“Lovely, isn’t it?” said Bevin. “I am sure it must be difficult for you to arrange for such a bath at Sion. We thought you might enjoy this.”
Rioghan could only nod. “I have only a shallow basin for bathing. I can heat only a little water at a time. It serves to keep one clean, of course, but this…”
She sat back against the side of the deep tub. Its sides were so high they came up past her waist. The steam continued to rise as she took the soap and the linen bag of oatmeal and began scrubbing away, enjoying every moment.
When she was finished, she leaned back to let Bevin pour warm water over her hair and wash it gently but thoroughly with soap. “Ah, it is tangled, Rioghan,” the woman said, patiently picking out the knots with a wooden comb and working the lather all the way through to the ends.
“Oh, I do not doubt that it is,” Rioghan said, feeling embarrassed. “It is so heavy, so thick… It is not like yours.” She looked up at the other women with their long, neatly braided plaits of hair, so lovely and smooth compared to her own wild and windblown mass. She had never worried about her hair, always content to simply twist it so that it hung down her back and did not interfere as she worked.
“We can show you a few things about your hair, if you like,” said Bevin. “Do you think that Sabha’s beautiful plaits simply braid themselves before she gets out of bed in the morning?”
“I can assure you that they do not,” Sabha said with a laugh, and Rioghan quickly shut her eyes tight as Bevin dumped a final bucket of warm water over her hair to rinse the last of the soap from it.
“Ah, I could stay here all day,” Rioghan said with a sigh, sinking down once more as the steam continued to play about the surface of the water.
“I know how you feel, but it’s best to get out before the warmth begins to fade.” Sabha stepped to the side of the basin and held up a rectangular cloak of thick wool. “Here you are. Step out and wrap up in this—that’s it—come now, over to the ledge. The furs will keep you warm while you dry off, and then we will try you in your new clothes.”
Rioghan sat down on the edge of the ledge, quickly drying off with the heavy wool. It was a bit rough and scratchy, but warm even when it was wet.
She looked up at the three women who had been so kind, feeling almost as if she had emerged from her marvelous bath reborn. “Thank you,” she said, with all sincerity. “Bevin, Aideen, and, oh, Sabha—thank you.”
All three turned to her and smiled back with nothing but happiness and merriment in their eyes. “You are most welcome,” Bevin said. “No one deserves such kindness more than you.”
“Come, come now!” Sabha said, quickly turning and busying herself with something at the hearth. “Do not make me weep. We have work to do yet, Lady Rioghan!”
“That we do,” said Aideen. “And we’ll start with this.”
Aideen placed a small, plain pottery jar on the furs beside Rioghan and opened the lid. Inside was a soft white cream, fragrant with the sweet, delicate scent of violets.
“This is my favorite,” said the woman, touching a little of the cream to her finger. “Made from beeswax, white violets, and a few other fine things. Now, while you are still warm and damp from the bath, work it into every part of your skin that you can reach. It feels wonderful!”
“It does, it does,” murmured Rioghan, smoothing it along her arms and into the parched skin of her elbows and fingers. “And the scent is lovely. I may have to beg you for a little of this to take back with me.”
“Do you not know how to make such things, Rioghan?” asked Sabha, who was unfolding and smoothing out the fabrics she had brought. “You are so good at preparing medicines and poultices and teas. Surely a soothing cream would be simple for you to make.”
Rioghan continued to work the cream into her skin, moving to her knees and roughened heels. “I probably could learn—I believe my mother used to make things such as this—but it seemed that my time was better spent on the medicines that everyone needs, that could even save a life. Things like this just seemed a bit…a bit frivolous, I suppose.”
“It is not frivolous to take care of oneself,” argued Bevin. “How can you help others if you yourself are neglected and uncared for?”
“I made this cream myself, and I will send some back with you—along with the recipe to make it,” said Aideen.
“And if you are finished with the cream,” said Sabha, “try this.” She held up a long linen gown in a subtle shade of silvery gray. “I think it will fit you. Let’s see!”
Rioghan let the wool cloak fall from her shoulders and quickly pulled the linen undergown over her head. Standing up, she let it settle into place, delighting in the lightweight feel of the fine new fabric.
“It’s lovely,” she said, looking down at herself, “but not nearly warm enough! Sabha, what have you done with the rest of my clothes?”
“Rioghan, my dear friend, there will be no dreary black for you tonight! We have brought you all that you will need. This is next—and this—you will not be cold!”
Sabha dropped a mass of dark green wool over Rioghan’s head and carefully adjusted the long gown as it dropped into place. It reached just past the knees and was cut lower at the neck than the undergown, and so showed off the fine silver-gray linen, which reached to the floor and came up higher at the neck.
“Perfect, as I thought,” Sabha crowed. “And if by chance you are still cold, let me assure you that the way you are going to look when you walk into the hall will attract all the warmth you need. You will turn the head of every man there!”
All the women laughed, including Rioghan, though she held up her hands in protest at the same time. “Men never look at me. I am nothing for them to look at. They always think I am one of the Sidhe, small and dark-haired as I am. Always they look at the tall and beautiful women of Cahir Cullen, with their blue eyes and golden hair—”
“But on this night, we will show them just how lovely black hair and green eyes can be. Sit down again now—sit down; we are not finished with you yet!”
Rioghan sat down once more on the edge of the fur-covered sleeping ledge.
“Turn this way—”
“This way!”
“Hold still now—”
While Aideen and Bevin turned her head this way and that, until one could reach her hair and the other could work on her face, Rioghan closed her eyes and went along with whatever they wished to do with her. In a moment Bevin was tugging at her long wet hair with a wooden comb, while Aideen began dabbing at her cheeks and lips with something cool and wet.
“Bevin, I fear to ask what you are doing to my hair, and so I will not—but Aideen, what do you have planned for my face?”
Through half-closed eyes Rioghan could see Aideen smile. “It does not need much. Your green eyes are already set off by brows and lashes dark as night. I have here some blackberry juice and water, to add a little color to your cheeks and to your lips. Never have I seen skin so fair… There!”
Rioghan blinked and opened her eyes. But she dared not move, for Bevin still had her hair firmly in her grasp, combing and tugging and twisting it.
Sabha returned and held out a handful of objects to Rioghan. “These are mine,” she said, “and I would be so happy if you would wear them tonight. They would look beautiful on you.”
In Sabha’s hands lay a glittering collection of delicate gold. She set it all down on the soft white furs and began by lifting out two small identical pieces. They looked like a pair of teardrops woven of shining gold wire, with a long loop at the end. Sabha placed the loops over each of Rioghan’s ears so that the gold teardrops swung just below her ears on either side of her face.
“Hold out your arms,” commanded Sabha, and when Rioghan did so she placed a slender, twisted ribbon of gold around each wrist—bands left open in one spot so that they could be pulled slightly apart and slipped onto the wearer’s arm. Each end of the band was capped with a small sphere of brilliant, heavy gold.
“Sta
nd up,” said Sabha, and Rioghan cautiously slid her feet to the floor, for Bevin still had a firm grip on her hair. “Raise your arms,” Sabha told her, and this time she wrapped a slender belt around Rioghan’s waist—a belt made entirely of delicate gold links. When it was hooked together, the end of it trailed almost to her ankles.
“Hold this, now, while I get the mantle,” Sabha commanded, and gave Rioghan a circular golden brooch beautifully decorated with polished black jet.
Rioghan smiled when she saw the brooch. Dark and gleaming jet was one of her favorite things to wear, for it was a substance of the forest itself, made from the most ancient of trees after a long, long sleep within the earth. Her own bronze brooch, given to her by her mother, was itself inlaid with the stone.
Sabha added a woolen mantle to the outfit. It was a rectangle of soft new wool, woven in a plaid of dark green and silvery gray with just a few lines of red as bright as holly berries. She took the golden brooch from Rioghan and fastened the mantle with it at the left shoulder.
“Am I finished?” Rioghan asked.
“Just one more thing,” said Bevin. She lifted Rioghan’s hair from beneath the green-and-gray mantle and took all the remaining gold ornaments from the pile on the white furs. These were four lightweight, hollow golden spheres, dotted with a delicate pattern of holes and with a larger hole at the top. With just a little more tugging Bevin fastened them in Rioghan’s hair, then stepped back at last. “I think we are through with you. Here…look at yourself!”
Bevin held up a polished bronze mirror in front of Rioghan, turning it so that it would catch the fire’s light.
“Oh…”
Rioghan lifted up one hand to touch her face, her hair, her shoulder. In the hazy reflection of the bronze mirror she could see her own features, but in a way she had never seen them before.
Always, it seemed, she went about with her black cloak pulled up over her head or with her long, heavy black hair falling around her face to hide it. But in the bronze mirror she saw a young green-eyed woman with her face open to the world, her skin fair and flushed and touched with deep color at the cheeks and lips.
Her glossy black hair had been tightly and neatly braided straight back along the top of her head, on either side of the center part, with the ends hanging down behind her shoulders in two long streams reaching nearly as far as the golden belt at her waist. The rest of her hair was in two long braids on either side of her face and fell down in front of her shoulders to the belt. Attached to the end of each of the four braids were the delicate golden spheres.
The gold-wire earrings framed her face. The twisted golden bands gleamed at her wrists. The belt of gold links hung low on her hips, bright against the dark green wool of her gown, and outlined a slender figure usually hidden beneath her heavy black garb.
Rioghan lowered the mirror as her heart began to pound. Again she felt exposed and vulnerable and entirely out in the open, standing here with her smooth braided hair revealing her color-stained face, and a tight-fitting gown and gold belt showing off her body. For a moment she wanted to tell Sabha to bring back her clothes so she could retreat to the safety of black wool and solitude…but then the image of Donaill came into her mind.
He would be waiting for her in the flickering lights and merry company of the king’s hall. Waiting for her.
Rioghan turned to the three women. “I cannot thank you enough.”
“There is no need to thank us,” said Sabha. “It is our pleasure.”
“Though I think it will be Donaill’s pleasure when he sees her!”
“Bevin! Do not embarrass Rioghan,” said Aideen with a laugh. “Though I must say that I agree with you!”
Rioghan, too, laughed out loud, and handed the bronze mirror back to Bevin. “Ladies, you have indeed worked magic this night. At this moment I am feeling bold enough to walk into the hall and sit down at the feast. Please, let’s go now, before I change my mind!”
Chapter Ten
In the deep blue twilight, with the stars just beginning to appear near the horizon, the four women walked together across the quiet grounds of Cahir Cullen. Just ahead was the enormous round building that was the king’s hall. Light shone from its high windows, and smoke poured through the hole cut in the very center of its conical thatched roof. As the four of them approached, the good smell of wood smoke reached them along with the delicious aroma of roasting meat.
They started toward the door, but then Sabha stopped and placed her hand on Rioghan’s arm. “I cannot go in,” the woman said. “He will be there…he will be there with her. I cannot go in. He would expect to sit with me on one side of him and her on the other.” She shook her head. “I would have done anything else for him, anything at all…but not that. Never that.”
Rioghan smiled gently at her, forgetting her own nerves for the moment. “I am so sorry. You must remember that the choice was Airt’s, not yours. The choice and the loss are both his. There was nothing you could have done to change his thoughts on this. Or his actions.”
“I understand that now.” Sabha took a deep breath. “Go now. Enjoy yourselves, and tell me about it later!”
The four of them hugged each other, and then Bevin, Aideen, and Rioghan all walked through the doors of the king’s hall.
Never did Rioghan recall seeing so many people crowded together in one place at one time. The conversation and laughter rang almost painfully loud. In the center of the enormous hall the stone-walled circular firepit blazed with bright yellow light, sending clouds of smoke and the occasional spray of sparks up toward the hole in the roof.
Forming a circle around the firepit was a row of beautifully dressed men and women. They were seated on leather cushions placed on the thick, dry straw of the floor, and faced each other across polished squares and rectangles of wood. Before them on the wood rested golden plates, each one with two golden cups beside it.
Above each plate was a small flat stone holding a fine white beeswax candle. Pressed into the base of each was a decorative cutting of holly, the glossy green leaves and bright red berries setting off the brilliant gold of the plates and adding bright spots of color to the winter gathering.
Over the firepit, two wild boars turned on iron spits above the crackling flames, and at the edges bronze cauldrons rested on iron tripods set over the coals. An army of servants turned the spits and stirred the cauldrons, hurrying back and forth with bowls and plates between the firepit and the long, rough wooden slabs laden with food across one section of the rear wall.
Rioghan glanced quickly about but for a panicked moment saw not one familiar face—not even among the women. She stayed close to Bevin and Aideen as they peered through the smoky candlelit haze, looking for their husbands. “Ah! There he is—and Bevin, there is Niall. Rioghan, I know that you are Donaill’s guest, but I do not see him. Would you care to sit beside me and Tully until he arrives?”
“Thank you, but…I will—I will just wait.” Donaill had not come. Or he might yet come. Rioghan wasn’t sure which she feared more. She turned and hurried back toward the door, intending to go back to Sabha’s house and get her own clothes and—
“Why, good evening to you, Lady Rioghan.”
Rioghan stopped and stepped back a pace. Donaill stood in the doorway, framed by darkness and flickering torchlight. He smiled down at her and reached for her hand.
He seemed even taller than she remembered, his shoulders broader and his cloak wider. Perhaps it was just the heavy leather boots he wore with his smooth black leather breeches that added to his height. It must have been the new wool tunic in a beautiful plaid of red and gold and cream that made his shoulders seem even larger and stronger, as did the heavy red cloak pinned over his left shoulder with a large golden brooch.
And it must have been his hair, now long and loose and flowing down to his shoulders, that made his skin seem even smoother and his blue eyes even brighter—the soft, light brown hair that set off his powerful neck and wide jaw.
It
was as if she had never seen him before, yet knew him very well at the same time. And as she stood staring at him, the noise of the many shouting, laughing people began to fade. All she heard was the sound of Donaill’s voice saying, “You look so beautiful this night. Will you come inside with me?”
“Thank you. I will,” she replied, and stepped back to let him walk through the doors. She turned to move beside him as he went to find his place beside the king.
“I will sit beside King Bran, of course, said Donaill, surveying the people as they walked past, “since I am king’s champion. But first I must find him…”
“Do you not know the king’s place in the hall?” Rioghan asked, carefully looking straight ahead as she walked. “How could that be, if you always sit beside him at a feast?”
“Well, you can see that there is no beginning and no end to the places where we sit, since our hall is round. And so the king moves among the people each time there is a gathering and chooses a different place to sit.”
Rioghan nodded as they walked over the thick carpet of straw, stepping aside once to let the servants pass with plates stacked high with hot oatbread and wooden bowls heaped with butter. “Ah! Here we are.”
She found herself standing beside Donaill in the warmth of the blazing fire, looking down at King Bran. He nodded to her in greeting as she presented herself to him. “Thank you for coming, Lady Rioghan. You have been a great help to us, and you are always welcome here…though I must say I am not sure I would have known you tonight, had Donaill not told me your name just now. Sit down, please, and enjoy this night among my people.”
She smiled, feeling her spirits rise. “I thank you for your hospitality, King Bran,” she said, and together she and Donaill sat down on the smooth leather cushions in the straw.
As Donaill turned to her, she became aware that the noise of conversation had faded somewhat. She looked up and realized that Donaill was not the only one looking at her. Half the people of the gathering were looking and pointing at her, whispering and glancing at each other.
Keeper Of The Light Page 10
