Lion of Ireland (25 page)

He saw her eyes turn briefly toward the door, anticipating his departure, and the barrier between the two worlds dissolved.

She had not mentioned Deirdre, or his betrothal, though all the province knew of it. Fiona had laid no claim on him, made no demands of him, although there had been a moment when she might have asked him for anything. That in itself gave her a perverse sort of advantage over him, and by the time he had mounted his horse and begun the ride back to Cashel he felt both guilty and troubled.

Fiona was to be avoided in the future, of course. She understood the barriers that separated them. If Deirdre had never existed at all he would still have been a Christian prince and she a low-born pagan.

Other men might take such a woman as a concubine, or visit her in secret or open lust,, but he had chosen not to be like other men.

He had chosen to be special, to bring the legends to life as Deirdre did by her very person. His afternoon with Fiona had been merely acting out the fantasies of his lean years; soon he and Deirdre would be married and his sexual needs would have the Church’s blessing.

He set his face toward Cashel and resolved firmly not to

think any more of Fiona.

He continued his loving and restrained courtship of Deirdre—more than continued, redoubled it, besieging her with poems of his own composing and snatching up a dropped napkin to press it against his lips, like any love-starved suitor. And in spite of his best intentions, there came a day when he wrapped his plainest bratt around him and rode down the path on a horse less recognizable than Briar Rose. He followed a winding route that led to shady dells and nests of deep meadow grass where Fiona waited for him, open-armed, and for a few hours he was another man entirely.

In the spaces between Deirdre and Fiona he thought bitterly of the songs of undying devotion he had sung—meaning them, fully—to his princess on the Rock.I do not know, if I am telling the truth to Deirdre or lying to myself, he thought painfully.

It was not a problem he chose to discuss with his confessor, preferring to enumerate only venial sins, so that he could be given swift absolution and go about his business.

He watched the blossoming relationship between Mahon and Donogh’s widow and writhed inwardly.

They were so easy with one another! Fithir was still in mourning, and the king slept respectfully in his own bed, secure in the knowledge that some day in the future he would share that bed with the deliciously plump Fithir. They smiled at each other often, and there were little pattings and fondlings as if the consummation of their love were a fact of long standing.

“It shows a lack of respect,” Brian fumed to Ardan, on an occasion when he forgot his reticence about personal affairs and mentioned the king’s romance to his friend.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ardan replied, with a wistful lifting of his brows. “It sounds quite nice to me.”

“She is Donogh’s relict, and Mahon cannot even make a

formal proposal for her until her period of mourning is over. Yet to watch them together you would believe they had been married for months!”

“Every man does not necessarily regard women the same way you do,” Ardan informed him. “You appear to stand in absolute awe of your princess, but I have never noticed your brother to have that tendency with his ladies. And as for Fithir, she was married before and obviously enjoyed it, so she continues to practice the wifely arts in small ways. You should be happy for the king that he has such a woman, as I’m sure he is delighted for you.”

“Deirdre is not like her sister,” Brian replied through tight-drawn lips.

Ardan watched his leader with concern. Since the betrothal was first announced Brian’s behavior had undergone a definite change. He drove himself and his men at a frantic pace, never satisfied with their performance, often irascible, and always impossible to please. The princess could not be as marvelous as she appeared, if she had that effect on him.

Ardan, as usual, worried.

The wedding of Brian and Deirdre was to be a state occasion. It was seen by both Brian and Mahon as an ideal opportunity to further efforts at healing the breach between the Dal Cais and the Owenachts, and the nobles of every Owenacht tuath were invited for the festivities.

The grim stone-and-timber fortress atop the Rock of Cashel was made to look, insofar as possible, like Mahon’s idea of a pleasure palace. Tapestries and hangings were commissioned to cover the walls, garlands of flowers and ropes of laurel and smilax were hung in every likely place and some very unlikely ones.

The walls of the banqueting hall, black with age and smoke, were made brilliant with the standards of all the tribes of Munster, the Dal Cais conspicuous among them. Hanging above the king’s High Seat was Mahon’s personal flag, and to its right was a new banner of red and gold, sporting three raging lions.

Brian had supervised its hanging, finally climbing onto a teetering ladder himself to arrange it to his satisfaction, while Deirdre looked on with admiring eyes. It flaunted its challenge like a new battle cry among the faded glories of Dinan and Leahy and Desmond.

Deirdre became obsessively occupied with the most minute details of the wedding preparations. She spent hours fussing over her wardrobe, agonizing over her hairdress, even trying to become involved in the affairs of the kitchens and the protocol-of the guesthouses. She appeared to be trying to exhaust herself in a sea of activity, alternating with fits of extreme shyness when she retired to her chamber and would see no one. “I’ll be glad when the girl is safely married,” Fithir confided to Mahon as they shared an oat cake after chapel. “I’ve never seen anyone work herself into such a state before!”

Servants labored endlessly as the appointed day approached. A steady stream of arrivals—nobility, cow lords, even landmen, setting aside their daily affairs to show respect to the new king of all Munster and enjoy a rebirth of traditional hospitality—filled up the guest houses and overflowed them, camping on the meadows at the foot of the Rock.

The morning of the wedding day began with a sky the color of a dove’s breast, and a soft whisper of rain. Brian had spent the preceding day on his knees in the chapel, in the timeless ritual of a bridegroom asking for worthiness, and when he awoke to sunless skies his first thought was that God was punishing him for his hypocrisy.

Ardan, waking beneath the same lowering sky, observed, “It’s just what I should have expected,” and sighed heavily. Brian and Deirdre were brought together at the chapel altar early in the day, dressed plainly to bespeak their humility before God, and the bishop of Munster performed the nuptial Mass. When the brimming chalice was lifted to his lips Brian gave a start, and for a moment was unable to sip. He thought he heard Fiona’s voice whisper, laughing, in the holy hush, “You sacrifice your god and eat him!”

Beside him, Deirdre shuddered as if a cold draft had blown over her, and it seemed the candles that illuminated the stone chapel were dimmer than they should have been.

They retired to separate chambers to be dressed by their attendants, and then met one another again in the banqueting hall to hear the reading of the signed marriage contract before the assembled guests.

In that hall of gorgeously attired men and women, Deirdre walked in her own radiance. She was dressed in the style of Etain of the legends, in a gown of soft green silk the color of spring buds. Clasps of gold and silver gathered the gown at her breast and shoulders, and her plaited hair was entwined with flowers and jewels beneath a golden circlet. A short red cloak hung the exact length of her glossy black braids, and her small feet were bound by thin strips of gilded kidskin.

Looking at her, Brian saw the most tender and fragile of all his dreams walking toward him.

“Aren’t they beautiful together!” Fithir breathed, staring at the couple enraptured. Her eyes swept the great length of Brian’s body in his tunic of white silk and his royal purple cloak, and then lingered on her sister’s face. Deirdre was-more lovely than ever, but there were bluish shadows beneath the huge eyes and a rigidity to the set of her neck.

She looks afraid, Fithir thought. Was I afraid when I went to my bridal? I think not—excited and a bit nervous, perhaps, but as eager as my healthy young maid should be with a lover’s hot eyes on her. And I was getting nothing so splendid as Deirdre’s Brian!

Mahon saw the shadow cross Fithir’s face, and took a half-step closer to her. Women were always so sentimental about such occasions! Ignoring the watchful eyes and tongues that were sure to clack, he lifted his hand to rumple, just a little, the smooth brown hair that gleamed on Fithir’s neat head.

The gesture was seen by many, not least among them

Molloy of Desmond. The Owenacht chieftain had hurried from Ulster directly upon hearing of Donogh’s death, arriving just as Mahon’s army finished setting up its encampment beyond the Rock of Cashel. He had presented a reluctant homage-gift to the new king and gone home to Desmond to raise an army of his own, offering his support to anyone—Ivar the Norseman included—who would help him build a force capable of unseating the usurper.

Now he sat in the hall that should have been his, eating food raised by the tribes he should have ruled, and nursed the smoldering inside him. “These Dalcassians eat fat meat now,” Molloy said behind his hand to his nearest companion, “but it will not last. They put on a show to impress us, but I think that Mahon is like a dog who barks loudly while wagging his tail. The man is soft inside; when the time comes we will bring him down like a tree with a rotten heart.”

As evening threw its long blue shadows across the land and swallows circled the Rock of Cashel, Deirdre became very small and quiet. To please her, Mahon ordered the seanchai to recite her favorite bit of history, according to Fithir: the description of the ancient royal residence of Rath Cruachain.

The seanchai stood at the king’s right hand, and a horn was blown to bring the great room to silence.

Aed’s strong voice began its music, and the walk of Cashel seemed to fade into a mist, melting away, leading the eye to the long-ago glory of Ireland.

“The manner of the house was this,” he recited. “The palace contained seven apartments, leading outward from the inner hearth to the utmost wall. The whole building was framed of the finest yew wood, crimson and carved wherever the eye looked upon it; and each apartment was fronted with strips of bronze, three across the front and seven from the foundation to the ridgepole.

“Oak shingles were fitted to one another on the roof, like the scales of a fish, so that all within was dry and snug. Sixteen windows admitted the sun and the starlight, and each had a shutter of bronze with an iron bar to bolt it.

“The king and queen of Connacht had their apartment in the center of the house, and its walls were of bronze entirely, with a front of plates of silver and gold. There was a silver band on one side which rose to the ridge of the house, crossed over and down the other wall, so that all who entered were embraced by precious metal.

“The palace was protected by a wall of stone, thirteen feet thick at the base, and surrounded by five ramparts which stand to this day, and it is believed no enemy ever breached the walls.”

“Shall I build you a house like that?” Brian asked his bride in a whisper, and she rewarded him with a tremulous smile.

“There are no palaces like that anymore,” she said sorrowfully. “That was the Great Age, and passed away long ago.”

“Than I will bring it back to please you,” promised Brian.

Aed continued, “It was the custom of the king of Connacht to hang the arms of guests above all the other arms in that house, so that the guest was treated with the highest degree of respect, and every man who came to the gates was honored and made welcome.”

The seanchai paused in the time-honored way, giving his listeners a moment in which to look in silence and wonder at the creation of his words, and then he finished his description with its traditional closing: “And for all its magnificence, Rath-Cruachain was not the grandest house in Ireland in those days.”

He bowed deeply to Mahon and then to the left and the right, then closed his eyes and retreated into himself, already starting to shape the words that would chronicle this place and occasion for future generations. His audience sat in respectful silence for a heartbeat longer, then began to shift on their cushions and benches and shuffle their feet. Throats were cleared, glances exchanged. Almost reluctantly, Brian turned to Deirdre and held out his hand. From the expression on her face he was not sure she would take it.

“It’s time for us to go,” he said to her, making his voice as soft as he could.

Her eyes flared open, wild and wide. She stared at him as

at a total stranger, and then, very slowly, she put her tiny hand in his. The fingers were icy. With the movement of someone rising through thick mud she got to her feet. Unaware of the faces watching them lovingly or with greed, bright with admiration or dark with envy and malice, they walked from the hall together.

Beyond the walls of Cashel, Ireland, green and wet, set apart from the rest of the world, slumbered on in her long enchantment.

She would not let him touch her. She tried, but she could not do it. Their bridal chamber was ablaze with candles, the new linen sheets were scented with sweet herbs; all was in readiness but Deirdre. She crouched in the farthest corner of the bed, wrapped in her silk shift, her knees drawn up to her breast and tightly encircled by her rigid arms. Her hair, released from its braids into a shimmering midnight wave, flowed over her trembling shoulders. ‘Her eyes were like death.

“I mean you no harm!” Brian said for the third time, reaching toward her with one outstretched hand, palm open and up in a gesture another man would have understood, but she shrank away from him. Her breath came through her clenched teeth in a long hiss.

“I am your husband, Deirdre!” he reminded her in desperation.

The great eyes stared at him, pools of darkness. “Yes,” she said.