Riona (30 page)

Would that she could swallow the things she’d said, bilious as they were, but they were out and could not be called back. Misery overwhelmed her at the thought that she’d challenged Kieran to be a good example for the little ones and then acted the worse herself.

“I know not what I do these days. I do not know this ranting shrew consumed with anger or the wanton wench who melts at the thought of his kiss. All I know is that I like neither.”

“Gleannmara has kissed you?”

“Most assuredly and most thoroughly. I did not want it, yet a part of me wished it to last forever.”

“The heart has its own mind, to be sure.”

Her uncle’s understanding smile brought Riona’s tumble of thoughts to a halt. “Aye, I love Kieran, but as a foster brother, as kin—”

“Have you ever wished the kiss of kin to last forever?”

Heat from the thought of Kieran’s kiss mingled with that of chagrin. “Nay, never.”

“Then you do not think of Kieran as kin, child, but as a man.”

“But I don’t want a man!”

The words rang as false to her ear as they did her heart—the heart with a mind of its own. Dismay fell over her like a suffocating mantle.

“Father, what am I to do with a head and a heart that don’t agree?”

Cromyn laughed gently. “That is a question of the ages, Riona. Consider it in prayer. That is my only suggestion. Now that you recognize the nature of your quandary, you can deal with it.”

“He wants me to marry him.” Riona rebelled against the idea.
“That’s what the dress is for. It wasn’t a gift from his heart, as I’d thought. It was part of a bride price … as if a commitment for life can be bought.”

“It has been before and will be again.”

“But not mine, Father. My love cannot be bought or bargained for … or pledged by someone else.”

“And you think that Kieran of Gleannmara’s can?”

Of course not. While decidedly more reckless, Kieran was as independent in spirit as she. He acted upon nothing in which he did not believe. But did he believe in marriage as a means to an heir or as a lifetime commitment to love come what may?

Cromyn patted Riona on the arm. “Think on it and pray, Riona. I think you have your answer already. You need to be at peace with it, and only God can give you that.”

Riona rose as he turned toward the door. “Wait, Father. I’ve babbled like a fool without giving you a breath to say what brought you here. Has our audience with the high king been moved ahead?”

Or dare she hope that the abbot of Iona might see her?
Father, forgive me for being so self-absorbed
.

“Oh, yes, I nearly forgot.” Cromyn reached into his belt and withdrew a small piece of parchment. “I was to deliver this to you … from the holy Father of Iona.”

Awe numbed Riona’s tongue. The Word said God wanted His children to ask the least of things, but what she had asked for was by no means small. She’d asked for a miracle. Riona glanced at Leila as she tore open the wax seal and unfolded the paper with shaking hands. The hair on her arms and neck prickled as she read the single sentence. It was written in a bold, clear hand, not unlike Iona’s voice. She could almost hear his answer.

Milady, the girl child will be healed, but in God’s time, not ours and by His hand, not mine
.

Tears anew sprang to her eyes. How foolish she’d been to count so much on the touch or blessing of the abbot of lona when she’d already asked the only One who could grant her wish.

“Is everything all right, child?” Cromyn’s features showed his concern.
“I thought it strange when the abbot’s clerk asked me to deliver this to you.”

Riona looked up suddenly. “You haven’t asked him about Leila? But this—” Her voice broke. She handed the missive over to her uncle, unable to speak right away.

The holy man read it and crossed his chest, murmuring in prayer.

“Everything is fine, Father.” A cross between a chuckle and a sob escaped. She felt so foolish, so unworthy. “In all that has happened of late and in the excitement of seeing his holiness of Iona, I’d lost my focus as to Who was in control. I’ve made such a fiasco of it on my own that God sent me a … a reminder, first in you and now in this.”

Riona raised up on tiptoe and gave her uncle a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you, uncle.”

“I’m just a servant, child.” Cromyn gathered his pets. With a ruffled flap of their wings, they settled on his shoulders. He laughed. “My friends are not used to my being about so late after vespers.”

He started through the door and stopped, turning back to Riona. “If it’s any consolation, Riona, know that even those such as I wrestle with decisions regarding their future. God seems to be leading me in a direction that is in conflict with the service I intended to perform for Him.”

Riona put her own quandary aside. “Then perhaps I might convince you to share with me as I have with you, for you have truly been a godsend in my hour of confusion.”

Cromyn shook his head. “I’ve a long trek back to the abbey. Suffice it to say, I may be leaving the peace and solitude of Iona for a more active role that God would have me fill.”

Since his wife’s death shortly after Bran was born, Cromyn, a young priest then, had dreamed of serving as one of Columcille’s twelve in the isolation at Iona. It was an insulation, too, Riona thought, understanding all too well—a refuge from grief.

“You’re leaving Iona? But where will you go?”

“That is for God to decide and for me to wait until His will is clear. With the changes anticipated from this summer’s convention, I am to serve on the front lines.”

“Would that He’d write it out as He did for Moses,” she reflected in exasperation.

Cromyn’s eyes twinkled as he glanced at the missive in her hand. “Sometimes He does.”

Aye
, Riona thought as she stared at the paper after her uncle left. Leila would be healed. She blinked away the blur of relief from her eyes and walked into the imda where the little girl slept peacefully. It appeared that she, too, would serve on a front line, as a mother and wife to God’s children, both big and small.

Kneeling in the space between the two beds, she placed her hands on each of the sleeping babes, feeling the rise and fall of their small chests.

Thy will be done, Father, in Thy time. Meanwhile, I come to You with a frightful temper and stubborn will, asking that You remove them, for they are like sores upon my flesh that give me only despair. I will abandon my plan to serve Thee at the abbey to be mother to these little ones, whom death deprived of parents. But am I to provide them a father as well?

Riona stopped, struck with the answer. No,
she
wasn’t. God already had—the very day she’d asked for His help. The memory of Kieran’s and Bran’s entrance into the abbey played upon her mind as though it were yesterday. If she’d accepted Kieran’s proposal, if she’d forgiven him then, perhaps they’d not have been subjected to the tribulation of fleeing murder charges. She dropped her head until her chin lay upon her chest.

But he didn’t want the children
, she protested on her behalf, although it did seem that they had grown on him, especially Leila. She recalled the laughing child perched upon Kieran’s wide shoulders, wearing little more than a new brat. It had given Riona hope for him until he dashed it with that careless comment in the bruden hall about the children not being his.

But, Father, what was I to think?

That Kieran was no more perfect than she. The answer slammed like a battering ram into the forefront of her defense. There was a bigger game afoot here than Riona could conceive, one that gave each of them time to adjust to each other as well as to God’s intention: to provide for His innocents.

For if You are with us, who can be against us?
True, evil gnawed and gnashed at them as it had the writer of the psalm, yet here they were, untouched and protected.
If You are with us, what have we to fear?
Nothing but their own disbelief.

Riona’s hands fisted in shame. Looking back, it was so clear.
Forgive me Father. Help me to do the right thing
.

It began in Riona’s chest, where her heart beat calmly, steadily. It poured through her veins like her life-giving blood and spread limb to limb, head to toe. She had read of it in God’s Word and heard it mentioned on the lips of clergy. Indeed she’d repeated it herself. But until this moment, she had never felt it: that elusive peace that surpasses all understanding.

She rose and planted a kiss on the forehead of each of the children. Her mind was clearer than it had been in days. Instead of offering forgiveness, it was her turn to ask for it.

Her heart missed a beat as the sudden sound of running footsteps approached the cottage. She hurried to the door, cracking it open in time to see Fynn coast to a halt and smash breathless into the side of the dwelling. There was no sign of Kieran.

Disappointed, she admitted Fynn. “Did you find him?”

“He’s with Aidan and his men. They just returned from Derry and are in the hall now toasting Finella’s harp.” The boy yawned and hung his brat carefully on one of the pegs just abandoned by Cromyn’s pigeons. “Sure, this is one of the finest cloaks at the fair, for a man of my age at least.” Hesitating briefly, he turned to Riona, pride replaced with a heartrending insecurity. “After today, I don’t suppose there’s any hope that you and Gleannmara will marry.”

Riona smiled. First Cromyn, then prayer, and now this. How many messages would it take? She hugged Fynn. “Aye, lad. There’s always hope. Now take off those shoes and hop into bed.”

I
’ll put my charioteer up against any,” Aidan boasted. The new king of Scotia Minor clapped his wiry comrade on the back and motioned for one of the serving wenches to fill their cups. “All around,” he called out.

Kieran covered his horned mug with his hand. The twitch of a smile he gave the flirtatious maid was all he could muster, despite the revelry going on around him. His wounded pride gave him enough anguish without adding a thundering head to it.

“What’s this?” His royal friend waved the girl back. “It isn’t like you’ll be driving tomorrow. All you needs do is ride as Aengus’s second.”

“Unless the race turns toward the worse,” the charioteer Aengus provided. “Then the horse’ll need the encouragement of the hand that trained it from a weenling.”

“He’ll run for you quick as for me,” Kieran assured Aengus. “Sure, that one’s born to the wind.”

Reluctantly, Kieran let the girl fill his cup. Another time he’d have been crowing like the rest at the prospect of seeing one of Gleannmara’s champions race. The horses had been the tuath’s pride since King Rowan brought over the first pair. Over the years that followed, the line split into solid warhorses trained to the battlefield and sleek racers for either riding or the chariot. Gray Macha was a prime example of the first. Ringbane, longer of limb and greyhound-sleek, was born to race rather than combat.

Kieran had given the yearling to Aidan as tribute to a friend rather than liege lord. Had circumstances been different, Kieran would have raced Ringbane’s elder sibling at the fair. Heber would have driven as his second.

Ah, Heber
. Kieran chased the melancholy thought down with ale. How was he to keep the oath he’d made to his dying friend when
Riona would have nothing to do with him? What more could he do? He’d asked. He’d taken her little brood under his wing. He’d even given her a wardrobe fit for a queen. And all she wished was that he burned with the confounded frills twice thrown in his face.

“Friend, if your face grows much longer, ye’ll need a second chin to carry it. This quagmire over the murder will clear itself up. I myself will testify to your untarnished character.”

“Make no mistake, sire, I am humbled by your support,” Kieran affirmed with as much vigor as his heart would afford.

Aidan’s offer was a considerable one. According to the law, the word of a king of Aidan’s station, with so many lesser monarch’s pledged to him, carried far more weight than Maille’s and the bishop’s. Only an abbot’s testimony was equal, and if Fintan could testify, there’d be no need for a trial. While Kieran should be more concerned with the charges pending against him and the forces at work behind it all, it was Riona’s rejection that spun his thoughts into a dark web, entrapping him.

“You saved my life, Kieran of Gleannmara. I shall ever be indebted.” Aidan seized Kieran’s arms and shook him in a manly embrace, before taking up his cup again. “And to your future bride of the Dromin, whose chief gave his life for mine.”

Instinctively Kieran glanced to where Colga and some of the Dromin chiefs were involved in a game of chess. If their newly elected lord heard, he did not acknowledge. Another shadow crawled into Kieran’s mind, one of doubt. He should be grateful that Colga acted so quickly on his behalf after the murder charge, bringing a lordly retinue to a fugitive. Still, whenever there was disaster, Riona’s quiet cousin was not far removed.

A sixth sense bade Kieran’s gaze wander beyond the Dromin men to where a single traveler sat staring back at him from a table near the door. The man quickly looked away and helped himself to more of the ale from the flagon on his table. Kieran studied him, but nothing about the man was familiar. The noble standards of hygiene and appearance were lacking. Shoddily cropped hair and an unkempt beard pegged him as a lesser lord or one new to the station his garment suggested.

It was worn, perhaps, but it had once cost a respectable sum. Perhaps he was one of the host of merchants who traveled from fair to fair. Some were richer than kings, but without the refining of a noble tutelage. Regardless, it was the first time Kieran had seen him.

“Ho, milords, for this humble servant craves an audience for his newest composition and would be honored if such esteemed souls such as yourself would indulge it.”

Dismissing the man as a curiosity, Kieran turned to see Marcus bow lowly before the group.

“Is that you, my comical buffoon?” Aidan exclaimed.

The jongleur’s face was not painted tonight. He carried the lute Dallan normally played, rather than his whimsical pipe and bag of tricks. “Aye, ’tis I, milord, but tonight the fool plays the bard, provided your own good master does not object.”