The thin blond woman halted wide-eyed in the middle of the yard, her long pale hair flying as she looked wildly from the crowd to the stack of Airt’s clothes to Sabha standing coolly in the doorway. “Airt!” she demanded, with a look of real fear and confusion in her pale blue eyes. “Airt, what is this about?”
He tried to speak, and tried to look at Coiteann, but instead simply looked down at the cold, damp ground.
In that instant Coiteann turned and tried to flee. “Coiteann!” Sabha cried. The woman stopped as if seized. “This is something you must hear. Look at Airt. He will tell you what he has chosen to do.”
Slowly, her hair falling down over her eyes, Coiteann looked up at Airt. Again he searched for words, glancing at the crowd and finally meeting his blond lover’s shocked gaze. He took a deep breath but returned his vision firmly to the ground.
“I have…” he whispered. “I have decided to…to…”
“Please speak louder,” Sabha said, as the crowd watched and Coiteann began to shake. “We cannot hear you.”
He sucked in his breath and looked up at Sabha. “I have decided to return home to you, my wife,” he said.
Sabha nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “And you do this by your own choice?”
“I do,” he answered, looking neither right nor left.
“And you wish to have no other woman but me? You wish to take no other wife but me?”
“I wish to have none but you. I want to come home to you, Sabha.”
“What of this other woman you have loved? What of Coiteann?”
“I have no wish to see her ever again. I love only you, Sabha, and I want to come home.”
Taking her time, Sabha looked from face to staring face in the gathered crowd of Cahir Cullen’s inhabitants, and then at Coiteann’s pale skin and open mouth as the woman struggled to breathe. “You did not know of this, Coiteann?”
“He has said nothing!” she managed to say in a gasp. “He said he would make me his wife! His second wife! He said he could persuade you to accept me!”
“Then he has lied to you as well as to me,” said Sabha. “Or perhaps I should correct myself. Airt says it is not a lie if he simply does not tell you about a thing. So I suppose you will be glad to know he did not lie.”
Sabha turned her gaze on Airt. “And so, my husband, you are ready now to walk away from her forever and stay only with me?”
He looked steadily at her, ignoring the staring crowd, ignoring Coiteann’s quiet sobbing. “I am ready to do that, my wife.”
“I have waited long to hear you say these words. But I will tell you now, Airt, that there was no need for you to say them.”
His face grew even more serious. Coiteann’s sob caught in her throat. “What do you mean?” he asked in genuine confusion.
Still facing them, Sabha pushed the door open behind her and stepped aside. Airt’s eyes widened at the sight. Just inside the house were neatly stacked bundles of clothes, furs, cauldrons, tools, wineskins, and small wooden boxes. “Everything I brought with me to the marriage sits here now at the door. My father will be here later today, with a wagon and a riding pony, to take me and all of my possessions back to my home at Dun Orga. Never again will I live in Cahir Cullen as your wife.”
Airt swallowed. “You are…leaving?”
“I am.”
“Do you…mean for me to go with you?”
She smiled a little. “I do not mean for you to go anywhere with me. You made it clear that you would never give up the hope of having both me and Coiteann in whatever way you could.
“I never agreed to having another wife in our house. You knew my feelings on this long before we were married. But I know that even now, you are still determined to find a way to have your second woman. I can see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice. You will never cease from your quest to gather as many women around yourself as you possibly can, and if that causes me pain, well, that is insignificant, for you are certain I will adjust if I am forced to.
“Never would I have thought you capable of such cruelty towards me. But that is what happens when men are guided only by their sex and not their hearts.”
Then the crowd gasped. Coiteann clutched at Airt and huddled close to him, for Sabha had turned so that her left side faced them. She looked straight ahead and then slowly raised her left arm straight out from her shoulder, so that her finger was aimed directly at the two of them.
All they could see of her was one foot, one arm, and one eye. The crowd murmured among themselves and fell back a step or two, for Sabha stood in the position of cursing.
No longer was this just an entertaining squabble on a cold winter morning.
“I am not your wife, Airt of Cahir Cullen,” Sabha began, still looking straight ahead. “You kept the truth of your feelings from me. You took another woman when you promised you would not. You brought her into my bed and home without my knowledge or consent. For that alone I could divorce you.
“I have decided that I do not want a man who could do such a thing to me. Coiteann, if you want him, you may have him. But you will live with knowing that he meant to set you aside and return to me—at least for a while. I have no other hold on him. There are no children. He came back for me alone, but he will not have me. Enjoy your life together. I will someday make a new life with one who is not faithless. Each of you can make your future with one who is. That is the curse I place upon you both.”
Slowly Sabha lowered her arm, and then turned to her right until she faced them once more. Coiteann cried out in anger and frustration, while Airt could only stand red-faced and clench his fists, staring at the ground. The crowd around them first murmured to one another, and then began to chuckle, and finally laughed and laughed out loud at the perfect vengeance Airt’s young wife had thrown upon his head.
Rioghan sat beside her hearth in the predawn darkness, eating a few pieces of barley flatbread and butter and drinking a hot cup of yellow-flower tea with a little honey. Cogar and Scath lay in the warm straw at her feet, while the other dogs walked their never-ending rounds of the clearing as they watched for any and all intruders.
The sky was just beginning to turn gray when the dogs in the clearing stood very still, raised their heads, and raced off toward the road.
Scath and Cogar stayed inside the cave, watching with hackles raised but making no move to leave. The rest of the pack remained silent. Rioghan set down her cup and got to her feet.
The dogs were behaving the way they did whenever servants from Cahir Cullen traveled up the road to fetch her. She wrapped her black cloak closely around her and fastened it with her bronze-and-jet pin. Picking up her black leather bag filled with medicines and clean wraps and dried herbs, she walked out into the cold, damp dawn to see who had need of her now.
The mist was heavy this morning. It hid the road from her; all she could see was dogs moving in and out of the grayness, which parted like a veil as she walked through it. Then suddenly she was at the edge of the road and could see two figures standing on it, trying to stay calm while surrounded by silent, menacing dogs.
She saw one man—young and dark-haired—and a young blond woman whose hands were stained from dye. Rioghan stopped short as she recognized Airt and Coiteann.
What would bring them here? Where was…
Sabha. Oh, Sabha.
Rioghan remembered what she and Sabha had spoken of so that an injured wife might have justice, and knew what Sabha must have done.
“
Madra,
” she said quietly. Her dogs trotted back past her toward the clearing and disappeared into the mist behind her. She stood and waited alone at the edge of the, road, allowing her visitors to approach and speak first.
“Lady Rioghan,” said Airt, taking a step toward her. “This is Coiteann, my—”
“I know you both,” Rioghan said. “Is there someone at Cahir Cullen who has need of me?”
“There is not,” Airt said, “but Coiteann asked to come here and speak to you, for she believes you might be of help to her.”
Rioghan’s eyes flicked to the small blond woman. Looking at that pale and slender face, she saw cold blue eyes trying to appear warm and friendly. Eyes filled with pain, fear, and anger.
Rioghan knew what must have happened. Sabha had indeed gotten her justice and must have gone back to her own family at Dun Orga. This, the aftermath, remained to be dealt with, and the task of dealing with it was hers.
“Come with me,” she said, and the three of them walked across the clearing to Sion.
With her two dogs keeping a wary eye on the strangers, Rioghan invited Airt and Coiteann into her home and did her best to make them comfortable. When they were seated on black cowhides tossed onto the straw, she herself sat down on the low stone wall of the hearth and folded her hands. “Why have you come here?” she asked, looking at Coiteann.
The other woman glanced at Airt, and for a moment Rioghan saw again a sharp, cold look in her eyes. Then she looked at Rioghan and tried to smile.
“Perhaps you have not yet heard,” Coiteann began, “but Sabha has left her husband and gone back to her people at Dun Orga.”
Rioghan nodded. “I supposed as much, when I saw you on the road.” She turned to Airt. “You understand what she has done?”
His mouth tightened and his face flushed red. “She was very cruel to me. She allowed me to think that we would once again live together as man and wife, but when I returned—”
“She told you she had already decided to leave you.”
Both of them stared at her. “Then you did know,” whispered Coiteann. “Did you put her up to it?”
Rioghan matched her gaze. “I spoke with her of what she might do, after she learned that her husband had been with you. But the choice, and the doing, was hers and hers alone.”
Coiteann nodded, her face grim, and finally looked away.
“I would ask you again,” Rioghan said, “why have you come here?”
Coiteann drew a deep breath, and a look of sadness crossed her face. “I have come—or rather, we have come—to ask you for your help.”
Rioghan said nothing, but merely waited for Coiteann to go on, studying her face all the while.
“I know what Sabha said. I was there, for she insisted that I be there to hear it all.”
“Then you heard Airt say that he had chosen Sabha over you?”
Coiteann swallowed and raised her chin. “I did.” Rioghan was confused. “Why would you wish to stay with a man who would publicly choose another over you?”
“Because…because I believe that Airt and Sabha were never really suited to each other. He remained with her out of duty and because he felt sorry for her, while she stayed with him because of his position as one of King Bran’s warriors.” Her eyes narrowed again. “And, of course, she stayed with him to torment him. To do the sort of thing she did this morning.”
“I see,” Rioghan whispered. “You believe he truly has feelings of love for you.”
Coiteann glanced at Airt, and he gave her a tight smile. “I do believe that,” she said, and turned back to Rioghan. “I am not proud of the things I have done in the past. I have long feared that one day I may find myself alone, with no husband and no children. If Airt is willing, and he says he is, then I want nothing more than to try to make a life with him.”
“Most women want a husband and children. But why do you need my help to find yours?”
Coiteann hesitated, and looked again at Airt. Rioghan caught his eye before he could speak. “Perhaps you would like to walk up to the top of Sion,” she said to him. “It is quite beautiful up there, watching the morning mist as it burns away and unveils the countryside.”
He glanced at Coiteann and then back to Rioghan. “Go, Airt,” Rioghan said gently. “The dogs will not trouble you. We will simply stay here and talk for a time.”
He nodded at the two of them, then hurried outside and disappeared into the fog.
Chapter Sixteen
When he had gone, Rioghan faced Coiteann again. “Tell me. What do you want me to do for you?”
Coiteann stood up and paced across the straw, looking up at the many bundles of dried herbs and plants and flowers that hung on the cave walls and lined the wooden shelves. “I must be sure it will work this time,” she said. “I cannot go through a humiliation like this morning’s again. Not ever again.”
She shut her eyes and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “And neither can Airt. Already his honor among the king’s warriors is gone. Yesterday they treated him worse than the youngest and newest of them, treated him worse than a servant. And there is no doubt that he will be the butt of every satire told at every feast and gathering for countless years to come.
“The only way that I can see—the only thing that could help us both—is for us to make a respected marriage to each other. Then we might have a chance at being accepted among the other families of Cahir Cullen. But that can happen only if the marriage lasts. If it is not strained. If there are children.”
“In short,” Rioghan said, “it can happen only if the two of you remain faithful to each other.”
Coiteann nodded. “You understand.”
“I do. But no one can ever guarantee such a thing. Many have tried, but such a thing cannot ever be promised for certain.”