The Wakening Fire

by Erin O'Quinn

  After a fine dinner, Ryan brought out his bone whistle. He played one rollicking song after another while the wineskin of dwindling beer made its rounds several times. I was sitting on the floor next to Liam, who was sprawled in his customary sing-along position, one leg pressed against my own. From time to time his hand, under my tunic, played with my thigh until my cheeks were burning.

  Whistle an’ sing, lad, whistle an’ play

  your colleen so pretty, by night an’ by day.

  Finger her whistle, finger an’ play

  an’ she shall come with ye an’ ever to stay.

  Hey! Whistle an’ sing lad, whistle an’ play…

  hum a dee deedle, an’ hum a dee day!

  And the beer came ’round once more. The more beer we drank, the bawdier the songs became. At last, Liam leaned into me and began to explore my mouth and shoulders with no shame at all, and his hand moved freely inside my tunic. I knew then it was time to leave.

  I rose with some difficulty, and Liam reached his hand up to me, grinning a bit shamefacedly. Before we left, I drew Swallow aside. “Tell Torin I will be at his door two hours after sunrise.” She nodded, and we hugged closely.

  I regarded Torin with mock severity. “Ye shall pay, lad, for your own impudent mouth. Farewell until…we meet again.” I would let Swallow tell him we would be meeting rather early tomorrow morning, whether or not he liked the idea.

  “Bree, and Michael. Go raibh maith agat. This was a night to remember. Remind me to give you some ingredients for a headache chaser. You may need it. And Brother Galen. Today’s church rite was very special. I would like to talk with you on that subject more, but tonight was not the right time. I will see you at the church.”

  The monk grasped my outreached hand and bowed his head, his sparkling eyes lifted to me. “I had two special lads to speak to today. Me heart is full of joy, and me gut is full of beer. Good night to ye.”

  Finally, reluctantly, I turned to Ryan. “Farewell, a chara. We will miss you. May the miles be sweet until we meet.” We embraced for a long moment. Then I took Liam’s hand and we walked into the cold, still night.

  We both bent to resaddle our horses, and before we mounted Liam bowed and handed me a shillelagh. I bowed back and thrust it through the loop behind my saddle. He slid the other through his leather belt, and we mounted, neither of us as sure in the saddle as we had been earlier.

  By the time we reached our teach, Liam had slowed Angus’s gait almost to a walk. I tethered Macha while he slid off his horse with a bit of a stumble. “I will take care of them,” I told him, standing close and touching his cheek. He nodded and took my hand, guiding it to his mouth. Then he turned and went into the house.

  We had a small lean-to near the hay haggard where we stored our saddles and riding gear and several candles. I unsaddled the horses and set them inside the lean-to, and then I carried in both horse blankets. I took a candle into the house to light it from the fire pit, and I saw Liam sprawled naked on the bed, already sound asleep. I tipped the candle into the flames and lit the one near our bed before going back outside to take care of Macha and Angus.

  Fortunately, the wind tonight was not enough to move the candle flame more than a merry dance, and I curried both grateful horses in its unsteady light before finally going inside.

  Liam lay asleep, facedown, his long, glorious body sprawled across the bed. I stood looking down at him for a while, enjoying the way the candlelight touched and played with the skin of his buttocks, the way long fingers of shadow caressed his thighs.

  I slipped my gúna, then my léine, from my shoulders and let them drop to the floor. Standing naked in the uncertain glow of the candles, as now, was a new sensation for me. Seeing Liam lying so vulnerable somehow made me bolder, and I quietly lay down next to his buttocks, my head in the direction of his legs. I lay there for several minutes, my mouth almost touching the curve of his butt, wanting to stroke him but loath to wake him. The beer had affected me, too, for I could think of several naughty things to do with his body. I wanted to do them and tell him all about it, too.

  As if feeling my hot breath on his skin, he moved a bit, and his butt shifted so that my mouth was just inches away. Just a small bite, I promised myself, and then I was softly licking the cleavage, finding the hidden, satin-soft skin that always made me breathless with wanting him.

  He moaned. “Do bhéal, oh, your mouth, I need it.”

  His response to me set my groin to flaming and aching. I began to suck and bite, very tenderly, then ran my tongue the entire length of his cleavage. He moaned again, arching his buttocks hard against my mouth. I stroked and sucked his hanging pouch, softer than velvet, and it made him rise and fall back on the bed and call out my name.

  “Cat, Cat, suck me hard, harder.”

  Now as always, his sounds of pleasure aroused me completely and I increased the pulse of my biting and licking. Then I found the right place to thrust my fingers and tongue—the same place he had found more than once on my own bum—and I set up a hungry insistent rhythm. I wanted him so much at that moment that my own craving astonished me.

  By now, both of us were rocking and groaning with acute pleasure, and he slowly turned around. As soon as he did, his groin was in my mouth and his own questing tongue licked my thighs. We found a pace that seemed to be the same as my hammering heartbeat, and we rocked and sucked each other for long minutes, lost in heady desire.

  At the moment I tasted his climax, my own began, and I cried out again and again, until I was spent completely. He pulled me up to his head and stroked my hair over and over. Then cupping my face, he looked at me with a kind of amazement I had not seen since the first days I knew him.

  “A Cháit,” he said thickly. “Do bhéal.”

  I teased him. “You agreed with Torin tonight about my mouth. You called it naughty—dána. Tonight is your punishment.”

  Then I turned away from him and he nestled close to my body, his mouth in my ear. “An-dhána,” he murmured. Very naughty. And then we slept.

  Morning came very cold. We lay nested one into the other, the woolen cover nowhere to be found. I slid out of bed very quietly and slowly. The blanket was on the floor where one of us had kicked it during the night. I pulled it over his long, muscular body and went to the fire pit.

  I was fortunate, for I saw that the embers still glowed deep inside, and I would not have to test my unskilled fire-making prowess with the clumsy tinderbox. Removing the metal grate, I fed wood into the pit and stirred it vigorously with a metal poker until flames were licking high. Then I replaced the grate and sought fresh water from the ewer near the bed. Soon a cauldron of water was bubbling, and I prepared an after-beer remedy for Liam and me.

  Yes, I thought, as I shook a measure of horsetail-reed powder into the mint infusion, I shall share this remedy with my drunken friends. I selected an undertunic from the clothes chest and pulled it over my nakedness. Then I carried two cups to our bed, lit another candle, and woke my husband.

  “Another glorious day,” I told him. “Wake up, love. Your tea is ready.”

  “Go away,” he said thickly. I smiled and tickled a toe I saw protruding from the blanket.

  “You, sir, are a slugabed. Time for you to make our breakfast. Get up.”

  Slowly, the great tangled mass that was Liam wrapped in a blanket rolled close to where I was sitting at the edge of our large bed. His head poked out, and I saw that his eyes were heavy from sleep. “Breakfast?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Please make me eggs and pan bread. The fire is waiting for you.”

  He sat up then, shaking his head. The auburn curls spilled from the crown of his head into his eyes, and he shook his head trying to see more clearly through the mass of hair. “I…make food. First tea.” He seized his cup and took great long swallows. When the cup was drained, he fell back onto the soft animal pelts.

  “Cat. Teacht liom. Come wake me up.”

  I had already seen the telltale stirring of his gro
in under the blanket, and I stood. “I am taking your brother to the enclaves today. I must eat and get ready.” Still wearing my lacy undertunic, I eyed the water basin, wondering how I would wash without undressing, so close to Liam’s grasping arms.

  He patted the bed next to himself. “Tell me about it. Come.”

  I sat back down, and he rolled very close to me, fingering the top of my tunic as I spoke. “I have a plan to help Swallow and Torin. Her mother Mockingbird has set her heart against your brother. I am hoping to change her mind today.”

  He sat, and soon his mouth was grazing the lace of my underwear. “How? How change the mind of…stubborn woman?”

  “Ah…” I said, and then his tongue was inside my tunic. “Ah, I have a plan…Liam, what are you doing?”

  “Listen to you,” he murmured. “You say téigh go mall, I go slow.” Then his mouth found a nipple, quite by accident, and he almost growled. “Arrgh, what is this? Let me taste.”

  And then I yielded, throwing back my head and letting my breasts thrust up into his questing mouth. He knew so well how to play the game that within moments I was twisting and groaning while he sucked each nipple with tenderness and awe.

  “Liam,” I moaned.

  “Say it. Say it.” He was straddling me now, still sucking and pulling at my swollen breasts.

  “Do it.”

  “Do what, Cat?” He sucked my nipples and moved his groin on top of me, teasing me, prolonging the moment of penetration.

  “Now!” I told him what he wanted to hear, two rough, demanding words he seemed to love, and he pushed his swollen groin inside me, moaning loudly. By the time he was inside me I had already begun to crest, and I shouted and twisted under him. Every sound I uttered seemed to take Liam to another level of pleasure. He thrust hard into me—again, again—and then he climaxed intensely, fiercely.

  We lay together for several minutes until our hearts were beating normally. “This changes nothing, O lazy butt,” I said at last, stroking his bright, soft hair. “Make my breakfast.”

  Chapter 12:

  The Heart Inside

  Torin and I rode together to the dwarf enclaves. He was just short of being surly, and I cheerfully ignored his sour mood as we rode in silence. The hours just before and after sunrise were my favorites of every day, and the morning air filled me with exuberance.

  Today was Clíona’s turn to be my beast of burden. Sweet and gentle natured, the mare had been left for me by Ryan’s clansmen several months ago when I started my journey back to my home here in Derry near the large Lough Foyle.

  Liam and I had just gotten off Michael’s handsome longship Brigid, bound from Newport in Britannia. With Michael, we had walked west for more than two days to the huge Lough Neagh, largest lake in Éire, where Michael had built a handsome teach some years back. We had stayed at the lake for a few days, and then it was time for me to return home. Liam wanted to be with me, and Ryan became our guide and translator on the long trip to Derry. Before we left, his kinsmen had left Clíona and Angus for us. I would repay them some day in leather cloaks and hats, I thought as I rode this morning. I thought that Moc’s creations would prove to be perfect gear for intrepid cattle drovers.

  I thought about my time with Liam on the road from one storied lake to another. We had just begun to rediscover each other after a long separation, and we had made our bed anywhere we happened to stop for the evening. Ryan had been our translator, but we did not need him at night, for much of what we wanted to tell each other was spoken with our eager bodies.

  That was in the days when my promise to Father Patrick was a potent force keeping us from the ultimate act of love. Liam had promised to kiss me in a thousand different ways, avoiding the sin of fornication, and I smiled to think of his creative variations as our trip progressed.

  “Ye must not have drunk so much last night,” Torin’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Else ye would not be smiling.”

  “I am thinking about your handsome brother,” I said truthfully, turning to him as we cantered together.

  “An’ what does that make me?”

  “His ugly older brother,” I said, not truthfully at all. As a matter of fact, he looked so much like Liam that when I first met him, in the painful hours after his brother’s capture, I could not look at him directly, for I knew that he might misunderstand the love and longing in my eyes.

  His characteristic half smile—again, just like Liam’s—told me he was beginning to cope better with the aftermath of last night’s barley beer. “Sorry, lass. I know I should be more polite, but the humor is not on me this morning.”

  “When we get to Jay’s enclave, I will have Finch make you a special potion,” I promised him. Indeed, my healing pouch was tucked onto my tunic belt today for that very reason.

  “Speaking of the enclaves, Cate, I am loath to cram meself into the dwarf dwellings. Especially as big as I am, they may run in fright.”

  “Only from your face,” I assured him gravely. “Be still, Torin. And by the bye, I shall be calling you ‘Lugh,’ so do not look surprised.”

  “That is what Swallow calls me,” he said.

  Yes, I said to myself, because you are her bright sword. I would do the same, in her place. “Torin, ah, Lugh,” I said, “you know already that Mockingbird is, um, a tough old bird. Very like my own Auntie Marrie. Jay Feather has already showed the way to her heart. I think you also will know what to do.”

  We rode together in silence until I saw the portal stone standing in the clearing, tended only by a nurturing oak. “We are already seen,” I told him. “Approach gently, so as not to frighten the birds in the branches overhead.”

  And that is exactly how we walked to the giant stone—as though asking the birds for permission. We stood, not speaking, looking at the lichen-covered rock. It was similar to many I had seen as I walked and rode through Éire, and sometimes I had seen several such stones piled atop each other in secret formations, tilted to the sunrise. I knelt, drawn to its ancient surface, and the moss seemed to yield to my touch.

  “Ancient stone, we are home,” I murmured.

  When next I saw the large rock, it had moved some feet away, and a yawning hole stood where it once lay. A voice near me said, “Well done, Cay. Your touch is as sure as ever.”

  I turned my head and saw Jay Feather, and I embraced him fondly, still kneeling. “Do not lie to me, old friend. I know you bid that stone move just now.”

  “How could I, when I touched it not?” he retorted. He held his hand out to Torin, who grasped it warmly.

  I rose to my feet. “Jay, today Torin will be known by his real name, Lugaid Mac Lóegaire. Unless your sister Mockingbird is not here. Then you can call him what you will.”

  “Ah, she is here, lass, for she lives in our enclave. Come, let us greet her, and the morning, with a bit of barley beer.”

  Torin winced, and I demurred. “Tea for me, I think.”

  Soon we were seated in Jay’s comfort room, leaning back on comfortable, high-backed benches covered with soft animal pelts. I had already put a bit of healing powder into Torin’s sage tea and explained it to GoldenFinch in her cook room. Now we sipped the delicious concoction sweetened with a bit of amber honey. Soon I saw that Torin’s eyes were clear and sparkling and his wit was at its peak.

  “…tired of carrying the lout. So ’tis a good thing me sister Cay had healed the lump on his head.” Torin was explaining his brother’s rescue to Magpie and her husband Raven, and they both looked suitably amused as he spoke.

  Then we heard a rustling sound, and I saw that Mockingbird, dressed in a stiff linen gúna, had entered the room. Immediately, Torin rose from his bench. He bowed deeply, his cheeks flushed. The auburn curls near the top of his hair tumbled onto his forehead, altogether charmingly. It was all very Liam-like, I thought.

  Jay said, “Ah, may I present my sister Mockingbird? Moc, this is—”

  “Allow me, Jay,” I said. “Dear Mockingbird, this is my husband’s brothe
r. I could not bring my husband for a fitting, so I brought his older brother, Lou MacLeary.”

  Mockingbird stood silent a moment, taking in Torin’s tall, graceful figure and his mounds of golden-brown hair. “Please sit, young man,” she said easily. Gathering up her skirts with a sound like rousing feathers, she sank into the softness of a bench. Her hair was swept up this morning, a crest of black on black that accented her already-strong cheekbones.

  Jay motioned for Magpie to bring her some tea, and Mockingbird continued to regard Torin with appraising eyes. “Lou. That is easier to say that some of your throat-rasping names. I like that.”

  I could hardly hide a smile as I thought of Auntie Marrie’s reaction to my armsman Gristle’s name. “Griss-ull. That name does not fit my tongue. I shall call you ‘Sergeant.’”

  “Tell me, Lou, why is it Caylith’s husband is called O’Neill, but you are called MacLeary?”

  “O righteous Mockingbird,” came Torin’s soft lilt. “In the way of me people, I am named after me own father, himself called Leary MacNeill.”

  “I have heard that name,” she acknowledged. “Give me a moment, and I will remember. Why do you call me ‘righteous’? For I have not heard that epithet for many a year.”

  “It is a name I learned from me father’s ollamh, his wise man,” he said, looking deep into her eyes. “It is said that the mockingbird teaches meditation in its song and ethical action in its deed.”

  “That is a very old tradition,” she said slowly. “One I would not expect to hear from the mouth of a virtual child.”

  “I am but a poor student,” said Torin, and this time he sounded truthful to my ears. “But me memory is keen. And I have been taught to honor certain messengers of truth and morality.”

  “So you see me as a sign? An omen?”

  “I do, in a way, Madam Mockingbird. A sign to me to think deeply before I act, and to act truthfully when I do.” He stopped and shook his head. “Ah, what care ye of such personal matters? I am not used to speaking so philosophically. Please forgive me.”