 
THE TORC

Gordon M Burns

JULY 2014 copyright©

Disclaimer : This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

©Cover design by G M Burns July 2014

Published by Gordon Moncrieff Burns at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support

Part One

STORM-ENTICER

CHAPTERS

1. THE BIRTH OF ARIANWYN

2.. A DAY IN INFANCY

3. END OF INFANCY

4. ARIANWYN THE GIRL

5. THE LESSONS OF THE SPAEWFE

6. UNCERTAINITY AROUND

7. GIRLHOOD

8. PANGS OF MISCONCEPTION

9. DUNDURIN

10 WELCOMED GUESTS

11. TALORCAN

12. GRANINNE

13. SAMHAIN

14. CALLEACH

15. BETANE

16. PARTINGS

END OF BOOK ONE

POSTSCRIPT ... THE GLADWORD OF ARIANWYN (PORTION OF)

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

A look at Torc Part Two VIA ACERBUM

THE TORC

Glossary: yowe trummle: (Scots) a cold, wet fortnight around midsummer, after the sheep shearing.wizzen: (Scots) v shrivelled, shrunken. n the breath of life.

Part One

STORM-ENTICER

"And Arianwyn asked, "No? Not true, Malachais, that by fate of accident long ago, drifting essence became duped to life on Earth ?""

(from the Gladword of Arianwyn as recored by Kentigern, Bishop of Glaschu)

1

1

THE BIRTH OF ARIANWYN

AD 526

The world would have its way and tethered to its terror, take hope and spin it to despair for Queen Nia. Along with her women, the wailing waft of woe - and also her husband, King Necthan, draught-full of drunken health - but mostly Nia's womb-fruit, the centre of attention and a life refuting stillness. An illusion's folly in the gruesome game for life, fighting against the clay-set stipulation that 'The World' would twirl them all in this short, rough ride through the grim eternal cycle. Only 'The World's Word' would have Nia linger longer, for had been only two days of lamentable labour and, tormented even further, she could writhe for one night more. Then, costively, it would allow her rip and ruin in the face of their pathetic pleadings, grab out the life of Nia, haul forth the breathless child and leave them all to fester in their grief.

At the dark of despondent dawning she, the Spaewife, materialised amongst them. Seeping in from her wanderings, she passed through the red-faced plastering of warrior-smirks towards the birthing place, full of flapping-worries, and went straight to the breathless pains of unforgiving agony set within a vortex of vexation in the time before the yowe trummle. There she soothed the mother's fevered brow, woman-comfort to woman-plight, at the breach of birth.

"Breathe easy, dearie," the Spaewife murmured, "slowly, deeply, in and out, my poor wee lambie." And all the while, that ancient woman's voice of calmness was solace to all around that cared.

The queen, two Beltanes past and then not fully fifteen Beltanes old, had, in arduous agony, birthed the king a son, and at that time the Spaewife issued warnings to the king. "Nae mair or you will kill her." Dire consequences avoided by other means until, in heat of summer, came a night of jagged harvest rain fit for aught but floods of heather-tainted ale. Fit for little but the slurring of past brotherly bitterness the remembrance of their father in which, Alpin the younger twin brother, visiting from his Kingdom of Athflodda, scratched under the skin of his brother, Necthan of Forternn.

All that night Alpin belittled Necthan's prowess and in front of all mocked his potency, riling him up with taunts that if Forternn could not rise, then Athfloddda would and seize all that needed ploughing in Necthan's land. This sent Necthan into a stomp-jig, offbeat temper and, Alpin, leapt at the chance to twist the power from off his brother. Digging the ribs of his four-year old son, Talorcan, he passed the boy a wink then raised a hew and cry for drunken rabble response - Prove it if you can, show us the vigour of your proof! This he repeated three times, knowing full well that all those chanting with him in the hall, save his son, possessed smelt-instinct and were savouring the nearness of the red-moon rising in Queen Nia's deportment. All through the previous days, granted courtesy and charm as befitted her position, it dominated all around in after looks but on that drunken night it raised lust within, urged beggared-thrills without and, raged by drink, lost all sense of dignity as she became as a rippling red-rag before their bull-like eyes and all women were there to wipe, this time it might not be vermillion.

The tonsil agony of Alpin's visit suddenly gripped Nia by the throat. Her hands fell like broken scree over her husband's rock hands as she saw more than the five years separation between them in his hard-set face. Even so, so she begged her husband, for pity-loving's sake, that the obscene mood be subdued and that all should to retire to bed. The low hoots of jesting and urging on those misguided words received, irked him. Her simple girl-like folly niggled as an itch to which the humiliation of his brother's caustic piping scorn - how lang marrit? The wee lass will be wondering if you ken what it is for \- pricked him deeply. Nechtan responded to the want of all. He reeled Nia by her hair in a primal surge and for their witness - disgraced himself on her gentle grace - stained his soul - rutted eyes, ears and recall - rammed a penetration of the worth of all women into the mind of his nephew, Talorcan, by rasp of pain and boak of semen made - then wind-rolled into his cups of sleep and left the scandalised queen to the management of women.

The result of which was not expected to go this far - but unfortunately it had - and so the Spaewife struggled the feet and legs into a world of endless grief where, shaken from roof beams on cries of pain, soot floated down on the ripping haemorrhage that finally achieved - a gore-drenched cradle of foul excrement and a new life caught by the Spaewife. Woman's hands took the child no further than the stretch of cord. The Spaewife stemmed the blood with herbs, fine bone needles, gut-threaded with the purest water. Eyes weighed the balance of the queen swinging between life and death, stinging tears at them for her bloodied child as Nechtan broke upon the door swilled by a spill of his supporters.

"Out war-lorder!" the Spaewife spat at him, "this is no place for you or foot-suckers such as these!"

"Mouth-stuff your tongue, old hag and mind the place of women."

"I know my place, brute man, and it is on your back. Nor am I the one who need stoppering hereabouts."

He understood her words; they held him nose-twisted so he snorted out - What is that? - his nose, a wrinkle of revulsion, caught the foul stench that filled the room, forcing short and shallow breathing that hit the back of his throat as an accusation. Before a slaughtered-blood as would match a battle-mud that should not agitate him, he visibly appalled and shuddered. He watched his frail child slip from his wife's arms and swallowed on his wife's swoon ebbing on her paling face. What is this I have brought about? He thought.

"You have a girl," the Spaewife told him taking the child in her arms, "for whose life your queen may yet pay the price, so why are you so tearful? Is it that you fear the bother of a wee lassie if she lives? Aye weel, live in hope then, for the child is a wally-draigle, small and weak and bound to die."

"What bother will this litter-runt bring me?" He mused for none to hear, and then spoke unto the crone. "Have it your way then and bring me its name when you have divined it. Though I would have it called Nechtandochter." He left enfolded in cheers and bolstered by hearty claps resounding on his back.

The Spaewife spat his departing out the door and winching on the ache within her gums, she set unsound teeth upon the cord linking child and mother. Then having bitten through, she cleansed the child of birthing clay and gave orders to bring the wet nurse forth. When cleaned from within, the old woman set the flesh of foetus-feed to searing flames and bade the queen to eat. The queen ate but a little before she slipped into a troubled drowse with the child fading by her side.

Leaving the raven in its cage with neck and head intact, the guts in place and not bloodied in the bowl, she went and faced - king, warriors, druids and all men who thought themselves free and above the likes of her. She did not flinch, she knew the name to gift and refused to play druid's delusion farce for sake of any man and told them straight, the child's hallowed-gifted name would be - Arianwyn. A name sacrosanct for the child and as such bestowed for the good of all. A child of this name was pure silver, holy and spirit-twinned with truth.

"Arianwyn?" Questioned the king suspiciously sensing more than a name giving at work. "That is not a Pictish name." A gut feeling churned at the break from tradition. "How will others in the world view it? Do they not expect things as already set? What is so wrong with Nechtandochter?"

"Your name for her is one with no clear cause other than greed and fist-first for your will only. Think yourself anointed do you? Well, none of your oil on that lass's head, this name for her is meant and the only blessing she will ever need so, foolish man, accept it as a blessing for the sake of all, and raise her by the name."

A warrior came to the king. "Come on man, drink an ale to wet the lassie's head." The horn of ale the man held at Nechtan's face smelt stale below his beard and the daze of drink, the hold of the men lifted from him and he turned his back on them. Once more, he went through to where his wife lay and saw the women quake into the room's recesses at the very sight of him. Fearful of his might, a girl slave cleaning the floor, cowed eyed and gripped the foul straw as a protection against him. He saw all this and was ashamed. Woefully he glass-eyed the ghostly-grey pallor of his wife caught in the mist between life and death. He looked and saw his child failure to take the wet-nurse's teat. Beheld the life-skill of that woman to express the warmth of goodness onto the one weak swallow of the child. He watched as the babe gave up and closed her eyes on parted lips and regarded a bead of milk ringed as a silver sparkle in the cradle-angle of her mouth. A silver-slither of a thread linking lip to lip that stirred a string, which played his heart. He heard her the wizzen cry, he saw her wizzen body, he wished to take her in his arms but bit his heavy lower lip as the wet nurse gently wiped the fleck away.

"The trouble this unwhelped quine will bring is what?" He muttered to himself.

Then in a sudden fleen Nia shot up, banshee eyes searched for their mark and fixed on Nechtan King. All heard her wail of words. "Here to gloat, eh, King of Squat? Should I be praising our wedding day, Nechtan? That fateful day set by your frosty father on fair spring blossom." Her voice wisped away like falling petals until, on a verge of bile-rise in her throat, she glorified her soul-purpose from this day onwards. "This I rejoice, husband. The day your father, Talorc, went face-black. The hour his tongue a swollen worm within his mouth, shrivelled him as a nut and left him lonely on the floor to die." Once more, her voice weakened but not so, that he had to strain to hear the rest. "Hear this my braw-brash-brute! No man or woman in man's thrall will treat my girl as they have me!" Then she fainted back into a sleep of laboured breathing.

Nia had scored the core of Nechtan but he saw no road to atonement. From that harsh summer's night to this spring's point he had withheld from Nia his supporting love, offered no understanding of her tribulation through winter unto now and showed no pride in her happiness and hope for the new life he had forced into her. He smelt the Spaewife close. The rankness of a sun-rotted, storm-cast seaweed made him turn prepared to be levelled before her, only to find calm eyes set on him. He listened to her wisdom.

"Ach, what do you expect of yourself, you are but a man and only half the spirit of yourself. The other lies there, lambasting you from a dream-world. That part has will to live and yet may have the strength to do so. As may your lass. Nechtan, set aside your craven curse of manly mantle and be nurture for your children."

From behind her stain of peat-brown cloth, the Spaewife drew forward a toddler on her withered hand and presented to Nechtan his son. Below hooded eyebrows, Nechtan stood and gazed at Nechtanson. On weight of a heavy jaw, from in his red-rimmed eyes and from out thick lips he muttered acknowledgement of the boy, beholding the untarnished childhood of shining hope before him. He stroked the unkempt beard that framed his worn face. Nechtan's heart-wrench brought the Spaewife as a shimmer of a summer haze to him that, through his winter-wind-watery eyes, seemed to life years off her, rid her rankness and make her serene.

Shaking his head from this reverie, he snorted quickly on a sudden smile. "Come, Nechtanson, and see your bonnie wee sister." And taking that small hand in his calloused grip, led him over earthen floor of freshened straw. Then as in a hayfield's summer heat, he told his son. "Her name, Arianwyn, is special and so is she." He caught the scent of violets from the Spaewife and breathed deeply of her essence. Full and deep he breathed her purity, his chest and lungs filled to bursting and, with shut-fast eyes, loudly and slowly through pursed lips he emptied all his lungs. All those invisible elements trapped therein, were banished from him. Finally, when he could exhale no more, he raised his lids to view his family anew. Once more breathing in his nose filled with scents of hay and violets. "Spaewife, clear the drunken rabble of men from under my roof. Tell them there are sheep to be shorn before the yowe trummle."

2

"Eventually he played a chord. "Will that one do, my Lord?" the harpist asked anxiously."

A DAY IN INFANCY

Nechtan admired his queen in the palace garden weeding. The beauty of nealrly eighteen summers on a wintered paleness; chill mementos of her birthing thorns. Below his feet his daughter idled, a little apart his four-year-old son gloried in a dub of drying mud. The daughter, bored with men talk, began her private game and though Nechtan's unseeing eyes fell on his daughter, his thoughts mulled over the words of the man.

Nechtan pondered the politics of the proposition but the distraction of the marvel at his feet wandered his thoughts. Below him was the ceaseless-thriver who though all that childhood illnesses had brought upon the edge of darkness, contradicted what should be and lived these two years past. Though diminutive in stature, outwardly weak with quirky looks and a ceaseless bewilderment set on round and open lips, she was magnificence itself, fingering below and sat on the dirt. Only he never noticed the last detail for the sheer joy she gave him, for from the time of infant constant crying - when Nia plunged into a downward spiral from which he felt she would not return - he had lived his days and nights with the aroma of his daughter's hair infused into his face. However, this day he breathed the oily liquid that the wizard presented to him and detected a deceiving sweetness in his nose linked to a sharp intoxication above the bridge of his nose. The man beside him stirred in his stance and brought the overwhelming power within the spirit rising up to rob Nechtan of all self-will. Without thinking, he tasted the liquid and swallowed sourness disguised in cloying sweetness and traced the flow of burning heat as it seared into his core. Is it by this wizard's heather distillations that my brother's eyes raise beyond the borders of his kingdom? A potent burning draught, emboldening no doubt, but as misleading as all weasel wizard words.

"The libation is a gift from your brother, a stimulant I prepare for him." The wizard told him, although his eyes intently watched the child below their feet. The wizard's tongue licked out the corner of his mouth at the game she played with fingers with herself. "So many freckles on the face, no doubt her body too, but that one is the dandy of them all."

"You look where you should not, wizard." Nechtan placed his daughter swiftly on his lap, smoothed her tousled red-fair-hair and bounced her on his knee.

"I only see what she shows me and such does not interest me. Mind you, it leads to a portal plain enough to see as a peace offering between you and your brother." Nechtan did not hear these slimy words for he had melted once more before the innocent beguilement in his daughter's trusting smile and the delight that glistened in her hazel pools for him. He felt a thick tightness in his throat that came when she giggled at his tickle. "She would play well on any knee. She would raise more than a swan's neck to take a glimpse, being as she is your daughter, Nechtan."

Still he did not hear the man's crude speech for now he saw his son, Nechtanson, glancing puzzlingly at his sister's glee. The father bathed in contentment seeing the boy returning to scrape shapes with fingers in the mud. The girl squirmed below his tickles. "You have no idea of what you ask, no understanding in the slightness of the slender thread that holds her life. You see her as she seems now but this is new-gained by much grief and effort, not least by her. Let her be a while."

Undisguised scorn soured the sycophantic wizard's face as he bared file-sharpened, yellowed upper teeth and spoke. "Is that your answer, the one you expect me to hand to King Alpin, your brother?"

The reply was swifter than the wizard expected. "The queen will not agree. The boy is too young." He stopped jigging his daughter on his knee to listen to this man's reply.

"Come now, King Alpin is your younger brother, you know the man. Think of the future of your daughter. Even you must see that one like her would only be a guddled throw away for such as Talorcan will be, if she were not, as I say, your daughter."

Nechtan paused to consider if indeed he did now know anything of his twin brother or that son of his, in the desolation of the fastness of Athflodda. He knew the abrasiveness in which his father had raised his them both. Knew himself to be over-passionate by nature. Quickly fired at times but loving, now granted a second chance, of Nia and their children. His boorish edges smoothed by his wife would gall his brother for Alpin's womenfolk had splintered from his brother's side and become lost into a murk of mystery. He sat in a blankness of thought, a mist of threads that disappeared as he tried to fasten one onto the other. Bored by his lack of attention on her, the girl's playing fingers wandered back to her private game.

"She has your nature and is an ettler. That one will take to it and take it well, like a hind in season for the stag," he pointed out how she played, "if evidence seen here is to be held to red-rag days."

In one smooth, caring, gentle action and the king straightened his daughter's ragged hem and eased her play-fingers away. He cupped her hand in his palm and lightly tapped it with the other. She gleamed up at him smiling, then skimmed into simpers as he tittered tickle-fingers beneath her chin. A sprinkling of shivering delights exploded inside her, which made her squeeze her face against his hand. He buried his head in her hair, the smell catching in his throat. Before his eyes could fill, he swallowed, forcing down the taste of bitter spirit from the wizard druid. He set his heart and mind. He looked at man and met his eye.

"She has nature of her mother in her also."

"And one cannot help but speculate on what form that might take on, eh?"

On words too far, Necthan sneered, fanged at the druid and set his mind in three twitching eyelid flickers to the thought of fie all diplomacy. "See you, sharny-spurtle, my answer is no." The wizard appeared mockingly maligned. "Aye, you heard me straight, pederast, the boy is too young, so tell that brother-mine that I might just, just mind, reconsider him for fostering when he is seven. As for this one," he looked into his daughter's hazel eyes, "she is too dear to us, heart-cherished and we shall keep her close. Arianwyn is an embrocation of soothing between my queen and I, if you have the wit to understand such things, and for now we will not have her separated from us." He looked away blocking any further discussion. "So there you are, you have it."

"Nechtan!" He gladdened before the furious face of Nia, caused by her frustration of him. "Look at your son, just look! I leave him in your care for just a moment and you let him play in mud. I ask you, just look at his state. Honestly, Nechtan, I thought I could trust you by now."

"Till sun should rise no more," he said, the reprimand accepted. Then, carrying Arianwyn in his arms, he went to help his wife. As he walked away, he turned to the man and blanked the slight that raged within the wizard's feeble frame. "Ask my brother, to allow us yet a little time to enjoy the bosom of my family, here in the shelter of Forternn and the palace of Forthuirtabaicht. Take the message to my brother with greetings of goodwill." The wizard's annoyance needed one more dig. "Now, Murtholic, there is a laddie and go to it, you have yourself a safe journey back to Athflodda."

3

"Unclear beginnings struggle to be understood."

END OF INFANCY

A sound forced seven year-old Nechtanson to look up. A song of stone and oat, dared him to peek and seek from whence it came. He shot back down for did not wish discovery by eyes and certainly not of those his sister's. However, he keeked up once again to see where she might be.

Below the adult world - to which he was beholden for everything - lay beneath him. The women, free and slaves, waulked the song to the spin that fed the quern stone's hungry bite. That whirling gritty-song, dirling to the grinding of the grain made his hunger all the keener. The warming heat of day would have to do as food. He watched the washerwomen, baskets laden high with woollen cloth, descend the slopes to the washing stones by the waters of the May. Was he but like a speck of dirt that they wished to wash him from his home? He had seen anguish in his mother's eye, the reluctance of his father's will to have him go. The tear drops from his sister.

What works the world of grown-ups? He thought and on that thought pressed down into the thatch until another strain upon the air, the hammer and the heated iron, set to a choir of warriors clashing at their arms and enticed him to look up again. In fields, he saw the labouring thirlfowk. The free folk of Forternn, his folk and kin. The sheltered ones who, in deference to his father's strength, submitted as his kin, electing him as their king-protector of all that was owned by everyone; kailyards, barns, byres, fields and houses and supreme above all this, set by the palace door, the boar-headed totem of his kin. A hand went to his neck where he wore his new tattoo. An adult enticement built up as something big boys do but when the muttering was done, no more than a prick of stinging pains made by a druid with sour breath. Dirt beneath that wizard's nails and all cloaked in secret-dark within the confines of their Druid and Knowing-Women's Halls. Yes, here in Fothuirtabaicht, centre of Forternn, his father was the king. Why need he leave at all? Pride for his father, and his wish to stay, nearly made him stand up and proclaim to all below that he was Nechtan's son, Prince Nechtanson. Only just in time, he remembered he was learning how to see and be unseen. He knew his father was not like other kings and chieftains who holed themselves behind walls of stone or water in hilltop places or loch-bound crannogs. Such cowering was not for Nechtan, King of Forternn Picts, for the Palace of Fothuirtabaicht sat upon a flat shelf, in the open strath, above the May Water and enclosed only by his father's fearsome reputation. So, then why did he, Nechtan's son, have to leave all this ever? The world of the grown ones was strange; sometimes their eyes seemed more frightened than a child's. What were the powers they hid from him that turned their mastery of him into unsure frightened worries?

"And you will come home," his father told him when they were alone, "the years in Athflodda will seem like the flicker of a flame. It maybe that your sister will need to watch, with bitter-sight, that torch burning long into her life. So, dry your eyes and think on that. Aye, but mind, our secret now, do not go telling her." He promised. Another thing, like many others those adults did and said he did not understand.

However, though he might not know how to name it, he could feel their love. It was the feeling felt when hurt and in her soft, warm lap, his mother took him and held him close to her. The feeling that he had when a tale, told by the knurled old Spaewife, took him faraway to worlds of wonder and excitement. Or, when his father smiled at him while wiping clean a wound and praised him, when he hid the tear that the cut stung in his eye. What had changed all of that? Now his parents told him, knowing of a fear that he did not, that he would have to leave Fothuirtabaicht and Arianwyn behind. He set his face to the tale told to him, that big boys did not cry - unless grown-ups had that wrong as well. He cried the night they told him he was to be fostered with his Uncle Alpin but hide those tears from all. He would return. A dried-eyed oath made to himself.

Forlornly searching, his sister approached calling out his name and on a moving feeling below his girth he squeezed down into the thatch. The sun and game were warming him as he heard her cry. "Nechtanson, I givesiess in! Where are youse?" Her harp-strung song did not entice him from his hiding place. "Come on Nechtanson this is our lastest day thegither!" A twist of regret, a targeted knot of fear twisted his stomach as it had the whole of this day, then unravelled in his bowels. Tightly he clenched the oozing warmth between his buttocks. He smelt the foulness yet stayed hidden to take her by surprise.

Elfin-like, pale and freckled, an energy of eye-open, eager searching, his sister was the image of her father, a moss for his hidden strength, the kindness of her mother and gifted of her smile and grace. Small for her age, she was passionate and fiery-fit for any of Nechtanson's boy-like games with which he tried to goad her. Not always was Prince Nechtanson the winner in their play-like battles. Arianwyn was subtle, crafty and two-faced with his mother, an aura of innocent compliance radiated from her, which often placed him on the receiving end of his mother's reprimand. Arianwyn did not always fool her father but like Nia, the king delighted in her. Nechtanson also knew his father to be incapable of upsetting either his sister or his mother. He pressed down into the secret thatch. However, the sun betrayed him.

"Nech...tan, sonnie-son-son," she sang his name, "I can-na-can no see-hee you!" She could. Arianwyn came around the Spaewife's door and quickly worked out where his landing would be in the straw against the wall. She watched the ground and saw his shadow grow tall and become a plunge through the air. She stepped back. He landed short and Arianwyn sprung on his back, pinning him face down into the pile of summer-warmth of hay, in which he could not figure what was hay and that her straying hair. She took her wooden blade and held it to his throat. Then she changed her positioning. "Or shall I cut you here?" she barked like a vixen, holding her weapon between his legs. Enraged by sister-dinted pride and the smarting ankle he could not rub to ease the pain; the tears came to his eyes. Then worse, she sniffed the air above him twice and recognised his shame. "Nechtan-sonnie-son's, ke-keeched his sel-ell, ye mucky, sharny bottie." His sister's knowing chant taunted more rivers from his eyes. Waving in a fury of bucks he threw her off and pushed her roughly on the earth. His temper fired, only a kick would smoor its burning rage. Expectant of this, she smartly rolled aside and getting up she ran from him around the Spaewife's hut. He chased her in a fury of angry words flying blindly ahead of him, unwary that her wiles had strung him into a trap. Too late, he saw her enfolded in his mother's arms. "He fleggit me," she wailed, "you must hae heard him, he said he would cut me with his knife," she sobbed false tears muffled in a mother's body.

"It is have not hae." His mother softly told Arianwyn then turning to him brought scolding to her voice. "Nechtan how could you? Come and apologise, at once." The kind the voice then returned. "And, Arianwyn, the word is frightened, not fleggit. No common people's talk from you, if you please."

The pools of mock helplessness in his sister's eyes had beaten him once again. All the same, he apologised, though his sister did not submit to frightened. The king came up and seeing son's frustration caught a gloat of impish mischief on Arianwyn's face.

"I think I see tears in a mask," he told them. "Now, Arianwyn, where is this knife you say your brother had?" With pouting lips the girl shrugged her shoulders then lowering her chin, she blinked her eyes at him. A big tear formed and streaked dirt down her rosy cheek.

"Nechtan, the boy is a tormentation to Arianwyn," the queen retorted back, "You did not see her anguish or the anger in your son's face!"

"A tormentation? There is such a word?" He looked at his daughter and knew there was such a thing. He let the matter rest. "Come on, they wait," he told them.

Then looking on his daughter's, well-enough-favoured face he got the smile that won him and made her seem all glorious, as it had always. As it never failed to do. As it always in the promise of a bonnie girl within, throat-lumped him. High up onto his tremendous shoulders, rounded as a mighty mountain, he hoisted her up and felt her legs thrown as a torc of warmth, more of worth than gold around his neck. He placed an arm around his son's shoulders and held his wife's queenly hand. Slowly he led them to where the men stood waiting. Arianwyn rode her father's shoulders smiling for forgiveness from her brother; he answered absolution with his own wide smile. Radiant was her face, sun-graced and family-warmed, her father's hair and beard flowed light tickles over her thighs and she drank the pleasure of the moment. Then she saw the waiting men.

"Alpin, brother, welcome. My family bid you welcome."

"A fine lad," Alpin looked at no other, "such as he, one would be minded to foster well, eh-no?" Then like a remembered instructed minding he looked at the mother and the daughter. He took a moment's pondering with narrowed eyes, which widened like a sparked-hint before speaking. "Nia, your daughter has a what, an enticing face and, wha kens, she might be a heart-sunderer when she is older and is that the eye for the men she has, that she gogs at me so?" His question went unanswered. Alpin then pointed to a dark haired boy of thirteen years by his side and continued. "This is my lad." He paused for all to view the boy. "Talorcan, a brother for your son and husband for your girl, lucky her, eh-no?"

Arianwyn, had not listened, she was a universe away looked down at the boy and saw he no Pictish in him. She knew he was her cousin and as such should be her friend. He was dark eyed, well built and his tight-curled hair was night-black so, feeling inquisitive about the boy, Arianwyn slid from her father's back but stayed by his side, jigging impatiently on one leg as she studied the boy. She could tell he was older than either herself or her brother but not too old for romp and tussle in their wild games. Despite standing there in pretence of adulthood, she knew he should have not forgotten what it was to be a child or the desire to be one. She left her father's side and went to stand in front of him and, gazing up at him, she tilted her head to the side and gave him her best open smile. He did not deign to countenance her. At this disappointment, Arianwyn's chin dropped, her mouth pressed on a firm sulk and stopping all the obscure adult prattle from her ears, she set her will on the boy. With jerk of shoulders and chin-lift of the head, she widened her smile then tugged the boy's sleeve and spoke over all the adults.

"Boy, I would wish you to play a game with me. My choice first, mind," she told him. Slowly his head inclined down towards her. He frowned in amazement at her and in that look she knew that she had found someone with whom, like her brother, she could teasel fun at, be teased by and laugh at and with - in the altogether delight of friendship. Then the feeling faded like a bleaching sun, washed out by a passing cloud of grey dispassion. She looked at his grim face and felt a wariness of the boy.

For his part, he determined to look down at her disdainfully though why he knew not, for though she much younger he liked the spirit in her. This gladdened him for he knew the future others mapped for her. A life traced for her and him and though search his mind for what wormed at him about her, he could not place it other than he felt contempt for her. Of this giddy, thought-less lass, he knew more of her destiny than she would ever know herself. "You are but a little girl," he told her, "and I am not the like to play games with such as you."

Rejected and soul-hurt she felt. Nia knew to place an arm around her shoulder. She drew her child close into her side and with mindless fingers, twisted the girl's July-berry hair into coils, and twisted a spiral of motherly assertion with her fingers almost like a meditation. Talorcan followed the twining action with a heavy glower and with scowling eyes as he beheld the way Arianwyn melted into the curve of her mother's hips and met his glare with still-hopeful eye and grin. His smirk obnoxious dulled and dropped into a softening of saddened lips. All this Arianwyn's father saw, understood and stored it in his mind.

"Weel then, surprisingly, she is braw-like thing, your Arianwyn, not pretty mind, but bonnie is a bonnie serves a need for a fair knee-bouncing for those so inclined, like, and there are many, sae I am telt." Alpin placed a gripping-hand below her chin and pulled her face up to him, yet speaking to her father, "And one would not want that tae happen here, dear brother, so think on what Murtholic, told you of my wishes in that respect. Shame to waste a journey do you not think? After all, they take better to it being raised as sister and brother, is that not your experience?"

"There is time yet for such talk." Necthan rebutted and his brother backed off in an offering of palms into the brother's face.

"Aye, no doubt she do better for the standing of a year or two," he spiced his favour, "fill her out a bit and keep her ettling keen."

The throat-stopped disgust for her brother-in-law returned to Nia, though in her firm seal-lipped smile one might not notice as she passed her children to the Spaewife and bid her take then from this place. In her leathery hands, the Speawife gathered the children in and prepared to take them to her place.

"Come on, you stinky, shat-up loon," the Spaewife said and then to Arianwyn, "and you can follow on and all, ye bruckit, aye you heard it, tearfully quine." The children feared they were a trouble caused by a problem that they had inherently devised. An accidental mess that drove the adults into silent shifting eyes. The Spaewife sensed childhood unease. "I hae a tale tae tell the baith o' youse," she told them and the children followed her gladly. She had given the promise of a story and perhaps more beguiling, she had spoken in the fashion of the thirlfowk, a fun but common way the children liked to talk when Druid-priests and such as those who disapproved, like parents, were not around.

They had not taken a step, no not more than three, when the Spaewife turned, looked back and spoke. "The strappin lad is welcome too," she offered. They waiting for no answer coming and went way.

Hankering gripped Talorcan as he watched them traipse away. He felt a longing for the girl once more to grace him with her smile, which she did by turning once again and caught him in his stomach if not by the hand, she offered back to him. A child-hand, yet a free-offered saviour-hand sent as a line to pull a person up and out of a current danger. Her beaming open-face, a light of innocence, a given invitation to one lost in a gloomy, lonely place. Talorcan felt a twist of gut-regret that he had not snatched the summons to play offered by the girl. A girl still only five who had lit a charm within him that once flickered some time in the past though now snuffed out. Forward he ventured a step only to find himself held fast by belt and a snagging father's hand. "Do not, let the puppet string along the maister," his father whispered in his ear. "Mind of what the wizard telt ye o poppets, use their smiles tae wipe their faces with." His father's ale-soured breath caught him in his nose before the father turned the son around. This done, Alpin grinned at Nechtan and his gracious queen, and then in a courtly tenor said, "Come, Talorcan, show your aunt the mark of wolf upon your neck and she may show you the boar." The aghast stamagaster of Nia and Nechtan which stymied their outrage only served to draw his wicked grin, "efter all, my son, you must recall it? Her boar on the outer thigh and the yin that lowped into her."

A stunned silence fell on indecent etiquette like the discovery of mould below the bedding pallet, whilst from on high a laverock raised a praising song to catch all below within the manner of its song. Talorcan began to understand the shortcomings of father were measured in more than jugs. He stepped away from that man who had never learnt the laverock's lesson, to sing for all to focus on but in that lilting song create distraction from where lay hid the chicks masked within the nest.

"Perhaps, Talorcan, would like to hear a tale instead," the queen said, tonelessly flat. Talorcan drew apart and left his father to bluster through apologies and sink the blunder in a round of drinks.

While all that occurred, the Spaewife settled the children her hut, hunkered on her creepie stool and held the children waiting for her revelation. The stench of Nechtanson's inner repulsion was gone, as was the dried and crusty crunch upon his buttocks, magically wiped with no embarrassment by water, dockens and the Spaewife's gentle hand. "Sit down, girl!" the Spaewife pointed Arianwyn to her feet. "Now listen up!" With crossed legs and wondering eyes, supported by their chin-cupped hands, they waited on a hush of expectation for the Spaewife's tale. "Listen up tae the story of Cruithne, first King of Picts!"

"Croon-ne-ya,' the children sounded out the their mighty ancestor's name.

"Lang ago when the warld was full o' wonders, on my breast Cruithne supped when his mither's milk ran dry." The children viewed the empty flaps of knurled and knotted skin that sagged between a wizards' tooth-shaped parting of her grimy gown and disbelieved.

"Yer titties stink!" Nechtanson, succinct for he was a child.

"They dreep like empty pokes." Arianwyn, sympathetic in her tone.

So there then, the lie was out and they waited on the truth. Then as they watched her skin seemed, in their eyes, to change from darkest earth to cream and then purified to a chaste white. Her mucky gown took on a pleasing, harvest-yellow hue and she smelt sweet. Then wonders more, her breasts began to swell and on their rising lilt, the children knelt and placed each a hand upon a curving cup. The milk-bearing orbs felt mother-firm and pliant beneath their squeezing palms. The children witnessed the Spaewife, young and fine and each confirmed the orbs could feed Cruithne as a bairn and settled in agreement to fall into the enchantment of this marvellous woman's tale.

"Aye, so here is a success to creation and all imagination and now youse listen up and ken that upon these very paps did, Cruithne, High King of the Picts, for ower a hunder years and mair, place his toothless gums and suck his chompin sook. Here is his tale. Lang syne in days when Pictavia was but aine, the truth lived in the land and a' was balanced perfect peace. A secret was then kent, which though not forgotten now is like a child's peed bed, not welcome nor spaiked aboot."

"Arianwyn peed the bed last nicht!"

"Aye weel but, sae did ye!"

"The nicht ye'll baith sleep-pee again, think on it." They did and screwed their noses on it. "Back to the tale, bed-pishers. Noo, dae ye no' want ken, what the secret wis?" They nodded, three times quickly in accord. "It was simply this, the female ruling in the land brought bitter, bitch times, the male ruling in the land, brought rough and grasping times. The trick was to blend the female and the male until, for the guid of all the land, fowk and their blessed being, they were neither one nor other."

"How? Would they hae willies and paps?" asked Arianwyn, mouth agape.

"No, and sneck yer mooth lassie. See, a true male finds it hard to be a woman, and the ither way around. There are mixings of other hues, although mind you the way o it isnae tae be called wrong. But mair o that anither time, shut yer mooth lassie." She waited until she had. "No, if the queen and king lived in agreement, a balance of respect, a love for what was true, then that would work for the good of everyone. Into such a world was Cruithne born and grew to be a mannie."

"Was he fine and strong like my Da?"

"Aye just like your Da, my lad." Just than a shadow blocked the door and they turned and saw Talorcan. Blinded by the sun he only could make out three figures in the darkness of the room.

"Come awa ben my braw lad and sit ye down," the Spaewife said, "the tale is but begun." The crossing of the lintel bar was an action he could not achieve. The young girl's swivelled head displayed such an eagerness for him with her eyes that he thought himself already in the room, only to look back and see his body held at the doorpost where a presence at his back or some image in his mind kept him back. Before the tears of fury reached his eyes, he smashed each palm on both doorposts, turned around and left.

"Why did he dae tha-aat?" wondered Arianwyn aloud.

"Do you mean to catch flies, young lady?" The Spaewife asked Arianwyn in the formal language. "Shut your mouth."

The girl kept it open and blurted out. "Aye, but A wanted the lad tae come ben an sit by me. Why did he no, why did he bang the post like he dinna like me? Ah-aa likit him weel eneuch."

"He is confused and frightened with himself," the Spaewife answered, closing Arianwyn's mouth with her fingers she continued, "but all will be well if the match is meant."

"Eh? Is that part of the story?" Nechtanson asked.

"Aye, for in time Cruithne married Raisa, as bonnie a quine as you meet upon a fine springtime. As fine as you should have my lad, though no as swarthy."

"Me!"

"Whit be swarthy, Spaewife? Dirty, mucky like oor Necthansonnie's dowp?"

"Now mind your tongue young lass, bottom or dock is what I would like to hear from you. And as for swarthy, it is a better look than ere you will ever have." A mutual exchange of stuck out tongues and giggles between the sister and the brother, settled them once more into the tale. "Such a match them wis, the aine untae the tither twined as they was yin! And everything was braw. Then came the rub, the queen couldna bear a bairn."

"What would happen to Pictavia when they died?"

"Exactly, my laddie! Weel, years past, mair nor ten, that is every finger on baith hands," the children wiggled fingers in each other's face and giggled, "and that is a wheen o' years! Baith Cruithne and Raisa grew auld. The High King sent for me and said, Nourice, gang fetch a quinnie for me tae jab ma spurtle intae and see if that will seed me a bairn. These were not nice words, so do not repeat them, for when Cruithne spoke them, there was hunger in that winter, and we would not wish that to happen would we?"

"Whit," the question forming in heads shaking side to side, "did ye dae?" The open mouth of Arianwyn was sneck-shut by the Spaewife's fingers.

"Juist what I had tae, lassie. I went to find a quine that would help to bring the balance back and in a ring o' yellow broom, I found her. A bonnie lass, a near growed-woman as fair as onie bloom upon a hawthorn bush and lips of red as yon bush bears in autumn. Hair as black as the raven's back and een as green as a glade o' gress, a richt lost love-dust an nae mistake."

"Youse gotten green eyes!" Observed Arianwyn, squinting up at the Spaewife with her pointed interruption. "Whit's a lost love-dust, Spaewife?'

"I ken I hae green eyes and I ken ye canna wheesh up and listen!" A little hurt and with her brother scolding her for interrupting, Arianwyn did not follow her question up. "Sic a bonnie quine she wis an mair nor that, for she possessed a voice sae sweet when singin," her voice became a gloaming stillness, "she could beguile a birdie frae a tree richt intae her haund." She held a quite moment where she let herself fall enter through the children's eyes. "Noo, did I no say that sae vera saft like so youse could picture her with the birdie in her hand ?"

The children's nods agreed they could.

"Ach but then, puir Garah, for that wis he name, aa alane was she with nae minnie nor nae faither, sae I fetchit her tae the king, and when he ogled her, why he itched for her michty fine. Then in nine changes of the moon, a lad was born and they called him, Cailtram."

"So all was well again?"

"Ye'd think, but no, my lad. Things got worser. In aa this time Raisa changit. She began to be jealous of the bonnie lass that besotted the king. The queen dabbled with druid priests and knowing-women and some say things darker than yon. She sold a little of herself so she could hae a child. Then she bore a boy, not yin! Nae, not yin but ... seiven!"

"Seiven?"

"Aye, seiven! Show me your fingers, now!" Then she showed them what seven was like. "Weel, Raisa needled at Cruithne to be rid of Garah and her son. The mair she prickit, the mair the hunger in the land grew. Then Cruithne lost the itch for Garah as having been all over her, he got itchy for other women. Men dae that."

"But I get itchies, Speawife."

"Dae ye noo? Dae ye really, lassie? Weel mind no scratch them or ye will end up like mony hae, a scarty lot wi a mess o poxy kenmerks."

"Kenmerks?" the boy asked.

"Aye, kenmerks, marks that others know you by, for good or ill and which for you two will it be?" The children bit their lips and set an up-down nodding motion into rapid drive. "Weel? Which yin, guid or seek?"

"Guid, guid!"

"Exact. That is braw an juist mind oot for the itchies, the pair o youse. Noo then, the ettle that Cruithne had gotten, sent him in a scratch awa frae Garah, no that she had dain onything wrang, the puir wee quine, or deservit to be sae treated. Then, ae day a cleg bit Cruithne on his dock. There's mair an' a cleg will bite yer erse if ye dinna get rid o' the lass and sniffin rounaboot for ither wimmen! ... Now, who dae ye think said that?"

"Was it Raisa?"

"Yon truly is the truth held there, my lad, for that it was. Weel, Cruithne got intae a sudden rage, went tae Garah and said, ... Tak yer houghin sprog an' mak shair ye hough the houghen aff!

"You swore!" Nechtanson admonished the Spaewife affronting his is finger at her.

"Not I! Nane in this room must ever sweir, sae mind it." She saw their child-lips open on a but of protest. "No I never swore, it was the High King Cruithne that did it, then he ran awa. Like they ayeways dae when they ken they hae dain bad."

"And only bad men say bad words," Arianwyn told her, seriously.

"Ye hae it true. Only those confused and frightened with themselves swear." She stopped and glued Arianwyn with her intent. Held fast within the fixing gaze, the small girl blinked not once, not even twice, the lassie blinkit thrice.

"Shall I finish the story?" asked the Spaewife to her captive charges.

"Yes, do!" a rush of rapid nodding heads agreed then waited breathless on stilled, wide waiting eyes.

"Well, that was when the dark days came to Pictavia. Enemies sprang up all around, disease and pestilence and lust and hate, hunger and writhing death. In vain the Druids began to set up rings of stones, to make a muttering of word to chant and then, to conform the fowk, they brought their needles an' woad, and began to tattoo..."

"Look! I hae a tattoo, look!"

The Spaewife, interrupted in her flow of words, smiled sweetly at the boy. Sadness came over her, which collapsed her bosom in front of them in recognition of their young and unknowing ways. The Spaewife spied the designed blemish on the spotless skin that in old age would smudge into a mush of blue and flesh and separate, divide the boy from all others of this world. With narrowed face, she looked to Arianwyn, like a warning, heaved her bosom up on a mighty inward breath, and continued with her tale.

" ...to tattoo and claim them. Yes, in vain the knowing-women, came with cutting blades, sought to cut the place between the legs of noble women and make them low before the one who would master them and cast out the joy of love."

The children's eyes glazed over, they fidgeted on the hard and earthen floor. The Spaewife gave a best-laid sigh and returned to storytelling tongue.

"Ach, a' that mutilation tae nae avail!" The child eyes lit up again. "For, Cruithne died a tarrible deeth. His inside swelt until his gut spilt open on a reek o' humfed shite! ... Noo, dinna screw yer faces up like yon, the wind micht change and aye, whare wad youse be? A torn bannock for a face! Aye, that is better now, ma bonnie bairns, for sure. Onyway, his sons split yin Pictavia into seiven paltry kingdoms, all divided in opinion o' ilk ither. And that's the end of that!"

"Ooooch!" said both children.

"That canna be the end!" protested Nechtanson.

"Why not? Is this world any different from the picture at the end?"

"But, what about Garah and Caltietrammie? What happened tae the baith o' them?" asked Arianwyn.

"Cail-tram." she taught the girl the name. "Aye, there aye a wee bit wonder left in ilka tale that's telt! Weel, Garah took her bairn and traivelled tae the west. Oot beyond high Dundurin, beyond the slopes o' the mountains by Loch Herm, until she found the wild-mountain thyme and stoppit. It was there she raised, Cailtram in harmony and peace. They kent nae hunger. They kent ilk ithers love." While the children bathed in the glow of this perfect ending, she added a pinch in the words their parents used, a twist of piquancy. "Some say they are there to this day, that now the story's yours."

It was a normal way to end a tale. The boy and girl were young,

That night, the men stayed around the horns of ale where, Alpin quaffed three for one and in the staleness of a dry-mouthed morning they wept their sad goodbyes and Nechtan's son was gone.
4

"Held separate in this environment without charity other than that caught beneath the chilled-wind..."

ARIANWYN THE GIRL

A sharp, distasteful ordure filled the air and Nechtan knew the old crone stood close behind him. He lowered his head and placing a covering hand over his nose and mouth, considered what the sharp-toothed, spiritual deputation had demanded from him.

"I will not have it!" Nia called out. Nechtan looked at his lovely wife and saw her bleached delicacy entreating him and on this as on every day, he bemoaned that evil night. He loathed the memory of his drunken bravado before the warriors on her birthing night those seven years ago. For her, an oath taken to know no woman was the least honour he could give for her held dearer than life itself. He put an arm around his daughter, whom he did not regret, and thought of his son now fostered in far of Athflodda. A year had passed since his son had left.

His druid wizard addressed him once again. "The princess is of age, we have the pricking needles and the woad, and her thigh should bear the mark."

"We have the cutting knives," the knowing woman told him once again, "the princess is of age, the circumcision must be made."

"And will not have it!" He felt his wife's imploring hand, heavy on his arm. "Think on, Nechtan and consider what it did to me, what it took from us!"

Arianwyn turned her face to him and the firelight flickered over her unmarred skin. He knew druid priest and knowing-women would feel spite and conspire to conjure enmity against him but he knew that he was king. Moreover, there was one way out. "I cannot be expected to force a child to this, it is she who must decide." A decision that pleased few. To the religious it was a mystifying twisting snake knot to unravel - why ask a child, a girl at that, to voice opinion? For Nia, it was the throat grip yet again, an anxiety for her daughter, not near enough to influence, and Nia knew she could not pressurise her the child for all to hear and expose herself as a suppressor of the holy writ. The Spaewife's stench grew strong, he thought he saw whisper in his daughter's ears but no one appeared to see or hear and so he let it pass. A moment passed and yet one more, the princess opened up her mouth and paused before the she spoke.

"Why, do you think, should I have this done?"

"Simply to keep you pure, princess, by this one holy offering to your future king," the priestess evoked hushed and mysterious entry into a world unknown, "you are promising that you will no longer be ruled by passion, but by this token, yield yourself to a commission, from you to him, as a sign of your service to him." Her venerated face embellished the mystical magic with tantalising smiles and gestures that opened and closed as if to hypnotise. None of which hid the fact. Arianwyn was going to get parts of her cut off and the benefit was for some-him, as yet unknown, to whom she had to be subservient. The knowing-woman recognised the signs of rejection in the princess, for most chieftain's daughters reacted the same. "You are too young to understand this rite and you needs must accept our wise guidance. We are versed in what must be done and how to do it sacredly." This was not the time to talk of pain but rather duty. "Surely you do you want to risk upsetting the Gods? Think of the thirlfowk, do not they deserve a good protector as King and High Father? You, yourself, must wish to remain pure for such a one." The stick of duty administered there would be a titbit for the girl. "As the Druid's wish to bless you with the thigh-tattoo, this cut is our gift to you. It will turn you from your excitable moods and fit you out to be a queen - one demure and pure.

"You know my name," the girl crackled, "what more is purer?"

"It's only a name," a sniff came from the woman's nose. "This is a sacrifice far greater than any name."

Only a name and a sniff - if she had not chosen to use those three words within that one sentence, the High Knowing-Woman may have won the princess round. Or perhaps it was the sniff that did it. In that place and time, surrounded by the pressure of wise adults with all her other teachers looking on, Arianwyn had felt herself back-sweat and knee-buckle to her future duties for the thirlfowk, land and the type of girl expected for a king. They had all needled away at her self-perception, craved at her youthful simplicity and cut her deeply, making her feel that she was wrong to refuse this rite of passage that they offered to her as function for good of some man. However, she had been well versed and knew it as practice that had almost destroyed her life at birth and that of her mother's. She could not see them, Nia and the Speawife, but she knew that they were behind her. In front of her was the pain of lip-served slavery. Within her was an unquenchable fiery nature to find and be she. "Na-na, it is not for me and why would anyone want tha-at?"

She may have thought she had told her, vigour and firm finality of the princess's decree might have only pinched them at first for she was only a girl. However, her regal glare worked itself into an overpowering grouch. The implications rocked and reeled the clerics for, behind that slip of a play-acting girl tipping sectarian authority with her thigh flick, lined up the strength of a father, the protection of a mother and the nonconformity of a Speawife. Two of whom they knew for the temporal powers they held and the other so spiritual, that they feared her above all else. Grumbling, the druid priests and knowing-women left on disapproving feet and by the door the wizard turned to speak. Nechtan shrugged apologetic shoulders and buttered him with a sympathetic smile to silence him and so the wizard left.

The choice had been Arianwyn's and Nechtan felt relieved for everyone had heard, the thirlfowk would acquiesce for she had listened to the case for the procedure before rejecting it. Secretly, the people felt the practice was an abomination at the least and at the most, distinctly weird. Nechtan knew the Spaewife was behind him but her stench had dissipated. He smiled at the weapon trainer. "How does my daughter fare with the sword and spear?"

"They are like an extension of her arm, my lord," Nechtan was told, "her parry is strong and taken close to body, her slice would cleave a man from shoulder to the navel. Her throw is long and true and though it may weaken when she grows to womanly form, her sword arm will stay true to her."

"Now, harpist, how is her play with the harp?" the assessment of the child continued.

Thawen, their group leader was twelve. A girl with childhood running into adulthood and adding to her confusion, she was a feisty catcher-to-the-eye and an earthy-natured tantaliser. A down-turned lippy lass, aye ready for an up-turned laugh, Thawen was not one to go unnoticed by the adults, not one to miss adult comment and construe it in a twist of half understandings, for she was still a child. A young person who dared her peer group to know her, learn what she thought she knew - how to play with fire and not burn. All childhood is immortality, all situations sprung from well-I-would-do-this and get away. To Arianwyn, younger by three years, this girl was a magnetic impulse as powerful as the pull of youth.

Arianwyn had another friend, Galam, son of Taran of Culteuchar. He was a member of their group for he liked the close and secret talks held by the company of girls. For the rough ways of the boys, he had no liking. The girls accepted him as his nature was close to theirs, allowing him to set their hair in plaits or interweave their silken strands with flowers and listening for the clues his tales would offer. Tales to initiate them into the nature of the other boys they would wonder and watch from afar. Given by his father as a foster boy to Nechtan, the king had doubts about the temperament of Galam. These he kept to himself for Arianwyn liked Galam. He was redheaded with a pleasant, ruddy face and though just older by a year, he overlooked the princess only by half a head. Though he had no boyish roughness in his well-built body, Galam defied his outwardly timid self and could hold his own with any other at the arms school when challenged. Arianwyn strived to be the equal of him in that field of swords, ettling to be the better of him as she had done with her brother. However, when swords in scabbards stored, all was seen as fun.

One day of late spring sunshine, they watched the teuchats swoop and soar on their deceiving wings and heard the whaups long, longing, cry to the returning spring. On her command, Thawen raced them down to the paddock; she had something to show and tell, the black stallion standing restless in its field. Only a few flies bothered him in the clear spring light. They saw his raven-black coat gleam, the hairs on his muzzle beaded with drops of sweat, his pricking ears, his upper lip curled up exposing upper teeth as he scented the air and smelt the mares that bothered him.

"It cannot be a big as that, how would it fit?" One girl asked and they chased each other's laughter beyond the paddock and to the sheltered dip surrounded by the emerging yellow broom. They lay down on the grass and in the sheltered warmth, giggled to the sky. Some rolled over to watch the gloss-black beetles crawling up their cliffs of sandy soil only to fall back down onto their backs have to start again. With their fingers, Arianwyn and Galam tipped them up their weary slopes to help them on their way. Thawen looked on intently.

"Galam," Thawen grabbed his shoulder and turned him round, "show us what you have, I may show the paps beneath my dress." Declining this request, he drew his knees below his chin and held them fixed between his arms. "Och, Galam," the older girl coaxed again, "Come on, if you want to stay part of our sisterhood. A look for a finger up is my final offer." The girls giggled as, to her shame, did Arianwyn. Divided from all support and alarmed Galam wracked his brain, searching for a way to avoid becoming ostracised. Who then would be his comfort, help, and friend? However, if not his age, he knew others who faced life as he did.

"Come, I'll show you something else but be quiet, we do not want to be seen." The mischievous girls shared smirks and nudges and followed where he went. He showed them where, dressed as only that man did, Morleo made his water and having at least verified if not approved, the group went back to the dip to ruminate on the sight that Galam had shown them.

"No stallion there then!" Thawen told them what they knew "Then maybe the stink of pish or the act of pissing makes it bashful. Or maybe it's just not up to what we imagine it to be." She stood a hand on her hip then had a wicked teasing thought and sat. "Mind you, I wonder how Galam knew bright-man would be there in the first place? Have you been spying, had you watched Morleo before? Was that a secret-men pish-together place? I wonder why you wanted to spy it out?" Before these blows upon blows, which hit targets at first high and then low, low, low, Galam buckled. And, as if he was trying to hide himself from the pester of eyes around him; he buried his head into his knees. A learnt tactic when boots do fly. It left you black and blue but boiling in resentment until they tired, slipped back to tongue abuse and finally slunk away, which Thawen did not for she was the relentless female and of sterner stuff. "Well, anyway, I think you will have to do better than that," she told him, "to stay in our sisterhood." They waited, exchanging wicked smiles, waiting for the testing challenge she had in store for him but she turned on Arianwyn. "Now, prissy-trouty-face princess, I think you need a dare as well."

Arianwyn shut her mouth and exchanged frightened gulps with Galam. They both knew the bitching grip Thawen held over all of them. Daily would she pick a mark and turn the rest against the target, fully knowing that their fear for her would back her up or jitter them into a thrill of frenzied anxiety or excitement, if not the target, when her ultimate sanction would be evoked. A punishment only to be executed in total seclusion from the adult world, a forfeiture of personal mystery that Arianwyn had borne no witness to, the lifting of the skirt to the exposure of the group or worse, from hearsay, Thawen's private consideration. What happened at the front of the girl whose back they watched, on those rare occasions, the others worried the princess with a speculation that ranged from a pleasure-maybe, to a dread-shame not talked about.

"Arianwyn, you will find out for us." Arianwyn blushed and wished she to be elsewhere, hidden in the woods where she did not need to hear the dare. "I challenge you to bundle with Galam and learn what happens in the night." Thawen had trapped them; however, Arianwyn felt a thrill. All the same, she was not about to be pushed about by Thawen.

"No."

"No what?"

"I'll not do it." Infuriated at her refusal, Thawen pulled her by the arms, splayed her facedown on the ground and smacked her bottom twice. "Ouch!" The princess cried but through her indignity, she made it plain - as the big girl rubbed a there-there-now softly on the pliable, plump flesh where the hand had stung - that she would never submit to this exploitation. "You cannot make me." The tearful princess repeated.

"You think?" Thawen asked and flipped her on her back. "What is this then?" The older girl's hand was up the princess's skirt. The girl's breath tasted musty-yeasty in Arianwyn's mouth. "Shall we show and tell but this time, let everyone have a turn?"

She felt that place invaded and, in front of all to see, ruined as her private spot of comfort and yet she did not raise a hand to stop it, but rather felt compliant to its wishes and a desire for Thawen's fingers. Then her mind fought back. "Right, alright, Thawen, stop, I will do it." She yielded. Yet cat-with-a-bird and smiling, Thawen teased on that spot a little longer and Arianwyn wept salty tears of bitter shame to her side.

"We will do it." Galam said pulling at the arm that abused. It resisted his tug. "Just leave her. Can you not see she does not like it?" Determinedly he pulled again and this time the arm relented, drew back the hand and shook itself free from Galam's clutch. Thawen rubbed those fingers at her nostrils and sniffed loudly. "Pity," she declared, "nice bit spot you have there, Trouty, did you all see it?" None admitted if they had as the princess scampered to a corner, tucked her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. She viewed a glaze of fearful eyes upon her.

Nechtan looked at his daughter. Reliable reports had filtered to him, informing him of what the girls had been doing that day and it did not tally with the web-like stories, spun before the meal around the fire. He knew about the forward nature of Thawen and wished his daughter did not keep her company and look up to her as she did. That female was knowing beyond her years, too willing to the approaches of older men who had mothers, wives and daughters of their own, but demeaned themselves on seeing Thawen's robust appearance and spoke rudely of her as early ripe and for plucking. He knew Thawen was now less than a year younger than his wife had been when his father set them together. Nechtan glowered into the glowing coals and knew this side of his daughter's nature and he knew her skill in masking. She was still uncorrupted, she had a goodness in her heart and yet a wild passion there also. Nechtan knew he would have to guide her, provide her with a match to suit and one that would contain her. He had watched Arianwyn wield a sword, could see the growing strength she had and knew, in time, she would be of an independent mind. Such minds refused ruling or reining in and he had to let her grow for she may be a queen one day. He would bide his time, be patient and understanding of his daughter. Mistakes would happen and for now, at least, she was still too young for such worldly mishaps set to trip precocious ones like Thawen. He gave a sigh.

"What were you thinking?" Nia asked him. "Such a weary sigh, my dear." Her hand reached out to his. He placed his free hand on top of hers and smiled kindly on her grace for him. "So what do you think?" she asked more firmly. At once, he knew he had missed something and saw the keen eyes of Arianwyn and Galam on him.

"Of what?"

"Arianwyn and Galam wish to lie bundled together tonight, did you not hear a word of that?"

Nechtan wondered why he had such a testing family. What would come of this? He looked at his daughter's eyelash flutter, her pleading eyes, the round mouth pretty-pout and saw he must be firm, some things had to be denied and not entered on. He studied his wife. Was she right to think this request was born of childish innocence or was it just his manly hankerings made him so suspect? He viewed Galam and considered what he knew of him, what the others had reported and though they were only unsubstantiated opinions, he played the odds. "So be it, Nia, but bind them good and tight."

The next day, Arianwyn could not report any gossip back to the girly group. Thawen scorned them. "What, no rods up your back come morning, princess? Nought to mak yer mouth mair trouty?" Their child-bundling had tickled in the throat at first, they admitted, but in time, they fell asleep, and as Thawen's remark was well beyond the sight of all the others, it did not hit. Besides, they had done the thing that she had dared them and now, Arianwyn, did not feel the need to please or fear Thawen and became content to be conforming to the wishes of her parents. For a while, all was pleasant.

Arianwyn supped her porridge, glowering across at Galam as if the spoon she had been landed with was far too short \- Let him think! - she thought and then returned to chew the gritty parts of the plan she was bringing to the boil.

Thawen had fallen. Taken by persons unknown and her acquisitiveness of the world of lusty men. The girly group was shocked and leaderless so Arianwyn, a princess, felt it her right and duty to take the throne. The right there was, but throneship had to be won. Inspired in her campaign, she informed the girls that she possessed the second sight. They were in awe and deference but demanded proof. Therefore, there was no option, her plan must not fail for if it did, she would lose face and become forever known as, Trouty. She finished her porridge, made an excuse and left. There was a nagging doubt working away at her digestion for she had overheard her father talk of wolves within the woods.

Arianwyn passed where Thawen lived, hoping to hurry on by unseen but the girl was there as was her fatherless baby boy. Awkwardness fell on young Arianwyn, compelling her avoidance of the girl and to disdainfully parade on by. Then an inner voice cautioned her, so she stopped her before the girl and child. To cold-shoulder someone from her life was not Arianwyn's way but, though Thawen watered a smile and returned her greeting. Both felt embarrassed by this reminder of their naive times and there seemed few words to be found in exchange between a pair whose paths had grown apart. Arianwyn sought to find their footpath once again. "Who is the father?" She asked. The grimace of Thawen told her she should not expect an answer.

"No one you would know, Trouty. No short-ersed Pict for sure. Not like your Galam." She squinted at Arianwyn and curled her upper lip. A snorting sound issued out from her nose. "Phiff! Tell me this, princess, have you or he not yet found out where he is going to like to keep his dirk between the courses, so to speak?"

"Speak plainly, what do you mean by that?" Thawen's words were too oblique, taken from the world beyond childhood and unknown to Arianwyn. However, she scented an implication that threw credulity in her face, enough to make her blush.

"Plain said as plainly put up my little blusher, but then I see you are still the eternal unploughed pasture. Is that not so Arianwyn? A virgin landscape, afraid to take the coulter and be ploughed. Well, do you not know you cannot be seeded unless you are furrowed and right well harrowed in. So there is a lesson for you to take along as you walk on your prudish way and leave me here, Arianwyn."

What cost here was paid and for whom the lesson meant? "I would still be friends with you, Thawen." They held a weighed silence between themselves. A sadness moved over Thawen's eyes but her voice was hard and rough.

"Hough off, Trouty," she swore. Her whole faced frowned, the chin drooped towards her chest as if the bad will in her words were too heavy to hold it up. With Thawen, clouds always rolled by and so, tear drop shoulders rippled as she chuckled to herself and raised her cheeky gleaming eyes. "Och, on your way Arianwyn, best not hang around with me. Mind you, I would like you to think kindly on me." Arianwyn offered no hard feelings. "And our special day, my little love-dust, do not go forgetting it, do you hear?" Thawen winked, "I should have changed the dare and we might have both liked it."

"What is a love-dust?"

"Something I never waited for and now I have lost." Was all the answer given.

Confused and conscience shadow-clouded with all she heard - none of it so masked that she could not recognise herself in it - Arianwyn parted with her own edges a little fretted for the mixed measure of the day that Thawen bade her recall. A little unsure of herself, sorry for losing the link with Thawen and now wary of what burned in men to wish to draw once chirpy-flighty Thawen to them, only to singe destruction on her wings. There was a niggle here; a lip-bite in how to face such latent threats, for the never failing mischief-twinkling glad eye and happy-pleased-you-like-me cute-smile had failed her latter friend. For that, Arianwyn was sorry but all the more determined that her flame would not be so simply snuffed and that anything as sure as fate should not be left to chance. This day was hers to seize, tomorrow would reveal her to all and for such an enterprise, Necthanson's games had taught her well for though she sensed fear, his ploys had taught her to calculate and stifle danger. The learning began back then, for now the task ahead should set in the future.

In that he covered his body with cloth, Morleo dressed. Yet, such dress as never befitted man. Herb-dyed in bright, mixed coloured as would make a milk maid blush - to have it dawning on her body to open-veiled remarks about her virtue - and of a flowing length to pass for woman's length, unsuited for any gait other than that short steps could make. No man, who called himself a man would, wear the likes of what Morleo wore. Well what of that? Morleo was an asset to all for did he not own the best milch-cow in all the land? Sired only at Morleo's allowance, and then only prized bulls serviced her with her horns so wide and large. The calves she bore were in great demand and her milk, ambrosia, providing the best butter and cheese that Arianwyn ate in the palace hall. Morleo gifted his cow the name of Erc and reared her like a pet. Anybody could lead docile Erc wherever his or her hand would lead the cow. Arianwyn reached to lead the cow beyond where Morleo made his water. Earlier, from her mother, Arianwyn learned that Morleo was a good man and felt upset that she had spied on him that day and hoped her ploy would not cause him any grief or harm to his cow but her needs must and they were the means at hand. So, Arianwyn coaxed Erc into the woods towards a tangle of branch and brier where, taking a stick, she thumped the cow's rump and startled her into a run. Erc's horns caught thick in a mat of branch and brier.

"Where have you been?" Galam asked her when she returned.

"Nowhere, you need know." She sat to wait.

Time of waiting, not long, was the commencement of, throughout the day, much stomach and gut gripping which reached a fright of near accident when the call of wolves announced their presence in the depths of the woods. Shiver-chills shot though hair, fear up her back as in fearful panic Arianwyn clenched herself. Galam looked puzzled as she held herself. Forcing the unwanted motion back in a scissor-legged dash to the door, she cried to those outside about their business. "Listen up, I have seen it!" The urgency now overruled crass body function. "A cow is in the wood and trapped! Hark the wolves but fear not, for I have been shown where she is!"

All stopped on bemused wonderment of the girl and stumped about the scurry fuss the Princess Arianwyn was prancing on about. The wolves rumble-howled, indicated to her that they had found the place to feed. Arianwyn grabbed a spear, fresh from smiddy-working, imploring all to follow which, stirred into action by her panic and the cry of wolf they did. Arianwyn ran past Morleo pleading he should follow for the life of Erc. On her name he did, taking a knife and ripping his dress from foot to thigh to help him run the better. First, to reach the place, Arianwyn saw the entangled cow with its wide and panicked eye, fear-white and focused on the fang-danger from behind. With flying hooves, Erc sent horn-hard warnings into the faces of those prowling snarls. Erc struggled against overwhelming odds; a family-pack of wolves aided by their ally, rampant-hunger. The lead wolf approached to latch its bite into Erc's unprotected flank when Arianwyn let fly her spear. It pierced the wolf and threw it back into the others of the pack, its dying yelp slunk all the other wolves into the woods with pressed backed ears, curled-under tails. However, fury and hunger rallied the pack which, sizing up the unarmed girl, refused obedience to her flapping arms and renewed their hunger-urge. Fear bade her to run but she had brought it to this spot and had to face it. She stood uneasy but firmly resolved to not be scared. Just then, the adults arrived and before their numbers, the wolves fell back on low and famine-driven gastric growls back into desolation, deep within the woods. Joy brought tears flowing from the eyes of Morleo and loud was his praise for the princess who had saved his milk cow. All lauded her but Arianwyn felt low and excused herself behind a bush.

That evening, when all the excitement had ebbed and Nechtan had heard yet once more the tale of his brave "seeing" girl with the wondrous throwing arm, he decided to pass comment. "Stomach better?" She grimaced a weak smile at her father's question. "So, Wolves?" Her father's tone made Arianwyn bristle for there was an inflection in his voice that made her disquiet. Time passed as her father let her dangle on the thread she had spun that day. His eye held steady on her seeking for the thread to snap but she, who had faced wolves, held her nerve and returned a cloaking stare. A defiance that her father knew he had to break.

"I expect I shall need to organise a hunt, this wolf pack cannot remain in land now. What injury such a hunt will cause one can only imagine and all those slain wolves. So sad, think you not, child?" The food she chewed lost its taste, the swallow difficult and lumpy. "Then worse than all that, poor Morleo with a good dress ruined and he would have been wrecked to have lost his fine milk cow. As would we all." Nechtan bit into a lump of tangy cheese. "It was indeed a blessing it was not a bear, the things that bears can do I hope you never have to learn like some do, the hard way. Like Thawen for example." The mention of Thawen was obscure to the young princess, as were those warning glances given from her mother to her father, other than she knew her mother was warning him about somewhere he was stupidly going that he should for example, not realising Thawen had never encountered a bear. So, Arianwyn relaxed and thought the threat had gone. "Yet," he continued to seek a way to unravel the deceit he knew was there. "How came Erc to be there, stuck fast within the tangle of the wood? Everyone knows how Morleo is so watchful of with the best milk cow in all Fothuirtabaicht" He bit again into his cheese, she had to wait until he swallowed. "We all would miss her fine cheese."

"It is as well," her mother contributed, " that Arianwyn knew of her plight." Inexperience made her reason for Arianwyn. Mother had brought the seal onto the story and she relaxed. Quiet unaware her father saw her ease as cause to work more snipping of her yarn.

"So, Arianwyn how was it you knew the danger that Morleo's cow was in?" Arianwyn could not answer for she had not the wiles to give a convincing reply but her mother helped her out once more.

"She had a sight."

"Och aye!" he sighed, "a sight." Then paused to let his daughter twirl and twist in the shadows of his words. "When was it Arianwyn, you got this thing ... the sight?" She felt the heat of the fire and glanced at Galam. He was no help, smiling at her discomfort but yet again, her mother sent her a thread of hope.

"It is not unknown, she is blessed, the sight must have been a light always in her. Arianwyn is young and this power has only started to grow to her awareness. Now leave the girl be. I know you, never content with what you have. You would think it was enough that the cow is safe. The wolves will be chased and you have Arianwyn to thank but no, you need to pin-tease for the skelve that is not there."

"This you think?" Nechtan asked. Then not wishing to upset his wife, on pain of more than eyebrow disapproval, he left the matter dangling there, unconvinced but consigned into his memory of the day. This much Arianwyn knew he would.

The next day the girly group met in praise and admiration their new leader, Arianwyn, who basked within the glory, which shone upon her, a triumph that one could rip from under her feet if he so choose. Galam saw her happiness and knowing, for all her pride and pampered ways she would never terrorise the others into an abasement of embarrassment, kept her secret safe. She was grateful to him; it drew her closer to him.

"Sweetness and light was aye her way but noo nae sae donsie as in sick, dull an stipit. Noo, she is gottan a donsie look aboot her, like neat, kens her mind and saucy." The talk of the thirlfowk at that time of Princess Arianwyn of Forternn.

In the summer of Arianwyn's thirteenth year, Nia watched as her daughter, stripped to the waist in a spar with Galam, the girl's high swung sword a sun-glint blade and in that moment, frozen for as long as she had memory, Nia saw that Arianwyn was losing that which kept her in childhood. Arianwyn's age matched, the queen's own passage to sweet enticements that so quickly turned into bitter bile. Salty water filled the rims of Nia's eyes for she feared for her daughter's prospects.

Later that day, a puzzled Arianwyn found herself in front of the Spaewife. Someone that she liked though could have incontrovertibly and easily fallen out with on that day. The old woman stripped the protesting child outside her cell and under the sky for all who wished to witness. She lifted the girl's arms, peered between her legs, rubbed knotted, leathery fingers across her tingling nipples and examined the inside of her clothes. She found feathery hairs below the freckle, buds at her chest and dried yellow-brown stains on her clothing. The Spaewife then told Arianwyn of her future.

Thereafter, Arianwyn stayed top-clothed and under clothed when sparring with Galam. Galam sensed the alteration in Arianwyn and knew of his difference overtaking him and, unsure of both, would have stopped sparring with the princess but she insisted that they should. He had grown head and shoulders over but willing to yield in the fight but for Arianwyn, enough was not enough. He soon learnt to hold the match to her for if he fell, she would jump upon him in delight astride hips below his waist and dare him to throw her off him. To prove her point she would pin him fast with pelvic thrusts, pinch him between her legs into the hardened earth until the waters welled to his puzzled, pleading eyes. This was not the reaction Arianwyn felt she wanted at any time.

5

"Look not to anything here spoken, written, set in ritual, formula of prayers or lettered in amendments to man's understanding for it will not help you."

THE LESSONS OF THE SPAEWIFE

Nia encouraged Arianwyn to spend more time visiting the Spaewife. The child was not adverse to that for as long as the had been memory there was the Spaewife. The old woman was now so small that Arianwyn seemed like a tower over her but held a foundation-strength, ancient, unspoken and fascinating for the girl. Few people would visit the Spaewife unless very ill, for she smelt of acrid earth and urine that caught at the back of throats. However, once inside her dark cell she changed for Arianwyn's eyes, filling her nose with the smell of violets in spring, her rough skin becoming feather-soft and the matted greasy hair blown into a silken spindrift on a breeze. Or so it seemed. The very air inside that hut was an imagining of spells and cantrips where the Spaewife (Arianwyn only knew her by this name) would spin tales and bring forth swaths of herbs for the girl to learn the names and uses of by heart.

"I should tell you the tale of Tammazult," the Spaewife said one day when they were together in her hut, "for you will need to know it."

"Tammazult? Who is that and why do I need to know?" The name excited her and the reason intrigued for there was nothing mundane about the Speawife, an adult that knew children, brooked no bad behaviour from them yet was willing to let them expand towards limitless proportions. The Speawife seldom instructed for recall, but with her as a teacher, she guided Arianwyn in safe direction towards self-understanding and certain knowledge.

"Tammazult is a name you will remember, so here is the start. Far from here in the dry, heavy heat of a dusty land, for there are such places, lived and perhaps still lives, a King called Obeth, but only king in name because Rome held him in a grip around his balls."

"Rome? Who is he? He sounds nasty."

"Rome is more an 'it' than a person. The world throws such itty-things up all the time, vast faceless conglomerations of entities which man thinks to magic into his image. You will notice I said 'thinks', for man fools himself for it is really a manifestation of the will of the world, set to entice those easily made wicked to suppress and enslave the rest." The young girl's eyes filmed over, she watched her thumb playing over her finger tips like harp strings, her ear heard the sound of children playing and her mind's eye saw the freedom of the games they played. "Put simply, that is Rome," the Spaewife finished sending two sharp fingers jabbing into Arianwyn's shoulder.

"Hey, that hurt and what is?"

"How you felt just now, that is what Rome feels like to everyone in its power. Only worse, for there is the destruction of the spirit as well as the body."

"If this is going to be a boring story, I shall go away then, for Rome does not bother me and all I can say is, I care not for it one jot."

"Fine then, but Obeth, a king in Palestine, which was a place of many lands and kings, found it a right pain in the trapple."

"A land of many kings, you say, just like Pictavia?" This interested her and her ears pricked up, her eyes glistened.

"Exact. Just like Pictavia. So if Rome was bothered Palestine, might it not come here and try to get its hands around your neck?"

"Och not Rome again, I tell you I shall go if you try that tale again."

"King Obeth desired a wife, one that he would love."

"Eyugh! This is not to be a love story is it?" Pshh, and she spat into the fire.

"Why aye," the Spaewife admonished, "for what other stories are there which, if true, are not about true love? The lover giving everything to be loved in return for hope and understanding, the warrior giving of his life to let his comrades survive, the poor woman giving of herself to feed her little child. They are great stories and all of love. Those stories where one sacrifices everything for all are the greatest of them all."

"Then tell me one like that then."

"And leave King Obeth without a love, Arianwyn, how could you? Unless the tale is told it may not ever happen. Do not ever be heartless, and how do you know this in not such a great tale if you do not listen to it?"

"Well, you should know! Unless you are just making the story up, which still means it may have happened for, as they say, there is nothing stranger than fact." Arianwyn felt pleased with her lesson, though it appeared to have silence the Spaewife. "Go on then."

"Go on, what?"

"Go on, please." She conceded with a sullen look which, on the Speawife's warning that the wind might change, turned into a willing smile that moved her closer to the woman like a snuggle in a glove, a comfort of arm in arm and a pillow upper arm soft as kitten on the face, a yielded malleability of warmth. A heady sweet and piquant odour filled Arianwyn's nose and sent her drowsing. She closed her eyes. Contentment flowed over and within her as, in the sureness of woman's protection from all harm a story might invoke, she listened to the story.

"The King of Arabia had a daughter. Her gifted name was Alfa. She was beautiful, in fact, she was stunning."

The Spaewife, distracted by the fire, which, in her opinion, needed some embers stirred about and a flame curled up and caught the woman's mind. It seemed to make her forget the tale that she had been telling. Then, aware of the voice departed, the child opened her eyes, tugged on the woman's arm, wrestled in her seat then with two sharp coughs and one loud sniff, the child determined to get the woman back on to the task. "Alright, alright then, what is beautifully stunning in your belief?" she asked. "Did she look like my mother?"

"Beauty is inside and beauty then comes out, but as to what she looked like, then I shall tell. Her skin was brown like the golden eagle caught within the sun, her eyes were like the birch leaf, wide open yet tapered to the sides, her hair was full, straight and raven-black, her eyes were sooty pools set in spring-white milk, her lips were a man's desire."

The rapidity of the description defied any mental picture. No person ever, in the child's knowledge, so formed existed. "Brown skin and tapered eyes? No such person lives."

"Yes, Arianwyn, many do. Beyond this land, there are people of many different colours or races and though they all look different, beauty is inside and then comes out the same for every one. If they let it in first, which not all do." The woman gave the child time to think about this then continued. "Princess Alfa saw King Obeth, when he visited her father's tent. Obeth beheld Alfa and both fell into one another like love-dust lovers. The flame in the fire died down, the sounds of childhood games filtered like sunbeams into the darkened hut. "You would think that was the happy ending to the story, would you not?"

"All stories end happily, do they not?" asked the child, puzzled, but it was just a storyteller's entrapment to the tale. "What is love-dust?"

"Always two questions at the one time, do you think I am made of answers?" the woman said. "If I was asking the questions, I would be asking; two so in love dusted with all that beauty within and without and, into the bargain, a king and queen of a country in a sunny disposition, would they not, when all is dusted out, be just fine?"

"And were they not?"

"Think about your mother and father. Are they?" The child's brow knitted, her lids hooded over fierce eyes of annoyance and pouted out her lips. The woman had said little but had spoken much truth for the princess to take kindly. "Do not take on so child, there is a deep love between your parents but what is the cause of the rifts between them, what causes their anger at each other, what makes them fear for their union?"

"That will be me then, I expect, and all the things I get up to. Setting one against the other so they blame each other and not me." The woman smiled and laughed a beaming infuriation at the child. Arianwyn pouted, almost sticking her tongue out fumed and thumped her hand into the woman's arm. She tried to work up the anger for second attack but the need was gone with one stroke of the Spaewife's hand across her hair like a whispered breeze just before the still of the gloaming.

"Arianwyn, you and your brother, the love they have for you both is what keeps them from falling totally apart. They know you better than you know yourself. They have watched you grow with an adult's understanding when you a child not only need to grow in body but also understand. The process is still underway; blame not yourself, for some people it is never achieved. Now listen up to the tale of Alfa and Obeth and start to understand.

Two lovers, under the hot eye of a Palestinian sun, longing for a child but beset with a world of problems. Such as, where to find the true spirit, should we throw out the way of the Jew and accept the emperor's kiss of Christianity? Their people hate it all and blame the desert woman for everything, poor crops because of drought and famine, the Roman boot upon their necks, the desecration of their holy place and the taxing-tax taxation."

"Stop, stop! What are all these words I have never heard of? Please, if you want me to listen, and I have warned you, do not spoil the story with adult telling."

"They are but words and yes, adult words, but just words that some would render in a way so to sunder Alfa and Obeth apart. Words to kill, words to extinguish their love becoming a hilltop fire of hope for all to be inspired. Words of this world, set to splinter the spirit and, for Obeth, they nearly worked."

"Why?"

"Why? Why, because he was a man, what else? Second best in form and nature and therefore easily disposed to self-doubt and anguishing failure. He crumbled beneath the empire's will, ran scared before the men of religion, locked himself away, worried for his kingdom and neglected his young wife."

"And Alfa?"

"A woman has strength. A woman needs to love."

"She took a lover, then?" The child asked in all innocence of the implications.

The woman's expression narrowed. Her thought reached into the child, questioning her childish understanding of adult, child-like failings and said. "She was a woman who knew love and was not some unchaste poppet. No, she had no need of such as that. Once you find love, my child, willingly bond to that love and never let desires of flesh part you from that graft. Remember that for true. As do your parents, for in all their worries and their failings they still hold firm to this. As you, Arianwyn, must do throughout your life." The woman gave the child time to think about this thought. Then she continued with the tale.

"In a place called Caesarea, in a slave market and naked as the Romans show their slaves, a girl of only five summers old appeared to Alfa. She wore a necklace round her neck with a red agate attached and on her nails, purple paint. Dark was she, almost black. Drawn by a magnetic fragrance, the queen, found herself stilled by a magnetism that the child emanated, and so she asked to buy the child from the Numidian slavers. Oh yes, which girl would that be? They asked, and when the child pointed out, they were nonplussed for they had no reason for her being there. They had not grabbed her from her desert walk, or bought her from her starving parents for a bowl of soup and taken her to places in the dark to give her a taste of her future, yet there she was and as no-one stood up to complain, they sold her to the queen."

"Just like that?"

"Just so. It is just so that life can be cheaply bought and sold. Terrible if you think about it, but do not trouble your mind, for what can you do about it?" Arianwyn, torn between an arguement of fact and fiction, bit her lip. "Anyway, Alfa took her home. Is she not delightful? Alfa asked Obeth, They said she is possibly a Berber. A desert child, from far away, uncorrupted from the worldly ways, an honest child, a seeing-child who had a gifted name, the name of Tammazult."

"Tammazult?"

"Tammazult, the slave, a name not to forget. Not that she stayed a slave for long. She became dear to Alfa. They were both of the desert and held between them elemental spiritual-knowing and though they shared Passover meals and Christian feast day food, they kept their truth intact. Then at the Jubilee, when the girl was thirteen and Alfa freed her from the slave she never was to be the child she never had. Not that Alfa was to remain childless."

"Ach, Speawife you go too fast and give the plot away."

"I do, do I? So pee-myself-for-this-is-too-exciting, what happened next?

"Tammazult became a princess!"

"Ach, is that what you would have her be and what is the use of that? Princess, indeed a foolish thought. Why on earth would you her want set up like an exhibition for mucky hands to finger and then tattle tongues to mock when she had greater wonders to impart?" The girl frowned, after all, she was a princess, and she made it clear to the Spaewife, by putting on her best snotty attitude and pointing out the benefits of being a princess. A list of privileges from not having to look at mucky people or listen to their tittle-tattles to ordering the Speawife to get on with the story. "And if I do not, what then?" The Speawife asked, with a sharp hint that this might happened. Arianwyn felt powerless and this feeling the Spaewife asked her to consider and how, with one little change outwith her control she, still a princess, was now completely helpless and as vulnerable as a leveret found by a wolf. Arianwyn shifted uncomfortably on her seat as if the lesson ached or she had sat too long upon of fold of cloth that numbed her and begged the Speawife to return to the tale.

"One day Tammazult told the king and queen. My Jinn tells me you will have children. Her black eyes, wild and inviting in her knowledge and despite Obeth's fear of his lord, he listened to her beguilement.

"What is a Jinn, Spaewife?"

"A Jinn? A spirit no bigger than a speck of dust yet so large that it is unseen and without form on this earth, where it is a link between what is here and there and as such unclear, misunderstood and feared by many of this world." Arianwyn shook her head and phutted, wishing that she had never asked. "However, you little phutter, Tammazult was clear enough and she had a voice. Now listen up, she told them this is what my Jinn says. Go to the fountain at Heliopolis in the Baaqa valley, walk once sun wise around the temple the Romans built to Jupiter and bathe in its fountain three times. Then, before you take to bed, take and drink my loving cup, a honeyed wine pinched with mandrake. This is how my Jinn has said to will be. Alfa ensured this done and nine months from the potion drunk and love exchanged within the night, twin boys were born. Alfa accepted their gifted names from Tammazult. Malachias, Angel of the True One and Generatius, Shining Gem. Now they have the gifted names, the girl had told them both, they will grow and become the spirit of their names. Alfa made sure to hold baptism from the boys.

"Speawife, slow down, what is the rush, it is like you do not want me to understand all the ins and outs, for example how is love exchanged in the night?"

"The ins and outs of that we need not go into for this story, I thought the word baptism would be more puzzling to you." The princess admitted it was and lost her chance to find out the nature of love at night, learning about a watery right that was meant to save the child from the evil inside it, outside and all round around, on the occasion when a child was named.

"Names," Arianwyn latched on to that word in a hope to get off the boring talk of baptism. "Did you know my name was gifted and that my mother tells me it was you that gifted it?"

"I expect you mother does not lie and as I did it must be true bit think of this, if this is so, then you have something in common with those boys. However they were not to spoilt like you young missy, for the world wished to put its marks and cut upon them and demand their souls."

"Souls can be taken from you?"

"Yes, body and soul can be taken, sometimes by just a flattery of mutters in your ear, a tickle up the back or on you lap to make you giggle, blush and forget so guard yours well." The child considered this but found it hard to understand. She knew lives could be enslaved. She knew of the slaves her father had, yet knew that they had ways to keep little freedoms, in dance and songs, in moments of delight when sun shone fiery on the tree tops or when dropping down to sleep and in their remember names. How can marks and cuts capture a soul? Her brother, Necthanson, bore the mark of the boar on his neck, had his soul been taken from him? Moreover, what were the cuts the woman talked of, and how by muttering pretty words could what you were inside, be sliced from you? Why, if this baptism was only the naming of a child, did Alfa fear it? Did the water destroy an essence of the name?

Arianwyn knew the Spaewife to be earnest and resolved to keep her own soul and body intact. How to do so was by reasoning the woman's stories, for this was the beauty of the fey woman's stories. Not for her the banal, simple, fireside tellers warning - the silly lassie let down her hair, so her fault then that he ran up and by the by took a leave in passing and ran off again. Therefore the message clear and stupid - lassie clearly you need to tie you hair in place and not be causing misconceptions over split ends. Short, quick, sometimes boring in the repetitive nature of their obviousness, they could send you to sleep and often did, however, the Spaewife's tale still ran on. "When Tammazult was sixteen summers old, she was beautiful and a self-assured beguiler, erotic in her look and form, her flow of sensual hair like a cascade of mesmerism took all eyes as her capture. She enraptured all men around her like a finger twist of longing she tinkered with and made them languish in a drench of sweat, a pant of heat from which she would not relieve them and they feared to take."

"How is that done?" The girl, eye widening, was curious to know.

"A lesson for another day and a lesson you may learn yourself. But enough for today, other than to say that men are faulted and ruled by momentary attractions which if not granted they make grabs for. Pity the brute-driven for they are disadvantaged in this world and unable to be anything but defective creatures."

"Now you are talking rubbish, old woman" An underlying coolness in her voice which, more than a frosty trace of disbelief was warning to the woman that her credibility was like an autumn leaf and set to fall. "I have see my father and the warrior men, I know of their strength and bravery in battle and though I can wield a sword, I know each day my strength against boys my age proves weaker. It is they that set their mark and rule; it is they who hold us in their power. Also, I have seen how women fawn in season to a hankering of night-fevers."

"Hankering night-fevers is it? What happened to love exchanges? How old are you now?"

"Not sure, I think I will be fourteen Beltanes old this year."

"How time flies, once you slept innocently the night and now from your night bench blanketed in the dark you seek to understand too much for one still young." The woman's face looked lightly on the matter although her voice was edged. "However, it is a dusty lesson, one for another day, suffice to say it is not the way of truth to grant or grab such things lightly." Arianwyn shifted as if these words displeased her. "Are you thinking I am an old wizzened, dried-up lady? If so think on this, here on this globe the balance is warped, the female and male should be counterpoint, opposite and equal but it is not so. This space-body we call home, a place of fire and rock where male has become but a smudgy image of itself to the point that no water can cleanse the spot, know it for true that, Arianwyn, that within the womb the female is the default position, the melody and the male the contrasting theme. Only his strain has become discordant and his rhythm defiled. Men are weak. I, who have seen many births from before Cruithne and unto your own, have witnessed the pain that this domain has encircled the human female form with to bring life into this world, generations of woman-born men, created to fight and slaughter one another. What use all that birth pain and needlessly inflicted suffering by wanton destruction and drive of appetites for a body's greed and selfish gain? After all, it is not a birthright and it need not be other than by choosing. Women choose to bear the suffering of no man's grasp or endurance and do so to give hope into the world. Why else did your mother suffer you to be born, if not for that, for life, for truth and love?"

Arianwyn was silent. These concepts were not of her understanding; to her boys were stirring attractions, as men had been for Thawen. Thawen had been self-assured, and was it not the nature of the way to be like sheep and graze on and wait the tup and after continue grazing on?

"We are not beasts of the field," the Spaewife told her, "be not so mundane as to debase yourself like that. That, my little love-dust" she wagged the air between them with her forefinger, "is something you should mind." The she smile, smothering the question about to be asked by taking the child close by her side and returning to the story. "But back to Tammazult. Who, I will let you know, kept her head uncovered, refused to veil her face, knew how to roll a hip as smooth as any wave and understood the lesson."

"Yes, back to her story, please." For its warmth and understanding would reach a child who, like a weather-watcher standing underneath the doorway lintel worried on the interpretation of the coming weather in the grey and surly clouds, needed reassurance that in the tale at least all would be well.

"The children were ordered by the emperor to be removed, to go to far away Alexandria, to be baptised in the name of his god and educated in the empire's ways."

"The parents could not let that happen could they?"

"How could the stop it? Obeth was desperate to find a way round. He knew for Alfa, this would be a bereavement from which she would not rise. Would she agree? He thought and Tammazult read his thoughts, she came and stood behind him he sensed her close behind, where to but tilt his head a little back he would enjoy the cradle of her breast to pillow into."

"Why would he, she was like a daughter to him?"

"He was a man, we have talked of them but yes, he was mindful. Would Alfa agree what? Tammazult asked. Then she sat by side and gauging him with her dark eyes and gave a knowing smile and a flash of eyebrows. If she can fluster me, who sees her as a daughter, what hope for other mortal men? He thought. What hope, indeed? Was her reply and she had more. We both know that men work this world and you must obey the emperor, to refuse would see all that you love destroyed and what good is that? Where do you raise eyes, Obeth, where does you aid come from? You must send me, Tammazult, with your sons for when they are baptised. I will treasure their gifted names and I shall be their guide for in the north, lost lands hold forgotten truths. It will be so, my Jinn has told it and my Jinn does not lie. So it was, that on an inky-black sea, under a crescent moon, a ship scored its way across the Roman's Sea towards distant Alexandria. On board a cargo of twin boys, four-year old and a young woman. Tammazult, mysterious and hankered after by men, entrusted by King Obeth of Neopolis and Alfa, his queen, to take their children to Bishop Mayonius of Alexandria. Tears followed in the ship's wake, testament of a woman's grief, the pain-saltings of Alfa, daughter of the Arabian king. She who knew of desert dust and sensed the equality of with love in Obeth that they could never fully reach and understood mother's love did not want this for it was wrong. However, church and empire had decreed to should be so. How could they bend the will of the world? It has always been this for all parents, it has been so for your own, dear child, but there are ways to bend and not be broken by the world."

"Are there? Will you teach me?"

"Listen, outside children play, you should join them. Time for that lesson another day." Then, though she would rather stay, the Spaewife's dry and acrid form returned and Arianwyn knew it was time to go play with children before her throat was chocked in a pungency meant for others. She kissed her mentor's leathery cheek, gave three skips across the earthen floor and then as one foot shot out the door, the other held her fast inside upon the Spaewife's floor. A question was unanswered. "Well, at least tell me the meaning of that word?"

"Which word, my child"

"Inky."

"Inky? The quality of having ink," was the reply. The leg outside and in the sun jigged impatiently, the one inside, dark and standing firm. So much to learn and understand but never given clearly. Seldom given easily, always left for her to prise apart as if by the action she employed, the lesson would be one that she would recall. "Fine, but what is ink?"

"A liquid made by man, a liquid which makes marks, a liquid used to denigrate the meaning of the truth. We have none here but as Tammazult is alive, it does exist. Another lesson for another day, now go away and play."

In the summer gloamings, the Spaewife would take the child on long wanders, leaving the dissipation of rank smell and leather skin behind in fields and farms. Deep into the silver woods she led child to where she instructed her how to recognise the man-made masquerades of faeriefowk, kelpies and trolls. Once she took the child to the stone circles where she spat, breaking eggs with a chuckle over all of them "Druids, shamen, wizards, knowing women!" she cursed watching the yellow yolk run down the stones, "Shun them child! Never let them prick you with their pins and woad to tattoo you with the eagle or the boar. Aye, and no cuts below," she warned with sharp cutting fingers motions crossing over the girl's lap, " aye, down there mind, never that! Men have such things done to hold us as is their want."

"Want? What do they want?"

"Want all that is. The priests of the Britons are worse; Quasi-Christians, and like Christians, they eat the body and drink the blood of their living god. All seek to enclose us within the realm of their religions. Corruptors of the Truth, all of them. Doubt not child, they will never cease to create leaders of this or that conviction to suppress us with their cant and formulas of words and action. There is only one truth, which, in your heart and your name, is of everything. Learn what you are child, love-dust."

"Love-dust?"

"Aye, Love-dust," that name again which, once again the woman skirted over, "but watch out for those corruptors, never ever disregard their powers, for they have all chieftains and kings in their thrall; one serves the other. They have woman at their command, so learn to be a slave and bend to gain superiority."

Once again, the old woman's point of view seemed wide open to ridicule, bearing no resemblance to eye-seen fact. Slaves, the lowest of the low, of less worth than the farm yard animals, bond to the certainty that any child could tell you - deer in dead of the frost-season, searching out the meagre bitter wintergreen, had more choice in life. Chattelfowk were powerless creatures of the night soil gatherings, grim task-doers whose only escape was in their heads and utterly unable to be above anything but their own weary feet as they shuffled on with ever-shorting steps. This opinion, hurtled at the Spaewife as if that woman were a drudge, created such an eruption of do-not-come-it with me young lass that Arianwyn shrank back. No adult had ever hit her in her life, she feared the day had come but when it did not, she took it as some victory of her youthful wisdom over the adult duplicity. Within three eye blinks taken with an open mouth the girl had no doubt the Speawife was wrong and needed it pointed out. Slaves were, are and always would be eternal-nothings - and an adult should not try to misguide a child - skivvying beck-at-callers - not that Arianwyn was one - mindless menials - she should not be seen as the simple child - and always would be - she was a noble princess - she knew how to make them run around. "Then shame on you," the Speawife told her, "all slaves are forced but it does not mean they need believe they are cheap chattels." To make her point she told this tale.

"It is said there was a King of Fibh who, tired of the chatter of his slaves forbad them to talk. One day he asked the King of Manaan to visit him but that king said, I will only ride as far as the borders of Fibh and wait there until you come to receive me. Therefore, the King of Fibh sent his slave to a hill to look out for the approach of the King of Manaan. Each night the slave came back alone. This continued until, a little while later, a messenger arrived from the Manaanian King. Why did you not come to receive me? I waited for three days and nights and each day a figure stood on the hill, yet you came not. What am I to think but you were twisting a laugh at me? I have gone away in displeasure. In a fury, the King of Fibh called for his slave but before he lifted his head from off his shoulders, he asked the slave why he had not told him of the other king's arrival at the border. You never asked me to tell you, was the slave's reply. The king hung his head in defeat."

The Spaewife let the message of the tale sink in then continued. "Remember closely all I do and say. Now let us return." Then, as they neared the houses around the palace, the Spaewife's hair appeared matted, her skin a folding burrs of leather and a putrid smell would catch the back of Arianwyn's throat. Even so, Arianwyn would embrace her to her heart before they made their parting.

6

"... Truth is simpler but infinitely harder."

UNCERTAINITY AROUND

For Arianwyn, though her body changed, her mind lingered in the evocation of her childhood past, which, in deference to that change, caused her walk hunch-shouldered with folded arms in front. She sought solace in the familiar stories that were like spirit-foods there for devouring and digesting round the fire to keep the illusion of her child inside alive. A child that died in the confusion of the girlhood birthing, spawning a mind-mess in which she failed to separate fiction from fact, accepting as truth depending on who or what swayed her or on how she was feeling. In that flux, she drank in fantasy and fable to such excess that she forgot the lessons of the Spaewife and dragons became real as life. As actual as the fear of the sword of death which, unfettered the in the lands bordering Forternn in that time, caused slaughter, carnage, rape and pillage. The changing-girl was throat-blocked in fear of what could happen within that world outwith her jurisdiction, the realm she did not wish to enter, the adult world where childish slights cause catastrophic conclusions. Around that time, Arianwyn heard a tale told by thirlfowk, spread from the Kingdom of Circind in the east, where the mighty Tava flows into the sea, a the tale she took to heart in her confusion.

Unbeknown to the thirilfowk of Circind, a dragon settled at the Well of Caller Water. One morning, young girls went to draw the water and never did return. Towards evening, a father of one of the girl's went unto the well and found their bloodied, ravaged bodies within a wicked worm's grasp, which twisted and twinned around the maidens' bodies, exacting more than the defilement death had rendered.

Seeing the man, the worm rose up and nearly slew the man but he won free and running in alarm, brought back an armed thirlfowk to surround the dragon. But nothing could they do as the worm sported lust upon their dead girl-children, goading their parents into a hair-tearing grief at the brazen infamy in front of them displayed.

Then the young lover of one of the girls arrived. Incensed was he to see his one treasured hope revealed, spoiled and sported like some knee-baited moppet that the tears welled his fleen and drove him on the dragon. He brought his club down on the dragon's skull with a crack through the spine, so that the dragon turned to flee. The thirlfowk swarmed like ants, smooring ower the stricken dragon, each stabbing as they could. The slash from a claw or a gash from bite restrained them not and many did expire. Unable to take to wing but unable to be killed, the dragon forced its way towards the northern wild mountains and would have escaped, had not the lover placed himself before the dragon. He lay on blow on blow, until the scaly head spilt upon a steaming, porridge flow of brains. The horde set then upon the brains, stirred and slithering them all around. Later, when the blood lust died and gladness turned to inconsolable grief, they asked where was the youth the slaver of the dragon by the well. Was he, the young lover, slain? Ochone, such waste of youth, it brought anguished grief and no resolve to the assembly, for no matter high or low they called and looked, no youth nor body could they find and gone also, the form of the lass that was his lover. What more to carry to do now than carry all the other bodies to the funeral pyres and leave the carcass of the dragon rotting on the hillside? Not even the ravens came to feed on its stinking corruption.

What truth or not this tale held mattered not for it disorientated Arianwyn, setting her off on private wanders through lonely places and separations form others where, talking to herself within the silver woods, she dandered on in a lament intoned by lack of understanding of her changing ways. Sang as a passing dirge for the dimming of who she had been which, it brought a twist of empathy for one at odds with all others, and she championed the dragon. After all, dragons will be dragons and need burns in their bellies as in any other living creature. Was this the only way the world worked? Did she need to leave the child she loved? Unafraid or uncaring, she followed paths set by wild animals through quiet woods during reclusive thoughts that take her unto a glade marked down by her secret-deep, a seclusion in the ancient woods where because the trees whispered, she was guarded. More than likely, she would dally picking flowers, dappling herself with petals in the sunlit glade. There were times, however, the fault of Thawen, and seeded in the days beyond the black-stallion-spring when, in that following summer, suddenly Thawen would surprise her. Then as if a fly pinned on the hot rock by a wolf spider, Thawen would ask - and shall I teach you how to do it proper like, Trouty? Fear of parental disapproval would cause Arianwyn's shake of head - no, fishy? "Then watch me, I will show you how tae dae it." Instinctive curiosity would make her watch - the wonder on those twisting tendrils, the husky-soft, exhaling breaths. "There now, there is a wheech, eh-no? Go on, Arianwyn, sometime try it on your own."

Inspired on such a muse as that, one day of sudden warmth alone within the woods, the rapid drill of woodpecker, though it must be far away, caused her caution. So, in wariness she lay beside the uncurling fronds of ferns and open blossoms where furry bumbees bum-bumming sipped planets full of nectar and made her inquisitive for why the anxious need to find the furtive passage to abilities. Then in that sun warmed place, where only high tree tops gentle swayed, she spread across the grassy slope and in time flushed sightless, rendered her far-flung sighs on a wash of fountains that warranted stifled laughs and salty scents for trees to speculate. Then with the gained wisdom that permitted - sunk in the weightlessly of half-sleep; dovered peacefully in a doze; dwam of all desire diminished; through which fancies, wonderful and flighting and meaningful weak, flirted - a delivery afloat a new discovery, which she sent into slumbering as gentle murmur of sun-dried, summer-trickled May River waters.

Into all that dreamtime it came; the notion that a dragon had settled in the clearing. She clearly saw a red jewel set between inky eyes, the folding wings and purple claw paring through the writhing fern and plunging in the sphagnum moss. Unafraid and spellbound, the beauty of the beast was wonderment to her and only for her. The jewel, small as a distracter at a lady's slender neck was a polish-red sun-reflector that urged the need of touch and so, Arianwyn, placed her hand upon it and conceived off flying over strath and hill into to the heart of blackness set in the Dragon's eye with in the cliff face rock. Then she dreamt.

The eye had been there, in the rock face, before the time of people. The eye (a rent in the rock face) was in existence before the dragon's arrival. Long ago, before the time of livings things the rock spewed from the belly of the Earth. Then came the eons of attacks of sea and wind, of rain and snow, of sun and frost, of rivers and glaciers until the rock itself was born. Only then in truth, had the dragon arrived with black wings glinting in the silver light of moon. The dragon took shelter in the ice carved cave where the ruby-red gem on its forehead reflected and sparkled in the moon. The dragon's nails scraped the eye, making itself at one with the eye. The rock was pleased, for the dragon demanded the truth that brought the order.

Time passed and the dragon fell into a languishing hibernation of ages as ice turned into water and rivers formed and flowed, emptying into seas for land to rise. Yet, on and on the dragon's torpor endured as sphagnum formed, then grasses grew, then scrub, trees and forest green. Next the flowering of the first love-dust seeding came, the dragon slept through further love-dust separations into murmurings of insects and scrapping of reptiles, of throbbing wings of birds until, in the untrodden forests below the rock face, the stirring of animals awoke it, saw the blindness of the one for the other below and worried.

However, the land grew munificent and the truth of eye and dragon became the one nurturing all living things. The auroch still ate grass and leaf, the bear the fish, the wolf the sheep but all was in balance, an equilibrium to be held to such time the world ended and one would find the other for all time.

This state continued until, much later (on whose bidding?) people came upstream against the mighty river on beating oars, in butchered, burnt and hacked-out, hollowed shells of once-mighty trees. They came in total ignorance with fire and axe, with uncontained spirits sourced selectively from a misconceived understanding of the truth. With this, they ravaged the land clearing it of the creatures therein. They created creeds to polarise one from the other, forming camps of interchangeable good and evil as they wreaked havoc on each other in the name of life and the hereafter. They became land-salters, seasoning the land with the soused stain of blood and death drenched all around in fear.

Among the myriad of elves and hobgoblins, kelpies and faeries stirred up into the world from the deepest imaginings of these frightened folk, was lust. Lust, not easily spotted in misshapen bodies, walked around you, hidden in a parent, neighbour, lover or friend. With the one aim to overpower, lust-gritters were fierce creatures possessing of vast appetites for flesh and wealth and, as born of man and women, almost undetectable, playing of the innocent against one another. People lived in abject fears of these sulphur-beasts and some fought back with love and truth to pierce those scaly hides of man-made dragons and beat them back into the wilderness lands. Nevertheless, love and truth was a weapon that if taken by a lust-gritter, could be twisted and used against those few gifted people.

A cloud hung too long in the sky, cooling the day and caused the girl's awaking to the realisation that the eye was now irretrievably gone, left now only as a memory. Arianwyn felt a dryness, which stuck her pallet to her tongue and an ache behind her eyes, accompanied below in her stomach that which was twisting and new. She felt no blame of this or shame of this, for the Spaewife's teaching came back in mind, and of the strange dream-story she kept it secret not even confiding in the Spaewife, other than to sniff a smart-snort at the old woman and tell her she now knew the meaning of love-dust.

"Och, noo, sae Nechtandochter MacTaloric MacCruithne, Princess of Forternn and Missy-miss o Forthuitabraicht, dae ye, dae ye really? Everything around, was the young girl's answer and nothing else. "Then tell me whit ye think it is and whare is Arianwyn in a o this?" The lassie could not tell her or figure out what she really asked. The Spaewife sighed. "Aye richt eneuch in part, but noo quite the siller o a full moon in the eye." Then went on the groan her about her age and the youthfulness of Arianwyn being too much for her now. "Ach, lass ye need tae wede awa frae me. Am far ower auld for ye gettin, with me thare's is nae way to go forward and, forebye, soon ye noo want tae ken me." The child in Arianwyn would not lie down, coursed up through all that outer change and wrapped itself around the shrunken body of the Spaewife, begging that such a thing must never be and so the Spaewife sang:

Haud on that child for aye my jo

And never let it go, fear no the losing o yin like me,

Forebye the love-dust twinning.

There is aye a close yin yet,

Ye will see,

Forebye the love-dust winning.

Arianwyn made her sing the song repeatedly so she, herself, could sing it in her sleep. As time passed, she often would wonder on that flight of fancy which gave an grudging understanding of adult talk of wars, the wretched waste by sword and spear that scythed the lands around and that sadness of what was lost.

7

"But be not fooled Malachias, no matter how clever are your words, deeds and actions to level all things .... the world will destroy your good work ... "

GIRLHOOD

Five hundred Beltanes and more had past since Romans boots stamped the land and crushed the slopes near Fothuirtabaicht, then slashed the stem of Pictish flower with thrusting swords below a wall of legion-shield of red and yellow. The legion then continued north. Marched on towards the line of mountains rising from the levels and saw where the Picts had fled to hide in high places, to lick their wounds and ferment revenge. Stoppered like flies in a corked bottle by Rome. There the Picts could starve or supplicate on bended knees to Roman rule. The Romans chose their spot and felled the wood across the high embankment by the Tava. For a winter and a summer they dug ditches lined with teeth of sharpened stakes and raised turf walls faced with blocks of mason-crafted stone. The block-guard grew into its name, Pinnata Castra, Fortress on the Wing, an eagle's wing with lightening in its claw and a watchful eye over all below. Inside, with carpenter-crafted wood and smith-iron nails, they engineered control within a grid of armouries and stores, barracks and parade grounds, a hospital and bathhouse. Central was a sacred place for the eagle to reside. An army, larger than that of all the Pictish kings and chieftains, spread out as a dog of war with a scent marker cocked at the mouth of every glen. For a year or two, no more than three, the eagle hovered at the starving mouth of the highland belly and held it siege. The Picts held on, the Legion army grew in size but then came a drawing of nail - more numerous that the stacks of oats in Nechtansfield - from wood and then they left. Lifted the eagle from its residence, withdrew across Forternn and hid over the vast waters of the Forthin, leaving only the ditch turf enclosure as a stamp of their authority to be reclaimed sometime. All this now was a memory-scar on land and mind, defacement on the Pictish pride, which still, after all of five hundred years, smarted. Alpin had chosen this place for the meeting. Near enough to the gateway to Athflodda, far enough inside the influence of Forternn to make his older brother feel at ease and the myth of Roman tales with which to prick his brother.

Dectortric shuffled his slaves this way and that, leaving them a fluster of confusion, cross-purposes and duplicated tasks. Nothing ordered was in place, on time or at correct location but rather randomly brought out, placed, spilt or left somewhere else by the person meant to bring it forward. Vassal chieftain to Nechtan, Dectortric held Inchtuthil, enclosed on a definable but vaguely defendable spur of land between the crumbling Roman ditch and the edge of boggy land where, though Fothuirtabaicht was far enough to not be taken off-guard and with Alpin's breath was on Dectortic's neck it helped to keep defences in good order. None of which Dectortric managed and now Inchtuthil was host to both with a full entourage needing feed and watered, afforded every comfort and all at Dectortic's expense. In his hall so small there was little room for a slave to tug a forelock at the guests, he flustered in a red-faced manner that worked his servants into a state of nervous panic. "Have a care," the wizard, druid priest spat at the young serving lass who spilt broth over his lap. For her own good, Dectortric flapped her out of sight, sending her to fetch water from the stream below the ridge and to ask the his wife to give her a long stand, the one in the place that no one goes to look. Dectortric knew the malice of Murtholic.

"Why is a wizard present at our meeting, what words or ears can a druid have here?" Nechtan felt exposed and sympathetic to his bondman's dilemma. Nechtan waved Dectortric from the room who, slowly leaving on a flutter of hands that drove his slaves before him, gave thanks to as many god and goddesses that he could remember.

"What are you muttering at man?" Murtholic demanded.

"Too many to name, too many to give thanks to, why the heck not just one to cover all?" Dectortric may have committed a blasphemy and quailed on buckling knees. However, as if the druid had not heard he looked through Dectortric to where the west would be and made a sound that resembled - humph - a brain within a brain was working. Dectortric escaped before the working stopped and the druid returned to listen to his High Father's defence of him, to be done so only where time between draughts of ale permitted.

"Murtholic, who holds my ear is a valued councillor," Alpin's throat bobbed up and down on a swallow of ale almost too much forced down at once, "and friend." Nechtan did not answer. At his side was Taran, Galam's father and Mailcon, a chieftain from the west of Forternn. With the wizard, Alpin had three at his side. One of them was Alpin's son.

Talorcan MacAlpin MacTalorc MacCruithne, Prince of Athflodda, Scourge of Scots and now a man of twenty-one. A Dark Prince who, for lack of women's influence and the guidance of a Spaewife was, by dint of Murtholic's instruction, a soulless-wraith, pitiless in mercy for itself and, as the wildoat-sower of the Palace in the Field of Athflodda, of little feeling for anyone else. A child, to whom all knowledge in which the love-dust meaning of existence had been empathetically obliterated for worldly need. With the thirlfowk of the Pictish nations, Talorcan's reputation went before him in dread awe, finding a place round evening fires where tales of him blackened the darkest winter night darker than his hair and, some might with some just reason, his heart. Roman traits ran in his blood from his mother's side in his appearance, sown by a highborn Roman within a Pictish bloom many generations ago. A seed which, when set left a tang in the blood undiluted by the passage of time. Nechtan studied the young man who possessed dark, opaque eyes. Tall, and at eighteen years old, he was a ground-holder with the physic of a stag primed with many antler points. Powerful, swarthy skinned and with a head of tightly curled, black hair, this was a rutter with no competition in the rut. Handsome, seasoned and honed a warrior-leader against the Scots, he threw them back leaving wracked skulls racked among the rocky Dalriadan glens. Nechtan understood him as a raven-feeder and a woman-taker, for one passion led to the need to of the other, and considered his daughter, still toying at the edges of awareness and charmed by Galam's youthful fumbling, a child like to flee in fear before this young prince. Such as Talorcan, his daughter might one day equal, but as more than seven years separated their ways, the differences at this time were insurmountable. Arianwyn was still naive, in need of aging, gaining insight to the ways of men's demands without early scorching and left blemished by a frosting in the sun glare of a spring morning dawn. She required self-confidence and self-determination to be able to hold her will with someone like Talorcan. If she were unable to rein the beast within the man, he would not defer but rip into her body and break her mind to fraught and ruin. Necthan would need to bargain time for his daughter.

"Is my proposal not to your taste, twin brother?" Alpin said looking around for a slave to fill his horn. It stayed unfilled and this displeased him. "Then perhaps it needs more salting. You, brother, sit refusing to budge from your hamester-hooferie at Fothuirtabaicht, while all about it is others that that keep the Scots at bay and let you happily grample away to hearts content. Your son now knows this so. Nechtanson holds sword at Talorcan's side, understands the sacrifices that we make. Your son makes no whining-whinges - och let me be in peace - but understands the obligation he owes his kith and kin."

Recognising a cup-speaker not far off slurring, Nechtan frowned over heavy eyebrows at his young brother and knew the danger of double-speech and how it could quickly change from cosy cheering into a snarling slash of spite. Alpin's druid wizard came between them to maintain the toasting tone. "If I may, King Nechtan, you see Talorcan before you, do you not? Now, tell me this, what finer man could your daughter have in marriage? You know of him, a man made for greatness. A man who has already achieved greatness as a Scot-slayer and by force of this our fowk-protector, but in no way is he a butcher of those already bleeding." Necthan bristled, he felt this man to be suggestive with his words. "Think," the wizard grinned on some internal image, "how such a union would join more that two together, think how our strengths would be forged into a tempered iron to beat the threat of Scots from Dalriada under a united Pictavia, as it was in Criuthne's time."

"Why brother, do you allow this wizard to sound words?" Nechtan demanded feeling rankled by the sermon words the druid preached at him.

"He speaks my mind. However, if he upsets, off you go, Murtholic," given as a servant ordered, "dangle this in front of some young lad and return with it stiffened." Alpin heard his empty horn at the wizard. "There is a laddie now, and that should please you." The smile given Nechtan was in sharp contrast to slimy movements of the departing wizard worming his path across the brown-earth floor. They waited until he was gone.

"Have your say quickly brother, a horn pour is but a moment's filling, what ails you on my proposition? Manslayer true, but Scots and only by the need they inflict on us. Look, see you my son before you, can you not see a tenderness of feeling which, had his mother and sister lived, would be more acceptable in your eye? I am sure you can make you daughter see his worth, and if she has any for herself who knows, perhaps she will make a lap-licker of him. No harm meant in that, brother, between us men." Then came a shadowed voice. "I hold my son's wishes as my own."

Which was worse, Nechtan wondered, the drunken talk that hand on hilt could anticipate, or this sober oration, earth-mucky in its insinuation? He gave his answer straight. "I can see Talorcan's merits, which man cannot? He is indeed a man politic for times as these. I would welcome him to my family but not just yet, for Arianwyn is still childish yet."

"Childish yet? Why houghit man," Alpin swore, "she will be near fourteen years of age! I ken she ways aye weakly as a bairn, but she filled out soon enough and she be started now, what with a new look, scent and eyes set on the laddies. She be seeking indulgence, aye, but not of childish ways. At her age, the mother was weel bedded, so you ken fine yon age, body ahead of the game, brain all porridge and wha is the first spoon in? Get her sorted, get her stirred on my lad's spurtle or she will stick to the pot and aa fud will hae a go at scrapping her aff."

"Is such phrasing set to cause affront? Because it does, let it be known!" Alpin gave way passively with hands and eyelids. Nechtan explained his view of matters. "You will needed to give her time to grow beyond her childish charms, then she would make a more accomplished wife."

"Accomplished be ploughed up in the gloaming! I think you have the mind to let her take a wildoat sowing. I heard she refused the cuts required for the fidelity of a queen, I trust she's not a flighty bitch in the making."

"Brother, have a care! Nechtan rose before his younger brother and saw the sway of drink in his brother's ale-flushed face. "This is my daughter we are talking about here, and was not my meaning."

"Daughter, you say, and what is in that name but a womb for our continuance, as well you know? Fix her, brother, and yourself into the bargain if you wish to keep your rule."

Fists sweated for want of sword grip and black dogs sniffed for war.

"Father, father, be still awhile for the drink does fume your words." Talorcan smoothed all with a hand gently requesting that each should retake his seat. "King Nechtan, uncle, hold your hand and forgive this ill-placed mood." Before this intercession, the prince sat and listened but now brought himself into the conversation. "Uncle, my father intends no disrespect. I am sure you comprehend the pressures he has been under with the continued expansions of the Scots into our lands. He is concerned for all our people." The men slumped back in their seats, an act of relaxation that belied the hidden, sibling tension. "Blessed, is Arianwyn with a father such as you, uncle. One that will shield her from youthful, wayward errors. What harm to wait until she is settled in her herself? None I can see, so why not allow a child to flower and blossom into womanhood? Again uncle, for myself, I see none but will the Scots be so patient?" Nechtan looked at the young man whose hair curled like his words and became uneasy, outnumbered and as in everything Athfoddan, outclassed. The very apparel of this young defiled all hint of paunch. Material and design, little different from his own, cried out in its fitting - here is a man of muscle, of shoulder straight and firm-calf, sure-set gait that makes you look a worm. This child of his brother, once the attack came, would lack little compulsion to bleed by prick of blade or spear of words if it so suited. At that moment Nechtan felt his daughter's life was gone - a sacrifice to save the Pictish race.

"At least our horns are charged, uncle. Come I drink to your health, will you not drink to mine?" The smile, mead-sweet yet served strong, jolted before the sip was near its lips. The toast halted as a thought rehearsed itself for staging. "You know, uncle, I think I may have a compromise," Talorcan placed his horn back on the table, almost lip to lip with Nechtan's untouched cup. "In spring we should all met again but this time bring my aunt and her daughter. I have no fear that they will both would find me agreeable. Why times with you, uncle, are well recalled. Visits to Forthuirtabraicht are always fond, inner-eye memories to smile unfocused on, and though the princess and I were young, when the special moment burns - och now how to put it? - burns deep like strike of lightening made on a night of thunder, seen and noted by one and all, what can one do but smile?" The man looked pleasant and not smarmy like a cloying oily liquid to spit out and scoffed at, neither was there a hint of underling bitterness. The face was annoyingly asking for an acceptance that made Nechtan churn inside, revolting at that courteous charm into which, he wished to ram a fist. "Did you not see it, uncle? After all, you were there. I remember I saw you." A deceptive appeal rippled the firm man's mouth, a come-hither-lass to keep his daughter goggling in wonder. "A toast to all that, uncle. You know, past acquaintances and further joining in the future?" The young man drew his cup up to his lip and waited. Nechtan lifted up his horn and the cloying toasting turned into a thick swallow but it had gone down. "And after, if it does not work out then uncle, we will have to find another way to unite against our mutual threat."

The light of Arianwyn, in the oily brew of that room, forever doused out. Necthan, and for all to note, drowned it in a swallow on which his throat bobbled and t his lower lip curled over his moustache to taste the drops of regret trapped there. His chin creased up into itself before the square jaw of emerging power and knew itself to be defeated. In that his bondsman, Dectortric, had not witnessed that, much was good. In that, Nia would deride and hate him would need tholing. Thankfully his son, Necthanson had not been present to watch his father's failure, of it would be second hearing, and as such perhaps questioned by his son. The heartache of that besides, Arianwyn was surely dead to him and all she to him, future nighttime grieving. In that he wished her to thrive, that much needed a winter standing. His child would soon learn to loath him but it would be for the good of all.

"There, brother, what did I tell you?" Alpine beamed. "Now you see the son you will be gaining. A man like him, to be handfasted to a girl like yours! What can I say, this time the puddoch will kiss the prince." He caught the look of warning form his son's eye. "No offence meant, brother, but the lassie takes too much of her look from you - you must admit?"

"And who does your son take his looks from?" He saw a man whose looks, build and charm held veracity to charm spring water from out a rock. "Not you for sure, Alpin, perhaps his mother?" A sword cut would not open such a wound. The young man's smile quivered on a sneer, the father's eye tightened to a target through the amber beads that blurred its aim and Nechtan knew to blunt the rising fury in the pair. "Aye and forebye all that no offence meant; brother mine. It is jealousy of what I never had, a way to well-meet men with hail-friend and the flattery to flutter woman's hems to rise and blush for him." Outwardly animosity evaporated as the young man's hand pressed his father's heated shoulder down. "Already in my nephew I see the qualities of a High Father and all the makings of a High King of Picts. An eagle ready to spread his wings and keep our people safe, a wolf to lead the pack to blooding."

"Och, there is a mix of metaphors and just how do you see me, uncle, the eagle or the wolf?" The young sniffed his quip. Necthan held himself impassively as Alpin took his son's horn-cup and sunk the contents down in one. A wingspan of a smile leered below the dead eye of a wolf held the brothers in a grip. "No comment, either of you? Then give us your hand on the springtime, Uncle Nechtan."

Who rules in Athflodda? - Nechtan mused - and is a winter time enough for Arianwyn to place a woman's head upon a lassock's body? Talorcan, he knew, was just the type of man to magnetize his daughter's latent passions. A spit would buy a drop of time though would it seal it? The spits made on the palms exchanged and the deal's outcome he could not tell. A deal sealed before Murtholic arrived with horns of beer; a glance around was all he needed. His protégée had spun his charm and kept shrouded the man beneath.

Nechtan returned home where, from afar Nia saw his coming. His shoulders slumped; he sat heavy in the saddle. Nia knew he would mask this when he realised he had been seen and her heart went out to him. There had been those times when she had tried to cut him with words. She regretted that now but pain had taken her beyond reason and set her on the knife-edge of death.

It had begun with death. Countless deaths of Picts and Britons around the Forthin shores. Her father, Ansgar of Goddodin, sent Nia to Talorc as a foster child. It was one way to make reconciliation - bring up my child and this will seal the peace. The exchange of Nia saw many mothers' grief. However, though wary of Talorcan, Nia took to Nechtan from the start. He was older and it flattered her that he might find her worthy of attention, a seven years older she saw him as an older brother. A relation viewed as other and that match, once more a surety of peace. The prospected tempted her and made her feel important. However, as a future Pictish queen, there were certain rights to observe. How could she, at eight years old doubt that they, the adults older and much wiser did not but speak the truth when they said that this god or that, demanded a mark of obedience and that goddess or another, required just a little sacrifice from her. Who was she to not believe that this was not so? She conformed and as reward felt pain. The god-wished tattooed boar on her thigh was lip bitingly bearable. However, the Goddess sacrifice was pain beyond belief that burned and festered between her thighs for more than two fermenting phases of full moon. All the time imprisoned in the dark by the knowing-women in their hall which, though full of women, lacked female pity.

When thirteen, what had she expected on their handfast night? There had been a kittling in her kyte as his hand reached towards where the boar was etched, then only pain and always anytime after that dreaded discomfort that even though the exalted, ending gasp of Nechtan implied of something else, for Nia there was nothing felt but numbness. From that a child was created \- Nechtanson.

How furious the Spaewife was when she learnt after the birth that, on Alpin's suggestion, Nechtan gave him that name? "He was to be gifted another!" she had shouted at Nia who, still fragile from the shock and pain of birthing, retired into herself. Afraid of all around, afraid of her husband lying with her in her bed, afraid of the babe itself, she shunned all those who would reach to her in empathy. Most of all, she was afraid of his younger brother's visits, the ceaseless rounds of drinks and dares that went along with them. A night of late summer lightening, a flash of vindictive provocation was all it took for Alpin's taunt to undo all the Spaewife's good advice and Nia was with child again.

The child, whose birth had nearly killed them both, the mother and the daughter. The child, so small and early coming, not dropping headfirst in her near dying passion to be out into the world. Arianwyn, the bruikit babe, whose tears reeled Nia back into her room and into the inner sanctum of herself. Nia could not move. She could not sleep. She could not eat. She could not leave that room or place. She felt that no one understood the grief and constant fears that anxiously churned her core. More so when that child wailed. Then sweat poured down her stricken face. It was then Spaewife took her away into her dark and smelly hut.

The Spaewife who told Nia that it should not have been this way! Why did you take the mark, the cuts, why did you name your son Nechtanson? However, what other could she have done but accept and in acceptance yield? She little knew or cared other. Why could they not all only leave her by herself? She might as well be dead. How was she to know what was right and true if they made everything up? If no one had shown Nechtan or herself what was The Truth, whose fault was all of this? It was then the Spaewife recognised her neglectful mistake and took Nia beneath her wing.

Then came that day of spring on steady beats in the sky above the roof when, in the guise to Nia's fancy, the Spaewife came to her as a young woman and led Nia from that shaded room. They walked by the thirlfowk, who looking on mistaking Nia for the crone, wondered how Nia's fair and silken hair was as black as raven's back. The Spaewife took her to the curving oxbow lake, long lost from River Hern, and showed to her the swans. In the ancient tongue the Spaewife spoke, "I ken that, as a woman, ye hae been sairly hurt, and I troth that sic like pains will neer be pitten on Arianwyn. Ye shall be a queen! And swanlike regal as they are. Look see ye, the beauty o' the neck, the dern power tae tak them o'er the watter's wave and glide them unrestricted on. See how the curving wings seem tae enfold them in serenity. Thae wings that could brake a limb." Nia saw, understood and on that day returned to Nechtan and her children to find that he had grown to know how to love.

Nia returned to Nechtan's side, yet still a little afraid that, in his lusts, he would force on another child. Each night she lay in apprehension of his reach and her submission to demands that never came. Again, the Spaewife had counselled him and after the yowe trummle he had turned his fervour into understanding. Nia would have forgiven him distractions, but loved and pitied him all the more that he never had. Lying in his arms at night, she found other ways to realise his consolation. Nia bore witness to his tears of grief the day he sent his son away with his brother. She knew the fears he held for the future of his daughter. Nia witnessed the sacrifices he made for peace and welfare in the land and for its people. Loved by her, Nechtan now returned into her smiling face, a smile that he returned but failed to mask the worry in his eyes.

That night, as they cradled each other, she was full of women's questions. "So, our son, Nechtanson was there?"

"No."

"Och, your brother could have let him be there, did he tell how he is?"

"Fine, I hear."

"Nothing else?" Nothing. Only silence. "What did you men talk about?"

"The threat of Scots."

"That will have been a dull-dampener for you, my love. Nothing else?" Nothing else. Only silence, suppressing family news. "Well I have news. Arianwyn's is turning into a little minx, I warrant," Nia was too awake to sleep and if he would not talk, she would. "Tantalising Galam, making him blush, red as I do not know what. She did not think I saw or heard but I did. She told him she had bundled with Uven, Galam's friend, though she had not, said that he was not so bony as Galam and," poking Nechtan's chest with her finger, " are you awake? Listen, she told Galam, Uven had a bigger spurtle to stir his porridge with than he had!" She laughed but her husband did not. "You may be right, we might have to keep an eye on her. Anyway, Galam went bright red, brighter that the colour of his hair, that is how red he was, he called a hussy and she asked if Galam had seen Uven's spurtle! Then, here is something, she has developed a taunt with her hips. She places her right hand and on her hip and flicks it to the side, twice. Just to taunt." He was silent but she knew he was thinking. "Are you listening, I know your not asleep?" What he heard perturbed him; a winter might not be long enough or too long. "Then she told Galam, she could find plenty other flowers in the forest to pick and he told her go and pick one. What a pair, they suit each other, do you not think?" Nechtan considered his daughter, her fey-like woodland wanders, their nature and now enticement of boys with flicking hips. "Do you know what the thirlfowk say about her? She will brake hert o' mony a lad, that is what they say about your daughter, Nechtan. Mark my word, you might be right, we may have to watch her." Nechtan considered it was time to send Galam back to his father and deal with the waves sent toward him when they came. "I know I am her mother but I say, Arianwyn might turn out bonnie yet." She poked her husband one more time. "Despite taking too much of her looks from and not from me."

8

Listen up, Malachias, life here survives only by one devouring the other and in the cruel bright light time, all are spring-driven to reproduce.

PANGS OF MISCONCEPTION

A surge of mixed emotions of fragility and defiance coursed around the pain in her head. The Spaewife had warned to expect such things but they were an annoying imposition on how she had once been. She lent over arms folded beneath her stomach and glared at the gall-brute man with timidity to have upset in such an underhand manner. Nechtan recognised the lack of lustre in his daughter's face, signs he learnt from her mother and knew that he could not have chosen a worse time to have enacted his decision.

The afternoon, spent with intractable problems under the gathering heavy clouds of the first of autumn's storms dealing, with the Druid priests and knowing-women niggling again, demanding tattoo and circumcision of his daughter. He was fully aware how their spiritual guidance slowly twisted fears into the thirlfowk, linking the poor harvest and growing threat of war to the defiance of the princess against the faith. If he lost the will of the people, they may put someone else in place as king. His brother could just step into Forternn without need of other arrangement. The king promised he would request the princess for consent.

Another problem were the Scots. Unseen events unsettled them. Scots and Forternn Picts had lived side by side in mutual self-respect for long enough but now, the Scots, were as a bear bated and pressed the western edges around Loch Hern, probing with their war-bands and seeking for the weaker spots. Nechtan felt his brother's hand at work. The spring meeting was set at Sundering, a citadel too near the troubles. Nechtan regretted that he accepted this choice of place.

"Why have you sent Galam away?" his daughter demanded to know.

"His father has need of him."

"I need him here, so bring him back!" He deigned to answer her. "All this that is happening to me is not fair."

"And what is happening to you?"

That was uncalled for, she felt. His words infuriated her and in her mood, she quite prepared not to miss him. "For a start, you know I like him." There was to be no second point that he need know about, so she emphasised the main thrust. "What have you got against him?"

He tried to change the subject. "The druids and knowing women were speaking to me about the need for their princess to accept the rituals that the faith demands. The rituals that the people expect their princess to accept. I think you should heed their wishes and recognise your responsibilities towards them."

"If that is what they think, they can think again. I will not! Why should I?"

"I just explained why," he said calmly, trying to keep the tone lowered.

"Personally, I do not see why she should. Why, because she is a princess, should they mark her and cut those parts from her? All that butchery is uncalled for." Nia said outright. Arianwyn had never fully considered what the cutting knife would remove but something in words and the tone that were said in made her more fearful of what was involved.

"A queen must be seen to be above all such things. Arianwyn will handfast one day. The faith demands she rises above the needs that other women may offer on a whim to other men."

"Nechtan, the cords of handfast, tied in mutual acceptance of each other's love, are strong enough for that." Arianwyn felt more than just her cramping pains; the worry that her parents were about to argue not snigger bitching of girls, but adult secrets and outspoken in her presence making their implications potentially destructive to all. Pique her childhood ploy, infuriated by adult caprice as silly as a stamp of feet on a crick of cramping stopped the frightening squabble with her raged edict. "You cannot make me do this and will not have it done! I will hate you if you force me! Hate you both!"

"Arianwyn," her mother's voice was smoothing and firm. "I will not let this happen to you and neither will your father. Nechtan have you forgotten the harm the deplorable practice did to us? You must stand up to the druids and those women. You cannot let them do this to your child."

Nechtan felt weak. Whichever way he went he would be wrong. He had one more hope to calm the rising storm before him. "In the spring we will see how things are to be. An arrangement has been made for Arianwyn's future, for the future of land and all its children." The mother and her daughter waited as an uneasy tension awaited what next they would hear. "She will meet with her cousin Talorcan. I would wish it if they were suited."

"Arianwyn's too young for such as Talorcan." Nia snapped. "He is man who knows the way to what he takes; she is still no more than child! Look how small she is!"

"Her body moves her beyond girlhood, I can see the signs, look to her face if not her linen!"

"What man would utter defecation of the lips before his wife?" Her words selected in hope her child would not interpret. "What sort of father would arrange devastation for his child?" Clear enough for Arianwyn to wring her hands in worry.

"One," he rose in body and voice as his daughter bit her lower lip, "that would act king!" Outside the storm broke on his words with wind and rain. Out Nechtan went. He was soon wet and the rain hid his tears.

All that winter tongues wagged for the intent of Nechtan spread everywhere. "Pity the pair wee quine!" The thirlfowk said. "How will she take it when, having dipped the point in her, that two-edge sword-bearer clips her wings?"

A bright sun on a spring-like morning. A day to scorn the winter-spite and one to make the snowdrops dangle their heads in nods of temptations for hands to lift those gentle snow-rimmed lips and lifter dip their glimpse into the green promise. On such a day, the royal house of Forternn mounted and rode out west from Fothuitabaicht towards the royal citadel of Dundurin near Loch Hern. Towards the evening of the first day, they crossed the River Hern at the Haughs of Pittentian and camped within the ramparts of an old fort. To the north and west, hills rolled towards the winter-snow cloaked mountains of Athflodda. Under a full moon in a clear-cold sky, fires crackled a preparation of evening meals. Queen Nia stood apart on the Romans built ramparts such as her grandfather had one battled against until the lure of Roman gold bought him and perhaps his soul also. However, that night, Nia's mind was darkly set on other matters and sensing her mother's uneasy thoughts, Arianwyn drew to her side. "Mother, why do you stand, troubled here?'

"Now, tell me dear, do you look forward to meeting your cousin, tomorrow?"

"Yes, but I am hoping my brother will be there. It is so long since I have seen him."

"We all miss Nechtanson. He will not be the child we knew." The queen mused within herself on some far off thought or time.

"It is exciting to be travelling, to be seeing places that are new." A silence came between the pair as a warrior passed on his rounds around the rampart. When he had moved away, Arianwyn broke the silence. "Have I meet my uncle, King Alpin and cousin Talorcan?''

"Only once, along time ago, you will not remember."

"What manner of man is my uncle?"

"A king and High Father, as is your father, but their are as many shades of king as there are autumn colours in the trees. Some are golden while others are red as blood. Trouble stalks your uncle's lands from out of Dalriada. Much of their lands once were his." After a pause Nia turned to her daughter and in a lighter tenor spoke. "Have you missed Galam?"

"I miss the talks we used to have."

"I miss him also. Galam had a kindness within him not found in many men."

"I miss him not being around. I wish my father had not sent him away. Why did he do that, was it to spite me?'

"Why would you think such a thing? Your father loves you. He has much on his mind."

Arianwyn opened her mouth to find out about her father's problems but thought better and changed the subject. "What is Talorcan like?"

"Some men forget the boy they were, forget the lessons of their mother's lap."

"What do you mean, mother?"

"It is but a passing, mother's thought." She paused and looked at her daughter. She had been no older than Arianwyn when Nechtanson was born. "You should be wary of men like Talorcan. They know how to work charm, know how to tease our weaknesses and ...." she left the rest unfinished; it was too dark a place to go.

"And?" pressed Arianwyn.

"I know you find this foolish, but you are really just still a young girl yet." The queen paused, deep in thought before continuing. "Do not enter into waters where bears fish."

"What do you mean?"

"It is but a passing, mother's thought."

Yet this explanation did not ease a worrying knot, seeded in Arianwyn's stomach, planted there by the her mother's words. "What if I like Talorcan? He is, all said, the one my father has chosen for me. Father would not want ill on me, would he?"

"Of coarse not. Let us hope that Talorcan more than just likes you but also respects how young you are. Lassie-hood years soon pass, if he is noble he will wait for a man should meet a woman in equal terms."

"What does that mean, mother?" Arianwyn, exasperated by her mother's crouched words, folded her arms below her breast and frowned at the queen.

Queen Nia drew her child close to her, enfolding her in her arms. "It is but a passing, mother's thought, dear. I am sorry. I am being foolish. Maybe we should have brought the Spaewife with us. She could have given me a cheering-potion to drink or, perhaps it is the spirits of the Romans, who built these walls that unsettle me. Just remember what we have talked about, the time will come when the message will become clear. Now, let us go back to fire and food and talk about the dress you should wear on the morrow."

Taking her daughter's hand they left the rampart and returned to the others around their fires. That night sleep was late in searching where Arianwyn lay and when it did, it left too soon. When she awoke, she was aware of the frosted morning and knowledge that dreams had troubled her.

9

"In the beginning of time sapience seeps in ... "

DUNDURIN

Icy-cold on morning's ache of limbs, the eastern wind blew as a biting harbinger from the mountain snowfields, in warning of the barter within day, already of grey overcast on last night's dreams, as to which was the least welcome. Arianwyn shiver at the fire, the weather was real and present and they soon they set off the better. When they had, they followed the river it became narrower and white-water, swirled round rock wilder between the rising mountains that pressed on them as ever piling barriers to force them westward only. Towards early evening's hodden-dour sky, a wide strath opened up before them like a shield rimmed round with towering domes on domes of rising heady mountain tops and they beheld Dundurin; shield-boss of Forternn and protector of the western frontier. The citadel, concentrically ringed for defence, consisted of three rings of thick stonewalls, each topped with palisades of stout, wet timbers. Between each enclosed circle smoke curled from thatched buildings, the size of which become larger the higher up the royal stronghold they were situated until, at the top was the hall, timber built and no bigger that a thirlman's dwelling in Fortuirtabaicht. Already the embarrassment of sleeping and toileting arrangements ran through Arianwyn's mind, She felt her mother's hand on hers and braved a weakly smile.

They approached the citadel over the flat, damp strath passing a dank-like thirlfowk of lean and care-worn look who toiled the land sludge-grimed like shadows of living clay for the spring sowings. Hunger stalked their empty bellies for after the last yowe trummle, the summer had been wet and the harvest poor. The sky darkened and chill stabs of rain heralded on a northeast warning of more than the ice-sting of rain the wind blurred into Arianwyn's vision she upheld in awe of Dundurin's towering size.

On reaching the first gate, they filed through unchallenged. The guard there, foot-shufflers, melted from them. Crammed between the first and second walls ragged men, women and children huddled in flimsy-structures, pathetic efforts set against the weather's unfeeling moods. Many had not even that, existing in the open around fires dead of flame. Here in highland Dundurin, where winter defied the spring, the thirlfowk starved and cried out to their king's ears as he passed by. "How, my Lord, are we to thole the hunger of this snell, wind-born plight? Have you no aid for us?"

"Father?" Arianwyn feared to frame the question and face the answer no. He glanced to quieten her and the royal party continued on the steep climb until they reached the second gate. This gate, shut fast, opened only when King Nechtan declared himself and closed upon a welcome lacking everything but shamefaced faces. After dismounting, their horses were spirited away by shadows of men and they continued on foot up a steep slope and arrived breathless at the third gate. Puffing from the climb, the king knocked the door timbers, his face as grey as those they had passed below, and waited as if thirlfowk cap in hand before the snecked entrance. Arianwyn sensed a mounting anger in her father and found her mother's side.

"By my sword!" the king cried out. "Would you treat a stranger thus? I am your Overlord! Open up or I swear I will watch dancing jigs upon the ends of ropes, before the day's tune is out!"

A head appeared over the palisade next to the gate. "Who is it makes this noise?"

"Open the gate for your king and High Father or you will feel his choke of rope around your neck!" The head disappeared and, after a commotion of voices, the gate swung open. "Swords!" commanded the king and in a steely unison, his guard obeyed and followed him into the courtyard. "Where is, Mailcon?" He demanded. "Where is my vassal chieftain of this citadel?" And as the bear, Nechtan showed himself as fierce, in his stance, cloak swept back, he was the eagle on a rock and as the adder, his sword was poised to strike. The citadel guard fell back before him and the boar upon his neck. "You!" The king punctuating the air with a sword jabbed towards a man. "Tell me why I find Dundurin awash with refugees and unready to welcome its king?"

The unfortunate sentinel stumbled and mumbled. "My Lord, I will tell it true, only have pity and do not slay me for the message I will bear."

"Speak true and quick!"

"Here is my story, let it come," the sentinel began. " Five risings of the sun ago, Scots, in coracles cloaked in morning mists, came from the west in all a mighty host. They set fire to the crannog on the loch and all the farmsteadings around. Those of our folk that could, fled here but many did not escape. My chief, Mailcon, sallied forth to spite death on the Scots but they forced him back and we were besieged. For three sun-risings the Scots, positioned to the west by the burn beyond our shot began to starve us out. We harmed them not, nor they us other than the hunger grew. Then, in the afternoon of the third day the cry, Athflodda, reeled in the sky and Alpin bit their northern flank. On seeing this, Mailcon rallied out to smite the Scots, who retreated in good order and made escape upon the loch by watercraft and spells. King Alpin and Mailcon split forces, north and south around the loch to meet at Garngead and there to rout the Scots. There you have it, my Lord." The sentinel fell to his knees, offering his neck under the king's sword. "My Lord, strike true, strike clean!"

"Father!" Once again, he rounded on his daughter but this time his look was hurt.

"Up tale-bearer," he said returning to the news-bearer, "my hold upon my kingdom is not so feeble that I need to cleave your neck to keep it! Yet, your report is disturbing. I would know more, come with me, the rest see to my household, if so you please. Come bring ale and food. Your king is here!"

That command snapped the torpor of enchantment and the trance of spell that snagged the citadel in uncertainty. Caught within in the king's commandment, men and women moved with a purpose, whose intent spilled down the hill and over walls and caused fires to rouse from languid flames and rage in every fire pit. Where, in the hall, smoke once filled the void as fit to choke the food and drink brought for the hungry diners, flames leapt and cleared the thick and sooty air. A true ruler, Nechtan busied himself with ordering and left with warnings that his women should stay put.

A true queen, defying Necthan, Nia busied herself what she saw to be her duty. An untried princess, Arianwyn stood a useless ornamentation where tools were needed, so teetered on her mother's tail of cloth and firewood then, at her behest, taking food wrapped in cloths in blind obedience and followed her mother down the steep slope out side the hall.

Descending through morass of growing grief into the lower levels, she tailed her mother. Deep down to where the starving refugees languished in distress, down to where sorely needed benefactions were palm pleas in their faces. "A blissin on you, Lady, with the fair young lass." They blessed the queen and the princess's passing hems that dragged the earth and swept a hope within the traces of its passing. There did not seem enough for all the numbers and soon the princess felt hands grabbing at her skirts, heard the anguish in the cries that recognised she had not enough to fed the horde and saw the soldiers draw their swords and beat them back. This winter would cull many ere the spring returned.

Darkness fell before Arianwyn and her parents got back in the great hall to eat. His look told them he was upset they had defied him, they ate little in the silence, and when the meal was over, they sat around the fire. Nechtan's mood blackened as he digested his food and chewed the bitter matters of the day. He felt the tension all around, from his wayward family, the pressures of estate and his responsibilities in ruling. He regretted his shortsightedness. Events now strung him, playing him malevolently like a harp-played clamour, set by untrained fingers, unexpected and discordant. Most of all he regretted the licence he had allowed his daughter. This was not a world where we could do just as we wished. Control was slipping through his fingers; he closed his fists to grip the little still he felt he could hold.

"My Lord," Queen Nia broke his silence. "This raid by the Scots, before the end of winter, does not bode well for the peace on our borders. I feel this is an unsafe place and that I should take Arianwyn back to the safety of Fothuirtabaicht."

The man beside her raised wall of bitterness between them, she sensed it and tried to reach him but felt him prickle like thorns. "Wife, Arianwyn will be safe in Athflodda. When my brother returns, she will away there. The world is changing. She will have to do what I know is best and she will yield to what she has to do."

"Has to do? You cannot means for this betrothal with Talorcan to go ahead? At such a time as this?"

"Betrothal?" Arianwyn felt a fear twisting below and within her, an apprehension. "What if I do not like, my cousin? Am I to have no say in the matter? It is my life is it not?"

"Quiet, child!" her father bit her back. "You are to be handfasted," and concluding with a fierce look added, "to prince Talorcan, son of Alpin." At this Arianwyn felt a leaping shiver; the fire was low and dark the hall. She saw her father's fire-shadowed face, grim-set and unrecognisable. In that moment, she became afraid. She would never see Fothuirtabaicht again, or Galam, the Spaewife or her mother. All would be lost all to her and what given in return but whispered trepidations, which, within her girlfriend circles brought sniggers of lip biting smirks for fear of the shadowy unknown. Arianwyn's sympathy went out to Thawen and she glowered at the man called her father. The thought that she would never see him again did not enter her concerns, for he sat there a changed and boorish man, prepared to give all of that was Arianwyn away without a thought to her feelings. He had become uncaring and the reason why, she failed to comprehend. This man was now a distant surety and a close threat. Her mother sensed her foreboding and, knowing that it reflected her own unease, spoke out. "The child is too young, my Lord! How can you think to do this, without having even giving her an option of a choice? To think, one such as Talorcan, and a close cousin!"

"Lower your voice, wife," Nechtan hissed between clenched teeth, for the queen had spoken out clearly for all to hear, "Close cousin-blood can mingle well and help to draw a line of succession. Further, I will not bandy words with you, woman, over this matter. Nor have all and sundry party to our conversation, so shut you up!"

"How dare you talk to me like that!"? She snapped back. An unease of silence held the air until, more kindly, she approached with warm enquiry. "What has brought this change in you? Husband, you will not listen to me, and not act like your father? " Her voice was low so none but Arianwyn heard. "We never came to a final decision on this matter, you walked out that night, remember?" The king's attention seemed to wander away from her, caught by the passing figure of a young slave woman and this riled something in Nia. "Act like a king, you said, why not act like a father?" She heated her exchange with him. "You do not have my acceptance on this for I have not met this nephew since he grew to be a man. Talorcan, a man, who spreads his standing before him like spilt blood, there are ... " she looked at Arianwyn with worried mothers concern, she saw Arianwyn's head was down but Nia knew her ears were open and though her voice became a hiss, she still went on, " ... such tales about him."

"Tales and tittle-tattle of the thirlfowk!" Heads looked round. "Woman your daughter is perhaps not the fresh spring blossom she would lead you to believe! I see the passion that she masks from you. How long before she seeks to open up her flower to more than perfume sniffing?" Such language shocked all to silence but not Necthan in his fury. "I care like a father, see as a man but I am King and High Father. She has had the winter to grow from girlhood; more fool her if she never learnt from the curving change and monthly discharge of body. She draws near the time to find out what it means to be a woman. She needs someone like Talorcan to fill the appetites she will have."

"My lord, the child is here and all hear your low words. Look how she blushes."

"A petal blush is it?" and he gave a snort. "Then a bud to be plucked before some uplifting wind peals its petals off." The king now whispered but webs of floating spiders swayed down from the rafters to listen to his words. "Look you wife, and see how she hides her eyes, she knows of what I talk." With eyes that glistened with pleas for comfort, Arianwyn appealed for pity to her parents. Her father swallowed, defied the grip beneath him and spoke to the fire. "Enough of this." They waited apprehensive of his mood for as long as count to three and then he looked to his wife. "Nia, if there were other options, do you think I would not take them? I will hear no more of this. You have both grown soft at Fothuirtabaicht and this only by the deeds of men like Talorcan, on the showers of their blood, do you dally sentimentally at Fothuirtabaicht, with the likes of Galam and his ways. "

"Husband, I swear I do not know you tonight. These crude comments you utter stain you as alehouse spills, you seem to forget this is your daughter by your side. What you imply of her and Galam, are quite uncalled for in both of them." The queen's voice was as soft as a stroke on a kitten. "They are no more than frolics of the young."

The kings sharp teeth showed to spit venom. "Uncalled for you think?" Outside the wind trembled at his voice; spiders crawled closer to hear, "You have no notion of what is going on! Do you think that the child can idle her days with talk of spells and potions, wanderings in field and woods to ... to ... talk with her voices and ... and ... dream and ... and all the rest she does." Arianwyn's hands twisted into a finger knot of worry on just what her father knew about her wanders in the woods. What was seen and by who or was this just conjecture on his part? What sort of mind had her father to think he had the right to invade her like that? "The child is at the age to leave girlhood. I know of all her ploys, the scrapes she gets involved in, it is time she grew up and found the reason for such games. She shall cover her head. She will take the mark. She shall yield to the cuts below. As a queen must!"

"No!" Arianwyn cried, "I do not want any of that. You can make me, mother, tell him he cannot!"

"Hold still, girl, you will do what you were born for! If was good enough for your mother and myself, it will be good enough for you. Be assured you will warm Talorcan's bed for him before a fourteen passing of days, healed below or not!"

"Nechtan! So coarse! What is this that is in you? This is no way to talk in front of your daughter and your wife. Have you forgotten her name? Remember not, Arianwyn? "

Nechtan's lips parted a parry to Nia's blow, but the words stopped on his sharp intake of breath. He realised his breath smelt fowl. His eyes smirred unfocused on the glowing coals, lost in his thoughts, floundering in sludge of affairs he had not wanted. "It's but a name, a word the Spaewife muttered," he mused and Arianwyn could feel her stomach acid churning on the bile of ill feeling between her parents. It entered into her throat.

"Not so." The queen sighed a sigh for all to hear, for all to see it as a ruling placed on Nechtan's head and to rest firmly there. "It was a name the Spaewife gifted."

Minutes passed in silence and eventually, Nia made a shift in her position to rest a hand upon his hand and win the man behind the wall. Nechtan's blank face-harden to a glower of heavy, downcast eyebrows and pressed lips together. Then he too spoke for all to hear. "Arianwyn will be given to Talorcan. I am King, I will have it so." Turning with a defiantly look into his queen's eyes, he said. "Within the year, wife, she will birth a grandchild you will never see."

Then Nechtan ordered the assembly in the hall to the sleeping benches. The queen did not cross with the king to lie with him; instead, she took Arianwyn and crossed to the side where women slept. Another restless night of searching sleep came to the mother and daughter. Nechtan found it was the same for him.

During the night, the wind increased in strength from the northeast. In the dark of the early morning, Arianwyn woke having slumbered on worried thoughts. The wind intensified like a banshee wailing around the northern edges of the building. Shutting her eyes, she fretted over the lives that banshees came to claim and half wished it were her father though it was probably some poor soul in the lower reaches of the citadel. Before dawn, she slumbered once again.

The citadel awoke with a covering of cold, wet snow under a blanket of grey cloud. The day was bitingly cold. Below the bitter second wall, the refugees stirred their stiffened joints, sanguine-bereft to the resolve of living on, they struggled to lit fires to heat thin sowens when, to chill them to within a heart-stop, a high-pitched ethereal wail froze the air. "The banshee," the thirlfowk muttered near enough to hear the high shards of notes, "has claimed a little life this ae nicht," The waif-like laments did not stop and reached to the hall for only Arianwyn's ears.

"What was that sound?" she asked.

"What sound, dear?" asked her mother.

"Just then." She saw her mother shake her head. "Just then from down below." The mother had no clue. "A sound, high like a shriek." Her mother accommodated this whim with an awkward smile that miffed her. "Well, if you did not, I heard it, mother and I am not sitting here, I am away to find out what it was."

"Stay still girl," her father growled to her.

One glower on her father's face changed to appealed unto her mother's, where two disputes with her daughter in the space of as many deep breaths was too much for Nia. She gave way, permitting Arianwyn with a granting gaze to challenge her father's eye. His met his daughter eyes, which told him that she would defy the misconstrued man of feelings disregarded and such he did nothing as she grabbed her plaid and left. In her haste she failed to draw the plaid around head so snow lay as crystal gems on autumn tints of gold and as a crown upon her.

The sound within the air, she followed the flying now urgent frequency, weaving through pitiful people until she came upon a wide cleared space with a covered weird shape at the centre. All those around seem wary to approach. A dweibly crying drained from under the earth-clogged cloth, so that Arianwyn had to pull the glaur-damp weight aside to see beneath the cover. At first she had no understanding of what she had uncovered. Snowflakes caught her eyes, she felt them freeze then melt, and wiping ice-water from her sight she saw, was sure she saw, a young woman in that unclear form. Then looking more, a golden torc appeared to be around the young woman's neck and in her earth-smeared arms, a clay of blue-brown and green shape became a bairn. The babe was still; the pallor was the grey of those who were about to give up life.

"Hand me the baby!" Arianwyn ordered the young mother. Green eyes looked up into brown, unfocused and almost squint, as the mother's attachment to the bairn eased, allowing her lift the babe away as if the mother was an awful dope. Arianwyn looked into the babe's hazel eyes feeling proficiency born of rank and privilege and pitied the feckless mother, she look not on, cowered in the damp stain of mud at her left side. "I shall take this child up to the hall." The mother had not stirred and Arianwyn felt her eyes searching for her own and a child in her pricked the conscience of her mind. "I expect you can come too if you wish."

A defining flashpoint, which through her life for all the good and ill it would bring, Arianwyn would not change or reject the life-change she felt at that time when, punching through her to her alarm, a strength welled in her a flood of certainty, as moving as a moment on the grassy bank. It lasted but a finger click, dissipated but was fulfilling and right. It opened out her soul and took her breath away as she witnessed the darting through by green eyes from under dark-damp, straight- hair designed to reach for her and claim her destiny. On her inward take of air and desiring nothing else, Arianwyn, felt her chest swell as a passage widened, a film of reticence made pliable eased her and yearned her to be close to that mother. Her eagerness ate from within her heart with such a longing that when the woman spoke to her, the words seemed rays of huge goodness for her ears only. The tingle in her throat intensified, opening her lips into her wonder-parting to listen to the mother's words. "You want me to be with you, is it your desire?" the mother asked blankly.

Yet more than flippant words were in the question asked foolishly, for they held Arianwyn gripped and flustered in a fascination - chilly, thrilling, warm and melting - of such intensity of feeling in which, the tingle that started in her throat, dropped to her stomach, raced up back up to her heart and - not leaving any of those places - re-entered her throat and blushed her face. Still mouth-goggled she turned her gape away and grappled her looks and hands anywhere but in the direction of the disconcerting woman. Masking herself in baby sounds to the babe within her arms, she tried to understand the emphasis of woman's tone and the feelings coursing through her body. All that Arianwyn knew was the need not to separate mother, child and herself, and all she understood of herself was that she was - Nechtan's daughter, Princess of Forterrn, expected in her class given duty, before a bereft thirlwife to take control. "Now listen you, I cannot take the babe without you, so do as I ask and up you come."

"But is it your desire? Is it your will, for all that means, that I be with you?"

"Eh?"

This time the words stunned the princess and now she took time to really look at the young woman. A sheen of beauty in a horrid place, suddenly she was without fault. Her look, her flawless skin and the person within was purity, blameless of all sin around. From high and mighty superiority that, Arianwyn, felt was hers by the goodness of her altruism, the girl quivered at the knees and sank to kneel in the gluar and muck. Something of the young mother humbled her, something disturbed Arianwyn about herself. She felt ashamed of her demand of obedience when help was asked, but beyond all that, she was unnerved. Who was here reaching whom? Who was being offered what and whose hand would lead who the from this low place to Dundurin's height?

"But is it your desire? Is it your will, for all that means, that I be with you?"

"I am sorry, what?" The child was lifed from her arms.

"But is it your desire? Is it your will, for all that means, that I be with you?" Already the taking of the child from the mother felt wrong. Arianwyn gulped upon the worry of what she was about to concede.

"Yes."

The acceptance, weakly wavered but willingness enough given, allowed the young woman to wrap her hand in hers without alarm and with the bairn, weave the princess through the wonderment of mystified faces, which followed their passage up the avenues to upper hall.

On reaching the hall, the princess slid back her hand and with a side look at the young woman, reclaimed the babe and striding into the hall called for fire and dry wraps. The hall enveloped her, stifled her shouts in the distance gloom and muffled her summons for assistance. Left on the doorstep, in seeming adjustment from bright to dark, the woman discerned Nechtan huddled by the fire. Though fierce his glare askance at her it failed to stop her enter in as if was her right. No word of censure passed the king's lips for he was eyes for her and the straight-temptation on her lips quivered at one side where tip of tongue perturbed that only men would interpret in their own weird way, but not Necthan, and he cringed within himself for that he had. "What this that you bring to my hall?" He muttered lowly.

Queen Nia swept past him to the young woman, concern and caring flighting her to her but not so fast as to not look back and scatter words of scolding for the king. "It is the babe's mother, make room beside the fire and allow her warmth and food."

"Such as that should be kept well outside our decent doors." However, he said no more for he did feel good about the man he had become, the thoughts the woman ran into his mind and besides, he felt belittled and no longer master of his house, let alone his kingdom.

"Bring rowan berries, please." Arianwyn asked a servant and waited by the fire cradling the bairn in her arms. The snow, melted on her head when she had entered her father's hall and now glistening orbs of fire, reflected sparkles, which crowned her head. Nechtan looked at his daughter. He scratched at something that itched and irked below this beard, almost inside his skin. Dead, dry flakes of white fell to the earth and he rose and set himself apart when the servant returned with the rowanberries. Arianwyn gave the young mother her bairn to warm by the fire and ground the dried berries in a mortar and as the Spaewife had shown her, mixed them with warm water.

"That is just the way to do it." The woman said.

Arianwyn let the tea cool and took the babe in her arms. Then she spooned a little of the brew but, aware of eyes around her, her hand did shake to spill the blood-red liquid on her lap. The mother wiped the drops with the edge of her sleeve but a damp, dark patch remained. He eyes lightened into Arianwyn's eyes. "Try again," she crooned. Once more the spoon was charged and this time reached the princess's lips for her to cool to with her breath then taking the bree to the baby's mouth she spooned it carefully only for the bree to dribble from the sealed mouth and stain the princess's sleeve.

Once more, the ragged sleeve returned to clear the drops and yet again, the reminder of the slip remained. "This time, pinch the nose betwixt finger and thumb," the young mother told Arianwyn. The task repeated, this time she pinched the button nose and then a miracle happen before all that watched. The babe gasped for breath and swallowed. All were amazed as life mewed into the babe.

"Here," the princess panicked at the mother, taken aback and had with duty, "take your baby, keep it warm by the fire and let it sup a little at a time on this bree."

"Thank you princess, bliss you, Nia's child. A blissen on your healing wisdom, Nechtan's daughter. A blessing on your wisdom on this day."

All those of importance think themselves known to those lesser than they in public understanding of the image given Nechtan drew close and Nia smiled at her daughter. Nia was overcome with joy as she watched Nechtan place a touch of father-care upon his daughter's shoulder, but before a calm could settle and solidify, a rough calcifying cries sounded from the gates below, stirring the king to stiffen like a mighty sword and leave the joy brought by the saving of a life.

10

"Servanius was sad for he loved Arianwyn and saw her soul as damned. "Arianwyn, would you excuse the evil men do?""

WELCOMED GUESTS

Beyond the burn, before the citadel, under a dark and grumpily sky, a force of armed men approached that Nechtan viewed with unsure perception of what was before him, then as a sun on parting clouds after the scuffing scold of rain, the king's face shone. "Open wide the gates!" he commanded, for he had seen the party's leader was his brother, King Alpin of Athflodda. "Warm the ale, we have welcome guests here!" The hostility of past niggles naught to the joy of worry gone.

On the tail of King Alpin, the war party followed the flap of his bearskin cloak, the tips of his lard-smoothed moustache, the fangs of his parted beard, the plough of his battle-scared furrows and the vein-map of his blotched face. He lifted an ill-coloured flask and tilted it to his lips. Behind him rode Talorcan. At Talorcan's side the weasel-man Murtholic in druid's wolf furs, shared close communion with another saddled youth next to him. In the rear, Mailcon followed on foot with armed thirlfowk guarding four tethered men. "As usual, brother," King Alpin boomed as he reached the gate, "I've saved your tail from being bitten off; and I come bearing gifts," A backward gesture pointed to the bound men. "Now where's our ale, or do I need to provide that too?"

Necthan took his brother up to the small, dim hall where suddenly everything became a rummage in the overflow of a bag stuffed full of bric-a-brac of a life collected trinket treasure where, at the door-lip, a young man himself held back. He held all in his eyes as if this purloined bag before him was now his to examine for its worth to him. High-sounding greetings exchanged within the ruckus, as Alpin dipped his lips in praise of Nia's beauty and kissed her hand, while all the his eye wolfed about to find the purpose of his visit. Then straightening when he found it, he struggled to cover up a smirk. Hid away behind her mother, head no higher that Nia's shoulders, a chest rub to him and little more, he mistook her for a servant or at most, a flavoured slave for some fancy need, dressed in a pricey cloth, stained at sleeve and lap by whatever expedient she was kept on hand for. However, it was Arianwyn he recognised and his comment, when it came, a chasm-maker, thoughtless in its utterance and uncaring. "Well lookie here what have we there? The vera spout-drip o her faither, did you not think that a bit unkind, brither dear, tae leave so little of the mither in her looks, bar the smile upon her gaping puss?" The princess shut her mouth as tetchiness held grim within the frozen formality of grins. Alpin blanked all and pursued his wit right to the bitterness that trickled from his tongue and lip. "No like my aine, in which nae hint o mine save nature, his face a dapper-mirror o his mither's dark and foreign mug." Then as he took the hand of Arianwyn to kiss, a sharp-spirit stink pinched her nose. Her captured hand in his, the roughness on the smooth, entrapped and pressurising on his insistence to look and see his hand standing by the door jam. "So then, son," he addressed the shape," think of duty here and where the eye is when poking at the fire, come, and do the needful. Clear the way there, ye houghin muck, let the dug see the hare."

The dark form at the door came forth and revealed itself a maiden's wish - a woman's sigh up to the sky and with tall, broad glory in their eye outwith their reach bar tried and cast aside. One masterful and mighty fist, hew out princess's hand from the father's clutch into a grace-crafted catch that charmed her, for all the brute size it was it was gentle. The lips, possessed of such a hand, parted between the short-kempt beards of virile smile and showed disarming teeth. "Forgive my father," Talorcan droned as deep and sweet as honeyed mead, "to the untried palette, his wit is an acquired taste. For my part, I only see beauty set before me." She reddened in embarrassment and feeling his strength holding her from collapsing, savoured his next words as a dish of mellow fruitfulness. "Sweet cousin, whom I remember well, my service to you." His kiss lingered upon her hand. Taken by a wit beyond her age of understanding, she beheld the sheen of his tightly curled head and suppressed the craving of her hand to caress that head as she would the hump behind the head of Nechtan's bull. Talorcan's lips tantalised the back of her hand where their opening thereupon, sent her to shiver at the slight suckling suck upon her satin skin. Then quick at the adder at the sense of footfall and just as quickly taken from her, the lips closed on her rush of excitement and the hand removed so abruptly from her, that her look fell to the ground. There, Arianwyn, saw stains of mud around her hems, unnoticed there before, the blotches of the rowan juice and blushed. Yet in the tautness of her body she knew - reach for the take and he was her's. She dared to watch the tall young man, strong and handsome with raven-black curls of hair, take her mother's hand and say. "Aunt Nia, fairest queen that ere I have seen, the beauty of you demands my service to you," Reach for the take and all of her was his. She cast her eyes at his feet.

"Aye Arianwyn, wha is the lucky, wide-eyed hinnie syne, her mouth a drool an all?" She shut her face at the uncle who knew no shame. "Eh, lassie, tell me?" She felt her mother bristle by her side. "There is Talorcan for ye now, a richt chairmer, no?" Her father's help held from her. "And such as the like you, my hen, a suitor you would not be expecting by a long way and half."

"My father," the son's voice placed the father where it belonged, "has all the subtlety of a spring hail and as soon forgotten as when the sun shines." In the shyness of a smile, her face opened in gratitude towards her cousin. "Take it from me, Arianwyn, you melt his iciness for me, you only need to reach out your hand and I am well contented. Remember that fine day, fair ladies?" The girl and mother sighed together. One high cheep from out the throat, one low gruff from out the nose, one a half hazed in recall, the other in shame that it was recalled at all.

Housomeiver or however, the mood she in, the language choice was least of all her worries, for such a flux of bewildering emotions beamfillit this young day, for that youthhead bapped about to catch her mense in such a witless way as for her uncle's caustic words and mother's desparging note - both flannelled grimily around the rafters - to go quite unnoticed by herself. Her reason for it lost, if not by all the others. All happenings today had been exciting. Many had been mysterious and novel, but this man had set a tremble in the wee bit girl she was from which, she felt to flinch yet desired to hae the mair o it! She reached and took his hand and, in surprise of her own reaction, looked up to discover that he explored her body with his eye. His smile opened before a tongue that tickled on the air between them then, as swiftly as before and as with finished with some crumb, he sealed his lips and flicked her hand from his. Her hand hung in the air before him as she fluttered like moth before his flame, anxious and demur with shoulders swinging side to side, she clasped hands outstretched behind her back and almost bowed before him. Remembering to close her mouth, yet still hand tied, she straightened on knee that nearly curtsied. Amusement flitted across the young man's lips and Arianwyn now felt demeaned by him. This stung her pride but after all the flap of flattery he had offered her, felt her the child still in her was to blame. She adult-set herself at him. Proud and tall as jaw his chest the princess stood, clasped her hands to her front, below her waist and stretched her neck haughtily to point her chin. Fee-nal-ly, she tilted her head at a jaunty angle to the side, which made her hips fike, fike, fike then quiver in a fizz. For some reason Talorcan's amusement did not fade. She heard him snort as if to laugh or scorn and from the lip she spoke. "Something about me amusing you cousin?" Arianwyn used a smile, the one she adopted when she won some small tease with Galam or her father. However or housomeiver, the feeling was short lived for Talorcan's eyes scanned slowly from her feet to chest then round behind each ear as if she was a market steer. Was she expected to turn around upon the spot for him to view each angle of her until he said enough? She placed one arm against her bosom the other hand held the hot flush at her neck and then she saw his eyes were lifeless as black-brown concealing glass. Those eyes, which refused the firelight, sparkle, made Arianwyn determined he would see her charm. "Well bless me! What am I saying?" She burst out quite irrationally, collapsing into simpering cloy of submission before his patronising smile.

"Forgive me Arianwyn," he said disguising his taken pleasure at the girlish fawning. "It is but a mind split between the joy of you and the urgency of state. This trouble with the Scots disturbs our meeting and there is much I need tell your father about the last few day's events."

"Well spoken words, Talorcan," said Nechtan. "I thank you for them." All the men smiled broadly. "Now perhaps if the ladies would leave us, we can discuss those matters that worry you, nephew."

So, that was that and it was fine, no slight made and she was charmed, she felt her mother take her hand and, backward glancing going her lips a ring of a fleshy new desire, circled of her hope for him. Her father watched her leave the hall and felt pleased that he understood his daughter. Outside Nia sat her down on a bench and, knowing least said the sooner mended, only smiled when looked at by her child. Those immature hands a fidget on a young maid's lap, clasping and unclasping, reaching up to her mouth, she drove her mother into a frenzy of when to smile and when to not. Finally, Nia looked on helplessly at her child would-be-a-woman overnight, and steeled herself to fight against her daughter becoming little more than tomorrow's scrapings at the twinkle of a passing smile.

"Is something the matter, mother?"

No, dear, it is but a passing mother's thought." A thought that closed up Arianwyn's face and made her knit her brow. "Humph! Well now, Arianwyn, tell me, what think you of Talorcan?" A question to lit her face.

"He seemed nice, do not you think, mother? And do you know what?"

"No, what?" A question asked from ages back.

"I think he liked me also." If her mother was listening, her glazed look had her elsewhere and, sinking in her stomach, the girl felt she knew where. "Nechtanson! Och, mother, was my brother there in the hall? With all the crowd and goings on I never saw."

"Nechtanson was there."

Necthanson long learnt the way to see and be unseen. He was in the hall all the time, shadow-keeping in the back, and still there as state-babble hung itself on procedure into which, off the agenda during a cup refill, his foster father, Uncle Alpin, called him forward. "Nechtanson, foster-son, to me ya hure, and honour your father." From behind the throng he stepped with a nonchalance attitude, seemly accepting the slight onhis character reference. At this, over his upper lip went Nechtan's lower lip and glued there. At fourteen, a youth with deeds and actions seen as many adults would wish no notion of, Nechtanson looked older than his years but although thick-set of limbs like his father, his face, more the grace of his mother's, was an eruption of rashes, spots and dark and downy hair darkening his upper lip.

"Father." Nechtanson said formally.

Little more passed between father and son as the affairs of the previous days took president. With the discussion that took over the need to fill ale cups, Nechtan still found it hard to know what to say to his son. All questions, however open, received closed answers. In the end he asked his son to go outside and greet his mother and sister as befits the family spirit, then ask all the women to return and prepare the breakfast. Outside Nechtanson bowed his head and greeted his mother with that one word then, like an afterthought, gave Arianwyn her name as sister. Both words sounded dark and unloved. Arianwyn heard her mother sigh, for she had looked and knew son had become stranger. "Where is the child that was mine?" she said for none to hear. Arianwyn wormed around to find her brother in the youth before her but could not find him. She could not find words to use with him and he did not seek to give her any to latch onto, not even an opening to a memory of the joyful times they once had together. With more grace, a disgruntled servant would have delivered the instruction with which his father had charged him. He turned his back on them and cloudily they followed him in. The other women strung along behind on a shuffle.

"Now, breakfast and ale!" Alpin's demand greeted them as a slap wake-up call and as all the men's moods had mellowed, Nia and the women busied to their needs, leaving Arianwyn to chew over an amazing morning of dark and light, of coolness and passion, of an outreach of love and hidden mislippen of word and feeling. The men mixed in merry crack and Arianwyn, the side plate at the meal, took her food and sought out the thirlwoman whose child she had saved and sat by her eating but a little and offering to share. This did not go unnoticed and the reason asked, for why was this lowly female was fed by the hand of the princess? Between them, Nia proud and Nechtan apologetic, the guests learnt the reason. The rude laughs scoured like calloused skin.

"See yourself the noble lady, young Arianwyn, and caring of others, dae ye?" Alpin, having eaten to the formal leed, had begun to drink himself to the common slurring, caring not who heard his mocking or saw his grist upon her ear. "Na, na, dinna take on so, my feather dovie-doo, in truth, such qualities please me. Our peoples will be indeed fortunate tae hae the likes o you as their queenie, my hinnie-hen. What say you, Talorcan?"

Arianwyn felt belittled. To crawl up in a corner and never more be heard of would be better than waiting for that young man's answer. Which way would it go, a scorn for a simpleton or a defence for one deserving of his honour? The young man played a tune upon a mouth of food; his hand held them waiting as he chewed. She held her breath to hear hope then found her lungs filling thankfully full, not by there own volition, but by from the warmth of hand from that young mother at her side placed on hers. Looks exchanged to each other and the young man's opinion was of little interest. However, it worked into her ears.

"If the lady, Arianwyn, finds favour to help those in need, I find that a quality worthwhile." She turned her face to him. "With this I am assured and for you, Arianwyn, I will endeavour to honour you so that the love of Artuir and Vanora would be but a pale shadow of our affection for each other." This love match of Artuir and Vanora was renowned and Talorcan's declaration clearly voiced; all heard, all approved, so be it. Suddenly, Arianwyn, felt herself swept by a river-flood that engulfed in a panic, from which Talorcan reached, pulled her hand in his and mystified her eyes. "Arianwyn, I find your pity for that woman touching. Stunning is as stunning is, in her alluring beauty, and that easily found for any wink or trinket, moreover pretty is as pretty is, and you? Well you are bonnie is as bonnie does. A beauty in that wishes out." He touched his nose, wiped a finger over his nose and left it uncertainly stroking around his beard. "I, for one, would be sorry for its loss."

Unable to look up and round, Arianwyn could only gaze at her bowl, feeling confused and less that pretty. His comment about Grainne puzzled her and why he ever made it. Creases of annoyance, around her brow and mouth, made her appear plainer as, silent in uncertainty, she fretted on what he and all around expected as acknowledgement to his speech from her. In the end, she decided Talorcan had flattered her and that eased the knots she faced. A man like sweep-me-of-my-feet captivated her with talk of love (that word was used was it?) that had set a tremble within her. Yet, there was still a doubt about all this, for she had seen a foal's reaction when, for the first time, it was given the bit and now knew the reason for its wild anxiety and white-fear in the eye. Others were taking control and she felt haltered by their plans for her. Somewhere from nowhere her father made his presence felt.

"Gallant words, Prince Talorcan." All for good or ill was settled as, she turned her face to her father seeking reassurance. This was good - she heard an anguished breath taken by her mother - all will be fine - she saw her mother's hand fasten on her father's arm - I will find what you wish for me - her father shrugged her mother off and he saw his daughter's hope turn to fear. Nechtan quickly acted. "But I see your words bring a blush to my daughter's face. There will be time yet for more soft endearments between the two of you, chaperoned and less public." Nechtan did not want to drive his daughter into a place where fright would make her turn and run. Besides, he knew his wife was about to explode at all this hasty fixing and so to block her discontent; he turned to matters of state. "Enough of this, eh brother? Come, you have not yet told us of the events that happened, since you came to rescue of my citadel of Dundurin."

"Really?" Nia sparked. "What were you doing when we were sat outside? Drinking?"

She might as well as held her breath; Alpin ignored her and spoke through her to Nechtan. "True, Nechtan, but let my wizard tell, which gives me mair time to drink your ale." Turning to the slight man he boomed, "Murtholic, tell my brother of oor chase!"

"By your leave," the wizard began and held the floor. "We surprised the scank of Scots camped at your gates and drove at their southern flank, in aim to cut them off from the loch. Left as that, the story would have ended in our victory there and then but as it was your captain, Mailcon, rallied from the citadel and the Scots broke in order before we could trap them."

Arianwyn's chin sank into her hands and already she began to feel the bottom ache of boredom. "This wizard," she heard he father say and knew its disapproving tone, "I trust is not about to rebuke to my chieftain?" Bluff and bluster, how well she knew his way of late, every speech the same browbeat. "I would have done the same as Mailcon." Her gaze turn towards the young mother at her side, eye caught eye in a giggle-twinkle then for all the world they were one another in that time and space. No crush within the crowded, muggy hall with rush of anxious woman serving table - scrapping, bowing - and no trough of swilling men laughing - belching. None of that existed only her, the young mother and her child. Still feeling like a dunnoch plain and dull and this young mother, sublime and fascinating, dwindling her throb of doubt with her arms full of child, she studied the young mother. The mother could only be a few Beltanes older than herself and totally at ease within herself. It occured to Arianwyn, that for the first time that morning she was now at ease and that the day's events had been disturbing up to this point. Her eyes fell to the floor as she recalled a morning that had seen her mocked, praised, ridiculed, lauded, embarassed, her appearance questioned to her face and then pumped up like pouty-promise by her uncle and snake-charmed by her cousin which, in the end left her unable to entangle one of their lines of critique from the other. That her uncle was a brute was clear, he was her father's little brother after all, but Talorcan, her cousin, surely there was hope for him and her? "No, no, My Lord, no rebuke intended," the wizard plea stabbed in her ears, "Mailcon served in the days that followed as well as I could be expected." In panic, she besought Grainne's eyes and this time held them.

Everything in the hall around the princess stank, from the defecation of women's sweat to wind of men. Her father's fetor fear made him rank, her mother's breath churned in a nervous digestion that seemed to be going up through her system instead of down. Talorcan, though oh-so handsome, had smelt of musky-rankness, dried-in blood and next day's bedding. In this peat-reek atmosphere she, herself, was no exception but the young mother at her side smelt of nothing ill at all but if anything, perfumed the air with scents of violets. Two things struck Arianwyn as strange. The first being, that of the people in this cramming cramp the one that should smell this most should be the mother at her side. In this gather of Pictish elite, the common thirlwife was the most regal of them all. If anyone in this pong of a place could tell her why, she was not about to butt in and ask the reason why. Full well, she knew her mother's attitude to saying and soon mending. Not that her mother always stood by that creed and that brought the princess to the second thing that struck her, which was that she had never asked the young mother her name and now this became a burning issue.

The wizard held the floor. "The Scots retreated to the loch and gained their boats. We split our forces, Mailcon to the south side, King Alpin, Prince Talorcan." Arianwyn leant towards the young mother to whisper the question for the answer she yearned for. "Arianwyn! Do not interrupt!" The snap of her father's voice sent her mopping back as the baby started to greet and grumble.

"He is the aye hungry one," the young mother dusted softly in her ear. Then began to release the brooches that held the top of her dress attached, which caused the room of men to stir itself into a web of silence, into which their hungry eyes gnawed in anticipation and only when the babe wailed into the tension did Nechtan growl.

"Take that outside to do what you feel you must." A scoff of disappointment spewed forth from the other men all stuck, including Talorcan, on what the mother was about to offer to her child.

"In fact, brother, can we no clear all the houghin woman oot o sight? Go on get out, your presence here is not desired."

He hardly reached the end of that order when half the women were up and out the door. Arianwyn rose to follow the mother but Necthan grabbed her by the arm. "You stay put!" So, down she sat and felt the ache return.

One scrunch of his nose at her and the wizard held the floor again and she only faintly heard his tale. A tale where, by his craft in spell making and Talorcan's matchless valour \- she lost the next part in her dreaming of her cousin and wondering what the mother was doing now. With that, she felt her heart leap up and wondered whom for? Then caught her father's glower at her. She attended to the wizard, who by this time was speeding, spell-aided, along the northern shore of Loch Hern, Mailcon on the south doodling, when they, the Athfloddans, nearly caught the scanky-crapping, sharny Scot's, the vile shite-dogs they were.

Arianwyn glanced at the hero of the day to see his reaction to such vulgar language and saw he was little fussed. For reasons unknown, this thrilled her. She felt daring and straightened out a seam or two that she felt were out of line and catching hair she felt had strayed, she tried to catch his attention. Unfortunately, every time he drew a beam on her she fell apart. Dress and coiffure seemed all over the place in her flustered shyness. In the end, she twisted her hair behind her ear with a nervous fingertip, having lost the thread of the story somewhere between the Glen of Dread and the Glen of Twists before she began to notice her father unease. He fidgeted on his seat in the manner he did when she tried to pull the wool over his eyes. "But before they could win Buchfider," she heard the wizard tattling on, "and escape westward, more by fortune than by design, did Mailcon catch the flanks of the Scots and even then, they would have escaped, for so weakly did he sniff their tails that they turned to give one last snap."

"Wizard," Nechtan could hold himself back no longer but his voice had a weary edge of displeasure to it, "I find your reporting too lurid of a minstrel for meaning - we chased them and they tried to escape. It is as well Mailcon held them, no? So the ending - they were slaughtered but the four outside?"

"Two sides twisted like a wheel," the wizard, still the story-spinner, rambled on undeterred, "with My Lord, Talorcan, still some many hundred paces away. I cast a spell to spin the wheel, Mailcon to south and Talorcan closing north to pincer the Scots. As stoats in caught a trap they fought, sparing not nor yet expected sparing. All were slain except the four that lie outside bound to your walls. Talorcan, in compassion, spared them."

"Spared them?' asked Nechtan, "For what? Such men like that do not make for good slaves. You should have taken their heads from their necks to save you waking in the night with a knife sawing at your throat."

"My Lord, one is no more than a boy of your princess's age and promised to me as reward for my spells, without which the Scot's would have got away, let us say Scot free. The boy, I have a feeling, will serve me well. Given time and tender care." Few who heard these words missed the hidden meaning.

"No riddle talk and spin your spells, wizard, you say all but the four outside were slain?"

"All, my Lord."

"Yet, Mailcon has told me a group made the slopes of Hill of Views and escaped. What have you to say of that?"

"What if a few Scots escaped, brother?" rounded Alpin. "Let them scamper back to Dalriada with their tails between their legs. Now that they know a strong king rules Forternn it will be long ere they venture back to have their heads snapped off!

The feasting went long into the night before the men stumbled and broke wind to other buildings, bed and vomit, leaving their gassy smells behind with Arianwyn and her parents occupying the hall's stale air with, on Nia's insistence, the young mother and child. During the dark watches of the night, a banshee wind awoke Arianwyn. It howled round the hall, in the morning, one prisoner they found dead, a dark line inscribed beneath his chin, and pollution stained the ground. The other prisoners thought it wise kept their own council as the wizard informed them all. "A banshee visited the poor soul."

"Such a wanchancy thing to happen." added Talorcan. Even thirlfowk knew that banshees did not slit throats or leave the body there for all to see.

"These prisoners are more trouble than they are worth," Nechtan confided to his wife and he ordered Mailcon to post guards day and night over the two remain men. One of who was no more a child new-stepped into the world of men. The wizard took some sort of pity on the young boy for after that he took his captive with him everywhere.

Arianwyn observed, by the clothes the boy wore, he was no mere thirlman's son. She went out of her way to find out his name was Rory for, more her age and type, and he attracted her. She glanced inquisitively at the lad and liked what she saw but when he returned her glance, she rewarded him with her haughty look, remembering he was only a captive slave. Yet, she felt pity for him and for the way the wizard kept him close at all times. Arianwyn sensed there was something not quite right in this and felt remorseful that she had snubbed the boy.

In those days, a myriad of infatuations spun Arianwyn round the hall as a giddy-fly of laughing tears which made her unable to sit still for long or know where to walk or run. During this one moulded to her heart and soul, one her father did not understand and made clear his disapproval of to Arianwyn. "She is but a thirlwoman with a bairn and no man to take care of her. There is only one thing she will become."

"And what is that?"

"Never you mind, just have nothing to do with her!"

"Why?"

He tried a softer approach. "Listen, Arianwyn, you will only give her hope, where there is none for her."

Arianwyn considered her father's interfering words were harsh, uncalled for and uncaring. She found the young mother good company and she liked her. Her father could go and spout elsewhere, she would become close to the young mother, not despite him but because of something, she could not place.

The mother's name was Grainne and her baby boy, Connad. Grainne, born a Scot - the way the young mother told it to Arianwyn, and her all opened mouthed and charmed - had been captured and enslaved during a Pictish raid on Dalriada, ten years ago when she was six. A Pictish thirlman called Cailtram found the blackbird-haired girl under the body of her mother and took her into his care. Cailtram was not a man who relished his armed service for the king; he was only happiest tending his kailyard, fields and flocks with his wife, Sanew, and his son Ru. Cailtram was not a man to hold by or have slaves but he knew this would be the child's fate - or worse.

"I'll tak that yin, if you're no of a mind tae hae it yersel!" Buban had growled on a blood-gored grab for the child but as he did, the child's eyes flashed green and a whip-crack tore the air, felling Buban to the ground. Carried back on his square-shaped shield, his ears clogged with the curses of those that bore him, Buban never weighed his mass on that foot ever again.

However, when the child looked into Cailtram's eyes, he fell deep into fields of green, summer corn. Therefore, after taking the twisted gold torc from the child's mother and reverently placing her body into the cremation fires, he bore the child away in his brawny-braw arms. From that day on, Cailtram's harvests were the envy of all and, as to were where toiled his fabled fields, a mystery to all.

Seamlessly as into a dance, Grainne slipped to the place Cailtram took her, his home and fields a secret far from Dundurin. Few knew about and Sanew and the daughter they called Grainne. The few that did recognised her as a canny, cantie lass, even though her name was fremmit. If those Pictish thirlmen had know she was a Dalriadan Scot, it would have been- nae haud me back, for Am aff tae Dalriada come the morn. However, they did not and as she was one of them - she had to be someone's surely? - the best that they could comment was - a braw like thing the lass and what a dandie-dazzler! She wad chairm the gress frae oot the yird and hae it waving at her.

Their son, Ru, was a few years older than Grainne and like his father, was smitten from his first sighting of her. In time the kind, soft ways of Sanew made Grainne feel protected. In time, the couthy care of Sanew made her feel loved. Any tears that Grainne wept dried quickly on the winds of tender songs sung to her upon the lap of Sanew. As she grew older, she learnt she had found a loving family to mend her heart. As they grew over the age of childhood, Ru and Grainne drew close through no beguilement of her eyes for it was meant to be. Few noticed or questioned why a sister and a brother were bonded as if one, for such things happen and were left unspoken, for there was the bairn, Connad, a child borne of their love to consider.

Then on the day of raiding Scots, rough men breached the love that clothed the walls of Cailtram's home. Five ravaged the night with torches, set fire to rick and thatch then with sword and axe, roosted by the door. When acrid smoke and heat of flame became more than choke could take, Cailtram told his son to help him breach a hole in the gable wall. A task that did not take long for fear, smoke and tears brought desperation to their work. When the breach in the wall was made, Cailtram took his rusted sword and to cover their escape and went out of the door. They cut him down with many scything slashes as his loved ones flew like chaff into the wind.

The sense of Cailtram's plan had been one with Ru and as he led the family towards the safety of Dundurin, he failed to stop a backward glance from Sanew. She saw where Cailtram was and witnessed the black rain of hacking blows that bore down on him and set up a woeful cry. The Scots turned on hearing her cry, they saw the field before them, they saw a woman tremble and they made haste to chase. Grainne had her child to carry so hampered by this and fear the women were slower than the blood lust carried Scots. Sanew they caught felled her in a head split and as she struggled for breath and consciousness within her dying, the Scots argued amongst themselves at their folly. Deigned delight, they defiled their loss with knives, galloching her slowly like a hind after the kill, a maul of agony in which one thought drove pain to keep Sawen still threaded by one hopeful aim; give those that were still running the time to win away.

In Sanew's hope, as Ru hurried his wife and child along, rose the safety of Dundurin now nearby. Flames sprung up from the crannog on the loch and all around frenzied deaths cries reddened the dawning day. Ru and Grainne were now where the Hern flowed from the loch and became a river of water cold and deep, brown and swiftly flowing. A narrow log served as a bridge to where Dundurin's shelter stood. Ru urged Grainne to take the bairn and cross first. Then he would follow. This he did, gaining halfway with Grainne safely on the other side. At that mid-point he also saw the Scots step on the bridge and knew what he must do. He would see his harvest home. "Mak yer feet yer friends, Grainne! Run for Dundurin and I will follow." He turned. The struggles and the blows he endured, before the river enfolded his red sacrifice, gifted Grainne time to reach to the protection of the keep.

"My father may be right," Arianwyn told Grainne when she had heard her story. "I have been too sheltered in my life. Such grief I never knew. The world is not beholden unto me. It is time I grew up and left girlish foppery behind me."

She thought to ask Grainne's guidance about her plight with Talorcan but bit her lip upon that thought, annoyed that it had even entered into her mind after the tale of woe that she had heard. Then, Grainne spoke as if she had read that inner thought. "You need to find out more about him. Choose the time yourself, do not let others force you into paths until you are ready. And this of all, do not accept him for a husband until he understands what he has to gain from one such as you. Remember who you are."

"And who am I, Grainne?"

"You are Arianwyn and this world will know of you."

11

" ... split apart onto this azure globe devoid of pity, to wander lost and helpless through a weird entanglement of wordless description ... forever ..."

TALORCAN

Three fold of seven days passed in delight, exchanging polite remarks and belches of good ale when, into a frost of one clear morn of early spring, the night guard discovered all the Scots prisoners to be gone as if taken by the night. Making his report in the hall, Mailcon was at a lost to explain what had happened. How could the prisoners have cut their bindings, passed through the sets of three walls and escaped unseen? Arianwyn saw the warning in the way her father double-blinked his right eye. "And before you start wizard," warned Nechtan, feeling bile of disgust rising in his craw, "this was no banshee in the night!" The wizard grinned, exposing his file-sharp teeth and pawed the hair of the slave boy at his side.

"Agreed." The wizard acknowledged. Which, in Arianwyn's opinion, meant he did not and as he weasel-tongued melodically away, she met the eye of Rory his slave. His faced asked permission of a smile for her and in return, she was about to grant it, but stuck her tongue out instead then when he looked so hurt, she wished she had not. However, done it was, there could be no sorry with from her eyes for him and besides her uncle reached her with that special name. "Talorcan, what do you say to this misfortune?" Now he was all she saw, the only one to listen to and fill her reason to be there.

"Murtholic uses these words to focus us on what must be done." Talorcan said, "We waste time in idle speculation round this fire. We need action and so, I propose I organise a party to hunt the vermin down. I will take five of my men and Murtholic." Why listen to their plans the girl considered? They were upsetting and anything might happen despite their silly war-game planning. It would better to set out with hounds and let them chase the poor Scots down. Do it their way and they could taken by some sneak surprise, Talorcan could be wounded or worse - be brought as a body for her cover with her hair and grieve over and how she would tear her hair. "Fuech!" She exclaimed and saw all eyes turning on her. "What I mean is, will it not be dangerous?" Behind Murtholic, the slave dared to force down a giggle. "I mean, what if someone gets hurt?"

"Such tender pity for doomed Scots." Talorcan said. "Is there not something you could be doing, Arianwyn, maybe elsewhere?" She half turned, returned to her starting position with her hand at her waist as if to make a point but, in the silence of the men, thought the better of it. They all looked down at her in smirking tolerance that twinged her pride within, she turned to walk away not sure where she was going. Her eye caught Rory's eye and it was sorry for her.

Towards the evening Talorcan's war band returned all bravado and where-is-the-ale-and-women? Nechtan sent his wife and daughter away and this time they obeyed him. Arianwyn took the chance to take her mother to see Grainne, leaving the men to ale and tales. Which, by the third horn of ale, had them caught up with the escaped slaves and the other Scots that Mailcon had seen, high on the slopes of the Mountain of the Bay. Here they had left their bodies for the raven and wolf and took a fourth horn to rejoice the blood they spilt. Nechtan was disquieted and did not drink. "Yet," he ventured, "you thought not to bring back a trophy, a hand, an ear or head, perhaps a set of mans' beads?"

"Mans' beads, indeed, Talorcan brought one back as a slave, such compassion has the man," said Murtholic, "do you think that he would wish such bloodied sights hung on your gates to be seen by your queen and princess?"

"Aye, as much compassion as hang a man by his guts." Alpin slurred another draught of ale. Nechtan remained silent and brooded in the dark.

The next day Mailcon returned and confirmed the dreadful slaughter hanging in the woods. If Nechtan had thoughts, he kept these close to himself. That day he ordered the citadel to be cleared and for all to return to their farms. He gave specific orders that Grainne and her child should escorted far beyond the River Hern and as he watched his citadel empty of his people, he and was glad to see the back of her.

After Grainne left, Arianwyn felt an emptiness on the loss of her friend and in compensation sought more the company of Talorcan, looking for ways to catch him on his own when and on the rare occasions to happened, as a spring shower from a cold-blue sky, he sprinkled his attention lightly. Most days Arianwyn was lonely and anxious for his appearance and if she saw him it was unlikely they were ever alone. Then, with others around to hear him, he complimented "his treasure" and ran her like hair-coiled lock around his finger, touched her lightly on the hand as if she was the reason for his soul existence. At those times she felt elated, more than a princess, more than a name. Even rare than the chance daytime meetings were the those out of line times when, as they made their ways to the sleeping benches, he would slip an arm around her waist and squeeze and when he did, she would thrill and dare to tilt her lips to him and his dead eye.

One night, as people made their way to rest after a day when the spring sap rose and burst the blossom on the trees, before he left the hall he came to her and chose to encase an arm around her waist and hold it there. He cupped her willing chin within his hand and held her face so he could see her soft, warm lips an open pout of immature inquiry. He knew she felt as flux-water at his touch and should have flowed across the hall and out the door with him but something stopped her. He saw her looking in her and caring not the reason why he rammed himself onto her, an inflexible act that shocked her form the place she was a fingertip nibbling ago. It had been a gaddy-girly place of mushy-melts and frigid-frosts, of simper-sighs and huffy-humphs and wide eyes of gladness and slanting stares of daring, for she was encircled in the charm of a young man's arm and held by the cold eye of her worried mother. Then he had rammed her out of that squidgy place and right on to his pelvis, having lifted her feet of the ground in a leg-parting swirl, on her part, to do so. In a fright beat she was back at her mothers side but still found herself still wrapped in a dance enclosed by his arms, swayed by his tense lead in the middle of the hall, and hustled nearer the dark hall door to who knew where or what this dance of his was leading her towards.

She not seen the blankness in his eyes before and now that she felt the edge of hardness of the man on her a muddled emotion flushed her face. She smiled and tried to make the lower space between them separate but, as he held her off her the ground, she found herself forced hard back upon him. Her mother's eye was on the dance and saw all. This brought an embarrassment on the girl. "Please put me down," she asked and saw her father hold her mother back with no intention of an excuse me. A glow of red, sticky and metallic material flowed through his eye and any of the runny thrill she had before changed sickeningly within her pitted stomach. Then Rory blocked the door.

"My lord," he said, "my master bids you join him." Talorcan's eye glassed over, he dropped her suddenly into a jolt that ankles keeled to and knees buckled at to keep her feet, from which he left as if nothing had occurred. Rory steadied her arm in his hand and the boy and girl looked to each, both in their own way lonely, frightened and confused. Purpose of unity remained unspoken between them and as Rory turned away, she felt the need to run to him and say three words a princess never admits - I am sorry.

Nechtan left Nia on her sleeping bench, crossed over to the other side leaving her to wrap her grief around a nighttime layer of scratchy wool with on linen between it and her. Bewailing her and terrifying thoughts, which flashed across her mind in a lightening-bright anxiety that would bring her no sleep. What hidden power had Athflodda to take from loving care her children? Nechtanson, was as a shadow in a room where, if she approached, a gloom would overtake her son and he was good as gone from her, for the little he would say or even less afford her. Now this, her level daughter was now a preening popinjay of foolish flight because a man toyed delight to make she her squirm in front of all for his pleasure. By his lip-given largesse did her daughter set slaves and servants into a fright of frenzy to meet the whims of fashion to allure disdainful men. Their hands worked into the early hours, crafted shapes of cloth to fit and accentuate the girl's form. They combed her hair though and though at her demand, putting it up or layering it in silken threads across her slim, bare shoulders. Her cheeks they pinched to redden them and in return for all this labour, they would be shooed away as off ran Arianwyn to seek out Talorcan, never realising that the more she sought him out, the more he left her all alone. Yet, for all Arianwyn's demurred acceptance of the word of Talorcan, he made her apprehensively await his for his biding as if it were the gilded light of truth. Words of warning from her mother - be more retardant in your dealings with this man \- would fan a flame and fire a spark of heated argument against the queen. "Retard what?" the daughter snapped, "I only seek to know the man my father would me have!" Nia was at a lost and Nechtan, embroiled in stately worries, offered Nia no help.

Yet, bewitchment had not only struck at Arianwyn. Talorcan pined for departed Grainne. Where had she gone and where was her place? He found the answer from the Scot slave that he kept. There was a hidden place called Pitcailtram.

"How is your friend?" he asked Arianwyn one day, "What was her name, again?"

"Grainne. I have not seen her or Connad since she left with the others."

"It must be hard for a lone woman to work the land." Talorcan had admired Grainne's brilliant form and feature from the beginning. Thirlwomen, such as her were submissive pickings, but she had refused to soften and it irked him that she set her fruit from ripening on his touch. She was off-handed with him, aloof and proud, and surveyed him with eyes of green and set herself apart. He had to unpick the mystery of the young mother and he knew, Arianwyn, could help his quest. "Do you not miss Grainne, my treasure?"

"Yes." She replied and realised the emptiness of life at Dundurin waiting for crumbs to drop from Talorcan's plate to hers.

"Then for you, my treasure, we shall do something about that." He sealed a kiss upon her cheek, an unseen kiss that brought a flow of fluid through her core. Happily she followed him, his slave, the ox and plough to Pitcailtram and on going there she would set her side by him, walking close and scuffing her hand against his hand but he would only put his finger to his lips, point at the slave ahead, and smile apologetically with a shrug of his broad shoulders. Once there, at first the prince would plough and she wondered on his need to plough the turf while the slave did nothing, but at least she could be with Grainne. Then, as the day's passed at Pitcailtram, he the set the slave to work the plough and any chance for Grainne and Arianwyn to discuss the prince or anything of interest to them stymied, for Talorcan hovered falcon-like around them all the time. For seven days, the players acted out this play.

On the eighth day, Arianwyn fell out with her mother.

"Surely you do not intend to go to Pitcailtram wearing the green dress?" Her mother saw its close tailored cut and imagined the looks it would afford men. "Perhaps you should change into the brown."

"The brown is too dowdy for such a fine spring day and it hangs to like a sack."

"I think the brown more suitable, less disclosing for one your age."

"Disclosing what? I like the green. It is more in fashion and more adult. I will keep it on." She put a hand on her hip and flicked her hips twice.

"Now, no more of that!" The Galam-taunt had grown beyond a childish tease.

"Of what?"

"You know exactly what I mean, men can see you!" Arianwyn pinched her face at that, turned and walked away as a sea wall for her mother's despair to break on. Arianwyn searched for Talorcan but only found his father's mouth rimmed round a horn of ale and breakfast not yet over.

"Where is Talorcan?" she asked, unsure before his roving eye. He took his time to drink in more of what he saw, then set his lips to quaff his ale before he spoke.

"He left early with the twa oxen," he drawled slowly. "He is awa to Grainne's place for some ploughing, seemingly needs daein. Come, lassie, here," he patted a space beside him, "and sit with me. If you are for Athflodda, then we should become more acquainted for there is nothing to see at Pitcailtram that I canna show you here." Words half heard and therefore not fully realised, for Arianwyn looked faraway out of the door.

Pooled in the sunlight, Arianwyn, stood and pinching her cheeks then pouted a pressing of willful lips as she gathering her gown close to her hips and set her feet tattooing to a rhythm of slighted annoyance. She gazed out over the strath and saw the green of spring grass spout, the grass that let the one she would love let pass, the growthy-grass that hid his dark hair from her sight. She vexed the cruel grass, the callous grass, the breeze careless grass for having let that be. "Wind-whispering grass, you work my mother's will this day." She told the spiteful grass and though she felt she knew the path through the grass, she faltered on her step to pass the clasp Dundurin, her father's place, held over her in her child-uncertain disconcertion.

Over the rim of his ale horn, Alpin ranged his eye along her outline firm-formed within the light before her. The lingering man was slow and when she whipped her head around, full knew that seeking eye of man had blurred the difference between them. Ale dripped from his lardy moustache as he ran his lips across the hog-like hairs and sucked in every drop. In an instant horror, Arianwyn sprang from his sight of him into the freshness of the new spring day.

Talorcan relied on his father to tether Arianwyn, for she had become like a fly around a honey pot, a pestering presence buzzing at him day and night and on this morning she featured nowhere in his plans. When he had her at Athflodda, the childish nonsense of her he would swat out of her. However, Talorcan knew not to rely on his father, but as morning swirling towards noonday sun, he was, for now, content to watch Grainne as she stirred the pot in front of him. She, in her turn, made sure the pot lay in-between.

"I have asked the slave to start the ploughing." She remained morosely silent which did not please him. "All should be seen and sort this fine day." She held her judgement of that from him and so he gave a little more encouragement for her to join in conversation. "With the ox." It worked.

"Has he a name?"

"The ox?"

"No, the slave."

"You know, I never asked. However, the ox is called Ferath." There was no need to stir the pot so constantly but Grainne kept the clockwise slow, flowing motion moving. "So how is the lad?" He went, peered into the cot and having looked, placed himself behind Grainne. He assessed where her hip swell on her creepie stool. "Looks fine to me," he said, "from where I am standing."

He came closed behind her, the top of his thighs a hairs width from the crown of her head. From there, he could admire the rise and fall of every breath she took into her chest. The easy rhythm faltered not, the cool calmness of her breathing piqued him, and so he took a step back to find another angle to approach her. He sat beside her, drew his hip beside hers, and let it rub and touch. She did not move but as she turned her head, the sunlight through the door caught a green glow glinting in her eyes and he drew back. The felt unsettled.

"Just what are you?" he asked. She did not answer. He quizzed the unfamiliar air that surrounded her and became more curious, to him still yet unknown young mother it shrouded. "Stuck away here in a place hardly known by anyone, playing the part of a thirlwoman. Yet that you are not. Look at that torc you wear, a prince ransom, I do declared, graced around your slim, smooth neck. So, come on Grainne," and he placed his hand on her knee and caressed, "open up your mystery for me to explore."

She did not respond and as it was not always consensual, Talorcan found, sometimes the direct approach was the only option if short of time, for he could not rely on his father to have played his part in this morning's scheming.

By this time, Arianwyn neared Grainne's land and the clouds, cast over her by her mother and Alpin, had dissipated into the clear spring sky. In youthful hope she ran the last little part, her hands smoothing out the lines of her green gown to iron out the creases of her girlhood. She heard a song and looked high into the sky to spot where the laverock rose. Its song stopped but she watched the bird drop from the sky. It was then she became aware of the slave, between her and the house, and saw he studied her. She folded her arms across her chest as a cloud passed over the sun. The ox stood waiting for the slave to commence the ploughing. Seeing the princess, he placed the coulter to the ground, ready to tear the unmarred grass pasture but he kept his gaze fixed on her. A flick of his whip awoke the ox into hooven-forward straining and the furrow ran crooked in the limp grip of the slave. Arianwyn looked away, stepped past him with her arms markedly folded in front of her chest, scowled at the grass beneath her feet, crushing it in her tempered feet. Unnoticed by those within, she arrived outwith the door and saw what was inside. Silently she watched as Talorcan drew his hand around Grainne's knee and searched for the inside of her thigh, pulling the legs apart, the nearest towards him. All seemed to yield in betrayal to Arianwyn's whole being. She froze, opened faced and breathlessly she watched the unfolding before her.

Talorcan faced beamed in certain of victory - Perhaps there is no special mystique after all, just another available thirlwife - he thought. A brute disregard that seemed to flash green in her eyes as out of her mouth a phut threw him back. His hold on her no gone, he held the inside of his arm and rubbed as if a punch he felt therein. "You bitch!" He held his arm and furrowed his brows in pain her stab had given him and then rubbed the spit she had spat into his face. He became aware of a figure at the door and recognised it as Arianwyn. He saw her face and knew that she had seen everything.

"Talorcan?" An exclamation and yet a question.

"Ach!" The sound muzzled from him as he rose from the earthen floor. His discomfort and insult eased as he dusted himself down. "Arianwyn, my little treasure, did my fool father let you slip away? And he promised me he had a special treat for you." He could see a puzzle on her face, which might change into mistrust a quick as smile the wrong way. "Now, now, I think you are misunderstanding what you see here. It was but a test on her. I was just trying to find out what you had here for a companion. I would not wish you to become familiar with shameless sorts."

He could sense he had not convinced her, knew that his move was ill thought out. Why would Arianwyn disbelieve the force of female friendship formed could anything but proper and moral. A move was needed before the puzzle on ring of lips snapped and opened up a doubt within her eye, so one foot slide, the other glide, he turned and filed the door. He knew she gawked up at him but would not take her eye and looked out at the ploughing slave, the torn furrow on scored the green turf and jammed her back on the doorpost and stood narrowed in thought, lining them up to see which to knock over first. Firstly, he felt thwarted by the thirlwoman with tenacity to look down on him, to hit him and refuse him what was his to have. Secondly, the simpering girl here now bothered him before time, still fawning, naively at his feet. Thirdly, he cursed feckless father as a useless king of horn and ale who could not even manage to tie down a wee, bit lass and forth, the useless slave could not plough a straight dreel to save his life. Where to start first? He crashed his fist against the doorpost and Arianwyn flinched in fright. He hardly noticed as he weighed up his options.

Talorcan saw the slave and knew there was a price needed paying for the fact his work was poor. However and more importantly, Grainne had slighted and all that rankled him. He now placed his arm above Arianwyn's head, forcing her to breath in his stale, intoxicating, feral muskiness held in his oxter, so swooning in deceit. Talorcan, for his part, felt his rage rile but quelling it with another fist smashed against the post that brought a dust down into Arianwyn's eye. The bulk of his body made it difficult for her to clear her sight as he calculated the revenge to take. The scornful Grainne should pay a price. It had been her enticement that had drawn him into this fix, thwarting him with something in that young woman that made her hard to reach and spoil. He glared back into the house. Grainne remained where he had left her stirring still the pot. She faced him disdainfully; he knew he could never make her fear him or anything he might do. However, he would find revenge; he only had to find the key.

"Talorcan, if you could please move a little, it is just that," below his Arianwyn, one eye blinking in an annoying way and her hand trying to get past his body to it, "I have something in my eye." Towering over her as a irate bear, he move slightly to accommodate her, then would why he had bothered for the pathetic fuss her finger mad clearing the irritation. He glowered down on all her puerile inexperience and realised he had found a key.

Arianwyn's eye were clear of all blinding now, she looked up to smile in gratitude and seemed to see his eye glassed over blood red shadows passed within. It was if he did not know who she was and instinctively she feared him and like a maukin in the long grass, pressed back in wary anticipation of what he might do, her soft, brown eyes, imploring in worried hope that he would behold her, remember love and compassion, remember how precious she was to all she knew.

However, he was not searching for her eyes, he turned his head to connect with Grainne, sneered and grasped at Arianwyn's breast. Grainne sat with a disgust and revulsion on her face. He turned from and dig his mouth into Arianwyn's neck and roughly suckled there causing in that bite the girl to exclaim and quiver. He leered back at Grainne but once again but she countered him in distaste, this time seasoned with a spit into the fire. He squared up to Grainne with a flick of head then moved a hand down between the young girl's legs he began to rub her up. Arianwyn struggled on those feeling finger-tips and fought to squeeze past to the outside but he grabbed her shoulder with his left hand, spun her round with a hunter's flick of wrist and with gralloch-like hands he torn her green gown at the shoulder. All she was able do to defend herself was to hold her hands over her head like a maukin transfixed and waiting for the claw. Then she heard a crash, felt his hands fall away and she collapsed from the doorstep and felt the sunlight on her. Staring fearfully into the darkened room, she saw Talorcan standing with a mischief playing on his lips. He was rubbing shards of broken clay from off his head, before moving into the house, he scuffed them beneath his feet and one step into the room and began a rage of destruction.

Arianwyn had witnessed the rage of men before, a tongue lashing for a slave, the brawl of slighted friends, the fury of her father when the herd boy let the wolf into the flock but nothing like the blind angry wrath before her. Like a vortex around Grainne, he threw and kicked anything at hand. He hauled down fistfuls of the new laid thatch and brought it down in baleful, large patches of light so dappled the floor. In his fury overturned the pot and doused the peat fire. There seemed there would be no end of it as Arianwyn pleaded to him to stop. A thrusting sword held no fear for Arianwyn, she knew how to parry blows, but the stramash fleening before her was beyond all means for her to control. This furious man would not to stop, stand still and hang his shoulders in remorse; finally, he kicked Connad clear out of his cot and against the iron pot. There was a crack. "Fye-uch!" he exclaimed and saw the unnatural angle that the bairn's leg on the fire flagstone. His stomach churned but he stuffed it down as the cries began.

Grainne lifted up her child. Talorcan defended his crime. "Arianwyn, you glaikit fuddik." None of this was his fault and she needed to be told. "Wee lass, acquire the skill not to stir the wood within the fire and rise it into flame, if you have no liking for its heat." She felt her love for him turn into hate but hoped he would still turn all that feeling roundabout in her but to her dismay he never took the plea within her eye and told her. "You will learn soon enough how deep that burns the insides of you out when you are at Athflodda. By spurtle prod and heated rod upon your back you have my pledge on that!"

Tears fell like silver beads from Arianwyn's lids. He wiped her like the cloth of a poor woman's door and strode out towards the furrowed land. The let him go for Connad's needs were pressing, the break in his leg would need to be set however, they only found crocked sticks and had to use them. Then, over time, Grainne comfort-fed him at her breast. In the midst of the ruin, they sat in unspoken reflection. Grainne soothed Connad with soft lilts and when his eyelids closed, knew he slept. Arianwyn endured the mother's care, clouded by her mood of guilt, niggled by an inner voice that told her that this was all her fault; the wreckage, ruined thatch and the leg that would never mend straight. It was all down to lassie-hood and fantasies, vanity and preening and flouncing before a man, who did not give a tassle for her.

"Think not that." Grainne told her "None of this is your fault." She placed an arm around Arianwyn, whose grief broke in a flow of tears. Therefore, Grainne told Arianwyn. "The corruption of the world is deeply ingrained in Talorcan's body, it's not your fault and neither is it his true soul showing."

The girl only half-heard what she said, for the here and now pressed down on her like a weight of sin for her to bear for being Arianwyn. "But, look what I have caused on Connad. How can you ever forgive me?"

"Arianwyn, do you know what?" The girl cringed for you-know-whats were, in her experience, never anything you ever wanted to hear about or the blindingly obvious. You could reply in two ways and when she replied, she hoped she had not in her usual snotty way. "You never caused this, I have nothing to forgive you for. It was not for you that Talorcan came here. It was not Talorcan who came here."

It seemed that she had answered in the right way however, Arianwyn, was not to be consoled, for the answer made no sense and, moreover, there was a dark, unspeakable truth about her feelings for that young man she could not tell Grainne. She also knew, that to keeping it unvoiced would only allow it to eat way at her and grow more painfully in its shame. Arianwyn was terrified where this hidden guilt would lead her, other than it was a place of fears. This really was all her fault; there was no one to share her remorse. "Now you listen to me, it is not just an infatuation what you feel for Talorcan," Grainne muttered with kissing lips into the hair above her ear. "It is something more." Her words were like worms eating within. "He is the man your father chose for you, your father knows you well and in you heart you know it so."

"Och, Grainne, forgive me," She reached out for a cure. "I do like Talorcan but look at the beast he is!"

"He was not born a beast, it was not you that made him so. It is not your fault you are young and he has lived and travelled long the road of worldly desires unguided. Can such as he be saved from himself? Well, we will have to wait and see." Then, noticing the rip in Arianwyn's dress said. "We will need to get that fixed, let us go outside into the light."

Outside the sun shone and the slave lay on his back across the furrows as if in worship of the sun. His head hung back and flapped on a red smile scored across his neck. He rested on a dark, damp stain blanketed on the earth.

Nia crooked her pointing finger and placed it in the baby's mouth. "There now, my bonnie bairnie, the wolves will not get you." She told baby Connad, as the hardness of his sucking gums on her finger pleased her. By "wolves", Nia referred to Alpin of Athflodda and his son. Soon the baby's sucking rhythm slowed as he went to sleep. Nia held him, a comfort in a world turned upside down. Her caring husband had reverted to the domineering, course brute he had been in the time before their daughter had been born. Her son, Nechtanson, once a happy, lively boy had become a dod of clay and Arianwyn, usually strong willed, had flopped and become a poppet. She placed the bairn in the cot and rocked it with her foot.

It had been three days since Talorcan stormed in, sent a thread of amber ale flying from Alpin's hand and demanded the man to get up and leave. Everyone, bemused by the change in the outwardly charming young knew as much as to keep well clear of him, only Necthan dared approach him to enquire about the handfasting. All he got was a black glower in return. He turned to his brother for an explanation but it occurred to him he did not know where his daughter was, this time he demanded some clarification from Talorcan. "The last time I saw her she was at Pitcaitram and there, as far as I am concerned, she can stand a year or twa, then we will see." He knew his father but not the uncle, whose place this was, whose men stood round and all of whom blocked the door. "She will be back uncle in a day or two she is with her friend, Grainne." This make Nechtan any easier about the situation but Nia seemed fine with the idea and he let it be. Then they left. They took Nia's son with them.

In the evening of that day Arianwyn turned up, with Grainne, her child, the ox and a bloodied body saddled to its back. Nechtan had glowered in disapproval at Grainne, and asked his daughter what had happened between Talorcan and herself. "I hate that man!" was all she would say.

Nia had expected Nechtan to become more intractable with his daughter but, instead, he seemed to fold in on himself as if part of him had lost its vigour. Any bile he had left he reserved for Grainne which, Nia considered belittled him, for Grainne, no more than a slip of girl herself had done nothing in her eyes to deserve such treatment. Nia tried to understand his hostility. Nia could not recall seeing such perfection of face and form, was it that she stirred in her husband a heat that he would rather have kindled? Was he jealous of the affection Arianwyn had for the Grainne? Was it that she was a thirlwoman who had lived with them as if it had been her natural right, showing no unease and acting as an equal? How had she come to possess a golden torc worth more cattle than Mailcon held? No answer fitted like a sleeve and in his opinion of Grainne, Nia knew him to be wrong. Then again, Nechtan had been right in another thing, he had known his daughter better than she did, she had become besotted with Talorcan, however now she hated the young man, which was fine with her but perhaps Nechtan blamed Grainne for this. What ever his problem with her, it was his and nobody else's.

Few disliked Grainne and many had tales told the region about her upbringing, which had to be always cobbled together by three of four others vaguely using each other to make pieces fit but try as she might, Nia could not find anyone who knew where Pitcailtram was, however it must exist. Nia had watched Talorcan's interest in Grainne developing. His eye had followed her everywhere as he attempted to ingratiate himself to her. At times her almost grovelled at her feet, in the very way her daughter had fluttered round him, a butterfly awaiting nectar compliments. Nia knew men like Talorcan, could pluck flowers at will, no one would stop him. Just as no one would have, if he had hung around, challenged him over the slaying of his slave. No tears for a slave slung on the back of the ox and none for a taken thirlwoman. Only her own tears wept in shameful solitude. However, instead of that, Talorcan had devised a ploy to work the lands at Pitcailtram, the place no one knew but must exist for each day Talorcan and Arianwyn would return, weary and earth soiled from labouring at that place. Then some turning point had occurred. What had happened on that day? Nia had felt a turn of fear, deep in the pit of her stomach when she saw the mended rip in her daughter's dress and expected to hear the worse. Yet whatever abuse happened, it was not as she feared, for Arianwyn would have been distraught. Grainne, she was certain, had not been compromised. Even Connad's ruined leg had enigmatic acceptance from her. Nia had to constantly remind herself that Grainne was really just a young girl. Nia liked Grainne and was pleased Arianwyn had found someone that both could lean on and draw strength. Smiling on the baby, whose pain should wrack him, Nia knew he was contented. Wherever Pitcailtram was, it had to be a special place to have produced such a mother and child.

"I have decided," Nia, startled by Arianwyn's sudden appearance looked up. "When we return home, Grainne and Connad will come with us." Nia looked at her daughter and was pleased, for her daughter's determination had returned. Grainne stood beside her as a friend for both of them. Nechtan would need to accept it.

12

"I ask you, my friend, which is more precious; the gold offered by the world, or its enriching full-promise for all?""

GRAINNE

Spring warmth brings the bursting of the bud, the greening of the ground from winter-brown and promise of labour worthy in the sowing of the seed to bring joy for all around but for Arianwyn, as the sight of Connad's twisted leg could still bring guilt and sadness to the brightest days. All talk of the union between Arianwyn and Talorcan dried as summer rain on warm stone. There was news that Talorcan, advised by Murtholic, was raiding Dalriada. King Alpin stayed his Palace in the Field of Athflodda with a company of ale horns. Murtholic moved the folk of Athflodda to change the kingship. Alpin filled his horn and found his kingdom in the amber liquid; his son would now rule. The tales of Talorcan's raiding in Dalriada flowed from the tears of many enslaved Dalriadans, whose maimed bodies left them useful for nothing but pity. The thirlfowk of Forternn did not see the wisdom in all this warring for, as everyone knew, "Only a fool would keep poking at a wasp byke wi a peerie prodder and noo expect tae get stung."

In the late spring, Arianwyn took Grainne to her special clearing in the silver woods. Here Connad could crawl around in the warm sun on pillowing grass without pitying eyes on the twisted leg he dragged behind him. Arianwyn looked at her friend and decide to confide. "Grainne. I shall tell you something I have told a living soul about something that happened in this place."

"A secret? What secret can be here unless who measured up the best?" The shocked denial from Arianwyn amused Grainne, which brought mock hurt to that girl's face, which in turned taunted Grainne to go that bit further. "If no measuring up, then figuring out perhaps?" A twinge of foot stepped on kicked at her and the wish to rub it better. "No? Well if you say so." However, such a pout as Arianwyn had deserved a final ribbing. "In which case, what games did you and Galam play here? Where lies the ail now, miss, and does rubbing make it better?"

Like a broom pod tensioned in a sun-bake of breakout need, Grainne. In a snap-sprung scattering, flew at the girl before she struck her. Both twisted in rib-tickle of teasing, creating a throat-thrill of curling, an intertwining of limbs which, sometimes resisting in the inter-spaced yielding, explored the point of daring tantalising limit. Incense of hair, spiced in warmth of body musk mixed with the close redolence rolling from the breath. The flattened grass bore witness to the powerful mutual claiming which, so startlingly potent that finally, they submitted to their backs with gasps fervid panting for wizzen-breath that when taken, ebbed away in giggles in the sun-warmth of their delight.

After a while, Arianwyn rolled over on her stomach and swished the nose of Grainne with a stalk of seeded grass. "I, big sister mine, make no admission other than I brought no boy here. This is my special place. This was a place the Spaewife showed me."

"Ach, then the tale will be of no interest, to me. Will it Connad?" Grainne tormented. She looked at Arianwyn and such a pained face, as would befit a torn cake in need of buttering, lay plated before her. "What this with big sister?" Now it was the lass's turn to feel that she had caused a hurt and time for the mother to end all misery. "Ach, I do not mind, Arianwyn, big sister or best friend it is fine with me, so wee sister, go on then and tell me your tale.

Arianwyn plucked a grass, twirling the stack between two fingers and watching the weighted seed head spin. "Mind now, promise not to laugh, " she warned, warming to the task.

"But I might. I may find it funny." A straw tickling battle commenced which, though passionately embarked upon, soon of dwindled as the interest became lost to conservation, the occasion swipe of grass only given to yield the to the other talking.

"It was here."

"What?

"I dreamt I met a dragon."

"A dragon, fie me indeed?"

"Aye, a dragon."

"A Dragon, say you?"

"Aye!"

"Phut!"

"Phut yourself."

"Naa-ughty-naughty!" Straws broke on the final point, which Arianwyn would not concede.

"Aye but I did, I saw the Kinnoull Dragon," said the princess with a pouting push to Grainne's shoulder, "or at least I think that was the name. I was young and voices filled my head in those days. I imagined the dragon talked to me, I think, though I can no longer remember what it said. I do remember a bright, red jewel, black eyes, wings and claws; purple. I touched the jewel and I saw and learnt wondrous things. Sad things as well."

"What did you learn?" asked Grainne, sitting up with her face above and close to Arianwyn's. The expanse of her eyes opened and drew Arianwyn's gaze into them. There was something secure, fruitful and ageless in that look that pleased her. She felt safe to continue her secret tale; she knew there would be no mocking of her childish past.

"I learnt of the times that were and of how things were, until greed entered in the souls of folk and fears and lusts caused the enchantments of evil to become unbalanced with the good. The dragon told me these times had weakened its powers and that it could no longer hold the balance. It told me that ..." She halted having lost the way to go.

"Yes?"

"Och, I do not know. It was just a foolish child's summer dream. An imagining."

"Maybe aye then maybe no," said Grainne, holding Arianwyn deep within her eyes.

"Aye, that is what the Spaewife said."

"I thought," she poked her mid-drift with each word, "you said," Arianwyn laughed and elbowed back at the assault, "you nae-var - told anyone about this."

"But I nae-var have," though this denied that logic of her past remark.

"So why did you tell me you had told the Spaewife?"

She could not explain it, there was no reason for, it was not a lie to hide a truth, it just came out and strange too was that she felt there would be no surprise, if she asked the Spaewife if she had indeed heard the story, to find out she had. The same story that she had told no about, not even the Spaewife. Arianwyn knew she was not making sense.

"Well, anyway, you have told me the story, so if it gets out I expect you will blame me for it, not the Speawife? Whoever she is."

"The Spaewife, have you never met her? Well, you must, you will like her. Now, you must tell me a story about yourself!"

"But I have no tale to tell."

"You must. I have often wondered how the child of a thirlman came to own such a precious, golden torc as the one you wear around your neck?"

"What is this? Must I have no secrets of my own?" Grainne teased her fingers worriedly around the golden coils in a way the girl had seen before with slaves and their leather collars. It could not hurt, it could not chafe but they were always at it, fingering at that strip of leather as if it taunted them. Rubbing, as if it tantalised them to the notion that this action would accomplish a crowning freedom. "I will say this, that when it fades away I will be all the freer. For what good value is in this world-geld around my neck? Why, a golden harvest is far better and does not trap the soul."

The girl had little notion of what she talked of, for gold was beautiful and all craved to own it. Her father won favours by dishing it out but, in the end, the secret of Grainne intrigued her most. "Och, come now, tell ... or ... or ... I shall command you tell me!" Arianwyn laughed.

"Command, will you now?" A loving pout of lips, almost a kiss. "Very well, as you wish, my lady. It was Cailtram who gave me this torc," Grainne fingered the memory round the golden coils. "He told me it had been my mother's."

"Do you remember your father and mother?"

"Their faces are always hidden. There is the torc." Grainne said no more, intently wrapping fingers around the torc and slipping them between the metal and her neck as if it hurt.

"Come on!" Exclaimed Arianwyn, impatient with this posturing.

"Come on what?"

"Tell your tale!"

"Och now," two notes, from high to low, "is it only a tale you are wanting? Ach then, here is a tale my mother told me before I came to Pitcailtram." A pause, a wink, a cheeky smile, a pat upon her welcome thigh, a bidding for Arianwyn to draw nigh. "Now, you sit and listen." She began her tale as if it were a fireside story. "I was born a girl, far to the west across the grey sea, in Eiru. My father was Ri, chieftain of his clan. Diarmuid was his name, and I was named after my mother, which is the truth as most would have it told."

"Grainne you say the strangest things, truth as most would have it told." Arianwyn placed a hand in Grainne's palm and felt it enclosed within her warmth. They gather Connad between them.

"Silly is it, now, I am?"

"No, not you. Come now and tell me your story."

"Aye, the tale, where it so happened, The Ard Ri of All Eiru, the very Fionn himself, had demanded that I should be given to him as a hostage and be fostered at his court. Not that it was to be taken as it sounds, I think, from the way he brushed me down and helpfully picked me up, if he happened to push me over. Aye, my mother was against this, for Fionn was old, very old and there was growing bad blood between my parents and the High King, possibly from all the cuts and bruises they had to treat each time he pushed me over. No real harm done then, and one day, Fionn, came over all friendly in his disposition and invited my father to a boar hunt. During the hunt my father was separated from the others when suddenly, he was attacked by a mighty boar with large tusks. He fought, killed the boar but was badly gored. The hunt heard the sounds of the struggle and found my mortally wounded father. Fionn asked for water. A servant carried water from a running stream and placed it in Fionn's cupped hands for, spell-spinner that he was, Fionn had the gies to make the water into a cure. He lifted the water to my father's lips, but, before my father could drink, Fionn let the water fall from out his hands. With that my father died."

"Grainne," Arianwyn's heart went out in pity, "such sorrow you have suffered."

"Like many others," she replied and then continued with her tale. "When she heard this, my mother, in a fear of chills and sweating and, took me, leaving her home and clan, her bulls and fields and fled. Everywhere my mother tried to settle, word soon got back to Fionn and he would send armed men after us. We came to the coast; we took a coracle and sailed east. However, the arm of Fionn reached into Dalriada, so we kept on moving east until, with the outlaws of no nation, we scraped our living at the gates of Pictavia. Caught between fire and flood, we were a swill in a dish that no one wished, inconveniently stinking away. The Picts came first, kept what might be good and tossed out the rest. That is when I lost my mother and I was gifted my new family and life."

There was a silence between the pair. The stillness of the silver woods enfolded around them. Grainne fetched Connad and held him close to her. "I had no idea," said Arianwyn after a while; for no matter if this was true or not, in each and every tale there was a thread of truth waiting to be stitched.

"And why should you? As they say, the best stories know their endings well before the start which, I am sure will be the same for you. And, who knows, like the wearing of my torc, you may get something precious at the end."

Arianwyn could tell that Grainne would be an awesome storyteller who said the strangest things, who made you wonder on the meaning within the spiral of the tale and it only made her own efforts seem all the tamer. "I feel silly now, with my childish talk of dragons."

"Well, unsure people crouch their explanations in many ways until they become certain. But, as of dragons, what to say, except, do you not feel there is more to fear in the way of man than that of dragons?" Again, silence on their thoughts until Grainne lightened the moment. "Anyway, are you sure you did not bring Galam here, just the two of you?" Her eye twinkled and her mouth curled at the edges in mischief.

"Galam! What do you know about Galam?" Arianwyn's face flushed.

"I have my ways."

Arianwyn did not ask what these "ways" might be, for talk of Galam made her think of other boys and the one she felt had wronged, though why she could not say? For though he might have been good-looking, he was but a slave. "Do you remember the Scottish slave that horrible wizard was given at Dundurin? I think his name was Rory."

"Och, so it is Rory now, how quickly you forget about Galam. Are you the type of lass to let your favours out to any passing well-formed calf? "

"Not so!" Arianwyn shot back, perhaps a little quickly, then tried to cover herself. "It's just I was perhaps a little uncaring to him. How will that wizard treat him?"

"You ask the wrong question. You should have asked who Rory was and I could tell you that he was no thirlchild Scot. He was, indeed a Dalriadan prince. What else, do you think, stirred the Scots like ants in a broken nest lately? However, you did not ask me that. How will the ponce-wizard treat him? Ach, fear not, I think that there will be those who will protect Rory from his unholy touch."

"Who would help a slave?"

"There is your brother, Nechtanson, for example." Arianwyn's face puckered and her mouth curved down in disbelief, her brother was now sullen and introspective. "Now, away with you and do not go looking like that! Think on how best to live in your uncle's quarters but with a guarded face. Your brother would keep one as Rory right. You must remember your brother as he was, the rough games you both played. He never once hurt you with malice and was always so regretful when he thought he had. You and your pretending; teasing him to think he had. No, seven years in Forthuirtabaicht set the kindness in the essence of his spirit and that does not leave one, not even when bonded in uncaring places."

Like the comforting lap of gentle May Waters, she drifted on the pleasant thought that all was well and floated on that easy belief into the dark and deeper waters of the Hern. Here things were not so clear and acceptable. "Now then, Grainne, this does not like a broach pin hold. How do you know how we played, or anything about my brother's nature?" Arianwyn was puzzled for Grainne had described the childhood of her and her brother exactly right.

"Yes, how indeed?" Grainne said. She paused, as the girl's incredulous face pressed for an answer to close her mouth on, and then continued "Then, there is also Talorcan, he would help Rory." The mouth snapped shut in disbelief then blabbered on a withering of whither to laugh or if to scold.

"Talorcan! Now I know you jest, how would be of help to a slave?"

"Yes Talorcan, remember him! Och, how he made you blush! Well, he would placing his hand where he did, which is something many a lass has had done and never thought to hate it ... and how say you?"

Arianwyn flushed on the memory and patted her friend's shoulder to banish the thought. "If mother heard you talking like that, she would ban you from the house."

"Perhaps, but you do not, I see." Naughty eye met impish twinkle in pledge before the pair. "Anyway, as for Talorcan's other merits, he would indeed help Rory, for remember that young man is also a prince, and for that, he is worth much unharmed."

Arianwyn wanted to ask more but before she could, Grainne hoisted Connad up and moved off. "No! Wait! I would know more!"

"What would you know more about?" asked Grainne. With up-curved smile, and flash of green light that made the girl lose her chain of thought. There was nothing more Arianwyn needed to know. She watched her friend carry Connad below the silver trees of birch. "Anyway," Grainne called back to her, "it's time we made our way back, or it may be that the faeries will soon be out and about and I do not want them to take my Connad."

"Faeries, indeed!" mocked Arianwyn and, reaching out for her the trailing hand held out for her, they both laughed and rustled the leaves. "Just ask the Spaewife about them, they do not exist."

The summer passed with talks of wars far away from the peace of Forternn. The lassie-hood of the princess blossomed through this and in the summer days of autumn it reached its peak, as did the harvest at Fothuirtabaicht, when famine wolfed around, and became reknowned as the best in living mind.

13

" "My friend, your faith is an eternally doomed world-creation, beset around with scattered facets of false hope."

SAMHAIN

As summer waned under the waxing, hairst-moon, the thirlfowk won home the harvest. They filled the byres with oats to bursting and still there was more to store. They built wooden sheds placed on stones in fields and filled them full of oats. Finally they brought the oats to stone-lined kists, they made deep in dry mounds and clamped them down, pinning then down with straw, earth and stones into a harvest-safe, vermin-free, contempt to all the weather. In those dieing embers of days, Arianwyn worked tirelessly with her people. The men, both young and old, drawn to her form as she bent and stooped to lift a sheaf of oats like a sway of grass, the movement of her hips would catch their eyes. The smith, fashioning a sword at his anvil, a show of bead-sweat muscles, would flex as she passed with stooks hand-held or wrapped upright in arms. Old men, idling at the bright fire with ale horns and gossip would fainly gaze on with milkly-blue or mirky-brown coloured eyes and only those without grace would coarse-mouthed expound their ribald thoughts. Even male slaves, deigned of female compassion, would sit crossed legged, in the threads of the summer's glow, and watch her pass and stitch smiles upon their faces before returning to their cloth to thread designs of passions. Young callants, alone or in pairs set to stimulate a goading, while bringing the cattle from the common, would lance a leer at her and with nudge and hoarse-whisper, from behind those roan flanks of grass-fat beasts in unseen furtive actions, blind their eyes as she walked into the glow of the setting sun. In her, all saw a face plainly trying to be bonnie and a body, although small, was as good gear comes it fit in her size.

The season brought, like its mix of weather, a range of feelings. Not all would look upon Arianwyn's rounded gait of and feel smitten by desire. For others, the harvest and a girl slowing in her child-skip and wiggling into estrus gait marked a countdown of their time. Older women with experienced nodding heads would see the grass-girl and know that summer-stalks wintered in the autumn. Woman in their middle years, grown stout by raising children, watched her youth-sure body sway and knew the drying cold of winter followed autumn. Young mothers, stooping in the fields to gather sheaves, seeing strands of grey appearing in their falling hair, looked up and viewed the nimble princess in her roll of guileless innocence and, with a sigh, remember to dreaded rhythm dance that trapped you in its spin. "Spring may following winter, but rochie and bitter winds blow near the end of spring, destroying all the blossom." All women who saw Arianwyn pass saw her end to come.

Such for those who did not know her other than Necthan's daughter, those who held her closer, saw her in their own ways. To her mother, she was an indulgence to spoil, allowing that in daughter's youth that denied herself. The time to spread her wings. To her father she was an inconvenience, whose wings were in need of clipping long ago. To the Spaewife and the Grainne, a pair that Arianwyn could never find the time to get together, she was their chick as cute and vulnerable as new fluffed out from the egg and one to ward by hand if she wandered to the gate.

For blithe Arianwyn, chaste and unaware, who could not jalouse the thoughts and perceptions running through all their heads, this was a time of discovery. A wonder-time, of changing shape, of setting monthly flows around the forming strength of hair, of desires and fear of knowing all and turning moods that swung from light to dark. A time of falling into sleep with thoughts of Talorcan. However, she was the king's daughter, and that pulled rank and attracted others to her expectant of charisma and the glitter of it sprinkling down to them. At gloaming, with other young girls, she would bunch and set her voice loud like the others stockade their huddle with mirthful squeals and shouts, designed to ward off adults and lace that sound-scent on the air to reach the youthful the ears of roaming lads. Then a pick and choose then night and one to try out in a tryst some braw lad and rollick in a shadow-place with light enough to see. Yet only ever so far, for she was Nechtan's daughter after all and Thawen's lesson was still strong with her. Even so, Luchtern, a warrior son, boasted wildly of the favours he had won, even granted by Arianwyn, and this had reached Nechtan's ears.

"You should keep a better watch over your daughter," he announced one night, presumably at Nia, though Grainne and Arianwyn were both present. Those of the female sex continued with their spinning. "The rumours of her lapsing virtue are widespread. I had to have words with young Luchtern. How would he know that mark if had not been shown?"

"I hope you were not too harsh with him," said Nia, "boys tend to exaggerate all things out of proportion with one another. Why anyone looking at our daughter's freckled summer face would guess her body to be love-spotted. A lucky guess to place a mole, remembered from her childhood days. I think we can trust Arianwyn."

"Exaggerate? Trust? What cause did your daughter give to allow him to exaggerate? Why should we ... "

"I am here, you know?" Arianwyn interrupted. "So what are you implying, father? Are you suggesting I am a poppet?"

"No." he replied, shocked that it might sound so. He sighed and he felt he was handling this all wrong. He watched, as the handfuls of wool twisted in fine female fingers became yarn by the weight and spin of the distaff.

"You probably wish I was off you hands, in Athflodda, being turned into a soulless wraith, like they did to Nechtanson!"

"At least it would have settled your flightiness!" The words were out before he knew it.

"Flightiness, what is that meant to mean, may I ask as?"

"Mind your tone of voice with me, you know fine what I am driving on about."

"Och, do I now? Well your are a dog with a nose that can wag its tail, so I guess you would know." She felt she should delve deeper into doggie habits to make the comparison clearer but she could not for she saw her mother's worry. "And, anyway, it was you that had Galam banished, I was comfortable with him. He would never talk of me to others as if I was some exploit, fumbled in the broom."

Nechtan had no idea where to where to start his rejoinder and eventually sighed. "Hardly banished." As Culteuchar was only a morning's walk away. He looked to Nia for support but she had found an imagined tangle in the thread of more importance. A lifeline came thrown from where he least expected it.

"Nechtan," his name spoken calmly and informally as an equal, "you must know that I would never allow anything to happen to Arianwyn that would cause her grief or harm."

He looked at Grainne. He saw a girl not much older than his daughter, a friend for her and that one should be out joining in her cavorting. She had a baby, but Nia would have willingly taken care of her child and let her have the freedom to find herself another life. He knew of many unmarried men and some not, who had noticed her and not let their hankerings for her go unvoiced. Yet, she sat there spinning a distaff like a maiden aunt and telling him that he should not worry about the virtue of his daughter. He felt too many women were surrounding him, weakening him and even more surprisingly, making him believe that what she told him was right. "Thank you, Grainne." It was the first time he had exchanged those words with the foreign girl and he might as well throw out his prejudice of her, her ways and those intensely green eyes that seemed to go right through him, and be done. "You are a good friend to us." He stopped at that, he had meant to apologise for his shortness to her in the past but he still had his pride and he did not understand what went on within a head, brought up nowhere he knew.

"I understand," she told him. "I arrived at a bad time, as stranger from of place far off, when so many problems were pressing in on you and my presence did not help."

"Just so." Taken aback, he wondering if had voiced more than thoughts. "Though, do not blame yourself, I warned them about rushing at the gate." Now he was going too far into his inner thought, so he snecked the latch. Though Grainne hummed as she spun her distaff, a difficult silence threaded through the room as thoughts within each head twisted for a way beyond.

"Perhaps," Nia sought bring all together from the quiet, "we should have Galam back at Samhain," Nia suggested. Her daughter her smiled, her husband grimaced but she had spun her distaff thrice and thin or thick the thread made and so be it.

With the presence of Grainne around, Nia found strength to voice her will. Nia loved Grainne's crippled child, for the baby helped her catch memories of her stolen son's childhood. Once, unexpectedly, Grainne had taken her hand. "Your son, Nechtanson will return to you yet," she said. Nia had frowned at first then, in alarm, apologised for her manner to Grainne. The way Grainne took her hands and smiled puzzled her but felt, in word and action, there was honesty and truth. Somehow, they did not know how, Grainne had become part of them all, which, despite the changes fluxing through Arianwyn, brought them all the closer in a way they had never been before.

The days shortened and frosts came on the judgement of the black gatherings of rooks, hoarsely cawing their sentencing on the ending of the year, a staff knock on the dying ground that signalled to the old to bring brought forth the dead. Ancestral skulls, brought from the dark places of the dead, had lamps placed behind their eyes and all was fearfully gloom. A verdict, shot into the dark by those with youthful memory of winter lost, a frame of mind still fresh in ever-summer, kindled by delight of young desires and stirred up on the heady brew of excitement as Samhain drew near in eager promise of kisses and wishes. Nia sent out invitation to all the surrounding chieftains inviting them to the palace to share in the harvest bounty. Invitations kept a secret from Arianwyn, even the one to Taran of Culteachar, Galam's father. Bonfires were prepared beside the faerie mounds nearby the River Hern. Herds of boys and flocks of girls gathered hazel nuts and crab apples in the woods. Guising disguises, finished by the slaves, of sown-mysteries to mask their wearers' nature were completed. All gathered smooth rocks - the older folk with trepidation - cold stones within their hands.

On the day of Samhain eve, cream and oats simmered for the communal meal. All was ready and the despair of the old failed to dampen the omniscience of youth. The arrival of Talorcan's wizard, Murtholic, on a smirr of afternoon rain brought unease to the anticipated celebration.

Arianwyn and Grainne were sitting around the fire pit as Arianwyn made her mark on her hazel nut and crab apple. "Will you not have a nut, Grainne?" Arianwyn asked.

"No," she replied, " The memory of Ru is still warm within me." She noted that Arianwyn was ashamed by her own enthusiasm for the coming events. "Now do not take on so, do not look like that. You should be excited, you never know who may be at the fires."

"What do you know?" She asked, excitedly.

"Ahh! Ahh! There may be a time you'll know of all the things I know," she replied with intrigue flickering on her face. Just then, Nechtan appeared with Nechtanson. Murtholic and Rory glowered in the background. Nia stood behind them her face mapped her concern.

"Nechtanson! How lovely!" Arianwyn greeted him but his face was blank.

"Arianwyn, sister." he replied as if he had to and she could recognise little of her brother in the warrior who stood before her and seemed to wish to melt into the background. Which he did for her father took the stage.

"Arianwyn," he said, "Murtholic has a something for you."

Arianwyn looked at the thin-faced man and felt her heart sink. She felt he was a shadow sent of Talorcan and that man's ear and voice and feared what he would say. She did not want to hear and yet she harboured hope that Talorcan still wished her and this would be what she heard. Yet, when the wizard spoke to was not talk of Talorcan and Arianwyn that reach her ear at first.

"You are indeed blessit, King Nechtan, all around famine, pestilence and wars, yet here in Forternn, you are untouched." The princess felt sidelined, but a hand on a hip and a tapping foot would not tell the uncaring man get to the point. "I can see you are able to afford such excessive Samhain celebrations that only others could wish to have." Inside her head was screaming - me what of Talorcan and me? "I can see that winter is banished form this land" Murtholic took time to take a draft of Samhain ale and finally he turned to Arianwyn and with his right hand he took hers. His rancid breath fouled her but thankfully, he looked away from her and addressed the father. "I see the Princess has had a the summer bestowed upon her, which must please you King and High Father Necthan. I trust that in more the body here we see ready to receive next year's harvest?" A silence occurred during which everyone felt out of sorts with everyone else except, perhaps not the druid for himself for, in a seamless turn, her grounded himself on Arianwyn, drawing her hand up to her lips and muttered to her skin. "You are now more beautiful, more blossomed than when we last meet." Then he let her hand drop and looked over her head. "I am instructed to tell you," his voice sounded flat and plain, "that My Lord, Talorcan regrets he cannot be here himself," if he had yawned at moment it would appear natural, "for protecting Pictavia from manky, marauding Scots has kept him from your side." At last he looked meaningfully into her eyes though ask him the colour and he would be unable to tell. "Duty comes before the desires of heart at all times." Then off his eyes were over her head once more. "My Lord, Talorcan frets that your affection for him might have diminished in his absence and sends you these fruits." At this out his hand in which she saw a hazel nut and crab apple. She felt nothing, not even when she took then in her fingers. "He instructed me to tell you, be sure to use these well and Samhain will guide you to a future by his side and the special touch he knows you like so much and must be missing."

Here the wizard missed his mark entirely because he had not prepared himself properly or had been totally misdirected on how she would react to that reminder. She stepped back and almost let the Samhain tokens drop from her hand. Her eyes went in appeal to her father, who cursed the wizard for a fool in his head. "Murtholic," the king spoke quickly, he felt his daughter's wariness about to make her turn and run, "you keep these tokens safe until it is time." He feared his daughter would reject them.

"As you wish, my Lord," and the wizard took back the fruits and taking the hand of his slave boy, Rory, and left. Nechtan and his son followed him out.

"That was not him speaking. Maybe he has changed mother, and that silly wizard just got all things wrong." There was hope in her voice.

"I am sure I would not know," her mother felt uneasy, for trinkets dropped from out of a messenger's hand easily swayed her daughter. She doubted Talorcan had even seen the gift or even thought to send them. There was too much of the wizard's interference about this, a druid's to manipulation of Samhain to bring authority to his master's claim on her daughter. Nia cupped Arianwyn's chin and looked fondly at her. "Now forget your cousin, for I have a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" Talorcan flew from her mind. "What is it?"

"I have sent for Galam. He will be here tonight!" Galam. The thought of seeing him once more - her spinning head was not enough, she had to spin her mother.

Galam arrived almost unnoticed, a youth amongst the Forternn chieftains, families and followers. He had grown, filled out and when Arianwyn met him his complexion flared bashfully in acknowledgement to their mutual feelings at this reunion. The time apart, the changes in them, made them both estranged and awkward with each other. They were lost for words, each silently remembering the children they once were. Nia sensed the hiatus. "Now you two, I need you to assist me." Help that through them together in tasks that provided them to start teasing each other. Soon, Nia felt, it was like old times, though when Galam brushed against Arianwyn's body, as so often done in the past, it bought momentary freeze and wondering about who the other was and where the person they once knew had gone.

On Samhain night tallow lights lit ancestral skulls with ghosting glows that eyed the feasting hall where Nia ensured Arianwyn and Galam sat side by side near to spill into the communal bowl. In the flow of porridge, cream and spoons exchanged for licks, Galam offered Arianwyn a spoonful and quick as lick it clean, she lifted her spoon to his lips and made him chase the spoon to catch the bite. Nia was pleased and whispered to Nechtan, "They look well together, husband, perhaps the fires will bless them."

"Are you meddling with my wishes, wife?"

He looked across at the young couple, silvered in a grey mask and crown of hazelnuts and crab apples, he saw what he saw, a girl unthreatened by a boy in pretence to be a stag, adored in deerskins with antlers on his head. More fear felt he as one to influence the passions of his daughter than her with woven into stalks of ripened oats into her hair sitting at her other side, Grainne. She looked up and caught his eyes which dropped on the sting within is chest. His wife was still talking to him. "Samhain's will is not to be meddled with, dear." He made no comment but saw that Murtholic darkly watched her.

When the meal was over and they all tumbled out into the night, each carrying their chosen stone, some also with ancestral lantern skulls and other yet with bowls of porridge and cream left at the doors of houses as offerings to the dead wanderers of the night. Through the dead cold and under the raiment of black cloth of holding a field of starry firmament they headed for the bonfires near the riverside and as they made their passage by the mounds of the dead, Arianwyn slipped her hand into Galam's, welcoming its warmth and crafting a slip and gasp for help. She sat a dead weight as she let him pull her up, easing her of the ground in an overbalance that set him down on top of her. In that moment, they would remember the comfort that they once felt for one another. Yet, they did not rest together and to bring lips to lips and kiss was a thought most peculiar and as for exploit in the broom, perhaps but for now holding hands would suffice. She blushed, the thought of Talorcan's hand ran through her mind.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes?" Her head shook out a no. "Why?" There seemed to be no answer to her question, which she never meant to ask, so she grabbed his had and ran with it.

As fires licked tongues of flame at the night sky they all placed the smooth stones upright in the ground behind them, firmly planted in the cold, dead earth so they should not topple over in the night. All joined hands in circles around the fires and danced sunrise and counter sunrise around the flames. Galam joined the callants as they leapt through the flames, singeing guising clothes in acrid whiffs of burning hair. Arianwyn, her mask up lit by the flames, took her crab apple to the dooking bowls and when she kneeled to dook, Grainne pushed her head in the water with a laugh and soaked her mask. Arianwyn left her mask on, dooked again, grasped her crab apple by the stalk and rose triumphant, ripped off her mask to wipe the water from her face. Then, as she looked into the water, she saw the face of Galam laughing at her reflection in water.

Later, when the flames died down and embers smouldered, unmarried boys and girls placed their hazelnuts into the white heat of the coals. Arianwyn and Galam set theirs together but Murtholic came up and with a twig flicked Galam's aside a little and placed Talorcan's hazelnut close to Arianwyn's. Nia came and with a hazel wand separated the three kernels, "We must let Samhain define what should be." The heat took to the first nuts and two curled together as one; Talorcan's cracked and jumped apart. Murtholic's face was a frown of black displeasure but Nia's face shone like a moon before the time of waning and by the wheedle of its beam, Galam ceased Arianwyn's by the hand and wheeled her sunrise around the fire. Their kennels twinned together caught with reflections seen, the fever of the youths around and Samhain heat, with its power of foretelling was sure to true love divined, sent reason from their minds as the fever of fire deluded them. They reeled and jigged around together and only in the hand held spins where two defined as one.

"There is yet one more divination before the morning comes." Murtholic said to Nia and left.

Flushed and breathless, the young couple stopped on the riverside side of the fire where strong ale in large horns fell into their hands. They drank deeply and as they did, they watched the virgin girls dancing in a circle of swirling arms. They drank some more and saw Arianwyn's father enter the circle of pure sisterhood. He set his head sharply from side to side, strutted his jig in front of them, and made the young girls give coarse huechs and set them from their ring self-satisfied.

"Shall we bundle together in your father's hall?" Galam asked with a smile, his boar tattoo flickered on the firelight and she pecked it with a kiss, a close encounter which in the dark not seen, as was the fright it gave to him.

Dancing around, stabbing fingers under his ribs, pinching his waist, she thought nothing of the way he rubbed his neck and frowned "Cuddle the night with you, you think?" she said before draining a third horn of ale. "Do you think I like an early waking with a rod trying part my backside?" To his affronted face, she gave a fluid, guttural laugh that ended on a high note of delight reckoned by a risky thought. "Hey Galam, why wait for that and all folks' ears for the ooh-aahs on the creaky night-benches?" Her eyes glanced an invitation towards the night, a hand went on a jink hip and the other grabbed for his. So the hip jinking hand to stop for it seemed it would take two hands just to grab one of his and when she almost had, he brought a flap of sytmies to stop her.

Arianwyn cannot just go like that - she puzzled why her hand was empty - the ground would be cold - she found the sudden appearance of a fourth horn in her hand - we might get lost or slip and fall - she glowered at him as a coward over the horn lip of a sip - I am only thinking of you in the end - she choked on a misdirected swallow and as she drank to kill to tickle of the cough, he added to one more thing point, the greatest fear of all - your father will see us going. She took a long and measured drink and threw the horn and its contents to the ground.

"Fee, fie dumble-daddy and fie you, Galam, now you just listen ..." To exactly what she was unsure about for all was as fuzzy-clear as her finger waving in at least two different places at one time between of them. Then it stilled and seemed to point out the way to go. "Aye, listen to me, Galam-Ma-Lad, I am ever never going to ask more than once, so follow me." And she turned away shoulders around her ears in hussy-temper at the confusion the situation brought him and sagging into a fluid form, turned her head with one last smile "Or twice, as you are really nice." One last flick and she ran, shrieking and stumbling into the night towards the riverbank. Stalled on shifting feet, a figure appeared at his side. It was Queen Nia.

"Oh, dear high spirits, Galam be a dear, go after Arianwyn and make sure she does not do herself a mischief."

Now his as feet froze to the ground seeing Necthan looking for something or someone, he glanced the permission in Nia's eye and in the end he set off after Arianwyn. Initially on shuffling footsteps, slow as an unnoticeable shadow, they then relenting into a slow trot as the darkness swallowed him and finally into a run before the sense of where she was leading him was lost into the night.

Meanwhile, down by the riverside, where the willow and hazel grew, she stopped. She fought to steady her lack of breath through giggling, falling and backed into a tree where, by their own accord, her knees buckled. Her breathing eased, so she stuck her ear out into the dark, listening for the sounds of Galam's pursuit. She heard nothing other than the fuzzy, zinging sound in her ear like a repeated musical note. Pumped up by her exertion, the ale coursed through he blood and when it hit head, she felt giddy and light-headed. "Silly boy," she spoke up to the tree that held her swaying body, "he has lost me in the night." Patting thanks to the bark, she left to retrace her path to find Galam only to find that, away from the trunk, she became unsteady and unsettled disoriented, leading her think there was a presence on the water. Her heart froze for in dark, deep rivers, kelpies lurked, she had heard it round the fires, to take the lives of the unwary into a lung of water death. However, nothing came from the river but with stars hidden, that dark swirling in her eyes might be something nasty. She willed her feet to run but they were in abeyance to her need and so the shadow-shape came between her and the waterside. A backward step taken and a trip plonking her down on a rear end of pain, spinning her agony like a top to her knees that was fit enough to make her lose control. Dizzying out of this bad place, one hand comforted and controlled below the other grasped at the earth.

"And look at the state of you?" a voice, something entered her head. She scrambled up, focusing through blurred vision and it seemed the shadow took shape the way that, in bad at night, a fixed eye upon one place imagines moving forms. She was a big girl now so no need to call out for mother, she could face this whatever - was it wings? - she saw what might be black eyes, twisting in the dark, spinning her round so her back was to the river, forming a glow red jewel and purple claws on the black place where sand would be. The purple in the darkness shadow convinced her, for surely she could not imagine purple as bright as that? The purples she knew were sad and muted, undefined as perhaps red or may be blue but this was as the heather in the late summer. "My dragon?" she gasped, still unsteady on her feet, her breathing interrupted by the need to jump into her chest and throat. "Och, how I have missed my dragonnie," and off she went and told the dark the tale. "Last time we met, you gave me the gift of seeing what had been. Had you forgotten?" She listened to the black and seemed to get an answer. "No, I thought you would not have and I bet you thought I imagined you." Arianwyn approached the shadow-dragon. "Come here, where is it?" Her hand scrambled in the night until before the far bonfire light she grabbed at something. "Got you, you little carbuncle you." Then, not learning from her past mistake, she stepped back and once more fell to the ground. "Ya jings-fie, ya!" she swore, or tried, for it was not a thing she liked to do, but the pain reapplied so soon after the last application, and the blinding light, even though her eyes were shut fast tight, made her do it. "Sorry for the bad language dragonnie, jings the pain, I thought that was my death." Death? A strange word to use for a sudden unexpected jolt. "Sorry, dragonnie not death, just a shock to the passage and just as well for all this padding and just what am I havering on about to you, dragonnie?" She got up and began rubbing here it hurt and peered into the dark. "You are a dragon are you not?" It seemed to move back to the water and her back turned to the fires. "Or are you a one of those persons with a very dark skin?" Her knees wobbled slightly. "Whatever you are, you are strong and do you know me with dark and strong, help, help, please keep away, no come here and leeze me on." She rubbed the sore provokingly and winked into the dark. "Have you a kiss for me, dragonnie?" She asked. She shut her eyes but nothing happened. Allowing the lids to open to a slant, there was a firm form in front of her and, third time still unlearnt, she took a step backwards into the darkness and fell with a fleshy plump onto the grass riverbank with the world in motion all became clammy and sickening. A cold, damp sweat beaded her brow and a voice reached her. "Are you alright?" Arianwyn recognised the voice. "Do you real want me to kiss you? I am not sure I wish to kiss you, the state your in."

"No, Galam, I want you to help me up, I feel sick." She was moving on to all fours and as he did not offer a hand, she had to manage for herself. She stumbled towards him. "Thanks for you help there, Galam." Sarcasm intended and displeasure noted. Now, give me your arm, it is dark, my dowp hurts and I cannot see where I am going properly." He supported her walk as she rubbed the pain away. "Did you see anything when you came here?"

"What? When? How do you ... sorry, what are we talking about?"

"In the air, over the water, anything?"

"There was only darkness but I did find someone who is not used to drinking." He sensed that peeved her. "Shall I rub that for you?" Asked in innocence and only for her welfare did Galam offer, but side effects never predictable sent a lightening thrill through Arianwyn such as her pain subsided and feistiness sparked up.

"Come on then, give us kiss or whatever you fancy."

He did not move. He watched her swaying toes to heels, eyes shut, open-mouthed with her breasts swooning before him. "I am waiting, step over here." She said with a screwed up expression. Her eye opened queerly at him trying to see him clearly in her blurred vision when suddenly, a clammy coolness traced though and retched into her stomach in a fist grad in that place that failing to bring it up through her throat except a caustic near death feeling "Arianwyn, lean forward and mind your clothes!" She heard him suggest as her stomach gave another try, this time more acidically successful. So successful that it repeated its accomplishment who knew how many times, but it finally gave up when it had brought Arianwyn to her knees in a fever of cold sweat with which, the clarity of her situation was a broth that in the morning be smirked at by a passing thirlman. "Well, Galam, are you just going to stand there - humph?" He helped her up.

Arianwyn's plaid slipped from her shoulders when they returned into the circle of the light. Grainne appeared and placed it back. "Rushing here and there at this and that, Arianwyn, have a care." Then added as she placed Arianwyn's plaid around her shoulders, " And as far as it, well it is far too soon for that." Just a quickly she left the young couple standing all by themselves.

"Arianwyn?"

"Yes, Galam."

"All that with you tonight, what was it all about?"

"What, with you, Galam?" He waited for the answer. "What else, just a bit of fun, that was all." He seemed relieved which peeved her.

14

" ... the self-same drawing force that netted solar dust into the dawn of genesis ..."

CALLEACH

Though never have seen the sea, heard the crash of waves and marvelled at the flecks of foam lathering around limpet, crusted rocks, all draped in storm broken dabberlack, Arianwyn lived by its climate and the next day was chill and wet. The stone that Galam planted had toppled over in the night; a sight that was not welcome for as Samhain was herald of the coming reaping, a fallen stone was a portend of the owner's winter death. The gossip went round like a burnt tongue but Galam brazened it out as only youth can do. "If the Winter Hag comes for me, she'll taste the edge of my sword ere she takes me!" Invincibility can boast if not yet tested.

"Ach, Galam, there you are now and you may be right enough," Grainne ventured, "there may be more of a human hand at work here. Did you not see the look on the wizard when your hazels twinned in the fire? However, the stone has toppled and people have their imaginings, so if you are dead before the winter is over, well now, who will be surprised?" He suddenly felt less certain about his longitude. "Do not take on so, I will talk to Rory."

Rory? A slave what could he do to stall the winter witch but before that became a question, Galam's father, Taran arrived in a fury having had heard the news and all distraught about the fate to befall his only son. He swore blood for blood for the death of his son and Nechtan tried to appease him, pointing out that his son was not yet dead and that he would order his wizard to meet with Murtholic, his brother's wizard, so that between them, they could conjure up some spells to ward off the Hag of Winter. For a while, this appeared an acceptable course of action, until Murtholic brought his slave with to the meeting with Nechtan's Head Druid. "Why have you brought your slave?" asked Nechtan's wizard, put out and about to walk out as he felt his right. "He has no right to eavesdrop into our business, sent him away!" Protocol showed Rory the door.

Once outside, as patient as a heron waiting for a little fishy, Grainne stabbed at poor he lad and Arianwyn joined in the tussle for an arm as each grabbed an arm, set tirt-and-trot into the but end of a nearby house, the house of Morleo, who was out.

"Why here?" she hissed at Grannie.

"Why not? Come on, in here the pair of you."

Inside, the byre was reeking-warm with winter quartered kine one of which, Erc's grand-daughter, lifted up her tail at them a slurped a slurry-greeting on the straw covered floor almost on top of the princess's feet.

"She must have been told about you, eh Arianwyn?" The jib in front of Rory, a slave, more smarting than the puzzle of how Grainne, crooning her native leed into that chattel's ear, could have ever known of the renowned milk cow Erc. She soon forgot that enigma as she watched how friend's words like home-stab memories and heart-strung catches, took Rory by the throat and well-watered his eyes leaving, Arianwyn, a watcher and a pouter with a glazing open-mouthed face. So, she blinked, sealed her lips as taught to do in company and focused in on at Rory who, she could tell, had grown into a truly handsome lad and everything about him pleased her. As the two Scots murmured into a nostalgic mist of Scottish glen to glen and past falling petals, her inner smile broke out her thoughts upon her face in such away that a rash of plooks, a near eruption of yellow plus, would not redden round the edges of her face. Grainne looked round at her with a face freshly boiled.

"Listen to what he has to say." Grainne said, then squeezing her eyes asked. "So, why is your nose all red?"

"And why is yours so long?" If Grainne felt slapped down it made her laugh, if Rory wondered how her nose could be classified as big, he did not care to show, but eyes were on him and they expected something from him.

"Alright, fine then, Grannie, I will tell her," he started disinterestedly and managing to irk Arianwyn by the title he awarded her. She looked him up and down to dress him down and he started to do the same but pulled a face towards her feet and when she glanced down noticed where Erc's granddaughter had splashed her mark. "Would you not know it," she heard him speak, "luck knows where to stick itself and no doubt, what do I get plastered with, a corrupt wizard that does not give a duck for water off his back in how he treats you.' Still in half a mind to strip off his dignity and give him a good tongue lashing, Arianwyn, was not listening, puzzling why, even she ordered it, she would not wish this slave licking the cow sharn from oft her hem when Grainne nudged her back on track. "Truth be told, I was glad to do what he asked of me for it got me away from him for a while. It was a small thing to topple a stone and to be unseen for such a task I could spin out the night. Murtholic had left a mark beside the one I was to topple and such things in the dark are hard to see, so that took time also."

"And did it not concern you," Arianwyn was incredulous. "That the person whose stone you knocked over would spend the winter fretting on the edge of fear at each cough and sniffle and wonder if it was now the Calleach had come to claim them?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "That is one way to look at it, I suppose and at the time I did not see it of could not care a ..." he looked her up and down to find out what he could not care and saw the hems of her skirt, " ... a kach." Each word stepped out like measured insult that sent the princess jigging indignity in two time with open mouth and fisted hands set a her waist. "... are you alright?" He asked, perhaps sincerely.

"Aye," She pulled herself together. "That is yes, thank you, er ..." show could not call him slave. "... er, what is your name?" A niggle worked her mind that she should know it but she waited pointedly for the answer.

"Have you forgotten? I told you once before." Arianwyn frowned for although she might know his name, she felt it was not he that told her or indeed, that they had even spoken before. Half smiles, mutual glowers and that was about the limit of it. Once something she felt grateful for and on that thought, she felt puzzled and ashamed for not knowing why she suddenly felt bad. Her look now t fell to his feet until she remembered who she was and held his eye in hers. He saw he had made a point. "The name is, Rory," he told her.

"Well then, Rory, perhaps I knew or perhaps I cared not." That was harsh and she knew it, and it kept her on the back foot, which was just as well for Erc's granddaughter lifted her tail and spouted forth a gush of urine. Arianwyn twisted her mouth on the splashes that tinkled her feet and tried to sound grand. "We thank you your story, Rory, if not the way it was told. We fear you have much hate in your heart, as well as memories of things I feel never happened. Some things can not be changed?" she had made her point. He smirked at her the flummoxer, she glowed at him the liar.

High horses in a byre of Morleo's cows, one of which knew of her sorry past as did Rory who reminded her what he knew of her and Talorcan. Curiosity of what else he might know brought forth a line of questions. Why had he not come to see her at Samhain? - Wars, bloody wars. A sadness found her hand laid on the young lads arm. And what was Talorcan like now? - As changeable as the weather. And does he ever talk of me? But how we he know that?

"Well, I never give him a second thought." In time, she saw another cow lift her tail and send a kach crumpling down on that.

"I will make sure he knows when I see him next."

The hand that rested on the arm removed itself and yet she could not be angry with him and she knew he was not with her by the cheeky curl of his lip that enticed her to return his smile. All this good feeling cut short as, for some reason, Grainne flat-palmed her hand on Erc's granddaughter's rump.

For some reason, that cow looked round wide-eyed, shook her horns and lowed at Arianwyn who, for some reason, caught a caprice of a childhood feeling that fluttered in a flash of a thought that tripped of the tongue before it went round her mind to scrutinise. "How about this Rory," she glistened in excitement, "that you and I and whomever we can get, think of a way to free you from Murtholic?"

"Really?" he asked. "Is that wise?" He qualified for this was all a bit sudden with a girl that he had just met and hardly knew.

"True, is it wise?" Grainne asked, the older head and wiser.

That head was not there, having been affronted by a cow, therefore the young head shot upright on the princess's shoulders and her heels left the ground to show how tall s and able he was in holding them in her regal stare. Her voice, when it came, was high pitched. "I would help you escape, if you wish Rory," she cleared her throat an octave lower, "but it must be your choice." Have acted the part of decision-maker, the of difficulties in overcoming and consequences in realising what she had decreed finally sank in. Her shoulders slumped for might just take her up on her offer, however there was the lesson learnt from father, frighten them off with bluff and bluster. "Mind you, Rory, as a runaway you will need to seek out wild places and outlaws. Y he knew she sounded melodramatic and pompous but could not stop her childish act if it meant she did not have to live up to her promise. "So what would you choose given such a choice?"

"You know you shall be hunted all your life. Your food will be the taste of hunger. Anyone may slit your throat in the middle of the night and not hung for it. So, you must never sleep and trust in no one not to have poisoned your food"

"You are very small, you must admit," Rory told her, for though of similar age he looked down on her, "and though you have a clear strong voice, almost gruff and hoarse, for you to manage such a daring thing would seem to me to be quite - ridiculous." She shot him an ill-tempered look. Rory teased no further, he did not really know this girl or what, if he upset her, she might do. After all, her father was the power in this place and he was but a slave. "But go on, do it. Though you might as well stab me in the heart now and save us all the hassle."

Was that a no or yes then? The slave swooned in a most peculiar affectation in front her, folding on his knees with his hand over his heart, he began to resemble a table scrap-begging hound and to the princess, that was just too silly to accept. He mocked her dented, denting her dignity but she refused to rise to such as him who was, however presentable, in essence a ponce's slave. "Then stay a bed-warmer for a wizard!" Once uttered, the words shocked Arianwyn and her eyes appealed for help for Grainne but she just shrugged her shoulders on the her gaffe and so she had to face the slave she felt was wounded with her careless words. "And that is not a thing I would wish you do. Please Rory, reconsider my proposal."

"I suppose, just to please you mind, I could run away and see how far it takes us."

Arianwyn felt, well fine then, it seemed that she was back in control, but then what? How was her plan for his freedom to be unfulfilled? Rory was now a distraction that stood twirling a straw between his thumb and finger as if for him it was neither one way nor the other what she did for him, let alone that he should thank her for it. She flicked her head and sniffed at him and, in return, he deeply breathed and smiled on something that aroused his amusement and excusing it as the close smell of cattle in the byre. Whether this was true or not, it was infectious for Arianwyn's face flushed in excitement. "When the plan is made, we will let you know," she told him leaving her enthusiasm open-mouthed. When youth and far-flung notions meet with inspiration, boundless energy and a body heave of romantic thrills and spills then anything became the possible. Arianwyn was a girl and knew how it worked - Though I may not talk to her, I can talk to she-another who does talk to her (got that yes-no? aye-ye-dae!). So although I and her annoy each other, by the way we both outshine each other for the admirations of the rest, we can at least pass as friends in front of all the world as, her and I have she-another to talk between the pair of us. \- It would be that simple. Throwing her hot hands forward, she grabbed his. His touch was cool as the night, so much so that she felt her heat bleed from her at his touch, which lingered with her own. Then after, as she walked away from the byre, she stroked her hair with pensive thought on a rolling gait and with a backward look at the door where the slave stood. Such inattention to her location caused her to walk into her friend. "Opps, sorry Grainne. I did not see you standing there."

"Och, think nothing of it. I am sure there is such a lot to see that you cannot be looking to where you are going for thinking what you have to do." Arianwyn thought to sulk her friend from here to bedtime, but as Grainne smiled, she wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed.

That night, Arianwyn arranged with her mother to bundle with Galam in a quieter part of the hall. This Nia did for it pleased her to think the pair were still interested in each other. As the two lay bundled, Galam learnt of the slave's confession. "So the Winter Hag will not come for me after all, as I told you, you silly twerp."

"Twerp you and back again," for nothing would keep her from her goal. "Hush, now and about matters more important." Galam felt miffed as what was more important than his life? "We need to think of a plan to free Rory."

Her thrill, her excitement, the enthusiasm that she shook his hands with, was by Galam met with cool reserve. "Rory? This slave has a name. Why should we help a slave?"

His reaction annoyed her, further his hands were too hot, sweaty and she was unsure she if appreciated the smell that wafted with his words into her mouth and nose. "Feart?" She was a sharp needle at him.

"No!" She heard the bristle in his voice from the grey. "But why and then how should we do it? We would be breaking the law and upsetting a wizard for what? A slave, who means nothing to us."

This was not a falling out about to happen and neither was it a running from the wing testing this child initiated and adult featured venture might achieve. Enthusiasm could easily fade before the audacity of the task but determination rallied on the thought of one of them in a situation similar to Rory's predicament. These things happen. This ebb and flow of building-up might have whispered from mouth to ear throughout the night, except it was far too late to think straight and Galam wearied. She let him fall asleep and helped herself to do so also by imagining a story for her future where, at Pitcaitram, she and Grainne would live with Connad, Galam and Rory or Rory and Galam. Here the story broke down. Either someone essential to the well-being was missing or Galam might not talk to Rory or the miff reversed. However, go-to-sleep stories needed contentment in the end, so she pictured her and Grainne together laughing at the new born lambs - one called Rory, one called Galam - head butting each other in a game of king for her mound. The last naughty part of her story, catching it as she did in stolen touch before or in the deep sleep, brought on a quickening flicker, which shot her back awake. Connad, the child, had tugged her arm back into the story and she saw he pointed to a dark hoogie-lamb, a shearling and a tupper not far off with horns showing. With that image drowsing her throughout, she fell into a delicious sleeping of never ending.

The next morning found them no further forward; becalmed, as was the clear, dry day of autumn. Daily, Murtholic kept Rory close to him then, to dampen their spirits, autumn succumbed to raw, wet, bone-chilling days in which people hung around their homesteads fearing a wetting at this time of year. In the hall, days of spinning and weaving or board games whiled the time away. Grainne was keeping herself occupied with Nia and Connad, so the play-at-adults had no help from her. Arianwyn and Galam kept to themselves trying to plait plans which, like twisting serpents, kept coming round on themselves and biting on the one intractable problem; how to get Rory from Murtholic? After three days of dismal weather where, as hens cooped in the hall, they only added their own stink into air and sensed defeat. They had no idea how to set Rory free. They watched the wizard, never far from the hearth, finding way for some slave or other to tend his needs. And always Rory tethered by his side. The little birds knew, though not admitting it to each other, that they had not the wit to overcome the owl-eyed wizard.

"Is there any potion you can make that might ... make him sleep?"

"Nothing I know of, Galam."

They looked towards Murtholic and Rory. A slave attended the wizard and sneezed over the him and the dish she was handing him. "Have a care bitch!" Murtholic cursed the slave and then supped the broth.

"When he leaves, I could organise an ambush."

"Galam, grow up, how would that help? Who knows where that might lead? If you have nothing sensible to say, then say nothing!" As soon as those words were out, Arianwyn regretted them.

"Me grow up? Perhaps you should try. I lack sense do I, well whose stupid idea was this in the beginning?" Galam felt hurt. It had not been easy reacquainting himself with Arianwyn. Their time apart had brought changes in him he knew were always there and. The way that she had tried to become close to him in a way, he did not feel comfortable. Not with girls anyway. The bundling was sisterly and nothing else. Though he was aware, Arianwyn spooned her back into his front and wriggled like a worm upon a hook for something more than a comfortable sleeping position. Neither of them wanted to tell the other of how experience had changed them since they last meet. This adventure, however, had rekindled familiar excitements of childhood pranks, even though it did not take much to create misunderstandings. Arianwyn took her hand and laid it on his Galam's arm. He seemed to flinch upon her touch and she floundered in that awkwardness. Reason told her the was fault hers, that her desire to free Rory had set a pique of jealousy in Galam's mind. She sensed a thrill that this was so and felt empowered by the thought that she was the mistress both of them. She breathed deeply through nostrils, let out a sadness on a sigh that caused her eyes to become downcast until the prompt told her to look up all watery-rimmed and sorry. "No, it's not what I meant," said with a slowly shaking head.

"No?"

"No." She held his hands. "Now listen to me Galam, that wizard's cantrips are working on us. We will need to think of something. As soon as this spell of bad weather finished he will be leaving for Athflodda, before the winter sets in."

However, no matter how they slaved, no workable plan formed. Few people give a thought for slaves. They are a necessary order in life. How would the world run without them? How will there ever be no need of them? Without them who would do those everyday, irksome tasks? The fetching and carrying of fuel, food and drink? Whom would tending for the needs of their masters, keeping them warm and dry, by making clothes and footwear? Who else would do this for so little recompense? Without them, well, what would life be like but a drudge of poverty? Then, if all done without them, what would you do with them, fit for little else than fouling up the air you breathe?

Therefore, that was that. Slavery was here to stay but not for such-as-those. Such as those were those like Rory and herself. Those not fit for that rung in life should weather the weather, wet or dry, be in and out of homesteads and halls and if it rains, never be allowed to dry out. Why should they need to? Snatched, short and troubled was their sleep, laid out on the cold earth in rheumatic garments that fed their damping aches. Invisible to all, even their coughs, sneezes and fevers went unnoticed (and few would notice a spit into a bowl of broth) until, one by one, the slaves fell ill and even the birch could not encourage them to rise and serve. What ailed them soon spread to the thirlfowk and even reached into Nechtan's hall. Murtholic became poorly and a fever took him to his sleeping bench. Murtholic, for all his wizard's ways, became sick.

King Nechtan fretted for the health of the wizard. He posted guards and rowanberries at the door to prevent the Hag of Winter taking him, for he knew how Talorcan valued the wizard. He asked Arianwyn to care for him, and accordingly she made infusions of yarrow to fend his fever off. The two little birds recognised their opportunity and pecked it. The wizard spent day and night with his head towards the wall, his sleep wracked with bouts of coughing and too ill to be aware of what went on about him. They sent Rory to work with the household slaves, where more hands needed occupying, and this fitted well their plans.

Two nights later, all was ready. Galam took the guard that night at the hall doorway. The weather was atrocious, so all the better, for few would be abroad. Rory stood dripping by the slave house door when they finally got to him. They brought a small horse and some food for him. With the blows muffled in the downpour of the rain, Galam took a hammer and removed his chains. Arianwyn took her knife, cut his leather slave-collar and as she did, they caught each other's eyes in a thrilly-belly game of the mistress and the slave. She took his hand and placed her knife in it. Rory was wet and cold and she felt his cold hand take the warmth of hers as he had in Morleo's byre. She held on to him as Galam spoke. "Do not go west, the way is guarded. Head south over the Okhel Hills before you try for Dalriada."

Mounting the horse, Rory set off into the rain, the pang of parting made Arianwyn bite her lip. Ice-cold rivulets of rain run down her front and back. She felt the raw wet soak into her feet and ignored it, as she did the tug of Galam's arm when he tried to take her back into the dry and warmth of her father's hall. But she stayed watching the rider leave. The one whose neck thong she had cut, the one who accepted her gifted knife, the one she had freed and then let go so that the story of the mistress and the slave would never be told around the fireside or intimately worked out to the finer details in somewhere like Pitcaitram. She watched and felt a cutting spasm in her throat as and before the end of sight; Rory turned and gave her one last look. She swallowed and then he was gone. Once more, Galam tried to pull Arianwyn away, her wet clothes hung like lank leaves around her shape, he thought he heard her sob. "Are you crying, Arianwyn?" He asked.

"And why should I do that?" she snapped at him and leaving him follow her, she

returned to the hall to sleep in wet clothes.

In the morning, Arianwyn woke. She sneezed. Over the next few days, as Arianwyn cared for the wizard with her infusions of yarrow, her muscles ached; a cough tore at her throat. She made tea from sage and thyme to help. Nine sun risings passed before people began to feel relief. No one had missed the disappearance of Rory, his or her own miseries saw to that. On the first day Murtholic felt his fever lift he called for Rory. They sought for him but could not find him. Nor could the roan steed that Galam had ridden to Fothuirtabaicht at Samhain. Murtholic's fury collapsed into a bout of coughs and phlegm, which he spat into the fire pit and where it sizzled. When found in the midden, the slave's collar was a riddle. "He must have kent some of the wizard's wisdom. How else could he have broken its spell clean as a knife cut?" The thirlfowk reasoned.

One had an answer to the riddle. Nechtanson took his sister aside. He had hardly had spoken to any of his family during his time with them. Arianwyn, involved with her antics, had quite forgotten all about him, but now he had sought her out. He stood taller than she did; she saw the festering skin below the yellow puss-heads.

"It was a foolish act you undertook the night of rain," he spoke softly; she felt a pulse of fear in his discovery, looseness made her squeeze all below the waistline – who else might know? "Arianwyn," he continued, "be careful of whom you make enemies. Pray that Murtholic does not hear that it was you who set Rory free. When you come to live in Athflodda, Talorcan would not protect you from that wizard's wrath even if he so cared." White-eyed and frightened, Arianwyn heard his words, feared him and the implications of her deed. Her head dropped and she let a fall of hair drape over her face, a shield for her for who could protect her now? Not her parents, she had broken the law and none could outstand that. Now she feared Athflodda, as once there, outside the dominion of her father, what would become of her? She had cut a slave free and all the time she failed to see the thongs of bondage that the name – princess \- had held for her. She had been simple as a child and now she began to see how others might view her. A prince enticement with the last vestiges of girl-thought embraced within the freshness of her naive, adult lot. Her brother had more to say to her. "I shall not say anything this, but so you know, the name sister is no talisman and if needs must I shall look after myself. "

Those unremitting words would change everything and forever and that was not something she could accept, say what he liked, he was her brother and who could he forget? Her indignation flushed the paleness from her face, tossed the wayward hair from out her face and set a defiant sneer on her lip. "And you are one I must call brother?" Smile, smirk or what was that expression on his face? "And what does that face mean?" Infuriation broiled her and as he would not speak, she would. "So sweetest sibling," she puffed up her opening, "do I have this right, is this the correct meaning of the word brother – an after-taste of vomit in the craw?" The line of smile set on his lips, up-turned at the corners, only served to raise a fury in her brows. "And what talisman should I bring to Athflodda? Whose name would protect me there? It cannot be father, nor yet mother and surely cannot be Forternn, you have made that plainly clear. You sneak around our parents and our birthplace as if you are ashamed of them. Aye, like a wizard's lackey who seeks a shadow to hid its face and revolts against the slime in follows. Where is your honour? What did I do so wrong? Nothing! I freed a slave who, long ere now, would be glitter-gelt around our necks, exchanged on handshakes, sheepish smiles and apologies for misunderstandings – and yet you sneer at me!"

Two close, yet forced by circumstance apart and now returned, will seek for paths to find their way together, though all around has changed. Except the knowledge of what they once meant to one another. It only takes a certain look, a sigh set on the air between or a slight of movement in the eye to enrage, and so it was with Arianwyn. That smile – certainly a sneer – the gall of him to be so tall, so broad and, and, and, and, and all! Words failed Arianwyn, and so she pounded on his breast, with double-handed fists and exasperation all told, he failed to fall beneath her blows. "Sis, lay up, I yield." He laughed.

The haughty princess stopped and looked again into the face, saw the mask fall down and recognised the brother. "Nechtanson," she sighed.

"My passion-sis," he said. His upraised hand stayed her striking flow and the hardness softened between them. "Listen, I do not berate your action, just the fashion of its execution."

Summer, always sunny days conspired in mischief, returned to Arianwyn, as was the brother now stood before her. Yet, there were unanswered questions. "Do you not know how hurt our mother is? She seeks to the child she loves and yet you hide him from her. And father, longs to take you on a hunt, but you are never to be found. Why?"

"Our time, events and place have taught this to be wise. Our father knows, and Arianwyn, you must learn, if you are to survive, to move your will unseen."

"None saw."

"You think you were discrete? All saw what you and Galam were about, the wizard's illness stopped his eyes and no one cared to find his ear." Her queasiness retuned, a cold sweat glistened on her brow but her had to make the lesson stick. "How think you of Talorcan?"

"Talorcan," she spoke, his name out of her nose, "the threat of gelding iron would suit him fine and make him more a man."

"Perhaps and yet, sis, he has talked of you to me in less bitter terms." This hooked her and annoyed that it had, she cast doubt at her brother statement, wishing for proof to which he gave none. And so she fished for some line into the meaning but he refused to bite. "Dark pools, Arianwyn, hold deep and dangerous secrets, just keep yourself safe." He looked once more at Arianwyn, then turned and made away. Once more, she felt the hurt of parting but had his keepsake words.

Soon, the weather settled back into clear, cold days and Murtholic left under a festering cloud of discontent. "Aye, guid riddance," said the thirlfowk. The slaves were in accord. Nechtanson gave his sister one last fierce and disapproving look, unless you saw the eyes. He did not look back.

"I fear we will not have heard the last of all this," Nechtan confided to his wife that night when they were alone, with darkness cloaking thoughts.

"Murtholic can moan all he likes. The slave ran. If he complaints, we can summon witnesses to condemn him as a pederast to the Druid Order."

"You think? I am not so sure." Nechtan was silent for a while. "Someone set him free, Murtholic will have his suspicions, I have my facts. Arianwyn and Galam were very close and secretive of late."

Nia heard him; it had been her thought also. "There is no proof," she said.

"Murtholic will not need proof. I am afraid Arianwyn has been foolish," His voice unplaced, despairing. "How have we come to this? My brother's kingdom is a curse on all of us. It has made my son a stranger to me and my brother drinks himself to death. Murtholic lingers round us all, an evil smell, polluting and what hope in Talorcan? Each time Arianwyn reaches to him, he muddies waters and she is frightened away. Yet he will have her, for need of what?" For shame, he could not find more speech, to explain to his wife of the greed of pus that men held down below, waiting to belch up and sour much more than throat and mouth. "I fear for Arianwyn." Was how he ended.

Nia knew his fear as hers. As far as Nia was concerned, this was a matter of protecting her daughter from total desecration. She could understand the attraction in a man like Talorcan but, by report and her opinion, he was too unstable, he had lost all grace. He would maim her daughter, physically and emotionally and she would be unable to help. Nia's hope was in Galam. However, she knew Nechtan was not convinced that Galam – the girl-lad he called him - was suitable for Arianwyn. She knew that for her husband there were no shades of grey, only a set policy to keep the peace for children and for lands. Set black and white to placating druids, knowing women, Scots and Britons, and all the other Pictish kings, Nia feared, in the end, he would sacrifice his daughter to the needs of the world. She was resolved this would not happen; she had already lost one child to expedience, she would not lose another. "You are right, my love," she said, holding him close, " but we have winter before us. Our granaries are full. When the spring comes, we shall need to be wary and watchful. As long as we work together, Nechtan, we will have nothing to fear."

That night, Nechtan went to sleep encased within Nia's arms. Dreams flowed through his sleep, images of vile abuse which ended in bright light, a blessing for a sin of lust encompassing Arianwyn. He woke and the memory of the dream was with him. He slept again and on waking refreshed the knowledge of the dream remained.

At his father's insistence, Galam returned with Taran's to his hilltop home, where he succumbed to his bed in a fever. Taran feared for the arrival of the Hag for his son. The Hag did not take him, but soon others in Culteuchar fevered-faced the Hag that came for the old and very young.

15

"... life's journey is obscured by both dark oblivion and utter blinding light ..."

BELTANE

The iron-hard winter which had weathered people pale like dried, bleached bones on a moor was over. Those dark nights, long Winter-Hag nights that thinned, snow-whitened hair and wrinkled skin in her snell blast of eastern winds were diminishing before the lengthening days. During the Hag's winter days knees had twanged in pain on rutted, frozen paths; hips had stiffened in those dark-nights. She had sent a winter of bulbous boils, of festering coughs, sneezes, wheezes and hacking throats. A winter of vomiting, fluxes and phlegms. A winter where the weak-backboned weakened, lingered pathetically and died in a painful attempt, a demeaning attrition to beat the Hag. An abject duel in which the body fouled the bed in a degrading mess and forced faces to the wall. But it was over now. The light grew strong and though the cold has strengthened, folk emerged from their winter-dark and dank-stinking dwellings to greet soot-blackened neighbours with a look in the eye that acknowledged their survival from that racking, wicked realm that hid them from each other through the wet, cold, frosts and snows, biting winds and ever dark. When the chill drying winds came with the promise of spring, the children knew to reel the backcourts on banshee screams over the broken ice and snow.

The days grew long and the song of lark and lamb drifted on the warmth. Thirlfowk and slaves busied in the fields. The season fostered the immortality of youth with thoughts of Beltane. Anticipation of matches and, if bulls were free to, then future mating floated on the sleeping-pallets in the time before the slumber. Sleep left those pallets early, for the time to make ready for Beltane was short. The pole cut from the ash tree stood upright in the ground. Flowers were collected in drifts of blossom - celandine, primrose, wild garlic, pink champion and violets - for the time was coursing near. Already, bonfire piles were rising high on hilltops all around. The ground, beaten with staves, began to wake. Rib-parcels of dung-clad cattle they lifted from the byres and carried to the fields to chew the fresh growth of green grass. Within a day, their slurry slicks spread like honey on the land. Nechtan's druids advised him that Beltane should take place on a high place, as it usually did, but only after some religious meeting which Nia attended. Whereat, by some divine intervention (all agreed) a half forgotten tradition set in stone three Beltane's back (Nia reminded them about that) and some religious indications that the Druids thought might back the whole lot up (the poor lamb made a tasty supper for those priests) - Taran's hill fort at Culteuchar was chosen and everyone should be pleased.

"That should please you then, if not the yowe that lost its lamb, no?" Grainne had indicated to the non-committal Arianwyn, "Think on it, you will get to see Galam. I heard the Calleach has left him for you." A scratch on the princess's neck, at a point behind and below the ear, needed scratching as badly as the subject needed dropping. "And think, thanks to you mother, in another three Beltanes who knows in what capacity you and Galam will attend those bonfires at Culteuchar." Grainne's knowledge of a new tradition, rewarded with a frown. "What? Something I said?"

Nechtan, who felt strings pulling at a point behind his back he could not reach, was less that pleased and more vocal on the subject, reacting as was the pomp afforded by his rank. Enthroned at the fireside that night he confronted his wife. "Wife, why Culteuchar? Beltane is usually held on the Hill of the Sacred Bough. I am more than a little miffed at you." He felt that sounded kingly enough and was absolutely sure that this decision needed challenging, though on what authority he was not sure as the druids had right the choose the Beltane location. "I will let you know, Nia, I will not have you interfering in my affairs, Culteuchar does not suit me!"

"Your affairs? And since when did Beltane arrangements have to suit with your needs?" Moreover, there was more he needed to know. "You know fine that three Beltanes past it was held at Culteuchar and, husband, do not you go barking at me as if I were one of your subjects." The king grumbled as a husband idling his time at the fireside when the wood was needing chopped. "Have you nothing better to do? Wasting your time here when you should be doing something else, byres do not clean themselves as well you know." For peace's sake, he felt to drop the subject but hanging like a wife who knew how to harangue an ear, Nia scolded the browbeaten man.

"And what if I did discuss this with the druids, is it a problem?"

"It is unwise," he thought to suggest.

"Unwise, you say? Humph!"

"Yes, Nia, unwise. I know you. You are interfering with events to throw our daughter and that girl-laddie together and I will not let it happen. Neither will Talorcan and of the two there is no contest."

"What do you know? I know other, she will not want him." Nia voice was calm.

"You think? I feel she would have him," said Nechtan. The queen remained silent as stone formed her face that worried Nechtan "She just needs a nudge towards this matter. Talorcan sees himself as High King of Pictavia and who is there to stay his hand in achieving this? Without great loss. He is a man for all times, an unflinching wolf in war, a silver-tongued word-crafter in times of peace. I have seen him at work. Such a match would protect Arianwyn and suit her."

"Suit you more like. You should be protecting your daughter from the likes of Talorcan," she scorned. "He is self-serving and grabbing in his ways."

This was old ground, how often would he fall out with his wife over this? Like children into a bath of mud, they knew not to go there but go they did and if mud larking was fun, this was not. The only one that sympathised with the mess it caused him was Grainne. A few sunrises ago, he had ridden out towards Dunine, to view the flocks of sheep, a half-day walk from Fothuirtabaicht. He had gone to see the lambs and standing on the ancient Roman ramparts used to fold the sheep at night, Nechtan was pleased for the lambs were plentiful and strong. Her never heard her approach and from behind until she spoke.

"These are the slopes where, after the yowe trummle, the flower of the Pictish forest was wede awa, cut down by Roman spear and sword." Turning round, he saw her standing there, her child encased within her plaid. How had she got here? He had seen her, he was sure, when he left Fothuirtabaicht that morning.

"How would you know that?" he brusquely asked the young woman with the Dalriadan-look. It had been ages, a fistful of fingers of generations ago since Agircola had scythed that crop, long before the Scots had crossed over the western sea to settle in the west.

"How, indeed? She questioned. "Yet you do stand where the Roman general stood and there, high on those slopes, Calgacus, with his flock of Pictish manhood held fast before he led them down to die upon the sharpened steel of mercenaries from across the eastern sea. So much flock sheared and slaughtered on one man's ill choice of action. It makes you wonder what went on in his mind and why did no one point out to him the folly of his action? So much blood spilt from here, across Fothuirtabaicht's fields, to the Tava waters and the weary well that waits there." Nechtan turned his back to the young woman but she continued to speak. "Your lambs grow strong. Nechtan, they soon will now longer need the milk of yowes or come running to their mothers' bleated warnings about the wolves that would feed upon their flesh." For some reason her words incensed the king for a young female spoke them. "Fear not the path you have chosen for Arianwyn. The queen an you see her each in your own way." She continued. "You need to know she has her own light and I will always lead her towards its finding." And on those words, he spun round but she was gone. There were no imprints on the grass where she had stood or tracks to show her passage from the place. The light of Arianwyn held Nia and him and if it went a thousand leagues away, they would recognise it in a myriad of stars.

Women confounded him, like the numb feeling in his arm of late, and Nia seemed to be the better of him. Nechtan, realised he had been introspective and silent and that Nia waited darkly for him to speak, not in a formal tone, nor in a bruise of agreement but in a balanced tone chord fit for family. "Besides, who else would Arianwyn choose?" Nechtan concluded with a sigh. "It is only because she is our daughter that she attracts all this attention. She has too much of my look about her."

"You think I would have married a frog? She will surprise you yet, she will change her dowdy feathers and watch them lining up. Now, granted, many will still think of what her position will gain them, but not Galam. He is a worthy youth, he would not cause her grief and he would not be thinking of what rank he would gain."

"Aye, a youth, an untried callant. Too soft a boy to take her in a manly way."

"Manly way indeed, foul-mouth and earthy thoughts! Leave them for brutes like Talorcan. In a world of louts what is so wrong with softness, I ask? We women appreciate gentleness and kindness, I thought you learnt that years ago."

Once more, the never-ending distaff spun a getting-nowhere on the thread of love, from its ethereal manifestation and physical embodiment to the flowery and the hardness of the act was discussed from their usual standpoints excepting this time, there was new wool added to the yarn by Nia. She took his sword-calloused hands in her grip. "I would welcome this as a sour taste, but I think you should invite Talorcan to our Beltane celebrations and make sure he comes." Then Nia quietly reasoned more. Nechtan drooped his head, and settled with the accord they reached. Then, on the finished words, a beam of light came through the door and shone on Nechtan's head. Nia saw his head was greying and through the thinning hair, noted his scalp was dry and flaking. A tear fell from her eye, an anointment for his thinning strands. She belt and kissed his crown and smelt the bitter flavour of old age which, as a slow accumulation of unnoticed dust, had setting there.

"All the same, our are wrong about Arianwyn, mark my words."

"And with the land needing mucked, you just sit here?"

Under clear skies, warriors spun the whetting stones, sparking sword and axe to cut an eye on neighbours' spouses, to sharpen the anticipated license Beltane would allow on their keen the edge. Thumbs ran caresses on those tempered blades as Arianwyn flowed along like swaying grass that sought winds to seed their ears. During her Beltane preparations she did not notice them for, in her sixteenth year, she was their Beltane Queen and not for such as them. She held herself above all that, one must suppose, though more and more the change in her brought to her a splendour that they never saw before and made them wonder.

Above all them beside the wooden palisade, Nechtanson leant back and under hooded brows, scrutinised the scene below him. His skin had cleared but not the outward, stern expression set anvil-hard on his face. He saw Talorcan and Murtholic outside of the hall and his lips curled as he rolled saliva round his tongue and spat it out. He turned to look north. A few leagues way in the strath he could see Fothuirtabaicht, the smoke rising from the palace buildings. Would they ever let him rule there? He doubted.

Nechtanson walked round the wall sunrise to a point where he could clearly see, that in a seven-days march in any given airt you would find yourself, up to you oxters in wars and famine. Britons, Scots, Angles, even other Picts, all vying for your blood, your land, treasure and a handle on your women, in that order of importance, but they might just leave your blood to seep away slowly for the fun they would get out of watching your drip-drop dying. All that being as was in the outside world somehow Forternn held this trouble far away, though the price paid plainly lined in his father's face. How much longer would they let him be king? They held him hanging by a thread. His mother seemed to be the only force that kept a smoulder of hope alive. She was as a warm Beltane rain scented with the new grown grass that watered Nechtan's failing courage to give it strength and vigour. Moreover, if his father faltered, she could win the thirlfowk's round? Strong women had ruled before. Would they want that to happen? Only a whimsical fool would waste breath to answer that.

Below he saw his sister, dreamy as a summer day and with the blood-stiffener called Grainne. Armfuls of green growth and springtime mirth spilling with them through the unguarded yetts. He found it hard to figure his sister. Was she really so sakeless that she could not see the ring of thorns surrounding Forternn, pricking and piercing? She was simple enough to tease the childhood innocence from him but that blinded her to Athflodda's purpose. A sullied womb to suit need. She was spirited, this he knew, but she was small and woman-weak in a world ruled by men like Talorcan. He did not wish him on her as for too long he had followed the wake of his bloody lusts. Yet would they ever leave her be? She was a bedspread and that was all; so let her enjoy her day.

A joyful shout made him look up, the call came from his sister, surprising him that she had even noticed where he stood. His sister and Grainne waved at him from out the throng of people, broad smiles balanced precariously on laden arms of bee-robbed blooms. His stern expression did not leave his face. His sister – Arianwyn, silver, holy – whom he wished to remain as a newborn lamb and innocent of blood spilt all around her. He gave a half smile, waved then turned his back, for the sight of her worked a sadness in his eyes as a recollection of feet pebble unbalanced feet in clear water alongside silver beads rilling through the sky, flowing on him or her in turns about, in a delectation of squeals rendered upwards in sheer delight. An orb of salt ran down his face, enough to reach his beard and catch amongst the bristles. He left it there to dry and looking to the hall below and seeing once again the two Athfloddans gauging all around, he rolled his tongue and spat.

Below, Arianwyn peered up at her brother and shivered in the late spring sun.

"Who crossed your ashes then?" asked Grainne.

"It is nothing." Arianwyn turned to make towards the hall then stopped mid-step. "Look over there, Grainne." She pointed towards two figures standing by the hall door and the girls shrank back towards a nearby dwelling gable. Gasping on their reckless nerve to move, when just a flick would catch a hunter's eye, they reached the gable of a nearby wall unobserved. A brief exchange of stifled smirks marked the out-tricking of the dark-door threat, triumph too soon cut short as, leaning on the gable wall, they turned with wary-watch to determine the men's mien.

On previous day the arrival of Talorcan and Murtholic with Arianwyn's brother took little time to trade the niceties of stately greetings before, at Nechtan's feet, a great complaint was laid about the treatment of the wizard, Murtholic, before the winter days. Compensation for the lost of Rory they demanded, with which Nechtan sympathised. He promised to replace the slave; only, he had no young boy-slaves at the time. Then, with that business concluded, they learnt Alpin was dead, drowned by the Hag of Winter in his own vomit as he drank deep into a night of drizzle. Talorcan showed little remorse in telling the story, a detail not needing underlined, Nia scored into Nechtan's ear. He looked old and care worn by the fact. He found it hard to make comment, the numbness in his arm made it hard to grasp his drink and everything spun in a dizzy blur err he could fix it into place. Not that anyone noticed or cared with Beltane just around and not that his daughter gave thought to the drooping look he gave as she studied Talorcan across the clearing.

"He will be here for you," Grainne told her. "How do you feel on that?"

Unblinking eyes saw he was all that she remembered - virile, strong and proud. A thrill flashed within her as she imagined he had looked up and seen her. However, where her eye was set on him, his was only roaming. She watched and never felt the tip of her tongue lick a parting of her lips before it went back into her mouth, leaving a sultry smile behind. Her senses were sweltering, stirring her into pant of happenstance for the dark and flowing locks, the hawkish eye and nose - not too cruel or too large - the swarthy, dark complexion and - rhythm broken again by the fact that she should not be thinking this - the promise between the legs beneath the swing of kilt. Arianwyn glanced up to Grainne, with no intention to meet her eye, leaving her friend with an air-snigger and returned to gloat on that taunt skin - smooth on half-moon cheeks - an oaken jaw where, even with his short-trimmed beard, some love-imp had carved a dimple of allure. Her eyes glistened, she quivered at his pull on her. She had an overwhelming desire to run over there and demand of him - right then, what would you give for her? Yet, she did not, for he might acquire her cheaply, Pitcailtram still ran through the mind, and on that thought a woman, like a coming heat, glided into the space betwixt her and Talorcan. From where she hid, Arianwyn saw his dark eyes come alive as a stalker's scenting, a mirror of the passing thirlwoman's look at him, both submissive and enquiring. Arianwyn riled, not at the man, but at the woman who would charm him from his stance. She sulked at the woman and felt juvenile and out-classed as she watched Talorcan weigh up the odds and realised that the woman would need but tantalise her eye upon her shoulder, as muggy as the time she neared herself, and he would make a move. Yet, despite knowing he would go to her and what had happened at Pitcailtram, she desired his grace upon her - the man she feared, the slayer of the slave, the ruination of Connad. Confused and nervous, she twisted the petals in her arms, sent cascades of yellow, pink and white to the ground, bruising them beneath her feet, gazing on the man of stone-cold eye and longed, ached for him to look up with hopeful eyes for only her. As if he heard her inner thought, he looked across the space and saw where they stood by the gable wall.

"Look there, he looks at you, Arianwyn, see how his lips pine for you."

"He looks at her, he looks at you, Grainne."

"Not so, he looks and thinks of you. He dreams of me, as all men do, he only instinct rises on the passing thought of her. He is a prince and power attracts such women."

"Fie him then for any passing hither-here, for lift my skirt and a how is your clout?"

"You can talk, princess, remember Luchtern? He is not so bright as to recall a memory from the past without the lifting of a skirt."

"Fie, you Grainne," the princess flushed. "Anyway, that was hardly the same." Luchtern and all the other lads, she included, in those heady days of summer saw the meaning of discretion lost in the tangle of the broom and hare-form places in the grasses of the gloaming light. All those girls who wished to use her like a Thawen, a font of titillation and a gossip-gate about whom much could be visualised, fantasised or ruminated upon except the one thing - however much it was tickled to her that she would like to, be nibbled at her by those boys in a frantic fumble, or pleaded by those ears and tongues of girls to test her powers and strip the yellow from the broom - she never did.

She sought to change the subject. "Look at him standing there. What a gowk, what a dark rain cloud encroaching on the sun, thundering down with a fringe of stinging rain wetting all below."

"My, my we are becoming lyrical in our old age, but which is he - a silly gowk, a summer gowk or the never far off rain?" Arianwyn refused to answer - old age indeed! However, perhaps it fitted well enough, for by her age her mother was bringing up two children. Then Grainne asked the question one more time - the which gowk or rain? - and still she gave no answer.

"Right then, let us find out." And cuc-koo-ing across the open space she caught the attention of the man and woman and the elbow of Arianwyn into her ribs.

"Fie that and stop that, Grainne, do you mean to have him over here?"

"Would you not like that?"

"I would not!"

"Why not? Better the gowk than the rain, the male is a bonnie bird for all it does not care where the egg is laid."

Arianwyn shuddered, the wayward strands of hair falling into her eyes she swept aside. He was flighty and she was not, her grin bent determinedly for what she would not allow, Talorcan, to cocoon her in a wrap of indifference. He would rue the day he thought her dull and emerge as a vibrant butterfly to tingle and excite his eye and then - if he chose – if he dared - if he even thought - to defile her delicacy of folded of wings, then she would fly into the azure sky and resplendent in her beauty, dazzle him until his eyes were blinded by her sun. Then - serve him right for his loss - flutter-fly her wings away and let him curse his red, cold eye, for who could withstand her charm – but then – was she the one to tame the beast within the man?

"Anyway, forget it for now, you are nowhere ready yet." Grainne said.

"Ready for what?" A high note taken aback.

"Fie me, but do you not know and how old are you? Well, you can all wait a little longer, you, your father and Talorcan, all must wait."

"Explain? Ready for and wait for what?" She asked, her voice a fraction higher.

"To appease his troubled soul. You need to be stronger. You will need to be able to match him before you can save him. It is something you will do one day and have no doubt it needs be done. For now, soften your arousal and let not Beltane passion rule you." Grainne's voice, as if a Spaewife's caution, firmly imparting and strictly underlined.

"You mean to scold me as you would your child?" Arianwyn quickly rebuked her friend, although she had never heard Grainne raise her voice to Connad.

"Humph!"

Arianwyn felt that meant more than a scornful sound. "Humph, what?"

"Sit here with me, I feel you wish a story," and by the arm, she pulled the princess down to sit with her back against the wall.

Arianwyn was displeased at the brusque treatment handed out to her. "A story, here, now? Now I know you take me for a child, what need of tales from you, when there are tails nearby to catch and yank?" Then laughing at her own base pun under lowing brows, Arianwyn sent sultry, gloating grins towards where, she supposed, Talorcan watched her.

Where they sat, Grainne moved close to Arianwyn, set her eye-to-eye and commented on the vulgarity of such commentaries, to which her target accepted the chastisement as relief from the feelings racing her towards rough rocks far from the ease of leaning of bodies lightly touched at hip and down the arm. Through the ebb and flow of words that Grainne breathed, a calmness of lapping water at the slackness of tide song smoothed over her. She let Grainne tell her what she knew; she had let herself upon dangerous downstream current. A blind and rapid rushing cataract into unknown waters and not a gloaming drifting she could control. But she felt safe now by Grainne's side, all underwritten with the scent of new spring blossom laid beneath their feet and the yearning for a story that, one more time, would float her back to childhood.

"There was a sheltered glen, through which a caller-river flowed fresh, clean water and where lived a good husband and his kindly wife with their only child, a half-grown woman, flaxen haired and bonnie. Skin of milk, no fat therein, the puppy-fat all burnt away, a complexion clear and pure, the very ...."

" ...twinkle of her parents' eye? Now, I expect, you'll tell me they adored her." Grainne put her arm Arianwyn's shoulders and pulled her closer to her.

"I know they loved each other," she told the girl. " Now listen up. One close and humid summer's day, the girl grew restless round the house and nothing could her parents say to make her stay at peace. If anything it made it worse. Then all at once the day grew dark, as a thunder-mountain piled range on range and black on black and cloud on cloud until – flash! - with a mighty crash the storm broke overhead."

Grainne stopped and listened as the bustle of the Beltane preparation crept into her ears. The grinding of the whetting stone, the cries of children at their play. "Well?"

"Well?"

"The story, Grainne."

"Och now, is it that you want to hear?"

Softly Arianwyn smiled, laid her head on her friend's shoulders, her arm around her waist however, she kept the young man in her vision. She saw him make a step towards her but the wizard held him back as the storyteller continued. "I want to go into and see the glory of the storm above, the girls told her parents. This once, they knew, they could not stop their child and everlasting in their love and hope they let her go. Outside, in rain-soaked wonder, the girl marvelled at the lightening flash that forked around not caring to who or where it struck. She felt her knees tremble as the storm magnificently rumbled its thunder over her and rolled it down the glen. Then, a panic grabbed her breast, for behind her came a mighty spate of wild-white foaming water, sweeping everything she knew away, her home, her mother and her father and she was next in the line of its crushing flow."

Once again, Grainne halted and this time remained silent. No sound heard she, except the soft and rhythmic breathing from beneath a flow of strawberry hair, cascading on her shoulder. Expectant as a child, a face turned up towards her, implored from below the hair to continue on, but Grainne remained taciturn to that pleading face and waited for its lips to part. Arianwyn lifted her head from of Grainne's curving shoulders and asked. "And?"

"And what?"

"And what happened?"

"What happened then or what will happen now? For, look Talorcan waves you to him, what need you of my tale? See how he looks at you."

Realising that, in listening to the tale, she had let her sight slip from him, she forced a glance up to the man and in doing so, cricked her neck, which sharply hurt. She rubbed the pain away and Grainne heard her say. "I know fine he looks at you, and every other passing bahoochie that wiggles into view."

"And mine, do you think, is it as ample as she who just passed through?"

Enwrapped in laughter, their joy reached to the men at the hall door and there affronted them, shocking them to their manly expectations and turned their stomachs on what they saw. Two young woman enfolded in each other, caressed in laughter, caught in scented breath, wrapped close within their pheromoneic, body odours and not caring for the world around them but only joyful in the trusting love of each others' arms. Like a spit, the men walked off. From out the corners of their eyes the friends saw them leave, and then rested in each other's warmth. "Did the girl have a name?" The younger asked.

"What name would you gift her?"

"I would not use my own or yours, for in the tale she dies. Why did she have to?"

Again, a silence blanket for all sounds fell on them. For long, they stayed quiet and still until Grainne spoke. "Few can fail to see the power that walks with Talorcan." She felt the young girl shiver as if a sudden chill had struck the air. Grainne placed her arm around her neck and whispered in the young girl's ear. "Just as he is, he is a storm, which only can cause friction. A rampage of ignorance and totally blinded to the power within the spark, he wrecks all havoc below. A spark which can split a mighty oak and lay it low or touch to earth through a field-worker, leaving that man whole, and be swallowed by the earth and wasted. And you, Arianwyn – storm-enticer – need to learn to catch that bolt of brilliance, hold it in your hands, control the storm and keep safe its power for the light it brings. Then will the dark clouds dissipate and let the sunshine through. The storm, no matter how it wants its power for good, can ever do it for itself. But, one day you will, Arianwyn."

Not as usual ending for a tale, yet Arianwyn sighed contentedly and eyed the dark-haired woman by her side and even though the flow of passion dried inside, she felt no care in loosing it. Still, all told and on reflection, Arianwyn felt she should be angry at the way Grainne, initially, addressed her and told her so. "Do not think your storytelling has made me less upset with you, Grainne," she pouted, "I am angry with you, treating me, Beltane Queen, as if a child."

"Only angry? You should be furious. I would have been, as all girls your age spoken to like that would be. However, they are not you my love, nor do they have me for their boon-mate, nor are they destined for your future. One day they will thank you."

Quite forgetting about Talorcan and the passing woman, they lifted up their gathering of blossoms and arm linking arm, they made their way into the hall where, in the dark, Nia saw them and was pleased at what she saw. "Och, there you are!" Nia greeted them. "Where have you been, you two? As well as keeping Connad amused, we have finished all your costumes." She held up a cloak, white with silver flecks for Arianwyn to try. "And for you, earth goddess," she handed Grainne a cloak of green and earthen hues.

A servant came up to Nia and whispered in her ear. She made her excuses and left them with Connad. As she went out, Murtholic entered in and on seeing where Arianwyn sat, he approached. Though they would not have it, the young woman could not avoid him. He peered with narrowed eyes in a dark evaluation of Grainne - just what possessed this common, female form, with the tenactic-gall to challenge Talorcan? "He still wonders what you hold from him," he told her, "he has an interest to find out." He tried to get beyond the blanking face but got no further than her beauty. ... Was it just a physical attraction for Talorcan? A need to make another ...

"You see me, wizard so tell Me, what does your theology tell you?" She stepped into his muse. He paused, there was a glint of green in the air and then his mind went blank. He lost all his train of thought and sat bemused as if waking from a sleep. He looked at Arianwyn and remembered something else. "Tomorrow you will leave with us," he told her, "your father will be told, we can have the ceremony here, if you wish, or in Athflodda, it matters not where you are spliced."

"Why does Talorcan not come to ask me for himself?"

"Why should he bother himself for that? Mind you, I expect he is preparing for your nuptial night, be sure to go all goggle mouthed if you get that. However, do not tell, I care not a fie me fummock, as I am here on a matter for myself." Grainne felt a hand reach out to hers and supported its smoothness within a gentle squeeze. Then poisoned oil dripped their dainty ears.

"You will remember Talorcan's gift for me, a young slave, named Rory? I lost him when I visited with you before the winter." Then, like a change of wind, the chill became icy. "He will tire of you; you know that. Talorcan will tire of you after a night, then it will be duty, duty, duty onto a son is born and after that? Twiddle with yourself for any fun for you will be alone, so very much all-a-lone. Do not think we will allow this Dalriadan harpy to come with you. You will be very much isolated. Just like I am from Rory. Your brother will not help you, he is one of us, and Talorcan? Well, as I pointed out, pathetic female charms wither fast, it will be just you and I, my jo, for company."

He left. Arianwyn felt afraid for herself.

"Now, then," Grainne told her, "do not let the bad man go upsetting you. We will find a way round this."

This threat, to win around, worried Grainne's brains to find an answer. So many variables at work and then there was always unexpected, human inter-play that could never be fully detailed in and free will was an illusion. However, her decision had to work. "Arianwyn, I will ask you to do something tonight, just follow what I ask you to do, exactly. You must trust me. Others work to help you, Arianwyn, and Talorcan will learn to wait."

After she had left her daughter and Grainne in the hall, Nia walked through Culteuchar's ward, knowing the risk she would be taking but she prepared to take it on. Arrangements were set to tail him, not hard with his intention and the knowledge he would be thwarted, for it had been on design that the woman with the gracefully accommodating curve appeared between Arianwyn and Talorcan who, when he tried to seek the promise given by her blink, vanished like a morning mist. Nia knew where he would pass on returning and waited until he came. And when he did, she set her guiles to catch him.

"Talorcan, dally with me awhile, a word." He obliged his aunt. They strolled in silence until they reached a hut where they might out of sight and sound and she turned to him. She smiled. "Tomorrow is Beltane, will you come and visit me in this place here before you go to the fires?"

"Why?"

"It is Beltane night and I would have it."

"It?" Talorcan considered Nia. She was a slightly older woman but, underneath her head of woman-cover, he saw that she still had beauty held in form. "You would have come and talk of ... it?"

"Yes, I would have you come."

He felt flustered by this oblique talk from his aunt. It, Beltane and what might be it could be might be anything. The time of year allowed for much. Not that he felt he cared and not that he was in the mood to be teased by another woman as he had been that passing women, who flummoxed him by disappearing. That had annoyed him, chasing after her when he might have joined Arianwyn. He felt owed a price for this slight and he would set the costing for himself.

"Now, what harm, I only wish to discuss this and that with you."

"This and that? Could you not be more specific, auntie?"

"A bit of this, or that and perhaps a little of my daughter."

"What of your daughter?" At this, Talorcan drew her close to her. Looking at her closely, he caught the likeness of the daughter if not fully the mother's features, then in her disposition, taking him back to the fey face below his oxter at Pitcailtram, setting a sensation thrilling as he recalled the crude and roughly taken liberty which, sending and shiver-band below his chest had run up into his heart. It had been a feeling new and incomprehensible. A pleasure unknown towards which, inbred instruction was always reflex instinct and preordained reaction - fie it!

"A Beltane fancy and only that, you silly youth, what are you thinking? I am your auntie." She pushed at his chest mocking and the off-limit feeling of those fingertips reddened in his face. "Just you humour me, Talorcan, by calling by and I be waiting." Then off she went leaving him perplexed.

What was to work at here? To him, as most women, his Aunt Nia had been but a decoration in the background. She existed as an extension of her husband's will. Something that lent itself to abuse as clear as early memory. If she had it, an opinion, her husband gave it to her. If she existed for this, her husband gave that to her for all to see. An inward smile came to him as an idea attracted him and one, which should please Muthorlic. Father, wife, son, and daughter could all be his and their petty kingdom to fall into his lap. He would need little time to work out how to weld all this against them. Proof of this or that or it would serve, he knew the druids in Forternn were dissatisfied with their king and his non-conforming daughter. Here was play to make.

Next day, on Beltane, Arianwyn woke in the small, darks hours before the sunrise. Her sleep had been fitfully and in the grey gloom before dawn the hall of Culteucher was a disorientation to why the need to be at that time awake. However, awake she was and without disturbing the deep breathing around, she stole from the hall and mounted the unguarded curtain wall, the night still held glossy under starlight. A few leagues away to the east, beyond the citadel on the Hill of the Sacred Bough, brilliance seemed to rent the darkness around Kinnoull. Then as redness veined along the hilltops, the stars faded from the sky and she cried up the dawning day. "Arianwyn, this is me, this day of late spring and are you ready to embrace the warmth of summer and cast off your childish past and open to embrace the woman?" Yet she saw Kinnoull and something was forever a worry to her there, was it that dragon that she felt waited there above its weary wells? "As the does the moon wax and wane, I have no choice in anything that happens." she vexed aloud.

There are none that do, she knew that and thought so found it lead to nowhere, all wandered paths through balmy summer days before the cooling autumn winds turned to hoary frosts of winter. How would her footsteps lead?

"I would lead them into service for my folk." She told the land. And serve none other? "I would serve truth." She whispered to the day. Arianwyn reached to her hand towards the jewel of the red of day as it flowed over the land. My time here is short. She thought. All around others block or turn me from my path. Below her, in amongst the homes of Taran's Hold, the Beltane spirit awoke stimulated by anticipation of the day and night to come. "Be strong, Arianwyn, the darkness that rankles the minds of men is strong, so gird yourself against it. Fight fire with fire and take it from them first." And with that spoken to the dawning day, she heard a well-known voice close by her.

"Arianwyn" She turned and Spaewife stood at before her. "Come lass, let us find the morning dew tae mak ye mair than bonnie." Her feet set hers with her old mentor's to where the night-moistened grass, outwith the hold, hung like translucent pearl drops and as the rhythm of the day resounded to the beat of slaves on the wakening earth, she washed her face and knew that beyond bonnie, she was beautiful to behold within and without.

She returned without the Spaewife at her side and met the youth of the thirlfowk entwined around the Beltane pole to the reel of pipe and drum with which, Grainne pore libations of blood, cream and honey over Galam, in guise of the green man, whose salty-sweet drippings dribbled to the earth. They milled around her, crowned their Beltane Queen, carried her high up in praise around the fields, where every young male that saw her wished for there-go-I if I but catch her in the eye, but seeing Talorcan lock-up-your-daughters, just melted in the joy of hips and lips more in their reach.

That Beltane's night the bonfires sent sparking fire-faeries high into the sky. All around the many Beltane fires pulsated flame-rhythms into the darkening sky from the hilltops of Athflodda to those of Circinn and Fibh. All of Forternn was alight with the light of Beltane freedom. Thirlfowk formed away-from-home couplings far from their hearths and hot on the heat of the dances of desire. They drove cattle between the licking fires and onto the pastures, trampling the places where men and women joined in a white-plaid of secret, hidden yearnings. The Green Man and Beltane queen pursued each other around the flames until exhaustion brought their bodies' close and blended their briny sweat in their embrace.

In time, the flames of fire died but the intensity of white heat grew in the glowing timbers. Warmed, Arianwyn drew herself apart and sought out Grainne. She found her sat in a dawm looking westward with her child blanketed by her warmth from the cooling night air. "Would you wish to be back in Dalriada?" Arianwyn asked.

"I can remember no past there and the future is not there."

"You may yet find someone to be with."

"Now why is it I would be wanting that, have I not been just telling you that the memory of Ru is still strong in me, besides, who would look after you?" She paused and looked earnestly at Arianwyn. "The time is now!"

"For what?' The girl, startled at the force of the voice, winched on the twisting vice-grip on her upper arms, stopping freedom of movement and clamping her free will to do other than what the sting of green eyes demanded.

"You must do what I will of you!" Must was not a word to use on a princess. "Take Connad and set him like the cattle between the fires." Arianwyn faltered as a girl. "Do as I ask, girl!" Then softer, kinder asked as a friend. "Trust me, Arianwyn, make sure everyone sees. Now, please go and do as I ask."

Grainne placed Connad into her arms and Arianwyn, catching a gleam of green in the young woman's eyes, felt herself pushed them towards the fires and it seemed her legs took her onwards by their own volition. Even so, she revolted. She had a child in her arm and felt everyone watched her baulking at the intense heat, judging her, surmising if she would fail an unexpected ritual which as all conventions designed for them to take, entranced the watcher into belief. So emboldened and barefoot, Arianwyn walked on the ashen pillows, she turned widdershin and thrice sun wise, placed the child down on the coals and left him there. When she returned to Grainne, she realised what she had done and was beside herself with fright. She had felt the heat of the fire, smelt the singe of hair and she looked round and in horror knew the child would soon ignite. She made to return bit Grainne held her back.

"Ask me to call my son from the fire." Grainne said quiet and calm.

"Get him, quickly!"

"No. Ask me, softly."

Arianwyn looked at her face, it had ashen of benevolence that told her to obey but this was all too silly and stupid. "Call your son from the fire!" She shouted at the woman's face, a order spat for all around to hear. Grainne flowed passed her but stopped before the singeing heat. Arianwyn went up to her; the heat was harsh, roasting. "Call for your son, Call for Connad from the fire," Arianwyn pleaded, her hands pushing the mother from behind. Grainne leaned back into those hands and turned around. The watchers grew anxious for the child but the heat kept them back. Arianwyn saw only Grainne's eyes of green and parting lips that grew into up-curved, crescent moons of silver teeth. "If you ask me I will be bond you to the blue moon life with me. Is it what you wish?"

Now when she uttered those words, Grainne froze, for some Beltane caprice sent by the world had made her slip beyond the script or perhaps, in worry for the child about to be engulfed before the anxious girl, she had let that strange request out. She could not tell if the girl had not heard her slip words or not, but there was nothing to be added for fear of making matters worse. Arianwyn wasted no time puzzling over Grainne's words, she said the strangest things and now they were singularly freaky. "The Child is burning!" Came the cry, then panicked fear took her actions - what had Grainne made her do?

"Yes." she agreed with Grainne and pushing her away, softly implored. "Now, please, I wish you to call him from the fire"

In hope that all was well between them, Grainne turned and in a mother's calm voice spoke for all to hear. "Connad, come to me. Come, Arianwyn." The cripple rose on unbent legs and stepped unmarked from out the ashes into the arms of Arianwyn. He felt as cool as a spring morning as Grainne knew he would. Never such a looks, one fiercely condemning the other apologetically meek, had theses friends exchanged as she passed Connad to Grainne, a rift as wide as the unknown she thought she had known so Arianwyn back stepping into the arms of the throng, who all knew, for they had seen the miracle, their Princess Arianwyn had become a Silver Princess. They crowded for the touch of her, swilled her from Grainne's sight and declared a chant onto to the sky :

Siller Darling, Siller Darling,

you are oors

tae keep and haud!

In the ensuing chaos, Murtholic appeared and at once understood what happened and recognised the danger. The people of Forternn believed they had a Silver Princess, a precious charm, a good luck talisman whose wish would be their desire, her happiness their contentment. He looked around for Talorcan, knowing in his water that the Dalriadan bitch had duped them both, but he could not find the careless man. The Druid stomped away to seek him out and arm him to another course of action before all was lost upon a night of Beltane fire.

Murtholic's face was not the only grimly set countenance, for as the Beltane horns filled to overflowing, Arianwyn sought out Grainne, caught with a dark look and scoured her with a tongue of scorn. "Was this your set intention to blackmail your child's life for my affection? Sister not good enough for you? Just who close a friend do you want?"

"Ach, do not be silly, there was no risk, and those words were placed in my mouth."

"Placed in your mouth, huh! It was you mouth, you said them!" Her upper lip exposed her teeth and gum and in response, from the crowd a horn of ale was placed in Arianwyn's hand, as tongues on lips waited for her blessing on the a good growing season.

"Take but a sip, it is laced with distilled spirit."

"And who is here to stop me if I wish to sink it in a oner? Not you, eh" And lifting up high above her head, Arianwyn gave the cheer:

Here is healthy unto the Beltane,

Up and round the sappy pole;

So leeze me on a lad

to make the barren whole;

Go-aye, go-aye, go-aye

Cry ilka lass,

And toss it down to your console.

Then in one long draught, she emptied the horn's liquor down into her stomach. "Ae-but Grainne, go-aye, ken?" Had ever her voice been so gruff and throaty-raucous? "What do you think, should I go round a sappy pole with a lad? I have the mind to and how would that make you feel then - jealous?" Around, shouts resounded into the dark like thumps upon her back, she wiped the liquid on chin and chest and as the dizzy draught entered her bloodstream, a rising surge of heuch and pipe rekindled a spume of dance, a mesh of interlocking limbs. As through a blur, a cheery-soul took Connad into her care and Arianwyn's saw sorry eyes of green locked with her brown and felt a slight relenting. "Och, what the fie to all this mixed up plisky! And fum it, for what the heck do I care Grainne? I can never be angry with you," hands blended into a lacing finger braid, "so come, be friend or Beltane lover," wide-open acceptance held glee for one another, "and dance the Joy of Spring with me this ae and only night."

In that much the rift was healed, much was misunderstood and worryingly, there was still work to do but for the moment there was nothing Grainne could do, bar stay glued hand in hand with the tipsy girl, dance and hope there would be time for all the rest to be placed in order. A new tune skirled the air then off it took their bare feet to stamp a tattooing echo to the rhythm of the drum:

Stamp, stamp, stamp,

one, two, three,

right, left, right

right, right, left!

Keep it simple,

Keep it pure,

Sound the heart beat

of the Earth.

Hands clasped on hands to fix the reeling whirl of spinning circles burled between the sparking fires which, on separation kept a symmetry of wild delight with kick of leg and flick of heel, with taunt of hip and swirl of hair, that everyone saw as them saw it. The old thirlmen sat with hand-stroked beards and pondered on to understand of the reeling pair so close and open in their warmth, old thirlwomen grouped as gossips at the back sat with goose-bumped legs, decried those salacious then elsewhere eyeing, oh-my-and-ahhing-sighed as Galam and Uven joined their dance of Beltane lust. The young men reeled between the Beltane Queen and her Earth-Goddess and once there they jigged a jig that set Galam to strut a strut and statuesque in a pose where he stood his ground with arms on hips and pelvis proudly pointing out. Surprised, he found he was before Arianwyn as a on-your-own laugh egged him on to her, the chant the more fervent in his confusion, his shock to find himself where he had no intention to be. The girls looked at each other across him and laughed as kindred spirits never to be split apart but, Arianwyn, saw the tusked boar upon Galam's throat, remembered Grainne's hurt to her and she felt desire a leap another way. She grabbed his hands from off his hips, she turned and danced the young man in a dizzy whirl of disorder in which his feet tripped and slipped in and out of rhythm. "Come on Gal-lam," she taunted him, casting a lusty sneer at Grainne and holding him sure and fast within her dance. Her dance to tantalise went on with wands of flowing arms and hair, from earth to sky, she caught his eye; he saw the fernlike hair beneath her arms. With sliding feet, she shuffled and leant forward felt her pulling breasts fall before his eyes. Ale-spiked and passion breath-caught in dare-go-aye, she offered this for his eyes and beckoned with her finger tips as he gazed low below her collar line. One glance up and he became transfixed upon the invitation of her smile upon her tilted head. Her swing of hips - a beguilement troublesome - her vixen bark - a chill blood freeze - her move towards him - a dance faltered on uncertain steps - her grab and kiss pressed open on the breath within each mouth. His breath away \- which, like stale ale, she found sourly bittersweet - he sought Uven but she flung her face in his and tried again, keeking a look from kiss-shut eyes - distaste dismissed as mutual ale-fug flatness \- on a flickering message that seemed upright in her mind. A last strange look at Grainne, she secured his hand and ripped him away into the heart of darkness.

Grainne stood looking at the place where they had gone, the blood-blur pulsated in her sight did the only thing she could do, picked up the plaid that Arianwyn had left on the ground, held to her mouth beneath the nose, then leaving Connad with the cheery-soul, she went the other way.

In the Spaewife's hut, Nia knew nothing of her daughter's wildness or impending fall, for it was her own desires that concerned her as she waited in the meagre reed of light of three creuzie lamps. Their allure fluttered in the dark over her and with all arranged the Spaewife prepared to leave. "Now, mind, ye anlie need tae ask me an I be wi at yir side, juist ca oot saftly an ..." The old woman knitted her brows more deeply that ever but it was not with Nia she was concerned. "Och heck, noo there is a mess of overheatit stew that has got burnt tae the pot." Nia did not understood the old woman. "It will tak a wheen o' scapping till the shine is back. Oor mony spinning plates at ae time and sic a yin as that tae drap. Ach, such is the way of the warld. The child will learn." With these strange words the Spaewife left Nia to it.

As Nia puzzled over her words Talorcan appeared as a dark shadow in the against the night. She patted the bed on which she at sat and obediently he came be her side asking what she wanted.

"Whatever you wish to give me."

"The truth?" He asked. The dark hid the ruffle in her eyes, that was expected. "If you want the truth, auntie, she draws me like a mountain draws the rain. Like a peak I wish to climb, green-grey and stern-craggy rocky and one I fail to climb." Despite herself her heart flew to him and opened up her mouth for reason why he felt like that for Arianwyn but words failing, she listened. "The top is always out of reach somehow. At times you think you are there, the cool winds blows from the corrie as a teasing hope and you reach a top, breath-robbed and heart bursting from you chest, only to find the summit somewhere else beyond and out of reach." She fought to resolve herself against him, the man of blood that killed a slave. And yet she saw him there a tail-curled pup, ear pressed in the confusion of his situation. His eyes softened in appeal for an insight into his misery and she recognised that yearning in him to be more than man the world demanded he should be for she had seen that once in Nechtan. "She has caught me as a moth on a flame, a flame she lit with her enchantment."

"Then what brought you here?"

"You asked me, auntie."

"But what drew you here tonight as you were drawn to Froinna?"

"Who?"

"The woman in the clearing you sought out today?"

"That was nothing."

"No! Nothing other the man you are and not one for my daughter."

"Not so," and Nechtan moved from his hiding in the shadow.

The dull edge of Nechtan cut against the grain and made Talorcan clamp his lips and tighten at the threat that he perceived. "Ach, uncle," as always he was quickest when feeling threatened, "come to see what I saw as a child?" Underneath, whatever fluid worked him, it crystallised deep in his core, flipping him on a sudden charge from meekness into an ice-hard grip. Wordless he reached out, removed Nia's head-shawl and entwined her hair in his twisting grip in a vice straining at its roots. "Was it like this?

"Softly, nephew." She told him.

"Why soft? It was a lesson taught me. What, have your failed your duty to your daughter?"

"What duty?"

"Your duty, auntie, to show her what it will be. You, for one should know what that is." She heard, quailed in remembrance and that action made him bite the more. "Rote beaten into her until automatic mouth-given response," harsh words and expected, "on my demand." He loosened his grip on Nia's hair with those last three words and flung it from her as if it were no more than cast-off rubbish. "As for your wife, uncle, starve your hunting hounds I say."

"Leave us." Nechtan said.

Talorcan went and they cared not see the manner of his parting. Nia went to her husband and stood straight before his stooped head. "What did you expect?"

Actions made within a moment's choice and all moes-along, on the swift-to-follow elected eeny-mo, into a dry taste that clays the worried face and blows below the belly, though blame lies where blame is made - for you made the choice. A decision made when everyone seeded in your ears a contraction of rights and wrongs, duties and performances, then buzzed you with delightful pleasures and gorgeous attractions, as let it drape itself upon your skin, and once the beat was set merry knee-lifting, churned them into a stank of concerns and repulsions. Yet, you still had choice to do other, as somewhere in that frame of yours there surely must be consciousness? Each day you are aware you must be a something, perhaps a someone with hopes, desires and the means to craft it to your liking but for that pathetic splodge your body, that holds the vital spark in check, but for the changeable demands of the world, that snuffs the sparkle out. In the early morning smirr of drizzle and disappointing dullness of grey light, before the daily assault of ugly twinges of appearance, smells, aches, illness, disabilities of mind, body and old age, there is the half-shadow of your shame for what you let slip to others. The thought that in the one exposition, interpretations become mindset true and fixed in the eye of the beholder, so that no matter how you see yourself other, the world view of you is one you must accept. You boiled and bubbled but now, taken off the heat and set aside to cool, your are there to be spooned at like a cold, uninspiring salt less porridge or scraped away, as if that also was going to be a choice of anyone.

Bird song under grey cloud for no reason other than drive of season. No purpose either to the heat of smouldering ashes warming Nechtanson, and little thought from him, barring inference, for the furtive couple coming from the woods, hung-over with guilt from stolen passion spent, stepping their separate ways on ashen soles away from that Beltane tryst to waiting spouses and unspoken explanations about the night spent apart. A night that nine months may bring a reminder of that garbled moment in the dark. They did not notice Nechtanson sitting there unseen by them, a skill in his control and wondered if it really was his will. From where he was on top of Culteuchar hill, he could look down on the Taran's hold with its smoke rising languid on an second unexpected day of celebration for thirlfowk than some might find bitter. He was well out of it, cloaking unseen feelings for the crows as croak upon.

He could still clearly remember that first day away from home, the tummy-thrill in heading to his new life with Uncle Alpin and the gut-wrench of the early teaching that began within a run-for-home of Fothuirtabaicht. Stopping around mid-afternoon, the induction formally commenced with Talorcan making him feel safe by placing an arm around him, before the pain and the crack of head on the stone after Talorcan pushed him over the body of a warrior on all-fours behind him. Worse was the mock of laughter the cruel kick from Uncle Alpin that sprung tears into the night he had running back to his mother, for she would listen and although he had began to think he had outgrown it, dish comfort to him on her lap. However, they caught him and made it clear with a thrashing, he was never going back.

At Athflodda there was Murtholic. He soon learnt about him from the other foster boys in his uncle's domain. The children that Druid wizard liked were of a certain type, two faced and prepared to use you to suit their ends. The type that were one day a friend then the next a bully. Golistan, a foster boy from Fidach and not much older, took him under his wing and set him straight. "Do not get noticed. Keep yourself unkempt. Never let them see you smile."

As he got older, they noticed his skill with weapons. In war games he could out-fox older boys. On one night time war game, Talorcan set to track and chase him down. As Nechtanson ran through the night he knew what awaited him when Talorcan caught him up, as knew he would; he was older and much stronger. Nechtanson ran towards place where a steep banking dropped to a river below and all in the timing in the dark, the sound the river gave him where the slope began. His timing was exact for, as Talorcan reached out to grab him, he ducked and sent his cousin sailing over him into the chasm. Uncle Alpin laughed when he heard the story though Nechtanson did not when Golistan elbowed him in approval. "He got you there, my lad," Alpin told Talorcan. "No getting your own back for this one, it was fairly done. Come on, admit it."

Relations with Talorcan after that were always tense. Talorcan was so obscure as to be unreadable. Everyone was his friend but everyone feared him seeking your chummy company one day and the next hunting you to inflict torments. You may be with him when his father came and see Talorcan greet his father with a brightness of smiles then, behind the back, glower and call his father filthy names. Talorcan never mentioned his mother or sister, she was dead and that was that. Nechtanson could never find anyone who knew or was willing to tell her story.

Talorcan treatment of girls was another dichotomy. He adored them, charmed them into his arms with flatteries and good looks and they fell for him as they would for a kitten, offering him their lap and more; after a while they would feel his claws. Nechtanson was surprised to learn that Talorcan had once a twin sister and that he had been very close to her. They had been inseparable, as Nechtanson and Arianwyn, however; again, there was a mystery, something dark and unspeakable. What ever had happened his sister, like his mother, was no longer and there was no feminine touch in Athflodda. However, Murtholic was always around grooming Talorcan like a protégé. It was unknown what Talorcan thought of Murtholic, he always seemed anxious for the wizard's praise and pointers of advice yet, again on turned backs, dismissed him with hooded looks. Talorcan used Nechtanson when he was older for he could see and be unseen and he never smiled.

Nechtanson grew into a useful scout. He was quick at picking up languages and could infiltrate into Dalriada, passing himself of as a Scot. The information he gained was useful to Talorcan - always Talorcan. Though Murtholic always had to be told about the deranged Dalriadan Christian hermits he came across for they interested him with such curiosity that, risking capture and certain death by Scots, he do and would seek them out. Alpine always drank heavily and Murtholic poured ale and spirits liberally into his cups, encouraging his drinking time by suggesting drips of responsibility here and there to be taken from his lips to Talorcan's. Until Talorcan took the crown and never looked at his father again and on his death never went to his cremation fires.

Nechtanson grew useful as a warrior. Talorcan recognised when someone was useful to him, he knew how to cream their porridge, until it was time to tip it onto their laps. The incident at the chasm had irked him but he admired Nechtanson for its execution and found him useful in the skirmish when Talorcan needed someone trusted at his back, other than the sham spells from the wizard. Then when the fight was over, as the Picts waited on a shuffle of unease, Talorcan was like the weather, he could be unclouded and warm, the next overcast and cold. Being on his side did not mean that, after the battle, you were safe from his sword opening up a fatal wound. Nechtanson hid all emotion as heads and hands and feet, indiscriminately hacked, and set in piles of raven feed.

Roused from his thoughts by the shouts of celebrations from the settlement, Nechtanson knew to make an appearance for his their sake. It would please his silly sister but not stop her from the mistake she had already made. That morning, he had watched them all move towards that fatefully decision. His father swayed in thoughts, a morning eye that stared unblinking and unfocused on the bare earth before him. His battle nieves swung weakly and uselessly clenched at his side. Nechtanson saw how his mother took the king in her hold, in tender arms and lovingly hugged his father. His mothers grace brought a clinch within his gut and a welling in his eye as he almost felt her warmth that shielded his father from the coolness of the morning. His mother had grown strong, while his father had become a stag defeated in the rut. Arianwyn had defied her father's choice, and threw her plaid below his feet.

Arianwyn! Not a day had passed yet he thought about her. He played the ploys and tricks they had played together repeatedly in his mind to help him find sleep. In those times, he smiled in the dark remembering his sister, always in sun, however frozen at no more than five. It had been a shock to she her at Dundurin, his conception of her splintered like the shards of a broken sword hit against a rock whose hardness was expected to be tempered. He had been party to their plotting against his family; he had been there so long, so faithfully, that they saw him as one of them. He remembered the instruction Murtholic gave. "Talorcan, she is only fourteen and small built. She is rounded, but the puppy fat will drip from her, for she is an overactive sort. She is a bonnie quine, hold no doubt she will be a beauty. She has had a sheltered life; protected by her mother and spoilt by her father she is still a child at heart. However, her father is worried that he has allowed her too much freedom and that she has been playing-free with her favours, yet someone has prepared her well and planted a moral streak in her and she is still pure. She has only played kissing games with boys, such as catch-and-feel-and-that-is-all. She is close with one called Galam. Galam does not feel like other boys."

"Will he be a problem that will need to be removed?"

" I doubt he is. However there is a mossy side to this rock for the princess has refused the marks and cuts. Nechtan fears that, in a few years, she will be as other woman in her longings and with power of a queen, will not be ruled by any man so quickly have her won as yours at Dundurin. Then bring her here and set your seed then follow the family traditions in how to honour women. At Dundurin, she will blossom like a flower in front your flattery of her, Talorcan, but do not pluck her then for she will be easily frightened off. She has much to learn about the wants of men. Do as I say and Forternn will be yours for the asking."

Nechtanson heard that speech but when he saw her that springtime, failed in words to warn his sister. Not that she would have listened, he convinced himself at the time. Talorcan knew how to work his charm, even on Nia. His sister had been like the rest, a flutter of eyelashes quivering below Talorcan's knowing smile. Then, Talorcan had his attention drawn to the strange, dark one like scent linger on a finger. Nechtanson, not noticing Grainne then, had failed to see it coming and had been surprised how she had gripped Talorcan attention and how it had all turned out. She was a commoner who bettered Talorcan, got under his skin and he, like a lone wolf scattered all the flock. His mood fouled the months that followed and to ease it, he ordered Nechtanson to find Pitcailtram.

"Find the place, burnt it, salt the land and bring the bitch to me!"

He searched all winter but no one could tell him where the place was, though it was somewhere, it had drawn Talorcan, like a wasp to a horn of summer ale. Though Pitcaitram could not be found, the trail lead to Grainne at Fothuirtabaicht, the young mother's friendship with his sister and this calmed Talorcan as a draught of strong ale and he was contented to let her be and asking news of Nechtanson about his sister.

Seeing Grainne this Beltane, he knew why she got to Talorcan. Never had he seen such beauty in face and form that almost made you ache to look at her. Skin smooth as a lochan on a windless summer-gloaming. A slim nose that never looked down at you above the fullness of soft, rowanberry lips. A spark of wildness hidden in her emerald eyes, allured with velvet lashes which, on each opening and closing made your heart to leap, she commanded the grace of a queen. One to loved, one to esteemed and one above all men. Only such as Talorcan would take a black thought to despoil her. Nechtanson was present at the incident round the Beltane fire. All the others thought it had been Arianwyn, but he had seen Grainne's hand at work. Yet, how was it managed? And how was Beltane's trick worked, the crippled child should have fried alive but came out walking? However, there was no doubt it had been done, it was a master stroke, his sister proclaimed a Silver Princess, and in that act was freed from Athflodda's grasp. Nechtanson could see his sister was fortunate she had her as a friend, yet she had spurned her on that night and now, her choice in a handfast partner was a disaster.

If only his sister had left it there and continued dancing with Grainne but no, she had to go into the night with Galam. Arianwyn was headstrong - he had seen that when she had plotted the released of Murtholic's slave - but why lie a Beltane night with Galam? Galam, a good enough lad in a fight but he was a willie-watcher, though it seemed none of the pair knew what everyone could tell them. Galam, held by the sleeve, then, for all to hear, chosen as the one she would have for life! No wonder, Grainne had given her such a despairing look when she picked his sister's plaid up from the dirt and put on her shoulders, for more than the day had grown grey and cold. Even then, his sister refused the plaid around her head, how mixed up was she to think this was the only choice she had? Why take it? Why yield to the dire workings that kept the two apart? They both speared his side for what he knew of them but still failed to understand the grief his father crumbled under or the distorted pressure keeping them apart. All free will lost in a moment's error that only his sister, guided by his mother's will, would see as binding.

He rose on further cheers from the hilltop settlement, his family would want him to be there and he would not miss the look on Murtholic's face for the all the kingdoms of Pictavia and Nechtanson would not allow himself a rueful smile.

16

"Then she walked ahead into her garden and he followed her. After a little, she turned and asked. "Malachias why did you follow me here?""

PARTINGS

It was not late when Nechtanson arrived. He was in time to see the sycophantic maidens lauded his sister hoping to catch favours from her. Galam stood, a sheepish expression on his face, while loons regaled him with ribald gestures. Nia, radiated satisfaction as his father folded in on an illness of self-doubt. Then the two wet blankets at the feast Talorcan and his wizard saw him and tried to win him to their side. He would make their dour faces drop the more for he had outgrown them and they threatened him no more. He saw Grainne with her son as she placed him on the ground as the clouds thinned and let through a watered sun upon the handfasting. He watched as Grainne came to him. "Nechtanson," she said to him with green and red ribbons in her hand, a sombre tone in her voice, "take these, give them to your sister, and give her a long, longed for smile for she in no in need of such, so bothered are her thoughts."

He went to where the couple stood and placed himself by his mother's side and when the cheery-soul called for the bindings, she placed them in his hands. He looked into his sister's eyes and saw the doubts she had. It only took his smile to bring the sparkle of confidence back but like sun on a day of clouds, it quickly went. "You need not do this," he whispered in her ear, "Grainne won you from the grasp of Athflodda." Then, as a hushed wistful thought. "It can no longer harm you, see how Talorcan grieves that you do this."

The last words gripped her heart in regret as she returned his whisper with her own. "Yes brother, fool me but this is the heather I have gathered and I must lie on it, for to not do so may be wrong now. Besides, Galam is fine enough and I know him well. He will not be unkind to me and many have faired worse."

The cherry-soul cupped the couple's right hands and bound them with ribbons of green and red. The eggs, broken and swallowed down in one with no yolk spilt, so all was well and they had performed their vows together in quiet unison:

In love bound with cords of green and red,

In love, I have the knot tied.

In love entwined us now as one,

Together for life's span.

And though to couple appeared dismal, all put this down to wedding nerves and blessed the couple with wedding song, following the couple three times sunrise round Taran's Hold, to spent another night in drink and song and dance that Arianwyn refused to leave and go to bed. Was it only Necthanson that saw her constant search for Talorcan was it only he that saw the bitter self-regret in the sagging form of that man? Was it only he that saw his sister's sadness catching in the meek misery of Talorcan? His eyes meet Grainne's and saw he was not.

"It is guid to get back to auld claes an' paritich." The thirlfowk had agreed the next day as Talorcan prepared to leave. The grey-clouded day's air was still cold. The Athfloddan's attempted to get Nechtanson to change his mind but. Stayed by his mind, he remained in Forternn.

"So be it." Talorcan noted in his set manner. "You may need a long spoon to sup with me in future, so have a care. Athflodda's not so far that I will not hear how you cool your porridge." To the queen he hardened. "This is not over between you and me, auntie, nor am I finished with your white-witch daughter and her lap-bitch protector." He knew the names would smart for they twisted in his craw as he forced them out.

"Have a care, Talorcan, my lusty youth," Nia quickly replied, "to where you dangle your spurtle or it may fester and rot you." Then wished she had not. Her hand went out and rested on his arm. "This is a hard way you force yourself to travel, are you sure it is of your choice, nephew?"

He left that unanswered and before mid-morning, left with his wizard. When Talorcan reached the hills that sloped down toward Pitheavlis, he turned his cloak collar up to the chill wind and a squall of hail. He and his wizard looked back over the flat lands of forests and farmland through which the River Hern snaked. He set his face towards Culteucher and spoke to his wizard. "You have not served Arianwyn or I well in this, Murtholic, I feel a part of me is lost this day."

"And you blame me!" The wizard was incensed when all had been placed for Talorcan's winning. "You must have seen her longing look at you across the open space but where were your eyes? In your tail, forever raising to a tree on what passing wind rustled the leaves, so do not blame me that you feel slighted."

"Slighted!" He rounded at the wizard for it was not the word to describe his feeling, but nowhere in his upbringing, the word taught that encapsulated the emptiness of hunger that he now endured. "No, not slighted or deigned but misguided by all events, misdirected by those around me, for Arianwyn is half of me and she knows I to be the half of her." He saw the panic in the wizard's face and this at least was concrete. "Now look at us, what is the point to dry a burn in fear it wets your feet?" He sighed. "However, it is all lost now and though I do not know what it was, I know fluttered in my face, the tickle of it pleasing, but wise men buy and sell and fools are bought and sold."

"Get a grip of yourself or white-witch enchantments will destroy all you wish to build in this world." Murtholic blurted out and, realising his error, softened his approach. "If she has besotted you all is not yet lost. She is young yet and a man of Galam's moulding can never satisfy her nor any female for they are not his liking and, if needs be, his life may be shortened."

"I will not have him harmed, Murtholic. I trust I need not explain why?" He did not; they both now knew Arianwyn's nature and how she would react.

"Hold out a while, she will not be able thole the frustration of disappointment for long and a handfast can be quickly broken in mutual agreement. Also, her father is a man broken by her and his health hangs by a thread. He has my curse on that, so keep the goal in mind, gird your resolve to the way of winning that we follow and all will be yours in time, my lord." Then, for effect, the wizard raised his wand and arms over the strath and sent curses over it.

As the clouds grew dark and hail stung the faces of the Athfloddans, Talorcan felt the lashing of his flesh and grimly accepted it, as the way things were to be and with a droll smile, drew his horse northwards. At that moment, back in Taran's hilltop haven, a darkness stabbed from the grey sky into the head of Nechtan and he collapsed.

That day they placed Nechtan on a litter made of ash poles and followed the two furrows they scored in silence back to Forternn. All the way he lay unable to move, his mouth fallen on a drool to the side. All the way Nia walked by his side and grieved in the fear she saw in the eyes.

"Achone!" the thirlfowk grieved, "What now will happen to us?"

Nia knew of their concern and was minded on the action she should take. As they walked together, Nia turned to her children and spoke. "Your father is still King of his children and the lands but till such time comes that he can raise a sword within his grasp, or the people press for another, I'll will be queen here in Forternn. Nechtanson, as my sword-arm, will secure our borders. Arianwyn, as my word-tongue, will treaty with the Britons. Make peace with my uncle Artuir for your brother cannot fight encircled."

All that heard of her words were in accord with them for they were wise. On learning the queen's wishes, Arianwyn dropped back and sought out Grainne. She found her carrying Connad. Arianwyn was ashamed and with demeanour low and shoulder-sagging gait, she slinked like soured dregs beside the friend she felt she had upset.

"Should you be walking close with me?" Grainne asked. "People might wonder about you and I. Your place should be with your husband, father and near kin."

"Please, Grainne, do not think they are more to me than you. I know you must despise me for what I did and said last night and what I have so foolishly done."

In mercy for the girl, Grainne halted by the roadside bit sniped at her. "Now stop that!" Then in a kinder tone asked the cheery-soul by her side to take her child, sit and wait by the pathway bank. Next, taking Arianwyn by the hand, she marched her down into a quiet spot beside the narrow, shallow May Water, which, with a murmuring babble, flowed beneath a canopy of bursting rowan buds and willow catkins. Then like the water, calmness flowed over Grainne and in outstretched arms, she held the tearful girl. "No tears from you my love, there can be no regret, no going back and there is good and bad in this. And, if anyone is to blame it is I, acting like a demiurge, full of my own self-importance and trying to sort out too much too quickly when self-will ladled with human nature mixed within a bowl. Not to mention the capriciousness of a world that we are not made for."

"And strong drink."

"Aye, and strong drink."

"I know the bad, now what is the good?"

"Connad legs are for one."

"You did that not I, though how you did, I cannot understand."

"You think I could have done it with out you? But here is for two, Connad may now walk and, then for three ..."

"... then for three I shall join Thawen at the cooking pots and heat my oven until it is baked!" Arianwyn interrupted. Grainne was quiet and watched as in an agitation, Arianwyn flitted on her bare feet around the glade as if a cloud of midges deaved around her head and she could find no place to be removed from them. Then, like one who seeks for words of explanation to a circumstance they cannot comprehend themselves, she looked up to the sky where there was no answer. Exasperation took her look to view the glade as if to ask the encircling wood, but silence whispered in the rustle of the fresh green leaves. With perturbing sobs and sighs she shuffled on feet at variance with the ground beneath, stubbed her toe upon a river rock and bit the corner of her lower lip to halt or explain the waters in her eye. Downstream she looked and then upstream from where she found the words she sought. "Only ... there was no spate water, if you know what I mean."

"Once there was a thirlman," Grainne's reply started as a story, "who, ploughing his field one day, came upon a hidden rock that had lain there since first the world on some whimsy fancy placed it there. Well that is a scunner! Thought the man. That fair mucks up my plan, to have a straight and regular field, which would be fine to work. Therefore, not to be outdone by what the world had settled on him, he called his daughter out and all day they struggled with the rock, rolling it from the field and leaving it tittering on the riverbank. All told a job well done." Grainne became still.

"And that meant?" Arianwyn asked. Grainne raised one eyebrow and a shrug to the canopy of leaves. "Now if I told you that for me to cross this narrow water would take longer and be chillingly more thrilling, what do think the meaning would be of that?"

"Well, I do not know."

"That night," Grainne continued, "the girl could not sleep - sometimes exertion does that to you – and so she went out, and low on high it was a starry night. She went to lie upon the rock and looked up at the sky. My, she thought, so many stars up there and some more bright and some less big and not a one the same. With that she fell asleep." Grainne again was still.

"I expect it could be worse. I will not be left rejected like Thawen and her bairn and it is not that I do not like Galam, we have know each other for so long, only ..."

"Well now, listen. In the night, the world sought to find the spot in the earth where it had left the rock. Again, a fickle fancy made it wish to place it somewhere else. The world was mighty peeved when it found the rock was gone! That is that he-knows-best this world is made for me, interfering man at work again? When will he ever learn? The world rumbled the earth in the night, the rock fell in the river and the girl awoke soaked and shocked but this time still alive." Still again.

"Humph! Good for her."

"How so?"

"Well at least she got a thrill, all I got was ale-passion to work me up. To think -Talorcan \- there was a spate in a sticky heat for me, no mistake, and that was just to look at him. Have I done right by rejecting him?"

"What your cousin, Talorcan? Of course, you were wrong. I told you that you two are meant for each other. You are the night and day of each other, look to the stars and try to refuse it. Your father knew that, though for all the wrong reasons and no cognisance why, and your mother should have, but she was thinking of how life treated her and feared, quite unnecessarily so it happens, for you. But no one, least of all you, could wait for what should be and the world just turns and spins us all around at its will."

"Grainne! Why then did everyone, you included and roving-eye himself, do everything to keep us apart and now I have a husband, who I - like - and who knows what else on the way?"

In the flush of Arianwyn's impassioned plea, Grainne looked and saw the gawky girl fall from her and like a dry, cast-off skin drape around her feet, never to be worn again and there was sadness in that thought. Grainne breathed a hefty sign from her nose. "True, Galam is your husband now - as it turns out - and not too hard on eye - as are yourself - and who knows how his potency is rated or your timing come to that matter? Then true, life is oh-so short and who can tell what will out before the end? You were a girl caught in a sneeze - who may find herself to be a mother - and before you know it, another yowe trummle chills your hopes for the summer and you catch another cold, go looking for a stick, not to beat that brat child with - for the child is grown up and gone - but to help you hobble to the bucket before you pish yourself. Och but, a story is only as long and made up as you care to make it and then, my love, the ending is always written, for sure, well before the end. In the best stories, the end is there before the start. And there is only one true story."

"Which is?"

"Of love. A love silver-pure and beyond all reach of worldly understanding and ruination. Vouchsafe it so for yourself and Talorcan, each time you look into the boundless beauty of the clear night sky."

Once again, Grainne's unclear words left Arianwyn in confusion. From past experience, she knew there would be no more explanation and, anyway, that was not what she needed. "Hug me, Grainne." She beseeched and Grainne did.

"So listen, the girl got out of the water, all shivery and shaky. Well that was an excitement and no mistake. She said. Well, did that not huff the world so much that, halfway round his nether regions, he blew up such a flatulence of wind that a whole forest was flat blown. Then it told the girl. It was not meant to please you. I do not exist for that and you are only here for as long as it suits me. Well that depressed the lassie and no mistake, you could have taken her hair and wiped the sharn from off a cow's arse and she would not have noticed or even cared. Here was her thinking the world was there for her convenience and all the time she was like an uninvited guest who could be thrown out at any time." Again the stillness of a waiting pause.

"Grainne?"

"Yes?"

"None of the others gives me what you give me. I would hate to loose a one of them but, if I lost you, I think I would wish to die."

Grainne took a second to consider Arianwyn and wondered what was her coming beauty? The subtle a hint of chestnut glow mixed on palette of snow-white skin? The drowning, brown eyes pooling below hooded eyelids? Her blossom of soft lips always set agape like a flower towards the sun, as if not enough of life could be breathed up through her snub nose set above the adorable exposition of halo-white teeth? Or, part of the all, the framing of it within a strawberry-blonde, molten flow of tumbling hair? Humphy-humph, she thought, now if that is beauty then it is commonplace. So, was it in her form action? Well nothing from the norm was there, except she held it all proportioned well enough within a diminutive frame. Then there was that certain action that so amused the eye. No, she thought, her beauty is not there, but then I knew that long ago.

Having thought, Grainne's voice continued. "Well then, what do you know, but the sun came up and the beauty came back into her whole being, and that bucked up the girl's spirits right up. So high, indeed, that the world nearly burst on her splendour and wondered what it could do to put a stop to that. A pestilence or two might serve to pox your face, a hole appear for you to fall in and break your leg or neck, a gang of evil men to come and do what evil men do to defenceless, bonnie girls like you \- hough their spirits right up them and out their ears! However, then the girl said. No that cannot be right, it cannot be spirits, for I have only one and, worldly-world guess what? Wherever it belongings, it belongs with me and, make no mistake, you can never have or take or break it! And, with that, she skipped off into the sun."

"Into – the sun, Grainne?"

"Perhaps not, it would be too small a place for any person's spirit. She must have skipped off into something much larger but close and near at hand."

Then, under the canopy of spring, the two close spirits held each other in their loving warmth as Connad came toddling down towards with Nechtanson by the hand.

"Look Connad is walking! How can he?" Arianwyn was nonplussed.

"Hmm, yes? How indeed?" asked Grainne. "However, it is clearly what it is and now we shall have to keep all sharp objects and breakables well out of his reach."

Earlier, walking in his thoughts, Nechtanson felt concern. Eleven years of hard scholarship in Athflodda had prepared him for the task ahead and his sister had none. Therefore, he sought her out and when he found the two by the clear running water he was less concerned, for he recognise the strength of care that enfolded his sister. Yet he had come to find an answer from her, so he had to ask. "Do you not feel afraid to step beyond Forternn? Do you worry what lies beyond our borders in Gododdin and Yastrad Clud? What trepidations do you hold for in the lands of foreigners who would see you as a wizened white-witch and have you flayed alive?"

When Arianwyn raised her eyes to view her brother, the laverock trilled high in the sky and rowans spread their leaves to reach the spirit of the song. Then, as she considered her answer, as a silken band she strung her arm around Grainne's waist and felt it there at rest. Still pondering for her answer, Arianwyn found herself held close around the shoulder and breathing in Grainne's earthy, floral redolence, was comforted and satisfied. Awareness grew. At once, she knew herself, so stood before her brother as his equal. Next, in love for him, she spoke these words. "No more than you fear in keeping Forternn safe until my return - wizened indeed!"

"Wizened and wee, a perrie but thing!" he returned, smiling under his hands. He saw her place her hands on her hips, they flicked twice and running to the water, she scoped her hands therein and sent orbs of silver blessings from her to rain on him.

Shortly before the planned day for Arianwyn to leave, the Spaewife came to her. "Walk with me," the old crone said and slipped her arm in the crook of Arianwyn's. When they had walked off into the secret parts of the dappled silver wood, they stopped in the clearing. It was then Arianwyn turned to the Spaewife and looked upon her. As in a fancy of old imaginings, the wise woman stood unbent before her in radiant beauty of face and form. For a moment, she mistook her for someone else but that could not be for whom other of snow-blonde hair did she know?

"We will never see me as such again, dear child." Arianwyn heard the Spaewife's words and began to protest but a smooth hand raised before her face and silenced her. "In this passage, that is. Now do not take on so, I am to remember you with such a saddened face?" The old woman had seen the grief about to raise tears in the girl's eyes. She went to the girl, blanketing Arianwyn in pure scent and light. "Have you forgot that when his mother's milk dried, the gums of Criuthne sucked upon my breast?" Arianwyn pulled her head away, to focus her quizzing eyes upon the face before her. Surely, it had been a tale to calm two frightened children, wetting the night away with worry for what the change of uncertainty might bring? "Ach, child! I am older than that! But who would waste sup on him, I ask you?" she complained. "I have waited long for you, my child. Such is the burden we carry, but," and she held the girl firmly at arms length so that Arianwyn felt the pressure of her grip on her arms, "carry it we must." And enfolding the girl again, softly continued. "You will find out in time. Your years will not be as long as mine, child, and wish it not other, for I have seen the wracking winters wax with hoar frosts and storm and the summer wane with cloud and floods and so it will continue, long winters and the summers but a memory. This world does what it wants to us no matter how we would wish and work to make it other"

"You are not the first to tell me that, of late."

The Spaewife smiled the last vestments of age from her face. "Now, did I say a burden? Well, that is not right, I should have said a blissen. Such as us, have powers to strive against the will of this world. Someone like you could travel far and scorn the ranker thrown in your face. Someone like you could stand at the very gates of Rome and Constantinople, and they would be unable to hinder your coming or going." The wise woman kissed Arianwyn on the lips and said, "There now child, you have my legacy and now my blissen. Och, now, dae ye mean tae catch flees, ma wee lady? Sneck yer mou an binna be feart, for nae faerie can harm you, no hobgoblin eat on your flesh, no god can bind his will unto you. Mind ye, nae o yon exists, and but nothing created by man, by hand or mind's imaginings shall claim you; though you will have to strive all your days against them all. Ae mair tale"

Arianwyn felt like a child again, like she did with her family and as she did at times with Grainne. Her face lit up waiting for the magic weave of words.

"Once, in the silver woods there were two wolves a female white, a male black and nothing was a peace under the swaying birch trees. Sometimes the female would bitch about on heat then, at other times, the male would strop around het-up, pishing on all the plants and the animals got their share of spray to stink their fur. It was only when they came as one together in equal harmony that all the living things around knew peace."

Such a short last tale told. To make it last, Arianwyn held the wise woman close to her. She had not fully understood all that she had heard, it was the way with stories, and they needed many retellings and in many different ways until you grasped the meaning. However, there was finality in the moment that she did not want to move from, for she feared what might lie ahead.

"Now," said the wise woman, gentle releasing Arianwyn and leading her with her hand from the clearing, "we must leave this place. Grieve not for what will happen as we near the home of your father. It is what I desire. It is but a passage."

The wise woman's words puzzled Arianwyn once again, as she had, many times in the past but she knew that the mystery of truth would always out. Together they walked, hand in hand, towards the palace of Fothuirtabaicht. Then as they made their way, thirlfowk stopped their work in the fields and followed on behind. As they neared the palace, the wise woman in old age smaller than Arianwyn, appeared to shrink and shrivel until, in the cleared place before the palace door she floated to the earth then lay still. Thirlfowk came to wonder and some, mistakenly claimed she was an elf, as smaller yet did the Spaewife wither until the wizzen breath left her with a sigh with which, Arianwyn's grief-tears for her became a memory of dropping rowanberries. Arianwyn lifted her and holding her within her palms, carried her to the doorway of the palace hall. In the warm earth, there she prepared a deep hole and laid the Spaewife down therein and when the spot covered up, she scattered rowanberries on the grave and finger-raked them into the ground. Only then, did she turn see all the others there and saw Grainne and Connad amongst them. She realised, with sadness, that she had never let Grainne meet the Spaewife. So, to the gathering, Arianwyn spoke. "Care for this spot until I return."

END OF BOOK ONE

POSTSCRIPT

AD 601

Bishop Kentigern, as required by the synod's ruling of Lindisfarne, took the parchment from its casket - a heresy that must never reach the light of day. They, being wary of the manner he had tricked Columba at the exchanging of their crosiers and kept his own plain staff, and that this was the second time they had come to make sure of the blasphemy's destruction, ensured that all the papers were before them. Then, pressing closely by his side, they watched him place the vellum in the raging fire and ensured that all burnt. The next day taking the ashes with them the clerics left. Leaving the story - of her that none living ever met - flamed inside the mind of Kentigern with all blank parchment taken from him which, on pain of excommunication, they forbad the monks to provide the bishop. There was still the staff, Servanius's rod hewed from the tree that crucified the Christ and in its hollowed centre, enough that in the dying of his light, he lifted the quill and once again wrote his recollection:

By Bishop Kentigern of Glaschu, here recorded is The Gladword of Arianwyn.

1

In this book are written the acts of Arianwyn as told me by Servanius of Cludenros, my brother in Christ, who knew her well and spoke of her as pureness silver bright, a true spirit and held conviction of her message which, Servanius felt, was holy and in his age told to me so that I might write it down. 2 In this task he charged me to tell that one-day, while walking in her garden, Servanius asked of her. "What is your understanding?" 3 And calling him by the name she held for him, she replied. "Malachias, why ask? Has not Jesus told you? Love one another and treat all as you would yourself."

4 When Servanius heard this, he was glad and asked her to embrace the faith but once again, she refused saying, 5 "Unclear beginnings struggle to be understood. 6 All life is a middle-muddle made miserable by man's corruption, that shady system of self-delusion and fear as untruthful as the folly of breathtaking landscapes. 7 In this world our life's journey is obscured by both dark oblivion and utter blinding light and its ending pain and grief." 8 Servanius in part agreed but asked her again to have faith in the Word. She replied saying, 9 "In the morality our maddening-meander, it is crystal-clear that water ripples are both brightness and shadow and that light is brightest in the dark night sky. But not so obvious, for they seem as different as fire and water, is the fact that there exists no male or female and that woman and man are the disunited spirit of the one-love, indivisible in Truth." He told her, 10 "It is unknown for it is not true."

And Arianwyn asked, 11 "No? Not true, Malachias, that by fate of accident long ago, drifting essence became duped to life on Earth? Moreover, once here, split apart onto this azure globe devoid of pity, to wander lost and helpless through a weird entanglement of wordless description and forever kept apart? 12 Held separated in this environment without charity other than that caught beneath the chilled-wind of an atmosphere fixed by the self-same drawing force that netted solar dust into the dawn of genesis? 13 Listen up, Malachias, life here survives only by one devouring the other and in the cruel bright light time, all are spring-driven to reproduce. Soon follows autumn's lament on the blood-flush that saw their summer empire building on the backs of others. 14 Then winter, the bleakest time of all, sets not their spirit free but rots it in the dirt. This is the hope your god gives us?"

Servanius was angered and worried for her soul. 15 "Your lack of faith makes you despondent, embrace the one true faith into you heart, I beseech you." Arianwyn heard and told him this story.

16 "Bring me my sword," the king commanded one day and off the servant went and bickered at another servant to bring the king his wishes. A long time later, the king's harpist came and stood before him on shuffling feet. Eventually he played a chord. "Will that one do, my Lord?" the harpist asked anxiously. 17 The king sighed and sensing what had gone wrong could not be angry with anyone but only sad in thinking how many others had been spoken to unkindly or, become unnecessarily worried and all because of a simple mix up."

Having finished she told him. 18 "My friend, your faith is an eternally doomed world-creation, beset around with scattered facets of false hope. How can Truth be recognised when all within and without your nature, rises before you like thick brier, blocking all passage to waters of refreshing hope? 19 Search for your light of not in yourself for it is another's that you hold there. Look not to anything here spoken, written, set in ritual, formula of prayers or lettered in amendments to mans' understanding for it will not help you. 20 Look to the wisdom of the universe around you. 21 Again, it has been simply said by Jesus. Love your enemies. Do that and you will become one with all Truth."

2 Servanius asked for more of her understanding and she began. 2 "In the beginning of time sapience seeped into life, and I ask you, my friend, which is more precious; the gold offered by the world or its enriching, full-promise for all?" 3 And Servanius answered, "Faith, hope and above all love should be your soul and the thread-link to belief in God, and only cut by headstrong self will." 4 Then she walked ahead into her garden and he followed her. After a little, she turned and asked. "Malachias why did you follow me here?" Servanius puzzled at the question and so she asked another. 5 "What brings any of us to the here and now and how many times have we all be here before? Is it not so that we learn nothing of the nature of love? 6 And what is faith and hope but more mind-illusion set there to hold us dimly mirrored in our own reflections, deluded by a bright morning that by its end is rough and stormy?" 7 None of us have the free will to choose to love or hate, if free will existed would any of this world around us be here?"

8 Servanius was sad for he loved Arianwyn and saw her soul as damned. "Arianwyn, would you excuse the evil men do?" And she answered thus, 9 "My dear, friend, for as much as we are tied here to the now, each one should live a life respectfully and care for one another. 10 But do not be fooled, no matter how clever are your words, deeds and actions to level all things such as wealth and health, the world will destroy your good work for your efforts were by the world. 11 Such is the way of the temple builders and the lawgivers. Both proud of their achievements and their moral codes, they glorify to their god in rich goodness, whilst kneeling on the place the worker died in the making of the towering folly. The when leaving, trample their contempt onto the confused criminal, crying out for understanding of their transgressions. 12 Or it is like the metal worker, who making it look easy to produce, hands you the blade and asks not the question of how you will use it? 12 Those ways are all muddied clear waters, making hard to have true faith, hope and all abiding love. It is the lesson all slaves must learn, the way to Truth is simpler but infinitely harder. 13 Let wisdom be your guide, deep down and by your side it is there failing to be seen in our murky sight, distorted by our wants into a perception of dishonest desires."

14 Servanius asked her what she felt was this wisdom sent to be her guide and after she explained he felt, she had indeed true spirit in her. "You are a God sent child," Servanius told her and quickly she asked. "God sent me where and for what reason, to be child anxious to be first in line for fear of something to be missed?" 15 "No not so," he thundered as dark clouds roll after the flash, "to serve, glorify and love Him, Arianwyn, that is the reason for all existence." And she replied. 16 "Be still, troubled soul and be greater than a slave to all of that, for what is there that is, and what is here that is of spirit? All in this world happens without me being here, life goes unremittingly on, and each ending is moulded into another grief of birth, life and death." And she told him this tale.

THE MOSAIC TRADESMAN

3 One day a young Etruscan man left the land and sought employment in Rome. Here a mosaic layer took him as apprentice and he learnt the craft. Then came a downturn in the market and the mosaic layer let the young man go. The young man was unconcerned 2 Knowing of a trade that crafted tantalising beauty to create a desire all would wish to lie before them to covet, how could things go wrong? But they did. The poor could not afford such luxury, the middle masses struggled get by and only the few rich might spoil themselves of such finery possessing as the did, wealth and resources beyond their daily needs. 3 However, the young man was fortunate for a rich man sought his services and showed him a vast room he never used as could take the houses of six poor families. Then the rich man showed the young man all the materials he would need. "Lay a mosaic on my floor that will please me," ordered the rich man. This was fine with the young man but being a tradesman and not an artist, he enquired of the design to follow. 4 The rich man sniffed, told the young man he had all he needed and to have the job finished within a month.

5 The young man felt unwell but thought back to the mosaic floors he had seen in Eturia and felt he could give the task and try. It should not be beyond his skill, he had all the material required and only the subject matter gave him a problem. Therefore, he asked the rich man's servants what were the man's likings. 6 Now, it seemed there were as many interpretations of this great man's likings as there were stars in the sky. Some spoke of his possessions and others of his great desire to own great wealth. The young asked from where his wealth came and learnt of the man's great estates outside the city and so choose his theme. He laboured night and day without rest to complete the floor. 6 When it was finished, he was pleased. Scenes of farming, fishing and hunting, where men in boats netted fish from out the waters and with slings plucked fowl from out the air, came alive before all eyes on the floor. Brilliance shone from the colours as of a bright spring morning and lake smooth the surface as of the quiet of evening, the young man knew sure no finer floor in Rome had he worked upon or ever seen.

8 After the month, the rich man returned and viewed the floor in his unoccupied room. One look and the rich man turned his nose up in disgust. "What's this?" he asked. "It is not what I wished for, young half naked girls gambolling in games would be more pleasing." 9 The young man protested that this he could have done if he, the rich man, had but made it clear. However, the rich man grew angry, made the young man rip up the floor and sent him on his way unpaid.

10 "Such it is with all our efforts in this world. Listen, Malachias, the creations here are odious and should disgust for, no matter how it appears, it craves to control all. The fairest lookers, whose beauty shies the eye from it, those of graceful form or shaped in powers of surety, that others cower before in wonder, are only walking corpses as all creatures are, but the more cursed, by fraud of skin, blood and tissue. 11 Malachias, there are not more deserving of our pity than those of vanity who see themselves structured amazing. Where inside of all of that do you think you are: belly, heart or head? I tell you this, what you think is you is set up by secretions of chemicals reacting to stimuli from many sources attacking you from inside and out."

4 Before a mighty river, Servanius looked to the towering mountains beyond and pointed out their wonder and the glory of the creator that fashioned them. He asked Arianwyn to honour the architect of her and all the wonders of creation. And she asked 2 "Am I here, as your wisdom has it, or is it here I am, trapped? Am I what should be here? Or is this word playing and does even word exist?" 3 And feeling for her in her ignorance, once more he told of the how this was created in love for mankind's use, and was questioned thus. "His love, but whose love is there first, his or hers?"

3 "His" Servanius replied, " for woman came from out of man, the word means that and it is written thus." In addition, more she questioned. 4 "And how was that? Show me your missing rib and I shall show the bone that forms my hip. Seed planter, where grows the garden grown by word? Word tries to explain existence, give reason why each day is a turning corner some run at and other approach with caution, inspiring or depressing in equal measure to lure one on in hope into a deluding labyrinth from which there is no escape. Unless you recognise the Truth."

5."And what is your Truth?" 6. The young woman gave no answer other than to say her answer to that question was the same as Jesus gave to Pilate. "Now," she finished, "Why is it that question left unanswered? Is it because of that other word: fear? 7 Take wings of winds and fly from those that say they know truth and set it in stone-set words. They that say know truth are sneaking cats ready to pounce, soft-pawing in their play or clawing in their maul of you; it is all the same to them. 8 I have always told of our blindness to see beyond this world and see reunification with True Spirit. Here we are male or female and cannot imagine what it is to be other. You want to know Truth? What it is and how to find it?" And as seeing that he did, 9 she looked fondly on him, telling him that answers might be found at his Well at His World's End but only if he was prepared to drink of that draught and turn from all he thought he knew as true. 9 In the meantime, all anyone could do was get up each morning and survive. Enjoy what they might, as long as it was to help others. Use with whatever skills one had for good and smile into the certain knowledge that none this was true existence and if insight did not come aid your wisdom, it would all come round once again.

Bishop Kentigern set down the quill; an inky black stained his fingers that made him fearfully, not that they would know he wrote but that if what he had written was truthful. As it was it would be incomplete, for the unmarked vellum white diminished and what was there, condensed into a script so minute he wondered how and if others could discern the words. Even more of an apple-worm to him was his own mind and its recall, the thought that he had altered the version given to him by Servanius gnawed him. Had Servanius's memory served him right? He looked at the page; this last part was the hardest to write. Resigned to set the record from his memory on the remaining parchment space, he dipped the quill into an inky well of darkest ink.
OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

Thank you for reading Storm-Enticer, Part One of The Torc.

Each part of Torc stands as a complete story in its own right and the other parts in the in this book are:

Part Two VIA ACERBUM

Part Three WORLD'S DESIRE

Part Four WAGGLE DANCER

Part Five WELL AT WORLD'S END

The complete book will be published before December 2014

If you have have enjoyed Part One of the Torc, look out for the following releases and please take a moment to leave a review at your favourite retailer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I live in Abernethy, Scotland and can be contacted at

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gordon.burns.94?fref=ts

Other novels by the author:

STONESET ODDS

Five years ago, Asa was a happy child but now she teeters on the brink of self-destruction. At seventeen, she worries about her obsessive pebble collection and a hidden secret past. Asa gathers evidence, which points conclusively to one fact - Asa will become another one of a line of notorious and abused females.

Asa is popular, attractive and gifted in her own way - an autistic tendency inhibits her to recognise inference and innuendo – and a tense relationship with her jealous sister, Jane, and her cold-natured mother, Inga, have created an underlining emotional fragility in Asa. Left alone as a child while Inga meets men, Asa's granny and her Norwegian friend, Oskar, bring some stability into Asa's life but the old couple have retreated from the world. Asa's friends, Rosie and Julietta try to bring her into the world, but they are too forward and self-assured and the incidents the three girls delve into with boys end up in disaster for Asa.

Soon to leave to Glasgow - from her island home in sight of the north of Scotland \- Asa is anxious to find out what type of woman she will become and after two difficult relationships with a policeman, Lachlan, and a young farmer, Dave, she is firmly convinced she will end up callously bouncing from one empty and abusive relationship to another. Resigned to this, she considers she might as well begin behaving as the women of her family's renowned reputation. However, a last hope remains - the essence of the Island. This wisdom was not formed in fact, so how can Asa understand how it could save her?

A look at Torc Part Two VIA ACERBUM

"Servanius asked her what she felt was this wisdom sent to be her guide and after she explained he felt she had indeed true spirit in her."

1

LEAVING

AD 542

In the time after the yowe trummle, the weather became cold-grey and unsettled. Arrangements for Arianwyn's departure could not disguise the clouded sadness of Queen Nia. Arianwyn for her part, held no concerns as nights, spent in sleepless pitch of anticipation and always away from her new husband Galam, were followed by long and overfilled days for any thought of her mother and her father. So, she shared her bed with a delight of imagined ecstasies in the form of possible outcomes constantly reviewed, reformed and rediscovered 'yes-yes-do-that', until on surprise of waking to the light of day, she wondered if her mind-manoeuvrings had been real or imagined. Galam, her husband of a month felt happy to steel himself with whetting stone, sword, and sharpening on his own. Grainne and her son, Connad, made acquaintance with the two warriors of their travel guard, Brude and Wid. A wily pair whom, when out of earshot, exchanged open comments on the desirability of Grainne, the possibility of her approachability, the needs that she must scratch alone and jaloused if the journey would open up a promise of more than saddle sore.

Through all this, overcast and muddled, Nia, experiencing great worry-stabs and new fear-shivers of agitation through her frame, found that not even the distraction of running back and forth, nipping and tucking like a sheepdog among a stubborn flock of glaikit sheep, helped to relieve her worry. A wagging tongue of last instructions to her daughter given to salve herself from the grief of the impending parting caused her. "Is everything ready? Now, Arianwyn, are you sure? What gift have you for King Artuir."

"You were to see to that!" Arianwyn snapped back.

The previous month, since the King Nechtan had been stricken into a seemingly lifeless form, flew by on a blur of messengers to and from Yastrad Clud to Nia's uncle, King Artuir of Britons, and, bound in her own concerns, gifts for him were far from Arianwyn's mind. Everyone seemed so demanding of her and her time. Not that he ever did anything wrong, but Galam could not do anything but Arianwyn took it all the wrong way. "Shall I get your head shawl?" He asked one day of heavy rain when he saw Arianwyn about to go out of doors and what young wife, still the flush of newly wed, would not appreciate such consideration from her new spouse? Not, it seemed, Arianwyn. The look she gave him would fright a slave to fear their death and those that saw quizzed the reason for this rebuke. "And why do you think that?" she demanded defensively.

"Now, now, Arianwyn, do not take on so," Nia rose in Galam's defence. "When the menarche days came upon you, your father and I should have been firm and now that your are a wife, well, your head should be covered all the time."

From a child, Arianwyn disliked being told what to do or think and now she felt she was a young woman, she spat straight from the lip. "I expected you would say that, mother! Listen up, I will choose when and what I cover. Next, you will wish me dressed from head-to-toe in black." A chill in summer is never welcome. "It may suit you, but I and little reason for it." Her glance at Galam was pointed, he turned from her but like a stink to her, he remained within the room. "It is all man-made custom," she shouted at him, "colluded with by weak and frightened women," the rest was directed to her mother, "to treat us like their gold, miserly put away to private places so they can finger as they choose to gloat and leer." She liked the mastery of her point and seeing her mother did not, pressed it further. "As far as Galam is concerned, it seems I am not as useful as stone and metal, but neither am I any man's bowl me over. They shall see me as I choose to be seen."

Nia felt that sicken tightening below again. "Is there something the matter?" She asked so only her daughter heard.

"Matter? With what, mother?" Said aloud with where to start pressed behind her lips.

"Hold your voice down, daughter," she frowned. "Is there something I should know about?" She found it hard to speak of such things and, not sure where within the range of delicate matters the problem blushing at her throat was, asked the catch-all question. "You know?"

"Something about you know? What is that then, mother?"

Cooperation, not intractability was required and certainly not embarrassment in front of an audience, so Nia guided her daughter by the arm to where her father lay outside and there, not like a mother to a clipped-winged, pouting child but as women blood-bonded beyond mere casual friendship, she spoke hard truths and also words of comfort. She understood the worry of the past few days' dramatic changes. There was the sudden stroke of her father on her handfast day and the grief that gave. Her daughter's new title, Silver Princess, and the responsibility it implied was indeed a strain with one sent to make her sad, but as for the other, given by the thirlfowk to make of it what they will, her advise was to smile openly with them and it would please. All this was bound to cause a friction with her and Galam. As with all couples past their first love-blushes, it was hard to learn about each other needs and wishes; disappointments and misunderstandings were bound to happen with the going-ons; which was why, this coming journey to Nia's uncle Artuir would be a time for them to become closer.

This told to Arianwyn, left that girl dry-staring at her father. Nothing of his could she touch - his hand, his plight, a readjustment of his blanket - and wondered if he heard and if he raged within his head at her spite against his will. A defiance made in a heather and fling, led to that next pelvic-grind of which her mother spoke - a child. She heard her mother tell her that she should not worry, her build was not as frail as hers and it was all too soon to say - "though with the moods your are in, something is a miss with you, my young lady."

Sometimes it is not the face, with close-ones, that tell us of their change of mood. A shoulder, which in all appearance still sloping soft, can without visible notice, solidify to rock. Perhaps if she had looked there and not at her daughter's eye-drooped face, she might have known to stop and returned her daughter to the others, displaying the glow of fair and freckled summer-fruit that was the Silver Princess. But she did not, and as she gently lifted Arianwyn's shawl to cover up her head, she told her daughter what each girl-become-a-woman should know. "Och, Arianwyn, have a mercy on me, there are men that would strip, lash and stone you in this world for what you voice and the way you refuse to dress."

Click-clack, a finger snap thrown in her mother's face was, for good measure, given the reason. "Go hand my washing on the line for me mother and be done! Let my rags flap about in the breeze for all to work out the colour of my stains. Have they come out," her gaze fell on her father, " or are they engrained in the fibre?" She took a pause they returned her attention to her mother with a look drifting between fear and risky contempt. "And as for Galam, all men with their and bitty pebbles and their need to sharpen up their swords, just what is it that I do or say to rile them up to a need to stone me?" With that, she tore the shawl back of her head.

"It is what is wanted and how can we ever fight it?" Nia took her husband's hand and something akin to peace held them together, though the daughter still held off as if their unity were slime. "Och, Arianwyn, if you but knew how I wish within my soul to be within his and that is all. No Fothuirtabaicht, no Forternn no Pictivia and no world, just him and I and ...." She laughed. "The sky?" She paused. "See there now, I made it rhyme and do not glower at me, daughter, thinking that I am stupid, you too will one day feel this and when you do, my love, I hope you find the answer that alludes me."

Arianwyn squirmed between revulsion and regret on this, her mother's innermost confession. The rot and toss of that man her father, the tale of her creation had been, all knew, a drunken-lust forced into a frail and helpless young woman up to the point of death for both of them. In her mind, that self-will-imposer did not wish to hear of Galam, for that youth was not the name he had in mind and it was not the name she, in confusion, had rejected out of hand. Milk spills and then sours and stinks and all should know to feel her fury at the unfairness of her lot. "Well, I expect you would know all about it, mother, but what utter rubbish. Do not think that I am a fool to all this? But do not fret, I shall play my role in life and like you, grin and bear it for what it is - a gruesome gruel."

Enough to tear the hair in anguish and with all the strands of lose hairs upon her comb already, Nia did not need a to have more grey brought on before its time." Just have a care how you go about. That is all I wish to say."

The queen did not win that disagreement but she let it rest, and they returned to the consideration of the gifts for Artuir. Once again, her stomach sickened as Arianwyn claimed, in front of all those present, that it was nothing to do with her. Nia despaired. "Och, Arianwyn I asked you to arrange the gifts, it was part of your duties."

"Duty be harped away I say! Where was I to find the time? Nechtanson could have seen to it." Not that Nechtanson was idle. He was wrapped up in his own worries making Forternn safe from the Scots in the west and also Athflodda, ruled by Talorcan and a constant dark cloud in the north. However, the news from there was fair for, nearing the fiery heat of Scots, Talorcan found he had to sup with a very long spoon. Another botched Athfloddan piece of work, just like his fated attempts to woo Arianwyn where, Nechtanson knew, his sister should have dropped purring into his lap if he had not wished to stoke every cat insight and war with the Scots. Then what was all that worse than a warring mother and her daughter?

"Arianwyn! No gift and you leave in a few days, help us!"

"It is not my fault and nor was it my doing."

"Young madam, get of your high horse this instant and do something about it."

"We chose the roan one." Galam obscurely interrupted, he tickled a mischievous grin around his lips. Arianwyn's shot hot eyebrows up but she did not deign to give the "what?" He could not resist, as, in the past, they loved to tease each other. "You are too small for a high horse, so I chose the small roan mount to suit your hair colour and complexion, my love." If he thought to lighten the mood, he was very much mistaken. "Joking is it?" she bit. "It is about all you are fit for husband. Typical man, a sword-sharpener and yet always blunt." That was too much for the queen to let by.

"Och, Arianwyn, not true, for Galam is gentle-made and treats you with due respect" A spurning sneer hit back towards her mother's so-called knowledge.

"Then tell me why did he not think to help me with this gift problem?" This situation required calming before things said best unspoken.

"Rings serve well." Grainne suggested her eyes glistening green.

Nia's worry vanished for a moment only until the next thought sparked anxiety as to what the design of ring to fashion for a king. "True, true rings would serve but ..." she confirmed on a sigh to snuff a lamp. " ... but come now, could you all be more helpfully, which design do we choose? It could be plain or interlocking snakes or ... well ... tell me ... which?"

"Best let the goldsmith make one of each," Grainne suggested.

Without Grainne, the weeks would have been a round of bail biting perplexities for Nia. Ill-fitted in her new robes as a ruler of Forternn, she was constantly uncertain that the thirlfowk would accept her rule. As freemen with their own land, they had the right to say who protected them. She needed eternal reassurance from Grainne that she was safe. "You are the mother of their talisman, the Silver Princess." Grainne kept reminding her. "You can hear them at it now." The strange term made the queen uneasy. 'At it now' she heard it as a legal term, a threat to her legitimacy to rule. Grainne tried to put her mind at ease. "You know the whole thing like, woe betide us, the crops will fail, the cows run dry, the wind will blow sheep wool away and bairns will run about on swollen hunger-bellies if we go against the Silver princess's mother." The queen was still unconvinced. "And will it?" She asked.

Therefore, Grainne gave the truthful answer. "Stranger things happen." The queen wondered if that meant good or ill and searched the light in of statement in the young woman's face. Sight youthfullness, a vitality she was losing, flowed from the out the frame of raven hair down to the a golden torc that caught Nia's focus. The heavy torc, as she recalled, was now refined and delicate and that was curious. "Strange things happen." Nia heard again. The words were not quite the same and the queen remained unsettled-weather with all her many worries. One of which was her daughter. Past her days of rush and passion blood herself, the queen thought nothing of Arianwyn's coolness towards Galam, the lack of touch between them, their acceptance of being apart when chance of duty proffered; it had been thus with her, she thought. Yet, had to been like that? Before her son, Necthanson was born, had she and Nechtan lain still and quiet in the night afraid of smirking ears? "What do you make of how Arianwyn and Galam behave together?"

"Go sit by the king." Grainne would tell her when there was no answer for her but to step away to what mattered most for uppermost in Nia's mind was her stroke-stricken husband, Nechtan. The queen knew that just being with him would help her apprehension but almost broke and wept. "My mind is a jig of reels and och, to calm this panic-beat within."

Such was the turmoil of Fothuirtabaicht Grainne sought to ease. "Now another good gift would be a ballad." She suggested. "They can be soothing. One about King Nechtan would serve very well as a gift." The fluster-red lifted from the queen's face as she listened. "Arianwyn could play her harp and sing for King Artuir, some gifts are richer than gold."

As a sword to an unarmed warrior hemmed in by foes, Nia gripped Grainne's words tightly. "Yes, Galam could conjure the tune and you, Grainne can spin words. It would be up to Arianwyn to work the piece."

"As if I have not enough to do already." Arianwyn snorted a complaint down her nose but when her mother pointed out how he father liked to hear her harp and sing, she took the task not as an industry, but as an art of love. Then during sleep words came to the princess in her dreams. 'Compose a song of your love for him,' a voice told her. "Who speaks?" she muttered half awake. "Is that you Grainne?" Then Arianwyn fell back into the blank of sleep, a spoon for Grainne's back.

Sun-blessed by a cloudless day of parting in the time beyond the yowe trummle, and a such a glorious day to stand by horses hooves churning contradictory excitement between the worry of, if-to-stay, and the anxiety of, if-to-go. Those mounts with grey-rimmed mussels searching for offered hands to salt-lick, paced impatiently with spot-held hooves, brown-eyes splayed before the boar-totem at the palace door and caught the human jitter-mood in their whinnies. Only Nechtan lay still as deep, dark water stricken on his open litter and for what she cared for that brute-boar of a father but let him lie scorned and forgotten, his grip on her the loose and the world now spread before her.
