Page 50 of Celtic Love and Legends (Lords of Eire)
The day was balmy and bright, and a strong breeze blew in off the Irish Sea, snapping the standards of Bowland that flew over Wicklow Castle. The smell of salt was in the air along with a hint of warmth, as the summer season had proven oddly warm during the middle of the day. This morning promised the same weather pattern as the inhabitants of Wicklow went about their business before it grew sticky.
Kirk entered the cool confines of the enormous keep. He had been in the bailey seeing to their baggage, for a cog was moored less than a mile away that would take them to the green fields of England. It had been a trip long planned to visit Micheline and he was anxious to get on with the travel while the weather held good. With baggage and possessions loaded, now it was time to load up his family. With four young children, that would be the tricky part.
He hadn’t taken five steps into the keep when he came to a halt and looked around at his feet as if he was missing something. Retracing his steps, his intense gaze roamed the bailey as he shielded the sun from his eyes.
“Ryan?” he called.
A moment later, a small boy with dark hair leapt onto the stone steps. He was a sturdy lad, five years of age, and in his arms he carried a puppy. The dog’s long body trailed down, the hindquarters swinging as Ryan mounted the steps. Kirk frowned.
“Where on earth did you get that?” he asked.
Ryan Connaught turned his handsome young face to his father. “There was a dog that had puppies by the smithy shack,” he told his father excitedly. “I took one!”
Kirk cocked an eyebrow. “I can see that,” he said as the boy drew close and extended the puppy for his father’s inspection. “A fine beast. But you must return him to his mother.”
Ryan’s expression fell, looking much like his mother when her wishes were denied. “Papa, I want to take him with us,” he said sincerely.
Kirk shook his head. He started to reply but was cut short by first one scream and then another. Kirk turned towards the direction of the screams in time to see one of his daughters shooting out of the keep entry and bash into his legs. When he reached down to steady her, another daughter ran up on her heels and he grabbed them both to keep them from tumbling down the stairs.
“Regan!” Came the cry from inside the keep. “Bridget! Stop immediately!”
Fortunately, Kirk had the two year old and three year old girls by the arms as Mara emerged from the keep, holding several pieces of garments in her hands. Kirk looked at her curiously until he realized his daughters were only half-dressed.
“You are only now dressing them?” he asked his wife with strained patience. “We are supposed to be departing shortly. What is taking so long?”
Mara cast him an exasperated look. “The baby is screaming and these two will not stand still,” she said as she grasped Regan by the arm. “They are both trying to climb onto the windowsill for some reason. I would pull one out and the other one would climb up.”
Kirk smirked. “They get that particular trait from their mother.”
Mara didn’t see his humor. “We are going to have to do something about putting shutters over their windows,” she said. “I am terrified that they are going to fall out of the windows.”
He looked down at the dark-haired babies at his feet. “I will see what I can do,” he said. “But they really should be dressed by now. We must depart.”
“Then it would be very helpful if you could lend a hand.”
Kirk gave his wife a smile as he grasped the toddlers by the hands and led them gently back into the keep.
“You tend the baby, love,” he told her. “I will take the poppets in-hand.”
Mara reached down and scooped Bridget up. “Bridgie still needs her hose and shoes, and Regan needs nearly everything else,” she said as she watched Kirk pick up Regan. “I think she has a splinter in her toe; see?”
Kirk looked at the foot his wife was holding up into his face, kissing the dirty little foot as Regan squirmed and whined.
“I will get it out,” he said softly. “I’ll not let my baby suffer.”
Mara called out to her son, who rushed past his mother up the stairs, still holding the puppy. Mara called to him again but he ignored her, instead taking the puppy into his chamber and trying to hide him behind his bed.
As Kirk took care of Regan’s splinter, Mara went into the bed chamber occupied by her sons and wanted to know why Ryan had the puppy stuffed under his bed, but the little lad, being rather persuasive, was able to convince his mother that the puppy was a necessary fixture in his room. Mara didn’t have the patience to argue with him mostly because her ten month old son, Brendan, was screaming his lungs out in his pen on the opposite side of the chamber. She picked the baby up, comforting him.
With the baby in her arms, Mara went into the girls’ chamber to hurry her husband along but found herself watching him interact with his daughters instead. Over the past five years, Kirk, the big Irish knight with the big voice, had turned into an incredibly soft and attentive father.
In a world where most men didn’t participate in child rearing, Kirk had gone out of his way to be a part of his children’s world. Ryan was his shadow, Regan and Bridget were his loves, and baby Brendan, with dark hair and his father’s gray eyes, was usually a fixture in his arms. While Mara had little patience sometimes, Kirk’s patience was infinite, and it made her love him all the more.
She watched him as he plucked the splinter out, kissing and hugging the little girl as he proceeded to pull her little hose on and tie on her little leather shoes. Regan was the oldest at three and a half years, and she was very much her father’s daughter, but Bridget, at nearly two and a half, was the image of her mother in both looks and manner. As Kirk tried to tie up the last of Regan’s shoe, Bridget wormed her way onto his lap and plopped down. Kirk simply worked around her.
“The boys are dressed and ready,” Mara said, entering the room with Brendan on her hip. “Do you need any help?”
Finished with the shoe, he managed to pull a light linen tunic over Regan’s head and set her on her feet.
“I do not,” he said, taking a similar linen tunic off the bed beside him and pulling that one over Bridget’s dark head. “I believe we are finished.”
He stood up and Mara handed him the baby as she collected soft-knit caps from the bed and pulled them over her daughter’s heads. With the children finally dressed and ready, she surveyed the room to make sure she didn’t forget anything.
“Did you pack the parcels for Micheline?” she asked Kirk. “The ones with the baby clothes in them?”
Kirk nodded patiently, going out into the corridor to make sure Ryan was removing the puppy from his chamber. “They were loaded,” he replied. “Drew put the packages on himself.”
“Are your brothers going with us?”
“They are not. I need someone here to manage Wicklow while we are away.”
Mara nodded in understanding, still thinking on their baggage. “I do not want to forget those packages,” she said as she took her daughters by the hand. “I spent a good deal of time making all of those items for the new baby. If we forget them, I shall be heart-sick.”
Kirk was instructing his eldest son to remove the dog to the yard below, making sure the boy was heading down the stairs with the puppy before turning to his wife.
“The new baby has plenty of clothes, I am sure,” he said. “In fact, the last missive I had from Spencer said that the baby had more clothes than he did before he was even born.”
Mara was undeterred. “It is their first son,” she said. “Remember how you felt when Ryan was born? You wanted him to have the very best of everything.”
Kirk took the stairs with the baby in his arms, making sure to help his wife and daughters down behind him.
“He did have the best of everything,” he said flatly. “In fact, Ryan had more clothes than I did before he was even a month old. Why does a baby need so many clothes?”
Mara cocked a dark eyebrow. “This is not just any baby,” she said. “He is Michael Lionel Edward de Shera, heir to Anchorsholme Castle and the Bowland barony. You know that Micheline’s pregnancy was difficult. There is much to celebrate with my nephew’s arrival.”
Kirk eased up somewhat; he knew that Spencer and Micheline had suffered some disappointment prior to little Michael’s birth. A daughter, Amelia, was born not quite a year after they were married but Micheline had suffered two miscarriages before Michael was finally born. Aye, there was much to celebrate, even if his wife had gone overboard with all of the little garments she had made the child.
His wife. Kirk watched Mara as she came off the stairs, shepherding the children towards the entry of Wicklow’s mighty keep with her firm, confident manner. Even though he was lord of Wicklow Castle now, maintaining the Irish lands for Micheline and her husband, the best part of it was Mara. He could lose everything but as long as he still had her and their children, he was a rich man indeed. He adored her more than words could express.
Life over the past few years had been rich and eventful. The wickedness that had once been the Darkland was now transformed into something strong and respectable, and the dark whispers that used to follow them around no longer existed. Micheline and Spencer had seen to that, and a new generation was being born, a generation that would carry on the new tradition of Anchorsholme Castle and her benevolent lords.
When Kirk had first spied that dark-haired lass hanging from the battlements of Haslingden those years ago, never could he have imagined what that hellion of a woman would come to mean to him. The trials, tribulations, and fears that they had gone through in order to achieve their paradise had been difficult but worth the struggle. Kirk couldn’t even remember those chaotic days any longer. They seemed like a nightmare, long past.
The baby cooed and he looked down into that handsome little face, seeing his strong Irish heritage mixed with Mara’s warm English blood. He saw his father in that little face, his mother, and ancestors long passed. He saw the future. He saw his life. He saw every dream he had ever possessed in a living, breathing form.
Mara called to him and he took his gaze off the baby, once again focused on his lovely wife. With a smile and a return wave, he headed off in her direction. He was looking forward to this visit to reconnect with his sister in law and her husband, and of the good people that now populated Anchorsholme. Wanda, Valdine, Corwin, and even the former servant children Robert, Fiona, Gilly and George… they would all be there. Perhaps even Lily and her husband would visit from Quernmore. Kirk was looking forward to seeing them all again.
Life was good and the Darkland, for all concerned, was no longer dark.
It had become home.
* THE END *