by Erin O'Quinn
“Luke, I will send a few of the clansmen to take some furniture. And I will someday repay you in kind.”
“Caylith,” he said, “your friendship—and my new friendship with Brigid—is my repayment. Please consider it a wedding gift to both of you.”
I had my eye on a large clothes cabinet, and I asked Luke whether I could have it. “It is yours,” he said simply. “If your clansmen will bring an ox cart here, we can put all the items in it at once.”
Back on horseback, heading for the building site, Brigid and I rode in silent companionship. I marveled, not for the first time, at her intelligence, her wit, her understanding of other people. I decided to ask a question that had long been in my mind, and I began in a roundabout way.
“This very morning,” I ventured, “Fergus MacCool left for Emain Macha to do penance under the eyes of Bishop Patrick himself.”
“Indeed?” she asked. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, but she did not change expression.
“He has had a sudden…”
“An epiphany?” she answered my sentence in a cool, distant tone.
“If that means a blinding moment of insight, then yes. Although the insight was partly on account of a very blind eye.”
I briefly told her the story of my encounter with the clansman and the aftermath. She listened, at times laughing. At other times, she only nodded gravely.
“What do you think, Bree? Can he truly change?”
“I think your insight is better than mine, Cay. I have thought about him a few times during these past five years, but he has become no more to me than a pitiful, shrunken shadow. As a professed Christian, I think I need to forgive him. And perhaps someday I will.”
“My feelings exactly,” I said. “He seems to long for that forgiveness from me. I know not how he feels about you. My guess is that he feels shame, deep inside.”
“I think he is a complex man, Cay. I think he truly believes he is sorry. And yet somehow he seems to let his animal nature overtake his human one.”
“That is what Liam thinks. He says that MacCool has a monster coiled in his very breast, and that it needs to be slain.”
“That is probably a very good way to look at it. But once the monster is destroyed—if it is destroyed—what will emerge? The infant Fergus, innocent and lovable? The young man Fergus, just trying his charm and intellect? Or an all-new Fergus, humble and insightful?”
“What I am wondering, Brigid, is why you never told Michael your version of what happened.”
She slowed her mare a bit, not answering at first. Then, still gazing straight ahead, she spoke. “I suppose I was convinced that Michael would not believe his cousin. The story was so very preposterous that it could not be true. But I reckoned not on the power of kinship, the call of the blood. By the time I came to my senses, it was too late. Michael was gone.”
I remained silent, and after a while I heard her voice next to me as we rode slowly, picking our way through a ravine.
“I could have followed him, Caylith. I could have found where he sailed. But my own logical nature won through. I reasoned that if his love were true, he would find me again. He needed time to decide what was most important to him. And so I waited.”
“And if he had never come?”
“Who knows? Perhaps I would have waited until the very stars burned out. One can never know what might have been. But I am happy now. And that is all that matters.”
We had reached the construction site, and Brigid and I dismounted. I saw Liam right away. He was standing with his back to us, watching two workmen stir a sludge of daub in a great heavy cauldron. It was a job for two, and so he stood, hands at his sides, waiting for his chance to plaster it onto the latticework. I saw that Ryan and Michael were kneeling in the distance, near the river, no doubt gathering materials for their own beds this evening. Brigid walked over to join them.
Liam had not heard us ride up, and so I silently approached him. About two feet away, I greeted him. “Dia duit.”
He slowly turned around, smiling with his entire face. I thought he looked very good for having kept such unsavory company last night with a ’skin of warm beer.
“Conas tá tú?” I asked.
“I see ye, Cat. Now I be fine.”
I felt my skin redden. He was getting very good at stringing words and new ideas together. I was still at “I am fine, and how are you?”
He took a long step and I was in his arms, his little beard rubbing all over my cheeks and chin, his lips pulling softly on mine. “Mmm,” he said. “Taste good.” He began to lick my lips on the outside, then he sent his tongue inside to savor more. I captured his probing tongue and began to suck slowly, loving the hot honey of it.
I had to force myself to back away. After a few long moments, I caught my breath enough to say, “Michael and Brigid.”
“Tá go maith,” he answered. “Now we marry.”
I had found the source of his radiant smile.
Before I could speak further, the two workmen straightened and began to lift great gobs of the straw-and-clay mortar to the interlaced rowan saplings. Liam joined them, and the men alternately folded in thick daub and moulded it with their hands until the entire surface was smooth.
The teach was almost finished. All it lacked were window holes and a thatch for the roof. Tomorrow the workers would coat it with the weather-resistant lime-and-chalk mix.
I called out, “Michael!”
He looked up, and I gestured for him to approach. “Where do you want windows?” I asked him.
“Where is the daub still soft and ready?” he asked. Without waiting for me to answer, he walked around the teach, feeling and pressing on the surface. Six other workmen stood by him, and he asked, “Will you make windows where I mark with this stick?” They nodded, and he proceeded to circle the little house, pushing a hole through the still-pulpy daub.
I watched their sure hands quickly push windows through, bending apart the pliable latticework. Soon, there were openings for six windows. Ryan’s teach, by comparison, had only two. Michael and Brigid, I reasoned, liked their fresh air and sunlight. By his own admission, Ryan would not be in his house long enough to care.
I stood dreaming about the home I would have Michael build for Liam and me. I knew that it would indeed be a brugh—a home large enough to accommodate not just Liam and me, but family besides. Who knows?—even children. It would have some windows like his own, made of a substance that I could see light through, and yet hard as resin. It would have many other windows besides, shuttered like Mama’s, and somehow I would find a way to have plant boxes under each window like Thom’s old home in Harborton.
I would find out whether Michael could indeed place rooms on top of other rooms, and if so, Liam and I would have a large room just for our bed and clothes cabinet, far from prying eyes. I would have some kind of skylight or ceiling window to let through the stars, the moon, and the sky. Our brugh would be built where it could be on two or more levels, like Gristle’s, and it would somehow have a little stream running through it, just as his did…
“…bringing back the furniture?” Brigid was asking.
“Ah, what were you saying, Bree?”
“I thought we might somehow find a cart to bring the furniture back here, as Luke suggested.”
“Of course. Do you want to come with me? We can also stop by the church, for I want to send word to Father Patrick to come as soon as he can.”
We left the men building beds and fire pits for the two finished houses. I thought of Michael and Brigid’s house as being finished, even without a thatched roof, for I know I would have slept there just as it stood.
A few hours later, we returned, a slow ox cart some distance behind us, full of furniture. On the way back to Luke’s, we had stopped at the church where I talked with one of the acolytes, who assured me that he could catch up with Brother Jericho and give him the message for Father Patrick.
“When you speak to Brother Jericho,
” I told him, “please make sure your words are to him only, not to the penitent who travels with him.”
“Of course,” the young monk said.
“And please give him this.” I held out a small pouch of horsetail reed I had measured out for my monkish friend, knowing his tendency to get saddle sores and his reluctance to ask for any curative at all. “Tell him to use it only when the saddle proves no friend. He will understand.”
That night, it happened that our small teach held more people than we had furniture for. When we all rode up together for evening meal, the ox cart followed us, some half an hour behind, with two extra benches and a large clothes cabinet.
While the men went inside with the furniture, Brigid and I unsaddled and curried the horses. Then we went to retrieve the rest of the brown trout from the waters of the Foyle. We both set to cooking the meal while the men sat together talking with great animation.
“Last night, Brigid, the wineskin of dark beer was a potent companion for Liam and Ryan. Do you ever have, um, a problem with that?”
“Sometimes.” She laughed. “But usually the head-banging pain the next day keeps it from happening too often.”
“Remember our night at your house and the story of High King Murphy?” I asked, and we both giggled as though we could not stop.
“That was wine, and beer, and some unidentified spirit that would fell Cú Chuláinn himself,” Brigid said. “I think Michael has not drunk a drop of more than weak wine since that night.”
Together, Brigid and I served up a credible supper of roasted trout and pan-stirred vegetables, all washed down with clear, cold river water. Afterward, we all five sat and laughed and talked and sang until my face hurt from smiling.
At last alone, Liam and I stood smiling at each other near the bed. He sat, and he patted the spot next to him, inviting me to join him. I did, but my heart was thudding, and I tried not to touch him.
“Be not afraid, Caitlín.” I was astonished at his growing vocabulary. He must really want to communicate with me, and I was touched by his caring.
I reached out to him, and he pulled me close, his arm around my shoulders, not trying to begin any kind of love play. “Just the love,” he said. “Without the hunger.”
Those were the words he had told me on the longship, the time we had told each other about our families. Now, as he had then, he kissed me so lightly and tenderly that I could feel the blood pulsing under his lips. It was a kiss of reassurance and deep caring. My heart was so full of him that I sat there against him until I fell asleep, my head on his large shoulder. When I briefly awoke some time later, I was lying next to him, still in my tunic. He was still sitting close beside me, and I had the impression he was watching over me.
Chapter 20:
Old Magic and New
I awoke, now in Liam’s arms. I stirred, and he woke, gathering me closer. “Hello,” he murmured, his voice blurred from sleep. “I love ye.” His eyes still shut, half drowsing, Liam gathered me into his bare chest. His mouth found mine and he nuzzled my lips, then began to lick and bite a little. I succumbed to his magic, feeling the instant tremor deep in my stomach that warned me and thrilled me at the same time.
“Dia duit.” My lips moved against his in my ritual reply, my voice muffled by his searching tongue. We kissed for long moments, but his hands did not seek my breasts or thighs, and I knew he was holding fast to his promise. I willed myself to tear my mouth from his, and I sat up, then left the bed.
We were both dressed as we had been yesterday, I in my ragged training tunic and Liam in his riding breeches. The fire had not quite guttered out, and I fed it with fresh kindling until the flames were licking through the metal grate. Holding my hand out to Liam, I led him outside to seek the river.
It was very dark, earlier than I usually liked to wade into the Foyle. But with Liam next to me I felt safe from the unpredictable currents. He knelt, naked, while I splashed water over his head, letting it run down his shoulders and chest. There was no light to see by, and I had to imagine his wet, glistening chest and flat buttocks. I touched his hips very lightly, then I ran my fingers down his thigh. I was barely touching him, resisting the urge to do more than let my fingertips search for answers on his cool skin.
And then it was my turn to kneel while my lover scooped water and let it wash over my hair and into rivulets down my chest and thighs. He, too, kept his touch very light as he smoothed the water over my shoulders, then over my breasts, his fingers barely grazing my nipples, then the place hidden between my legs. I kept my head very low, afraid of what my eyes were telling Liam at that moment.
We rose at the same time, our bodies very close, and I saw by the slow-gathering light that he was smiling, that half-teasing twitch around his mouth telling me he knew exactly what we were doing just now—making love with our memories, letting our fingers remember.
“Wet,” I said. Then, remembering the Gaelic, I murmured, “Fliuch.” I meant our bodies, but he was thinking something else, for his voice teased me as much as his eyes.
“An-fhliuch.” Very wet. Yes.
Embarrassed, I clambered over the bank and ran to my tunic. I pulled it over my shoulders and hips and cinched my belt before he could walk up next to me. I turned away while he pulled on his breeches, thankful that he had never sought a new pair after he had borrowed Michael’s too-tight clothing a few months ago.
We fixed our morning meal together, again a bowl of oatmeal stir-about and pan-fried bread. One of these days, I promised myself, I would seek a store of hen’s eggs and different kinds of grain so that we would eat a more varied breakfast. I enjoyed cooking very much, but I had never liked eating so early in the morning. My appetite for food seemed to sharpen around midmorning—not the accustomed hour for eating a meal.
Liam stood ready to leave for his session with Brother Galen. It seemed like another magic moment. Those moments were beginning to happen more and more as Liam and I tried to stay apart.
“Slán, a chroí.” I lifted my face to Liam’s. His deep brown eyes gazed into mine, and he circled me with one arm, while his other hand cupped my face. My lips were aching to feel his, and I think he knew it, for he held me for long moments without lowering his mouth to mine.
Then he captured my mouth with a sudden movement of his lips and tongue, and his hand held my head very close to his, not letting up. He thrust his tongue deeper and deeper into my mouth while I answered, sucking it and rocking my body against him in rhythm with his probing tongue.
At last he let me go, and I turned away, for my face was burning as much as the rest of my body. At this rate, I thought, our wedding night would last about five minutes.
“I…see you soon, a chuisle, mo chroí,” he said to my back. Then he left.
* * * *
Not more than half an hour later, Brigid was riding with me, and we were on our way to the dwarf enclaves. I had taken her from the new building site, where she, Michael, and Ryan were getting set to help put thatch on the roof of their new little house.
“Come, Brigid. I want you to meet Magpie and Jay.”
“Your favorite birds?” she had asked, smiling.
“Exactly so,” I told her.
We stood at the door-lintel of Magpie and Raven’s saffron-and-orange teach, and Magpie opened the door immediately. “I knew you two were coming.” She smiled, her eyes and her wide, attractive grin welcoming us. “Raven is in the garden,” she said.
Brigid and Magpie took to each other instantly. They were soon talking and laughing together. Magpie’s wind chime voice tinkled and sang over Brigid’s warm laughter. “Will you not make your home here with us in Derry?” asked Magpie.
“Liam and Caylith have built us a second home, Magpie, down on the river, nestled in a grove of aspens. We have a home here any time we want to visit, no matter how long.”
She reached out to me and I grasped her hand, smiling. I felt very fortunate to have such dear friends. Until only a year or two ago, my only female
friend was Brindl. Now I was surrounded by beautiful, strong women—Brindl, Magpie, Brigid, BriarThorne. And I thought of Rowan and Ashe, of Swallow Feather and Magpie’s mother GoldenFinch and her daughters, too. All attractive and smart, and all my friends.
“Before you go, Cay, I have a few things for you.” She went to a chest sitting against a wall and drew out several articles of clothing. “Put this one on right now,” she ordered, and she handed me something that felt very soft and heavy in my hands. I held it out, enchanted.
It was a hunting or training tunic, fashioned from the silky pelt of a red fox. The fur was luxuriant, a rusty-red color, and the skin inside felt smooth as my own soft skin. Fit for the cold weather, it had sleeves that would lie close to my arms and all the way down to my wrists without getting in the way of shillelagh training, or drawing a bow or long knife.
“And here is the companion piece,” she said, and she handed me what looked like a thigh-high pair of leather boots. But they were not really boots, for they were not stiff at all, but pliant, designed to run high up the legs and be fastened by a lengthy thong laced around the leg and then tied. The bottoms were made of several pieces of stout leather, all somehow glued together to make a very strong sole.
“Leggings for riding,” I exclaimed. “Farewell to painful rashes. Oh, my friend, how can I thank you?” I hugged her tight and saw her freckle-dusted cheeks redden.
“Caylith, your mother is right—you would wear a tattered skin until it fell away in disgrace of being seen by mortal eye. It is time you had a tunic to wear during the cold weather.”
“I have felt the need this past week, Magpie. Thank you very much.” I stood away from my friends and changed tunics, feeling like a very fox in my new skin. I did notice that Magpie had not quite guessed the size of the bodice, for I saw my breasts swelling out of the soft fur. I did not blame her for any misjudgment of my size, for my breasts had begun to grow quite a bit lately, like late-blooming roses, almost impossible now to hide.
