Z Rod Fire-Bearers: A Celtic Saga of Warriors and Saints by Haworth Martin C

Author:Haworth, Martin C
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Malcolm Down Publishing
Published: 2023-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Frustrated

AD 565 Craig Padrig

Drostan had recognised Oengus seated at the far end of the dais, noting that his cousin was made to know his place. He had also observed that the exchange between Oengus and his son had not been entirely easy, and how Alpia had sat at the side far from Oengus. She was with the young boy who had seemed familiar on previous visits, and the reason for that familiarity became obvious, for he looked like his mother.

Alpia had not been instantly recognisable. She was notably heavier than before, her thickset face burying her one-time engaging attitude. He noted how tired, drab and careworn she looked, lacking that enigmatic sparkle he had once admired in her eyes. This was surely the penalty of marrying Oengus. He felt sorry for her and wondered again why she had agreed to become Oengus’s wife. He would not put it past his cousin to have used some foul play in gaining a woman. Or was she so fickle that she had settled for a man like his cousin, forgetting the treachery he had shown towards him?

How strange they should meet like this, ten years on from their last encounter in the crannog. The joy of life had been squeezed from her and she appeared full of anxieties that he could only imagine – a mere shadow of what she had been at Beltane when she had so captivated him. What if his wishes of their remaining together – after leaping through the Beltane fires – had come true, then how might things have transpired? He felt certain that she would not look, or behave, like she did now. What if Alpia was not a wife, or a mother – how would that impact him now? He dismissed his idle speculation, recognising that their lives had diverged dramatically from those heady days of youth.

The one-time vivid recollections he had of Alpia had been eroded by ten years of absence. Her kind words, and her image, had once sustained him through his lonely exile at Coblaith’s homestead. Her absence had made his loneliness keener; her unattainability had sharpened his anger against his cousin. What he had been forced to forfeit had wounded him deeply, and though this old injury had healed, a scar yet remained, still sensitive to the touch.

He snapped out of these unhappy and futile thoughts, to focus once more on Oengus. If this was how it was to be warlord over the Ce, he did not envy him. He considered why Oengus’s two young sons were there at Craig Padrig and not at Rhynie. Were they hostages, or being fostered? He had not touched upon this in his conversation with Maelchon back at Munnir Esprid. But the younger of the two was too young to be of fostering age.

What might he have achieved if he had been made warlord? What a journey I have made, to now reckon myself as the one who is blessed, he thought. Having forsaken everything, I have gained the pearl of great price.

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