The Maiden of Ireland

Caitlin headed for the table. Wesley watched her face but she held it set, the pure, sharp lines of her features scrubbed clean of sentiment. “We’ve a visitor,” she announced.

A dozen inquisitive faces turned toward Wesley. He wondered if these rough-hewn Irishmen belonged to the Fianna. On the heels of that thought came a sudden, sharp ache. Too many years had passed since he had enjoyed the company of good friends.

He tried to take in their expressions all at once, but got caught on the dwarf. His face was a picture of such pure delight that Wesley couldn’t help smiling, even as he wondered why his appearance so pleased the man.

“He says his name is John Wesley Hawkins,” Caitlin explained. “He’s English.”

Gasps and grumbles colored the smoky air. Large hands closed around knife handles. Women gathered small children to their skirts. Wesley carefully kept his smile in place.

“Is he an idiot?” a big man asked in Gaelic. He had hair the color of West Indies yams and a face that resembled a well-cured ham. He held his horn mug in two great, red-furred paws. “Look at that grin,” the giant said, tossing a nutmeat into his maw. “I say he’s an idiot.”

Wesley made no indication that he understood the foreign, lilting tongue. He was not here to challenge a taunt, but to infiltrate the Fianna, to find out their secrets, and to capture their leader.

“You could be right, Rory,” said Caitlin. “But he’s our guest, and we’ll give him a meal and a place to sleep. Lord knows, Daida has made certain there’s plenty to eat.”

“And why should we be opening hearth and home to a seonin?” Rory demanded. “It’s the business of his kind to take the very food out of our mouths.”

Caitlin’s shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t know having an Englishman under the roof frightened you, Rory.”

He shook his shaggy head. “’Tis not that, Caitlin, but—”

“Then we’ll treat him as a guest.”

Enmity blazed in the huge man’s eyes. “If he makes one false move, I’ll put that gawm of an Englishman right through the wall with one great clout.”

Wesley kept a courteous smile on his face when every instinct told him to lunge for the door.

“You’re such a Goth, Rory,” grumbled the dwarf.

“He doesn’t look like an idiot to me,” the white-bearded man said in English. “He looks properly Irish, save for that naked face of his.”

“Don’t insult us,” said another man, dark-haired and nearly as large as Rory. “An English bastard would never fill the fine, wide boots of an Irishman.”

A roar of agreement thundered from others. Horn mugs banged on the tabletop. “Well put, Conn,” shouted Rory, then turned to the man on his other side. “What think you we should do with our guest, Brian?”

Brian had a quick smile, merry blue eyes, and a deadly looking shortsword at his hip. “I say we give him the same reception Jamie Lynch gave his son in Galway all those years ago.”

Shouts of approval met the suggestion. James Lynch Fitzstephen, Wesley remembered with a chill, had hanged his own son from the window of his house.

Caitlin waited for the uproar to subside. Desperately Wesley searched her face for some hint of mercy. He saw unadorned beauty and strong character, but no sign of whether or not she would let the men do their will with him.

The room quieted, and she spoke in a voice that trembled with grief. “Has it come to murdering strangers, then?” Her soft words captured everyone’s attention. “Have we learned to hate so much?”

“I suppose we might see what he’s about,” Rory grumbled into his mug.

Only when he let out his breath with a whoosh did Wesley realize he had been holding it. Squaring his shoulders, he approached the table and held out his hand to the eldest man. “I assure you, sir, I am English, but I don’t necessarily regard that as a virtue.” He clasped the man’s hand briefly, and their eyes met. The Irishman was handsome, with unusually soft skin and strongly defined facial bones. His eyes were light, the color of damp sand. “You’re the MacBride?” Wesley guessed.

“Aye, Seamus MacBride of Clonmuir, by the grace of God and several high saints. You are welcome by me, although I cannot speak for the others.”

“Devil admire me, but I like him,” piped the dwarf, bobbing his head. “Fortune brought him here.”

Caitlin’s gaze snapped to him. “And what would you be knowing that you’re not telling us, Tom Gandy?”

Tom Gandy’s eyes rounded into circles of innocence and he dropped to the floor. In his beautiful green doublet, silk pantaloons, and tiny buckle shoes, he would not look out of place in a portrait of the Spanish royal family.

Disregarding Caitlin’s question, Tom said, “Don’t we all know that it’d bring the bad luck on us to treat a stranger ill?” Rory slapped his forehead. Caitlin rolled her eyes.

Wesley looked back at Gandy only to find that the man had vanished. “Where did he go?” Wesley asked.

“He can go to the devil for all I care,” grumbled Rory. He scowled up at Caitlin. “You went off alone again. How many times must I tell you, it’s dangerous.”

“You are not my keeper, Rory Breslin,” she replied.

“Not for want of trying,” said Brian with a knowing wink.

Wesley observed the tension in her body, the pause no longer than a heartbeat during which she looked to her father. But Seamus MacBride didn’t notice; he had lifted his gaze to the patch of star-silvered sky visible through a high window.

Suddenly, Wesley understood her problem. He didn’t know which to credit—his experience with women or his experience as a cleric—but he had insights into female hearts, and he was rarely wrong.

Caitlin MacBride wanted her father to be a father, not an old man reminiscing over a mug of rough brew.

Furthermore, Seamus MacBride was completely unaware of his daughter’s needs.

Interesting, Wesley thought. And perhaps useful.

He paid close attention as Caitlin introduced some of the others, rattling off names like a general calling roll. Liam the smith, as wide and thick as an evergreen oak; young Curran Healy whose eyes spoke the hunger of a boy longing to be treated as a man; a surly villager called Mudge; and a host of others united in their loyalty to Clonmuir and their suspicion of their English visitor. In addition, there were wayfaring families who huddled around the fire and ate with the avid concentration of those who had known the ache of hunger.

Wesley told them he was a deserter from Titus Hammersmith’s Roundhead army.

The men of Clonmuir told him they were fishermen and farmers, shepherds and sawyers.

Wesley thought they were lying.

They thought he was lying.

“Our visitor’s got a thirst on him,” Conn O’Donnell announced with a wolfish grin.

To Wesley’s surprise and pleasure, it was Caitlin herself who held out a mug. Their fingers brushed as he took it. The contact sent a shock of heat through him. He sought her eyes to see if she, too, had felt the quick fire.

Her momentary look of confusion told him she had. She drew her hand away, tossing her head as if to shake away the spell. “Drink your poteen, Mr. Hawkins.”

He sniffed suspiciously at the contents of the mug. “Poteen, is it?”

Taking a mug of her own, she dropped to the bench beside him. An almost-smile flirted with her lips. “It’s not usually fatal to drink the poteen.”

Still Wesley hesitated. “What’s it made of?”

“’Tisn’t polite to be asking,” she retorted, taking a slow sip from her cup. Her lips came away moist and shiny. “Just barley roasted over slow-burning peat and distilled. Savor it well, Mr. Hawkins, for you English have burned the barley fields since we brewed this last batch of courage.”