Celtic Bride

“A man has need of heirs, young Adam,” Eldred said with a chuckle. “One day you’ll understand when you find your Eve.”

“Find my what?” he asked, as his freckled nose crinkled, clearly not understanding the earl’s jest. “There was not one girl at Haverston, Uncle, whom I could endure for a single day, much less a whole month, or a year!”

Marcus smiled, though Adam’s words made him aware of the deep loneliness he felt within his heart. Certainly he shared a warm closeness with his father, and he’d learned to treasure his precocious young cousin as well. But there was an emptiness inside that he’d felt acutely during the marriage festivities at Haverston Castle. More and more of his friends were wed now, and many of the young couples shared a bond that Marcus could only begin to fathom.

And until he somehow managed to get over his terrible shyness with women, he could only look forward to a lifetime spent alone. Marcus knew he was not unpleasant to look upon, but women wanted to be charmed. They wanted to be—

A wild cry from above, followed by a cacophony of barbarous calls, startled Marcus. Bearded barbarians dropped from the trees all around them, with swords and spears drawn. Marcus’s warhorse, long unaccustomed to the scent of blood and the fierce clang of iron, reared under him as the Wrexton travelers came under attack by these Celtic warriors. The entire Wrexton party was thrown into confusion, and several men were wounded before they were able to regain control of their mounts and draw their weapons.

The Wrexton men were vastly outnumbered, and struggled desperately to wage battle against their strangely clad, barbaric foes. Swords and spears clashed all around, and Marcus watched with horror as his father was thrown from his horse, and set upon by the savage, foreign warriors who attacked them.

No! Marcus’s heart cried out. Eldred de Grant was too strong, too vital to be cut down so heinously. It was impossible for Marcus to imagine a life without his father, a good and just man. He could not be dead!

“Marcus! Your father!” Adam shouted. The young boy had used good sense so far, keeping himself behind Marcus and out of the fray, but the attackers came from all sides. The Wrexton knights were surrounded.

Blindly, Marcus dismounted, grabbed Adam and stashed him in the safest place he could find, in the hollow of an old, felled tree. Then he hacked and slashed his way toward his father’s unmoving body.

“My lord! Behind you!” one of the men called out before Marcus was able to reach Eldred. Marcus whirled and dealt with the fierce, red-haired attacker, dispatching him quickly. Another bearded warrior replaced the first, and Marcus gritted his teeth and continued the battle as the fight went on all around him.

Wrexton men continued to fall as Marcus battled, and he could see no end to it, no way to get to his father. Even so, the young lord had no intention of giving up. He would fight to the death wielding his own lethal broadsword until he cut down as many of these fierce warriors as was humanly possible.

“My lord! There are riders coming!” one of the men shouted.

“They’re Englishmen!”

“It’s Marquis Kirkham and his men!”

The barbarians became aware of the English reinforcements, and mounted a hasty retreat as the newly arrived knights gave chase.

When Marcus was free of his last opponent, he hurried to his father’s side, where one of the men had dragged him away from the battle. A glimmer of hope surfaced in Marcus’s heart as he saw movement in his father’s eyes. Marcus knelt beside the older man and took his hand.

“My son,” Eldred whispered.

Marcus could not speak. His throat was thick, his tongue paralyzed, and his vision oddly blurred as he noted the severity of Eldred’s wounds.

“Temper your grief…in my demise…Marcus,” Eldred gasped. “I go now…to join your mother. Know now….that I could not have had…more pride in a son…than I have in you….”

Eldred took his final breath, then commended his soul to heaven.

All was silent. Not one bird chirped, nor a leaf rustled in the still air.

The knights standing ’round knelt and crossed themselves, and gave words of sorrow and condolence to Marcus. The new lord of Wrexton barely heard their words. Only a few short moments before, he and his father had been engaged in their familiar discussion of Marcus’s unmarried state. How could all have changed so suddenly? How was it possible that Eldred was gone?

“My lord!” a voice in the distance called. “Quickly!” Marcus turned to see one of his men standing beside the thick, fallen oak where he’d hidden Adam. Dread crept up his spine as he stood and crossed the span.

Either the boy had crawled out of his hiding place, or he’d been dragged out. ’Twas no matter now, though, for the boy lay still upon the deep green moss, with an arrow protruding grotesquely from his back.

Marcus crouched next to him. Never had Adam seemed quite so small, never so vulnerable. “He’s breathing,” Marcus said.

“Aye, my lord,” Sir Robert Barry said, “but if we pull the arrow out, he’ll likely bleed to death.”

“’Twill be hours before we reach Wrexton!” Sir William Cole retorted. “He’ll die for certain if—”

“There is a small cottage nearby, if I remember aright. Down that hill, next to a brook,” Marcus said grimly. He looked up at the men of his party. “I will carry him,” he said as he carefully picked the boy up into his arms. “Bring my father.”

“Be at ease, Uncle,” Keelin O’Shea said quietly to her uncle Tiarnan as she lay a gentle hand on his pale brow. His coughing spells were steadily improving, but they still rattled the old man terribly. “I will protect the holy spear. No Mageean hand will ever be touchin’ Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh.”

Worry weighed heavily in Keelin’s breast. She was shaken and weakened by the sights she’d seen early that morning, and knew ’twas time to move on again. She and Tiarnan could not stay when the Mageean warriors were so close.

It seemed so long since they’d fled Ireland, running from the ruthless mercenaries who had killed her father. Keelin renewed her determination to stay clear of them. She knew that to lose the ancient spear would mean her clan’s loss of its right to rule, and allow the ascendancy of the cruel and implacable chieftain of Clan Mageean.

Keelin would never let that happen. She had witnessed Ruairc Mageean’s barbarity once too often to allow it.

In order to elude Ruairc’s men, and keep Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh safe for her clan, she and Tiarnan had uprooted themselves and moved four times in the years since their flight to England. But wherever they made their home, true security eluded them. Ruairc Mageean’s warriors were never far away.

’Twas only Keelin’s strange powers of intuition that kept them two shakes ahead of the mercenaries.

“Here, Uncle Tiarnan,” she said, lifting the man’s head and tipping an earthen mug to his lips. “Have a wee sip.”

“Ah, lass,” Tiarnan rasped, “Go rest yerself. Ye touched the spear this mornin’ and I know what a strain that puts on ye.”

“I’m fit enough,” she said, lying. She was weak and shaky still, hours after she’d seen the sights. But she would not let Tiarnan know, for he fretted too much over her as it was.

“Ye must tell me what ye saw.” His poor eyes, opaque now with age, turned blindly toward his young niece, though in his mind’s eye, he could still see her fresh beauty. Cream-white skin like her mother’s, with a slight blush of roses upon her cheeks. Eyes as green as the fields of home and hair as black and silky as the deepest night. Keelin’s was not a fragile beauty, for she was tall, as tall as most men. And she’d grown into a strong and hardy lass.

His poor Keelin had no way of knowing that Ruairc Mageean wanted more than the spear. The scoundrel intended to take Keelin O’Shea herself when he stole Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh, and make her his concubine. Aye, the fiend had lusted after the girl since he’d first seen her, back when she was all gangly legs and big green eyes.

If Mageean managed to abduct Keelin when he stole the holy spear, he would have a much greater chance of usurping Eocaidh O’Shea’s heir as high chieftain of all of Kerry. Aye, Tiarnan knew ’twas exactly what Mageean intended.

Nor was Mageean the only man in Kerry lusting after the lass. It pained Tiarnan to know that the girl had been promised in marriage to Fen McClancy, a neighboring chieftain. And this abomination had been done by her own father mere days before his death in battle, may he rest his bones and his detestable soul in peace, Tiarnan grudgingly prayed.

Keelin’s intended was not only an old man, near as old as Tiarnan himself, but a lecherous old daff, besides. Sure and he might be high chieftain of all that lay northeast of O’Shea land, but Tiarnan knew there were other ways to secure McClancy’s alliance without bartering Keelin to the old rascal.

Leave it to his brother, Eocaidh, the strong and capable one, never to see beyond the needs of the clan. He’d have abandoned his young daughter to old Mc-Clancy without a second thought. Though he must have known how Keelin would react to the betrothal for he had not informed her of his intentions before his death.

’Twas with sheer luck and a prayer that Tiarnan had been able to convince the elders to send Keelin away as guardian of Ga Buidhe an Lamhaigh, instead of staying in Kerry and becoming Fen McClancy’s wife. Tiarnan sincerely hoped that in the years since he and Keelin had fled Ireland, the McClancy chieftain had met his death. Nay, ’twas not a malicious wish—Tiarnan truly wished the man a peaceful end, but an end, nonetheless.

And he truly hoped Keelin never learned of her father’s promise to Fen. ’Twould break the girl’s heart to know how little her father thought of her. ’Twas a miracle she’d never realized it—yet Keelin was surprisingly oblivious to the reality around her. For all her intuitive abilities, she often misunderstood the simplest motivations of others.

Ah, but she was young still. Time enough to learn of the treachery of men.

“Please, Uncle,” Keelin said, “save your breath now, and we will speak later. There is nothin’—”

“But there is, darlin’,” the old man said as he lay his head back on the soft pillow Keelin had made for him. “This is important, Keelin, and time is short. Listen to me now.”

“What is it, Uncle, that you’ve got to be saying to me rather than taking your rest?” Keelin asked somberly, pulling a low wooden stool close to the narrow pallet on which the man rested. ’Twas nippy with the late afternoon, though the single room of the cottage was pleasantly warm with a small fire burning in the grate. The aroma of the healing plants and herbs Keelin set out to dry was strong, but pleasing. Later, when Tiarnan was asleep, she would crush the leaves that were ready, and pack them away for their journey.

“The Mageean warriors are comin’,” he said without preamble. “I know it with a certainty, even without seein’ it as you do.”