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

by Jacqueline Carey

  “Fascinating,” Lord Tiernan repeated, stroking his beard. “I may just try it.”

  “You can’t be serious!” his wife said with asperity.

  “Why not?” For the first time, he gave me a smile with a hint of warmth in it. “After all, we’ve tried everything else. And it seems to me that when one is given advice by a beautiful young lady who talks to plants, one ought to heed it.”

  That didn’t sit well with her. Fortunately, the sun was sinking beneath the horizon. When we returned to the hall, I professed myself exhausted and begged their leave to retire for the night. It was true, I was worn out from the unfamiliar strain of being around strangers. Aislinn graciously showed me to a guest-chamber even smaller than any I’d seen. I took off her borrowed dress and folded it carefully, uncoiled and unbraided my hair with an effort, then curled up in a proper bed with clean-smelling linens and tried to sleep.

  I couldn’t, not for the life of me.

  I’d left my door ajar and I could hear the unfamiliar sounds of human activity—boots scuffing, dishes clattering. I tried shutting the door, but then the trapped feeling closed in on me. After what was surely the better part of two hours, I gave up and resolved to slip out unseen and pass the night outdoors.

  It was agonizingly difficult to summon the twilight, something that came as second nature to me at home. Somehow it was all different here in this hall built by men’s hands with history carved into every stone. Mine was a gift meant to be used by wild folk in wild places, and I’d suffered myself to be tamed today.

  Now that was a fearful thought.

  But I made myself be calm and remember, and at last it came. I stole out of the chamber with a profound sense of relief.

  The great hall wasn’t empty. There was a sentry drowsing in a chair by the doors—and of course, the doors were barred. I paused, realizing that I’d likely wake him if I left, and wondered if it was worthwhile.

  And then I realized that Lord Tiernan and Lady Caitlin were sitting in high-backed chairs before the hearth, speaking in low tones.

  About me.

  “… don’t care if it’s rational or not, I don’t like her!” she was saying. “There’s something sly and uncanny about that girl.” There was a quiet note of despair in her voice. “Will you tell me you don’t see it, too?”

  I hoped he would. Uncanny, I’d grant her, but sly seemed unfair. Although given the particular circumstances, I’d be hard put to argue it.

  “No,” Lord Tiernan said slowly. “No, I do. I’ll grant that she’s not what I’d choose for a daughter-in-law.”

  “And yet Cillian’s utterly besotted!” The note of despair gave way to hushed fury. “Why ever didn’t you put a stop to it?”

  He sighed. “I hoped the winter would cool his ardor. Two years ago, it seemed his fancy was passing.”

  “Two years ago, she was still a stripling child,” she said darkly. “Now… oh, gods! What does she want with him?”

  “I don’t know,” Lord Tiernan murmured.

  I curled my toes in an agony of indecision. Part of me yearned to flee, part to retreat. And a third considerable part longed to reveal myself and shout at them that I’d never wanted aught of Cillian but for him to be my friend, and later, lover. It was hardly my fault he was muddling everything up with this talk of marriage.

  “Mayhap we could bargain with her,” Lady Caitlin mused. “They say the Old Ones like to make bargains, and I suppose she’s one of them, whatever else she might be. Do you suppose we might bribe her to leave him alone?”

  “With what?” He sounded weary. “They may choose to live like savages, but they’re blood royal nonetheless. It’s not as though I haven’t offered our hospitality over the years. Money?” He shook his head. “They don’t lack for it. There’s a trust held in keeping for all of the descendants of Alais’ line in Bryn Gorrydum, which Fainche knows perfectly well.”

  I blinked. She did?

  “It’s Fainche that disappoints me.” Now Lord Tiernan sounded bewildered and angry. “Have I not always honored her choices? Why does she send her daughter to bewitch my only son?”

  I’d heard enough.

  I swept past the drowsing guard and unbarred the great doors, flinging them open, then fled into the warm night.

  Behind me, there were cries of alarm.

  I ignored them. In the twilight through which I moved, the landscape of Innisclan looked silver-grey and serene. I made my way to the poor, struggling grapevine we’d visited earlier. Now, while there was no one to see, I cupped its tendrils in my hands. Holding an image of dry, arid soil and bright beating sunlight in my mind, I blew softly on it. The tendrils stretched gratefully, reaching for a more secure grip on the trellis.

  “Moirin!” Cillian was blundering around the fields, a lantern in one hand. With his other hand, he held up his unbelted breeches. “Moirin! Gods be damned, girl! You sodding little woodsprite! Will you not show yourself?”

  When he was almost on me, I did.

  “Oh!” He peered at me, then turned and waved the lantern in the direction of unseen pursuers. “It’s all right, go back! I’ve found her!”

  I folded my arms. “Sodding little woodsprite?”

  “Hush.” Cillian set down the lantern and embraced me. Despite everything, it felt good. I couldn’t resist running my fingers into his crisp, springing hair. “Too much, was it?”

  “Your mother detests me,” I informed him. “And your father agrees that I’m sly and uncanny, and he considers my mother a disappointment. Oh, and apparently there are further truths she’s not yet seen fit to divulge to me.”

  He ran his thumb over my lower lip. “Aislinn liked you.”

  “Did she?”

  “Aye.” Cillian smiled in the starlight. “She said you need to remember that if there’s a spoon on the table, it’s meant to be used, and that it’s not terribly appropriate to look at people’s sisters as though you wonder if they might taste good—a sentiment with which I’m in particular agreement. But she liked you.”

  I felt somewhat mollified. “I liked her, too.”

  He kissed me. “Give us a chance?”

  “I’ll try.”

  NINE

  I tried.

  For a year, I tried to think of myself as Cillian’s potential wife. The worst part of it was that I did love him. Being with Cillian was the simplest thing on earth, familiar and uncomplicated. I loved the way our bodies came together. I loved to look at him in the aftermath of love. His disheveled auburn hair. His limbs and torso, pale and sinewy and freckled. Mine, golden and supple. We could talk for hours entwined that way.

  But I didn’t want to marry him.

  “Why?” my mother asked in her direct way.

  I shrugged. “Why did you never wed Oengus?”

  She shrugged.

  “My father?” I guessed.

  “Nooo.” She drew the word out. “That was…” She sketched a vague gesture. “A gift?”

  “So?” I pressed.

  “It wasn’t the right time,” she said firmly. “Oengus, I mean.”

  “Nor is this,” I said. “And his father… I think Lord Tiernan might come around in time. But Lady Caitlin despises me. And I simply don’t think I’m ready to be any man’s wife.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Cillian doesn’t think so.”

  “Moirin, my heart…” My mother sighed. “I told you long ago, that lad was doomed from the minute he laid eyes on you. He wants you, all of you, all to himself. If you’re not willing to give it and accept the same from him, you’d do him a kindness to cut him loose, for he’ll never be happy with less.”

  The thought alarmed me. “And lose him altogether?”

  “Likely.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “No, I don’t want that.”

  I tried a different approach with Cillian. I was nearing sixteen and my woman’s courses had yet to begin. I knew it troubled my mother, for I was a woman grown in all other ways, and it
had begun to worry me, too. When I told Cillian I feared I might be barren, it had the dubious advantage of being true.

  He was quiet for a long time. “I should have noticed. But women seldom speak of these things with menfolk.”

  “They do among the Maghuin Dhonn,” I said, remembering Oengus and my mother discussing it.

  “Still.” Cillian gathered himself with an effort. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, sounding as though he were trying to convince himself. “I’m not my father’s heir. It doesn’t.”

  “It does,” I murmured. “You should wed someone who’ll be a proper wife to you and a mother to your children. Nothing would have to change between us.”

  “I don’t want a proper wife!” he shouted at me. “I want you!”

  I thought that might have changed matters between us, but the next time Cillian returned he was all smiles.

  “You’re not barren,” he informed me.

  “Oh?” I raised my brows at him. “Are you a midwife now?”

  “No.” He settled himself comfortably on the hearth. “But I spoke to a woman who is. And she spoke to another, who spoke to another, who recalled old tales her granddam told her from when the old Master of the Straits was overthrown and D’Angelines first came to Alba.” He pulled me onto his lap. “We live in a remote corner of the world. Seems it’s common knowledge in Bryn Gorrydum. Like it or not, you’re half-D’Angeline, Moirin, and you take after your father’s kind. It’s different for you. You’ll not be fertile until you beseech their goddess Eisheth to unseal the gates of your womb.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.” Cillian nuzzled my hair. “Elsewise, I’d have gotten you with child ten times over, wouldn’t I? And then you’d have to wed me.”

  I laughed. “Oh aye, like my mother wed my father.”

  His face darkened.

  “Ah, now, don’t.” I laid my hand across his lips. “If it’s true, it’s wonderful news. Can you not just let me enjoy it?”

  He nodded reluctantly, and we spoke no more of it that day.

  That night, I told my mother.

  She gazed at me in shock, her lips parted. “Is he certain?”

  I’d thought she’d be happier about it. “Aye,” I said. “Fairly so. He says it’s common knowledge in Bryn Gorrydum. Cillian wouldn’t lie,” I added, offended on his behalf if that was what she suspected. “Not about this.”

  “No,” she murmured. “No, I suppose not.” Her dark gaze was fixed on the distance. “If it’s true, it changes things.”

  A shiver ran the length of my spine. “What things?” She didn’t answer. A rare wave of anger swept over me. “Stone and sea, Mother! Is there to be no end to the secrets you keep from me? My parentage, my namesake, the bright lady… what of the funds held in trust for Alais’ line?” I’d been waiting for the right moment to ask her, but now it just came out along with everything else. “Were you ever going to tell me about that?”

  She looked startled. “What?”

  “A trust in Bryn Gorrydum—” I shook my head impatiently. “No mind. What were you going on about now?”

  “I forgot about the trust.” Her voice was soft. “Forgive me. It’s yours to draw on if you wish. I’ve a signet ring my own mother gave me hidden away somewhere. That’s the token. I’ll find it if you like.”

  “Mother.”

  She stirred the embers of our hearth-fire with a long stick. “Among our people, a year after you enter womanhood, you’re to be presented to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to be accepted as one of Her children.”

  “Or not?” I asked, chilled.

  “Or not.” She nodded. “She does not always show Herself.”

  I was silent for a while. “What happens if She doesn’t?”

  “Oh.” My mother poked at the fire, her head averted. “If She did not, it would be because your heart had changed when you crossed the threshold from child to adult. It happens, sometimes. Your gifts would fade. You would no longer feel welcome among us and would wish to leave.” She lifted her head and her eyes were bright with tears. “I swear to you, I’ve no idea what will happen when you pass through the stone door. I only know I fear it.”

  “Why?” I whispered. “Do you think She will not have me?”

  She was honest. “I don’t know.”

  “Because of the bright lady? Naamah?” I found myself on my feet and pacing. “Or the other one? The Good Steward, Anael? Or is it because of Cillian?”

  “Mayhap all.” Her voice was steady. “Mayhap none.”

  I was trembling. “I am your daughter! I am one of Her children! I asked to be nothing more! If I am not, who am I?”

  “Yourself.”

  One word, steady and sure. It drained away my anger. I sank down on the hearth and put my head in my hands.

  “Forgive me.” My mother’s voice floated above me. “Oengus and I… When your courses didn’t come, we thought it best to wait. And I didn’t wish to worry you without cause. I should have told you.”

  “Yes.” I raised my head with an effort. “What happens now?”

  “The rite will be arranged.” She hesitated. “Unless you’ve changed your mind and wish to wed the lad.”

  “Cillian?”

  She gave me a ghost of her wry smile. “Is there another?”

  “You know there isn’t.” I ran my hands over my face, remembering how hard it had been to summon the twilight at Innisclan. “No. No, I do not. That was the cost of it all along, was it not? If I were to wed him and become the proper wife his world would make me no matter what he claims, I would suffer myself to be tamed. And I would no longer be a child of the Maghuin Dhonn.”

  “Aye,” my mother murmured. “But as the wife of the only son of the Lord of the Dalriada, you would not be very far lost to me. So I do not speak against it.”

  “Do you speak for it?” I asked.

  She summoned another smile, this one rueful. “No. I would have you follow your heart, Moirin mine.”

  “Then I would seek the blessing of the Maghuin Dhonn,” I said firmly. “Whatever else I may be, whatever foreign gods seek to lay claim to me, I am Her child and yours, first and foremost. Whatever else may follow, all things proceed from that point.”

  My mother kissed my brow. “May it ever be so.”

  TEN

  When Cillian came next, he was in a rare state.

  “There’s been a raid!” he informed me, his mood somewhere betwixt jubilant and belligerent. “A Tarbh Cró raiding party wearing the mac Niall’s colors. They made off with two dozen head of cattle in broad daylight, taunting us all the while.”

  “Oh, aye? Listen—”

  “They reckon the Dalriada have gone soft,” he interrupted me. “Studying at the Academy and all. ’Tis true, my father’s men were slow to respond—”

  “Cillian—”

  “But we mean to go after them!” he finished triumphantly.

  I folded my arms. “We?”

  He flushed. “Do you not reckon me a proper warrior?”

  “I reckon you a lover and a scholar,” I said in a soothing tone. “Cillian, don’t be daft. Didn’t Eamonn mac Grainne and his Skaldic bride found the Academy to give young men wiser and more productive pursuits than cattle-raiding?”

  “Aye, but I don’t imagine he meant to geld us in the process!” he said sharply. “A man must defend his home and property. Do you not think me capable?”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t seem it.”

  I sighed. “Is it not a matter for the courts?”

  Cillian glowered. “Oh, courts be damned. What do you and your wild kin care for courts? It’s just a bit of sport, Moirin. Will you begrudge me the chance to prove myself a man?”

  “I wasn’t aware it was in need of proving,” I said pointedly.

  “Look…” He took a deep breath. “You don’t understand. I have to do this. As my father’s son, I cannot let this insult stand. Arguing about it won’t change matters. And I fear I can’t
linger, either. We ride out before dawn. Will you come back to Innisclan with me? Aislinn says you can wait and worry with her.”

  I made a face at him. “All right, then. I reckon I’d rather endure your mother’s disdain than wait and worry on my own.”

  Cillian kissed me. “That’s my girl!”

  Although there was ample time on the ride to Innisclan, I didn’t tell him about my mother’s revelation as I’d intended before he arrived. His head was filled with details of the raid to come, and I didn’t want to distract him. Truth be told, I’d no idea what manner of warrior Cillian was. I knew he was trained to wield a sword, and that on the hurling field where the young men played with sticks and a ball, he was one of the most skilled athletes.

  But Alba had been at peace for a long while. The Cruarch, Faolan mab Sibeal, was reckoned a wise and sensible fellow, carrying on the legacy of Alais the Wise, our common ancestor. There hadn’t been a major dispute on Alban soil in living memory, only foolish skirmishes like this promised to be, between young men with an excess of high spirits and a shortage of common sense.

  I didn’t care for it, not one bit.

  Cillian, however, was in uncommonly good spirits now that I’d agreed to come. He related with relish the tale of how the D’Angeline prince Imriel de la Courcel had won the respect of the folk of Clunderry by staging a cattle-raid against a neighbor who’d given him insult. I was quiet, remembering the slain princess, the green burial mound, and the stone circle that smelled of ancient blood. At length, Cillian noticed my silence and faltered, recalling the way that tale ended and my people’s role in it.

  “Forgive me,” he said with genuine contrition. “I don’t suppose that’s a tale the Maghuin Dhonn care to remember.”

  “We do, actually.” I’d never told him about the pilgrimage to Clunderry. When it came to it, I was as bad as my mother for keeping secrets—but it had always seemed a private thing. “Many of us gather at Midsummer to remember it that we should never be guilty of such pride and folly again.”

  “The Hellenes have a word for it. They call it ‘hubris.’ ” He hesitated. “Were they kin of yours? The magicians?”