Erinsong (5 page)

“Never ye mind,” Brenna said briskly. “We’ve
enough to do this day without stirring up the past.”

Moira shrugged and
chattered happily as they chugged down the path to the stream. She
invited Brenna to admire her newly crimsoned nails and wondered
aloud if she could talk their father into buying that darling
little silver cross the peddler had
shown
her last month. She wanted to wear it for next
St. Brigid’s feast day, she said. Moira fervently
hoped
the old man who traveled about
hawking his wares
didn’t sell it before he
made his way back to Donegal.

Brenna loved her sister
dearly, but she had learned
early on to
detach her ears when Moira was on a prattle.

As they neared the stream, she heard a sound
she couldn’t identify. Brenna froze.

“Hush ye now,” she ordered Moira.

The sound came from the
water, a snarling fierce sound that made her wonder if they’d
stumbled onto
a wolf pack. She eased the
buckets down and stole over
to the edge of
the embankment to peer at the water below.

She caught a glimpse of
fair hair. The growling noise
came from
the Northman, and from the regular rhythm
of the sound, Brenna could only guess that he was
trying to sing. She parted the bracken to sneak a
bet
ter look.

He was standing hip-deep in
midstream, naked as
Adam in all his
glory.

No,
Brenna thought as she sucked in her breath.
Not Adam.
With dawn
burnishing his hair gold, this
man was
surely more like Lucifer the Fallen. An an
gel of light designed to pull the unwary into outer
darkness.

Water slid from his broad
shoulders and down his
chest. When he
stretched languidly, the muscles in his
arms and torso rippled in perfection. In the soft
light,
the fine hairs on his flat abdomen
glistened like the fur
on a bee’s belly.
He plunged himself under the water
and
came up shaking his head, like one of the wolf
hounds, splattering droplets in every direction. Then
he started to wade out of the stream.

From behind her, Brenna
heard Moira’s breath hiss
over her
teeth.

“Oh, Brennie, would ye look at his—”

Brenna wheeled around, dragging her sister
away from the ledge.

“Get ye back to the keep
this instant, I tell ye, and
guard the
innocence of your eyes!” Brenna whis
pered
furiously, giving Moira a fierce shake.

“And what of your eyes?”

“Don’t ye be bothering your
head about that,”
Brenna said crossly.
“Mind me now or I’ll tell Da and he’ll lock ye in the keep till
ye’re wrinkled as a winter
apple and twice
as sour.”

A flicker of concern
flitted across Moira’s face. “
But is it
safe for ye? To be here alone, I mean?”

“ ‘Twill be fine,” she said
with more confidence than
she felt. “Get
ye gone now and I’ll be along directly.”

Brenna watched as Moira skittered up the
path. Then she edged over to the embankment and leaned against a
tree, facing away from the water. She was determined not to look at
him again. Once was definitely enough.

“Northman!” she called out.

“Is that you, Princess?” He
chuckled, a low seduc
tive rumble. “I
thought it might be.”

“What do ye mean by that?”
Blood rushed
into her cheeks. The infernal
man thought she’d been
spying on
him.

“Just that you’d be the
only one up this early.” His
tone was
without guile. “It appears I’m going to live long enough to need a
name after all. Have you thought of one for me?”

“Perhaps I’ll pick a name so vile, ye’ll jump
back into the sea and swim away.”

“
I’ll risk it.”

“How about Conway?” The
tiniest hint of mischief
crept into her
voice.

“And what does Conway mean?”

“Yellow hound,” Brenna admitted.

“I’m flattered. Is that the best you can
do?”

“Perhaps ye’d like to be called Doran—”

“Which no doubt means Norse slug-worm.”

She stifled a laugh with
her hand. “No, Do
ran is a name that suits
ye. It means ‘wandering stranger.’ Ye can’t argue with
that.”

“No, but is it a name you’ll be happy calling
me.” More splashing sounds traveled up to her. “When you look at
me, what’s the first name that comes to your mind?”

“I’’m not looking at ye,” she insisted,
fighting the urge to do just that.

His rumbling laugh taunted
her. “A name, Princess.
That’s all I
ask.”

“Keefe Murphy,” she said
quickly, then clamped her
lips tight. She
hadn’t meant to let the name she’d been thinking of him as slip
out.

“Keefe Murphy.” He tried it
on for size. “Sounds decent. Why do you think it should be my name
for
the time being?”

“Murphy means ‘sea warrior,’ and ye’ve no
doubt come from the sea.”

“And Keefe?”

Handsome.
She couldn’t admit she found him fair to look
upon. Her cheeks heated with fresh color. “I
cannot say, but it suits ye. Ye must trust me for
that.”

“You’re the only one I can
trust right now. Good
enough, Brenna.
Keefe it is, then,” he said. “The king of Donegal’s hall was filled
with drinking heroes last night. I’ll wager some of them are still
there, the worse for their
heroics. That
ale was potent.”

“And lucky for you ‘twas in
a well-made cask.”
Brenna made the mistake
of turning around to talk to
him and
caught him tugging up his leggings.

Well made indeed,
she admitted grudgingly. Before
she could avert her eyes, he looked up and met
her gaze directly. The man’s smile would have melted the Stone of
Tara.

“I’ve already had my bath,
Brenna. But I could be
coaxed back into
the water if you join me.”

The heat in his blue eyes
made them go dark. Brenna’s insides squirmed. It was one thing to
ad
mire the fine line of a man’s frame. To
see him openly
admire her in return set
her quaking like a stand of
aspen in a
gale. But she’d be damned if she’d let him
see her fear. Brenna took refuge in rage.

A low noise of disgust
erupted from her lips as she
hurled the
buckets down at him.

“Curse ye for a misbegotten
son of Satan!
The only water I’d join ye
in would be bog
water, so I could get a
closer look while me Da
drowns ye! Don’t
ye be daring to look at me that way
ever,
ever again. Fill the buckets and fetch them back
to the keep. And be quick about it, or I’ll set
the hounds
on ye.”

Brenna hoisted her tunic,
baring her legs to the knee,
and ran up
the path. She swiped angrily at the tear spilling down her
cheek.

So much for her vow that a
Northman would never
make her cry
again.

Keefe crested the rise. He
barely noticed the weight
of the full
buckets dangling from the yoke settled across his shoulders, but
the wound in his thigh slowed his pace. His gaze swept over the
home of
Brian Ui Niall. There was the
sagging cattle byre, a
chicken coop
listing to the south, and a half dozen
circular thatch-roofed huts clustered around the stone
tower of the keep.

A jagged streak of light
seared across his vision and he suddenly seemed to see a sturdy
longhouse with smoke rising from evenly spaced holes in the
roof. Laughter rolled out of the open door. Then
a
swirl of color splashed before his eyes
and he caught
a glimpse of very different
image—a glittering ala
baster palace and a
high-domed structure too celes
tial to
have been made by human hands.

He lowered the buckets to the ground, swaying
dizzily. Was that a memory? Had he actually seen such magnificence
or was he gifted with an active imagination?

The image wavered and
dissolved, and he found
himself gazing
once more at the motley collection of
buildings that made up the king of Donegal’s stronghold. No
moat, no defense except a waist-high stone
wall broken in so many places it wouldn’t keep out a
determined cow.

Why did he notice that? Was
he a warrior? A
raider? Did he have a
family to protect and support? His head ached when he tried to
force a memory. So far all he’d gleaned of his former life was a
few dis
jointed images and a snippet of a
song.

Surely more would come.

Keefe turned in a slow
circle. No other habitation
was visible
from the king’s hilltop, but curls of
smoke rising above the trees betrayed the presence of
several crofters’ cottages within a day’s walk of
the keep.

Keefe shouldered his burden
and carried the water
to Brenna at the far
end of the courtyard. She was busy adding woad to a large cauldron
near the en
trance to an anteroom attached
to the keep. Through
the open door, Keefe
saw several standing looms,
piles of wool
to be carded, spindles and distaff. It was
a homey room, rich with the scent of lanolin and
alive with vibrant colored cloth, obviously the
exclu
sive haunt of women in the
keep.

“Where is your village from
here?” Keefe asked, pouring water into the waiting cauldron. Maybe
the
name of a settlement would jar loose a
memory.

“Me what?”

“The nearest town,” he
said. The grimace on her face told him she still didn’t understand
the ques
tion. “You know. A town, a place
where people live
close
together?”

“
And why would we be wanting to do that?”

“For trade, for
protection.” He felt his way, thread
ing
through unfamiliar corridors in his mind search
ing for the right path. Something about the way the Irish
farmsteads sprawled over the hills and dales
with no visible connection, no sense of a settlement,
didn’t seem right to him, but he couldn’t say
why. “A
town is where merchants and
craftsmen set up shop to sell their wares.”

“Ye mean a fair, surely.”
Brenna stirred the water
and seemed
satisfied when it turned a rich blue color. “
Of course we have a fair on both Samhain and
Beltane. Everyone comes, the young and the old.
‘Tis
merry enough, but I wouldn’t want to
be living there.”

“Why not?”

“After the contests, the
men are drunk for days. If
we lived every
day as we do at fair time, we’d get no
work from them at all.”

“So you have no village.
This is all there is to your
father’s
kingdom?” Keefe swept his hand in a wide arc to indicate the
decaying compound. “Seems to
me any
Irishman in possession of a high spot can call
himself a king if he likes.”

Brenna bristled, her gray
eyes frosting over. “Me
father is head of
the Donegal clan with three hundred
men at
his call. He settles disputes and passes judgment.” A spurt of
indignation colored her cheeks with flame. “Many’s the blood feud
he’s put a stop
to, and it’s a wise man as
can do that. Brian Ui Niall is
king of far
more than this keep. I’ll thank ye not to
speak lightly of me father and him sparin’ your neck
only last evening. None but a fool berates what
he doesn’t understand.”

He cocked his head at her.
Brenna was loyal, he
had to give her that.
“Are you
always so easily
irritated?”

“Only by an irritating
man.” She turned her attention back to the vat of dye and stirred
it furiously. Blue liquid surged over the sides and splashed onto
the flagstones. Color rose in her face, making the
sprinkling of freckles across her nose less
noticeable. “
Fetch me some peat and help
me get the fire going
hotter. There’s a
stack of it behind the cattle byre.”

“As you wish, Princess.” He
gave her a mock bow.
Except for the deep
line etched between her brows,
Keefe
decided she was prettier when she was angry.

As he rounded the corner of the byre, he
noticed some wood piled in a jumble near the midden heap. The dark
burled grain caught his eye. It was the remains of a chair. The
graceful back was intricately carved but had been shattered into
two pieces and one of the legs was broken off, leaving a jagged
stump.