“You can answer that better than I.”
“Then the answer is that I have nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.”
Now Ruairí’s smile returned. “Poor man. I’m sorry for him.” He absorbed the distance between them by the amount she had created. “So you don’t care for your sire at all? You don’t want to please him?”
She sniffed. “There is no pleasing him.”
“Ah. And your sister will not speak to me.” He raised his voice a little. Eibhlín glanced in fear up at her father’s window and put her hand across Ruairí’s mouth. He did not seem at all reluctant at the touch, nor was she too quick to draw away.
“No. I’m afraid she will not,” she whispered, close to his ear.
“And she told you to tell me so.”
“She did.” Eibhlín’s little voice was husky.
“Indeed!”
Máire did not speak loudly, but Eibhlín jumped as though a gun had been shot off by her ear. Ruairí, who blocked Eibhlín’s view of her sister, continued to look at Eibhlín and grin and grin.
“I don’t remember a word of that, Eibhlín. It’s a shame. I didn’t know my memory had become so bad. It must be old age overtaking me.”
Eibhlín was on her feet. She backed into the roses, which was not comfortable, and she pointed up at the dark window, with the forefinger of her other hand to her lips. Then, with a nervous little giggle, she plunged into the flowerbed and was away.
Máire, in her plain skirt, black shawled, stood before Ruairí. He did not get up. After the rustling of Eibhlín’s departure had died away he said very casually, “Grand moon tonight, isn’t it?”
She gave a sigh that was half a hiss and leaned against the corner post of the arbor, facing away. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”
Before answering, he scraped the heel of his boot on the gravel. “Your father doesn’t honor you, and your sister is faithless. But I’m not allowed to resent the one or notice the other, so what should I say but, ‘Grand moon tonight’?”
Máire turned her head to meet his eyes, but she could not maintain it. “Do you like her?” she said at last. “Isn’t she very pretty?”
She felt him take her hand, though she hadn’t heard him rising. He led her over the shining gravel and past the bees and the hens onto the poor grass behind the garden hedge. There they could look back at the house, where one small yellow light came alive as they watched.
“I wonder if she’s woken Father,” said Máire, absently.
“She’s not such a fool as that,” answered Ruairí. “Though almost.” He sat down on the grass. She spread her skirt not too close to him.
“I’m building a house, Light of Heaven,” he told her.
Under moonlight, her eyes were as black as his. “My congratulations, Ruairí MacEibhir agus Mac Gaoithe. I hope it’s not meant for me.”
“It’s yours if you’ll have it.”
“I won’t.”
His grin flashed. “Then I’ll build another, more to your taste. And another. I’m in the world for nothing else, my dark lovely.”
The compliment returned Máire’s mind to Eibhlín. “I asked you if you didn’t think my sister is lovely. Don’t you remember?”
“She has no more bone than one of your hens, Máire. Less sense than a day-old foal.”
She pulled her black shawl closer, for the night was reaching toward cold. “It’s neither bone nor sense that a man looks for in a girl.”
“Then he’ll get the offspring he deserves!” Ruairí hugged himself laughing, for he thought he had said something very witty.
Máire did not agree. “Do you take me for a broodmare?”
The laughter froze, to be replaced by a look of puzzlement. “There is nothing under heaven better than a broodmare, love. She is the protector of infants, the teacher and molder of young hearts, and the mother of the race.”
Máire snorted. “And she stands in a field all day, eating and growing fat. What a life!”
“It’s the rare mare in Connemara that can get by standing still,” said Ruairí. “More likely she will pull and haul up to the time she drops her foal and then work with the pesky child beside her. No, a Mháire Dhubh, there is nothing of more worth or honor than a good mare.”
Now Máire raised her face to the moon. Her giggle was abrupt and explosive, like that of a little boy. “O lad, how you compliment me. No girl in Galway County has such a smooth suitor. Are you planning to turn me into a horse next?”
Ruairí had been pulling the blades off from a strand of cowgrass. Now he let the pieces fall in his lap. “Alas, my love, your father is not of the púca line.”
She fell back on the grass, but her face was taut. “No, he was of the philandering variety.”
Coolly Ruairí replied. “He broke no oaths that I know of, Queen of Heaven. That was your mother’s business.”
Máire came up with both hands balled into fists. “How dare … Well, he left her, didn’t he, more shame to him.”
“No, as a matter of fact. She left off meeting with him and would not return. She ran back to her yellow flag of a husband, my dear, and soon died of her mistake, leaving you to be raised by him.
“Would you like to meet your father, a Mháire?” The moon glinted on his hair.
“Would I …” Máire came to her feet. She was a black pillar against the stars, and her two white arms clutched at her shawl. “Oh, dear God have mercy on me!” She ran over the grass toward home.
And came smack against the warm white side of a horse. Against Ruairí MacEibhir. “Enough, love. I won’t ask you again. Here, don’t breathe so hard or you’ll wake your ‘father’ ”
Máire stepped back. Her right foot was sore, for she had twisted the ankle. “I … don’t want to know any more about my … father. Please.”
“I am your servant. Your giolla. There! That’s an idea. If you were to come for a ride, then I couldn’t disturb you with my uneasy talk, could I?”
Máire shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”
“Oh, but you do. You know I’m on my parole with you. I won’t kiss you again without permission—I take an oath to that—nor touch you in any way you don’t want. I won’t even trot without permission.” His voice grew breathy, almost a whisper, and his face was close. She could see a glinting of silver beard.
Máire took a breath and looked around her. The single yellow light was out, and all was bright and colorless. The air was decidedly chill. “All right,” she said to him. “But if I fall off, it will be your fault, for I don’t really know how to ride.”
“I know that well enough. But if you fall off, Queen of Heaven, it will be because you tried to.” And those were his last words before the grey horse came down onto its four legs, shining under the moon.
Máire did not touch the earth, either in body or mind. There was no sound of hooves on the soft grass of springtime, and when the horse walked hock deep into the ocean, the phosphorescence rivaled the moonlight.
The fairy, as he had promised, made no trouble, and when Máire came home and slid off his side, it felt very heavy to be walking again, and she tiptoed up to bed favoring her muscles.
I’ve been out all night, she said to herself, after making sure Eibhlín was asleep. With a man. As she slipped into bed she could smell horse all over her.
Chapter Ten
Ó Murchú’s Sacrament
Áine was tying the peas to the fence when the priest came walking up the path. She was also cursing, very mildly but undeniably cursing, because Ruairí had let out the old grey pony and it had done some damage to the kitchen garden. When she saw Father Ó Murchú she took three steps backward and broke a vine off at the root, but this time she didn’t curse.
“God to you, Father. How is it that I didn’t hear you coming?” She beat her apron with her hands, as though it were dirty.
Ó Murchú stopped five feet from her. Though Áine was an older woman and not a likely target for gossip, neither the
priest nor she would have been comfortable with closer proximity. “I don’t stomp as I walk, Áine, and the day is so gentle it would have been a crime to make more noise.”
Áine opened the garden gate and then trotted around behind Ó Murchú, where she attempted to push him through like a very respectful sheepdog. But Tadhg Ó Murchú did not want to be pushed, and so he lounged in the gate as though he hadn’t noticed, fingering the broken pea vine and appearing perfectly at ease.
“You won’t tell me that you walked all the way from the parish house.”
Ó Murchú smiled until his small dark face appeared Chinese. I won’t. I took a kind ride from Tim Ó Súilleabháin in the beer dray and only turned up your long drive here. Two miles. It was a lovely day for a walk.”
Áine glanced up, though she knew already that the sky was unbroken blue. She realized that her hand wringing was making a mess of her apron and she let it drop. She took a breath. “Well enough, Father, but you don’t need to stand out under the heat now. Do go in and I’ll run to find Anraí, who is out playing he is still a young man, fool that he is.”
The priest leaned more fixedly and smiled harder. “I’d like to see him, certainly. But it was with the excuse of talking to Ruairí MacEibhir that I’ve taken this holiday.” He lowered the bag he was carrying gently onto the grass.
“Ruairí? That scamp? Well, forgive me, I won’t cast names, but surely you might have only sent a lad out to tell him to come to you.”
Ó Murchú looked very like a scamp himself as he replied, “…and I’ll do that, the next time it rains, Áine. But I wanted not to be home to people this afternoon, and there is a matter of a baptism.”
Áine took in a shuddering breath and turned to go. But she could not endure the uncertainty and so came back to ask, “Has he really done so much harm as that? I hadn’t thought he’d been in the county long enough for such a …”
“ Áine! It’s his own baptism at issue here, and there’s no need for a woman who works so hard to run my errands. Just tell me where he is and I’ll find him.”
Flustered and red in the face, Áine could hardly speak. “He’ll be on a horse, is all I can say. But better than running, I’ll ring the bell for him.”
She went past the priest, who moved out of the gateway so they would not touch by accident. On the small front porch there was a bell hanging, of a copper-green color. She hit it with a stick of willow, three times. The echoes, which were alarming, died away after five seconds, and she did it again.
Ó Murchú gazed out over the fields toward the barns, and soon a face with a cap peeked out from one and a face with dark hair out of the other. “There’s my old man and Donncha,” said Áine, beside him. “Ruairí is likely doing something wild.”
Ó Murchú was in no hurry. His dream was still with him, and much pleasanter in retrospect. The sun and his walk had warmed him, and the hard-won prosperity of this farm under Knockduff soothed his mind. The fields were not lawns, such as Blondell or even Seán Standún might have; they were weedy and unevenly cropped by horses. But the little fences were regular, and there was no lack of whitewash. Anraí and Áine had done well.
Only one child, of course.
There was a flicker of movement and at the same moment, a noise of hooves. Out beyond the second barn a red shape rose up and sank again. It was a horse and rider taking the paddock fence. As the priest watched, another horse came over: this one without a rider. It was black. Together they came over the grass toward the house.
It was a chestnut under Ruairí MacEibhir, and she moved with heartbreaking elegance as he brought her down to a trot that sliced the grain of the grass from its root. The little black tried to match her and failed. It went back to a canter.
Together they popped the near fence and slowed to a walk.
“You shouldn’t be taking that filly, over fences, Ruairí. She’ll come down in a heap someday!” Áine spoke firmly and in a voice lower than was her wont. A voice like Anraí’s.
Ruairí greeted the priest and slipped off the filly’s back. There was no saddle. The black, six inches shorter than the filly and of equal weight, stood at parade attention on his other side.
“Peace, Áine. I’ll know long before she does, when she’s had enough. And bored as she is, I have to do something to hold her attention.” While addressing the woman, he kept his eyes to Ó Murchú.
“Have you come to see me, Priest of the Parish?”
“That’s no language to …”
Ó Murchú pretended he hadn’t heard Áine, and he stepped up to the chestnut filly and made a face to indicate he understood horseflesh. “Lovely mare, Ruairí. Real quality in her.”
“She is hollow backed and has a neck like a goose,” replied the other, “but such things can be fixed. Her nerves are another thing entirely. Now this gentleman”—he touched the stocky pony respectfully on the throatlatch—hasn’t her reach, but he’d take me home if I were one-handed and with a leg cut off at the knee. What’s more, he’d probably find the villain who served me so and throw him over Knockduff.”
The pony bobbed his head and made a sound of frantic agreement through his nostrils. Or perhaps he was only flirting with the filly, who squealed.
Ó Murchú’s shoulders fell, just a trifle. “All right, my lad, so I’m not a horse coper. I’m sure I’d rather ride the pony, just because it would be less far to fall.
“But I’ve not come here to talk horses. I’ve come here to baptize, if you still want.”
The fairy’s face lit from within, slowly. “Ah. Well, then. Are you sure that it doesn’t have to do with horses, Ó Murchú?”
Áine, who did not understand entirely, pinched Ruairí on the elbow for his manners.
“Or with the men who ride them?”
Ó Murchú’s smile was tight. “Was it a false dream that you sent me two nights ago?”
For only a moment, Ruairí was solemn. “I don’t deal in dreams, Tadhg Ó Murchú. Horses are enough.”
The moment was over, and Ruairí nudged the priest. “Besides, when do dreams leave nettle welts on your hand?” Ó Murchú opened and closed his right hand, where the welts had long faded, and at that moment Donncha came up to them, half supporting Anraí, who was puffing and blowing.
In the parlor it was much cooler. The light off the limed walls was blue as skimmed milk, Anraí came and Áine with him, for they were to be godparents to the fairy, which was an absurdity to threaten any composure. Donncha came in also, because he had an interest. As Father Ó Murchú set out the vestments, the book, and the water on Áine’s mother’s heavy wooden sideboard, all assembled stood so still that the air began to smell dusty.
It was like a dentist’s surgery: that long table with its instruments. Anraí swallowed loudly. In a colorless voice the priest asked, “Will a bit of water do harm to your carpet here?”
Áine clucked. “It couldn’t do more than a dozen puppies have done in their…” She realized her own indelicacy and trailed off.
Alone of the company, Ruairí MacEibhir seemed at ease. He leaned over Ó Murchú’s shoulder and peered at the stole and the book. He fluttered his small nostrils above the water bottle and eyed the crystal ewer sidelong. He paid great attention to the manner in which the priest put on his stole, which he had brought only because he knew Anraí and Áine would expect it.
Tadhg Ó Murchú gave a look of challenge out of his dark, Pictish eyes. “Ruairí MacEibhir, do you know that this is dangerous for you?”
“No matter to me if it is,” he replied, offhand.
“Well, it is matter to me!” The priest seemed almost angry. “I am not sure whether I’m being called to do this or only fairy led, and it will be your own suffering you’ve made if you’re the fairy that did it!”
Ruairí blinked his mild eyes and scratched his small nose. “By the blossoms of May, Ó Murchú—and better, by the Tinker Man (and he’s not bad a rider for a man who never rode anything but a donkey)—I swear to you I’m
not in the business of leading folks astray. Nor am I the sort of Caledonian rogue who flings them into the ocean, either. It was never my family’s course.”
“Ara, but you don’t bring them straight home, exactly, do you?” asked Anraí, with surprising spleen. Both Ruairí and the priest ignored him.
“And you’re only doing it to please Máire Standún?” The broad brown eyes opened wider for an instant. “You know she’s a woman well worth pleasing, Priest of the Parish. But ask her, and she’ll tell you the idea is mine and not hers. I have a fancy for it.”
Ó Murchú sighed bitterly. “A fancy! And here I am, submitting to it, God help me. And do you at least promise to follow the commandments and the rules of the church?”
Ruairí snorted. “The ten commandments Áine has described to me, all but one which she sent me to Anraí to learn, for her gentility’s sake. They seem cumbersome enough, what are these other rules?”
Ó Murchú smiled slowly. “Never mind. They are implicit in the ten, if you are careful with them.”
“Ten is a large number. If I forget one once?”
“Then you will suffer for it, like all the rest of us,” said Murchú simply. He shrugged the stole into place.
He poured water from the bottle into the ewer, and he was either praying or muttering to himself as he did so. Anraí, who had combed his hair, stood on one side of Ruairí. Áine, who had replaced her apron with one identical to it, stood on his other. “Kneel down,” said Ó Murchú, in the tones one uses to a disobedient dog.
Ruairí went down on his knees with great deliberation, first the right and then the left. Áine wrapped her arms together, for she had never been at a baptism without the strong desire to hold an infant. Donncha stepped back against the window and made himself small.
Ó Murchú put his hand gently on the head of black hairs and white hairs. His eyes were worried as he picked up the ewer. He dribbled water delicately onto the hairs, where it hung like the dew of morning.
Ó Murchú spoke aloud. “Si non es baptizatus, ego te baptizo in nomine Parris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” Anraí nodded his head in happy agreement, for he had once had decent Latin and was glad to understand.
The Grey Horse Page 14