Part 5
Nádúrtha lugged her coddle and boxty up four flights to the tower's great hall. Mellen followed, clanging two bottles of metheglin and mugs. These he planted next to Leannán's meat fork, then scuttled back down the stairwell.
The rigid folds of Nádúrtha's new apron scraped and scuffed as she bustled along the table's edge. She'd bargained with the village maids for the stiff cloth: nettle stalks retted in streamwater, dragged out with aged hands and hackled. Maid Milis had spun the stems into string, then wove them into bolt. Two bags of salt this weaving had cost Nádúrtha, and a scoop of dried malt. But no matter. The castle larder stood as her very own bank vault, a central store of domestic, feminine currencies.
Deaf to the tabard's discordant canticles, Leannán dismissed the cook and pried out the bottle corks with his knife. He looked down the long feasting table, past the decorative bowls of maplegourd and the tall stems of lilymuse, and found Saoirse's face, all the way down at the plank o' wassail's far end. “Drink?”
She nodded a few seconds later.
“Welcome to Faodail, my new wife.” His hand flourish encompassed the expanse of his dining room. “I'm grateful you've come.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
Leannán readied his throat for an oratory, fancying the very crickets outside would cease their chirping to hear. His fancies proved right. The breezes settled and the damp earth paused its rumble. Ears and antennae turned and even the trees seemed to lean in. “In this household, wife, you are over the cook. Tell her if you're needin' different season and spice and whatnot. We store sage and arrowroot, I think, but you might be missin' Scottish herbs. Some exotic delicacy from the east.”
“Oh, Scotland has much the same spice as you Irish. The seeds fly daily, back and forth between our two shores.” She flew her hand over her plate and laughed.
Leannán ignored the laugh. “You will hire a seneschal from Castle Bawn Guelph with the further lucre the gallowglass make possible. Spend a day in town choosing sundries for the tower–more linens, more grains. Salt and malt, we're always low. Nádúrtha knows our needs. Take her with you.”
"If the cook knows these things, why do I need a seneschal?"
He looked as though he didn't know, himself. "Lord Uachtarán insists." Plinking a jingle, a weighted leather sac hung from his wrist with a certain virility as he walked toward his wife. Saoirse rose and Leannán exchanged the purse for her curtsy. “If you can accomplish what I've tasked you, wife, and still retain a coin or two, you'll see reward.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Saoirse pulled the purse's cinch and removed a silver coin. She held it to light with her thumb and finger and focused, frowning. A processional cross minted center. Unround. The edges had been clipped for bits of stolen bullion. She rubbed the raised cross with her fingertip. A pleasing weight in her hand; adding another caused a calming, deep clink.
Leannán waited a moment, then turned back toward his chair. “My last wife was in the habit of thanking my generosity.”
Saoirse's Scottish blood thickened in her veins. “These coins are the work of my men.”
Leannán nodded and reclaimed his seat. He pulled on his beard and studied his knife. Candles flickered and leaned at his breath and he sawed at his meat in silence. His lips opened for their first bite and, closing over careful teeth, finally formed the grin of a man who'd just started a game of chess.
Long chewing occupied the couple while the top log on the fire burned, charred, and toppled off. When Leannán finally rose from the table, Saoirse's food had been long swallowed. His chair made a scrape and an echo and he left the great hall down the main stairs.
Saoirse watched him leave. Mellen would be coming for the plates. Nádúrtha would be feeding the men by the hearth. Back home, her father would be telling an evening story by the still. The sun would just be setting in the snug's west window. It would set over Faodail soon, too, and as her eyes turned toward the moon, her thoughts returned to Brighid's remembered voice. The faerie's words flew and followed like flies. “Be the one he can't win without.” Tonight, though, Saoirse wanted Leannán to lose.
Striding downhall, past the open door of his new wife's bedchamber, Leannán caught sight of a scroll on her well-candled table. Such a parchment was unlikely to be anything but accounting lists and contractual rights relating to the gallowglass. His gallowglass. The laird walked in with a halt. His tower, his room. He shook off his hesitation and took what he wanted. With the scroll in hand, he re-embarked to his room and rang for his scribe.
“Read this,” Leannán ordered the bent man of letters. “I want to know the particulars of this contract. It pertains to my soldiers from Stane.”
The scribe scanned the words, then looked up with questioning eyes.
“Go on!” Leannán ordered.
“I am surrounded,” began the scribe, “by the soft, pale dangles of men, bereft and braveless between the legs of Scottish servitude.” The scribe coughed.
Leannán lifted his eyebrows. “Go on.”
“Forty-seven of them brought me to Ireland, guarding my honor and my elbows--” the scribe stopped. “I--, I don't think this is a contract, my lord.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Guarding my honor and my elbows, and toting my trunks. They dare not touch me. They dare not look at me, for I am packaged goods. I landed here yesterday at the castle of Lord Uachtarán. He is a large man, larger than my father, larger than most of my soldiers. He is chieftain of many lands. His arms press fiercely against his sleeves. His beard thuds atop his voice. I can feel that voice in my breastbone--” the scribe looked sheepishly at his audience of one, whose glare warned him not to stop. “But this man is not my husband. He is only my host. Today I married the other man, the one in the corner, for it was he who sent for me and my men. We are here to protect this patchwork of lands from a threat. What threat, I do not know.”
“Is that all?” Leannán asked the scribe, who shook his head no. “Then continue.”
“This land differs not much from my own. The land of Scots and the land of Eire are divided only by a short spanse of sea. The breezes of Ulster have kissed my cheek many an evening. Ravens ride them, bringing Irish dust on their hooked, crooked feet. We share the same sun and the same moon. Nothing separates the air between us. The fields of Aduaine are unable to hold the wind within its borders. And now, the winds of Aduaine carry my sighs back home to Scotland.”
Leannán groaned. “Do you see the word bodice? Breast?”
The scribe indicated he had not. “My favored friend, Gavenleigh, made my introduction: 'Saoirse, here presented, amicably sent by Lord MacLeish of Kirkmaiden and Stane, in the Rinns of Galloway.' This was the last mention made of me, and the man I have married, now scratching his saddle-mass in the corner, has shown interest only in the forty-seven men I have brought to fight. He--” the scribe stopped short.
“He what?” demanded Leannán.
“He smells, my lord.”
