The lands of Nordleia behind them, the people of Glasvhail filled with renewed resolve and joy made good time where once they had dawdled at every opportunity.

  The village of Nordleia firmly behind them also, this being the northernmost village of áed’s lands, and though hardly welcoming almost appeared so compared to Nordleia. It was also therein that town that they exchanged a great many valuables, for food.

  It was en route for the next town that the first true clash between the Gormcruach and Kenna took place, after she caught sight of just how poorly Arran’s men had taken alongside her own people, to treating Tormod and Rhona.

  The resentment that they had all felt at her kidnapping, and even towards Badrách for his many crimes against them, boiling over so that two were made to feel the injustices that had been inflicted upon them.

  Dressed in her brown woollen winter-dress and in a thick cloak, in spite of the fact that it was no longer winter but well and truly spring. Not having many dresses anymore, Kenna had a choice of either this one or the repulsive silk wedding-dress that she had been made to sew together. With the dress one that Ida had taken to, and vowed to safeguard.

  “For when the mood strikes you once more, to marry,” Ida had teased which had drawn a scoff from the seamstress.

  “Ha, as though such a day will ever come.” Kenna grumbled back to her.

  It was the next day that Kenna volunteered for the duty of carrying food to the rear-guard or as Arran had taken to calling it the ‘baggage-train’. A term that she would have preferred he not use, for it suggested that they were off to war. A notion that positively horrified her, and chilled her to the bone as it did all who heard him speak so.

  Even Elspet and Ealar appeared frightened by the idea. As to the duty of carrying some of the food to the rear for it was carried by those at the front, for fear of reprisals from Nordleia, it was one that Freygil had put into action and that for the first several days the seamstress had not participated in. Helga had, and it was she who complained that morn’ to her mother and Kenna.

  The older woman had taken to walking with her, and keeping near to her along with her youngest daughter Eillidh, who had begun to shed her earlier melancholy much to both women’s joy. With Helga complaining bitterly as one of the warriors of the Gormcruach hurried forth from their midst at the rear to complain of hunger, “They are always like that. They expect us to feed them, and after we have they still complain and at times demand they have a larger share than any other of our men!”

  “Such is the way with warriors,” Kenna remarked, a long-distant memory of how rowdy her father could get flooding back to her.

  “You speak as though you have known warriors in the past,” Said Ainsley doubtfully, entirely unaware of the other woman’s past or having forgotten it.

  Kenna hesitated, only to murmur, “Ainsley you came from outside of Glasvhail yourself, some twenty-five years ago.”

  “Aye.”

  “I came from outside the village almost five years prior to your own arrival,” Kenna explained only to add a little more slowly. “It was during my earliest days, I came to know a few things about the sort of breed of men that Arran and his ilk, belong to.”

  This admission was a shock, with the older woman studying her with a consternated gleam in her eyes, while her daughters stared with a little awe, in their own eyes. It was the younger who piped up, for what was the first time in some time. “Do you mean you lived with warriors in a castle or a manor-house?”

  “Nay, my father was a sell-sword who typically found work, in the north,” She retorted with a faraway look in her eyes.

  “Is he one of the Gormcruach?” Ainsley asked of her.

  This brought Kenna up short. The notion had never occurred to her nor was it one that she humoured for very long. “Nay, he likely died a long time ago, after he abandoned me.”

  She strove to keep the bitterness out of her voice, yet judging by the worried and sorry looks in the other women-folks’ eyes, her efforts had not met with considerable success.

  It was Helga who next spoke, doing so only when her sister who was in command of some of the provisions along with Finella, on Ida’s suggestion called out to her. “Helga, the Gormcruach want this morning’s provisions.”

  “But I do not want to bring them, their meals to-day!”

  “Helga, do as you are told, remember what Kenna said; if you shan’t make yourself useful, you have no right to complain or to eat.” Her sister growled back ere she turned her attention towards reminding three others to see about gathering some of their carrots and apples for the sell-swords.

  “Kenna! If you have experience with managing such men, will you please join those of us selected to bring them food as we walk?” Helga asked with a sudden light in her eyes and smile on her lips.

  Surprised Kenna did not answer at once, with Ainsley scolding her daughter at once, “Helga, Kenna is now our headwoman and such work is beneath her. To be quite honest, your continuous efforts to lighten your own burden of work, is quite unbecoming.”

  “But ma!”

  “No buts young lady!”

  “Oh it is quite fine, I do believe that I could use the work and there are matters I would speak with Arran about regardless of this chore.” Kenna said affably, thinking to herself that she had yet to speak with Arran on the matter of our rations and his scouts.

  *****

  This was how she found herself carrying a full pack of carrots and apples to the rear. Or more precisely holding onto the bag alongside a group of other women and men, who waited to one side until the Gormcruach had caught up to them. It was a burden that weighed heavily upon Kenna’s shoulders and arms physically, even if her mind hardly registered such things. So preoccupied was it with the counting of days from there to Nordleia, to Westvern and from there to the city of Sgain.

  It was as she was distracted in this manner that she heard Helga hiss, in disgust at the sight of Tormod.

  Still dressed in his silk tunic and trousers, which had become torn and used in the days since they had left Nordleia, he had been put in chains alongside his daughter and attached to one of the few ox-drawn carts of the mercenaries. Tormod was pulled as frequently off his feet, as he was struck with a rod and whip when the mood overtook the Ratvian sell-sword behind him. The laird was positioned between the villagers and sell-swords.

  With his beard and hair dirty now, and his daughter crying next to him, neither of them bore the appearances of the nobles they once were. Their pitifully haggard faces and mud-slicked dress bespoke of poor-treatment and brutality.

  “Shan’t believe they thought to steal you away,” Helga muttered resentful of the two nobles, just as resentful as all those around them appeared were.

  Though she had known that Tormod and his daughter were disliked, by all those she traveled with and had been prepared to hold him prisoner until they had firmly left the man’s father’s lands behind them. Therefore, to see them chained in such a manner, and so poorly used by the villagers and Gormcruach was a shock to the seamstress.

  Having always believed her people to be good and true, she for this reason could hardly bring herself to believe that they had comported themselves so horribly. By the gods, she thought to herself, disgusted by how they were all behaving themselves with nary a difference from the treatment Badrách oft-doled out upon his own prisoners.

  It was the sight though of the ox-cart grinding to a halt, and little Rhona falling forward only to cut her leg open on a nearby stone with tears in her eyes and Tormod’s attempt to take the lash directed at her himself that snapped something within her.

  Missing the laird, the Ratvian soon struck him also, but succeeded in drawing a cry of pain and more tears of agony from the lass. This in turn tore a threat and curse from the child’s father, who attempted to lunge at him, only to be pulled short by his chains that were fastened to the ox-drawn cart.

  “Stop this! What is this you fools,” Exclaimed someone with Kenna only realizing after a few heartbeats that the voice was her own. The woman only now aware that she was no longer standing to one side, but rather in the thicket of those walking along, her people and the sell-swords pausing to stare at her.

  The Ratvian with the staff and whip paused, bewildered by her objection to his brutality against the nobles. Staring from her to those around them, he was not alone in feeling confused by the seamstress’s actions and words.

  “Is he not the one who sought to coerce you into marrying him?” Asked one of the Gormcruach, a man who had been drawn to a halt, he gaped at her incredulously as though she had grown suddenly daft.

  This was irrefutable. Surrounded by her own people, and the warriors, Kenna was keenly aware at that moment of her own vulnerability.

  Still she surged forward, her blood boiling at the sight of a child so misused and the pitiable state that Tormod found himself in. He had hoped to coerce her into a marriage, but his over-all treatment of her had been polite and warm though. If she had been another woman, or had never known Murchadh, she might have been tempted to wed him.

  “Release the two of them at once,” Kenna commanded furiously, her head held high and her eyes narrowed as she glowered at the rat and bearded man before her.

  Flabbergasted, the Ratvian’s shock soon turned to rage also, as he took a menacing step towards her, “Who are you woman, to speak to me in such a manner? Out of my way!”

  The Ratvian raised the staff menacingly and approached her. Fearful, Kenna swallowed yet held her ground. Certain that the blow was imminent; she closed her eyes in terror.

  The blow never struck.

  In place of any such blow, there was the sound of a cry of agony and a great bellow that resounded throughout the land. One that Kenna at once recognised, though she had only come to know the source of that voice, in the past several days; it was Thormvrain.

  Standing over the Ratvian and bearded man who had cheered on his friend, the Dwarf held his own iron mace, an air of fury looming all about him, as he glowered at all the men around him. “Have all of you already forgotten, Arran’s orders? Kenna is not to be harmed!”

  A series of grumbles and muttered remarks followed.

  Wherefore one of the sell-swords, namely the Tigrun who was amongst the trio who had greeted Kenna in the north-woods north of the lands of Rothien, stepped forward to complain. “Elspet and Ealar did naught wrong! It is she who wishes to free the prisoners!”

  This response brought down upon the woman from Glasvhail the irritated gaze of Thormvrain, “Is this true, Kenna?”

  Kenna met his gaze defiantly, having no fear of the Dwarf knowing that if Arran had ordered no harm was to befall her, he would perish ere he allowed such a thing to come to pass. “Aye it is, and I stand by the decision Thormvrain.”

  “But why?” This query came not from the Dwarf who was in the midst of shaking his head at her, but from Helga. “They deserve so much worst, for it was their ilk that chased us from Glasvhail, just as it was Tormod Macáed who kidnapped you, to make you marry him.”

  The opposition of Helga to her doing the right thing, along with that of a great many others whom she might have otherwise, expected to stand by her.

  “But, they are of the nobility,” Ealar the fisherman argued.

  “Aye, it is not as though they would show us, any further mercy,” Added another fisherman, Bungo this time.

  They were joined in their cries against the nobles, by the sell-swords who grumbled also. Many of them having come from backgrounds which involved exile, or abuse at the hands of the upper-classes. It was for this reason that there were few people, who might have found themselves disagreeing with their feelings of hatred for those better-born than they.

  Kenna was that person though.

  Shaking her head at them, she retorted with the same disgust as earlier, “Aye those who have hounded us from our lands, who have treated us as refuse deserve such treatment, however Tormod is not guilty of this. And Rhona… look at her, she is a child.”

  “A child who may one day grow up, to punish our child with no less cruelty than we have been shown,” Thormvrain replied in an almost mild voice one that drew a scowl from the seamstress who felt betrayed by this argument.

  “But still a child! Look on your ‘good deeds’ my people and wonder!” Kenna shouted back pointing at the child, with a trembling finger. She added when they continued to gape at her, or grumble in response. “I never permitted this, and as headwoman it is my decision on how we are to treat prisoners. I say we treat them better than this, and order their immediate release.”

  “And if we refuse?” Asked one man, crossing his arms over his hauberk covered chest.

  “Aye, what will you do if we refuse?” Aodh the villager asked menacingly, taking a step towards her with a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

  The ridiculousness of having been rescued but two days ago, only to be menaced by those who had rescued her or had aided in the putting together of the scheme to do so, was not lost upon her. Disgusted to now find herself on the cusp, of losing control of those around her, Kenna found herself lost for words. Something that had not occurred in some time, some part of her mused darkly, as she recalled her own actions in the woods where she had met the sell-swords and Tormod.

  “Would you care to repeat that sentiment, before Arran?” Thormvrain intervened all of a sudden, to those advancing upon the headwoman of Glasvhail.

  Several of those who had come to feel such scorn for her, looked as though they now felt divided and frightened.

  None moved to stop the Dwarf when he took the key to the chains, from the unconscious Ratvian Blair, in order to help Kenna in freeing the nobles.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Kneeling down by Rhona’s side, Kenna wasted no time in noticing that the lass’ former silk dress was in tatters, being pushed to walk alongside her father. Though she had not been whipped, she had been forced to walk until her feet all but bled.

  “Tush lass, tush,” She murmured softly to her, holding the child as she wept bitter tears of pain, rocking her as she did so.

  It was when she raised her gaze to meet that of Tormod’s that, the seamstress felt the weight of her companions’ actions truly crush her beneath it. Such was the force of the condemnation and anger in his eyes, as he was freed that Kenna almost reached for him, to offer him a little pity.

  Her outstretched hand was refused, as Tormod not only brushed away her hand as he regained his feet, but reaching over he took his daughter from her. On wobbly legs, and though his own limbs must have ached, he with trembling arms full of burning agony began to limp past the villagers all around him.

  The dignity he carried himself with, in spite of his injuries filled Kenna with not only admiration for his strength but shame for what had come to pass.

  *****

  It was later that day Arran discovered what she had done, and in a fit of wrath came near to ordering Tormod back into chains. Something that Kenna, with the support of Ainsley and Ida refused to stomach. The three of them having been in the midst of their lunch the day after the encounter, and seated on a small hill over-looking the small Thorpe of Nordleia none of the three women took his outburst particularly well.

  “Are you daft? Why show that pig mercy?” Arran asked in the end, after several hours of arguing with them.

  “I do not know, I only know that the sight of him and his daughter suffering was more than I could endure,” Kenna replied softly.

  “You have a kind heart Kenna, who would have thought after all those years spent, treating your son so poorly,” Teased Ida with a grin in her direction.

  “A kind heart pah, mayhap but she has a weak and foolish mind,” Arran bellowed spitting on the ground. “Of the sort that is liable to cost us all, and if such is to be the case I would sooner see the lot of you slain than to die because, you released the wrong noble!”

  “But Tormod has yet to escape,” Kenna reasoned heatedly.

  “Aye, more fool him for his misplaced sense of honour,” the Gormcruach chieftain snapped visibly agitated. “Were it I, or a noble with an ounce of sense in him, he would already have tried to escape!”

  “He likely will, but not while we are all awake,” Ida said with a sigh of exasperation, “And if you are worried that he will escape during the day, why have you not already stationed more guards to watch him?”

  The chief of the only guards the fugitives had glared back at her; with such venom that even brave Ida quailed a little. Finella also shrunk back from him (more than she had already done), and with Kenna startled and visibly affected by the murderous glare studying the trembling, furious old man.

  With one last vexatious curse, the sell-sword chieftain turned and all but flounced off. Leaving the three shaken women to recover, and tremblingly finish their meal, near the town where most of their kinsmen and people had gone to purchase what would be needed for the road ahead.

  *****

  After this Arran departed, and did not speak to the seamstress until well-after they had left Nordleia firmly behind them.

  When he did next approach her though, it was in rather calmer spirits, and after most had fallen asleep. Approaching her as she finished sewing together a new dress for young Rhona, who had been gifted a dress by Doada, one that was a little too large for her.

  Seated near where Ida and Freygil had fallen asleep, the two holding one another tenderly in their sleep, with their second eldest son to one side snoring himself. As to their eldest, he had wandered away from their camp-fire, to go gaze up at the stars.

  He was not alone, in preferring to avoid Kenna at the moment, for Helga and Doada’s husband Bhàtair, were furious with her for having freed Tormod and Rhona. Hardly affected by this, Doada herself had been shocked to discover the truth and insisted that Tormod’s daughter be given a larger share of food, and to find a local druid in Nordleia to heal her feet and the lass’ father’s welts.

  Encamped to the north-east of the village of Nordleia, with those members of Freygil’s family resting upon the main road. The farm-lands in the south had long since given way, to the grazing pastures of the north, with the hundreds of fugitives’ unlikely she imagined, to be tolerated for long.

  Especially given the number of fires that they had begun, and the way in which Arran allowed his men to hunt and fish, to their inordinate joy.

  “May I sit with you?” Arran asked of her, appearing from one side, the stars long-since having come out to loom over them all.

  “You may do as you please.” She answered stiffly, expecting another quarrel with the old man who loomed high above all others in their encampment, in terms of height.

  Glancing but briefly at him, Kenna could have sworn with a small start that for short second or two, it appeared as though the old man winced. Certain that this was but her own overactive imagination, she returned to her sewing as Arran hesitated.

  It was almost as though he feared her, though the notion was a ridiculous one, she told herself. For why should a fierce warrior of a ferocious band of sell-swords, fear her. Especially when he was feared throughout all the kingdoms of the Lairdly-Isle and likely a few others throughout North-Agenor, the very thought the more she considered the more ridiculous it was.

  It was not until she repeated herself again that he seated himself though it was on the other side of the fire.

  What she found particularly distracting though, was how he varied between staring at her intently, and studying his surroundings with the air of a man who continuously expected to be attacked.

  It was unnerving, how he always appeared prepared to leap out of his skin at the slightest sound. It was as though he expected there to be danger, at all times around him, his apprehensive nature sent a small wave of pity to the bottom of Kenna’s stomach. To her mind, to live perpetually in fear of attack, was no way to live.

  What it reminded her of, was Cormac who had always appeared anxious when she was near, expecting her to snap at him for the slightest mistake, or to criticise him when the mood took her.

  It was impossible to say how long they sat there, bent forward with the fire between them, with Kenna preoccupied with her sewing and Arran poking at it with a nearby stick he had found near to the fire. This action on his part, reminding her all the more strongly of her son, much to her irritation, she could not explain why she found the gesture and Arran reminding her of Cormac so annoying.

  The scent of burnt meat and the sea made its way to her nostrils, the former due to all the mutton that the villagers had eaten, after having bought it from Nordleia and slaughtered three sick sheep of Ida’s. For Kenna, the latter scent was a blessing, one that helped to soothe her, as she was reminded of her late husband, his father and also most importantly, of her beloved son.

  Her mind elsewhere, the seamstress carried on with her work for a time, only to let slip a sigh of satisfaction when she at last cut the last thread from the hem of the dress. Her work at an end, she examined it carefully, measuring it and comparing it with Rhona’s height in her mind’s eye.

  “Kenna?” Arran addressed her so suddenly that she almost dropped the dress in the fire.

  “Aye?” She stammered surprised only to grumble, “You startled me, do not speak so suddenly Arran.”

  “If I may, I would ask your pardon,” Said the leader of the Gormcruach, eyes on the fire with a distant look in his eyes. It was a look that she had seen a number of times, in the Salmon and even Corin’s eyes, countless times when her son or Daegan had reminded them of some painful memory.

  Kenna did not truly wish to forgive him not out of spite towards him, but because in truth she despised what he had done to Tormod and Rhona. He had not only abused them, but her trust in him and had violated her orders that they were to be taken prisoner but well-treated. He had twisted her intentions into something they were not.

  It was the sort of behaviour that she would never have tolerated, from the likes of Corin, or even from Indulf or Daegan, in spite of her fondness for the latter two.

  “Very well,” She mumbled disinterested in pursuing the conversation, “Should I ever hear of any further actions as horrid as those inflicted upon those of the house of áed, those of us of Glasvhail shall have to brave on without you.”

  Her reprimand had the opposite reaction that she had hoped it might have. Rather than reacting shamefully, Arran appeared to be genuinely surprised; wherefore he began to laugh loudly.

  Such was the force of his mirth that for some time, he shook with laughter, his worry-lines disappearing so that for a moment he lost several years of his life.

  Kenna hardly took notice of these peculiarities that overtook his physical appearance, so concerned was she that his deep booming laugh might rouse those around them from their slumber. Glancing over to Ida and Freygil, she could feel the longer he laughed the more crimson her cheeks and ears became as she flushed with rage.

  Hissing at him, she ground out through clenched teeth, “Stop! Stop chortling Arran, else you might wake everyone up!”

  “And what do you intend to do, if I do not quiet down?” He asked of her, with another series of chortles that ended in him wiping several tears of laughter from his reddened grey face. Once he had, he noticed how red her own face had become along with the angry grimace she threw in his direction. “Apologies,” He said with utter insincerity, adding hurriedly, “It is just utterly ridiculous that you think that, your people would truly leave my own for such a reason.”

  “Why do you think that? They despise and fear your men,” Kenna muttered bewildered and infuriated by his dismissal of her feelings, and sense of moral outrage.

  The glance he sent her made her feel a thousand times smaller (and infinitely more foolish), ere long he answered her question with exaggerated patience. “Kenna, I saved you and that earned me a modicum of your fickle people’s trust. They are tired, weary-footed and angry. The trouble is they are also fearful and aware though you may not yet be that I and my Gormcruach are the only hope they have to live. If for no other reason, they would sooner turn against you, their heroic headwoman than myself, because as you will no doubt soon realize: Where fear is concerned, all men become as devils regardless how much you sacrifice for them, or offer them all that they may wish for. All men and women, become this way when afraid, and your people fear the steel of my men.”

  It was a bleak statement, and the sort of pessimism that Kenna herself had often felt for those around her, more than once in the past. She was inclined to agree with him, until she remembered the brave nature of her son. Simple though he was in mind and heart, he was far in a way more valorous than any other soul in Glasvhail.

  “I might agree had I never known Dae or Cormac,” Kenna replied eyes upon the flames, “Dae is the bravest young lass I have ever known.”

  “Dae? Is she mayhap your daughter?” Arran asked intrigued, an intent gleam in his eyes one that she had not expected.

  A short laugh, one that drew a scowl at long last from the old man followed, wherefore the seamstress answered earnestly. “Nay, though I do think of her as such, especially since Olith passed.”

  “Olith?”

  “My greatest friend, it was she who discovered alongside her father, Corin when he drifted ashore after a storm at the mouth of the Firth of Thern.” Kenna explained remembering that time well, far better than most did.

  The day after the storm had been a grey one, with the suns blotted out by the clouds and the fields ordinarily such a vivid green, pale and sickly-looking. Even the forest, along with Ciaran’s oak appeared as though they were decaying. Still it had begun so well, with Kenna seeing Murchadh off with a kiss, something that her master had teased her about.

  Then she had joined at his encouragement Olith upon the hill near where her house lay, it was there that the lasses had sung together for a time, before gripped by one of her strange moods Olith had grown angry. Dismissing her, the red-haired lass had descended down by the shore, with Kenna trailing her, confused and wishing to understand why she was angry with her.

  ‘It is hardly something you might understand Kenna, with your joy and happy-songs, however I desire to be alone now, and you will not leave me be in peace.’ Olith had said melancholically, with Kenna recalling how wounded she had felt, and how this had resulted in a small argument between them. It was a few hours later as she was sewing together a new tunic requested for, by Freygil’s mother that Olith had burst into the shop calling for Kenna to help her, for she needed Murchadh’s boat which had pulled in to shore as it was now noon.

  *****

  Shaken from her memories, by the crackle of the fire, staring into the flames that looked so akin to the flame that had appeared to light the tresses of Olith and her beloved daughter, Daegan.

  It was at this moment that she returned to herself, to speak of whom she both wished to speak and dreaded to speak of with a stranger. With this topic egged on by the sell-sword, who appeared as keenly interested in her life, as anyone had ever been, asking as he threw another log onto the flames, from the nearby pile to his left. “Have you children, Kenna?”

  “My son is Cormac.”

  The knowledge that she had a son, for some reason that escaped her brought a wide smile to Arran’s lips. So brightly did his face begin to shine that it appeared as a third sun at that moment, with Kenna amazed by the enthusiasm he greeted her revelation.

  Confused by his response, she was further bewildered by his next few words, “If he is your son, he must be as obstinate and brown in hair, as he is cynical in mood.”

  The notion of Cormac being as he described pulled a short laugh from her, wherefore she replied to his almost hungry curiosity honestly. “Nay, nay, Cormac has always taken after his father; blonde, idealistic and the very opposite of obstinate. He accepts all that the world throws in his direction, without the slightest rancour.”

  “I see, has- were the two of you happy in Glasvhail?” Arran queried a hint of apprehension in his voice.

  This question was not one that she knew how to answer, nor did she know why she should answer. It was not his concern, she decided by this time utterly agitated by his insistence upon asking questions she could hardly answer, due in no small part to the personal nature of this topic.

  “Why do you ask? What difference is it to you? What of yourself? Do you have children? Grandchildren? Have you not had enough of this continuous, talk of kin and happiness?” She asked aggressively, with such passion that the old man lost his calmness so that he stared up at her in open-mouthed shock at how poorly she had taken, his queries.

  It happened that when he did answer, she was on her feet, panting and glowering at the man who even when seated, was almost the same height as she was standing. He answered with a downturned gaze, the sadness in his eyes and voice smashing her anger to pieces, so that had neither thought nor any emotion other than pity for him. “I once had a child, one more precious to me than life just as this child’s mother was. I remember her so well, for she was joy itself to me, with our child all the more precious to me.”

  “What happened to your child?” The words were torn from her lips, even as she dreaded the answer deep within her soul.

  “I- you are right, there has been enough questions for one night, now is the time for sleep.” Arran decided all of a sudden, as agitated as she was previously.

  Turning away from her, he threw down the branch he had poked at the flames with, and lay himself down with his back to her. Stunned by this unexpected change in behaviour, Kenna stared for a long time at him, confused.

  Why did he decide to turn away from her, her own questions when he had had no difficulty, in raining them down upon her? As she lay down next to Ida to sleep herself, eyes upon the stars, she all of a sudden felt frustrated with herself. It felt as though she had done something as horrible, as turning Cormac away and abusing him, when she had had no such intent within her.

  It was as she lay there, eyes upon the stars- notably that of Cormac slaying the monstrous Dark Elf after the dark-sorcerer had turned into a great four-headed wyrm-chimera that her mother’s song came to her. Singing it softly as she fell asleep, she could have sworn that she heard a male voice from nearby singing gently with her.

  *****

  Nordleia now behind them, the people of Glasvhail had only the castle-keep of Bj?rndun and its laird to stand between them and Sgain. Most were ignorant of the man who lived in the castle, with a number of them curious to know more about him.

  Unsure who to turn to for more knowledge of the man, it was Eillidh who proposed that they turn now to Tormod as they walked along the main-road, almost skipping amongst the sheep by this time. Eillidh had regained some of her cheer due to the scent of the sea that they had by now left behind them, and also thanks to the continuous stream of psalms of Meret that her mother and Ida made those around them sing.

  The two did this, with the intent to revive some of the downtrodden spirits of some of those around them, who might have preferred that they find for themselves, some small corner north of Nordleia to settle.

  “What of that nobleman? Rhona’s father?” Suggested the lass, when she heard Kenna, Freygil and Ida questioning her mother about who ruled here, and growing frustrated by Ainsley’s ignorance.

  It was Conn she had insisted, who had known a great deal of the locality, and he alone who had kept aware along with their eldest daughter, Aislinn, of which laird was master of which lands and peoples. She had never truly given it much thought, and neither had her two middle-daughters, the younger of whom was no longer speaking to Helga, with the elder of the duo ignoring Helga in turn.

  The four of them stopped short; startled by this suggestion, for it was a wise one. Yet had somehow slipped past the four adults’ attention, which drew a laugh from Solamh who walked nearby, a laugh that was as jeering as all his laughs and comments were recently. Or so it appeared to Kenna, who had become despised by him, for her standing up for Tormod, whom he had hoped would continue to be mistreated.

  “An excellent idea, Kenna you happen to be friendly with him, do you not?” Ida said eagerly, a little too much eagerness for her friend and husband’s tastes.

  The two of them eyed her suspiciously, with the latter of the two taking to snickering a little derisively at his wife. “Bah, though she has assisted him, it is not as though she greatly likes him, wife.”

  This drew an annoyed frown from the sandy-blonde haired woman.

  As to the woman of whom they spoke, she almost squirmed. Because, though he spoke true of how she felt she ought to have felt for Tormod, she had difficulty despising him. He had been courteous and kind, to her ere she was freed.

  So that thereafter she felt some pity and sense of warmth towards him, though it was not the same sort of feeling that she might have felt for say Murchadh. Because where Murchadh had filled her with both irritation and love, Tormod it was yes some annoyance, but mostly a sense of gratitude that he had helped her to feel attractive for the first time in a decade, and treated her with such unerring courtesy.

  Flushing a little red due to the heat though it was a cool spring-day due to the breeze, Kenna replied a little sadly, “He has come to dislike me, due to his shoddy treatment at Arran’s hands.”

  Studying her intention, Ida appeared amused only to suggest now, “I am sure by now, he has grown weary of the loathing all feel for him, and will welcome any sort of warmth you could provide for him. I also recommend, reminding him of how you did sew up that dress for his wee lass.”

  Kenna had the vague suspicion that the conspiratorial tone the shepherdess spoke with meant trouble for her. Freygil appeared incredulous, while Ainsley appeared to be playing at deafness her eyes upon her daughter, rather than her friend.

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