“Please, I want to go to him! Let me go to him—ah, God, Duncan!”
Niall said nothing to her frenzied cries and Ronan couldn’t, wishing to think no further of what had transpired these past days, his throat as tight as his grip on the reins. To hear her speak of loving a Norman …
“Lord, we must ride! Look!”
Flann O’Faelin’s urgent voice spurred Ronan as much as the commotion raging on the drawbridge, and already Niall bore Maire back to his horse. Her desperate cries silenced, she still wept disconsolately but even to that Ronan closed his heart and his ears. He scarcely waited until Niall was mounted, Maire slumped in his arms, before he kicked his steed into a gallop.
“To Glenmalure, all of you, home!”
Chapter 33
“Does she speak?”
Triona closed the door quietly to Maire’s bedchamber and gave Ronan a small nod, the story that had poured forth brokenly after two days of poignant silence as heartrending as any she’d known. Yet she doubted that Ronan would wish to hear it. Even now his countenance was black, and he’d looked no different since he had returned with Maire to Glenmalure.
It pained Triona so deeply that she’d failed to cheer him. Their little daughter Deirdre didn’t understand in the least why her beloved papa would not smile. Triona sighed as Ronan lunged from a chair and went to stand before the central hearth, his broad back to her; she didn’t attempt to go near him. It seemed he would have to reconcile his anger on his own, aye, she’d judged well that Ronan was furious with Maire.
And that made her angry, too, for poor Maire’s sake. Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, as if anyone could govern the path of love! Had she imagined Ronan Black O’Byrne would one day become her husband when he’d answered her godfather’s deathbed summons and come to the glen of Imaal? Oh, aye, that’s why she’d aimed her bow at him and threatened to skewer him with arrows!
Triona sighed again, telling herself to mind her temper as well as her tongue though she wanted so badly to do otherwise. And there was another matter that must be attended to, so sad and wretched a task she hoped Ronan would help her to break the unhappy news to Niall. It was no wonder Maire had wanted to wait until they were home in Glenmalure before she revealed Caitlin MacMurrough’s change of heart.
“By God, Triona, tell me it was all a ruse. Tell me Maire wasn’t in love with that Norman spawn!”
Ronan’s voice filled with as much raw anguish of his own as anger, Triona waited silently until he had turned to look at her before she spoke.
“The truth will be harsh to you—”
“I will hear it!”
Triona’s heart went out to him at the pain in his eyes, but she’d seen far worse in Maire’s. “It began as a ruse—all done to protect you, to protect Niall and the rest of our clan. But aye, Ronan, she fell in love with the baron, and it’s a fortunate thing she came upon him and no other Norman lord.”
“Fortunate? That she lies in there now, mayhap never to be the same for her misguided grief? Mayhap his vile seed growing in her belly?”
“Begorra, Ronan, if she does bear a babe mayhap it will bring some comfort to her! She fears Lord FitzWilliam is dead—”
“He is dead! As dead to her as any accursed Norman would be whether he lives yet or not!”
Triona winced that he would shout so vehemently, and she knew Maire must have heard him. But she couldn’t go to her now, determined that Ronan would hear the full story even as he stormed from the dwelling-house. It might do no good, but at least he would know it.
He would know what an honorable man Duncan FitzWilliam had proved to be, as honorable in his own right as Ronan, both of them holding to their convictions so fiercely and being in that sense, so very much alike. Oh, aye, she could just hear what Ronan would have to say about that comparison!
And there was Niall, too, the day truly promising to be a bleak one. Doing her best to bolster her spirits, she ran out the door after Ronan, her coppery curls flying. Yet even allowing herself a muttered curse failed to ease her.
***
“Maire, do you hear me?”
She blinked open her eyes, the oil lamp guttering beside her bed the only thing she saw, and at first she thought she had just imagined Niall’s voice. But a hand upon her shoulder made her roll over, her heart thudding at how stricken Niall looked as he leaned over her, his handsome face drawn, his blue-gray eyes ravaged.
Maire knew then that Triona must have told him about Caitlin, and she sat up and threw her arms around his neck even as he sank onto the bed to hold her tightly too.
“Ah, Niall, forgive me! I wanted to tell you—but you were so happy, I couldn’t. And I feared you’d ride back to Ferns and try to fight—”
“I’ll not be riding to Ferns.”
Niall had spoken so harshly that Maire almost didn’t recognize his voice, and she pulled away to look into his eyes. Since childhood they had been so close, Niall always there to help and cheer her, yet she saw something in his gaze that she’d never seen before … all the boyishness, all the laughter and love of life fled, and in its place a hardness behind the pain that chilled her.
And what of her? What might Niall see in her eyes? He stared at her, too, and brushed a loose strand of midnight hair from her face with such gentleness that she knew her beloved brother hadn’t changed entirely.
“Poor, sweet Maire … how you’ve suffered.”
Tears stung her eyes, but she willed them away; no amount of weeping would alter the horror she’d seen upon that drawbridge … the savage thrust of Gerard de Barry’s sword—God help her, Duncan falling to his knees. She had wanted so desperately to go to him even as she’d known Ronan would prevent it, Maire astounded still that he had unleashed one of his arrows and struck Gerard down.
“Triona told us everything, Ronan and I—Good God, you deserve some happiness more than any of us! Irish, Norman, if the man is honorable and truly loves you—”
“I don’t know if Duncan loves me … loved me.” Her throat grew so tight Maire could barely speak. “I don’t know if he lives—”
“If he lives, he loves you, the man would be an accursed fool for it to be otherwise!” Niall rose from the bed and began to pace the room, his agitation mounting as he seemed to be thinking aloud. “Ronan won’t be happy if I go—Ronan be damned! Did he turn Triona away when he learned of the blood she bore in her veins?”
Maire could only watch Niall with growing concern as he paced back and forth, a wildness about him, his face stricken again, and she feared then that the news Caitlin had forsaken him had not fully struck him yet, far worse depths to be known. She started when he stopped abruptly to look at her, and she saw in his tortured eyes how dearly he suffered, too.
“Do you want to know if the baron lives?”
She stared at him, dumbstruck, her heart begun to race.
“Answer me, Maire O’Byrne! Do you want to know if the man you love lives?”
“A-aye, Niall, but—”
“The devil take it then, at least I can do that much for you. Watch for me within two days.”
He said no more but left the room while Maire, incredulous, sank onto the pillows. Surely he didn’t intend to ride back to West Meath and Ennell Castle—would he?
She had only to think of the strange wildness she’d sensed within him to know that was exactly what Niall planned, and she knew, too, that no one, not her, not Triona or even Ronan, would be able to stop him. And his words … Good God, you deserve some happiness more than any of us! Did Niall believe that if Duncan lived, there might be some slight hope … ?
Maire rose from the bed, such a tumult of emotion filling her that she didn’t want to lie there another moment. Begorra, she’d already done so for two days!
Her legs were shaky, but she managed well enough to reach the ornately carved chest which held all her clothing. Her hands were shaking as she threw back the lid and pulled out a gown of vibrant green silk that made her spirits soar all the more dizzily.
>
She changed out of her sleeping gown quickly, so light-headed and flushed she had to take a few moments to catch her breath. She donned soft slippers, too, combed her hair, astounded that her appetite had suddenly grown so fierce, her stomach growling noisily.
Triona had coaxed her to eat a wee bit of broth, but she’d taken little else, not wanting to eat, not wanting to speak until Triona had finally convinced her that she must to ease some of her grief. Yet even that hadn’t helped, given what she’d heard Ronan shout from the other room about Duncan. She had wanted to do no more than keep her face turned to the wall, the ache inside her so terrible at times she’d wanted to cease breathing altogether.
Maire went to the door, as astonished that the pain seemed not so intense now, though she tried to tell herself she knew nothing yet … that she would be foolish to allow vain hope to overwhelm her. Ah, but if it were so! That she and Duncan might yet—
“Aye, little sister, that’s much better now.”
Maire gasped to find Niall waiting for her just outside her bedchamber, the tiniest familiar bit of light in his eyes as he gave her a fleeting smile, then turned and strode from the dwelling-house.
This time she couldn’t keep the tears from coming. As her hope flared all the brighter, she realized he’d given her much more that day than she could ever thank him for.
***
“Baron … the O’Melaghlin has sent his own healer.”
As Edward de Valognes bent low to his ear to speak to him, Duncan gritted his teeth through the pain ravaging his body and nodded. But he cursed violently in a rasping voice that didn’t even sound like his own when a spare little man with owlish eyes moved to the bed and drew the bloodied bandages from his right side. Some of the linen sticking to the ugly wound had to be pulled away, the sensation stinging like fire.
“Forgive me, lord—oh, aye, clean through to the ribs, not good, not bad—”
“God’s teeth, man, which is it?” Duncan gripped the side of the mattress and raised his head to see as the healer began to poke lightly and prod, Edward’s usually swarthy face grown so pale the knight appeared as if he might retch. “Will I live or die?”
“You, lord? Ah, me, I’m no seer—”
“Will I live or die?”
His roar making everyone in the room stare wide-eyed, poor Clement who’d exhausted his talents in trying to help him, a pair of O’Melaghlins who’d accompanied the healer, Edward de Valognes and several other knights standing guard at the door to his quarters, Duncan ignored them all and kept his gaze riveted upon the little man who busily began to prepare an herb poultice.
“Most likely you will live, lord … unless the wound turns poisonous. I smell some in the flesh already, but I pray it’s not too late.”
At this grim news Duncan swore again and let his head sink upon the sweat-soaked pillow.
“Your own healer deserves much praise for keeping you upon God’s earth this long—is he here?”
“Clement, come.”
Ashen-faced, the stout friar approached the bed at Duncan’s hoarse command and was immediately handed several iron rods with sharpened tips by the Irishman who appeared only a third his size.
“We must burn the wound.”
“Burn it?” Clement’s voice stricken, he crossed himself and glanced doubtfully at Duncan. “Lord—”
“Hear the man!” A searing wave of pain so intense struck Duncan that he once more dropped his head to the pillow while Clement blanched and nodded.
“It is a thing learned from a traveling priest who spent many years in the Holy Land,” came the Irish healer’s grim voice. “Set the rods in the fire—we must waste no time.”
Duncan distantly heard Clement’s murmured assent through a familiar blackness threatening to overwhelm him.
By the blood of God, he had felt the same before when he’d nearly died two years ago—and he did not want to die! He could not die! Maire was waiting for him, he could sense it even now. She was thinking of him just as he’d thought of little else but her, every moment of agony no matter his curses making him thank the saints in heaven he was yet alive.
“Baron, can you hear me?”
Duncan opened his eyes, Edward’s face strangely blurred as the knight once more leaned close to his ear.
“Word has just been brought from Lady de Londres’s guards. She threatens not to eat, my lord, not unless she’s released at once—”
“Then she may starve.” Such fury welled inside Duncan at the thought of Adele, at the thought of Gerard spurred to attack him at his half sister’s treacherous urging, that he sensed such violent emotion alone would help him survive. He ground his teeth at another wave of pain. “Let her scream, make her threats … there’ll be no change to my orders. She remains a prisoner.”
Edward de Valognes nodded gravely and moved away, and Duncan shut his eyes against the glowing tips on the rods being brought back to the bed by Clement.
God help him, he thought no more of Gerard, struck through the heart by an Irish rebel’s arrow that had saved his own life. He thought no more of Adele.
He clenched his jaw as he sensed heat drawing nearer his flesh, and thought only of Maire.
Chapter 34
“Aye, this babe will be a son for Ronan, I know it.”
Maire looked up in astonishment from playing with little Deirdre. Triona’s lovely green eyes were alight as she held her hands to her stomach, which still bore no sign she carried a child.
“It’s a secret though, Maire. Ronan can’t know, not yet. Do you promise me? I want to wait a while longer to tell him.”
Maire nodded, her throat tightening at the shadow that touched Triona’s face, and Maire knew Triona was thinking of the unborn child, a boy, she’d lost some six months ago. Jesu, Mary, and Joseph, had it been that long? Familiar heartache suddenly gripping her, Maire was glad to be distracted by Deirdre’s antics with her wooden toys. Though she’d been back in Glenmalure two months, it was still so hard for her to believe.
Two months. And with each passing day her hope grew dimmer, even the afternoon when Niall had returned with word that Duncan was alive had become a memory more like a dream than it had truly happened.
Niall had refused to enter the stronghold, shouting what he’d discovered at the top of his lungs to clansmen guarding the stout outer gate, who’d then brought the news to Maire. They had said, too, that Niall had then ridden away, adding nothing else to give them a hint as to his destination.
Ronan hadn’t been pleased about any of it: Niall riding back to West Meath, his news about Duncan, or that the younger brother he’d chosen as his Tanist and who would one day, if the need ever arose, become the chieftain of the Glenmalure O’Byrnes, had disappeared and not been heard from since.
Not pleased? Maire almost shuddered as she rolled a ball of woolen thread toward Deirdre’s snow-white kitten, remembering how furious Ronan had been when a few days had passed and still Niall hadn’t returned home.
He’d ridden himself to Ferns in Wexford to speak with Donal MacMurrough, the powerful chieftain as resigned as any father whose daughter had broken her troth to one man so she might marry another. And Donal had seen no sign of Niall, as much to his relief since he wanted no deadly battle fought over Caitlin. Aye, she would be wed to the MacMurrough’s godson Brian by now —
“Maire?”
She met Triona’s concerned gaze, that she’d remained silent no doubt leading Triona to guess her thoughts. Yet how selfish of her! She tried to summon a smile, but it was halfhearted at best. It seemed she could rarely do better.
“Forgive me, Triona, truly I’m happy for you
“As I wish I could be happy for you. I so hoped, for your sake, that you carried a babe, too. Have you told Ronan yet?”
Her throat growing all the tighter, Maire shook her head, the final proof she’d wanted so desperately not to see come only a week ago. Her monthly flow had arrived last month, too, but she hadn’t wanted to believe then
either, that she didn’t carry Duncan’s child.
She swallowed hard. Niall had shouted to her clansmen, too, that Duncan was gravely wounded, the villagers he’d spoken to outside Ennell Castle knowing only that a healer had come from clan O’Melaghlin. Now she had no hope of a babe, and if these two long months meant Duncan hadn’t survived—saints help her! She couldn’t think of it, wouldn’t think of it! He had to be alive, or how else would she go on breathing?
As if sensing her despair, Triona rose from her chair and scooped up Deirdre, who began to protest until the beautiful child was placed in Maire’s lap. At once chubby arms flew around her neck to hug her, and Maire inhaled the sweet scent of Deirdre’s midnight curls. Triona sank to her knees beside her.
“I cannot forgive Ronan for treating you so unkindly, and I will speak of it to him tonight. Begorra, Maire, no more! Two months to lay such anger at your feet. I’ve held my tongue for too long and—”
“No, Triona, please. It would be far worse to bring this thing between you. Ronan’s raided against Normans much of his life, our clansmen—Fiach and the others, your father, too, died at their hands. He cannot help but feel hatred for them.”
“Aye, I remember a time when I feared he would hate me as well …”
As Triona fell silent, Maire let Deirdre climb from her lap; the child toddled after her kitten and nearly tripped over Conn, Triona’s huge wolfhound, who slept by the hearth. Yet all were startled when a loud pounding came at the door, Conn jumping up to bark, the kitten yowling and streaking into an adjoining bedchamber. Triona glanced at Maire and then rose to rush across the room, gathering up little Deirdre on the way. Maire arose too, as Triona threw open the door to a clansman whose ruddy face in the bright afternoon sun was even redder from exertion.
Wild Roses Page 26