“And the price for such advice is the brooch,” Kieran cut in. “I am strides ahead of you, you greedy gnat. I can certainly tell her I love her.”
“Actions carry more weight than words. If she sees you part with something she knows to be dear to you, she’ll know you are in earnest.”
“An earnest fool, you mean.” Kieran fingered the brooch in question. “This is more than six sapphires set in gold. The gold is our Erin, beautifully shaped by a masterful hand. The dark stone is that of Gleannmara, Uí Niall mother to the six septs pledged to her. ’Twas designed by Queen Maire for her king, symbolizing the unity of Gleannmara’s tribes as one people.”
“I can see how much it means to you,” Marcus assured him. “But it’s an earthly thing. Love is spiritual. You possess the earthly thing and yet you are empty.”
“You speak like a priest.”
“I am a priest of the heart,” Marcus declared with a sweeping bow. “The clergy are priests of the soul. Both are empty without the spirit of love.”
It was food for thought, Kieran had to admit … at least to himself. He’d admit nothing to Marcus. How he missed Heber to share his innermost feelings and thoughts with, or even Bran—anyone but this greedy, self-appointed druid of love.
SEVENTEEN
The fair loomed ahead of the travelers, spread out upon a great green mound. Banners of all manner and tribe fluttered against the sky, now ablaze with the fire of the setting sun. Looking as if thatched with gold rather than straw, domes of newly erected buildings were interspersed among tents and cottars—portable dwellings made of woven wattle. Lesser in number were the shingled roofs of yew. Livestock of all kinds were carefully tended on the town’s outskirts lest the law be broken against them running free and destroying the landscape.
It must have taken the groundskeepers months to prepared the land so that those attending might walk on freshly cropped green grass free of mud and wallow, Riona thought, glancing askew at the dust on her skirts. She needed a bath before even entering the grounds. She knew she’d have one before seeing the high king to appeal Kieran’s case. The good burgundy dress she wore under the soiled one would do for that, even if it too was a tad worn from her service at the abbey. Before she did anything else, though, she wanted to seek out the chapel and give thanks for the safe arrival of their eclectic ensemble.
Kieran, who insisted on riding the blue Gray Macha the last half of the day, had not throttled Marcus. Clearly unhappy with the color of his warhorse and the tattoos on his face, which Finella said needed to wear off, he’d ridden in brooding silence. The twins napped peacefully, cheeks rosy with health, on the travois he dragged behind the stallion. Finella drove the cart, while Dallan, Marcus, and Fynn, who opted to lead his pony that he might walk with the jongleurs, carried on merrily in song and story beside it.
While the entertainers set up their encampment, Riona took the children to an outdoor place of worship marked by a large wooden cross. A fire was kindled near its foot that would be fed the entire duration of the event. Even at night, it would stand as an invitation to all who came.
Now it was crowded for vespers, and many of the worshipers wore the gray cloth of the clergy who were there to participate in the lawmaking and political sessions. Kneeling on the grass, Riona bowed her head. Leila mimicked her to perfection, but Liex and Fynn were typically restless. The larger boy elbowed the younger, making Liex gasp loudly. Heads turned, Riona’s included, to see Kieran clamp a settling hand on Fynn’s shoulder. The younger lad shrunk into the epitome of obedient reverence beneath the warrior’s withering gaze.
Not wanting Riona to venture into the crowds alone, Kieran insisted on accompanying her. The mask painted on his face made him look all the more fierce. Her foster brother’s attendance meant nothing, she realized, yet it gave her comfort. God had worked many wonders for them thus far. Paint or no, Kieran was no match for a God who called on him.
A priest with two pigeons perched peacefully on his shoulders continued to stare long after the others returned to their pious contemplation so that Riona couldn’t help but return his look. Gradually, in the dimming light, the man’s features became familiar. It was her uncle, Bran’s father.
“Cromyn?” she mouthed silently.
With a smile, the priest nodded and turned dutifully back to his worship.
“Are they his pets?” Liex whispered, a cautious eye turned toward Kieran lest that large hand fall upon him.
“They appear to be.” Riona put her finger to the young boy’s lips to stay his next question.
Cromyn must have accompanied Columcille from Iona. He’d joined the revered Niall saint a few years after the battle that led to Columcille’s exile. What a joy it was to see a familiar and friendly face. She looked at Kieran, who scanned the gathering with hawklike discernment, as if expecting trouble. He’d not recognized the man. Much as she wanted to share her good news, she focused on the leader of the assembly instead and added yet another thanksgiving to her growing list.
When the service closed, Riona leaped to her feet and rushed to embrace her uncle. The birds on his shoulders flapped their wings, disgruntled by her disturbance, yet they refused to give up their master.
“Dearest uncle, you are a joy to behold after all these years.”
The man held her at arm’s length after a long hug and marveled. “You are as lovely as ever, Riona.” He glanced at the children. “And who are these fine youngsters?”
“We’re her children,” Liex announced proudly. “Does that make you our uncle, too?”
Before the man could answer, Kieran extended his hand. “Cromyn, it’s good to see you.”
Cromyn squinted in the darkness. Suddenly his face brightened with recognition. “My word, Kieran, I hardly knew you. What manner of madness have you been up to with all this?”
Cromyn pointed to the lord’s face. “And you, Riona. How came you by three such fine children?”
“Faith, Father, it’s a tale to rival any bard’s.”
“What say we retreat to more private surroundings to explain?” Kieran suggested.
“Can I look around?” Fynn asked Riona.
Riona frowned. “There are so many people here, Fynn, I …”
“The lad’s fourteen, woman,” Kieran objected. “He’s proven himself a man with his knives and hunting. Let him go.”
Riona hardly knew who was more surprised by Kieran’s words, she or Fynn. The older boy looked at the warrior, clearly waiting for some sort of stipulation, but none came.
“Me, too?” Liex suggested hopefully.
The corner of Kieran’s mouth tipped up. “Aye, you as well … when you are fourteen,” he injected, waylaying Riona’s objection. Turning to Fynn, he laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Keep a sharp eye.”
With an eager nod, Fynn skipped away a few feet. Suddenly he let out a yelp of excitement and broke into a run. Grinning, Kieran stared after the boy until he disappeared in the throng.
“Ah, to have that much energy,” he said wistfully.
“You must be exhausted,” Riona said, stepping up to offer her support. “Father, will you accompany us back to our camp? We’ve much to share with you.”
Cromyn chuckled. “I can see that well enough.” He pointed to the pigeons, who’d commanded the attention of the twins. “This is Raphael and Gabriella.”
“An’ I’m Liex and this is my sister, Leila, but she doesn’t talk to anyone except me.”
Leila stretched out her arm and said something in her gibberish. Promptly, one of the pigeons abandoned Cromyn’s shoulder and lighted on the child’s forearm.
“So you’re the one,” Cromyn said matter-of-factly.
“Father?” Riona questioned at the curious comment.
“Later,” her uncle promised, offering his shoulder to Kieran. “Lean on me, lad. We know of your coming.”
Kieran stiffened. “Senan and Maille precede us with their lies, eh?”
Cromyn looked up at him
. “Who?”
With a sigh of relief, the weary warrior answered, “Later, Father. Later.”
Finella had worked her magic with a pot of porridge. It was steaming hot and ready on their return. A hot meal and brace of ale revived the lot of them as Kieran and Riona explained to Father Cromyn the dire circumstances regarding their trip to the synod. Cromyn listened, arms folded within his robe, his dark blue eyes sparkling with interest at every detail.
“From the moment Kieran escaped, God has provided a way here,” Riona told him. “By all rights we should have been caught.”
Kieran quarreled with the statement in his mind. Most of their fortune he attributed to Riona’s influence with the brethren of the abbey, not divine intervention. Any men of good conscience would have helped. Granted, he couldn’t explain Leila’s warning of the approach of Maille’s soldiers. She was such a strange little creature. As for the fisherman’s help in providing her and her brood passage across the Liffey—or the brothers having a ready boat to take the rescued orphans to safety—that could have been simply good fortune. It was a church by a seaport. Ships sailing with the tide were hardly a miraculous event.
To hear Riona describe it, God had held her hand the entire way. God had sent the gleemen when Kieran was laid low by the fork wound. God had given Finella a knowledge of herbs. God had put the strings on Dallan’s instruments. Kieran received no credit for freeing the captured orphans or anything else to date. God had done it all. It was enough to make a man’s head hurt, the way she could see God’s hand in everything.
How could a mortal compete with her perception of God? Not that he took half of what she said seriously, but even that was enough to make him feel helpless against whatever it was that made making Riona his wife so vital to him. Annoying as Marcus was, he was right. Whatever this compulsion, Kieran felt it was more than a promise to a dying friend. It was more than needing someone to produce an heir or manage his lodge. Crom’s toes, it was obsessing him!
He leaned on a staff borrowed from the jongleurs since his sword lay hidden in the bottom of their cart. It was illegal to carry weapons at the fair, much less to quarrel. The fair’s amnesty applied to all—murderers, thieves, and petty criminals—until the season was over. He should feel safe at last, should know the relief Riona did, yet he felt as if he sat on a bench of spikes. This matter of courtly love was the greatest challenge he’d ever faced, as a warrior or as a man.
Tugging at his brat, Kieran cleared his throat to draw attention to himself, but the only one around the fire who noticed was Marcus. Kieran managed a narrowing look in the gleeman’s direction, portraying his displeasure.
Thus far, the priest of love’s advice had been worthless. Kieran had wanted to make a grand affair of presenting Gleannmara’s brooch to Dallan in appreciation for their help. That way Riona could not help but know what he’d done. But nay, Marcus insisted it was best for her to find out on her own. Kieran had stuck closer to the female than her own shadow, and she’d yet to see that his brat was now knotted rather than pinned with dignity.
“And that is why Bran is not with us,” the lady explained to her uncle. “He’s on his way to Gleannmara with Siony and the orphans he rescued.”
Odds balls, she gave credit to everyone but him! Need he strip naked and prance about like a jackrabbit to get her attention?
Cromyn sat back in wonder. “That explains the vision I had during my fast. ’Twas of my son surrounded by children and a lovely brown-haired maid at his side. It made no sense to me, given his choice to gad about as a bard with colt’s tooth enough for two men.”
Kieran knew Cromyn was disappointed that Bran had not followed his footsteps into the clergy. Nobility of the church was, like that of the clans and lands, inherited. If Cromyn earned a monastery or see, it would be Bran’s to take over had his son continued in his footsteps. The man’s acceptance of Bran’s decision earned Kieran’s respect more than the man’s dedication to his church.
Cromyn could have made it difficult by insisting that Bran honor his father’s wishes according to the commandments, but instead he adhered to another Scripture that spoke of every man having his own talent to offer the Lord. It was sound and fair to Kieran’s way of thinking. Some men were born warriors, others priests, others bards.
“Bran has the heart of a poet and too much love to waste away on song alone,” Cromyn observed. “A good wife is—”
“Not Siony,” Riona laughed. “Faith, I thought we’d need to separate them before they cut each other senseless with barbed words.”
“Barbs are often a man’s last weapon against Lady Love,” the priest said.
Was everyone but him an expert on love? Impatient, Kieran struggled to his feet and stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly. As he lowered his arms back to his sides, he drew one in so that his brat fell from his shoulders.
Riona reached over and tucked it back up in a motherly fashion. “Keep yourself covered against this dampness, Kieran, or it’s back to drinking our concoction for you.”
Still she did not see his sacrifice for her.
“I’ve been plagued with visions the entire voyage over, and now at least they are beginning to make some sense,” Father Cromyn went on, picking up the conversation.
“I would keep it up,” Kieran said through clenched teeth, “but without my brooch, it keeps falling.”
Across the fire, Marcus went into a spasm of coughing and left the group, shaking his head in grandiloquent fashion. Miffed, Kieran didn’t care what the fool did. Enough was enough.
Blanching, Riona ruffled through the folds of Kieran’s brat. “Where is it? Faith, where do you think you lost it?”
“It’s not lost,” Kieran assured her. “I reconsidered what you said and recognized the debt I owed to these good people. So I gave it to Dallan before we broke way today anon.”
“You gave them Gleannmara’s brooch?” Disbelief filled her voice, but something else kindled in her gaze.
Kieran was at a loss as to what it was, but he liked the look of it. “It’s just metal and stones and can be replaced. Flesh and blood cannot.”
Feeling as if he were tiptoeing on thin ice, he turned to Dallan. “But if ye don’t mind, I’d have it back till the end of the fair, lest I be falling over this cloak like a wee lass in her mother’s skirts.”
The older of the brothers reached into a pouch strung from his belt and withdrew the gold and sapphire piece. “By all means, sir. Even the commonest money lender will allow his clients the use of their pawned finery during the fair.”
Riona intercepted it. With great care, she folded Kieran’s brat over the width of his shoulders and ran the pin through it. Once secured to her satisfaction, she stepped back, her admiring look running up from the brooch to Kieran’s face.
“I’m most pleasantly surprised, milord, that you’ve come to your senses.”
The provocative tilt of her red lips sent heat curling somewhere in Kieran’s belly, as if he’d been kicked by a silk-hoofed mule, hard and soft with the same blow. Whatever senses he had were scattered by the impact. His pulse pounded to reclaim them just as his lips staked their own claim upon those she parted in surprise.
Her breath was his, and his was hers. No wine was more heady, for all was obscured but her soft nearness. A myriad of cherished images flashed across Kieran’s mind, images of the Riona he loved, laughing, praying, dancing, and sleeping. He kissed them with all an intoxicated vigor—until a bolt of pain erupted from the far reaches of his foot. With a gasp he foundered back, so bewildered that he felt her sound slap upon his cheek before he saw it coming.
“Have you lost your wits?” she accused him. “Do you think to seduce me before my uncle, a priest?”
The ice caved in and bitter cold water closed in over his head. He felt himself sinking fast beneath its surface. “No. I only sought to kiss you,” he blurted out. But the damage was done.
Her eyes grew luminous wet, as though it were she that had be
en slapped. “Kieran, I vow, I don’t know you anymore.” She accused him as if her dismay were his fault.
“Then that makes two of us!” Stung and confounded beyond measure, Kieran turned and stalked away from the company. The agony shooting up his thigh was small in comparison to that consuming his pride.
He reeled around the cart and into its shadow, skin burning with humiliation. If he hadn’t needed it for a crutch, he’d have snapped the yew crosier against the wheel or maimed himself trying. Leaning against the rough woven side, he slid to the ground.
Heavenly Father!
The cry for help formed in his beleaguered mind of its own accord. It wasn’t conjured from his beating heart but from a secret place, one he’d not been to in a long time. He wasn’t at home there. He didn’t want to be there alone.
The soft caress of a hand against his rough-shaven cheek caught his attention. Leila stood beside him, her delicate features bathed in sympathy. He thought she and Liex had fallen asleep beneath the cart.
Without invitation, she crawled into his lap and laid her head against his shoulder, a thumb tucked in her mouth. Then, as if she knew his pain, she patted his back with her other hand, consoling. The gesture was small, but the effect was profound.
To Kieran’s wonder, he knew exactly what this strange, loving creature told him. He could hear it, yet not with his ears: I know how you feel. I, too, have lost a loved one. You may feel forsaken, but you are not. I will never leave you. You are never alone.
Kieran drew the child closer, cradling her as if she were his last breath. Gently he rocked her and wiped away her tears—or were they his? He couldn’t see in the stinging blur of the night. All he knew for certain was that this night, the warrior was a child as well—and the words he heard were not those of a little girl, but rather of a loving Father.
EIGHTEEN
The fairgrounds were immense, a veritable city of nobility and peasantry and every class in between. There were lawmakers and clergy, bards and entertainers, craftsmen and vendors, politicians and soldiers, athletes and spectators. Pushing through the throng, Riona frantically searched the sea of faces for any sign of Kieran or Leila. Both were missing when she awoke to the hawking of the bakery boys selling fresh bread from the oven wares. The amnesty of the fair insured Kieran’s safety, but if Leila had wandered off—
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