Riona

by Linda Windsor

  Overwhelmed by the heartfelt compliment, Kieran started to buss the boy on the cheek, but instead Liex stuck out his hand from under the blankets. “Soldiers don’t kiss,” he explained.

  Kieran almost felt guilty as he eased the door to the children’s lodge shut. Almost. The children deserved his time and affection, but so did his bride, and it had been too long since their wedding night. As he hustled into the chief’s lodge, built by his grandfather to replace the original dwelling, his anticipation grew. He’d thought his guests would never disburse for the night. Cromyn had finally excused himself, pleading exhaustion, and Kieran seized upon the same excuse, leaving Bran and Colga to drink themselves into a stupor, the first in celebration and the latter in an attempt to obliterate consciousness.

  He found Riona dwarfed in the huge, bronze Roman bed, which Queen Maire reportedly brought back along with her husband nearly a century before. All of Gleannmara’s heirs had been born in it, but neither ancestors nor heirs consumed Kieran’s thoughts at the moment. The sight of his bride took them, as well as his breath, away.

  Her eyes were closed, dark lashes fanned upon porcelain cheeks blushed with youth and good health. Her raven hair cloaked her face and shoulders, shining in the soft light of the lamp by the bed. Too lovely to be real, and she was his.

  Kieran fumbled to remove his clothes and stepped into the abandoned tub, which still smelled of her sweetness even if it had lost her warmth. Taking up the soap, he hurriedly lathered and rinsed in an attempt to rid himself of the long journey’s grime. His eagerness to join her was far from diminished as he toweled dry and slipped beneath the covers.

  He drew her to him, savoring her with all his senses. Stroking a silken curl from her forehead, he brushed her lips with his. She smiled sleepily and cuddled closer, her arm lax across him. With a sigh, she relaxed.

  “I love you, Kieran of Gleannmar …”

  And to his utter dismay, sleep swallowed the remainder of her sentence, even as it consumed his exhausted bride as well.

  A pained whimper of disappointment escaped his lips as he rolled over on his back and stared, wide-awake, at the ceiling. The more experience he had as a father, the more merit he saw to God’s order of marriage first, children second.

  After what seemed to Kieran like an endless parade of reflection over the changes in his life since he’d promised his dying friend to marry and protect the woman in his arms, the torture of Riona’s nearness subsided and a restless slumber overtook him. He was on the bloody battlefield holding Heber in his arms, but when he looked up, it wasn’t Colga’s ashen face protesting how the enemy had tricked the rear guard, it was Maille’s. It was as if Maille’s wickedness had set upon him before Kieran had ever set foot in Ulster and followed him still. Maille, Senan, Colga, Tadgh, and the woman—that blasted Mebh—and her pitchfork. Kieran winced as he tossed over on his side, turning away from the plaguing stream of faces. Was his leg still aching, or was it just the memory? The pain grew to an unbearable proportion, until sleep would no longer anesthetize it. Bolting upright in the bed, he felt for the wound with clammy hands.

  “Kieran?” Riona mumbled groggily.

  “A fiendish dream,” he answered, feeling the ridge of newly healed flesh where Mebh’s vengeful gash had been. An ancient warrior superstition came to his mind—one about old wounds aching whenever the one who inflicted them was near—but he dismissed it. Besides, the spot wasn’t tender at all now that he was awake.

  “You’re damp with perspiration.”

  “It’s warm in here, to be sure.” And growing warmer. The hauntings of Kieran’s past faded with the awareness of the woman beside him. The icy fingers of fear that tripped up his spine melted at her touch. “Mayhap I need another dip in the bath.”

  Riona caressed the side of his face and turned it toward her. “I hadn’t meant to fall asleep, husband, but I am well awake now.”

  The suggestion in her voice was enough to set a man’s blood to boiling. He gathered her in his arms and sought her lips in the darkness as though seeking his very soul. Here was goodness and mercy, seduction and passion, the fulfillment of every man’s dream. Riona—his Riona—his bride, his friend, his wife, his lover.

  The wonder of her did not completely erase the uneasiness that had plagued his sleep, but it did push it aside so that it was the last thing on his mind.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Riona floated in afterglow of Kieran’s ardent attentions, somewhere between consciousness and the sleep that had finally claimed her husband. Time was negligible. All that mattered was his closeness, for when they were separated, it felt as if a part of her was missing. They had become one, not just in the physical sense, but in the spiritual and eternal sense as well. Visions of bliss faded in and out of sleep—until a frantic voice invaded both.

  At first, Riona thought Fynn called out to her from a dreamworld, but the insistent pounding on the door sounded too close and loud to be anything but real.

  “Milady … wake … God’s mercy … sick … hurry!”

  The impassioned plea of his tone set her into motion. With an innate motherly reaction, she shook the last remnant of sleep from her mind, convinced that whatever alarmed Fynn, it was horrible. Flinging the covers aside, she struck the floor of the lodge with her bare feet as Kieran rose opposite her.

  “Wh … what …?” He reached instinctively for the sword hanging by the bed as he shook the sleep from his head, muttering beneath his breath as his feet became caught in the tangle of linens Riona had tossed aside.

  “It’s the children,” she answered fearfully.

  She slung the leine he’d hung on the back of the door at him for decency’s sake and jerked at the latch. No sooner had it opened than Fynn flung himself at her. His momentum would have knocked her over but for his deathlike grasp of her arms.

  “It’s Leila! Come quick!” He gasped something about sickness, but Riona was already on her way to the guest lodge.

  She staggered from the moonlit yard into the darkness of the building. Guided by a dreadful sound of gagging and gasping, Riona ran straight to where Kieran had tucked in the little girl earlier.

  “Get a light,” she called back to Fynn. The smell of the child’s breath struck her. It wasn’t just that of a sour stomach, it was almost sweet, as though the child had been chewing nuts.

  As Leila curled in to a ball and retched again, Riona nearly went over with her. The scent was distressingly close to another familiar odor … that of the poison used in the grainery for rats.

  “Liex, where has Leila been playing?” she asked, refusing to believe what her senses reported.

  A whimper of an answer came from a dark corner, where the boy’s bed had been placed. “Just in the yard with the other children.”

  “It’s all right, love,” Riona consoled the convulsing child. “Where in the yard? Where, Liex?”

  “Just in the yard,” the small voice insisted. “Is Leila going to die?”

  Light flooded the room ahead of Kieran. Now clad in his leine, he held up the lamp. “What is it … by my father’s eyes!”

  Panic seized Riona’s throat at the sight of Leila covered in her own sickness and looking like death’s breath. She had to clear her throat twice before she could even speak. “Get me Finella’s herbal blanket. I think she’s been poisoned.”

  For the next hour, Riona tried to force the little girl to swallow a paste made of charred coals, but as soon as it went in, it came back out. Kieran sought help from some of the women, but to no avail. Their various herbal remedies would not stay in the girl’s stomach long enough to help her condition. No one had seen the children anywhere near the grainery or the dairy. In fact, one of the women had watched them the entire time, taking turns so that chores could be done.

  “Think, people, she had to have gotten the poison from somewhere!” Kieran shouted in exasperation. “Check every place you can think of that a child could have gotten into. I want everyone awakened. See if anyone else
is ill. As God is my witness, I will get to the meat of this matter!”

  The group, save the good midwife, scattered at the thunder of Gleannmara’s command. Fynn kept them in fresh water, while Riona continually bathed the child’s face and tried to keep her bed as clean as possible.

  Kieran at her side, Riona prayed. She called on every promise in the Word. “Father, all things are possible. Nothing is too great for You to accomplish. I cannot believe that You have brought us through so many trials to break our hearts with this. Spare this child, we beg You—” Her voice broke. She tried clearing her throat of her anguish, but Kieran took up the prayer where she left off.

  “Father, I have strayed from You too long. I have just taken Your hand again. Please don’t let it go. My soul cannot survive this. If a life must be taken, then take mine. I’ve done much to deserve death, but this child—”

  Kieran’s deep voice cracked with emotion. Although of late he added an earnest amen to her prayers at mealtime and vespers, this was the first time she’d heard him pray straight from his heart. He crushed Riona’s hand in his own, tears pouring as freely as his words. Riona heard rather than saw them through the glaze of her own pain.

  “This child,” he rallied brokenly, “she’s done nothing but offer love to broken hearts.”

  “Excuse me, milord.”

  Riona looked up as Ina, Benin’s wife, came into the room. At least Riona thought it was Ina from her voice. Kieran had yet to lift his head. On his knees he rocked slightly, as if gathering strength to face whatever was to come. Ina was almost as ashen as Leila. She carried the supper tray Riona had barely touched earlier, her hands shaking so that the dishes rattled upon it.

  “My … my supper?” Riona said, bewildered.

  Ina nodded to the empty teacup and shoved the tray toward Kieran as he straightened. “Smell it, milord. ’Tis tainted, to be sure.”

  Face streaked and mottled with spent emotion, Kieran sniffed in obedience. Not attuned to herbs and his nose congested with grief, he shook his head, clearly unable to smell anything. Riona smelled the remnant in the bottom of the teacup and instantly recognized the sweet, nutty fragrance prevalent in Leila’s faint breath. Sickness curled anew in her stomach. The tea had been intended for her, not the child.

  Kieran’s frustration and despair turned to outrage. “Who’d dare poison you?”

  Heavenly Father, it isn’t fair! It should have been me. Riona clutched Leila to her, rocking back and forth in woeful apology until it dawned on her that the child was no longer convulsing. She was too weak. Riona pressed her lips to Leila’s neck. There was a pulse, but it was as faint as her breath.

  Nothing Riona had been through had prepared her for this. Nothing. She’d always known the hedge of God’s mercy and grace, but where was it now? She refused to accept that it wasn’t there. Misery distorted her spiritual vision, as tears did the physical. God is here! she told herself sternly. He is holding this child because He said He’d never leave us. Another memory surfaced, spreading like a balm upon the black sea that threatened to engulf them. And He promised to heal Leila. She could read Columcille’s message to her as though it were spread before her very eyes.

  “Go get Father Cromyn,” she whispered, wiping tears from her face.

  Kieran, who held Liex in his arms, put the boy down, not out of intent but from weakness dealt by the impact of her words. “Is that necessary?”

  “We are going to pray her through this,” Riona vowed resolutely. She reached for Liex’s hand and then glanced about in bewilderment. “Where is Fynn?”

  “I seen him looking around with the others after he emptied his own gut, poor lad,” Ina informed her. “Few menfolk can handle such as this.”

  “I’ll find him,” Kieran promised. The uncertainty on his face made Riona hurt for him. At that moment he looked, for all his manly size and presence, as lost and frightened as Liex.

  “It’s going to be all right, Kieran,” Riona said. “God told me.”

  Colga leaned against the corner of the privy behind the hall, oblivious to all the activity, much less the time. His noble-hearted cousin Bran slept cradled in Gleannmara’s royal chair like a newborn babe in its mother’s arms, but there was no relief for the guilty. Indeed, his traitorous stomach had turned catapult, rejecting the drink he’d sought to drown his conscience in. The dull ache in his head cleared as he threw it back and stared up at the stars.

  Some were bold, steady in their light. Others flickered, as if trying to hold out against the darkness for daybreak and the sun’s reinforcement. He wondered bitterly which would stand firm for the sunrise and which would fade away into nothingness, despite their best efforts to survive after their one moment of glory.

  Like him.

  He was chief of the Dromin, yet his light was fading fast, consumed by the dark deed that had provided him the chance at leadership. Even that deed required him to do nothing, just walk away under the pretense that he suspected the enemy’s approach. Without the warning Colga should have sounded, the conspirators who’d come to kill the Scots’ new king had been upon Heber’s rear guard before Heber knew what was coming. The mist spewed out the murderers, seemingly with as much distaste as Colga’s stomach had ejected his overindulgence of Gleannmara’s imported wine. Colga hadn’t seen the bloodbath, but he’d heard it and seen the aftermath—every day and night since it had happened.

  He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the summer night air. He could bear it no longer. He had to purge this guilt before it ate him alive from within. He had to speak to his uncle Cromyn, for Colga was too ashamed to speak directly to God. Heber was surely one of God’s favored. Colga had seen Heber’s face as he met death. ’Twas no banshee his cousin saw, given the peace that blanketed him body and soul. Heber saw God. Perhaps he even watched Colga’s cruel punishment of a guilt-ridden life from one of the many stars dotting the sky.

  Bracing himself with courage gained from liquor and desperation, Colga set his course toward the chapel, where Cromyn had retired for the night. It was to be his uncle’s lodge until a proper dwelling was built. Blindly, he passed some of the rath’s people scurrying here and there. Part of him wondered at their presence given the wee hour, but he was too intent on facing his own demons to give it a second thought.

  A dim light leaked out around the perimeter of the plank door.

  Good. Cromyn was still awake. Not that Colga would hesitate to awaken the man. As the new mother had been ready for her babe to see the light of day, so he was ready to give up this dark secret. He’d carried it and labored with it too long. It too deserved light—the light of confession whatever the consequence. Clammy with perspiration from his drunken weakness, Colga leaned against the thick door frame to catch his wind and overheard a familiar voice inside, as threatening and insidious as it had been the last time it afflicted his ear.

  “Curse you, you sniveling little thief. Have you any idea the trouble you’ve caused?”

  Maille? If ever there was a demon to be faced, the Ulster lord was one, but what was he doing here at Gleannmara? Hair raised on the back of Colga’s neck. How had the devil gotten past the guard at the gates? “Where was it, Mebh?”

  Mebh. What was that woman doing here? Colga recalled what he’d been told about the happenings at the abbey with the child slavers and later as Riona and Kieran traveled to Drumceatt. And now the slaver’s wife was here with Maille? Sure, this new wind bode ill for Kieran and Riona.

  “Hung round ’is scrawny neck and hid by his shirt.”

  “You poisoned my sister, you blackguard!”

  The voice belonged to a boy, an older one given its adolescent break. Fynn? Great God in heaven, Colga prayed, forgetting his own shame. Flashes of Leila’s smiling face, the sweet little kisses she gave so freely, the innocent trust Colga so envied, drove him further in his plea, closer to God than he’d ever venture for himself. Not that precious little girl. Father, tell me it isn’t so.

  “I poisoned no one�
��”

  Colga didn’t hear the rest of the woman’s reply, for a voice sounded behind him.

  “Colga, is that you?”

  Grabbing blindly for the dining dagger at his waist, Colga fell against the stone-corbeled structure, as ready as his dulled senses would allow. But on recognizing Gleannmara’s king in the moonlight, he put his finger to his lips with a liquor-scented shush and jerked his head toward the chapel.

  If Maille’s presence was not enough to sober Colga, the whiff he caught of his own breath was. How could something that went down so sweetly turn so foul upon him? No more had the thought taken root than Colga thought of his rise to Dromin chief. The intoxication of winning it lasted not nearly as long as the aftermath of festering guilt.

  “You what?” Maille exclaimed beyond the door, jerking Colga back to the present danger as the Ulster chief swore fiercely. “I told you to keep low and look for the vial, nothing more.”

  “Gleannmara killed my Tadgh,” the woman whined. “I wanted him to spend the rest of his life alone, without the one he loves. How was I to know the little girl would take the tea instead?” The whine came back. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “I don’t give a whit about the child, woman. ’Tis the disturbance I’ve no use for.”

  Beside him, Kieran caught his breath and fell back a step, as though the black fist of this ill wind had struck him squarely in the chest, offering no quarter.

  Kieran stood, struggling to breathe. It took all his will to resist the desire that swept him … the desire to plunge through the doorway and put an end to Maille’s miserable, foul existence.

  Words from a conversation between the children and Father Cromyn came back to him. Sins of the father … revisited upon his children …

  Faith, the words twisted his gut with relentless fists. Kieran was hard pressed not to tear at them with his fingers, like a madman seeking relief from his lunacy. Would Leila pay the price for Kieran’s mistakes? Would she die because of the vengeance he’d stirred in another’s soul?