The Wakening Fire [The Dawn of Ireland 2]

by Erin O'Quinn

  I am shamed to say that I never told him the truth about his father. I was terrified lest he should find out, and go to find his father, and be torn in half by the vengeful mother of Rídach. And so I told him that his father had died in a great battle, in a faraway land. I told him his father was of high birth, regarded as a king in Éire, but that he wanted to be left unmourned and his grave unknown when he died.

  My son rebelled against the priests’ attempts to convert him. Even from an early age, Owen was headstrong. He told me often that there could be no blessed heavenly father, for he himself had no father. What kind of heavenly father would take away a child’s father before he could know him? I blame myself for his unbelief. Surely I alone kept him from knowing the comfort of our Lord.

  Father, forgive me!

  At last, when Owen was sixteen years old and he had come to the age of Self-Will in Gallia, he declared that he would leave the monastery where we lived, and he would sail for his home country. Even though born on the soil of Gallia, he considered himself an Éireannach, and he had learned the language from monks and native speakers alike.

  And thus with a heavy heart, I sailed with my son back to Éire. He wanted to go to the land of his father. And so I chose a part of Éire, far out on the great peninsula near the Bay of Trawbreaga, where I thought we could live in peace. Owen went from settlement to settlement, asking about his father. He studied every cairn, every heap of rubble, every bit of Ogham scratched into stone to find a clue to his father. I wept then, and I weep now, to think of it.

  Of course, no one knew the name “Rory Sweeney,” for the name Sweeney had come from my own area of Dál Riata, a name from the land of the Picts. And the name “Rory” was my own invention, for I knew it had the word “king” embedded in its meaning.

  Soon after we arrived, Owen met and fell in love with a beautiful tall, dark-haired woman named Aileen. She loved him totally, and she was as devoted to him as I was myself. Within three years, she had borne him two sons and a daughter. But as day rolled into day, I saw my beloved son begin to lose his reason. Aileen saw it, too, and she mourned with me as we saw him shouting and drunk, verbally abusing us, disappearing for weeks on end.

  She often pleaded with me to tell him more about his father. “Nuala, for his sanity, for his health, will you not relent and tell your secrets? For the sake of his children, who may grow up to fear and hate their own father?”

  I hung my head. I could tell no one the dread secret. I had even kept it from the priests, for I knew not whether one of them would reach Éire and let slip where Owen may be found. And so, to save the life of my son, I slowly lost the life of my son. I shed bitter tears every day of my life to think of it.

  Lord God, forgive me!

  At last, to stop his searching, I relented just a bit and told him that his father hailed not from Éire but from Alba, across the expanse of the leaden North Sea. I even believed it, for I thought he was traveling from Alba when I met him. At my words, he went completely wild, raging and shouting. “How will I ever find him in that vast, barbaric land?”

  He left us for more than three months. I thought he had perhaps hired a currach and sailed to Alba in search of his father. But one day he came back home, looking haggard and old, hardly talking. I found later that he had gone on a “booley,” a kind of lonely trek to the mountains like the sheep herders, in search of his own sanity. After he returned, he never again spoke of his father. To this day, I know not what took place inside his mind, for something else happened after he returned that became the focus of our lives.

  Brother Jericho stopped talking. He knit his brows. “This part is where she began to cry. It was hard to understand many of her words. Clearly she is tormented to the point of despair.”

  “Do your best, dear brother,” I urged him. He nodded and continued.

  By now, Owen was about twenty years old. His oldest child, my grandson Muiredach, was about three. One day I went alone to the well to draw water for the household. Owen had gone to hunt a fine red deer for our provisions. As I was putting water jars into our wagon, a lone rider approached me.

  She was a woman well past her prime, a score of years beyond my own age, one who should not have been traveling alone. She was dressed all in fine silk, and her shoes were inlaid with abalone shells. “O friend,” she called to me from her horse. “I have lost my way, and I am athirst. May I drink from your well?

  Of course, I bade her dismount, and I poured a cup of water from a jug and proffered it to her. She drank willingly, and she thanked me kindly. “For whom do you draw water?” she asked me.

  “For my family,” I told her, not wanting to speak of my son.

  She nodded and proceeded to tell me about her own family—six strong grandsons. Their father, husband of her only daughter, was sojourning in a foreign land, she said, and his sons had traveled with him. She told me how she loved them and missed them. “Do you also have strong sons?” she inquired of me.

  Loath as I was to speak of Owen, I told her proudly that I had one strong son and three grandchildren. She replied with tears that she would be honored to meet such a family, for she missed her own very much. My heart reached out to her heart, as mother to mother, and I invited her to sup with us that evening.

  When we rode up to our brugh, Owen had just returned from the hunt, a red deer thrown behind the saddle. He dismounted to lift the deer, and the woman beheld his face. At one look, she shrieked like any banshee. Her cry was enough to cloud the mind and stop the very birds in the sky.

  As she screamed, Owen’s horse reared back in terror. I watched helpless as it came back down on top of my son, crushing him into the ground. And still the strange woman’s shrieks pierced the sky, and the horse began to struggle to find its legs. The more it struggled, the longer it ground Owen’s legs into the dirt.

  Dear, dear God, forgive me!

  He lay there as if dead, in anguish of pain, and I fell at his side, sobbing and keening as if he truly were dead. The stranger, who had not once dismounted, sat high and proud on her horse, even as it reared and pranced in confusion.

  “You now pay for your own folly,” she said. “I have searched for you more than twenty years, and I have my vengeance at last. Your son is now half a man—cloven in two, blemished for all time. No high king may bear a blemish, and so his fate is sealed. Now my own grandsons may be kings, and your son will die a cripple. So be it.”

  “But at last,” I told her bitterly, “I may tell him about his father. And I myself may go to him finally, for he is the only love I have ever known.”

  And then she laughed, more of a shriek than a laugh. “If I see your son’s face or your face, I hereby swear that I will end the life of your precious lover. I have my grandsons—that is all I want. His life became as spilled water or smoke from a fire pit from the moment his loins pierced your loathsome body and shunned my own daughter. Go to him, send your son to him—and see him die.”

  And so we left the promontory and traveled south to the great lake of Foyle, seeking the safety of a new home. From that day to this, I have not told anyone what happened, or why.

  Father, Heavenly Father, forgive me for what I have done!

  When Brother Jericho finished his discourse, he hung his head as if weeping. Liam and I were stricken into silence, thinking about Mother Sweeney’s sacrifice and her son’s anguished life.

  “She asked for the Lord’s forgiveness, and I blessed her. I told her to despair not, that she would hear good tidings about her son. She promised me she would fast and pray.”

  Finally, I could no longer hold back the tears. They coursed down my cheeks, and I shuddered with silent sobs. Liam’s comforting arm circled my shoulders, and he spoke in my ear. “Hush, hush, dear Cat. Truth will make us happy. Ye will see.”

  When I opened my eyes, I saw that Sweeney’s children had gathered around my couch, and their faces were suffused with sorrow.

  Murdoch knelt at my feet. “Cate, speak to us. Tell us
the truth so that we may start to live normal lives again. Please.”

  “You will all know in a short while. I promise. But first, I must go to your grandmother. She has told us her truths, and now we must speak our own to her, lest she end her own life in despair.”

  I stood. Liam and Brother Jericho stood also.

  “Tomorrow is the Sabbath,” said the monk. I will say a mass in the morning, and Mother Sweeney will attend. We will speak of yesterday’s secrets and tomorrow’s promise. Please, dear ones, sleep tonight in peace, and we will speak in the morning.”

  I walked to the door adorned with shells and stones. Without hesitation, I pushed it open and entered the bedchamber, Liam and Jericho behind me.

  One tall candle burned on the table next to her bed. “Light more candles, O Brother,” I said to Jericho. O God, let the light begin to shine on this dear woman and her family. I walked to the bed and gazed down on the frail Nuala. No longer curled like a withered leaf, she lay with her head back on a soft down pillow. Her breathing was regular, and her mouth was relaxed. As I had hoped, it was pliantas a rose petal instead of a bitter, thin line.

  “Nuala,” I said, deliberately using her real name so that she would know I was aware of her secrets. “How do you feel?”

  Her eyes opened slowly. “Tá mé…feel fine,” she said, trying to speak my language.

  “I want you to drink a bit more,” I told her, and she obligingly raised herself on her elbows and drank as I tipped the cup to her mouth.

  “I have something to tell you. A woman to a woman. Are you ready to hear it?”

  She lay her head back onto the pillow. “I am.”

  “I know for a fact that your former lover is…gone. At least ten years ago. I know you will need to grieve his loss. But you may also feel a heavy burden removed.”

  Nuala sought the eyes of Brother Jericho and spoke to him in Gaelic. After she spoke, I saw one tear swell from each eye and sit on the brink of her eyelids as though reluctant to spill into the tear grooves etched upon her face.

  “She would know his resting place,” said Jericho. “She would grieve over his bones.”

  “His bones are undiscovered. Possibly in the mountains of Gallia, or on the highlands of Alba. No one is certain.”

  She nodded. “I spoke…true,” she murmured.

  She had told her son when he was very young that his father wanted his bones to be undiscovered and unheralded, not knowing that her words would be prophetic.

  “I have something else to tell you.”

  “Speak.” She looked more alive at that moment than at any time since I had met her.

  “Your son Owen is alive, Nuala. He is being cared for by Brother Jericho’s own monks. He lives, and he cares for your well-being.”

  At my words, repeated in Gaelic by Jericho, she struggled into a sitting position. Her dark eyes glowed like live embers in a fire pit. “Mo mhac? Is é mo mhac beo? Alive?”

  I smoothed back her gleaming hair. “Yes, Nuala. He still seeks his father. Now at last the truth may be told.”

  Nuala looked past Brother Jericho to Liam, standing near his shoulder. “Abair scéal,” she said clearly. She wanted to hear his story.

  Liam came to her bed and knelt on the side opposite from where I knelt. “A Mháthair Suibhne, mise Liam O’Néill Mac Lóeghaire. Son of High King Leary, who is son of High King Niall. Niall, also called ‘Cloud,’ he who…held the nine hostages. Ye therefore be…somewhat me grandmother.” He smiled at her lovingly.

  Nuala’s arms flew around Liam’s glowing head, and she embraced him closely. “Liam, Liam.” Both of them wept then. Her tears fell into his auburn cluster of curls, and his own tears streamed unchecked down his face. They stayed in that position for long minutes.

  At last, Nuala lifted her face from Liam’s soft hair. She spoke softly to him in Gaelic, and he answered her, stroking her dark hair and tracing the tear channels on her face. He looked over at me and smiled. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we…meet for holy mass, and our cenél be truly reunited. We wait only for me uncle Owen.”

  * * * *

  Hand in hand, Liam and I went in search of our horses and our blankets. Both of us carried a lit candle as though to deny the darkness that had shrouded this baile for so long.

  “Darling, we must rush home and talk to Owen.”

  “Monday,” he answered, squeezing my hand. “Need…cart for the seanmháthair. Need be careful for her.”

  We found our horses, already curried and fed, standing with the others in a livestock pen near the drover’s rectangular teach. We took our blankets that were folded on our saddles, and we started to walk back to the main house. “Remember, we will find trees to sleep under tonight,” I told my husband.

  I saw his smile in the dim light of our candles. Instead of entering the brugh, we continued to walk toward the bonfire, its fire lighting the northern horizon with a warm glow. We saw a dense copse of pine trees some fifty feet from the fire, and we knelt and spread one heavy blanket on the ground underneath. My feet could feel the dense-needled ground give way a bit, and I knew we had found a comfortable bed.

  By silent accord, Liam and I lay on the blanket fully dressed, facing each other. The flames of the bonfire were enough to illuminate his dear face, and I traced the line of his mouth with my forefinger.

  “A mo ghrá, we have found more family. Much more. Several more family.”

  “We have,” he said with a grin, and he drew my finger into his mouth with his supple lips.

  I let him caress my finger with his gentle mouth. “The more family we find, the more love I feel.” I was remembering his words to me, long ago on the longship that bore us to Éire. “Family is the rope that ties people together. Ye need that love as much as the love of a strong man.”

  “Do ye feel this?” he asked, and he drew me next to him, very close, close enough to feel his hard groin. He continued to suck my finger, a sensation that always made a hot flame jump between my legs.

  “Let us undress each other,” I told him, pulling at the strap that held his breeches.

  He answered by lifting my deerskin shift partway until my breasts spilled out. “Oh oh,” he groaned. “What is here? Come to me, little foxes.” He cupped them very gently and rubbed his downy beard all over them.

  “Oh, Liam,” I breathed. “They need your hot mouth. Little foxes, they need to be sucked.”

  He lifted the tunic over my head, all the while sucking first one breast, then another, letting his mouth linger on the nipples the way I craved. I groaned and pushed and pulled against his mouth, wordless, seeking more and more.

  “Want to hear it, Cat…hear your need. Tell me, tell me.”

  Telling him what I wanted was profoundly erotic to him, and to me also. Sometimes I was so aroused that I did not know what I said, and tonight was such a time. I remembered rubbing his soft hair and pressing his head into my chest as he sucked me. I remembered shouting into the near darkness that I wanted his mouth, I wanted his shaft, I craved his body. I shouted and moved my buttocks as he drew my triús down to my knees, then knelt and drew them all the way off. As he pulled them off, he leaned and seized my mound in his mouth and began to suck and lick.

  “Turn me over, suck from behind,” I told him, and he did. I knew it would last only moments before I climaxed, and I tried to put it off, drawing away from him. But he drew me back, his hands grasping my bum. He sucked me until his mouth drew all the way off, then immediately on again, until I could control my passion no longer. My climax was very loud and very insistent as I turned and rocked against him again and again.

  “Rest…rest a while, a chuisle,” he said, drawing me up again until his mouth was in my ear. “Then undress me.”

  My groin was pounding and my breath was short. I nodded, and I buried my head in his chest, trying to recover from his skilled lovemaking. At last my shudders stopped, and I became aware of how much I wanted to feel the satin skin of his chest. I sat up, drawing his deerski
n tunic over his head. My fingers sought and found his nipples, and I felt them harden as I touched them.

  “Lay back, a ghrá, lay back and let me suck your nipples.” His head arched back on the blanket, and his manly breasts welled up, pale mounds seeming to move in the unsteady light of the bonfire. I used my hands and my mouth, too, caressing his breasts and thrilling as I heard him moan his delight. I licked his nipples and ran my tongue over the little bumps around them. Ah…so soft and so hard at the same time. I found myself sucking his breasts as he would my own, then tracing his muscles with my tongue all the way to the wiry hairs on his groin.

  I fingered the waist of his breeches and I began to draw them down, slowly, as he arched his buttocks to help me remove them. As soon as I saw his great bata swelling from his loins, I could not help catching it in my mouth. I had to hold it in both hands, so distended had it grown, and my mouth hardly held more than a bit of it. I licked and sucked, then used my hands to caress his testicles, then the crack of his bum.

  “Now, Liam? Anois?” I could not help teasing him as I played with him, and I heard his frantic cries.

  “Eat me. Anois, a Cháit, suck me harder. Use your fingers. Inside, inside, now.” He groaned and pitched his body, and I tried to hold on as his tart honey released in my mouth. He kept coming, and I kept sucking, until he turned his body hard into the blanket.

  I stroked his supple buttocks for a while, loving his touch. Then I lay with my lips next to his. “Is tú mo ghrá,” I told him sleepily.

  He rolled a bit and found our second blanket, then drew it over our naked bodies. “Sleep well, Cat. Codladh sámh.” He kissed me tenderly, and we fell asleep with our lips lightly touching, curled into smiles.

  Chapter 22:

  Lighting the Way

  Brother Jericho stood in the middle of the great room, looking around at the clansmen and their families gathered onto benches and couches. The many windows of the spacious brugh were open to the bright February morning. I saw how the polished wooden floor bore well-worn grooves, the familiar paths of an invalid’s cart. The room was almost pretty now, its walls adorned with bright woolen hangings, the tables polished to a high sheen. This was probably the way it looked when Sweeney’s wife Aileen was still alive. The polishing and decorating must have been the work of the hired women, at the instruction of Sweeney’s bachelor sons.