The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance

by Trisha Telep

  Anya O’Brion’s temerity alone ought to terrify half the men in the land. She’d stood at the head of a hall full of armed soldiers and commanded respect like a warrior queen, instead of a petite princess. Standing to one side of the altar so he might observe all who entered, Finn hid his grin. Even the goddess Brigid must approve of a woman who could slay grown men with her flashing eyes.

  In his time, he’d left worship to the women. That men now commanded the sacred waters and prayed to male gods did not bother him. What bothered him was the tension he sensed in the chapel as Princess Anya kneeled before the priest, holding his son. They doubted her ability to lead them or protect their king – against what enemy?

  Was this the price the Old Ones commanded for providing his son the home he deserved – knowing the boy must fight for his place? The Others did not speak plainly but left the consequences of Finn’s actions on his shoulders. He supposed they would smite him dead if he did not obey, but as far as Finn was concerned, he was already dead. He’d died with Niamh.

  He glanced at the colourful glass in the chapel windows and wished it gone so he could see outside. How could a man protect his kin if he could not see all the land around him?

  Hearing the thunder of hooves, he stepped from the shadows of the altar to stand directly behind the Princess, his sword and his knife crossed over his chest in warning.

  The audience gasped at his warlike action, but in the next instant, others heard what he had. The men pushed for the exit, heading for the ramparts, Finn hoped.

  “I christen thee Ardal Patrick Connor O’Brion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” the priest intoned, blithely ignoring the departing soldiers.

  Finn did not recognize the name Patrick, but Ardal was a fine old name, and Connor was fitting for the son of a king. Conn was the origin of his own name. The Princess had chosen well. Now that the naming was done . . .

  Finn grabbed the lady’s arm and hauled her from the floor. “Upstairs, now,” he ordered.

  Holding the babe, she could not reach for her knife, although he saw murder in her glare. She had eyes the colour of emeralds and hair of the finest flax. And a glower that would pierce stone walls. “Release me,” she whispered harshly.

  “After I’m seeing you up the stairs, where no man can go without dying on my blade.” With determination, he rushed her down the aisle.

  Rather than submit to the indignity of struggling with him, she hurried ahead as if fleeing the chapel were her idea. She shielded the boy with her heavy mantle as she walked, so Finn approved.

  “They fly the Connolly flag,” a guard called from his post in the tower.

  The slender woman under Finn’s hand jerked to a halt, forcing Finn to stumble rather than fall over her.

  “I will not run from the Beast,” she announced. “Breeda, take Patrick to our chamber.” She placed the protesting bundle of flailing limbs into the hands of her gnarled old maid.

  Finn scowled, unprepared for the two to separate. Did he follow his son or stay with the woman? Narrowing his eyes, he watched as the servant carried his son to safety, while the foolish Princess swung to meet some foe called the Beast.

  “Are you run mad, woman?” he muttered. “Let the men do battle. Your place is with the boy.”

  Her look of scorn would have melted iron. “Your place is with the King. Mine is to slaughter the man who has taken my family. I may start with that part of him that makes him male.” She drew a deadly dirk from her girdle and hid it between the folds of her mantle and tunic.

  Finn winced as he caught her meaning. “And wouldn’t it help to be seeing what the man wants before emasculating him?” he asked dryly.

  “I know what he wants, and he cannot have it. Emasculating is exactly what he deserves,” she said with satisfaction.

  Finn could not resist a challenge like that. He’d have to stay with the mad Princess to see how this game was played. Planting himself in front of the tapestry concealing the stairs, sword in hand, he watched over the Princess Anya as she assumed her chair on the dais.

  Three

  Well trained, the castle knights formed a phalanx around Anya as the visitors hailed the sentry on the wall.

  “Order them to allow Connolly and one of his men in, no more,” she commanded. The moat hadn’t been completed, so there was no way to prevent riders reaching the walls. But horses couldn’t fit through the narrow aperture through which the sentries allowed visitors.

  The men who strode in wore mail and helmets and strutted like peacocks. They were big men, without question, but Anya had known them all her life. They had small minds and only two thoughts in them – her, and the lands she now guarded for her nephew.

  “You have come all this way to express your condolences?” she asked dryly. “Would you not have done better to bring your mother and sister so we might console together?”

  Dubh Connolly removed his helmet to uncover thick black curls interspersed with grey. “I regret the passing of Queen Maeve,” he said gruffly. “How fares the child?”

  “Very well,” Anya said sweetly, blessing the saints and the Others and all responsible for the child upstairs. She did not glance behind her at the giant guarding her hall, but for now, her blessing encompassed him as well. “Patrick shall be a fine, strong king someday.”

  “But not this day,” Dubh stated bluntly. “And not for many years to come. Your father meant us to wed so that his lands and people would have a strong hand to guide them. I have come to claim my bride.”

  Anya fingered the dirk in her skirts and imagined all the ways she could use it. But her choices were no longer her own. She had her father’s people to consider. For now, she must deny personal satisfaction. “It is grateful I am to so fine a man for his offer, but my father is dead. He is dead at the hand of your men, as is my brother. I do not think their wishes would be the same today as they may have been in the past.”

  “It was fair battle, Anya,” Dubh declared. “We disagreed over boundaries. There would be no such disagreement between us. Marriage will bind our lands in one, and your nephew will be guarded well.”

  “My nephew will be guarded better if he is nowhere near a man who kills me and mine!” Unable to hold her temper at his crass assumption that she was as stupid as he, Anya stood and grabbed her father’s great spear from its post.

  Dubh did not look deterred. “You have no choice. You cannot lead your men to war against me.”

  He was right. Every man in here knew he was right. They knew her as a dreamy child who spoke of Other Worlds and cried at bloodshed. She knew that did not make her weak, but that was hard to prove to men who only respected war.

  Her hand tightened on the spear, desiring nothing so much in this world as to use it. And start a fight she couldn’t win.

  The men around her dropped their hands to their sword hilts, and tension mounted.

  “I can,” a deep voice declared – not loudly but with enough menace to turn every head.

  In surprise, Anya loosened her grip on the spear as the High King’s man stepped forward, towering even over Dubh and his captain. Finn wore no mail, but he held with ease a sword broader than any in here. A weapon like that was meant to decapitate in one fell stroke.

  He had said he was here to guard Patrick. Anya was fairly certain the High King would not approve of war between his chieftains as a means of protection. What price must she pay for his loyalty to her and not Conn?

  Dubh Connolly clutched the sword hilt at his hip and studied her champion. “What man is this?” he asked suspiciously. “He is none of your father’s.”

  “The High King sent him,” she said proudly. “He is a mac Connell. You might be thinking twice if you believe I must bow to your wishes.” The spear was heavy. Anya knew how to wield words better than weapons, but she understood the art of drama. She held the spear straight, with the point in the air, not threatening but warning.

  “Conn said none of this to me.” A stubborn man, D
ubh didn’t take the hint. “The High King desires our lands to be united. I think you have taken a viper into your nest.”

  She would have been as suspicious as Dubh had she not seen the vision of the man with the tearstain on his rugged jaw. She prayed she was not victim of wishful thinking and let Finn speak for himself.

  “No man bearing our forefathers’ name would threaten a woman,” Finn said in that deep baritone which commanded without bluster. “No man who calls himself a man would need to. There are far better ways of persuading women, and ashamed I am that a man of my name would not know them.”

  May the saints preserve them, but he’d just thrown the gauntlet in the face of the clan chieftain as if he were High King himself! As thrilled as her woman’s heart might be at Finn’s bold declaration, Anya knew if she did not control this scene now, her men would be bowing to Finn.

  “Garvan, I think you may escort Dubh to the door. He will no doubt be wishing to ask his women how they would like to be treated. I bid you good day, sir, and thank your family for their concern for our queen. The priest will hold prayers for her soul on the morrow.”

  She did not offer to break bread with Dubh or his men. She would have to poison them if she did so. Anya watched as her troop formed to escort the enemy from her doors. Her knights were good men. She did not wish to lose them to battle. That was the reason women did not win wars.

  With a sigh, she set down her spear to confront her new warrior. “What in all the heavens did you think you were about? ‘There are better ways of persuading women’,” she mimicked. “Are you after having the bastard court me?”

  “It seemed one solution,” he replied without apology. “I like to think a Connolly would be an honourable man, and joining your lands rather than fighting over them is good for all.”

  “Including the High King,” she said with disgust, understanding his ploy now. “I should have known not to trust any Conn or Connell. You may leave now, Finn of the Connells. I will fight my own battles, thank you.”

  She pushed past him to the stairway, weeping inside, where none could tell. She did not possess a warrior’s heart. But it seemed she must develop one.

  Not known for his obedience, Finn claimed his place on the landing between his son’s chamber and the great hall below and pondered his predicament. Resting his shoulders against the stone wall, he pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered, “Aoibhinn, how much time have I here?”

  A grey mist swirled above the stairs. “As you are mortal here, not long,” she answered dryly. “Warriors do not live long lives, especially when they antagonize their neighbours. Have you not learned that by now?”

  “A man does not let worms stand up and speak for him, or he is not a man,” he retaliated.

  “Then use them to catch salmon.” The mist evaporated.

  Finn would dip Dubh in the nearest river and let the salmon chew his toes if he thought that would work, but goddesses did not speak in literal terms. He had not lived as long as he had without learning a few lessons, though. The lady – and his son – needed him.

  He also knew he didn’t wish to see a lady as courageous as the Princess be beaten into submission by a brutal cur like Connolly. The other chieftain was a handsome man, one some ladies might prefer. Finn had had to offer her the choice, but he hadn’t enjoyed it. Glad he was that she was smart enough to spit in her suitor’s face. But it would not do.

  He stalked up the stairs and rapped at the top door. The old woman, Breeda, answered. He did not give her time to dismiss him but seeing over her shoulder, stepped forwards, forcing the maid back.

  “We must speak,” he announced. “Come with me.”

  The beautiful, golden-haired Princess raised shapely eyebrows but did not set aside her embroidery. “Breeda, call Garvan. I believe we have bats in the rafters.”

  The women tittered, and Finn resisted growling and flinging the fool woman over his shoulder. He would have done so with Niamh, but his wife would have grabbed his buttocks and tormented him until he lay her down and took her in the grass. The haughty Princess would more likely stab him in the back.

  So, he was not king of all he saw here. He did not possess pretty words any more than a pretty face. But he had not come this far to lose his son to a sweet smile and a sour attitude. “I have an urgent message you must hear. It is better spoken privately.”

  “I am armed,” she warned, rising from her chair. Instead of immediately following him, she stopped to cover the infant in his cradle. “I learned to kill a man when I was only six. I do not fear using a blade.”

  She lied. Anyone with half an eye could tell the gentle Princess might poison a man with words, but never gut one with steel. A good ruler should have no need to shed blood. She had the makings of an excellent queen.

  “I do not wear armour,” he told her. “If you wish to kill me, you can. But for now, I am all that stands between you and a wolf hungry for power.”

  “And wealth,” she conceded, taking up her mantle. “Come, I have need of herbs from the garden.”

  Finn had forgotten the rich, musky scent of mortal women and the heat that pooled in his loins at the brush of soft skin against his callused palm. He’d been living in a perfect world of perfumed air, a timeless world without need or desire. Until now, he hadn’t missed the human impulse to reproduce, to make his surroundings better, to create new out of old. He wasn’t certain he wished to return to those driving urges again.

  Except escorting the exquisite Princess Anya to the kitchen garden reminded him of how much he’d lost when he’d left his humanity behind.

  “Do you believe in heaven?” she asked, lifting a reed basket and carrying it to the herb bed. “The priest says Maeve and my brother are watching over their babe from the clouds.”

  “I am no priest, but yes, I believe Others watch over us,” he said honestly. “That does not mean they can help us if you think the ghost of your brother will slay your enemies for you.”

  She granted him a scowl and crouched down to clip her herbs. “Your urgent message?”

  Lost in the sharp scents of herbs and earth and woman, Finn had forgotten what he’d intended to say. The sun here was not the warm, golden light of the Other Side, but he enjoyed the brisk bite of the wind against his skin, recalling the days of flesh and blood – and what he could do with them. “You must catch salmon with bait,” he told her, recovering his rattled wits.

  “I don’t eat salmon,” she informed him. “I do not eat the creatures of the field or sea. They have a right to live as much as I do.”

  It was his turn to scowl. “And such fasting allows you to see things that you have no right to see. You saw me the other night when you should not have. Why do you not accuse me of being a demon?”

  “If you are a demon, then I must accept that Patrick is one, too, and that I will not. If mortals see you, then you are real and as human as I. It is only the Others, the ones I glimpse through the Veil who are not human. Do they urge me to eat salmon?” she asked with curiosity.

  “No, they bait me as they bait you,” he growled. “But they must approve of you if they have brought Patrick here.”

  She nodded serenely as if they spoke of what meal they would have that evening and not the mysteries of the universe. “Thank you for being honest and not telling me I am imagining what I see. The priest would say that I speak with angels, or he would be forced to call me a heretic, but I know it is arrogance to believe we know everything. I certainly don’t know what you mean about salmon and bait.”

  He crouched to help her with the basket, and an arrow hissed past his head, into the earth beneath the keep’s wall. Before she could so much as cry out, Finn flattened the Princess beneath him and rolled with her under the shelter of a garden bench. He could feel her heart thumping wildly, in tandem with his. He had not come here to die so ignobly.

  The arrow had come from the bailey. Finn scanned the ramparts, noting scurrying figures but no archer.

  “I can’
t breathe,” the Princess said from under him. “If we’re being attacked, I need to reach my knife.”

  Beneath him, she felt soft, warm, and curved in all the right places. Finn longed to forget archers and lose himself in her flesh. Lifting his weight on both elbows, he let his hips press against hers. Dodging death raised his appreciation of life. “I see no more archers. You may have a traitor among your sentries. And if you cannot reach your knife like this, then you are very badly trained.”

  “You would teach me better?” Her fair features expressed more curiosity than fear.

  “I would, after I throttle the traitor.” He rolled off her. “You are the bait. Choose your salmon and wiggle.”

  Not wishing for further argument while someone wished to kill him, Finn flung the baffling woman over his shoulder, picked up her basket and carried both into the safety of the keep.

  Four

  Choose her salmon and wiggle, Anya mused that evening, sitting at the head table, picking at her mushrooms and carrots while the others feasted on fish brought up from the sea. What a strange thing for a man to say, but then, Finn was not really a man, or was he?

  He’d certainly felt as solid as any man. If she’d questioned his faeness before, she certainly could not after being shoved from the chapel, rolled under a bench, and carried over a brawny shoulder. Finn mac Connell was all muscled man.

  She darted a look to the warrior apparently enjoying his meal. He’d smelled like a man when she’d been lying under him. He’d felt so alive, she could have sworn he’d been aroused. And she’d been too stupefied by her unexpected desire that she’d hardly understood that he could have died out there.

  The meal was quieter than usual. While mead flowed freely and the feast was fit for a king, they’d hung one of their own this day – the first death of the battle ahead. The traitor had been caught and tried and justice done swiftly, as it must be. The archer had been kin of Connolly’s.

  “There will be war, won’t there?” the late Queen’s lady-in-waiting asked from the seat at Anya’s right. Cailleagh had been lady to Anya’s mother as well as Maeve. She wore the black of mourning for the many lives lost this past decade.