Two days after they had left the forest, it entered into Cormac’s spirit to ask in his eternally inquisitive manner (which both Inga and Indulf had always admired so), “Wulfnoth do you know of any songs, about our good High-King; he who first laid down this long road?”

  “Aye I do, though my voice is nary so beautiful as those of others I have heard,” The cleric admitted in a rather sheepish voice.

  “Bah, say the words and I shall sing them,” Daegan offered confident in her undeniably lovely voice.

  “Very well,” Conceded the druid rather reluctantly.

  “Twenty-three High-Kings hath ruled in Sgain’s wide keeps,

  Each lived through sad-tales, for each fell to another’s hands,

  Save for two they were men of advanced years yet youths in spirit,

  Six were depos’d, Eight sword’d in the fields,

  Eight more haunt’d by ghosts they hath slain,

  All murder’d for the Thistle-Crown,

  First came sword-bearing Causantín,

  As a comet was pious Causantín,

  Seven sons did he begat,

  Bright was his sword, blue as the sea,

  Seven times did he war in the south,

  Upon Dún Brunde’s vast plains he left three of his suns,

  Máel-Martin followed, wholly unlike the Wise,

  None did wonder at him,

  North he ventur’d to war, Lo! His light did thus dim,

  Domnall III arose as a flame in westerly Luthain,

  His brother Ringean Longstride arose,

  Terror wert all fill’d by, and upon terror he throve,

  As a flame the wolf-moon laird tore the Caleds apart,

  Silver-steel upraised the three princes hew’d his wicked heart!

  Twelve blood-moons more arrived hither,

  They then left as the usurper and his slayers did,

  Chief of the thrice men Achaius II with the heavy lid,

  The heir of Máel-Martin did soon fall,

  Next crowned was Duibh MacRingean of three score victories,

  Unfilial the third-born of the Black-Mane hew’d in the Elvish halls,

  Thirdly did the second of Ringean’s sons he of many miseries,

  Domnall IV sweet-mien’d arose in fury,

  Wintry snows dyed red pour’d upon all lands,

  Silver-steel rain’d down west to east across all clans,

  The third of Domnall III’s slayers swept the throne in glory,

  Ketil Tyrant-Slayer arrayed in silver was thus crown’d,

  Steel-girded, strong of arm as the oak that did so defy him,

  Four-fold sons did he slay and two did unbound,

  Dour Pàdraig grew weary of the good king’s smile,

  Sword’d in Domnall’s halls thus he lay in his bile,

  Of Pàdraig, from victory to defeat he did so choose,

  And with it a son and crown did he lose,

  Achaius III MacKetil king most foul,

  Ere his fall from the northern haunted spire howl’d,

  Baltair his brother hither came next his psalms well-sung,

  fell from pious lips as leaves from ash-wood,

  Strawthern hewed him, and the book to which he clung,

  From high-Sgain arose Amlaib the Fat,

  Lover of minstrels and bards, ne’er shy of combat,

  Meret he did love, and her ballads he always sung,

  His brother did hath him undone,

  Amlaib three-Queen did run from glade to glade,

  Ruddy cheeked he swore to never fade,

  Envious Cináed II storm’d the sobbing man’s palace,

  Many had been the balls that the queens enjoy’d,

  Nary a one tittered then,

  All did so dye his cloth scarlet,

  Revelry return’d accompanied by three score famines,

  Misty Highland peaks to Lowland lands wert filled with groans,

  By Eirrik’s Highland-spire did he expire,

  Blood-soaked and proudly did all sing by Dúntyre,

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  Bold-hearts and nodding Thistles wave o’er bloody corpses,

  Deep-eyed in gore is the green Thistle rooted,

  Triumphant in battle was Siomon the Bold,

  Hark down through the glen,

  There amidst hills gleaming bright as gold,

  King of high endeavour,

  King of shining rivers,

  King of all hearts forever,

  Alas drooping Thistles and lilies wave o’er his bloody tomb!

  Away, away whither goes the Caleds again,

  Shivering is the sea of steel in the field of swans,

  For once more Máel-Martin sits the throne.”

  “What a sad hymn, why sing of the kings when what we asked for was a road-song?” Trygve complained.

  “You asked me to sing of Causantín, which I did,” Wulfnoth retorted petulantly, with a glower over his shoulder to the younger man who eyed him back with a hint of anger.

  “What all of us wished to hear of was the road built by Causantín, not of the old man himself.”

  “If all you wish to know about is the road beneath our feet, I recommend young man that you stop walking, drop to the ground and begin to press your nose upon it.” The druid instructed coldly, his patience running thin.

  “Would you care for some ale, Brother Wulfnoth?” Indulf queried with a sigh, having noticed over the past several days of travel that the cleric always felt better with a bit of wine or ale in his belly.

  “No, I should think not.”

  “It will better your mood.”

  This was how the argument always went, with Cormac occasionally attempting to underscore some wise point about the dangers of too much liquor. “A sober man is said, according to the Canticle to create a sober mind.”

  “Aye, what is your point lad?” The druid inquired not guessing at the point that the youth was trying to hint at, as always. Wulfnoth could be at times dreadfully slow.

  “Only that you ought to restrain your thirst for wine, from time to time,” Cormac advised.

  The druid though hardly paid him any mind, preferring to drain the last of their ale, brought along from Glasvhail.

  This won Indulf an exasperated glance from the younger lad, as though he were attempting to communicate that it was somehow his fault, rather than the druid’s own doing. The more timid of the two simply shrugged his shoulders in response, a touch of amusement entering his spirit at the thought that at that moment, the resemblance between Kenna and him was uncanny.

  I do hope Kenna is alright, and is not too worried, Indulf thought to himself with a touch of pity for the poor seamstress. She was gruff and never very good at showing her true feelings, especially towards her easily distracted son but she did care. Or so he had observed over the years, having seen times when she had praised Cormac’s ability to set all their clients at ease, his ability to dream up new cloth-patterns where neither she nor her apprentice could have imagined them and even his kindliness. The difficulty was that after Murchadh had disappeared, she had become trapped between a strange desire to embody in herself, both the role of the mother and that of the father.

  “Well I thought, it was a lovely song if rather sad,” Daegan said stoutly, before she added pompously to the bemusement of all the lads. “I think all men ought, to know songs that glorify our past kings.”

  “Except this song was more about their shedding of one another’s blood,” Cormac muttered dryly.

  “Aye, this hardly removes from the majesty of the deeds of Causantín and his son, the Thistle-King,” Daegan replied stoutly, “My father’s kin are related to kings, did you know?”

  At this question there were several groans, notably from Cormac and Indulf, who for his own part noticed at once how his younger sibling did not join in. Trygve’s face appeared black with anger, he noticed when he glanced over to his left, stunned by this peculiar response to Daegan’s words he whispered to him.

  “Trygve, is something the matter?”

  “Nay,” Trygve grunted his eyes on the distant horizon, to the left of them which in the distance shined as the suns’ light bounced off of the Nurvrian Sea that separated the Misty-Isle from that of Bretwealda. “I was merely lost in my own thoughts.”

  “Very well,” Indulf replied uncertainly.

  “Dae, your father is not related to kings,” Cormac argued with a swift glance towards Trygve who would under other circumstances, at other times in the past be responsible for making this argument. Though a dreamer by nature, he was by no means a believer in Daegan’s far-flung theories regarding her royal connections.

  “He is! He told me so, when I was but eight! He said that his mother, just before she passed was the cousin once removed of his Grace the High-King of Gallia.” Daegan boasted proudly, though it began with her arguing against him, by the time she finished speaking it became a boast as much in tone as in fact.

  “I daresay lass, what you have there, is quite the impressive pedigree, where did you say your father came from?” Wulfnoth asked absent-mindedly, eyes on a different horizon from that of Trygve.

  Daegan all but shone with glee at this remark. She stuck her tongue out at her friend, who turned away, “Forlarin.”

  “Hmmm,” muttered the cleric hardly paying attention before he asked with a start a moment later, tearing his gaze from the distant dark clouds. “Forlarin? Do you mean Chateau-Forlarin?”

  “You have heard of it?” The hope in Daegan’s voice was such that Indulf had never heard before.

  In a way, it was the first she heard of the lands of her forefathers. It was a sentiment that Indulf could not possibly understand. His own grandfather had been a man who was a Northman, a former slave to be exact most believed. He had escaped when taken on a terrible raid, from the island of Antillia, whereupon he had fallen into hopeless love with a local woman, who was Indulf’s grandmother, Mairi. The old granny had told countless stories before her death thirteen years prior, to her grandchildren of the goodness of her husband Thorvain, who had fathered Freygil and his brothers upon her, many years ago. The only regret that she had mentioned the old man to have had, was how he had been forced to abandon his brother, Thurangil who had failed to escape.

  He had spoken often of his regrets according to her and had on his death-bed claimed that their families would be reunited, and rightness would be restored. Or so Indulf had always been told by Salmon, Mairi and even his father Freygil, all of whom had been present when the old man perished to the terrible sweat-illness that had traversed the whole of the lands of Rothien at that time.

  In the eyes of Indulf, there was thus little mystery to his own lineage. He was the grandson of a slave, and a corn-haired farmer’s daughter, Daegan though had no true family history. She was but a lass that had high ideas of what it meant to be great, and who loved songs of long lineages full of great deeds. Yet her past was a rootless one. One that on her mother’s side was a foggy thing comprised of ancestors who were all blacksmiths and fishermen. Whereas for the romantic lass, her father’s people represented a mystery, a romantic one which could give her, a similar claim to the glory that she knew the ancestors of the line of Achaius to have possessed.

  Wulfnoth eyed her from the corner of his eyes, before he sighed, “I have trodden through the fields of the lands south of Vordréan, in the lands of Ouestria which lies in the western-most part of Gallia. It was in my youth, when I served the royal court of Brittia; I was tasked with the task of accompanying a royal embassy at first to Roven. From there, as the Duke of Norléans had left for the south, we embarked after him, the goal being to discuss with him the possibility of marrying King Eadgar II’s sister, Eadswith to the Duke.

  However, he chose to snub us, with a marriage to another lass wherefore Eadswith fell in hopeless love with a man of the line of the Fordéron. The neighbours of this baronial family were the ones who hurried to the aid of the baronial family. The hero who fought to shield Eadswith and her lover, from the wrath of the royals and Duke; Maximilien de Forlarin known amongst those people as the ‘Indomitable’ or ‘Indomptable’ for having defied the Duke and even unhorsing the Duke himself.”

  By the time that Wulfnoth took a long drought from the tankard, his companions were listening raptly. All filled with awe and amazement at what the man in question had observed.

  “Was it glorious?” Daegan asked breathlessly.

  “Have you been listening to nothing I have tried, to teach you?” Wulfnoth growled at her after he had wiped his mouth and fine moustache. “There is nothing glorious to be found in violence or battle!”

  “Fool lass,” Trygve added venomously.

  This last comment drew a disapproving glance from Indulf, “Now that was a tad uncalled for Trygve.”

  The younger lad blew a bit of air out of the corner of his mouth, a malcontent gesture that he had not done since his early infancy. Indulf continued to eye him.

  “This Maximilien, was he a laird or a Mormaer?” Daegan asked captivated by this talk, of her possible ancestors.

  Her friend could already see how the wheels inside of her head were in the middle of turning. Where her friends continued to maintain a certain healthy amount of scepticism, about any possible link between her and Maximilien she was already utterly convinced that he was her forefather.

  “I must caution you lass,” Wulfnoth warned once again, “The city of Forlarin was the largest in the county of that piece of land, where the ‘comte’ as the lord of the region is called, had somewhere between six and nine thousand souls. It is doubtful that he might misplace an heir or heiress of his.”

  Daegan hardly appeared convinced by his words of caution. Confident of her place, in this mighty lineage there was no room for doubt in her soul.

  Cormac for his own part cast his friend a thoughtful look. This last glance was the sort of gaze that as always, reminded Indulf of a thousand times in their childhood, when Daegan would boast, and Cormac would consider her words with the utmost seriousness. It was only ever the fisherman’s son who took her pretensions to nobility, quite seriously in spite of his doubt.

  It was ridiculous to Indulf’s mind, though he said nothing wtih regards to this matter.

  For a time, not a word more was uttered about Daegan’s possible ancestry or non-ancestry. Cormac lapsed back into his day-dreams, Indulf into his dreams of avenging Inga, Daegan of nobility and Trygve… who truly knew his mind as of late?

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