by Susan Wiggs
“Daida,” she said, “every person in this room knows I can. But it’s more than that. I know that I must.”
“This is madness,” Logan burst out. “No clan or sept can have a female chieftain.”
“Oh, no?” Magheen asked. “Where is it written, Logan? You show us, and I’ll see that my sister bows down at your feet.”
He looked as if he’d eat her for supper. “You bow at my feet and I’ll—” Reining in the thought, he said churlishly, “It doesn’t have to be written. It’s tradition and common sense.”
“What of Scathach,” Magheen challenged, “the warrior goddess who tutored Cuchulainn in his skills?”
“And then there was Aife,” Tom Gandy added in his loud bardic voice, “another woman chieftain. I remember me, too, of Queen Macha Mong Ruad, who reigned—”
“You’d all be fools to follow the rump of a misguiding woman,” Logan hollered. “Sure doesn’t the herd led by a mare stray and perish.”
“And sure don’t the heifers grow big where there are no bulls,” Magheen countered.
Hawkins eyed Logan up and down. “The job calls for more intelligence than physical strength.”
“And you’ve got more cheek than common sense,” Brian muttered as Logan shot a lethal look at the prisoner.
“The law calls for a vote,” said Tom Gandy.
“A vote?” roared Logan. “Get some wits on you, little man. It’s the brehons who do the electing, and there are no brehons here.”
Tom smiled bitterly. “Because the English have outlawed our lawgivers. But here there be men of good heart and sound judgment.”
“Aye,” said Seamus, “and hasn’t that been the quality of the brehons? Let each man who would have Caitlin for his chieftain light a flame to signify his allegiance.”
Uncertain glances passed among the men. Caitlin’s heart pounded with dread.
Tom took a torch from a wall bracket, thrust the end into the central fire, and held it aloft. “MacBride!” he yelled.
Curran Healy shuffled forward and lifted a flame of his own. Conn O’Donnell followed suit. After him came Liam the smith and Brian. Rory Breslin hesitated, then strode forward and lit his flame. One by one, every other man present cast his vote.
The hall blazed with light and loyalty. Only Seamus and Logan remained. Caitlin held her breath. Involuntarily, her gaze sought Hawkins. He lifted his mug and mouthed the word “courage.”
Seamus screwed his eyes shut, muttered a prayer, and lit a torch. Snorting in disgust, Logan turned his back on them.
With her nose in the air, her hips swaying, and a look of defiance on her beautiful face, Magheen walked past her husband.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“To cast my vote.”
“Women have no right to vote.”
“Maybe that will change once Caitlin’s the MacBride.” Magheen picked up a torch.
“If you so much as go near that fire,” Logan warned in a low, deadly voice, “I’ll never take you back.”
Magheen kept her eyes trained on him. Her face paled, but her arm was steady as she lit the torch and shouted, “MacBride!”
Seamus lifted his glass. “Good health to us all,” he proclaimed. “And may we be seven thousand times better in health and happiness this time again!”
Pride rushed like a fresh wind over Caitlin. Her heart lifted and she spread her arms, wishing she could embrace every man, woman, and child in the room.
Even Hawkins. Especially Hawkins.
People pressed around her, bestowing good wishes and blessings. At length Logan came close. He bent and clasped her hand in customary fashion.
Caitlin had no time to feel relief, for in the next instant his words gave the lie to his actions. “I’ll not be forgiving you, Caitlin MacBride,” he whispered. Each word was a drop of poison, stinging her heart and flooding her with doubts.
But when Logan moved away, there was Hawkins. Her enemy, her prisoner, her champion. He, too, took her hand. His was callused, abraded by rope burns and hard labor. Caitlin shivered slightly at his touch.
In his gaze she saw dreams and mysteries, secrets she longed in spite of herself to unlock. He had the strangest eyes. In the flickering torchlight, she fancied, just for a moment, that she saw two souls locked behind the cool gray-green prisons of his eyes. The Roundhead scoundrel and the man of mercy.
“You’ve still not had your supper,” he said.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Come out in the yard with me, Caitlin, away from this crowd.”
“You’re a prisoner, no longer a guest.” Still, she felt drawn to him, enticed by the unknown like a sailor chasing a phantom horizon.
“Very well.” He started to lug his iron ball away.
“Wait,” Caitlin heard herself saying. He turned back. Lord Jesus, but he was broad and well favored. “I...could be using a breath of air.”
They stepped into the cool of the evening. A harrying wind stirred the stunted evergreen oaks, scraping crooked branches against the walls. From the stables came the mutter of horses settling in for the night. From the hall came the sound of Tom Gandy’s voice weaving a tale that promised to hold his listeners spellbound for hours.
“Why did you put forth my name?” she asked.
“Because you wouldn’t speak for yourself. And you wanted to, Caitlin MacBride, so badly. I could see the need flaming through you, burning in your eyes. What surprises me is that none of your own seemed to notice.”
His words had magic in them. A powerful force told her to believe him and to thank God and all the saints that he had voiced her deepest desire. But he was a liar, she told herself.
“English never do a thing without the possibility of gain,” she said. “You want something and hope to get it from me.”
“Of course I do,” he agreed readily.
“Your freedom?”
“That’s correct.” But his eyes told her there was more to his wants than simple freedom.
“I can’t give you that. You’ve proven yourself treacherous and I cannot trust you.”
His eyes flashed in the darkness. Anger? Hurt? His moods were as hard to read as the moon on a cloudy night. “Very well, Your Highness,” he said. “Why do you think I wanted you elected?”
“You think things will be easier for you with me in charge. You think putting a woman on the seat of the MacBride will weaken us.”
His lip curled in a sardonic smile. “Let’s see. You dragged me for miles at the end of a rope, left me bound and helpless while you raided an army’s supply train, and soldered me to a cannonball. I’ve known battle-hardened generals who treat their prisoners easier.”
A twinge stung her insides and touched her in the small secret place where her womanly pride dwelt. She made no sign that his words hurt. When Alonso came, he would set the woman inside her free.
“What are you going to do with me, Caitlin?” Hawkins asked.
“I don’t know yet. Are you worth a ransom from the butcher Cromwell?”
Fury iced his handsome features. “You’d be a fool if you sent me to Cromwell.”
She sensed real desperation behind the cold facade. Apparently Cromwell showed no compassion for men who managed to get themselves captured. “There must be some use for you.”
His expression warmed suddenly. Reaching out, he stroked her beneath the chin. “I could be very useful to you. I could give you what you need.”
His words had layers of meaning that she refused to ponder. “What I need,” she said, drawing away from his disconcerting touch, “is some answers from you.” She paced the yard, aware every moment that his compelling stare dogged each step. Bracing herself against the well, she stopped. “Don’t the English punish deserters with death?”
“I believe that’s the usual punishment.”
“Then you’re no deserter, and never were one,” she snapped. “You came to spy on us, didn’t you?”
Gazing across the yard a
t her, Wesley drew a deep breath of the salt-sharp air and stood silent, pondering the events that had brought him to this moment.
Fate, was it? he wondered. No, a folly of his own making, the day he’d foolishly bedded a woman he did not love, just for the sheer pleasure of it, and ended up a father.
“Well, Mr. Hawkins.” The rollicking rhythms of Caitlin MacBride’s Irish speech crowded into Wesley’s thoughts. “I’m waiting for an answer. Are you a spy, then?”
Wesley hesitated another moment. He had found the chief of the Fianna as he had been sent to do. But her identity—and the fact that he was her prisoner—changed everything. He would have to negotiate this conversation cautiously, a man testing new ice on a pond. He would have to lie through his teeth.
“Aye.”
She stiffened as if he had jabbed her with a pointed weapon. “For the love of God, why?”
A sadness welled up in him, a sense of futility that tugged at his purpose. “Our nations are at war, Caitlin. War makes men commit acts that go against their principles.”
“Ah.” She shoved away from the well and planted herself in front of him. “So war—and not yourself—accounts for your treachery.”
He wanted to trace the cool curve of her cheekbone. He wanted to taste her lips which, even in anger, were soft and full. He wanted to knead the tightness from her shoulders and recapture the magic of their first meeting. Instead, he aimed a sardonic grin at the iron ball shackled to his ankle.
“Thanks to you, my treachery amounts to nothing.” But not for long, he thought, wishing it were otherwise. Before long, he would have to make his escape. And when he left Clonmuir, he would not be alone.
Six
The wild rhythm of tambours and bodhran drums jostled Wesley awake. The tingle of bells and the twang of a harp stabbed at his aching head and jolted him to a sitting position. His pillow, a flea-infested wolfhound named Finn, growled in protest.
Wesley rotated his shackled ankle. The chill of the hall invaded his bones. Above the cacophony of the music, the wind howled and the sea crashed ceaselessly at the gray crags of Clonmuir.
He blinked into the predawn dimness. Men snored on pallets, and a few boys slumbered amid the hounds around the low-burning peat fire.
The lack of privacy at Clonmuir appalled Wesley. The men of the household lived as they had hundreds of years ago, crowded around a fire that lacked even the simple invention of a chimney.
Wesley’s joints creaked as he rose to his feet. The distant rhythm thudded at his temples with blurry pain. Poteen. The stuff was pure poison.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” Rory Breslin’s voice rumbled from the darkness.
“To the privy,” said Wesley.
“Can’t hold the poteen, eh?” Rory said in Gaelic. He snickered unpleasantly and cupped his groin.
Wesley forced himself to pretend ignorance. “What’s that racket?”
“That... Dia linn!” Rory scrambled to his feet and kicked the man next to him. “Up with you, Conn. It’s time.”
Conn groaned. “My mouth feels like the bottom of a cave.”
“Time for what?” asked Wesley.
“The inauguration, if it’s any of your concern.”
Lugging his iron ball, Wesley went outside and used the privy. Despite the crudeness of the stronghold, its facilities were impressive, with a long shaft in the wall that swept the waste into the sea far below.
The yard was empty and soft with the first pale shimmer of daylight. He eyed the forge barn, a low hive-shaped stone building across from the stables.
It was tempting. Inside lay tools with which he could strike his chains and be off into the woods within five minutes.
But where was the use in escaping? He had found the chieftain of the Fianna. He knew what he had to do.
The question was, did he have the heart to carry out the plan he had made for Caitlin?
The instant he had pulled the helm from her head, he’d realized that he could not perform the task Cromwell had set for him. He could not lop off her beautiful head and toss it at the feet of the Lord Protector.
Nevertheless, he had to take her away from Clonmuir and the Fianna so the raiding would cease. His pained thoughts drifted to Laura, innocent victim in a deadly struggle. Wesley knew he would travel to hell and back to save his daughter.
He rubbed his bristly face and pondered his dilemma. His task was threefold: gain Caitlin’s trust, spirit her away, and then...he could barely force himself to think of what must come next. It was too awful. He had never done such a thing. It went against vows he had sworn before God.
Scratching their beards, their heads, and their crotches, the men of Clonmuir came outside, one by one. A dozen distrustful glares stabbed into Wesley.
Contriving a breezy grin, Wesley waved. He received muttered Irish curses in response.
With a shrug, he stripped off his shirt and doused himself at the well with icy water, then shook out his hair and put his shirt back on. He longed for a razor, but these hairy Irishmen seemed to have no more use for razors than for chimneys.
Women poured out of the keep. They looked curiously at Wesley but concluded that a gray-faced Englishman shackled to a sixty-pound cannonball posed no threat.
“Come along, seonin.” Rory shook his shaggy head like a wolfhound just out of a river. “Can’t be trusting you alone.”
Wesley walked through the gate. He sought Caitlin, but saw her nowhere. Led by the band of musicians, a small procession marched toward the church. The pipes whistled a wild, discordant tune underlaid by the vaguely ominous thump of the goatskin bodhran. The gathering crowd, the ancient music, the tension in the air, all added up to the eerie suspicion that something important was about to take place.
“Thirty years it’s been since we last seated the MacBride.” Conn O’Donnell cuffed young Curran in the head. “Look lively, now. It’s your first inauguration and a proud day for Clonmuir.”
“’Twould be prouder still if we had a priest to sing a high mass.” Tom Gandy trotted up on his pony. He eyed Wesley. “Aye, a priest would be good right about now.”
A prick of guilt stabbed at Wesley. These people put great stock in priests. As a former novice, he could bring some comfort to their souls, but he held his tongue. He strongly suspected a traitor at Clonmuir, for their own chaplain had disappeared. But in their faces he saw only simplicity and strength and faith; he could not imagine who would inform on a priest to gain a bounty.
The only obviously treacherous man among them, he reflected, was John Wesley Hawkins.
The music stopped. The people passed through the church doorway, carved with Celtic and Christian symbols. The mysterious perfume of incense struck Wesley with vivid memories of other masses, other ceremonies. Candlelight danced with the shadows of the north wall, where half columns framed a bank of unglazed windows. The chancel arch opened over a simple stone altar.
Wearing battle gear and chewing on a heel of bread, Seamus stood in front of the altar. Magheen sat on a kneeler turned backward. Arrayed like a princess in a gown of blue linen so fine it was called Irish silk, she glared across the middle aisle at Logan Rafferty, who glowered back.
Seamus brushed the crumbs from his beard and breastplate. Dented and rusted in places, the joints creaking hollowly with each movement, the tarnished armor was a sad reminder that Ireland had been at war for generations.
Seamus wore a long broadsword with a bold tracery of Celtic knots etched along the blade. A single unfaceted garnet winked from the hilt.
Seamus turned to mount the steps to the altar. His broadsword slammed against the rail. His rusty armor groaned. He nearly fell on his face.
“Girded to rescue the priests of Ireland,” remarked Tom Gandy. “What think you of our crusader, Mr. Hawkins?”
“He’d be perfect for the role of Don Quixote.”
Gandy scratched his head. “Donkey who?”
“A Spanish knight in a drama by Cervantes. He treated wh
ores as ladies and went tilting at windmills. But he was wise, in a mad way. Wiser than most.”
“Ah, the perfect role for our Seamus,” said Tom.
“Where’s Caitlin?”
Tom jerked his head to one side. “In the Lady chapel.”
Candlelight illuminated a slim, kneeling figure, her back turned and her head bent in prayer. The flames winked off a statue of a serenely smiling Virgin.
Neither serene nor smiling, Caitlin rose and turned, walking across the front of the church toward the altar.
She wore a long white robe several sizes too large for her. Intertwined Celtic symbols adorned the cuffs and hem. Her head was bare, her hair loose in a shimmering fall of colors ranging from sun gold to deep tawny amber. A quiet power fired the look of determination in her eyes, the clenching of her fists at her sides.
Wesley wondered if he had been mistaken to suggest electing Caitlin as the MacBride.
It was a good move, a wise move, he told himself. Perhaps now Caitlin would have no time to lead the Fianna on more murderous rampages.
“She’s been here all night,” said Tom. “Praying.”
A strange ache lodged in Wesley’s throat. Caitlin would carry the weight of Clonmuir on her shoulders. But she was only a girl, he reminded himself. A girl.
The musicians struck up a new tune as the congregation filed out of the church. Wesley waited on the ancient porch. When Caitlin passed by, she paused before stepping down onto the road.
The look on her face struck him like a blow from Liam’s hammer. Never had he seen such pure, savage purpose. And yet sadness lurked in the shadows beneath her eyes. Her youth—even the small portion of it she had enjoyed—lay behind her. What lay ahead, he knew with a vicious twist of guilt, was heartbreak.
“Ah, Caitlin,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.”
She lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “For what?”
“For proposing you as chieftain. ’Tis too great a burden.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Hawkins. I only pray I’m worthy to bear it.” She went to mount the black horse. Behind her rode Seamus on a tall, tough-looking white pony. Then came Tom, Rory, and Liam, Magheen riding astride with her gown hiked up, followed by a surly Logan Rafferty.