The Maid of Ireland (4 page)

“There,
a stor,
” Caitlin crooned, slipping a soft braided bridle over his ears. She used neither bit nor saddle. When she mounted him they became one mind, one soul, one will. Her bare legs against his bare hide formed a pagan bond of two spirits which, though as different as human and beast, melded into unity. The black needed no more than a touch of her heel to urge him out of the stable and across the rock-strewn fields.

The smells of the sea and of dulse weed enveloped her; the scent of greening fields should have reassured her, but didn’t. The Roundheads could, at any moment, swoop down and destroy the tender plants and subject Clonmuir to a starving winter.

Caitlin rode west, into the shattering colors of the sunset, toward the surging iron-gray sea. She let her hair fly loose, free as the mane of the black, free as the mist in a windstorm.

Her troubles lay behind her, an enemy she had left in her dust. Her swift rides renewed her spirit, made her feel capable of confronting and besting any problem that arose. So Seamus had wasted the bullock. She had faced troubles before. Despite the danger, she knew where she could get another.

The black’s gallop gave her the sensation of flying: a lifting glide that made the air sing past her ears. She abandoned thought and surrendered to the pulse of hooves, the rush of wind through her hair, the tang of salt on her lips.

They reached the coast where cliffs reared above the battering sea. Riding the wind, the black sailed over a ravine, then tucked his forelegs in a daring descent that made Caitlin laugh out loud.

On the damp sandy beach, she gave him his head. He arched his neck and leapt with breath-stealing abandon. He crashed through the surf, a black bolt of living thunder, full of the rhythm and mystery of Connemara’s wild, god-hewn coast.

The English claimed the coast from the shore to three miles deep. Caitlin scoffed at the notion. This land belonged to forces no human could claim.

The sun had sunk lower when the black slowed to a walk. Deep bronze rays winked like coins upon the water.

Caitlin dropped to the sand, the chill surf surging around her ankles. She patted the stallion’s flank. “Off you go,” she said. “Come back when I whistle.”

His tail high, the horse trotted down the strand. Tears stung her eyes at the sheer beauty of him. He was as full of magic as the distant lands of Araby, as handsome and noble as the man who had given him to Caitlin, the man who claimed her heart.

Alonso Rubio.

Come back to me, Alonso, she thought. I need you now.

“Sure there is a way, you know,” said a sprightly voice, “to summon your true love.”

Caitlin spun around, her gaze darting in search of the speaker. A chuckle, as light as the land breezes, drew her to a spill of rocks that circled a tangled, forgotten garden. Once this had been a place of retreat for the lord and lady of Clonmuir, a place of welcome for travelers from the sea. But time and neglect had toppled the rotunda where her parents had once sat and gazed out at the endless horizon.

“Tom Gandy,” she said. “Blast you, Tom, where are you?” Tidal pools were reclaiming the garden, and she stepped around these, lifting the hem of her kirtle. Crab-infested seaweed draped the stone blocks, and gorse bushes grew in the cracks.

A brown cap with a curling feather bobbed behind a large boulder. A grinning, leather-skinned face appeared, followed by a thick, squat body.

Glaring, she said, “You’re a sneak and a busybody, Tom Gandy. Cromwell would have you burned as a witch if you were worth the kindling.”

“No doubt he’d be after doing that if he could lay hands on me.” Tom climbed over the rocks and dropped beside a clump of briars near Caitlin. Even with the lofty feather, his head barely cleared her waist. Like the rest of him, his fingers were stumpy and clumsy looking, but he reached out and retied her straggling apron strings with the grace of a lady’s maid.

“Ah, but it’s a sight you are, Caitlin MacBride. Ugly as a Puritan. When was the last time you took a comb to that hair?”

“That’s my business.” She tossed her head. “Yours is as steward of Clonmuir, and you’d best see to your duties.”

“What duties?”

“Finding another bullock for Logan MacBride, to start with.”

“We know where to find plenty of healthy cattle, don’t we?”

She ignored the suggestion. “Perhaps I’ll banish you to Spain. I’ve heard King Philip employs dwarves as playthings for his children.”

“Then we’d both be playthings for Spaniards,” he observed, shaking his head. “Twenty-two years old and still not married.”

“You know why,” she said. “Though I still don’t know how you found out about Alonso’s pledge.”

“Pledge! You little
oinseach—
” He tilted his head back to gaze up into her face. “A hot young man’s promise has as much substance as the dew in summer. But we’re not here to discuss that. You wish for your true love—”

“How do you know what I wish?”

“—and I’m here to tell you a way to summon him.”

Caitlin regarded the little fellow warily. Some swore Tom Gandy was endowed with fairy powers. But not Caitlin. She had seen him bleed when he scratched his finger on a thorn; she had nursed him when he lay weak with a cough. He was, despite his extraordinary appearance, as human as she. If he possessed any gift, it was only the ordinary sort of magic that allowed him to come and go soundlessly and unexpectedly; his powers were those of a wise and wonderful mind that allowed him to see into people’s hearts as a soothsayer sees into a crystal.

“And how might that be?” she asked teasingly. “It’s the eve of a holiday. Have you a pagan sacrifice in mind?”

“Horror and curses on you, girleen, ’tis much simpler than that. And all you’ll have to sacrifice is... Well, you’ll find that out for yourself.” Tom swept off his hat and bobbed a bow. “Sure I’ve been furrowing my poor brain with great plows of thought, and I’ve found the answer. You simply pluck a rose at the moment the sun dies, and wish for him.”

“Pluck a rose, indeed!” She swept her arm around the tangled garden. “And where would I be finding a rose in this mess?”

A mysterious smile curved his lips. “You’ll find what you need in your heart, Caitlin MacBride.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward and spoke to the painted sky. “Such nonsense as that...” She looked down again, and her words trailed off. She stood alone in the bramble-choked garden. Without a sound, without a trace, Tom had vanished. A few moments later she saw the stallion vault back up to the cliffs, enticed back to the stables for a measure of fodder from Tom.

“Odd little imp.” Caitlin plopped down on a rock and stared out at the gathering mists of evening. “Pluck a bloody rose indeed.”

She drew her knees to her chest and sighed. Once, this garden had been a necklace of color and grace. The fallen rocks had been terraces dripping with roses. Her mother, the lovely Siobhan MacBride, had tended her flowers as if they were children, nourishing them on rich, lime-white soil and keeping back the weeds like a warrior staving off an invasion.

But the garden and everything else had changed when the English had claimed the coast in a choke hold on Ireland. The garden seemed to be eaten up by the pestilence of disorder and conquest. Weeds overran the delicate plants, trampling them just as Cromwell’s legions trampled the Irish.

I will rebuild my home, she vowed. Alonso will come. He promised...

Tall grasses, ugly and dry from winter, rattled in the wind. The sea crashed against rocks and slapped at the shore.

The wind shifted and its voice changed, a sigh that seemed almost human. A shiver scuttled like a spider up Caitlin’s back.

Deep inside her lived a dark, Celtic soul that heard ancient voices and believed fiercely in portents. As a haze surrounded the lowering sun, the secret Celt came awake, surging forth through the mists of time. On this night, the gates stood open to the fey world. Unseen folk whispered promises on the wind.

A curlew cried out, calling Caitlin back from her reverie. She blinked, then smiled wistfully. The world was too real to her; she knew too many troubles to escape, as her father did, to realms where bellies were full, grain yields bountiful, and cattle counts unimportant.

Still, the charged air hovered around her, heavy as the clouds before a storm, and she remembered Tom Gandy’s words:
Pluck a rose the moment the sun dies, and wish for him.

Foolish words. Fanciful beliefs. There wasn’t a rose within miles of this barren, windswept place.

You’ll find what you need in your heart, Caitlin MacBride.

The sun sat low, a golden seam between earth and sky. A single ray, powerful and narrow, aimed like a spear of light at Caitlin’s chest. She felt it burning, the heat of it pulsing. She stood and stepped back so that the sunbeam dropped to her feet.

And there, straining through the thick briars and reeds, grew a perfect rose.

Caitlin dropped to her knees. She would have sworn on St. Brigid’s well that no rose could grow in this unkempt bower, nor bloom so early in spring. Yet here it was, white as baby’s skin. Secreted within the petals were all the hues of the dying sun, from flame pink to the palest shade of a ripe peach. Painted by the hand of magic, too perfect for a mortal to touch.

The breeze carried the scent of the rose, a smell so sublime that a sharp agony pierced her. All the years of waiting, of struggle, seemed to wrap around her heart and squeeze, killing her hopes with exquisite slowness.

The sun had sunk to a burning sliver on the undulating chest of the dark sea. Day was dying. A few seconds more, and—

Pluck a rose the moment the sun dies, and wish for him.

Without forethought, Caitlin grasped the stem of the flawless rose and squeezed her eyes shut.

A thorn pierced her finger but she didn’t flinch. She gave a tug and the plea flew from her lips. “Send me my true love!”

She spoke in the tongue of the ancients, the tongue of the secret enchantress buried in her heart.

Caitlin clasped the rose to her chest and repeated the plea. She touched the petals to her lips, anointed it with her tears, and spoke three times, and her voice joined the voice of the wind. The incantation flew on wings of magic to the corners of the earth, from her heart to the heart of her true love.

The sudden chill of twilight penetrated the spell in which, for the briefest of moments, she had been beguiled, helpless, wrapped in an enchantment against which she had no defenses.

She opened her eyes.

The sun had died in flames of glory, yielding to the thick hazy softness of twilight. The last purpling rays reached for the first stars of night. The mist had rolled in, carried on the breath of the wind, shrouding the rocks and sand and creeping toward the forgotten garden. Long-billed curlews wheeled black against the sky. Caitlin stood rooted, certain beyond all good sense that the spell had worked. She searched the desolate garden, the cloud-wrapped cliffs, the hazy shore.

But she stood alone. Utterly, desolately, achingly alone.

The wind dried the tears on her cheeks. The hopeful sorceress inside her retreated like a beaten horse.

Blowing out a sigh and an oath, Caitlin glanced down at the rose. It was an ordinary plant, she saw now, as common as gorse, pale and lusterless in the twilight.

There was no more magic in Ireland. The conquering Roundheads had stolen that as well.

She opened her hand and drew the thorn from her finger. A bead of blood rose up and spilled over. Furious, she flung the flower away. The wind tumbled it toward the sea.

Abandoning whimsy, she turned for home.

A movement on the shore stopped her. A shadow flickered near a large rock, then resolved into a large human form.

A man.

Three

C
aitlin stood rooted, unable to move, to think, to breathe. Thick fog swirled around the man, tiny particles of moisture catching the brilliance of the new stars and bathing him in the hero-light of legend. Huge and unconquerable, aglow with an unearthly radiance, he strolled toward her.

Wild and primal urges pulsed through Caitlin, reawakening the slumbering believer deep inside her.

The stranger seemed more myth than human, the Warrior of the Spring from Tom Gandy’s ancient tales, a champion with the aspect of a pagan god.

Still he came on, walking slowly, and still she watched, suspended in a spellbound state woven of whimsy and desire.

She thought him beautiful; even his shadowy reflection in the dark tidal pool that separated them was beautiful. He was strong-limbed and cleanly made, his body pale, his hair aflame with the colors of the sunset, his face shapely and his eyes the hue of moss in shadow. Caitlin felt no fear, only the awe and enchantment that flowed like a river of light through her.

Above tall black knee boots, he wore loose breeches cinched at his narrow waist by a broad, highly ornamented belt. A blousy white shirt draped his massive shoulders, the thin fabric wafting with the subtle undulations of the well-conditioned muscle beneath. His clothing and his astonishing mane of hair appeared slightly damp as if kissed by the dew.

With his deep, shadow-colored eyes fixed on her, he skirted the tidal pool and came to stand before her.

He gave her a smile that she felt all the way to her toes.

Caitlin gasped. “Heaven be praised, you were sent by the fey folk!”

“No.” The smile broadened. His unearthly gaze shimmered over her, and she felt herself vibrate like a plucked harp string. “But I’d swear you were. God, but you catch a man’s soul with your loveliness.”

He spoke softly, his vowels and
R
s as light as the mist, his stunning compliment a breath of spring wind on her face. He was so strange, so different...And then realization struck her. He was foreign. English!

The spell shattered like exploding crystal. Caitlin reached for her stag-handled hip knife. Her hand groped at an empty sheath.

Crossing her fingers to ward off evil, she stepped back and looked around wildly. The weapon lay on the ground a few feet away. Had she, in her trancelike state, set it down? Or had he, by some evil witchery, disarmed her by will alone?

Catching her look, he bent and retrieved the knife, holding it out to her, handle first. “Yours?”

She grasped the knife. He was a
seonin,
an English invader. In one swift movement she could plunge the weapon to the haft in his chest. She should.

But the tender sorcery of his smile stopped her.

She slipped the knife into its sheath, leaving the leather thong untied. “And who the devil would you be, I’m wondering?”

He touched a hand to his damp brow where dark red curls spilled down. “John Wesley Hawkins, at your service,” he said. “And you’re...”

“Caitlin MacBride, and I’m at no Englishman’s service,” she snapped. “What might you be doing here, Mr. Hawkins?”

He plucked a twig from his hair. “I was shipwrecked.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “A likely story, indeed. We’ve had no reports of a shipwreck.”

“Alas, you wouldn’t have. I was the only survivor.” He lowered himself heavily to a flat rock. “Bound away from Galway, we were, on a trading mission. No, not guns, don’t glare at me like that. A squall whipped up. Next thing I knew, the decks were swamped and we’d capsized. Everything was lost. Everyone.”

“Then how did you survive?”

“I’m a strong swimmer and managed to stay afloat. A big rowan branch happened by and I clung to it. It carried me here, and—” He slid her a sideways glance. “You don’t believe a word of this, do you?”

“No.”

“I’d rather hoped you would.”

“You weren’t really on a trading vessel, were you?”

“It was a very small ship.”

“How small?”

He hesitated. “A coracle.”

In spite of herself, Caitlin felt a glimmer of humor. “Then I’m after thinking you were the only one aboard.”

“Aye.” Unexpectedly, he reached for her hand. His was damp and cool from wind and water. “Sit beside me, Caitlin MacBride. I’ve had a close brush with death and it’s unnerved me.”

She didn’t think a howling banshee could unnerve him. Pulling her hand away, she settled herself on the rock a careful distance from him. The sky had melted into a rich indigo tapestry shot through with points of silver. The waves glowed as they curled toward the shore, crashing on sand and rock.

She thought of the letter Curran had stolen from Galway. Could this man have something to do with Cromwell’s new plan? Best to find out. “Well, then, John Wesley Hawkins, I’m waiting for the truth. Why are you here?”

He took off first one boot, and then the other, pouring out the water and then putting them back on. “I’m a deserter.”

She blinked. “From the Roundhead army?”

“Aye.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I don’t hold with killing innocent folk just to make an English colony of Ireland. Besides, the pay—when it came—was poor.”

“Where were you bound for, then?”

“I’d planned to sneak into Galway harbor and find my way onto a trading vessel. Unless you’ve a better idea.”

“I can’t be doing your deciding for you, Mr. Hawkins.”

“Wesley,” he said. “My friends call me Wesley.”

“I’m no friend of yours.”

“You are, Caitlin MacBride.” The evening light danced in the color of his eyes. She saw great depths there, layers of mystery and passion and pain, and an allure that drew her like a bit of metal to a lodestone. “Didn’t you feel it?” he persisted. “The pull, the magic?”

She laughed nervously. “You’re moonstruck. You’re more full of pixified fancies than Tom Gandy.”

“Who’s Tom Gandy?”

“I expect you’ll meet him shortly if I can’t find a way to get rid of you.”

“That’s encouraging.” He took her hand again. A tiny bead of blood stood out on her finger. She tried to snatch her hand away. He held it fast.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“A thorn prick, no more,” she stated.

“I didn’t know fairy creatures could bleed. I always fancied them spun of mist and moonlight, not flesh and blood.”

“Let go.”

“No, my love—”

“I’m not a fairy creature, and I am surely not your love.”

“It’s just an expression.”

“It’s a lie. But ’tis no high wonder to me. I’d be expecting falsehoods from a
Sassenach.
”

“Poor Caitlin. Does it hurt?” Very slowly, with his eyes fixed on hers, he put her finger to his lips and gently slipped it inside his mouth.

Too shocked to stop him, she felt the warmth of his mouth, the moist velvet brush of his tongue over the pad of her finger. Then with an excess of gentleness he drew it out and placed her hand in her lap.

“I think the bleeding’s stopped,” he said.

But something else had started inside her, something dark and fearsome and strangely wonderful. She retorted, “And I think you’re an English
spalpeen
through and through. You haven’t answered my question. What do you intend doing with yourself?”

“That depends on you, Caitlin MacBride. Will you take me in and succor me, then send me on my way with a fine Irish blessing?”

She needed another mouth to feed like she needed another sister like Magheen. “And why should I be extending the hand of friendship to an Englishman? You
Sassenach
take what you please without asking.”

“Caitlin. I’m asking.”

Ah, there was magic in the man, in the warm, beguiling honey of his voice, in the comeliness of his face, in the layers of world-weary appeal in his eyes. But there was magic in wolves as well, dangerous magic.

She felt at once angry and confused. She had cast a net of enchantment and managed to land a shipwrecked Englishman. And how had he managed so quickly to lure her thoughts from Alonso? An enemy on the loose was a greater threat than an enemy under one’s roof. She resigned herself. “Come along, then.” She glanced about as she stood, glad that the black horse had followed Tom home. She did not want the stranger to see her treasure. A plundering Englishman would think nothing of stealing her horse.

And as for the
Sassenach
, she would watch him like a hound eyeing the barn cat.

“Where are we going?” asked Hawkins.

“To Clonmuir. This way.”

* * *

Dark triumph surged in the heart of John Wesley Hawkins. The ugly business would be over before he knew it. He had made a rendezvous with Titus Hammersmith, the harried Roundhead commander who could not best the Fianna, and already he had gained the acquaintance of the maid of Clonmuir.

But God, he thought, his eyes riveted on her as he climbed over brambles and rocks to the top of the cliffs. The last thing he had expected was this. Cromwell had painted a daunting picture of a half-wild barbarian woman. Thurloe swore she was well past marrying age, but Wesley couldn’t believe it.

This, he thought, still gazing at her, is something a man might believe in.

The moon had started its rise, and pale, watery light showered her. She had skin as smooth as cream. Her tawny hair and eyes gave her the fierce beauty of a tigress, while the soft edges of her full mouth and the delicacy of her features reminded him that she also possessed an excess of feminine assets. Caitlin MacBride was a formidable yet irresistible mixture of implacable will, wily intelligence, and endearing Irish whimsy.

And she could lead him to the Fianna.

For a week, Wesley had combed the woods and dales west of Galway where the Fianna had last struck. But heavy rains had washed away any sign of the warriors’ retreat. Then he had scouted about Clonmuir, watching the comings and goings. He had observed no wild warriors, but fishermen and farmers. No mail-clad berserkers, but an old man chasing a shaggy black bullock. No host of heroes, only small bands of half-starved exiles.

Odd that he’d seen no priest.

We’ve culled every cleric from the area.
The memory of Thurloe’s words swept like a chill wind over Wesley.

This evening he had watched a girl streak across the heaths on a beautiful black horse. He had followed her to the remote beach and had seen her speaking with a stocky dwarfish fellow.

When the dwarf had vanished, Wesley had initiated the encounter. His story of shipwreck was as weak as watered claret, but the lie about being a deserter from the Roundhead army had gained him a small measure of sympathy.

Sympathy was a useful tool indeed.

They walked across a boggy field. The earth felt springy beneath his feet. The girl beside him was silent and absorbed in thought.

He noticed the forthright manner in which she walked, a purposeful stride mitigated by the slightest of limps. The flaw was subtle but his tracker’s eyes took note. He burned to ask her what unhappy accident had hurt her. He held his tongue, reluctant to provoke her quick temper.

The night wind swept up the dark honey waves of her hair and fanned them out in a thick veil. Her bare foot caught a rock and she lurched forward. Wesley’s first impulse was to put out a hand to steady her, but he drew back.

Pretending not to notice the stumble, he asked, “Your father is the lord of Clonmuir?”

She hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes. He’s the MacBride, chief of our sept.”

“So Clonmuir is your ancestral home?”

“Yes. Since Giolla the Fierce became the servant of St. Brigid. And until the cliffs beneath it crumble and the keep falls into the sea.”

He started to smile at her vehemence, but realized his amusement would not sit well with her. “Cromwell claims the entire coast of Ireland, three miles deep, for the Commonwealth.”

Her chin came up. Her eyes flashed in the moonlight. Her body went as taut as a drawn bowstring. “I spit on Cromwell’s claim.”

“You’re devoted to your home.”

“And why shouldn’t I be?” She spread her arms, embracing the broad sweep of the rugged landscape. “It’s all we have.”

Wesley caught his breath and wondered at the ache that rose in him upon hearing her speak, on watching the reverential and possessive way she walked across Clonmuir land. The mood of the sere wind-torn grasses racing up to meet the broken-backed mountains, the spirit of the misty wide sky crowning the craggy jut of land, flowed in her very bloodstream.

Something about her called to him, and the yearning he felt discomfited him thoroughly. He had made a vow, broken it, and gotten Laura. Her appearance in his life had compelled him to renew his oath of celibacy. Like a drowning man, he had clung to that oath, turning aside invitations that would have brought a smile to Charles Stuart himself.

So how could he be feeling this heart-catching tenderness for a wild, barefoot Irish girl? Damn Cromwell. And damn Caitlin MacBride, for Wesley could not help himself. He stopped walking, touched her arm.

“Caitlin,” he said urgently. “Look at me.”

She stopped and eyed him warily.

“What happened to us, down there on the strand?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You do. Don’t deny it.”

“Moonstruck English fool,” she murmured. Her words meant nothing, for the shadowy rhythms of her speech captured him, and the secrets that haunted her eyes beckoned mystically.

“Caitlin MacBride, you do ply strange arts upon a man.”

“I do no such thing.” She drew away and started walking again.

I cannot trust her, thought Wesley. Yet at the same time he admitted to himself that he had never met so compelling a woman. Heather and moonglow colored every word she spoke. Fierce conviction molded every move she made. She plundered his heart like a bandit after treasure.

A dangerous thing. For the plundering of hearts was supposed to be Wesley’s specialty.

They passed a great, brooding rock that sat on the upward-sloping lip of a cliff. Tiny facets in the granite winked in the moonlight. Wesley paused, passed his hand over the surface of the stone. “There are symbols chiseled here,” he said, and the rough whorls beneath his fingers made him shiver.