Maire (19 page)

I
tell you, Brude, the man is crazed to think he can make the Cairthan our allies after all these years!”

Maire was up before the sun song and followed the elder druid back to his hut, trying not to step on his heels. He moved slower in the mornings, as though the stiffness that crept in during the night needed to be worked out in the sun. Beside them, his pet heron stood, its wings at its side as it mocked the rise in Maire’s voice.

“Ho there, Nemh! Either find your own food or wait till I’ve had mine.”

Brude brushed by the bird that was his shadow. It nipped at the swirling hem of the man’s garment with its long beak, much like a playful pup. Some said the druid looked like his pet, long of limb and gawky with a curved neck and beaklike nose. Others said the man’s spirit often traveled about in the bird, watching over the kingdom while his human form sat statue-still in meditation.

“Glas has ruined the fish eater with a taste for grain. It thinks to sleep in my lodge now instead of perched above the door.”

“Brude, did you hear me? Emrys thinks I should let him handle the Cairthan, and him no more than a hostage himself.”

Brude sighed heavily and dropped to a seat on the stone bench outside his lodge. Like Maire’s, the entrance faced the east, so that the arms of the reborn sun might draw him into its invigorating embrace. To the west went the spirits of the dead, to sleep like the sun until their own rebirth. The lines on the
druid’s face told of the many such cycles he’d seen.

“Glas is Cairthan.”

Maire did not hide her surprise. “I never knew that.”

“Glas thinks that if anyone can unite Gleannmara’s people, it is the new king.”

“He told you that?”

“In so many gestures, aye.”

Brude flexed his fingers, fisting them, then releasing. When he finished his morning ritual, every joint in his body had been worked until he was satisfied that his blood made a complete cycle through his veins. Maire never quite understood the why or the wherefore. It was druid training, most likely, not warrior, so she had no need of it.

“A wise ruler will seek counsel. A king who reins without counsel will be one without a kingdom.”

“Aye, and the swiftest and strongest don’t always win the race,” Maire countered, recalling the Christian’s words. Why, instead of talking in circles, couldn’t either simply say she should call a counsel of chieftains?

Brude’s bushy white brow shot up. “Well said, Maire. Few your age realize the merit of those words. Pride is their weakness, their downfall.”

“I don’t see how giving the Welshman a chance can hurt. I could get more done about here without him afoot to distract me. I don’t need to tell you there’s much to be done to fortify for Morlach’s attack.”

The other of the druid’s eyebrows joined its mate, a white hedgerow dividing his face above the mercurial gray of his eyes. “He distracts you, does he?”

“Like a spur in the heel.”

“Hah!” Brude’s loud guffaw sent the heron scampering away. “Methinks our Maire has been equally met at last.”

“You think him my equal?” Maire kept the indignation out of her voice, lest she be accused of the pride the druid had just disdained.

“I think you the heart of Gleannmara, and Emrys the soul.”

The conversation ran like a Celtic pattern, in loops, covering space with eloquence, without a particular point.

“Then I’ll send the tuath’s soul out with Eochan and the most skilled in combat. The rest of us will remain behind to make repairs to the earth work and fosse.”

“Go with him, Maire. Morlach will not come now. He is too devious to do the obvious.”

“You did an augury?”

At the druid’s short nod, Maire let out a sigh of relief. Would that she’d known that last night! Perhaps she might have done more than catnap between each movement of her bedmate.

“Emrys keeps a secret, one that promises glory for Gleannmara and its queen. Just what it is, the sacred stones did not say.” With a frown, Brude stared at his upturned palms. “I even slept the night thus, and no more was revealed. Yet, soon as I accepted that Rowan ap Emrys and his God were with us, an uncommon peace bore down upon me as if I’d swallowed one of my own potions. Truth is like a light to the blind man and a balm to the wounded. To the naked eye, he still may not see and his wounds may yet seep, but the eyes of his spirit are sharp as a hawk’s, and the seepage is no longer of consequence.”

“If you feel Emrys is right for the task, that is all the truth I need. Perhaps I’d best accompany him with a force to the Cairthan’s mountains before the lesser clans disburse to their own lands to make ready for the season.”

Maire rose, the rest of the druid’s words swimming in her mind like a fish just beyond her reach.

“You are certain we’ve the summer to prepare for Morlach?”

At Brude’s nod, she turned and walked away.

Brude watched his protégé for a moment, knowing full well she felt like a dog chasing its tail. But unlike a hapless mongrel, Maire would eventually find her answers. Her heart was pure
as her love for her people. She was denied a little girl’s childhood to fulfill her destiny as their leader without complaint. The god who lived in the sun would bathe those of pure heart in light when the time was right to reveal the truth. For the same reason, those who sought to glorify themselves and their power, rather than truth, would never walk in the pure light. The more they sought for themselves, the more into darkness they retreated. Morlach walked in such darkness, his soul festering with greed for the powers of both worlds.

Before summoning Glas to prepare his chariot, Brude lifted his face to the sun’s warmth and turned his right side to it in reverence to him who lived there. It would rouse no suspicion for him and his servant to go off into the rolling hills and glens of the tuath, perhaps even to the sacred grove of his peers. This time, Brude would seek the light elsewhere.

The ancient had heard of a Christian cleric near Glendalough, a pass to the western part of Erin through the Wicklow peaks. It was time to follow his own advice and seek the counsel of another prophet, one who followed the Christian god.

Brude was getting along in years. The time neared when he would pass through death’s door to journey to the west and that incredible place of brightness where the sun retreated each night. But there were things to be done, questions yet to be asked, and answers he would need to prepare himself. He knew it, neither from the stones nor a conviction laid into his hands as he slept in wait. Instead, it was laid upon his heart.

“Methinks our Maire has been equally met at last.”

Equally met indeed, Maire thought, buckling her breastplate in place. Emrys spent more time on his knees than he did on his feet. Hardly a kingly trait, she thought, watching her husband pray over his food.

“It isn’t poisoned.”

He looked up at her and smiled. “But I am thankful for it and wish it blessed to my use and God’s service this day.”

“Then I do, too, since I’ve decided to give you a chance with the Cairthan. I’ve given orders that we ride out after breaking the fast.”

Maire dribbled a circle of honey over the thick oat porridge and topped it with a splash of cream. “And tell your god I’m thankful as well for the food, though I’m pressed to see what he has to do with it. ‘’Twas man’s fingers that planted and harvested it and woman’s fingers that ground and prepared it.”

“And it was He who sent the sun and rain and made the earth rich that it might grow.”

“Ach!” Maire interrupted, her mouth full. She swallowed. “It was cows what made the earth rich.”

“God created the cows and the earth and the man and the woman.”

“And gave you enough tongue for all.” Exasperated, Maire pointed to Rowan’s bowl. “Pray, put it to the food, and leave me eat in peace.”

“I didn’t think you approved of prayer, but I will gladly obey, little queen.”

“I wasn’t speakin’ to your god, just his fool.”

“He heard you.”

“Your mother’s honor!” Maire exclaimed in disbelief.

“I’m trying to obey, Maire, but you won’t let me be.”

Maire’s jaw dropped open and then clamped back her retort as he reached over and wiped a smudge of honey from her chin. Her irritation deflated with a strange stirring as he popped his finger into his mouth and tasted it. His gaze held hers hostage for several heartbeats before she managed an undignified retreat to her porridge. She needed to gather her wits for her first official day as Gleannmara’s queen, not dally with these strange feelings her new husband evoked in her.

When one of the servants took away her empty dish, Maire rose at the head table and struck it soundly with her empty
cup until the amicable riot of the assembly quieted. She knew her orders would not be popular, but as Brude once told her, respect and popularity were not always one and the same.

To the ladies, she left the task of seeing the hall and her lodge swept, scoured, and limed afresh before the return of the retinue gathering in the outer ring of the hill fort. To the men who were not to accompany her and Rowan on the journey to deal with the Cairthan, she instructed the rebuilding of the earthen works, as well as clearing the fosse and latrines.

Riot ensued once more, but it was not amicable now. The men grumbled beneath their breath, but the ladies of upper rank clucked and squawked like a pen of angry hens. How could Maire ask them to give up their needlework in the grianán, where they were pampered by the sunlight and noble pursuit, to work shoulder to shoulder with their servants?

“Fine needlework requires soft hands, not those of a servant!”

“Aye, the roughness will pick at the delicate weave of the materials!”

“I’ll not be doin’ it and there’s the end of it! That’s servants’ work, not that of a lady!”

“Tell me, ladies,” Maire shouted above the cackling din. She waited until it died enough that she could be heard plainly. “Tell me, did your stitches fill your bellies or save them from the running ague this winter past? Or did you use the dainties to cover your noses so you wouldn’t smell the stench of your own sties? Half your servants got away to the other world from starvation, and yet you still stitch and prattle as though those who remain can do the work of two.”

“And you men—” Maire turned to those sulking about the fires, where they’d gathered to ward off the morning chill—“Have you lost your pride to let the land many of you bled for under my parent’s reign waste away like this, ripe for the plunder of any vulture with senses keen enough to see its decay?”

“We didn’t lose it, yer queenship. Morlach stole it! Swiped
the food from our mouths and the cattle from our fields whilst you played the tyke at war games in Drumkilly.”

The knife twisted in Maire’s belly whether she deserved it or not. She acknowledged the man with a somber nod and swept the room with a fierce gaze.

“Aye, and sadly I could not be born a full-grown warrior queen any more than I could stop Morlach’s injustice as a child. But by my sword arm—”

Rage broke her voice; the vileness of what Morlach had done to her people rose in her throat.

Rowan shot up from the royal bench to stand at her side, giving her the chance to recover. “And by mine!”

“Gleannmara will be restored and Morlach’s tyranny ended,” Maire vowed in earnest.

“And by Drumkilly’s!” Eochan roared, drawing his weapon and holding it high in salute to Maire.

“And the O’Croinin!”

“And the Colmáin!”

“And the MacCormac!”

“And the Muirdach!”

All those who’d followed Maire into battle were on their feet, weapons brandished, voices united. The noble women were slower to rally, but finally, Maire’s maternal cousin Lianna leaped up upon a bench and raised her hand to Maire.

“Better to blister our hands now as Gleannmara’s aires than later as Rathcoe’s slaves. Long live Maire, queen of Gleannmara!”

The youngest of the women, caught up in the excitement of the moment, joined in before their elders, but soon all were of the same accord.

Maire wondered that the giant dome of thatch did not rise as she walked out with her men for the march to the highlands of the Cairthan.

Rowan surveyed the landscape as the entourage made its way up toward the mist-shrouded peaks of the Wicklow. It was sword land, won by the sword, preserved by the sword. There was no plough land to speak of, not enough at all, judging from the gaunt faces he’d seen along the way. But there was enough to feed many if put to proper use. Convert the tillable pastureland to the plough and move the cattle, which had grazed it to the dirt, to higher ground. He said as much to Maire.

“If we worked quickly, we could get in a late planting of grain.”

“And I thought you were scanning the rock, looking for the Cairthan, cowards that they are.”

“I was looking at your people. Their methods of scratching food from the earth for themselves and the cattle aren’t enough.”

“There’s the tribute Emrys is to pay. If that’s not enough, we’ll take it elsewhere.”

“Like the thieving Cairthan cowards?”

Maire looked away in silence.