Deirdre (31 page)

“Then if this is what I am pledging to, I shall mean every word of our vows.”

Were she not loathe to miss a heartbeat of what was transpiring between them, Deirdre would have swooned with joy “I, also.”

They hardly spoke poetry yet the muse that held them translated their words into magic, and magic into feelings that carried their hearts beyond the limitations of their bodies.

“I want you as my wife in every sense of the word, muirnait,” Alric whispered, as he tilted her face away and kissed her from her forehead to her chin.
“Every
sense.”

His lips found hers, kindling a wildfire that melded her body against his. Echoes of sweet surrender assaulted her thoughts, like sirens drawing her toward fulfillment of every sense.

Every
sense. It sounded wonderful—and terrifying. Was
this
why her father had given in to her stepmother and compromised his integrity and good judgment?

Every
sense. Now Deirdre understood. Temptation was the heart’s worst enemy for it made fools of both man and woman.

“There you are,” Abina exclaimed from the doorway Upon seeing how untimely her intrusion was, she laughed, unabashed. “Look at the two lovebirds.” She clasped her hands together. “But you must wait just two more nights.”

Alric at long last gave Deirdre reprieve, stepping away reluctantly “Abina, your sense of timing has not faltered with age.” The good-natured complaint was for his elderly nurse, but his eyes—those silver fountains of intoxication—were for Deirdre alone, to drink from as much as she wished. But she dared not. He knew nothing of love, only lust.

“Yes, it was perfect,” Deirdre chimed in. What might she have agreed to in the state of honeyed bliss he conjured in her? “We were just agreeing that nothing is going to make us change our marriage contract, weren’t we,
muirnait?”

At the Irish endearment, Abina’s face brightened enough to illuminate the room in the waning light of day “I praise God that I have lived to see it.”

“Nothing?” Alric repeated, disbelief registering on his face.

Deirdre rallied. “Nothing.”
Thank You, Father in heaven, for stopping me from making a terrible mistake. This wolf could charm the wool off an innocent lamb.

The wolf frowned. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong.”

“This is that priest’s fault.”

“I made the terms. Scanlan only approved them.”

“You’ll change your mind.”

“When you prove that you are a husband in the scriptural sense, I shall be a biblical wife.”

“I just said I did …” Alric groaned in exasperation. “I mean, I am … or am willing to be.”

“You must love me as you love Christ, and since you cannot love Christ, you cannot love me.”

“I never heard such a thing.” Alric marched toward the door.

“Ask Scanlan. You’re no real husband until you do.”

Alric stopped, casting a formidable look over his shoulder. “I will,” he vowed. “Trust me, Deirdre, I
will.”

A
lric listened halfheartedly to the conversation of the guests at his father’s table. Conspicuously absent were the royal ladies. Both Deirdre and Helewis had sent word of indisposition, which Lambert attributed to prewedding dithers. As for the queen, she was about the business of a sacrifice to her gods for the sake of Galstead’s safety against the building Welsh forces at their border.

“While our new priest, Scanlan—” the king motioned to where the priest sat among the remaining witans in the hall—“is teaching us the ways of Northumbria’s Christian God, I believe in protecting both flanks.”

The priest winced at the comment, one that was likely missed by the multitudes but not by Alric, who watched him like a hawk. He would have a word with the meddlesome holy man before the night was out and settle this ridiculous notion of a marriage without conjugal rights. Alric would never have agreed to such an absurdity if he hadn’t believed that he could change Deirdre’s mind by playing upon her natural-born desires. The wedding was upon them, and while Deirdre the woman had responded to him, Deirdre the maid, who’d been so browbeaten with piety by this priest, held her back. He should have addressed the issue with Scanlan right away, but since Deirdre had come into his life, reason had fled.

Through the thin haze of smoke from the central fire, Alric watched Scanlan converse with the witans of the court, who had changed with the times. Like their predecessor, the pagan priest Coifi of Edwin’s court, had nearly a half century before, they felt the new Christian faith held something more certain beyond man’s fleeting existence in time. Others, like Juist, continued to travel the old path.

Those championing the past gathered to the king’s right, where Ricbert entertained most of his mother’s Mercian relatives. On the king’s left were those who had yielded to the new ways. In his glory,
Lambert played one side against the other. Regard for the rule of the king’s peace—and the fact that all weapons save dining daggers had been left outside the hall—ensured the lively debates did not turn violent.

Alric had to admit that Scanlan was persuasive. He not only spoke the Word, but lived it, which was why so many paid him heed. Unlike the Roman priests who’d come to Chesreton in the past, Scanlan had taken the time to learn the Saxon language and customs. He lived humbly, asking nothing for himself save meager hospitality afforded to anyone. Even in the king’s hall, the priest had hardly eaten enough to fill a child’s plate, much less that of his lean, tall frame.

When at long last Scanlan rose and graciously excused himself, Alric was ready for him.

“Ho, priest,” he called out from the door to the great hall. “I’d have a word with you, if I may.”

“By all means, milord.” Scanlan waited for Alric to catch up with him. “What can I do for you?”

Alric fell in step with him, whispering so that others milling around the large building could not hear. “I want you to talk Deirdre out of this nonsense of not being my wife in every sense.”

Scanlan paused, casting a surprised glance Alric’s way, and then started forward again. “I thought you and the lady had settled on this issue. Based on my assurance to her that you were a man of your word, she agreed to sign the contract without its inclusion.”

As they passed through the gate, Alric returned the wave of the guards. “I
am
a man of my word, but I didn’t think she understood … that is to say … Frig’s breath! You’re a man. You know full well what I mean, unless they gelded you before you came of age.”

To Alric’s further annoyance, the priest chuckled. “Deirdre would beguile the hardest heart,” he admitted, a little too dreamily to Alric’s notion.

“Sir, I—” Alric broke off as Gunnar rounded the comer of vendors’ row.

“Where in Woden’s world have you been?” Alric demanded. “I left you to stay with Deirdre, not take your leisure as you see fit.”

Gunnar was taken aback at Alric’s foul humor. “You did, and I saw her safely into
his
care.” He nodded to the priest.

Alric started to reply that his friend shouldn’t be so sure of that, but the matter of his bride to be was between him and Scanlan for now.

“The lady is well, isn’t she?” Gunnar asked, glancing from Alric to Scanlan and back.

“She would beguile the hardest heart,” Alric mimicked with a glare at the priest.

There was a moment’s awkward silence before Scanlan broke it. “The prince and I were about to discuss the wedding plans, and he rides the edge of his humor. I recommend you hasten to the hall before you miss the meal altogether.”

“Yes, well …” Gunnar rubbed his stomach. “I could eat the whole bullock I saw Juist choosing earlier for his sacrifice.”

“Waste of good beef.”

Alric and Scanlan exchanged surprised looks at their simultaneous remarks. It was difficult to dislike the man, but no one meddled in his personal life without invitation, no matter who sent him, God or man.

“Then I’m off. A pleasant evening to you, gentlemen, and my apologies, Alric, if I have caused you or your lady any distress. It was obviously a misunderstanding on my part.”

Ordinarily Alric would have questioned his subordinate more, but his mind was on other things as he and Scanlan walked the rest of the way to where the chapel stood, its newly thatched roof standing at attention against the starlit sky.

“That’s odd.” Scanlan put the small lantern he carried on a shelf inside the door. “It smells as if someone has just doused a candle. You don’t suppose your Gunnar—”

“Not likely.” God had too many taboos to suit his friend.

“Perhaps one of my new listeners.” The idea pleased the priest. “I say
listeners
, for as yet, most are like your father, intrigued and accepting of God but afraid to let go of their old ones. Until one does so, he is not reborn. Like the flowers that bloom each spring, they must shed the old completely and become new.”

“I didn’t come to discuss flowers or my father.” Alric dropped on a
bench and folded his arms across his chest. “I want to know what your relationship is with my bride to be, for I’m thinking your interest in her is more than that of a priest.”

“Deirdre and I come from the same bloodlines, one blessed with miracles. I have been trained for such things in the hope that God would continue those blessings through me. Instead, the gift fell to the princess. It’s only natural that I would mentor and protect her—”

“Curse it, man, are you in love with Deirdre or not?”

Scanlan’s mouth fell open, as though his chin were weighted with stone.

“I had to ask.” Alric felt the fool at Scanlan’s shock.

The priest was too kind to take advantage of Alric’s embarrassment. “At least now I understand your sudden hostility Rest assured that I protect Deirdre as her closest male relative and in the name of God.”

Satisfied, Alric switched to his original purpose. Scanlan might not be interested in Deirdre as a woman, but he would still make a martyr of her at Alric’s expense.

“I read in your Scripture that God warns a wife against withholding her body from her husband.” Alric smiled at the lift of the priest’s brow. “Aye, I have my mother’s Bible and have read bits of it, enough to know that you have no right to put ideas to the contrary in Deirdre’s head.”

“That admonishment is in there,” the priest admitted. “But the key word here is
husband.”

“I will be that, before the laws of God and man, when I take the vows.”

“But will you follow all the admonishments God gives to the husband?”

“’Tis wordplay! I can’t love her as I love Christ because I have no regard for Christ.”

“You want the princess
completely
as your wife before God, yet you do not wish to commit
completely
as her husband.”

“I will not be like Lambert and use this God for my own means, if that is what you imply.” Alric jumped to his feet and paced across the room. “Not when I still have doubts.”

“Then what are you doing about those doubts?”

Alric turned. “What do you mean?”

“Are you seeking the truth or resolution of your doubts, or are you simply content to disbelieve?”

“I would … have the truth.” Alric hadn’t been seeking any sort of spiritual truth. He didn’t feel spiritual, never had—

No, that wasn’t true. Right here in this little room, he’d once thought he felt God, back when he was a child and believed. But then he’d fought imaginary dragons, too.

“God is an understanding God who wants you to know Him as closely as an earthly anmchara,” Scanlan said softly, as though he knew he was treading upon private ground.

God as a soul mate? Alric supposed He’d been such to Orlaith, for often, especially in later years, she spoke of keeping His company in the long and lonely hours.

“If you earnestly seek the truth with a heart and mind open to His Spirit,” Scanlan went on, “that is, if you seek only what you
can
accept rather than what you cannot, He will reveal His truth to you. No man, not even I, can reveal it to you so that you know it is God. That is between the Lord and you alone.”

Alric had never heard a priest say not to take his word on something. He was an anomaly “Then what good are you priests?”

Scanlan sighed. “Sometimes, I wonder … like when I hear your father say that he will worship all gods, so as not to honor one over another.”

“Father is more political than spiritual.”

“And when he truly accepts God, the Holy Spirit will guide his politics, not greed or power.”

Alric snorted. The priest had a lot more talking to do, although Scanlan had at least gotten Lambert to listen to him. Or Deirdre had convinced the king to listen to the priest.

“A man changes when he accepts Christ as his savior and guide.”

The statement fell between them like a sword cast in the ground. Alric stared at the invisible weapon quivering. It wasn’t his nature to walk away from a challenge and he wasn’t about to do so now.

“I’d have to weigh the cost,” he answered cautiously.

Scanlan’s gaze dove into Alric’s like a gull after a fat fish.

A desperation razed the back of Alric’s neck as though he perched on
Wulfshead
’s rail, about to leap into a life-or-death fray senses sharpened beyond the physical realm.

“The cost—” the priest’s words broke the ethereal silence of the chapel like new wood on a fire—“is your soul.”

A
lric rode into the starlit night as though pursued by spirits. Well, perhaps he was … not by dark ones, but by the One Scanlan told him would reveal itself when the time was right. If it did, then it would find him in the one place where he was truly at home—the villa on the river running from Chesreton to the sea. Tor was as winded and wet with perspiration as Dustan when Alric handed the animals over to the stable hand at the villa. Belrap stirred in the predawn hour to see what was amiss, but Alric assured him all was well. Alone in his room, Alric dug out the books of Scripture that had been so precious to his mother.