Deirdre (28 page)

It felt as if the brightly colored butterflies flitting about the meadow had found their way to her belly and clamored for escape. The lady in her tried not to think what he might mean, but the vixen was beguiled. “I had no idea you were a healer as well, sir. What manner of concoction do you recommend?”

“No concoction, only tender, sweet care enough to make a woman forget her woes.”

“How sweet,” she managed, her throat dry as the pasture grass that yellowed a distance away from the stream. “Handed down from your mother, no doubt.”

Without waiting for a reply, Deirdre nudged Ninga forward. A retreat was often the best line of defense when one’s own guard deserted one. Behind, she heard Alric laugh shortly and then click his tongue for Dustan to catch up.

Ninga strained at the bit, eager to return to the care of the stable hands and a feed bag. Much as she longed to let the mare have her rein, Deirdre knew her headache would hardly be convincing if she launched into a full gallop. The painfully slow walk would simply have to do. Perhaps if she kept moving, temptation would not be able to keep up the pace.

Deirdre managed to keep Alric at bay that evening, despite his considerable charm and eagerness to please her, by conversing with Princess Helewis. Without Ethlinda’s presence, the mood in the hall was festive and the princess was more at ease. She commiserated with
Deirdre as a bride far away from home in a strange court.

“But it is the duty for which I was trained,” Helewis said. “I fear I have enjoyed the food here more than the company.” The more nervous Helewis was, the more she munched. With all the political and personal undercurrents in the hall, Deirdre wondered Helewis wasn’t big as a horse rather than nicely rounded. In view of the story Alric told Deirdre about Gunnar and Helewis’s ill-fated attraction, Deirdre wasn’t certain she’d have done as well.

While duty and honor had been placed ahead of love, it had not put out its light. Ignored by Ricbert, Helewis slanted more than one longing look to where Gunnar sat with the
Wulfshead
’s men.

“I am so glad that you have come to Galstead, for now I shall have a sister, yes?”

“Yes, you shall. We’ll go riding together. You do ride, don’t you?” Deirdre asked, already regretting Alric’s impending departure.

The Saxon court was crude in comparison to Gleannmara’s. The joviality was a glossy surface for backstabbing and envy everywhere she looked. Thanes and their retinues sat like chessmen of different colors, grouped for the start of an undeclared game. Deirdre distinguished their ladies from the raucous serving wenches by their dress and their stations at the tables. Their behavior was hardly distinguishable—aside from their disdain for the lower classes.

“Oh yes,” Helewis answered, upon swallowing the chunk of lamb she’d just bitten off a section of leg. “I love to escape from these walls into the countryside.”

Escape.
Yes, they were sisters of the same heart, trapped in loveless matches. “Then we’ll have to schedule a ride every day Gunnar is to see me to the chapel and back daily Afterward, we’ll ride.”

“I would like to see the chapel, too,” Helewis exclaimed, brightening for a moment. Just as suddenly she faded back to her customary meekness. “That is, if it is no intrusion. It is our new faith, yet I know little about it.”

“God’s house is open to all,” Deirdre answered, although she wondered at the sincerity of Helewis’s motivation to really be with her.
More likely it was Gunnar’s company she sought.

God can use all manner of earthly motivations to accomplish the heavenly …

Perhaps this was some minute part in a grand heavenly scheme. Regardless, she certainly was not one to judge them.

Glancing to where Gunnar and Alric drank with the
Wulfshead
’s crew, she met the dark-haired first mate’s gaze. He smiled, color rising to his face as he acknowledged her, but Deirdre knew he had not been looking to catch her eye. She returned the gesture, somehow reassured that she would have at least two allies in the enemy camp besides sweet Abina.

A third made himself known later that evening. Lambert, stricken with yet another headache, refused the witan’s medicine and asked Deirdre to sing before he retired. Nervous at first, she took up the harp Hengist gave her. This time the chief musician didn’t seem as offended that the king chose someone else to play for him.

“Sing more than one,” Lambert encouraged.

Alric looked up from where he’d been speaking to Gunnar. What he thought about his father’s request was impossible to tell, for he promptly schooled his features to polite interest.

Deirdre sang the song of Michael the Victorious, drawing a sense of assurance from it herself. The king pressed his head against the small silk pillow a servant brought him and closed his eyes, listening. Some of the thanes at his table continued to speak, but most were content to hear the farmer’s humble plea for heaven’s messenger to protect him and his family and his land.

“That song speaks to me.” Lambert sighed, never opening his eyes. “You mustn’t take her far away Alric,” he cautioned, half in jest. “She has a gift.”

Alric yielded to a discerning study of her. “Aye, that she must, but be assured that neither I nor my lady will be so far removed that you cannot avail yourself of our support.” Alric gave Ricbert a pointed look. Like two rival dogs, one watched the other with equal distrust. And like a ringmaster, Lambert egged them on in a game of his own.

Deirdre wondered that one or the other hadn’t killed his brother by
now, for murder haunted Ricbert’s glare, contempt Alric’s, and calculation worked in their father’s. She began to understand why Alric believed in so little. Nothing was as it seemed in Galstead.

“Your gifts will put all of Galstead at your feet, milady, including myself,” Alric said later as he walked her back to Abina’s lodge. Admiration filled his voice. It appeared genuine, but this was the Sodom and Gomorrah of deception.

“You ride as well as any man,” he elaborated. “But for Dustan’s longer gait, you and Ninga would have won the day You sing like an angel …” He stopped before Abina’s door and turned her face so that the moon glow fell upon it. “And you look like one.”

Leaning toward her, he started to brush her lips, but Deirdre turned away She knew Alric’s suit was born of greed, not love. But if she let him kiss her, what she knew and what she felt would have at each other—and she feared which would prevail.

“What are you doing?” His brow furrowed as she dropped to her knees on the ground.

“Praying.”

“Now?” Crossness added backbone to his demand.

Hands folded beneath her chin, she looked up at him. “I pray that someday you will believe that we were matched by God’s hand and not that of fate.”

“Does it really matter?”

“It does to me.” She chewed her bottom lip at the scowl claiming Alric’s brow. “I’m not pretending to be holier than thou. I don’t even know why God chose me to give this gift to, but I know that He did. And so I mustn’t take any risk that would distract me from His will.”

“And I distract you?” With a cocky air, Alric leaned against the side of the building, arms folded across his chest. “Since our marriage is to be blessed by both His presence and His priest, how is that distracting you from His will?”

“If your motivation for that marriage is anything but love, it will.”

“Do you even know what love is, my pampered, virgin princess?”

“I know there is a difference between love and lust. Lust is temporal. Animals can lust, but they cannot love.”

“Tell that to Tor.”

Upon hearing his name, the dog shoved his head against Alric’s thigh.

Deirdre petted the wolfhound, earning a generous lick. “Love is eternal.”

“Do you believe in fairies as well?”

Ignoring the jibe, Deirdre slipped into the past for memories of her mother and father, “Love can overcome anything. It’s strong, able to weather differences and allow for forgiveness, because each one knows the other is not perfect. It’s unselfish, putting another ahead of one’s self … enough to be willing to die for that loved one. It’s unconditional.”

“You mean like our marriage contract?” Kicking away from the building, Alric mimicked a bow. “Milady I think you’d best consider your own advice before handing it out to others. Good night.”

Stunned, Deirdre stared after Alric’s retreating figure. “You cannot contract the heart,” she called after him as she recouped her thoughts. But it was too late. The shadows of the buildings swallowed him up as if he’d never existed. She sat back against her legs, deflated with dismay.

Oh, heavenly Father, he’s making sense to me. Please, please show me what to do. And if that fails, for I know I am thick witted at times, tell Scanlan so that he can explain it to me. Otherwise, I fear my heart and soul are in danger from a golden heathen with a silver tongue.

A
side from fittings, there was little for Deirdre to do in Galstead. Ethlinda insisted on overseeing the wedding plans and, considering the circumstances of the marriage, Deirdre’s input was hardly needed anyway The highlight of her days were the rides she took on Ninga. Helewis, who took to Deirdre as a sister, accompanied her, as well as Gunnar—Alric’s watchdog. Ironically Gunnar’s eyes were more on Helewis than on Deirdre, and vice versa.

The second week of her stay, Deirdre was astonished to have the king himself join their daily exercise. He vowed that her song accounted for his remarkable recovery from his headaches, although Deirdre suspected his not taking the powders his wife and witan had been giving him was more likely. Regardless, his company proved surprisingly stimulating.

With Gunnar and Helewis hanging back, allegedly out of respect, Deirdre spoke her mind on many matters, from Galstead’s drought to her views on astrology and Scripture.

“By thunder, diverting the river to the fields through those ditches makes more sense than just sitting here twiddling our thumbs,” Lambert exclaimed, adding dourly “or sacrificing good livestock to a tree.”

“Mind you, we cannot possibly irrigate every hide of land in the shire.” She offered him a smile. “Only God, who sends the rain, can save them all.”

Gunnar’s voice called to them from the rear. “I told Your Majesty that Alric has caught himself a scholar
and
a beauty.”

Deirdre didn’t think he was even listening, but then the shy Helewis wasn’t much of a conversationalist, and there was only so much they could discuss in the king’s company without blatantly flaunting their affections for one another.

“Tell His Majesty of your theory on the sun and stars as the first timepiece.”

“A timepiece?” Lambert turned to Deirdre for an explanation.

“When God created heaven and earth and hung the sun and the moon, He made the first measure of time. Their cycles mark off our hours, days, months, and years. By observing them, the earliest of man could mark off time.”

The king’s brow furrowed. “And this is in the Scriptures you are always referring to?”

“The creation part is,” Deirdre said, “but the theory of the timepiece is a humble theory of mine as to why He created them so. All things were created for mankind. The Scriptures are written as instructions for us, whether we are kings or peasants, warriors or wives …”

“Instructions for kings and warriors?” Lambert’s interest was piqued now.

“The greatest and most-loved warrior kings in history followed them. In fact—” Deirdre felt a burst of inspiration not of her own making—“many of them face the same trials you do, Sire, both as a king and a father.”

Daily afterward, Scanlan was called upon to bless the thanes and shire reeve before they were sent out to supervise the clearing of the ditches and swales. Lambert heard the stories of King David—the problems among his sons, his women, and his court with a new fascination. From what Deirdre could ascertain, Orlaith had shared them from a salvation standpoint but not from the perspective of royal rule and all its pitfalls and glory. While neither the priest nor Deirdre took this as a sign of Lambert’s acceptance of faith, the king’s interest kindled his thanes’ interest—as well as that of his people.

At the end of the second week, Alric’s ship put in at Chesreton with a sizeable cargo seized from the Dalraidi trade route. While it was only grain, the ship that carried it was the real prize, which would increase the prince’s fleet by one more, once a few repairs were done. Deirdre made certain to look her best in anticipation of her betrothed’s arrival, but instead of coming to Galstead to visit his bride to be, the captain of the
Wulfshead
put out to sea again for one more venture.

If he thought to punish Deirdre for spurning his affections, it worked. She called him all manner of names in her mind, and when
he did show his face again, she was determined to repay him with as good as he gave. Her days spent with the king and Scanlan were full enough, but during the nightly feasting in the hall, she never felt more alone.

Gunnar did his best to keep her company, but it was Helewis he truly sought. It was heartbreaking to see the unrequited love light in their gazes doused by one of Ricbert’s snide remarks. It was only Helewis’s pleading looks that kept Gunnar from calling the malicious heir apparent out.

“My life will never be complete without Lady Helewis, and it is sheer torture to see such a pure, sweet maid so mistreated and maligned,” Gunnar confessed one day as he and Deirdre meandered through their market on the way to visit Scanlan. “What, then, is there to live for? Save the satisfaction of serving Ricbert his noxious tongue on the tip of a blade.” The lovesick pirate drew his dagger and buried it in a tongue of an ox on display in front of the butcher’s shop.

“I vow, I’ve never felt so hopeless.” He sighed, dismay piling upon dismay and kicked at the straw-strewn ground.

“God will sustain you, Gunnar.” Deirdre was certain it was true, but uncertain as to how Ahead of them, a thatcher waved from the roof of the chapel. Below, his apprentice trimmed a bundle of thatching straw before handing it up to him. “I have personally seen Him accomplish some impossible things,” she murmured as Scanlan stepped out of the lodge, grinning. He swung the newly hung door back and forth, admiring the handiwork of the carpenter who was fitting the top of an altar table on its base. Deirdre indicated the building before them. “God rebuilds our shattered lives through our faith, even as He has done this little church, one piece at a time.”