Lord of Falcon Ridge (Viking Era 4)

“Even if you look like Laren’s pet pig, Ravnold, I’ll stay close. I’ll even try to hold you every night. At least I’ll come as close to you as possible.”

She bit his chin, then came down over him.

He said, puzzled, “I don’t understand, Chessa. You’re pregnant. My seed took hold inside you. You mean we must continue to do this?”

She leaned down and bit his chin again. “This is for me, not for a babe,” she said as he came high and deep into her.

“It is a messenger from King Sitric,” Igmal said. “He claims he knows you, Chessa.”

Chessa wiped her hands on a woolen cloth, straightened her tunic, pulled off the linen kerchief from around her hair and came outside the farmstead. There was Brodan, her half brother, behind him two dozen soldiers, her father’s bodyguard, Cullic, at their fore.

She yelled his name and ran into his arms. “Ah, Brodan,” she said between kisses, “you’re here! I thought never to see you again, oh my, you’re here. How much you’ve grown. How did you find us? Oh, you’re quite a young man now, so very big. Your eyes are dark, just like father’s. The girls must adore you, Brodan.” Since he was only eight years old, this didn’t please him, and Chessa quickly called out, “Cleve, come here and meet your new brother, Brodan.”

He had grown over the past nearly six months, she thought. He would become a handsome man. She thought of Athol and said a prayer to every god she knew that Brodan wouldn’t grow crooked as Athol had. She watched him stare up at Cleve, eyeing him as another grown man would, for strengths and weaknesses, something their father had taught him. “I remember you,” Brodan said. “You were the emissary from Duke Rollo. When your messenger from Hawkfell Island came to Dublin and told my father of your marriage to Chessa, he cursed and ranted and kicked furniture and yelled at everyone who came near him for three days. He even yelled at mother. She didn’t understand that. It confused her. Then he smiled again. I remember his telling mother that you were a good man and that Chessa thought you nearly perfect, especially your face. He said she never saw the scar and thus she must love you very much. He is content now, not happy, but content.”

“I am relieved,” Cleve said, gripping the young boy’s shoulder. “I didn’t want your father to come here and slit my throat.”

“My father said Chessa would slit your throat if you ever deserved it.”

“She would,” Cleve said, nodding.

“Father let you come to Scotland,” Chessa said, marveling, for Brodan was only a young boy, after all, and such a journey was always fraught with danger.

“I wanted to see Iona where Saint Columba lived and preached. Did you know that Kenneth moved his remains from Iona many years ago to near Scone?”

“Aye,” Igmal said. “My grandfather told me that after Kenneth united the Scots and Picts together, he wanted to prove that the Scots were the better ones and he moved his capital from Argyll to Scone in Perth. He took poor Saint Columba’s bones away from Iona and moved the Stone of Destiny from Dunadd to Scone. My grandfather hated the little man for that, said that he’d gotten the Pictish throne through the female line and everyone knew that was madness.”

“What’s the Stone of Destiny?” Chessa asked.

Brodan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “It looks like a simple slab of sandstone, but it was the pillow on which Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, had his dream about the angels and the stairway to heaven.”

“You’ve become a Christian, Brodan?” she said, not recognizing these names, but hearing the awe in her brother’s voice.

“Aye, Chessa. I’ve told Father that I want to live on Iona and practice the old ways.”

“Oh,” she said. He was only eight years old and he believed he’d already found what he was meant to do? He’d always been a serious child, older than his years, but he’d loved fishing with her. She remembered the glailey fish they’d caught that had been served that one night at the evening meal to Cleve in Dublin. “Father is all right, Brodan?”

“Aye, he is the same. Mother had another boy. I told father that with four other sons, he didn’t need me. He said he would consult the stars. He told me later that the signs were good, that I would be safe.”

“Ever the sorcerer,” Cleve said. He looked up to see Cullic, King Sitric’s personal bodyguard, stride forward to stand beside Brodan. He still had the coldest eyes Cleve had ever seen and his skin was even darker after their journey from Dublin. Cullic gently placed his hand on Brodan’s shoulder, saying, “We will remain here for three days, then the prince wishes to journey to St. Andrews. We have been told that a new abbey has been founded. The bishop there will become the leading man in the Scottish Church.”

“Aye,” Brodan said. “Iona is the old and the abbey of St. Andrews is the new. I wish to worship at both.” He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then blurted out, “I have h

eard also that the monster in Loch Ness was seen by Saint Columba. Surely it can’t be evil, not if that great man saw it. Have you seen it, Chessa?”

“Aye, I did, just once. It has a very long neck and a small head. It appeared, then quickly sank beneath the water again. Kiri has seen the monster many times. She says it isn’t a monster, but rather a mother with children.”

“Kiri?”

“Cleve’s daughter. Ah, here she is. Kiri, sweeting, come and meet my brother, Brodan, from Ireland. He wants to know all about Caldon.”

The eight-year-old stared down at the small girl and looked immeasurably depressed. “You’re telling me that this little girl has seen the creature?”

“Her name is Caldon,” Kiri said.

Brodan sighed. “How can this be possible? How can this be just? Little girls have imaginations that bubble over like stew pots.”

“Trust me, Brodan. Not this little girl. Now, brother, come into our new farmstead and bring your men with you. We will prepare a feast that will even make Cullic belch.”