Maire Read online

  “God will lend weight to my words, Mother. Meanwhile, gather the women into the chapel to petition Him to do so. ’Tis His hand, not those of these farmers, that will save us.”

  Rowan glanced meaningfully to the men who assembled by the moment to stand with him against the Scotti. They were men of soul, not iron.

  “Tell Father I’ll not leave our people to Scotti mercy.”

  “Demetrius believes in you as I do,” his mother assured him. “God will be with you, son.”

  Bedridden with the ills of age and a weakening heart, Demetrius ap Emrys had long since turned the running of the villa over to the Scot slave boy he’d adopted twenty years before. Rowan had resembled a son lost to illness and counted his fortune well found in his new situation, although he still remembered the humiliation and horror of being sold by his own brother; Britons sold their kin into slavery, not the Irish Celts!

  There was no doubt in Rowan’s mind that this underlying resentment had carried him with bloodlust onto the frontier battlefields, where he’d cut down those who had caused a young boy so much grief. Then Rowan had been brought home, burning with fever and infection from wounds received in a barbarian raid. Death had not come as he, in his lucid moments, expected… even prayed for. God had other plans for him and his.

  But what, Father?

  “I pray I will live up to the general’s expectations,” he said, hearing no answer to his furtive inner question.

  “You have never let us down, son.” His mother’s assurance snatched him from the past. “Never.”

  She held his gaze long enough for Rowan to recognize she knew where he’d been and what he was thinking at the moment. Her intuition never ceased to amaze him. With a brush of her lips on his cheek, she turned in a swirl of gold-threaded skirts to enter the villa.

  Lady Delwyn was still beautiful, Rowan thought. The glow of her kind heart dimmed the ravages of time on her face. Demetrius gave her credit for his inspiration, and indeed it was her influence that had led Rowan to study the gospel during his recovery.

  “We’re ready for the fiends, Rowan. Better to die than have ’em overrun our fields and ruin what little chance we have for survival this winter.”

  Rowan shook his head as Dafydd, his sturdy, stocky bailiff approached. “Only as a last resort.”

  Dafydd’s face was flushed at the prospect of a fight. While Rowan understood the Welshman’s outrage at this affront to their families and land, Rowan had to be careful not to let it affect his judgment. Even as his palms grew damp with dread, an old, involuntary excitement at the prospect of combat plagued his mind. With it came a haunting flashback of the battle that had ended his military career.

  Father, please, not now! Rowan swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Had the dream been a foreshadowing? Thankfully his voice gave no hint of his inner turmoil.

  “I hope that won’t be necessary, Dafydd. I intend to appeal to their fierce sense of honor first. The Scotti hold that dear, despite their heathen ways. Perhaps we’ll settle the outcome with cunning rather than with lives.”

  “Honor!” Dafydd let loose with a curse in his native Celtic tongue, something about the worth, or lack thereof, of a pagan god’s dung. The steward might worship his maker as earnestly as any man in the true faith, but he did not hesitate to use the gods of his forefathers to sully what riled him. “There’s no honor in them that pillage and burn a church. Like as not that robe you’re wearin’ will only make them laugh at you.”

  Rowan ignored the outburst. “Have the men form a line between me and the villa and hold it while I go ahead to meet the raiders.” Self-consciously, he fingered the coarsely woven material of his robe. Justinian offered it when Rowan began to study the gospel. Torn between his sense of obligation to his family and that to his God, it was months before Rowan finally donned it. Perhaps its feel against his skin reminded him of humility.

  “I’ll not let you go out alone,” Dafydd argued. “We’ll all go.”

  “I go alone.” The finality in Rowan’s voice ended the steward’s protest. “I’ll not have the Scotti think we are rallying against them like the villagers.”

  He was glad Dafydd did not suspect the palm-wetting fear and dread threatening his cool demeanor at the prospect of taking up his sword again. Yet, despite Rowan’s strong reluctance to touch the weapon, which had both saved and destroyed him that fateful day on the battlefield, he was not fool enough to approach an enemy intoxicated by bloodlust and victory without it. An undermining cold like a winter brook ran through Rowan’s body. The Scriptures said to trust in God, but they also said not to tempt Him.

  “Why don’t we let God decide whether we have to use our swords or not?”

  Dafydd snorted in sheer wonder. “This from the same man who single-handedly turned away a Pictish attack on—”

  “My sword was my master then, Dafydd.” Rowan had been raised in the Christian faith by his parents, but it had no place on the battlefield, or so he’d once believed.

  “And one to be feared, I’ll swear by that.”

  Having sent more than his share of mortals to the other side with the weapon, Rowan couldn’t argue. Thankfully, a movement on the newborn, green horizon snatched Rowan from the turmoil—inner and outer—assaulting him. He fixed his attention on a more immediate battle.

  “There they are!” Dafydd shouted beside him. “To arms, men!”

  “Do exactly as I said and form a line in front of the villa,” Rowan ordered, “and remain there until I signal you. If I can work this out peacefully, no one will suffer. Nonetheless, we have to show that we will not give way easily.”

  Dafydd sneered. “Like the fishermen and the cleric?”

  “Those who resisted were foolish. Justinian knew the gold in the church could be replaced. Human life cannot.” Rowan glanced at the first of the painted warriors amassing on the hill. He prayed again that the village priest had kept the bulk of the villagers under control during the pillage. The sight of the enemy’s war paint and tattoos, which made the Scotti appear as demons sprung from Hades itself, was enough to intimidate the most stalwart enemy. Their cries were worse, though. Inhuman and terrifying. Still, God knew the Scotti bled and died like any mortal—Rowan had spilled enough of their blood to prove that.

  One time too often.

  Merciful Father, let it be forgotten, just this day! Give me my sword to save lives, not take them. He cast an encompassing look at his troops. Their lives were more important than their worldly goods. He’d worked shoulder to shoulder with these good-hearted fellows, wrestling with the heavy plows imported from Belgae to clear land to feed their families. They were more his family than the blood clansman who’d sold him.

  Rowan’s eyes glittered, hardening as more and more of the painted heathens gathered on the horizon. If saving his people meant bloodying his sword, then so be it. And yet, as he gave one last order, his words were free of the shared rage and anticipation of conflict infecting the men behind him. He willed his right hand to the hilt at his waist.

  “Pray, good fellows. ’Tis a stronger weapon than this.” Rowan believed this in his heart, but he could not feel the assurance of which he boasted. Indeed, his greatest challenge at that moment was not the hordes amassing in the distance, but to practice as he preached: to rely on God to make his plan work.

  At the crest of the hill overlooking the villa below, Maire stood with her foster brothers, as spattered by blood as they.

  It’s real.

  Her heart pounded hard enough, she was certain, to loosen the red and yellow enamel decoration of her leather breastplate. The years of slaying wooden posts and sparring with her brothers and trainers were over. Instead of splitting the head of a melon this day, her sword had laid open a human being’s skull…and the carnage threatened to explode in her stomach each time she recalled it.

  Yet she dared not show her weakness, to let any see that her bones felt as though they were turning to water and her blood to bile. She was Maire
of Gleannmara, the princess born to follow her warrior mother’s legacy. While other little girls were instructed in the womanly arts of needlework and cooking, Maire had honed her skill in the arts of war against men half again her size. She could better than hold her own with any weapon.

  “What do you make of that, Firebrand?”

  “They’re expecting us,” she answered the bearlike man who stood at her side. “’Twill make no difference.”

  Eochan was the eldest of her two foster brothers. His size and strength were his greatest assets, as well as his liability. A blow from him would send a foe reeling into the other world without warning, but Maire had learned that her speed and agility stood a better chance of dodging the advance, enabling her to strike before the burly warrior recovered his swing. Most of the time, that is. Once in practice he’d broken her rib, then nearly collapsed with contrition. The bear had a tender heart.

  “No doubt—” he nodded—“you’ve won the morning, to be sure.”

  “Over fishermen, not warriors.”

  The time had come to prove herself. This very sunrise, when they’d landed on the beach, she’d gone eighteen, the age at which the high king Diarhmott had proclaimed she might become her mother’s successor.

  But why, in the name of her ancestors’ gods, had those fishermen taken it upon themselves to defend the church? Her brothers had anticipated no resistance with the sacking of the village’s house of worship. Then suddenly, men with poles and hooks such as they used to make their living, were attacking them. It became a matter of survival to spill blood, although there was no sense of triumph in overcoming men more accustomed to handling nets than weapons. Where were the warriors of the village?

  “Well, look at that!”

  Eochan pointed to a tall, robed figure striding toward them in the distance. The stranger moved unconcerned, as if out to take in the soft air, which was so thick with mist that Maire’s short tunic of coarse cloth hung damp over her combat-lean form.

  “A priest with a sword.” Maire’s curious gaze moved beyond the man to the strange looking rath below.

  At least the village priest had a stone tower of sorts in which he’d encouraged some of the villagers to take refuge. No earthen work or even stick fencing protected the odd, rectangular buildings below. The momentum of the Scotti’s run down the hill would carry her men through the structure like a boulder of destruction. Natural curiosity made her wish she might see it outside the fierce rush of conquest, for the well-kept garden, around which the massive dwelling had been built, was unlike anything she’d ever laid eyes upon.

  Her estimation of her foes’ wit dropped, in spite of the beauty they cultivated. A body couldn’t live on flower blossoms, no matter how pleasing they were to the eye. But then there was enough cleared land here to afford both food and pleasure to the eye, she supposed. The blossoms were so vibrant Maire could almost smell them across the distance. It was a relief from the stench of spilled blood.

  “He’s too late to help the village, if that’s his purpose. Let’s charge, Maire, and see if his studies have sharpened his skill with that sword swinging at his side.”

  “This is different, Declan.”

  Instinct told her this as much as anything. Unlike her youngest foster brother, who’d finally caught up with them, she was loathe to start the bloodlust again when she’d scarce recovered from the last. She fingered her warrior’s collar as though she might draw on wisdom from its past. The pure, twisted gold circling her slender throat had belonged to Maeve and been witness to many battles.

  “He appears to come to us with a purpose.”

  “Aye, to make a sacrifice with his own blood, by the look of it!” the more impetuous of her foster brothers crowed in disdain.

  Declan would challenge the sea itself, she thought. Faith, he’d done just that before they embarked. Knee-deep in the surf, he’d slashed at the continuous flow of waves beating against the beach until, winded and full of himself for his demonstration of skill, he’d finally joined the rest.

  Now he wiped the blade of his cloidem against his brat of four colors. The cloidem was sharp enough to split hairs driven against it by the wind, or so he’d boasted in the shipboard revelry the night before. Like most of the men, he wore nothing else save his cloak of distinction and rank. His fine body was painted, his long, fair hair stiff with lime. With a shout of defiance he shook his sword over his head at the oncoming stranger.

  “Best you take heed, pup. The princess has her mother’s instincts.”

  “Brude!” Maire was shocked to see Gleannmara’s elder druid coming to the front on a small, shaggy pony. Her face flushed scarlet at the compliment of his presence. Though getting on in years, Brude blessed the voyage with his presence. Still, no one expected the druid to accompany them to the battle-front. With him here to sing a battle song, victory was already theirs.

  “And a maiden’s blush as well,” Eochan teased. “So give us the word, Firebrand. What do we do?”

  Maire considered the question amidst the spell cast by the druid’s appearance. It was not ordinary for Brude to accompany them on such a minor excursion as a simple raid. It could only be guessed that he’d come to declare Maire equal to the task of ruling her mother’s tuath. Surely the spirits of victory were with them now.

  “Tell me what you think of yon stranger, child,” the ancient prompted, his brow furrowed with time and cultivated with the wisdom of his ancestors.

  Maire braced herself mentally, knowing this was yet another test. The stranger was closer now. He was tall and broad shouldered. His robe filled with the westerly breeze and flowed about his long legs as if to make him appear a giant.

  “Those are not the shoulders of a man who spends his days bent over parchment and quill.”

  “Good…good,” her mother’s chief advisor encouraged. Despite the strain of his years, Brude’s eyes were brighter than the fires of Beltaine, full of the life force itself.

  “Nor is his stride the humble one of a meek worshiper of the Christian God.”

  The Christian faith was not unknown in Erin. Many high kings and druids had embraced it. Indeed, people flocked to its gentle call. It was through a Christian holy man’s influence that pagan and Christian alike accepted King Diarhmott on the throne.

  Of course, Diarhmott claimed he’d only used the Christian teacher toward his own end. Like many of his clans, the high king felt at heart this Christian god was too meek for their warlike Celtic nature. Nor was he overimpressed with the god’s word as the last few of his predecessors had been. The old laws and gods had served them well enough for centuries. Still, change was good. Change meant growth, though Maire—like every Celt she’d known—was ever wary of its direction.

  “What else, child?”

  Maire tried to make out the stranger’s face. “His eyes are narrowed, sharp like a hawk’s. He measures our strength with each step he takes toward us.”

  “Then he should turn tail and run at any moment now.”

  Maire dismissed Declan’s observation, trying to tune in to Brude’s uncanny perception that it might speak to her as well. After all, she was Maeve’s daughter. “No, he wishes to talk, I think.”

  She noted the man’s hand resting, unassuming, on the hilt of his weapon. His thumb might be hooked in his belt for all the threat it implied; yet, as he neared, Maire felt the hair prick like cold fingers at the nape of her neck.

  “He’s a warrior, no doubt,” she said with conviction, “but there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  “What?” Eochan glanced askew at the insinuation of the unseen, first at Maire and then at the druid, who was nodding in agreement. The giant Scot would charge a legion of fighting men on his own, but he had no backbone for spirits. The word of a druid that the spirits were on his side was all he required.

  “I sense it too.” Brude’s pleasure in her perception was clear. “There is a presence beyond the physical with this man. ’Twill take more than skill alone to deal
with him. But have no fear,” he added, upon seeing the graze of alarm on Maire’s face. “That is why I am here.”

  The older man slid off his pony and produced a small harp as if by magic out of the volumes of his embroidered robe. “There are many concerns to distract my queen without those of hostile spirits.”

  “Did you hear what he said?” Declan whispered beneath his breath.

  Indeed Maire had. Brude called her his queen. She’d thought he’d remained aboard ship, yet he’d seen enough of her courage and skill to declare her his queen. Had he used the eyes of a raven?

  Maire had never fully understood the druidic power to communicate with certain animals. Indeed, the bard had a pet heron, which waddled after him like a feathered shadow. She’d seen him speak to the bird and heard the bird answer many times, although not in such language as she could understand.

  Even as the elder tested the eloquent strings of his instrument, the men forming about them began to chant her name on the wind. They had heard Brude’s words, too. With each repetition, the tribute grew louder and louder. She hadn’t expected this until they returned to Gleannmara in triumph. Part of her bade her lower her gaze and tug at the hem of her tunic in embarrassment, but she’d been groomed for this day. Instead, she stood taller with each rousing cheer, until she’d reached the pinnacle of her height at Eochan’s shoulder, where a golden broach secured his woolen cloak.

  “Come listen to an old man’s words, my queen, while your brothers see what this stranger wishes.”

  “Shouldn’t I be the one to find out?” After all, she’d just been acknowledged as queen.

  “He is not what he appears, nor do we wish to appear what we are until we discover his purpose. Let the men find it out. Then he shall deal with our queen.”

  Brude was right. Her mother never initially negotiated with her enemy; although once past her emissaries, her opponents found her as formidable as any man. Why encourage the enemy to think there was possible weakness on the clan’s part, with their chieftain being a mere woman? It was only in the combat of weapons that this underestimation was to her advantage—a combat that was imminent.