Pride of Lions (46 page)

"I left them at Kincora," said Donough.

"I allowed no one to come with me."

"Why not? You came to see me and wanted no one with you?"

"I did not even know you were here."

Cumara was taken aback. "Then I don't understand what ... why ..."

The door creaked open and daylight fell across Donough's face, giving Cumara a good look at his expression as Cera entered the cabin.

Suddenly all the questions were answered.

She gazed at Donough in wonder. But when she started to speak, he sprang to his feet and crushed her so tightly against him Cera could say nothing at all.

"Ssshhh," he whispered into her hair.

"Ssshhh."

He simply held her; a tall man

enveloping a small woman in his embrace, letting their bodies speak for them with sensations more eloquent than words.

With a sad and wi/l smile, Cumara arose and left the cabin.

Sometime later--much later--they spoke of that day at Kill Dalua when she had tried and failed to see him. "I thought you would not come to me because I was mutilated," Donough told her.

By way of answer she caught hold of his right arm and turned back the sleeve, exposing the discolored thumb and scarred, denuded palm. She held the ruined hand in the firelight so she could see it clearly, then bent her head and covered it with kisses.

When he took her back to Kincora with him she asked no questions. She was content to sit behind him with her arms wrapped around his waist and her cheek resting against the rough wool of his brat. From time to time she hummed. Her voice did not seem to enter his ears, but rather to inhabit them, as if it had always been part of him.

Upon reaching Kincora he took her at once to the king's chamber. His, now. His by right. "We will rest here for a few days," he told her, assuming she understood they would go on to Cashel afterward.

He was King of Munster; he belonged to his people.

Cera was just for himself.

The first problem arose when he mentioned his plans to Senan, expecting congratulations for a mistake rectified.

Instead the new Abbot of Kill Dalua was dismayed. "You can't install a pagan woman at Cashel! I did not approve of the way the matter was handled, but I agree with the premise behind it. Thanks in large part to Cathal Mac Maine, there is now a strong movement to stamp out the old heathen ways in Ireland. For the King of Munster to make a favorite of a druid woman would be an open defiance of the Church.

"Bring her to me, Donough, that we may begin her conversion at once!"

But Cera had no intention of being converted. "I cannot change my spirit," she told Donough, "any more than you can grow a new hand. Does my spirit displease you so?"

"Everything about you pleases me," he replied truthfully. "Change nothing for me."

Once that decision was made, however, he must be circumspect about their relationship. He decided to take her to Cashel secretly and find her some unobtrusive place to live close to the Rock, yet away from the eyes of the Church.

When he told Cera his intentions she balked again. "I don't want to be hidden away like someone you're ashamed of! I want to live with you.

I need to see your face beside me in the first light of morning and fall asleep in your arms at night."

"I have a wife," Donough tried to explain.

"Set her aside if you prefer me.

Surely you would not insult her pride by keeping her in such a position. Apply to the brehons for a divorce and ..."

"I cannot, Cera. You don't understand. I need her, or rather I need her connections. My position is tenuous at best and depends on other people's perceptions of my strength. If I end my relationship with King Canute, I may destroy forever my chance of becoming Ard Ri."

Her eyes locked with his. "You want to be Ard Ri?"

"My whole life has been directed toward that purpose."

"Do you want to be Ard Ri?" she repeated.

How clear her dark eyes were! How deeply they looked into his soul! "I don't know," he said miserably.

He lay with her in the king's chamber at Kincora and wondered if his father had ever brought his druid to this room; this bed. were their spirits watching from the shadows?

Then Cera's hands moved on his body and her mouth set fire to his flesh, and he forgot about his ghosts.

While she sat astride him, riding him, he gazed up in admiration at the underside of her breasts. Their lush ripeness was not obvious when she was clothed. Now they bounced with her movements.

Cupping them in his palms, he bounced them higher and she laughed.

Cera's laughter rippled through her interior muscles. They clenched his penis rhythmically, provoking an orgasm so intense it hurt. Yet within moments he felt himself stiffening again, demanding more.

There was no limit to Cera's joyful giving.

She let him take her to Cashel with a shawl over her head to keep her face in shadow. She let him provide her with a hidden house --of warm timber, not cold stone like the structures atop the Rock--and there she waited each day for him to come to her.

For Donough she sacrificed her pride.

But in spite of her best efforts, she could not hide the pain it cost her. Sometimes in an unguarded moment he glimpsed anguish in her eyes and knew the depth of her love for him.

Donough vowed to himself that her sacrifice would not be in vain. He redoubled his efforts to put himself in a position where he might eventually make a successful claim on the high kingship.

Having proven himself as a warrior, he began endowing churches and monasteries. At the same time and with total ruthlessness he cleared Munster of the majority of its outlaws and made the roads reasonably safe.

Sometimes he felt he was fighting shadows. The deep forces of disintegration at work in Ireland could not be held back by any man.

Maeve came from her valley to inform Donough she had sent her oldest son to be fostered by Diarmait Mac Mael-nambo, Prince of Leinster. "Turlough needs a noble father," she explained.

"I would gladly foster him. My brother's child

..."

"Unthinkable. Even if I were willing, Turlough would never agree; he still holds you responsible for Teigue's death. No, it is better he grow to manhood as far from you as possible. Seeing you only keeps his anger alive.

"Besides," she added with a political shrewdness he had not expected of her, "someday he may have need of a strong alliance with Leinster."

He knew then that Maeve meant to see her son rule as King of Munster. Immediately Donough began grooming his own son Murchad to be a warrior prince; a king.

A year after Sitric Silkbeard returned from a protracted pilgrimage to Rome where he had been surprised to meet not a few fellow Vikings, Brother Declan's apprentice made his first entry in the Annals of Kill Dalua.

"The Age of Christ, 1030. Gormlaith, Princess of Leinster, mother of Sitric, King of Dublin, and of Donough, King of Munster, died.

It was this Gormlaith who took three leaps which a woman shall never take again: To Dublin with Olaf, to Tara with Malachi, and to Kincora with Brian Boru."

Donough wept for her in private, and only Cera knew.

"If I ever have a daughter I shall name her Gormlaith," he vowed. But Cera did not dare give him children, though she ached to do so. A child would reveal their secret past any keeping; he would not be able to hide his joy and his pride.

With the passage of time their desire grew instead of diminishing. Coupling was richer, deeper, more inventive. Donough teased, "Surely such passion can't be natural!"

Soberly, Cera responded, "I would not employ druid sorcery for this. The only magic is in ourselves."

"Ourselves?"

Her grave expression softened into a smile.

"Both of us. The magic is in both of us," she told him.

The following autumn an urgent message arrived from Alba.

"In spite of my efforts to conciliate him,"

Malcolm wrote, "Canute, King of England, has attacked Alba. He is marching north with a large army including a contingent of Danes recruited from Dublin. Therefore I call upon you to send me as many warriors as you can to hold Alba for my nephew Duncan."

The request rocked Donough. Assembling his wisest counselors, he explained the situation.

"If I go to Malcolm's aid I find myself opposing Canute, thus making an enemy of the King of England. My wife is related to Canute," he added unnecessarily.

The chief brehon of Munster pointed out, "And your sister is wife to Malcolm. Which tie is stronger?"

There was too much advice altogether. Everyone had an opinion; none of them seemed to have an answer.

At last Donough sent them all away.

Late in the day he found himself alone, leaning his elbows on the stone wall which encircled the top of the Rock of Cashel. A shorter man would have had to rest his chin on the same surface. Beyond lay Munster, glimmering in watery twilight.

Compromise. He considered his options. Not possible in this situation.

Avoidance. Pretend I never

received Malcolm's letter. But avoidance is the coward's way and in the end it would cost me both of them, Malcolm and Canute.

Gazing fixedly into the night, Donough sought to think like his father.

Which is the more dangerous enemy? Canute, obviously. He has a larger army and more allies. If I am ever to gain Tara, it is Canute who can give me the advantage I need. Malcolm is an old man, a spent force. Canute is one of the Land Leapers. The future is with him.

In the same circumstances, Malcolm the savage pragmatist would probably do what Donough was about to do. But knowing that did not make him feel any better. He went to Cera and drank far too much ale.

The next day he wrote a long letter not to Malcolm, but to Blanaid, apologizing for his inability to send warriors "at this time." He related details of the various wars he was fighting and the number of men he could summon to his banner, giving an impression of a man already committed to the fullest, which was not untrue. Concluding with fond words for his sister, he sent the letter by swiftest messenger and waited.

No response came.

Donough never heard from his sister again.

Only later did it occur to him that siding with Malcolm would have freed him of the necessity of maintaining a marriage with Driella. But his decision was vindicated when Malcolm accepted Canute as overlord.

Donough had chosen the winning side, a decision he earnestly sought to square with his conscience.

In his battles both external and internal, Cera was his sanctuary. In the autumn of 1034

he went straight to her after learning the King of the Scots and the Picts had been murdered at Glamis. As Malcolm had desired, the throne of Alba passed to Duncan. And as was normal with kingship, the succession was soon bitterly contested by Mac Beth of Moray.

"Fortunately, that is one conflict which does not concern me," Donough declared with some relief.

Then he resolutely put the matter out of his mind. When he was sitting in Cera's small house, with his long legs stretched out and her light weight in his lap, he could forget there were such things as dynastic struggles. He could forget ... for a time.

But even the King of England was subject to the vagaries of fortune. In 1035 Canute himself died unexpectedly, causing a scramble for power.

The next fifteen years was a period of ineffectual kings and political turmoil until at last Edward, known as the Confessor, ascended the throne--and had Earl Godwine and his family expelled. They were accused of plotting the new king's overthrow.

Donough read the earl's subsequent letter aloud to Cera.

"My trusted son-in-law,

"For the sake of your wife his sister, I beg you give refuge to my son Harold. My family has been broken up and dispersed and our dangers multiply. I do not fear for myself, for I am an old man and have not long to live, but Harold's future is yet to come. Shelter him, I beg you, and give him what support you can, for the sake of your wife my daughter.

"Your servant, Godwine, formerly Earl of Wessex and Kent."

"What do you think?" Donough asked when he finished.

Cera gave him a searching look. "I think you have always regretted refusing Malcolm," she replied.

A letter sped to Godwine, assuring him his son Harold would be welcome at Cashel.

Meanwhile the condition of Ireland sank into both a moral and a physical depression. Battles broke out continually. There seemed to be a hunger among men to rend and tear. No place was safe from plunder. While Donough marched east to retaliate against an attack by the Leinstermen, a warrior band from Connacht seized their opportunity and sacked the great monastic school of Clonmacnois.

At the same time the land was beset by natural calamities. Rain fell incessantly.

Rivers flooded, cattle drowned, the earth oozed moisture like blood until crops rotted in the fields.

Although the Irish traditionally blamed bad kings for bad weather, the priests began saying it was God's punishment on the people for their wickedness.

Cera was amused by such claims. "Your Christ-men simply don't know how to placate their god," she told Donough.

"I suppose you could do better?"

She twinkled up at him. "I might."

But it was still raining when a weary and sodden Harold Godwinesson arrived at Cashel late in the summer of 1050. The young man was a strapping blond with the muscular grace of a warrior. Donough could see little resemblance between Harold and Driella, but nevertheless she fell upon her brother with glad cries and a babble of Saxon.

Donough thought with a pang of Blanaid, lost to him.

He did what he could to make the exiled Godwinesson comfortable while apologizing for the miserable weather. Harold was not interested in Irish misfortunes, however. In spite of exhaustion that left dark rings under his eyes, he stayed up most of the first night complaining about the injustice that had been done his family, who were now scattered from Flanders to Ireland. He was very bitter.

"They call old Edward a saintly man,"