Permitted to reclaim their daggers and to untie the prisoners, the mercenaries were quick to offer to carry the dead, without the slightest hint of shame. The fact that many of those they had slaughtered might not have appreciated their touch they nonetheless became the pallbearers of the dead. All of whom, were to be buried north of the north-woods, near the abbey of Nordleia whereupon the surviving villagers hoped to have hymns sung for their loved ones.

  At the approach of the sell-swords and sight of Kenna who was mostly unharmed, along with the lasses and Solamh, those who had been captured (the greater majority of the village) gaped in shock. Most could not find their voices and simply nodded dumbly when urged to return to the road alongside a number of the Gormcruach after the latter had broken up their camp.

  “How did you accomplish such a miracle?” Some questioned, notably Ainsley who did so only after her tearful and rather lengthy reunion with her two daughters, the elder of whom then leapt into the arms of her bruised, and stunned but healthy husband.

  “Another miracle by Kenna!” Some cried awed by her accomplishment.

  This last proclamation took many sell-swords by surprise. Over the next hours, as they traversed through the woods, the three hundred warriors were introduced to the other feat of bravery on the part of Kenna. Amazed, for few of them had ever heard of a woman performing such an act of courage. Some such as the Wolframs had known mothers or sisters or brides, to have done similar acts though never a human woman.

  To the Ogres they had at times seen similar feats, though never by a woman either. Thereafter, they called to her in but the most respectful of tones, the honour and courage of the lady such that some called her a ‘lioness’ though this was a moniker the Tigruns gave to her.

  Some such as Arran though, complained that her act of courage was one of folly, of the sort only the young who knew naught of their own mortality might have performed. His criticism hardly stung Kenna, who was both too tired and too embarrassed by her own growing legend to pay him much mind. Her weariness stemmed from when all the tension, all the feelings she had bottled deep within herself escaped.

  A part of her wished to do naught else but weep, or find some corner to sleep in. There would be time for that later though, she told herself for to weep in front of all would only show them how afraid she was, and might cause the sell-swords to second-guess their decision to let them go. As to the embarrassment, it had its source in her very proper Quirinian sense of humility, for vanity was a grave sin in the eyes of the Temple.

  She was happy for a distraction, when she noticed as she made to leave with her people, the mercenaries breaking up their camp and Thormvrain halting her with a stern gesture, and a “Where do you all think to head to without us?”

  “What do you mean?” She asked with a sinking belly, having been convinced that this was to be the end of her association with the Gormcruach. “We have paid for our dead, and will carry them away to Nordleia ourselves.”

  At this, the commander of the Gormcruach adopted a sly expression on his own face even as he removed one of his own tent’s ash-wood stakes in the ground. “We thought to do you that favour, after-all you did hire us, Kenna.”

  “But- I never meant- that is to say,” She stuttered in a state of utterly perplexity, unable to understand how it had come about that she had ‘hired’ a group of brigands to accompany her and her people north.

  *****

  It was thus, that Kenna strode out of the north-woods or as the locals of Nordleia knew it, the south-woods at the head of an entire clan of swords-for-hire. The people of Glasvhail who had waited outside the forest were stunned into speechlessness at her return.

  The most shocked were of course Ealar and Elspet, who had hoped to be well-rid of the seamstress only for their wicked scheme to have burst in their faces as one of Wiglaf’s fireballs might have. The tales told by the former captives and their rather culpable feeling captors of how she had stared down the sell-swords won her many more admirers.

  Those of Glasvhail were not alone in noticing her return, with Tormod’s hunting-party newly returned from the forest. Leaving the forest with a great many deer, boar and also heron, rabbit and squirrel corpses took notice of the troupe that also burst forth from the forest.

  His hunters, favourites and even the man himself, took notice in part due to the twin-suns still being high in the heavens. So that all the land was bathed in afternoon light, and in part due to the great war-horn that Thormvrain blew into, at their leaving the great line of oaks, birches and pines behind them.

  The gesture made Kenna and others of Glasvhail leap in surprise, for none had foreseen that he would blow the war-horn in triumph in the manner that he did. It was a gesture that won the Dwarf a dark look from the seamstress, one that he smirked back at. The boom of the horn was one by the third time he blew into it, she had grown accustomed to.

  Those who received them upon the small hill that they had taken up as their own, during their time in Nordleia, once they had recovered from stupefaction charged down to welcome their kinsmen and kinswomen. Marching at the front of either group were Ida and Finella, mother and daughter more than overjoyed to see one another, tears in their eyes as they at last embraced one another. Just behind them surged Eachann, and his father, who had already given Solamh up for dead though.

  There were others who embraced, tears in their eyes, though Kenna had nary any eyes for any of them. Weary and exhausted a part of her wish for naught else than to find herself a small isolated corner and to sleep off the bone-deep exhaustion.

  This was not to be as many of the villagers celebrated her, congratulated or thanked her, tears in their eyes. And as much as she could appreciate their sentiments, she had no desire for any further attention. The sell-swords for their own part established themselves at the foot of the hill, eyes upon the hunting party to the west.

  Daunted by the number of warriors that had accrued around the fugitives, Tormod did little to demonstrate his displeasure at their newfound numbers, or at the appearance of the mercenaries. Rather, he and his party slipped around them quietly, without any interaction back into the village to the distant east.

  *****

  Almost immediately the next day, there were new problems that arose; some of the mercenaries slew some of the cattle of the cattle-herders, for they had grown hungry. This caused complaints from among the fugitives with Kenna as headwoman of the village forced to demand repayment.

  This was unpopular among the mercenaries who insisted that they had to eat, with Arran championing the cause of his people though he did agree to pay a few bronze-lions as compensation. Then there was the insistence by some, such as Bhàtair the husband of Doada that he would not travel alongside the sell-swords which prompted Kenna to have to ask if the mercenaries intended to follow them.

  “We had thought to do so, for this king shall soon require warriors,” Arran had replied surrounded by his many supporters who appeared equally intrigued by this statement of his, as those representatives of the village were. When asked to elaborate he shrugged and stated, “Crinen will revolt as will MacDuibh, we Gormcruach have served the latter for months and can vouch for the fact that he is in the middle of preparing for war.”

  This news was hardly believed by those from Glasvhail, with Kenna one of those who was of a mind that he spoke true. For this reason she announced her decision that they should continue north, at the next village meeting which was held shortly after noon the day after her return.

  In response to her decision, there were a number of objections from the likes of Ealar and Elspet, who insisted though they were ignored. “Such a decision could prove expensive, and we have no more coin and our resources are likely to diminish swiftly.”

  “I still have silk to sell,” Kenna argued back, just as several of the fishermen suggested working with their carpenters to build boats to sell in the local town of Nordleia.

  This decision proved a conclusive one, with Arran offering to move on north, ahead of the rest of the fugitives. This decision was met with general approval as a number of villagers decided they would head east to bury their dead in the local abbey’s cemetery, while the men-folk worked upon the boats.

  A number of those men could well have missed their funerals and were exempted from their duties. A decision Salmon decided upon, with the old man chosen to supervise the construction of the boats alongside Kenna who lacked confidence in her own ability to judge the quality of the boats.

  Sewing together some of the wool that had been brought with her, to make a hurried dress, a poor-quality dress was more valuable than no dress. And she would not risk the silk she possessed unless she could make it the finest dress she could put together. It might prove wiser; she decided to sell the silk as it was.

  Seated upon the ground as she worked, with much of the village working hurriedly, Salmon was preoccupied all throughout the night. The following day, Kenna left to go on ahead, after being informed that they had six boats to sell, made from the local wood that they had put together.

  With it taking several hours to arrive in Nordleia, wherefore she found a number of those who had brought the corpses of their loved ones to be cremated and buried, having traded much of their goods for food and having spread tales of her.

  The town was a walled one, originally founded four centuries ago, only to have been sacked after the Second Wars of Darkness, by Northmen, whereupon it was rebuilt after the war, in the age of Cináed. Built up slowly, the walls were a series of wooden palisade rather than a stone one, with a number of mud and thatch and wooden homes.

  The series of wooden walls had between them a number of homes that divided the village into the various ranks in their society. There were four arrays of palisades with each wall about six meters high, and separated from one another by almost a hundred meters. With there being four palisade walls and five meter thick wooden walls, with the hatchet symbol of áed engraved into the gates, and painted scarlet.

  The temple of Ziu lay outside the town, an abbey which had high-stone walls with the abbey-proper built in the shape of a rectangle with the living quarters to the south crossing facing from east to west and the food-storage of the monastery going from north to south itself also. The monastery lay directly against the sea, with another smaller monastery attached to the north of it, within its ten meter high walls.

  This smaller monastery was but five meters high and was a simple temple with a sprig attached to its doors and a cemetery next to it. At the summit of the pointed roof of the small temple was the symbol of a sprig, whereas that of Ziu had a sword above its highest roof-point.

  It was evident given the twelve meters high and more than thrice that length that was the temple of Ziu, a deity immensely favoured by the Hatchet.

  As to the laird’s castle, it was thirteen meters high, without any high-wall that separated it from the rest of the small Thorpe that encircled it. The castle was built of stone, with it being large and a single high-building built in the style of the Pechs. With the keep part long-house part typical stone keep that Kenna had heard Corin describe to Daegan and Cormac once.

  Next to the stone keep was another temple, this one rectangular with its own sword-tipped roof. Considerably smaller than the keep, or the monastery to the south, this one was wooden and measured only up to eight meters in height and fifteen meters long.

  Though each of the gates were open, Kenna did not venture into the village proper, for there was a small village of a sorts just outside of the walls, along with a small market square near the edge of the road that climbed up into the town of Nordleia itself. The market was one mostly for the local fishermen, farmers and shepherds who lived upon the lands of Nordleia, though there were others within the town walls.

  It was thereat the foot of the great hill of Nordleia where Kenna was acquainted with the fact via some of those fishermen and their wives that she learnt of her own newfound fame. Having been amongst those who had gone ahead to the village, Doada and Helga had apparently spread news of her having faced down the mercenaries and even exaggerated some of the events.

  It was with a great deal of embarrassment that she heard from one fishermen, who exclaimed curiously when the lasses introduced her to him, as a prospect buyer of their swiftly built boats. “Is it true that you are Kenna? That you faced down the drawn steel of the Gormcruach and Badrách’s personal guards?”

  “What? Nay,” Kenan objected stunned by this question, “They had no steel in hand, and Badrách’s guards were not at hand.”

  This disappointed those across from the fish-stall, with the man and his wife remarking to her, who were keen to buy several of the boats that the fugitives had constructed. They were to be part of their daughters’ dowries they explained, politely.

  Kenna listened to them without too much interest, offered up the woollen dress she had sewn and was rewarded with a few bronze-Lions for this latter gift, which she swiftly put into her pack.

  Thankful for this gift, and keen to turn to leave, she was however halted by sounds of the village and took her time to indulge in the joy and music of those bargaining around her. To some such as Corin, bartering was a necessity but not a joy. To Kenna it was music and an art that she had such a passion for that she believed almost to be a sacred thing.

  This did not last as she took Helga and Doada aside to whisper to them, just before either lass disappeared to spend a little of their own wealth taken upon their departure from Glasvhail. Whispering to them, she asked of them, “Why did you lie to that fisherman about what happened in the forest?”

  “What do you mean?” Doada attempted to play at innocence batting her eyes a little as though the seamstress were some attractive suitor who might fall for her, and plead for a dance or kiss from her. When she saw the flat look the older woman gave her, she squirmed and admitted, “We thought there to be no harm in aggrandising the tale, and besides it makes for a better tale do you not think?”

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  “I would have no tales told,” Kenna snapped sharply, never one to enjoy such things.

  “And why is that?” Helga demanded irritably, “Tales are meant to be enjoyed and to be grander than the reality; there is no harm in such things.”

  “There is harm, should it put folly into one’s spirit.” Kenna countered with a shake of her head, unable to understand either lass. Or even herself, she had time and again waved off and even taken amusement in Daegan’s tall-tales, yet could not stand those that surrounded herself, or what she had done south of their current location.

  It was due to a sense of nigh on foreboding. A feeling that there was something that was liable to go awry that day. She had felt it earlier in the day, just before her arrival in the town, when she stopped by an isolated part of the shore so as to bathe and clean her dress, of the mud and filth of the forest. It had persisted, and she felt it then as the two departed.

  The feeling was temporarily chased away at a sound that so infuriated her that she could well have struck someone. Thankfully that someone was nearby and as it turned out, was none other than Dugald.

  Standing before Dugald, one of the other young fishermen of Glasvhail, the second of the sons of Freygil and Ida was by his side also, with the younger son, Bhàtair and Dugald engaged in singing by one of the gates. A stout man the same age as the two eldest of Freygil and Ida’s sons, he was dark of hair, tanned and dark-eyed and of a cheery nature if slightly plump.

  One of Ida’s cousins from her mother’s side, he was dressed in a faded red tunic and trousers, with his feet shod in boots and had a bowl at his feet, where he stood between the brothers. In the bowl were several bronze Lion coins, a few carrots, peaches and even one or two apples. In all it was a modest success that the three lads had enjoyed in the hours that it had taken Kenna to reach there and to barter their boats for coin for the journey north.

  The song they sung was rustic, and hastily put together even to her untrained ears with the three of them singing it well.

  “Hey ho to all Tigruns, Wolframs and men united together!

  Let the song begin, listen regardless of the weather,

  Of that there Kenna who may be the Wend’s daughter,

  For she trod o’er men as one might ford water,

  Hey-ho! Lo! They were armed with swords and hatchets and came together,

  Let the song tell, listen to how she fought fierce as an Aesir,

  She was swift as the Zephyr,

  Kenna Onarach was called because we do think her a treasure,

  Why o why did sweep south did this Wend’s daughter?

  You may ask but it was because she was in a poor temper,

  For babes and waifs were menaced both together,

  By dusk-iron girded false-Aesir,

  Hey ho to all Tigruns, Wolframs and men united together!.”

  Red-faced, regardless of the applause, the heat that she felt only grew more pronounced until Dugald called out to her, saying to the locals. “And here is the inspiration of the song; lovely, honey-haired Kenna the Onarach!”

  The moniker of the ‘Honest’ that they had cast upon her or rather the ‘Truthful’ might be closer to the meaning behind the multi-faceted word they had surnamed her with. It was a title that appeared a little rich when they had embellished her tale in song.

  The applause of those around her, did not serve to appease but rather to displease her. This displeasure she made very clear to them, the moment she stomped on over to tweak their ears painfully, until they yelped, growling at them. “Who gave you permission to turn my name, into some ridiculous song? Have you lost what few wits you three had to begin with?”

  “We were simply trying to raise funds, and have a bit of fun whilst doing so,” Whimpered Dugald so earnestly that she came near to letting the matter slide. His dark eyes shone not alone, as the gazes of his two best friends, the eldest of Indulf and Trygve’s brothers’ gaze upon her with similarly desperate gazes.

  “It was also our wish to honour you,” Eachann added hastily, the younger of the two siblings present therewith her stated. “It is the least we could do to thank you for your courage, in rescuing some of our friends and kinsmen.”

  “And kinswomen,” Dugald supplied, only to draw several glances back to him, whereupon he squirmed once more, “My two sisters were captured.”

  This last part softened her a little, not that she would let herself lose sight of how they had turned her into a figure of fun and sport, her temper still flared she snapped. “I understand that, but do not sing of me- sing of anyone else you wish to, but not myself.”

  From behind her, someone called out rather rudely, “Oye, some of us enjoyed that song! Who are ye to put a halt to it?”

  The speaker sounded young, near to three years younger than Cormac, and feminine. Young, blonde with frizzled hair and dark eyes that could well have passed for the night-sky; she was dressed in roughly sewn green wool, and short-fingers. All about her stood several men, and women, a small crowd who had come to appreciate the undeniably beautiful voices of the trio.

  Kenna’s eyebrows narrowed furiously, at those people who stood before her.

  “Aye, the song was not bad,” Supported another person, this time one of the men, who threw a cod into the bowl. “Sing it once more.”

  “And I said I would hear none of it.”

  “A pity you do not own them or their song, therefore off with you, as ye do not have to listen to it.” This was the man’s rejoinder for which he won several laughs from those all around him.

  “Aye, I would rather the ‘honeyed-haired Kenna’ of my thoughts than the reality I see before me,” Added another.

  The ridicule was more than she could bear, with Kenna chasing away those listening to the song, in a fit of pique. She did so with her hair flapping and flying in the warm-wind, chasing away those men and women who made guffawing comments regarding her character or appearance. This being the first show of vanity she had performed in years.

  Chasing away all before, her save only for the children who included the young blonde lass, who could not be older than twelve years of age stamped her foot in response to her hounding her out with many a curses and thrown rocks. By her side stood a few of the village children, who had been drawn by the music of the trio of Glasvhail’s voices.

  Kenna might well have left them alone, were it not for the lass’s words that at once re-awoke in her, the fury that had only just burst and petered out. “Go away! I order you to go away, you ugly witch, lest I fetch my grandfather’s hatchet!”

  The other children and a few of the adults still present who had returned or evaded the stones thrown in their directions earlier, murmured their support for her. They had hardly appreciated Kenna’s previous burst of anger. Some of the lads even began to speak loudly of chasing her away, ere they began to sing her song once more if in mockery of her.

  One of the guards nearby laughed at the remark, from where he stood by the gates, with his laughter dying in his mouth the moment he saw the withering look she sent him. The three youths who had hitherto been singing gazed from the lass to the mother of Cormac, uncertainly.

  Frightened that she might make another scene, they sought to mollify the lass and those still present that they could sing another song, they did know the song of Achaius they assured everyone, and even that of Cináed the Conqueror.

  Boiling from the inside almost out, Kenna though fumed as the lass continued to comport herself as though she were somehow superior to the seamstress. “Nay! I want the other song, we all do! Why must we listen to other songs we have all heard thousands of times?”

  She very near slapped the child, but barely restrained herself, preferring to grab the lass by the ear to reprimand her, until a whimper escaped her lips.

  “OW!” cried the lass, only to whimper in a slightly higher tone when the seamstress not only failed to release, but pulled harder upon her ear, to teach her a modicum of respect.

  “Know your place lass! Now run along, less I take one of the staves nearby to teach you the lesson you ought to have learnt by this time, at the hands of your father or mother.” Kenna bellowed swept up by her own temper, so that she could barely see straight.

  Her actions did not yield any further decrying shouts from those around her, or any of those observing the scene, as she had previously expected. The lass tears in her eyes, raced off up past the gates whilst the two guards by the gates stared at her in astonishment. Even the children appeared to be horrified by her actions.

  Bewildered by this, Kenna would storm away herself if in the opposite direction to her own peoples’ encampment, leaving the three behind her to continue their songs. Hardly able to stomach them for much longer, she was to report what had happened to Ida and Dugald’s mother.

  An older woman almost fifty years of age, with blonde-greying hair and a plump build similar to that of Ida herself, and green eyes. Both squatted about a fire in the middle of the camp at the foot of one of the small hills, just outside of the village which had few farm-fields near it. Sheep-rearing and cattle-raising being the more popular trade between it and farming, with the fugitives camp almost half a league from the town of Nordleia. Few folks were in the make-shift encampment, with far to the north leagues away lay the encampment of the Gormcruach.

  The two other women reacted in markedly different ways, with the latter one of those who had begun a small fire upon which she was in the midst of cooking squirrels that the Salmon had had some of the men catch, when boat-building. “Bah, if they win bread and wine for the evening all the better.”

  The younger of the two cousins, Ida laughed lightly, “It sounds as though the song is quite something… how does it go? I might sing it myself.”

  “Please do not do so,” Kenna grumbled beneath her breath.

  Ida chortled once more, this time her tinkling laughter did make the seamstress feel a little better. “Why take up such a dark mien about something that you ought to appreciate! There are sure to be dark days ahead, and few of us are likely to be remembered one day in song, therefore take pride in their affection for you. Now, why not enjoy some cooked squirrel with us?”

  *****

  Though she remained mad at the lads, and though they apologised to her Kenna’s mood hardly grew more cheery, especially when the following day saw the survivors of Glasvhail begin to bleed away.

  They did not suddenly fall over dead, but rather some of them decided that the lands of Nordleia were green and merry, and well tended. Many of them after some time though, began to have their good humour towards the new arrivals sour.

  They were understandably less and less keen upon those encamped just beyond their fields. Their principal complaints were that those of Glasvhail were eating some of the local food, hunting in the local woods and otherwise using some of the local wood. So that the local village mayor and the abbots of the temples of Ziu and Orcus hinted at her that they wished her people gone.

  “You have overstayed thy welcome here, amidst the people of Nordleia,” the abbot of Ziu informed her sternly, with the sides of his head wholly shaved of all hair with only a small patch on the summit of his head, and resplendent in his red-robes of the war-monks.

  Later visited by the white-robed monk of Orcus, with his entirely bald head, save for his order’s mandatory beard (which was grey), equally stout as the war-monk was, this abbot was slightly more polite yet no less firm.

  “My apologies, it is not our wish to cause trouble, we will leave on the morrow and shall comport ourselves better until that time.” She promised both monks, who left with no small amount of satisfaction with the two nodding and offering benedictions for her mission. Neither of them all that fond of the laird Badrách, though the red-monk offered up warnings that he expected the mercenaries gone no matter what, to which she agreed at once.

  Some of their satisfaction also came from Salmon offering up three newly completed boats. And some of the man’s own bronze-Lions brought along from Glasvhail, as payment for the burials from days ago, and as a sign of piety.

  His show of fidelity, and sincere piousness, a gesture that had inspired Freygil to compete with him by offering up a few more coins, for the few fish he had caught the day before from the shore and two fishing nets. This gesture fell short of the gift of the Salmon, for which he was keen to remind Ida’s husband.

  This meeting inspired Kenna to declare to the people from Glasvhail, to depart north as soon as they had to. Though many were reluctant, having enjoyed their time in Nordleia and though Ealar and Elspet sought to counter her decision, they had lost all influence over the survivors.

  “We shall depart on the morrow,” Salmon declared, ere his formerly darkened mien brightened considerably, “To-night though we ought to celebrate.”

  Kenna strove to dissuade those around her from wasting the time and resources on any sort of festivities, some insisted upon it. Fuming, she was made to observe as they cooked what spare food they had, and sang raucous songs throughout the night.

  Not that she remained mad throughout the whole of the celebration, with the trio and Ida once again singing her song to her disgust, however Salmon countered with the song of the fisherman’s wife. An old tale that he had recounted years ago, when she was a child and newly arrived in Glasvhail, and that Murchadh had also been fond of.

  The song was a popular one among the fishermen and fish-wives of Glasvhail. The tale was one about how the fisherman Thom the Fool, going out fishing for a cod only to release it. He then comes near to catching a whale whereupon he is scolded by his wife, catches it once more only for a king to see it and be filled with desire for the whale-meat.

  Clever, the fish-wife barters the foolish king out of his crown, throne and realm in exchange for the whale, who then tricked him into releasing him now also. The king stricken would return to his castle only to be reduced to the role of jester, by Thom out of pity for him, a position much more befitting the old monarch, Kenna had always thought since she had first heard the tale.

  “All heard the Old Man yell,

  “Catch her Ruairi, catch her,

  Tomorrow will be a hungry spell,

  And thus, ye must catch her,

  Snatch her Ruairi, snatch her,

  O batter her Ruairi, batter her,

  For the morrow is long and storms may blow,

  We will leave you if you do not catch her,

  The wife is foul and seas were warm,

  Snatch her Ruairi, snatch her,

  They flipped by, fins waving in the foam,

  And its high-time you caught her,

  Beat her, Ruairi, beat her,

  O catch her Ruairi, catch her,

  For the winter is long and storms may yet blow,

  O just catch her,

  The fish here by the Firth are rife,

  Catch her Ruairi, catch her,

  Lest you will starve and lose your wife,

  Its high-time you catch her,

  We swear by the stone you clumsy oaf,

  Snatch her Ruairi, snatch her Ruairi,

  Now we are through and will swear an oath,

  And its time you catch her,

  Snatch her Ruairi, snatch her,

  O batter her Ruairi, batter her,

  For the morrow is long and storms may blow,

  We will take her, if you do not catch her.”

  It was a ridiculous tale, and one that was pure nonsense with Kenna joining in the singing of it part of the way through, clapping and laughing along with the rest of the celebrants. Having by this time imbibed a bit of ale herself, offered by Helga who sat and ate with her, and Helga’s kinswomen.

  “If only Cormac were here to join in the mirth,” Helga had uttered near to the end of the evening.

  Her words were as a slap to Kenna’s face. Not entirely drunk by this time, the seamstress however sobered up instantly, losing what little joy she had left in her. Miserable once more, she huddled nearer to the small fire that they had lit earlier in the evening, when the celebration and need for a feast were first announced and decided upon.

  The compassion, with which Ainsley and her second eldest daughter looked to her with, was little comfort though she appreciated it.

  Cormac’s absence made his mother ache, with the sight of Eillidh pushing herself closer to her own mother serving as a reminder of Kenna’s need for her own child. It also served to remind all of the once cheery, infectious joy that had always trailed after the youngest of Conn’s daughters.

  At present, the small lass had become a teary-eyed, unsmiling infant who had precious little enthusiasm for much else than eating or clinging to her mother or sisters in recent days. Pity twisted Kenna’s heart, so that she pondered what was to be done, for the wee lass.

  This thought along with one last prayer for the safe return of her son, were to fill up the seamstress’s mind as she passed later that night into the realm of dreams, a short distance from Ainsley’s family.

  *****

  The next day, determined to strike a more positive stance among her people, Kenna was amongst those who insisted upon songs and dances as they travelled. Keen to draw laughter from those around her and to show that she was hardly the ‘shrew’ that many had begun to deem her.

  She was keenly aware that her status as headwoman and as self-appointed protector of her fellow villagers relied upon her popularity. Still sad in heart and hardly merry in spirit, because of the absence of her beloved son and Daegan, and even Indulf it was she who first sang the fisherman’s wife’s song.

  At first those around her did not join in her merriment, with Kenna defending it with the statement, “Sing, it raised my spirit the previous day, and so it shall for the rest of you. We are not leaving green-pastures for poorer ones, but poor ones for greener ones nearer to Sgain. If thousands of others have come to enjoy, is it so impossible for those of from the south to do so?”

  It was just as the Salmon repeated the song’s first verse for the sixth time, near the head of the troupe alongside Kenna, when to the shock of all those from Glasvhail, the sound of hooves thundered across the fields.

  The din of this thunder drew the eyes of all in the fields, in the township of Nordleia, in all the land that separated the castle from the people. Riding forth from the castle, down the slopes of the hill upon which it had been built, a dozen muscular figures drew near to those of Glasvhail.

  All turned to stare at them, near the front of the troupe, Kenna who was forcing herself to sing as cheerily as possible, the Fisherman’s Wife did not react in time, when she did at last notice her people scattering about with horrified screams. The horses drew near, though they did not stomp their way through the crowds as might lesser men.

  This was not to say that they were giants amongst men, they only appeared to be so in the eyes of the frightened peasants. Scrambling everywhere, Kenna could only gape and before she knew it, she was suddenly seized by the waist and pulled off her feet.

  Aloft in the air, a shriek was torn from her lips as Kenna soon found herself pulled upon the steed of the man at the end of the mounted-warriors that had arrived just before the crowd of fugitives. Stunned, Kenna hardly put up any struggle in the first few seconds as Tormod took her away, towards the castle of Nordleia.