Riona

by Linda Windsor

  Riona blinked as if to send it back to the dregs of perdition from whence it came, but it was still there, staring at her with unadulterated hatred, traces of spittle glistening in the furrow of its chin. Gradually, she recognized the manservant who’d delivered her supper earlier that evening.

  Was this, then, the one who tried to poison her? Anger surged from the swirl of emotions in her beleaguered mind. She pointed to Leila. “Look what you’ve done, sir!”

  “Sor, she calls me,” the servant mimicked. “Or so ye thinks, milady.” He shoved his face into the light of the lamp hanging on the wall. “Ye don’t know me wi’out me ’air?”

  Riona was too distracted by the kitchen knife in the man’s fist to discern what he spoke of. “What—?”

  “It’s me … Mebh! The poor woman ye kept that wee babe from.”

  “Mebh?” Riona’s eyes widened. She’d have never guessed, but then she’d not seen the woman in good light. Now that she knew, the creature’s whine was familiar. ’Twas the sort that raked along the spine like a shard of ice.

  “An’ now look at ’er.” A sob caught in the woman’s voice. “A wee doll at death’s door, and all because o’ you and that lord o’ yours.”

  “You were going to sell her into slavery,” Riona objected, struggling from the throes of shock.

  “Not that little darlin’!”

  Riona instinctively stepped back against Leila’s bed as Mebh moved toward her, knife extended with malevolent intent.

  “I lost me own girl to the yellow death,” Mebh said mournfully. “I wanted this ’un for me own.” She ran a finger down the dull edge of the knife, momentarily lost between past and present. Then the glaze in her eyes hardened, focusing on Riona. Her knuckles whitened about the wooden handle of the knife. “But you took ’er. Snatched her up from me with your high and mighty position.”

  Riona had thought it an act, but there was no doubt now that the woman had genuinely suffered. It was easy to commiserate. She’d felt the same when she thought she might lose the children to Tadgh and Mebh, and now her heart bled each time she looked at Leila’s still form as though Mebh’s knife were already wedged there.

  “And then your man killed mine, same as if he took this blade and shoved it through me Taddy’s heart.” The knife whooshed through the air. Riona dodged to avoid its cut. Mebh smiled, what she had left of her teeth as decayed as her mental state. “Aye, that’s what ’e done, milady … chased me poor Taddy with a blade like this.”

  She swung at Riona again, barely missing Riona’s arm. Mebh’s demented game would end in blood, of that Riona was certain. For now the play was satisfaction enough.

  “He poked—” Mebh jabbed at Riona’s chest, driving her back on the boys’ bed—“an’ ’e prodded.” The point nicked Riona’s rib as she rolled away and off the bed. “An’ ’e took my Taddy away from me, just like I’m goin’ to take ye away from ’im.”

  Riona scampered to her feet, but before she could run for the door, Mebh blocked her path. A pain-infused insanity contorted the woman’s face as she pressed Riona up against the whitewashed wall. To so much as breathe was to force the knifepoint into the flesh just below her heart.

  “I’m sorry, Mebh,” Riona whispered. “I can imagine the pain you must feel losing your loved ones so needlessly.” Ina would be back soon … or Kieran with the priest. Surely someone would come.

  Mebh cocked her head from side to side, echoing Riona’s words in a singsong voice. “I can imagine. I can imagine.” She stopped abruptly and scowled. “No one can imagine ’ow it hurts.”

  “I love that child, Mebh, like you loved your daughter. And now she’s—” A sob choked Riona off. She couldn’t let her emotions get the best of her now. She had to remain sharp. “She’s dying, Mebh, just like your little one. It already feels like that blade is in my heart. Indeed your blade would ease my pain, but—”

  “But what?” Emotion crested above Mebh’s suspicion. Her humor vacillated from melancholy to menace, from past to present, then back again.

  Riona tried for the right moment. “But you were able to hold your babe until she went to the other side, weren’t you? Faith, put down the knife and come with me. Hold her. Don’t let Leila die alone whilst we quarrel over what can’t be undone.”

  Mebh whimpered, glancing quickly to where Leila lay deathly still. “I wouldn’a hurt the wee lass for the world.”

  “I know, Mebh. But she needs to be held … and she needs our prayers because—” Riona’s panicked thoughts scattered, leaving her mind blank in her desperation.

  “Because what?” The knifepoint penetrated her night shift and bit into her flesh. Surely she bled.

  “Because God told me He’d save her,” she blurted out. “But we must pray—all of us. That’s what I was doing when you came in. I sent Kieran for the priest. We need all the voices we can lift to save her.”

  “They’s not comin’.”

  But for the knife holding her upright on its tiny point, Riona might have slumped to the floor at the news. She’d thought Kieran had been gone overlong. What had happened? Heavenly Father, help us! Riona mustered her courage to ask, “Why?”

  Mebh shrugged, her gaze wandering to Leila. “Don’t know, don’t care no more. Left ’em in the dark, fightin’ and cursin’ like the devil’s own.”

  Riona’s heart felt as if it would burst with growing anxiety. It shouted “Who?” when her voice would not. It thundered in her ears, growing louder and louder—or was that the sound of someone running toward them? With no room for panic, she mastered her rioting emotions with the resolve of a mother whose babe faced imminent danger.

  “But you do care about Leila,” she reminded the woman.

  “Riona!” Kieran’s shout preceded his entrance into the lodge, a bloodstained sword in hand.

  “Ah!” she gasped as Mebh’s blade cut a little deeper.

  “Stay where ye are, milord,” Mebh warned, “or yer pretty wife dies to be sure.”

  Almost afraid to breathe, Riona looked at her husband. “Kieran, go outside and close the door.”

  His stricken expression told Riona that he thought her as mad as Mebh. “What?”

  “Mebh and I need to take care of Leila,” she explained. “If we don’t, our little girl may die.” Riona looked at Mebh, pleading. “You will hold her and help me pray? Mebh, I know God will hear us. Leila has an angel. It saved her once. We must call him back to her.”

  “It’s true, Mebh,” Kieran chimed in, seeming to sense Riona’s plan. “The child fell into the path of racing chariots, and when I tried to cover her, we were both overrun. I had the tracks on my brat to show for it, but neither of us was so much as scratched. We felt nothing. Father Cromyn said Leila had her own angel.”

  “We must pray, Mebh. You do believe, don’t you?” Riona searched the wells of grief and indecision spilling over Mebh’s puffy, pockmarked cheeks. Something inside bade Riona reach for the tears and wipe them away ever so gently. “I hurt with you, Mebh. Leila is ours. Give me the knife and hold her.”

  “I can’t lose my baby again. I can’t bear it,” the woman cried. She let the knife go, her round shoulders heaving in misery.

  As the weapon clattered to the floor, Riona took Mebh into her arms, coaxing her over to where Leila lay. Kieran snatched up the weapon, but Riona motioned him to be still.

  “If you would help us, milord, then kneel where you are and pray.” In Mebh’s unstable state, Riona wanted nothing to distract the woman. Mebh needed Leila as much as Riona did, for she saw her own raw anguish in the woman’s tortured eyes. “God promised to hear our cries,” she said, as much for her own benefit as for that of the others. “He promised to answer our prayers. He sent me a message that He would heal Leila.”

  “A message?” Mebh’s head jerked up, doubt shadowing her despair.

  Riona nodded in assurance. “Aye, I’d fetch it from my bag, but there’s no time. We must do our part. She needs a mother’s touch right now and a
mother’s prayer.” Gently, she eased Leila up from the bed so that she rested in Mebh’s arms. It felt as if Riona laid her own heart in the madwoman’s embrace.

  “Heavenly Father, hear our prayers.”

  “Father, hear our prayers,” Mebh whispered, just syllables behind Riona.

  “We beseech You with breaking hearts to save our child.”

  “… our child.”

  “… save our child,” Kieran joined in from the foot of the small bed.

  How Riona longed to hold his hands clasped with hers. “Send your angel back to her.”

  “… back to her.”

  “… back to her,” Kieran echoed with Mebh.

  “Father we are broken vessels, flawed and sinful …”

  “… sinful.”

  “… sinful.”

  “We are sorry for our wrongdoings and pray that You do not visit them upon this child, that she should suffer for our sins.”

  Kieran repeated her words and then went on, cutting Riona off. “Father, I have been so wrong. I have caused much hurt and pain.”

  Mebh repeated the words after him. Her tears seemed to stream not just from her closed eyes as she rocked Leila back and forth in her arms, but from her wretched soul.

  “God forgive me. Help me to start anew. Grant me the chance to give this precious little girl the family she deserves … to make it up to this broken woman and my wife for my pride, for my arrogant mistakes.”

  Mebh stilled, looking over Leila’s head at Kieran. Riona closed her hand over the woman’s gnarled, arthritic one. “We all need healing, Mebh. God will heal us if we believe. He will forgive us, but we must forgive ourselves … and each other. Can you forgive to save Leila and yourself?”

  “B … but blood will stain my ’ands. I know it. Maille’s money turned ta blood … spilled out over his ’ands. God’s vengeance, it was, and ’e curses me as well.”

  “Not if you are earnestly sorry for all you’ve done wrong,” Riona explained fervently. “I promise it.”

  “Me ’and’s curled up like this, like a sickness since my baby was took, an’ me ’eart with it.”

  Riona took Mebh’s disfigured hand and pressed it to Leila’s chest.

  “Heal us, Father.”

  The echo of her words carried more voices than those of Mebh and Kieran. There was a child’s and a woman’s coming from the direction of the door.

  “Heal us, Father,” she pleaded again, eyes tightly shut.

  Again and again, she repeated the words. Again and again, there was a chorus, each time louder and louder, until her voice and those around her were the same, crying to heaven, not with their tongues, but with their souls.

  Heal us, Father. Heal us, Father. Heal us, Father.

  No more thought, only pleas.

  Then a single, tiny voice penetrated the chant, clear and fragile as that of a newborn bird joining its first morning song in the forest.

  “Maithar?”

  Mother?

  Riona opened her eyes, but she could see nothing. It was as if the sun itself hung on the wall instead of the dim, smoky lamp. The voice had come from the girl in Mebh’s arms. Of that Riona was certain.

  “Leila?” She groped in the blinding brightness until she felt a small, warm hand clasp hers in return. “Sweetling, I can’t see you.”

  “It’s Seargal, maithar. Isn’t he beautiful? It’s never dark when he’s around. He’s saying good-bye.”

  Kieran fairly shouted from the end of the bed, apparently as blind as Riona. “Leila? Is that you? Is it her, Riona?”

  Faith, she understood every word the child spoke! But that was impossible.

  No longer trusting her senses, Riona groped for Leila’s face and caressed it, knowing its every feature by heart.

  “I love you, Seargal!” the child called out.

  Riona felt Leila’s lips as they spoke, and her heart sang for joy. With God, nothing is impossible. “Aye, it’s our darling.”

  “But where?” Kieran asked unsteadily. “Where is she?”

  “In me arms!” Wonder struck the gravelly harshness from Mebh’s voice, softening it. “The most dazzlin’ spirit I ever laid eyes on passed us through, and the babe come ta life, praise the Lord! She’s warm as a bun fresh from the hearth.”

  Other exclamations of awe penetrated the light. Mebh’s words were with a mix of incredulity and fear. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the light was gone, snuffed like a brilliant flame by an unseen hand.

  “Athair?” Leila called out to Kieran.

  Still dazed, Riona felt him bump against her, clamoring to reach the child. “Here, sweetling. I’m here. Faith, I’m half blind, but I don’t care.”

  His tearful laugh welled like the gladness in Riona’s heart.

  “Well, I can see,” Mebh announced excitedly. “I see the most beautiful little girl ever was.”

  Gradually forms took shape, and the shapes had faces. The confines of the room became defined from the abrupt change of light—and then Riona saw Leila as well.

  “Who are you?” Leila asked, squirming to get out of Mebh’s arms.

  “She’s someone who loves you like a mother and prayed that you’d get well,” Riona assured her, “just like your father and I.”

  Leila gave Mebh a smile. “Thank you, milady.” The child hesitated and glanced over her shoulder at Kieran and back to the woman. “Can I go to my father now? I have something to tell him.”

  Mebh nodded reluctantly and let her go.

  With a bright smile, Leila flung her arms about Kieran’s neck. “Did you see him, Father? Seargal took off his cloak of invilla … invisda—” she wrestled with the word invisibilty—“Invillabillity!” she proclaimed in triumph. “Just to show himself to all of you. Now you know he’s not a make-believe friend, don’t you?”

  “I saw ’im!” Liex exclaimed from the door. The boy scampered in and bounded up on the bed. “He was as tall and big as Athair, and his eyes were like stars … just like you said.”

  “Aye,” Mebh agreed, still unsure of herself. “Like stars they were, and a robe the likes of which I’ve never seen.”

  For the first time, Riona saw the source of the other voices. Ina, Benin, and a host of others were crowded outside the lodge, all as stricken as she by the light. Some were still on their knees. Many were overcome with emotion.

  “We saw a miracle.” Riona grabbed Mebh’s hand in hers. A while ago, that hand had pressed a knife into her flesh, intent on taking her life. Now a spirit flowed through them, uniting them in a warmth that went beyond the earthly. “Mebh!” Riona gasped, staring at the woman’s face.

  The pockmarks were gone, as was the mottled weathering of the woman’s cheeks. And her eyes. They were a beautiful brown, doe-soft and bright with tears of happy delirium. Riona examined the hand she held. A rise of joy nearly choked her. Mebh’s fingers were no longer swollen and twisted.

  “It was an angel.” Even the woman’s voice had changed from an out-of-tune string to one that blended in harmony with the trueness of the others. “All golden and glorious to the heart’s eye.”

  “It came in with the morning sun, like it rode on its rays.” Fynn stood awkwardly at the door. Beyond him, exclamations of “miracle” and “angel” moved through the gathering like wind through wheat.

  Kieran extended his other arm to the boy. “Come here, lad. This family prays together and celebrates together.” Once Fynn was in the circle of Kieran’s arm, Kieran turned to Leila. “So what was it Seargal had to say to me?”

  Leila cupped her hands around Kieran’s ear and whispered softly. Incredulity spread on his face; then he closed his eyes as if in thanks. It was some moments before he opened them again, their amber depths filled with emotion. Still, he didn’t miss Mebh’s motion as she pushed up from the bed and started away.

  “Wait … hold her, Benin,” Kieran ordered. With Leila propped on one arm and Fynn under the other, he was in no position to stop the woman.

  Mebh bla
nched, frozen, waiting for the king to invoke his judgment on her. Outside, the people of the rath closed in around the door that they might hear and see.

  “You needn’t think you’ll be allowed to escape Gleannmara.”

  Riona’s heart stopped in alarm until Kieran’s stern facade crumbled with a grin. “At least, not now that you’re one of us.”

  “Milord?” The woman’s face filled with confusion.

  Praise God, her husband truly was changed. Vengeance, not this winsome forgiveness echoing in his words, would have driven the old Kieran.

  “It’s a new day, Mebh.” His voice drove shadows of doubt and fear away like the rising sun itself. “Grace has wiped away our past as completely as the sun has cleared us of the darkness.”

  “Mebh was sick, too, wasn’t she?” Leila’s remark smacked more of observation than question. “Seargal kissed her hand, just like a man does a lady’s. I didn’t know he knew her.”

  “God bless ye, milord,” Mebh fell to her knees before Kieran.

  Forgiveness, thanksgiving, reverence, resounded both within and without the lodge and defied the awareness of time. At some point, Benin and Ina began to restore order. Across the rath, a clear bell from the chapel rang in the day. People left by ones and twos to prepare for what was to be the first official morning prayers, leaving only Riona’s family and Mebh in the house.

  “Mebh,” Kieran said, relinquishing Leila to the older woman. “Will you join us at the chapel?”

  Fynn pulled away. “You’re going to trust her after all she did to us?”

  Kieran clapped his hand on the lad’s shoulder. “Son, if God forgave her enough to heal her affliction outside, how can we doubt that she isn’t healed within as well?”

  Riona wondered as the boy pondered Kieran’s word. Could this be the same man who’d cursed God and abandoned Him at his parents’ death? Wonder filled her that he, who’d begged God’s forgiveness for his reckless regard for life, was the same soldier who prided himself on his ability to take it. And that she, who’d spurned him in distaste, now loved him more than life itself.

  “What about me?” Fynn kicked at the stone floor of the lodge and slowly raised his eyes to meet Kieran’s. Guilt still plagued his face. “I stole the vial of holy water and nearly got us all killed.”