She half closed her eyes as his lips touched hers, touched them so lightly that she could barely feel it, yet she knew when they had met because of the sharp, warm thrill that pierced her body. It left her knees feeling as though they would give way and let her fall; it made the flickering lamplight waver and be swallowed by the darkness.
She was aware that Brendan still supported her. At last he slid his hands around her shoulders and pulled her close against his chest, where she was held fast by both the strength of his arms and the weightless caress of his lips upon her own.
Now her own arms came up to clasp his broad back, and she raised her mouth to kiss him in return. The weakness left her knees and a flash of energy raced through her, leaving Muriel strong and determined and pulling him close to her, drawing him in with embracing arms and demanding lips.
Suddenly he wrenched back and held himself still, the tension vibrating through his body. He stared down at her, and Muriel knew he was awaiting her response.
“Don’t go,” she whispered then, into the soft flickering light between them. “Don’t go…”
Brendan kissed her again, and her eyes closed. He reached down to catch her up in his arms and then carried her past the tall leather screens to the fur-covered bed. There were no more words between them, for even as he set her down he continued to kiss her, sitting on the edge of the bed and clasping her hands back against the furs beside her head so that only their fingers and lips were touching.
The fire burned ever lower. The flame in one of the seashell lamps went out. Brendan bent down to kiss her once again—but as he did, Muriel abruptly sat up and slid her hands out from his grasp, swinging her feet down along the side of the bed and standing up in the rushes, her breath coming ragged and quick.
“Muriel…” Her husband’s voice had become a rough whisper. “I must go now, or I warn you, I will not go at all.”
Standing before him, she reached for the dolphin brooch at her shoulder, turned it to release the clasp, then pulled the long, slender pin out of her mantle. The gray linen fell away to the rushes, and she dropped the brooch within its folds.
Her boots and belt soon lay beside the mantle. Carefully she slipped her arms from the sleeves of her purple gown and allowed it to fall atop the linen and the brooch. Beyond the leather screens, another of the lamps flickered into darkness.
She started to reach for the neckline of her white linen undergown, but then paused, her hand shaking only a little. “Brendan,” she said, reaching out her hand toward his shadowed figure. “Brendan…”
Instantly he stood and caught her hand. After a kiss on her fingers he let her go, and then quickly stripped away his own soft gray linen tunic and leather pants and boots.
Now he stood before her as the goddess had made him, silent and noble in the low light of the remaining seashell lamp above the sleeping ledge. Slowly Muriel stretched out one hand to him, reaching up to touch his neck beneath his heavy golden torque, running her finger slowly over his throat and down his broad chest and the soft golden brown hair that covered it, down to his slim waist and long, narrow hip, again encountering a mat of soft hair, and then hesitating.
He stepped closer. Taking her face in both of his hands, he kissed her long and gently. Then he took hold of the top of her white linen gown and eased it down over her shoulders, and it too fell to the rushes.
Now it was his turn to begin a slow tracing of her body, only he used both of his hands, running the tips of his fingers gently over every curve, every rise, every fall, every secret place of hers that no man had ever seen or touched.
Muriel could only close her eyes and steady herself with her hands on his sides, sliding them up over his chest and shoulders as he leaned down to kiss her and then continued his affections with the softness of his mouth, bending down until his hair fell across her own shoulders, easing down to one knee so that he could touch and kiss and caress every part of her.
Finally the lamp above the sleeping ledge wavered and went out. Muriel felt herself melting into the darkness, and it seemed to whirl past her and draw her in the way the power of the sea held its victims fast and carried them away.
Brendan lifted her up and laid her down on the soft furs of the bed, and then stretched himself out close and warm beside her. Together they rode the tides that their love had created, again and again, until at last they lay exhausted and sleeping in each other’s arms.
When the dawn came, and with it a pale gray sky, a clamor rose up from the grounds of the dun somewhere far outside.
Muriel was the first to open her eyes.
She cuddled against her husband with her head pillowed on his chest; the steady and reassuring beat of his heart had comforted her all the while she slept. One of her legs was drawn up over his hip, and she and he lay pressed together, their skin warm and damp in the humid midsummer dawn.
Daylight filtered in through the straw roof and small, high windows, bringing with it the familiar seaweed smell of the ocean and the rushing sound of the waves— and then Muriel became aware of something else.
It sounded as if a large group of people walked slowly across the grounds of the dun. She could hear the low murmur of their voices and the steady tramp of their footsteps, as well as the slap of leather and the ringing of metal on metal as they walked.
It sounded like a group of warriors on the march.
She sat up on one elbow, pulling a sealskin fur up over herself. “Brendan,” she said, but he had already stirred at the sudden feel of the air on his damp skin. “Brendan, do you hear that?”
He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. With one fluid move he rolled her over and took her back down to the furs to lie across her, kissing her as though there had been no interruption from the night before.
Muriel began to respond, kissing him in return and holding him close, stroking the smooth skin at the back of his neck and shoulder; but then he raised his head and looked toward the door, listening to the sound of the marching outside.
With a quick kiss for her, Brendan sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pushed the leather screens to one side and went striding across the rushes to the door, unbolting it and pulling it open just enough to get a look outside.
Muriel counted her heartbeats as her husband stood there very still for several moments—and then to her relief he quickly closed the door again. “Muriel, please get dressed,” he said, hurrying back to the sleeping ledge and catching up his breeches and boots from the floor where he had dropped them the night before.
“What is it? What is out there?”
“I don’t know—but I must go and find out.” Brendan pulled on his leather pants and threw on his boots, whipping the cords around his ankles and tying them fast. “My father is on the march with all of his men.”
With her husband’s blue cloak wrapped tightly around her, Muriel hurried to the doorway and stood watching as Brendan raced to catch up to King Galvin and the warriors and druids who walked with him toward the heavy wooden gates of the dun.
“Father!” he called out, struggling to pull on his gray tunic and fasten his thick sword belt around his waist. “Father! Where are you going?”
The old king stopped then slowly turned around, his heavy red wool cloak swinging from his rounded shoulders. He held a shining bronze sword in his trembling hand, but the weight of the weapon dragged his arm down. It was clear that he could barely lift it.
“Brendan,” Galvin said, and Muriel could see him smile behind his grizzled beard and heavy mustache. “You are out early on the morning after your wedding. Should you not be with your bride?”
“Father, you are the one who is out early, out with all of your men,” said Brendan, with a final wrap and tightening of his belt. “Will you not tell me why you are out, and where you are going? What is so urgent to take you away from your bed, from your rest?”
King Galvin took a few slow steps forward, the tip of his bronze sword almost touching the ground. He stood a
nd gazed steadily at his son, saying nothing. At first Muriel thought he was offended by Brendan’s words; but then she saw the gentle smile and the look of peace in his eyes, and she felt a sudden strong apprehension.
It was a strange expression to see on the face of a man dressed for battle.
Galvin reached up and touched Brendan’s cheek. “You have been as fine a son as any man could have wished for,” he said. “You will be as fine a king as Dun Bochna has ever had, likely finer. And you have brought home a gentle and beautiful queen to help you serve your people. All of my pride goes with you.”
Brendan shook his head a little, clearly not understanding. “I thank you for your kind words, Father,” he said. “But I still do not understand why you are marching out with your men on this day. Has something happened? Was there a raid; did King Odhran—”
Galvin stepped back and gripped his bronze sword with both hands and Muriel blinked as she saw a look of piercing anger come into his old gray eyes. “It is the waves,” he said, his voice low and growling.
“The…what?”
“The waves!” shouted the king. With shaking arms he raised his sword until its wavering tip pointed toward the sea. “They offend me with their ceaseless noise! I will have peace! I will stop them!”
Quickly Brendan reached out and caught his father’s arm, just as the sword point fell to rest against the earth. “What are you talking about? This sounds like some kind of madness! Here, let me help you. Come with me and I will help you back to your house, back to your bed—”
But with all of his strength, the old king pulled away from his son. Holding his sword out before him, he turned around and walked, slowly and lamely but with great determination, past his men and toward the gates of the fortress, which swung open for him as he approached. “I will stop them! I will stop their noise! I will stop the waves!”
Muriel shut the door of the house and raced for the bed, throwing on her clothes and tying up her boots as quickly as she ever had. In moments she was out the door and running after Brendan, who followed King Galvin and his warriors on their slow journey to the waiting sea.
Muriel soon caught up to them, for the royal party moved at the slow and hobbling pace of their aged king. It took a long time to travel the winding path down past the rocks until at last they reached the narrow strip of wet, sandy beach.
She stood with one hand resting against a large, gray rock and the other against her heart, fearing that she understood what was about to happen while Brendan clearly did not. Not yet. She could only wait and watch as an age-old drama unfolded before her eyes.
The crowd of warriors and druids stood very still at the edge of the sand, while King Galvin slowly made his way down to the water. But when he was halfway there, Brendan started to go after him again. “Father! Come away from there! This makes no sense! Come back with me; let me—”
The flat of a blade placed on his shoulder silenced him. Brendan turned to see an older gray-haired man, one who looked much like Galvin, gazing down at him. “If the waves offend him, he must be allowed to deal with them as he sees fit,” the wizened swordsman said quietly. “He is the king.”
Brendan looked over at the warriors and the druids who stood in silence just beyond the beach. Their manner was quiet and respectful, in the way of guardians at some sacred ritual. Then he caught sight of Muriel standing by the rock. She could only look back at him with sympathy, hoping that he, too, would understand.
It was clear to her that Galvin, knowing his strength was fading day by day while Brendan only grew more able, had made the decision to bring his life to an end. She understood, as all the people standing on this beach understood, that a weak and infirm king could neither serve nor protect the land he ruled. If the land itself was to keep its fruitfulness and vigor, it must have a king who was equally possessed of life and strength…and Galvin knew that as of this day, that king was Brendan.
Yet she could also understand how difficult it was for Brendan to stand and watch his own father carry out this last ritual.
“Fergal, surely you will not allow this,” Brendan said. He looked at the old man who restrained him, the old man who was his uncle. “You must know what he means to do.” He turned to the others. “How can all of you stand back and allow this?”
Fergal gazed after his brother, who was making his way alone down the beach. “We do this because we must allow him this final dignity, this final act that is his and his alone, even as you must allow it. I say this to you as his brother who loves him, and who loves you as well.”
For a time the only sounds were the rushing of the waves and the calling of the gulls. Then Brendan turned and walked with his uncle back to the waiting warriors and druids, and he stood with them and kept his silence along with them.
King Galvin continued his slow and painful journey to the edge of the sea. The tip of the bronze sword hung lower and lower until it trailed after him, leaving a line in the wet sand. But as the foam rushed in to surround his boots, he managed to raise the weapon again, holding it high overhead in both hands.
“Silence! Silence!” he shouted to the waves, his face red with fury and with effort. “Be silent and be still, or else you will face me in single combat!”
The sword wavered above his head as he gasped for breath. The waves continued to rush and roar at his feet, one of them splashing up to his knees by way of further insult.
The old man’s grip tightened on his sword. “Face me then!” he shouted, and with the last of his strength he waded out into the sea.
He struck once at the first wave that leaped up to meet him, gouging out a spray of water from its smooth, rolling surface. Again his sword slashed down as a second wave attacked him, and though he staggered in the chest high surf, the old king remained on his feet. But then another mountain of surf rolled toward him, higher than any of the others. Its foaming white edge broke over him just as he swung his sword for the third and final time.
The king disappeared beneath the water. Muriel closed her eyes.
The men of Dun Bochna stood patiently at the edge of the sand, their long bright cloaks whipping in the wind as they waited for the sea to give up the body of their king. After a long time they saw a gleam of gold among the white foam breaking on the beach, and the dull shine of wet leather and bronze.
Brendan and eight of the men started down the beach. Muriel followed at a respectful distance, not wanting to intrude but unable to stay away while her husband underwent this ordeal.
No one made any objection.
At last the little group reached the place where King Galvin lay, his sword still tight in the grip of his right hand. Brendan, Fergal, and five other men lifted the body from the sand, then held it still while two of the druids moved to their places on either side of the king’s shoulders.
With great care they pulled apart the open ends of the heavy, twisted golden torque around Galvin’s neck and worked it free. One held it flat in his open hands and showed it to Brendan.
It was a large and beautiful piece of heavy gold, made with sea-dragon heads even larger and more intricate than those on the tanist’s torque that Brendan wore. “The king’s torque will remain in our keeping until the king making is done at Lughnasa, when all can gather, some forty-two nights from now.”
Brendan nodded, then looked across the body of his father to Muriel. “Well, my lady wife,” he said quietly, in a voice that caught only a little, “none can say that I am not a king now.”
All of them turned and carried the body of King Galvin back to Dun Bochna. The only sound was the crashing and the roaring of the waves.
Chapter Twelve
The following day, another procession left Dun Bochna, this time heading away from the sea and up toward the open grass-covered hills above the fortress.
First walked the king’s three brothers. All of them wore full armor with their best wool cloaks and gold ornaments at their necks and wrists and fingers. Behind them came seven warriors bearin
g the body of King Galvin, which rested on a wooden platform draped with the sovereign’s red cloak.
The deceased king’s long wooden shield had been placed over his face and body, and his bronze sword lay close by his side. Like his brothers and those who carried him, Galvin wore all of his armor and gold—all except the king’s torque. That piece was now carried by Colum, himself a druid, and Galvin’s oldest son. He held the gleaming gold torque flat in both hands as he walked in silence directly behind the body of his father.
Right behind Colum, walking before the crowd of all the remaining warriors and druids and highborn men and women of Dun Bochna, was Brendan, with Muriel at his side.
Brendan moved in silence. He kept one hand placed casually on the hilt of his sword, and it seemed to Muriel that he was at peace. From time to time he would glance out toward the sea, which was a spectacular sight from this great height. But most of the time her husband simply kept his gaze straight ahead and followed the men who carried the body of his father.
They continued across the grass until the sea disappeared from sight behind them and they reached the edge of the forest.
In a place of deep shade among a thick stand of hazel trees, a wide rectangle had been dug in the earth. It was as deep as a man was tall and nearly twice as long, and lined with rocks both large and small. A great heap of stones and a pile of earth remained a short distance away.
The seven warriors bearing the king stood on either side of the rectangular pit, holding the king over its dark open space. Another seven men moved to the edge and vaulted down so that they were inside.
Brendan and Muriel stood with Colum beside the grave. The three of them watched as each of Galvin’s three brothers moved to the end of the long dark rectangle and then handed down to the waiting men below an object he had brought. One produced a dagger, another an ax, and the third a spear, all made of iron and bone and wood from the rowan trees, all the very best work.
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