Chapter 3 #2
She curled on the rock, trembling with cold beneath the sodden linen of her gown, feeling like a fool as she tried to explain the forces that had driven her toward the waves. She settled for the truth. "I never imagined anything so—so powerful. I wanted to touch it."
"Touch it?" he echoed, incredulous.
"The sea."
“Foolish excuse. Did you stop to consider what the chieftain's reaction would be if I presented it to him? Caitlin of the Lilies drowned trying to touch the sea! Conn would have taken my head, and I would have deserved to lose it!"
It had not occurred to her what might happen to Niall if any harm had befallen her. She had been carried away by the beauty of it all. "I did not think it would be dangerous."
"Did you not hear my warnings?" he demanded. "I nearly split the stones bellowing at you!"
Despite the chill, her cheeks burned. "I rarely listen when I charge out into the storm."
He looked at her sharply. "If you are to live at a chieftain's fortress, you had best learn to be more cautious. I will not be there to pull you out of whatever mischief you plunge into, and the currents can be far more dangerous than any the sea can muster."
She should have been chastened, perhaps even a little daunted at the warning.
At the very least, she should have felt some guilt for the position she had nearly put him in—drowning would have been most uncivil under the circumstances.
After all, Niall had been kind after a fashion.
But Caitlin could not help herself, now that the danger was past. Her spirit soared, her whole body a-tingle with the delight of it.
She had touched the water, felt the power of it all around her. It had been foolhardy and terrifying, and for a moment, just a moment, it had been glorious.
Niall lifted her back onto the horse, more surly than ever. Caitlin sucked in a deep breath. "I—I want to say one thing, then I will not badger you any longer."
"You want food now? You can eat while astride the horse."
"No. I wanted to ask something."
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, waiting. For a moment, he seemed like the mate of druid magic her imagination had woven at the ancient altar.
"I just do not understand why..." A droplet ran from his temple down along that iron-honed jaw, stealing away all thought of what she had intended to say. "Why?"
She glanced back into his eyes, struggled to drive away any thoughts of how that droplet was now trickling a path down the powerful cords of his neck. "Why you took me to the sea."
The hard mask fell over his features. "The horse was growing lame. I had to—"
"There was no stone in his hoof. It sorrows me to mention it, but beneath that gruff exterior, I fear you are most kind."
"Kind? Devil if I am!" He bristled as if she had dealt him an insult black enough to draw blood over. "I do my duty. Follow the chieftain's command."
"You need not worry." Caitlin smiled. "Your secret is safe with me."
The planes of that unspeakably handsome face reddened, his voice gruff as he scrambled to change the subject. "We will not stop again until dark. If you want food, tell me now. The nuns gave us bread and cheese."
She leaned back, turning her face to the sea winds one last time. She breathed in the fragrance of distant lands she would never see. "I am not hungry," she said with a sated sigh. "The sea filled me in a way mere bread never could."
With a grunt, Niall reined the horse away from the shore, still uncertain why he had come there in the first place, let her frolic about the waves.
Had he been... kind? Or simply mad? Had he wanted this girl to have one beautiful thing before she was whirled into Conn's fortress?
For once she arrived there, she would be burdened by her father's greatness as certainly as Niall was burdened by his father's treachery.
Caitlin of the Lilies—the girl-child foretold to bring disaster to the chieftain—saved from death only by Conn's great mercy, his promise to her parents that he would spare her life, find some way to outwit the curse.
Was she not already a legend in Glenfluirse?
Daughter of the enchanted spear caster, the most loved and honored warrior Glenfluirse had ever known?
Riding to the abbey, Niall had thought little of the woman who was to be in his charge, so consumed by his own irritation was he.
Yet now he could feel something like pity for the girl.
She had been transformed from a legend, a shadow figure fashioned of whispered words, into someone alive, real to him.
Even so, he had never suspected how the encounter with the sea would change her.
He glanced down at Caitlin, feeling as if he had rescued no mere woman from the waves. No convent-raised girl, bred to wear coarse robes, spend her life praying in her tiny stone cage.
Had her plunge into the water turned her shape shifter? Remaking her into a creature stranger than any from otherworld lands beneath the sea?
She radiated delight, eagerness, anticipation, as if they were jeweled wings that lifted her above the drab world below to a star-spun place Niall of the Seven Betrayals would never know.
Joy. Had he ever felt it? Not in the way she did. Nor did he want to, he vowed, as long-forgotten memories of childish laughter and absolute confidence flickered in his mind.
It was dangerous to delight too much, to trust too much in anything beautiful or good. Fate had a nasty habit of snatching it away.
He remembered the abbey, the cluster of nuns praying fervently as he carried Caitlin away. Perhaps the prayers would protect her in the days to come. But their holy appeals seemed almost as meager a weapon as a smile sweet as sun-struck berries, and eyes that dared to shine in a world dark as sin.
He was tempted to warn Caitlin, to say something about the harsh edges of a world she was unprepared for, a world far beyond the abbey gates.
But he only clenched his teeth and rode on.
What the blazes ailed him? He was a warrior, not some tender-hearted bard.
He had seen more terrible things than an innocent like Caitlin of the Lilies could ever imagine, things far more vile than one young woman's disillusionment.
She was not his responsibility. The instant he turned her over to Conn, he would be quit of her forever. As for the world that awaited this Caitlin of the Lilies, she would discover its flaws soon enough.
Niall would just make certain he was not there to see it.
Flames danced, burning red and orange and blue against the night, the leaves on the towering trees whispering like unquiet spirits above Caitlin's head.
Every muscle in her body ached, her face still stinging from the scrubbing she had given it, washing away the grit from the journey with handfuls of cold water from a stream nearby.
She should have been exhausted after the swift pace Niall had set.
Besides, hungry though she was, Caitlin was eager to drift away into dreams filled with sea gods and horses made of waves.
But the moment Niall tossed her the coarse homespun bag containing food the sisters had sent with them from the abbey, all hope of sleep vanished. She drew out the familiar loaf, and even the glorious memory of the sea could not stave off a wave of melancholy.
Caitlin traced her finger in the slight hollows baked into the bread in the shape of the cross, the symbol that had marked every loaf she had ever eaten.
Her earliest memories were of standing on a stool in the kitchen, Reverend Mother stealing away from her other duties to help Caitlin's tiny fingers make the holy shape that reminded them where the bread and all good things had come from.
It would be the last time she would taste this bread, the flavor of home. She wished she could save it, yet the man who now sat across the fire from her was already eyeing it like a ravenous wolf.
Swallowing hard, she broke the loaf in two then surrendered half of it to Niall. He devoured most of his portion as if this were to be his last meal, then paused long enough to glance at the bread still cradled in her lap.
"You had better eat." He wiped a crumb away from his chin. "We will have a hard day of riding tomorrow."
"You need not fear. I will not fall from the horse, I promise. I know you are in great haste to reach—" She paused, a strained laugh bubbling up. "It is so strange. I cannot even remember your chieftain's name, and yet my whole future lies in his hands."
"Conn the Ever Truthful. And the fate of every man or woman within his domain lies in his hands."
"That may be so, but I doubt he summons all his subjects to come before him. No messengers storming up on great horses demanding to carry off the daughters of every household in his lands. Perhaps this would be easier if I had some idea why."
"Why?"
Caitlin crumbled an edge of the crust. "Why me. Why now. I have been at the abbey forever. Why should I suddenly earn his notice?"
Niall took a long swallow of water from the horn cup he'd filled at the stream. "Conn's reasons are simple enough, I would imagine. You are of an age ripe to be wed. Doubtless he has picked a husband for you."
Her eyes widened. Merciful heaven, why had she not thought of that in the time since they had left St. Mary's?
In the recesses of her mind, she had always expected to be married, had she not?
And yet never had she imagined it in quite this way.
She had thought she would have a choice, would fall in love.
Even in the abbey, she had heard tales of young women shoved into wedlock against their will.
What might it be like to be forever bound to and bedded by a complete stranger?
"But I... I cannot marry now." She stammered a protest. "I do not know anyone to..." She stopped, stared at him, her heart slamming against her ribs. "You do not think that you... and I—that the reason Conn sent you to bring me from St. Mary's was that you are to be my husband?"