Prologue #2
A short while later the Northmen climbed aboard their ships, rowed out to the middle of the river and raised their sails. The wind filled the square canvases, carrying the ships toward the Firth of Clyde and the open sea beyond.
The determination Catrìona had felt only moments before drained from her, leaving in its place the shock of what she had witnessed. Her eyes burned from the tears she had shed.
She cast a defeated glance at Angus who seemed to have aged since they had arrived at the crest, the creases in his face etched deeper than before, making him look older than his thirty summers.
He had no wife or children to lose, but he had served her father for ten years and could count many friends among the fallen.
With a deep sigh, Angus got to his feet and helped her to rise before walking toward the horses.
Mindlessly, Catrìona brushed dirt from her cloak. “To where do those heathen dogs sail?”
“I canna say fer sure, milady, but I would guess the Orkneys from the raven banner. They claim it assures them victory. They were young, mayhap an errant band out fer mayhem and plunder.”
She trudged to her horse and Angus helped her to mount. Steeling herself for what lay ahead, she said, “We must hope some of our people yet live.”
What they found when they reached the bottom of the hill confirmed what they had seen from the crest, only now they could smell the stench of bodies ripped asunder. Covering her nose, she stood staring out at the field of dead.
Slowly she walked forward, stepping around bodies strewn upon the blood-soaked ground, listening for a groan or a sound that would tell her some still lived.
She avoided looking at their faces, for she would know them and that would be worse.
But she scanned the dead for auburn hair like her own and sighed with relief when she did not find Niall.
She went next to her father where he lay in front of the palisade, knowing by the blood covering his chest and the vacant look in his eyes he was dead.
Catrìona wanted to scream but no sound came from her throat.
Her heart sank with her knees as she dropped to his side.
She kissed his forehead and closed his eyes, paying her last respects to the father she loved.
No one else called her “little cat”. In her mind she heard his voice as he told her the stories of Ireland from long ago.
She stood. Inside, she felt numb and hollow. Her eyes burned from crying and the still rising smoke.
“I will see to him,” said Angus coming alongside her.
She looked back at the bodies. “There are so many…”
“Aye, but Domnall’s men will help bury them when he arrives.”
Nodding, she stumbled forward to the gate. The palisade’s timbers still burned but the flames had not yet reached this point. The acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils and stung her eyes, but she forced herself to keep going. She had to find her mother.
As she stepped through the gate, she spotted her lying on the ground in front of the hillfort, a knife not far from her open hand. Her skirts were crumpled to her waist, her bare legs outstretched. Her dark hair was loose and tangled. Her throat had been slit.
Oh, Mother.
Refusing to give in to tears, Catrìona pulled her mother’s gown down to her ankles, covering her shame, and kissed her forehead before rising.
Retrieving her mother’s knife, she saw the blade was still clean.
Now it was Catrìona’s. Securing it in her belt, she vowed, if given the chance, to draw Norse blood with it.
Wrapping her arms tightly about her waist, Catrìona held in the emotions threatening to overwhelm her, the sorrow, the despair and the anger for all that had been done here. In one morning she had lost her parents, her home and her people.
Stumbling back through the palisade gate, she searched for Angus, wanting to be assured he was close.
Movement drew her eyes to the edge of the trees next to the palisade. A figure ran toward her, bow and arrows slung over his shoulder, his bright auburn hair flying out behind him.
“Niall!” She broke into a run. When she reached him, they embraced. She clung to him as tears she could not hold back poured from her eyes. “Thank God you were not here.”
He pulled back to face her. “Who did this, Cat?”
“Northmen.” She looked around but saw none of the dead raiders. “They took their wounded and their dead. Oh, Niall, ’twas ghastly. Angus and I had just reached the crest when we realized the hillfort was under attack. I can still hear the screams of the women.”
“Father? Mother?” His voice faltered as he looked toward the bodies scattered upon the grass between the river and the palisade.
“Dead with the others. Father fought bravely, as did his men, but they were greatly outnumbered.” When the rush of words ended, she paused, then added, “All the men were killed.” Remembering the small bodies scattered among the others, she said, “Even the children. The only ones taken were some of the women. The young ones.”
“Deidre?”
“Aye, taken with the other women.” Her pretty handmaiden had lived sixteen summers, older than Niall by only a year. The two had grown up together as friends. Catrìona could still see Deidre’s smiling face when they had talked of their coming journey to Atholl.
Niall clenched his jaw and shut his eyes as if to gain control. When he opened them, his face was set in stone, much like her heart.
Angus approached, wiping soot from his forehead with the back of his hand. “ ’Tis glad I am to see ye’re safe, Niall.”
Her brother’s face twisted in anger as he clenched his fingers around his bow. “I wish I had been here to fight the whoresons.”
“Cormac would not have wanted that. He would want ye to live to protect yer sister and one day father yer own sons.” He turned to Catrìona.
“None who lay on the grass are alive, milady. I have moved yer mother away from the burning hillfort to lie next to yer father, just there.” He pointed to a patch of grass some distance away where two bodies lay apart from the others.
Angus had covered their faces. “The wind will feed the fire,” he said. “Soon ’twill all be consumed.”
The pungent smell of burning wood filled the air. Dark smoke rose into the air from the palisade. The taste was bitter on her tongue.
Glancing at the bodies of their parents, Niall said to Angus, “I will help you bury them.” To Catrìona, her brother seemed older than his years.
Some time later, she and Niall stood over the two graves that he and Angus had dug, as Niall spoke the words from the Psalter they had learned as children.
Catrìona barely heard them. She was consumed with anger and pain and the regret for being unable to help those she loved.
Images filled her mind: her father smiling at her as he had wished her a good hunt; her mother reminding her not to be long; and Deidre excited for their journey.
She could not believe they were gone and that she and Niall had been spared. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as guilt overcame her for remaining unscathed while so many had died horrible deaths.
After the Northmen had killed, they had plundered, even taken her dowry. She had seen them carrying to the longships the chest in which her father kept his gold. They had taken the weapons of the fallen, her mother’s goblets of silver and Catrìona’s new gowns, leaving nothing of value.
Soon her home would be reduced to a mound of ashes, a black scar on the land.
Turning her back on the sight, she went to sit on a rock near the river. Niall joined her, putting his arm around her. She leaned against his chest, drawing comfort from his male strength. He understood her as few did and now he was all she had left.
After a short while, Niall rose. “I must help Angus in digging more graves.”
By the time Domnall arrived late that afternoon, the fire had died to smoking embers but there were still bodies to be buried. She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she watched him sail into the small bay, his ship like her father’s, a trading ship with plain stems.
His men jumped out to pull the ship onto the shore and once the plank was set in place, Domnall strode down to the sand. She walked forward to meet him. He had come richly attired for his meeting with her father, a meeting that would never occur.
Domnall looked first into her eyes and then behind her to the ruins of the hillfort. A deep crease formed between his brows. “My God, Catrìona, what happened here?”
“We were attacked by Northmen.” She yearned for him to hold her, to comfort her, but instead, he took her hand and led her toward the charred remains of her home, a sight she had no desire to see again.
“How did you—?”
“Angus and I were hunting with Kessog and Niall was in the forest or we would have died with the others.” She did not add that she might have been taken with Deidre.
“Cormac?”
“Dead with my mother.” She looked toward the new graves. “All the men were killed and the women, too, save for the young ones they took as captives.”
Niall and Angus came to join them. The guard was the first to speak. “Milord.”
“Angus, Niall,” Domnall said shortly in acknowledgement to the two men.
“There’s naught to be done now,” said Angus, “save to bury the rest of the dead. We could use the help of yer men.”
As if waking from a trance, Domnall blinked. “Certainly.” He gestured his men to draw close and ordered them to help.
It was not the joyous meeting she had envisioned. Not a betrothal to be celebrated. But at least Domnall was here and alive. And he still held her hand.