Chapter One
Ulaid, Éire
November, AD 1000
Diarmid reclined againstthe fallen trunk of an ancient oak, laughing as his companions dined by his side on day-old oatcakes—a brief respite from days of overland pursuit before the Fianna went to battle once more. This time, they pursued Aodh, King of Ailech, who had captured Princess Cara of Thurles. They intended to remedy that shortly.
These men, King Brian’s Fianna warriors, had become Diarmid’s family over the past year. He had trained, fought, and bled beside them. Even a few hours before a battle, nothing raised his spirits like moments shared with his fellow Fianna. Only a mug of ale and a woman in his lap could improve upon the evening. And though there was a woman present, she currently sat on Dallan’s lap.
“You still haven’t told us how you’re here instead of in Laigin,” Diarmid observed. “I thought your uncle wished you to leave the Fianna, yet here you are, traveling north alongside us with your lovely bride.” He smiled at her warmly with his compliment.
Dallan glared daggers at him, nose flaring, as though Diarmid wouldactuallyattempt to steal his friend’s lover. Honestly, he should be insulted.
“Well?” Finn, a warrior who could play the harp so well he could make a grown man weep, prodded Dallan. Of all of them, Finn was both the tallest and fairest in coloring.
Dallan’s lips tightened as he exchanged a look with Niamh, the golden-haired beauty on his lap. “It went poorly.”
Every one of them knew what that meant.
“Which one of them tried to kill you?” Diarmid asked.
Niamh’s bright blue eyes went wide. “How’d you know?”
“When things don’t go our way, there’s usually a sword involved, dear,” Diarmid answered.
“She’s not your dear,” Dallan growled.
“I call every woman ‘dear,’” Diarmid explained slowly, as though Dallan were addled.
Finn didn’t even attempt to suppress a chuckle at Dallan’s posturing. Diarmid’s brother Conan joined right in with him.
Dallan frowned at them. “Laugh all you want. When it’s your woman he’s after,I’llbe the one cackling.”
“Now wait just a moment,” Diarmid interrupted. “Never in my life have I stolen a woman from a friend.”
“Come, now, Diarmid, you can hardly blame him,” Finn replied smoothly. “In the ancient tales, was it not your namesake who stole Gráinne from Finn mac Cumhail?”
Diarmid narrowed his eyes at Finn. “Aye,” he allowed. “And Finn mac Cumhail’s first wife was turned into a deer. It seems to me he has trouble with wives, not friends.”
“You bedded Ailis,” his brother Conan accused. “Remember?” Conan turned to Finn and Dallan. “Love of my life, she was.”
“She stole your jeweled dagger!” Diarmid wished his brother sat close enough to have his head smacked—maybe it would revive his memory.
Conan, his deep brown eyes the same as Diarmid’s, had the gall to look affronted. “Then why did you bed her?”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“He hasn’t gone two days without a woman warming his bed,” Cormac, his eldest brother, muttered unhelpfully. In Diarmid’s estimation, Cormac’s manner of socializing was to sit, silently observing conversation, until he decided how he could best thwart it.
“That can’t be true,” Niamh countered, coming to his defense as she wrapped her arm about Dallan’s shoulders. “Has he not been traveling nearly a sennight?”
Every one of his friends looked to him, their gazes filled with accusation.
“There was that farmer’s daughter just north of Thurles,” Finn offered.
“And the miller’s daughter the day after,” Conan added.
Illadan, who had ignored the conversation entirely as he stood guard, turned around. “Don’t forget that widow.”
