Curse of the Celts

by Clara O'Connor

  “Were you going to be a druid?” I asked idiotically. Anything to distract myself from why we were here.

  He looked at me blankly.

  “What?” He shook his head. “No, no, my mother came here a lot to study. She had little interest in me but I was dragged along.”

  “You have a mother?”

  He snorted. “Yes, I am born of woman.”

  “I meant… You’ve never mentioned her.”

  His brows pulled together. “She and I are not on the best of terms, but I don’t want to talk of her now.”

  I stared vacantly at the pallet.

  “I can’t.”

  My words drifted out into the cold air. I felt exhausted, the words more effort than I had to expend. I continued to stand as Gideon sat heavily in one of the chairs. I doubted the novice druids were as large, and absently I worried for the chair.

  “So you’ll die, then.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And your child?” His words were like stones, each one hitting me sharply.

  A spark lit inside the dense fog of my mind, but it was small and the fog was comforting. It protected me; it was heavy and obscured everything. Devyn would be in there. I would find him.

  Gideon stood up and in one stride had enveloped me, his hands like bands around my shoulders as he shook me.

  “Live, damn you!”

  “Why?” My voice was flat and dead, but a part of me was genuinely curious at his answer. What did Gideon care? He had little use for anyone, much less me. I was surprised he had done this much.

  “Because it doesn’t end like this. Live. If not for your brother then for Devyn. You carry his child. Does that mean so little to you now?”

  The spark caught and spread, the glow spreading and thinning the edges of the fog. It did matter. Suddenly, the pain in my arm registered again. It was coming back.

  I could do this. I could do anything for this child.

  I nodded.

  Gideon stepped back from me, then after a moment turned away and started a fire as I stood listlessly behind him.

  “Can we just do this, then?” I asked peevishly as he failed to return to take up his task.

  Gideon turned from the fire. His face was dark in the backlight.

  “Kiss me.”

  I jolted. What? No. I shook my head. “Can’t you just…?” I waved a hand aimlessly. This wasn’t anything… special. It was just an act and it needed to be done. It didn’t matter how perfunctorily the deed was performed.

  “No. I can’t just…”

  His hand gently traced the edge of my face and I pulled it away. Tenderness was not part of the deal.

  “What do you mean?” I stared stonily at him. Gideon was not immune to me. There had always been an awareness that rippled between us. An awareness that disgusted me now. Had Devyn known? Had he seen? Was that why he had asked this of Gideon? No, he had asked him to be Griffin. This had happened after. The fog moved in again.

  “Dammit, Cat.” Gideon commanded me back from the fog that threatened to engulf me. He stepped towards me, gently turning my face up to his.

  I pulled away.

  “No. Just do it.”

  “I cannot just do it,” he gritted out in a hard voice.

  I looked at him in bewilderment. What did he…? Oh. I looked down at his trousers. He was right. Nothing.

  Fine. I tugged at the laces on my bodice. The blood on my fine velvet dress caught in the firelight as it fell to the floor.

  Finally, I stood before him in the all but transparent chemise I wore underneath. “Come on, then.”

  He hadn’t moved. I knew I wasn’t making this easy for him, but this was as much as I could do. He scrubbed his hand over his face.

  “Maybe we can wait,” he said.

  I felt frozen. Like I was made of ice from my core out. Ice was good; it kept everything firmly in place. It wasn’t just the pain in my arm I couldn’t stand, it was the pain tearing through me that Devyn was gone. I had to keep saying it to myself to remember this new truth, this unbearable reality that had come into being.

  Reality. It had to be faced. For Devyn. For the new life inside me. I could do this.

  I took his hand and drew Gideon down with me towards the pallet.

  We sat looking at each other for a moment and then I lifted my hand and traced his features with my fingertips. Not Devyn. Where Devyn’s cheekbones had been sharp, his were blunt; where Devyn’s eyes had been dark brown, Gideon’s were bright amber. I ran my hands through hair that was long and uncut in the fashion of a Celtic warrior. I pulled the tie that bound it and it fell loosely over his shoulders.

  He had hard stubble across his jawline; he would last have shaved yesterday, before the party. How long ago that seemed now.

  I pulled his face down to mine and rested my cheek against his scratchy one, breathing him in – his newness, his differences. His breath expanded and deflated his chest.

  I pulled back, our eyes meeting in the flickering light as I loosened the ties of his tunic then tugged it off. He helped me remove it. His shoulders were broad, his arms so much more muscular than Devyn’s. Of course, he had spent his life training, not in the city. I let my hands trace down the contours of his upper arms, along the vein-rippled inner forearms as he sat still with his palms facing up. I lifted my hand to trace the bramble of white roses twisting around a sword over his heart where Devyn had worn the Mercian sigil. His chest rose and fell with his breaths, shadow and light moving across the golden expanse. Still, he did not move.

  Again, the pain throbbed through my arm, insistent, reminding me. The intensity of it was building again. It was now or never.

  I pushed Gideon down onto the pallet and he went, unresisting. We worked together to pull off his trousers but it was awkward. I noticed the tree that I had glimpsed before, at the inn, stretching out in a swirling pattern across one thigh. I traced my fingers across it lightly and he shivered. His hands were gentle on my body as he pulled me to him, as if I was a thing that would shatter at his touch. I took another moment, focusing on his full bottom lip, then on his hooded eyes which were watchful beneath my gaze.

  Finally, I lowered my lips to his, pressing my frozen ones to his heat. A whisper, a breeze of a touch, then another. His chest expanded under my hand. The beat of his heart was the only sound, its strength lending some to mine. It pulsed within me, sending warmth through my body, bringing me back to life. He pulled his head back, his eyes glittering in the dark as he surveyed my expression. His tattoos were a swirling pattern across the width of his shoulders in the half-light. He turned us, so that he was on top and looking down at me.

  And then he met me.

  He was a mass of Celtic tattoos swirling above me and around me. Devyn had borne none until recently, his whole adult life having been spent hiding his heritage, unlike the proud, arrogant Gideon who had sneered at Devyn.

  There was touch, sensation, in the rude warmth of the pallet as he joined with me.

  And then heat and flame tore through the ice and fog, exploding in my mind as I cried out.

  And as I came down, I cried out again. His muscular arms and legs cocooned me as though he could shield me bodily from my pain. But my grief could not be thwarted and my tears fell and fell, until finally, there were no more.

  I woke, stiff and wrecked in both body and mind. Lifting my head from the shelter of a broad shoulder, my heart leapt and then fell as Gideon’s lashes lifted and I remembered it all. Their golden glow froze as he saw my expression.

  Heart and soul empty, I untangled myself and rose from the thin pallet. Stepping over the gaping maw of the handfast bangle which lay broken open on the floor, I pulled my bloody, smoky clothes back on.

  I went out into the misty morning and put one foot in front of the other, my steps carrying me down the hill.

  To bury Devyn.

  * * *

  THE END

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  Don’t miss Legend of the Lakes, the thi
rd and final chapter in The Once and Future Queen trilogy.

  * * *

  You can get your copy right here!

  Acknowledgments

  This book is about a search to find a place to call home. As I worked on it over the strange summer of 2020 I have never had more cause to be grateful for the friends and family who make up mine. This book is dedicated with love and thanks to all who offered to share theirs when this crazy pandemic struck at the worst possible time. Una, Ger, Liam and Lucy – for the best summer ever. Eilish, Mickey, Muireann and Joe – for autumn weekends and all our Christmases. Kim, Tom and Emily – who I could not reach, and dearly missed. Ida and Ashley, who kept the flag flying in the sunshine. And of course, Mum and Dad – for everything. Special shout out to Joy and Chutney, who shared my fate.

  This trilogy had a home very early on, though as this strange year unfolded, many launch dates. So many industries came under pressure, and I have such admiration for those I watched in the publishing industry fight to do right by their authors and booksellers while dealing with the stresses and pressures we all faced in one form or another in the Spring and Summer of 2020. For many, reading and indeed writing was a form of escape.

  Thank you to all the publishers who kept the wheels turning. Particularly to Bethan and Charlotte for your encouragement when the world was mad, Melanie and Claire who managed to make a splash in a crazy book year, Lydia and Tony for your focus and clarity, and Laura and Andrew for your creations. To everyone at One More Chapter for powering on in challenging times.

  A special thank you to the bookshops and booksellers who kept us supplied, especially those who fight hard to keep their doors open every year… but never harder than this one.

  And most especially thanks to you – the readers who have chosen to stick with me as I explore this world. Hope to see you again soon!

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  Cx

  Author Q & A

  What were the most difficult world-building challenges when it came to creating Curse of the Celts?

  The Celts and Technicalities

  Technically, the Celts aren’t so much a race as an identity. A culture intertwined with a way of living and experiencing the world. Art, language, religion, music, these are the things which tie the Celtic peoples together. The Romans thought the Keltoi wild and uncivilized, and slowly but surely conquered them, though some strands of this culture remained strong, broadly across the north western fringes of the Roman Empire. In my world more of Britannia stayed free, or rather fought to win back their lands, remaining essentially Celts across the centuries, arriving in the modern day still with tattoos, torcs, druids, festivals and mythology.

  Speaking of technicalities. I created an alternate history and world but sometimes made a decision in the interests of keeping it simple, because occasionally the truth is stranger than fiction.

  To give just a few instances of this – the Celts actually started their day at sunset but including this truth didn’t add anything but confusion.

  I used the name Samhain instead of Halloween to make it more Celtic than the Christianised variant – coming from the day before Hallows’ Day or All Saints’ Day – choosing the Irish name despite my story being much closer to Wales and its Calan Gaef, as it already has some wider recognition.

  There are also some truths which could have gone one way or another. My Romans swear by Hades, which was the name of hell in Ancient Greek mythology. The Romans had Tartarus, but by the time Virgil was writing the Aeneid he gave Tartarus as the lowest level of… Hades.

  Also, the “Americas” – I looked to find a more Native name for the continent, and found while many North American nations used the Great Turtle or Turtle Island there is also evidence to support the concept of the name “America” (variations in Old Norse, Ommerike; Mayan, iq’ amaq’el; Algonquin, Em-erika etc), predating “Amerigo Vespucci” by some centuries, which is wild. There is some research which suggests that Vespucci’s first name just fit the discovery narrative. So, in the interests of keeping it simple I went with the name we know today.

  Ultimately, this is a work of fiction and I am no scholar, but if you are, and your better knowledge or my interpretations of elements have been twisted here in a way that pulled you out of the story, then I beg your forgiveness. But then I expect you will already be all too aware that all research and all interpretations of the past are imperfect. As it is inevitably no more than a collection of events told by people – storytellers all.

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  What were some of your foremost sources of inspiration?

  Calendar and Festivals

  I’ve always enjoyed how thinly papered-over the pagan calendar is by Christian festivals. Our month names are happily a mash of pagan and Roman names, which allowed me to keep them too.

  Most ancient calendars simply followed the sun and the seasons, and in the world outside the Empire it was easy to peel this back and include the first two familiar festivals the Celts celebrate here.

  * * *

  Samhain

  Arriving in the Celtic world on October 31st meant we crossed from the tech world to the pagan world with a bang.

  As a child I was terrified of Hallowe’en, trick-or-treating hadn’t really swung back across the Atlantic, and it certainly didn’t entail dressing as a movie princess.

  I was taught that this night was when the veil between this world and the next was thin, and anything could cross over. We were encouraged to disguise ourselves so the púca wouldn’t take us. The candle in the pumpkin so popular today originated in the US with Irish immigrants who had carved out harder roots to place that all important light in the window to keep dark spirits out even as it welcomed the spirits of departed family and friends for whom a place was laid at the table.

  Beyond the otherworldly who prowled outside in the dark, inside we bobbed for apples and told fortunes. And ate a fruit cake called Barmbrack, the delight of which as a child was finding the hidden futures within, a coin or a ring wrapped in paper that foretold fortune or love. This inspired the autumnal apple cake Devyn eats – my sister was given an apple cake recipe years ago that my family adore. (Odlums.ie have a version of it. Yum.)

  * * *

  Yule

  The Winter Solstice or midwinter arrives between the 19–22 of December. Current holiday celebrations are a mix of the festivities of the ancients – the Roman Saturnalia before the Winter Solstice and the Norse Yuletide, which covered the twelve days after. Many elements of our December holiday season are drawn from those festivities. The druids cut mistletoe on the Solstice, Celts lit bonfires and the Norse lit Yulelogs to brighten short days. The wheel of the year turned and began anew, marked with wreaths of holly and ivy. Wassail or in Ireland going on the Wren and singing for treats is today more familiar as carolling.

  Basically eating, drinking and making merry in the darkest days of winter has changed little enough over the millennia.

  * * *

  Wales

  I originally mapped Cassandra, Devyn and Marcus a fairly direct route north to Cumbria, and was utterly shocked when everyone veered off course into Wales. But Devyn needed to go home – at first I wasn’t sure why…

  But much of Devyn and the Griffin were gifts of Welsh history and lore. The Griffin is more classically from Greek and Middle Eastern legend but Welsh lore contains a creature called the Adar llwch gwin, which is very similar.

  In book one, I played with the history of the Tudors, which rooted my inspiration in Wales. I think this came about because as a teen I read Crown in Candlelight by Rosemary Hawley Jarman and was blown away to learn that a penniless Welsh archer, Owain Ap Tewdwr, a lowly descendent of the Princes of Gwynedd, became lover (and possibly husband) to Henry V’s French widow, Catherine of Valois. Two generations later a Tudor was on the throne of England. I adore the tangle of intention, bloodline and outcome…

  The Griffin origin story here begins with 12th-century Llewelyn Ap Iorweth, one of the most beloved Princes
of Gwynedd, which I threaded through the centuries to the Glyndŵr line for the 15th-century Owain Glyndŵr, another celebrated Prince of Wales. In the bloodlines of the princes of Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that these bloodlines merged… and if not, well… fiction.

  Exploring the World of The Once and Future Queen

  The Journey North

  Henley and the Chilterns

  Living in west London, this was a favourite walking destination – this part of England is spectacular, the winding river Thames here dotted with small islands, the rolling hills, the deep forests.

  * * *

  Oxford

  The city of dreaming spires is Mecca for the bookishly inclined.

  The history and learning, the beautiful grace of its architecture. The home of walled colleges, cosy pubs, hidden lanes…

  * * *

  The Severn

  Crossing the Severn feels to me like the Shannon in Ireland, something about home being west of it. As it was here for Devyn.

  The Shannon has a goddess and, I was delighted to realise, so too have offerings been discovered from ancient sites to the Severn Goddess.

  I also managed to include the Bore, the lunar tidal wave which surfers jump on to ride up the river.