by Erin O'Quinn
Even if we could speak each other’s language, what would I tell him? That I had missed him, but in a place so deep I did not discover it until a few minutes ago? That the very sight of him excited me so intensely that I could not control my fierce desire? That I ached for him, but for another man at the same time?
No. I could not and would not tell him any of those things. I lowered my head and shook it as if to say, “no.”
He reached out and put his fingers under my chin, gently lifting my head. And then one finger touched my lips. It was gentle, like a small animal. His finger probed my mouth, and I took it in from the cold, suckling him in my imagination, harboring him.
At this moment, I did not need language to tell Liam what he wanted to know. Still kneeling, he closed his mouth over mine, and his arms circled me, pulling me closely up to him, arching my breasts up into his chest. His mouth moved from my mouth to the hollow of my throat, then down to my breasts.
All the while I had known Liam, he had not touched my breasts. I had kept them safeguarded under my stiff leather tunic where they seemed to push restively a little more every day. And now, Magpie’s lovely silk tunic could not bury them, nor keep them from swelling out of the thin material.
He found my nipples under the silken léine, and he alternately sucked my breasts and kissed my throat and mouth. He had exposed my most sensitive, most private mystery—those burgeoning, secret breasts. He suckled then kissed until I was moaning aloud, and then I was twisting into him until I could not stop. Still his mouth moved over me, until I pressed my loins hard into his rough tunic, sobbing in release.
Still the ship rolled and pitched, and he kept his arms around me until I slept.
* * * *
On our second day out, the sun woke slowly, almost shyly, peeping over the side rail of our longship. I marveled again, as I had on my first voyage to Éire, that the colors of dawn grew more luminous the closer we got to that stunning land.
Liam had left sometime during the night. I pulled my léine close around my chest, acutely embarrassed. For the second time I had given away my most closely guarded secret. The passengers around me were all still asleep. The wind, blowing straight for Éire, gave the rowers respite.
Then Liam and Michael were standing next to me. I looked up and caught their close family resemblance—two pairs of laughing, teasing eyes.
“What is so humorous?” I asked, irritable.
“Caylith, ye did not bring suitable clothing for this trip. Your beautiful léine is almost ruined.”
I looked down at my tunic. The iridescent green dyes had run together, and a thousand wrinkles crosshatched the full skirt.
“Michael, I have never cared much about my clothing. It gives my mother near hysterics.”
“We will shield ye with our bodies while ye change.” He handed me a simple woolen léine, the tunic of a man.
“Thank you,” I said gravely. I was out of my gown and into the tunic in a matter of moments. I still wore my undertunic beneath, hidden by the man’s clothing. “Do you think you could find me a bit of twine or ribbon?”
“Sure an’ we keep chests full of ladies’ ribbons,” Michael said, but he turned and left. Liam stood easily, his bold eyes on me as I stood waiting for Michael to return.
“Tú codladh go maith? Sleep…well?” he asked.
I turned away instantly, my face blazing hot. It was a double-edged tease, for that was the same question I had the monk ask Liam the morning after we first kissed. I wondered if I was going to spend most of my time with Liam looking somewhere else.
I quickly regained my composure and turned around to face him. “Dia duit,” I said. I may as well tell him “hello,” and not let him know that his teasing had worked on me.
“Maidin mhaith, a Cháit.” I thought he was speaking some version of my name, like “Cat” or “Cate.” His face, when he smiled naturally, was radiant. I wished he would do that more often.
Michael walked back, and he was somehow holding a colorful bit of twine. I measured it with my eye. “Please cut it just—there.” He cut it with his eating knife. I pulled the longer piece around my waist in the style of Éire, tucking and gathering in the long tunic. I pulled the shorter piece around my hair, which was flying around my head in the ample wind.
“This time I will bring you both a bit of breakfast,” I said. “Please sit, and we will continue to talk after eating.”
And so we did.
“Sure an’ the sassy Cate slept the night in me arms, Michael, but I was up and away, hours before she woke.”
I gave Liam a baleful glare, but he was looking into the morning sky, his hair lifting like a bird’s wing in the breeze.
“I left to bring back her horses. She liked them, Michael, for when I got back I found that she was alone in her own little teach, an’ all waiting for me. She latched the door, to show how much she liked them. And just in case I had missed the message, she welcomed me back with a kiss that set me banger to jumping.
“She bid me wait, and then she brought back a young monk, the same lad who later told me about your brother, me own cousin Fergus MacCool. I was not happy to share her with another man, but I let her speak through him. Would ye believe, cousin, she wanted me to choose a saucy mare just for her. We both know what that means.”
I had wondered what choosing a mare meant when I saw Liam’s smoldering eyes that night, and so now I looked at Michael with a question in my eyes.
“It is only a tease, Caylith,” he said with a grin.
“And here be the best part,” he translated for Liam. “Me plans worked perfectly, for it was clear that she and her people knew not how to handle rutting stallions and ready mares. She needed me to control them. And so she became me redheaded mare, right along with the others.”
I was exasperated to the point of leaving again. “Michael, do you see why I find it hard to talk to this oaf? He knows not how to speak to a lady.”
“I am truly sorry, Caylith, but I have not had such fun for years. Let him finish.”
“I am afraid this next part is not so amusing, Michael. Here is where most of the confusion began, and still is.”
“Then let us see if we can repair it, lass,” Michael answered.
Liam spoke again, through his cousin. “The very next night I went to her teach, and she welcomed me as before. But this time I saw she had brought an extra bench into the room. Before, it held only a bed and a bench and a table, as if to tell me what her little room was for. Now she bade me sit, and she said it so proper and correct, I knew she had practiced for me. She sat next to me, not inviting me to her bed.
“Michael, she proceeded to try to speak, but none of it made any sense. She wanted me to know she loved her priest Pádraig, but no, she would not marry him. And when I laid her, all gentle, on her little bed of fresh grasses, she was so frightened that I actually ran away so I would not cause her more pain. Sure an’ we did not speak again for long days after. To this very day, I know not what happened that night.”
Now I had to try to explain myself somehow to Liam, and I was afraid it would make little sense. What words could I find to describe my dedication to Father Patrick when my listener was a devout pagan? And how could I explain a vow of chastity to a man who thought that giving oneself was a sure sign of ready love?
Chapter 3:
The Battle Commences
It was time to explain a Christian vow to a wide-eyed pagan. I sighed and began to speak.
“The reason I came to Éire was to follow Father Patrick,” I began. “I think you already know that.” Liam sat somewhat apart, his knees drawn up to his chest, watching me closely. Michael spoke almost on top of my own words, translating in his animated way.
“You were there at the Hill of Macha for weeks, so you at least know what an amazing person he is. He is a man dedicated to spreading the godspels, the glad tidings of our Lord. His mission is to reach the heart and soul of every person in Éire and show them the way of forgiv
eness and the light of salvation. Now mind you, Liam, I am not myself a very religious person. But I pledged more than a year ago that I would follow him and do what I could to help him. As soon as I had money and a small army, I was ready to join him in Armagh.
“It so happens that the very day you came to my teach, my little house, Father Patrick had asked to see me. He told me he needed to give me some spiritual guidance. He sat me down, along with a young married lady named Magpie who is a friend of mine. Well, Liam, he told me that my, ah, my free spirit might lead to the committing of a sin. I guess he had seen the two of us, um, talking.”
I stopped. How would the word “sin” translate to a non-Christian?
Michael said, “He is confused, Caylith. Sure an’ I am, too.”
“In our religion, it is wrong for a man and woman who are not married to—ah, to join bodies together. A sin is a wrong thing to do, in the eyes of our Lord.”
“So you mean a man must not use his, um—”
“Yes, Michael. He must not join with his woman in that way until they are married. Father Patrick says it is called the sin of fornication.”
Michael talked with Liam for a few minutes, and I could see that the young clansman’s eyes were suddenly bright, and his face was radiant as it had been earlier.
“Caylith, Liam accepts your offer of marriage. Again. He promises he will not fornicate ye—if that is the way to say it—until ye be man and wife.”
I felt a rising panic, as I had back when Liam and I were trying to communicate for the first time. “Michael, please tell him I am not asking for marriage. I am asking him, please do not try to—ah, to join together—for I promised Father Patrick that I would put a saddle on my wild pony. That is why I was frightened that night. I thought he was about to—to bring me to a point where I would not say ‘no.’”
Again Michael and Liam talked in their lilting, incomprehensible tongue.
“But it is not a sin to kiss?”
“No.” I shifted uneasily, for I knew I was opening the door again.
“Then until you marry him, he will continue to kiss you, in a thousand different ways.”
I could not help it. I rose to my feet and walked to the other end of the longship, fighting my panic and my sudden desire, too. I thought about his way of kissing my breasts and other ways he could kiss me. I did not envy Father Patrick the task of teaching earthy young swains like Liam how to hold themselves for marriage.
Slowly, I walked back to where I had left Liam and Michael. I sat back down, carefully arranging the skirt of my léine, and asked, “What would you like to know, Liam? What is clouding your heart about me?”
He moved closer to me, leaning forward intently.
“I would know, Caitlín, why ye will not marry me.”
“I am barely old enough. I have not fully explored the, ah, the mysteries of men. I need to run free, until my questions are answered.”
Now Liam took my hand in his and turned it palm upward, bringing it to his mouth. He gently kissed it then took my fingers in his mouth. It felt almost unbearably sensuous.
Now Michael’s voice became soft and honeyed, matching Liam’s own tones. “It may take a while to solve me own mystery. But I will take all me time to answer every question ye may have, Caitlín. And I promise ye will love it. Every minute of it.”
As he spoke, I felt a spasm of pleasure that made my whole body shudder for a moment. I believed him.
“Tell me, Caitlín, do ye love me?”
“I feel…I feel a—sweet something I cannot deny.”
Even with Michael right there next to us, Liam leaned into me and started to bite my lips in little morsels, soft and unhurried. His silken mustache grazed my ear.
“Then we will marry.” I was not sure what he said. But I was fairly sure of his meaning.
This was all happening too fast. I shifted my body away from him and clasped my hands in my lap. “Wait. Liam. I have other questions for you. I need to know—why did you run from me? Why did you believe Fergus MacCool? The man is an outright fiend, a man with twisted desires. Did you not see that?”
I could not help a tremor of anger and disappointment, and I thought my feelings showed all too clearly in my eyes and face.
It had happened months ago, before the fair at Tara, when my armsmen and I were traveling north toward Derry. We had taken Brother Jericho as a translator, determined to confront the cattle baron Sweeney in his own holdings. I was somehow certain that Sweeney was holding slaves—possibly even my mother, who I thought could have been seized by Hibernian slave traders and not killed, as people believed.
The mysterious Fergus MacCool had simply appeared one morning, lolling near our burned-out fire, right under the noses of Gristle and Glaedwine. It was plain to see he was a trained warrior, for Gristle was a martial expert, and Glaed was but a knife slash behind him. And yet MacCool had pierced our defenses as if he had strolled in by invitation. He was there, he said, to lend his support and give us a plan of action.
From the moment he appeared, the red-haired MacCool had taken on a tone of insolence and flirtatious bantering with me. First he had introduced himself as Liam’s cousin—then proceeded to try to seduce me. I was outraged that he showed no respect for his cousin or for me.
I had walked away from the men, wanting to saddle my pony NimbleFoot, and MacCool followed me. When I turned to pick up the saddle, he was behind me, hands on my hips, saying unspeakable things to me.
In an instant, I drew my steel-and-silver long knife from its sheath, whirled around, and held it under the man’s throat. He could not help but yield in that moment, for I had already taken blood from his neck, and I would take more if he moved.
And when I leapt away, still in a defensive crouch, I saw that Brother Jericho had stood watching the proceedings from a distance. His mouth was gaping open in shock. He had seen MaCool’s rude advance. Later, much later, he would be the only witness to override MacCool’s lies to Liam.
A few days later, after the battle for Sweeney’s slaves and his cattle, Fergus MacCool emerged as a competent soldier. We spoke one night after our companions had retired. Still trying to win my affection, he revealed what had really happened with Michael’s bride to be, how he had almost ravaged her in her father’s own home. He tried to convince me he was sorry, that he would admit his sin to Michael, but as soon as he found out I knew Michael’s whereabouts, he seemed to change his mind.
In my outrage, I told MacCool that I trusted him not, that I was sure he would betray his cousin, Liam, too. When he left, MacCool almost destroyed the door on his way out, and I had not laid eyes on him since.
Now I needed to know why Liam had believed MacCool. Even when I told Liam, “Is tú mo ghrá, Liam, you are my love,” he still did not believe me, and I still felt the pain of his distrust.
Now, at last, I had confronted Liam, and even before he answered, I already felt I would not like his words.
“Cat, he is me cousin. I love him as me own brother. Why would he lie to me?”
“Why would I lie to you, Liam?”
The young O’Neill had no answer for me. The clan blood runs very thick, I thought. A strained silence prevailed for a few minutes.
“Your priest Jericho finally told me how Fergus treated ye on your trip together. He told me how ye had to talk with your weapon before he would listen. That is when I had to face the monster in him. An’ sure he has to face that monster in himself.”
My hurt still lay in a very deep place, and I carefully put it away again.
“Very well. I will not ask you about it again.”
He could see somehow that there was more to be said. Had my eyes given me away again?
“I see your hurt runs through ye still. I will make it up to ye—that I promise ye.”
I waved my hand dismissively. It were better to put sorrow behind me now, for I could see that Liam spoke, and acted, from the heart. He had as much guile in him as a wild deer, and as much natural gra
ce.
“Then I have one last question. Why did you let your guard down, so like a child, against a deadly opponent?” I was still upset and angry that he had almost been killed playing to the crowd, turning his back on his adversary at the shillelagh match in Tara.
“Do ye mean against your guardsman, Gristle, or the fool at the shillelagh match?”
“I—I suppose I mean both.”
“That is easy to answer, Caitlín. I was all boasting in front of ye, like a love-struck child.”
His words silenced me completely. I not only understood his motives, I felt like kissing him on the spot for revealing his honest feelings. He had a great deal to learn—but then, so did I.
I did not want to bring up the subject of other men right now unless he asked me. I was not yet ready to face a choice, and I wondered if I would ever be ready.
Liam and Michael spoke together in low voices for a bit, and I waited. Finally, Michael said, “Caylith, me cousin has one last thing to ask ye, but he is afraid ye may not want to talk about it just yet.”
“Please ask.”
“He wonders why have ye come from Deva all in your silken clothing if not from the arms of a lover?”
If my crimson face did not give it away, surely my silence did. I struggled for an answer, but none would come.
Michael said, “He is ready to face that man on the field of battle, or in a shillelagh ring, whichever he may choose, for the right to wed ye.”
“Does he feel no jealousy?”
As if he understood my question, Liam answered before his cousin could translate. He leaned very close to me and caressed my cheek with his rough hand, suddenly gentle.
Michael’s voice was soft. “I left for a long time, so ye had no choice—your swain in Deva had no choice. To love ye is natural. But ye cannot marry two.”
He sat back, his elbows on his raised knees. “So let the battle commence for the love of Caitlín.”