When Day Turns Night Read Free Page B

what is
it?” I spurred my horse softly, trotting up toward my sister,
putting Trian and Niall between us and the guard. Though he wore my
father's colors, I did not recognize him.
    “Highness,
your father is gravely ill, your mother fears he may go before this
very night.”
    My heart broke, but
stoically I nodded and we followed him home.

    Trian delivered Ita
and I to my father's bedchambers. He lay in his fur and wool quilts,
his hair laying against the pillows beneath him. My mother at his
side, her hand in his. Only last night he was hearty, and so much
better. He coughed again, and my mother wiped a bit of blood from
his mouth.
    I stopped right
inside the door, feeling Trian respectfully at my back, close enough
I could touch him, but far enough for propriety.
    Ita crawled up on
the bed beside my father, her head dropping to his chest, and he
tried hard to wrap his arm around her.
    I could feel the
tears on my cheek, knowing that we were losing him. I stepped
forward and knelt beside my father's bedside, praying for his pain to
ease quickly. I heard Trian's voice dismiss the other guards, taking
his post beside the head of my father's bed.
    Trian offered a
song of praise, a soft prayer song, and I watched as my father
slipped away to his lovely voice.

    Winter, Ireland,
1139

    I refused to use
the feast of my father's funeral as the feast for my wedding, sending
Conchobor away until spring. I would wed him then and he would
become king. My mother was in deep mourning – secluded in my
father's chambers she barely exited to speak with my sister and I,
her heart broken. As acting queen I could demand a stay of marriage,
surely.
    Conchobor was
furious, as was his mother. But as acting queen, my lord, even my
future husband the king could not overstep my rule until we were wed.
He and Muirenn had disappeared into the night two days after my
father's passing. Before even the funeral.
    I stood at my
window, peering through the chilled slit, staring down into the
courtyard, watching my soldiers as they went through their morning
routines in the softly falling snow. I saw Trian, giving orders and
adjusting their ranks.
    I had learned that
he was a Captain, his force had come from the borderlands the week
before my engagement party. I had also learned that there was some
concern about my future husband. He was known along the borderlands
as a hard man, his father they said was feeble minded, and Muirenn
had raised him alone and poisoned him with her black heart. He had
passed me letters from a Baron whose lands bordered Artan's.
    It did little to
dispel my concerns I had upon meeting him. The Baron had sent Trian
and fifty of his best men, and said that he would send us many more
come spring time, or, should I need it, sooner. He had begged my
father to rescind his blessing on Conchobor.
    I sighed. None
shall usurp him save a son of his blood. I was not a son. I crossed
to my desk, and the stack of other papers I had inherited with the
refusal to marry until spring. It was going through those papers
that I had discovered the Baron was not the only one who had begged
my father to denounce Conchobor. There were examples of him being a
hard man, of him hanging a woman for refusing to give him her
virginity.
    Ita came in as I
pondered these missives again, dozen's of them, appealing to my
father's heart and trust. Begging him to realize the crown prince
was as horrid as Mac Raith had been.
    “I'm bored,”
my sister said, flopping on the bed, “Lets go riding.”
    I looked at her, as
though she had just entered the room.
    “I'm busy,
sister. In a few months time I am supposed to marry.”
    “Ugh,
Conchobor is so secretive. He refused to talk to me. You should
have insisted that he go hunting with us, if he's to be my brother
I'd like to know what he's like.”
    I looked at her.
“So would I. Have you done your music lessons?” I
asked.
    Ita sighed with the
petulance of a child. “Yes, and my stitches, and my reading.