THE NEXT EVENING, BANN stood waiting at the top of the stairs at Hugh and Ann’s house. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, ordering his heart to cease careening from one side of his chest to the other.
From the living room, he could hear the murmur of voices from the clan packed in there like a pub in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day. Another crowd, louder and more boisterous, and all of them women of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, milled about in the entryway below him. Catcalls and hoots, and a few shouts of show us what you’re wearing under there filled the air. His face warmed when he thought about running that gauntlet in a few minutes.
He looked down at himself, certain he looked as ridiculous as he felt. Made of soft buckskin, the kilt was stained a rich brown, the same shade as his hair, and was tooled with a running Celtic rope pattern around the hem, which ended just above his knees. It was held in place by a wide belt around his waist, and he was weaponless. Lace-up workman boots completed the look. He wore a simple white shirt in a linen so fine, it felt like silk on his skin.
Reaching up to straighten his torc for the sixth time, he paused at a sudden commotion amongst the women. Gideon Lir walked out of the living room, his black hair and broad shoulders an anomaly amongst the redheaded Doyle women. He made his way through the crowd to the bottom of the steps, pausing with a faint smile and remark each time a woman or two would block him and challenge his right to be in their midst. Even from the upper level, Bann caught the good-natured, but ribald exchanges between the Black Hand and the women. The phrase “Gideon’s Spear” was used more than once. He was grateful Cor had dashed to the bathroom for a last-minute nervous piss.
Finally breaking free, Gideon jogged the steps with a wry expression. He wore black jeans and a black vest over a white shirt, and his torc gleamed through his open collar. His antler-hafted knife adorned his belt and he carried a long, cloth-wrapped object in one hand. Joining Bann in the upper corridor, he shook his head.
“I do not envy you. They are in fine fettle this evening.” He glanced around. “Where’s your son?”
“Bathroom.”
“Ah. Well, ’twill be a minute more, anyway.”
“Right. And I want to thank you again, Lir. I have Cor, but it didn’t seem enough.”
“Why, the honor is mine, to stand family with the long-son of our King on his wedding day.” He hesitated, then spoke again. “Speaking of Cor, I must thank him later, as well.”
“For what?”
“He has helped me come to a decision that I’ve been pondering for some time. I’ve been asked to take on an apprentice by the MacCullen family. One of their nephews—Finnegan MacCullen. I was going to decline, but now…” He lifted a shoulder. “Mayhap it is time to let go of the past and embrace the future.”
Before Bann could ask what the Knight meant, Cor came trotting along the hallway. Looking years older in a blue dress shirt and dark slacks, and with his hair neatly combed—a surprise in itself—he beamed at the sight of the older Knight.
“Cormac Boru.” Gideon greeted the boy, his face softening. “A pleasure to see you again. Are you ready to do your part?”
“Yes, sir.” Cor smiled and held out both hands, palms up.
Unwrapping the object he carried, Gideon revealed Bann’s bronze knife, the one he had given to Isobel, still flecked with his dried blood. Gideon laid it across Cor’s hands. “Mind the blade now. ’Tis sharp.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Side by side, he and Cor took a stance in front of Bann. At that moment, the voices below quieted as the women all turned toward the living room.
Ann appeared in the doorway. She wore an emerald-green cocktail dress. It shimmered when she moved, revealing a subtle Celtic pattern woven into the silk. Speaking in Gaelic, she called out the traditional words. “Knight of the Tuatha Dé Danaan! Your bride awaits. Claim her if you dare.” The women cheered and whistled. Before returning to the living room, Ann blew a kiss to Bann, who smiled back.
“I’ll see to it that Cor is in the other room in time,” Gideon said in a low voice over his shoulder, with a meaningful look at the mob shifting closer to the bottom tread.
Bann nodded his thanks. He watched with pride as Cor, with the older Knight matching the boy’s shorter stride, walked down the stairs. He smiled as the man snagged the back of Cor’s shirt when the boy took a misstep. Once the two had reached the bottom—the crowd reluctantly letting them through—Bann licked his lips, mouth dry. What would I give for a cold pint right now? In a pub. Preferably in Ireland. On its eastern coast. He took another deep breath and started down.
The women surged around him even before he reached the last step. Resisting only a little, he allowed them to pull him into their midst. He kept moving, forcing his way as best he could without being too aggressive. The crowd tightened around him. He halted when the women closed ranks and separated him from Gideon and Cor.
“Not so fast, Knight.” One woman slapped a hand to his chest and kept it there, her palm pressed against his pectoral muscle. “How do we know you’re worthy?” She waggled her eyebrows, daring him. “After all, marrying our Healer, who is also a fellow shield-maiden, is a pretty big task. How do we know you’re up to it?”
Bann played along. A tiny part of him—okay, more than a tiny part—enjoyed it. “And which of you is bold enough to find out?”
“Oooh, a challenge.” The woman looked around. “What do you say, sisters? Shall we?”
Hands ran down his body, a few bolder ones fondling his buttocks or brushing their palms against his manhood through the leather kilt. Fingers rumpled his hair, and one brave young woman brushed her lips along his before darting away. She collapsed into a pack of her friends, giggling like mad. Over the heads of the women, Bann noted in relief that Gideon, true to his word, had disappeared with Cor into the living room. Good. The boy doesn’t need to see what comes next.
The hands became bolder. One pair began unbuttoning his shirt while another fumbled with his belt. Two others worked in unison and unwound his kilt. Bann kept his eyes focused on the beam over the living room door. The conversation he had had with Shay the night before as they lay in bed, not having sex in the worst way, ran through his head.
“So, you didn’t do the Reveal when you married Elizabeth?” Shay had asked, fingers playing with his chest hairs in a way that made him want to punch himself for suggesting the whole “let’s wait for our wedding night” stupidity.
“No. She thought it was barbaric, to use her words, for the man to have to demonstrate that he had a healthy body to bring to the marriage bed.”
“Barbaric is not the word I would use to describe it,” Shay had said, amusement coloring her voice. “It’s more…Chippendales than anything.”
A singular wit, she has, he thought, as the hands continued. Within less than a minute, his clothes lay in a pile at his feet. The women all eased back a step and took their time looking.
Standing naked except for his torc and boots, Bann kept his chin up as he fought to control his blush. And to control his body’s reaction to having a group of strong, beautiful women eyeing him. They looked up and down his body, many of them commenting to their neighbors. He was grateful that Jenny and Ann had decided not to join in the Reveal.
“Ann and I will wait in the living room with Shay and Isobel,” Jenny had said last night when they were gathered together to walk through the ceremony. “It would just be too awkward.”
“Why would it be awkward?” Ann had asked.
Jenny blinked. “Because Bann is going to be my brother-by-law. Family. It would be kind of…indecent… to see him naked and being groped by a bunch of women, don’t you think?”
“Well…”
Jenny’s eyes widened. “Wait. You’re not thinking of being part of that, are you, Ann?”
Bann couldn’t help laughing when Ann had muttered, “Well, I’m not now. And thanks for making me feel like a dirty old woman.”
“Nice. Very nice,” one of the younger Knights was saying. “A bit scarred up, though.”
“I like a man with a few battle scars,” another declared. “It means he knows which end of his weapon to use.” She accepted the applause with a broad grin. “Thank you, thank you.”
Another Knight, about Bann’s age and wearing a ring similar to Shay’s on her own left hand, swaggered closer, eyes twinkling with mischief. She wetted the tip of a finger with her tongue, then reached for his manhood.
Breathing through his nose, Bann clenched his teeth as the moist finger stroked his member. Really? he thought to the perfidious part of his body when it swelled. You couldn’t have simply hung there? Disinterested?
“Now, that’s what I am talking about,” said the woman over her friends’ cheers.
“Satisfied, are you?” Bann asked dryly.
“Sadly, no.” The woman stepped back. “But I bet Shay will be.” More cheers. “Speaking of Shay, we better get on with this.”
Picking up his clothes, they helped him dress. One of them brought him a leather sheath to attach to his belt. It was empty, awaiting the return of his knife. Tugging his shirt smooth, he tucked it in neatly, then raked his fingers through his hair, trying not to look like he had just been felt up by a bunch of women. And took no pleasure from it. No, not one wee bit. As the women filed into the living room, he waited, still buzzing from the testosterone rush and mighty grateful for the brief respite. Then, he followed.
The rest of the clan and their guests were packed elbow to elbow and two rows deep around the perimeter of the large room, leaving an open space in the center. The crowd shifted to accommodate the newest arrivals. As Bann paused in the doorway, he spotted Gideon in the front row with a grinning Cor, who still held Bann’s knife. Nearby, Hugh waited with Rory and James, who wielded a professional and very expensive-looking camera. He snapped a picture of Gideon and Cor before swiveling for a shot of Bann.
Flames danced in the fireplace, blessing the gathering with the aroma of burning pine, complementing the faint whiff of lavender and cloves from scented candles scattered about. In front of the fireplace, Orwren O’Siobhan presided, dressed in her white robe with the hood thrown back. A wreath of delicate vines encircled her head.
On the druidess’s right hand, Jenny, elf-maiden slender in a fitted gown of pale yellow, held a drinking horn from a large bull in her hands. Next to Jenny, Isobel, in a royal blue dress, stood with her sister-by-law, both beaming and teary-eyed.
But all Bann could really see was Shay, waiting for him.
She wore a long sleeveless dress that accentuated her graceful body. Its color was the exact shade as her hair, which she wore free and flowing around her shoulders at his request. Unlike Bann’s, her feet were maiden-bare, as was the custom. He knew from the rehearsal last night that she bore a knife in an ankle sheath under her gown. Her face, radiant with life and love, glowed like the gold in Bann’s torc when their eyes met.
At a quiet word from Orwren, Shay walked slowly toward Bann, just as he stepped toward her. They met in the center of the circle, the center of their families, albeit in Bann’s case, a small one.
Clasping her hands in his, he stared at her in wonder. “Ye’re too beautiful for words, mo chara.”
“You’re not too shabby yourself, mo shíorghrá.” She squeezed his hands. “You ready for this?”
“Faugh a ballagh.”
Laughing, they walked back to the druidess and bowed their heads briefly before letting go and turning, Shay to Jenny and Bann to Cor. As Shay took the drinking horn from her sister-by-law, Bann held out his hand for his knife. He noted with pride that Cor offered it hilt first.
“Thank you.” On impulse, he leaned over and pressed his forehead against his son’s. A low murmur swept the circle when Cor stood on tiptoe to meet him, one hand holding his father’s arm for balance. “I love you, son.”
“I love you, too, Dad,” Cor whispered.
He heard a few sniffles, and not just from the women, as he returned to Shay. They faced each other. Then, at another signal from the druidess, Bann raised the knife and pointed it upward. Shay lifted the horn in a silent salute, then lowered it to waist-height and held it before her with both hands. In a measured gesture, Bann lowered the blade and dipped it into the horn, guiding it as deep as it could go. He held it there for a moment, then pulled it out.
Wine the color of blood dripped from the weapon. Taking a wide cloth ribbon, as white as the druidess’s robe, from Orwren, he wiped the blade clean, spreading the wine and whatever flecks of his blood were left over as much of the cloth as he could. Weapon clean, he thrust it into his empty sheath and handed the cloth to Orwren.
She waved it back and forth a few times, allowing the air to dry it. Then, she spoke. “We are gathered as the people of Danu,” she said, looking around the circle, “to witness the handfasting of this man and this woman.” She motioned to Bann and Shay. “Please take each other by the right hand.” She wrapped the cloth around and around Bann and Shay’s joined hands, and then continued. “Repeat after me: ‘You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself. But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give. You cannot command me, for I am a free person. I pledge to you that it will be your eyes into which I smile every morning. I pledge to you my living and my dying, each equally in your care. I shall be a shield for your back, and you for mine. I shall not slander you, nor you me. I shall honor you above all others, and when we quarrel, we shall do so in private and tell no strangers our grievances. This is my wedding vow to you. This is the marriage of equals.’”
“These promises,” Orwren intoned when Bann and Shay finished speaking, “you make by the sun and the moon, by fire and water, by day and night, by land and sea and sky. With these vows you swear, by the Goddess, to be full partners, each to the other. If one drops the load, the other will pick it up. You will both work to keep the oath you pledge today in the knowledge that you have the support of your many loved ones.”
With that, Bann and Shay turned around and raised their joined hands over their heads, showing them to the audience, then back to Orwren.
She reached over to unwind the ribbon. “We now unbind you two in token that you will remain together of your own free will.” Finished, she handed it to Shay. “To wrap about the swaddling clothes of your first-born child.”
“Cor?” Shay gestured to the boy, who hesitated. A gentle nudge from Gideon got his feet moving. The boy joined them, his cheeks pink from both the attention and the symbolism. He stood his ground, however, when Shay knotted the ends of the handfasting ribbon together and slipped the loose noose around Cor’s neck. It hung past his waist. After a kiss from Shay, he stepped back to his place.
Orwren lifted her hands in blessing, taking in not only Shay and Bann, but the entire Doyle clan and their guests. “May the Goddess, from whom we sprang, sanctify this union.” She lowered her arms. “Now embrace the blessed couple.”
Cheers deafened Bann as the clan surged forward, all eager to be the first to congratulate the bride and groom. James circled around, his camera clicking and flashing. After ten minutes of steady handshaking, back pounding, and not a few kisses bestowed upon Shay by all of the younger Knights—and most of the older Knights—he turned when fingers plucked his elbow.
“I’d like a chance to greet my son-by-law,” said a voice behind him.
“Isobel.” Bann took both her hands in his and squeezed them gently.
“What? No hug?” She smiled. “I wasn’t that daunting earlier, was I?”
Well, yes. A bit. “Why, no, not at all,” he said, hugging her.
“Liar.” She laughed, then turned to embrace her daughter. “You couldn’t look more stunning.”
“Thanks, Mom. Probably be the last time you see me this dressed up.” Shay peered past her mother toward the dining room. “I’m starving. Do you think the buffet is ready? I was so busy getting ready, I never ate lunch.”
“Take your husband,” Isobel pushed the two of them toward the dining room, “and go get a plate. Shoo, before all the lobster rolls are gone.”
“Husband.” That has a right fine ring to it, Bann thought.
Drinks and food and music filled his head for the next several hours, as well as the warmth of Shay’s hand in his or her arm around his waist. At one point, he looked for Cor. Before he could ask, Shay spoke.
“He and Neill are in the upstairs den watching a movie and keeping Sam company. Since Cor is spending the night here, I told them they could camp out up there.” She chuckled. “I don’t know what he was more excited about—our wedding, or doing a boys-only sleepover.”
“A grand idea.” He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “Say, would you like to come sleep over with me? Right now? We could slip out the door and no one would be the wiser.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Gideon pulling James and Rory to one side and speaking in a low tone. As the cousins disappeared, the Black Hand nodded once at Bann.
“I don’t have any shoes on.” Shay stuck out her foot and wiggled it. “How am I supposed to get to the truck without—Oh!” She squeaked in delight when Bann scooped her up. Laughing, she twined her arms around his neck. “Giddyup!”
The Tuatha Dé Danaan closest to them cheered, which brought the others running. As the crowd spilled out the door and filled the porch, clapping and shouting, Bann marched past with Shay in his arms. He walked carefully down the snowy steps and over to his truck, which was waiting for them, the motor running and the doors flung open. Nearby, Rory and James were grinning.
“Mind your head, darlin’,” Bann said as he set her down in the passenger side. As he sprinted around the vehicle, acutely aware of just how drafty a kilt actually was, especially on a cold winter night, a boyish voice shouted for him. He looked back.
Cor was standing on the top step of the porch, jumping up and down as he waved with both arms. “’Bye, Dad! ‘Bye, Shay!” The crowd burst into laughter when he added, “Codladh sumh!”