Erinsong (4 page)

She wouldn’t dwell on the
nightmare for one blink
more, wouldn’t let
herself call up the half-remembered
dewy
fresh scent of the babe. She banished the dream
from her mind. Anything else was the path to
madness.

Brenna padded to the shuttered window and
pushed it open to let in the dawn. The cock cried in the barnyard
below. The guineas would need tending, and soon.

And so would the Northman.

Whatever had possessed Da?

Last evening when the
rescue party arrived back
at the keep, her
father had trussed up the stranger in
the
round room occupying the main floor of the tower
while the king and his war party feasted. Brenna
felt
a flutter of pity for the Northman
when the conversation turned to inventive ways of killing him if
the ale
turned out to be bad.

“Drown the blackguard in a
bog,” Connor said,
pounding his wooden
drinking bowl on the table.

“A nice slow garroting
would be none too good for
an
Ostman
demon, I’m
thinking,” Aidan said, a hard
glint in his
eyes. Worship of the old gods had mostly
faded with the coming of St. Patrick and his Christ,
but strangling a sacrificial victim was still
deeply in
grained in some of Erin’s
sons.

Then the suggestions turned truly grim, each
man trying to outdo the other in gore, clearly hoping to terrify
the Northman.

But the stranger threw back his golden head
and laughed.

He was addle-brained for sure, Brenna
decided.

“If worse comes to worst,
perhaps you’ll fetch your
bows and use me
for target practice,” the Northman
said
calmly. “If you’ve no better ideas for killing me
than those, it’s clear your wits are in need of
sharpen
ing. No doubt your aim could use
it as well.”

Silence blanketed the hall
for the space of several
heartbeats. Then
Brian Ui Niall slammed his rough
hand on
the table and started to chuckle. Soon the rest
of the warriors joined in and Brenna recognized the
gleam of grudging respect on several hardened
faces.

When her father pried the
bung out of the ale cask
with his long
hunting knife, Brenna surprised her
self
by hoping the ale was good.

To a man, they all leaned
forward as the king sam
pled the first
horn.

Brian drank deeply, ran his tongue over his
lips and made his pronouncement. “Nectar.”

Relief flooded warmly to Brenna’s toes.

At least, she’d felt
relieved at first. After her father
decided she’d have the responsibility of seeing the Northman
put to useful occupation, she began to wish the cask had been full
of seawater. It was one thing not to want him dead. Being in charge
of the
Northman, forced to bear him
company, was another
thing
altogether.

Brenna pulled the shutters
closed again, leaving
enough of a crack to
let in the soft morning light.
She
shrugged her brown linen tunic over her head,
then pulled on woolen socks, winding strips of cloth
around her calves to keep them up. Lastly, she
put on
the old shoes she reserved for the
barnyard.

Brenna slid out of the
small cell she and Moira
shared and
climbed down successive ladders to the lowest level of the keep.
The stone tower had been
designed with a
siege in mind, each of the successive
floors accessible only by a single ladder that could
be pulled up by defenders if necessary. Down in
the
main hall, a few of her father’s
warriors had been too
far gone in their
cups to make it home last night. She
was
careful not to wake them.

Padraigh was sprawled
before the smoldering ash of
the peat
fire. Aidan and the largest of the wolfhounds were curled up like
two spoons. Brenna stepped over
the
snoring figure of Connor McNaught on her way
to the door. She wondered briefly who was minding
his motherless bairns while he drank himself to
oblivion in her father’s hall.

“Men,” she muttered with a
curl of her lip. Brenna knotted a
brat
around her shoulders, letting
the short
cape drape over her frame,
before she slipped out to
face the
Northman.

He’d given his word that he
wouldn’t run off, and Brian Ui Niall was willing to take it. In
truth, there
was nowhere for him to run. A
Northman alone would
be easy pickings for
any hunting party in the wilds.
Her father
could set his great hounds after the stranger
and they’d have him in no time. Since the man didn’t
even know who he was, he wasn’t likely to know
where his countrymen were and couldn’t count on them for
aid.

Last month, the traveling peddler had told
Brenna a horde of the Norse heathens had set up an overwinter camp
far to the south near the mouth of the river Liffey. The new
settlement lasted through the damp Irish winter on the leeward side
of Erin, and the heavenly green spring bid the intruders stay. The
Northmen were probably still there, but her Northman would have no
chance of finding them, on his own and afoot.

Brenna scattered grain for the hens scuttling
around her hem. Then she lifted the latch on the cattle byre, where
the Northman had been given leave to sleep. He was nowhere to be
seen.

“Devil take the man! It’s daft we are to be
trusting the likes of him.”

“The likes of whom?”

Brenna nearly jumped out of her skin. Moira
had slipped out of the keep behind her.

“Don’t be sneaking up on me like that,”
Brenna said, rubbing her forearms. “Ye’ve given me gooseflesh.”

Moira peered around her sister into the byre.
“Where’s your Northman?”

“How would I be knowing that? I’m not God
Almighty, am I?” Her tone was sharper than she’d intended. Her
stomach balled into a firm knot. Instead of feeling glad to be rid
of him, she was upset the Northman was missing, and that made her
feel even worse.

“Brennie, there’s no cause for blasphemy,”
Moira said, lifting her chin. “Wonder where he’s gone off to.”

“Ah, so ye’ve taken to him already, have
ye?”

“
‘Tis no sin to use the eyes God gave me, is it? He’s
a handsome lad indeed.” Moira sighed, then
nudged
Brenna with her elbow. “And here ye
had me thinkin’
ye’ve no time for noticing
a fine man’s face.”

“And neither I do. ‘Twas Da
who saw fit to make
me his keeper, not me.
And speaking of fitting ...” Brenna stomped across the barnyard to
see if the Northman was in the pigsty where he might as well
belong. There was no sign of him. “I should have
given him a name when he asked it of me.
Beelzebub
comes to mind.”

“ ‘Tis so unfair Da gave him to ye.”

“He didn’t
give
him to me. Da only
gave me charge
of the man.” Brenna didn’t
feel the
need to add that Brian Ui Niall
cautioned her to tell
him straightaway if
the Northman so much as looked cross-eyed at her. She also
suspected the king had set
one of the more
reliable of his men to keep a surrepti
tious watch over her dealings with the stranger.
Forc
ing her to spend time with
Ostman
was just her
father’s
way of punishing her for
interfering when the king had intended to kill the Northman
outright on the beach. “May heaven bless him with a good clout to
the head.”

Moira raised a brow. “Da or the
Northman?”

“Both!”

“I don’t see him anywhere, Brennie.”

“Nor do I.” Brenna gnawed
at the inside of her cheek, wondering if she should rouse her
father to
look for the Northman. She
decided against it. If he
gave her father
cause, the king might have him killed
out
of annoyance. “Come then. I planned for him to
fetch the water this fine morning, but there’s nothing
for it. Ye can help me with it
instead.”

Brenna balanced the stout
yoke across her sister’s
shoulders and
hefted the two buckets herself. They’d
have to struggle with the yoke together once the pails
were full.

“Doesn’t this make ye wish
ye had a man of your own, Brennie? A married woman has no need to
haul her own water.” Moira started across the yard.
“
Heaven knows it’s past time ye made a
match.”

“And what makes ye think a
husband would be
any more biddable than
the Northman we can’t seem
to find? Stop
fussing about me making a match. Ye’ll only be wasting
your breath and tryin’ me patience.”

“But what of Connor
McNaught? Did ye never
think on him?”
Moira asked, swinging the yoke wide
as she
turned to look back at Brenna. “He’s not so hard on the eyes and
he’s got that darling farm. And him being a widower and needing a
woman to care for his bairns and all. Do ye not think he’d make a
fine husband?”

“No, Moira.” Brenna
struggled to keep her voice
even. “I’ve no
great liking for him.”

“Ye’ve no liking for any man.”

“That’s God’s truth,” Brenna muttered as she
hefted the buckets and slogged behind Moira. “Nor need for one,
either.”

“But I have.” Moira pulled
a mock tragic face. “
Sometimes I feel as
if I’ll burst out of me own skin
for lack
of havin’ a fine man to hold me. And ye know
Da will not hear of me takin’ a husband till ye are married
good and proper.”

Married good and proper. As if it was
possible now.

Brenna pulled her lips into
a hard line, then felt the corners twitch in spite of herself. It
was impossible to
feel gloomy for long
when her sister was around. Moira was like sunshine with feet.
Brenna couldn’t help but smile.

Back when Brenna cared about such things, she
sometimes silently bemoaned the fact that Moira had been the only
one in the family blessed with fiery good looks. She felt dowdy as
a sparrow beside the fine plumage of her younger sister. What lad
could be expected to spare Brenna a sideways glance when Moira
fluttered into the keep?

But now Brenna was thankful
for her mousy brown
hair
and general plainness. The last thing she wanted
was to catch a man’s eye.

“I missed ye when ye were gone.” Moira
sighed. “The year seemed a lifetime.”

“Aye, so it did.” Brenna’s
voice cracked.
Certainly another
life.

“And in some ways, I think
ye’ve yet to come back to us, Brennie,” Moira said. “Stormy as a
raincloud ye are more than half the time and I haven’t heard ye
sing once these long weeks past. I’m glad ye decided not to take
the veil. Never did think it suited ye,
all
that obeying and repenting, and
no opportunity to sin at all—”

“Moira!”

“I’d be mad in a month.”

“Ye probably would.” Brenna smiled at the
unlikely image of her pretty sister in a plain habit, shut off
from her crowd of admirers. No, the Church wouldn’t do for the
likes of Moira, but for Brenna, it had seemed the answer.
Especially since Sinead was going, too.

“Now, our Sinead, I’m sure she’s taken to the
religious life with all the fervor of an angel,” Moira said. “We
always knew she was marked for sainthood.”

“Aye,” Brenna said softly,
her older sister’s mild
face flickering in
her mind. “She’s an angel, in truth.”

“Fair Sinead never seemed
to know the meaning
of sin, but ye! I
thought to meself when ye left with her for Clonmacnoise that ye
were cut from a different bolt of cloth.” Moira grinned wickedly
at her. “I
don’t mean it badly, but ye
must admit someone who conspired to put slow dye in the soap and
turn all the
hands in the keep bright
yellow is not destined for a life of contemplation.”

Brenna chuckled at the
memory. “It did take a bit
for Da to
figure that one out. But at least, we could tell who washed and who
didn’t!”

Moira laughed. “No doubt ye’d have bedeviled
the abbess with more of the same if ye’d taken the vows.” Her smile
faded. “Yet now ye’ve come back, ye’re still betwixt and between.
I’ve a feeling ye haven’t quite decided to live amongst us.
Whatever happened to ye at Clonmacnoise?”

Brenna bit her bottom lip.
She and Moira had born
each other’s
secrets since Moira was old enough to put two words together. Yet
looking into her sister’s
fresh, innocent
eyes, Brenna couldn’t bring herself to
tell her. Better to let her stay ignorant, even if she
pouted. It was bad enough Da knew. She didn’t
think
she could bear it if Moira looked at
her with the same
reproach she saw in her
father’s eyes.