The Wakening Fire

  The Dawn of Ireland 2

  The Wakening Fire

  Even though married life for young Liam and Caitlín O'Neill is just as sensuous as their stormy courtship, both of them still need to learn a whole new language—how to show each other their deepest, most secret passions. Liam finds ingenious ways to teach his still-naive wife about his urgent needs, and she surprises him with her own instruction.

  In the midst of their quest of each other, they find themselves on a more deadly search—for the dark secrets of their old enemy Owen Sweeney, confined to an invalid's cart and seemingly just as dangerous as ever. Their search for the truth of the brooding half man leads them back to the history of Ireland's most famous high king, to the deadly vengeance of a jealous woman, and finally to the hills of sacred Tara, where a high king and St. Patrick himself compete for men's hearts and souls.

  Genre: Fantasy, Historical

  Length: 107,497 words

  The Wakening Fire

  The Dawn of Ireland 2

  Erin O’Quinn

  ROMANCE

  www.BookStrand.com

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  A SIREN-BOOKSTRAND TITLE

  IMPRINT: Romance

  THE WAKENING FIRE

  Copyright © 2011 by Erin O’Quinn

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-446-5

  First E-book Publication: June 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this book to two important people, one of whom I know.

  First, to my patient and loving husband Bil, who allowed me to interrupt his meals, his sleep, his favorite blog sites, and much more so that I could write this book. It was also Bil who first jogged me into writing about Ireland and Father Patrick in a series of young-adult fantasies that we ended up cowriting. Had he not done that, Ireland would still be only long-beloved songs inside my head.

  And to my editor, Stephanie, who once again deflowered the manuscript of this novel by being the only other set of eyes to read it. Stephanie has a discerning eye and an excellent feel for both language and content.

  Thanks, both of you.

  I invite my readers to write to me at this email address: erinsromance@yahoo.com and to visit my Facebook author’s page at facebook.com/ErinOQuinnAuthor.

  I welcome your comments and questions. Slán, Erin

  THE WAKENING FIRE

  The Dawn of Ireland 2

  ERIN O’QUINN

  Copyright © 2012

  Part I:

  Derry

  Chapter 1:

  The Life Domestic

  As I rode from home in the chill morning, my thoughts, as usual, were of Liam. Liam of the mighty clan O’Neill, son of the high king himself. Liam the cattle baron, born to the saddle and open skies of Éire. Liam of the champion shillelagh matches, he of the lean, athletic body and warrior’s thighs. And now Liam, husband of Caylith.

  “Caitlín O’ Neill.” I pronounced my new name, tasting it, savoring the way Liam said it, throaty and blurred at the edges, “kotch-len.”

  Our parting kiss had come as we both stood at the hay haggard, ready to ride our horses in opposite directions. Liam stood close to me and put his hands under my woolen mantle, seeking my breasts. I raised my lips to his, and when I felt his fingers lightly pinch my nipples right through the heavy wool of my tunic, my tongue flared in his mouth.

  “Mmn, you devil.” I continued to be amazed by the depth and strength of his passion. We had made love to near exhaustion only an hour ago.

  He responded by nuzzling my face with his short, downy beard. “Shush, a Chaitlín.” He was deliberately teasing me with same words I had used with him earlier that morning.

  He ran his tongue along the outline of my mouth, asking entrance once more. I started to accept it, gently sucking. And when I felt his fingers tighten on my nipples, I stepped back, abashed at his brazenness in the open where anyone might see us.

  “Slán, a chuisle. I will see you at supper tonight.” I seized the pommel of the saddle, and in one swift motion I was astride my mare.

  He stood looking up at me, his mouth playing with the smallest of smiles. “A ghrá chaill…O lost love,” he said in a mock-mournful way. The way his mouth and throat moved when he spoke, the husky sounds of his words, made my groin tighten and smolder. Then he, too, leapt astride his bay horse. With one pull of the reins across his body, he turned the gelding Angus toward our trench construction site.

  I pointed Macha’s red mane upriver, toward the church.

  Our growing baile, the town of Derry, spread along the western shore of the swift River Foyle. Cradled under trees and on the hills, small, clay round-houses with thatched roofs sent their tendrils of smoke into the azure sky. Squares and rectangles of well-tended gardens, green even in January, lay side by side with fields of brown, dormant grass and bright winter wildflowers. Horses and goats milled around poultry pens and wooden haggards filled with animal fodder. Here and there a pottery kiln or a smith’s forge sent its own kind of smoke chasing the direction of the wind.

  Derry was unique among towns I had seen in Éire, for it was built along the river where the terrain was full of rounded hills, like maidens’ breasts, and low glens, and even rather deep little gullies cut into the land in places where f
eeder streams had run in days of old. Our workmen had been told to build homes using the landscape rather than to cut away or fill in the terrain. The result was deeply pleasing to me. I thought about the settlements of Bath and Lindum in Britannia, the two towns in my former homeland I liked most. There was something compelling about living in such a wild place, a bally that clung to the errant landscape, its very streets meandering in contour with the hills.

  Riding the familiar route between our homestead and the church, I could see the clouds of air puffing from Macha’s nose as she cantered along in the brisk air. She was in an exuberant mood, rearing her head and snorting. My chestnut mare did not like the saddle so much as she liked breaking the routine of milling around with the other horses near our hay haggard.

  I owned another mare, Clíona, a strawberry roan, and a once-wild Welsh mountain pony named NimbleFoot. Each one took turns as my steed of the day. Today it was Macha, my gift from Liam when he was still my hopeful swain, when my footsteps first touched Éire.

  I smiled fondly, remembering back almost two years ago when my pilgrim’s currach landed in a little cove on the eastern shore of this marvelous island. The first stranger I met was the wild clansman Liam O’Neill, bristling with weapons and full of self-frizzed facial hair. Even beneath the hair and the shapeless léine, he was obviously handsome and athletic, a leader of men. He had accused me of having a “bold eye.” Yes, bold enough to spot him as a man worth knowing better.

  Later, I learned his own impression of me. To him, I was a skinny redhead dressed in baggy deerskin, concealing any signs of womanhood, especially my burgeoning breasts. Much later, he admitted to his cousin Michael that he had seen something more. I vividly remembered his cousin’s translation as we sailed to Éire together, still ignorant of each other’s tongue.

  It took not long to see that the girl was beautiful under all that rough clothing, the deerskin of a man. Her deep green eyes could pull a man under, I tell ye, like a drowning. And her bold mouth, Michael, it set me mind to spinning, what it could do…I thought I might win her after all, if I could but hold me banger steady.

  My smile deepened as I thought about his courtship. I still blushed to think of the long weeks of language spoken by sensuous touch and then, much later, the heady nights filled with stormy lovemaking, falling just short of the sin of fornication. Since our wedding was near the end of October, we had been married almost three months, and now that our union was sanctioned by the church, the passion had somehow become even stronger and more wild.

  I shook off my secular thoughts of Liam as Macha’s hooves found the church without my guiding her. I tethered her in the familiar spot under one of the old spreading oaks near Brother Jericho’s teach, and I walked to the church.

  The large round-house, limed brilliant white, was one of the first buildings we erected more than a year ago when the immigrants were given the lands around Derry. Built of clay and daub, as most of the buildings in this part of Éire, the church could hold about one hundred fifty people. We used it not just on the Sabbath but on days when Commander Gristle called a folkmoot, or what I called a simple assembly of citizens.

  I pulled the heavy door open, straining against the gusting wind that wanted to keep it firmly closed. Inside, I felt an instant warmth, seeing the highly polished wooden floors gleaming in the rays of the morning sun that streamed in from several windows. The warm feeling grew when I saw the bulky figure standing near the raised altar.

  “Brother Galen! Dia duit ar maidin.”

  The large monk smiled back. “Maidin mhaith, a cailín.”

  Brother Galen, formerly called Séamas Gallagher, was a reformed reprobate. Once given to bawds and brawls, Father Patrick had converted him and even made him a monk. Galen had a merry disposition and a lively intellect that I appreciated more every time we talked.

  “Brother Galen,” I ventured, “I know Liam still visits you once a week.”

  “That he does, lass. Every Tuesday. Faithfully and even fearlessly.”

  I blanched a bit at Galen’s words. Liam’s father Leary, the high king of Éire, was one of Father Patrick’s most staunch opponents. He did not yet know that his son was learning the godspels of Christ.

  The lessons had started out as a tongue-in-cheek bargain between Galen and us two would-be sinners. If Liam would come to Galen for lessons, he would be allowed to commit the sin of fornication—but only if I agreed. It was a brilliant stratagem, for the monk knew that I would never allow Liam to go against Christ’s teaching as long as he was learning the ways of our Lord. And of course, the more Liam learned, the more he would understand the nature of sin and turn against it.

  When we married in October, Liam did not discontinue the lessons. In fact, every time my husband came home from a session with Galen, he was deeply thoughtful and tried even harder to communicate in my own tongue.

  “Well, Brother, I know that Liam is taking the godspels very seriously. But we have such a hard time talking that I know not how to respond to his new learning.” In fact, Liam’s knowledge of my Britonnic tongue was far better than my own stumbling Gaelic. I knew it may take me a very long time to speak words deeper than love talk with my new husband. I still needed the help of a third person.

  “The last time we ran into an obstacle, colleen, ye invited me to supper. And ye had a bit of barley beer to honey the tongue.”

  At that, I smiled widely. It was time again for Galen to be our supper guest. “Then ’tis done, O Brother. Will you join us tonight?”

  “With bells on me bridle,” he said gravely. “And I will even bring me own beer.”

  “Let us say one hour after sunset, a Shéamais.” I knew enough Gaelic to use the proper form and to pronounce it “hay-mish.”

  He laughed. “Tá go maith! Very good. You will learn, lass. Just give it time. All good things come with time.”

  * * * *

  On the way back home, I decided to stop at the workplace of my old friend Luke.

  As usual when I visited Luke, I saw steam billowing from his forge and I heard the clanging of metal hammering on metal. He had often told me that fashioning objects at the forge was his way of meditating about life, his way of finding answers to whatever enigma life might present to him. Luke was both a craftsman in metal and wood and a scholar, equally talented at both professions.

  I tried to stand where I would not bother him, but he saw me right away and dowsed his metal piece into a trough of ready water. The steam hissed and rose, and he wiped his face with the back of his arm. Where he rubbed, his sleeve left a long black smudge, and his dark hair stood straight up in several places, stiff with sweat.

  “Cay! Dear friend, how joyed I am to see you!”

  I gave him a warm hug. “Luke, what are you making?”

  “Gristle has asked me to fashion a short sword, one tempered thin and fine and strong. Not easy, I must say. But I have found how some native smiths combine silver and steel. Here you see the second folding of the metals.”

  My love of weapons gave me a discriminating eye, and I picked up the sword, turning it in the light of the fire. I could see that this weapon would be a fine one, light yet strong, one that would hold an edge. My own long knife was of similar construction, made by a silversmith in Harborton, the now-vanished land of Faerie.

  “Marvelous, Luke. But still not quite as wonderful as the war hammer you once made me.”

  He gazed at me fondly. “That was my masterpiece, Cay. One day I may make another weapon as fine as that one, now that I have mastered the steel-and-silver mix.”

  “How is the new school faring, Luke?”

  A crew of workmen had recently completed a large school, a round-house of clay and wattle, near the church. Students of all ages were learning both reading and writing in Latin and even a bit of Ogham, an ingenious written form of the Gaelige tongue. Luke was one of the teachers, along with Brother Jericho, another talented young man who had been sent to Derry by Father Patrick.

 
Luke’s eyes lit up. “Ah, Caylith, I am myself learning something new every day. Yesterday, in fact, I learned to write ‘In the beginning was the word,’ using the Ogham inscription.”

  “Indeed?” I asked, already wishing I had not brought up the subject of schooling. I was a nonstudent by fervent choice, thoroughly cured of scholarly pursuits when I was a child by well-meaning priests in parchment prisons.

  Luke, who had known me longer than almost anyone, must have seen my eyes glaze over, for he changed the subject abruptly. “What is on your mind this morning, old friend?”

  “Luke, do you think you could fashion a large cauldron—a very large one?”

  “How large, Caylith?”

  “Um, large enough that I may bathe in it.”

  “You want a bathing tub? Yes, I could do that. One to sit in or stand in?”

  “To sit in, I think.”

  “What ails you, Caylith? I thought the icy River Foyle in January would be no challenge to a woman who grew up using Roman baths.”

  “The frigidarium of the river right now is a bit too frigid, even for me.” I laughed. “I need a tub large enough to bathe in comfortably, but of course it still must get through the door of our teach.”

  In Éire, a small or normal-sized house was called a teach, and they pronounced it rather like “chalk.” Liam and I still lived in my original small clay-and-wattle house while his cousin Michael MacCool was building us a large homestead, called a brugh.