by Laura DeLuca
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Britannia – 433 A.D.
“Eartha! Eartha!”
Eartha’s ears pricked at the sound of her name being carried on the wind. When the cry was repeated with even more urgency, the basket of medicinal herbs she was gathering fell to the ground, forgotten. Balen had ridden off several weeks earlier with the other young warriors in the service of the High King, prepared to face the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Since then Eartha had spent every waking moment filled with dread and scarcely slept a wink. Had her worst fears been realized? Were they coming to tell her that her brother was dead?
Eartha lifted her skirts and dashed toward the fields, terrified of what she would find waiting there. She almost fell to her knees to praise the gods for his safe return when she saw it was Balen himself. Their gazes met across the cornfields, and it took a moment to still her hammering heart. Balen dismounted his steed before the animal had even come to a complete halt when he saw she had arrived to greet him. Instead of waiting for him to get his bearings, Eartha sprang forward and tackled her brother in a frenzied embrace. He laughed as they both toppled to the ground and rolled in the grass as though they were mere children again.
“You gave me quite the fright,” Eartha scolded him as she rumpled his short, curly hair. “Mother and I have been worried sick since you went off on this half-cocked mission to try to win the king’s favor. It would have served you right if you were run through like the swine that you are!”
Instantly, the mirth vanished from her brother’s face. He was suddenly a serious soldier, who appeared much older than his seventeen years. “You mustn’t make jests about the war, Eartha. The battles we fought were no game. I watched many good men die, and I came close to a death blow myself on more than one occasion.”
“Well, you are home now,” Eartha told him. “You have served your time. You can put all this foolish business behind you and tend to the fields like the farmer you were meant to be.”
Balen shook his head. “It is not so simple. Eartha…the High King…he-he is dead!”
“No!” Eartha gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh, my poor, dear Galiene! She must be so bereaved. But-but how did this happen?”
“In battle,” Balen revealed. He stood from the ground and wiped the dirt from his knees. “We held those damned Saxons at bay and won the day, but the king succumbed to his injuries not long after we returned from the field.”
Eartha narrowed her eyes at her brother and ignored the gentlemanly arm he offered to help her up from the grass. Was that a twinkle she saw in his emerald eyes? “Is it only my imagination, dear brother, or do you seem more pleased with this news than any loyal subject ought to be?”
“Oh, Eartha, you do not understand. Of course I grieve for the loss of our king. He was a great leader and a good man. My love and admiration for the High King does not change the fact that he is dead, and Galiene is yet unwed.”
Eartha huffed. “Even less reason for joy! There will surely be war among the tribes if Galiene does not choose quickly from the high-ranked nobles. You have to see reason, Balen. You have no chance with her now that the king is dead!”
“No!” Balen shook his head. “You are wrong, Eartha. My love has devised a plan. She has given me a chance to win her hand and the approval of the people.”
Eartha was incredulous. “The tribe leaders would never accept such a low-ranked noble as their king.”
“They will if I am victorious in the stag hunt.”
Eartha released an involuntary gasp, and her hand fluttered to her heart. It was an uncharacteristically feminine reaction on her part, but this was news she had never anticipated. The stag hunt was an ancient rite, invoked only in times of great necessity when the country needed a protector. The warrior who could take down the mighty stag—the king of the forest, embodiment of the horned god—would prove himself the chosen benefactor of the land. That man would take his rightful place as the leader of the tribes. After the battle, he would consummate his passage by taking as his own a virgin priestess or the unmarried queen, both of whom were believed to be the personification of the goddess. Eartha was proud of her old friend’s foresight in invoking the ancient rite, yet she wondered if the sheltered princess-turned-regent truly understood the danger involved in the hunt.
“Galiene is very wise,” Eartha muttered. “Yet I fear for you, Balen. You will not only be battling the stag. There are many men who would sooner kill you than let you steal the throne out from under them.”
Eartha gave her twin a serious once-over. At seventeen, he still had only a light sprinkling of a beard, and his torso wasn’t much thicker than hers. Of course he was quick, and no one was his match with a sword. But in the hunt he would be armed with only a dagger made from bone and his wit.
Balen could read the worry in her eyes, and he did his best to console her fears. “Eartha, you know I must do this,” Balen pleaded for her understanding. Despite her uncharitable thoughts, she allowed her brother to clasp her hand. “I love Galiene. I cannot walk away from her.”
Eartha huffed and jerked her hand free. “I pray you will be able to walk at all when all this foolishness is done.”