Deirdre (26 page)

Deirdre bristled. “My father, the king of Gleannmara, finds it fit for any man, royal
and
common, for what man does not care for his home
and his land … and what good king does not care for his people’s homes and land? If they do not prosper, then neither does their king.”

“Your future bride is not only pious but argues with the skilled tongue of a politician.” Lambert smiled at Alric.

“I argue with the Word of God, Your Majesty” Deirdre said humbly “For it is the guide for king and commoner alike, as Christ is the example.”

“Then why appeal to Michael? Why not to God Himself?” Ethlinda challenged.

“Any appeal to heaven is to God, for not even Michael can act without God’s blessing.”

“So he is a thane,” Lambert suggested. “Like my own, they come to me on behalf of their people but do not act without my approval.”

Deirdre nodded, watching as her frantic debate registered between Lambert and his council, “And if I may be so bold, Your Majesty given the threats I have seen in and around your kingdom, it is fitting to seek the protection of God’s own.”

“Sing it, child.” Lambert inclined his head. “No man here will find objection with the protection of his land and people.”

As her fingers took to the strings, years of practice possessed them.

“Thou Michael the victorious, I make my circuit under thy shield …”

Her mouth grew moist with the sweetest nectar, sent undoubtedly from heaven. The Saxon, like the drink, came as a gift. Focusing on a cross beam, she let the prize flow, not from her voice or her mind, but from the spirit that filled them.

That Michael was a dragon conqueror would appeal to the Saxons’ warrior pride; that he might also care for the humble soul enough to protect him, not just in the fields but away from his home, would surely touch those who had left their homes across the sea to find new ones; that he protected not only the man but his property—the sheep in his pastures and crops in his fields, his home and furnishings—clearly found a place for consideration in their minds.

They pondered it in a deafening silence, even as she finished and handed the harp back to Hengist.

Lambert shook himself from the invisible hand that stilled them all. “Nay, milady, keep it. It is my gift to you for your gift to us.”

The hold broken, his guests stomped their feet and beat their cups on the table, though Ethlinda and Ricbert, along with a minority of others, withheld their approval.

“Well!” The queen took up her goblet and lifted it to Deirdre as she returned to Alric’s side. “Since our seafaring prince’s captive bride seems to have taken our court as prize instead, I propose a toast to hasten our plans.”

“And what plans are those, Ethlinda?” Alric drew Deirdre into the protective circle of his arm.

Feigning a wounded look at the suspicion in the prince’s gaze, the cold beauty smiled—for even at her age, the queen’s comely features retained the deceptive youth of a sculpture. It was such an unnatural expression, Deirdre almost expected it to shatter the regal mask the lady wore. “Why the wedding plans, of course. What else?”

“I have no qualms with that,” Alric admitted, giving Deirdre a toe-curling grin.

“I will help your bride on the morrow, since her own mother is not here.”

“Excellent,” Lambert agreed. “Most excellent.” He lifted his cup. “To my son and the charming bride to be who captured him.”

Deirdre blushed, not from the toast, but from the intimate appraisal her betrothed gave her. She was on a downhill run toward fire and feared she could not stop, even if she wanted to. Congratulations echoed from one end of the hall to the other. It would have been gratifying, even reassuring—but for the exchanged looks between the queen of Galstead and the Mercian visitor. They seemed to be drinking to an entirely different proposal.

A chill razed Deirdre’s spine, lifting the hairs on the back of her neck. Mistaking the source of her shiver as cold, Alric drew her closer so that her body shared the warmth of his, but the cold would not yield, not even to him.

A
bina was still asleep when Deirdre rose the following morning and made her way through the waking village. Tor’s absence must have meant that the wolfhound followed Alric after he’d seen her safely to his nurse’s lodge the night before.

“You not only remind me of Orlaith with your faith and melodious voice,” he’d told her when they reached Abina’s door, “but you’ve managed to stir as much trouble as she on your first day here.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. Abina had opened the door just then, clad in her nightdress and squinting at them in the glow of the candle she held.

Alric gave Deirdre a peck on the tip of her nose. “Later, my sweetling …”

Deirdre held her hand against her chest as if to stay the starstruck swelling within. She had so much to tell Scanlan, and it would wait no longer. After finding her bearings as best she could, she followed some of the workers on their way out into the surrounding fields through the gatehouses. Beyond, vendors were assembling at the market, filling the air with the tempting fragrance of fresh-baked goods.

Deirdre stopped to ask directions to the visitors chapel. No one seemed to know what she was talking about, until she spoke to a weaver setting up a display of her handiwork.

“It is not used,” the woman said as if proud to make that point. “But I heard a priest was sent there. How do you know him?”

“He is my companion,” Deirdre explained.

The woman’s eyes widened. “Ach, you must be the princes betrothed!” She clasped her hands together in a mix of delight and dismay “I am sorry milady. Allow me to show you.”

Deirdre declined politely, wondering if this strange language would ever sound right to her, no matter how well she understood and spoke it.

Following the woman’s directions, she came to a common pasture where the village livestock was kept. There, at its edge, was the small hut of wattle and thatch. Some of the mud coating on the walls had broken away, exposing the frame. A wisp of smoke wormed its way out of one of the three depressions in the roof.

“Scanlan,” she called out at the half-hinged door.

“Deirdre?” The priest wrestled the rickety door open. “What is it?” he asked as she grinned broadly at him. “Are you well?”

“Well
and
happy.” She gave her companion a hug. “Oh, Scanlan, it was just as you said. I didn’t believe it, but the Holy Spirit came over me and … even Alric and his father and—”

“Slow down.” Scanlan chuckled, and his initial frown faded into a smile. “Come in, come in. I’ve just finished scraping this bristle off my jaw.”

“Shouldn’t you use some kind of soap?” She ran a finger along his smooth but abraded cheeks.

He propped the door against the outside wall and motioned her inside. “Soap is a luxury.”

Deirdre had never understood the Celtic clerics’ penchant for doing without what she considered creature comforts. Surely there had to be some meeting point between their vow of poverty and their Roman brothers’ pomp and circumstance.

She looked at the drapes of cobwebs and the coating of dust covering the two benches in the room. “Well, this lodging is not.”

There wasn’t even a table or altar. She supposed the shelf on the front wall sufficed. The symbol of a cross had been carved in rough fashion into the wooden support behind it. Now it was highlighted by a thin shaft of sunlight battling through a hole worn in the roof by neglect.

“I have slept in better, but it is fit enough for my needs.” Scanlan reached into a sack and drew out a crust of bread left over from a previous meal. “Will you join me for breakfast?”

Deirdre shook her head and waited while he gave thanks, not just for the stale bread, but for the shamble of a dwelling.

“Once I am renewed,” he told her upon finishing, “I shall set to
work to repair those holes and shore up the walls. The foundation is sound and that is all that counts.”

Deirdre sensed a sermon in the making, but Scanlan surprised her.

“So tell me about last night. I take it something has gone wonderfully right, given the sparkle and flush of your demeanor.”

“Something has changed in Alric.” She gripped her hands together. “Once we spoke, heart to heart, he became different. He’s actually quite charming and intellectual.” Not to mention romantic. Deirdre withheld her latter thought, lest the priest think her moon addled.

Scanlan hesitated from popping the piece of crust he’d broken off into his mouth. “You told him all about the gift?”

“It’s not just that. There is even more than we realized. You said God ordained all that has happened, but I never dared to believe it with all my heart.” She made the admission in a flash of contrition. “Until now” Deirdre went on to tell Scanlan about Orlaith’s prophecy and Aelfled’s concurrence. “Alric was not convinced by faith, but the combination of all these things … well, it’s changed him. It is as though I am allied with a different man. He is—”

“To what do you attribute the change?”

How could Scanlan be so calm? Wasn’t this what he said was to happen? “To his believing that our union is meant to be. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“So he has not confessed to God.”

“Well, no, but …” Deirdre groped for what she wanted to say No, he hadn’t confessed to God or admitted to believing, but he was going along with God’s plan. “I think he is like I was, giving his will to God … but surely his heart will follow.”

“Because God’s will suits his purpose, not because it suits God’s,” Scanlan thought aloud. “Remember, dearest, for now you are his key to power and prestige, not salvation. Undoubtedly one can follow the other, so you are on the right track. God can use all manner of earthly motivations to accomplish the heavenly, but there is a difference between love and greed.”

“Like my pride?” Deirdre couldn’t help the sting in her reply This was not what she’d expected. Had she made a mistake?

Scanlan put aside his meager breakfast and took her hands, his face awash with contrition. “Deirdre, though not much your senior, I have watched you grow up like a little sister. Yours is a noble heart and a willing faith, although both can be impetuous.”

“I don’t understand. The harder I try the more mistakes I make.”

“Muirnait, know that God finds you all the dearer, for it is your willingness and not your failures that are important.”

Deirdre did not object when Scanlan hugged her. She needed grounding. What had come over her, acting like a smitten maid just come of age? She was a scholar, well into her prime, as Orna had so pointedly reminded her, and certainly not new to the workings of man’s deceit.

“I thought God had changed him, as He changed me.” She sniffed. “How could I have been so blind?”

“While I believe Alric is a noble-hearted being, he cannot offer a suit of love, for he doesn’t know the meaning of it without knowing God. Do not pick an unripe apple too soon.”

Deirdre’s spirit sagged beneath this new worrisome weight. “’Twas you who said I should marry him.” Was it greed that motivated this change in Alric?

“Because as his wife, you will have the opportunity to put your gift to the most use.”

“But he knows Father rules Gleannmara—”

“And that your brother is out of the way.”

“But he signed the contract—”

“Can the parchment force him to earnestly seek Cairell’s freedom?”

“I told him Gleannmara would never accept a Saxon as king, that a distant cousin, perhaps our champion, would be elected instead.”

At Scanlan’s silence, Deirdre pulled away. A half smile tugged at the priest’s lips. “You should have been a
brehon
, for I believe you could hold your own with the stoutest of lawmakers and judges.” He sighed. “My only point is that to do God’s will when it suits is easy To follow it when it goes against one’s own, as you are doing, is the truest test of faith. I have every belief that you will know when your Alric is motivated by God and not his own plan.”

“Father, I need you in Galstead with me.”

Scanlan shook his head. “You have God with you, and He is using your gift.”

“Oh,” Deirdre said, recalling the rest of her news. She told Scanlan how the very hymn they’d sung together to root out her alleged demon happened to be one of Lambert’s favorites. “Alric’s mother used to sing it to him to soothe his nerves, but he’d never heard it in Saxon, so he only knew the gist of it. And then I had to explain what I could about Michael and God and—I really think the thanes were intrigued. Of course, Ethlinda scoffed at it, but … that woman sends chills up my spine.” Deirdre paused to catch her breath. “I wish you’d been there.”

Scanlan chuckled. “It sounds like you managed quite well without me.”

“I feel I’m rushing blindly into something I’m not prepared for.”

Scanlan grabbed her hands again, folding them in his. “Milady sometimes we must act without understanding. Perhaps your freshness is reaching where my training cannot. Your example will do more than I can ever do.”

If Scanlan thought to console her, it wasn’t working. She was confused, nay exasperated—or perhaps both. Tears stung her eyes, but she held them back. “Will you pray with me?”

“Of course, muirnait.”

Together they knelt on Scanlan’s makeshift pallet on the floor before the barren, grime-covered shelf. “Isn’t it reassuring that no place is too low or too high for God’s presence?” he said, folding his hands. When Deirdre didn’t answer, he bowed his head. “Heavenly Father, hear us, Your children, as we call on—”

A loud bark cut off the priest in midsentence. Before either Deirdre or Scanlan could react, Tor bounded into the chapel and wedged himself between them, his tail lashing from side to side. Knocked off balance by the wolfhound’s enthusiastic welcome, Deirdre sprawled sideways with a startled cry only to have Tor proceed to smother her in kisses while assaulting her person with his heavy paws.

“Tor,” she complained, shoving the dog aside.

“So
there
you are.” Alric ducked under the low door frame, filling it
with his broad shoulders as he stood up inside the dwelling.