Twice Upon A Time (The Celtic Legends Series) by Lisa Ann Verge Page B

thinking.”
    “It’s no secret I don’t trust enchantments.” Aidan held up a hand against Conor’s fierce glare. “Don’t look at me like that. Your rod’s ready to jump at the smell of her. You should have wed her and bed her this very afternoon, but you left her there. You, who never waited for man or god. Is it a wonder I’ve a bad feeling about all this?”
    “ I thought it was the ale which made you as dour as an old goat since I rode in from the woods.” Conor jerked aside the woolen curtain and gestured to a bondswoman laden with a tray of mead. He swung a horn toward his foster-brother. “Take this. I will have more from you than frowns on my wedding day.”
    “You ’ve had enough of my best wishes,” Aidan said, rising to snatch the cup, “at the two other weddings of yours I’ve witnessed.”
    “Aye, and look what that’s brought me.” He braced a foot against a bench and peered out at the reve lry at the other end of the hall. “Nothing but a lass who weeps at the sound of my footsteps, and a stringy princess of an Ulsterwoman.”
    “And two and twenty fields of the finest grazing land any Ulsterman has ever seen, a hillside full of cows and a bull to rival the bull of Connacht, and a seat in Tara’s mead hall.” Aidan sucked mead off his mustache and spit out the shank of hair. “What does this creature of yours bring you? Nothing but the clothes on her back, and whatever wicked enchantment she holds over you.”
    Conor belted down the honey-mead in a single gulp. Perhaps he was bewitched. Now, out of the magic of Brigid’s presence, he could think of no other reason why the Champion of Ulster—a king —bowed without a battle to her foolish request. He’d left the woman he would make his wife standing alone on the hillside, while he stood here burning for the taste of her, waiting like a common slave in his own mead hall for an underling’s arrival.
    Conor thrust his empty horn in Aidan’s belly. “You’ll be singing another song when you lay eyes upon her.”
    “Sh e could be as fair as Deirdre of the Sorrows and it wouldn’t matter, I tell you.”
    Conor barked a laugh. “Is this your mouth I’m hearing these words coming from?”
    “Beauty never boiled a boar, or spun thread or wove cloth—and rarely does it bring cattle a nd land. That’s what a king marries for.” Aidan jerked his chin toward the tumult in the hall. “If you’ll want beauty, find a bondswoman. There are enough of them itching to share your bed.”
    “You’ll be making a feast of your words when you lay eyes upon her. I’ll wager a bull upon it.”
    “I’m a bull richer, then . I’ll not be blinded by the beauty of a cailleach .”
    The ugliness of that word writhed between them like a strange living thing . Conor jerked closed the woolen curtains and turned to face him squarely. A blood-red flush worked its way up Aidan’s face and flooded over his scalp.
    Conor said, “You’ve been spending too much time between the legs of that Morna girl, foster-brother.” It was not Aidan’s way to judge a woman so quickly . It was not Aidan’s way to think much of women at all, out of bed. “You know nothing of my wife.”
    Aidan’s jaw hardened . His throat worked, but no words fell from his lips. Conor frowned as he whirled his mantle over his shoulders. He wanted no discord between him and his foster-brother over the woman he would soon marry.
    T hen Conor heard the door of the mead hall squeal open. A sudden light filtered through the cracks in the wooden screen. The music wheezed quiet and the clatter of dancing feet ceased as a hushed silence fell.
    Avoiding Conor’s eye, Aidan stood up and fingered the door curtain aside . “Looks as if you’ve no more waiting to do. King Flann has arrived.”
    Conor slapped his brother’s shoulder. “Stand with me now, as you always have.”
    Aidan proffered him a quiet nod.
    In the mead hall, King Flann stood in the wispy light of a smoke-hole, in a