Éire’s Captive Moon (41 page)

“Oh no . . .” she moaned, dropping to her knees. “They’re dead. All of them. I failed. I failed them all!”

“Silence!” Cowan insisted, pressing his hand lightly to the top of her head for a brief moment before moving carefully around the wreck of the gate. She bit her lip, not wanting to endanger someone else after all this time, and counted her heartbeats in the stillness of the morning.

The son of Branieucc made no sound as he investigated inside the gate. Charis stayed where she was, though her body rebelled with tense muscles and the need to move to find the children. After perhaps forty beats of her heart, she heard Cowan’s call.

“It’s safe, lass. Come in.”

His dispirited tone did not encourage her to enter joyfully, but she did jump to her feet and run into Ragor’s confines. And stopped just as quickly as she had moved.

The
rath
was deserted. No laughter or shouted conversations could be heard from any quarter. Neglected roofs had fallen into the rounded houses. Familiar paths were overgrown. Carts had been overturned and left to rot. Pottery, broken in the raid perhaps, was strewn about in the common gardens. Her own large, circular dwelling was within her sight. Memories filled her whole being as she stepped slowly, inevitably to her home. It was as if she could see the laughing, smiling faces of her husbands, waiting for her in the misty interior.

“I’m here, Charis.”

She almost jumped at Cowan’s voice even as she welcomed his arm around her, supporting her as she went past her ruined garden square and over the threshold of her home. Where once this house had been redolent with sprightly herbal aromas, it was now musty and dead. Nothing was in its proper place. Even Devin and Devlin’s iron circles had been stolen from their place of honor on one wall.

It was too much. Her losses beat at her from inside and she began to tremble then shake in pure sorrow. Cowan’s warmth enveloped her and she turned to him, letting him absorb her flooding tears and waves of grief.

Even deep misery cannot grip someone for long. When Charis was exhausted, she wiped her face on Cowan’s sleeve and sighed. “I failed.”

He pulled her more tightly against his chest. She felt him rest his cheek on her head. “You didn’t fail, lass,” he murmured. “You weren’t here. I’m sure your children escaped.” A question lurked in his eyes when he pulled back a bit. “I didn’t know you had children.”

Charis winced and leaned forward to hide her face against him. “I don’t. I’m barren. I meant the village children. What happened to them?” Why was she asking him? Why didn’t she tell him to leave? Why was he even here? She pushed back again. “They aren’t your concern, Cowan. I know you want to get home.” He had shared with her his wish to help his people prepare against future raids by the Northmen. Tuirgeis would be returning, Cowan had warned her. His people would benefit from Cowan’s knowledge of the Northmen ways.

She turned to leave the husk of her home, not clear what she would do without the children to care for, but unable to stand motionless in her memories.

Cowan stopped her by the simple expedient of blocking her path. “Will you come with me?” Hopeless and listless, she barely managed to meet his eyes. “Where?”

He took her empty hands in his own. “Home. With me.”

“Why?”

Unexpected mirth burst from him in a laugh. “Well, now, there’s a question. Why indeed?”

“Don’t mock me, son of Branieucc. I know you.”

His laughter faded to a warm smile. “
Isea
, Charis, you do. So know this. I want you with me. I want to help you find your tools again, here in our homeland. I want to know that you’re safe beside me when Tuirgeis or others like him come again.” He sighed and cupped her cheek with his hand. “I want to make you smile. I’ve wanted that since we were first tied together on that accursed ship last summer, and I will go on wanting it—and you—until I die.”

Charis felt as if a pressure was keeping the breath from her lungs as she tried to take in all that Cowan had told her. Was that how it was for him?
 

“Cowan, I—I don’t know that I can go with you,” she said when she could draw air. “I—I need to know what happened here. And I don’t want to—to leave my home. My people.”

“My people can be yours, Charis,” he said softly. “I know they won’t be, not right away, but they could be, if you gave them a chance.”

“I have to find out what happened,” she said, breaking from him and running, just running, into the village. “I have to know!”

“All right then!” she heard him shout. “I’ll wait. We’ll find them. Or what happened to them. Then,” he said, not even winded when he caught her near the ruin of what had been the smith’s fire pit, “then will you? Come with me? You’ll need shelter, you know. Walls to keep you safe. And we have herbs there, too, for your medicines.”

She studied him, moved by his willingness to help her before going home himself, and slowly nodded. “Yes, Cowan. I’ll go with you.”

When he embraced her, there amidst the deserted dwellings of her village, she accepted her choices. A cozy, nestling feeling began to warm her as she relaxed in his arms. His lips caressed hers, his hands moved over her body, and she felt safe. Cared for. Wanted.

Loved.

After some moments, she tapped him on the shoulder and found a small smile. “First, we find what happened to the children.”

As if afraid she would slip away from him, Cowan gripped her hand and they began a thorough investigation of Ragor, starting in the hiding tunnels underneath the village. Not until every house had been searched and every name had been called did they rest on a boulder that made up part of the smith’s home.

Cowan looked her in the eye, his own firm and steady. “I know you aren’t going to like it, Charis, but I think we should go to Bangor Monastery. I can ask the brothers there, if they know anything of the children.”

She resisted the urge to shout at him. Keeping her voice calm, she said, “They have always hated us, Cowan. Why should they care about our children?”

He opened his mouth a couple of times as if to speak before stopping and thinking over his words. Then he pushed his hands through his coarse blond hair and puffed out a noisy breath. “Lass, they’re not bad men. Just maybe some of them are misguided, is all. I am sure that they would not hate the children, but rather care for them. Or at least have news of them . . .”

She wanted to refuse. She was going to refuse, for her hatred and distrust ran bone-deep within her. Instead, she heard herself say, “All right then, Cowan. We’ll go to the monastery. I can do that much for the children.”
 

Chapter 30

“I’d like to find the village we raided before,” Agnarr told Tuirgeis before they sailed from Orkney after the successful trading.

Tuirgeis shook his head, humor dancing in his dark eyes. “You’re looking for the Moonbeam Healer. Think she’ll come back with you?”

Agnarr thought for a moment. “I feel as if my
wyrd
is tied up with her. I have to find her to find my destiny, Tuirgeis.”

Tuirgeis eyed the tide as it washed over the rocks at their toes. “Well, we’ll be landing south from where we were last year, Agnarr. If you seek your healer, you’ll have to go on your own.” He glanced over to the leading warrior of Balestrand. “Unless you plan on doing some raiding for Jarl Olav on your way up. If that’s so, take a group with you. I am going to divide the men this time anyway.” Agnarr watched a light flare in the raiding leader’s eye. “The more territory we can cover, the more effective we’ll be.”

Agnarr nodded. “Thank you.” He left Tuirgeis and jogged to the longships he commanded. The tide was favorable; it was time to go.

The sun was painting the sky in beautiful hues as Cowan led Charis to the gates of Bangor Monastery. He could barely believe they had come so far. His prayers of thanksgiving were silent as he hailed the brothers inside the stone and wood defenses.

“Who is there?”

“Cowan, son of King Branieucc to the west, and one who was captured by the Northmen last year and has now come home.”

A commotion rose behind the fence and soon there was a scraping, the sound of iron on wood, as the gate was unbarred. Cowan could not see the courtyard of the monastery without remembering Martin and his final stand to preserve the codices the brothers had worked so hard to copy. He clenched his jaw for a moment and put the memories away.

“I know you!” one of the tonsured men proclaimed, pointing at Charis. “You’re the herbalist from the village. The children have spoken of you. Come in, come in!”

Relief and warmth caused the gooseflesh to rise on Cowan’s arms and legs. Charis was no less surprised, he could see in the widening of her eyes and parting of her lips. “The children . . .?” she breathed, sounding faint. “You’ve . . . you’ve seen them?”

He felt her fingers digging into his arm and glanced at her. They exchanged a look and he was pleased to see the light in her eyes. He prayed that the monks had the children here, or that light might go out.

“Yes, we’ve seen them,” the brother assured her, stepping back and bowing for them to come in. “We have them here. I am Brother Luke and I helped the young ones get settled into the new dormitory myself. My lord, my lady, I’ll take you inside right now. We’re just having our evening meal before vespers.” He turned to lead them through the gates, gesturing to a building constructed of new wood. “There it is. With so many refugees from the Northmen’s raids, we thought it would best serve our vows of hospitality to have guesting rooms.”

Cowan said something appropriate, he thought, but his attention was almost completely caught with Charis. That she had never been inside the monastery was known. That she was shocked—pleasantly—at her reception today was obvious. He watched her expression soften as she was greeted by the monks and lay workers. But she was waiting expectantly, he could tell. Her hand was tense in his as they progressed toward the main hall of the monastery. Where were the children?

Then a glad cry burst from the healer. “Aislinn!”

“Charis!”

Cowan wisely got out of the way as Ragor’s healer was joyfully overwhelmed by a wave of children.

“I knew they had taken you captive, Charis,” Aislinn said again, after tales had been exchanged. “I knew they would, but I knew that no one could kill you.” Aislinn’s deep blue eyes glowed under black brows. “And I knew you’d come back. I just knew it!”

Charis was overwhelmed to the point of tears at the love in the eyes of the children. “I had to come back for you,” she said, embracing the two smallest children on her knees. They were gathered around the hearth in the main hall of the monastery—a place Charis never thought to find herself. Ever. Yet here she was, surrounded by happy, healthy, pink-cheeked children. “I just don’t know what to do with you now . . .”