Chapter 10 #2
What was she about to hear? Bile rose in her throat and blood pounding in her ears. Sorcha sucked in a shallow breath. She was King Arthmael’s daughter. She wasn’t a coward. She could face anything her mother revealed. Slowly she dipped her chin in agreement.
Her mother’s look softened. “I love Garamaros.”
Sorcha didn’t try to hide her disgust. “But he’s an artisan, a beadmaker, not even of the professional class. How could you sully yourself, and your husband’s name, by such an association?”
“I have loved him for many years.”
“While my father lived?” she asked in disbelief.
Her mother laughed a little hysterically and shared a long look with Garamaros, in silent communication. He gave a slight tilt of his chin and the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile of reassurance.
Sorcha sensed her brothers behind her listening intently, waiting for the answer. “How long?” she demanded.
“We have loved each other since before you were born. When we both lived at Dun Limen.”
“Before… before father?” She looked from her mother’s face to Garamaros’, seeking the truth. What she read there kicked her in the gut—the look of affection and love shining at her from Garamaros’s eyes.
Sorcha swallowed and swept her hand around the assemblage of brothers. “And which of us are this craftsman’s children?”
There were murmurs and gasps from her brothers, but they didn’t move.
“Just you, Sorcha. My beloved firstborn and only daughter.” Alina’s eyes pleaded for understanding.
Sorcha flicked a glance at Garamaros and saw from the collapse of his shoulders and the hopeful look on his face that her mother spoke the truth. Outrage and horror surged like runaway chariots within her. She was not Arthmael’s daughter. Not the daughter of a king.
Just the daughter of an itinerant craftsman.
She collapsed to her knees.
Alina knelt and slid an arm around Sorcha’s shoulders as though to comfort her.
Sorcha shrugged her mother’s arm away and pushed to her feet.
Alina followed.
Sorcha’s brothers still stood around them in a semicircle.
Over in the shadows, far from the fire pit, sitting with his back against a roundhouse wall, was the Roman, his eyes fixed on their fire-lit tableau.
How he must be loving this spectacle! “Are any of my other brothers not Arthmael’s? ” she demanded.
Her mother straightened until she was looming above Sorcha. “Of course not. They are all Arthmael’s sons,” Alina said.
Sorcha sensed a collective sigh of relief from her brothers. She looked up at her mother. “Why just me?” Bitterness turned her voice harsh.
Alina reached out to Garamaros. He stepped to her side, encircling her waist with his arm.
“You were conceived before I married Arthmael. Before I even knew for sure that I was to marry him. Garamaros and his father came to live at Dun Limen months before that. They were invited to stay by my father, the chieftain, who wished to increase our trade with the lands over the sea. He welcomed superior craftsman to the settlement—to make Dun Limen renowned… and wealthier. It worked, because it was the reason Arthmael wished to form a stronger bond with our clan.”
“That, and your mother was a celebrated beauty throughout the clans of the Durotriges,” Garamaros added, sending Alina an admiring look.
Sorcha ignored him. “But a craftsman, Mother!” she scolded.
Alina looked at her with coldness in her eyes. “His father was a famous craftsman, and his mother was a druid healer. He is related to many killed by Roman hands during the battles fought by the Roman general Julius Caesar in Gaul.”
“And all these years since, you have been faithful to my fa… Arthmael?” Disbelief made her voice sour.
“Yes.” Her mother’s answer was definite.
“Then why did Garamaros visit us every year? Obviously not just to sell us jewelry.”
“He came to see you and to give me these.” Alina fingered her necklace of twisted gold hung with glass beads that matched the golden color of her hair. “He made me beads to celebrate the birth of each of you children. One for you, two for Caileanos, and so on for each successive baby.”
“Now I know why you have so many of his glass beads,” Sorcha muttered to herself.
“And to reassure myself that Alina was well, safe and still reconciled to what she considered her duty,” Garamaros said.
“And if she hadn’t been?” Sorcha asked.
“I would have taken her… and you, away… somewhere… to start again,”
Alina looked at Garamaros with sadness in her eyes.
“Did you not love your husband at all?” Sorcha asked her mother.
“Of course I loved him. He was a wise man, a great king, and a good father. We shared the bonds of friendship, admiration, and shared experience. But he wasn’t the man I loved above all others.
” Alina looked at Garamaros and caressed her bead necklace, as Sorcha had seen her do many times over the years.
“Did he know that I wasn’t his child?”
“He did. From the beginning. As I said, he was a wise man. He knew what to be upset about and to let be what had happened in the past. I told him of the coming baby on the day of our handfasting and promised to be faithful to him in the future. He promised to trust me.”
“Did he never suspect you and Garamaros when he turned up every year?”
“He knew better than that. He knew I didn’t betray him.” She swept her arm around at the boys still listening intently. “Look at his sons—their auburn hair, their eyes, their physique. They are undoubtedly his. How can you doubt it?”
Yes, how could she doubt it? Her brothers were miniatures of their father, each and every one of them. She had always been the odd one out with her wavy red hair and green eyes. She looked like her mother, but her coloring was not that of her or Arthmael.
Why had she never realized?