Maire (24 page)

“To the innocent ear, this plan has merit.” Lorcan’s thick brow knitted, foretelling his objection. “But this ear isn’t innocent, brother. Ye’d have my people grow corn for hers.”

“And hers tend cattle for you, the combination of both our herds. While closer to the rath, we grow enough grain to last both clans and livestock through the barren winter months.”

“And what do you think of this, Queen Maire? Will your people come up here to live with mine and keep track of the herds?”

Maire wasn’t certain, but Rowan had not misled her yet in
the welfare of Gleannmara’s people. “Perhaps as hostages of goodwill at first. We’ll exchange our cattle tenders for your farmers and builders.”

Rowan’s approving gaze took the early morning chill away from her bones. Maire gave him a hint of a smile in return, but he’d already turned back to his brother.

“You see, Lorcan, we’ve more than one enemy between us. Aye, we have Morlach to contend with, but we have the survival of our peoples to consider as well. I want more than survival for them. I want prosperity. So long as you keep to the highlands, you’ll never be able to support yourselves with any success except by digging out scraps from the wilds or stealing the fruits of another’s labor.”

“It has kept the Cairthan alive and well for years—”

“Alive, aye,” Rowan cut in, “but hardly well. How many did you lose this last winter?”

Garret, who stood behind his father, spoke up. “Some twenty, not countin’ the babes.”

The lad had been listening all the while the men spoke, as had Declan and Eochan. In fact, it astonished Maire that her foster brothers hadn’t objected from the moment the ideas formed on Rowan’s lips.

Rowan nodded. “The boy makes my point. What have you to lose?”

“Our pride.”

Declan broke his silence at last. “By our mother’s gods, man! The Welshman—” He broke off, realizing that was no longer the case. “Our king is offering you an alliance, not charity. I’d wager there’ll be those at the rath who’ll not take to coming up here and staring at the backside of cows all day as something to be proud of either. But I’ll tell ye this.” The fair-haired warrior leaned forward. “By the looks of things, we’ve less reason to come up here than you have to come down to us.”

“Aye, think, man,” Eochan agreed. “Our peoples will share the best of both worlds.”

Lorcan was not as optimistic. “If Morlach lets us live long enough.”

“Your brother stood up to Morlach’s apprentice without so much as a blink when the druid put the curse of boils and plague upon him. See ye any blemish, Cairthan?”

Maire ran her hand over the muscled plain of Rowan’s bare arm. All that her tactile senses registered was smooth skin, bristled with a manly scatter of hair. Suddenly, as if the warmth of his arm were as hot as the coals smoldering in the cook fire nearby, she snatched her hand away.

She was not the only one disconcerted, however. Rowan glanced at her and their eyes locked for what seemed the balance of the day. Yet the sun still held its spot in the morning sky, still as Maire’s breath.

“Is this true?” Lorcan asked skeptically. Garret stepped closer to look at his uncle’s arms, which were bared by the short sleeve of his sackcloth robe.

“I saw it with me own eyes,” Eochan averred.

“And I.” Declan’s echo seemed to repeat itself among those of the Niall who’d been with them the day of the beach landing.

Maire found her voice. “He told Cromthal to tell Morlach that neither he nor any of his kind was welcome at Gleannmara and ordered the man away.”

Odd that she’d once thought the man fey, crazy as a swineherd, yet now she spoke of the incident with pride. She’d chosen well. But then, there hadn’t been many other choices, had there?

She watched her husband’s face as he continued to present his case to the assembly of men. Its strong, masculine features were those of a leader, well placed, chiseled by a masterful hand. His god? If this god was truly the creator of man and woman, he’d done a fine job with Rowan ap Emrys… or should she say O’Cairthan?

“I think Rowan has a sound idea.” Ciara stepped into the
circle with a large pot of porridge hanging from her arm. “And I’ve see more years than either of you.”

The men took bowls and cups from Blath so that Ciara might dish them out their share of the meal. Chunks of meat left over from the night before had been put in the mix for additional flavor.

“Things are not always as good as they look, Maithre,” Lorcan reminded her.

Ciara handed over the serving pot to Blath, but Eochan leapt to his feet and intercepted it.

“Here, let me carry this for you.”

Blath turned pink, a shy smile showing her acceptance and appreciation of the big man’s gesture. Behind him, Declan snorted and elbowed Maire. Her foster brother didn’t need to elaborate. It was clear as day that Eochan of Drumkilly was smitten by the Cairthan lass and that his affection was returned. Maire had seen the two of them wander off into the darkness for a while the night before, longer than it took to fetch a turn of wood for the fire.

“As I see it,” Ciara said, taking a seat next to Lorcan, “it’s no different than deciding which bolt of cloth to use for which garment. The heavier cloth is more suited to a cloak, while the lighter is ideal for a robe.”

“Or choosing a weapon that’s best suited for combat,” Garret suggested eagerly. “At close quarters a sword or axe is too awkward. Only a dagger will do.”

“Or this!” Eochan boasted, holding out his fist.

Maire chuckled along with everyone else in earshot. It was so unlike her eldest foster brother to brag. Declan did enough for the two of them. But then this attraction between a man and a woman made even the most predictable of man unpredictable.

Or woman, for that matter.

That very morning, she’d awakened before the sun’s first light to find herself curled against her husband, tight enough to cramp a flea between them. Their blankets had been doubled
over them rather than wrapped separately about each as they’d started out the night before. There was enough land about the camp to graze dozens of cattle, yet she’d wound up next to Rowan, in his arms, no less! When she opened her eyes, his grin was the first sight to greet her. Rightly, she rolled away in an instant, but by the bite of the frost on the ground, she missed the warmth of their cozy nest.

The conversation at hand gave way to other topics as the clans took their meal. No small amount of admiration and speculation was centered on the two warhorses grazing nearby. Other men and women ventured to say who was best suited to the land and who to the sword or the livestock.

Rowan’s idea had germinated at least, Maire observed. Whether it would take root remained to be seen. It did sound good, but how long could this testy camaraderie last before someone came to blows?

The only way to build trust is to give one the chance to provide the building block for it.

Rowan’s words of the previous day rang true in her heart. Brude told her to follow her heart. Maire scooped up some of porridge with the scone one of the Cairthan women handed out and popped it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Her decision was made. There was no doubt in her mind the decision was good for Gleannmara. The problem lay in getting two peoples to accept it. As queen, however, she would stand by Rowan’s idea and personally run through the first rebel who tried to disrupt it!

“Look, a rider approaches, there, at the bottom of the slope!”

Maire and the others stood, staring in the direction young Garret pointed. Indeed, there was someone coming. His coming on horseback suggested the news he brought was urgent. One word, one name came to Maire’s mind, wiping out everything except the cold dread that seeped through her veins.

Morlach!

The messenger was from Erc of Drumkilly, Maire’s foster father. Morlach and Finnaid had passed through Declan and Eochan’s home tuath with an entourage headed for Tara. It was Morlach’s intent to appeal to the high king for justice regarding Maire’s keeping Gleannmara from his clutches by marrying Rowan instead of him. His honor had been insulted. The good faith with which he’d invested his time and money in running Gleannmara while Maire came of age deserved more than being forbidden to set foot on its land by some hostage, a stranger taken and married by the queen to keep Morlach from his just reward. The druid expected to extract an honor price at the least, if not have Maire’s marriage dissolved. She had married someone else while under royal contract to him.

“But there was no contract. I pledged nothing!” Fury consumed Maire’s voice. “If I owe the blackguard anything, it’s my sword through his heart for what he’s done here!”

“If he has a heart,” Garret remarked dourly. “The druid has done us both much harm.”

Lorcan was even less optimistic. “Aye, but who will petition the high king against him?” He turned to Rowan. “Boils and satire is one thing, but if Morlach wins Diarhmott’s support, the Uí Niall and the Cairthan can marry to the last couple, for all the good it will do when they die to last couple as well.”

Rowan closed his eyes for a moment, as if steeling himself. Or was he talking to his god? Maire shivered, wondering if the god came as spirit or man in an invisible cloak.

“I don’t believe Diarhmott will take up arms against us, if we can convince him that there is more to this matter than politics, that it’s a spiritual matter as well. He has a Christian wife and the support of Armagh.”

Declan sneered. “Think ye a wife and a cluster of priests will sway the king against a druid as powerful as Morlach?”

Rowan smiled. “But Diarhmott will not be going against a
woman or an old priest. He’ll be going against their God, the one God. And that, good people, he will not do.”

“He’s no Christian!” Lorcan declared. “And Morlach helped him to power.”

“Along with Maeve and the Niall,” Maire pointed out, not about to let the druid take all he glory. She wished she had the same self-assurance Rowan conveyed. She wished Brude were here. He’d know what to do. Perhaps she should send for the druid.

“But ’twas an Armagh bishop, I think, that presided with the druid over his coronation,” Ciara put in.

Garret backed her up, grinning. “Aye, the old man nearly put his staff through the king’s foot, so I hear.”

Rowan stepped up on one of the stone benches situated around the campfire.

“Enough!” he shouted, silencing the individual discussions of speculation that ensued. “I will go to the high king myself to present Gleannmara’s case.” He glanced down at Maire and held out his hand. “Will you go with me, little queen?”

Maire pulled herself up on the flat rock with it. “Aye, I’ll go with my king. And I’ll tell Diarhmott of how well Morlach cared for my land and its people!” She turned to Lorcan. “And will you go to speak for the Cairthan?”

Garret jumped up in his father’s place before the older man could make up his mind. “I will! I am the aiccid.”

Lorcan was not as eager, nor as convinced as the others who volunteered to follow Rowan to Tara. He stared at his brother as though looking through the man, but his answer was nowhere to be found. Ciara put a hand on his arm.

“Let me go with him, son.”

“Nay, Maithre, your legs—” Rowan started.

“I’ll ride,” the lady answered, cutting him off. “Aching bones is the least of my worries.”

“Aye, like as not, Morlach told Drumkilly of his plans so that Rowan and his queen would hasten to Tara as well to rebuke him.”

Lorcan shoved himself to his feet, the slowness of his rising telling that the same cold, which bothered his mother, had begun to plague him too.

“But no soul from Gleannmara will ever see Tara,” he predicted eerily. “I’d wager my sword hand he plans an attack.”

“And I’ll wager mine that we will be expecting it,” Rowan countered. “But we will reach Tara, and I will win Diarhmott’s neutrality, if not his support.”

“Then you go, but neither our mother nor my son will go with you.”

“Father!”

The rebellious fire in Ciara’s gaze took Lorcan back.

“I’ll not be told by the son I bore into this world and reared from a squallin’ pup what to do.”

“Do what ye will then, but that squallin’ pup—” he pointed to Garret—“will not be goin’.”

“I’m just gone sixteen! I’ve a right to make my own decisions, Da!” Garret stepped next to Rowan. “And I’m goin’ with the king, if he’ll have me.”

“Ye’d risk my only child on this god of yours?” Lorcan challenged his brother.

“I’d say the risk is up to him to take. He carries himself with reason beyond his years, from what I’ve seen.”

“Then I’ll go!”

Broad, thin shoulders dropping in resignation, Lorcan turned from his son’s defiant pose and extended his right hand to Rowan. “I lost his mother to Morlach’s greed, and I robbed my mother of one of her own born. Crom Cruach’s shadow has blighted my days ever since.”

A handshake not quite enough, Lorcan embraced his younger brother fully. “Have a care with them, Rowan of Gleannmara, and go in the light of this god of yours. Succeed, and the Cairthan will do whatever you think is best for Gleannmara.” He cleared his throat and backed away, but the blur in his eyes was not one of tenderness but threat.