Spirit of the Mist (17 page)

“Brendan,” she said, reaching for her cup of honey wine. “Did you not see what happened out at the hilltop today, when we stood before the druids? When we walked through the gates? When I sat here beside you at our wedding table? First a honeybee stings you from the air; then I fall hard to the earth; then my gown goes up in fire.” She shook her head and took a long drink of the wine. “Too many things,” she said. “They are a warning. Too many things—”
 

“Muriel,” he said gently, “please do not worry. Such things happen at any ceremony. Now, look here. Look at this. Look at what is real.” He placed his hands on top of her own, then leaned down to kiss her on the lips. She felt a thrill go through her. “Even after a few small catastrophes on our wedding day, we are here together, are we not? That is real. That is what matters.
 

“We have been through far worse together. Nothing was able to keep me from finding you—not your own king and his men, not an evil man like Odhran, not even the sea itself. Kiss me, dear wife, and let me kiss you in return, and tell me you will not think of these things again.”
 

She closed her eyes and kissed her husband, and she had to smile. “I am sorry. I cannot bear the thought of anything going wrong, of anything coming between us.” She felt silly at having worried.
 

He kissed her again. “Nothing will ever come between us. I promise you that. I will wait while you finish your wine, and then I will take you to the home that is now yours.”
 

“The home that is now ours,” she corrected, smiling again. Then she drank the honey wine from her cup until there was none left.
 

Chapter Ten
 

The feast went on, and there were no more mishaps. As usual, most of the women eventually gathered near the central firepit to talk and gossip and laugh, while the men stayed at the boards to finish their beer and blackberry wine. The merriment ended only when King Galvin got up from his cushion, helped to his feet by two of his men.
 

“Good night to you, Brendan and Muriel,” said the king. As they quickly stood up, he moved slowly on trembling legs to stand before his son’s wife.
 

“A more beautiful daughter I could never wish for,” he said in a voice whispery with age. “And a finer queen Dun Bochna could never want.” With great care he reached out and kissed her on the cheek.
 

Turning to Brendan, the man rested a hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled. “You have a beautiful bride. See that you always take care of her.”
 

“I will do that, and much more. Good night to you, Father.”
 

Walking slowly with his men, the king left the hall, and then the music stopped. The servants began to gather up the plates and food and wine and to blow out the burning rush lights.
 

Brendan took Muriel’s hand and placed it on his arm. “It is time for you to go to your home,” he said. “To our home.”
 

She looked up at him and started to speak, but the words seemed caught in her throat. Instead she gave him a slight nod, held tight to his arm with her fingers, and walked with him out the door and into the heavy air of the summer night.
 

The sky was not entirely dark. Beyond the stone walls of the dun, out on the sand and ashes at the edge of the cliff where this day they had made their marriage contract, a great orange ball of flame rolled and billowed in the night. Sparks flew upward from it as the huge logs burned through and went crashing down into the heart of the flames.
 

“There is no mistaking when the summer solstice comes around,” said Brendan, looking up at the brilliant light high on the cliffs. “Everyone in the kingdom can see that bonfire, whether it burns at midsummer, or Lughnasa, or the autumn equinox, or any of the other festivals that make up the wheel of the year.”
 

Muriel nodded. “It was the same at home. The great fires are lit all across the country so that everyone will know what day it is—especially this one, the longest day of the year.”
 

Her husband turned her around so that she faced the other way, and pointed to the south. “Look there, across the bay. All the way across. Do you see it?”
 

Far out in the darkness was a small orange dot, and she caught her breath as she realized what it was. “Oh,” she said. “That is the midsummer fire of Dun Farraige!”
 

Brendan nodded. His hand was warm where it rested on her shoulder. “So many times I have seen it burn, never realizing that it was at your home and that the light I saw was yours…and now I am watching it here beside you. I hope that we will always watch these fires together, for as long as we live.”
 

Muriel smiled and reached up to press her hand against his. “Over the years, I, too, have watched this same fire that burns here now, just as you have watched mine at my home across the bay.”
 

This time Brendan turned her to face him. “Yet this place is home now. Your home…my home.” He bent close to her, and his soft hair brushed her cheek as his lips found hers. Her husband kissed her, gently and for a long time, and then they walked together to the house that was now theirs.
 

Brendan’s dwelling lay on the far side of the fortress, between the King’s Hall and the flat open space that led to the sheer cliffs overhanging the sea. Muriel had stayed in a room in the hall upon her arrival, and so, on this night, she was walking into her new home for the very first time.
 

Her husband held the heavy wooden door for her as she stepped carefully inside, lifting the hem of her skirts as she stepped over the threshold and onto the thick cover of clean, dried rushes. The house was softly lit by glowing coals in the central hearth, and by two seashell lamps sitting on shelves on either side of the room.
 

“Here is your home, my lady wife,” Brendan said, walking inside and pulling the door closed behind him. “Take your time and look around, and see that everything is in its place and all is to your liking. If there is the smallest thing that you might wish for, you have only to ask for it.”
 

She smiled up at him, and her heart beat faster at the thought that she stood in a house that was hers to arrange however she wished…a house that was entirely hers and Brendan’s. She was alone in her own home with the man she loved, the man who was now her husband.
 

Muriel took a step onto the rushes, and then another. This house was much larger than the one she had shared with Alvy back at Dun Farraige. That dwelling had been a bit crowded at times when her two sisters had been there with her, in the days before they had married. They had been three lively young women sharing a crowded and cozy space, laughing and working and living side by side together, year after happy year, until first one married, and then the other…and then the laughing stopped.
 

Muriel continued her slow walk along the curving wall. It was in perfect repair, white and smooth with new clay. And so much room! It would take the rest of the night to make the circuit, so large did it seem.
 

She ran her fingers over the things along the wall: iron tongs and hooks for preparing meat, bronze cauldrons shining in the hearth light, plates and cups of polished wood for everyday use and of gold for special occasions.
 

Tall leather screens, framed in wood, created a separate room at the back of the round house. She peered past these screens and saw that a third seashell lamp rested high in a niche set into the wall, casting its soft and wavering light over the thick furs and cushions heaped on the wide sleeping ledge.
 

Past the screens were three large wooden chests. One was for Brendan, and the others she had brought from her former home, filled with her own neatly folded cloaks and gowns and her good leather boots and belts. All of her golden jewelry was stored here too, including the sea-dragon torque Brendan had given to her.
 

That would wait until the day of his kingmaking, for it was meant as a queen’s torque, and she was not yet—

Muriel willed herself to keep moving. In a moment she found herself at the smooth wooden ledge beneath the open western window, where her water mirror sat waiting. The bronze basin was dry and empty now, cold and dark in the shadows of the house.
 

She touched the tip of her smallest finger to its cool, dry rim, running it lightly over the metal edge and listening to the faint singing of the bronze. She could still hear it, as she always had; the singing told her that the mirror was alive and in tune with her, even now at the dark of the moon.
 

For a moment she felt a small amount of relief. She had listened to her heart and married Brendan, who was not a king yet, and she still possessed her magic. But then a cold realization struck her: she had married him by legal contract, but nothing more.
 

Not yet. She would not truly be his wife until she gave herself to him, all of herself, here in their house in the candlelit bed that awaited them against the far wall.
 

Muriel backed away from the water mirror until stopped by the central hearth. Reaching back until she could feel the cool stone beneath her fingers, she stood, consumed by the rising beat of her heart and her ever-swifter intake of breath as Brendan slid the heavy bolt through the door and walked toward the back of the house.
 

He moved the screen aside, unfastened the gold dolphin brooch at his shoulder, and allowed his dark blue cloak to slide off his back. It dropped to the sleeping ledge among the furs. Reaching for his thick leather belt, he untied it from its golden ring and wrapped it around the scabbard that hung from it, placing both the belt and sword in the rushes on the floor.
 

“And how do you find your house?” he asked, walking back to her. He stood close, reaching out to brush a strand of her thick dark hair away from her face with one finger.
 

She closed her eyes at the gentle touch of his hand on her cheek. “It is a beautiful house,” she whispered, her eyelids fluttering a little as he began to stroke her cheek. “A perfect house. And I thank you for it.”
 

Brendan’s finger left her cheek, following the curve of her neck to the hollow of her shoulder, brushing away her hair once more and coming to rest on her back. He stepped closer, and in the soft glow of the hearth she saw his young and gentle face, with its strong jawline and smooth, fair skin and eyes of light blue and dark brown.
 

She reached for him in return, running her fingertips over the side of his powerful neck, marveling at how the skin was soft as the petal of a flower even while the cords beneath were strong as iron. Now it was his turn to close his eyes and breathe deep, to lean his head against her hand and then softly kiss her fingers with his lips.
 

“Brendan…”
 

He stepped toward her, and then she was held close in his arms, his broad chest pressed close against her own and the hard strength of his thigh locked firmly against her hip. “Muriel,” he whispered into the dark cloud of her hair. “I am the man who loves you. And now that I am your husband, I am free to show you that love—all of it. Let me show you the love I hold for you and for no other… Let us show each other…”
 

He reached down and lifted her up in his arms, and held her close as he carried her past the hearth toward the waiting bed.
 

For a moment she clung to him as he walked, hearing only his boots crushing the rushes underfoot and his quickened breath as he held her close. But as he lowered her down to the furs on the bed, she suddenly stiffened and moved away from him, pushing herself to the far side of the bed to sit with her back against the cold clay wall.
 

Brendan sat down on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap, and smiled patiently at her. “There is nothing I would like more than to stay here with you this night, and give you the love that a husband gives to his wife Yet…we will have many more nights like this one. If you are not ready, I will wait for you until you are.”
 

She could only stare at him from the shadows, seeing his graceful form on the edge of the bed with one foot down in the rushes and the other pulled up so that his knee rested on the furs, his soft hair shining in the glow of the seashell lamp. He remained quiet, his hands folded together, waiting with great patience to see what she wished to do next.
 

Muriel sighed, then eased forward a little, away from the wall so that she sat near the center of the bed. “I am sorry,” she said, looking away from him. “It is not you that I fear. You are the man I love, and you are my husband. I wish… I wish that I
could
do this…but I am not sure that I ever can.”
 

He shifted slightly. “I can only tell you, my lady Muriel, that this is not the type of thing a husband would like to hear from his wife on the night of his wedding.”
 

“I understand, Brendan. But you must understand this: it is not you that I fear. It is the thought that I may have made a terrible mistake.”
 

She got up off the bed and walked away from him, around the far side of the hearth, until she reached the ledge beneath the open window where her water mirror rested. Brendan, too, got up from the bed and walked over to stand behind her.