As he turned to face the figure who was approaching, his eyes widened in surprise. His mother, her hair tangled about her desperate face. His horse shied, and Niall battled to rein the beast in. His mother raced toward him, heedless of the danger.
"This is yours," she cried breathlessly, extending the long rag-wrapped bundle she held in her arms. "He said you would need it."
"Who said?" Niall’s brow furrowed in confusion,his gaze flicking to where his friend's back was quick disappearing. "Declan?"
"Nay! Your father."
"Go back inside, and warm yourself by the fire," Niall said gently. "The wind bites deeper and deeper."
"Niall, you must listen to me!" she cried so fiercely her voice broke, her eyes afire with pleading. "Do not dismiss me as if I am mad."
Was that not what he had labeled her so many times these past weeks? First in guilt and frustration, later with quiet grief, that he could not reach beyond the mists that separated her from all around her.
Stunned at the desperate sanity in her words, Niall swung off the horse. He reached out, taking what his mother offered. Niall's hands trembled as he unwrapped the most exquisite sword he had ever seen.
He stared in awe at the gleaming weapon, remembered clutching the sword as a boy, scarce able to get his grubby fingers around the hilt. He could hear his father laughing as Niall struggled to lift the heavy weapon from the floor.
You will grow to fit it soon enough, my little son,Ronan's deep voice echoed in his ears.And then no man in all Ireland will ever defeat you!
Grief washed over Niall in suffocating waves, mourning for all the years that reckless boy and his invincible father had lost.
He started at the feel of his mother's hand curving upon his wrist. He looked into her face, stared at her, his breath snagging in his throat. Her eyes! They shone piercingly clear, filled with love and faith and grief.
"It is a sword fit for a chieftain,” she murmured, stroking the hilt as if it were her lost love's face. "It was the last thing your father said before they took him away from me."
Chapter 19
Caitlin had lived almost her whole life in a world without men. The rhythms of a household made up of only women should, at the very least, have felt familiar. But even the stones seemed to strain to hear Niall's heavy tread, the three women rattling around, restless, edgy, leaping at the slightest sound, as if ghosts had come a-haunting Castle Daire.
And they had. So many ghosts. Ghosts of doubt, suspicion, regret. The past cast long, chill shadows that clouded the tenuous future.
No one spoke of the strain they were under. It was as if some secret law claimed that if they could keep busy enough with mindless tasks, they could outrun disaster. As if the mere act of notspeaking of their fears would keep them from coming true. And, maddening as the situation was, not even Caitlin dared break the silence, lest some black curse descend upon them all. The curse that had loomed over Caitlin even before she was born.
She shivered, chilled despite the afternoon sun warming her shoulders. How could she bear it if she had brought this danger down upon the heads of those she loved?
With a flick of her wrist, she finished draping the last of the clothing upon a bush to air, then stepped back, wondering what else she could find to take up the interminable weeks until Niall returned to her.
If he ever does.
The words came, unbidden, her hands suddenly trembling. She thrust them into the folds of her leine in an effort to still them.
"You cannot think such things," she told herself fiercely. "If you do, you will go mad! Niall is the finest warrior in all Ireland! If he survived in Conn's fortress as a hated, friendless boy, he can surely survive as the chieftain's champion, a hero lauded throughout the land.Tainist. The chosen one."
Yet when one man was chosen, others werenot. How many might hate him, secretly or openly? Even if Conn had summoned Niall in good faith, how many other warriors at Glenfluirse might wish to destroy him? So many things could go wrong, so many private dangers might lurk beneath public smiles.
She closed her burning eyes, tried to banish the sudden tightening in her throat as her mind filled with the image of Niall, so tall, so strong, so honorable, riding into the gates of the fortress she could only imagine, a warrior like those in the legends the abbess had told her what seemed a lifetime ago.
Always, the hero had won honor, immortality, yet sometimes at the cost of his life. She did not want to spend the rest of her life with her bed cold, her womb aching with emptiness, listening to bards string golden phrases into a hero crown for her beloved to wear. She wanted Niall in her arms, wanted his laughter and his anger, his tenderness and his uncertainty, not praises of his courage charging into danger alone.
But he was not alone. Declan rode at his side, trustworthy, brave, believing that Niall would regain his inheritance—a name he need not be ashamed of. The castle he dreamed of rising up from ruins. The life he had been destined to livebefore his father had given violent rein to his dark obsession for another woman. Before tragedy had flooded every corner of the land he loved. Before his family had been shattered, his sister turning wild with rebellion, his mother retreating into a gentle madness.
Aye, it was a grand quest he had set out upon, Caitlin knew. The one hope they all had—Fiona and Aniera, Niall and Caitlin herself—of building a home, creating the kind of life most people took for granted. Simple joys. Simple pleasures.
If only she could bear the nights! They stretched to forever without him. Caitlin rubbed her palms against her opposite arms, trying to chafe out some of the wildness that pulsed through her veins. Her whole body burned with feverish need, her spirit so restless it was driving her mad. The uncertainty was the worst torture. Yet Niall had vowed he would not fail them, had he not? He swore he would ride back into Daire's castle yard, safe, triumphant.
But she did not care about triumph or glory. She only wanted to be with him. Banish the emptiness that left her aching.
Strangest of all, she did not care if he were being greeted even now as Declan predicted, with a welcome Cuchulain would envy. She wishedshe could snatch him away from Glenfluirse. Out of the grasp of his chieftain, the lavishness of his old home, the lure of his old life.
