Celtic Bride

by Margo Maguire

  The vision. Keelin’s premonition had showed her the place. ’Twas a broken-down building made of stone and timber, with a leaky thatched roof. She wondered if she could find it.

  The woman sniffed, but said nothing more of importance, and Keelin shuddered at the malice she sensed from the old woman. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then turned away and went down to the great hall in search of Marcus.

  She did not witness the gleam in Beatrice’s eye as she walked away.

  It looked as if the mummers had performed again, but they were now finished, and the minstrels had taken up their instruments and were playing halfheartedly. Some of the visitors were dancing, others were making up sleeping pallets near the fire and putting the young ones to bed. Baron Selby and his family were not in sight, and Keelin assumed they must have retired for the night.

  Neither Marcus, nor any of his knights were in the hall.

  Frantic now, Keelin asked several servants if they’d seen Lord Marcus, but the reply was always negative. She could not imagine where he and his most trusted knights had gone.

  Finally finding a footman who knew more than most, she learned that an emergency had drawn Marcus and his knights out to the mews. Worried over what other disaster had occurred, Keelin quickly returned to her chamber to add a layer of clothes, and put on her cloak.

  When she was warmly dressed, she hurried down to the mews, and found neither Marcus nor any of his knights, though there were many men working inside.

  What would she do now?

  “Ach, Gerald!” she cried when she gained entrance to the building. Eyeing the devastation all around her, and Gerald’s bloodied forehead, she cried, “Saints above, what happened here?”

  “Thieves, my lady,” Gerald answered as Keelin peeled away the stained cloth that the falconer used to dab at his wound. “They took Guinevere and Cleo, and a couple of the smaller birds….”

  “Ach, no…” Keelin said as she dropped down on the bench next to Gerald. Marcus would be devastated by the loss of his prized birds. If the thief’s intent had been to hurt Marcus, besides stealing something of value, he could not have chosen better.

  Had Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh been taken by these same thieves? Keelin thought ’twas likely. After all, how many thieving strangers had Wrexton taken in? Most were honest men who’d come to the castle with their families for shelter, and were even now bedding themselves down in the great hall.

  Keelin shook her head in shock. If the same man who’d burgled her chamber was responsible for the disaster here in the mews, his method had changed drastically from one place to the other.

  Nevertheless, no matter how many thieves there were, Keelin burned with the need to act. She, Keelin O’Shea, was guardian of the spear. Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh was missing, as were the rest of her valuables, along with Marcus’s precious birds.

  There was nothing to be done here. Keelin saw that the gash on Gerald’s head needed no sewing, and several men were at work cleaning up the damage done.

  She would be of greater assistance to Marcus. The thief had the spear and the birds. To find the birds, ’twas necessary to find the spear.

  She had to believe the power of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh would draw her to it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ’Twas not difficult to leave through the castle gate. Keelin was not questioned as she rode through—she figured the guards were unable to see her clearly, and must have assumed she was part of Marcus’s party.

  She rode through the village, following Marcus’s tracks southward. The wind blew through her layers of clothes, but Keelin continued on, undeterred. She had no choice but to recover the spear. She could not count on Marcus or anyone else being able to find it, for the thief might be clever enough to cover his tracks.

  She continued to ride until she reached a low wooden bridge over a narrow stretch of frozen river. The wind was fierce here in the open, and Keelin hunkered down on her mount to make herself smaller, and to sap up some of the horse’s warmth.

  Marcus had to be quite a distance ahead of her, because his tracks were barely visible in the blowing snow. Keelin could barely make them out, and she hoped it was easier for Marcus to keep the thieves’ tracks in sight.

  She got to the other side of the bridge and had just started to urge her horse forward when the first clear sense of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh came to her. The spear was not straight ahead, toward Marcus’s tracks. The power of it came from the west, toward the hilly country beyond Wrexton lands.

  She looked to her right, toward the desolate hills, and knew the spear traveled in that direction. Yet Marcus’s tracks continued south.

  Keelin knew she had no choice. She had to follow where the spear led her, and hope that Marcus would eventually catch up to her. If she did not, the thief could travel so far ahead, she would never recover Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh.

  The thieves had either gotten away from the castle much sooner than Marcus thought, or they were riding incredibly hard and fast. It was unbelievable that they were managing to elude him this long.

  He continued southward in his pursuit, accompanied by William and Robert, following whatever faint tracks remained. He was as angry as he’d ever been, his hospitality having been violated by a couple of rogue knights. They could have taken what gold he had locked in his study, or any of the precious cloth stored in his father’s trunks.

  But in taking the falcons…Marcus’s wrath knew no bounds. He would catch up to the bastards and see that they paid the penalty for endangering the birds.

  “Lord Marcus!” Sir William called. “We must rest the horses soon. They cannot continue at this pace.”

  And the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Snow, light flurries at first, was now coming down in a torrent. It was nearly impossible to see ahead, and the thieves’ tracks were lost. Still, Marcus knew the knights could not be far ahead. They rode a couple of run-down horses, and they were burdened with the birds. They could not possibly continue to make good time.

  “We keep on,” Marcus said, pulling his wool muffler tightly against the brutal wind. He took some comfort in the knowledge that Keelin was snugly lodged in her chamber at Wrexton.

  She was likely in her bed now, wrapped in thick wool blankets, listening to the wind whip around the turrets and battlements of the castle. What he wouldn’t give to be wrapped in that bed with her, the heat of his body warming hers.

  Idiot! he thought, berating himself. He was like the fool in the mummery play, pursuing her when she’d made it quite clear that she would soon ride out of Wrexton Castle and return to her home. Would wed a man whose name she did not know. Bear children—

  Hell and damnation! He could not let her do it!

  He was no fool in a play. If anything, he was the warrior knight, restored to life. He was the man for Keelin, not some Irish chieftain she had never met. And he would do all in his power to see that she understood that.

  “My Lord!”

  Marcus halted at the top of the rise and looked down the narrow valley below. Two dark shapes were barely visible in the distance. Men on horseback. And when he listened very carefully, Marcus could hear the sound of their voices, carried on the wind.

  “They’re shouting at one another,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “Won’t hear us coming,” Sir Robert remarked.

  “At least, not until it’s too late,” Will added.

  “Let’s go!”

  They rode ahead, and their prey remained oblivious until they were within bow range. When they realized they were being followed, the two tried to increase their pace, only to get bogged down in the accumulating snow. One thief fell from his horse, the other dropped his bundle.

  All the while, Marcus and his men continued in steady pursuit.

  “Devil rot yer, Ned,” the man on the ground cursed. “I thought yer brother said there was a place to hide on this gleekin’ road.”

  “There was—is!” the other man grumbled as he dismounted and tri
ed to gather what he’d dropped. Eyeing the knights behind them, he said, “We can still lose ’em if we—”

  “Halt!” Marcus shouted, watching the two bumblers as they tried to lead their horses and carry the squirming birds in the sacks. If any damage came to them… “Nay, Will, do not shoot.” The knight lowered his bow and awaited the lord’s orders.

  “The louts are going to try to run for it,” Robert remarked.

  “Come on,” Marcus said disgusted by the sight of the bickering thieves. “Let’s be done with it.”

  The rogues berated each other and argued viciously as they tried to put distance between themselves and their pursuers. “…and I suppose the old woman told yer cockeyed brother there was a good hidin’ place for the spear, too, eh?”

  “What’s it to you, you cowardly maltworm. ’Tis not as if you—”

  Marcus dismounted and grabbed the first man by the throat, while William subdued the other robber. “What about a spear?” Marcus asked.

  “Nothin’. I know nothin’ about it,” the thief choked.

  Marcus forced the man to his knees in the snow. He had yet to do any damage to him, but the knave quivered in fear. “Answer me. You spoke of a spear.”

  “It weren’t me, m’lord,” the man choked as Marcus pulled tighter. “My brother’s got it.”

  “Where?”

  The thief pulled at Marcus’s hand, trying to free himself of the choke-hold. Marcus threw a savage punch that caught the man in the jaw. “Answer!”

  “I don’t know!” he cried. “The old woman at the castle told him to take the spear and whatever else he could find in the lady’s chamber and go!”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere, she said, just out in the cold, and far away,” the rogue moaned as he struggled to get loose of Marcus’s grasp. “She said the lady, the young one, would—”

  The knight stopped abruptly, realizing he’d said too much, believing he could get away with saying no more.

  “What?” Marcus demanded, shaking him. “The lady would what?”

  “Nothin’! I don’t know! I weren’t there!”

  “Who was the old woman?” A sinking suspicion was beginning to form in the back of Marcus’s mind. “Who?”

  “’Twas the one what wears the white headrail,” cried the other thief, the one who was pinned by Sir William. “She wanted to be rid of the young one!”

  “Is that it?” Anguish roared through Marcus’s chest as he shook the knight. “Did Beatrice put you onto the spear so that Lady Keelin would go in search of it? Is that it?”

  The man pulled away so violently, he fell from Marcus’s grasp and rolled to his belly. Marcus caught him as he started to scramble away. This time, Marcus did not go easy on the man.

  “I’ll have straight answers of you,” Marcus declared after blows had been exchanged. “Now!”

  “I tell you, I weren’t there!” the rundown knight protested. One of his eyes was bruised, and his lip was split. “All I know is we was told to grab the falcons and run with ’em. Bren—my brother—was gonna steal the spear, and whatever else he could find, then go off in another direction.”

  “What was the old woman’s part?” Marcus asked. “Did she say anything about it?”

  “Nay,” the man replied, afraid of bringing on any further wrath. He spit out a bloody tooth. “Just that the young one would come out looking for the spear, and if she met up with Bren, he could do what he liked with her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Keelin’s bruised shoulder throbbed with every move. She desperately wished she had put on another layer of clothes. Her mittens were soaked through and she could no longer feel her fingers. Her nose was frozen and her ears numb, even though her head was well covered by the hood of her cloak.

  The cold went bone deep. She shivered with it, but forged on, aware that her own personal discomfort was nothing compared to the loss of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh. She tamped down her misgivings about pursuing the spear on her own, and concentrated on keeping herself from falling from her horse.

  ’Twas full night, though the landscape was lit with an eerie light. The snow was coming down so hard, it was difficult for Keelin to see even a few feet ahead of her. ’Twas fortunate the power of the spear still drew her, because the robber’s tracks had disappeared miles back.

  She trudged on, forcing herself to think only of the spear, and not the cold, nor the biting, freezing snow that pelted her face and froze her lashes. She could only hope Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh would continue to guide her to it.

  She visualized the ancient, obsidian spear that had been handed to her ancestor eons ago at Loch Gur, and knew that she had no choice. Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh and her powers of second sight had dictated the course of her life so far. As guardian, she was compelled to risk life and limb for it. Nothing had changed. The burden was hers and hers alone.

  Burden?

  Aye. She’d been burdened with the ancient power since she was but a wee lass, and it had never brought happiness or contentment. To anyone. To be sure, Clann Ui Sheaghda believed that possession of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh somehow made them greater than all other clans.

  Keelin was the only O’Shea who knew otherwise.

  Still, she had no choice but to return the spear to Kerry. What she felt for Marcus could not enter into the decisions that had to be made.

  The course of her life was set. She would wed the man waiting for her in Ireland. It did not matter that she had no feelings for him, nor could he possibly have any for her. Marriage among the nobility was not based on fleeting emotions, but contracted to provide strategic alliances.

  Keelin swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and struggled to hold the reins. Survival was more important than these foolish mental meanderings.

  Her hands barely functioned now and she did not know how much longer her legs would have the strength to keep her astride. Nor did she know how long her horse would last under these severe conditions. Ice was building up on his mane and his eyelashes. She would soon have to find shelter for herself and her mount, even if she did not soon encounter the man who’d stolen Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh.

  She hated to think it, but mayhap ’twould be better to return to Wrexton and wait for Marcus. She halted and stood in the blowing wind, attempting to get her bearings.

  There were no landmarks, other than the hills around her, which she could barely make out in the distance. Her tracks were covered almost as quickly as she made them.

  She was lost.

  Her only hope was to continue following her sense of the spear, and find that the man who’d stolen it needed her help as much as she needed his.

  Two of Wrexton’s knights met Marcus at the edge of the village. They appeared to be supplied for a long expedition.

  “My lord, we were just coming in search of you!”

  “Will and Robert, take the prisoners to the sheriff and make the charges against them,” Marcus said, then turned to the newcomers. “You two, take the falcons back to the castle and get them settled. I’ll—”

  “Your pardon, my lord, but Lady Keelin is missing!”

  Marcus’s heart dropped. His worst fear, that the thief had told the truth about Keelin, had come true. She was out in the storm, in pursuit of her spear.

  The little fool! What had possessed her to go alone?

  “Give me your extra cloaks—”

  “We brought blankets, my lord,” the knight said, pulling the bundle off the rump of his horse and handing it to Marcus. “And some provisions.”

  “Good. Return to Wrexton,” he said. “See that order is kept in the hall, and find Beatrice. Lock her up somewhere.”

  “But, my lord—”

  “Do as I say,” Marcus commanded as he turned his horse and set off on another course. “Keep all secure at the castle,” he shouted as he rode away. “I’ll return as soon as I have Lady Keelin.”

  West was the only direction to take. He’d traveled south once this night, and knew th
e thief who had stolen Keelin’s spear was not there. To the north were high cliffs that would be difficult, if not impossible, to climb in this weather, and the river was eastward. A crossing would not be feasible now.

  He could see no trail in the oddly reflected light of the storm, but there was a slight indentation in the snow that might once have been tracks. Marcus followed in hopes that it was Keelin’s path.

  He had never felt so terrified in his life. Was she dressed warmly enough that she would not to freeze to death? Was she riding in circles, lost in the storm, unable to find her way to shelter?

  Worse yet, had she met up with the thief?

  Marcus knew who the miscreant was. The man and his brother passed themselves off as knights, but he’d had his doubts about that. More likely they’d run afoul of the law and were on the run. Marcus had considered throwing them both on the mercy of the weather, but he preferred to keep them close, where he could keep an eye on them.

  Well, so much for that theory.

  Now Keelin had put herself at risk for the sake of that damnable spear, the object that would take her away from Wrexton and back to Ireland. Yet, if the damnable spear were lost to her forever, would she still feel so compelled to return to her home? Marcus was certain he could convince her to remain with him as his wife if there was no spear.

  Mayhap he should wish the thief luck.

  Nay. Knowing how she felt about the spear, ’twould kill Keelin to lose it. Marcus would do all in his power to see it recovered and returned to her.

  So that she could return to Carrauntoohil with it.

  She would not go alone. When the weather cleared, and travel became possible, Marcus would go with her. He would travel to Ireland with Keelin and do whatever was necessary to keep her from marrying some barbaric Celtic chieftain.

  He grudgingly admitted that the husband chosen by Eocaidh O’Shea might not be a barbarian like Mageean’s mercenaries. He could be a handsome and charming young fellow, or a wise young man as Tiarnan must have been in his youth. Would Keelin be happier in the bosom of her clan, than if she remained exiled in England?