by Regan Walker
Oh, Deidre.
A terrified bellow sounded from a cow as one of the Northmen prodded the animal up a boarding plank onto the ship. Another raider followed, leading her father’s stallion.
Suddenly, a Northman appeared with a blazing torch. Holding it high, he strode toward her father’s ship, climbed aboard and set the flaming brand to the furled sail. It burst into flame.
My father’s ship! Catrìona sobbed, watching in horror as the hemp and sailcloth burned, sending great billows of smoke into the air.
Once the oars and the hull caught fire, the Northman jumped to the sand and carried the torch to the palisade fence. Another of his band joined him to splash what looked like pitch onto the timbered posts. Lit by the torch, the wood began to burn.
The two Northmen walked to the palisade gate, stepped over her father and headed toward the hillfort, their terrible task not yet done.
“Nay!” she whispered hoarsely. “My home.”
“Best ye not look,” said Angus, his dark eyes filled with torment.
“I will look,” she said, determination turning her voice hard. “I want to remember their leader, their ships and their banner.” The terrible events of this day would be seared in her memory forever.
A short while later the Northmen climbed aboard their ships, rowed out to the middle of the river and raised their sails. The wind filled the square canvases, carrying the ships toward the Firth of Clyde and the open sea beyond.
The determination Catrìona had felt only moments before drained from her, leaving in its place the shock of what she had witnessed. Her eyes burned from the tears she had shed.
She cast a defeated glance at Angus who seemed to have aged since they had arrived at the crest, the creases in his face etched deeper than before, making him look older than his thirty summers. He had no wife or children to lose, but he had served her father for ten years and could count many friends among the fallen.
With a deep sigh, Angus got to his feet and helped her to rise before walking toward the horses.
Mindlessly, Catrìona brushed dirt from her cloak. “To where do those heathen dogs sail?”
“I canna say fer sure, milady, but I would guess the Orkneys from the raven banner. They claim it assures them victory. They were young, mayhap an errant band out fer mayhem and plunder.”
She trudged to her horse and Angus helped her to mount. Steeling herself for what lay ahead, she said, “We must hope some of our people yet live.”
What they found when they reached the bottom of the hill confirmed what they had seen from the crest, only now they could smell the stench of bodies ripped asunder. Covering her nose, she stood staring out at the field of dead.
Slowly she walked forward, stepping around bodies strewn upon the blood-soaked ground, listening for a groan or a sound that would tell her some still lived. She avoided looking at their faces, for she would know them and that would be worse. But she scanned the dead for auburn hair like her own and sighed with relief when she did not find Niall.
She went next to her father where he lay in front of the palisade, knowing by the blood covering his chest and the vacant look in his eyes he was dead.
Catrìona wanted to scream but no sound came from her throat. Her heart sank with her knees as she dropped to his side. She kissed his forehead and closed his eyes, paying her last respects to the father she loved. No one else called her “little cat”. In her mind she heard his voice as he told her the stories of Ireland from long ago.
She stood. Inside, she felt numb and hollow. Her eyes burned from crying and the still rising smoke.
“I will see to him,” said Angus coming alongside her.
She looked back at the bodies. “There are so many…”
“Aye, but Domnall’s men will help bury them when he arrives.”
Nodding, she stumbled forward to the gate. The palisade’s timbers still burned but the flames had not yet reached this point. The acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils and stung her eyes, but she forced herself to keep going. She had to find her mother.
As she stepped through the gate, she spotted her lying on the ground in front of the hillfort, a knife not far from her open hand. Her skirts were crumpled to her waist, her bare legs outstretched. Her dark hair was loose and tangled. Her throat had been slit.
Oh, Mother.
Refusing to give in to tears, Catrìona pulled her mother’s gown down to her ankles, covering her shame, and kissed her forehead before rising. Retrieving her mother’s knife, she saw the blade was still clean. Now it was Catrìona’s. Securing it in her belt, she vowed, if given the chance, to draw Norse blood with it.
Wrapping her arms tightly about her waist, Catrìona held in the emotions threatening to overwhelm her, the sorrow, the despair and the anger for all that had been done here. In one morning she had lost her parents, her home and her people.
Stumbling back through the palisade gate, she searched for Angus, wanting to be assured he was close.
Movement drew her eyes to the edge of the trees next to the palisade. A figure ran toward her, bow and arrows slung over his shoulder, his bright auburn hair flying out behind him.
“Niall!” She broke into a run. When she reached him, they embraced. She clung to him as tears she could not hold back poured from her eyes. “Thank God you were not here.”
He pulled back to face her. “Who did this, Cat?”
“Northmen.” She looked around but saw none of the dead raiders. “They took their wounded and their dead. Oh, Niall, ’twas ghastly. Angus and I had just reached the crest when we realized the hillfort was under attack. I can still hear the screams of the women.”
“Father? Mother?” His voice faltered as he looked toward the bodies scattered upon the grass between the river and the palisade.
“Dead with the others. Father fought bravely, as did his men, but they were greatly outnumbered.” When the rush of words ended, she paused, then added, “All the men were killed.” Remembering the small bodies scattered among the others, she said, “Even the children. The only ones taken were some of the women. The young ones.”
“Deidre?”
“Aye, taken with the other women.” Her pretty handmaiden had lived sixteen summers, older than Niall by only a year. The two had grown up together as friends. Catrìona could still see Deidre’s smiling face when they had talked of their coming journey to Atholl.
Niall clenched his jaw and shut his eyes as if to gain control. When he opened them, his face was set in stone, much like her heart.
Angus approached, wiping soot from his forehead with the back of his hand. “ ’Tis glad I am to see ye’re safe, Niall.”
Her brother’s face twisted in anger as he clenched his fingers around his bow. “I wish I had been here to fight the whoresons.”
“Cormac would not have wanted that. He would want ye to live to protect yer sister and one day father yer own sons.” He turned to Catrìona. “None who lay on the grass are alive, milady. I have moved yer mother away from the burning hillfort to lie next to yer father, just there.” He pointed to a patch of grass some distance away where two bodies lay apart from the others. Angus had covered their faces. “The wind will feed the fire,” he said. “Soon ’twill all be consumed.”
The pungent smell of burning wood filled the air. Dark smoke rose into the air from the palisade. The taste was bitter on her tongue.
Glancing at the bodies of their parents, Niall said to Angus, “I will help you bury them.” To Catrìona, her brother seemed older than his years.
Some time later, she and Niall stood over the two graves that he and Angus had dug, as Niall spoke the words from the Psalter they had learned as children. Catrìona barely heard them. She was consumed with anger and pain and the regret for being unable to help those she loved. Images filled her mind: her father smiling at her as he had wished her a good hunt; her mother reminding her not to be long; and Deidre excited for their journey.
She could not believe they we
re gone and that she and Niall had been spared. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as guilt overcame her for remaining unscathed while so many had died horrible deaths.
After the Northmen had killed, they had plundered, even taken her dowry. She had seen them carrying to the longships the chest in which her father kept his gold. They had taken the weapons of the fallen, her mother’s goblets of silver and Catrìona’s new gowns, leaving nothing of value.
Soon her home would be reduced to a mound of ashes, a black scar on the land.
Turning her back on the sight, she went to sit on a rock near the river. Niall joined her, putting his arm around her. She leaned against his chest, drawing comfort from his male strength. He understood her as few did and now he was all she had left.
After a short while, Niall rose. “I must help Angus in digging more graves.”
By the time Domnall arrived late that afternoon, the fire had died to smoking embers but there were still bodies to be buried. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she watched him sail into the small bay, his ship like her father’s, a trading ship with plain stems.
His men jumped out to pull the ship onto the shore and once the plank was set in place, Domnall strode down to the sand. She walked forward to meet him. He had come richly attired for his meeting with her father, a meeting that would never occur.
Domnall looked first into her eyes and then behind her to the ruins of the hillfort. A deep crease formed between his brows. “My God, Catrìona, what happened here?”
“We were attacked by Northmen.” She yearned for him to hold her, to comfort her, but instead, he took her hand and led her toward the charred remains of her home, a sight she had no desire to see again.
“How did you—?”
“Angus and I were hunting with Kessog and Niall was in the forest or we would have died with the others.” She did not add that she might have been taken with Deidre.
“Cormac?”
“Dead with my mother.” She looked toward the new graves. “All the men were killed and the women, too, save for the young ones they took as captives.”
Niall and Angus came to join them. The guard was the first to speak. “Milord.”
“Angus, Niall,” Domnall said shortly in acknowledgement to the two men.
“There’s naught to be done now,” said Angus, “save to bury the rest of the dead. We could use the help of yer men.”
As if waking from a trance, Domnall blinked. “Certainly.” He gestured his men to draw close and ordered them to help.
It was not the joyous meeting she had envisioned. Not a betrothal to be celebrated. But at least Domnall was here and alive. And he still held her hand.
CHAPTER 1
Dunkeld in Atholl, a year later
Catrìona approached Kessog’s perch just as Fia stepped into the dim light of the mews, lifting her skirts to avoid the feathers strewn about the earthen floor.
“Make haste, Cat,” her cousin urged. “The cart is loaded and Father is anxious to depart.”
Catrìona hurriedly untied the falcon’s jesses. “I just have to retrieve Kessog. I’d not leave him behind.”
Fia brushed a feather from her gown and ran her fingers over her long dark plaits threaded with ribands the same color as her deep blue eyes. “I do wonder if Margaret’s ladies have time for falconry, Cat. ’Tis said they spend more time in prayer than aught else.”
Catrìona heaved a sigh of resignation and set the hooded falcon on her gauntlet, stroking his breast feathers with the back of her finger. She had prayed little this past year, but since her uncle had accepted the invitation for her and Fia to join the ladies attending the devout queen, she would go.
In the last few months, except for flying Kessog, she and Fia had dedicated themselves to the sewing of gowns and practicing the Saxon tongue. They had been told the queen spoke Saxon and Latin, but only a little Gaelic.
“I could not pray all day in a damp dusty chapel, Fia. Besides, I want to fly Kessog as much as I can before his molt begins.”
With a sympathetic smile, her cousin said, “If the hawk will make you feel more at home in Dunfermline, do bring him. When you and I are praying with the queen, the king’s falconer and Niall can see to the bird.”
Catrìona considered Fia’s words. Mayhap it was for the best that Niall took charge of Kessog if the queen kept her ladies busy with duties all day. The king would have a master falconer, but she would feel more comfortable if Niall checked on the falcon. “Kessog is trained to my brother’s hand as well as mine.”
At her urging, Niall had come with her to Dunkeld. There was nothing for him in the vale save scorched earth and sorrow. They had mourned together in the months that had followed, taking long walks in silence when they could not bear the company of others. In recent days, the terrible dreams she had at first experienced had diminished, but they had not disappeared altogether. Even now, she had to force the calm demeanor she displayed. Inside, she harbored a gnawing ache for the loss of her parents and friends and worry over the fate of the young women taken captive. What kind of a life must Deidre be living?
But today, Catrìona set those worries aside, determined to allow Fia’s enthusiasm for their new lives to carry her along.
She followed Fia out of the mews into the bright sunlight where Uncle Matad and his men waited with the horses in a field of bluebell flowers. The guards in her uncle’s service were men-at-arms who wore knives and swords of various sizes. Angus carried a seax and a longer sword, Niall his bow and arrows.
Placing Kessog on his perch in front of her saddle, she accepted Angus’ help to mount.
She had bid the faithful guard to go more than once in the last year, but he had refused to leave her.
“I made a solemn oath to yer father,” he had told her. “I will nae leave ye, not until ye be wed and another becomes yer protector.”
Accepting his decision, she had finally let him stay. In truth, she was glad for his presence. Along with Niall, Angus was the last tie to her past and the vale.
Fia rode across from her on a handsome gray palfrey. Excitement sparkled in her eyes. “Just think, Cat. By day’s end we will be in Dunfermline dining with the queen!”
“So we shall.” Catrìona had never met Margaret, the Saxon princess who was now Queen of Scots, but her uncle Matad had told her about the beautiful pious woman who held the king’s heart in her hand. While Catrìona knew little of the queen, she had heard many things about Malcolm Canmore. A ruthless warrior, he had seized the throne a dozen years ago by killing the former king and his heir. She could not imagine such a man married to the pious Margaret.
As they rode south toward Dunfermline, Catrìona’s thoughts turned to Domnall. On the journey from the vale to Dunkeld a year earlier, she had been an empty shell with naught but tears to offer him. He had been kind but distant, respectful of her loss, asking little of her.
They had arrived in Dunkeld and conveyed the horrible news to her uncle, her mother’s brother. Matad, a widower who had not remarried since losing his wife, was protective of both his daughter and his niece, now the only women in his life. And for Catrìona and Niall, he and Fia were their only family.
Consumed with grief for his sister’s murder, Matad had said nothing of the betrothal to Domnall. Catrìona saw the wisdom in waiting. One could hardly have a celebration in the midst of so much sorrow.
They had all needed time to grieve.
Domnall had lingered in Atholl only a few days that first time. He and her uncle had spoken together often but always out of Catrìona’s hearing. It was only after Domnall left for Dunfermline that her uncle told her he was postponing any discussion concerning the marriage contract.
Forlorn, she had merely nodded her acceptance.
In the last year, Domnall had been to see her twice. He had been polite and deferential each time, expressing his understanding of her sorrow. Now that the year was over, she looked forward to being with him at King Malcolm�
�s court. Finally, their life together could begin.
* * *
Dunfermline
Sunlight fell on the bluebell flowers lying on either side of the path Steinar took through the woods. Eager to be about his errand, his long strides ate up the ground, his soft leather boots making no sound. The years he had spent as a warrior in England had taught him to tread lightly.
His right leg ached with the dampness in the air. The wound he’d received from a Norman sword left him with a limp and stiffness in the leg when he sat for too long. Still, it was better than the alternative. For a time, they had not expected him to live. Even with the ministrations of his sister, Serena, recovery had been slow. When he and Rhodri had left England, the bones were still knitting together, the withered muscles that had been pierced through still weak. For a long time, he could not walk without assistance. And after, he had limped badly even with a walking stick.
Fortunately, when he arrived in Scotland, King Malcolm had been in need of a scribe. Educated to one day succeed his father as thegn, Steinar filled the role of a clerk well, his duties requiring him only to sit on a bench and labor with parchment and quill.
When Malcolm raided Northumbria, he had not asked his crippled English scribe to accompany him. But now, his leg grew stronger and the limp was fading. As long as Steinar rested the leg, he could use it with ease. One day he hoped to be more than a scribe.
Rhodri teased him about his unsteady gait, saying he wobbled like a cart on a rutted road. Steinar took it in stride, knowing his friend would have said nothing were it not for the miraculous way the leg had recovered.
Whenever he could escape his duties, Steinar belted on his sword he kept hidden in his horse’s stall and took to the forest to spar with imagined foes. Sometimes his opponents were remembered Norman knights, clad in mail and helm, sometimes he sparred with Theodric, the captain of Talisand’s guard, who now served the Norman who had claimed Talisand as well as Serena.
