The fear that Kenna felt at being taken away from her kith by force, only washed away enough for her to be able to think rationally once they were past the second set of gates. Such was the fear and stunned horror at her predicament. When she did at long last fight down this sentiment, she attempted to push herself away from her captor and to kick out near him as best as possible.

  Not an easy feat to accomplish, considering how her raiment was that of a dress and Tormod was physically far stronger than her, so that she hardly succeeded in doing much more than annoying him through her squirming, slapping and clumsy kicking that near dislodged her.

  Noticing this, and faced with the choice of his arms and the thought of striking the ground, at full-gallop Kenna did not hesitate. She began to redouble her efforts.

  The flames of hope sparked to a blaze deep within her heart, ere long they sunk back to embers then at last died out once the laird’s son dropped the reins with one hand, to secure her back into place in her seat before him in the saddle. The noble, did so with such ease that the petite seamstress could well have been mistaken for little more than a child. Seeing this and feeling the helplessness of being all but pinned into place by his strong arms, served only to heighten the sense of despair and humiliation that coursed in her veins.

  “Enough! Cease that at once,” Growled Tormod Macáed infuriated by her struggles and the continuous battle to keep her a-horse with him. “This could only result in your injuring yourself, lady Kenna!”

  “Aye, what of it?” Kenna grunted back at him, having little issue with such an end result, if it meant defying him even a little, or getting away from him as swiftly as possible.

  By the time he shook his head at her, and their exchange they had crossed through the final of the gates that separated the world from the castle of áed the Hatchet. A castle that had been razed but a few times in all its time in the world, and which loomed now over the seamstress who felt tinier than a mouse, at that moment as she all but stood before it. It was a sickening feeling and one that she did not much like.

  This was not the only thing that she took notice of, for she saw then that there were several people waiting for them; there was a young woman dressed in a fine green linen dress, with dark hair and bright vivid green eyes. She was slightly plump and had an air of severity about her that Kenna had once had herself.

  The other woman seemingly a few years younger than herself, and to the left of the woman stood a young blonde child, the seamstress recognised from the day prior. At the sight of the lass, her stomach fell and she guessed that some of her fate had to do with her disciplining that very lass.

  Quite why she was present was a mystery that Kenna very near divined then and there, with Tormod letting go of the reins, ere he leapt down from his horse with her still in his arms. Once he had planted her feet firmly on the ground he backed away, letting her regain her footing.

  She turned then to flee out the gates but was caught up by his arms. Her face reddened with humiliation and anger, with the laughter and chortles of the men around her serving only to worsen her feelings of resentment against this prince.

  “Let me go! Let me go you brute!” Kenna cried out, fighting his arms once more in a vain effort to reclaim the liberty he had so recently denied her.

  Tormod though when next he spoke, did so from through gritted teeth, “Only if you agree to cease your attempts to flee, to listen to me.”

  “Why? So that you could recite my ‘offenses’ only to slay me, as punishment for them?” Kenna retorted with equal parts sarcasm and bitterness.

  If there was one person who was equally outraged at her presence there, it was the blonde lass who pointed at her, and demanded of her father, “What is she doing here papa?”

  “What is the meaning of this Tormod?” The dark haired woman demanded also, crossing her arms whilst the lass put her hands on her hips.

  Tormod gazed at them all with a hint of wryness in his vivid onyx eyes, with the bearded smile he threw towards all the women-folk assembled before him. “I had thought, when I had heard of the lady of the brown-tresses, had slapped you that, it was rather remarkable, Rhona.”

  His reasoning still appeared incomprehensible to each of the ladies, while the men who had accompanied the laird’s son all letting slip barks of laughter. This further confused them, with Kenna wishing he would cease playing with them, and simply put an end to her confusion and agony.

  “And what? You wish for me to apologies to your daughter? Is that what you wish?” She asked bewildered, rubbing at her temple.

  To the horror and incredulousness of each of the three of them, Tormod let out now a bark of laughter also, “Absolutely not, rather I thought it incredible that a peasant had put her in her place. My daughter has become as of late unruly, so that my good-sister, Deirdre here present with us shan’t entirely control her, and when I heard the description I knew who it was. Between that and your success in wooing those sell-swords I knew you to be a remarkable woman. The only one alive I know of with a song about her.”

  “Ugh! I despise that song!”

  “Wait, Tormod you shan’t be serious,” Deirdre objected also, the only one of the three, who followed the train of thought of the middle-aged warrior.

  “But of course I am, you yourself said that Rhona necessitated a strong hand to keep her in hand, and to keep father from spoiling her.” Tormod argued back with a loud laugh that sounded to Kenna’s ears akin to the bellow of a bear.

  Exasperated, and thinking that she knew what he was hinting at, she said in a resigned voice, “So you mean to make me her tutor or caretaker?”

  In response to her question, the son of the Hatchet murmured with a twinkle in his dark eyes one that she knew at once signified from her time raising almost two lads, naught but trouble. His answer was as simple as it was dumbfounding for her. “Nay, I intend to make you my bride.”

  The revelation of his intention to wed her horrified and dumbfounded not only Kenna, but the man’s own daughter. Rhona looked from him to Kenna, to her father once more, with an exclamation of, “NAY! Father I do not want her for a mother!”

  Tormod only stared her down, stern and forbidding he brooked no further argument from his daughter who when she saw how futile her pleas were turned and fled from the courtyard for the safety of the castle itself. She was not alone in feeling helpless and dumbfounded, with Kenna swallowing and feeling the weight of her situation crushing down upon her.

  *****

  The house of áed was a large one. Especially in comparison to Kenna’s small home, as to the family it was one that involved four children of the laird, three of which were absent from the castle by the time of Kenna’s arrival. The eldest was Baltair who had left for the north, to attend to mending tensions between two lesser manor-lairds who were vassals to the lairds of Nordleia. The next eldest was a son by the name of Dallas, who had left west to take up the post of abbot of the Grenmont temple of Ziu.

  The temple located in a key position to defend the borders of áed from those of his western neighbours and Badrách if either should ever mount assaults from those directions, against him. Bradana was the youngest daughter of áed, and had been married to the Mormaer of Bhalkeld, a favourite of Mael Bethad.

  This left Tormod typically in command of the castle of Nordleia, where his good-sister lived when she was not upon the road alongside his brother, Bailtair. Of those present therewith him, were also his nieces Fenella and Teasag, both lovely lasses that were almost the same age as Rhona, with the former older by several months and the latter, was nine years old.

  The first floor of the castle-keep was almost entirely filled out by the grand hall, where the feasts and dances were held. The walls of which were adorned with the crimson-red hatchets of áed’s family upon their green standards, with the kitchen accessible from the hall through a door to the left which led to a hallway. This made this particular castle unusual as most kept the kitchens separate from the rest of the keep, in case of fires.

  There was also a set of barracks, with fine oak-built straw beds to the right of the entrance hall, which was for the household guards of áed, who slept in a large hall the size of the grand one that was connected to the castle armoury. The armoury was accessible only through the barracks and where as the name implied, all the arms and hauberks were stored. With the storehouse of food and granary to the right of this armoury, in what was without a doubt an attempt by áed and his forbears to guard what they felt to be theirs.

  The second floor was where the rooms were, with the stairs that led up to that floor accessible from the entrance of the dungeon with each of the laird’s family having their own rooms. A luxury not afforded to the servants who slept in the grand-hall or the entrance, or in the hallways of the castle.

  The third floor was where the roots was, with the falcons and hawks kept there just as the canines were kept in a set of kennels between the temple of Ziu and the castle itself. The third floor was also home to a peculiar room as Kenna was to discover, which allowed for a splendid view of the eastern sea, and which had a hatch that served as window and that could be almost thrown open in an upwardly fashion.

  The idea behind this hatch-window, which creaked loudly when opened, being to allow for the laird to look out at the stars, as he was oft-wont to do according to Tormod, due to the old man’s grief at the loss of his youngest son Fingall.

  There was also a prison below-ground, that had been added to the keep, and that was connected by a slight hallway from the keep’s main floor, where there was a gate betwixt the holes in the ground that prisoners were cast down and the building proper. The only way for the prisoners, to be freed was to slip them a rope or ladder, with food typically delivered to them by basket, though this prison had been empty for some time. This was due in no small part to the peace that the High-King Mael Bethad had dedicated his kingship towards pushing forward, throughout his realm.

  *****

  Given food and her own room, one which she was informed had once belonged to Dallas, which was why it was so sparse with a single shelf to house clothes inside of, a large highly polished wooden canopy bed made of ash-wood (shipped from Gallia!) with feather pillows and luxurious lynx fur-drapes and even a large mirror. One that was taller and slightly wider than Kenna herself, pressed at the opposite of the room from the bed (which lay to the left of the room), right next to the open window that faced north.

  This wasn’t a window as you or I might understand it, with glass but simply an open thing with a single wolf-fur curtain that was often closed in the winter. There was also a small table in the center of the five meter long room, with two equally smooth wooden chairs made from the same oak-wood as the table. Upon which was placed a basket of fruits such as apples, bananas, peaches and even some grapes.

  Eyeing the room, which she had been escorted to with a critical eye, Kenna could only shake her head in disgust, at the trappings of wealth on display there. Certainly she had expected to see such displays on the part of her king, and even from Badrách but to see what the servants described as ‘sparsely’ decorated for herself was hardly pleasing to her.

  The servants that had escorted her thereto the room were both young lasses likely nearer to Daegan’s age than her own. One was brown haired and a little plump, the other was blonde with a slender build, and brown eyes, neither of the two lasses appeared at all particularly witty to Kenna’s mind. Nor did she take much interest in the lasses who were dressed each in brown linen, which had soup and tomato stains on them from work done in the kitchens.

  “We do hope it meets with your expectations milady, we swear to ye that it will be improved in the days to come,” Assured the brown-haired lass with the dark eyes, which pleaded with her not to be displeased.

  “We could restore the tapestry of the laird’s ancestors’ glories during the battle of Dún Brunde from a century ago,” Offered the second of the servant-lasses.

  “It makes no difference, for I have no intention of marrying Tormod,” Declared Kenna so resolutely that the lasses gaped at her, in utter shock.

  Stunned at her words they could hardly formulate a thought, beyond questioning themselves how the man whom they desired more than any other in all, the world could possibly be rejected in so blatant a fashion.

  The first of the two to object in words though was the blonde servant, who gasped and asked of her, “But the laird’s son is the finest man in all these lands, handsome and wealthy in his own right, how could you not desire such a match? Is your own family really as wealthy or powerful as to refuse such a match so lightly?”

  Kenna gazed upon them with the scorn of one who had grown weary of foolish young lasses and their fancy, “Nay it is not because of any wealth of mine, or power that I refuse. But for the love of my previous husband who is still so dear to me, as to render all other men regardless their appearance or other talents, but secondary. If anything, I would almost prefer to never see one again, outside of my son for all the days I have left.”

  This last statement was truly harsh, but sincerely spoken on the part of the seamstress, who was to pull one of the chairs upon their departure over by the window. So that in this way, she could go on to stare out at the sea that she had for so long feared and hated for taking away her husband and that now a part of her longed for. Longed for, because it was rapidly becoming synonymous in her spirit with the son she had, she knew chased away.

  O Scota protect my son, protect Cormac lest he should fall to all the evils of the world of which he is so unwitting of. She prayed familiar with how trusting, how foolish and gullible her son could be, in many ways she knew him better than any other person in all, of the world.

  *****

  It was in this stance, on her chair almost facing the mirror, chin upon her hand with her elbow resting upon the bottom of the window-sill and face directed outside that Tormod found her. Having ignored the pleas of his servants to come down to eat, for the laird’s son had prepared a feast in her honour, the suns were setting this she knew for the light was going out over the sea. It was as she stared out at sea, her father and mother’s song, that which she had once crooned to Cormac when he still fitted in her arms.

  “Beyond yon Lowlands

  Past misty-Highlands,

  Lies the river-glimmering,

  Wed to Thistle-lands,

  Unscathed by fire,

  Untouched by steel most dire,

  Undaunted by the tyre,

  Unsung as a friar,

  Thereby the Wend,

  Nearest the bend,

  Blue-steel glints to help fend,

  Against those of Norwend,

  Blue-steel glinting the clans of auld,

  Do live on in warmth and cold,

  Fighting the feuds of auld,

  Where none do as told,

  As free as in the days of auld.”

  Throwing the door open, with ill-grace the previously easily amused tall blonde-bear of a man appeared at that moment, as terrible as that animal could prove to be, or that the raging seas tended to at times prove themselves. His sudden arrival interrupted the song, which she had been singing ever so sadly, her son ever-present in her thoughts though she knew not the latter half of it.

  The sound of the oak-door striking the stone of the rusty-red-painted wall as all the walls of the keep were echoed throughout the second floor of the castle down to the hall upon the second floor. There was a secondary smaller feasting hall there that was only for the laird and his kin and expansive bedroom where Tormod’s father had once occupied, but that the old man had relinquished upon Baltair’s majority.

  Preferring to sleep in another room that which his wife had given birth to all his sons, and which lay to the right of Fingall’s room, the only one forbidden to most servants and Kenna’s explorations. Not that the seamstress was terribly interested in the castle that was to her mind a prison, and could never be aught else save that.

  “Why will you not come down to make merry and enjoy the feast I have had prepared for you?” Tormod queried of her, appeared as displeased as he had ever been since she had made his acquaintance.

  Kenna did not answer; she only turned back to the window and the sea.

  Tormod was by no means an impatient man by nature, nor was he as impulsive as his youngest sibling had been rumoured to be, or his father was known to be. However, at that moment he was seized by the same exasperated nature that so oft-overtook his kinsmen and drove them to occasional bouts of madness.

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  “Why will you not answer me?” He asked of her.

  “I will descend if you give me a guarantee that I shall once the feasting and merry-making is at an end, be set free.” Kenna stipulated to his displeasure, too proud to meet his gaze or to ask for aught less than the liberty she felt to be her due.

  Eyes once more upon the distant horizon, and ears straining for the sound of the sea upon the promontories and land, as it crashed also in against itself. It almost appeared as though in the distance there was a fog, with the seamstress certain that that had to be where Antillia lay. The Misty-Island indeed, she thought to herself remembering how as a child she had once asked of her father if he had ever been there.

  His answer was one she would never forget, for he had appeared grave when he had spoken. ‘Nay, nor has any man that I know of, save for the north-folk for they are the only ones brave- or stupid enough to venture whither where all other men fear to go to.’ The same question had yielded a different answer from Waltigon three years later when she had posed it to him, six months after her arrival in Glasvhail. ‘It is impossible to reach, because the gods have cursed the island for it is said that there was once a vain and foolish king who cast down his daughter for her falling in love with a fisherman. And all the people of the isle took his side and chased out her lover, for which the gods cast a shroud of fog about the island, to keep the sinners in and the rest of the world out. It is for that reason the Northmen may reach it; because they are one and all sinners by nature.’

  Such tales had frightened her from asking more, as she now suspected them to be supposed to do. Cormac had never been daunted as she or Murchadh had been by such talk, but rather he had only grown more eager for more knowledge.

  This brought to mind for her, the one song she knew of the Misty-Island. The song of Muiredach the Poet, who was said to have served at the court of the Pech King Brennius nigh on four centuries ago: The tale went that he had been banished there for displeasing Brennius in some way. Melancholic and sorrowful, as he was loaded up onto the small fishing-barge that was to take him away at the King’s behest, he had burst into song.

  “Green to yellow,

  From harvest to husk,

  Loud may you bellow,

  Still your voice will be lost at dusk,

  Tempest clouds loom over every fellow,

  Sea-waves crash and wind jostles with each gust

  O home, Highland peaks that are sure to vanish,

  Why must home and joy be left at dusk?

  Thus do the gods banish

  All colour, honey and joy,

  Thus is all happiness doth the gods destroy,

  To the Death-Isle away from son and wife am I to vanish.”

  “Is that not a little dramatic lady Kenna?” Tormod asked of her, a little wounded his voice startling her once more so that she leapt a little having forgotten in her misery that he was still present therewith her. Before she could answer him, he went on, “Why sing of the Misty-Island and that terrible song of Muiredach, unless you wish to compare me to Brennius the Cruel?”

  A part of Kenna felt an unexpected surge of pity and guilt for how she had inadvertently insulted him. It had not been her intent to cut away at him, but rather her thoughts had wandered to Cormac and the only song that had come to her, to best express her longing for him was that of Muiredach who longed for his homeland.

  Tearing her gaze from the sea to look him in the eye, unsure of him or his intentions she admitted softly, “It was not my intention to compare you so unfavourably to such a king, for I do not think you so horrid, as the second cruellest of all the Pechish kings was.”

  Pleased, the third of áed’s sons nodded his head several times, recalling what she had said about her freedom, “I am glad, though if you would come down to eat I would be all the happier.”

  Turning away from him once more, Kenna demurred from commenting upon this statement beyond a bland response, “I prefer not to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I have no intention of humouring you, or this farce of yours,” She stated sternly now, using the same tone she had utilised when addressing his daughter the day previous to that one and Cormac when he was young.

  If she hoped for the same sort of childish response from him that such a tone had always yielded from the children, she was disappointed. Tormod was a grown man where they were children, and was determined to have his way and determined to maintain his good humour about it.

  “Now, now there is no reason for such petulance milady,” He said with a short laugh that served only to awaken her fury.

  “Petulant? How dare you address me as such! Not when it is you who have come hither to this room, to complain of my absence from a celebration designed to humiliate me!” Kenna shrieked with such red-faced fury that she had at long last the satisfaction of seeing him flinch a little in response.

  She could not have predicted how poorly, he might take her refusal. Face almost as stony as Kenna’s own, he growled through gritted teeth, “If such is the case content yourself with the fruits on the table, for I have no intention of humouring you further, Kenna.”

  *****

  Kenna did not eat that night. She might well have starved herself in protest, at least until he had her force-fed, were it not for a visit from Deirdre the good-sister of Tormod the following day. She entered without knocking, to find the seamstress once more facing the window, with the song of Muiredach upon her lips once more, something that took the wife of Baltair the heir by surprise.

  “May I come in, lady Kenna?” Deirdre asked of her, politely, though her initial entry was rather abrupt and early, as the suns had only recently arisen.

  Kenna shrugged, it made no difference to her what the other woman did.

  At this, the other woman became visibly discomfited by her indifferent preference to ignore her entirely, “Tormod is upset you have taken his attempts at romance so poorly.” Once again there was an indifferent shrug of slight shoulders. It was at this time that Deirdre sighed impatiently, “Come now do you not think that this could well be a wondrous and possibly even spectacular opportunity for you and any you consider kin?”

  At her words, Kenna let slip a bark of laughter, one that was about as bitter as she felt then, and all the colder than the glaciers that seemed to surely haunt her interiors as they did the Glacial Sea to the north of the Bretwealdan archipelago.

  “You really shan’t believe such a thing? If so, you know ever so little about us old peasant widows,” She mocked the other woman with all the force of the scorn she could summon forth from the darkest depths of her soul.

  Deirdre would not allow herself to be beaten down though. She replied with evenness and equal bite, “Then do educate me o wise woman.”

  At those words Kenna at last stared levelly at the other woman, realizing mayhap a little too late just how hasty she had been to dismiss this particular woman. The scorn was the sort that made her in her eyes a woman after her own heart. The mother of Cormac near broke into a smile at this thought, for she doubted very much the other woman might appreciate the humour in being compared to an old spinster like her.

  Repressing what little amusement she felt, the seamstress turned her thoughts now to the question the other woman had posed her. There had never truly been a time when she had desired a wealthy suitor, out of love for Murchadh as much as it was from the view that success should only come to those who toiled for it, and who were pious.

  “Mayhap you could be content with such a union lady Deirdre, but not I.” Kenna declared indifferent to the feelings of the other woman, “I have no intention to marry once more, especially since Murchadh was the only person I ever loved… him, my son, Cormac and friend Olith and her daughter Daegan.”

  “What do you think Tormod is? Some easily swayed youth who falls in love, with any woman he meets?” Deirdre retorted evenly, “He was also wed in his youth though the match proved a disastrous one for Islay was sickly where he was always far too healthy for his own good. For this reason, in spite of his youthful for adoration for her, they only made one another miserable.”

  The revelation was hardly a surprise, what was, was the fact that he had known love, though Kenna did not know if it changed anything. She still had no great desire to feel aught else for Tormod than disgust for her kidnapping.

  “To wed again could only prove itself an insult, to Murchadh,” Said Kenna persisting in her determination to remain faithful to her deceased husband’s memory.

  “And this Murchadh would truly wish you to starve and perish in misery?” Deirdre asked in a voice that challenged her, adding then as she turned to go, “And what of your friends and fellow fugitives? Do you not think it might be a greater insult to them, by denying them what assistance you could as Tormod’s wife?”

  *****

  The reminder of her fellow villagers was as a cold slap of water, after a time outdoors in the summer. The shock of which left her stunned, and open to the encouragement by the other woman and the servant-lasses from yesterday, so that she soon found herself seated betwixt Fenella and Tormod himself, at the head table in the first floor’s feast-hall.

  Many were there, and in true Caled fashion the feast included some of the servants, house-guards and nobles all gathered together. This may seem strange to those familiar with the customs of the Gallians or Brittians, who preferred that servants eat long after the guards, who in turn ate in some cases long after the nobles had eaten.

  But the Caled culture was one inspired by that of ériu, who had colonised her western shores centuries ago; wherefore those colonies had gone on to conquer the eastern Pechish kingdom.

  Fenella as Kenna discovered was an energetic, charming lass with a passion for horses and ponies. Animals that she soon began talking at great length to the seamstress, who listened politely as she ate slowly. “What is more is that the feed provided by the knights in Gallia appears to me to be healthier, than some that we have been giving our chargers. This is why grandpappy is hopeful to convince those knights; the King invited to join us in Gallia, to tell us how they grow theirs and care for their horses.” The interest in every aspect of the care for the horses, extended also to the exercise that these animals needed to achieve the sort of strength of those from the Continent. “And they are also mightier, and better bred, so we are going to breed them with our smaller horses, and exercise them in their early infancy, as much as they do theirs.”

  It was an extended speech about the care of those mares and chargers and the inner-workings of why áed the ‘Hatchet’ had gone away to Mael Bethad’s court. Kenna had never realized that her monarch had such foresight or that he had ever invited knights to Caledonia.

  “Incredible, I had never realized that our king or your grandfather were so wise, I had thought only the Thistle-King had desired to have knights present at court,” Remarked Kenna impressed by the intellect of the young lass seated next to her.

  The lass who was dark of hair as her mother was, and yellow eyed according to all, she had inherited these traits from her father, with the lass looking up at her with a cheery smile. One that was shared by her mother who was every inch the proud mother Kenna wished she had shown herself, to be towards her own child. “Aye, but he did not invite so many as the High-King!”

  “That is not what uncle Dallas said,” Teasag objected from the other side of her mother.

  “What of Mael-Martin II who invited the first knights, after King Siomon had to our lands?” Rhona challenged curiously.

  “Grandpappy says that that was only due to our King’s insistence to counter ágmundr the Great.” Fenella argued back with such knowledge that her potential aunt felt a mixture of amusement and awe at her intelligence.

  The conversation reminded Kenna of one she had once overheard between Corin and Cormac, just before Murchadh’s disappearance. Her husband had left the lad in the care of the blacksmith for the day, whilst the fisherman took Daegan out to fish for the day, disapproving of this little game betwixt the two men. The conversation had involved Corin teaching the youth as they bent heated iron into shape with fierce hammer strokes. ‘Why did Mael-Martin invite you here uncle Corin?’

  ‘He desired knights,” Explained the blacksmith who had at the time been bare older than his mid-twenties, “Knights with which to resist ágmundr should he once again come north to ensure that the Caled king should bend the knee to him. Though, his grandson Donnchad has since squandered this alliance as Siomon’s successors did.’

  At the time Kenna had not thought this a suitable lesson for her son, nor had she thought the blacksmith’s education proper either. Fearful as she was that he should engage in violence and lose his life, as so many other sons of Caledonia had, over the past decades since the fall of the Thistle-King’s father.

  “If only Fenella could show half as much interest, in womanly arts that she does her horses,” Teased Tormod with a twinkle in his eyes and a soft-grin upon his lips evidently fond of his young niece. Fenella for her own part stuck her tongue out at him only to be scolded for this immature behaviour by her noble-blooded mother, only for her to blush sheepishly.

  “Nonsense, the most feminine lass I ever beheld was every bit keen upon dresses, song and needle-work as she was horses and tales of glory.” Kenna intervened, more out of petulance towards Tormod than out of sincerity, though she did recall wistfully back to her goddaughter. A lass she missed every bit as much as she did her own son.

  “Really now?” Tormod asked of her, “Is this your lass or another’s?”

  “The local blacksmith’s daughter, Daegan is her name.” Kenna replied to him, “My goddaughter who was the finest and most courageous of all those who lived in Glasvhail.”

  This impressed the lasses who began to murmur amongst themselves, with even Rhona seemingly taken in by this brief description of Daegan. Though she was visibly as taken in by her boasts of Corin’s daughter, Deirdre appeared rather exasperated. It was as though she blamed Kenna for raising the hopes of her daughters and niece to unreasonable proportions.

  It was Tormod who nodded his head in approval as he finished peeling away a sliver of meat from the bone, with his teeth. “Though they shan’t ride horses, or wield swords in so knightly a fashion as your Daegan, I should think they could rival her in the singing of songs.”

  It was a rather masculine gesture on his part, to try to turn this into a competition, though this was one that the seamstress did not mind so much. Nor did she mind the food that was on hand; for though she had come with bitterness and the determination to loath him, she found her belly and heart warmer thanks to what had been provided for her.

  Therefore as Tormod and Deirdre supplicated with the reluctant Rhona to sing, something she did not desire to do for Kenna. The headwoman of Glasvhail revelled if briefly so in the finest meal she had ever enjoyed in all her life. It was a luxury she never imagined she might one day enjoy, even in her wildest fantasies.

  There was cod and salmon to be sure, though they had been mixed with spices she knew little of, with there being beef taken from a local well-fed cow, which had been mixed into a stew that included deer-meat and the meat taken from bears along with carrots, and apples and tomatoes.

  There was also haggis so well-cooked, and boiled in the stew ere it was removed before it had been served, so that there was a hint of the soup without it overpowering the taste. The bread was the only part of the meal that was little different from that Glasvhail, and required continuous dipping into both the juice of the stew and the wine that was served out to all.

  In all, as she dipped her clay spoon into the bowl before her, and speared some of the haggis in her place with her knife, to bring it up to her lips, the seamstress felt as though she had crossed into some other land. She wondered briefly if her son might someday enjoy such things, and regretted that he and his father had never enjoyed such things, and felt a stab of guilt at the thought. While she sat there enjoying good food, her son was elsewhere risking his life.

  Tormod had played his hand well in distracting her from those thoughts. The thought of her son and the love of her lad’s life, remained as ever-present in her thoughts as they did before the arrogant Rhona and her cousins began to sing in unity with their tutor, áed’s poet Finn MacFinn.

  “Long ago in ages long past,

  At a time when the Pechs lacked sense,

  And Ríocht-Riada ruled the west-waves,

  Achaius Longstride ruled the isles,

  Thereupon the west-ships that stretch for days,

  Since long before he was enthroned upon the land of Thistles,

  The poets long have sung,

  Of his kingly-valour and silken tongue,

  As Arndryck the Golden rules the skies,

  So too does he cover the king’s shield,

  Thus, did he wretch from the Dark Elves many cries,

  Aboard the great galley Legios-Emerald,

  He did thus venture in spite of being imperiled,

  That he came to through seven defeats,

  Upon the Lairdly-Isle by Pechish and demonic deceits,

  These losses he endured ere his Gallian arrival,

  In the fields of Aulfields he did Claidheasoluis wield,

  This mighty-blade that the Cyclops Maelgwyen did yield,

  And that Achaius did from mighty stone pluck as he did his shield,

  Upon the fields Gorthrax the Invader laid Brittia’s king low,

  Poor King Eadwald and his four sons

  did fall to Gorthrax’s treacherous fellows many-bow,

  Claidheasoluis in hand, and buckler up-high,

  Achaiaus light-blade gripped smote from high,

  As though cleaving the sky,

  This after three days of battle he tore Gorthrax’s last sigh,

  Thus aboard the great galley Legios-Emerald,

  He did thus venture in spite of being imperiled,

  His ship did the Sea-Serpent did defy,

  In the straits that Brittia and Gallia did divide,

  Eadwald his dear friend, when Gorthrax’s defeat was nigh,

  Blood for blood he did cry,

  When he answered Aymon Emperor’s call,

  To join him to war and brotherhood in his grand hall,

  These battles and triumphs he did enjoy,

  The Thistle-blade girded he did since he was a lad,

  With which the monstrous Fratriarch he did destroy.”

  The song of which they sang was taken from a part of one about Achaius, which all in Caledonia knew. Such was the love that all the Caleds felt for it that it never failed to uplift their hearts, even in the most sorrowful of hours. Kenna was no different and for a few brief moments she forgot her grief, her misery and even her captivity.

  Finn MacFinn, who was seated upon the other side of Tormod and who had occasion to at times in the proper custom of ériu and Caledonia, eat from the same plate as the laird was a fantastic singer. He had also taught each of the three lasses to sing so beautifully, as to sound akin to that great goddess of music Meret who was so dearly beloved in the north-lands of the Lairdly-Island.

  Though, she was taken in by this grand performance on the part of the daughters of the house of áed, she was not wholly seduced by it. They could not have known that no voice could sound more angelic, more divine to her ears than that of her great-friend Olith’s daughter Daegan.

  To have uttered such a thing would be cruel though, and though never very tactful at the best of times, Kenna demonstrated some restraint in her criticism of the lasses. “Impressive,” Said the sell-sword’s daughter, her Highland accent leaking into her voice at that moment as it was occasionally wont to do. “Mayhap, with time and continued work you will surpass your poet or my thrice beloved Daegan Fire-hair!”

  “‘With time’?” Deirdre hardly took this remark as praise, appearing insulted and indignant at the slight to her daughters’ and niece’s honour.

  The three lasses had blushed at the praise, with Kenna feeling a little uncertain of how best to answer. Thankfully, it was the snobbery of Rhona that saved her, with the lass swift to ask of her. “Is this Daegan truly so skilled at poetry? I imagine she does not know quite so much as I about the kings of Caledonia, or our forefathers!”

  “Everyone knows those tales,” Fenella said with a small laugh, never one to take offense at things which might inspire indignation in her mother or cousin.

  “Kings mayhap, though Dae never was very interested in the line of áed,” Admitted the widow earnestly.

  “But the line of the Macáeds is tied to that of the royal one going back to the reign of Achaius the hero king.” Finn MacFinn replied knowingly, it was then that Kenna asked who he was and she learnt of his name. At once, he was raised in her esteem for all Caleds loved poets and esteemed those who knew history and myth better than they.

  Finn MacFinn proved this then as he passed a portion of the night sometimes bent over his lyre, at other times he told the tales of ancient kings’ not in song but in prose. All hung upon his word, as he described the glories of the reign of Achaius, down through the centuries to their own age. Those latter tales involved such names as Cináed I, Causantín II, Ildulb, Cuilen, Cináed II, Siomon, Mael-Martin II and of course Mael Bethad. “Long ago, in the age of Darkness Achaius the hero-king arose, mothered by Scota the gold-goddess, it was he who rescued us from darkness, when he was elected king of the Pechs.

  Such was the vigour of his sword-arm, the courage of his person and the wisdom of his policies that not only were the Northmen nervous to attack his lands and the Dark Elves pushed back. The Mazoku and Unliving were also thrown back from our shores, in his nigh century long reign as King.

  He was also named the ‘Emerald Paladin of the crags and lions’ by Aemiliemagne. Aye! Aemiliemagne; he who was the greatest of all the emperors and men to ever live in North-Agenor! It was that august emperor’s daughter, the princess Augustine, taking our great king Achaius for husband, and she who mothered our kingdom’s founder; Cináed.”

  This caused Kenna to leap a little in surprise, asking in bewilderment, “I had no notion that he had wed the princess.”

  “Aye, though the match began when he arrived fresh from his defeat of the Fratriarch Morrion, and wounded sought a place of safety. Encouraged to take shelter in one of the Emperor’s palace of Lutèce, it was therein that dungeon that she fell for the king.

  It was also on that occasion that she barred him from departing from the city, until he had married her to the indignation of her father who had no wish out of sentimentality to see his daughters wed.” Finn clarified with such breadth of knowledge that he vastly surpassed all other men she had ever met, save for Corin she had to admit. For the blacksmith knew more of such things she suspected, than even this remarkable poet did, with his prodigious memory. “Though he had come to love she who had captured him, and she was supported by her lovely sisters, they could no more assuage the wroth of the Emperor nor entirely persuade faithful Achaius to flee with Augustine. A compromise was in time reached, with Achaius venturing whither to Quirinas to help rescue the Grand Divan, from that Knight of Death by the name of Sauthagar the Scarlet-Blade.

  It was in the following battle that this wraith of a knight was laid low and Achaius, won permission to wed fair-haired Augustine. Whom he crowned as his Queen both in Lutèce and in our holy city of Sgain, it would be she who mothered his mighty sons and she who educated Cináed the Conqueror. The great king who after his father’s passing was cast out of Sgain, and fled west as a child.

  It was thereupon the isle of Sistine, twenty years after his coronation as king of Ríocht-Riada that Cináed and his brothers, Domnall Shield-Arm and Achaian Silk-Tongue made ready to free the land of the Caleds. They did just that, taking back the heartland of Sgain and Fortriu, whereupon they divided the lands of the Pechs between themselves, with Cináed presiding over the lands we now know as the king’s lands, while Domnall and Achaian went south.

  It was they who secured Strathclarde and the frontier lands, and they who fought back Helgi the Terrible from those lands. This caused him to invade ériu and much of Cymru, ere he returned after Cináed and his brothers’ deaths to take the small-isles in the west, with his sons slaughtering those of Cináed with the aid of the usurper Giric the Black-Hearted.

  He broke the pledge of troth that he had sworn to them, and ruled through Cináed’s grandson for a time. It was however the hero Cormac who arose, just as the Black-Hearted grew desperate enough to swear his troth now to Razenth the Foul and the last of the Dark Elves in North-Agenor, Svarteilios. This pact made, Cormac destroyed the dark-sorcerer in two battles- once he encountered the Elf in life, another time as an Unliving creature of pure dark-sorcery.”

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