Riona

by Linda Windsor

  “One of you, fill this up to here with water,” she instructed.

  Dallan rose to volunteer.

  “We’ll make enough concoction to last him for a few days,” she told Riona, kneeling down beside Kieran. She untied the binding ribbons of the blanket and unrolled it, revealing many pockets on the inside of the cloth. With a flourish of her hands, she proclaimed, “Behold the fruit of Midach’s grave.”

  Riona smiled graciously. The DeDanans of old may have been a real people, for there was always a seed of truth in most myths, but she attributed their reputed powers to knowledge of God’s gifts to mankind, not power in itself. “You mean the fruit of God’s earth.”

  “Aye,” Finella agreed readily. “The same earth that Midach was buried in produced these herbs and was created by the One God, same as Midach himself. But the appeal of a little magic always sells well.” Her lips tilted with the wry mischief of her remark. “And while we are clarifying matters, you are not married to this man, are you?”

  “Well, I …” Riona stammered, taken aback by her companion’s keen perception. “No. He’s my foster brother.” She wanted to know how the woman knew, but was too embarrassed at being caught in her inadvertent deception to ask.

  “As I thought … a strange family indeed.” Finella clasped her hands together. “Now let us conspire to make your foster brother well.”

  FOURTEEN

  Morning came like a breath of relief, filling the sky with light just as Riona’s heart was renewed with hope. Aid had come in the most unlikely form of the gleemen. Marcus—surely a child disguised as an adult given the way he carried on with the children—had provided a fine catch of fish for breakfast. Liex and Leila had the thrill of drawing in the net once he’d closed it around a school of brown trout and stickleback. They strutted about the campfire while the fish cooked, as proud as their older brother had been the night before.

  Fynn tossed the bones of his portion into the fire and rolled away, holding his stomach. “Ach, I’m fit to bust.”

  “And you thought last night that we’d given away our last,” Riona reminded him. “Remember the story of the starving widow using her last scrap of food to feed Elijah? What you give in God’s name will be returned to you ten times over.”

  The boy nodded and then belched loudly. Liex joined Marcus and Dallan in a howl of laughter. Leila couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether to join the men or hold back the amusement twitching at her lips.

  Riona exchanged a mutual look of disgust with Finella. Such indulgence had to be a peculiarity confined to men and children, for neither of the women shared in the humor.

  “So, you tell stories, do you?” Dallan asked, pulling a straight face.

  “Aye, she does.” Liex nodded eagerly. “And most wonderful stories at that.”

  “Then let’s hear one. The one about the widow and this man Elijah,” Marcus suggested. “We can always use a good story for skit.”

  “Drumceatt becomes no closer while we gab. Save the stories for the evening fire.” Finella got up, brushing her hands together as if the matter was settled, and looked at her husband and brother-in-law. “If you think you can regain your adult composure, put yourselves to good use and carry our patient to the river for a bath.”

  Kieran had survived the night of body-riddling fevers and chills and now slept like the dead. The brothers carried him on a blanket to the water’s edge. They’d already stripped him when his fever broke just before daylight, leaving his undergarment, a loincloth of soft linen, in place for modesty’s sake. Riona washed out his leine and hung it to dry while breakfast was prepared.

  Not even when the cool water was applied to his warm skin did Kieran stir. It was as if some dreamless sleep had claimed him, induced most likely by Finella’s concoction. A mumble of protest when he was disturbed was the only sign that he was aware they were there at all. Had the woman used too much mandrake? Riona had agreed to the extra measure only because Kieran’s head pounded so.

  “What a fine specimen of a man your foster brother is,” Finella remarked, glancing up from the wound she tended.

  Riona wiped Kieran’s brow and hair with a cloth and her scented soap to rid it of the sour smell of sweat. It was one of the few amenities she’d managed to smuggle out of the abbey. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You’re trying hard not to notice, you mean.”

  “I was raised in a rath of warriors, all strapping men, Finella.” She lifted Kieran’s head gently and wiped his neck, as wiry with muscle as the rest of him—and as thick as his brain. The gleeman’s wife was imagining things, Riona told herself.

  “But they do not possess your heart.”

  Riona froze for the blink of an eye before continuing on with her ministrations. “Aye, I love him, but not in the way you mean.”

  Finella smeared a paste on Kieran’s thigh, the same as the plaster that had already drawn some of the swelling and poison from the wound.

  Riona shook her head. “He’s given to the folly of weapons and war. My mother loved such a man, and it plagued her all her life. I’ll not do the same.”

  “She was never happy?”

  “Of course she was. When father was there, her heart was so light she fairly walked on air.” Riona sighed. “They were like two lovebirds, almost childlike at times. When I was older, it was embarrassing, but secretly it made me smile inside.”

  “Perhaps those happy times made the cost of her loneliness seem small. A man fierce in battle is as fierce in love, so I’ve heard said.”

  Kieran impassioned in love was more than Riona cared to contemplate. The very suggestion was enough to make her heart thud against her chest and her stomach roll over with weakness. She dropped his head unceremoniously and flinched with regret as he grunted. His eyes flew open, and, as if being attacked, he reared to an upright position, his hand flying to his waist, where nothing but a loincloth afforded him decency.

  “By my mother’s eyes, I’m naked!”

  Assaulted by the toll of his effort, his upper body swayed unsteadily, so that he had to catch himself to keep from falling back with weakness.

  “Who the devil are you, woman?” He glared at Finella. “And where are my clothes?” The brace of his arm held him for a moment; then that buckled as well.

  “A friend, Kieran—”

  Riona caught his broad shoulders and tried to ease him to the blanket, but his weight was such that he took her down with him. The very chest she’d painfully avoided staring at now smacked her square in the face. A crisp patch of chest hair tickled her nose.

  Father, help us!

  She scuttled away from the man as if he were a snake in the grass and rose to her feet so abruptly that she stumbled over her hem. Her face grew mottled with mortification’s fire.

  “So, the sleeping giant awakens,” Marcus said, meandering over from the fire. “Still weak as a kitten, I see.” The brown-haired man kneeled at Kieran’s side and propped crossed arms upon his knee. “That torque, now. It’s the torque of a king, solid gold.”

  Kieran said nothing. He rolled on his side to shove himself up.

  Riona took his brat and tossed it over him. “Lie down, milord. This man means you no harm.”

  “He has an eye for another’s property. That’s harm in the making as far as I’m concerned.”

  “So you wish to be up and about, eh?” With a cynical twist of his mouth, Marcus stood and held out his hand. “Then by all means, allow me to help you, for your weight is too much for the lady when you fall, and fall you will.”

  “Besides, your lady said we’re angels.” Dallan approached from where he’d been harnessing the pony to the cart and stood cockily, arms folded, feet braced, over the wounded man.

  Kieran assessed him in silence, his pale face a mask of stone.

  Riona placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “They’ve been most helpful, Kieran.”

  “I’m Dallan, this is my wife, Finella, and my brother, Marcus. We make our way as
entertainers, and our talents are such that we’ve not had to resort to thievery. Yet,” he added, eyeing the brooch on Kieran’s brat. “And because Lady Riona has been such a gracious hostess, we will overlook the aspersions you cast upon our character.”

  “And we won’t call you an—” With a glance at where the children stood looking, Marcus mouthed the word so that only the adults could make it out.

  Riona couldn’t very well argue with the assessment, but in his defense, Kieran had been awakened abruptly.

  “Finella had herbs, which have improved you more than my concoction. Marcus here caught us a fine breakfast this morning. And to be honest, I was relieved to have their company,” Riona admitted.

  Kieran acknowledged with a slight tip of his head. “Then you have my apologies and my thanks. And if one of you will kindly cut off my head, I should be even more obliged.”

  “ ’Tis the poison,” Finella said sympathetically. She poured some of the herbal brew they’d made the night before from the skin it was stored in. “Young Leila insisted we put mint in it for you to make it taste better.”

  Kieran looked past the adults to where Leila nuzzled Gray Macha’s velvet nose with her own, even though she had to stand on tiptoe to do so. “She’s a strange little creature, that one, beguiling in her way.”

  “But she’s lost without a father and will never speak until she has one who can match the love she offers.” Finella left the medicinal goatskin with Kieran and rose, changing the subject abruptly. “My husband has cut two saplings. We hope to make a travois for you since you’re too weak to ride. Your gray can pull it.”

  Kieran shook his head and then winced as though the pain shot from temple to temple with the movement. “Gray will pull nothing. He’s a warhorse. The restraint of a harness would drive him wild. I’ll ride.”

  “I’m not straining my back lifting your hide up on his back,” Marcus claimed. “Finella is in charge, and if she says you don’t ride, you don’t ride.”

  Dallan agreed. “Aye, no one argues with Finella.” He cut a sidewise glance at Riona and back to Kieran. “You’ll learn a day is made easier by giving the fairer sex their way.” He grinned. “They’ll more than make it up to you.”

  “Leila says Gray Macha will pull Gleannmara, as long as she rides on the horse’s back,” Liex called out to them.

  Kieran rolled his eyes and laid back on the blanket. “I know … my own … horse,” he grated out with a stubborn set of his jaw.

  An hour later, they were on the road. At first, the stallion acted exactly as Kieran predicted, tearing away from Marcus and Dallan as they tried to secure the trace lines, pawing at the air in front of him. Then Leila spoke to it in her strange language, her voice soft and assuaging. When the stallion ceased to balk, she walked straight up to it, unafraid, and took its halter in her small hand. At her nod, Dallan and Marcus were able to secure the travois to the gray’s back.

  Kieran was impressed, despite his effort to hide it. He asked Leila what her secret was, to which she replied through her youngest brother, “Seargal.”

  As imperious as its master, Gray Macha insisted on the lead. The stallion would allow no other horse ahead of it. Each time one of the other horses pulled ahead, the gray broke into a trot, nearly jolting Kieran off the travois. Perched atop the horse’s back, Leila sat pixielike and played the tin whistle that Marcus found in the tented wagon. It was an old tune, a favorite of mothers trying to coax precocious babes to sleep.

  Dressed again in his leine, thanks to the help of the men, Kieran now slept under the influence of Finella’s herbs and the sleeping music the little girl played for him. Riona rode Bran’s dun gelding behind them, ever watchful for a change in her foster brother’s condition.

  The golden sprout of beard covering Kieran’s jaw and chin made a manly statement, yet there was something boyish about his face in sleep. Perhaps it was because the pressures of adulthood no longer weighed upon his brow so that worry’s furrow hardly showed. Perhaps it was the way his mouth puckered, full and tender, innocent of cynicism or oath. Surely, it was most charming at times … and warm … and seductive …

  Her mouth thinned as she banished the memory of his kiss from her mind. Her body, alas, was less inclined to let it go. The clothes she wore grew uncomfortably warm, due penance for allowing such things in her mind, she told herself sternly.

  At a rath belonging to a bóaire, the travelers were made welcome for respite in the midday sun. Extending the hospitality for which Erin was known, the cattle lord and his wife bade them stay the night, but Dallan insisted they keep moving. The fairgrounds at Drumceatt would fill fast with vendors and entertainers. He wanted his troupe situated among the best, not only to compete for attention, but to learn.

  Riona was relieved, for it was difficult to answer questions about her company without telling the entire truth. Her host had to be satisfied with her story that her foster brother had fallen ill while escorting her and her adopted children to Drumceatt. In truth, it was all the gleemen knew as well. After the nunday repast, the bóaire and his wife saw them off with a loaf of bread each, a cake of cheese, and an invitation to stop again if they returned that way.

  For the next few days, the same pattern of hospitality followed. Riona’s companions were so gregarious and entertaining that they captured the most of their hosts’ attentions, leaving Riona to quietly care for Kieran. His fever rose and fell voraciously, yet the infection ceased to spread and began to clear, heralding the triumph of prayer and Finella’s herbal concoction. Meanwhile, the children offered an endless source of questions to distract Dallan and his company from prying too much—that and an instinctive discretion born of years upon the road traveling with strangers.

  At sundown nearing the end of a full week of flight, a hostelry appeared around a bend in the road by a river ford. A sign with a red fox swung over the gate to the enclosure. Having been this way before, Dallan explained how this particular rath had once been held by a lesser lord and was hence fortified, until a hosteler was granted the land and cattle by the provincial king for public hospitality. The gates were open, and as they approached, a servant hung a lantern on the outside in keeping with the strict laws regarding his master’s assignment. Hospitality was as much law as it was inclination for public and private landowners, guaranteeing the traveler three days of room and board before he was expected to travel on. All Riona hoped for was refuge from the elements.

  “Welcome, good travelers,” the man called out to them. “The master’s lodge is full tonight, but ye’re welcome to his table and to set up camp within the walls of the rath. Sure, all of Erin is bound for the high king’s convention.”

  Riona’s heart sank. The thought of a dry pallet in a lodge with a roof had heightened her anticipation of the day’s end. But camping within civilized walls was still better than fending without against wolves and human predators.

  “We thank you, sir. And does your master have need of entertainers this night?” Dallan asked him.

  “We’ve princes and clergy, soldiers and merchants, but no entertainment save the master’s own gray-bearded bard.” The servant cast an appreciative eye at Riona and Finella. “And surely he can’t compare to the beauty of your company.”

  Clergy and soldiers? Riona felt the blood drain from her face. She supposed she should expect as much, now that they were less than two day’s from the synod. Travelers from all over Ireland were converging on the few roads leading to Drumceatt. Reason stayed the panic welling in her chest. Barring some unexpected delay, Senan and Maille were surely a day ahead of them. Dear Father, don’t let them be here.

  Marcus ran into a somersault, coming up before the astonished servant with theatrical finesse. “I pray your lord is a generous one?”

  “He pays as good as he gets,” the servant said flatly.

  “Then have him bring out his large purse, good man,” Dallan warned him, “for he and his guests shall be entertained in highest fashion tonight.”


  The servant’s eyes grew round at the sweep of Dallan’s hand. “All of you?”

  “I feel I’m coming down with a touch of the same ague that has our friend indisposed,” Riona spoke up. “So not all of us will participate.”

  Fynn started to protest, but Riona silenced him with a warning lift of her chin. “We’ll discuss it once we walk out the stiffness of our journey.”

  “Ye sure it’s just the ague?” Lifting the lantern off its hook, the servant started toward the travois where Kieran slept.

  “He’s not yellow, if that’s what you mean,” Riona responded sharply. Faith, she didn’t want to start a panic. “But he’s coughed himself into a stupor.”

  The man hesitated and rehung the light. “Then it’s just as well you keep to the outer rath. I seen half a village drop dead from what they thought was the ague, till they turned yeller and died. Just follow me.”

  Dallan helped Finella out of the cart, while Marcus cautiously approached Gray Macha.

  “If it would please his lordship, Gray Macha.” He bowed lowly before the animal and motioned toward the inside of the rath.

  Leila laughed and nudged the stallion forward after the servant. The rest of the troupe followed.

  “ ’Tis a fine horse for such as yourselves. I can’t make out ’is color.”

  “Gray,” Fynn said.

  “Dappled.” Riona blurted out at the same time, not wanting Macha’s true nature to raise suspicion as to their identities. “He’s splotched. We came upon him easily because his hind hoof grazes his other leg in a run, ruining him for racing or battle. Since we’ve no need for a fast steed, he suited our purposes.”

  Thankfully the children did not contradict her. As for Dallan and his company, they were as good off-stage as on. They acted as if she told a story they’d heard many times before.

  Riona couldn’t explain why she felt compelled to lie about Gray Macha when it contradicted her nature and belief. Yet, the deceit was out, as if she’d rehearsed it. That being the case, she could only conclude one thing. The caution had been planted by Providence, for God could see beyond their present circumstance.