Riona (5 page)

The abbot turned to Riona, clearly relieved to have another opinion. “By all means, milady, share your thoughts. You have invested too much time and affection in this matter to be ignored.”

She took the step off the precipice into thin air, praying she would not fall and take the little ones with her. “I ask my lord abbot to consider allowing me to take the children to Dromin.”

Her brother would not turn away three orphans. Heber’s was a tender heart.

“But you’ve no husband,” Senan pointed out, taken aback. “And what of your pledge to the church? Why on the way home from Kells, I pondered how well you’ve adapted to life here in God’s service. I intended to discuss it with my brother, but this matter has preempted it.”

Riona foundered. It was her heart’s desire to serve God at the abbey, but these children needed a mother, which was exactly what she’d been to them since their coming. She loved each of them for his or her own special way.

“Perhaps the abbey’s particular service to God is not Lady Riona’s calling. The call of motherhood is a noble pursuit as well. Teaching children God’s way is its own ministry.”

Fintan smiled at Riona. Her mother’s favorite uncle had come to know her well since she came to Kilmare. Unlike Senan, who coveted Riona’s property more than her happiness, the abbot encouraged her to explore all her options before making a lasting commitment.

“Her own children, yes,” the bishop agreed, “but what man of property, much less of noble blood, would have another’s foundlings to keep?”

Fintan frowned. “Aye, taking in children in her brother’s home
without his permission could be a problem.”

“An’ I already paid ’im the worth of two cumals for the brats,” Tadgh argued.

Beside him, Mebh began to wail, dropping to her knees. “Holy Father, have a heart for a mother what’s lost her own babes!”

“You mean it?” Fynn’s dark brown eyes were as bright as Riona had ever seen them, filled with hope. Never had she seen a more welcome sight.

“Aye,” she answered softly. “You and your siblings have a knack for working your way into the heart.” Maybe this was all part of God’s plan. Heaven knew it hadn’t been in hers, yet it felt so right.

“Then it’s settled.” Fynn gave a joyous whoop. “Between us, Liex and Leila will have a fine home.”

Riona hugged the little ones as they rushed up to her and looked over their heads at the abbot. “Holy Father?” Surely the abbot could see this was right. Indeed, it was all she could do to keep from shouting with glee herself.

Bishop Senan was not as easily swayed by sentimentality. “Brother, how can you compare the love
two
parents can offer, albeit in humble hearth, to that of a maid without even the prospect of a husband and hearth to call her own? And again I ask, what worthy lord would take the offspring of another man, a gleeman no less?” Senan argued. “He’d want his own heirs.”

“It does sound more than your cup can hold, given the circumstances,” Fintan reluctantly admitted to Riona. “We must think it through.”

Senan seized upon his half brother’s indecision. “You know our cousin’s daughter. Her heart overrules her reason. She has made it clear her first love is the church, and it’s only her charitable nature that clouds her mind.”

Hope began to crumble as Fintan nodded in agreement. “The bishop makes good points, Lady Riona. A husband in hand … even your brother’s permission, would give me more peace in favoring your request.”

A man. No matter the consequence, in church or home, a woman’s
measure was judged by the man in her life, be it father, brother, or husband. Humility banished by the blood rising to her face, Riona bristled.

“I have some means of my own, with or without a husband’s or brother’s indulgence.” She may have no land, but her dowry was not easily dismissed. “I know my brother’s good heart, regardless. Heber of Dromin would not turn these children away.”

The abbot’s troubled expression held her breath at bay.

“And I’ve enough love for
two
parents,” she added, infected by a desperation beyond her ken. “Surely you can see that the children and I—”

The abbot held up his hand, silencing her. Slowly he rose from the elaborate chair of his station, his embroidered robes falling around a frame lean and bent from prayer and fasting. His strength drained from a winter-long affliction of the lung, he attempted to speak above Mebh’s mournful protest and Tadgh’s indignant one.

“I should like the evening to think and pray on this matter. I have to admit, I have my concerns with either proposition.”

“But this lady is young and can still bear babes,” Mebh cried. “The midwife says I’ll have no more. For God’s love, have mercy on a childless mother.” With a body-riddling sob, she began to rock back and forth as though cradling her lost infants.

Normally gracious under the worst of circumstances, the abbot’s patience snapped. “Have mercy on my
ears
, woman! Either curb her tongue or remove her,” he warned Tadgh.

At the threat of removal, Mebh scooted back to Tadgh’s side, her wails reduced to a whimper. Was it fear that restored her composure so quickly, or was her display, snuffed as easily as a lamp, an act? Riona stared at the woman. What was it about her that would not stir the same pity as others who’d lost their children to the Blefed? The matches of grief-stricken parents and homeless children that Riona had seen made in that room were joyful ones of broken families made whole. This bore no resemblance to such instances at all.

“Bishop Senan, show our guests to the hospitium. I shall ponder this decision till the morrow, upon which time I will announce my decision.”

“There is no decision to be made,” Fynn protested. “We go—”

Riona clamped her hand over the impertinents mouth. “The abbot is a godly man. His decision will surely reflect heaven’s wishes.”

As the abbot took his leave, Riona hurried Fynn and his siblings toward the door.
Heavenly Father, I beseech You to do what is best for these children. Send a sign, if You will, something to make Your will known, and I shall abide by it
.

A parting glance over her shoulder revealed Senan closeted in a corner with the hopeful adoptive parents. She’d prayed about her instinctive dislike for the bishop to no avail. He reminded her of a wolf cloaked in lamb’s wool, ready to pounce on any opportunity that presented itself for his gain. She didn’t mean to judge, he just—

“Look there!” Liex pulled away from Riona’s hand.

She lifted her gaze to follow Liex’s stare as two warriors rode through the gate.

“By my mother’s eyes, I never saw a finer horse.” Fynn chased after Liex, easily catching up with and passing the smaller boy to greet the men who dismounted.

Just short of the great blue roan, Fynn stopped and gawked. “Can I tend him, sir? I swear, he’ll have nothin’ but the finest grain and fodder we have to offer.”

Riona stood still with Leila, as if her feet had rooted in the ground. Disbelief warred in vain with recognition of the horse and its rider. It could be no one else but Kieran, her foster brother, and Gray Macha, a steed as bred to combat and command as its master. And where Kieran of Gleannmara rode, Heber would not be far behind.

God had answered her prayer!

Now the abbot would have no reason to deny her the children. Heber would never turn them away.

Hope lifted Riona from the spot and sped her toward Gleannmara’s king. She was nearly breathless with excitement upon reaching the unexpected guests.

“This
, you say is the Lady Riona?” Kieran arched a dubious golden brow at her. “She looks to be scullery … nay, a stable maid.” He waved the air in front of his face, staring with disdain at her dress.

Color flamed in her cheeks. She’d been so thrilled to see her foster brother returned from the Dalraidi campaign, she’d forgotten herself. Too late to slink away before he recognized her, Riona lifted a regal chin.

“Aye,
this
is she. And she welcomes both you and cousin Bran from your journey. It has been many months, Kieran.” She looked around the broad expanse of his cloaked shoulders and through the gate, to the outer walls of the circular enclosure for a sign of her brother. “And is the O’Cuillin putting his own mount to bed at the stable yard?” It would be like Heber to put his horse ahead of his reunion with his sister. Kieran and Bran, on the other hand, would put their own bellies first.

“Faith, is mucking stables part of God’s service?” Bran exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have known you, Riona, had you not spoken.” He grabbed her hand and started to lift it to his lips, then apparently thought better of it, for he squeezed it instead. “You are a sight for these sore eyes.”

“And a sore to the nose,” Kieran put in wryly. “What in the devil happened to you?”

Riona bridled. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but I fell in a barrow of manure.”

“I believe it.” Kieran’s short laugh was like a burr to an already injured pride.

“Your gallantry takes my breath away, milord.”

“As does your perfume.”

“If you came to insult me, the task is done, Kieran. You may leave anon. You, Bran, are welcome to stay, as is my lagabout brother.”

Riona marched to the gate and scanned the outer rath again. “Where is Heber?” she demanded with a stamp of impatience. Kieran had that effect on her. He’d try the patience of the Apostles themselves! Spinning on the ball of her foot, Riona waited expectantly.

“Well, Heber, he …” Bran cleared his throat and looked away.

Alarm seeped into Riona’s blood, curdling cold. “He what?”

“He sends his love,” Kieran spoke up. “I’ll explain as soon as Bran and I have a chance to wash some of the dirt from our throats with the brothers’ good ale.”

Riona shifted her uncertain gaze from Kieran. “Bran?”

“And our eyes,” her cousin agreed, rubbing his eyes until they were red. “ ’Tis something in the air. They’ve itched all the day.”

“An overabundance of heath fruit last eve, more likely,” Kieran whispered aside to Riona. “ ’Twill redden the eye and dry the throat of the stoutest man.”

Something was amiss. She sensed it as sure as she’d sensed the same inconsistency with the children’s prospective parents.

“Lady Riona, perhaps I should show these gentlemen inside, so that you may refresh yourself before entertaining them for supper.”

“What?”

Turning, Riona saw Brother Domnall had taken charge of the boys and the horses. Indeed, Bran had lifted Leila to the back of his steed. His legs were almost as long as the horse’s. She supposed Kieran’s impatience negated the bardic choice of chariot or curricle for travel.

“I will entertain our guests until you are prepared to take over,” Domnall said, his words penetrating the fog of distraction in her mind.

“Yes. That would be good.” It was the path of least resistance, at least for the moment. She was so delighted by Kieran’s appearance so shortly after her prayer that she could not imagine it to carry bad news.

Perhaps Heber was put out that she’d abandoned Dromin to Ringan, their most capable steward, so that she could serve at the abbey. Her brother had told her to wait until his return, but the plague waited for no one. She was needed more at Kilmare. Riona would explain it all, and her brother would see she’d made the right choice, both then and now.

Aware that all eyes rested on her, she emerged from the steady churn of her thoughts. “I’ll join you after vespers.”
And a bath
, she thought, dropping in a slight curtsy before taking her leave.

Nothing was wrong. It could not be.

I
n the privacy of a corbeled stone dwelling assigned to them for the night’s lodging, Bran paced back and forth like a hound in a cage.

“He sends his love?”

Kieran ignored his friend’s incredulity. He swished his razor in the shallow stone washbowl and applied it to his stubbled jaw again, staring at the smooth plaster of the wall as if a mirror hung there. Amenities were few, as were decorations. A few crosses carved in the headers and doorframes were all that graced the slanted walls.

Sparsely furnished as it was, the room was luxurious compared to most of the places they’d slept in the past year. It was paved and well drained, and the small fire in the round, sunken hearth filled it with a welcome warmth now that the sun reposed for the night.

“He sends his love?”
Bran threw his hands up and dropped on one of the two stuffed pallets in the room.

“S’bones, you are more worrisome than a gnat.” Kieran skimmed the water surface with his hand, sending it sloshing at the bard. “What would you have me say before curious monks and children? ‘Oh, Heber couldn’t come with us because he’s dead’?”

Bran wiped the droplets off his tunic, unabashed. “You’ve only postponed her grief.”

“Well,
you
could have confounded told her then.” Wiping his face with the hem of his cloak, Kieran turned to the light of the single candle in the room. “There, am I fit for a lady’s eyes?”

“If it’s the sweet brush of Riona’s lips you’re preparing for, you’ve wasted your time.”

“Ach, ’tis this very kind of thing that threatens the existence of the bards. You wear out your welcome with your barbed words.”

“Given your temperament of late, your tongue has plied the same sharpening stone.”

Kieran looked at Bran in surprise. The most timid of the O’Cuillin
cousins was growing a backbone as fearsome as his wit and tongue. He was a maker of love, not war, he claimed, but the journey across the sea had changed the young man. There was less of the romantic and more of the realist in him. But then, the same could be said of himself, Kieran supposed.

Bran slapped him on the back. “You have my forgiveness for your churlish humor, for mine is by choice. Yours is by nature.”

Kieran laughed, in spite of himself. The dart was well thrown. That’s what he got for waging wits with one of druidic lineage. “Come friend, let’s join the Lady Riona.”

He offered his hand to Bran and hauled him up from the pallet.

“Are you certain you want me present? After all, we’ve chosen the right speech, and as many times as you’ve repeated it, I see no reason—”