Erinsong (10 page)

Jorand touched a palm to
his cheek. It came away
sticky with blood.
He stumbled down to the shore and waded into the
shallows.

The bracing, salty spray
cleared his head. He wasn’t
sorry he’d
killed those men. They deserved every
thing he gave them. But the ease with which he
dis
patched them, the burning in his veins
as he hacked
away, the jubilant triumph he
felt... What had he been
in his former
life?

Perhaps he was a monster.

Brian Ui Niall didn’t seem to think the
Northman was a monster.

After the initial frenzy caused by their
arrival at the keep, Moira explained how Keefe had rushed to her
aid. Connor and Aidan ran to the beach before the tide rushed in
and carried away the dead raiders, sweeping the coastline clean of
any gore.
Moira’s story was
confirmed.

Jorand, as Keefe Murphy was
now known, was proclaimed a hero and a feast was declared in
his
honor. Brian Ui Niall sent out a call,
summoning the
whole Donegal clan to the
keep for a celebration to be held on the night of the next full
moon. The festivities
promised to be
grand.

One by one, the crofters
sent back word of their ac
ceptance. A
tame Northman was novelty enough. The fact that the Donegal had
trained one to attack his own kind was enough to send even the
least in
quisitive mind into flutters of
curiosity.

Brenna buried herself in
preparations. Since the
feast honored the
man who fixed her precious chair,
even Una
bestirred herself enough to take an interest
in the cleaning. The stone floor of the keep was
swept, scrubbed, and freshly strewn with
rushes.

“Maybe ye’ll be making
another batch of meat
pasties, I’m
thinking,” Moira suggested. “If we hope
to
honor Jorand as he deserves, we don’t want to be running out now,
do we?”

After he rescued her
sister, their father had released Jorand from all servitude and
gave him free range over the region. Brenna was no longer
bound
to watch him or devise work to keep
him occupied.

Jorand.
The foreign name still lay heavily on Brenna’s tongue. To her
mind, the man would always be Keefe Murphy, her handsome sea
warrior. Now that he no longer bore the name she’d given him, he
seemed even less hers.

Brenna shook her head. What
a fanciful notion! The stranger had never been hers, even when she
first found him on the beach. And why on earth
would she even want him if he was? Besides, it was
too late for such fantasies. She’d never have a
man of
her own now.

On the appointed night of
feasting, the king of
Donegal’s keep was
jammed with people. Those who
hadn’t seen
the tall, blond Northman before now crowded around Jorand,
alternately suspicious and
admiring,
wanting to talk to him, to take the measure
of this foreigner who’d saved a daughter of the house
and earned the gratitude of their
king.

Brenna never enjoyed
crowds. Her craving for solitude had made her consider life as a
novice at
Clonmacnoise in the first place.
With the peat fire smoking in the grate
and the press of humanity all around her, Brenna had
to escape the keep for some fresh air. She
wrapped her
brat
around her shoulders and slipped into the
darkness.

The soft summer evening
gave way to a hazy night. From time to time the moon peeped from
behind cloudbanks. As she wandered away from the keep, Brenna heard
a few couplets of a crude drinking song followed by a burst of
laughter. She kept walking till she could hear the singers no more
and
finally climbed atop the stone wall,
settling down to
enjoy the quiet. Far from
the round stone tower, the
only sounds
were the drone of insects and
the
occasional lonely hoot of an owl.

“It’s a fair party,
princess.” Jorand stepped out of
the
shadows and leaned against the wall next to her.

She hadn’t heard him approach and nearly
toppled off her perch.

“I thought Northmen craved merrymaking just
as well as the sons of Erin do.”

The moon chose that moment
to slide from behind
its feathery curtain
and shine its full strength on Jorand’s face. Brenna bit her lip.
Just looking at him made her chest constrict.

“ ‘Tis your celebration,”
she said. “Why are ye not
after enjoying
it then?”

“Maybe for the same reason you aren’t.”

“Too many people?”

“Or maybe not the right one.” Jorand clasped
his hands in front of him and leaned his elbows on the rock wall.
Then he cocked his head at her and gave her a look that made her
shiver.

Brenna was unable to meet
his steady gaze. She
scarcely breathed.
The small hairs on his arm brushed
against
hers, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull
away. She was intensely aware of his scent, a hint of
wood shavings and the tang of the sea over a
warm, unmistakably masculine smell. Brenna cleared her throat in
discomfort.

“I have not yet thanked ye, Northman.”

“I noticed.”

“ ‘Tis not for lack of
sentiment, I assure ye,” she
said quickly.
“ ‘Tis in your debt I am. ‘Twas a blessing
of God ye were there for me sister.”

He dragged a hand over his face. “I don’t
know if the gods had much to do with it. I think it was more likely
the handiwork of that devil you talk so much about.”

“No, ‘twas God,” Brenna
said, taking comfort in repeating what she’d heard from nearly
everyone in Brian Ui Niall’s keep. “Sure, the Almighty
strength
ened your arm to defend Moira.
Even Father Michael
says so.”

“And yet you sound doubtful.”

How had he heard that in her voice? “No, not
at all,” she denied. “I was only wondering...”

“What, princess?”

If he divined her secrets
so readily from the tone of
her voice,
what might he read in her face? She
ducked
her head to shield herself from his gaze. “ ‘Tis
blasphemous to think it.”

“You can tell me.”

His smile should be counted
as one of the seven deadly
sins.

“I’m a heathen, remember,”
Jorand said. “I’m not
likely to be shocked
and I don’t go to confession like
you do,
so who would I tell?”

Brenna knotted her fingers
together. The tempta
tion to talk to
someone about her doubts was more
than she
could resist. Even if he didn’t share her faith,
Jorand’s willingness to listen invited her
confidence.

“ ‘Tis only that if the
Lord God was there making sure
ye were
about to help Moira... I’m wondering where the Almighty was when
such things happened to ... to others.”

“You mean like those crofters?”

When she frowned at him, he
went on. “Remember? The burnt-out farmstead you showed me
that
first day. Northmen were there, you
said.”

“Aye, just so,” she said, her heart
hiccupping in her chest. “Why does misfortune come upon some and
not others? Are they somehow deserving of their fate?” She chewed
her bottom lip. “Are they unworthy?”

Jorand stared into the
night sky where the starry
Hunter strode
through a break in the clouds. He was silent for so long, Brenna
thought he must have mis
understood her
dilemma or even forgotten she was there.

“No,” he finally said. “It
isn’t a question of worthi
ness or I doubt
I’d still draw breath. It’s just bad luck. As long as there are men
in the
world, there will be those who are
determined to hurt others and there will be those who will be hurt.
It doesn’t mean they deserve it.”

His words were like
soothing balm on a burn. If Jo
rand was
right, part of what happened at Clonmacnoise wasn’t her fault,
after all.

And it wasn’t God’s, either. Didn’t Father
Michael say He had no favorites, that He was no respecter of
persons? Just because there were evil men in the world, that didn’t
mean God was any less good. But that wasn’t the whole of her
dilemma.

“Ye were quick to help me
sister. What if ye hadn’t?
I mean, suppose
someone could have come to her aid and didn’t?” The small muscles
in her face strained as she fought to get the words out. “Suppose
it was another person’s fault she was even there in the first
place?”

“You take too much on yourself,” he said.
“Your sister told me she’d seen you on the ridge before she came
down to the beach. You couldn’t have known Moira was going into
danger. And even if you’d been there, you couldn’t have helped her.
You’d only have shared her fate.”

Brenna sighed. He meant well, but he
misunderstood her question and she wasn’t prepared to enlighten
him. She’d wrestled with these thoughts for months. Just when she’d
begin to make peace with herself, something reopened the wound.
Best to let it bleed. She wasn’t ready to cauterize it in
public.

“Brenna,” Jorand said softly. “What happened
to you?”

She felt as though he’d punched her in the
gut. How was this man able to read her as though she was a freshly
illuminated manuscript? It wouldn’t do at all. The wall she erected
around her heart had been breached, but she quickly shored up her
defenses.

“Devil if I know what ye mean,” she said as
she slid off the wall and started back to the keep.

He snatched up one of her hands.

“Oh, I think you do,” he said as he pulled
her toward him. “Whatever it is, you’ve got to let it out. It’s
like a worm eating you from the inside.”

“There’s a pleasant prospect.” She glowered
at him. “Thank ye for the lovely image ye’ve conjured for me,
Northman.”

“After all this time, that’s all I still am
in your sight. Just a Northman.”

When she tried to pull away, he tugged her in
close and cupped her chin. “Ah, Brenna. Can you not say my true
name? Not even once?”

He leaned down toward her,
his deep eyes dark in
the moonlight. His
mouth was so close, one corner turned slightly up. Brenna gulped,
wondering what that mouth might taste like.

“Jorand,” she said softly.

The name was nearly
swallowed up as his lips cov
ered hers in
a kiss both sudden and inevitable. Her first impulse was to pull
away, but his kiss beguiled
her. It was
not the kind of kiss she’d expected from a
man like him.

His mouth was warm and
sure. His lips pressed against hers just enough to let her know
she’d been
kissed before he pulled back.
It was as sweet a kiss as
she could
imagine. A kiss that wanted to give, not
take. A kiss that left no bitterness in its wake.

“There now, that wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
he asked.

“Do you mean saying your name or letting you
kiss me?”

“Both.”

Her lips twitched in a suppressed smile. “It
was tolerable.”

“Just tolerable?” He
grinned. “I know can do better than
that.”

Brenna stiffened as he pulled her closer.
Fire danced along her body where it pressed against his. She fought
against the urge to cry out.

The rising panic she felt must have shown on
her face, even in the dim moonlight. “Hush now. Calm yourself,
Brenna,” he whispered. “I’ll not hurt you. I’ll never hurt
you.”

His mouth closed on hers
once more, this time with more insistence. Brenna trembled under
his lips, but warmth stole over her, as though she were being
dipped into a hot bath. His mouth’s gen
tle probing released a flood of new sensations in her belly.
One by one, her locked muscles loosened and
she relaxed into his strong body.

With hesitation, she let
herself rest her palms on
his shoulders,
enjoying the feel of his muscles under
the
rough cloth of his tunic. Almost of their own
voli
tion, her hands crept up and draped
around Jorand’s
neck, sliding under the
thick blond hair that brushed
past his
shoulders. His bare skin was warm and smooth under her
fingers.

One of his hands caressed
her spine and then pressed her against him. Brenna felt the
hardness in
his groin and fear rushed back
into her.

She shoved against his chest and he released
her mouth.

“Never kiss me again, Northman,” she spat
between clenched teeth.

“Only if you can honestly tell me you didn’t
enjoy it,” Jorand said, casting a knowing look.

Brenna made a growling
noise in the back of her
throat and yanked
herself out of his arms. He didn’t
fight
to keep her there. She stomped away toward the
stone tower.