all.
I lay there in my silken undertunic, knowing that my own insistent nipples were rising through the lace, begging for his mouth. “Yes,” he said “Need you.” He had not yet spoken a word of Gaelige. He leaned over me, resting on his elbows so as not to crush me, and he began to take great soft bites of my breasts, all the while twisting his groin into mine. He fell into a rhythm, wetly sucking my nipples, making sounds that fired me deeply.
“Oh, oh,” I moaned, loving his mouth. He raised up a bit and tugged at his breeches, and I helped him, moving them down slowly over his butt. He impatiently kicked them off and knelt over me again. Then, rising and squatting, he moved so that his groin and sac dangled over me, almost at my head. “Suck me,” he said roughly. I was both shocked and aroused, for he had never spoken so directly before. I raised my head and caught his groin in my mouth, stroking his velvet-skinned testicles. He thrust himself again and again. “Suck me,” he moaned, and I knew the beer was speaking.
I thought we would end our lovemaking that way, but he suddenly stopped and gathered me into his arms and stood up. He set me not on the bed, but on the bench, and then he straddled me, pushing himself into me, moving up and down with his strong legs. “Yes,” I breathed, for the rhythm was just right, and he was hot inside me.
“Say it,” Liam said, moving up and down.
“Love me.”
“No.” He leaned until his mouth was in my ear, and he stopped moving. “Say it.” I was angry at him again for stopping, and I tried to thrust myself against him, but he was sitting on me and I could not move. His tongue in my ear, he breathed, “Say it, Cat.”
I whispered the
crude, forbidden words in his ear, and he seemed to explode, moaning and moving, and I knew then that he was as aroused by my own words as I was by his. He crested, and I could feel the sudden wetness of his climax as I reached my own. His mouth was on mine, his tongue still thrusting, even after his thighs had stopped.
And then he stood and picked me up again and walked to our bed. He laid me gently on the soft animal skins and lay down next to me. Stroking my arms and shoulders, his eyes closed, he murmured, “Love ye, I love ye.” And then he was sound asleep, his head resting in the hollow of my throat.
I lay thinking about our lovemaking for a long time, knowing I should get up and stir the fire and put out the burning candles. My groin was still throbbing and I lay very still waiting for my heartbeat to slow. Liam’s head had slipped to my chest, and my underwear was pushed down to my waist. I lay there holding him, wondering at the effect of the heady beer. Liam was not shy about his body or about the act of love. And yet his bold words tonight told me that he had still been holding back a wealth of deep passion. The beer had loosed his tongue and his emotions, too.
Tonight I had learned that he craved to hear my own deep desire. He wanted to hear it, rough and direct, as well as experience it. And yet my own nature was opposite to his own. I had grown up modest, hiding my body and my emotions. I would try, but I thought it would take some time to break down the barriers that held me back from expressing myself fully to him.
I eased his head away and slid out of bed, pulling my tunic back up over my breasts. I made sure that the fire was well stoked and full of logs so that we would not wake up so cold in the morning, and then I blew out all the candles except one that burned by our bedside. Whenever I woke up during the night, I liked to see my husband.