by Erin O'Quinn
“Conas tá tú?”
“I am fine. Tá mé go maith.” Then I caught his meaning. “My rash is gone. You may look.”
He put his hands on the bottom of my undertunic and began to fold it back, looking into my eyes. I understood what he wanted, and I leaned back on my elbows, as I had done yesterday before Ryan interrupted us.
Gently, slowly, he lifted the skirt well past my thighs. Then he took my knees and drew them farther and farther apart until my legs were widely splayed. I watched him as he looked down and made love with his eyes, then with his fingers, tracing my skin up to the downy mound he had exposed.
My knees and my thighs were trembling as he stroked me. Then he was on his knees, leaning over me, his fingers and his hot mouth both exploring me at the same time.
It was a sensation unlike anything I had ever felt. I threw my head back and let the waves of heat and pleasure take over, until I could take no more, and I rolled over onto my stomach and breathed hard into the grass beneath me until my heart and my groin stopped hammering. Then slowly, I rolled over. He was still kneeling beside me, his eyes luminous with emotion.
“Pósadh liom.”
“Yes, Liam, yes. I will marry you.” I thought it was an unusual way to propose, but I loved it. Every minute of it.
I sat up and reached for him, and he laid me down in the grass, kissing my eyes, my forehead, my cheeks. “Oh…love ye.”
I knew we would be late this morning—eating, saddling our horses, tracing our way homeward, but I cared not. I stroked his soft hair and his back and shoulders over and over again. “Mo chuisle. Ma-koosh-la. My own Gaelige song, I love you.”
* * * *
The predawn rain had left its shining dew everywhere, and the earthy smells were almost intoxicating as we rode out that morning. I was wearing my pretty new léine, even though it was most impractical to wear a light dress while trying to sit astride a horse. But for some reason, I wanted to present my best appearance to Liam today.
He rode beside me silently, but his face wore an expression of contentment. Ryan, too, seemed bemused, and we three rode a few miles wrapped in our own thoughts. Then I asked, “Ryan, can I talk with Liam for a bit?”
Smiling, our translator guided his horse next to us and rode silently, waiting for me to begin.
“Um, Liam, I have been thinking about our new, ah, partnership. Our marriage.” I had said it at last. “We need to build a brugh. Not a small teach but a real homestead. I have already asked Michael to build one for me. For us. What do you think of that?”
I watched his face as he answered, and Ryan translated. “Michael is a genius. He will build a brugh to draw the envy of kings.”
“And so you have no objections?”
He looked puzzled. “Of course not. It is an excellent plan.”
“Right now, my house is very tiny—no more than a bed, a table—ah, you know. Like my dwelling in Emain Macha.”
“Are you saying it is too small for two, a mo chroí?”
“I think we may outgrow it our first night together.” I smiled as I said it, and I felt myself blushing, but I thought Ryan would not be able to see it.
“I take your meaning, love. We need to start to build a new dwelling right away. I meself will dig the trench and start a wall. As soon as we reach Derry, we can ride around and choose a spot ye like.”
At that moment, his words filled me with as much pleasure as his arms could have, and I smiled at him.
“Liam, do you remember my telling you about my mission here, my promise to help Father Patrick?”
“Of course. Ye said ye would help him with your small army of Saxons.”
“What would happen, Liam, if…if Father Patrick needed my help? What would you do? Would you suffer your wife to follow another man?”
He was silent for a while, turning it over in his mind. His eyes seemed very dark as they probed my own. When at last he spoke, it was very slowly, and Ryan obligingly repeated his words with the same thoughtfulness. “I understand ye have set a mission. Ye told me that a long time ago. I did not understand it then. And still I am trying to understand it. Ye have pledged a troth to Pádraig, to follow him. And yet ye will pledge a troth to me, to marry me. Which promise will prevail?”
I was completely abashed. I had not thought about the troth. What exactly would I do if the priest needed me and I was wed to Liam?
“I, um, I think my promise was a promise of military support. And treasure. It was not a promise to be at his side. So if—when—we are married, he would not expect me to follow him myself. He would have Glaedwine and the fifty Saxons. Why would he need my puny self?”
“Ah, Caitlín. Why indeed?”
I thought then I had Liam’s answer. He most certainly would not suffer me to follow Father Patrick. And now that I had found Liam, I really did not want to leave him.
“Once we are married, Liam, you have my promise. I will not leave you for any reason at all. If we want to seek some interesting adventure together, ah, then, we have a different story, do we not?”
He smiled back at me, his eyes humorous again. “Aye, lass. We will certainly have adventures. An’ sure if one of those adventures involves your priest, then so be it.”
“I love you.” He understood me, on some deep level, and that is all I could ask of anyone. A kind of joy settled over me like a soft mantle, wrapping me in a feeling of utter peace.
After a long time, I asked Ryan, “How long before Derry?”
“We will spend one more night on the ground, Caylith. Then perhaps a few more hours in the saddle tomorrow morning. When ye see the River Foyle, then ye will be home.”
Home. The very word brought a flood of emotions. Up until I was sixteen, home to me was a lovely tract of land and a villa in Britannia, not far from the famous Deva Victrix, the old roman fortress city where Kevan was now a co-commander. Then suddenly, in a flash of arson and murder, I no longer had a home—or a mother. I fled with my best friend Brindl and my armsman, Fletcher. Eventually, I met my beloved grandfather, who was now lost to me.
Ryan’s voice broke into my reveries. “Liam would know why ye seem so sad, Caylith.”
I spoke then, telling them about the planned raid by “savages” from Éire. I told them of my anguished flight from the burned-out villa, onward to the land of Leoninus, my grandfather. I told them how he had sacrificed his own life to save me before I fled my home again—this time from the deadly creeping mist that signaled the end of that place, now little more than a waking dream.
“One wonderful thing that happened to me, Liam, was meeting Jay Feather and his family. They welcomed me not just as a friend, but—I am embarrassed to tell you—as a savior. They were convinced that it was my role to deliver them to a new promised land.
“The old oracles had told that somehow I would save them, and so I did. Not through any talent of my own, but through the help of all my friends. Michael built our currachs. The dwarves—the little people—fashioned the sails, and the skins that stretched over the framework. My friend Andreas the scribe managed to save hundreds of scrolls from religious places throughout Britannia. And so when we landed in that little cove on the River Lagan, it truly was a home to us. That is why we sang the song you knew so well.”
“Caitlín, I did not mean to scorn ye. I was worried about me own home then. Yet now I see how ye deserve to call Éire your home. Ye and your people will share it with me, not take it from me.”
“And now, Liam, this new home, Derry, is one I have lived in only eight or so months. It is still not truly ‘home’ to me, for the land around still has all the stench of Sweeney. Yet you and I will build it over again, from the very ground. And then it will be home.”
I did not know why my eyes were full of tears, for this day truly was one of the happiest of my life. I thought that somehow great happiness always contained some sorrow, else how would we know to call it joy?
Liam reined his horse, and he signaled us to stop, too. He di
smounted and stood on the side of Clíona. Reaching up and encircling my waist, he stood me on the ground and pulled me close, his arms around my back and shoulders.
I clung to him, and I let the tears burn into the bare skin of his chest until my sorrow drained away. I looked up into his eyes, and he held my chin and put his mouth onto mine, but so softly I could feel only a gentle tremor that lay hidden in his lips.
When he saw I was ready again to ride, he lifted me back into the saddle, and we guided our horses north by west, straight to the River Foyle.
At one point I asked Ryan, “What is to be my word for the day?”
“Ye need to know a favorite of every son of Éire. The word b’fhéidir means ‘perhaps.’
I said it a time or two—“bay-der”—rhyming it with “later.”
“Well…close, cailín. The sound is complicated.”
“Why is it, Ryan, that you have no one word for ‘yes’ or ‘no’—but you have a word for the in-between?”
“I think we be a people of maybes, and, b’fhéidir, there lies the source of our strength.”
When at last we found our encampment for the night and took care of the horses, Liam and I set off to find our supper while Ryan prepared the fire and the smoke talk. Liam was using his cousin’s long knife, and I marveled at how quickly he was able to flush a plump hare from the bush. He skinned it and dressed it on the spot, and he handed the skin to me to carry back.
Later, Liam carefully scraped all the meat from the pelt and laid it with the otter skin and a few other pelts we had gathered on our trip. I wondered idly what he would do with the skins, and then I decided that all hunters liked to keep trophies of their quarry.
I watched him cut two slender branches until he had left a Y on their end, and he stuck them firmly into the ground on each side of the fire. Then he took a third stick and pierced the hare, setting the skewer across the other sticks. We left Ryan to turn the roasting meat while we found a place for our final shillelagh lesson.
As he had last night, he stood behind me while I held my shillelagh. I remembered the angle, and the suppleness of wrist, as I stood bearing the weapon.
“Tá go maith,” he said approvingly. Then he stepped in front of me, staying about six feet away, and he took up the same stance. I understood right away that we were to replay our first encounter, when my breathing had bested his lightning-fast strike.
This time he did not bother to use taunting tactics. I supposed he would keep those for lesser opponents. Instead, he stood with slightly flexed knees, and I could not see him take any breath at all.
My own deep breathing had become an almost automatic response to a perilous situation. Its measured pace, and the simultaneous slowing down of time itself, allowed me ample time to respond to almost any attack. I stood ready, letting my mind sink into that of my opponent until I could see myself in his eyes.
I was small, like a butterfly, light and harmless. My only strength lay in speed and surprise. And so I fluttered just—there—just out of reach, as if probing the dusty center of a flower, my wings now drawn together and still.
In a far corner of my mind I remembered Grandfather’s story of the emerald butterfly, how Corwyth was able to suddenly reach out and capture her prize, even while it was about to fly free. And in that instant, I saw her fingers reach for me, and I flew. It seemed as though I flew straight up, just as a butterfly would float, and I eluded her grasp.
On another level entirely, I saw my opponent’s weapon reach for me, and I jumped, using all the spring and grace I had practiced with Gristle, and again he hit nothing but air. I whirled and struck him lightly on the back. And then it was all over.
I thought he might be angry at me for besting him again. Instead, he stood very close and smiled down at me with all the admiration I could ever ask from another person, and another emotion besides.
He gathered me into his arms. “Póg dom.”
“B’fhéidir,” I told him, pretending to think about it. Then he began to devour my mouth with hot little bites. I responded in kind, and we stood there for a few minutes, trying to satisfy each other’s sudden hunger.
Finally we broke apart and walked hand in hand back to the campfire, our shillelaghs safely returned to our belts. We would assuage our hunger later.
As we walked, I could not help humming the little ditty that had followed me for years, the one that started in Éire, traveled to Britannia, and followed me back here.
So pack me for home, home
So pack me for home.
Sure’an I’ll be home
And never to roam
When me heart be pledged to thine.
Chapter 10:
Out of the Wild
Our last night outside the bonds of society was spent in a copse of birches, my favorite of trees. I loved the way the shy pink of the inner bark was exposed as the rough outside naturally peeled away. The wind stirring through birch leaves had always been a sound to soothe or sorrow me, singing a counter melody to my mood of the moment, and that night the whispering wind filled me with a sense of sweet promise.
Our supper was finished, and we sat around a snapping fire. Twilight spread its long, shadowy fingers through the trees and along the ground. We were all three silent, but it was the stillness of easy comradeship, quiet satisfaction.
It was I who finally broke the silence. “Ryan, I may not have another chance to tell you. Your voice has been our voice when we needed to speak. Your discretion has allowed us privacy when we needed to be alone. There is no way I can ever repay that.”
Before he answered, Ryan quietly spoke to Liam, so that he would catch the gist of our conversation. Then he turned his eyes to me.
“I love Liam as me own brother. I have come to love ye also, cailín, for the joy ye have given to him and to me besides. We are fortunate to have ye in our family. Let no more be said on the subject.”
I reached my hand out to him, and he grasped it in a gesture of friendship. Then we fell silent again.
Liam leaned into me and put his arm around my shoulder. Ryan told me what he said. “Tell us a story, Caitlín. Tell us about the butterfly I saw today.”
Earlier, I had caught part of his vision as we stood facing each other with our drawn shillelaghs. I knew he had seen me in that combative moment not as an adversary, but as a delicate butterfly to be pinched between his fingertips, even briefly. And because I had entered his own vision, I was able to fly free.
“This is the story my grandfather told me the first night I met him,” I told my companions. Again I marveled at the way Ryan repeated my words to Liam almost as I spoke.
“Once upon a long-ago time, there lived a beautiful, young princess named Corwyth, the great-to-the-fourth granddaughter of the Troll King. She lived in a spacious villa in the countryside where she played all the day long with Wendollin, her best friend.
“Now, brown-eyed Corwyth lived unbound as the very birds, for she had not yet come to the Age of Self-Will when by law she must choose to settle down or stay free. She and Wendollin spent all day, every day, exploring the woods and streams of the great villa. They leapt from rock to rock in the little brooks and turned somersaults on the grassy bank. They would chase rabbits or squirrels just to see if they could catch up to them—but they never could.
“One grand summer day, Corwyth stood in a field and watched a butterfly visiting the nodding flower heads. It was a brilliant emerald green, a color she would pay all the world’s fortune to wear upon her shoulder as a brooch or to pin in her hair like a flashing jewel.
“‘O beauty,’ called Corwyth.
“The little gem fluttered nearby, and it answered, ‘Yes, O Princess.’
“Of course you already know that in those days, the earth’s creatures had not yet learned the virtue of keeping silent.
“‘What price must I pay to keep you for my own?’
“The butterfly flitted a bit further away. ‘There is no price,’ she replied, ‘for beauty
cannot be bought or sold.’
“‘Then will you come home with me and stay forever?’
“‘Princess,’ replied the butterfly, ‘it is my nature to fly free. I cannot belong to any being or even any flower. If you will excuse me, I must be visiting the next field over.’
“‘Wait!’ said Corwyth sharply. Before the butterfly could float away, she reached out and grasped it tightly by the bottom of its glittering wings.
“The captive fluttered and fought, but the more it tried to fly free, the more tightly Corwyth held it.
“At last the butterfly, exhausted by its struggles, lay quietly in her grasp. ‘If you will release me,’ she said, ‘I will grant you a boon.’
“Corwyth thought quickly. She said to herself, ‘If I keep this beauty, it will soon fade and die. But if I could have my wish, I would keep it forever. How can I have both?’
“At long last, Corwyth held the butterfly up at eye level and said, ‘Then my wish is to keep your emerald sparkle forever and a day.’
“‘Done!’ cried the butterfly, and Corwyth loosed her grasp. The little jewel disappeared into the blue sky.
“‘What have I done?’ asked Corwyth, weeping bitterly. ‘Now the butterfly is gone, and all I have is what I started with—nothing!”
“Just then Wendollin ran up to her, giggling. ‘Corrie,’ she cried. ‘Let us make a fortress from these stones. I will wager—’ She stopped and gazed openmouthed at her friend.
“‘What are you staring at?’ Corwyth asked crossly.
“Wendollin said nothing but took her by the hand and led her to the little stream. She found a spot where the rocks and moss had formed a small, still pool of water. ‘Look,’ she told her friend.
“Corwyth knelt on the bank and gazed into the pool. Looking back at her, instead of her hazel-brown eyes, she saw the fluttering, dancing wings of the emerald butterfly.”