“Suffice it to say, I fared better with sword and quill than needle and a cookfire.”
“Amen to that,” Alyn said with a bit too much fervor.
Kella smacked him, reading his memory exactly. “That bread burned because a kitten was stuck in the apple tree and—”
“Pardon, milady,” a servant interrupted. “The queen will see you now … in her chambers.”
A chill cold as a northman’s fjord set in Kella’s bones. God be with me. With them.
Alyn leapt to his feet as she rose. “I’ll go with you.”
“Aye, sir. Gwenhyfar asked for you as well, if you be Father Alyn,” the man said.
“I’m Alyn O’Byrne,” Alyn replied, his guarded tone checking Kella’s escalating anxiety for a moment.
So much had been happening that her foster brother had never explained why he’d given up the priestly tonsure. He’d been proud of it when he left for the Holy Land. Taken great delight in insisting she call him Father.
“I’ll watch the imp,” Daniel assured Alyn, taking up Fatin’s leash. “And wait for the good news,” he added brightly. He gave Kella a wink. “Egan’s too ornery to die.”
And Lorne’s too sweet and gallant.
Kella clung to those sentiments as she made her way across the courtyard to the Queen’s Tower and up the stairs to her private parlor. The worst wasn’t possible. If it were so, I’d know something was wrong, she told herself as she preceded Alyn into the room where the queen stood before the low fire in the hearth. Call it women’s intuition. Call it—
Gwenhyfar turned upon hearing Kella. Her heart-shaped face was ashen, a mirror of regret. But it was the bloodstained scarf she held in her hand that grabbed Kella’s gaze and refused to let it go. It was the gift Kella had given Lorne the morning of his departure for Strighlagh. No sword was ever so sharp as the anguish that cut through Kella.
“No!” strangled in her throat. Kella doubled over, as though to protect her little one from the devastating news. But there was no saving the child from its fate as a bastard. Not now. Lorne would never have parted from that silken scarf while he drew breath. ’Twas his oath.
Somehow, under the guidance of Alyn’s viselike grip, Kella stumbled to a lounging couch where Gwenhyfar often curled up against the raised arm to nap before the fire. Alyn sat beside her, pulling her into his strong arms.
“Hush, anmchara, hush,” he cooed against her head.
Yet Kella wasn’t crying. Her sobs couldn’t get past the knot of rebellion forming in her chest. Lorne couldn’t be dead. Wounded, thought dead obviously, but not dead.
“Prince Lorne’s captain sent this for you,” the queen said gently from somewhere just beyond the black sea trying to drown Kella. “Elkmar tried to save the prince but saw him cut down before his very eyes. Later, when our men collected the dead and wounded, the scarf was all the captain could find. Your Lorne is among the missing.”
Kella seized on the word. “Missing?” she whispered hopefully. She clasped her hands in thanksgiving and relief. “Missing isn’t dead, now, is it?” She knew it. Her heart would not lie.
“He’d been grievously wounded, Kella,” the queen cautioned. She folded her hands over Kella’s, but Kella would not have sympathy offered for no reason.
“I mean no disrespect, my queen, but the Miathi certainly wouldn’t have taken his dead body with them.” She wove hope into reason. Kella would not accept Lorne’s death without the body. She would have a body to mourn, or she would not mourn.
“What of Egan O’Toole?” Alyn asked, so low that Kella felt the question more than heard it.
“Like Daniel said, Da’s too ornery to—” Kella began.
“Missing as well,” Gwenhyfar told them.
Lorne and Da? Kella shook her head side to side in denial, pulling out of Alyn’s protective embrace. “Nay, I’ll not have it!” She shot to her feet in hot defiance and paced away and back, arguing as much with her raw emotions as her companions. “Hostages, yes, but not dead. Not without bodies. Tribes take hostages. Arthur has hostages in his court. Many chieftains do. You were one yourself,” she told Alyn. “Remember?”
Why did he look so forlornly at her? Surely it wasn’t pity. There was no need for pity.
“I know they are alive,” she declared, increasingly belligerent. “I know it as sure as you are sitting there, Alyn O’Byrne, so wipe that pity off your face.”
She poked at him with her finger, as she had when he’d annoyed her as a child. But Kella was no longer a child. She was the daughter of a champion and betrothed to a prince, the father of her babe.
“Kella—” the queen started.
“Please, my queen.” Kella faced the queen, noting her motherly countenance of concern. “Would you accept such a terrible loss without proof?” When Gwenhyfar hesitated, Kella continued. “I will leave with the king’s entourage on the morrow for Strighlagh. I would wager we’ll hear soon enough what the devils want in exchange for my father and Lorne’s release.” She held out her hand to Alyn. “Will you come with me?”
Alyn shot a dubious glance at Gwenhyfar, but when the queen didn’t protest, he nodded. “I will go to the ends of the earth for you and Egan, Kella. Daniel will as well, I imagine.”
Nothing would please Kella more, save there being no reason to go at all. ’Twould be better if she had word from her da and a note declaring Lorne’s well-being and love for her. But in light of the present situation, going with her friends was more than she could hope—
“But,” Alyn added, checking her excitement, “I ask that you remain safely here with the queen.”
Kella stared at Alyn as if he’d lost his wits.
“I agree,” Gwenhyfar said. “The men will be traveling hard for Strighlagh. Women would slow them down.”
“I can ride as hard as any man, milady,” Kella protested. “You know it well.”
“We both can … for a while,” Gwenhyfar pointed out. “And you know your way with weapons, but only in the practice yard. Anything might happen along the way. Arthur made some allies today, but he also made enemies. Besides …” The queen inhaled deeply as though she needed to fortify herself. “I need you here, Kella.”
Kella reeled a step backward in disbelief. “My queen, with all due respect, you ask too much of me. Would you remain behind?”
Gwenhyfar lifted her head in a regal pose that some considered haughty, but her green eyes brimmed with pent-up emotion. “I am remaining behind, Kella. Even though my brother is also missing.”
All the defiance and rage that had kept Kella afloat in the midst of this tragedy fled her. “Oh, milady, I am so sorry.” She’d been so caught up in her own pain that she’d not given thought to the others. Elyan, prince of Manau, was one of Arthur’s youngest captains. “But doesn’t that add meat to my theory that our men might live as hostages?”
“That is why we will follow Arthur to Strighlagh,” Gwenhyfar told her with a forgiving half smile. “But it is imperative that the High King get there as soon as horses will carry him.”
“Who will command Carmelide in your absence?”
“Urien of Rheged.”
“The Raven,” Alyn murmured, drawing Kella’s attention.
A scavenger who benefits from the death of others. Kella shivered.
“The Briton is ambitious,” Gwenhyfar conceded, “but he is also an excellent warrior. He has the skill and troops to hold Carmelide. My greatest concern about Arthur’s choice to replace Modred with Urien as his successor is the division it will cause among our Pictish allies. As a Briton and a Pict, Modred was the better choice to unite the kings of the north.” The queen shrugged. “Alas, I am not the Dux Bellorum, and the choice is not mine to make. Nor is it my choice to remain behind while Arthur rides out on the morrow.”
“Cousin, if I might be so bold?” Alyn spoke.
“Yes, you may, little cousin,” Gwenhyfar added with a wisp of a smile. “Though you are not so little anymore.”
Ke
lla had to agree with the queen there. Alyn had certainly changed. There was something dark and mysterious beneath the manly facade that had replaced his former tedious nature.
“I do not have a good feeling about your leaving Carmelide,” he said. “I fear for your safety as well as Kella’s. The north is no place for our women until this Miathi matter is settled.”
Kella watched the queen’s face, hoping that the strength she admired in Gwenhyfar, the strength she’d encouraged in Kella, held. A queen and a champion’s daughter were no ordinary women.
“And who shall rally the women of Gododdin? The women who have lost men the same as we?” Gwenhyfar challenged.
Alyn stiffened, then nodded, resigned. “I had not thought of that. I only sought to protect you and my foster sister. You are both dear to my heart.”
“As you are dear to ours,” Gwenhyfar said. “Which is why I have a request of you—one that must be carried out by someone I trust implicitly. A servant of the Grail.”
Alyn’s ready bow checked midpoint at the mention of the priesthood, yet he replied without hesitation, “Glenarden is at your command.”
Before Kella could ponder his behavior, the queen grabbed her attention.
“Kella, have the trunk we recently packed brought here at once.”
The Grail genealogies? Knocked dumb by this sudden barrage against sense and emotion, Kella dipped hastily in acknowledgment and left the room.
Always thinking, that Gwenhyfar. If Cassian suspected the forgery, ’twas hard to say what the archbishop might do. His little blackbirds were everywhere, watching her and the queen. Waiting for any sign that might suggest Gwenhyfar and Kella still clung to the old ways. And they did. But only to the traditions established by the first-century Messianic Jews, and those celebrations adapted from the old ways, which focused on thanksgiving and worship shifted from creation’s gifts to the giving Creator.
Sending the books to her homeland for safekeeping by Arthur’s own party was ingenious. With or without Gwenhyfar’s permission, Kella fully intended to go with it—for her queen, her da, and the father of her child.
And sooner was better.
It was only Alyn and his cousin now in the queen’s chamber. Kella had retreated to her own rooms, claiming the need of time to compose herself. Alyn would have gone with her but for Gwenhyfar’s urgency. Besides, Kella didn’t seem to want anyone’s company now that her despair had turned to anger, both at the situation and not being allowed to leave with the High King.
The trunk the queen had ordered brought to her chambers contained three book boxes made of wood and covered with leather, tooled by masters long crossed over to the Other Side. The boxes now lay on a table before him. Though the records of the ancient bloodlines were sealed within the boxes, Alyn could imagine the flawless script filling each timeworn parchment. To view the genealogies would be to view art and history, evidence that God had kept His promise to David that his descendants would rule forever. Not merely until Jerusalem fell, but again once the years of Judah’s rebellion against God were paid in penance.
Although, given Albion’s perilous situation and perhaps even Erin’s in the future, the years of penance were far from being satisfied. To be sure, Alyn would not see the end of it.
Alyn ran his finger a breath from touching the knotwork bordering the edges of the first case, which held hundred-year-old copies of Erin’s originals. He’d heard of these scrolls but never dreamed he’d be in their presence, much less handed the responsibility for their safekeeping. Six centuries before the Christ, this treasure began with the marriage of Zedekiah’s daughter Tamar Tephi and Eoghan, heremon or High King of the Milesian Celts beginning the Davidic-Irish lineage—Alyn’s heritage through his father, Tarlach.
In the second case held the beginning of the apostolic bloodline of Britain, those descended from Jesus’s family and followers who fled from the Holy Land to convert and marry into Albion’s first-century royal families. The same bloodline that Queen Morgause had touted to Cassian earlier in the day. Alyn’s sister-by-law Brenna was of this lineage, as were many of Britain’s kings and saints.
These genealogies were continued in book three with its arthurs and merlins. The Grail Church had made so many attempts to join the two in the hope of producing messiah-like heirs to keep Christ’s light alive. It was oft by marriage and, where needed, by a sword such as Arthur’s.
“Your Highness …” Alyn’s voice cracked beneath the burden of emotions ranging from utter awe and joy to abject despair. The reverent silence that filled the room caused his words, low as they were, to reverberate. “I am not worthy. You know well that I did not pass the Grail challenge. I could not survive even a single full circle of the sun in the purgatory.”
Just to say the word made Alyn shudder.
Three days was the challenge. Three days in a subterranean funeral mound, surrounded by the long-dead turned to bone and dust. Memory of the stench of death gripped his gorge. But it was the close darkness that made Alyn’s heart pound away the seconds into hours. His breath haunted his ears with its roar. He could not abide closed-in places … not since childhood, when he’d accidentally locked himself in his mother’s trunk.
The swirling whirlpool of nightmare and inadequacy threatened to suck him under.
“Few candidates manage to spend three full days and nights in the tomb and among the dead as Christ did,” Gwenhyfar told him gently. “Some are driven mad. As a priestess, I have ministered to many of them, just as I did to you. And still, even those who do pass the test fall short of our Lord’s example at some time or another.”
But Alyn had wanted to be the best of all priests then. A Grail-worthy priest. Triumph over such an ordeal would set him above the others as his performance at university had done. And he had failed.
“God does not give us all the same gifts, cousin,” Gwenhyfar reminded him. “Yours lie in sciencia. It is through knowledge that you have grown closer to God.”
Would that were so. A fresh wave of suffering washed over Alyn’s sore heart. He had not confessed the carelessness that had led to his teacher’s death. There’d been no one he trusted to hear his shame, except his friend Hassan, who’d pulled Alyn from the burning laboratorium. Alyn hoped he might bury the memory, if not its scar, on Alba’s welcoming shore.
“I failed at sciencia as well,” he blurted. He ran his fingers over the smooth black hair that covered his once-shorn tonsure. “And, because of that, I am no longer a priest.”
If he expected his cousin, a high priestess in Albion’s fading Grail Church, to recoil from him, Alyn was disappointed. Her regal demeanor softened with compassion. “We are all priests of God, cousin, whether we wear the tonsure and dress or nay. Unless you are telling me that God no longer is welcome in your heart, that you disown our Lord Jesus as your Savior.” Her brow furrowed. “Tell me that isn’t so, cousin, for I cannot believe otherwise.”
Alyn shook his head. No. He could never deny the Three in One—God the Father, the Son, or the Spirit. He saw evidence of them everywhere, in everything, including the very breath he drew that moment. “It is myself that I deny. My worthiness to serve a perfect God.”
Gwenhyfar floated down in cloud of silken skirts to the cushioned bench beside Alyn. She gathered his hand in hers and drew it to her lips, where she kissed it. “None of us is, dear one. Nor does God expect us to be perfect. All He expects of us is to try, and when we fail, repent and try again. It is only by trying again and again, like a warrior who practices his throw, that we better ourselves, hence moving closer to Christ’s perfection.”
How could a high priestess understand? Gwenhyfar had been tested and passed. She’d proved stronger than Grail warriors and priests. She lived a life of purity, given only to God and her husband. Alyn’s ambition to gain prestige and study under a new Egyptian scholar, his rush to attend the man’s lecture, had led him to be careless in storing the elements and compounds in Abdul-Alim’s workshop.
Ever
ything had a specific place and jar shape due to the master alchemist’s failing eyesight. And Alyn had to have put the wrong element in the wrong container. The last thing he recalled was Abdul-Alim heating a concoction of ingredients from those containers. Then a thunderburst of flame had thrown Alyn, who was hurrying to the lecture, out of the room and into unconsciousness.
Alyn had prayed to die at first from the agony of his burns. Then from the guilt upon hearing his teacher had been killed. And the endless questions, the harshest from the man he’d hoped to study under, had riddled him with doubt about his true motivation for knowledge and excellence. A great discovery would not bring back Abdul-Alim. Had it been for God’s glory or his own that Alyn had sought so fervently to succeed? The question had haunted him since.
The burn scar on his chest smoldered hot as an iron in a smithy’s forge, and the sobs were razor-sharp even now as he finished purging the story from his tortured soul. His despair wracked him as the queen held him in her embrace.
Gwenhyfar murmured comforting words against his head as though he were a broken child, not a full-grown man. How oft had his brothers teased that he would never grow up? It appeared they were right in their estimation of him. God, how can You place such responsibility on my shoulders when I’ve failed You and others so often? What if I fail again?
“You are a good man, Alyn O’Byrne, born to the royal lineage that Jeremiah transplanted from Jerusalem to Erin so many years ago.” Gwenhyfar placed her hand on the most ancient of the records of Davidic kings. “I have faith in you, and more in the God who sent you to me at this time of need.” She rose and moved to trim the wick on a lamp, allowing him time to regain his dignity.
How could she say such a thing? It hadn’t been his intention, but he’d told her everything. The venting of his grief and shame had gone well past the verge of his embarrassment.
“God uses broken vessels. You are but human,” she reflected with regret. “Moses killed a man. David was a murderer and an adulterer. We are none perfect, save His Son.”
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