Maire (35 page)

“Just because there’s a law against fighting, doesn’t mean a woman shouldn’t be prepared,” Maire said hotly.

And it
was
hot. Her leine, her breastplate, full armor,
and
the heavy linen gown with its braid and embroidery were about to render her like a fire did fat, but there was no way she could ride in her wedding dress and launch a spear with any hope of accuracy.

“And just the feel of that heavy velvet is enough make me drop from heat.”

“But ’twill feel good this winter, Maire,” Ciara reminded her gently. “We’re to purchase enough material for your wardrobe and it must consist of both heavy and light fabric—”

“And all royal,” Elsbeth chimed in. “Our queen will be the prettiest and best dressed in all of Erin, or I don’t know which end of a needle is sharp.”

Sure, she’d rather prepare for battle than set up a household. The dry goods and utensils of Gleannmara’s hall and kitchens had been poorly kept. The list Ciara and Elsbeth compiled would take the whole three days of the fair to fill at this rate. Wishing she’d listened more to her foster mother Maida, Maire squared her chin and braced for action.

“All right then, let’s get this done. I’ve a mind to practice on Tamar before the afternoon games,” she said, cutting off any protest in the making amid the cluster of women. “Ciara, I’m giving you command of my wardrobe. Take Lianna with you and purchase as you please.”

“But don’t you want to see—”

“I trust in your judgment. And Elsbeth…” Maire turned toward the plump matron. “Fill the list of things needed for the hall and take care to pay a fair price.” She handed the woman a
coin pouch. “Get only what we
must
have. We’ll have more to spend after the harvest.”

Elsbeth sputtered. “B… but shouldn’t you approve everything?”

“I’m a queen, not a steward. Brona?”

The dark-haired girl stepped out of the entourage expectantly. “Aye, milady.”

“Replenish what herbs and roots we need for the sick. Medwyn, supervise the cooks’ purchases.”

“I’ll let them buy nothing that can be grown in our own soil.”

Maire nodded in approval at her captains. Perhaps running a household wasn’t so different than planning a battle after all. “If any of you have a problem, I’ll be with the horses.” A wistful smile settle on her lips. “Or with my king.”

Riding Tamar was like riding the wind, Maire thought later as she raced the magnificent warhorse toward the target. If one was in concert with it, it contributed to the speed and ease of the journey. Out of sync, it became a fight that slowed and exhausted the rider.

With nimble fingers, Maire turned the smooth lance in her hand and tightened her grip as the mare approached the bale of hay with its painted canvas cover. One, two, three!

Maire launched the spear, sending it straight to the center. As the audience erupted in huzzahs and whistles, she raised both fists over her head in triumph. Guiding the horse out of the small roped off arena with her knees, she beamed at the tall, dark-haired king of Gleannmara.

Time was, it was Brude’s approval she sought, or Erc’s, but no more. Maire wanted to please Rowan and his God.

“She rides as if on air, rather than earth,” Maire called to him. She’d shed her dress for the competition, and the shock on his face alone had been worth suffering in the heat of the excess clothing. Although, if Rowan’s look was any more stirring, she’d swoon like a sun-sick maid.

“So do you.” He reached up to help Maire down from the mare, teasing, “I’m hard pressed to decide which of you is more magnificent.”

“I’ll keep that in mind tonight, when ye come snugglin’ up to me, whisperin’ sweetlings in my ear.”

The chief of the Murragh rode into the arena on a shaggy steed, his brat beneath him for a blanket and his hairy chest damp with dust and sweat. Earlier, he and his clan had competed heartily in a game of football that left members of both teams bleeding and bandaged. The Murragh’s knee was wrapped tight from a fray of kicking and tumbling just before the end of the game, but the clan emerged victorious.

Balancing the spear in his right arm, the clan chief kneed the wiry horse forward. It responded with a lunge that might have unseated a lesser skilled rider, but the Murragh leaned into ride, poised and ready. When the time was right, he threw the weapon. The crack of Maire’s spear announced the dead-on hit, and the crowd went wild. With a wide grin belaying his nod of deference to the queen of Gleannmara, he trotted out of the arena.

“Looks like Gleannmara will have to ride again,” Rowan observed, tongue in cheek.

Her eyes dancing, Maire met his mischief with her own. “And ride I will!”

She broke into a short run and vaulted up on Tamar’s back, light as a feather. “Declan,” she shouted playfully, “do ye think ye might tear yourself away from Lianna and the lasses long enough to hand me another spear?”

With a sweeping bow, her foster brother complied. “At my queen’s command, though ye’ve met your match in Murragh. He rides as though he was fathered by a horse.”

“Then I’ll have to ride better, won’t I?”

“Show this dolt what a woman can do when she puts her mind to it, milady,” Lianna called out to her.

Maire wondered where Brona had gotten to, for it was the
darker lass she thought had won Declan’s fancy, not Lianna. After a quick visual search of the crowd, Maire spied the other girl watching not far from where they stood. Like a shadow, not in the forefront, but always there… and always watching.

Was she jealous? Maire wondered. It was as easy to read druid Ogham marks as it was Brona’s face. Try as she might, Maire could no more warm to the girl than she could a cromlech.

Oblivious to all but the adoring attention of Lianna, Declan leaned, whispering wickedly into the young woman’s ear. Suddenly she slapped at him halfheartedly, drawing Maire’s full attention.

“That’s
not
the kind of ridin’ I was referrin’ to, ye randy cur!”

What could Maire say? It was spring. For the first time in her life, she understood the wry humor behind the excuse men and women gave for their foolraide. With a bold wink at Rowan, she rode Tamar back into the arena. To accustom the mare to the boundaries, she made a circle, well aware that Tamar paraded her mane and tail like banners of pride.

And well she had a right too, for back at the makeshift stable her four-week-old foal slept in a pile of fresh straw. Rowan had been offered a king’s ransom for it, but little Sidhe was not for sale. Shahar’s services, however, promised to more than replenish the coin in Gleannmara’s coffers.

“One more ride, darlin’, and it’s back to your baby,” Maire promised, bringing the horse up at the opposite end of the arena from the new target some men had just put in place.

At the slightest pressure of her knees, Tamar leapt forward with the grace of a deer. Two strides later, Maire vaulted to her feet, standing on the horse’s back. A spontaneous mix of shouts and applause rose around the arena, but neither horse nor rider flinched. Two more contacts with the whispering earth and she posed, spear raised, and counted off the number of lopes until its release. Four, three, two, one, hurl!

Straight into the center of the target it went. The roar of
approval shook the banners flying from the various clan campsites. There wouldn’t be a bird left within a day’s riding distance, Maire thought, deafened and delighted at the same time. As Tamar trotted out of the arena, she leapt into Rowan’s waiting arms.

“Don’t drop me!” she laughed, as his knees buckled with the impact of her weight.

“Have I ever let you down yet, muirnait?” He kissed her lightly.

Maire returned the affection as fiercely as she’d competed, drawing it out till need of breath would permit no more. She scarcely noted the Murragh Chief take off his hat and swing it in her direction, conceding the contest, nor did she pay heed to the horns announcing her triumph. Her eyes and ears were for the man who made her feel as though there was no higher purpose in life than love.

“Nay, beloved, never.”

That night, when couples wandered from the music and stories abounding at the campfires of the gathered clans, Maire and Rowan were among them. It was spring and the sky was a star-studded blanket of midnight blue over a bed of new grass. No longer were they king and queen of Gleannmara, but God’s children, laughing and playing, free of inhibition and sharing as one their passion and love, their dreams and plans.

“By the stars, Emrys, if that thing chills me one more time, I’ll strangle ye with it!” Maire took Rowan’s amulet and slinging it over his back once more. “’Tis like trying to warm up to body with a cold stone between us!”

“Then by all means, little queen, I’ll take it off.” In one sweep, he removed the amulet and tossed it over his shoulder, then pulled Maire against his chest.

Heartbeat to heartbeat, Maire caught her breath and struggled in the sweet, warm mire of his embrace. “But isn’t that like throwin’ away your God?”

“Ah, Maire, how I love telling you of God’s ways and sharing
in His love.” Rowan buried his face in the curve of her neck, nuzzling like a hungry colt.

Concentration on whatever wisdom he was about to impart was all but impossible.

“God is not in that metal disc or in things of this earth, muirnait. He lives within our souls.” He pulled away suddenly. “Do you understand?”

This God made the metal, but He wasn’t in it. He made man and woman, but He
was
in them. What chance did a mere queen ever have of knowing all about Him, when even Brude, a learned druid, was now a student? Maire would never understand it all, but she was in no humor for a lecture. She chose her words carefully.

“Understanding or nay, I believe what ye say.”

“If I didn’t know your heart, Maire of Gleannmara, I’d think you a wicked woman.”

The light of the moon played upon the toe-curling look Rowan gave her. He knew she was evading the issue, but he was no more in the notion for a sermon than she. His longing gaze betrayed him.

Maire ventured a coy smile. “If it’s wicked to love my husband, then, aye, I’m as wicked as they come.”

The rakish tilt of her companion’s mouth faded, and Maire’s pulse skipped and sank. Had she said something wrong? Sure, it was in keeping with the very vows of her Christian marriage, wasn’t it?

Rowan seized her by the arms, gentle, but no less firm. His voice cracked with the fierceness of his emotion. “Then believe this, muirnait. I will let nothing of this earth come between us.”

With that, he took her into his arms and kissed her, sealing his vow with an urgency that was as delightful as it was infectious.

In the distance a night bird sang a lullaby to its young, but Maire paid it no heed. She was listening, instead, to the singing of her heart.

M
aire guided Tamar around the bountiful fields spreading out from the rath. Nearby Tamar’s colt frolicked, kicking up its heels, running ahead and then back at the mare’s sharp whinny. Little yellow ducklings scrambled after their mother in the pond where the framework of a mill had been started.

Rowan met a miller at the fair, who’d lost his place to fire. With no funds or manpower to rebuild, the man gladly agreed to move to Gleannmara, where all pitched in toward the building of the structure to serve the tuath.

Now that more land had been cleared with tillable soil to provide a good harvest for Cairthan and Niall, a mill nearby would be needed. The hard work made the blending of the two clans go more smoothly, for at the day’s end, the men and women were too tired to quarrel. If only Rowan were there to warm her nights, life would be perfect.

Instead, at the onset of lambing season, he’d returned to the tuath’s highlands to mediate peace after Eochan had come with the news of trouble. Since watching the cattle did not require as much energy as the fieldwork and building, the king had work in mind that would take the quarrel out of the two peoples. She imagined by now the men were putting up makeshift fences across natural enclosures. to keep the beasts from wandering, as well as from being easy prey for wolves of animal and human nature. It would also take some time to improve on the lodgings or lack of them.

Maire had no doubt that it was duty alone that took him
from her, for he demonstrated his reluctance to leave over and over in the most agreeable of ways. Indeed, marriage agreed with her. Had she known how well, she’d have been more eager for it. Speaking to God, however, was more difficult.

It wasn’t voicing her thoughts that plagued Maire, but the fact that this God didn’t talk back like a person. He revealed His presence and will through all manner of things, which left Maire at wit’s end to figure what was normal and what wasn’t. Overhead the trees at the edge of the Sacred Grove rustled with the breeze, calming as a lullaby. Was that God singing to her? She wished Rowan or Brude were here to ask.

“G’day, milady.”

Maire had been so caught up in her musings, she hadn’t seen Lianna emerge from the grove with sticks and kindling for the fires.

“May the sun shine on you for all of it, lass.”

Lianna managed a hint of a smile, no more.

“You’re not feeling well these days, are ye, Lianna?”

Not only was Lianna’s ever-present smile missing, but so was the rose in her cheeks. Indeed, circles darkened beneath her eyes, which were lacking in their usual luster.

“Sure, I’ve felt better. My feet grow heavier with each passing day, it seems.”

Maire slid off Tamar to spare Lianna the long walk back to the rath. “Then climb up on Tamar and give your feet
and
my buttocks a rest.”

“Oh no, my queen. I couldn’t!”

“I’m queen in ruling Gleannmara, but as a friend, I’m just Maire. This title is starting to wear on my nerves.” Maire took the bundle from Lianna. “Now up with ye.”

In truth, being a queen was lonely without her king. Not that
any
king would do.

“Now, tell me cousin, how is it that we’re related?” She held her hands so that the weary lass might vault up on Tamar’s wide back. Actually Maire knew their family connection, but
she wanted to get the young woman to relax.