by A. L. Duncan
“This will surely lead to catastrophic subversion,” interjected another.
“I have further observed,” said the Cardinal, “Henry recognizing these Celts as legitimate by consecrating their practices within the Catholic Church.”
A lone robed figure stood from the pack in silence before speaking up. “Why is it then that this woman, being given grace to practice in the Church with her people, would wish to harm—even go as far as to murder—the clergy who took her in?”
The Cardinal’s eyes squinted to the man in the shadows.
The figure added, “And how is it you’re so certain, Cardinal, it was this lone woman who murdered all these people? Did you witness her presence or any of her warriors at this abbey or others?”
“Show yourself,” demanded the magistrate, raising his voice above all the clamor of protests.
From the shadows stepped the man, who humbly bowed before the presence of the High Magistrate. Lifting himself to full height, the Cardinal appeared a bit unsettled to recognize the man known as Thomas Becket.
Eyewitnesses were regarded with suspicion, and Becket made certain the Cardinal was no exception.
The magistrate nodded. “Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, you may proceed.”
“I, too, have held council with the king of England,” said Becket. “And even though we still have our differences, I am very happy to report that King Henry is indeed well and of right mind.”
The Cardinal quietly took a seat amid the new outburst of dispute.
“All the more necessary we should need to impose upon England and King Henry the order and law of God,” related one bishop.
The magistrate then spoke, shouting above all the settling murmurs. “Because many of the common people have ties to Celtic natives and practices, this conflict should in fact be regarded carefully. If this be only a small band of one Pict woman and a handful of loyal followers, then the Church should interrogate this burr in its saddle.”
Unsettled commotion arose, disclaiming this woman and her band. The magistrate raised a hand to calm the mass and continued. “However, if this Pict is one of many who have taken arms against the Church and its holy order, as the Cardinal has described, then the only other alternative is for the Church to issue these pagan concerns under military problems of the State. These concessions shall not be a matter for the Church or its edicts.”
With intentions clearly quelled, the Cardinal quietly dismissed himself.
Thomas Becket whispered to him as he paused, brushing shoulders. “You’ll have to do better than that if you wish to nail her to a cross for your own iniquities. Whatever plot you intend to hatch, Cardinal, you had better make certain of its end. For once Ban Talah goes hunting she will track you down like an old boar and let the vultures die on your poisoned flesh.” The Cardinal did not honor him with a reply. But instead, grinned maliciously and withdrew from the chamber.
ON THE OUTSKIRTS of a small hamlet in Wales, a portion of Ban Talah’s warriors set up camp while she took a handful of individuals with her to a local tavern. Standing on the threshold of the pub, Talah looked around at the assorted faces and attire. Long hair and short, armored raiment and leather tunics, cloaks and overcoats alike, Normans and Saxons and Celts mingled together over the only thing they all could agree upon—ale and women.
Moya, Talah’s second in command stood beside her. She stood not nearly as tall as Talah, yet held her own with wide shoulders that carried lengthy, auburn curls. Moya wore her warrior attire with all the feminine wiles true to her nature. One would believe her less the warrior and more the nature of child-rearing and husband-fetching as her flirtatious character dictated, gawking at all the men folk as she did.
She was passionate in all her beliefs as one whose essence flirted in the extremes; quite like a water nymph curious in the various pools of mortal beings. Perhaps this was why her love of battles and men existed within her soul so deeply an attribute to make her one of Talah’s best warriors.
With arms akimbo, Moya asked, “Why would Danann be here, of all places?”
Talah exhaled. “Well, this is where I last left her.”
Moya frowned and glared from the corner of her eye. “Talah, that was six years ago.” Her only reply was a lifted eyebrow and a shrug.
Music from a crumhorn and tambourine filtered through the crowded tavern with dances and jigs. Brogues, Gaelic tongues, and a myriad of accents joined the gaiety with loud cackling and conversations. Bar wenches carried trays of brew around the many tables of raunchy play-acting by those few who were too drunk to do little else. Talah made her way past the thickets of knights with her back to them, hoping not to be recognized. Just as she thought all was safe, a knight brushed passed, hitting her shoulder and swinging her about to face another knight leaning an elbow on the bar. As their eyes met, Talah quickly closed her cloak overtop her white metal mantle knowing it was a clear giveaway.
The knight grabbed her arm tightly at her attempt to turn away. “Haven’t we seen each other before?” he growled.
“Um...aye,” Talah replied. “Actually...we’re kin. Cousins.”
The knight glared at her soft features a moment before releasing his grip in a drunken nod and smile. “Gwendolyn, right?”
Talah joined his gaiety. “Aye. Gwen it is.”
“How’s the little boy?”
“Boy?” Talah wasn’t very good at making up stories. “Ah...the boy. Growing up. A great young lad, spitting image of his father.”
The knight grumbled in his mug. “Saxon scum he was.” After a sniff, tears started flowing and the man took to blubbering. “Just like my father...he was never there for me, you know.”
“Indeed. Tragic circumstances.” Talah pulled two coins from the small pouch around her waist and tossed them to the barkeep. “Keep this kind gentleman full, will you?”
The knight smiled at the barkeep’s nod and lifted his mug in appreciation.
Turning away, Talah patted the knight’s back. “Sorry.”
Talah turned to Moya’s grin with raised brow and walked on. Stumbling upon a clearing in the wave of people, Talah found herself standing before the very person she had been looking for. With boot on a chair, dark eyes looked through the blonde bangs as if she were seeing a ghost. Talah simply stood smiling before her to let the reality of the situation sink in. In a twinkle of relief the woman’s demeanor changed. They both hollered with shameless abandon and embraced.
Talah and her friend Danann took their reunion to a secluded room, guarded by Moya and another warrior. Talah poured a round of ale from an obviously well-used pitcher as Danann pushed back her chair and stepped over to the window, still eyeing Talah as if she expected her form to disappear if she glanced away.
“I had heard rumors you were still alive,” Danann said. “I was afraid to believe them. One couldn’t number the sonnets and tales told of you in these six years.”
Talah met her gaze, handing her a cup. “Sonnets?”
“With all your attributes, Talah, there isn’t much left to one’s imagination that isn’t well known about you. There could be twenty books written on your life and even that wouldn’t describe half the adventures. And another few even I could tell at the right price.”
The two laughed. Indeed, Danann could tell much about the Ban Talah the world had never seen. Talah had called her Danann for as long as they’d known each other, since childhood.
The two would run the Highlands, sit upon their favorite boulder at night and count the stars, while they told stories heard from relatives the day before. Sometimes in the winter they would dance along with the rainbow of blues, purples, and greens from the lights in the northern skies. The Fir-chlisne, or Men of the Tricks, the elders would call them.
Danann was always small in stature, but being stout and sturdy, learned to defend herself at an early age. By the time the two were young women Danann was as lean and muscular as Talah, battle trained from the best warriors on the contine
nt. She indeed resembled a little god, as Talah had named her. With sword in hand, sleeve armor and braided hair for luck, this little god was no less of a match for an enemy than Ban Talah. The two were a mighty force to be reckoned with.
However, much had happened in the last six years, and Talah wondered if her friend would ever have a desire to braid her blonde locks again.
“When I heard of the raid on the mercenaries, something in my gut just knew it was you.” Danann exclaimed as a smile lit her face.
Talah took a long breath. “I’ve come to ask you to join me again. There will have to be more than that one, I feel, to get the Church to understand our intentions.” As Talah spoke, Danann winced, slowly turning her eyes to the window and the dark street below.
“I cannot do it, Talah,” Danann said after a pause.
Talah sat her cup down and walked over to Danann, staring at her in disbelief. “How is it your passion has left you?”
Danann eyed the moon’s reflection in her cup and sighed. “My passion, dear friend, has not left me. I’ve only placed it somewhere else.”
Talah was careful to notice Danann’s demeanor and longing smile as she glanced out the window to the figures below. Never had a moment of intimate, romantic nature caught hold of Danann in such a way, thought Talah. Certainly, there was something quite different about her friend’s spirit and elusive heart. Talah slid next to her and followed her stare to a woman below whose delicate features smiled sweetly to Danann and blew her a kiss.
“Never would I have guessed in this lifetime, Danann, something to have emblazed you with such ardent desire other than a victory on the battlefield.”
“It has taken more than this woman for me to understand that there is more to life than a king’s necessity for war. I find meaning in the smallest aspect of my breath today. The smallest spark of beauty...a violet, a raindrop, dew on a blade of grass—”
Talah laughed with merriment. “The meaning you have found is love!”
Danann grinned. “Aye. I suppose it is.”
“Oh, Danann.”
“You’re not disappointed?”
“Well, it certainly isn’t the expectation I had before me.” Talah paced and wavered a bit in darker thought before continuing. “With no more grace than a starving lion feeding on his prey, the blood of our people has been shed and scorned by a raging conjurer. A devil, hiding in a cloth of the Church. Whether by fate or otherwise I cannot turn away without first demanding an unrelenting consequence. I have come only to ask of you your service.”
The sincerity of Talah’s heart was always an easy pull on Danann’s spirit to jump at a moment’s breath. But now, Danann’s body slumped. “Talah...”
“You’ve been with me on every campaign,” Talah insisted. “It is in your blood as well as mine. I couldn’t possibly imagine this campaign without you. For Christ’s sake, I trust you more than anyone. But now...”
Danann shook her head. “I can’t do it.”
Talah hushed her with a loving approach. “What I am saying now is that I would never ask this of you. Not now. God has not offered you a more endearing blessing. I would take much pain to know this I denied you. In such eyes as yours remember there is no fault in decisions, only gratitude in such things of the heart.” Talah embraced her dearest friend. “Of course, you have my blessing. I hope you know this. To hold someone deeply in heart and spirit cannot compare to any less than heaven’s gift. It is to be cherished, and envied. I regard you more than anyone, and my heart is very pleased.”
Danann was silent at Talah’s understanding ease.
Danann’s behavior was as someone who knew something was different in Talah’s demeanor. Talah’s distracted mourning of a cherished devotion captivated her own soul for a moment before meeting Danann’s eyes again.
“Thank you, Talah,” Danann said finally.
Talah’s features held a dark longing, an ache behind her eyes she dared not express verbally. She was not one to express such torment openly. “I’ll trouble you no more.”
“Talah,” Danann called to Talah’s departure. “I’m glad you came.”
IN THE FOREST that overlooked the tiny hamlet, Talah’s band of warriors huddled around a large campfire to keep the dark fresh with enchantment. The story of Mog Roith as a legendary druid of wisdom and knowledge venerated by many a bard’s tongue with stories, frequented many a fireside. Talah was hidden among them.
“It is from the Sidh, the faeries, that Mog Roith acquired wisdom over the many hundreds of years,” spoke an old warrior to the many attentive ears. “And there aren’t any enchantments that he cannot do, whether within or without the Sidh, whether in this world or the other. Because never of all the folk in all the kingdom has there ever been a mortal to learn magic in the realm of the faeries save he.”
A gasp arose from the midst of warriors. All readied themselves with swords, lances and daggers drawn.
From among the crowd a magnificent white-blue ball of light encircled the fingers of a raised hand before fading into nothingness. To this silent gesture the warriors all jumped as if their skins were crawling with lice. Ban Talah pulled the hood back from her head. The warriors sighed and lowered their weapons. Talah grimaced at the many faces as she walked closer to the fireside. Pulling gloves from her hands she warmed the bite of cold off the tips of her fingers.
“Had I been the enemy, all of you would have been skewered like fattened pigs by my encircled forces,” Talah scorned. “And not known it until skinned and crispened over these fires you hold so dear.” Knowing their mistake the band dropped eye contact to comfort their shame in the lying embers and coals before them. Talah fit the gloves back over her hands and adjusted her scrutinizing tone to a soft voice of wisdom. “This forest, or that moor, or that wilderness will not hold for us the protection from dangers that are at this moment afoot. No longer can we invoke this little charm or that incantation without great recourse.”
“I have not been able to foresee visions for two weeks,” announced one warrior. “I have had to have much rest.”
A woman warrior revealed her torso wounds. “I have not been able to heal from the last battle. Every time I or someone else tries it’s almost as if the land, instead of nurturing, drains us and leaves us exhausted.”
“The land is not well, Talah,” exclaimed the old storyteller, with worried brow.
Talah nodded somberly, laying a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I know, MacCullah. And we, too, must save our energies. We are a reflection of the land, remember this. If our gifts are not well, the land is not well.”
“Then a spell has been cast,” exclaimed old MacCullah with a growl.
Voices and murmurings arose from the band as they began to express their fears and concerns.
“How do we fight such an evil we cannot see?” a warrior was heard to say among the throng.
Talah waited for the commotion to subside before speaking again. “First, we must take care of our own before concerning ourselves with those against us.” She gestured to the injured woman to step near. Talah continued as she raised her hand to the stars above. “We must take our strength from the other elements for now.” With this said, she drew a circle in the air with her fingers, and called upon the energies above to intertwine in a ball as they swirled with reds and blues. Placing the other hand upon the woman’s wounds, a bridge of cascading star matter flowed into the woman’s torso and returned again to the skies. This left the woman to faint at Talah’s release into the arms of fellow warriors, her wounds healed.
Moya stepped before her. “Talah,” she said urgently. “Brodie brings tidings from the south.”
All eyes were upon the scout as he stepped forward into the light. Talah noticed the man’s shaking limbs and motioned to the log beside the fire.
“Sit down, Brodie, and warm yourself.”
Moya grabbed an extra cloak and covered his shoulders and back.
A friar bent over Brodie and shoved a cup into his col
d hands. Pouring a rich liquid from the bladder that hung at his side, he said, “Here, this brawl set afire your toes so much you’ll be dancing all the way across the moors of Skye. Now, that’s a fact,” he winked and smiled.
Brodie lit up a tired grin at the kindly friar and motioned to talk despite his chattering teeth. “Th-th-thank you.”
Young William Brodie was a lad of noble bearing in his twenties.
As a man of principles, his bard’s philosophy for life was to serve Ban Talah valiantly and protect the freedoms of his people, and certainly to live to tell their tales. Like Moya, Brodie had traveled with Talah on many adventures and was eager again to follow under Talah’s banner. His appearance was that of Lowland Scot fashion: hair collar-length, bangs cropped low to the brow, and a long mustache.
“Tell us, Brodie,” exclaimed the old storyteller. “Were the Saxons afoot with a king’s banner?”
Brodie choked and coughed on the strong liquid. “Aye,” he gasped.
“Treachery.”
“I was sitting in the branches of a tree. They didn’t even know I was there as they marched by.”
“How many soldiers?” Moya asked him.
“I don’t know exactly. Hundreds. Hard to tell beyond that. Saw a carriage though.”
The thought of a carriage darkened Talah’s eyes. “Did you see who was in the carriage?” she asked.
Brodie stared hard at the fire’s embers and shook his head. “It was too dark to even see the standard.”
Moya scoffed. “Then how do you know it was the king’s men?”
“I know what I know, woman.” he shot back angrily.
Talah defended Brodie’s keen senses. “It doesn’t matter if it was the king’s men or mercenaries. The point is Brodie saw troops being led by dangerous pretenses. They’ve got to be stopped.” She laid a gentle hand on Brodie’s shoulder. “Where were they headed?”
“South. To Wickshire,” he replied. “There’s an abbey there too, isn’t there?”