They were indeed the last to arrive. Liam fought not to curse out loud. He hadn’t meant to be so late, but the practice had gone so well, the teams streaming up and down the field like a mad, noisy ballet that excluded all thought and regret, that he’d been loathe to leave. In fact, except for Faolán, he’d been the last off the field.
It had been Faolán who reminded him that bathing might not come amiss, both for his wife’s benefit and for the king’s. Liam had been dunking himself in the stream when he’d seen the last of the village stragglers passing on their way to the hall.
And then he’d seen his wife. Head up, stride purposeful, as dignified as a priestess on her way to ritual as she’d deliberately put one foot in front of the other on her way to the hall. Alone. Not one of his acquaintances, it seemed, had offered to accompany her. Even her husband.
For a harsh moment Liam had hurt for her. He’d been beset by the guilt of his own selfishness. He knew good and well how the village would have greeted her. He knew that without his support, she would remain a suspected outsider. And he’d come within moments of condemning her to presenting herself to the king alone.
“You will make your bow to the king as we enter,” he said, his hand stiff around her even stiffer elbow. “He will undoubtedly question you a bit. Try to be polite.”
She stopped so fast she all but yanked him off his feet. “Are we about to begin this again, lordling?” she asked, her voice deadly quiet.
Liam found himself staring.
“For the second time in as many minutes,” she said, “you have insulted not only me but my mother the queen by insinuating I know not how to behave in court. Insult me at your pleasure. I can do nothing to stop you. But insult my mother again, and I promise I will mete out judgment on you that will merit mention in the history of the Dubhlainn Sidhe for centuries to come.”
Again he fought that instinctive flush of pride in her. Caught alone in a strange and alien land with a husband who had been at best curt with her, she could still stand up to him. And not for herself, though she most certainly deserved it. For her lady mother.
He surrendered and offered her a genuine bow of respect. “You shame me with the truth, lady. I apologize sincerely. I can only blame my words on my own feeling of dislocation since the king bade me to marry.”
For a long moment she just stood there, her eyes dark, her brow creased in a frown that only made him want to ease it with his hands. Or his mouth. Finally, though, she nodded and turned back toward the hall.
“Thank you, husband,” she said. “It was a gracious apology. I think it would behoove us to at least maintain a semblance of civility before your court and king. They need none of our personal business before them.”
“No more than they already have?” he asked, actually grinning a bit.
She flashed him an answering grin. “Ah, well, I have a feeling that for a Stone Keeper, Eibhear isn’t as good at keeping the secrets that don’t affect his position as my sister Sorcha.”
“Eibhear is an old woman with his gossip,” he assured her. “But for all that, he’s harmless.”
“And a good friend.”
“Better than your husband, certain.”
“He doesn’t sacrifice as much as my husband,” she said.
He was sure he needed to answer that, but they had reached the doors of the hall. Two of the house guard snapped to attention and pulled the doors open. Liam heard Orla draw an uncertain breath, and he gave her elbow a gentle squeeze.
“If there is a quality you don’t lack, wife,” he said quietly as he stepped over the threshold with her, “it’s courage. It won’t fail you now.”
He caught the look of astonishment she shot him before facing forward again, and almost smiled. Was she so unused to kindness, then?
Or only from him?
“Well, then, Liam the Protector,” his king greeted them from the high dais. “You have brought me a new addition to our family, have you?”
The aisle was long to the front of the hall, the tables full with fairies and elves and all manner of beings who passed back and forth across the borders. Liam gave Orla credit for not stumbling to a halt in astonishment at the sight of some of them. Gremlins sat alongside satyrs, who supped with green-skinned scalewyngs, and more than one pukka nibbled at whatever their current form demanded. All paused in meal and conversation to watch the protector guide his bride down the hall to greet the king.
“I beg your permission to make known to you my wife, lord.” Liam spoke in the most ringing tones he could.
His voice echoed up among the high branches of the woven trees that made up the hall. Tucked in among the leaves that formed the canopy, tiny flower fairies hovered with the sprites to get a better view. Stately marching fairies stilled in their seats and puckish brownies peeked around the benches. Orla’s reception here in his land would depend on what happened in the next few minutes.
Seated at his high table among his high court, Cathal the King wore no more than a simple bronze circlet for his crown, even though the Coilin Stone rested in his vaults.
Rested. Not the right word for the Coilin Stone, sure. Throbbed, hummed, pulsated with a crimson energy that made a fairy want to claim nations and conquer all. It radiated strength and purpose and invincibility, and Liam understood why the gods had kept it in a woman’s crown. Sure, it burned the hands with its energy merely when held, and didn’t he know it too well. Even so, he longed to see it in the crown of the Dubhlainn Sidhe, who had too long been without a power stone of any kind.
The king, for now, didn’t seem to agree.
“Approach, nephew,” Cathal intoned in the prescribed manner.
Liam guided his wife to the front of the hall and bowed low to his king. Before he could cue her, Orla detached her arm from his hand and dropped into the most graceful full court curtsy Liam had ever witnessed. Head down, skirt spread, hands tipped in a salute of impeccable grace.
“Your grace, may I present Orla, daughter of Mab, high Queen of the Tuatha de Dannan,” Liam said, announcing her name to the farthest corners of the hall so all would hear his pride.
He heard the rush of whispers behind him. He saw delight spark in his uncle’s quiet eyes. In the alcove, the harpist halted midtune. In an unprecedented move, the king rose from his seat behind the great table and came around to personally lift Orla to her feet.
“Rise, daughter of the Tuatha,” he greeted her. “You honor us with your salute.”
“I’ve heard much of you, King of the Dubhlainn Sidhe,” Orla said, her voice gentle and respectful.
If Liam hadn’t known her well already, he would have looked more closely to make sure it was still she. She was smiling on his uncle with an instinctive dignity that betrayed, more than anything, her rightful place in court.
His uncle smiled down at her and gave her his hand. “Come sit with an old man and tell him stories of your people, girl.”
She dipped her head and put her hand atop his. “It would be my honor, my lord.”
As they passed, the king turned to flash Liam a dry smile. “And you, Liam the Protector. Since you decided to present yourself to us before the great doors were locked for the meal, you may join us, as well. Especially since you’ve brought us such a pretty gift.”
Behind him, the inhabitants of the hall went back to their meal. The court harpist plucked at his strings, and the air fairies went back to tumbling through the rafters. Liam stepped up to the high table and seated himself alongside his wife.
It was undoubtedly a mistake. Just her proximity was interfering with his temperature. He could smell the seductive, earthy scent of her, and he wanted to drop his face in her neck. Good thing the table was before him, he thought, gritting his teeth against his body’s now predictable reaction. No one needed to know how he was beginning to crave his own wife.
He just wished he didn’t know.
“I thank you for sacrificing your own stones and colors to come to us,” his uncle was saying to her. “I hope you will find a true home among your husband’s people, and that they will welcome you as fully as I do.”
“I look forward to discovering my steps among them.”
“And I will begin by making you known, if I may, to my own son, Owain, and his lady, Aifric.”
Greetings were exchanged, although Aifric kept her eyes down and her voice so quiet it was scarce heard.
“It is on a bright day you join us, Orla of the Tuatha,” the king said, reaching past his son to touch Aifric’s hand. “For hasn’t our dear daughter Aifric gained her place at the high table this very day by bestowing an heir on her husband?”
Liam saw his own wife’s eyebrow rise at the statement and hoped she could keep her silence.
He shouldn’t have worried. Not at the king’s high table, anyway.
“Greetings,” she greeted her new kinswoman. “Felicitations on your joyous day. Is your child named yet?”
“He is, of course, Cathal the Younger, after his grandsire,” the princess answered, eyes down.
Orla nodded. “A great name, then. Sure, I can’t wait to meet him. Is all your time his, then?”
“I am the weaver,” Aifric said, eyes still down. “A small skill, but one I cherish.”
Orla stiffened again, but she merely nodded with a bland smile. “I see.”
“Has Eibhear said when you will receive your new colors?” the king asked her.
Orla took hold of a goblet of mead in her slim, elegant hands and lifted it to her mouth. Liam couldn’t take his eyes from her.
“Ah, no,” she admitted. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be finding out what other gifts the goddess—and god—have given me. Eibhear and I decided it would be less than appropriate for the wife of the king’s nephew to continue her life as leannan sidhe.”
Cathal laughed. “If I know my nephew, sure, you won’t have the time for it. But what else are you known for? Music? Poetry? Teaching?”
She squirmed just a bit in her seat. “I’m afraid you’d be badly used if you asked for music from me, lord. It’s been said in my own hall that rats scatter at the sound. As for poetry, I’ve never had time. And no inclination for teaching.”
“What else is there for a woman?” someone asked farther down the table.
Now there was no question at all. Liam definitely felt his wife stiffen. “Why, anything, I’d think,” she said. “I imagine once I’ve tried everything I’ll be able to choose.”
Again the conversation stopped.
“Everything?” a woman asked in a hush.
Orla turned to Liam, as if checking her sense of reality. “Well, yes. Isn’t that the way it’s done here?”
“It is not,” the king said quietly. “But then, my nephew will help you understand. We of the Dubhlainn Sidhe protect our women from the harsher tasks of life.”
Ah, by the light of Lugh, Liam knew things were about to get sticky.
“Like what, exactly?” his wife was asking.
“And isn’t that a lesson her husband should be giving her?” Liam asked, knowing perfectly well he was drawing her ire. Better him than the king, after all.
She swung her hot eyes on him, and he lifted a telling eyebrow. Don’t ignore me, he wanted to say. I’m trying to protect you.
Amazingly enough, she seemed to understand.
“And it will be a lesson I’d very much like to hear,” was all she said, although sure, didn’t he hear an awful lot more?
“And you will, wife,” he acknowledged.
“What about healing?” another of the court ladies asked. “We could always use help for our bean tighe.”
Orla’s reaction was fleeting, but definite. “Ah, no,” she said with a definite shake of her head. “I doubt it.”
“Enough,” the king said. “Such a discussion can wait for quieter moments. For now, we have court business to attend.” And with that, he took his glass and rose to his feet. “First, I call on you of the Dubhlainn Sidhe to see here at the high table Aifric, wife of Owain, who has earned her place here with her deliverance of a son for the clan of the Dubhlainn Sidhe. I give her praise!”
Liam joined in the cheering, just as he’d always done. This time, though, he felt his wife’s distress alongside him and wondered why he didn’t feel the same pride as before. Another warrior for the clan. A man-child. The highest achievement a woman could claim. And yet his new wife clapped only politely as the hall thundered with foot-stomping and yells.
“Second,” the King said, still smiling, “I give welcome to Orla, daughter of Mab, wife of my most beloved nephew, Liam, Leader of the Coimirceoiri. I ask all to rise and join me.”
The king gave Orla an avuncular smile. “May she follow her new kinswoman’s example and bear him many braw sons to follow in his way, and gentle daughters to comfort him as he grows old.”
Liam saw that his wife was not quite enamored of the toast, but she kept her silence. He could just imagine what she would say to him later. Even so, he got to his own feet, silver goblet in hand. Mimicking his uncle, so all could see it, he turned to his wife and lifted his goblet toward her.
With an untidy shuffling of chairs, feet and wings, the rest of the hall followed suit, although not as quickly or as enthusiastically. They wouldn’t, he knew. Not till enough time had passed that they could greet Orla not as a stranger from a warring clan, but as a neighbor. As close-knit as the Dubhlainn Sidhe were, though, even that might not ever happen. In the meantime, she would have to rely on him.
Mallacht. Why was just the thought of it enough to take his patience?
She was turning to look up at him. To seek some kind of emotional reinforcement, he thought. Comfort. Just the idea panicked him. Instead of meeting her gaze, he deliberately turned to the hall.
He knew he was being craven, but he was suddenly feeling trapped again. Backed into a corner by the demands of politics and family, and chained by their expectations to a woman of neither peace nor gentleness.
If only she had been either, he could have incorporated her seamlessly into his life. In truth, he could have bedded her and forgotten her, her impact on his life so slight as to leave little impression. He would have left her to the women and gone on with his man’s life.
Not so of Orla of the house of Mab. Like one of those rockets the mortals so loved to shoot off to celebrate their new year, she destroyed the silence and refused to keep to her place in the shadows. Even in her mud-brown robes and bare silver rings, she exuded a sensuality and life the likes of which he hadn’t seen in his land in his memory. A bright, exotic, alien bird who carried the price of madness with her.
And he resented it. Even as he knew it wasn’t her fault. Even as he knew she was braver than he’d expected, stronger than he’d hoped. But to survive here, she would need him. And he didn’t want her to need him. He didn’t want anyone to need him.
Not anymore.
“Do you drink the toast, husband?” she asked too quietly for anyone else to hear.
Liam shot her an annoyed look before lifting the cup to his lips. It would have been inexcusable to insult her in public by not drinking. It was more inexcusable, however, for her to remind him, and it set off his temper again, which was short enough on its own these days.
But he held himself still. He smiled and drained his cup, just as his uncle the king had done, and set it down on the linen tablecloth. And when it was filled again, he made his own toast.
“To my new wife,” he said, lifting his cup, “who has promised to honor me until the day we leave for the West.”
It was a direct challenge, but he couldn’t help it. If she didn’t understand her role here and now, would she ever?
Evidently not. For she rose to her feet right alongside him and lifted her own cup. She didn’t seem to so much as notice the gasp of disbelief from the hall, or acknowledge the sudden frown from the king.
“To my new husband,” she said, lifting her cup in his direction, “who has promised the same.”
From the front table, Faolán let loose a bark of laughter. From farther back, one of the women tsked, an impatient, pejorative sound. Liam could almost hear her thoughts. Pushy little thing. Who does she think she is?
She thinks she’s the daughter of a queen, he almost said out loud. The problem was, that didn’t help her a bit here in the land of Lugh. In fact, he would have to say it was already proving to be a serious disadvantage.
He said nothing, though, simply drained his cup again and reclaimed his seat. Alongside him, his wife did the same.
“Are you sure you don’t want to offer the court some music?” he asked as the food was presented.
“As sure as I’m thinking you don’t want to lose your digestion.”
He looked over, expecting to see humor in her eyes. Oddly enough, he caught a hint of bleakness.
Why? he wondered.
It didn’t matter. He had no intention of delving into her character when that knowledge wasn’t a need of any kind for good bedding, as they’d already proved. As he fully planned to prove again, and soon. There should, after all, be some benefits to this arrangement.
Just the thought had him hard as a rock. No one knew, though, but him.
And his wife. He knew she turned to him. He knew she saw the images in her mind of the earthquake they’d caused already and would again when they came together. He refused to acknowledge it. Instead, as if what was coming wasn’t the only thing on his mind, he turned to the fairy on his other side and struck up a conversation. Orla was left to her wine and food, and the silence of his indifference.
She would murder him. She would take a horsewhip to him and tear nice long strips from his skin to weave a purse from. She would tie him naked to the tallest tree in his village and leave him there for the women to find so they could see him humiliated.
She reached for her wine, but her hand shook too much. She refused to let anyone in this cold, unfriendly hall know how sharply he’d cut her. How, even though he’d stepped into her mind to taunt her with the lovemaking she could expect later that night, he’d turned away as if it was beneath his notice.
As if she was beneath his notice.
It was hard enough facing all those unfriendly faces in the crowd. Even the king’s words hadn’t eased any of the expressions she saw. Her husband’s toast, that goad to put her firmly in her place, had made things worse. How could she do aught but challenge him right back?
And it had set her even further apart from the people she would have to rely on for the rest of her long life. Sure, she didn’t think there would be a woman in this benighted world who would seek her out now.
As if that mattered. After all, what would she have to say to them, anyway? What kind of world was it that kept women from sharing the work of their own lives? Protecting them indeed. As if beings who gave birth and attended to the rituals of death were too fragile to face fear. As if they had nothing to offer but their wombs. And as if the only gift worth carrying there was a boy child.
Bah! Her mother had raised her better altogether.
Even so, she had to admit that her stomach crawled when she saw some of the guests in the hall tonight. She hadn’t been certain when she’d walked in alongside her husband, but sure, weren’t those gremlins sitting to the side? And, faith, was that a satyr? She swore she could see the hairy legs on him, and it was sure as Samhain he was leering at the blushing girl across the table from him.
What kind of place was this, where the inhabitants broke bread with such creatures? And what was she to do about it?
She wanted to rub at her forehead where her tension lived. She couldn’t so much as fart in front of this crowd. She’d never been one for court etiquette. It had always seemed such a monumental waste of good time. But it had never felt so stultifying as it did now, when she didn’t even have her sisters to talk to. The king was speaking to Eibhear, and Liam was talking to anyone in the room but her. If this was what their lives were to be, she wished he hadn’t wasted his time being kind out on the steps of the hall. He’d apologized, and she’d believed he’d been sincere. She should have known better.
Sure, she hoped he didn’t think he would actually live out any of those fantasies he’d planted in her head anytime soon. She would meet his next foray into lovemaking with an elven knife if he didn’t remember soon how valuable a little sweetness was to his wife.
“If I may say so,” a voice said in front of her, “he had no business taking so long bringing you here for us to fawn over.”
Surprised, Orla looked down to see a handsome, redheaded fairy in attire similar to Liam’s standing in front of the high table.
“He said he was doing man’s work,” was all she could think to say.
“If that means he spent the afternoon swinging across a hurling field like a young god, then he was, for sure.”
Orla’s smoldering temper flared. “Ah,” she said, her voice dust dry, her expression rigidly neutral. “Hurling. Of course. I was wondering what would have demanded a dunking in the stream. Oddly enough, I thought it might have been real work.”
“Ah, now, don’t be fooled,” the fairy said with a wide, easy grin. “That dunking was your fault altogether. If he hadn’t taken the precaution, sure his own king would have recognized the lust on him.”
“You can take yourself off anytime now, Faolán,” Liam said suddenly.
“Ah, so it’s your attention we have now, is it?” Orla asked gently. “Grand. You can be telling me, then, how a game of hurling protects us from all the enemies your people have amassed.”
She took a bit of grim satisfaction in his quick flush of discomfort. “I don’t think you’d understand,” he accused.
“I didn’t think you cared. But since we’re about it, I’d like to ask your friend where it is the women play.”
Even the redhead looked taken back. “Hurling?”
“Camorgie,” she said, for wasn’t it the same thing, but with the lighter stick for the women? “Sure, you can’t mean to tell me that the women here don’t play at all.”
“He certainly can,” Liam said. “Who do you think we are, to risk our women like that?”
“Ah, good,” Orla said, clenching her fists to keep herself from rubbing her forehead. “And here I thought we might have run out of things to brangle over.”
“There’ll be no brangling,” her husband warned.
“Careful, husband,” she warned right back. “I’d think you wouldn’t want to throw down so public a gauntlet on your first day of married life.”
Their first day. Orla felt as if it had been days since that magic time in the little hall at the edge of the woods. Just the thought made her feel so very tired. The rest of her long fairy life stretched out before her, and it fair crushed her.
“Ah, good,” Faolán crowed. “Finally, a woman who doesn’t shrink before his infamous glower.”
“Sure and you must have something to do,” Liam threatened.
“Well, I have, but haven’t I been standing here waiting this long while for you to introduce me to your good wife? I can’t very well leave till you do, now, can I?”
“Orla. Faolán. Faolán. Orla.”
Faolán gave Orla a big wink. “I can’t think why himself the king doesn’t use this one for diplomacy.”
Orla found herself smiling at the handsome redhead. “Thank you,” was all she could manage.
It seemed to stop him in his tracks. Worse, it stopped Liam, who was suddenly looking too closely at her. She wasn’t about to betray how deeply he’d hurt her this eve. She wouldn’t give him or any of them the satisfaction. But she would gift Faolán with her gratitude.
“I’m thinking it’s going to be the highlight of the court to see you seek your stones, lady,” Faolán said, his grin not quite so brash.
“It’s not an entertainment!” Liam snapped.
Faolán gave Orla another wink. “Well, if himself expects to be too busy to attend you while you do the searching, you can always call on me.”
“Not if I send you to the twelfth realm, instead,” Liam said.
Faolán laughed. “Ah, sure you won’t be doing that. I’d never get back in time for the hurling championship.”
“I wouldn’t mind the help at all,” Orla said just to see her husband turn colors. “After all, it’s an entirely new life I’m facing here.”
“And new challenges, sure,” Faolán said, with a smirk at Liam.
Orla tilted her head in consideration. “Aye, I’d call them that, all right.”
“And I haven’t even mentioned the challenges of living with such a sweet one as your husband.”
“An oversight altogether.”
“Or his daughter. Now there’s a challenge that’ll earn you a stone or two.”
Liam waved him off. “She’s no account,” he said. “For isn’t she with her mother’s people?”
Orla was struck speechless. Slowly she turned to see that her husband didn’t seem to notice how stunning Faolán’s statement was.
A daughter? Goddess, what was she to do about that?
At last she said, “She’s no account? Would you like to tell me why?”
Faolán tilted his head. “She will never be heir,” he said, as if it were perfectly obvious. “Not that you can tell her that, of course.”
“Indeed,” Orla said. “I’d love to hear about her, so.”
Liam waved a languid hand at her. “It’s not your business, woman.”
She repeated in a voice that was deadly soft, “Still, I’d love to hear about her.”
“Sure, and hasn’t he told you?” Faolán asked, and for the first time it seemed his humor had fled.
“Told her what?” the king asked, suddenly interested in the conversation.
But Orla never had the chance to answer. Without warning, a ceramic bowl went whizzing by her head to crash into the wall behind her. Faolán ducked. The king stood. Orla faced the crowd and wondered who she’d angered now by simply sitting there.
The focus wasn’t on her, though. Toward the back of the room, a fight had broken out, and a cluster of overlarge, overdeveloped fairy men were throwing punches and dishes and chairs, all yelling something about the hurling practice.
Orla gaped. Faith and the goddess, such a thing had never happened in her fairy life. No fairy had the disrespect to disrupt the queen’s banquet. In this world, though, she was forced to duck rather than suffer a platter of butter in the face.
“What…?”
Suddenly she was being lifted from her chair and dragged off the high dais.
“Get to the side doors,” he husband ordered, already heading for the melee.
Faolán was there before him. The sharp screeches of women tore through the hall, and air fairies chittered like agitated squirrels up in the rafters. Orla shook her head, completely stunned. What other insanity would she find in this benighted place her mother had sentenced her to?
Without another word, she rolled up her sleeves and stalked right down the center aisle. Not for the daughter of Mab to slink out the side doors as the shrinking women did. Not for the head of the archers, who had led the armies into battle, to retreat before a bit of a dustup. Eyes blazing and back straight, she strode down the hall toward the main door. And if she had to knock some heads together on the way to get past, that was just what she did. Better than thinking about the latest revelation she’d just suffered.
A daughter. Less important, it seemed, than food and drink. Sure, even less important than an afternoon spent swinging a stick at a little leather ball.
Whack! Another set of heads suffered her fury.
Well, she would show him how unimportant his womenfolk were.
Whack! Whack!
And then she was through the crowd and out in the crisp evening air.
Alone.
Ah, well, she might as well get used to solitude. She had a feeling it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Especially if she took into account the looks she was getting from all those women who were scuttling out the side doors like roaches hiding from a bright light.
And because she didn’t know how to act except as herself, she waved at every one of them and walked on home in the dark.