“Well, I’m not going to complain about it,” said Lorcan. “I think our brother was most kind to allow Coiteann to do this for us.”
“I was just trying to help the lady by giving her what she asked for,” said Donaill. “Maybe she is not as shallow as we thought.”
“Either way, the food looks good,” said Lorcan, and all of them laughed and set down their weapons. They picked up their plates and cups and sat down together in the fresh straw to eat the hot food and drink down the delicious steaming honey wine.
At last, when he could eat no more, Donaill set aside his plate and stood up. Taking the still-warm cup of wine, now half full, he moved to his sleeping ledge. There he found that the furs had all been smartly shaken out and neatly placed, and the straw-stuffed leather cushions beaten into fresh shapes and invitingly arranged on the furs. And there was one more thing laid out on the ledge—a new linen tunic, dyed to a deep shade of black.
He lifted it up and looked at it by the candlelight. The dye work was quite good and even, he noted, but the thread itself had been spun a little coarsely. The weave was loose here and there, the stitching rather uneven.
He guessed that Coiteann must have made the tunic herself. She was the one whose task it was to make the dyes and add the color to newly spun wool and linen yarn before it was woven into cloth, so perhaps she was a bit awkward with the unaccustomed weaving and sewing. She had certainly gone to a lot of trouble just to impress him, he thought with a little grin. Had she even woven it in one day?
Well, a little unevenness did not trouble him. He was glad enough to strip off his wet and dirty hunting tunic and wet leather breeches and boots, and put on the fresh, dry tunic—though he reminded himself that he must not wear this tunic when next he saw Rioghan. It might upset her to know that he had done a kindness for Coiteann, that he had allowed her into his house and accepted a gift from her. Women often found it difficult to understand such things and thought that any little gesture meant far more than it actually did. Things were going very well between him and Rioghan, and he wanted to make sure they stayed that way.
Donaill drank down the rest of the wine and then lay back on the cushions with a sigh, pulling the fur covers up over his shoulders. It had been a long day. The warmth and the food and hot honey wine worked together to bring fatigue rolling over him. The last thing he remembered was the empty cup of wine falling from his hand to the clean straw below.
The moon was nearly full this winter night, but fortunately for Coiteann its light was hidden by low, thick clouds. No one noticed her in the darkness as she walked across the yard and slipped into Donaill’s house, carrying a pair of leather bags—one large and one small.
The beeswax candles had long since burned out. The hearthfire burned low. And on the sleeping ledges, three men snored deeply, each one with an empty wine cup lying below him in the straw where he had dropped it.
She smiled in the darkness. The wine she had prepared especially for them had done its work…and now she would finish hers.
Near the fallen cup, also carelessly dropped to the straw, were Donaill’s clothes—and his sword belt. Tracing along the length of the belt, she came to his jet-handled dagger and pulled it out of its thick leather sheath.
She stood over him with the dagger in her hand.
“Now you will become mine, and not hers. Never hers,” Coiteann whispered, and moved toward the sleeping man in the darkness.
At dawn the next morning, two servants trudged across the cold, misty grounds of Cahir Cullen and called up to the watchman over the gate, “Let us pass!”
Slowly one of the tall, heavy gates moved open enough to let the two men slip out. “What is your task?” asked the watchman, closing the gate again behind them.
“We’ve been sent to bring Rioghan,” the first servant said.
“One of the king’s men requires her attention,” said the second.
“What’s wrong with him? Which one is it?”
The first one shrugged. “We were not told,” he said. “We know only that we are to bring her, because she will want to see what has happened to this man—even though there is nothing she can do to help him.”
Coiteann watched the servants go out through the gate, and smiled to herself. She looked forward with vast enjoyment to Rioghan’s arrival. There was quite a surprise waiting for her at Cahir Cullen this day.
Rioghan ran down the tangled path to Cahir Cullen faster than she ever had before. Her black cloak flew out behind her, the leather bag bounced on her shoulder, and her two dogs trotted steadily by her side. The servants had long since been left behind to travel along the road instead of on the difficult forest path.
You will want to see what has happened to this man…though there is nothing you can do to help him.
They would not tell her who it was. They said they did not know. And perhaps they didn’t. At any rate, it did not matter now. Rioghan knew it could be only one man.
What did they mean, there was nothing she could do to help him?
The path flew by beneath her feet. At last she pushed her way through the final barrier of brush and saw the gates of Cahir Cullen.
Gasping for breath, her heart pounding from more than just the run, Rioghan shifted her leather bag from her shoulder to underneath her arm and walked through the open gates. And there before her, walking calmly and looking as smug as Rioghan had ever seen a woman look, was Coiteann.
“Who has sent for me?” Rioghan whispered, as her dogs stood silent and glaring by her side.
“Why, I sent for you,” Coiteann answered. Her voice was sweet as honey, but Rioghan saw that now she made no effort to hide the coldness in her eyes. “There is one here whom you will wish to see. Come with me.” She started to take Rioghan by the arm, but when the dogs growled and raised their hackles she let go. “Come with me,” she said again, beckoning to Rioghan and still smiling, and Rioghan followed her toward the houses.
Servants walked the grounds, going about their usual tasks in the faint late-morning warmth. It seemed to be a day like any other at the fortress. But Rioghan’s anxiety only increased with every step she took, as she realized where Coiteann was leading her.
“Why do you walk to Donaill’s house?” Rioghan asked, her heart still hammering. “Who is there who needs my help?”
“I told you,” Coiteann answered, walking along as lightly as if she were on her way to the king’s own feast, “there is no one here who needs your help. Merely one for you to see.” She pushed open the door of Donaill’s house. “And here he is.”
Slowly, pushing her cloak back from her head and brushing her damp hair away from her face, Rioghan stepped inside the house. A quick glance around the shadowed room showed her that the king’s champion’s brothers still slept—though Donaill sat up on the furs on the edge of the sleeping ledge, his head down, his feet in the clean new straw.
“Here is your morning meal, just as I promised,” Coiteann said with a bright smile, reaching for the plate of bread and honey and boiled apples on the stones of the hearth. “Are you feeling well this morning, my lord Donaill?”
He looked at Coiteann for a long time, and then slowly smiled at her. “I seem to still be feeling the effects of your very good wine,” he said, rubbing his head. “But I can say that it is very good to see you, Coiteann.”
He did not notice Rioghan at all. She could only stand and stare at the two, barely able to breathe, stand just a few steps away and be no closer to Donaill than if she were still at Sion.
“Oh, it’s just the food I have brought that you are glad to see,” Coiteann protested with a little laugh, giving his thigh a pat even as she watched him carefully.
“But it is true. I am glad to see
you.
” Donaill still stared at the other woman, and even through her anguish Rioghan saw that he kept himself always facing Coiteann. He was even beginning to lean toward her. “It is always good to see you.”
Coiteann smiled in great satisfaction. “Here,” she said, handing him the wooden plate. “Take this, and while you eat I will ease the tension in your shoulders. It will take away any pain from your head that the wine may have left, I promise you. Turn around now—that’s it, turn around—”
Slowly, reluctantly, he shifted around on the ledge until he faced away from her, and took the plate she held out to him. Coiteann reached up for his shoulders, running her hands up his back and caressing him as she did so.
“There,” she said, patting his shoulders and then beginning to knead them with her hands. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He set the plate aside and turned to face her again, staring and silent, as if he had something to say to her but could not recall what it was.
Rioghan looked away—and got another shock. Piled up in the straw near the far end of Donaill’s sleeping ledge were a stack of gowns and cloaks and household things: Coiteann’s things. Coiteann’s clothes.
She was moving in. Moving in with Donaill, to live with him in his house.
There was a knock at the door. With a haughty look at Rioghan, Coiteann walked across the room to answer it, as though she were already the lady of the house. And there in the doorway, with cold gray light behind him, was Airt.
For a moment he stood very still, blinking, as though he could not believe what he was seeing. “Coiteann!” he said at last. “I thought…I thought you must have left our home early to begin your work! Why are you here?”
“I am where I wish to be,” she said, her voice cool and superior. “Come inside. We will explain it to you.”
Slowly, with confusion clear in his wide eyes, Airt walked inside and saw Rioghan there.
We wear the same face this day, you and I,
she thought, looking up at him.
Both of us wear our shock and pain and confusion for all to see…and we both know that it will only get worse.
Over on the sleeping ledges, Irial and Lorcan were finally beginning to stir. Rioghan glanced again at the cups that lay in the straw beside each man’s sleeping ledge. It did not seem normal that they should continue to snore past dawn when there were visitors coming and going in their house. There had been no late-night feast the evening before to keep them up late…but perhaps there had been specially prepared wine for these three men.
Donaill sat on the edge of his bed, again holding his head. His two brothers slowly sat up on their own beds and did the same. Airt and Rioghan stood beside the stone wall of the hearth, unable to do more than simply watch the bizarre scene unfold before them.
Coiteann returned to the sleeping ledge to sit close beside Donaill on the furs, sliding her arm through his as though they had always been together. It was clear that she loved being the center of attention, loved having all eyes on her…especially the eyes of Rioghan and Airt.
“Tell them, Donaill,” Coiteann prompted. “Tell Rioghan and Airt and your brothers what we have decided.”
Again, he looked at the smiling blond woman for a long time. “Coiteann and I are to be married,” he said at last, and smiled back at her.
Rioghan felt both hot and cold all at once, felt as though the pit of her stomach were dropping into the earth. She could barely get her breath. This was not real. This could not be happening. Just two days before, he had come to her and promised her a courtship…and she had accepted.
Was she caught up in some terrible dream from which she could not awaken? If she was, then Airt was trapped there with her, for he clearly felt the same horror and disbelief at Donaill’s words that she did.
Had it been only yesterday that he and Coiteann had come to Sion, where Coiteann had hung her head and vowed that she wished to become the respected wife of Airt, where she had begged for a charm of binding to keep her forever bound to him?
There was no sign of the amulet now. Not on Coiteann, not on—
Another blow seemed to hit Rioghan and take the breath from her. Had Coiteann tried to use the charm of binding on Donaill? Rioghan did not see it on him, but even if Coiteann had tried such a thing it would not have been strong enough to force him into forgetting all else but her. It could not have done this! And neither could the poorly made but newly dyed black tunic that Donaill wore. It seemed just like the one Airt had worn, which had been just enough to nudge him into Coiteann’s waiting arms…a place where Airt had already been inclined to go.
But what had happened here?
Lorcan stood up and walked across the room, wrapping a cloak around himself. He seemed shocked, too. “Donaill,” he said, trying to get his brother’s attention. “I thought you said yesterday that you were looking to the Lady Rioghan.”
Donaill gazed off into the distance for a time, then shook his head. “I may have said that once, but it was very long ago.”
“It was yesterday,” Lorcan said.
Donaill tilted his head and blinked, then gazed at his brother. “I may well be hungover this morning, but I can only tell you that I am driven to Coiteann as I have never been driven to any other woman.”
Driven…
No one in the room could fail to see the smirk of victory on Coiteann’s face. Rioghan began to feel cold again as she wondered just what this woman could have done to so thoroughly control a powerful man like Donaill, to play with his will the way a child played with a toy.