Maire (28 page)

“Her heart is good, Tomás, and Maire has a sharp mind, but this is much to digest at once,” Brude said to the priest. “She’s not had the benefit of a druid’s life devoted solely to finding truth. She’s not heard the ancient accounts of the birth and death of Jesus.”

By
all
gods, real or nay, now Brude was on the Christian priest’s side, making her sound like ninny pup!

“And who is this Jesus whose going to save me?” The edge of her voice betrayed her frayed nerves. She was near done with this nonsense. “Seems to me he’s a bit late to help me out, so unless he’s got to be here for the wedding, can we just get on with it?”

“Do you wish this wedding to be real, recognized by all, including your Christian husband?” Tomás was as stubborn as he was gentle.

“Aye, but—”

“Then you must spend this night hearing a story, Maire,” Brude’s interruption was not nearly so gentle. “Would you enter into battle without knowing who was with you?”

Maire scowled. “What has battle got to do with this? First it’s foolraide about one god and confessing sins, then this Jesus man, and now we speak of battle? Crom’s toes, are ye tellin’ me the marriage will be a battle?”

“Life is full of battles, Queen Maire,” Tomás pointed out, “not all of them fought with the sword, but with faith and prayer.”

“And Rowan’s faith and prayer to this one God has brought us safe thus far, Maire,” Brude chimed in. “You can’t deny it.”

Maire sighed heavily. Collapsing against the wall behind her bench, she folded her arms across her chest. Her lower lip protruded, displaying her displeasure. In truth, she’d wanted to know more about this god, but not with so much else plying her brain and emotions.

“This isn’t convenient…” She felt like the drowning person going under for the final time.

A hint of smile toyed with the priest’s thin lips. “Little in life is convenient, Maire, especially the important things.”

Such a druidlike thing to say. Maire searched desperately for one last path of escape. “All right then, if Brude accepts this god as the only one, so do I. As for sins, I’ve none to admit to.”

“You would swear by all that’s dear and sacred to you that there is nothing you’ve ever done that left you troubled?”

Maire bolted upright with indignation at being called a liar—or as much so—but the Welsh fisherman’s face appeared in her memory, stilling the objection forming on her lips. The contorted facial features of his head severed from his body by her bloody sword would haunt Maire forever.

“I killed a man, but if I hadn’t, he’d have killed me. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. It was war.”

It wasn’t,
she told herself, squirming under Father Tomás’s gaze. The man wasn’t accusing her. His gaze was full of compassion. It was a voice inside that accosted her conscience.

“But it bothers you, child. You see his face at night, and it keeps you from sleep.”

“What doesn’t keep a queen from sleep?” How could a man she’d never laid eyes upon till this day know such a thing? “And I’d not kill Rowan, so what has it to do with this?”

The stubborn pose her chin struck made the priest chuckle. “I think we’ve got a long night ahead, Brude.”

Maire’s mentor put his hand on her shoulder. “’Twill not be the first we’ve spent on lessons to make you a wise ruler, will it?”

Maire shook her head in resignation. At least she and priest agreed on one thing: it
was
going to be a long night. Between Morlach’s calculating glare, Rowan’s insinuation that he’d just as soon not have her as his wife, and this Christian god—not to mention the man Jesus—sure, she’d never sleep again.

Yet, Brude’s unfolding story of the ancient royal druids of the east, who’d seen a great star and followed it to a small village called Bethlehem, banished her need for sleep before she knew it. The sign in the heavens meant, so the legend said, that a King of all kings had been born.
This
was the Jesus they talked about.

“And how did the man save me when I never knew him? Why, if he were alive, he’d be old as a Sidhe elder.” It was said some faeries were older than the earth itself.

“But
He
knew you, Maire, as He does to this day. He is God’s son.”

“And for all we know, the faeries may be his servants. Tomás calls them angels or messengers.” Brude seemed to be thinking aloud. Mayhap he, too, still worked this revelation out in his brain. “At least the good faeries. But hold your questions, child, till the story is done.”

If it challenged the druid’s head so, what chance did she have of grasping all this?

Thankfully, priests were teachers and their stories made it at least interesting, she thought as Brude and Father Tomás began the telling of an old legend. Maire had many times before heard the story of the great king Conn’s death, for this was one of Erin’s most beloved rulers.

Conn had been inadvertently wounded in a friendly contest when his opponent threw a trophy at the king. The stone-hard, lime-preserved, shriveled brain of a worthy enemy, which was considered the essence of the man, lodged in the back of Conn’s head. The best of healers could not heal the wound completely. Because Conn was such a good ruler, the Celtic law that a king be in perfect physical condition was overlooked. However, the healers warned the king, who was still possessed of all his faculties, that he must not exert himself overmuch lest the incurable wound kill him.

One day, a few years after when Conn saw how the sun turned dark in the sky, he summoned his magi to explain it. The druids who studied the heaven and stars told him that the King of all kings had been executed on a tree by his own people, and the one true God in the sun turned off its light in His grief. The kindhearted Conn was so moved and outraged that he took vengeance on the sacred grove of oaks, smiting the mighty and ancient trees until he collapsed in death and despair.

So this Jesus was the King of all kings! Now she saw the significance, although it was beyond her ken how this one god forgave the traitors for killing his son, much less that this Jesus asked that they be forgiven as he died. Despite Brude’s earlier warning, she couldn’t hold her tongue.

“I’d have knocked them down with thunder and burned them in their boots with lightning!”

“But
you
didn’t create them and love them as God did.” Father Tomás’s eyes were kind. “We are His children. God loved us so much, that He gave His life on that cross as payment for every sin that was ever committed by man and every sin that ever would be committed.”

Maire reflected on the man’s words. “But I thought you said it was his son, Jesus, that died, not him.”

“Is not the son a part of the father?” Brude reminded her.

Maire liked it better when the druids pondered such deep things. “Aye, I suppose.”

“The Christian God exists in three forms,” Tomás explained. “He is the Father in the heavens. He is the Son, who came to earth as man for a while, and He is the Holy Spirit, which comes to dwell in those who accept Him as their Lord and Savior.”

“A shape-shifter?” Why didn’t the man just say so?

“Of a sort, except that all three are one. God is like water,” Brude elaborated, as much for himself as his student. “Water is water, whether it’s frozen as ice, running in a stream, or steaming the air wet over a boiling pot.”

There was some reason in that, Maire mused, trying hard to grasp it. And if Brude believed this, then so would she.

“This god is greater than Morlach?” She wanted to make certain she understood on her own terms.

“Morlach manipulates God’s creations, but God created them. The powers of the druid come from this masterful order of things created by the Master of all. It is a dangerous and evil knowledge when used for one’s own glory instead of God’s,” Brude explained.

“Which,” Tomás added, “is why we discourage Christians in dabbling in such knowledge, for we humans cannot know for certain whether it comes from light or darkness. You see, we
all
have that sixth spiritual sense to some degree, Maire, but it is like fire—a good servant and a poor master.”

“We lack God’s discernment to know which spirits are good and which are bad, because one can parade as the other and easily fool us.” Brude gave her a moment to mull this over, his keen gaze searching her own, apparently watching to see if the seedlings of knowledge that he and Tomás had sowed were taking root. “So, what do you think, Maire?”

Maire shifted uncomfortably, loathe to disappoint her mentor. “I want no part of this mystical knowledge,” she began reluctantly, “and while I accept this Christian god… or all three of him, I just don’t think much of this spirit living in me.”

“But it is your friend,” Tomás assured her, “the one who tells God what troubles you when you hardly know yourself or can’t make sense of it with words.”

Maire nodded. This was much to digest. To ask more questions would only make the night longer. In truth, her head ached now.

As though the priest sensed her desperation, he paused, then asked, “So you will confess your sins to God, all those boils that plague your memory with regret?”

She would gladly if this god would take away that dying fisherman’s face from her mind. “Aye, I’ll confess what I know.”

Tomás smiled. “It’s all God expects. He expects us to do our best, not to be perfect. Only His Son was perfect.”

“Well, he sounds a reasonable enough God.” Maire hesitated. Old fears instilled since youth, especially about spirits, died hard. “But will you two stay with me when I talk to him, at least till this spirit has settled in?”

To her surprise, Father Tomás rose and gave her a huge hug. “We will pray with you, Maire, for when you invite God into your heart, He is there in an instant.”

Maire followed their lead and knelt on the floor, folding her hands as she’d seen Rowan do. She was tired and confused, not to mention uneasy, but this was something that had to be done. It was best for Gleannmara and not just because Brude said so. Her conviction came from somewhere else, from deep within, rather than without.

Suddenly, the casement burst open, banging forcefully against the wall. All that saved the precious glass from shattering was the tapestry hanging next to it, which bore the brunt of the impact. Were she not so frozen with fear, Maire would have bolted to her feet. Instead she clasped her hands even tighter.

“Please tell me that’s this holy spirit comin’ in,” she asked Brude in a voice too tiny for a whisper.

“Or perhaps just the wind,” Tomás suggested as he closed it and ran the bolt through its keeper.

“When light enters in, Maire, darkness must flee. It is nothing to fear.”

When you invite God into your heart, He is there in an instant.
Her eyes flew open with wonder. Wind or spirits, Maire knew with more conviction than she’d ever felt, that Brude spoke the truth! Slowly, fearfully, she began to pray what was in heart and mind at that very moment.

Father God, wherever and whatever Ye are, I feel Your presence. I don’t understand it, mind Ye, but by my mother’s eyes, I know this spirit of Yours is here. It’s as though You’re both inside me and wrapped around me at the same time!

The wonder of it gave Maire cause to stop. It was as close as she’d ever come to recapturing the warmth and protection of her own father’s arms. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but when she went to wipe them away, Brude stopped her.

“Do not wipe away the tribute of your love and sincerity before God. ’Twas He that gave them to you.”

Maire glanced askew at Brude. How could he know what she was feeling, why she cried, when she couldn’t explain it herself? She might have asked, but it seemed impolite to speak to someone else while talking to the One who created druid and queen alike.

Not that she knew what she intended to say—only that she was afraid of what lay ahead and needed all the help God could offer that she might see it through as a good queen to her people. And as a good wife to the husband she would acknowledge before Him on the morrow…

When she had laid all her concerns before her God’s invisible throne, Maire found that it had not been a frightening experience at all, but a blessing beyond her mortal ability to express.

Later, for the first night in many, she slept sound as a babe in its mother’s arms—but the arms were not Maeve’s, they were those of Rowan’s God, of Brude’s God—of Gleannmara’s God.

Rowan tossed the blankets off his bed and, not for the first time that night, knelt beside the gilded carved box with its overstuffed pallet. Princely trappings would give him no more rest than a
pauper’s this night. His knees ached, despite the thick rug of eastern design that cushioned his weight on the floor.

“Father, this
marriage…”

Rowan wanted to do God’s will, but knew his tone belied it. He’d yet to be convicted that this unholy union
was
God’s will. What if he considered it for selfish reasons, like taking Maire with her beguiling combination of innocence and bravado as a wife in every sense? Now that was hardly a priestly pursuit.

Again the list of nobler reasons began to unfold in the troubled man’s mind: the true union of Gleannmara with an heir of both clans of her soil, the only way at present to continue to keep his word to protect the queen and her land from Morlach’s greed and ambition, a chance to make the tuath and its people—his people—prosper in peace.

Rowan beat his brow against his fist, trapped by his own web of deceit. He’d let Maire and her people think he was their king according to their law when he knew in his heart that he was not so in the only law that mattered: God’s law.

Still, he rebelled, seeking to follow the light
his
way. All his learning came to naught when put to the test of this fire. The heat of it made his forehead ooze with perspiration. He wanted to spread the Word as one of God’s priests. That was how he saw himself, not as king to a pagan queen—even if she was the most desirable woman he’d ever known.

“See, God? This is hardly a saintly reaction.”

Jumping to his feet, Rowan went to the window and pulled it open. A brisk night wind washed over him, yet the baser heat that claimed him each time he thought of Maire would not yield to it. Somehow, the little queen had gotten under his skin, into his blood. And he would spill it to save her, he vowed to the stars glittering in the clear night sky.