Of Gifts and the Goddess

Prologue “Please, you cannot go. What will I do if I lose you as well?” Anne pleaded with Stephen. She placed herself in front of the curtained doorway to prevent him from leaving the hut, but he continued to gather his weapons, not even giving her the satisfaction of stopping his movements to argue with her. “If I do not go, all will be lost,” he answered. “All is lost already. We are outnumbered. They caught us unaware. We trusted them, and they turned on us like rabid dogs.” Her eyes were steady, changing from the color of moss to a hard, brittle green, with the hatred reflected in them not aimed at Stephen, but for the fighting outside. She willed him to look at her, to listen to her. “You and I can rally those left inside the village, join those already escaping into the forest, regroup, and hit them when they least expect it. If you go out there now, we have no hope. Not Clan McCleary, not you and I,” her pleading voice rose to defiance. That stopped him for a brief moment as he cast his disbelieving eyes on Anne. Her Christian name was a concession her Pagan father had made to his wife. She stood proud, not allowing the fact that she was a woman and supposed to be submissive, or so her grandfather and brother attempted to remind her verbally and sometimes physically, to get in the way of trying to save Stephen. If she thought he would believe her, she would tell him what she felt, what she dreamt. But he would only laugh, not believing her and her witch’s wisdom. How many times had that sparked an argument between them? “After all this time, you would think not to support me in my decision to do what must be done? We must attack these lying heathens and drive them back!” He threw his arms in the direction of the O’Connor land. “And you would choose now to throw our handfasting in my face?” he asked her incredulously. They had been handfasted on the Spring Equinox instead of married. Stephen knew he had to prove himself to her tyrannical grandfather and stubborn brother before they would allow Anne to marry someone not of Clan McCleary. At this moment, not even his feelings for her could stop him from being a hero, from driving back the O’Connors into the hole they crawled from when they set upon the gates of the village only a short time ago. Many of the men in Clan McCleary had been slaughtered before a cry could be raised and arms gathered. The crofter’s huts were burning, the thick black smoke from the thatched roofs choking the air. Screams of the wounded and dying assailed their ears. They stared at each other, neither willing to see the other’s side. If he did not join the fray taking place all around them, how could he go to Anne’s grandfather after a year and a day and ask for permission to be Anne’s husband? Pleading with her to understand, he grabbed both of her arms in a tight grip. “I’ve said I love you. But your grandfather and brother control you, as they control all of Clan McCleary. There will be no future for us, no hope, if I do not leave now and do what I can to save what is left. Sneak into the forest and await me there. Or you can stay here and be another victim of the O’Connor cruelty. The rest we’ll deal with after the fighting.” He pulled her into his arms and set his mouth bruisingly to hers. She was drowning. She always did when Stephen held her and let loose just a little of his tightly controlled emotions. Every argument went out of her head. She felt herself lean into him and realized she could deny him nothing. He set her apart from him, still gripping her arms. “Meet me in the clearing, where the spring rises from the ground. Gather the wounded who can walk, collect as many weapons as you can carry, and see what food might not have been trampled or burned in the fighting. If I don’t meet you by dawn, you know what you have to do.” Stephen set her aside from the door of the hut and dove into the fighting outside. The sounds took on a buzz in Anne’s head like a thousand angry bees. She could no longer discern the screams of men and women from those of horses or the crackling of fires as the village was no match for the inferno that was devouring it. She had the feeling that something was coming to an end. Standing alone, lost in her thoughts, she felt a prickling at the back of her neck and turned in time to have the sword aimed at her head deflect off her shoulder. She cried and fell back, her right hand immediately going to the wound to staunch the flow of blood. The attacker hefted the sword again, but then realized who was in front of him, sprawled on the floor of the hut. His hair was long and stringy, his face smudged with soot from the fires he had set. He was bare chested except for the tartan thrown over his shoulder. The stench in her nostrils indicated he hadn’t bathed in days. No better way to bring Clan McCleary to their murderin’ knees than takin’ the Ol’ Leader’s gran’daughter, the marauder thought. A grim smile crept across his face. He lowered his sword to drop on the floor and reached for the belt holding his kilt and scabbard. Anne glanced from his face to his hands and recognized what he was about to do. Trying not to panic, she scrambled across the floor, away from him. She didn’t get far, as the hut wasn’t all that big. He simply took two steps, and was standing over her, his sword on the floor behind him, his grin a full lecherous leer at what was to come. Frozen on the floor, with no more room to crawl away, Anne faced the raider standing over her. She stretched her uninjured arm towards her boot and the knife she kept there, which lay in a specially made sheath in the soft leather. Never taking her eyes from the man, she tried to keep the feared look in her eyes and the hatred out. He had his kilt lifted, and his filthy body stood over hers. “Say, what ye think yer Grandda’s to say to me being in charge of Clan McCleary? Once you’re carrying me babe, he’ll have to listen to Ol’ Raine.” The cackle of laughter did nothing but solidify Anne’s resolve. As he fell on her, she shifted her wrist to expose the knife she had retrieved. It buried itself deep in the belly of Ol’ Raine. A look of stunned surprise was on his face as his life’s blood colored the dirt of the hut. Pushing the body off of her, she struggled to her feet, only to bend over and lose the remnants of her late supper next to the body. She had only killed one other man, and the reaction was the same. It mattered not that it was her life or theirs. Sweeping her golden hair behind her, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Only then did her attention get drawn back to her left shoulder. Goddess, did the wound burn! Ripping the cleanest part of Ol’ Raine’s kilt, she made herself a makeshift bandage that she wound around her shoulder. The bleeding started to slow. Luckily, it wasn’t her sword arm, or things would be grimmer than they already were. Anne wiped off her knife and sheathed it in her boot. She picked up Ol’ Raine’s sword, hers long gone in the main house that was first set afire, and strapped it to her waist, having to wind the belt around twice to keep it from falling from her hips. Taking the black woolen cloak hanging on the peg by the curtained door and swirling it around her, she looked one last time at the hut she shared with Stephen. Yes, she thought, something has come to an end, but not everything. She darted out into the melee. The sunrise was streaked with bright red and pink hues, more from the smoke of the few remaining fires burning what was left of the grass fields and huts in the village, than the rising mist from the forest. Anne had been pacing the last several minutes, trying to stop the itch between her shoulder blades, the foreboding that never ceased to bring trouble close behind it. If Stephen survived the fighting, he should have been there by dawn. She stopped long enough to look over those she was able to lead into the relatively safe haven of the forest, to gather with those who already had sought refuge there. Three women, two old men, three boys not older than fourteen summers, and a handful of wounded soldiers took their turns passing a flask of water and sharing the corn cakes she was able to smuggle from what was left of the baker’s cottage. Another glance at the sky told her what her intuition had been telling her for a while. As she looked again at the remaining members of Clan McCleary, she knew what she had to do.