“Crikes, ’em red eyes’ll make ye bones brittle up.”
Kieran shifted beneath his blankets with a low growl, and the man backed away hastily. It was as much a reflection of his genuine humor as it was playing his assigned role.
“The Dragon’s Breath is relatively harmless … more man there than wit, I fear,” Marcus assured the guard. “But when he’s well, he makes a wondrous spectacle, swallowing his sword and breathing fire. Perhaps those traveling to Drumceatt will see him.”
Those travelers who waited while their servants prepared for the day’s journey nodded, intrigued by a wild man who could swallow fire and sword.
“I wouldn’t mind seein’ it meself,” the first guard laughed. “I kin see ’im astride that blue horse, blue face and all, like a matched pair.”
It was an amusing thing to picture, but Riona was too distracted to appreciate it—or the seething frustration of her foster brother at being caught in such a predicament.
“And now for the skit we promised you, now that my wife is rested.” Marcus slipped his arm about Riona’s waist. “Fiona’s to be a mother again and I a father, and as such I continue to do my utmost to assure there be two more like these.” He pointed to the twins, and then, without warning, the gleeman leaned around and kissed Riona full on the lips.
Liex and Leila erupted in a spontaneous giggle, but it was Kieran’s low growl that sent the curious guard yet another pace away.
Now that the shoe had fallen on her foot, it wasn’t nearly as engaging. “That is a skit I prefer to perform in private, good husband.” Riona walked to a table provided by the hosteler for the promised departing show. The raucous amusement sweeping through the crowd made her wish for the ground to open up and consume her, but that was not to be the case. “Let us begin.”
With great reluctance, Riona had agreed the night before to act out the story of the scriptural widow who offered her last food to the prophet Elijah, played by Dallan. Finella narrated the story, drawing in the crowd with her artful play of words. Mischief-maker that he was, Marcus insisted on embellishing the story as the widow’s brother, who had a taste for wine. Once the miracle of the oil jar that could not be emptied had taken place, earning a grand huzzah of approval from the audience, Marcus stole the show. He ran after the prophet to offer him the last of his wine in hopes of a source that would never empty. Elijah drank the small remnant and told him that he’d be blessed by the spirit in which it was given. After the prophet exited, the onlookers howled as comical Marcus mimed trying to get wine out of the empty skin, wringing it, shaking it, and pulling expressions that defied the average face. The performance was so well received that the hosteler implored them stay another night, but Dallan was firm.
While the guests prepared to leave, Leila played her pipe, perched cross-legged atop the blue stallion, while Liex amused some of the bystanders with sleight of hand tricks with his stones. Both were delighted when they showed off their contribution to the troupe’s income, two silver coins from a kindly merchant.
“Look, Mother!” Liex shouted, running up to Riona and leaping into her arms in his excitement.
Mother. Joy welled within Riona’s heart. This was no act. She was for all intent and purpose just that. She bussed the child on the cheek. “Well done, Liex.” She turned to Leila and took her coin, admiring it in the light. It was imprinted in Latin, most likely from the Mediterranean. “I’ll bet this will purchase something extra special for an extra special girl.”
“Fynn, mount up your cousins on the dun,” Finella called from the front of the wagon. “We’re ready to be off.”
“Come, my darling Fiona. Your steed awaits.”
Riona smiled warily as she approached Marcus. The young man was perfectly wicked, in a charming sort of way. He reminded her of a cross between Bran and the legendary troublemaker Bricriu.
“Indeed, sir, there could be no more attentive husband than you,” she said in a voice loud enough for the ears of the guards lingering near the gate of the outer rath. Not that they paid much heed. They were engrossed in conversation with the generous merchant.
“My joy is to see to your every need.”
“My joy is to see how well you can swallow my sword,” Kieran grumbled lowly from the travois.
Marcus lifted Riona to Bantan’s golden-brown back and turned to the travois with an exaggerated mask of horror. “My stars, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a green tattoo … and so ugly at that.”
Riona groaned inwardly. Life was a giant stage to Marcus, but this act was not appreciated.
Constrained by circumstance, Kieran glowered. “Come take a closer look, you miming fool.”
“A mime I may be, but never a fool.” With that, the entertainer danced away in slow motion. Riona couldn’t help but chuckle at his ridiculous antics. He did know how to pluck the strings of Kieran’s patience. Hopefully they would make peace before her foster brother regained his health.
Once well away from the hostelry, Riona’s tension finally uncoiled. The sun overhead washed her shoulders in warmth, relaxing yet invigorating. There was even a part of her that was enjoying the adventure. Never had Riona pictured herself acting with gleemen. The enthusiastic response from their audience would have been intoxicating if she’d not been so nervous.
It was yet another day, and once more God had taken care of them. She said as much as she blessed the ample bundle of food from the hosteler at midday.
“And thank You, Father, for sending these good people our way. Amen.”
“Not too good,” Marcus reflected aloud. “The reward was a fat one and gave Dallan and me much to consider.”
Kieran stared flatly. “So why did you pass it up?”
“The reputation Lord Maille leaves in his wake isn’t an endearing one.” Dallan helped himself to another chunk of cheese. “So I say to myself and my good brother, if this Maille is vengeful and tight pursed, think what a thankful and good-hearted lord might pay.”
“Humph.” Kieran contemplated the skin containing the concoction Finella had made. As if coming to a decision, he put it aside, untouched. The curl of his lips suggested a snarl rather than words. “So you’d have a reward from me, would you?”
“I would think you’d want to reward them, Kieran,” Riona spoke up, alarmed at the calculating way her foster brother moved, like a hound pushed to the edge of its tolerance in an intolerable situation.
“They’ll have to take my word that they’ll get what they deserve … at least until we can straighten this muddle of murder. I can offer them nothing at present.”
As if to challenge them, he looked from one to the other of the men. Neither answered at first, each carefully assessing the iron bulge of Kieran’s jaw. The sound of Riona’s own breath was like a roaring wind to her ear in the tense quiet.
Dallan swallowed the piece of bread he’d chewed to mush in the interim and pointed to Kieran’s chest. “That brooch would make a fine show of gratitude,” he suggested in a matter-of-fact tone.
It was no different than if he’d asked for a loaf of bread or something as inconsequential, but the brooch of Gleannmara was hardly that. Its stones and metal were precious in their own right, but what it symbolized was even more so.
“Hah!” Kieran laughed, clearly not taking the man seriously. “Next you’ll be wanting my horse as well.”
Marcus shook his head. “Nay, not that one. He’s too much like his master. But the clasp now, that’s a fine payment.” He lifted his head, as if studying the brooch. “Sapphires and gold. Sure, it’d bring a pretty price.”
“You go too far, you prancing bucklet.” Face darkening, Kieran struggled upright, using his sword as a crutch.
Riona shot to her feet and stood between the two men. Her foster brother’s great frame looked even more so in the full drape of his brat. There was no visible sign of his earlier weakness. Braced with anger, he leaned like an oak into the storm brewing in his gaze. She seized at reason to waylay it.
&n
bsp; “Kieran, the brooch is a small price to pay for our lives.”
The warrior looked at her as if she’d lost her wits, reminding her of what she already knew. “This is the brooch of Gleannmara, woman, presented to Rowan by Queen Maire. To give it away is to toss away my heritage.”
“I have jewels of my own that will bring a higher price,” she said, turning to Dallan.
“Milady, chivalry stands for you and the children,” the entertainer replied. “Besides, you are not accused of murder.”
“Accused, not guilty,” Kieran pointed out. “There is some foul plot afoot into which I’ve stumbled.”
Marcus gave Riona a sympathetic look. “Alas, milady, you know what you’re worth to this gent … or should I say, not worth?”
Before Marcus could sidestep Kieran’s charge, the warrior held him up against an elm, pinned by the neck with one hand.
Where had his strength come from? “Kieran!” Riona latched on to his arm until her weight and Marcus’s brought it down. “ ’Tis your foul temper that trapped you into this charge and that convicts you at every turn.”
Marcus scrambled away, and Kieran spun to go after him but instead fell back against the tree. Perspiration beaded his brow, squeezed out by his effort.
“A few precious stones … hardly the worth of a lady’s love,” Marcus rasped.
“Hush, Marcus, or I’ll choke you myself,” Riona warned him. She threw her hands up in exasperation. “I don’t know which of you is worse, the needler or the buffoon. Bricriu or the bull.” Disgusted with both of them, Riona picked up her skirts and stormed away to where the twins played nearby.
“Marcus will meddle one time too many and never sing again.” Finella approached Riona from the side of the wagon, shaking her head. “At least we know the lord of Gleannmara is much improved.”
“And overspent.” Riona glanced back to where Kieran refused to sit down but continued to lean against the tree. He and Marcus still eyed each other, not unlike wary dogs in a ring.
“He’s young and strong,” Finella remarked. “He’ll come back fast. As for Marcus, it serves him right.”
“What could he have been thinking, antagonizing my foster brother like that?”
“My husband’s brother is an incurable romantic. He revels in the part of Cupid.”
“Cupid! What in this world possessed him to think Kieran and I—”
Glancing at Fynn, who stalked some animal with his sling poised a distance away, Riona recalled Marcus’s coming up on them locked in a tender embrace the night before. The rest of her protest faded away. How had it come to be? One moment she spoke in earnest of matters of the soul, and the next she responded to Kieran’s kiss with equal fervor.
How had any of this come to be, she wondered in confusion.
“Are you going to marry Gleannmara?” Liex asked, glancing up from the sleight of hand trick he was teaching his sister.
“Of course not,” Riona answered. “He’s a godless, foul-tempered fool.”
“But he can carry us on his shoulders, like father used to do.” The child was serious, as if that were all the qualification required to make him happy. “And when he blows foul, we can just hide. That’s what we used to do when athair got mad, ’cause we knew he loved us.”
Would that it were that simple.
“I see an able, strapping man, noble of heart and unable to express what lies within it,” Finella observed without invitation. “And therein lies the source of his anger, not as much at others as at himself.” She stared off at where Fynn entered the forest’s edge. “Where force fails, ’tis love that tames the beast.”
With an ample dose of self-pity, Kieran watched the women as he rested against the rough bark of the tree. They’d kill a horse in this condition to put it out of its misery. The fever had retreated, taking the throbbing head pain with it, leaving in its place a dull ache. He’d sweated his strength away. His wounded leg gave him thunder and a limp. And all from a vicious swipe of a stable fork wielded by a hysterical wench.
Though his physical weakness plagued him, the feelings gnawing at his insides were far worse. Pride demanded the most of him. It shamed the jealousy that had reared upon seeing Marcus’s familiarity with Riona and fueled indignation. His foster sister had spurned his proposal, not once, but twice. She didn’t deserve jealousy. But he had every justification as a gentleman to be outraged by the impudence of a lowly gleeman toward a lady of her station. So what did Kieran gain from coming to her defense? Disdain.
He forced his breath through his lips in frustration.
“If you have half a brain in that thick head of yours, you’d go after the lady and blame love for acting the bullish buffoon.” Sitting on a branch of a nearby tree, Marcus looked down at Kieran, chirping like a smug magpie.
“Leave me be, gnat.” Kieran leaned on his sword and walked the distance to another tree in the opposite direction. Faith, it hurt, but at least he could move on his own without having to rely on the brothers Tit and Tat.
“You’d think she knew how you felt, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d think you’d know not to press me by now.”
Marcus leapt down, landing light as a cat. “Declare your love, sir.”
“I did!” Kieran caught himself. “And the last person I’d discuss matters of the heart with is the likes of you. I see no wife in your court.”
“An artist of story and song needs no wife. I have the tried and true words of Erin’s greatest lovers at my disposal to make the ladies more than kind with their favors. But a lord of the land, who cut his teeth on steel rather than words—” Marcus tutted—“he can’t beget heirs alone.”
Too tired to argue, Kieran threw his free hand up as if to wave away a worrisome insect. “Why do you plague me?”
“Because I feel sorry for you.” Taking care to stay out of Kieran’s reach, Marcus circled around him, finger poised on his cheek as if in thought. “And I stand to gain if you really wish to show the lady that her love means more to you than … say … that brooch.”
“I’d give my life for Riona but not my brooch.”
“Yes, yes. The brooch will do you much honor when your bones rot beneath a cromlech.”
“As much as the lady.”
“How many times, do tell me good warrior, were you smitten in the head during your training?” Marcus grimaced. “Can a brooch give you an heir? Can a brooch warm your bed and heart? Can a brooch return your love? Will a brooch risk her life to free you from captivity?”
Kieran’s brow shot up. “What do you know of that?”
Marcus nodded toward the spot where the women and children chatted. “Young Liex is quite a storyteller. He even makes you out to be a hero. Myself, I fail to see hero meat. I’d be challenged indeed to compose a song for the ages about a bearish brute who speaks by clanging sword and pounding fists. The women will not long to hear about you and will pity your lady.”
Kieran grunted, a skeptical tilt at the corner of his mouth. What did he care what women thought of him? He was a warrior.
“You see, my friend—”
“You’re no friend of mine.”
“You see, my good man, for I believe you are noble of heart even if you are challenged by its matters,” the jongleur said, “your training as a warrior was exemplary, but you are sadly lacking in expertise where the heart is concerned.”
“I’ll not stand here and listen to the drone of a gnat with a waspish tongue. Count yourself on thin grace that I haven’t cut it out.”
“That would really impress the lady.”
Never was Kieran more tempted to tear a man apart muscle by muscle. The faint smack of truth was all that saved Marcus’s light-footed hide. And it was only faint truth.
“I can have all the women I wish. Faith, they swoon in my path at fairs or in court.”
“But not the woman you want.” At Kieran’s silence, Marcus went on. “Tell me, how did you first ask the lady to wed you?”
“I t
old her I was now king and needed a wife and heirs.” Why was he even answering this fool?
“And she didn’t fall into your arms? I’m astounded. What woman wouldn’t want to take up caring for a foul-tempered man and his household, seeing to cooking and cleaning and sewing …”
“It’s a wife’s duty.”
“And growing to monstrous proportion while carrying your child, not to mention spending hours, if not days, in agony giving birth. I know if I were a woman, I’d jump at the prospect,” the man remarked laconically. “Oh, and then there’s the caring for the child, the filthy—”
“By my mother’s eyes,” Kieran interrupted, “I haven’t asked you, so stop your whining.”
Marcus’s gaze twinkled. He did a dancelike turn. “But that’s what you asked the lady to do.”
“I said no such—”
“And the second time, how did you ask her?”
Scowling, Kieran recalled the scene. “I said I made a promise to her dying brother to marry her and take care of her.”
“Who wouldn’t promise anything to a dying man?”
Throttling was too good for his companion. Had Kieran felt better, he’d have doled out the penance anyway. “I meant what I said. Heber was my foster brother, dearer than my own life to me.”
“Of course you meant it,” Marcus told him. “But promising her brother to marry her does not move a lady’s heart. Not once have you mentioned love.”
“I have loved Riona of Dromin all my life … since she was a toddling child. She knows how I feel about her. She just doesn’t care. All she thinks about is her church and now those halflings.” Yet her faith and compassion for the gleeman’s orphans were part of what he cherished about Riona.
“If she’s the one you’d marry, then you’d best amend your regard toward them as well.” Marcus shook his head from side to side. “I don’t know if you’re even trainable when it comes to wooing the heart of such a lady. I can only offer my advice—”
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