Rebel Warrior (Medieval Warriors #3) (3 page)

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 were 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.

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.

Each time Steinar wielded his sword, his arm gained strength and his movements became more agile. Now his sword arm was nearly as sure as it had been that day near Stamford Bridge when he fought with King Harold’s army turning away the Norse king, Harald Hardrada. And as sure as that day on Senlac Hill, not long after, when he’d survived the onslaught of the Conqueror’s knights only to watch his father and the Saxon King Harold fall. Steinar’s escape north with some of King Harold’s elite guards, the huscarls, had been all that stood between him and death that day.

His last battle had been in York with Edgar the Ætheling, rightful heir to the English throne. Steinar well remembered the vicious fighting, for it was there he had received the wound that all believed had left him a cripple.

Once he arrived in the clearing, he set about his practice in earnest.

In one smooth arc, he slashed his steel blade through the air, the flash of sunlight on metal sending a surge of strength coursing through him. He could feel the power return to his arm that for so long had lifted only a quill as his ink-stained fingers attested. Soon he would wield a sword as well as his sister, Serena, wielded her bow. If only his leg would perform as it once had, he would be whole.

In his mind he fought the Norman knights on Senlac Hill, deflecting their blows and ripping through flesh. Swinging his sword wide, he saw his father fall. The remembered shock caused his right leg to crumple and he stumbled. Muttering an oath, he wobbled to one side of the path to lean against a tree, wiping the sweat from his brow, his chest heaving from exertion.

He hissed a curse. Had he fought a real enemy, he would be dead. The leg was not yet at full strength and mayhap not his mind either. He vowed one day ’twould be so. He would yet be the warrior he once was.

“It seems you have been keeping secrets from me. I should have known that muscle you have been adding to your arms did not come from tossing about a quill.”

The deep voice was Rhodri’s and with his words, Steinar relaxed and looked around for his friend. Dressed in hosen, tunic and leather jerkin in the colors of the forest, Rhodri blended in with the foliage so as to be near invisible where he stood against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest. The bard was slight of build but strong with a bowman’s muscled arms and a head of black curls and deep-set brown eyes.

“Do you battle your demons, Steinar?”

“Some. But I also spar with teachers who once sharpened my skills. As you can see, I am not yet there. The leg fails me often.”

“But you will be strong again. You were once the best swordsman at Talisand, or so Theodric claimed.” Leaving the tree, Rhodri came closer. “When you are recovered, what then?”

Steinar slid his sword into its scabbard and limped to his friend, his leg telling him he had pushed it too hard. “When that day arrives, we will see. For now I remain the king’s scribe. Malcolm seems content with my service.”

“Aye, he is. But you came here to prove something and I’m thinking ’twas not just that you can again wield a sword.”

“You may be right,” he admitted, looking down at the forest floor covered in the green grass of spring. Lifting his head to face his friend’s expectant gaze, he added, “I would test my resolve to fight the Bastard Norman again. After all, Malcolm has faced William’s knights more than once and come away the victor. But for now I remain a scribe.”