William R Crosgrove

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

 

Edition 2.0

Copyright © 2017 William R. Crosgrove

Cover design by Melanie Crosgrove, Darcydoll Art

 

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved.

 

ISBN-10: 1517488648

ISBN-13: 978-1517488642

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Dedication

To my eternally beautiful wife who is the real writer in the family. I can scribble a coherent sentence but you create art.

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Acknowledgments

     Thanks to my extended family for serving as editors, commentators, and critics. Special thanks to my wife, Marta Ramirez Crosgrove, my mother, Peggy Crosgrove, my sister, Merrilyn Saint, and my cousin, Malcolm Bates (himself an author—check him out). An extra big hug to my daughter, Melanie, for her beautiful cover.

     Without Kickstarter© and all those who had enough faith in me to invest their hard-earned money, this book may never have become a reality. I will be forever grateful.

     My thanks also to Poncho’s Restaurant in Canoga Park and my local Subway shop for allowing me to sit for hours in their air conditioned establishments as I typed away on my laptop. And, while I’m on the subject of Poncho’s, I would like to thank the young lady who always made sure my lunch was on the grill before I even walked in the door. Her name is Kiara. Yes, I stole her name.

     And, finally, to 38 years’ worth of students who patiently sat through my history classes and listened to my stories, thank you. Your interest was my inspiration.

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Forward

     Any novel set among the Iron Age Celts has a lot of room for imagination. They had no written language. Compared with other people of the time, little is known about them with any certainty. We know they practiced druidism, but we don’t know for certain what that was. Over the centuries, writers, historians, and just plain people have mixed up imagination and truth so completely that it becomes difficult to tell what is true and what is wishful thinking.

     So, I’ve added my two cents worth of confusion in this novel. Do not take anything I attribute to the Celts as gospel. I’ve done my best to give what I think are authentic names to people and places but I’ve probably mixed Gallic, Briton, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish Celtic names with abandon. As far as I can tell, my interpretation of my hero’s name is correct.

     While we are on the subject of names, let me state that Celtic names can be a mouthful. So, in the interest of a smoother reading experience, some names have been simplified. And sometimes I just throw in the modern name of the region in question because I couldn’t find its Celtic or Roman name and I needed to call it something. The Solent is a good example. And don’t get me started on Roman name conventions. I did the best I could.

     The ranks of military officers in the Roman legions is complicated in the extreme, with both civilian-based and military-based co-officers as well as political appointees much like the political officers of the old Soviet army. I have simplified it mercilessly here.

     This story is based in actual history. Many of the people and events are real, if moved slightly in time and place. The Romans had occupied the British Isles but, after a few hundred years, their troubles on the continent required the recall of most of their troops in Britain. That is where we pick up the tale. I have made slight changes to accommodate the story.

     Any book that examines religion is looking for trouble. But, considering the time period, it was just too delicious to pass up. Three vastly different religions colliding in the British Isles at a time when one is in serious decline and without direction, another long established but stifled by an entrenched priesthood unwilling to release its stranglehold on the practice of its rituals, and the third, young, energetic, with a radically different approach to faith, and whose adherents exhibit a ready willingness to make the sacrifices, or do the deeds, they believe are necessary for its success. Yum.

     Finally, a word about Albion. The name has been used throughout history to refer to England/Scotland, in general. Also Alba, Alban, and other similar terms. As best I can tell, they are all Celtic terms which mean “white” and refer to the chalky cliffs near Dover which could be seen from France, or Gaul, by the Celts. I have appropriated that word and applied it to the island known today as the Isle of Wight (“Wight” being an interesting, but meaningless, phonetic coincidence). This was done solely because it sounds better than the Roman term for the island, Vectis. However, the Isle of Wight does have its own chalky deposits, so I claim I’m justified. Get over it. Iscaya is my own corruption of a Celtic place name.

     Disclaimer: In this book, the Celtic druids practice a naturopathic medicine. I have no expertise in this field nor in any medical field. I have left the details of their practice deliberately vague. Please do not try to deduce a treatment for any medical condition from anything I have written here.

     And another: Mushrooms. Experts on the subject of mushrooms have died because they made a mistake and ate the wrong kind. Please do not go out and pick mushrooms in the wild. I need all the readers I can get.

 

     Thanks for reading and, specifically, thanks for reading this.

 

Bill Crosgrove

Chatsworth, California

September 2015

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Character List

(* Historical figure, used fictitiously here)

Celts

Moira (Regán), Darcy’s birth mother.

Anwen, companion of Moira.

Kiara, Darcy’s adoptive grandmother.

Mavis, Darcy’s adoptive mother.

Darcy Ní Muireagán (Darcy Morgan), adopted Celtic child.

Sevi, Gaelle, and Ina, crones in Darcy’s village of Iscaya.

Annicka, young woman in Iscaya.

Cliohna, druid healer in Londinium.

Marta, Cliohna’s daughter, Julia’s friend.

Boudicca Genovefa, laundrywoman in Áth Boann, Ireland.

Moira (child), young village girl.

Carys, assistant to crones on Ellan Vannin.

Bredán, druid priest on Ellan Vannin.

Lunete, druid oracle on Ellan Vannin.

Breeshy, Sair, and Cait, crones on Ellan Vannin.

Aed, blacksmith on Ellan Vannin.

Eala, tattoo artist in Gretna.

Gwen, leather shop worker in Gretna.

Lugh, Gwen’s boss and father-in-law.

Malcolm, of Clan Macfergus, Scottish warrior.

Matthei, carpenter in Gretna.

Cadeyn, druid priest in Gretna.

Theophilus, Celtic priest-in-training under Bernard.

Urien, Patriarch of the druidic religion in Britannia.

Sluagh, wife to a blacksmith in Ireland.

Fáelán, blacksmith in Gretna.

 

Irish

Seanan O’Cuilinn, captain of Irish raiding fleet.

Niall, of the Nine Hostages*, King of Ireland (and the world).

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Romans

Titus Valerius Messalla, cavalry officer under Maximus.

Marcus, soldier in Maximus’ army.

Magnus Maximus*, Roman general under W. Roman Emperor Gratian.

Marinus Albinus, Mayor of Londinium.

Octavius Canus, Tribune Governor of Britannia.

Gaius Octavius Rufus, son of Octavius Canus.

Julia Tuvero, wife of Messalla

Tullus Tuvero, father of Julia, mayor of Londinium

Antonia, wife of Tullus and mother of Julia.

Julius Messalla, eldest son of Julia and Messalla.

Cassianus Valerius Messalla, younger son of Julia and Messalla.

Quintus Julius Silvanus, cousin of Julius and Cassianus.

Decimus Valerius Juvenal, infantry officer and brother of Messalla.

Septimus Domitianus, quartermaster to Gratian and uncle of Messalla.

Flavius Gratius (Gratian)*, WRE under half-brother, Valentinian II.

Lucius Sicinius Drusus, Roman officer under Messalla.

Andragathius*, cavalry commander under Gratian and Maximus.

Ambrose*, Bishop of Milan.

Augustine* (Saint), north African Berber Christian philosopher.

Bernard, prelate to Ambrose and, later, Archbishop of Londinium.

Celestino, prelate to Bernard in Londinium.

Titianus Manius Aquila, businessman, Pontifex of the Religio Romana.

Gaia, wife of Manius, keeper of the Vestal flame.

Claudius, priest-in-training under Bernard.

Patrick (Patricius Succetus Magnus)*, priest-in-training under Bernard

Calpurnius*, Patrick’s father.

Conchessa*, Patrick’s mother.

Sergius Liber Sabinus, Roman cavalry commander under Messalla.

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Others

Nox, assassin, born in the Caucasus Mountains region.

Canus, auxiliary legion officer, grandson of Octavius Canus.

 

Preview

(After editing for 2.0, this is not actually in Celtic Thorn anymore. It has been moved to Celtic Fire.  Still, it gives you a good idea of who Darcy is.)

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Late 4th century, CE

     Long before the Roman Empire existed, the Celtic tribes of southeastern Europe and western Asia migrated westward. Passing over Greece and through eastern Europe (Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Italy) they crossed the Alps and entered lands later to be known as France. When Julius Caesar conquered them there, hundreds of years later, he referred to the region as Gaul, just another way of saying Celts.

     From Gaul, the Celts moved into Britannia occupying the southeastern portion they called Alban (England) and Wales (to the west of Alban). Eventually, some moved across the Irish Sea to Hibernia (Ireland) and were known as Scoti. Finally, the Scoti re-crossed the Irish Sea and planted settlements in the northern region of Britannia, giving their name to the area (Scotland) and either killing or merging with the native Picts. Over hundreds of years, the various Celtic regions developed unique but related cultures and became rivals of one another. They all practiced, to some extent, an ancient polytheistic religion known as druidism.

     What was Druidism? Nobody knows much about it. It was centered on the Irish Sea, with concentrations in Ireland, the Isle of Man (Ellan Vannin), Scotland, the western coast of the Midlands of England, and most especially, the island of Anglesey (Mona to the Romans, Ynys Môn to the Celts) in Wales. After the Roman destruction of the Druids in Ynys Môn in 60-61 CE, the religion declined sharply, its practitioners dispersed to widely scattered colonies in continental Europe or to the remaining islands and coastal regions around the Irish Sea.

     Of the many Christian sects across the empire, the Roman senate adopted the Council of Nicaea’s version as the official religion, outlawing all polytheistic religious practices as well as all other Christian sects. An interesting note: Druidism and Christianity were the only two religions ever banned by the Roman Empire.

     It is the turn of a new century. The Roman Empire is in decline, but fails to recognize it. The borderlands are in a state of flux as the legions are too few to maintain effective rule.

     Fifteen years earlier, a political dispute in Gaul between Emperor Gratian and his military has resulted in General Magnus Maximus using his legions to create his own empire in Britannia. Now, a young woman hides in the brush on the southern coast of Britannia, watching a Roman encampment. She is a mere two miles across the Solent from the island of Albion, her home.

 

     The Roman camp bustled with activity as they prepared for the coming night, unaware of the girl concealed in the nearby trees. Indeed, she had been still for so long, even the forest animals had forgotten she was there. Dressed in expertly cured deerskins, tanned and dyed to blend into the woods, she was nearly invisible in the sedge and hazel scrub which grew thick under the tangle of a blackthorn tree. Darcy Morgan was in her element. Confident she would not be seen, she nevertheless whispered silent words of encouragement to the dryads of the forest to give her what additional assistance they could. A low cloud drifted across the sun on the distant horizon and any trace of her outline dissolved even further in the deep shadows. She thanked her spirits.

     As if to demonstrate their fickleness, those same gods in their house poised on the edge of evening, found a hole in the cloud and illuminated her face with a final ray of sunlight. It was thin, almost gaunt. Only 15 years old, her short life had been hard. Kidnapping, slavery, war, capture, injury, and death had all been part of it and still she wasn’t home. But she was near and her startling green eyes reflected the hope and longing that that knowledge provided. Those eyes moved to the waters of the Solent and the island that sat so tantalizingly close just across it. Albion. Vectis to the Romans. Home to her.

     Scruffy reddish-brown hair brushed the nape of Darcy’s neck. Celtic women usually wore their hair long, braided, or wrapped in a bun, but she had cut hers close to the scalp the previous fall. The disheveled hair framed a face freckled by life in the open, thin brows over the emerald eyes, a narrow, sunburned nose with just the slightest inward curve to it, and a wide mouth with dry, cracked lips. Her face was begrimed, not just on the surface, but with embedded dirt from months of living in the open, sleeping under trees, and cooking over fires.

     She lay there for another hour as the Romans secured the camp, lit their evening fires, cooked their dinners, and tightened the ropes on their tents before settling in. This was not a normal Roman fort with high walls and permanent barracks. It had only a low dirt rampart, trenched around the outside, and the canvas tents inside. It served as a transportation post when a message needed to be sent across the nearby river to the naval shipyard at Clausentum or over the open water of the Solent to the supply base on the island of Vectis. Just before full dark, the guard was changed at the dock about a hundred feet away. That dock was her goal.

     Her thin body trembled a little as she lay in her thicket, not out of fear but a mixture of joy, sadness, and anticipation. This was the completion of a circle six years in the making. Across the open waters lay her village of Iscaya, last seen by Darcy when she was nine years old. Kiara, her grandmother, awaited her there … she hoped.

     Darcy remained in her covert until the legion camp grew silent and still. About two hours past midnight, she disrobed, tied her clothes into a bundle, tucked them under an arm and crept down to the shore in the pitchy darkness of a moonless night.

     The two guards at the dock paced back and forth, trying to keep warm in the chilly night air. As they neared each other, they stopped in the circle of light provided by two torches mounted in sconces at the foot of the dock, and faced the woods up the slope. They talked quietly for a few moments before resuming their laps. It was an unconscious decision to face the trees. Superstitions regarding the Celtic forests and their myriad spirits ran deep among the Romans. Darcy thanked those spirits for distracting the guards, padded silently to the shore and slid a foot into the water.

     It was cold. Darcy flinched and gasped as it rose to her midsection. After a few quick breaths, she waded around the purple willows that jutted out over the water. Under her feet the footing was slippery, with smooth, rounded, slime-covered rocks sitting in thick mud that oozed up between her toes.

     Under the branches, several small craft, including a canoe she had her eye on, were tied with thin ropes to the overgrowth. Nearby, the wooden pier, built to rise and fall between anchored pilings as the complicated tides dictated, jutted about 100 feet out into the waterway. Three larger boats, lined up along one side of the dock, rocked gently on the calm waters. The guards were still standing at the pier talking.

Darcy reached to set her bundle of clothes in the canoe. As she did, her foot slipped across the smooth surface of a slimy rock and the bundle fell with a thump into the craft. Darcy, cursing herself, held still, prepared to grab her clothes and swim into the darkness.

     Through the multitude of thin branches, she saw the guards stop talking and stare at the brush along the shore. Nothing moved except the flickering shadows caused by the torches and the sound wasn’t repeated. Finally, they looked at each other and agreed it was not worth worrying about. Just two boats bumping into each other. They returned to their pacing.

     Inactivity allowed the cold to seep into her thin body and Darcy suppressed a shiver. She used her knife to cut the rope, then tied her own rawhide string to the stern of the canoe. Backing away from the canoe, she slid under the cold water and swam across the open stretch to the pier 30 feet away, letting out the string as she went.

     In the moonless night, she was invisible under the water, had the guards been looking from their low angle. To a guard standing on the dock above and looking straight down, she would have been a water sprite, naked and enchanting as she glided under the sea. Fortunately for Darcy, there was no guard on the dock.

     Under the pier, she hooked a leg around a piling and watched the guards. When they resumed their pacing, she pulled the string and the canoe glided silently out from under the willows and across the water to her. Grabbing the bow and stopping it, she waited while the guards completed their circuit and stopped to talk again, gazing perfunctorily across the water before turning once again to the woods.

     They did not notice that the canoe had moved. To hold the canoe in position, she looped the string over a muscle shell clinging to the piling. Then she again ducked under the water and swam the length of the dock. She waited. If anyone noticed the boat out of place or moving in the water, she didn’t want to be anywhere near it. She smiled ruefully. With her clothes in the boat, its capture could prove problematic. Well, risks had to be taken.

     Repeating the process, she pulled the string off the muscle shell and the canoe came coasting to her. Hidden in the darkness at the end of the dock, she reached her long arms over the boat, grasped both gunwales and levered herself into the bottom of the narrow craft. It took a strength she didn’t have a year ago. As she dressed in the night, an observer could not have failed to notice the long, lean muscles rippling under her skin. Nor could they have missed the slim, linear scars that creased her legs.

     Once dressed, Darcy sat on the seat and picked up a paddle. Inching the boat into position, she used the oar to push it straight out into the sea from the end of the pier. She rapidly disappeared into the early morning darkness, turned west, and paddled for a distant, unseen point of land.

     The pre-dawn darkness was just beginning to lift as she pulled the canoe under the thick growth along the shore. As she arranged the cattails, reeds, and branches until satisfied she was well-hidden, Darcy caught herself mumbling quiet nonsense syllables. It had been a long time since she had done that. She knew she had grown distant from her religious beliefs and practices in recent weeks. It felt good to find herself doing it again so automatically—perhaps a sign that she was home again.

     There was a sound on the water, then the voices of men. A patrol ship passed, a dozen men on each side rowing it to the eastern entrance of the Solent. When the wind picked up later, they would use the sails. It was followed by a wider, flatter craft loaded with supplies for the lookout post on the same end of her island of Albion. They would pass by the small channel that led to the harbor and her village, though they would not see it over the dunes along the shore.

     It was going to be a long day cramped in a confined space. When the sun went down, she would paddle across the Solent. Darcy watched until the ships had passed, gazing through the covering brush at the island across the water. So close, she thought. Be patient. But it was hard. It had been so long. It was home and, despite the time which had passed, she knew it like her own hand.

     Darcy thought of her village, rebuilt from the ruins they had found when they first arrived, shortly after her birth. She could see her grandmother’s neat roundhouse with its pointed thatched roof with a lower edge that drooped almost to the ground around the wattle-and-daub walls. Would her own wooden-framed bed, straw stuffed into a woolen ticking, still be there against the inside wall, her beloved knife hidden behind it. Or had Kiara given up hope?

     She remembered the nights around the communal fire when the crones would tell the story of their coming to Albion, fleeing the Romans. And Kiara, her adoptive grandmother, grinding and drying the herbs and barks that made up her pharmacy. Darcy had the worst of news to bring her. She thought of Mavis, her adoptive mother … and barley cakes dipped in honey and cream. Darcy’s eyes were filling. With an iron will, she forced the emotions back down. Not now. She crawled down into the bottom of the canoe and promptly fell asleep.

     The sun rose to its noon height and declined far into the west before Darcy awoke with a start. The boat rocked as rippling waves passed under it. She lay motionless and listened again to the voices of men drifting across the water. Raising her head just the slightest, she peered with one eye over the edge and saw a patrol ship passing close by, returning from the channel beyond the island to its home port at Clausentum.

     When the ship had gone, she sat up in the stolen canoe. The late afternoon sun was nearing the horizon. As she waited for evening to descend, Darcy scanned the open water through the hanging overgrowth and rising cattails along the embankment but there was no more traffic on the Solent. She couldn’t see the sloping land above her but she hadn’t heard a sound from there all day.

     The sun sank below a distant forest and gloomy shadow settled over the water. Darcy picked up a paddle and, with a single powerful stroke, drove the canoe out into the Solent. She quickly glanced around, ensuring she was alone on the open water, then made for the island shore nearly two miles away.

     Protected by Albion, the Solent was a relatively calm, shallow strait—a combination of ocean and a series of river mouths. During extremely low tides, much of the Solent was a mud flat. Albion itself was about 20 miles long east to west, 12 miles wide north to south. On the east and west corners were minor Roman fortresses, each manned by two platoons of legionaries in staggered two week intervals. Once per week, a supply boat made the journey to each fortress bringing supplies and a new platoon to replace the one departing.

     The northern corner, facing the Solent and the mainland of Britannia, had been unoccupied the last time she had seen it. Darcy remembered that an old pier, missing many of its original planks and posts, jutted into a cove on the mouth of a river that drained the center of the island. The Romans had abandoned the pier and the few buildings which accompanied it, as well as the entire island, when there had been a general withdrawal of troops from Britannia. Since their occupation of Albion, the Celts of the village of Iscaya, established at the harbor on the eastern end, had repeatedly crossed the deeply forested island to pilfer the lumber.

     The girl bent to her task and the small craft, difficult to see in the deepening dark, slipped smoothly through the water. She was businesslike as she worked the paddle, eyes darting across the water in front of her, watching for any sign that she had been spotted. Again, emotion swept through her and, again, she forced it down. She was, at last, coming home. But she was not the same little girl that she had been before her kidnapping. The intervening years had molded her through the forge of war and the constant effort to survive in a world which seemed to conspire against her. What had once been the playful antics of childhood were now the honed, deadly skills of a warrior. She had killed … and she knew she would kill again.

     Halfway across, she allowed the craft to glide to a halt as she briefly rested and again checked the water behind her. There were no other boats in view. She turned her attention to the shore ahead of her. Darcy was approaching to the west of the wide river mouth which drained the center of the island and deposited the water due north into the Solent. The old Roman outpost was on the eastern side of that river, to her left. She assumed the Romans had reoccupied the base sometime in the past six years. Staring into the gloom, she looked for any movement which would indicate a boat exiting, though it was late for that, or guards posted on the western bank to which she was headed.

     Overhead, some of the brighter stars showed in the southern sky and Darcy noted those which would guide her when full darkness came. It was something her Gamma Kiara had taught her and it had served her well.

     Seeing nothing suspicious through the gloom, Darcy raised her paddle to begin again when she stopped and stared harder into the darkness. Light appeared where the old supply base was. Two lights. Torches. A slow smile spread across her face when she saw what they illuminated. The Romans were back, as she suspected. They had rebuilt the pier and it was there the torches were burning, a guard standing underneath each one. But it was what was tied up to the pier that was most interesting to Darcy.

     She changed the direction of the canoe, dug her paddle into the water, and accelerated toward the eastern shore instead. As she closed on the island, the outpost was hidden from view by shrubs and trees on the near bank. Darcy turned parallel to the shore and moved away from the base. A hundred feet farther and she again turned into the island.

     Tying the canoe to the outstretched feathery branches of a tamarisk, she again stripped off her clothes and slipped noiselessly into the water. From her backpack she removed two crude knives she had collected in her travels and connected them loosely to each other with a loop of rawhide. Then she sank once more into the cold briny waters and swam to the mouth of the river.

     Darcy could see now that only a portion of the pier had been repaired as pilings jutted from the deeper water without the accompanying lumber necessary to complete the dock. At the reconstructed landward end of the pier, two guards stood together talking in the circle of torchlight. Between them and Darcy, two heavily laden supply boats, faintly lit by the starry night and silhouetted by the torches, were tied up to the recently rebuilt section of the dock.

     Submerged to her neck, with the loop of rawhide around her wrist, she dogpaddled slowly along the little bay. It was nearly full dark and another moonless night. With her red-brown hair and deeply tanned face, she could not be seen unless one knew exactly where to look. Any ripples she created were immediately lost in the mild turbulence of the Solent.

     Close to the partially rebuilt wharf, she exhaled, allowing herself to sink under the surface of the water, and swam to the first boat. Her head broke the water between the boat and the pier and she inhaled, careful to make no sound. Replenished, she set to work with her knives.

     Her hands glided along the bottom of the supply ship, feeling for the ridges of caulking that would indicate where boards were joined. Roman boats, while seaworthy, were different from Celtic boats. Celtic boats were ruggedly built with thick, overlapping layers of planks. The old Roman tactic of ramming an enemy’s ship did not work with the Celts. Roman boats were lighter and faster, but the single-layered hulls were much less sturdy. They were not expecting sabotage from a naked girl in the water. But, even after six years, this was Darcy’s island. There was no question in her heart about that fact. The Roman’s did not belong here and she would see to it they left. This would be her first move.

     With one of the knives, she reached below the waterline and began scraping the caulking from between two of the planks that made up the hull. When she was done, she ducked under the pier and did the same to the second boat. There was little noise from the underwater scraping.

Placing the tip of the knife in the gap where she had removed the caulking, she rocked it back and forth, driving it deeper between the boards. Soon, she could feel the slight suction at the seam as water rushed into the bottom of the boat.

     With the knife wedged between the boards, she again ducked under the pier and returned to the first boat. Here, she repeated the process using the second knife. Once through the hull, she worked it in deeper toward the thicker base of the blade, causing the boards to separate by as much as a quarter of an inch. Again, she could feel the water rushing through the crack.

     Leaving the knives to do their work, Darcy took a deep breath, dropped under the water, and retraced her route toward where the canoe was tied up. Surfacing about halfway there, she silently dogpaddled the rest of the way. Once in the canoe, she sat shivering while the water dripped from her. In the moist night air there was no way she was going to be able to dry herself so she just donned her deerskin clothing over her damp body. For greater warmth, she pulled the dark cloak from her backpack, slipped it on, and huddled in the canoe, waiting to hear the results of her work.

     It took about 20 minutes before there was a sudden gurgling sound and then the louder splash of crates tumbling into the water as one of the boats tipped and sank under the weight of the supplies it was carrying. The guards gave a cry and Darcy could hear the commotion as they tried to salvage some of the boxes. After a minute of silence, there was another cry of dismay and Darcy smiled, certain the second boat had gone down.

     The girl sat up straight, paddle in hand, and gave three long haunting calls of an owl, then dug into the water. The canoe shot forward out of the tamarisk and westward along the coast. Despite the starry sky, she paddled through inky darkness. She knew exactly where she was going. It had been many years, but this was Albion and she traveled, even after all this time, with certainty.

     Two hours later, she neared the far eastern end of the island. Darcy turned the canoe into the narrow strait which ran between two long sandy shores. On the left, high dunes separated the harbor from the deeper waters that led to the channel. To the right, a wide beach bordered soggy lands populated with a forest of alder, willow, and birch.

     Passing the dunes, the canoe slid silently into the growth along the bank of the harbor. Far across the protected waters, Darcy knew her village stood about a hundred yards off the beach. Iscaya. She peered long and hard but, in the darkness, she couldn’t see it. There was no flickering light of a candle or torch. Nor could she see the roundhouse inside which, Darcy knew, Kiara slept in the unhappy certainty that her adopted granddaughter was dead. It had been too long.

     The girl stepped out of the canoe and tied it to a small tree at the water’s edge. Turning back to the bushes, she ran her hands along their branches, again mumbling silently to herself, and slowly the limbs were convinced to close in upon the boat, hiding it from view. The land on this side of the harbor was higher, without the loops of river, cutoff by erosion, that made the other side so swampy. And it was covered by a deep forest of tall oak, hawthorn, and beech. Darcy intended to spend the night there, reacquainting herself with its denizen spirits. When she was certain they remembered her, she would sleep and pass through to the village in the morning.

     Darcy took a step into the trees and her eyes welled up, her legs began shaking uncontrollably, and her breathing became ragged. She sank to her knees. Long suppressed emotions tore through her and she bent over sobbing silently, her finger rubbing across the soil, digging through the grass and into the earth, gripping, pulling, and squeezing the dirt. She put her forehead down onto the damp soil and remained there for minutes until the emotions settled enough to sit up.

     With a deep, shuddering breath, she stood and braced herself against a tall oak. Above her, she heard a skittering sound as some small creature, of this world or the Otherworld she didn’t know, moved up or down the trunk. A moment later, she walked into the forest, her legs still trembling. She picked up her pace until she could maintain a gentle run. In the deep interior of the forest, the trees, competing for water and light, were well-spaced with largely empty tracts of soft, loamy soil between them. Above, the trees formed a dense canopy through which sun could not penetrate, much less the starlight of the night.

     Joy suffused her body as her legs found strength and she increased her stride to a full run. Her nearly invisible form sped among the great trunks while teary eyes nevertheless spotted every small rise and fall of the land over which her feet trod. She was here at last. Ahead, unseen in the darkness beyond the forest limits, lay her village. Behind her, a thousand miles of hardship, violence, and death. She squeezed out words between ragged breaths.

     “Gamma,” she whispered, “I am home.”

​

Author's note: There are no spoilers in this excerpt.  There is nothing here to say whether her home, or Kiara, is still there. It's dark. She hasn't seen anything of her village, yet.  This scene appears somewhere in the middle of Celtic Fire.