AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Though she envies me a little on that score, she wishes us vigorous mating.”
He stared at her, then breathed out. “I’m wiping this entire part of things from my mind and leaving.”
When he strode out as he’d strode in, she smiled. She hadn’t known he could be embarrassed by anything.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They had the family meal and spoke of all the serious matters.
“In a child’s book.” Tarryn studied her wine as she spoke. “And not, as we believe or can find, in another. In the old tongue as well. And yet, I believe as you, Keegan, it has the ring of truth. A loud, clear bell.”
“I’m with you on that.” Mahon nodded. “There are countless tales of the gods having their way with others, of their own, the Fey, from the world of man and beyond. Even taking lives, though always with the cover of war or some justification.”
“It was my sense that the blood sacrifice and cannibalism crossed the line,” Breen put in, “and was enough to have him cast out.”
“So it’s been told,” Tarryn agreed, “and yet, you yourself saw the demon in him. And you say, and Marg confirms, he had a mark here.” She touched a finger to her heart. “This he doesn’t hide, or can’t.”
“Can’t, it says to me. He is vain,” Keegan pointed out. “Carrying a mark or scar? It’s not perfection. If you follow it through, the gods cast him out, but also marked him. A mark of a demon, the mark of the beast.”
“What does this tell us? It’s a weakness.” Thoughtful, Tarryn lifted her glass. “This mark he can’t hide even with his power, with Yseult’s. You’ve read the story?”
“I have, and can say it goes as Breen told me, as was told to her.”
“I’ll read it before Dorcas has it back.”
“It’s in the old tongue.”
Her eyebrows winged high. “And who taught you the first words of it? I’ll read it. You’ll speak to the council of it?”
“I don’t see a way around it, but early morning. We go west no later than midday.”
“I’ll bring it to the council, then take it safe back to Dorcas.”
“Wading through the scribbles and scratches of the story is task enough, Ma. I’ll send someone to take it.”
“I’ll take it,” she insisted, “and take a basket of sweets and a good wine.”
“That’s what Sinead said to do.”
With a laugh, Tarryn turned to Breen. “As both of us learned after suffering too many of her biscuits. It will please her, Keegan, that the hand of the taoiseach pays the call. The duty’s mine. It was good of you to visit with her, Breen.”
“Well worth it, for the story and the book. And she’s actually fascinating.” Because she couldn’t help herself, she related the sexual connection.
“Must you?” Keegan demanded as his mother roared with laughter. “Did you know of this?” he asked Tarryn.
“How would I? Well before my time, I’d say. If I remember the tree branches well enough, I think there were Owains on my branches as well as your da’s. So I can’t say which side of things gave her this… vigorous night, and surely a century ago if a day.”
“How old is she?” Breen wondered.
“Ah, she’s coy about it, but I’d say easily half through her second century. She chose to have no child,” Tarryn went on as Breen boggled at the idea she’d sat with someone who might be a hundred and fifty. Or more. “She preferred her studies and her cats. But it’s well known she took many lovers, so it’s not surprising one might have been a family connection.”
“He left her a rosebud when he left.”
“A romantic as well.” Tarryn sighed, then gave Keegan a poke in the arm. “Take a lesson.”
“I’ll vow if I have a vigorous night with Dorcas the Scholar to leave a rosebud behind.”
“I feel I should say—confess? Inform,” Mahon decided. “It’s toldin my family my own grandfather, when young and still untried in the ways of… romance, we’ll say in polite company, had—by the accounts—a full three nights with Dorcas the Scholar. She’d have been aged enough to have been his grandmother, most likely, at the time of the lessons. It’s said she took him to instruct him on the ways of pleasuring a woman. According to my grandmother, she’s a fine teacher.”
