Riona (40 page)

“I’d wager Gleannmara’s brooch on it,” Kieran answered, fingering the royal clasp thoughtfully.

“And I my new brat,” Fynn agreed.

“A silver-encased vial,” Riona murmured aloud, thinking back in time. A picture came to her mind of Fintan holding up just such a vial.

“Think of it,” Kieran speculated. “Our belongings were riffled through. Leila’s travel sack was stolen. Colga nearly made off with Liex’s sack in the dead of the night.”

“But that was a drunken mistake,” Riona pointed out. Knowing Colga’s disdain for Maille, the two should not be mentioned in the same breath. “Still …”

“Still what?” her husband asked.

All eyes were upon her, waiting. It was probably of no consequence, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell them, she decided, taking Finella’s advice of caution. “Fintan showed me such a vial the night he was murdered. But it didn’t come from Maille. It was holy water brought by Senan from Kildare and among the gifts to be presented to Columcille at Drumceatt.”

Kieran snorted. “What need would Maille have of holy water?”

“Drinkin’ the Red Sea itself wouldn’t save his likes,” Fynn agreed, adding with no small hint of mischief, “though it would do well to drown ’im in it.”

Riona gave her foster son a reproachful look and was rewarded by an irascible grin. Now where had she seen such a face, she thought, glancing at her husband. Mayhap the boy never completely left the man.

“But as for Colga’s being caught with Liex’s bag,” Kieran said, returning to his first line of deduction, “perhaps Colga and Maille are somehow connected.” He turned abruptly to Fynn. “Hand over your sack, lad.”

Fynn looked thunderstruck. “What?”

“I said let’s have a look in that sack.”

“Are ye accusin’ me of bein’ a thief?”

Riona cringed as Fynn leaped to his feet, indignant. She felt the hurt lying beneath his bravado.

Kieran shook his head. “Nay, I’m just asking to see what’s in that sack.”

“No!” Fynn stepped backward into the night, as if prepared to run. His hidden pain surfaced, grazing voice and features. “I thought you
trusted
me.”

Kieran gave no sign that he either did or did not.

“Of course, we trust you,” Riona assured the boy, hopefully for the both of them.

“What would you do in my place, lad?” Kieran challenged. “People you love have been threatened for reasons unknown. Your enemy has admitted that he believes the object of his sinister search is in that bag.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, giving Fynn time to consider his words. “Wouldn’t it make sense to tell the man that the bag doesn’t contain his confounded vial of holy water?”

“I did, for all the good it did,” Fynn challenged. “What makes
you
different?”

“I will give my word as king of Gleannmara, on the honor of my mother and father and theirs before them.”

The word of a king carried great weight in any court. While Kieran’s temper was well known, his word was of equal repute. Riona glanced from one to the other, not knowing what to expect. Kieran would see what was in that bag. She knew it. Just how was up to Fynn.

Evidently Fynn came to the same conclusion. Angrily, he handed the sack over. “Take the fumin’ thing,” he ground out in a cracked voice, then ran out into the night, slamming the plank door against the side of the one-room dwelling.

Riona jumped up to follow him, but Kieran stopped her.

“Leave the lad to cool his hackles. I need you here.” He untied the cord cinching the sack. “Let’s pray we see no silver-encased vial.”

“You don’t have to pray,” Liex volunteered from the foot of the bed, where he petted Lady Gray. “It’s not in Fynn’s sack.” At Riona’s questioning
look, he explained. “I go in it all the time. I’d have found it if it was.” He motioned to the bed. “Go on. Dump it. I bet I can tell you everything in it. It has a spare shirt and his old stockings with the holes in the toes, the rings Marcus gave him, his darts, a …”

Liex named every item to the last that fell from the emptied travel sack, including a scarf that belonged to the adopted daughter of the fisherman who’d helped them travel around Dublin by sea.

“That’s
why he didn’t want anybody lookin’ in there, I’ll bet,” the younger boy announced, rocking back and forth on his heels with a wide, satisfied grin. “Fynn’s in love.”

“Well, that’s that,” Riona claimed, shaking out a blanket that lay folded at the foot of the bed. “You’ll most likely find Fynn in the garden behind the abbot’s quarters,” she suggested to Kieran. “Just look for his glowing ears. They always turn beet red when he’s embarrassed.”

“Why should I go after him? I’m not the one who tore out of here in a temper.”

Riona motioned Liex back onto his pallet and tucked him in. “No,” she conceded, without looking at her husband, “but you of all people should know how it feels to make a fool of oneself when it comes to mixing matters of the heart with a short temper. Like as not, the lad’s feeling quite the fool now and could use some words of comfort.”

Kieran clung to his rebellion.
“I
never got any.”

She couldn’t help the devilment that infected her voice. “No, but you’re
accustomed
to acting the fool. This is new for the lad.”

Foul humor abating, Kieran raised a warning finger at her. “I’ll remember that when I return, milady.”

With a tinkling laugh, Riona jerked her head meaningfully toward Leila’s and Liex’s pallets. “And you’d best remember our company as well.”

Thwarted yet again, Kieran rolled his eyes heavenward and stepped out of the small enclosure with a frustrated sigh. “Now I know the real reason folks wait to have children after they’re wed, and it has
nothing
to do with being holy.”

T
he brethren heralded the new day with song, not unlike their druid predecessors, except that they sang to the Creator rather than the creation. It was a peaceful sound that lulled birds in nearby trees to sing along, not the least intimidated by the presence of Maille’s encampment or the party preparing to depart at last for Gleannmara. Even Gray Macha seemed soothed by it. The stallion stood still, ears pricked, as Kieran brushed his silvery coat. No impatient stomping of the hooves or derisive snorts this morning.

In the next stall of the stable, Fynn worked on Bantan, and beyond him the twins groomed the small pony. Kieran intended that each child would have his or her own steed to care for, Leila as well. As his foster father had told him when he protested that he was a prince and above such tasks, caring for what one had made one appreciate it all the more. And when Kieran got to be king, he’d appreciate the man who took over the chore for him, which allowed him time for his royal duties. Murtagh had been a good foster father, a good example. Kieran hoped to follow in his footsteps with these three halflings.

A loud sneeze from Leila followed by a giggle made him smile. Perhaps he used the term
halfling
too liberally with the twins, slight as they were.

“Bless you, sweetling,” he called to her.

She babbled something that Kieran took to be a thank-you.
Almighty God, if everything happens for a purpose or can be used by You to some good farther along the way, what possible benefit can come of Leila’s affliction?

God?

Kieran stopped running the brush along Gray Macha’s shank. Had he just prayed without forethought? Faith, he’d asked the question as if His Maker were in the next stall. Cromyn said God lived in a man’s heart. Riona walked and talked with Him about as Leila did her invisible
friend. Until now, Kieran had thought it a bit strange. He wasn’t certain of the hows and whys of God, just of His existence and loving protection.

It wasn’t like Kieran to ponder such things. It made him uncomfortable, like socializing with someone he’d wronged in error, feeling guilty despite knowing he was forgiven. For now, there were other things more pressing. Tucking the quandary in the back of his mind, Kieran put aside the grooming brush.

“Bantan is fit for the lady,” Fynn announced, pleased with his work. “Shall I fetch Lady Riona?”

“Nay, let the twins bring the lady. We’ve one last thing to do.”

The boy rounded Gray Macha’s flank, his face set, without emotion. The alarm in his dark eyes betrayed his true feelings. “It’s done. There’s no need to say a word.”

Kieran disagreed. “Maille has hounded us looking for that confounded vial. I intend to let him know on my honor that none of my party has it. And I will die for that honor. He knows that.”

“I wouldn’t waste time on ’im.”

For a moment, Kieran saw a familiar rebellion. Not long ago, he would have agreed with the lad, but he hadn’t had a family to protect then. He hadn’t cared what sort of example he set.

“He’s wronged us. We’ll give him a chance to apologize and we’ll let it go … er … forgive him, I suppose. Like Cromyn said last night over supper, what good’s honor in man’s eyes without it in God’s also?” Kieran grimaced. “You forgave me last night when I apologized. It takes a real man to forgive and forget.”

“You ain’t Maille.”

“Ha, praise the Lord for that!”

Instead of laughing as Kieran intended, Fynn looked away, still uncomfortable with the idea. He scuffed his feet. “It sounds right, well enough, but it sure don’t feel it.”

Kieran clapped the boy on the shoulder, well able to relate. “Now
that
we can agree on, lad.” He wanted to do what was right in God’s eyes. As a Christian king, one that heaven had surely delivered of late, it was his duty. It set well with his heart but not his gut. When the two
were at odds, his mind staggered in the dust of the fray. Men of war he understood. Men—and women—of peace were something of a different nature.

“He’ll act like the hind end of a bull on green apples.”

Kieran’s step faltered with his chuckle at the image. The more he knew of Fynn, the more he liked the boy. “Aye, he’ll sputter and spout, like as not, but at least we’ll have done what’s right.”

Although Kieran walked and acted in grace, he was no fool. He took a few of the Dromin warriors with him in case Maille was bolder and madder than he thought. Fynn walked stiffly beside him as they entered the black-and-red-bannered encampment. One of the guards hastened into a tent. By the time the Gleannmara presence had everyone’s attention, Lord Maille emerged, his barber trailing him.

Beard freshly trimmed into its fashionable fork, the Ulster lord made Kieran wait while his attendant helped him don his sword belt. The dagger he shoved into the top of his boot glistened, sinister in the otherwise innocent glow of the morning sun.

“So, you’ve found the lad out, eh?” he asked after taking one last look in the hand mirror the barber handed him and finding what he saw satisfactory.

The condemning look he gave Fynn was wasted, for the lad refused to meet the man’s eye. He stood so close to Kieran staring at the campfire that Kieran could feel the heat of his slight body. An uncommon urge to take the lad under his arm took Kieran by surprise.

“I found the lad out,” Kieran answered. “He had no vial in his possession, holy or otherwise. “As a precaution, we searched all our belongings, but your vial is elsewhere. I swear it by the honor of my forefathers.”

“Then you are a fool.”

Kieran straightened, as if the barb of the accusation prodded his back. “If you look for a fool, milord, take another look in yon mirror.” He pointed to the one the barber held in his hand.

“Those little thieves have made you weak-minded.” Maille grabbed Fynn by the front of his shirt, jerking him away from Kieran. Before the boy’s feet touched the ground again, it was Kieran who met the
Ulster lord nose to nose, and it was Maille’s feet that dangled above the earth. With the glide of metal against leather, the men of Dromin closed around them, blades out in a formidable circle that held the Ulstermen at bay.

“Will you risk war—nay, your
life
—for a trinket?” Kieran growled. “Good neighbors of Ulster,” he shouted in a raised voice, “think before you use those weapons you draw. Do you wish to spill blood, possibly your own, over a vial of holy water when there is enough to drown you all in salvation three days’ ride in any direction. Or over silver little enough to make your wenches ask where the rest is?”

“Put me down or I’ll—”

Kieran shook his prisoner into silence. “Confound you, Maille, I’m trying to forgive you, and you’re making it impossible!”

“Forgive me? For
what?”

“For acting like the hind end of a bull on green apples, sputterin’ worthless filth.”

Around them laughter erupted from both factions. Kieran shook Maille again. “Now apologize, or I’ll shake you breathless.”

“I’ll not—”

Kieran whipped the lord’s head back and forth sharply three times. “I didn’t hear you,” he bellowed.

Maille’s glare was hot enough to singe the wool of Gleannmara’s brat, but his color waned by the shake. Upon realizing he was inadvertently choking the Ulster lord, Kieran loosened his hold, but only slightly.

The laughter around them died, silenced by anticipation. Hardly a shirt among them moved with breath. Behind him, Kieran heard one of the Dromin clear his throat with a pained swallow.

“I … apologize,” Maille finally said in a constricted voice.

It was enough. “Then I and my son forgive you, don’t we, lad?” Kieran set the man down and released his clothing. “Well?” he added, turning to Fynn.

Fynn nodded. “Aye, I suppose.” From the look on his face, it might have been he who’d been half-strangled, not Maille. Kieran lifted his head, another prompt, which the boy picked up. Fynn squared his
slumped shoulders and lifted his chin, as was befitting the foster son of a king.

Satisfied, Kieran clamped a hand on the lad’s shoulder. “I bid you all a good day, gentlemen, and a safe journey back to your homes and families.”

With that, he led the Gleannmara faction out of the camp. Ahead of him, Riona sat atop the small horse Bantan, where she’d watched the scene—how much she’d seen, Kieran had no idea, but he hoped she’d seen it all. She was a champion of forgiveness and such, and he wanted to please her. The problem was, he couldn’t tell if she was pleased or not.