Intriguing. No wonder Lorne wouldn’t trade weapons.
Lorne gave him a demonic grin. “We’re even, mite.”
Given his earlier cockiness, ’twas no more than Alyn deserved. Humiliation accepted, Father.
“Yer doin’ fine, laddie,” Egan called to him. “Keep your head. Don’t let him rile ye.”
“Shut your trap, old man, and see to that trollop of a daughter you have,” Lorne shouted.
The prince dared not speak further. Not with his bride listening. But Alyn’s blood boiled as he assessed his tormentor. Lorne’s hand wasn’t right yet. His foot throbbed by his limp. He’d fight on his strong right. Shield his left to buy time.
“You didn’t think I’d forget her, did you?” Lorne jeered, his words aimed at Alyn. “Aye, she was a bit cold at first, but I got her—”
Lorne’s goading was a tried-and-true tactic. Alyn charged like a mad bull. The prince responded with a mighty downward thrust, exactly as Alyn hoped. He nimbly dodged past the thrust, bringing Grásta around, catching the prince behind the head with a hearty smack that dropped the mighty warrior to his knees. Rather than crow about staffs and grace, he struck Lorne’s temple with Grásta’s other end.
Dropping the rowan, Lorne keeled over to the side. Alyn was upon him quick as a cat, shoving Grásta against his throat. His knees pinned the stunned prince’s broad shoulders to the ground.
Someone began the count.
“One!”
Silence him now. Alyn clenched his teeth until they hurt in his struggle to hold the powerful Lorne down. The villain shook his head from side to side, but his faculties were too scattered for him to do more than flail for relief.
“Two!” The crowd joined in.
Forever.
A fist struck Alyn’s ribs, unleashing demons of pain that threatened to tear flesh from bone with their teeth. Oh, how they screamed.
“Three!”
No more pain. No more betrayal. No more threat to Kella and the babe.
The crowd thundered. Or was it the black storm raging in Alyn’s mind? It steeled Alyn so that nothing his arrogant, treacherous foe did could dislodge the death hold he so deserved. A dark satisfaction swept through Alyn, numbing him to all but the sight of Lorne’s bulging eyes rolling up in his head … robbed of breath by Grásta.
Grace. The very thought burst into brightness, driving the sinister cloud from his mind with light … pure light.
Grace to give as well as receive was in his hands.
“Glorify Me.”
Alyn gave. Lifting Grásta from Lorne’s neck, he backed off and used the staff instead to climb to his feet. The prince convulsed with a huge gasp and looked up, unfocused, at the sky. His senses were still caught in that limbo between This World and the Other Side, where Alyn had nearly sent him.
Alyn waited until the man’s senses returned and offered Lorne a hand up. Still dazed, the prince accepted. Beyond them, the crowd was wild with enthusiasm.
“God spared you today,” he told Lorne, “when I would not. Do not take His gift of a second chance lightly.”
“Well done, Priest!” Drust called out to Alyn as he, with Kella and Brisen at his flank, approached the two combatants. “I have not seen such a display of staff combat since Merlin Emrys appeared at my grandfather’s court to arrange Arthur’s marriage to Gwenhyfar. ’Twas a harmless contest, of course.”
“I know’d he was Merlin!” Idwyr chortled. “Know’d it, know’d it, know’d it.”
“Alyn!” It was Kella that Alyn heard over the tumult. She burst past the king and into Alyn’s arms.
He winced as she returned his embrace, but such sweet pain he would endure just to have her near. Of all God’s angels, Alyn thanked Him most for the one he kissed. No matter that they were surrounded by others. At that moment, his world contained only him and Kella.
“Alyn, behind you!” Queen Brisen’s warning broke the heavenly illusion.
Alarm, or something else, seized Alyn, taking over his body before his mind could catch up. Suddenly he was watching the scene before him unfold from some unknown perch. To his horror, he thrust Kella away, sending the woman he loved sprawling upon the charred ground. In the next instant, he’d turned as though to face an invisible enemy, one Alyn himself was oblivious to. As he—or whoever had overtaken his body—hefted Grásta into a blocking position, Alyn watched, bewildered, as he batted at thin air …
And struck metal.
A flying sword?
The weapon careened to the side and buried itself in the ground beyond him. Dumbstruck, Alyn stared at it as his mind melded once again with his body. Whatever had possessed him left his senses tingling with uncommon awareness in its wake. Behind him a scuffle ensued. Men shouted. Kella cried. Alyn wanted to go to her, but all he could focus upon was that sword.
He heard it quivering upright in the dirt a few yards away, yet it felt as if it were buried in Alyn’s brain. He blinked as blood formed on its brimstone-blackened blade and slid down its length to soak the ground, spreading and spreading … while the world whirred around it.
Kella sat on the ground, speechless. Alyn had lifted her off the ground as he tossed her away from him. Then, with an inhuman speed, he faced the other way … without turning. She hadn’t seen Lorne heave the forgotten blackened sword belonging to Elkmar, but she saw the black death coming straight at what had been Alyn’s back. Now it flew at his heart.
The staff moved faster than the eye, batting the blade to the side as one might a fly. The dull clang of metal against the wood of Alyn’s staff still echoed in her ear as she stared at the quivering blade buried in the dirt not far from him. Pandemonium broke out around Alyn. As guards seized the vile coward who had nearly killed him, Alyn stumbled blindly toward that sword and drew it.
He let out a cry as if he’d felt the anguish of the world.
Kella scurried to her feet and started toward him, but he waved her and anyone else who tried to help him away. Giving him wide berth, Drust, Brisen, and the others hastened back to their guests on the dais. Guards resumed their positions. But every eye and ear was fixed upon the sweat-soaked, bloodied merlin—warrior and speaker for the Creator God.
“Let Modred fight Arthur man to man.” Alyn weaved upon his feet as though drunk—or in some sort of trance—yet he did not fall. Instead he pointed to Cassian. “And let this excuse for God’s servant serve as Arthur’s second.”
Alyn buried the sword before the dais of officials, then knelt before it. Head back, black hair trailing down his back, he stared wild-eyed at the clear sky overhead. As if what he actually saw was far more menacing than the white puffs of cloud against the blue mantle. His face contorted with mortification.
Words wrenched from his throat. “So much needless bloodshed in the name of our Christ.” He clutched at the scar on his chest. “It soaks the ground of Alba and colors her waters crimson.”
Dear God in heaven. Not only did the raw crucifix on his chest bleed red, but even the sweat upon Alyn’s brow had turned to blood.
“The eagle clutches, and the bear roars.” Tears of blood fell unashamed down Alyn’s cheeks. “But the raven and the wolves wait.”
Kella had seen enough. But as she started for her tortured husband, he stopped her again with upheld hand. “Hear me, woman!”
After all she’d witnessed, Kella froze. She was not alone. Like figures in a painted scene, the onlookers waited, collective breath held, that they might hear the rest of the young merlin’s prophecy.
“The raven and the wolves will pick the flesh of the dead, while the dove takes its last breath.”
’Twas like listening to Merlin Emrys.
Of course. Arthur the Bear of Britain, Modred the Eagle of Lothian, Urien the Raven, the Saxon wolves, the Grail dove …
Kella realized her role and raced to fulfill it. “Write it down,” she ordered the scribes assembled to record the king’s court decisions. But the men were as dumbstruck as the other witnesses. Kella
yanked one of the scribes off his stool by his robe and took up his quill.
“Bold men astride swift steeds with flying manes; high spirits fueled by the songs of minstrels, mead aplenty and prospects of gold; kings and princes long in pride, short on life; arrays of bright-colored pendants, dark armor, and shining coats of mail thrusting through armies with spear points and swords sharpened; lions roar from Kintyre, Sassenach; wolves howl; the blood of friend and foe mingle on the crimson field, their flesh food for the carrion; the bear and the eagle carried off on their shields and the angels cry, oh hideous harvest of misled souls, all to be lost in the mists of time.…”
Kella looked up from her frantic scratching when Alyn paused. Slowly he got up and, with his foot, trampled the sword flat upon the dirt. His head and shoulders dropped in despair. The merlin—her merlin—finished, heartbroken and weary.
“And God bows His head at the senselessness of it all.”
Kella didn’t write the words down. This was something that neither she, nor anyone who witnessed this day, would ever forget.
Epilogue
Fortingall
Early seventh century AD
While Mons Seion still slumbered in the mist-shrouded mountains of the north, to the south a rising sun made Dun Gael’s fortress glow white against a spring-blue sky. On the knoll next to it, the ancient yew seemed to yawn and stretch its green wings out like a mother hen over the banners, tents, and stalls of the fairgrounds below. ’Twas spring again.
Standing on the tower ramparts of her new home, Kella took a sip of steaming tea sweetened with honey gathered by the brethren of Heilyn’s church. Since the structures shared the same flat-headed hill, she’d awakened at the sound of its bell summoning the Brothers to morning prayers. Not that she minded. The church bells helped her keep precise track of her busy days as a master of language at the fledgling school she and Alyn had founded with King Drust’s support.
In exchange, Alyn promised to advise Drust as a merlin, working in concert with his secular adviser Beathan regarding court decisions and justice. It was an effective effort born of mutual respect with Beathan’s expertise in the old Brehon laws and Alyn’s in God’s law. And when Idwyr, who’d studied Scripture since the school opened, joined them over a cup of ale at the day’s end in Drust’s hall, Kella knew God’s mysteries would keep all three, and some of the court, awake until the wee hours.
Kella looked out with wonder over the spread of huts that housed students and masters. Had it been four years since she and her husband had come to Fortingall on their desperate mission? In some ways they’d achieved more than they ever dreamed, but in others they’d failed.
Aye, the genealogies were safe, hidden in the bowels of the holy mountain, but the Grail Church had given way to Iona’s dominion. Heilyn established her church, and Alyn’s intervention at Drust’s court prevented Arthur and Modred’s feud from erupting into an all-out war of the Scots and British kingdoms against all the Pictish nations. Many lives had been lost at the battle of Camboganna, including Arthur’s, Modred’s, and the cowardly Lorne’s, but many more had been spared.
Cassian vouched for the queen’s innocence upon his return to Strighlagh with Alyn, but the gauntlet between Arthur’s Scots and Cymri and Modred’s Miathi and Saxons had been cast and picked up. Neither priest could stop it. While a grieving Gwenhyfar saw to the transport of her husband’s body back to Carmelide, Cassian and Alyn walked together as equals on the bloody fields in the aftermath of the fighting to pray for the dead and dying.
The archbishop had been so distraught at his hand in the senseless bloodfest that he’d resigned from his post and gone into seclusion … at Iona. He didn’t question his Roman doctrine, but he wanted to learn more about his Celtic brethren. ’Twas Cassian who carved the sign over the Seion School of Wisdom’s great hall door where students and masters met for food, fellowship, and learning: Proverbs 1:7. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”
The creak of the new oak door to the inner stairwell of the tower startled Kella out of reverie. She turned to see Alyn emerge, preceded by a black shot of energy in the new red jacket she’d made. Fatin scampered up on the wall and over to his favorite corner, where he promptly relieved himself. Thanks to his stay with Brenna and the recovering Daniel, he’d been broken of urinating on the cookfires. At least inside fires.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Alyn came up behind her and wrapped his arms about her waist.
They followed Fatin’s progress to the highest point on the wall, where he tried catching the fluttering white banner. Embroidered on it was a shield divided by an ornate cross. David’s harp, a quill and inkwell, a mathematical sign, and the sun occupied the quadrants.
Kella held her breath as she always did when that dear little imp frolicked so close to the brink of falling. “One of these days he’s …” She warded off thoughts of the unthinkable and leaned against her husband, drawing on his warmth, strength, and endless supply of love.
“He’s escaping the barbarian hoards who have taken over our hall below,” Alyn whispered into her ear. There was her kiss, warm upon her cheek. He always had one just for her. “The cousins are corrupting our daughter, much to Nona’s dismay.”
Their daughter, Aeda, had been born healthy and with a lusty set of lungs just before the harvest. Queen Heilyn sent the nurse Nona to help care for the babe, a godsend that enabled Kella to teach once recovered from the childbed. Brenna and Brisen arrived at Fortingall early to act as midwives and for Brisen and Egan’s wedding. After hearing more of Alyn’s teachings, Brisen had accepted Christ, and Egan’s proposal. The couple had barely finished their vows when little Aeda decided to join the party.
Both Brenna and Brisen declared Aeda’s was an easy delivery. Kella did not hold the same view. Still, that little towheaded angel had been worth the agony just to see the utter wonder and adoration on Alyn’s face when Brisen handed him his new daughter.
“’Tis like looking at her mother,” he’d said.
From what Kella had seen of the wrinkled little mite at that point, she forgave her husband’s misty-eyed babble. But wrinkled or nay, it was love at first sight for each of them.
“Aeda needs no help when it comes to mischief,” Kella reminded Alyn with a wry chuckle. She wasn’t such a doting mother that she failed to see when their child’s angelic qualities turned toward the impish. “Are our guests awake?”
Alyn’s brothers and their wives had traveled to the Fortingall fair to visit and to enroll their eldest children in Alyn’s school.
Even though Caden and Sorcha’s land of Trebold was now under Saxon rule, borders were blurred enough that the families still saw each other. Thanks to Sorcha’s Saxon upbringing and Trebold’s hospitality, the transition for her and the many Saxon refugees working the land had been tolerable, if not welcome. And for her sake and God’s, Caden had put aside his sword for a barrel tap. “Caden and I have learned to play the tune God gives us,” Sorcha had written after the invasion occurred.
“Are they awake?” Alyn snorted. “How could anyone sleep through that? Our kinsmen help Nona keep order while breaking the fast in the hall.”
Ronan and Brenna’s Conall would join the younger students, though he didn’t understand why he needed more than physical training to be a warrior king. On the other hand, Caden and Sorcha’s adopted son, Ebyn, couldn’t wait to study poetry and song with the older boys under the tutorship of Eadric, Sorcha’s cousin and master bard. Sorcha and her dwarf friend, Gemma, had already taught Ebyn to play the harp and pipe.
Then there was Conall’s younger sister, Joanna, who was vexed that she wasn’t old enough to study healing at the school, when the child lived with the best healer in all Albion—her mother, Brenna. The willful girl and Caden’s lively six-year-old daughter, Aelwyn, contented themselves to treat Aelwyn’s twin brothers, Rory and Lachlan, as their patients. The toddlings of three wore their splints and bandages like badges of honor.
> As images of the chaos below gathered in her mind, guilt jarred Kella. Here was the mistress of the manor lost in the solitude of the morning instead of seeing to her guests!
“Oh, Alyn, I must get down there,” she fretted. “I am the worst hostess—”
“Our steward has reinforcements both for the meal and maintaining order,” Alyn assured her. “When I left, Daniel and Papa Egan had summoned the lot for a race. Though how the two men move about with children hanging on every limb is beyond me.”
“Da is too old for that.” Not that Kella would try to dissuade her bullheaded father. “Still, I should at least—”
Alyn grabbed her in midretreat and nipped at her ear in playful warning. “So stop casting aspersions against my good wife, for whom I thank God every day.”
Once upon a time, Kella had thought this kind of love did not exist this side of heaven … a love that her considerable imperfections could not faze. Then again, she hadn’t believed in angels, either. Now she knew better.
“Give way, Babel-Lips.” He turned her in the circle of his arms.
Kella surrendered willingly to her husband’s descending lips. How many sweet words they told her, declarations of love and devotion, worship and need.
Aye, there were still wars and rumors of wars, but here and now love prevailed.
God be thanked for this little bit of heaven here on earth.
… a little more …
When a delightful concert comes to an end,
the orchestra might offer an encore.
When a fine meal comes to an end,
it’s always nice to savor a bit of dessert.
When a great story comes to an end,
we think you may want to linger.
And so, we offer …
AfterWords—just a little something more after you
have finished a David C Cook novel.
We invite you to stay awhile in the story.
Thanks for reading!
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