Pride of Lions (16 page)

Neassa elbowed me in the ribs. "The responses," she hissed.

"The ... ah. Indeed." I dragged my mind back to the present and mouthed the expected Latin. Cathal signed the Cross over us, more prayers were offered, the ceremony was over.

I almost ran from the chapel.

The girl in the red skirt was gone.

In honor of the occasion, Mac Liag had worn all six colors to which a poet was entitled. His leine extended to his ankles in pleated folds; his long, semicircular mantle was striped in yellow, green, black, red, gray, and blue-purple. Even Teigue, who was not yet King of Munster, was not so gaudily attired. Mac Liag stood out from the throng in the courtyard like a rainbow.

Donough went straight to him. "That blind man who was here a while ago, that was Padraic, was it not?"

"It was. I was glad to see him; it's been a long time."

"Who was that with him? The young woman in the red skirt?"

Mac Liag searched his memory. "I didn't notice her, but I suppose she was one of his daughters. He is a widower like myself, you know, and he--"

"Why didn't they come into the chapel?" Donough interrupted impatiently.

"Ah, Padraic would never be guilty of such an impropriety."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember what I told you? His wife followed the Old Faith and her children do the same. Pagans are not welcome in Saint Flannan's, and Padraic would never enter without them."

Donough's temper flared. "Who says they would not be welcome? It's my marriage, I can have whoever I want, and I wanted Padraic and his family in the chapel!"

Cathal Mac Maine appeared at his elbow, the abbot's heavy features set in folds of disapproval. "You have just come from the House of God," he reminded Donough. "I expect a certain decorum from you with the blessing still crowning your brow. Instead you are willfully making trouble."

"You overheard what we were saying?"

"Of course I did. Your voice is deep and it carries. You wanted to bring pagans into the House of God."

Mac Liag tried to smooth things over. "I was just explaining to him, Cathal. He didn't know."

"I knew," Donough contradicted him. "You told me before. But I wanted my father's old friend and his family too. In light of Padraic's service to the Ard Ri, no one can deny them Kincora."

"Kincora, no," the abbot agreed. "But I would stand in the doorway of Saint Flannan's and bar them from its sacred precincts with my own body if necessary. Do you hear me?"

Teigue excused himself from a conversation he was having with Gadhra and strode across the courtyard toward them. "What's wrong here?"

Donough tried to bite back anger. "Why do you always assume there's something wrong when I'm involved?"

Cathal Mac Maine promptly launched into an explanation, complete with expressions of clerical outrage. Donough began defending his position, Mac Liag tried to outtalk them both, and Teigue struggled futilely to take charge of the situation.

Voices snarled into a knot.

"Look at those men over there!" Neassa protested to Maeve. "It's my wedding day and they're quarreling, trying to ruin it for me."

Her sister cast an experienced eye over the group in question. "They are men of the Gael," she commented. "They love to argue. They aren't doing it to ruin your feast day, I assure you. Irish princes are warriors, that's how they became nobility in the first place, by fighting and winning.

You cannot tame them; you would destroy them."

"Your Teigue's no warrior," Neassa replied thoughtlessly. "Everyone know's he's as gentle as an ox."

Maeve rounded on her sister. "My Teigue can fight as well as any! You are a stupid, ignorant girl."

"Don't shout at me!" Neassa flared.

Her face turned red, her eyes filled with angry tears.

Within moments people were taking sides. A fight was as good as a wedding; better, in the opinion of many.

Raised voices echoed through the stronghold of the Dalcassians.

By late in the day, the great hall was given over to feasting. A constant stream of servants moved in and out of the kitchens, bearing food and drink and taking away empty platters, while tactfully ignoring arguments that waxed or waned on every side. Guests discussing Donough's marriage later would boast that it was the most contentious they had ever attended. Three fights had turned serious and Ferchar the physician was kept busy tending injuries.

After she had drunk too much mead in the women's gallery, Neassa began sobbing and demanding to go home with her father.

Gadhra suggested to Teigue that the property arrangements might be forfeit if his daughter was dissatisfied.

Fergal Mac Anluan hit one of

Gadhra's kinsmen over the head with a three-legged stool.

Ruadri of Ara found himself involved in a violent argument over which of the Dalcassians had acquitted themselves most bravely at Clontarf, and soon that battle was being refought by torchlight in the courtyard, with the wolfhounds of Kincora adding to the confusion as they tried to join in.

Only the storm center, Donough Mac Brian, did not take part.

His brother was angry with him, the abbot was angry with him, his wife was crying ... he slipped out of the hall almost unnoticed and walked through the mist to the main gates of Kincora.

"Did the blind man, Padraic, leave by this way earlier?" he asked the sentry.

"I just came on duty. Wait here; I'll ask around if anyone saw him."

As Donough waited, a fresh wind sprang up off the lake, blowing the mist away. Shreds seemed to drift toward the rising moon and form a circle there, until one pale face peered from a pastel halo.

The moon was gazing toward the summit of Crag Liath.

Donough wandered out through the open gateway. His feet chose their path without his conscious thought, turning northwest.

One of the guards came trotting after him.

"Prince Donough. Prince Donough! You were looking for the old blind man? His children have taken him home, back toward Ennis. They did not choose to spend the night in Kincora. They will seek hospitality from friends along the way."

Donough stood still on the path. Ennis lay to the northwest, across mountain and forest and bogland.

Reluctantly he turned to go back inside.

But first he looked toward Crag Liath bathed in moonlight.

"Where are you now?" he asked the girl in the red skirt.

The wind blew off the lake. The night air smelled damp and sweet, like the earth.

Donough's keen ears heard distant sounds coming closer.

At once an armed guard stood beside him.

"There's horses coming down the road," the man affirmed, cupping one hand behind his ear. He shouted up to the sentry in the watchtower, "We're about to have company! Look sharp!"

"Late guests?" Donough wondered.

"Very late indeed, if they are guests. But that's why we keep the gates open. They're coming fast; must be someone who knows the road even in the dark."

Donough lingered to see who the new arrivals might be. Soon a wicker cart came careening into view, followed by an escort on horseback. Gormlaith stood bolt upright in the cart with her feet braced against its swaying as she drove the exhausted horses toward Kincora.

Three large torches set in iron holders as high as a man could reach burned on either side of the gateway. They shed a golden light that illuminated the road as far as the nearest stand of trees. In that glow Gormlaith's face appeared haggard, the lines deeply scored, the famous eyes sunken. Yet her posture was as arrogant as ever. Whatever her failings, men would always say of her that she had the walk of a young queen.

As she stepped from the cart, Donough gazed at her in dismay. He could almost feel the bonds he had thought broken tightening around him again. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to prevent your making a dreadful mistake," Gormlaith replied.

"What mistake?"

"Marrying someone who is not good enough for you, of course. Now show me to--"

With great satisfaction Donough announced,

"If you mean Neassa Ni Gadhra, I've already married her." It was the first time in memory that he had been able to thwart his mother.

Gormlaith folded her arms across her breasts.

"You can't. You simply cannot have done."

"I have, this very day."

"A contract marriage?"

"Of the second degree. Sworn to before the chief brehon of Munster. Gadhra and Teigue were--"

"Then you can just go back to the chief brehon and tell him you divorce the woman," Gormlaith demanded. "Tell him you made a mistake."

From the moment Donough saw the girl in the red skirt he had known marrying Neassa was a mistake. Suddenly Gadhra's daughter seemed ... ordinary, no different from any number of other females.

Yet she was his wife, by agreed contract. His choice. If Gormlaith ordered him to set Neassa aside, he would keep her no matter what.

When he set his jaw he looked, in the flickering torchlight, more like his father than he knew.

"No, Gormlaith." He did not call her Mother. He had never called her Mother.

The tall, haggard woman drew a deep breath. Sitting on their horses behind her, her mounted escort watched silently. No one could predict what she might do.

The sentries at the gates were just as uncertain.

They remembered Gormlaith from the old days; remembered her all too well. She could explode like a pine knot in the fire and ignite everything within reach.

The chief sentry said over his shoulder to the man nearest him, "Run, don't walk, to Prince Teigue and tell him she's here."

The guard ran.

Gormlaith paid no attention. Tall in the torchlight, she challenged her son with her eyes.

"Who put you up to this? Your weakling brother?

Let me speak to him!"

Throughout his life Donough had accepted his mother's tyranny because he had no options. When he was a child she controlled him totally, and had continued to do so until the day Brian Boru sent her from Kincora.

Since then, however, Donough had taken up arms, seen battle, and led an army.

He would not let Gormlaith tyrannize him now.

He opened his mouth to tell her so--just as she put one hand on his chest and shoved him aside like a servant. With head held high she stalked through the gates of Kincora for the first time since her banishment.

The sentries tried to stop her but she pushed past them as well. They did not dare turn their weapons against a woman, even this one. In Brian Boru's Ireland no man raised his hand against a woman.

They had no such compunction when it came to her male companions, however. These were Dublin Vikings, all too recently the enemy. When Gormlaith's escort tried to ride through the gate they found their way barred by crossed spears.

The captain appealed to Donough. "We aren't supposed to leave her."

The young man sighed. "I'll take care of her," he said with obvious reluctance. He turned to the chief sentry. "Find someplace for my mother's bodyguard to spend the night. She'll want them to accompany her back to Dublin tomorrow."

As Donough followed his mother into the fort, two sets of armed men were left facing each other in the torchlight. Dalcassian eyed Viking. "I would be happier myself," commented the chief sentry at last, "if you took her away right now."

His opposite number frowned. "I cannot.

Surely your prince would not deny hospitality for the night to a woman."

"That woman?" The sentry squinted up at the man on horseback. "The Devil himself would deny her hospitality. But I suppose you might as well come inside until this is sorted out. There's plenty of food and fodder, and you can sleep in the guards' quarters. I like that horse of yours, by the way," he added conversationally, to show there were no hard feelings. "Kildare horse, is he?"

Meanwhile the sentry who carried news of Gormlaith's arrival to Teigue in the hall was getting a sample of the welcome she could expect. "Stone her before she puts one foot inside the gate!" cried a Dalcassian.

There was a shout of agreement from among the assembled guests.

"That woman is to blame for all the ills of Ireland!" cried a chieftain's wife.

Mac Liag braced the palms of his hands on the trestle table in front of him and pushed himself to his feet. "Honesty compels me to disagree,"

he said, his speech slightly slurred by an excess of red wine. "I feel no more affection for her than you do, but trouble has many parents.

Surely on the occasion of her son's wedding feast we can put side our animosity and--"

"Don't make any special effort for me!"

cried a voice from the doorway. Heads swiveled as Gormlaith swept into the room as if she belonged there. "And I don't need you to champion me, Mac Liag," she added. "I can take care of myself. And of my son, come to that."

Her son was close on her heels. He tried to lay a restraining hand on her arm but Gormlaith shook him off. "Teigue! Are you to blame for this absurdity?"

Teigue had risen from his seat and started toward her with his arm outstretched and his hand raised, palm outward, to bar her way. "You are not welcome here," he told her.

"Nonsense. When could a mother not come to her son's wedding?" She turned to Donough. "Would you disgrace yourself in front of your tribe by such cruelty to your own mother?"

"I--"

"I thought not. There, you see, Teigue? He wants me."

Donough tried to step between them. "I never said that, I was going to--"

"Be quiet now and let me handle this. You are in enough trouble, and I haven't arrived a moment too soon. Where's this wretched girl you purport to have married? Let me have a look at her."

From the moment of Gormlaith's entry Neassa had been staring at her, slack-jawed. Now she tried to slump lower on her bench, but the older woman's unerring gaze sought her out in her place of brief honor at the front of the women's gallery.

"You there! Stand up, if you aren't a cripple!"

At Gormlaith's command Neassa rose, trembling, to her feet. Maeve hissed at her,