Fintan frowned. “Aye, taking in children in her brother’s home without his permission could be a problem.”
“An’ I already paid ’im the worth of two cumals for the brats,” Tadgh argued.
Beside him, Mebh began to wail, dropping to her knees. “Holy Father, have a heart for a mother what’s lost her own babes!”
“You mean it?” Fynn’s dark brown eyes were as bright as Riona had ever seen them, filled with hope. Never had she seen a more welcome sight.
“Aye,” she answered softly. “You and your siblings have a knack for working your way into the heart.” Maybe this was all part of God’s plan. Heaven knew it hadn’t been in hers, yet it felt so right.
“Then it’s settled.” Fynn gave a joyous whoop. “Between us, Liex and Leila will have a fine home.”
Riona hugged the little ones as they rushed up to her and looked over their heads at the abbot. “Holy Father?” Surely the abbot could see this was right. Indeed, it was all she could do to keep from shouting with glee herself.
Bishop Senan was not as easily swayed by sentimentality. “Brother, how can you compare the love two parents can offer, albeit in humble hearth, to that of a maid without even the prospect of a husband and hearth to call her own? And again I ask, what worthy lord would take the offspring of another man, a gleeman no less?” Senan argued. “He’d want his own heirs.”
“It does sound more than your cup can hold, given the circumstances,” Fintan reluctantly admitted to Riona. “We must think it through.”
Senan seized upon his half brother’s indecision. “You know our cousin’s daughter. Her heart overrules her reason. She has made it clear her first love is the church, and it’s only her charitable nature that clouds her mind.”
Hope began to crumble as Fintan nodded in agreement. “The bishop makes good points, Lady Riona. A husband in hand … even your brother’s permission, would give me more peace in favoring your request.”
A man. No matter the consequence, in church or home, a woman’s measure was judged by the man in her life, be it father, brother, or husband. Humility banished by the blood rising to her face, Riona bristled.
“I have some means of my own, with or without a husband’s or brother’s indulgence.” She may have no land, but her dowry was not easily dismissed. “I know my brother’s good heart, regardless. Heber of Dromin would not turn these children away.”
The abbot’s troubled expression held her breath at bay.
“And I’ve enough love for two parents,” she added, infected by a desperation beyond her ken. “Surely you can see that the children and I—”
The abbot held up his hand, silencing her. Slowly he rose from the elaborate chair of his station, his embroidered robes falling around a frame lean and bent from prayer and fasting. His strength drained from a winter-long affliction of the lung, he attempted to speak above Mebh’s mournful protest and Tadgh’s indignant one.
“I should like the evening to think and pray on this matter. I have to admit, I have my concerns with either proposition.”
“But this lady is young and can still bear babes,” Mebh cried. “The midwife says I’ll have no more. For God’s love, have mercy on a childless mother.” With a body-riddling sob, she began to rock back and forth as though cradling her lost infants.
Normally gracious under the worst of circumstances, the abbot’s patience snapped. “Have mercy on my ears, woman! Either curb her tongue or remove her,” he warned Tadgh.
At the threat of removal, Mebh scooted back to Tadgh’s side, her wails reduced to a whimper. Was it fear that restored her composure so quickly, or was her display, snuffed as easily as a lamp, an act? Riona stared at the woman. What was it about her that would not stir the same pity as others who’d lost their children to the Blefed? The matches of grief-stricken parents and homeless children that Riona had seen made in that room were joyful ones of broken families made whole. This bore no resemblance to such instances at all.
“Bishop Senan, show our guests to the hospitium. I shall ponder this decision till the morrow, upon which time I will announce my decision.”
“There is no decision to be made,” Fynn protested. “We go—”
Riona clamped her hand over the impertinents mouth. “The abbot is a godly man. His decision will surely reflect heaven’s wishes.”
As the abbot took his leave, Riona hurried Fynn and his siblings toward the door. Heavenly Father, I beseech You to do what is best for these children. Send a sign, if You will, something to make Your will known, and I shall abide by it.
A parting glance over her shoulder revealed Senan closeted in a corner with the hopeful adoptive parents. She’d prayed about her instinctive dislike for the bishop to no avail. He reminded her of a wolf cloaked in lamb’s wool, ready to pounce on any opportunity that presented itself for his gain. She didn’t mean to judge, he just—
“Look there!” Liex pulled away from Riona’s hand.
She lifted her gaze to follow Liex’s stare as two warriors rode through the gate.
“By my mother’s eyes, I never saw a finer horse.” Fynn chased after Liex, easily catching up with and passing the smaller boy to greet the men who dismounted.
Just short of the great blue roan, Fynn stopped and gawked. “Can I tend him, sir? I swear, he’ll have nothin’ but the finest grain and fodder we have to offer.”
Riona stood still with Leila, as if her feet had rooted in the ground. Disbelief warred in vain with recognition of the horse and its rider. It could be no one else but Kieran, her foster brother, and Gray Macha, a steed as bred to combat and command as its master. And where Kieran of Gleannmara rode, Heber would not be far behind.
God had answered her prayer!
Now the abbot would have no reason to deny her the children. Heber would never turn them away.
Hope lifted Riona from the spot and sped her toward Gleannmara’s king. She was nearly breathless with excitement upon reaching the unexpected guests.
“This, you say is the Lady Riona?” Kieran arched a dubious golden brow at her. “She looks to be scullery … nay, a stable maid.” He waved the air in front of his face, staring with disdain at her dress.
Color flamed in her cheeks. She’d been so thrilled to see her foster brother returned from the Dalraidi campaign, she’d forgotten herself. Too late to slink away before he recognized her, Riona lifted a regal chin.
“Aye, this is she. And she welcomes both you and cousin Bran from your journey. It has been many months, Kieran.” She looked around the broad expanse of his cloaked shoulders and through the gate, to the outer walls of the circular enclosure for a sign of her brother. “And is the O’Cuillin putting his own mount to bed at the stable yard?” It would be like Heber to put his horse ahead of his reunion with his sister. Kieran and Bran, on the other hand, would put their own bellies first.
“Faith, is mucking stables part of God’s service?” Bran exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have known you, Riona, had you not spoken.” He grabbed her hand and started to lift it to his lips, then apparently thought better of it, for he squeezed it instead. “You are a sight for these sore eyes.”
“And a sore to the nose,” Kieran put in wryly. “What in the devil happened to you?”
Riona bridled. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but I fell in a barrow of manure.”
“I believe it.” Kieran’s short laugh was like a burr to an already injured pride.
“Your gallantry takes my breath away, milord.”
“As does your perfume.”
“If you came to insult me, the task is done, Kieran. You may leave anon. You, Bran, are welcome to stay, as is my lagabout brother.”
Riona marched to the gate and scanned the outer rath again. “Where is Heber?” she demanded with a stamp of impatience. Kieran had that effect on her. He’d try the patience of the Apostles themselves! Spinning on the ball of her foot, Riona waited expectantly.
“Well, Heber, he …” Bran cleared his throat an
d looked away.
Alarm seeped into Riona’s blood, curdling cold. “He what?”
“He sends his love,” Kieran spoke up. “I’ll explain as soon as Bran and I have a chance to wash some of the dirt from our throats with the brothers’ good ale.”
Riona shifted her uncertain gaze from Kieran. “Bran?”
“And our eyes,” her cousin agreed, rubbing his eyes until they were red. “ ’Tis something in the air. They’ve itched all the day.”
“An overabundance of heath fruit last eve, more likely,” Kieran whispered aside to Riona. “ ’Twill redden the eye and dry the throat of the stoutest man.”
Something was amiss. She sensed it as sure as she’d sensed the same inconsistency with the children’s prospective parents.
“Lady Riona, perhaps I should show these gentlemen inside, so that you may refresh yourself before entertaining them for supper.”
“What?”
Turning, Riona saw Brother Domnall had taken charge of the boys and the horses. Indeed, Bran had lifted Leila to the back of his steed. His legs were almost as long as the horse’s. She supposed Kieran’s impatience negated the bardic choice of chariot or curricle for travel.
“I will entertain our guests until you are prepared to take over,” Domnall said, his words penetrating the fog of distraction in her mind.
“Yes. That would be good.” It was the path of least resistance, at least for the moment. She was so delighted by Kieran’s appearance so shortly after her prayer that she could not imagine it to carry bad news.
Perhaps Heber was put out that she’d abandoned Dromin to Ringan, their most capable steward, so that she could serve at the abbey. Her brother had told her to wait until his return, but the plague waited for no one. She was needed more at Kilmare. Riona would explain it all, and her brother would see she’d made the right choice, both then and now.
Aware that all eyes rested on her, she emerged from the steady churn of her thoughts. “I’ll join you after vespers.” And a bath, she thought, dropping in a slight curtsy before taking her leave.
Nothing was wrong. It could not be.
FOUR
In the privacy of a corbeled stone dwelling assigned to them for the night’s lodging, Bran paced back and forth like a hound in a cage.
“He sends his love?”
Kieran ignored his friend’s incredulity. He swished his razor in the shallow stone washbowl and applied it to his stubbled jaw again, staring at the smooth plaster of the wall as if a mirror hung there. Amenities were few, as were decorations. A few crosses carved in the headers and doorframes were all that graced the slanted walls.
Sparsely furnished as it was, the room was luxurious compared to most of the places they’d slept in the past year. It was paved and well drained, and the small fire in the round, sunken hearth filled it with a welcome warmth now that the sun reposed for the night.
“He sends his love?” Bran threw his hands up and dropped on one of the two stuffed pallets in the room.
“S’bones, you are more worrisome than a gnat.” Kieran skimmed the water surface with his hand, sending it sloshing at the bard. “What would you have me say before curious monks and children? ‘Oh, Heber couldn’t come with us because he’s dead’?”
Bran wiped the droplets off his tunic, unabashed. “You’ve only postponed her grief.”
“Well, you could have confounded told her then.” Wiping his face with the hem of his cloak, Kieran turned to the light of the single candle in the room. “There, am I fit for a lady’s eyes?”
“If it’s the sweet brush of Riona’s lips you’re preparing for, you’ve wasted your time.”
“Ach, ’tis this very kind of thing that threatens the existence of the bards. You wear out your welcome with your barbed words.”
“Given your temperament of late, your tongue has plied the same sharpening stone.”
Kieran looked at Bran in surprise. The most timid of the O’Cuillin cousins was growing a backbone as fearsome as his wit and tongue. He was a maker of love, not war, he claimed, but the journey across the sea had changed the young man. There was less of the romantic and more of the realist in him. But then, the same could be said of himself, Kieran supposed.
Bran slapped him on the back. “You have my forgiveness for your churlish humor, for mine is by choice. Yours is by nature.”
Kieran laughed, in spite of himself. The dart was well thrown. That’s what he got for waging wits with one of druidic lineage. “Come friend, let’s join the Lady Riona.”
He offered his hand to Bran and hauled him up from the pallet.
“Are you certain you want me present? After all, we’ve chosen the right speech, and as many times as you’ve repeated it, I see no reason—”
Kieran held up his other hand. “I would consider it a favor. Truth, I’d rather face a horde of blade-wielding cutthroats armed with nothing but my teeth than see this matter done.”
Bran looked over at the belongings on Kieran’s pallet. “What about your mother’s ring? Won’t you give it to your bride-to-be?”
Kieran hesitated in the open door, then shook his head. “One battle at a time, my friend. One battle at a time.”
Having rested after their arrival and subsequent request for a private audience with Riona once her duty to prayer was done, Kieran and Bran entered the refectory. The oak plank building with its receding gables and shingled roof of yew was abandoned for the evening vespers. The fires smoking in the kitchen, which adjoined to the dining hall by a covered arbor, held the evening meal for the praying servants of God. The melodic prayers and hymns of the worship filtered throughout the grounds of the stone-enclosed inner rath, weaving in and out of the stone, timber, and wattled structures scattered within, as if to bind them to the bosom of its chapel with praise and song.
A modest portion of porridge and a two-fisted length of bread had been set out at the end of the table for each of them. A bottle of wine—no doubt from the vineyards beyond the abbey—and two wooden cups were provided for their thirst. While not elaborate, the meal was filling and welcome to bellies empty since high noon.
As Kieran reached for the bread to break it in half, Bran admonished him in a sharp whisper. “Use the knife. We’re not among the heathens now.”
“ ’Tis too little to cut, but too big to swallow whole.” Despite his complaint, Kieran took the blade and did as his more genteel companion suggested.
Without comment, Bran took the first slice and drizzled honey on it from a stone jar.
“I am the king,” Kieran reminded him as he took a huge bite.
With a grin as laconic as the jibe, Bran handed the half-eaten piece back.
“Now who’s the heathen?” Kieran brushed it away in disgust. Discarding the knife, he broke his own portion away with his fingers. “The handle’s fit to come off anyway.”
The rest of the meal progressed in silence, as if speaking were irreverent given the holy strains filtering in. The softer voices from the women’s side of the divided place of worship were as distinct as the men’s, yet all blended in ethereal harmony. Kieran could not help but picture Riona—not the muck maid of their earlier meeting, but the vision of their last parting—kneeling in the chapel at Dromin to pray for God’s speed and protection on their journey.
If there were such beings as angels, none had looked more radiant or innocent than she. Her raven hair fell like a silken mantle about her shoulders, as if to worship them. Lashes just as dark fanned upon cheeks rouged by mother nature. And her lips, ripe as cherries, moved over the words of her prayer, mesmerizing Kieran so that tasting them was all he could think of, never mind that they’d dealt him rejection earlier.
“I’m sorry I’ve kept you. I came straightaway from the chapel.”
Kieran started as Riona’s voice pulled him back to the present. He hadn’t heard the door open. Pivoting on the wooden bench, he rose with Bran.
“Now there’s the beautiful cousin of my memory,” Bran said, tak
ing her hand to his lips.
Riona dispensed with etiquette and threw her arms about the bard in a grand hug. “Polished words, all, but I treasure each of them as jewels in my mind. You both look hale from your adventure. It must have agreed with you.” She turned to Kieran. “And you, brother. Is your treasury fat enough now that you can turn your energy to Gleannmara rather than the sword?”
“Gleannmara’s peaceful appeal grows by the day,” Kieran admitted. “I’ve had my fill of adventure. It’s time to think of family and heirs.”
Surprise rendered the lady speechless, but only for a moment. “Well, before I ask whom you fancy to mother your sons, tell me about Heber. He’s angry, isn’t he?”
Kieran shook his head. “Ach, he could never be angry at you.”
“Then why didn’t he come?” Her eyes widened.
What glorious pools of sapphire they were, inviting enough for a man to drown in. “He’s not hurt!”
The material of her wine red dress gathered beneath his fingers as Kieran took her by the shoulders. “No, not hurt.”
The healthy glow he’d just admired seeped from her face. All the words he’d practiced fled his mind, and panic chased them beyond retrieval. Kieran cursed his rattled brain as he mumbled flatly, “Heber’s dead.”
Riona shook her head, refusing to accept what she heard. She looked to her cousin. “Bran?”
“On my life, I’m sorry, Riona. ’Twas done before any of us knew what happened.”
“We were lured into a trap,” Kieran explained, sharing the anguish tearing at Riona’s delicate features. He eased her down on the bench he’d just vacated. “Would God that it was me.”
She stared, not at him, but through him, her face a mirror of conflicting emotions. Putting her hands to her temples, she moaned. He watched, waiting to catch her should she swoon or embrace her if the pain grazing her gaze erupted in an outburst of tears.
“B … but you said he sent his love.”
Her lips trembled with the denial as she lifted her gaze to him. A crystalline droplet broke from the grief welling in her eyes and trickled down her cheek. Kieran caught it with his finger.
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