by Erin O'Quinn
She stood up and went to the fire grate, bringing back a small tea cauldron and pouring us another cup.
“Um, Bree—do you—er, approve of my naming Michael to go to Inishowen? I truly feel that I should not have spoken until I talked to both of you.”
“You are who you are, dear Cay. You spoke the obvious. No one but Michael could design and start Owen’s new holdings. And it needed to happen soon, not some ambiguous time in the future. All you did was set a bit of a fire under our bums.”
“Tell me something of your father, Brigid. You have mentioned that he is a ‘brehon’—but I am not sure I even know what that means. A man who studies the law?”
“Well, my friend, my father could stand at the side of kings and demand a king’s fortune just to stand there. For he is equally a brehon—a judge—and an ollamh—a scholar and bard. He could also be a druid if the fancy took him, for he has the knowledge and training—but he has not the temperament. I am thankful for that, because a druid with a Christian daughter may have to look behind his own shoulder a bit too often.”
I settled back. “Tell me how he became a judge and a scholar. And tell me what poems he has written.”
She laughed with real joy. “Ah, I would love to talk about him. My father’s name is Cian O’Ceallaigh. It is easier to say ‘O’Kelley’—that is the name I used in Britannia. His father and his father before him, et cetera ad nauseam, all come from the area around Meath and the lands close to the Lough Neagh.
“The interesting part, Caylith, is that our family is related to the high king’s most powerful ollamh, the famous Dubthach Mac Lugair. He is everywhere called ‘Dubthach of the Lake,’ and I grew up calling him ‘Uncle Dub.’ That seems humorous to me now that I am grown, because Dub is a formidable man who frightens most people who encounter him. But he did not frighten a little girl.”
“We did not meet him when we were in Tara.”
“No, Cay. I think if he had been there, Father Patrick would never have been so rudely hauled before Leary. But then, perhaps the famous reversal of Leary and the baptism of his close family would never have taken place. Everything happens for a reason.
“Where was I? Ah, Dubthach—he made it possible for my father and me to go to Britannia, right after Mother died. There we both studied at one of the finest schools in the civilized world—the great Biblio-kathedra of Londinium. Father studied for more years than he needed to achieve the triple laurel—the offices of brehon, ollamh, and druid. Even though it has become an office based on birth, the scholar still must study the brehon law for at least twelve years.”
“You mean you are in line to be ollamh, too, Brigid? Or even a brehon?”
“Yes, Caylith. Even I—if I so choose, and if I continue a few more years of study. Anyway, Father was given a large tract of land on the Lough Neagh to practice his calling, and it will become mine if I choose to follow his practice when—after, um—when he is gone.”
“I can see why your father would be loath to move away.”
“Exactly. If Father were to come here, his home and all his land would have to be taken over by one of our kinsmen to keep it from being forfeit by lack of tenancy.”
“You have not told me about your father’s poetry.”
She laughed softly. “Father has studied two years beyond the requirement for being a bard. The bards—the filid—have been renowned for centuries for their ability to compose poems as they stand there, all from their fertile imaginations, and to recite all the tales of the ancient people and all the fathers of the fathers of all the kings of Éire. So the poetry is endless, and beautiful, and true to the spirit of Éire and the history of our fair land.
“Some of it, Cay, is about the land itself—the leaping deer, the soaring swans, the sacred oaks. And some of it is what they call ‘lampoon’ or ‘satire,’ poetry spoken extempore to curse or place an affliction on an enemy. And still other poetry is a retelling of old tales and old beliefs with characters from this very day or with the flavor of our everyday speech.”
“Like your story of Queen Maeve and her bedmate.”
She did not even blush. “Exactly! That is what a bard can do, yet all in complicated verse.”
“Brigid, I can hardly believe I know a woman so accomplished. You yourself could stand next to the high king and demand a fortune.’
“Yet there is no fortune so great as what I have already. My husband, first. And my dear friends.”
I stood and walked to her bench. We hugged each other for a long moment, and I thought I saw just the edge of a bright tear on her cheek.
“Cay, are you feeling a bit better about—what we spoke of two days ago?”
“I am trying to dedicate every loving thought, every action, to my Liam.”
“That is admirable, Cay. But remember, you need to stay yourself—unique and bold, aggravating and unpredictable.”
I laughed at that. “I think I will never overcome those faults. So I guess I will be fine. Oh, Brigid, I will say fare well for now. I, too, cherish our friendship. Be sure to talk with me before you leave.”
“I will, my friend. We will see each other at church and at the Triús meeting. Slán.”
Outside, I seized the pommel of Clíona’s saddle, wondering how much longer I would be able to leap astride one of my horses without a small, portable ladder. I turned her reins to leave and saw Murdoch standing no more than twenty feet away.
I knew my face was suddenly flushed, and I inwardly cursed my inability to disguise my feelings or to keep my thoughts from my eyes. I was still upset at myself, knowing that I had deserved Murdoch’s scolding. And I felt hugely guilty for introducing him to Persimmon. He had every right to revile me and refuse to help me at all. Above all, I knew he still had deep feelings for me. Confusion began to cloud my mind and speech.
“Um, hello,” I said lamely.
“Dia duit, a Cháit.” He stood there, hands at his sides, looking at me as if I were a goat in a sheepfold.
“Conas tá tú—are you well?” I asked, urging Clíona forward with my knees to where he stood, wishing he would turn and leave.
“I am. And you?”
“Tá mé go maith.” And then I sat there, waiting for him to make some sign of leaving, or to say something intelligent I could respond to. When he did not speak, I said, “Michael may be ready to leave for the bay in a week or so.”
“Yes. He and I have spoken. I will go with him.”
“Then I suppose there is no other news. If you will excuse me, my friend, I am on my way to—to see my husband at the bally trench.” I knew not what made me lie, but after all, I could be on my way there. I loved seeing Liam when he did not expect me, and he always seemed to enjoy it, too.
“Is that why you are dressed in such a beguiling way, Cate?”
What insolence! Try as I might, I could not keep the anger from my voice. “How does my dress concern you? Not to be rude, but—but you are treading again on ground that you need to stay far away from. I appreciate everything you have promised to do for me—for me and Liam and my mother—but do not mistake gratitude for something else.”
With that I firmly dug my knees into Clíona and left him still standing looking like his sister’s apt description—a melancholy wolfhound.
As I rode, I knew I needed to rein in my emotions if I was going to greet Liam. He would be able to read my face as though it were a parchment writ with foot-high letters. I stopped my mare and sat for a few moments, breathing deeply, centering myself. Why had Murdoch set me to shaking inside? Why was I needlessly cruel? It was as though he were my confessor, my conscience, at a time when I needed a friend like Brigid or Brindl, someone who could understand and feel a measure of empathy.
I breathed more and more slowly until I felt a sweet calmness steal into my heart. Let me see Liam. Let me go home and kneel in the garden. Let me give myself to the blue sky and cooling breeze.
I turned Clíona’s head in the direction of the bally trench, thin
king about Liam and about our coming child, letting the disturbing sight of Murdoch become part of the deeper shadows still crouched in my heart.
Chapter 14:
Of Men and of Angels
The morning of the Sabbath was always special, for it was the one day of the week when Liam could be somewhat of a slugabed with no worries about being late to the worksite. The church service was always two hours after sunrise, an early hour to many people but sinfully late to Liam and me.
I woke slowly, stretching a bit, seeing Liam’s back and his tousled hair in the wavering candlelight. My eyes traveled to his tight buttocks, and I felt a flaring of heat between my legs. I reached out as though to touch his muscled shoulder and then withdrew my hand, loath to wake him. As though sensing my sudden need for closeness, Liam rolled over to me and began to trace my mouth with his forefinger.
“Maidin mhaith. Is tú mo ghrá.” He spoke the words in a sleepy, husky tone of voice that made my stomach flutter a bit. I captured his finger in my mouth as he knew I would, and I began to suck on it slowly, up and down. I saw that the provocative movement of my mouth caused his groin to spring to life, and he groaned low in his throat.
“Liam, love, I love you. Dia dhuit ar maidin.” I pressed my body into his, and we began to explore each other’s mouth with a slow purpose, our searching hands greedy for the other’s soft skin.
Our lovemaking started slow and drowsy. I made sure my vulnerable breasts were covered with our light blanket, for once they were exposed, I knew the flames would become a bonfire.
His hands found my breasts under the cover, and his fingertips began to play with my nipples as we kissed. “Oh, Cat, what is this? Mmmn, let me taste.”
For years, I had hidden my breasts, thinking them unattractive—especially after they began to swell, the nipples at first larger than the breasts themselves. When Liam first met me, they were flattened under my deerskin tunic, and it was only after several months, on board the longship Brigid, that I finally allowed him to see and touch them.
I learned then that hiding them, and then letting them be discovered, was a huge source of pleasure. And so Liam had learned the game early on, pretending to find them under a bit of lace, or beneath a rough blanket. The pursuit itself aroused me as surely as if he had already caressed them.
At that moment, as his fingertips tightened on my nipples, the pleasure was immediate and intense, and I let him know it. “Darling, Liam, suck me,” I moaned into his mouth. He very gradually brought his mouth to the top of the coverlet, using his teeth to uncover them, as though they were ripe fruit ready for the feasting.
He managed to take in half of one breast and then, slowly and deliberately, draw his mouth off, ending with his soft mouth and tongue playing with the nipple. “Now the other,” I whispered and I rolled a bit to allow him to seize the other breast. The more he sucked, the more my pleasure mounted, and soon I was bucking like a wild mountain pony. “Now, now put it in,” I gasped, and suddenly he was inside me, kneeling over me, his hands firmly gripping my buttocks.
“Speak to me, Cat. Tell me what you want,” he teased, pausing in his in-and-out motion until I fairly shouted my greed for more. His hardness inside me became the center of my universe, and I told him what to do with his raging weapon.
Hearing the blunt words of desire, he plunged and moaned until, a few minutes later, we were both shouting our urgent need. The torrent of pleasure was hot and long lasting, and I pressed my groin hard against him until the tremors ceased.
Later, his mouth against my ear, Liam murmured, “Cat. Your breasts…getting bigger. Hardly room in me mouth.”
“Really?” I was surprised, for they felt the same to me. “The child inside,” I told him. “The child needs more.”
“I need more, too, a Cháit,” he said, and he began to lick my ear.
I embraced him fondly. “Yes, oh yes. Later, my love. Let us go now to the river, and then to church.”
* * * *
Sundays were special for another reason. They allowed us to hear inspiring words through the mouths of either Brother Galen or Brother Jericho. We were fortunate that both men had a gift for expression and for stirring thought and wonder in their listeners.
This fine young summer day had brought our church to near capacity. I sat with Liam, my hand on his léine-clad thigh, admiring the way he looked in his handsome tunic, made of light wool and silk. It was blue as a robin’s egg, and the trailing sleeves seemed to shimmer, all rose and saffron, in the light pouring through the open windows.
That was the tunic he had worn right here, last October, when we joined in marriage along with Michael and Brigid. Whenever he wore it, my mind replayed the wedding, the festive gathering afterward, and finally the release of all the desire that had built inside us from the beginning of our time together. As if reading my thoughts, Liam looked down at me, his mouth twisted in the little smile that told me he was deeply amused—and aroused, too. He placed his large warm hand over mine, and we watched our friend Brother Galen slowly approach the raised altar.
Brother Galen, born Séamas Gallagher, was a hillock of a man—no, a very mountain of a man. He wore no belt around his midsection, for the sheer size of his gut would have made any tie a mere decoration. He turned to face the gathering, and his tonsured head gleamed in the sunlight. Long, black curls hung from the area around his ears as though to make up for lack of hair on the top.
He seemed to roll his deep, dark eyes and his lively brows played on his face as he opened his mouth and addressed the crowd.
“The Lord greets ye and sends his love to enfold ye. He bids me talk this morning of something we all know, we all feel. But how often do we feel it when we think of the Lord?
“That word is love—an grá—the one word we think we know better than any other. For do we not love our wife? Our husband? Our children and our family? We all know that love is the emotion we feel that bids us to cleave one to the other and to obey God’s call to go forth and multiply.
“But what of love for the Lord and from the Lord? What does it mean?”
He lifted his head and looked around the room as though challenging us to answer his question. The great room was so silent that we could clearly hear the call of birds as they dallied in the oaks outside.
“I will tell ye, in the words of the apostle Paul. For Paul wrote an epistle to the Lord’s church in Corinth, a city of the Greeks. He was trying to teach the people to lift themselves from sin, to cleanse their souls, to be more spiritual. And he spoke of love, and these are his very words.”
Galen’s voice rose and boomed and resounded through the clay round-house, and everyone there sat forward tensely, waiting for the next word to fall.
Even if I speak with the tongue of men and of angels—if I have not love, then me tongue is dull as brass, me words as light as cymbals. Even if I had the gift of prophecy, so that I could understand all mysteries and all the world’s knowledge, and even if I had so much faith that I could move mountains—even so, if I have not love, I am as nothing.
And what if I gave all I have to feed the poor? And if I gave my body up in sacrifice? If I have not love, then my acts hold no meaning.
What then is love? Love is long suffering and it is kind. It takes no pride in itself. It behaves not unseemly. Love thinks no evil thought. Love rejoices not in wrong doing but rejoices in the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
So these three gifts abide forever—faith, hope, love. Creidamh…dóchas…grá. But the greatest of these is love.
“Put away Paul’s words in your hearts, O me beloved friends. The next time ye think of turning your back on one less fortunate than ye—think of the love of the Lord. When ye seek for your haggard to hold more hay than your neighbor’s, when ye feel pride that your léine is spun of finer wool, when ye lift your voice to revile another—think of the love of the Lord. For his love is not worldly, but spiritual. His
love is not fleeting, but eternal. Ye cannot be God, but ye can seek to be as pure in his eyes as ye can possibly be.
“Let me end by saying, plain for all to see and hear. I love ye. Each one, every one of ye, with a sublime love that the Lord seeks to instill in me. And may ye in return love your fellow man, and love the Lord, forever and ever.”
Then he bowed his head, and his last word was as heartfelt as the rest. “Amen.”
After a long moment of silence, every soul in the room repeated the same word. Amen.
Later, after the holy mass, Liam and I lingered in the churchyard, exchanging words with our friends. Owen was not here, but Moc and Swallow walked up to us, and we all embraced.
Swallow drew me apart a little. “Oh, Cay,” she said, “I feel suddenly small and humbled, thinking of the holy love of God. How will I ever fill my heart with an emotion so pure and unselfish?”
“We are mortals, my friend. We can only hope to try. I think my Liam is far beyond my own shallow ability to love. But I can watch him and learn from him.” I thought of his humble reaction last year to Sweeney’s hateful bile and his recent feelings about punishing the savage defilers who had taken Mama. Those same feelings of love beyond love seemed to come naturally to him, and I was often left wondering at his capacity for forgiveness.
“I think Lugh is the same,” she said, referring to Torin. “He seems to have a kind of—of honorable purpose that leaves me wondering, and even sometimes resentful.”
I hugged her little shoulders. “We cannot be angels.”
I looked up and noticed, at a distance, Luke walking with Quince. Next to them were Murdoch and Persimmon. I suddenly felt relieved, gratified that Murdoch had perhaps started to open up to another woman, and I found myself hoping for his happiness. Love rejoices in the truth. I said a quick little prayer to Father Patrick. “Please, Father, open his heart to real love.”
