Maire (2 page)

Just when he could bear it no more, the bloody visage shape-shifted into a whole woman again. She was a warrior, with a wild mane of red hair and fierce green eyes that could warm a stone—or shatter it. A torque of gold about her neck betrayed her royal status. With the grace of the willow and the strength of the sacred oak, she extended her hand to Rowan and—

“Master Rowan!”

She was gone.

Rowan came up from his bed, wiping the perspiration from his brow. He squinted in the early morning sun at his steward. “What is it, Dafydd?”

He couldn’t be angry with the man for sending the beauteous creature away. Like a faerie, she always vanished before Rowan managed to touch her.

“The Scots have landed at the village. There’s smoke rising over the ridge as we speak!”

Smoke. There’d been resistance. Rowan swore. “I warned those fishermen that if the Irish raided, to stand aside and let them take plunder rather than lives! Gold can be replaced; loved ones cannot.”

“Lady Delwyn is seeing to our valuables, and I’ve already sounded the alarm.”

Rowan pulled on a coarse linen robe over his naked flesh. The remnant perspiration from the dream hampered the material as he shook it down over his considerable frame. The rough scrape of the material against his skin was a stark contrast to the fine sheets of his bed. He hadn’t heard the horn’s blast. All he’d heard was that horrible scream…

Well, like as not, it was too late to help the villagers anyway.

“Assemble the men. I’ll meet them outside the courtyard. We’ll make a stand here.”

“Aye, it’s too late to do the village much good.”

As the steward dutifully hurried off, Rowan struggled on with his boots. The noise of battle still filled his ears, though the village was too far away for it to travel. The nightmare never released him easily. Upon strapping his sword at his waist, he was surprised that it didn’t feel strange though he’d not used it since that day of battle, long ago. He’d prayed he’d never have to use it again, but that didn’t seem to be the case today—not if his parents’ estate and the lives of those who lived here were to be spared.

He ran through the chaos of the household preparing for the raid. Stepping outside, he shook the last of the banshee’s yell from his beleaguered brain. There was no time to console his mother or to see his invalid father safely moved to the chapel of the villa. Like the house and buildings itself, his parents belonged to another time—one of a peace protected by Rome. The passage of time since the last of the legions withdrew had eroded the villagers’ youth—as well their ability to protect themselves from the barbarian attacks that ensued.

Like heralds of destruction, spirals of smoke drifted toward the villa from the nearby village on the sea. Dafydd stood speaking with a young lad Rowan recognized from the village. It was Dafydd’s brother’s son.

“Some of the villagers thought they could stop them,” the breathless youth was saying. He shot Rowan an apologetic look. “Father and Justinian tried to tell them not to fight.”

“It’s natural to defend one’s home. Just not wise in this case,” Rowan answered. “How many are dead?”

“Six that I know of. Justinian is gathering the wounded at the wood near the village’s edge.”

The Celts found no honor in slaughter; only a good fight made their blood boil.

“And Justinian himself?”

“Well; but sore that they set fire to the church even after he gave them what they demanded.”

Rowan could well imagine how his usually mild mentor and teacher of the Word had ruffled at such an insult. With the same fervor that the priest now embraced the teachings of the faith, he once had embraced the life of a pirate and rogue. Not much different from Rowan himself, save Rowan’s rowdier days were sanctioned by the law. Justinian’s had not been. “And your father?”

The boy shook his head. “Mad as the priest over the fire. He can’t blame the Scots for fighting with those who resisted.”

“Well, I can!” Dafydd’s words came hot and fierce. “Cursed heathens that they are, they should all be put to death for killin’ innocent folk.”

“Whether their swords drip with innocent blood or not, they’re coming this way now,” Rowan said to no one in particular. And then his own sword would drip blood for the first time since—

He turned abruptly from the thought and assessed the chaos in and around the villa. Dafydd had done well—exactly as Rowan had trained him to do in the event of a Scotti raid. Servants rushed to prepare as they could, joined by the chaotic influx of families who flocked to the villa at the sound of the warning horn.

God willing, these precautions will not be needed.

Pray God, no blood would be drawn, nor fire set to the place his parents had so lovingly built. It was a rare symbol of a better time before Gaelic replaced Latin as the common tongue
and the villas gave way to roundhouses on the landscape. Still, Rowan would fight if need be to preserve his family home, just as his father, a much decorated Roman general, had done many years before.

“Rowan.”

The sound of his mother’s voice was like a gentling calm on the roar of his blood, which was gradually stirring to a tempest by the prospect of impending battle. Despite his adoption by a Romanized family of Wales, his blood was the same as those who came to plunder them. God help him, there was still a part of him that flushed with excitement at the prospect of battle.

He felt his fierce features soften into a smile as Delwyn ap Emrys laid a jeweled hand upon his arm.

“The valuables are buried, but I dread seeing the house torn asunder by the raiders’ pillage.”

The adoration of the sun’s fingers on the artistically crafted gold setting of her ring, in which were nestled some of nature’s most precious stones, snagged his distracted attention.

“All valuables buried? Not your ring, I see.” Heathen raiders or not, his mother would never take off the wedding ring Demetrius had given her when she was a bride of sixteen. The gems and metal were forged by the hands of time, as was his parents’ love for each other.

“I just can’t bring myself to take it off,” she apologized with a reticent twitch of her lips.

And she would not have to give it up, God willing, Rowan thought. “I promise to do all God would have me do to avoid that. I’ve a plan.”

Lady Delwyn’s face brightened momentarily with pride before a loving concern shadowed it. “You’ll not risk harm.”

“Not if I can help it.”

He had discovered how precious was the life God had given him, unlike the day he’d been brought to this place from the Pictish frontier, a wounded and broken warrior wanting death.

But well he knew that second chances at a good life did not
come without a price. God had given him time to heal and blessed him with abundance. Despite his prayers to the contrary, he must now take up the blood-sullied sword of his past to save all he cared about. Hopefully, it was God’s plan that was forming in his mind as he assessed Emrys’s situation in the path of the raiders.

Rowan didn’t want to worry his mother with his bold plan. He hoped the belligerent Scotti would weary of bloodshed by the time they reached Emrys and agree to his idea for determining the outcome of their trespass on Welsh soil.

“I’ll try the voice of reason first.”

His mother’s brows arched. “Reason with heathens?”

“God will lend weight to my words, Mother. Meanwhile, gather the women into the chapel to petition Him to do so. ’Tis His hand, not those of these farmers, that will save us.”

Rowan glanced meaningfully to the men who assembled by the moment to stand with him against the Scotti. They were men of soul, not iron.

“Tell Father I’ll not leave our people to Scotti mercy.”

“Demetrius believes in you as I do,” his mother assured him. “God will be with you, son.”

Bedridden with the ills of age and a weakening heart, Demetrius ap Emrys had long since turned the running of the villa over to the Scot slave boy he’d adopted twenty years before. Rowan had resembled a son lost to illness and counted his fortune well found in his new situation, although he still remembered the humiliation and horror of being sold by his own brother; Britons sold their kin into slavery, not the Irish Celts!

There was no doubt in Rowan’s mind that this underlying resentment had carried him with bloodlust onto the frontier battlefields, where he’d cut down those who had caused a young boy so much grief. Then Rowan had been brought home, burning with fever and infection from wounds received in a barbarian raid. Death had not come as he, in his lucid
moments, expected… even prayed for. God had other plans for him and his.

But what, Father?

“I pray I will live up to the general’s expectations,” he said, hearing no answer to his furtive inner question.

“You have never let us down, son.” His mother’s assurance snatched him from the past. “Never.”

She held his gaze long enough for Rowan to recognize she knew where he’d been and what he was thinking at the moment. Her intuition never ceased to amaze him. With a brush of her lips on his cheek, she turned in a swirl of gold-threaded skirts to enter the villa.

Lady Delwyn was still beautiful, Rowan thought. The glow of her kind heart dimmed the ravages of time on her face. Demetrius gave her credit for his inspiration, and indeed it was her influence that had led Rowan to study the gospel during his recovery.

“We’re ready for the fiends, Rowan. Better to die than have ’em overrun our fields and ruin what little chance we have for survival this winter.”

Rowan shook his head as Dafydd, his sturdy, stocky bailiff approached. “Only as a last resort.”

Dafydd’s face was flushed at the prospect of a fight. While Rowan understood the Welshman’s outrage at this affront to their families and land, Rowan had to be careful not to let it affect his judgment. Even as his palms grew damp with dread, an old, involuntary excitement at the prospect of combat plagued his mind. With it came a haunting flashback of the battle that had ended his military career.

Father, please, not now!
Rowan swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Had the dream been a foreshadowing? Thankfully his voice gave no hint of his inner turmoil.

“I hope that won’t be necessary, Dafydd. I intend to appeal to their fierce sense of honor first. The Scotti hold that dear, despite their heathen ways. Perhaps we’ll settle the outcome
with cunning rather than with lives.”

“Honor!” Dafydd let loose with a curse in his native Celtic tongue, something about the worth, or lack thereof, of a pagan god’s dung. The steward might worship his maker as earnestly as any man in the true faith, but he did not hesitate to use the gods of his forefathers to sully what riled him. “There’s no honor in them that pillage and burn a church. Like as not that robe you’re wearin’ will only make them laugh at you.”

Rowan ignored the outburst. “Have the men form a line between me and the villa and hold it while I go ahead to meet the raiders.” Self-consciously, he fingered the coarsely woven material of his robe. Justinian offered it when Rowan began to study the gospel. Torn between his sense of obligation to his family and that to his God, it was months before Rowan finally donned it. Perhaps its feel against his skin reminded him of humility.

“I’ll not let you go out alone,” Dafydd argued. “We’ll
all
go.”

“I go alone.” The finality in Rowan’s voice ended the steward’s protest. “I’ll not have the Scotti think we are rallying against them like the villagers.”

He was glad Dafydd did not suspect the palm-wetting fear and dread threatening his cool demeanor at the prospect of taking up his sword again. Yet, despite Rowan’s strong reluctance to touch the weapon, which had both saved and destroyed him that fateful day on the battlefield, he was not fool enough to approach an enemy intoxicated by bloodlust and victory without it. An undermining cold like a winter brook ran through Rowan’s body. The Scriptures said to trust in God, but they also said not to tempt Him.

“Why don’t we let God decide whether we have to use our swords or not?”

Dafydd snorted in sheer wonder. “This from the same man who single-handedly turned away a Pictish attack on—”

“My sword was my master then, Dafydd.” Rowan had been raised in the Christian faith by his parents, but it had no place
on the battlefield, or so he’d once believed.

“And one to be feared, I’ll swear by that.”

Having sent more than his share of mortals to the other side with the weapon, Rowan couldn’t argue. Thankfully, a movement on the newborn, green horizon snatched Rowan from the turmoil—inner and outer—assaulting him. He fixed his attention on a more immediate battle.

“There they are!” Dafydd shouted beside him. “To arms, men!”

“Do exactly as I said and form a line in front of the villa,” Rowan ordered, “and remain there until I signal you. If I can work this out peacefully, no one will suffer. Nonetheless, we have to show that we will not give way easily.”

Dafydd sneered. “Like the fishermen and the cleric?”

“Those who resisted were foolish. Justinian knew the gold in the church could be replaced. Human life cannot.” Rowan glanced at the first of the painted warriors amassing on the hill. He prayed again that the village priest had kept the bulk of the villagers under control during the pillage. The sight of the enemy’s war paint and tattoos, which made the Scotti appear as demons sprung from Hades itself, was enough to intimidate the most stalwart enemy. Their cries were worse, though. Inhuman and terrifying. Still, God knew the Scotti bled and died like any mortal—Rowan had spilled enough of their blood to prove that.

One time too often.

Merciful Father, let it be forgotten, just this day! Give me my sword to save lives, not take them.
He cast an encompassing look at his troops. Their lives were more important than their worldly goods. He’d worked shoulder to shoulder with these good-hearted fellows, wrestling with the heavy plows imported from Belgae to clear land to feed their families. They were more his family than the blood clansman who’d sold him.

Rowan’s eyes glittered, hardening as more and more of the painted heathens gathered on the horizon. If saving his people
meant bloodying his sword, then so be it. And yet, as he gave one last order, his words were free of the shared rage and anticipation of conflict infecting the men behind him. He willed his right hand to the hilt at his waist.