Brides of Ireland Read online

  Eiselle was deeply touched. She looked down at the garment, which fit her so beautifully except it was a little too long. That she was wearing a dead woman’s dress brought her sorrow.

  “What was your sister’s name?” she asked softly.

  “Maeve,” Keeva replied, finally finished with the veil. “It was an illness that took her when she had seen fourteen years. I still miss her, every day, but I believe she would be very happy to see you wear her dress.”

  Eiselle felt a lump in her throat as she smoothed at the brocade. “Maeve,” Eiselle repeated softly. “I will wear her dress with honor. But I will make you this promise – should you ever have a daughter, I will be more than happy to give the dress back. I considered it only borrowed.”

  Keeva touched her cheek. “You are a sweet lass,” she said. “I am very happy to welcome you to our family.”

  Eiselle smiled bravely. “Thank you, my lady. You do me a very great honor.”

  Keeva’s teary-eyed expression said it all. But she quickly sniffed it away and clapped her hands at the servants, as if she wasn’t comfortable being overly emotional or overly sentimental about the dress or about Bric’s coming marriage. Emotion embarrassed Keeva, even though she was full of it. It was rare when she let her guard down but, with Eiselle, she felt safe enough.

  “Come, now,” she said, gathering things like rags and bowls and shoving them at the servants. “Remove these things, swiftly. Zara, you will go to the hall and see if the priest is ready to conduct the marriage. Hurry back, lass, and do not stop to talk to your husband. Run!”

  Zara opened the door and rushed off. The servants were right behind her, sending more servants into the chamber to collect the cold water from the bath and the tub itself, removing it all from the chamber.

  As much flurry as occurred in beginning the process of transforming Eiselle into a bride that morning, it was with equal flurry that everything involved in the process was removed. Soon enough, the chamber was empty of servants and tubs and grooming implements, and Eiselle stood near the lancet window, feeling the breeze on her face, as Keeva and Angela stood in the open doorway.

  Eventually, Angela left because she needed to tend her son and didn’t like leaving him with a nurse too long, so Keeva was left waiting for Zara to return with news that the priest was prepared.

  Unfortunately, Keeva was impatient and Zara didn’t return soon enough. So, excusing herself from Eiselle’s chamber, she shut the door and hurried down to the hall. Eiselle grinned when she could hear the woman shouting in the distance. She was full of life, fire, and generosity, and Eiselle liked that. But she was also deeply grateful that the woman left her alone.

  Finally, alone.

  These were the last few, final moments before her wedding and Eiselle had a feeling that this would be the last time she would ever truly be alone. From this point forward, she would belong to Bric. And if last night was an indication, she had a feeling they would be spending a good deal of time together. Not that she minded it.

  She rather liked him.

  It was time for her to be alone no longer.

  After being informed early that morning that Keeva arranged for the marriage to take place at the nooning hour, something Bric didn’t protest in the least, he’d gone to tend his men and do his usual rounds, especially after the raid the night before. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that it hadn’t been some sort of ruse, so he and Pearce and Mylo had spent time on the battlements as the sun rose, sending out scouts and receiving reports that the area within a five-mile radius of the castle seemed to be free of anything unexpected.

  If there were rebels about, they weren’t near Narborough. Still, there were three more castles and two manor houses that belonged to the Honor of Narborough, the name of the empire that belonged to the House of de Winter. All of the properties were aligned down the River Ouse, about four or five miles from each other, and Narborough was up at the head of the string of castles. There was Roxham Castle, small but sturdy, and Wissington Castle, which was actually a small village with a keep in the middle, surrounded by enormous walls.

  Along with the three castles were two smaller manor houses, Bexwell and Bedingfeld. Keeva liked Bexwell, and preferred it to the cold and often prison-like castles, so that was known as the “other” de Winter home when they weren’t in residence at Narborough. Bedingfeld was smaller, a delightful moated manor house with a large garden, but it was further out in the countryside and away from the more heavily traveled areas. It was a paradise unto itself.

  But all of these properties could be targets for the rebels, so Bric sent patrols out to check on the locations as the sun began to rise. Each location already had a contingent of men for protection, but Bric wanted to make sure nothing went awry with the rebels on the loose, today of all days.

  He didn’t want anything upsetting his wedding.

  After the time he’d spent with Eiselle last night, Bric was looking forward to their marriage in a way he could have never imagined. It wasn’t so much the thrill of taking a wife, a mother for his heirs. If he’d been looking for a mother for his children, he could have picked any woman he wanted. Nay, this was more than that – he’d spent hours last night talking to a woman who had a sly sense of humor and a quiet dignity about her that was rare.

  Eiselle had lived a life without affection, without much meaning, but it didn’t darken her outlook on the future, nor did it mar her manner. She wasn’t bitter or cold; on the contrary, she was kind and thoughtful and compassionate. She was eager to please. Bric had felt an interest in her that he’d never felt with any other woman, and it was an interest he was more than willing to indulge. He was eager for the marriage simply to spend time with her, to find out why she fascinated him so.

  Eiselle de Gael intrigued him more than he could control.

  Therefore, when his duties were finished and the morning advanced towards noon, he headed into the keep to make sure everything was prepared for the coming ceremony. He knew that Keeva had seen to the arrangements, but he also knew she would be occupied with Eiselle and in helping her prepare, so he simply wanted to see things for himself.

  It was a good thing he did. With Pearce beside him, he made his way into the great hall of Narborough only to be confronted by a priest who was eating and drinking to excess at this time of the morning.

  As Bric and Pearce approached the table, the priest didn’t seem too concerned. The table and floor around him was littered with scraps and hungry dogs, as if there had been a feeding frenzy that was still going on. The priest poured himself more wine and eyed the men as he lifted the cup to his lips. The fact that he didn’t even acknowledge them, with a greeting or otherwise, began the slow burn of Bric’s temper.

  “Well?” Bric said. “We are to have a wedding at the nooning hour. Are you prepared?”

  The priest drained the entire cup of wine and burped loudly. “It will be done, my lord,” he said, shoveling bread into his mouth. “The couple will stand before me and it will be done. It is no great trouble.”

  He was slurring his speech. The pisswit is drunk, Bric thought with disgust. Not a man of great diplomacy, but a man of quick action, Bric looked at Pearce and jerked his head in the direction of the priest. When Bric grabbed the pitcher of wine and threw it into the hearth, Pearce used his big arm to sweep all of the food in front of the priest off the table and onto the floor.

  The dogs, startled by the noise, began barking but quickly settled down when they realized there was more food to be had. As the priest roared in both surprise and anger, Bric grabbed the man by the collar of his brown woolen robes and yanked him to his feet.

  “No more food and no more drink for you,” he hissed. “You will clean yourself up before you will perform the marriage.”

  The priest glared at him as much as he could, given the fact that a very big man held him by the neck.

  “Release me!” he demanded weakly. “You have no right!”

  “I have every
right. You shame every priest in England with your gluttonous behavior, and you greatly shame your hosts. No more food, no more drink, until this is over.” Still holding on to the priest, Bric turned to Pearce. “Take him out to the well and douse him with cold water until he sobers up. I’ll not have a drunkard perform this marriage.”

  With a grin, Pearce grabbed the priest and began dragging the man out of the hall, ignoring his protests. But as he neared the entry, his wife suddenly appeared and yelped with shock when she saw her husband manhandling the priest.

  “What are you doing?” Zara asked, frightened. “Lady de Winter has sent me to make sure he is ready to perform the wedding mass.”

  Bric came up, motioning to Pearce to continue with the priest, while he dealt with Zara. “The wedding will be performed on schedule,” he told her evenly. “Your husband is simply sobering up the priest.”

  Zara’s eyes widened. “He is still drunk?”

  “What do you mean ‘still’?”

  Zara blinked her big, blue eyes fearfully. “He was drunk last night, too,” she said. “He sat at the end of the table, drinking and eating and burping all evening. Was he still drinking this morning, then?”

  Bric sighed heavily; it did not please him to hear that. “I saw him asleep in the hall last night, so at least he paused drinking long enough to sleep. But he was certainly drinking again this morning.”

  Zara shook her head sadly. “God forgive him.”

  Bric snorted rudely. “God forgive him, for certain, I will not,” he said. When he saw the shocked expression on Zara’s face, he forced himself to calm. He knew he came off as terrifying and irate when his dander was up. “Not to worry, my lady. All will be well. Is my bride ready?”

  He was shifting subjects, now bringing up Eiselle, and Zara’s fearful expression faded. “Aye,” she said. “Lady de Winter has made her look like a goddess. Wait until you see her, Bric. She is more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.”

  Bric smiled faintly. “I am not sure anything can make her more beautiful,” he said. “Will you let her know that the priest will be ready to conduct the ceremony within the hour?”

  Zara nodded, but she looked to the entry door with uncertainty. “Are you sure he will be sober?”

  Bric’s smile vanished and he cocked an unhappy eyebrow. “If I have anything to say about it, he will be,” he said. “Is Lady de Winter with my intended?”

  “She is.”

  “Tell her to wait a half-hour before coming to the hall. Your husband and I should have the priest moderately sober by then. If the water doesn’t do it, then mayhap I can scare the man into sobriety.”

  “You might scare him to death, Bric.”

  He sighed heavily as he headed for the entry. “That,” he said, “is a distinct possibility.”

  As Zara fled back the way she’d come, Bric ended up in the inner bailey, circling around the side of the keep to the secondary well. There was one in the lower level of the keep, in the storage area, protected by the walls of the keep, and then the secondary well used by the soldiers and trades. Bric could see Pearce as the man gleefully dunked the priest’s head into a big bucket, and he could hear the priest gasping as he approached.

  He watched Pearce dunk the man twice more before he stopped him. He didn’t want to drown the man before the wedding could take place, even though it would have been just punishment for his behavior. As the priest sat in the dirt, soaked and sputtering, Bric bent over and slapped the man on the face to bring him around.

  “Well?” he demanded. “What did you think was going to happen when you imbibed in too much drink before the wedding? Did you think I would let that go unnoticed?”

  The priest yelped when Bric slapped him again, rubbing his stinging cheek as he gazed up at the enormous knight with the heavy Irish brogue.

  “I am a man of God,” he said, water spraying from his lips. “Hell will welcome you with open arms for striking a man of God.”

  Bric lifted an eyebrow. “Hell will welcome me with open arms for infractions much worse than that,” he said. “I have no fear of God, or of heaven or hell, so think not to threaten me with eternal damnation.”

  The priest was still wiping water from his eyes, struggling to overcome his drunkenness. “What kind of a man are you that you would not fear God?”

  “A man of reason and common sense.”

  “Such arrogance!”

  “Indeed I am, and if I were you, I would tread carefully. And do not act so pious; you will probably make it to hell before I do, so do not imagine that you are better than I am.”

  The priest mustered a deeply outraged expression. “I did not come here to be insulted by the likes of you,” he said, struggling to stand but he was so drunk that it made it difficult. Still, he managed to get to his knees. “Where is Lady de Winter? I demand to speak with her.”

  Bric shook his head. “I would not do that,” he said. “If you think I have been hard on you, that is nothing compared to Lady de Winter. She’ll gouge your eyes out and laugh at your misery if she’s angry enough. Nay, man, you would do better with me and not the banshee.”

  The priest was still on his knees, glaring up at him, but it was clear that he was thinking over what he’d been told. Frustrated and tipsy, he held out a hand to Bric.

  “Then help me up,” he said. “And, for Pity’s sake, help me to dry off. Let us get this wretched wedding over with.”

  Bric took a step back as Pearce took the priest’s hand and pulled the man to his unsteady feet. As the priest began to wring out his robes, he glanced up at Bric.

  “Who is getting married?” he asked. “You? Or your relation?”

  Bric watched the man as he tried to clean himself up. “Me,” he said. “What is your name, Priest?”

  The man snorted as he brushed the mud off his knees. “Call me Manducor,” he said. “And you?”

  “Sir Bric MacRohan.”

  “And you are the husband-to-be?”

  “I am.”

  The priest looked him up and down. “What woman would marry a man as mean as you?”

  Bric stared at him. Pearce, having heard the comment, eyed Bric with some apprehension, fearful that he would soon be picking up pieces of the unruly priest after Bric tore him apart. But after a moment, Bric simply broke down into a grin.

  “That is a very good question,” he said. “If you remain sober, you may yet find out.”

  “And if I do not remain sober?”

  “Then I will tie a rock around your neck and throw you into the river.”

  “It seems it would be better that I remain sober.”

  “You are showing true wisdom for the very first time.”

  Manducor shook off his robes, brushed off his hands, and faced Bric. “Can I at least celebrate with food and drink after the marriage?”

  He had a rather irreverent way about him, but Bric was coming to think the man was rather sharp and opinionated, certainly not terrible qualities, properly place. He actually thought he might come to like this frank, rude, and mouthy priest. He didn’t know why, but there was something unwaveringly brave in the man’s eyes. Brave, bold, and rather pathetic, somehow. As if the man had nothing to lose by drinking himself to death and challenging knights twice his size.

  Foolish, but brave.

  “Aye,” he finally said. “You can celebrate when the marriage is completed, but not before. Do you understand?”

  “Sadly, I do.”

  “Good. Then let us return to the hall where you can dry out your robes. You have a marriage ceremony to perform.”

  Manducor continued to shake out his wet robes as he staggered back towards the keep entry. Bric watched the man go, shaking his head in exasperation as he and Pearce followed at a distance.

  “I do not think he gave us his real name,” Bric muttered.

  Pearce’s eyebrows drew together. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because Manducor is Latin for ‘eat’.”

&nb
sp; Pearce looked at Bric with some shock before breaking down into giggles. Only Bric MacRohan, the man who was so resistant to marriage that he would try to fight his way out of it, would be married by a priest who named himself after his favorite pastime. It was almost too ridiculous to believe.

  It was going to be an interesting marriage, indeed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  For Eiselle, the ceremony and feasting passed in a blur.

  In fact, the entire day had happened so fast that Eiselle felt as if she were still trying to regain her equilibrium. The grooming in the morning, then being married by the smelly priest in wet robes at the nooning hour, and then an entire afternoon and evening of feasting and song and dance.

  Truly, it had been overwhelming.

  Keeva had arranged for minstrels local to one of the taverns in the nearby village to provide music for the feast, and they had played for many hours as those who had been invited to the wedding feast drank and danced to excess. All of the guests were senior soldiers and knights, as Bric hadn’t been agreeable to the marriage until the bride actually arrived so there had been no time to send out invitations.

  A few of the soldiers had brought women with them, and Eiselle had no idea who they were, but they were dressed rather scantily. Since the soldiers seemed to keep them off in a corner, she assumed they were women with unsavory reputations brought in from the village. There were taverns there, and the whores that went with them, so she could only assume that there were whores in attendance at her wedding.

  She didn’t mention them to Keeva, however, for fear of upsetting the woman, but the truth was that Keeva was well aware of their presence. She wasn’t entirely pleased about it, but a few whispered words from Daveigh had calmed her. She was evidently willing to overlook it for the sake of the occasion, which was truly a celebration.

  Finally, Bric MacRohan had taken a bride and Keeva, more than anyone, didn’t want anything to upset that.

  Eiselle knew that Keeva had worked very hard to make this moment possible, but the reality was that she didn’t know just how hard. Although Bric had confessed his reluctance to marry, she really didn’t know the hell he’d put everyone through. All she knew was that she was now Lady MacRohan and that her wedding feast had been full of delicious food, of lively music, and of men and women enjoying themselves.