Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [71]
And now he had summoned his family to a meeting. What was he going to say?
Fergus had ruled so long that he was the only chief that most of the folk in the area had ever known. With increasing age, his shrewdness and wisdom had continued to develop. Men came to him for justice from all over the Liffey Plain; and the territory around Ath Cliath had come to be known, in much of Leinster, as the Land of Fergus. And for the last twenty years, ever since the death of Conall, she had kept house for him faithfully. Day after day she had nursed him this last, long year, as his splendid old frame gradually broke down. Even now, at the very end, she always kept him clean. And he had been touchingly grateful. “If I’ve reached such a great age, Deirdre, it’s thanks to you,” he had told her more than once, in front of her brothers.
Yet it was herself, thought Deirdre, who should be thanking him—for the peace that he had given her. Twenty years of peace beside the Liffey. Twenty years to walk beside its waters, out to the great open sands of the bay and the promontory she loved. Twenty years to bring up her son, Morna, safe under the gentle guardianship of the Wicklow Mountains.
Morna, son of Conall. The one they all loved. The one they protected.
The one they had hidden. Morna: the future. He was all she had.
After Conall’s death, she had never taken up with any other man. It wasn’t that she hadn’t felt the need. Sometimes she could have screamed with frustration. The problem had been the men. At first she had supposed that she might find someone at one of the great festivals. “You won’t find another Conall,” her father had warned her. But she had hoped that perhaps some young chief might take an interest. Her time with Conall had at least given her confidence with men. She held her head high. She could see that she created a stir. But though people were polite—after all, she had been chosen as the bride of the High King himself—they were cautious. The prince who had gone to sacrifice was a figure of strange honour and awe. But his woman, the cause of the trouble, made people nervous.
“You think I’m a bird of ill omen?” she laughingly challenged one young noble. “Are you afraid of me?”
“I’m afraid of nobody,” he’d retorted indignantly. But he’d avoided her all the same.
She’d stopped going to the festivals after a year or two.
So what did that leave? A few brave souls in the Dubh Linn region. Two sturdy farmers, a widowed fisherman with three boats: they didn’t inspire her. Once her father had brought home a merchant from Britain, who’d sold him some slaves. He was more interesting. But she would have had to go and live across the sea. She was touched that her father should have suggested such a thing, for she knew that he needed her and that he loved his little grandson; when she hadn’t wanted to go, he had not looked too sorry.
Morna, they had called him, after Conall’s father. His first two years, for her, had been especially difficult. Perhaps if he had not looked so like Conall it would have been easier. He had her strange, green eyes; but in all other respects he was the image of his father. She couldn’t help it. Every time she looked at his little face, she had visions of his father’s fate awaiting him. She had been troubled by nightmares: nightmares about Tara, nightmares of blood. She had developed a terror of druids—a terror that they would somehow snatch her baby from her and destroy him. A year after Morna’s birth, Larine had come, as he had promised that he would. She knew he meant it kindly. But she could not bear to see him and told her father to ask him to go away. Fergus was concerned that if Larine took offence, this might bring on a druid’s curse, but Larine had seemed to understand. She had not seen him since.
Morna: he was such a sunny boy. He liked to play, to go hunting with her father. Fergus doted on him. To her relief, he showed no signs of going off alone or of moodiness. He was a lively, affectionate