Pride of Lions (15 page)

Gormlaith raised her eyebrows.

"Cinnamon, you say? Real cinnamon, not shaved tree bark you're trying to pass off on the ignorant Irish? Let me see." Shoving past the startled man, she leaned over the side of his cart and threw back the hide covering.

"Now wait here ..." The Norseman reached for her just as a spear interposed itself between him and the woman. He looked up to see a Danish warrior on a horse glaring down at him.

He was not to be intimidated. "This is my wagon and these are my goods!" he protested.

"Some strange woman can't just ..."

"She is the Princess Gormlaith," the mounted man informed him.

"I don't care if she's the Goddess Freya, she has no right to paw through my goods!"

The Norseman had started to say something else when, tardily, he recognized the name of Gormlaith. When accompanying his father to Kincora as a youngster he had never met the woman, but he knew who she was.

Everyone knew who she was.

He hesitated, unable to believe that the harridan rummaging through his trade goods like an avaricious badger could possibly have been the most beautiful woman in Ireland and wife to three kings in turn.

Gormlaith extracted a muslin bag and held it to her nose, sniffing suspiciously.

"It is real cinnamon," she conceded at last.

But as she tossed the bag back into the wagon she told the Norseman, "Of course you could be planning to cheat them some other way."

The young merchant glowered at her. "I don't cheat anyone. I give honest value for honest coin."

Her green eyes suddenly sparkled. "Coin?

Did you know that my son Sitric ordered the first coinage ever to be struck in Ireland? You probably have some. His profile is on them.

He wanted to use mine, of course, but I convinced him his own face would be more appropriate."

At this Gormlaith's escort exchanged glances and bit their lips. It was well known in Dublin that Gormlaith had campaigned vigorously to have her face reproduced on the coin, and made Sitric's life hell for months afterward because he used his own image instead.

She continued, "If you're going to Kincora, it must be to try to sell your rubbish to my other son.

But he won't buy it. He has excellent taste; he learned it from me." She cast a final contemptuous look at the contents of the wagon and went back to her cart. With one foot on the step she paused. "Do you know this woman he's supposed to be marrying?" she called to the Norseman.

The encounter was so bizarre he was not certain whether he should answer, but the warrior on horseback prodded him gently with the tip of his spear.

"I know her. Know of her, that is. She is sister to the wife of Teigue Mac Brian."

"How many cattle does her father have? You trade with him for his leathers?"

"We don't trade with him; his cattle have poor-quality hides."

"Hah!" Gormlaith exulted, springing into her cart with surprising agility. She snatched up the whip and curled it over her horses' backs and they leaped forward. In a moment the cart was whirling away with its escort in hot pursuit, leaving the Norse traders in their dust.

The leader of the traders gazed after her thoughtfully, wondering if it might not be more prudent to bypass Kincora altogether and sell his goods to the chieftains beyond Nenagh instead.

Most of the invited guests had already arrived at Kincora and been shown to their accommodations, in private chambers if they had sufficient status or in one of the large wattle-and-timber guesting houses.

While awaiting the formalization of their marriage, Donough and Neassa had been assigned an apartment once reserved for Murrough. It would have been unthinkable to return Neassa to her father before the wedding; such an insult would have meant a clan war. With or without contracts and blessings, she was now wife to Donough and his responsibility.

Already that responsibility was beginning to chafe slightly. At night among the furs and blankets he enjoyed her, but during the day he wanted to put her out of his mind and devote himself to solidifying alliances. Yet no sooner had he found an out-of-the way corner where he could discuss politics in private than Neassa would appear at his elbow.

"Ah here you are, Donough! I was looking for you. Tell me, do you think I should wear these beads my sister gave me for our wedding? Or are these better?" She pirouetted for his inspection, oblivious of the other men with him, destroying a mood Donough had been at pains to create. No matter how he tried to get rid of her she would linger, talking about trivia as if it were the most important thing in the world, until the men whose support Donough had been wooing abandoned him to her.

Fergal summed it up. "Neassa chatters constantly and says nothing."

"She's just young and excited," Donough defended her. He must be loyal to her in front of others; that was part of the marriage contract under Brehon Law.

His cousin scoffed, "You say that now, when she has you by the balls, but wait until she's older. She won't improve."

Donough did not want to believe him. He determined to find admirable hidden qualities in Neassa that no one but himself could appreciate.

They must be there. He wanted to love her.

He wanted to be happy.

Surely all it required was an effort of will.

The wedding was to take place on the first day of the new moon. A few guests were late in arriving, and a messenger had brought a chillingly curt response from the prince of Desmond to the effect that he and his wife did not care to attend any festivities honoring Donough Mac Brian.

"Trouble there," Teigue remarked to his wife. He promptly summoned Donough for an explanation.

"Father married our sister Sabia to Cian of Desmond for the express purpose of making peace between the Dal Cais and the Owenachts,"

Teigue reminded his brother. "Yet now there seems to be a new grudge developing. What happened?"

"We quarreled, but it was nothing."

"Nothing? If it's cost me the support of the Owenachts it could mean serious trouble for my kingship."

Donough folded his arms. "You're determined to be King of Munster, then?"

"Father held that title until he died and I'm his oldest surviving son."

"According to the tradition of tanistry, any of our close cousins might make an equal claim to the title," Donough pointed out.

With a wave of his hand, Teigue dismissed tradition. "But none of them has, out of respect for our father. In case you have forgotten, Donough, it was Brian Boru's plan to found a ruling dynasty based on direct succession, father to son, like the royal families of the Britons and the Gauls."

"I'm not arguing that point. I'm just questioning whether you are the best man to follow Brian Boru as king."

Teigue gave his younger brother a hard stare.

"I am the only man," he said in a stern voice. He had not wanted kingship, but now, angered at Donough's reaction, he began to feel some of Brian Boru's ambition surfacing in himself after all.

Donough checked a scathing retort. Further alienating his brother would serve no purpose.

Besides, Teigue was the closest kin he had left, other than sisters he never saw and a mother he did not want to see.

With an effort he admitted, "I made a mistake in quarreling with Cian. But the Owenacht tribe has always been contentious. Had you been there, the same thing might have happened. Cian is easily offended."

"I don't want you blaming this on Cian.

You have to take responsibility for what you do yourself."

"That's what I was trying to do!"

Teigue gave a tired sigh. "Leave it then, Donough. When this wedding is over I shall attempt to reestablish friendly relations with the prince of Desmond."

Donough replied, "That should be my task if I'm responsible for the problem."

"I don't want you muddying the waters any further," his brother said sternly.

"I feel like a spancelled horse," Donough complained to Mac Liag later. He found himself journeying to the old poet's house by the lake almost every day, seeking ... he knew not what.

"Spancelled horses accept their hobbles and are obedient," Mac Liag replied.

"But it was I who brought the army of Munster back from Clontarf! I even won a victory of sorts on the way. Surely I deserve better than to be treated like a child now."

The old man's eyes twinkled. "Your brother Murrough voiced the same complaints right up until the time he died. Brian would never let him run."

"At least he let Murrough die with him,"

Donough said bitterly.

"It is not easy to be one who survives. I know. Every day of my life I regret that I did not die with the flower of the Dalcassians."

"That's exactly what I mean!" the young man cried. "You talk like everyone else, as if all that was finest and most noble is dead! But I'm alive. Look at me. I'm flesh and blood standing here before you."

"Be patient, lad," counseled Mac Liag. "What is for you will not pass by you."

As Donough was leaving the poet's house he said out of the side of his mouth to Cumara, "It's all very well for him to talk, he's lived his life and had his honors. But what about me?"

Cumara looked sympathetic.

The day of the wedding dawned overcast. A curtain of soft gray rain hung in the sky north of the lake.

Brooding above Kincora, Crag Liath was lost in cloud.

Teigue's steward Torcan had offered Donough an attendant to help him prepare for the occasion, but he had asked Fergal to be with him instead.

"I want an ally at my elbow," he explained to his cousin.

"Why? Are you nervous? It's only a marriage and you've already lain with the woman."

"I want you with me," Donough repeated.

Fergal's common sense did not seem to help with the knot in his belly.

He dressed in a new leine and a mantle large enough to wrap four times around his body. So much woven wool was indicative of his wealth as a prince. The mantle was crimson speckled with gray and black, and decorated with huge horsehair tassels.

Standing in front of him, Fergal held up a mirror so Donough could examine the effect. In the polished metal surface he thought he looked rather like his father. "Do I remind you of anyone?" he asked Fergal.

"You remind me of a scared boy afraid someone's going to give him a whipping," his cousin remarked unfeelingly. "Are you ready to go?"

The first event of the day was the recitation of the agreed marriage contract before the senior brehon. This was a private and sober ceremony as befitted legal arrangements concerning property. Only Teigue and Gadhra accompanied the young couple as their two clans would be bound by the settlements made. Once the contract had been formally accepted by both sides and tokens exchanged--gilded leathers representing the bride-price of cattle, ceremonial knives representing a strengthened alliance with Gadhra's ghclan--the festivities could beign.

The blessing of the Church would be delivered by the Abbot of Kill Dalua in the chapel of Saint Flannan, and would mark the beginning of three days of celebration. Priestly participation was not customary for ordinary marriages, but had become increasingly a part of weddings involving noble clans as Christianity consolidated its hold on Ireland.

When the wedding party left the private chamber where the marriage contract had been formally accepted, they crossed the main courtyard of Kincora to the gray stone chapel. Kinspeople and dependents now crowded around them.

Servants had lined the way with newly cut rushes and strewn their path with fragrant hawthorn blossoms, the last of the season. The poets claimed hawthorn bloomed longer around Kincora than anywhere else in Ireland.

"I feel like a queen," enthused Neassa, beaming left and right. She was resplendent in a sleeveless coat of loosely woven wool over a semi-fitted linen gown lavishly embroidered with silk thread. Imported glass beads were sewn onto her slippers. She waggled her fingers at the spectators as if they were her subjects. Once or twice she giggled.

Donough was both elated and embarrassed. This was only the second ritual of his life in which he had played a central part, and he did not remember the first, his baptism. He paced forward selfconsciously, trying to look dignified.

Neassa matched her stride to his, but one step behind. Under Brehon Law theirs was a marriage of the second degree, as they were not equal in status and property; her position in the procession was ordained by custom.

Among the crowd forming a line on either side of their passage was a bony, elderly man whose faded hair still retained a hint of red. By the sunken hollows of his blind eyes Donough identified him as Padraic, former spear carrier. Several young people clustered protectively around him.

One of them was a slender, dark-haired girl.

Donough had almost walked past her when something captured his attention and he turned to look.

Alone of all the wedding guests, she wore no shoes. Her high-arched white feet were bare, and the skirt she wore over her linen smock was red.

Donough lifted his gaze to her face. Her nose was very straight, almost Grecian; the modeling of her rather stubborn chin would do honor to a queen. Beneath level eyebrows, stars welled from fathomless pupils, setting dark eyes aglow.

It was a face he would have recognized anywhere, though he could have put his hand on his heart and sworn he had never met her before.

While they stared at each other a silent conversation took place between them. Its intensity left him shaken.

Donough forgot the crowd around him, forgot his new wife at his shoulder, the abbot waiting for them. He was surrounded by gray cloud pierced by a single beam of light, and in that light stood the girl in the red skirt smiling at him as if she had known him a thousand years.

I could never afterward remember entering the chapel, nor the prayers Cathal Mac Maine intoned before the altar. Although my eyes remained fixed on the abbot, some deeper sense was searching the dim interior for the girl's presence.

When I realized she had not entered the chapel I was upset. I wanted Cathal to stop droning on and on so I could go outside again and see where she was.