Kushiel 03 - [Moirin 01] - Naamah's Kiss

by Jacqueline Carey

  Then came spring.

  It was a time of greening and new growth, when the soil was damp and fertile. Every plant sent out new shoots, feverish with excitement. Every tree burst into leaf. All my nerves were on edge with it. When Cillian came for the first time that spring, grey eyes hot with yearning and his shoulders grown broad and muscled, there was no question. I didn’t even ask what he’d brought in his satchel.

  No more waiting.

  “Moirin.” His voice was hoarse. “Now?”

  “Now,” I agreed.

  In the meadow, he kissed me like he was starving, yanking at my gown with impatient hands. It should have been tender, but it wasn’t. We’d waited too long for tender. I didn’t care. The feeling of his callused fingertips on my breasts drove me mad. Cillian pushed my thighs apart, fumbling between us. I reached down and took his phallus in my hand. It pulsed against my palm, at once hard and soft to the touch. I fitted the head of it to my nether lips. His hips jerked forward and he groaned, filling me.

  Him inside of me—it was like nothing I’d ever felt. For a moment, I almost panicked. His weight pinned me to the ground, pressed the air from my lungs. His chin ground against my neck. His hips moved convulsively. Over and over, Cillian drove into me, and the fullness was overwhelming.

  “Slower!” I gasped.

  He shuddered and grated out a single word. “Can’t.”

  And then, at the end, it changed. Just as his buttocks began to quiver and his back arched, discomfort gave way to pleasure.

  “Ah, no!” I clutched his shoulder blades. “Not yet!”

  “Sorry!” He spent himself helplessly in me.

  We lay quietly for a moment. Cillian’s breath was ragged in my ear. I waited until it slowed. “Can we try it again?”

  “Aye.” He rolled off me and propped himself on one elbow. “Forgive me, will you? That’s a winter’s worth of wanting you like I’ve never wanted anything else.” He traced a line between my breasts and down my belly. “Gods,” he whispered. “There’s no one else like you, Moirin. No one in the world.”

  I smiled. “No?”

  His fingers slid between my thighs. “No.” He pulled his hand away. Milky seed glistened on his fingertips. “No blood.” Cillian frowned. “Was I not the first?”

  “You were. Who else would it be?”

  “Don’t lie to me.” There was a note in his voice I’d never heard before. It made me angry.

  “Why would I?” I retorted. “I’m a free woman, Cillian. If I chose to take another lover, I would, and it would be no concern of yours. But I’d not lie about it. There’s no one else.”

  Cillian sighed. “I’m sorry! It’s only that the thought of anyone else having you puts a knot in my guts.”

  I thought, choosing my words with care. “You do not have me, Cillian mac Tiernan. No one has me. I am my own to give. Is that understood between us?”

  After a moment, he nodded. “It is.”

  “Good.” I reached for him. “Now let us try this again. Only this time, I want you to go more slowly and not spend so quickly. Is that understood?”

  He grinned. “Aye, mistress.”

  The second time was better. I was slick inside with his seed and there was no discomfort. Cillian moved slowly inside me, propped on his arms, watching my face. I felt a quickening deep inside me and found my hips moving to match his rhythm without thinking. Cillian thrust harder and this time I wanted him to. Stone and sea! He was so big and so deep inside me. Faster, now—faster and faster. What my body wanted seemed just out of reach.

  And then it wasn’t.

  Deep, deep ripples of pleasure burst inside me. I abandoned myself to it, grabbing his buttocks, moaning mindlessly. The bright lady opened her hands and an entire flock of doves took flight.

  “Oh, gods,” Cillian whispered reverently.

  When it was over, I felt calm and happy. We lay drowsing in the meadow, limbs entwined. A curious dragonfly came to investigate, hovering above us on gossamer wings. I stretched out one languid arm. It lighted briefly on my forefinger, regarding us with eyes faceted like gems.

  Cillian’s breath stirred my hair. “Magic?”

  “Only the ordinary everyday kind.” I watched it take wing.

  “Moirin.”

  I looked at him. “Aye?”

  His face was solemn. “Marry me.”

  I sat upright with a jolt. “What?”

  “I’m serious.” He leaned on his elbows. “I miss you when we’re apart—and I daresay you miss me, too. So why ever not?”

  I said the first thing that came into my head. “I’m too young.”

  Cillian gave my naked self a pointed look. “Oh, aye?”

  It made me smile reluctantly. “I’m not ready, Cillian. I’ve not even begun to think about it.”

  “Surely you don’t plan to spend the rest of your days living like a wild thing,” he pressed me.

  “Why ever not?”

  He made an inarticulate sound. “Dagda Mor, girl! You look like something that just stepped out of a fairy tale, and you run around in a dress that might as well serve as a gunny sack with twigs in your hair and no shoes on your feet.”

  I felt at my hair. “So?”

  Cillian tried a different tack. “At least do me a kindness. Promise you’ll come to visit Innisclan and meet my family this summer.”

  “I met your family,” I reminded him.

  “You stood atop a cliff for five minutes and exchanged a grand total of four words with my father,” he said in exasperation. “And it was years ago. Come now.” He waved one arm around at the woods. “You’ve shared every part of your life with me. Is it asking so much of you to let me share a little piece of mine?”

  “No,” I murmured.

  “So you’ll come?”

  I sighed. “I will.”

  EIGHT

  I expected my mother to speak against the visit to Innisclan, but she didn’t. “You’ll pass the night there?” was all she asked.

  “Aye,” I said. “I promised Cillian I’d stay for supper, and it will be too late to return afterward.” I hesitated. “I won’t go if you’d rather I didn’t.”

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “Whatever life you choose for yourself, you need to choose out of knowledge, not ignorance. Go.”

  So I did.

  Cillian wanted to dress me in borrowed finery, but I refused. “Let them meet me as I am,” I said to him. “If they reckon I’m not good enough to sit at Lord Tiernan’s table, no amount of lace and baubles will change their minds.”

  He blew out his breath. “Gods, but you’re as stubborn as your mother!”

  “And rude, too,” I reminded him.

  “Aye.” He grinned. “But oh, so very, very sweet in other ways.”

  It was afternoon when we rode into Innisclan, me behind Cillian on his long-legged gelding. It had been five years since the pilgrimage to Clunderry, and it felt strange to leave the untamed spaces to which I was accustomed. Cattle grazed in meadows marked by low stone fences. Here and there, we saw people who called out greetings to Cillian. When they saw me, they stared, curious. It made my skin prickle and I fought the urge to summon the twilight and conceal myself from their prying gazes.

  At the top of a rise, we halted and regarded the green hollow below.

  “Innisclan,” Cillian said in satisfaction.

  It was a vast stone hall surrounded by outlying buildings. Cillian pointed out the mill and the smithy and the Academy founded by Eamonn mac Grainne and his Skaldic bride. In an adjacent field, a group of young men played a vigorous game involving sticks and a ball. When we drew near, they hailed him with shouts.

  “Cillian, lad!”

  “Come, give us a hand!”

  And then they saw me and went quiet.

  “That’s the witch’s daughter,” someone murmured.

  “Aye.”

  “I’ d fancy a piece o’ that,” another voice declared boldly.

  There was heat in
their eyes. I could feel it on my skin—an itch of a different sort. It set the wings to fluttering in my belly in an unthinking response, but it made me nervous, too. There was no care in their regard, only hunger. I was glad when Cillian shook his head at them and kept riding.

  Desire, I thought, could be a dangerous gift.

  At the stable, Cillian dismounted and helped me down. The freckled lad to whom he gave the chestnut’s reins stared at me with frank awe.

  “Witch-girl.” Cillian kissed my lips. “Come. Meet my family.”

  I went with him.

  The doors to the hall of Innisclan were tall. Wood, bound with steel. One of Lord Tiernan’s men inclined his head to Cillian, doing his best not to stare at me. The tall doors swung open. Despite the brightness of the day, it was dark inside. I hesitated on the lintel, curling my toes on the cool stone. I’d never been inside a man-made dwelling.

  “There’s naught to harm you here, Moirin,” Cillian said softly. “I swear it.”

  “Moirin!” A young woman hurried toward us, her arms extended. She caught my hands in hers and squeezed them, her eyes bright. “You’ve come at last.”

  “This is Aislinn,” Cillian said. “My sister the heir.”

  She hadn’t been at the meeting atop the cliff, but I would have known who she was without him telling me. They both had a look of their father.

  “Well met.” Aislinn kissed me on both cheeks. Still holding my hands in hers, she regarded me. “Dagda Mor! Cillian, she’s a vision to be sure, but could you not at least have offered the lass the loan of a decent gown and a pair of shoes?”

  “He—” I began.

  “I—” he said.

  “No mind.” Paying our words not the slightest heed, Aislinn tugged me across the threshold. “Come with me. I’ve things you can borrow.”

  “I’m fine,” I managed.

  She gave me a hurt look. “Ah, now! Would you begrudge me the pleasure?”

  “Ahhh… no?”

  “Right you are.” Aislinn gave another smart tug on my hands. “Come along, then.”

  I went with her, casting a helpless glance over my shoulder. Cillian shrugged, equally helpless.

  To my eyes, Aislinn’s bedchamber was a small, cramped space. The moment she closed the door behind us, I felt stifled and confined. The room had one window and I hovered close to it, breathing fresh air in anxious gulps while she pulled gowns from a chest, holding them up and examining them.

  “This ought to suit,” she said of a gown of fine-combed green wool. “It will set off your eyes.” She glanced up at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Aye,” I said weakly. “’Tis my first time indoors.”

  Her eyes widened. “Ever?”

  I eyed the closed door. “Aye.”

  Cillian’s sister was a quick study. She followed my gaze and hurried to open the door. “Better?”

  Something in my chest eased. “Thank you, yes.”

  “Right, then.” She stood in the doorway with her back to me. “I’ll stand sentry duty, shall I? You try on that gown.”

  The gown fit nicely, only a little loose. I smoothed it with both hands, feeling the fineness of the weave, and glanced down at myself to admire the way the fabric clung to my body. Aislinn turned around to regard me with approval.

  “Let’s do something with your hair, shall we?” Without waiting for my reply, she pointed at a chair. “Sit.”

  I sat.

  When I was little, my mother would comb the tangles from my hair, but it was a painful process and we’d never had a brush. This felt good. I relaxed with pleasure as Aislinn ran the brush through my hair.

  She laughed at my expression. “I’ve a cat that gets that very look when she’s being petted.”

  “Mmm.” I noticed that when she smiled, Aislinn had the same dimples that her brother did. I wondered what it would be like to kiss her. Mayhap the thought showed in my face, because she cleared her throat and put down the brush with alacrity, moving behind me.

  “I’ll just put it in a simple braid.”

  It didn’t feel simple when it was done, braided and coiled and pinned into place. Aislinn picked up a silvery object and handed it to me.

  “See how you like it,” she said.

  The object was a mirror.

  I’d never seen a true reflection of my own face before. I studied it. With my hair coiled neatly, it was easy to see. There was the stamp of my mother’s blood in the angle of my cheekbones, the shape of my chin. But it was all different, too. And I did have very green eyes.

  “Do you like it?” Aislinn asked.

  I touched my hair. “Oh, yes. It’s lovely.”

  “Good.” She busied herself with finding a pair of velvet slippers that matched the gown. They were narrow and pinched my toes, but I suffered it, reluctant to deny Cillian’s sister the pleasure it gave her. Aislinn clapped her hands together. “Perfect!”

  When we returned to the main hall, Cillian gaped at me. “Moirin?”

  “One and the same,” I agreed.

  Unexpectedly, he offered me a courtly bow. “And the very picture of beauty thus adorned. Come, will you see the Academy?”

  It was large enough to house over a dozen scholars. The students were just settling in to an early supper in the dining hall—young men and a few women, sons and daughters of nearby estates. I recognized several of the young men from the game in the field. While their regard was still avid and curious, this time it was more circumspect. It occurred to me, trying not to hobble in my too-tight slippers, that attire was another form of concealment.

  Cillian showed me the library, the pride of the Academy. Running my fingers over the spines of countless volumes, peering at the enticing scrolls in their cubbyholes, I could almost imagine myself studying here. Then he showed me the quarters where the women lodged.

  I shuddered.

  It was a long, windowless room with a row of narrow beds in it. Just looking at it made me feel trapped and frantic.

  “Ah, no,” I said feebly. “I think not.”

  Cillian pulled me away. “You wouldn’t have to stay here if we wed,” he said in a cunning tone. “We’d stay in the great hall, you and I.”

  Somehow, I doubted his chamber was any larger than his sister’s. “I’ll think on it.”

  “Do.”

  And then we returned to the hall of Innisclan for our own supper.

  Although it seemed very fine to me at the time, I know now that it was a modest affair with only immediate family in attendance. None of the others I’d encountered atop the ridge long ago were present. Only Lord Tiernan and his wife, Caitlin. Aislinn. Cillian.

  Me.

  When the first course of leek soup was served, I picked up my bowl without thinking and set my lips to the rim. They stared at me in horror. Lady Caitlin actually blanched.

  “Like this,” Aislinn said gently, demonstrating with her spoon.

  “Oh,” I murmured, feeling foolish. I wasn’t ignorant, I knew what a spoon was. I had a very nice one carved out of horn somewhere. It was just that we did without when it was easier, which was most of the time.

  After that, I watched and learned. To be truthful, there were some implements with which I was unfamiliar. This utensil went in that hand. One did not eat until all the table had been served and Lord Tiernan ate the first bite and nodded, signifying all was well. In between bites, one patted one’s lips with the crisp white cloth that had been provided. In between courses, one dipped one’s fingers in a bowl of warm water, then wiped them on the self-same white cloth.

  The conversation was stilted and awkward. Cillian was no help, turning sullen beneath the weight of his parents’ apparent disapproval of me. Aislinn did her best, asking me about my studies and which of the books I’d read was my favorite.

  At least the food was very, very good. Especially the stuffed goose.

  At Lady Caitlin’s behest, talk turned to matters of Innisclan as she prompted Lord Tiernan to relate his efforts t
o cultivate a transplanted D’Angeline grapevine that had been sent as a gift of the King. It seemed it was failing to thrive.

  “Mayhap Moirin might have some insight,” she suggested with polite malice. “Have you not been reading about D’Angeline culture, my dear? I seem to recall Cillian asking to borrow some volumes a while ago.”

  “I hardly think—” Lord Tiernan began.

  “Only a little,” I interrupted him. “But if you’d like me to have a look at it, I may be able to tell you what’s wrong.”

  My offer was met with a surprised silence.

  “It’s naught to do with D’Angeline culture. Moirin says plants speak to her,” Cillian informed them with a gleam in his eye, their discomfort restoring his spirits.

  “Really?” Aislinn looked interested. “What do they say?”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “It’s not words, it’s just… impressions. You know the way it feels on a bright spring day after a night’s rain when all the world is washed fresh and clean, and you can almost hear the trees stretching their branches and the leaves drinking in the sunlight?” Lady Caitlin looked dour, but the others nodded. “It’s like that only stronger.”

  “Fascinating,” Lord Tiernan murmured.

  And so nothing would do but that after supper, Lord Tiernan sent for the gardener who served as his would-be vintner and we traipsed out into the field to examine the grapevine. In the warm light of the setting sun, the old stock looked hardy enough, but the new growth was paltry, spindly, pallid tendrils barely clinging to the trellis. I stroked it with my fingertips, trying to hear without ears while the aggrieved gardener demonstrated to Lord Tiernan for what was clearly the hundredth time that the soil was rich and black and moist.

  Too moist, the roots whimpered, longing for sandier soil.

  I wound a pale tendril around one finger, feeling the urge to coax it to grow. “The earth’s too rich,” I said instead. “This fellow here wants dirt that doesn’t hold the moisture so well.” I pointed up the ridge. “Do you plant him somewhere higher where the water can drain, I reckon he’ll thrive.”

  The gardener looked indignant. I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault if he didn’t know his trade as well as he ought.