Deirdre (33 page)

“The priest issued me a challenge the other night.” Alric’s voice rang loud and clear. “He said to sift through the Christian law and Scripture for the things I was willing to believe, instead of picking through it for that which I cannot accept.”

“We came for a wedding, not Christian rhetoric,” one of the queen’s brothers shouted.

“And a wedding you shall have, sir,” Alric replied, “
when
the bridegroom has had his say If that offends you, you are free to await us back at the hall.”

When no man made a move to leave, Alric resumed. “It was a fair challenge, and this is what I found. The Christian God tolerates doubt, if we accept that challenge. So a man is no hypocrite if he is earnestly searching the Word for what he can believe. Rather, that man is a student. Our priest here, or Christ’s example, is the teacher.”

“How wonderful.” Ricbert was openly jeering his half brother. “We can learn how to die.”

Alric nailed Ricbert with a steely gaze. “Exactly” Princely armbands cast their brilliance in all directions, as though God in heaven ordered the sun lend its weight to Alric’s words as he swept his arm over the crowd. “You all are living. That you know how to do. But who among you does not cower at the thought, not of death itself, but of what lies beyond?”

Around Deirdre, a few nodded their heads. Others exchanged whispers of speculation.

Lambert studied his son. “And this Christian God tells us that in His book?”

“Aye, Father, that and more. But today, I have more pressing matters
on my mind.” He grinned at Deirdre. “Like vowing to be a godly husband.”

Dustan snorted, tossing his head, a reflection of the restlessness of the crowd.

“It’s warm and I’d have you back to the hall soon, but first I want to make certain I understand what I am about to promise. Father Scanlan, correct me if I am wrong. If I am not, then let these witnesses be my oath helpers.”

Scanlan nodded and waved. Unlike Deirdre, this did not seem a surprise to him at all. She wondered what the priest told Alric to bring this about.

“I am supposed to love my wife as Christ loved the church,” Alric announced. “How is that, you might ask? I know I did. Christ was willing to die for the church, that its believers might live forever, even after death.” Alric looked at Deirdre. “I would die for my bride, even if death were the end. What man among you would not sacrifice your life for the ones you love?”

Ayes
and other echoes of assent rose around her, accelerating Deirdre’s tumble of emotions. Was ever there such a prelude as this to a wedding? Had a proud man such as Alric ever humbled himself so before noble and peasant alike? She wasn’t certain she was hearing him aright, yet she held her breath, a strange anticipation gripping her, thrilling her … frightening her.

The multitude was his, even a few of the queen’s followers. Juist strained, attentive, at her side.

“Christ forgives the church when it makes mistakes and is truly repentant. He even forgave the ones who betrayed Him as He hung on the tree, when ’twas more natural to curse and condemn.”

Ricbert snorted. “Evidence of a fool.”

“Evidence of how much He loved mankind that He excused their ignorance of who He was. I daresay there’s no one among us who hasn’t made a mistake and wrongfully condemned someone, at least in his mind. Only a real man or a noblehearted woman would admit to it.”

The reason settled well among the listeners, tightening the rein on their attention as Alric addressed Deirdre.

“Given our stubborn natures, milady, we will both make mistakes, but you have my word that I will try to forgive you, in trust that you will do the same for me. ’Tis no more than I’d ask of any man here.”

“’Tis only fair,” someone behind Deirdre agreed. Who could refuse the earnest simmer in Alric’s gaze, as though the pledge kindled in the soul itself?

“Lastly” the prince went on, “Christ was a king and a leader—not a dictator. He asks that His church give no more, to suffer no more, or do any more than He did Himself. I can live with this lady according to that rule, if she will.”

Alric’s conviction could have lifted her straight off the ground. “No man nor woman could expect a fairer treatment, milord.” Her answer spread through the crowd like wildfire in brown grass. Part of the world retreated beyond herself and Alric, leaving them alone, their gazes cleaving to one another.

Next to Deirdre, Abina broke with a sob. “Surely the sun this day is a reflection of your sainted mother’s smile.”

Deirdre and Helewis hugged the happily distraught woman.

Clearing a rare emotion from his throat, Lambert wisecracked, “Stay on this course and you’ll have the whole lot wed to you, Son.”

Alric hesitated, not to allow the amused reaction to his father’s remark to die down, but because he was obviously moved by Abina’s observation. Even Deirdre, who’d never known Orlaith, was touched.

“That said, good fellows and ladies,” Alric recovered after clearing his throat, “I personally have found this God and His Son to be just and reasonable. And I ask Father Scanlan as Their representative, to perform the water ceremony, that I might pledge my life to studying and following Their example to the best of my ability for I could not promise more. Is that fair, priest?”

The water ceremony? Alric wished to be
baptized?
Deirdre could scarce wrap her mind around the miracle, for it was surely that.

“Aye, milord, it’s fair and welcome in the eyes of the Lord, but …” Scanlan glanced at the stream, shrunken by drought in its wide-cracked bed. “There’s hardly enough water to baptize you properly.”

At that moment, a loud crack of thunder echoed above them. As
startled as the others, Deirdre looked up at the sunlit sky. Incredibly, a droplet of water struck her face, then two, then more. From out of nowhere, a smattering of soft gray clouds stole upon them like late arrivals to God’s chapel. Rimmed in gilt by the sun, they gently shed their water on the thirsty meadow below.

Scanlan’s bellowing laugh rivaled the thunder itself as he looked up, arms reaching toward the heavens. His loose sleeves fell away from them, revealing a sinew that belied a calling of words alone. “Never mind, lad. I see God Himself has decided to baptize, not only you, but the entire assembly, ready or nay No water I bless could ever be so holy as that straight from heaven’s hand.”

Alric dismounted and approached the spot where the priest stood. “Then let’s be about it, man, before the ladies stampede in distress at wetting their lovely gowns and hair.” Suddenly, as if by second thought, he turned to Lambert. “Milord, would you care to join your son in the Christian God’s own baptism?”

Amazed as she was by what was unfolding before her very eyes, Deirdre felt sorry for hesitant Lambert. The king was truly beside himself as to what to do.

“Perhaps the king is not ready,” she suggested. “This must be a decision he reaches in his own heart, not because you prompt it. You, Alric, have had time to deliberate.”

“Orlaith waits for you, milord.” Abina’s brightness took wrinkles from her aged face. “She waits for you to be with her again.”

Ethlinda dragged the older nurse away from the king and slung her aside. “Be gone, you babbling old fool!”

Like quicksilver, Alric caught Abina before she fell, glaring over her head at his stepmother. “Royal or nay, I will cut off the hand that harms one hair of this lady’s head,” he growled.

The wolf had not completely surrendered to the lamb, Deirdre mused, but surely the Lord used His wolf to protect His own.

Whether it was to please Alric’s late mother or to vex the queen, Lambert came to a decision. “Very well then, but let it be known that I bow only to the bretwalda of Northumbria and the Christian God in the heavens, no other.”

The soft rain that dropped upon their shoulders as Scanlan sang the baptismal rite in Saxon created a havoc of joy rather than distress. As father and son knelt to be blessed by the priest, only those closest heard their confession and commitment to Christ. Deirdre struggled between laughter and tears when her husband to be rose along with the king, forgiven and free of their past transgressions. Truly all things
were
possible in God’s name, for had someone foreseen this, she would have disbelieved, even disdained the idea.

And if this was possible, then her brother was not yet lost.

The only black cloud in their midst hovered over the queen and her guests, who drew away as if fearful that whatever madness had affected the king and his son might be catching. Indeed, Ethlinda’s lips never ceased to move as Lambert and Alric admitted to being sinners and lost in this world. It was as though she sought to undermine what was taking place, but the rain—the glorious, prayed for rain—would not allow it.

“Milady,” Alric asked upon rising, “will you take me as your husband here, before God and all nature, before that darkening on the horizon sets upon us?”

Deirdre was struck by the sun that shone straight from the silvery bright mirror of his soul. Or was it the Son? At that moment, there was no one else in the universe but the three of them and a truth she could scarce credit: God had used her in this miracle. She could not doubt it. And she could not doubt that this was not the only surprise she would know this day.

“But it’s raining.” Once again Alric had won Lambert’s favor and Ricbert’s whine did little to belie the unadulterated hatred he bore toward his fairer sibling.

“I’ll not stand here like a gaping turkey and drown in the rain.” Queen Ethlinda swirled her cloak about her shoulders, enshrouding her humiliation at Lambert’s betrayal, and marched off toward the gate.

Some of the guests followed, more ladies than men, and nearly all of the queen’s countrymen. The rest surged forward, besieging Scanlan with questions and requests for the same absolution. Both men and women, noble and poor, had listened attentively to Alric’s declarations
and agreed with the prince that if God was willing to accept them with their faults, that they were willing to accept Him.

The rain—so long denied—was a sign no one could ignore. Surely this God was not only real and reasonable, but He answered prayer.

“Wait your turn, good people!”

Alric’s exuberance was enough to lift him off his feet. He was weightless, if human words could possibly describe how he felt. He was drunk, intoxicated with a joy he’d not know since the innocence of childhood. So often he’d heard his mother say that he needed to lay his burdens down at the Lord’s feet, and it had made no sense to him … until now. He glanced at his father, wondering—hoping—that Lambert knew the same carefree exhilaration, as if he could slay dragons with laughter.

“I am sure the priest would tell you more, but please, my wedding first. I’d have it done before the weather, or my bride’s mind, changes.”

Surrounded by an unprecedented and nearly crushing gaiety for Galstead, Lambert, his most trusted thanes, and the main of Alric’s men from the
Wulfshead
formed a barrier to protect the bride and groom from being overrun by good intentions.

“Now
this
is more to my liking,” Gunnar whispered none too quietly to his friend. “The old crow and her flock have flown.”

Alric gave Gunnar a hearty pat on the back as he stepped up beside the lady Helewis. Clad in her gown of rose, the shy princess bloomed in the radiance of the young seaman’s smile. Alric owed Gunnar much for staying behind with Deirdre, knowing how it tortured him to see Helewis at Ricbert’s mercy Gunnar deserved his own ship and a chance to make his own fortune as Alric had. The ship they’d taken a few weeks ago was exactly what Alric had in mind for his best friend.

Although wealth was not everything, he thought with a twinge of pity for his friend as Scanlan placed Deirdre’s hand in his. Joy struck Alric again, so fresh he nearly laughed out loud. Time was, it was himself he’d pitied.

His mother was right yet again: Love changes everything. He felt giddy as a wet-eared pup.

He loved Deirdre. The certainty removed more weight from him rather than adding to his earthly burdens. And he loved her God. It did not weaken him as he’d believed it might but gave him strength. More strength than any mortal could wield.

God’s strength.

“Dearly beloved—” the priest looked about them, eyes both solemn and joyful—“our prince has declared this day not only his love for his bride, but for our Lord. Be there any man or woman among you who has reason that these two, Alric of Galstead and Deirdre of Gleannmara, should not be wed?”

“No one would dare,” Lambert blustered, casting a hawklike gaze around him. Taking their example from Galstead’s king, Gunnar’s father, Cedric, whose troops now fortified Chesreton, and the other thanes did the same.

“Very well then,” Scanlan resolved, turning to Alric. “Alric of Galstead, wilt thou take Deirdre of Gleannmara as your lawfully wedded wife before God and these witnesses, keeping only unto her, wilt thou honor, protect, and love her as Christ loved the church, unconditionally till death do you part?”

Alric delved into Deirdre’s upturned gaze with his own. “I said as much before and state it again now. Yea, I will.” Deirdre would be like Orlaith was to Lambert, but with all the honor that Alric could afford her. “And should I die first, I will wait for you, for to live without love is to exist like the earth without rain.”

Without the priest’s blessing, Alric lifted her hand to his lips. Her own quivered as he spoke against it. “May I never take you for granted, lest I discover what it is to be without you again.”

He’d taken his mother for granted. Not until he met Deirdre and saw Orlaith’s goodness reflected in her had he realized how much he missed that good in his life. Like the creek bed, he’d shriveled spiritually and emotionally And as he’d talked to the priest and then taken up Orlaith’s books of Scripture, it all flooded back. Why God cared enough about a cynical pirate to send Deirdre and the priest into his path had to be part of that unconditional love.

“I, Deirdre of Gleannmara, promise you, Alric of Galstead, to keep
only unto you, to love, honor, and obey you as my lord and husband in every sense …” Deirdre paused, as if torn between surprise that she uttered the promise she’d thought to withhold and sudden certainty that she meant it. The smile that lit her features was like God’s own sun shining forth from the heavens. “According to God’s Word, until death do us part.”