Malcolm stroked his beard. “His mother is Gormlaith, is she not? We could hardly expect a son of the notorious Princess of Leinster to be … gentle.” With a half-smile, he turned to Blanaid. “Perhaps we should invite this brother of yours to Glamis and get to know him.”
Donough was astonished to receive an invitation from the King of Alba. Ostensibly it came from his sister Blanaid, but it would never have been issued, he knew, without her husband’s approval.
When he mentioned the invitation to Gormlaith her face lit with enthusiasm. “Send him our acceptance this very day!”
“Our acceptance?”
“Well, of course, our. You know nothing of foreign courts. You will have to have someone at your side to explain the intricacies of knotted relationships, and who better than me? Who more sympathetic to your own cause?”
Donough gave his mother a look. “What is ‘my own cause?”
She smiled sweetly. “Whatever you want it to be, my son. You wish to emulate your father—do you think I don’t know? To realize his unrealized dreams? A noble ambition and one of which I am sure he would approve. But if you are to succeed, you will require more than an army. You will need the support of foreign warlords. The world is much larger than Ireland. You saw how advantageous his foreign connections were to him at Clontarf, when Malcolm sent a great prince of the Scots to fight on your father’s side.
“The time has come for you to expand your reach, my son; this invitation is an omen. And I shall be with you, helping you all the way. I desire for you everything you desire for yourself. You know that.”
He knew no such thing. Gormlaith danced to her own music, and if she offered help, one could be certain it was only to further some scheme of her own.
He had never meant to keep her with him indefinitely. In an effort to discourage her, he had abandoned any idea of living in a fort and built himself a sort of camp in the valley of the Fergus, a cross between a military encampment and the seasonal dwellings thrown up by herdsmen. It had proved to be an excellent focal point for gathering disaffected Dalcassians to him, but the facilities were deliberately made uncomfortable for a woman.
Gormlaith, to his dismay, had chosen to see the whole thing as an adventure. “I’m tired of luxury,” she had announced. “I get tired of anything after a while—a gown, a man, a way of life. This camp of yours will refresh my jaded palate, Donough; it’s a fine idea.”
To prove the point, she settled into a lean-to constructed of woven branches and thatch and made herself quite at home, as if she had grown up following the cattle from pasture to pasture. She dressed in unbleached linen, went barefoot, and swam nude in the river, scandalizing Donough, who thought she had already exhausted her capacity for shocking him.
“You’re too old for such carry-on!” he protested.
“Nonsense, it’s taking years off me. Are you afraid one of your men will look at my naked body and grow a spear of desire? That would make me younger still, I assure you!”
Gormlaith threw back her head and hooted with laughter at the look on her son’s face.
But she proved unable to face a winter in the open. Having ascertained that the plague had ended, she finally returned to Dublin to impose herself on Sitric and his wife—an imposition they did everything to discourage. It took Malachi Mor’s burning of the Viking port to drive Gormlaith out, however, and once more she made her way west to appear at Donough’s camp, confidently expecting him to take her in. “I am your mother,” she said as if no other argument were necessary.
That became her pattern. Summer with Donough, winter with Sitric; time divided between Gael and Viking. Neither man liked it, and Sitric’s wife was almost manic in her hatred of Gormlaith, but no one could force Gormlaith into any other arrangement. When all else failed she fell back on motherhood, demanding the protection of her sons as her right.
Sitric Silkbeard was heard to mutter that the exposing of female infants at birth was probably not a bad idea.
But Donough had been glad enough to have Gormlaith waiting when he returned from his defeat at the hands of the Ossorians.
Old scores had been settled; many of his best men were dead. Yet to his surprise Gormlaith spoke no word of criticism. She briskly set about tending the wounded and making small jokes to boost their spirits. She even flirted with them; the more grievous a man’s injuries, the more flagrant her behavior.
On some it worked wonders. Men who were given up for dying revived after having their heads pressed into Gormlaith’s still capacious bosom.
Donough told Fergal, “I hate to admit it, but there are times the woman is an asset.”
She would not be an asset in Alba, however; of that he was convinced. The prospect of traveling to the land of the Scots with Gormlaith was daunting.
But she busied herself with plans and preparations as if there was never any question of his leaving her behind. She made a point of telling his officers, “This will be the journey of a lifetime for me, and aren’t I fortunate to have a son who will take me to foreign courts, to mingle with people of my own stature? What a memory to treasure in my old age!”
She clasped her hands over her breasts. She rhapsodized over Donough’s kindness. At some point he realized he would have to take her or risk the profound disapproval of his men, all of whom had mothers.
Although she kept dropping tantalizing hints about the life and times of Malcolm the Second, she was careful not to reveal what she knew. “I shall tell you when we’re underway,” she promised. “It will make the voyage go faster, and be fresh in your mind when you actually set eyes on the man.”
Donough knew she was manipulating him; recognized her tactics with a dark and bitter amusement and a certain reluctant admiration. But it was not worth arguing; there was too much to be done. Arrangements to be made, good-byes to be said.
Since his final frustrating visit to the fort he had built south of the Burren, Donough had tried not to think about Padraic’s daughter. Like the abandoned fort, she was a symbol of youthful dreams and extravagant plans set aside. Neassa’s death and the loss of his son had changed something inside him.
But he did not want to leave Ireland without informing Padraic’s daughter. It was inexplicably important to him that she know where he was.
Taking a fast horse and no bodyguard, he set out to find her. He told no one, not even Fergal, where he was going.
A lashing rain was falling as he galloped through an endless sea of wet weather. His horse plunged beneath him like a ship breasting the waves; spume blew back from its open mouth to fleck his clothing.
Blind Padraic’s holding was easy enough to find. A herder on a hillside gave him exact directions and he galloped on, the bulk of Slieve Callan looming ever nearer. The rain blew away; a watery sun shone.
At last Donough took pity of his blowing horse and drew rein on the shores of a lake to allow the animal to drink. While the horse sucked up water in grateful gulps, Donough looked around.
It occurred to him that this would have been a better site for his fort than the one he had chosen. Fish leaped in the shallows as if begging to be caught. A solitary islet in the middle of the lake was an ideal nesting site for wildfowl, and the sandy beach on which he stood was perfect for launching small boats. As for pasturage, on one side swelling hills climbed toward green uplands, on the other were sweeping meadows tufted with arbutus.
Aside from the sounds his horse made while drinking, the silence was absolute.
A peculiar light glittered on the surface of the lake.
The horse raised its head and snorted softly.
Donough tensed. His warrior’s instincts told him he was not alone. Very slowly, he turned.
She was standing almost directly behind him at a distance of fifteen or twenty paces.
Today she was not wearing the red skirt, but a short apron that barely covered her knees. Her leine was open at the throat and her hair tumbled unbound around her shoulders. She hardly seemed clothed at all; he
was intensely aware of her supple body beneath the veiling fabric.
“How long have you been standing there?” he asked.
She smiled and walked toward him. “Long enough.”
“How did you know I was here?” It did not occur to him that this was an odd way to begin their conversation, as if they were old friends who had just found themselves in the same room.
She did not answer.
Donough dropped the horse’s reins and walked forward to meet her. The words which had been coming so easily dried up on his tongue when he was close enough to touch her. He held out one hand instead.
Hesitantly, she reached to let her fingertips just brush his. Her fingers were warm and real. His hand closed over them, drawing her closer to him.
When she lowered her eyes her long lashes swept her cheeks.
“Have you been following me?” Donough asked in a choked voice.
She would not look up. “Why would I do that?”
“Was it you that day, in my fort?”
“What fort?” Still she kept her eyes down.
He tightened his grip on her hand. “Not far from Drumcullaun Lough. Surely you knew I built one there.”
“Did I? What possible interest would I take in the building of a fort, Prince Donough?” Now she raised her eyes to his and he saw laughter in them.
“You know my name but I don’t know yours.”
“I am called Cera.” She pronounced it with a soft, west-of-Ireland accent. Karra. “I was named for one of the wives of Nemed.”
Donough told her, “I named myself.”
She did not ask how this could be. She simply accepted, as she accepted his arm passing around her shoulders and drawing her closer.
Chapter Thirty-one
WHEN DONOUGH KNELT ON THE EARTH, CERA KNELT WITH HIM. Their faces were so close he could smell the sweetness of her breath. He felt there was something he should say, but she read the thought in his eyes and laid her fingertips across his lips.
Then she replaced her fingers with her mouth.
Her body from the knees up pressed against the length of his. He curved over her, striving to draw even closer. At first his mounting desire did not even seem sexual, but rather an overwhelming need for completion, for drawing her into him to fill a great aching hollow at the center of his being.
But when she moved against him and he felt the softness of her belly, he became aware of an erection so huge and hard it was painful. With a groan, he thrust blindly against her.
She responded by cupping her hands around his buttocks and trying to pull him yet closer.
“What do you want?” he whispered hoarsely.
“You.”
“How?”
“In me.”
Her words brought him to the brink of orgasm. Fighting for control, he turned his body so he could lie down and pull her down beside him. He dare not lie on top of her; he would surely spend himself then, before he could enter her.
He held her in his arms and studied her face with wonderment.
She was pagan, and he had only lain with a Christian woman, reproaches and whimperings and subtle refusals that must be overcome. Cera did not engage in such subterfuge. She astonished him by the openness of her response and the frankness of her caress. She celebrated his body as she celebrated the life force in the trees and the birds and the earth, with a joy that enfolded Donough in golden heat.
“I want to touch you,” she said, her hands busy beneath his tunic. Her fingers closed around the swollen penis with infinite tenderness.
He gasped. If he felt so much as the pulse in her flesh he would come, but she realized this and kept still. Incredibly still.
He throbbed in her hand.
“You are beautiful,” she said.
Never in his life had Donough exerted such an effort of will. He held the orgasm like a sun waiting to explode, while his eyes searched her face; his ears attuned themselves to the surrounding sounds; his skin felt the warm sun and the damp grass and the soft wind blowing. He was more intensely alive and aware than he had ever been, and he wanted the moment to last forever.
She knew. She smiled at him.
“Gently,” she said. “Slowly,” she said.
The urgency that had been cresting receded. He was able to run his hand over her body, freeing her from her clothing. Suddenly the idea of fabric separating them was obscene to him. But when bare flesh touched bare flesh he almost came again.
“The feel of you!” he exclaimed.
Cera made a sound in her throat, a soft little hum that vibrated through her skin and into his body.
He could not hold back any longer. Rolling over on top of her, he felt her thighs open to him as he sank down and in to a luscious wet welcoming. The muscles of her body gripped him and drew him deeper with no effort on his part.
She was very small, he realized tardily, and for a brief moment he was afraid of hurting her. Neassa had often complained that he hurt her. But even as the thought crossed his mind Cera’s hands clutched his hips and pulled him even harder against her, demanding his full strength and passion.
He plunged and the sun exploded.
Some time after, he became aware that he was lying with her legs wrapped around him. It must be uncomfortable for her; he tried gently to disengage. But she moaned as if in pain and held him tighter. “Don’t go.”
“Just to be more comfortable …”
“Don’t go!” she cried.
He relaxed into her embrace. And slowly, subtly, the rhythm began again, her interior muscles pulsing until they set up a matching pulse in himself. The sense of heightened awareness returned; he was aware of the flattened softness of her breasts against him and the contradictory firmness of her small nipples.
When he thought of her breasts she rotated smoothly on his impaling penis and sat up, riding him as he lay on his back. He gazed up at her breasts in fascination and she, looking down, laughed with delight at the expression in his eyes. Her pelvis thrust forward and back, simulating the motion of a rider on a galloping horse.
The sensation was overwhelming. They were free and naked together, galloping, galloping …
The second explosion was almost as intense as the first but different, a fresh discovery for nerve and muscle. He was instantly greedy for more and sat up, pulling her against him, twisting to find a new position, a new way of exploring the wonder that had befallen him.
She laughed—or he laughed—the sound bubbled up from their shared body and the source did not matter, they were one and the same.
He murmured a name into her hair—it did not sound like Cera.
She responded with a name for him as she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. The name was not Donough. They spoke older names in a forgotten language but they understood one another. All was remembered and resumed, the sweet happiness coming to them again, and they celebrated its return in the sunlight, laughing.
Chapter Thirty-two
PADRAIC HEARD THE DOOR CREAK OPEN, FELT THE WIND BLOW IN ON him. Fecund summer wind. He raised his head.
“Cera?”
“I am here, Father.”
“Where were you?”
“In the next valley, collecting herbs.”
“Is it herbs I smell?”
She did not answer.
“The next valley,” Padraic mused. “The lake of the arbutus?”
Silence.
“The lake with the drowned city that only appears every hundred years?” he asking teasingly.
Uncharacteristically she snapped, “Don’t make fun of an enchantment.”
He was instantly contrite. “I learned that much from your mother. Is it there, then—the lost city? Have you seen it?”
But she had spoken all she could. She needed silence. She built up the fire and pounded his cushions and left him to go and stand in the open doorway, gazing out across her memories.
She had spent the entire afternoon with Donough, the two of them as free and th
oughtless as mating deer on a meadow. No questions had been asked nor answers demanded. Being together was so natural, she somehow assumed it would be permanent. She expected him to lift her up before him on the horse and take her to … to wherever he was going.
It was as if a door had opened for Cera. Without hesitation she would step out of one life and into another. He had only to take her hand.
But when the sun began to sink and the shadows grew long on the lake, she felt a change in him. Some vital part withdrew. He wrapped her in a fine woolen cloak from the pack tied behind his saddle. He caressed her face and stared into her eyes and brushed her mouth with his, but he did not say, “Come with me.”
He did not say, “Now you are mine,” though she strained with every fiber of her being to hear the words. She who had been free all her life had given herself totally to him, and longed for the acknowledgment of that gift.
Instead he stroked her hair.
When he caught his horse by the mane and vaulted aboard, he did not hold down a hand to her.
“Where are you going?”
“To the land of the Scots—Alba,” he replied. The word tasted strange in his mouth. He had almost forgotten about Alba and Malcolm during the long afternoon.
“Can I come with you?” She hated herself for asking; she should not have to ask.
He gazed down at her. Her eyes were so clear they sparkled, her mouth looked soft and bruised. For all the passion of the day, she seemed innocent in a way Donough could never remember being. He felt a sudden impulse to sweep her up into his arms and …
Be calm, he warned himself. Think this through. Make no hasty decision you may regret later.
He was obliged to be shrewd and pragmatic if he would imitate his father. Brian had been many things, but never, so far as Donough knew, impulsive.
Gazing down at Cera, he fought back his emotions and tried to assess the situation objectively. What could such a girl understand of political expedience? Could he make clear to her the importance of establishing a relationship with the King of Alba, who was surely as far outside her sphere as the stars? How could he clarify in a few words the complex machination his mother had taken a lifetime to learn, and by which kingdoms were achieved? Cera was a daughter of sun and wind; she had no need of such knowledge.
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