“I will do that, and much more. Good night to you, Father.”
Walking slowly with his men, the king left the hall, and then the music stopped. The servants began to gather up the plates and food and wine and to blow out the burning rush lights.
Brendan took Muriel’s hand and placed it on his arm. “It is time for you to go to your home,” he said. “To our home.”
She looked up at him and started to speak, but the words seemed caught in her throat. Instead she gave him a slight nod, held tight to his arm with her fingers, and walked with him out the door and into the heavy air of the summer night.
The sky was not entirely dark. Beyond the stone walls of the dun, out on the sand and ashes at the edge of the cliff where this day they had made their marriage contract, a great orange ball of flame rolled and billowed in the night. Sparks flew upward from it as the huge logs burned through and went crashing down into the heart of the flames.
“There is no mistaking when the summer solstice comes around,” said Brendan, looking up at the brilliant light high on the cliffs. “Everyone in the kingdom can see that bonfire, whether it burns at midsummer, or Lughnasa, or the autumn equinox, or any of the other festivals that make up the wheel of the year.”
Muriel nodded. “It was the same at home. The great fires are lit all across the country so that everyone will know what day it is—especially this one, the longest day of the year.”
Her husband turned her around so that she faced the other way, and pointed to the south. “Look there, across the bay. All the way across. Do you see it?”
Far out in the darkness was a small orange dot, and she caught her breath as she realized what it was. “Oh,” she said. “That is the midsummer fire of Dun Farraige!”
Brendan nodded. His hand was warm where it rested on her shoulder. “So many times I have seen it burn, never realizing that it was at your home and that the light I saw was yours…and now I am watching it here beside you. I hope that we will always watch these fires together, for as long as we live.”
Muriel smiled and reached up to press her hand against his. “Over the years, I, too, have watched this same fire that burns here now, just as you have watched mine at my home across the bay.”
This time Brendan turned her to face him. “Yet this place is home now. Your home…my home.” He bent close to her, and his soft hair brushed her cheek as his lips found hers. Her husband kissed her, gently and for a long time, and then they walked together to the house that was now theirs.
Brendan’s dwelling lay on the far side of the fortress, between the King’s Hall and the flat open space that led to the sheer cliffs overhanging the sea. Muriel had stayed in a room in the hall upon her arrival, and so, on this night, she was walking into her new home for the very first time.
Her husband held the heavy wooden door for her as she stepped carefully inside, lifting the hem of her skirts as she stepped over the threshold and onto the thick cover of clean, dried rushes. The house was softly lit by glowing coals in the central hearth, and by two seashell lamps sitting on shelves on either side of the room.
“Here is your home, my lady wife,” Brendan said, walking inside and pulling the door closed behind him. “Take your time and look around, and see that everything is in its place and all is to your liking. If there is the smallest thing that you might wish for, you have only to ask for it.”
She smiled up at him, and her heart beat faster at the thought that she stood in a house that was hers to arrange however she wished…a house that was entirely hers and Brendan’s. She was alone in her own home with the man she loved, the man who was now her husband.
Muriel took a step onto the rushes, and then another. This house was much larger than the one she had shared with Alvy back at Dun Farraige. That dwelling had been a bit crowded at times when her two sisters had been there with her, in the days before they had married. They had been three lively young women sharing a crowded and cozy space, laughing and working and living side by side together, year after happy year, until first one married, and then the other…and then the laughing stopped.
Muriel continued her slow walk along the curving wall. It was in perfect repair, white and smooth with new clay. And so much room! It would take the rest of the night to make the circuit, so large did it seem.
She ran her fingers over the things along the wall: iron tongs and hooks for preparing meat, bronze cauldrons shining in the hearth light, plates and cups of polished wood for everyday use and of gold for special occasions.
Tall leather screens, framed in wood, created a separate room at the back of the round house. She peered past these screens and saw that a third seashell lamp rested high in a niche set into the wall, casting its soft and wavering light over the thick furs and cushions heaped on the wide sleeping ledge.
Past the screens were three large wooden chests. One was for Brendan, and the others she had brought from her former home, filled with her own neatly folded cloaks and gowns and her good leather boots and belts. All of her golden jewelry was stored here too, including the sea-dragon torque Brendan had given to her.
That would wait until the day of his kingmaking, for it was meant as a queen’s torque, and she was not yet—
Muriel willed herself to keep moving. In a moment she found herself at the smooth wooden ledge beneath the open western window, where her water mirror sat waiting. The bronze basin was dry and empty now, cold and dark in the shadows of the house.
She touched the tip of her smallest finger to its cool, dry rim, running it lightly over the metal edge and listening to the faint singing of the bronze. She could still hear it, as she always had; the singing told her that the mirror was alive and in tune with her, even now at the dark of the moon.
For a moment she felt a small amount of relief. She had listened to her heart and married Brendan, who was not a king yet, and she still possessed her magic. But then a cold realization struck her: she had married him by legal contract, but nothing more.
Not yet. She would not truly be his wife until she gave herself to him, all of herself, here in their house in the candlelit bed that awaited them against the far wall.
Muriel backed away from the water mirror until stopped by the central hearth. Reaching back until she could feel the cool stone beneath her fingers, she stood, consumed by the rising beat of her heart and her ever-swifter intake of breath as Brendan slid the heavy bolt through the door and walked toward the back of the house.
He moved the screen aside, unfastened the gold dolphin brooch at his shoulder, and allowed his dark blue cloak to slide off his back. It dropped to the sleeping ledge among the furs. Reaching for his thick leather belt, he untied it from its golden ring and wrapped it around the scabbard that hung from it, placing both the belt and sword in the rushes on the floor.
“And how do you find your house?” he asked, walking back to her. He stood close, reaching out to brush a strand of her thick dark hair away from her face with one finger.
She closed her eyes at the gentle touch of his hand on her cheek. “It is a beautiful house,” she whispered, her eyelids fluttering a little as he began to stroke her cheek. “A perfect house. And I thank you for it.”
Brendan’s finger left her cheek, following the curve of her neck to the hollow of her shoulder, brushing away her hair once more and coming to rest on her back. He stepped closer, and in the soft glow of the hearth she saw his young and gentle face, with its strong jawline and smooth, fair skin and eyes of light blue and dark brown.
She reached for him in return, running her fingertips over the side of his powerful neck, marveling at how the skin was soft as the petal of a flower even while the cords beneath were strong as iron. Now it was his turn to close his eyes and breathe deep, to lean his head against her hand and then softly kiss her fingers with his lips.
“Brendan…”
He stepped toward her, and then she was held close in his arms, his broad chest pressed close against her own and the hard strength of h
is thigh locked firmly against her hip. “Muriel,” he whispered into the dark cloud of her hair. “I am the man who loves you. And now that I am your husband, I am free to show you that love—all of it. Let me show you the love I hold for you and for no other… Let us show each other…”
He reached down and lifted her up in his arms, and held her close as he carried her past the hearth toward the waiting bed.
For a moment she clung to him as he walked, hearing only his boots crushing the rushes underfoot and his quickened breath as he held her close. But as he lowered her down to the furs on the bed, she suddenly stiffened and moved away from him, pushing herself to the far side of the bed to sit with her back against the cold clay wall.
Brendan sat down on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, and smiled patiently at her. “There is nothing I would like more than to stay here with you this night, and give you the love that a husband gives to his wife Yet…we will have many more nights like this one. If you are not ready, I will wait for you until you are.”
She could only stare at him from the shadows, seeing his graceful form on the edge of the bed with one foot down in the rushes and the other pulled up so that his knee rested on the furs, his soft hair shining in the glow of the seashell lamp. He remained quiet, his hands folded together, waiting with great patience to see what she wished to do next.
Muriel sighed, then eased forward a little, away from the wall so that she sat near the center of the bed. “I am sorry,” she said, looking away from him. “It is not you that I fear. You are the man I love, and you are my husband. I wish… I wish that I could do this…but I am not sure that I ever can.”
He shifted slightly. “I can only tell you, my lady Muriel, that this is not the type of thing a husband would like to hear from his wife on the night of his wedding.”
“I understand, Brendan. But you must understand this: it is not you that I fear. It is the thought that I may have made a terrible mistake.”
She got up off the bed and walked away from him, around the far side of the hearth, until she reached the ledge beneath the open window where her water mirror rested. Brendan, too, got up from the bed and walked over to stand behind her.
“What mistake could you have made?” he asked, placing his hands lightly on her shoulders and trying to keep his voice light as well. “Are you not certain you have done as well as you could have in choosing a man?”
He laughed a little. “I will introduce you to a few of my cousins, and you can see how I compare. I am not so gifted with words as Lasairian, nor as handsome and golden-haired as Ailin, nor the possessor of as many gold wristbands and brooches and young bulls and heifers as Conaire…but perhaps you could still learn to accept me after all, and not think our marriage a mistake.”
She turned to him. “It is not you who is the mistake. I have never known any man as handsome or as strong or as kind as you are. There would be nothing easier for me than to walk to that bed with you and give you my love in the way that I have longed to do almost from the first day I met you.”
He shook his head, confused. “Surely there is nothing to stop us from doing so, then. We have married each other; there is no reason why we should not—”
Muriel abruptly stepped away from him. “Here is the reason, Brendan.” She touched the cool rim of the wide bronze basin, staring at its dark surface. “I told you of my sisters…”
“You did.”
“And you saw them.”
“I saw them.” He reached out and placed his fingers on her cheek, gently turning her face to look at him. “Do you still doubt me? You must have believed, today when we stood before the druids out there on the point above the sea, that I was the king you wanted to marry—else you would not have been there. Why do you doubt me now?”
She turned away again. “I did not doubt you before the ceremony began—but I cannot forget what happened all throughout the day, from the moment the reading began.”
He looked at her with a slight frown of disapproval. Quickly she went on. “At the first mention of your name, my dolphin brooch slipped from my shoulder and dropped to the mud. While trying to recite the contract, the druid lost his memory. At the mention of you as the tanist, the honeybee left her sting in your neck, right beneath your tanist’s torque. I fell hard to the earth just as I tried to walk across the threshold of the fortress that was to be my new home. And at my wedding feast, the sleeve of my gown went up in flames.”
Brendan sighed. “Muriel, as I said at the feast—such things happen from time to time. They can happen to anyone…”
“But never all at once.” She shook her head. “I have learned never to ignore the instructions of the natural world. Just one such omen can tell you more than all the wise old druids in Eire…and there was far more than just one such omen that came to us on this day.”
Her husband was silent for a time; then he glanced from Muriel to the empty water mirror. “You have married me,” he said. “Do your powers remain?”
She took a deep breath and stared down at the mirror. “I have no way of knowing whether they yet remain or not. There is no moon this night, and the water mirror comes to life only when the moon shines down upon it. But even if the moon were full and the sky were clear…” Muriel shook her head. “We are married only according to the laws that men created. We are not married in the true sense of a man and a woman, according to the laws of the natural world. It is not a marriage according to the natural laws. Not…not yet.”
He stood close behind her and embraced her, resting his head against her own. “Then come to me now, and we will make a marriage such as will leave you no doubt…and you will find that not only do your powers remain, but they are twice, three times what they were before, so true and so strong is the love that we will find in each other.”
She closed her eyes tightly. “Brendan, I cannot! If I had not married you this day, if we had simply given ourselves to each other for an evening’s warmth and little else…my power of magic might remain unaffected.
“But I married you under the law, and when I did every sign told me that I had married a man who was not a king and would never be a king. And now… though I love you… I am afraid—afraid to lose what I have, afraid to become what my sisters have become…and at this moment I do not know what to do.”
He released her and slowly moved back to sit down on the stone ledge surrounding his hearth. “My lady, I do not want you to be afraid. If nothing else, you must know that I have never spoken anything but the truth to you, in all things and at all times. If you are certain of nothing else, I hope you are certain of that.”
Muriel nodded her head. “I do understand. I thought all would be well, for I knew that you told the truth when you returned for me. That was when I saw for myself that you were indeed the tanist of Dun Bochna, one day to be its king. But that was before I saw the signs of the wedding day.”
She turned away and began to pace again. In a moment she found herself standing near the sleeping ledge, staring down at the sealskin furs that covered it. With some hesitation, she reached out to touch their softness. Then there was a rustling behind her and another touch at her arm.
“Muriel,” her husband whispered, “I must ask you this. Would it matter so much to you if I were not a king? Are you saying that you can love me only if I have the power and wealth that go with kingship?”
She raised her head but looked only at the flickering lamplight on the wall above the bed. “I loved you when you had nothing, Brendan. I loved you when none of us knew whether you were king or slave, when you had nothing at all to give me save a few bright flowers gathered from the cliffs.
“It is not a question of whether I can love you, for you know that I can, and that I have. It is a question of whether you can love me.”
Brendan turned away from her again, and she began to hear the anguish in his voice. “I stopped at nothing to bring you here, to have you for my wife, because you are the one I love! What else would you have m
e do? What else can I do to prove to you that—”
She turned to face him. “You saw my sisters! You saw what happened to them when they married men who were not kings. Would you have me become as they have become? Is that what you want in a wife—a woman who has no power, who has no magic, who has lost herself, who is hardly more than an empty shell?”
“Of course I do not…and I will never have any such woman for my wife. You are filled with power and with magic and with the tides of life, and that is how you will remain—at this moment and all through this night and tomorrow when the sun rises and on all the days after that.”
Muriel closed her eyes. “I wish I could know that. I wish I could be sure. I wish—”
“You wish that I were already the king and not merely the tanist.”
“I cannot become like my sisters,” she whispered. “I cannot become like my sisters.”
Brendan reached out to her and held her with one hand firmly on each of her arms. “If I must, I will wait for you,” he said, giving her a little shake, and she could hear the truth in his words even as she heard the tension and frustration in them. “If it will ease your mind, and if it will help you to know for certain that I married you for love and for no other reason—then I will wait for you, and you will sleep alone in this house until the day that I am made a king.”
Chapter Eleven
A silence fell between them. Muriel could only stare up at Brendan, her breath coming fast,…stare into his strange eyes and watch him stare back at her, even as his hold on her tightened and he drew her ever closer…even as he slowly bent down until his lips were almost touching hers.
His breath warmed her face. The scent of his skin filled her nostrils and went straight to her head. Her lips parted and she started to raise her arms to embrace him, but she could not, for he still had her arms in the iron bond of his hands. Forcing her to keep still, he whispered, “Good night, my wife. In the morning I will return.”
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