Keeper Of The Light (14 page)

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.

Once again she was acutely aware of her uncovered face, of the bright lights upon her, of her braided hair and dark-stained lips, and the colorful clothes and gleaming gold that so boldly invited everyone to look at her.

She tried to ignore the curious stares, but knew they must all be wondering who she was and why she was there. Then Donaill turned to look at the staring men and women, smiled and nodded pleasantly at them all, and turned back to Rioghan.

“Rioghan, look at me.” He reached out and touched the side of her cheek, his fingers gently asking her to turn her head. As she faced him, raising her chin, he drew his fingertips down the side of her neck and brushed back a strand of dark hair that had somehow escaped her braids.

“They are only curious. I don’t believe they recognize you…and I must tell you, I am not sure I would have recognized you, either. Your hair is so beautiful, for now it reveals your face, and the color of the gown and mantle sets off your eyes and your fair skin. Rioghan, you must never again wear dull black gowns or hooded cloaks.”

She bit her lip. “It is not just that I look different. They do not
expect
to see me here. They are wondering why someone like me—a midwife, a servant, one of the Little People—should be present at a gathering of kings and warriors and noble ladies.”

Donaill shrugged. “It does not matter whether they expect you or not. All that matters is that you have honored me by being my guest tonight, and that you eat and drink and listen to the music and enjoy yourself as you never have before, here in King Bran’s hall.”

Rioghan could not help smiling at him. “Thank you. Perhaps I will.”

Donaill lifted his gold cup of wine, like a small bowl, in both hands, and offered her a drink. After a brief hesitation she accepted, taking a small sip and looking at his glinting blue eyes over the rim. As the wine spread its warmth through her chest, Donaill too drank from the cup, and his eyes never left hers.

The other people soon turned back to their own conversations and laughter, for now the meat was being served—great slabs and joints of the roasted boars that Donaill’s two brothers had hunted.

With his jet-handled dagger, Donaill took two large slices from the wooden tray that the servants brought around and placed them on the gold plate between him and Rioghan. Using the dagger, he cut the pieces into neat strips and offered the first to her.

She accepted, reaching across the polished boards for a little gold dish of salt. As she did so she glanced down the curving row at the other people—and there she saw Airt and Coiteann sitting together. Like herself and Donaill, they shared a plate between them.

Rioghan’s hand stopped halfway to the salt. The strip of meat she held fell to the boards as she slowly withdrew her hand, staring at the other couple all the while.

Coiteann had eyes for nothing and no one but Airt. She kept his cup filled with blackberry wine and his plate heaped with oatbread and butter and honey and roasted boar, stopping the servants as they passed by and watching to see when the next course was brought out so that he might have the choicest serving.

Airt, however, sat quietly, mostly watching the others or gazing down into the burning candle as though he did not see it. He seemed to have eaten only a little bread and a few bites of meat, and touched the wine not at all.

Rioghan sat back. She continued to watch them. Donaill followed her gaze, and his mouth twisted in a wry grin when he realized who she was staring at.

“Ah, Coiteann and her newest conquest,” he said.

Rioghan began to feel cold. “You know her?”

He nodded. “Everyone knows her. She is certainly working her way up through the ranks. She began with farmers’ sons, and then moved to craftsmen and armorers, and now has caught her first warrior—at least, the first who will be seen openly with her. She must be quite pleased with herself this night.”

“I did not think that a woman like her would be of interest to a man like you.”

Donaill gave her a sideways look; then he laughed. “Half the men of this fortress have had Coiteann, but I am not one of them.” When Rioghan frowned ever so slightly and looked away, he cocked his head and touched the side of her face.

“Truly, I am not,” he said, moving his hand away as she looked up at him once more. “Why eat from the same plate as every other? I prefer my own plate, thank you very much…and I do not share it except on the most special of occasions.”

With that, he lifted their golden plate, turned it so that the newly cut pieces of roasted boar were nearest to Rioghan, and offered it to her again. She hesitated only a moment before smiling up at him and accepting another slice.

“Airt is both young and a fool,” continued Donaill. “He thinks to find importance for himself by having more than one wife, even when that one wife has made it clear to him that she will never accept another woman in her house.”

Rioghan nodded. “I know Sabha well. I know that she and Airt spoke of this before they contracted their marriage, but Airt is certain he can persuade her.”

“He is almost too certain.” He looked down the row at the other couple again, and seemed to be deep in thought. “Rioghan… I want to ask you this, for you are one who might know. Do you think that Coiteann has used more than just her own freely offered gifts to capture Airt so completely?”

Rioghan paused. “It is possible,” she answered. “I myself believed I saw the touch of dark magic on him. She may well have tried some sort of unnatural charm to hold him at her side.”

Donaill finished the piece of meat he had selected and tossed the bone back behind him into the straw. “Is she so powerful? It seems that if she had such magic she would have done more with it up to now—more than just persuade a foolish young man to take her to his bed.”

“She may well have had a little magic, but you are right—it is not enough to force his will. He could easily break free of her if he truly wished to.”

Donaill grinned. “Ah, that is what I thought! No woman’s love charm is
that
strong.” He offered Rioghan the wine cup again, and this time she readily accepted.