Chapter Four
Autumn, AD 1000
Thurles, Kingdom of Mumhain, Éire
Niamh watched withamusement as Morrígan crept up behind her mother, who sat mending a cloak, unaware that she was being hunted. When the mischievous cat finally jumped for the cloak’s wiggling folds, her mother screeched, standing up to scold the beast.
Sitting on a stool nearby, Máire looked up from her embroidery, laughing at Morrígan’s antics.
Her mother, fists on her hips and cloak still in her grasp, looked from Máire to Niamh. “It’s a good thing that cat can hunt,” she proclaimed, “else I’d be the one hunting her, the little terror.”
“Morrígan has an excellent sense of character,” Niamh replied evenly, turning back to her work table. She didn’t have to look up from her mortar and pestle to know that her mother glared at her back.
Niamh’s mother loved to complain about Morrígan, as had her father, but in truth everyone loved the house cat. She managed her little kingdom fastidiously, and even the neighbors noted how few mice or rats wandered the village streets.
After her father had abandoned them six years ago, Niamh and her mother had been able to use the money he’d left them to secure a small cottage. They even had enough to keep on Máire,who had become like a member of the family herself, but they had let all the other servants go. Between their remaining funds, their mending service, and Niamh’s healing, they managed to get by comfortably enough.
“That smells wonderful,” Máire commented once the room had calmed. “Is it cinnamon again?”
“Aye,” Niamh answered, continuing to grind the sweet spice. “They finally had more in at the market.”
Her mother, who had resumed mending the cloak, inhaled deeply. “Is Alva coming by again today?”
In answer, a knock sounded at the front door. Máire made to get up, but Niamh frowned at her and motioned for her to stay seated. There was no reason she couldn’t answer the door for her own customer.
Opening the cottage door, she smiled warmly at Alva and invited her in. “I was just finishing up your infusion,” Niamh told her. “How have things been going?”
Alva sat down in a chair at Niamh’s work table with a defeated sigh. “Still nothing,” she told her. “He’ll be taking a second wife if I don’t conceive soon.”
“Oh, hush,” her mother chided from the other side of the cozy room. “He’ll do no such thing.”
“He’s said as much himself. I’m lucky he doesn’t leave me entirely.”
“Even if he takes another wife,” Máire added, “you’ll be his favorite. You’re his first love.”
“Now, ladies,” Niamh interrupted, pouring boiling water over the ground cinnamon bark and adding orange peels along with it, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Alva is going to conceive by the end of the year, or I’m going to resign as the wisewoman.”
A raucous opposition sounded, startling poor Morrígan and sending her straight into Niamh’s room.
“Niamh,” Alva spoke over the other two, “I appreciate your efforts, truly. But I am not so foolish as to believe anything can be done outside an act of God.”
“Then you’d best be praying to him,” her mother muttered. “He doesn’t listen to us.”
Niamh ignored the ache in her chest at her mother’s words. “As long as Alva still bleeds, she can still conceive.”
First her mother, then Máire, then Alva looked up at her. The pity on their faces made her want to scream. “Oh, saints, you lot. I’m perfectly happy without children.”
It wasn’t as though she had a husband she was trying to hold onto.
She’d made certain of that.
According to the laws of their people, a man could take more than one wife, if it pleased him. Most folk were happy with only each other, with one glaring exception.
Children.
The only men she knew who’d taken a second wife or who had left their women and remarried—her father among them—did so to ensure their family lines continued. Some women realized it was their husbands causing the trouble in conceiving and obtained divorces themselves. Really, folk could do whatever was necessary to have the children they desired.
Others didn’t care whether they sired children or not. In fact, some of the poorer couples found it easier to get by with just the two of them to provide for. The folk who really needed heirs were the nobles, the lords and kings who had to throw themselves into battles to hold onto their power and protect their people. Aye, princes needed as many children as they could get.
