Dawn Of Ireland: Captive Heart Part 1

CAPTIVE HEART.

The Dawn of Ireland.

Erin O'Quinn.

DEDICATION.

Once again, my editor, Stephanie Shea, has seen the dark spots and brought them to the light. I am indebted to her careful and discerning eye. I feast on her words of support.

Thanks also to the entire team at BookStrand Publis.h.i.+ng who worked to bring this book (and others) to the light, who somehow put up with me through all the difficult labor of giving birth to Captive Heart and others.

And thanks to the readers who give meaning to all of us by their buying of our books and their helpful comments. I welcome you always at and http://erinsromance.wordpress.com/.

PART I: Captivity.

Chapter 1:.

Quickening Fires.

"h.e.l.lo again, Father Patrick. Um, maidin mhaith. Good morning. How are you? I am here in the clay church, waiting for your visit."

The clay church...I had never thought it odd before. But just then, thinking about Father Patrick's imminent visit, I began to ponder the construction of a new building-a wooden one, more permanent than our daub-and-wattle round-house. I was sitting alone in the bright morning, watching the shafts of sun move through unshuttered windows across the s.h.i.+ning oak floors of the Derry church. My mind was shamelessly not on religious matters but on my coming child, on Liam's tender lovemaking this morning, on the antics of my frisky mare, on Patrick's promise to visit us in early winter after the Samhain festival in Tara...And still my mind darted and swiveled and danced as though I were in a s.h.i.+llelagh ring.

I heaved a great sigh and moved on my bench, and again I lowered my head as though in prayer. I was still not used to the life religious, and I thought in all honesty that I never would be quite accustomed to kneeling, praying, uttering pious greetings, and all of the trappings of the quiet life of a pregnant married woman in a small bally in eire.

I had begun to notice that the local women-not our emigrants, but the eireannach ladies-draped in sober leines with their hair demurely braided behind, looked at me askance as though I were a fair juggler or an unfettered madwoman. It could have something to do with my penchant for wearing men's trousers, or draping myself in a red-fox tunic, complete with a bushy foxtail. Or perhaps they were reacting to my a.r.s.enal of weapons, whether s.h.i.+llelagh, war hammer or long knife, that I preferred to wear in my belt even when dressed in a pretty gna and dainty leather shoes. Or they might be scandalized by my truant hair, fiery red, that no amount of combing could tame, that tended to follow every swirl of every errant breeze.

I stifled a giggle, even though no one else was in the church so early in the morning. I had not come here to follow any particular ritual or church-prescribed prayer, but to have a small conversation with Father Patrick. From the time I had met him, in the perilous days following my sixteenth feast day, when I was forced to flee the destruction of my ancestral home, I had started to have small talks with Patrick even when we were many scores, then many hundreds of miles apart.

Now, three years later, I was near my mentor again for I had followed him with my emigrants to the mysterious island of eire. I started again. "Father Patrick," I whispered, "greetings. Here I am again-Caylith. First of all, thank you for receiving my Liam, and his family, into the bosom of our Lord at the Paschal rites. And for helping me see the goodness in the people I thought were my enemies. That was difficult, I know. How could I know that Owen Sweeney was no murderer or even slave holder? Your own nature, so-so full of mercy, Father, your own forgiving nature led to his present joyful life. And thank you for keeping Liam and me from the sin of fornication. We went to our marriage bed, um, mostly without sin, Father, because of your wise words."

I could not help just then thinking of the many ways that Liam and I had toyed with the letter of the law in those tempestuous days before our marriage. But still, we fulfilled my promise to the good bishop-perhaps the biggest challenge I had ever faced. I blushed even now to think of my own wanton nature, how close we had come to sinning before marriage.

"Well, I do not want too much, Father. I am hoping you will say a few words to our Lord for me. Please, please keep my unborn child safe and whole and well. Even if she is a boy, I think she will need the Lord's protection. I would rather not give up my warrior ways just yet...or certain other unruly behavior. So I want you to ask him for me, if you have a few moments to spare. That is all for now. I hope the Lord will always smile upon you also, dear Father. Amen."

The monk Brother Galen had taught us the words to the Lord's Prayer one Sabbath day, right here in this church. But I still did not know how to address an almighty power with a direct request. I felt more comfortable asking Father Patrick to talk to him on my behalf. Besides, I had always thought that the Lord had better things to do than listen to the entreaties of an awkward young girl. If Father Patrick were to ask, I thought the Lord would surely bend an ear. I put one hand protectively over my stomach, in case Father Patrick might be engaged just then and had not heard my words, even though I was dutifully sitting in church.

I stood, remembering to bow my head toward the unadorned altar. A plain wooden cross was erected there with twin candles on each side. They were as yet unlit, for the cold fire pit held no flames to light them with. Then, gathering up the skirt of my too-long tunic, I strode to the door and opened it to a warm summer day.

As soon as I stepped outside, I impatiently s.h.i.+fted my s.h.i.+llelagh and tucked extra material up under my belt so that I could mount my mare. My garment, called a "leine," was a wondrous invention. Worn by either men or women, a leine was little more than a long tunic that could be tucked up in a belt to whatever length the wearer desired. Its most distinctive features were the long, trailing sleeves of many colors that gave each one its distinctive character. The gnas, or gowns that women often wore over their leines were sleeveless, allowing the long tunic sleeves to emerge and charm the viewer with their mult.i.tude of colors.

The morning sun, now that June had come, already felt too warm. With no slight breeze to temper the heat, I felt sweat already gathering at the nape of my neck under all my thick hair.

I walked to where my chestnut mare stood patiently browsing the stubble near the oak-branch tether. "You will never enjoy long gra.s.s here, Macha," I told her. "Not as long as scores of horses are tied up here every Sabbath. Come, take us home to the cold river." I grasped the pommel of her saddle and leapt astride her back. And then we were moving swiftly from the churchyard in almost the same moment, toward the beckoning coolness of home and the River Foyle.

The day was still very early. For years, I had cherished the time one hour before dawn until two hours after. Not only did I have the vast, immodest sky all to myself and the soaring birds, but most people preferred to snuggle under their coverlets for an extra dream or two, leaving me alone to frisk unclothed in the swift river.

All that changed when I married Liam about seven months ago. A warrior himself, he woke early, too. When we were not held overlong with predawn urges, we often played together in the rus.h.i.+ng waters of the Foyle while the rest of the world slept.

Macha's supple muscles welcomed the three-or-so miles from the church to the small teach where Liam and I lived. I rode her once every three days, alternating with my other two darlings, the strawberry roan Clona and the Welsh mountain pony NimbleFoot.

I saw a familiar figure approaching and reined Macha's exuberance to a restive standstill.

"Dia duit," I sang out to Liam's brother. He, too, reined his horse and smiled his usual sideways grin.

"Maidin maith, a Chit. Ye be galloping the wrong way."

I smiled at Torin. "What mean ye, lad?" I asked, mimicking his lilting voice.

"Why, 'tis too early to be going home when ye should be leaving home."

"No, it is not too early, for I have been awake for several hours. I am no slugabed, like some people I could name."

"Ah, such impudence from the mouth of a proper young lady. But if ye insist-yes, I did awaken a bit late this morning. So I cannot loiter here talking with ye."

"And if you are late to work in the tunnels, who will punish you?"

"I answer to meself, Cate," he said, suddenly serious.

I could see in his eyes, so like Liam's, that Torin was a bit hurt by my careless speech. "Ah, dear one. I did not mean-"

"Shush, now." A real smile emerged then. "I am glad to see ye, for Swallow has begged me to ask ye an' Liam to come for supper. Will ye? Tonight? Her mother an' me uncle will be leaving soon. 'Tis a chance to say fare thee well."

"I will answer for Liam and say yes. What time, a chara?"

"Any time, a chara mo chro. I end me workday at sundown. Sln!"

Without waiting for a reply, Torin urged his dark stallion to a gallop, and he left me sitting with a small scowl, thinking about our conversation. He had bridled at my suggestion that someone might be keeping an eye on him, deep underground in the enclaves the dwarves were digging. He himself had begged to work there, to be close to Swallow. Her mother Mockingbird had reluctantly agreed before he won her over with his sincere respect for her and his unaffected love for Swallow. Even now, after several months, he apparently was still sensitive about Mockingbird's ever-watchful eye.

I urged Macha forward again but kept her at a canter, my mind still full of our conversation. He had said that Mockingbird and Owen Sweeney were leaving soon. I knew that Owen could not linger in Derry forever, for he had lands to claim and bailes to settle and cattlemen to hire for driving cows to mountain meadows. I suppose I had lately become accustomed to seeing him and Mockingbird, like dark-feathered birds, preening each other in the myriad lights of the underground enclaves, in love and heedless of who knew it. I could hardly believe that I would miss the man who was once my greatest enemy-but so it was.

Only a few months ago, Owen Sweeney was still a hunted man, a presumed criminal who had been wrongfully sentenced to death for wife murder and slave holding. Once a very large man, he was now cut in half, crushed under his own horse. Mockingbird, drawn to him immediately, was a woman smaller than I, but her size made no difference to the man now confined to an invalid's cart.

Each of those enigmatic people was a study in complexity. But it almost staggered the mind to contemplate the two of them together. Now that I was beginning to know each of them better, I felt almost cheated that they were leaving.

As I rode, I thought about Torin's last words to me. A chara mo chro. O friend of my heart. He and I had been drawn together in close friends.h.i.+p since his youngest brother Liam, then my betrothed, had been captured and held for ransom of my lands. Torin had joined the rescue effort, and his concern for Liam, coupled with my own, had welded a bond between us. The bond was perhaps too strong, for Torin's eyes and words at times betrayed a deeper link that I wished he did not feel.

I had looked at Torin with love in my eyes during those anguished hours after Liam had been taken captive. But it was the love I felt for Liam at a time when my beloved was in grave danger. Was it my fault that he looked so much like his youngest brother? And why could he not understand that? It was all too complicated to unravel now. By now, Torin would surely not understand at all, because I truly had grown to love him like a brother.

For the second time that beautiful day, I sighed deeply. I wanted nothing but happiness for Torin. I myself had introduced him to the lovely Swallow, knowing they would be irresistibly drawn to each other. Perhaps after Mockingbird left, they would emerge from the confinement of the underground chambers and marry, live in the open, love and touch at will.

As if the words love and touch were signal fires, I began to think about my darling, sensuous, tender-and-tough warrior husband Liam. How long could we continue making love once, twice, sometimes even three times a day, now that a baby was coming? I leaned over the saddle, digging my knees slightly into Macha's flanks, urging her to a swift gallop. The sooner home, the sooner I would be with Liam.

Instead of reining Macha in at our little clay teach, I guided her onward a mile or so to the bally works. A small army of men were building a deep, wide trench that would someday surround the entire settlement of Derry. Liam worked there six days out of every seven, stopping only on the Sabbath.

The trench was deep, almost six feet, and the sides sloped outward from the bottom. Once filled with water it would be no mudhole, for part of Liam's job was to fit the sides of the trench with smooth, rounded river rocks, fit together so flawlessly that no swimmer, no hooves of horses, could gain purchase and thereby cross the defense.

The high king of eire had awarded me this bally, and much of the land around it, almost two years ago, and the trench was now more than halfway completed. We needed not worry about the western half of our wall, for the Foyle, eire's fastest river, was an impa.s.sable barrier.

In addition to the defensive works, we had constructed the large church that could hold one hundred fifty people, a sizable school next to the church, and over two thousand clay-and-wattle houses for our people to live in. I thought again that soon we should begin building a second church, dedicated to Patrick, made of gleaming oak and fragrant cedar.

I looked around with satisfaction. Each teach, or little house, sat on a rather large parcel of land with s.p.a.ce for a garden, livestock pens, grazing field, a copse of trees, and even, here and there, a blacksmith's forge, or a tannery, or a potter's kiln. The homes, instead of being lined up like soldiers, were laid out in various ways along the east bank of the River Foyle, where the landscape was a blend of rounded hills and surprising valleys. Each builder had carefully fit his teach into the existing terrain, and the result was deeply satisfying to me-a rugged natural land with homes, and not homes that cut and bit into a rugged natural land.

Among forty or fifty workers, Liam was more noticeable than anyone else. It was not just his height-a bit over six feet, taller than most-but his muscular body and his penchant for working faster than anyone around him. He felt deep joy in working with the river stones, and he seemed to have a gift for fitting them together. Whatever surface he finished was smooth and even with no need for any kind of mortar between the rocks.

I guided Macha near the spot where he was working and sat for a moment watching him. His leather leggings and brste-tight fitting breeches-revealed his long calf and thigh muscles as he bent and rose, lifting and fitting individual rocks from a stack of water-smooth stones. He wore no tunic, and his sunbrowned skin glistened with sweat even at this early hour. I felt a little thrill looking at his darker brown nipples, surrounded by downy, golden hairs. And I loved seeing how the locks of auburn hair fell from the crown of his head over his forehead, contrasting with the lighter golden brown of the rest of his hair and his short beard and mustache.

I could have sat and watched him for a long time, for I was somewhat aroused by this unaccustomed glimpse of him at work, but he caught my eye and stopped. He straightened, twisting his mouth in that special half smile, and walked toward me. Stopping at Macha's red mane, he looked up at me and said only, "A chuisle."

The sound was "ah khoos-la," a blurry, husky way of saying the word for "heartbeat" or "sweetheart." I thrilled every time he talked, for the sounds were sensuous and musical. In spite of my resolve, I started to blush, feeling a sudden hardening of my nipples and a tightening between my legs. Seeing my flush, Liam's grin widened, and he reached up and grasped my waist with both hands. Then he pulled me off Macha and set me down next to him.

Liam knew full well that I was loath to show intimacy in front of other people, and I thought it only strengthened his desire to test my modesty. He gathered me so close that I could feel a rising in his breeches, and he rubbed his soft beard on my chin and cheeks. "Liam, a ghr, wait until we get hmmn-" His tongue stopped my words, pus.h.i.+ng and licking into my mouth with a kind of impudence, and so I pushed against him and stepped back.

"Ah, Liam. Your brother wants us to come to supper tonight. At the dwarf enclaves."

"T t iontach lainn."

I reached up and stroked his silken beard. "And you are beautiful, too, Liam. Please, wait until we are alone."

"Very well, Cat," he said, laughing. "I...come home early. But not so many clothes, all right?" He fingered the linen leine just above my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"T go maith. Come home very early." I turned and mounted my mare so quickly that he had no time to wreak further damage, and I urged her into a gallop straight for home.

Our little wattle-and-daub house stood on an expansive tract of land, its front door hidden by a copse of tall pine trees. Fifty feet beyond the teach, somewhat lower than the land where our house stood, the swift Foyle crashed and swirled over smooth, black rocks, lunging toward the great Lough Foyle, one of the largest lakes in eire. Between the house and the river stood a haggard where our horses and one pony ate. Beyond lay my pride and joy, the garden where we grew everything we ate except the fish and wild game.

I did not have to guide Macha to the haggard. She stopped and browsed the fodder while I unsaddled her and began to curry comb her smooth flanks and neck. "Macha, darling, did you get pregnant when I was away at Tara?" NimbleFoot, dancing nearby, seemed to answer my question. "You little devil! How did you reach her?"

NimbleFoot was a true pony, only eleven hands high. I knew he would have had a bit of a stretch to reach his lady love-but reach her he did. I thought she would foal sometime in March or April of next year. The colt from a gorgeous, red-maned chestnut mare and a white-maned palomino pony would be special. I wondered idly whether he had roamed afield and impregnated Clona also, for the lengthening days had quickened the fires of my other pretty mare, too.

I smiled a secret smile, thinking about my own quickening fire. It had happened on the road from Limavady, during February's festival of Oimelc-the festival of the running of milk in the sheep. Liam and I had found a patch of soft ground near a stand of bright-berried hollies. And I knew, as only a mother knows, exactly where we had created a child.

Little Holly, I said to myself. Then aloud, "Cuileann, my daughter." One hand lightly pressed to my abdomen, still smiling, I walked to the front door and entered our little house.

Chapter 2:.

The Hunting Ground The word teach almost summed up the nature of our house. p.r.o.nounced somewhat like "chalk," it was as small and blunt as the Gaelige word itself. Four workmen had taken less than a week to erect it two years ago, and its construction was exactly the same as even the much larger church. The builders first set a wooden framework into the ground in a circular shape, then interlaced it with supple young rowans. After filling the interior latticework with straw and mud, they bent and pushed until they had created two squares for shuttered windows, east and west, before the clay-like mortar had dried.

The roof was made of interwoven reeds and straw in a conical shape, and the center was left open to emit the smoke from a fire pit.

The outside of all our clay-and-wattle buildings had been covered with a lime-and-chalk mix that shone bright white and protected the homes from weather damage-except that my dwarfish friend Magpie and her sisters had added their own secret mixture of plants to the clay surface of my house, coloring the outside a soft saffron red, unique in all of Derry. "Like your hair," Magpie had giggled, she of the duplicate fiery locks.

Inside, the teach was drab except for the burnished-oak floors that I had insisted on. The glow of the wood reminded me strongly of the lovely villa in Britannia where I had grown up, recently torched by Hibernian raiders and since rebuilt. I had not decorated the walls with tapestries, nor had I insisted on extravagant furnis.h.i.+ngs. We had three smallish benches, a table for eating, and a table to hold a water basin and ewer. There was a small cabinet for my gathered treasures, a large chest and a large clothes cabinet for our clothing, and a unique bathing tub set upon its own low table. The center was dominated by a waist-high fire pit surrounded by smooth, interlaced stones, much like Liam's own stonework at the bally trench.

And that was all-except for The Bed. Our one extravagance, the oaken bed was twice the size of almost any I had seen, and it stood almost two feet in height. A wedding gift from my old friend Luke, it had to be brought into the house in three sections and bolted together.

Liam and I had covered it in the many soft pelts of animals we had both felled for our supper over the many months we had been together, so that whether we slept or played, we were always surrounded by a certain resilient wildness that seemed a reflection of our very nature. I smiled to think about the many times one of us had shadowed the other across that expanse.

Strangers to our home often wondered, in a polite way, why Liam and I did not live in an extravagant dwelling. After all, he was the son of the high king of eire. And I, a few years back, had wrangled a duchy for myself in Britannia. In addition to our personal wealth, we had access to a vast treasure that was being brought to the surface daily from the building of the underground dwarf enclaves. That fortune was reserved mostly for Father Patrick, to help him win over the entrenched, stubborn pagans who kept a firm grip on almost every corner of the island and who answered to the high king only in complicated legal ways. But a part of that fortune had also been ceded to me by the grateful dwarves, who considered me their deliverer. I was the one who had led them to this Promised Land, and they would have given me anything I asked for.

I had asked for a brugh-a sprawling, lavish homestead even now being built by a master builder, Liam's own cousin Michael. The new holdings had been under construction for around seven or eight months, and they promised to be almost as beautiful as the king's own-and far more unusual. I had not been to the construction site for a long time, not wanting to seem to smother Michael, whose genius and judgment I trusted completely.

I thought that I would subtly nudge him, now that our child was due around late October. This tiny home could hold one more person-a very small, baby-like person-but not for too long.

I shrugged out of my linen leine and hung it next to the others in our tall clothes chest along with my pretty undertunic. I pulled out my ancient deerskin tunic, so full of patches that it seemed to embarra.s.s everyone but myself. I supposed I should hold my nose and burn it, but it held so many memories that I was loath to discard it. Here was the tunic I was wearing the day I first met Liam, a bewildered warrior standing at the little cove where our emigrants had first set foot on the sh.o.r.es of eire. This was the tunic I had worn across the Sea of eire with my boatload of pilgrims, and the same tunic that I had worn at the Great Standing Stones and on the Saxon sh.o.r.e of my old homeland.

The tunic went back even further than that-to my days of marine training with Brindl and to the abbey in my old home town where I finally vanquished the enemies who had arranged to have Mama's villa burned to the ground, who had tried to ensure that she was killed, the same as my father.

Yes, I would hold onto this tunic. I remembered-even at that moment with a blush-how it had torn so that my left breast was exposed to Liam's impudent eyes, then his questing mouth, and how he later made up for his brazenness by repairing it himself. I eyed the rude plaiting of a thin leather strip that marked his repair work, and I brought it up to my cheek in a brief gesture of deep affection.

I owned no s.h.i.+ny metal plate for gazing at myself, as so many women had. I knew not at that moment whether my hair was standing straight up in the back, or whether I wore smudges on my face from handling the horses' gear. I would like to see myself as other eyes might, to judge whether my stomach seemed out of proportion to the rest of my slim body. Was Cuileann beginning to show? Liam would only stubbornly insist that I was "beautiful," so it was no use asking him. I sighed-for the third time that day-and looked down at myself. I could easily see the patch of tight-coiled, red hair that lay beneath my navel. I supposed that meant that my stomach was still flat. I was torn between wanting to keep my slender form and longing to swell out, making room for an active, mischievous child.

I wondered whether she would share my deep green eyes. Grandfather-G.o.d bless his soul-had told me once that the green eyes appeared in every other generation of our family. Thus our own child would probably carry Liam's l.u.s.trous brown eyes and even his s.h.i.+ning auburn waves and long, curled lashes. Yes, she would be beautiful.

I slipped the tunic over my nakedness, cinched the leather belt, then laced my ankle-high leather brga. I always tried to devote at least one hour each to our horses and to our burgeoning garden, and before I walked outside I selected a widemouthed woven basket to hold vegetables and herbs.

Once I stepped outside, the lengthening day bid me stand and admire the cloud-streaked sky, alive with waterfowl soaring toward the nearby lake. By now-just past midmorning-the sun's warmth had begun to lull even the chittering birds, and I saw that many of the small wrens and finches had found pine branches to roost on. I took turns currying our splendid horses, leaving out only Macha, for she had already been soothed and smoothed after our early outing.

I took the basket to the side of the little round-house where Liam had built us a small stone structure similar to the root cellar I had known as a child. With no lit candle to guide my fingers, I felt around on the wooden shelves until I found a store of dried apples from last autumn's harvest. I put three of them and a handful of cool turnips into my basket and carried my prizes to the horses. One by one, NimbleFoot, Clona, and Macha relished their treats, and I left them so I could tend the garden.

The garden had swelled to twice its size since Liam had come to live here last July, eleven months ago. He had built a st.u.r.dy cultivator for me, and even small work tools that fit my hands and my height. He had lent his strong shoulders to digging and weeding and turning under the unyielding earth, leaving the layout and the planting to me.

Half the plot was devoted to vegetables-bulbs and root vegetables, summer melons and beans of all kinds. The other half, taller and more wild, held the herbs I was so fond of-from tough rosemary to clumps of summer savory, from oregano to thyme and parsley, mint, and dill. I had recently been experimenting with herbs that might lend their hidden properties to soap making so that in the wintertime Liam and I could cleanse ourselves better in our overgrown bathing tub. I saw with approval that the selected plants were beginning to put on vigorous new growth-soapwort, red campion, and catchfly.

I tilled and weeded, happily letting the sun soak into my skin. One hour in the garden slipped by like a wily thief, and I still had not gathered any vegetables that might be overripe.

I felt the squash, hanging plump on the ingenious trellis structures that had been Grandfather's invention, and I pulled off the most ripe ones. I gathered orange-fleshed rockmelon, along with swan-neck squash and dwarf beans, a long-ago heritage gift from Magpie's gardener husband Raven. I filled the basket. Then, satisfied, I took it inside and set in on the table as the basis for tomorrow's supper.

I did not know when Liam would come home, but I decided to take my earthenware jug to the river and wash myself before he saw me all streaked with soil and somewhat tart to the smell. I stood calf-deep in the Foyle's brisk currents only a foot from the bank, feeling buffeted by an intensity of water and foam. Dunking the jug into the water, I poured its contents over my head, letting rivulets stream down my bare shoulders and into the hollows of my thighs.

We were fortunate that not only our door, but also this part of the river, was s.h.i.+elded from the gaze of any who might pa.s.s by our teach. Otherwise, I thought, I might have to erect my own screen, for nothing would keep me from frisking unclad in the cold, welcome water of our marvelous river. I loved baths as only one could who grew up in an Italian-style villa complete with Roman-style baths under the eye of a Romanophile mother who considered bathing as one of the two pillars of civilization. The other pillar, written scholars.h.i.+p, was one I had successfully avoided so far in my life. Better to have one than none at all-that was my considered opinion.