Rebel

by Linda Windsor

  Pivoting on beaded silk slippers, Kella gathered up the blue brocade of her skirts and led the way toward the Queen’s Tower entrance. Her unmistakable air of authority was reinforced when the guard at the door immediately opened it and stood aside with a respectful “G’day, milady.”

  It was Kella, and yet it wasn’t. Until Alyn could fathom the difference, distance was the best course of action.

  Chapter Two

  Kella’s heart beat like a captive bird’s as she led the way into the Queen’s Tower. She’d leapt at the chance to escape the oppressive crush of people at the ceremony, to finish preparations for receiving the ladies in the Queen’s Tower during the interim between the memorial mass and the feast. While the men attended affairs of state, the ladies would enjoy rest and refreshment and catch up on news from throughout the kingdom. The fresh air that met Kella on the steps to the courtyard soothed the protests of her stomach caused by the concentrated bouquet of humanity.

  And then there was Alyn, tall, dark, and unyielding as a stone wall. Alyn, come from the past like a dark god of passion and taking what remained of her present breath by seizing her lips and setting every female sensibility she possessed asimmer. What on earth had he been thinking?

  “You certainly have moved up in station since I last saw you,” Alyn remarked as if he greeted every woman he met as such.

  Where was the somber young man she’d seen off to study in the East?

  “I am impressed,” he continued.

  Impressed? The scholar hadn’t completely vanished after all. Indignation nipped at Kella’s humor as she led him past lavish tapestries that added color and warmth to the high stone walls, toward a stairwell that led to Gwenhyfar’s private chambers above. Alyn might wait there with Fatin without disturbing the ladies.

  How dare he simply appear after six years and—

  Kella wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, but even as she did, she knew she would never forget such a kiss as long as she lived. Alyn was, for all intent and purpose, her brother! The one who had lived to vex her since she first drew breath in This World.

  She didn’t even love him in a romantic sense. Not anymore. The heart she’d foolishly saved just for him when she was a mere child had matured. It belonged to another, more deserving, man. One far more gallant and less maddening. One who appreciated Kella for her wit and opinions as well as her fairness. A man who wanted a wife and family, not a stone cell filled with amphorae and musty manuscripts. Lorne made her the center of his world. Study and prayer were Alyn’s world, and he had never bothered with her except to annoy.

  And she was certainly annoyed. Stepping inside the queen’s parlor, Kella pivoted on slippered feet and lashed out at an unsuspecting Alyn with her hand. “How dare you!”

  The slap cracked like thunder in the empty room and stung her palm like a thousand bees. With a gasp, Kella clasped her burning hand to her waist and stomped backward, glaring. “You’re more devil than priest. I don’t care how long you’ve studied,” she ranted, “or if you studied with the Christos Himself. That kiss was most ill-gotten!”

  ’Twould have served him right had she lost her breakfast down the front of that fine-fitting tunic. Travel and time had bulked Alyn’s boyishly slender, gawky frame, and his tailor knew exactly how to accent the manly taper of his torso to perfection. She tore her gaze away from the wall of muscle to her foster brother’s face.

  He tested the flaming red mark of her palm on his cheek with tentative fingers, meeting her gaze with his own midnight appraisal. Instead of his classic aloofness or mischief, his expression hinted of surprise and cooled to an unsettling study of her, as if she were some specimen to be examined upon a board.

  Just when Kella concluded that he was utterly without remorse, he reached for her hand. “You are right, Kella. I am more sinner than priest.” He lifted her fingers to his lips, brushing the knuckles gently. “And I was wrong. I do not know you that well.”

  “Indeed not.” So why had he kissed her so … so thoroughly? She sniffed, all the more disconcerted. Who was this pretender posing as her foster brother? “Never that well.”

  Unsettled by the tension, Fatin began to chatter and dig into Alyn’s shirt. Wincing, Alyn broke the clutch and unfastened the gold embroidered jacket as tenderly as though the animal were a babe.

  “It won’t happen again,” he promised as he removed the garment and tossed it near the fire to dry. Ever so gently, he rubbed the little monkey’s fur with his cloak. The way a father might …

  Kella’s skin ignited again. Still, she couldn’t stop watching him, although he didn’t seem to notice. It was a relief when he changed the subject.

  “I am disheartened to hear of Merlin Emrys’s passing.” Alyn fastened Fatin’s leash to a chair near the fire and knelt to stir the coals. “I’d hoped to consult with him. Alba has suffered a huge loss.”

  “Arthur even more,” Kella put in, “although I wonder if he has the wit to realize it. For every alliance the Dux Bellorum makes, another falls apart.”

  The monkey climbed on Alyn’s shoulder as he rose. “No, you don’t, mischief.” He put the creature back on the chair. “Have you any fruit? He loves to eat. I fear food and mischief sums up his purpose on This Side.”

  Kella hastily retrieved an apple from the bowl on a nearby table and handed it to Alyn. He withdrew a dagger from his belt and cut the fruit into pieces.

  “How did you come by him?” she asked.

  “An Arab friend gave me the little beast as a parting gift to remember him by. Prince Hassan ibn Yūsuf ibn Matar of the Byzantium Ghassãnid.” At the surprised hike of Kella’s brow, Alyn explained, “They are the Christian-Arab foederati who defend Byzantium. A fierce and proud people.”

  “So you weren’t confined to prayer and books alone?” she observed.

  Alyn shook his head. “Nothing quite so boring after all, eh?”

  “I never said books were boring,” Kella pointed out. “It’s the priestly life that I would find tedious. Those dark, cramped cells and all that praying day in and out.”

  “Perhaps it is to someone as full of life and beauty as yourself, though I’ve heard you’ve now mastered five languages. I’m impressed you could sit still that long.”

  Kella pulled a face at the halfhearted insult. “It comes easily to me. Of course, I was raised in three of them—the Irish or Scot, our Brito-Welsh Cymric, and your mam’s Pict. And the classics in Latin and Greek are most entertaining.”

  “Aye, they are that.” Alyn cradled Fatin and took the chair near the fire, where he spread out the tiny, ornate jacket to dry faster. “But tell me, is there any news of my brothers and their families?” he asked upon handing the remainder of the apple to Fatin. “The most recent missive I received from Caden said that he and Sorcha were finally expecting a child.”

  Kella’s belly quivered. Or was it her imagination? What would Alyn say if he knew—

  “Their daughter Aelwyn will be two this Easter,” she replied. “Sorcha named her after Aelwyn’s foster grandmother.”

  Astonishment claimed Alyn’s face. “Two years,” he said to no one in particular. “Time has flown on fast wing.”

  “Ronan and Brenna and their two offspring?”

  “Most well,” she assured him. He mustn’t find out that she was expecting. Not until she and Lorne could make things right. The priestly Alyn would never approve.

  “The southern Picti are proving worrisome again,” she continued. “They’d rather fight the Scots and Cymri than Saxons. The queen expects rebellion if Arthur chooses a Cymri king to succeed him rather than his cousin Modred, but my betrothed is striving hard to bring the Pictish princes around to Arthur’s way of thinking.”

  Alyn spun away from the fire. “Your what?”

  Kella stopped herself from covering her belly. It was instinct to touch the product of their love whenever Lorne’s name crossed her mind. Instead she brushed the front of her skirt of unseen lint. This talk of family an
d little ones had addled her brain. That and Alyn’s kiss … his gentleness with that tiny creature.

  That she still tingled from the kiss had to be the result of her condition. All that was feminine about her was at its most sensitive right now, resistant to reason.

  Her heart … her child … belonged to someone else. Someone who appreciated her and shared her ambition to rise in Arthur’s court. Someone unlike the present company, who shared no princely aspirations. “My betrothed,” she replied smugly. “Prince Lorne of Errol.”

  Alyn’s lips twitched as he held her in his gaze. “You always said you would marry a prince.” He motioned about the room, the wry edge to his voice giving way to praise. “And clearly you are highly esteemed by the queen.”

  “But I am ahead of myself,” she added hastily. “We haven’t announced our engagement officially. Lorne only asked me at Yuletide before riding off to Strighlagh to join the Angus’s forces on the borderland. He will speak to Father there.”

  “And then to Ronan and Caden and myself.”

  Faith, she couldn’t remain perturbed with her foster brother. For all his worrisome ways, she appreciated this protective side of him.

  Kella fingered a brooch, gold shaped into a taloned creature that was half bird with the head of a cat. Pict artisans favored mythological creatures. The inlay of jewels and glass made it burst with color. “He gave me this. Isn’t it lovely?”

  “He’ll need more than a pretty pin to win Egan’s approval,” Alyn observed. “Is he any good with weapons, or is he likely to be food for the wolves and ravens after a good fight?”

  Just the mention of the possibility that Lorne might lose his life on the battlefield ran Kella’s heart through, even though Alyn merely exercised his role as an elder sibling and meant nothing by it.

  “He is a force to be reckoned with among Arthur’s companions and possesses the eloquence of a poet,” Kella informed him with pride. “Which is why he is among the chosen to speak on Arthur’s behalf to his fellow Pictish rulers.”

  “And how vast is the land that he rules?”

  “It is his brother who is king of the clan lands—”

  “Which is why Prince Lorne rides with Arthur, hoping to win land of his own,” Alyn finished maddeningly.

  “Like yourself,” Kella shot back.

  “Aye,” Alyn conceded, “but a priest and scholar’s needs are meager. His knowledge provides his wealth.”

  Why had she ever blurted out her secret about Lorne? Tears sprang from what seemed like an endless stream of emotion of late. Kella turned away rather than let Alyn see them. She had managed to rise to her position by using her wit rather than feminine wiles, but this pregnancy had reduced her to a mishmash of feelings prone to erupt at the most inconvenient times.

  “I should have said nothing,” she said aloud. “I thought I could trust you, of all people, to share my happiness.” She put her hands to her temples, where invisible fingers knotted the muscles there. “I beg you. Please say nothing of this. The time isn’t right. No one knows but you, not even the queen.”

  She heard Alyn’s footfall, felt his hands come to rest on her shoulders. “You have my word of love as a brother and honor as a man, little sister. Your secret is safe with me. But I can’t speak for Fatin,” he added playfully.

  The tension coiling Kella’s nerves broke free with a chuckle. This was the way it used to be. She could turn angry with Alyn at the flip of a coin, and before her anger was spent, he could disarm her with that rakish charm of his.

  Her world righted again, she turned into his arms and returned his embrace. “Welcome home, Alyn.”

  After the service ended, Gwenhyfar appeared delighted to discover Alyn upon retiring to her private chambers. Kella, on the other hand, was definitely not herself. Her gaze retreated like a startled deer whenever she caught Alyn watching her, which made Alyn all the more observant, in spite of himself. He could not blame curiosity alone. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. There was a glow that transcended her natural beauty. It reminded Alyn of depictions of the Holy Mother displayed in churches from Albion to the Holy Land.

  Or perhaps this new obsession was the result of his need for grounding—finding the man he’d been before being caught up in the lofty spiritual and intellectual world in the East. Kella belonged to the old Alyn. A man whose soul, reason, and emotions had been of one accord, not at war with each other.

  “I want you to be my eyes and ears, Alyn,” Gwenhyfar told him, once the amenities were behind them. Given the indentations of fatigue beneath her eyes, she needed rest but insisted on spending her short span of free time with Alyn and Kella. “I cannot see everyone’s reaction from the throne. I need as many sets of eyes as can be mustered to discern reactions to the proceedings. I must know who is our enemy—and who is not.” Gwenhyfar twisted the wedding band on her left ring finger, her expression almost a grimace of pain. Before Alyn could fathom a meaning behind it, she continued. “Were Cassian to bend Arthur’s ear any further, I’d have no say in the decisions affecting our nation.”

  “But you are High Queen, milady,” Alyn protested. And not only a queen of the Picts, but a priestess of the Grail Church. She was groomed to be a High Queen of the peoples, regardless of tribe.

  “Cassian thinks politics and faith are the realm of men, that we women have no place in them except as servants and child-bearers,” Kella huffed.

  Funny, but that was the future Kella had always claimed to want—a wealthy, handsome lord for her to serve as husband, and children for her to raise. The passing of six years, combined with the influence of Queen Gwenhyfar, had wrought many changes in his once-fanciful foster sister. This Kella was certainly more fascinating.

  “It appears Cassian has much to learn about Alba and its women,” Alyn observed wryly.

  Many Celtic women, those of royalty in particular, were trained in business and warfare as well as household administration. In times of war—and when was there not war on these shores?—the responsibilities of their husbands fell upon their shoulders. At times, they fought shoulder to shoulder with their men. Not even the Pax Romana had eliminated that necessity for survival.

  “I am watched by Cassian’s men as if I would betray my own husband and my Christ,” Gwenhyfar added, as if the latter smote her worse than the first.

  Another festering between the Celtic and the Roman Churches, Alyn mused. Most of the former druidic priestesses, like their male counterparts, had accepted Christianity. They’d become sisters and abbesses, brides of Christ. The example of Mary had given women an acceptable role beyond the Martha-like one of wife and child-bearer. Gwenhyfar was a Mary, educated in secular and ecclesiastical knowledge to serve God and His people as queen.

  “I fear Cassian will sway Arthur toward a fatal mistake for our peoples. My husband needs the Pictish support I have brought him through marriage, reinforced by following Merlin’s advice in naming Modred as successor to the title of Dux Bellorum. But rumor has it that Cassian advises Arthur to change his mind and name Urien of Rheged, a Briton who is no friend of the Pictish nations.”

  “Surely not!” No wonder Gwenhyfar was so pale and wan, Alyn thought. The Picts would certainly feel betrayed and would never swear allegiance to a purely British king.

  The queen squared her shoulders and offered her arm. “So … shall we join the High King and try to keep him from tearing the Cymri alliance into shreds to please Rome?”

  Alyn glanced to where Fatin unstacked a pile of kindling within reach of his leash. “I wish I’d left him in his cage now,” he lamented.

  “Nonsense. I’ll have Maeven, the steward’s wife, bring a cage in for him. Will he be friendly to her?”

  Alyn nodded. “He’s a bit shy of men but seems to like women. Especially if they give him fruit or nuts.”

  Gwenhyfar turned to Kella. “See to it, if you will, milady. Arthur will not hold the proceedings for my arrival.”

  Kella dipped in a curtsy. “As you wi
sh, my queen.”

  “Thank you, Kella … milady,” Alyn amended hastily. He offered his arm to the queen. “Let us pray, cousin, that whatever Arthur’s decisions be, they are pleasing to God.”

  Yet even as he spoke, Alyn had his doubts. Rome had never understood the importance of the ancient bloodlines to the tribes of Albion—that they were as important as they’d been to the Hebrew nations of the Old Testament. The records of the survival of the Davidic kings and apostolic priests in the British Isles were ingrained in every Celtic priest, Alyn among them. The bloodlines didn’t give the Celtic Church authority over Rome. They simply made them brethren and, as such, equals in faith and God’s eye.

  But would Rome ever accept anything not Roman as equal?

  Chapter Three

  After escorting Gwenhyfar to her elaborately carved throne seat and being acknowledged by the High King, Alyn wove his way through the crowd, looking for Daniel and hopefully a vantage point from which he might see the key players in the rapidly unfolding drama.

  The influence and power of the members of the assembly was impressive, even though Merlin Emrys’s tribute solely accounted for many. A well-planned strike in this hall by a Saxon contingent could wipe out most of the kings of the North and many of the South and West. To Gwenhyfar’s right sat the steward of her land of Gododdin, King Angus of Strighlagh. On the High King’s left was the red-robed archbishop, his pointed chin jutting out with an air of arrogance. Or perhaps it was the close trim of his beard that gave that illusion.

  Alyn wasn’t ready to judge the man yet, if at all. It wasn’t his place or what he’d come home for. Then again, neither was playing the queen’s eyes.

  Next to Archbishop Cassian was the empty chair usually occupied by King Modred of Lothian. Given Modred’s position as an archbishop of the Celtic Church, some interesting conversations must have taken place between the two church fathers. Neither Roman nor Celtic priests would give on their positions regarding the proper worship of the Christos. Alyn wondered if the time Easter was celebrated or the way a priest cut his hair was all that important to God. Short of the bloodletting done away with by Jesus’s sacrifice, Alyn figured it was the heart behind the various ways of honoring and worshipping the Almighty that mattered most to Him.