The red-stained tip of his sword found its deadly mark, as it already had many times this day. The youth he killed hardly made a sound. The body fell to the ground and pulled the instrument of death down with it.
The thirty-four-year-old son of the King of Dalriada had come east with his father, Alpin. In the mountainous region north of their seat of power—but far to the south of the coast where the Viking menace had just appeared—they were now engaged in combat with the Pict King, Eoganan. The fact that the two royal families were related had not prevented war from breaking out the year before. It was a royal link that stretched back to Kenneth’s own grandmother, who had been sister to Eoganan’s grandmother. So they said. But notwithstanding the Pictish blood in his veins, Kenneth considered himself a Scot, loyal only to his father and his plans to expand the scope of their kingdom.
At daybreak this morning they had mounted an attack against Eoganan’s army of two or three thousand. Though they had only eighteen hundred men of their own, Kenneth’s father had hoped to surprise the enemy and drive the northerners back into the river beside which they were camped.
“I do not like it, Father,” Kenneth had said, expressing caution about the plan. “I fear the apparent weakness of the enemy’s position could be a trap.”
Alpin shook his head.
“I tell you, Father, it is their hope to lure us down the hill into an attack.”
“I am convinced it is we who will hold the element of surprise,” rejoined his father. “We shall attack as planned—with the sun’s first light.”
The man had been a mighty warrior in his time. But though Kenneth did not like to think it, his father was aging. He had feared for the plan’s success from the beginning. And indeed, his premonitions were well founded.
As the Scots abandoned their secure position and came down toward the river, suddenly the Pict camp came awake, howling and attacking with two descending flanks from the right and left that had been hiding in the woods.
It was a trap, cleverly sprung. And they were now in its teeth!
Within moments the Scots were surrounded, every man among them fighting desperately for his life. Any thought of conquest instantly gave way to mere hope for survival.
The battle went badly from the start. At least five hundred men had fallen. Now, at midday, Kenneth was stumbling over bodies and sloshing through blood, trying desperately to lead his left flank in slow retreat back up the hill. His father was attempting the same on the right. Kenneth had himself received a deep gash on the left arm. But its pain had long since gone numb, and he could still wield the sword with his right.
The son of the King stooped forward and jerked his sword from the chest of the fallen youth he had just slain.
That the dead warrior was but eighteen, and his own fourth cousin, were two facts Kenneth, son of Alpin, neither knew nor cared about. The boy was an enemy, had tried to kill him, and had paid for it with his own life. This was no time when blood of kinship mattered, but only the skill to keep one’s own blood from staining the earth.
A scream of death suddenly sounded in his ear.
It was followed the next instant by a tremendous blow crashing against his back. Kenneth stumbled and fell against the body of the boy whose life he had just taken.
Keeping to one knee, he spun about. He had narrowly missed being run through by an iron-tipped enemy lance, the point of which had found its mark only a few feet from him. As his comrade slumped sideways to the ground, the shaft of the spear protruding from his back had swung around and dealt Kenneth the unexpected blow.
Regaining his balance, he leapt up and dropped his sword. With great effort he grasped the lance with both hands and yanked it from the dead warrior. A second later he sent it flying silently through the air. His target was the Pict King, who at that moment was leading an attack on horseback across the body-strewn field toward Alpin’s flank. Kenneth did not wait to see how accurate was his release. Already he was retrieving his sword and swinging it against the steady onslaught of numberless Picts.
A shrill whinny of pain told him he had missed his mark and had instead pierced Eoganan’s mount. Had he looked up from his fighting, he might have taken some pleasure in seeing that he had pinned the Pict King’s leg to the dying horse’s side.
As the beast fell, the lance broke clean in three pieces and threw Eoganan clear, crippled by the chunk of Pictish lance that protruded from his calf.
Seeing the Pict King down and wounded by his son’s throw, the Scots King Alpin rushed out from the ranks of his men to dispatch the leader of the Picts.
Eoganan, however, was a younger man than Alpin. He was on his feet the next instant. And in spite of the blood flowing from his leg, he was soon having the best of it over Kenneth’s father.
The son of Alpin, however, saw none of this, nor was he witness to the fate of the two kings, each of whom sought to rule the land called Caledonia. He was frantically attempting to keep his head atop his own shoulders. He had just been alert enough to raise his sword against the blow of another Pict warrior, whose side he slit with a vicious sideways stroke of his own blade.
Blinking hard to prevent sweat from blinding him, Kenneth now glanced across the hill. His father was clearly losing his struggle against the Pict King he himself had wounded. Even now the Pict King was lifting his sword, as if in slow motion, and bringing it down with deadly force. Kenneth’s heart pounded. Red rushed through his brain and a great cry escaped him, even as he realized he could do nothing to help his father. All round the frantic sounds of pain and death sounded in his ears.
“Retreat . . . back up the hill!” he yelled to his men for the tenth time, the words now bitter in his mouth.
Yet even Kenneth himself could manage but a few steps in that direction before another Pict warrior was upon him, eager to be the one to kill the son of the Scots King.
Kenneth spun to face him and raised his blood-dripping sword to the attack.
Seven
Dallais, son of Donnchadh, returned from the mouth of the Linn with an evil report.
The raiders from the north had indeed put in at the river, and they were not alone. A hundred or more burly Viking warriors were already encamped at the site. When or how they had arrived, Dallais did not know, perhaps from the north or west. Three or four of their longships were tied some distance inland from the river’s mouth. They appeared to be establishing a base. They might, he said, be making preparations to advance inland. But it was impossible to tell for certain.
Obtreidh, too, had brought dire news. He had witnessed another six, perhaps eight, ships like the first sailing offshore toward the west.
Eoganan must be alerted. Fortriu, indeed all of Pictland, was in danger.
A counsel of the elders of the settlement convened within the hour. Only a few men of fighting age were present in the village. Most had gone south to wage war against the Scots. Alone, the remaining villagers could never hope to withstand the Norsemen. Runners must be sent south to Fortriu to warn Eoganan and beg the Pict King for help. Though the mouth of the Linn was less than ten miles distant, they could only hope the marauders did not locate Steenbuaic before help returned.
“Dallais and Obtreidh must set off this very afternoon,” said one.
“There is not an hour to spare,” added another.
If only they had a horse. But the King had summoned most of the men and all the beasts to the battle in the south.
Quickly the two fleet-footed teens gathered food in leather pouches to strap to their backs. When preparations were complete, Dallais’s father called him aside.
The roles of priest and bard, through the centuries since Columba’s arrival at Iona, had grown nearly indistinguishable. In Steenbuaic, Donnchadh—descendent of Domhnall and Anghrad through their daughter Frangag, and of ancient Caledonian warriors Foltlaig and Maelchon—was spiritual leader, historian, musician, and father of four.
Father and son made their way together some distance from the se
ttlement.
As they went, they passed young Breathran walking outside the cluster of stone homes. Donnchadh was bard enough to recognize in the girl uncommon gifts and perceptions not unlike his own. But this was a time he must be alone with his son, and they could not tarry.
He smiled and placed a gentle hand on her head as they passed, then he and Dallais continued away from the settlement.
It was a flat, rocky heathland over which they now walked, toward the shore and away from the boulders beside which their stone homes had been constructed and toward the granite sentinels a little distance away. They had always taken pride in these five huge chunks of stone that had been heaped upon one another in apparently random fashion, though they knew nothing of the prehistoric convulsive quakings of the earth that put them there. The villagers thought of the rocks as protective guardians who stood watch a little outside the gathering of their homes.
Breathran stared after them, curious at the somber expressions on the faces of the two men. A chill slowly came over her. She shivered, but continued to watch until they had disappeared among the shadows of the granite pillars.
What were they doing there, she wondered. Why had they walked alone to the great slabs of rock at such a time?
Neither Donnchadh nor Dallais knew of the wandering father and son of whom they were descended, who had crossed over to this land before that same quake made of it an island. Other legends, however, more recent, clung vaporously to the traditions passed down by bards to their sons, to keep alive the heritage of the Caledonii. Donnchadh had from a young age taught Dallais what he knew of their story.
What he had to say in these few moments was more personal.
In the father’s heart as they walked pulsed the fear that the huge slabs, visible in the midst of this flat plateau stretching inland from the sea, might attract unwelcome notice by the strangers in the Norse ships and thus betray the very village they guarded.
Donnchadh spoke in soft tones to the boy who was not many years more than a child. He spoke of things men think of when mortal danger is at hand. And he gave him that which would always remind him of the legacy of his heritage.
“Cuimhnich có leis a tha thu,” Donnchadh said to Dallais in the old tongue. “Remember the men from whence you came, my son.”
They did not have long minutes to spend together. Time was short.
They returned to the settlement.
Tears stood in Dallais’s eyes when he departed Steenbuaic soon thereafter.
“God go with you, and protect you, my son,” said Donnchadh.
Dallais embraced father and mother again.
With final farewells from the elders and many injunctions to haste, the two cousins began the easy canter they would continue on and off for three days. Dallais did not see his mother, Ghleanna, turn away weeping. She kept her tears from him, for she would not slow him down with thoughts of her sorrow.
As Steenbuaic retreated from sight behind them, a dreadful foreboding sat in the stomach of the son of Donnchadh. But he would summon what courage he had learned in his nineteen years. He must do his duty to his people.
It was time to be a man.
Donnchadh had told him not to fear, that the God of their fathers would watch over them . . . and he trusted his father.
Eight
After his eldest son disappeared from sight, Donnchadh proceeded to carry out certain other necessary preparations. Entering the small stone enclosure that was his home, he walked quickly to the corner of the tiny building. There, in a vault buried under the floor and concealed by several stones, which he now lifted aside, sat the reliquary he had carried here many years ago. It had been his charge, and his father’s and grandfather’s before him, all the way back to Fineach’s time. No one knew when it had been taken from its original site of fabrication, the monastery of Kailli-an-Inde.
His grandfather said that the box—a much larger replica of the tiny, nearly identical, reliquary at Iona—had at one time contained St. Aidan’s bones, and had made its way from Kailli-an-Inde to Lindesfarne. Whether the legend was factual, Donnchadh’s father never knew. No bones lay in it now. The true value, he told Donnchadh, lay not in the contents, but in the reliquary itself, which was priceless, and whose secret he could never tell another soul if he valued his life, especially during these troubled times.
Donnchadh brought the box with him here to Steenbuaic, where he had kept it well concealed ever since. No one in the settlement knew of it. The one item he had already removed from it, his son now wore about his neck.
If only he could get the box away, to one of the monasteries. It was too valuable for one man alone to possess. He would arrange for its return to Lindesfarne at the soonest possible moment.
Unfortunately, that moment was not now. Danger approached, and he must make sure the reliquary of Kailli, fashioned by his many-times great-uncle of St. Columba’s time, did not fall into pagan hands.
Now, with attack possible, his was a sacred duty to guard the box, to protect it against defilement, and to make sure, whatever happened, that it was not discovered by the pirates of the sea. It would have to remain here in Steenbuaic.
He had already determined to hide it in the earth. He would be able to find it again, even if thirty years should pass. The huge granite sentinels would make sure of that. No other man but his son, whom he had minutes ago told of his plan, would know its location. When the danger was past, they would transport the box and the items it contained to Lindesfarne.
Donnchadh knew evil times were at hand. He was bard of the clan. On him rested the legacy of their ancestors. The lineage of both blood and spirit was his to preserve—a birthright of kinship and spirituality. Past generations untold depended on him. He must not allow the heathens, if they came, to desecrate their spiritual and familial clan heritage.
Reverently Donnchadh drew the box from its crypt in the floor, then carefully opened it.
One by one he took out the items—a number of jeweled ornaments, three silver chalices, four coins, two penannular brooches, a silver cup, two crosses, several smooth stones, three silver spoons, four bowls, and the one item which he had always found most curious of all the contents, a small plain gray rock. That the box no longer contained written documents did not seem strange to him. He had never seen the manuscripts that had originally been placed within it.
When the container was empty, he took a blanket from the corner where he and his wife slept and laid it carefully in the bottom of the box, then replaced the original contents. To these he added what few items he counted of value in what he himself possessed—two knives, a piece of a sword hilt, a chape, a pommel, and a small but heavy pair of silver candlesticks. Now he took another blanket, laid it over the top of the contents, then reclosed the box. He would wait until the sun was far away and the rest of Steenbuaic was asleep.
When the night was black, a man, unseen by others of the settlement, made his way with great difficulty outside the wall to the base of the granite pillars, now illuminated against the moon. His burden was of exceeding weight, and he moved slowly.
He crept under the natural door through the stones into the protected portion of the hollow below. Children played here by day, but no one witnessed his activity this night.
He eased down his load and, as silently as possible, set about excavating a cavity that would safely hold the box, upon which he could pile stones when he was done.
How long it might have to remain buried here, Donnchadh did not know. He must do his work carefully and leave not a trace of evidence behind him.
Nine
Dallais and Obtreidh had been in the settlement at Fortriu only a few hours when the first messengers arrived back from the battle against the Scots, bringing news of a great victory.
Eoganan and the rest of the Pict army returned the next morning. Exultant, though pale and badly wounded in the leg, the King himself rode at the front of his triumphant throng.
Shouts and cheers and great celeb
ration welcomed the army home. In his hand Eoganan held aloft his spear, upon which sat the grotesque and decaying head of the Scots King Alpin.
The whole army was full of the tale of their King’s courage and skill: Only moments after being run through in the leg by a lance and thrown from his horse, Eoganan had recovered himself, stabbed the Scots King through the heart, and chopped off his head with a single blow. Impaling the skull upon his spear, he had thus carried it to his settlement to celebrate the rout of the Dalriadic foe.
Even the news brought from the two youths from Steenbuaic in the north could hardly diminish the revelry of his celebration. Eoganan, however, had lost much blood. Infection to the leg had already set in.
“We will rest two or three days,” the weak King declared, “then set out with the army and defeat the Vikings as we have the Scots!”
The elders of Fortriu counseled against the King’s leading his army out again so soon. “You must recover from the wound,” they said. “Your face is pale. You need rest.”
“Would you make me an old woman in my prime?” he roared. “I will not be left behind when we send the Norsemen fleeing back across the sea!”
Meanwhile, far to the south and west at his home of Dunadd, the son of Alpin was vowing revenge.
He had himself nearly killed the Pict King. Instead, death had come to the house of Alpin.
That he would succeed his father and soon himself be King of the Scots and ruler of all Dalriada mattered not half so much as the thought of one day slicing through the neck of the Pict King with his own sword.
Ten
While their runners were gone, the feared Viking attack came.
Shouts and screams of panic erupted in the thin light of dawn, and suddenly it seemed that the plateau of Steenbuaic was filled with hundreds of the cruel marauders from the sea. Against the mere dozen men who had not gone with the King to fight the Scots, the outcome was brutally swift.
Breathran had risen early, not because she sensed what was coming but because she knew the predawn hours were the best for visiting her creature-friends of the fields and wooded areas around Steenbuaic. In those hours, the rabbits that scampered about looking for food were less likely to run at sight of her, and the occasional deer that ventured out of the forest seemed to accept her presence.
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