Riona

by Linda Windsor

  “If the Lady Riona’s account is true, Lord Kieran—” Senan cast a patronizing glance Riona’s way—“then how do you explain the ring finding its way to Fintan’s murder scene?”

  “The murderer was also a thief,” Kieran answered readily. “He must have dropped the ring in his struggle with the abbot.”

  Senan nodded, as though considering the idea, but the consideration was short. “O’Cuillin, did you know the whereabouts of this ring?”

  Bran jumped at the chance to redeem himself and Kieran. “Aye, Kieran left it behind on purpose. I saw him stow it among his things when we left to meet the lady. He felt the time wasn’t right to infringe upon her grief with a proposal.”

  “Yet he did propose, did he not, milady?”

  “He told me marriage to him was Heber’s dying wish, Your Worship. He didn’t actually ask.”

  “Because he intended to give you no choice!”

  “No! It wasn’t …”

  “And when Father Fintan refused to bless the union, the same fierce temper demonstrated before our very eyes just moments ago drove Kieran of Gleannmara to kill him.”

  “The man’s crazed on holy water!” Kieran matched the bishop volume for volume. With an oath not fit for the ears of man or beast, he started to his feet, but before they were square on the floor, six guards were upon him. The first two he shook off like lint from a cloak, but the remaining four soon had Gleannmara’s king pinned to the floor as they chained his hands behind his back.

  Yet another pair of guards stood by Bran lest the bard take up his friend’s fight. Instead, Bran remained seated, judgment clearly the better part of his valor.

  “I demand to be heard by the high king,” Kieran shouted as the guards dragged him upright. “This is no court. This is a sham to cover one brother’s greed for another’s position!”

  “How dare you, sir!” Bishop Senan left the table to stand before his accuser—and Riona allowed a sneer that he’d done so only when Kieran was in chains, with six men restraining him.

  “How dare you?” Kieran shot back.

  “This is a church matter, not an issue of state,” the bishop snipped primly.

  Kieran mocked him with equal priggishness. “ ’Tis a greed matter, and not an issue of justice.”

  “The bishop is right, Kieran of Gleannmara.” For the first time the brehon accompanying Gadra spoke. “The crime, and hence the jurisdiction, belongs to the abbey. My lord Maille is only present as the lord bishop’s enforcer and protector, while I am here at Maille’s request.”

  “I’d have more justice from a court of Satan’s own.”

  Riona winced. For all her temper, Kieran’s was twice as explosive. Each time he opened his mouth, he forged another link in the chain of seeming guilt that bound him. A collection of outrage over Kieran’s blasphemy and protest for justice filled the room.

  “Bishop Senan!” Riona shouted above the discord. “Bishop Senan, please!”

  Upon hearing her, he took up the small handbell and called for order.

  “Your Worship, how can you discount my testimony that Kieran was with us searching for his stolen ring when the alarm sounded?” Riona charged. “Or Bran’s account of the ring being left behind?”

  Senan folded his hands in a show of indulgence. “If a lady would give her life for a man, would she not also try to protect him?” A few of the brethren nodded in agreement.

  Smitten by her own words, Riona tried another tack. “But the lad Fynn and the twins, they all saw Gleannmara as well.” Heads stopped, poised for an answer.

  Gadra sneered. “The word of a friend and of three chronic liars?” He turned to his captain at arms. “Lock Gleannmara in the grainery. We’ll take him back to the rath’s dungeon tomorrow until we decide upon his punishment.”

  “Father Fintan gave his blessing on the marriage!” Desperate, Riona looked to her brethren, since it was clear that Senan’s and the Maille lord’s minds were made up. “He said it to me, and Bishop Senan heard it with his own ears because he was seen eavesdropping at the door.”

  “Clearly the words of a woman affected by her sympathies,” Bishop Senan explained. In a grand show of compassion, he walked to Riona and embraced her. “Child, you are overwrought. ’Tis small wonder you are not reduced to hysterics given the news you’ve received of one loved one and now another. We all know the close relationship you shared with my brother. Your mother was his favorite of all our cousins.”

  “I’m not hysterical. I’m angry, you pompous toad!” Riona tore away. “Your brother lies dead, and you are squandering precious time with this mockery while the real murderer escapes.”

  Bran appeared at her side, clapping a restraining hand on her arm. “He’s right, cousin. You are overwrought.” There was more warning than consolation in his manner. “While it seems that justice is missing its mark here, we need to think how to steer it aright again. That cannot be accomplished with raised voices and hysteria.”

  The sound lashing headed his way halted on the tip of her tongue. Bran was right. She couldn’t believe she’d called the lord bishop a toad. Why, she was as hotheaded as Kieran. Heaven help her, if last night had been hard to believe, this morning was even more so. Stunned by it all, including her erratic behavior, Riona accompanied Bran away from her antagonist. As they reached the door, Kieran shouted after them.

  “Best get to Aedh with this.”

  “With all haste, friend, with all haste,” Bran promised.

  The stench of deceit followed them out into the fresh air. Even as they walked away from the refectory, Riona could hear the excited throng, still worked up by Senan’s smooth ploy, clamoring for justice and Kieran’s life. Others argued back, but the condemnation outcried the defense.

  “These are men of God, of peace!” Riona’s toe caught on one of the wattle branches laid down on the walk, and Bran steadied her. Faith, she could hardly see she was so disillusioned.

  “There’s something terribly amiss,” Bran said. “Mayhap more than a brother’s ambition to fill his elder sibling’s chair. ’Tis not the work of the church, to be certain. Some in there saw it, if not all of them.”

  “But what?”

  Bran shrugged his shoulders as if the weight of the world bore down upon them. “I’ve no idea, except that it somehow involves Maille. I don’t know if Kieran was the unfortunate pigeon who walked in at the right time to be plucked or if it involves Gleannmara as well.”

  “His temper has only made things worse.” Riona wrung her skirt with her fingers. Kieran’s display was bad enough, but then she had to go and forget herself. Just being around Kieran of Gleannmara turned her into a different woman—one of unharnessed temper and tongue.

  “He’s been hard company since we left Dunadd,” Bran agreed. “Half his heart was buried there, and you soundly stomped what’s left.”

  “Have a care,” Riona objected as they reached the small guest house where Bran and Kieran spent the night. “I’m as dismayed as any over this. If only they’d listen to me.”

  “I know, lass.” Bran bent over and planted a kiss atop her head. “For all our good intentions, neither of us did Kieran a whit of good. Which is why I fly to Drumceatt.”

  The bard disappeared inside the low doorway and reappeared before Riona could follow him in. Slung on his back was his sack of belongings. “If the high king and Father Columcille can’t help Kieran, no one can.”

  “God can.”

  Riona meant it with all her heart, although God’s presence seemed sorely lacking in the hearing. She fell in step beside Bran as the bard started toward the gate to the outer vallum, where the livestock and dairy were kept. Please, Father, make Your will known to me that I might make some sense of this.

  “It may well take God’s help,” Bran reflected aloud. “Much can happen to a man between here and my destination. Baetan’s not likely to make passage through his lands easy for an ally of the high king.”

  “What are you trying to say? That t
he Uliad king is involved in the abbot’s murder?”

  Bran shrugged and lowered his voice. “After what I just saw, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything. Baetan rules from Tara as though Rodanus never uttered a curse against it.”

  A decade ago, the hill of Tara was the home of the high king of Ireland, as it had been for centuries past. The same Diarmait, against whom Riona’s and Kieran’s fathers led the forces of Gleannmara at Culdreime a year before the king’s demise, brought a curse upon the legendary capital with his violations of sanctuary and his inhospitality to God’s own. Now a lesser king, Baetan of Ulster, occupied it with delusions of glory, while his cousin Aedh Ainmire ruled as high king from the Niall strongholds to the north.

  Well Riona knew that no high king who hoped to rule with the blessing of church and God would ever choose the once-revered hill of ancestral rule for his court. Clearly the Uliad’s Baetan flaunted his disregard for Tara’s curse, as if he somehow hoped its spirit of the past might pass along to him its power and glory.

  “But what is most important for you, my pretty cousin, is to keep Kieran from harm until I get back.”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to summon troops from Gleannmara?” After all, how could she protect her foster brother when Senan and Gadra would not take her words seriously?

  Her cousin pulled an astonished face. “Why, Riona O’Cuillin, are you suggesting war?”

  Riona bit her lip. Heavens, she was! If Gleannmara’s troop clashed with Maille’s, blood would spill for certain. For the first time, she knew how easily taking up the sword had come for Columcille when, a decade before, he too had acted in outrage at his kin being threatened in the sanctuary of the church. This time, though, it was the church itself—or rather its bishop—who championed injustice.

  Father, keep us all from our human weaknesses. Do not allow Satan to use our love as a weapon against our souls. Let our love avoid bloodshed, not provoke it. Go with Bran—

  “Hey you, bard!” Two of the men-at-arms ran after them from the gate in the stone embankment of the inner rath.

  Bran and Riona stopped just outside the stables and waited for them to catch up. Fear congealed in her chest. Had something changed? Would the bishop or Gadra keep Bran from going for help?

  “We’d have a look in that sack before you leave,” the one in the lead huffed upon reaching them.

  With grimace of impatience, Bran handed over his belongings. “Have a care for my harp. Aingeal is a gentle creature and sensitive to the touch of brute hands, e’en though they belong to such stouthearted men as she sings about.”

  Her cousin had a way of making words sting with the forehand and stroke with the back.

  “Spare us your wily tongue. Given my vote, your likes and all their troublesome talk would be shipped off Erin’s shores in a leaky boat.”

  The senior officer—a red-haired, mustached man—shook out the sack. The contents—a blanket, a spare leine and accessories, a razor, and the velvet case containing Aingeal—spilled to the wet ground. The harp strings shivered with dissonance at their careless treatment.

  “Perhaps if I knew what it was you searched for, I might help you find it.”

  “Nothing here.” The other soldier snapped the velvet that had encased the instrument. He tossed it aside and stood up as it sailed to the ground with the rest of Bran’s things.

  “Ye’ve no weapon at all?” the ranking soldier demanded.

  A wicked glint settled in the bard’s eye. “None but this.” He stuck out his tongue. “Would you like me to demonstrate the power of a bard’s word?”

  The soldier shook his head. “Save it for talkin’ down a hungry wolf. Come on, Oife.”

  For all his bravado, the man’s retreat was nearly as hasty as his coming. It led one to think he was more leery of a bard’s satire than he let on. Old superstitions died hard, Riona supposed, especially where faith was sown thin.

  While Bran gathered his belongings and put them back in the sack, Brother Domnall came out of the stable with a bundle tucked under his arm. Next came Fynn, leading Bran’s shaggy horse, with Liex and Leila skipping alongside.

  “Well, this young man’s either a gifted diviner or has the keenest ears in the abbey,” Bran said, taking the reins from Fynn. “Either way, I thank you, sir.”

  “Good ears.” Fynn gave him a sheepish grin. “I’d have brought the stallion, but he nearly blew me over the way he snorted through his nose. I’d half a mind to see fire comin’ out of it.”

  “Hah!” Bran laughed. “If you’d managed him, then you’d be the man to ride to Drumceatt, not I. His temperament is as contrary as his master’s, but like Kieran, he has a noble heart.”

  “I can believe it,” the lad professed with whole heart.

  Riona hadn’t seen Fynn since she’d pulled him and Kieran apart. He’d vanished in the confusion and wasn’t in his bed when she rose to dress for morning prayers. “And just where have you been, Fynn?”

  “Around.”

  “He waked me up to see the soldiers this mornin’,” his younger brother supplied helpfully. “An’ then he was away. To mischief more likely.”

  Fynn started to give his younger brother a playful cuff on the back of the head, but Riona caught his wrist.

  “I didn’t think you cared what might happen to Kieran after last night. What’s made you decide to help?”

  Fynn scuffed his heel against his leg and tried to look indifferent. “He’s innocent, even if I don’t like him, which I don’t, but I like even less me and the twins being called a little band of chronic liars.” At Riona’s sharp intake of breath, he went on, clearly pleased by her reaction. His ability to hide or blend into his surroundings undetected was a ceaseless source of delight to the lad. “Aye, I heard it all from my perch in the rafters. And that weasel-eyed Senan had no right to call you a liar. I wish the lord had peeled ’is bobbin’ apple instead of handin’ over his knife.”

  “The talk this lad has,” Brother Domnall scolded. He handed Bran the linen bundle. “Take this, son. ’Tis some cheese and bread the twins gathered from the kitchen while Fynn and I readied your steed. God speed you to the high king and holy fathers at Drumceatt.”

  Riona gathered the little ones in her arms, sparing the elder Fynn such an embarrassment, and gave them a big hug.

  “I don’t know what Senan is up to, but I can see now he hasn’t got a chance against the lot of you.” After securing his belongings on the horse’s back, Bran mounted up. But before he could ride off, Brother Ninian ran through the gate and shouted at him to wait.

  “I begin to feel like Cuchulain, riding off to battle with this sendoff. A fair lady, soldiers, brothers, children …”

  Another time Riona might have cut him off with sarcastic wit, but Brother Ninian’s approach bode ill. She felt it in her bones. Even the hair on her arms lifted, stroked by icy dread. As Ninian reached them, he took a moment to catch his breath. The exercise had forced more blood to the sedentary cleric’s face than Riona had ever seen.

  “You ride in vain, Bran,” the brother told his friend. “Kieran of Gleannmara will be hanged before you reach Drumceatt.”

  “Hanged?” Riona ignored the way her knees turned to water, willing herself to remain upright.

  Ninian nodded. “After the hearing was adjourned, I left with the others, when it occurred to me that I’d forgotten my quills. I returned through the back entrance from the kitchen and overheard Maille and the bishop in consult. The lord of Gleannmara is doomed and you are, too,” he told Bran. “Men have been dispatched to see that you meet with some ill fate in the forests on the road to Tara.”

  “Then we’ll have to do something on our own,” Riona stated grimly. At least it sounded like her voice. Exactly what the resolute speaker had in mind was beyond her.

  EIGHT

  I’ve food for the lord of Gleannmara.”

  Riona tolerated the guard’s examination of the basket prepared in the abbey kitchen with admirable restraint until th
e man stirred the porringer with his grimy finger. She snatched the basket away.

  “I don’t think a useful weapon can be hid in porridge and beans, but allow me to break the bread with my clean hands lest you contaminate it as well.”

  “Me and Oife is hungry, too,” the guard said. He reached again for the food, but Riona sidestepped him. “You’ve two legs apiece and none of my sympathy. Get your own.” She nodded at the bar of the grainery door. “Now open the door, or shall I advise Bishop Senan and my lord Maille that you offend me?”

  Much as Riona was loathe to claim any relationship with the two connivers, distant or nay, it suited her purpose at the moment. Grudgingly, the man-at-arms opened the door and admitted her.

  Kieran stood as she entered. There was no light, save that from the late afternoon sun streaming in through the open door. Instead of on her, Gleannmara’s gaze was on the leather-clad men, taking their measure.

  “It isn’t lordly fare, but it’s filling.”

  “Food is the last thing on my mind, milady,” he growled sulkily.

  “Then you’d best change your mind. This, at least, will keep you from tripping over that temper-fired tongue of yours.”

  Kieran winced as though she’d dealt him a physical blow. “Yours is its only match.”

  Riona smiled. “At least milord knows when he’s well met.” She took the linen cover off the food and spread it on the ground before placing the basket on top of it. “Sit. Eat.”

  With a scowl toward the door, Kieran dropped to a cross-legged position and took up the porringer. Despite his claim of no thought for food, he wolfed down the meal as though it were his last.

  From all the rumors, that might not be far from the truth. The word of a bishop outmatched that of a tuath king—especially with the evidence that had been put out to indict Kieran. Even now those empowered to condemn him put their heads together over a feast of roast grouse hen in the late abbot’s private chambers. Thankfully, Father Ninian kept a close ear to the goings-on from his station at his desk beyond the dividing wall.

  “The way I see it, Bran should be at least three days getting to the high king and that much again and some in return,” Kieran observed aloud. “If Senan doesn’t have me hanged before.”