Erinsong
Page 27
Father Armaugh had eased Jorand’s eyelids closed, but they were tinged an unhealthy blue and a dark hollow lurked beneath each socket. Jorand’s skin was pale and waxy. A tiny network of blue veins pulsed at his temple. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest betrayed the fact that he was a living man and not a prone statue carved of moonstone.
“Reminds me of when we first saw him washed up on Donegal’s beach. Even now, Brennie,” Moira rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Even now, I think your Northman is the bonniest lad I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
“Aye,” Brenna said, not shifting her gaze from Jorand’s motionless features. “And too late I learned he has a heart to match his fine face.”
Moira pulled up a three-legged stool and plopped down beside her. “I wish it was that pox of a husband of mine lying there instead of Jorand. By Heaven, I do.”
“Moira, ye can’t mean it.” Brenna looked at her sharply. “Something’s wrong then. I did think it strange for Fearghus to send ye on to St. Patrick’s, despite the danger, but I supposed it was so ye could still make your prayers for an heir. Has your husband mistreated ye, then?”
Moira’s lips curved into a sad smile. “If ever Fearghus of Ulaid gets an heir by me, ‘twill either be by a mortal sin on me soul or a miracle of immaculate conception. I’ve been married all these months and I’m yet a maid, sister. Fearghus is ... I have no idea what to even name him.”
Moira stood and circled the room like a caged lynx. “Ye’d think I was a toothless crone the way he avoids me bed. But any child, boy or girl, under the age of ten isn’t safe from his lechery.”
Brenna pulled herself away from her own grief to feel a little of Moira’s. “Leave him, then. No one would blame ye. Come home to Donegal with ...” She started to say Jorand and me. With a hollow ache, she realized she’d very likely be burying him on this tiny island. “Ye know Da would not hear of ye being treated so.”
“I know he wouldn’t. But do ye think I could break the peace me marriage guarantees between our clans?” Moira straightened her spine and blinked back her tears. “More Irishmen die fighting other Irishmen than die beating back Northmen. No, I’ll not start a war over an empty bed. Why cover the land with widows and orphans? Anyway, as long as I’m there, I can protect the children at court as best as I may. Queen I am to the people of Ulaid, and a queen I’ll be.”
Brenna leaned over and hugged her little sister, realizing in their months of separation that Moira had changed. She was no longer a giddy girl with romantic notions of royalty and courtly love. Now she was a sad young woman, broken of heart, but not of spirit. Moira had indeed learned what it was to be a queen.
“I’m proud of ye, sister.”
“Oh, Brennie, ‘tis sorry I am to be burdening ye with me sorrow when ye’ve plenty of your own,” Moira said. “I’ll leave ye now, but remember I’ll be close by should ye have need of me.”
“I just don’t know what to do.” Brenna sank back down on the edge of Jorand’s bed. “I’ve prayed till I can’t see straight.”
“Then don’t pray. But let Jorand hear your voice,” Moira said as she stepped softly to the door. “Mayhap his spirit will follow the sound of ye home.”
The heavy oak door scuffed against the lintel and Moira was gone.
“Let him hear me voice,” Brenna echoed. “Aye, and what can I say to a man who’s not here?”
The tiny weight in her belly fluttered for the first time in days. Even though she’d missed a couple of her courses, she’d been unsure, afraid only the difficulties of travel had thrown off her body’s natural rhythm, afraid the slight quickening was only her imagination, afraid to hope. She felt the stirring again and finally knew for certain.
“Husband,” she began softly. “I have something to tell ye. Even if ye are after leaving me, I’ll have a bit of ye yet. Ye see, your child grows in me belly, Jorand, and ...” Her voice broke at the thought of him never seeing the child of their love. “And I thank ye for the joy of the bairn. I’ll make sure he knows of ye. He’ll be a prince and a poet and a warrior. A son to make ye proud.”
Another thought struck her and she rose to pace slowly, fingertips grazing tiny circles on her still flat belly. “Of course, the bairn may be a daughter, and if such be the case, I can only pray she takes her looks from her sire. I’ll raise her to be a strong, fine woman. I know ‘tis important to a man that his seed lives on and I want ye to know if ye—” Her breath caught in her throat and she bit her lip for a moment before she was able to continue. “Whatever happens, your line has not died on the earth.”
Not an eyelash stirred on Jorand’s still form.
Her throat constricted. Tears welled in her eyes. A sob fought its way free.
“Damn ye, Jorand. Do ye not care that ye leave me alone? Do ye not want to be here when your babe comes into the world?” She climbed into the bed with him and buried her face in his shoulder, shaking with grief. “Oh, ye wicked, wicked man! Do ye not know that my life will be a burden to me without ye? How can ye leave me when ye know that I love ye more than breathing?”
She sat up abruptly and cupped his face in her palms. “Open your eyes, ye Finn-Gall demon!”
His eyes rolled beneath their closed lids. Brenna gasped. A thin slit appeared in one of them and he peered up at her. He blinked twice, then winced at the light of the precious candle on the stand by his bed. Then he turned his gaze back to Brenna and she saw intelligence spark in their blue depths.
“Well, woman,” he said, his voice hoarse from the sea, “when you ask that prettily, how can I refuse?”
“Oh, Jorand, ye’ve come back to me.” She peppered his face with kisses then sat back abruptly and squinted at him. “Do ye know me then?”
“Ja, Brenna, I know you and I love you.” he said, grasping her and pulling her down for a long kiss. “You don’t think I’d forget my Irish princess, do you?” A serious expression erased his smile. “But I think you’ve got my name wrong.”
“What?”
“Do you remember when I told you I was two men trapped in one skin?”
“Aye.”
“I couldn’t live with that, so I broke faith with Thorkill and the men of Dublin,” Jorand said. “I’ve turned my back on my people for your sake, Brenna. That makes me an oath-breaker. Are you sure you still want me?”
She hugged him tight. “There’ll never come a time when I don’t want ye.”
“Then Jorand the Northman is truly dead.” He kissed her softly and pulled her in to snuggle next to him. “I guess you’d better call me Keefe.”
“Aye, that I’ll do.” Her own handsome warrior home from the sea. His color was returning to normal and his heart thumping solidly beneath her palm. “Welcome back to the land of the living then, Keefe Murphy. But I’ll warn ye of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
She nipped at his earlobe. “If ye’re after trying to die on me again, I’ll never forgive ye.”
The End
Hope you loved ERINSONG. Are you wondering what happens to Moira now? You’re in luck. Here’s the first chapter of her story, DRAGONSONG—the last Songs of the North novel.
DRAGONSONG
Chapter 1
Moira fought the clinging blackness that draped her like a shroud.
‘No, no, wait. I . . .’ The queen of the clan Ulaid’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
Voices muttered over her, their timbres echoing strangely, but she could attach no meaning to the sounds. The disembodied voices faded and she redoubled her struggle back to awareness.
Where am I?
Her eyes fluttered open, but she saw only macabre shadows dancing along slime-slick rock walls. She was lying on her side, her hands bound behind her, in a puddle of wetness. Blood?
No, she decided, Not sticky enough.
Merciful Heaven, it couldn’t be her birth water. The babe wasn’t due for some months yet. Her swelling belly shifted, a light flutter reassuring her of the continue
d presence of that beloved Other. She sighed and inhaled the salt tang of the sea. She was lifted and lowered in a faint rocking motion.
A coracle. She was in a small boat.
“Someone help me, for Christ’s pity,” Moira finally managed to say, her words slurring together as though she’d drunk too much ale.
“Get ye gone, Seamus. The decision is mine. I’ll see it through.” The thud of the servant’s booted feet on stone steps reached Moira’s ear. The sound was joined by another incongruous noise—the echoing boom of surf on unsubmissive rock.
“Cedric?” Relief flooded through her as she recognized the voice of the last speaker. Surely her husband’s brother would come to her aid in this bewildering circumstance. “Where are we? How came we to this ill-omened place? Me head is spinning so, the last I remember is dining with ye in the main hall. Ye put a silver cup in me hand and the torches started burning too brightly and . . .”
Her voice trailed away with foreboding when she realized she was no longer wearing the stiff court clothing Fearghus had always insisted upon. Someone had borne her from the hall and stripped off her finery, leaving her shivering in her woolen nightshift. If she were ill, why was she not in her own bed? Her head pounded with the effort of trying to think through the haze in her brain. “What … why am I bound so?”
“First question first, dear sister.” Cedric sank to his haunches on the sagging dock beside her boat. “Ye have a right to know where we are, since few have been privy to its existence, and only those of ruling blood. ‘Tis a secret as old as Conaill Murtheinne itself. We’re beneath the keep in an ancient bolthole. In times of great distress, the kings of Ulaid fled through this portal to escape mortal danger in exchange for the untender safety of the sea. A swift current passes by our coastline, ye see, bearing wayfarers far from land with no effort on their part at all.” A wry smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Content yourself, Moira, that ye will follow the path of kings.”
His words cut through the fog in her mind with clarion crispness. Moira struggled to sit up, fighting both her ungainly body and the swaying craft. But she managed it, for she was determined to look Cedric in the eye. “Ye don’t intend to honor your brother’s line.”
“Fearghus is dead, lass. The hand of God saw to that,” Cedric said, his voice almost kindly. “When he died in the hunt, his kingship died with him.”
“No! The heir to Ulaid grows in my belly. My son will succeed his sire. We need only wait a little.” She saw no mercy in Cedric’s peat-colored eyes. Panic made her resort to pleading. “I promise the lad will heed ye in all things as he grows. Ye’ll be king in all but name—”
“Till the boy comes of age,” Cedric interrupted as he untied the boat’s line. “Why should I settle for so little when I can put me own issue on the throne? No, wee Tiernan will be King of Ulaid after me.” He gave the coracle a shove and it bobbled away from the rickety wharf.
“But the bairn may be a girl-child and no threat to ye.” Moira strained against her bonds, but her hands were cinched tight.
“Mayhap, but ‘tis a risk I’m not prepared to bear,” Cedric said simply.
“And are ye prepared to bear the curse of Cain? Your sin is like to his—the murder of your own blood. The child I bear is your brother’s, Cedric, a king of Ulaid rightwise gotten. Murder us at your peril.” Fear gave way to anger as Moira leveled a wrathful stare at him.
“Murder? Not I,” he said. “Royalty ye claim and royal ye are. Think ye I’d stain meself with your blood? No, I’ll let the sea tend to the likes of ye and your wee unborn king.”
“A curse upon ye,” Moira said, tugging at her bonds till the hemp cut her skin. “A vagabond and a wanderer on the earth may ye be, and may any who find ye, kill ye. Me father, Brian Ui Niall will not wait to avenge me, I promise ye that.”
“Even now, ye spit and hiss like a wildcat.” Cedric grinned at her sardonically. “Proud, canny and fearless. Ah, ye’re a grand woman, Moira of Donegal, I’ll not deny it. Me brother didn’t deserve ye. If I had no son of me own, I might toss out me milk-sopping Brigid and take ye for me queen.” The rough edges of his voice softened. “Aye, ye’d have been me match and no mistake.”
For a moment, Moira saw regret flicker over his cold features in the wavering torchlight. Then his face hardened, more unyielding than the black stone at his back.
“But sheath your claws and save your curses, woman. I fear neither man nor God. The Donegal is afar off. I’ll be bearing the sad tidings to your kingly father that the unexpected death of Fearghus brought ye to early childbed. Even now, a low-born woman is birthing in your chamber, surrounded by servants loyal to me. Alas! Both mother and child will be lost. It happens often enough, twill not be questioned. When Brian Ui Niall arrives to mourn ye as a father should, he’ll find naught but a moldering corpse with a wee bairn wrapped in a shroud. After a few weeks, all the dead look alike.”
The small candle of hope in Moira’s chest guttered and failed entirely. Cedric’s plan neatly tied up all the loose threads.
“As for the curse of Cain,” Cedric went on, “the Church holds no terrors for me, Moira, since I believe in naught but what me own hands bring me. And right now, they’ve brought me a crown. The line of Fearghus will bear the curse, if such things be. Ye are the one set for wandering, Moira.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Though I fear your sojourn may be a short one.”
A tidal surge caught the tiny craft and Moira’s boat was sucked through the sea cave, knocking against the darksome rock on its journey over this narrow finger of the sea. Cedric’s torchlight faded and when the coracle shot into the surf, the night sky was strewn with brittle stars.
Cedric’s voice called out to her once more. “Go with your God, Moira, one time Queen of Ulaid.”
“Sleep with one eye open, brother. I’ll be back, do ye hear me?” She shrieked to be heard over the dash of waves on rock. “Me son will sit on the throne of Ulaid and I’ll have me foot on your neck before ye go to your grave. By all that’s holy, Cedric, I swear it. Do ye hear me?”
The only answer was the boom of unforgiving sea pounding against the stubborn shore.
End of excerpt
Want to be notified when DRAGONSONG is available in the fall of 2012? Be sure to sign up for Mia’s newsletter at http://www.miamarlowe.com !
About the Author
Mia learned much of what she knows about storytelling from singing. A classically trained soprano, she won the District Metropolitan Opera Auditions and has shared a stage with Placido Domingo. Since she's worn a real corset, and had to sing high Cs in one, she empathizes with the trials of her fictional heroines. But in Mia's stories, they don't die in a Parisian garret. They get to live and keep the hero!
Now an award-winning author, Mia Marlowe writes historical romance for multiple publishing houses. Mia's work was featured in the Best of 2010 edition of PEOPLE Magazine. One of her books is on display at the Museum of London Docklands, alongside Johnny Depp memorabilia.Her TOUCH OF A ROGUE was recently named one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten Romances for Spring 2012.
For more about Mia, including some Fun Facts on her Bio page (one of which is a bald-faced lie!) please visit http://www.miamarlowe.com
Want to be notified when DRAGONSONG is available in the fall of 2012? Be sure to sign up for Mia’s newsletter at http://www.miamarlowe.com !
More Rock*It Reads e-books by Mia Marlowe
MAIDENSONG
A DUKE FOR ALL SEASONS
MY LADY BELOW STAIRS
Available in both print and ebook formats
TOUCH OF A ROGUE
SINS OF THE HIGHLANDER
IMPROPER GENTLEMEN
TOUCH OF A THIEF
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