He wouldn’t have anyone, even his most trusted counselor, thinking he could be weakened in any way. Especially not by feminine wiles. He had had women throwing themselves at him since the day he’d become King, even before that, and never once had he let one touch his heart. Never for a moment had he been ruled by lust or need. He was always in control.He was King.
The old warrior’s mouth curled up at one corner just a little as he nodded. He had been around long enough to know that sometimes a woman came along that a man had no hope of walking away from. Even being a king didn’t make one immune to matters of the heart.
It was dark.
The sun had set some time ago, leaving her sitting in near pitch blackness, still tied to the post. At one point, she’d had to pee so badly that she’d resorted to calling to the guard outside her door. He’d begrudgingly brought her the chamber pot from under the bed and untied one of her hands so she could use it. He had at least had the decency to turn his back.
Now, as she watched the faint glow of a rising moon slowly fill the room, her mood was wavering between angsty terror and bold resolve, and the rollercoaster of emotion was making her dizzy and a little nauseous. In the morning, she would have been here a full twenty-four hours, and someone at home would have definitely noticed her missing.Nathan. Certainly he would have started worrying by now. In her mind, she saw his face, handsome and kind. Sparkling blue eyes and sandy blonde hair. He cared so much about her, and guilt flowed through her at how she had treated him recently; keeping him at a distance and never fully letting him into her life. She could have agreed to marry him instead of constantly putting him off. He was a wonderful man. What had she been waiting for? He was probably out looking for her right now, desperate and concerned, and she hadn’t even been able to give him the one thing he wanted from her: a commitment. A life together. She would manage to get home somehow, and when she did, she would finally let Nathan move in to the old farmhouse with her. Maybe they would even get engaged. Maybe…
She saw the flicker under the door a moment before it opened, throwing sudden light into the darkness of the room. The silhouette of a man stood there with a small torch in his hand, which he placed in the holder on the wall just inside the doorway. She sighed with relief at the dancing flame. She never did care for darkness. It had always felt suffocating somehow.
The man came towards her, stepping into the light so that she could see him. He was older, perhaps nearing seventy, but still handsome, with the muscular build and proud stance of a warrior. And he was well dressed, if the gold ornaments around his neck and woven into his long, graying hair were any indication. The dark tattoos gracing his cheeks were slightly sunken and marred with wrinkles, but gave him a formidable appearance none-the-less. Nessa watched him as if her life depended on it. Was he friend or foe?
He squatted on the floor at her side, reaching for the ties at her wrists, but never once looked at her face. “I am Namet”, he told her brusquely. “The King has sent me to fetch you. He wants you at this evening’s fire ceremonies.”
“What kind of ceremonies?” she asked, with her heart picking up its pace. She always liked to know what she was facing.Fertility rites? A wedding? A funeral? Namet made short work of the knots, and in a few seconds her hands were free. She rubbed her wrists and rolled her shoulders. How many hours had she been tied up? It felt like days.
“You’ll see soon enough.” He stood, reaching a hand toward her.
She took it, and he pulled her abruptly to her feet, then put both of his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. His eyes seemed to search her face for some kind of truth. They were dark pools, the black pupils reflecting the light from the torch. “You’d best be careful, lass, should you have any ill intentions toward the king. We are a loyal lot, and would kill anyone who would harm him or even his good name.”
He must have just been giving her fair warning, because he didn’t wait for her to answer. Wrapping a big, rough hand around her arm, he steered her into the hallway, down the flights of stairs which were lit by several torches attached to the wall, and across the main room. No one else was around, and only a small fire burned lazily in the hearth, throwing off barely enough light to see by.
Namet silently led her out the door and into the night, which was lit by more stars than she had ever seen before. The sky was ablaze with them, and the Milky Way meandered through them all like an ephemeral cloud. The smell of wood smoke filled her nostrils along with the brisk night air, and she could see fires burning in the distance, on the cliff near the sea. Dozens of figures moved around, small human-shaped shadows in front of the flames. As they got closer, she could hear the sound of their voices, a low buzz of excitement and anticipation.
The crowd was palpably restless, as if waiting for a show to begin that promised to be the very best in entertainment. There was a half circle of perhaps twenty fires; the one at the center much larger than the rest. They burned with a roar and the crackling sound of sparks flying up with the rising heat until they got lost among the many stars.
Though the air was chilly, she could feel the heat of the fires on her skin as they got closer, passing to the front of the crowd. At the center of the half circle, just in front of the largest fire, there was a small wooden platform with what reminded her of an altar standing on top. It was a much darker color than the wood of the platform, which was made of rough-hewn logs stripped of their bark. She could still smell the acrid smoke of the fires, but now there was something else too; an unfamiliar, almost herbal scent hanging in the air. Maybe they were throwing some sort of incense on the fires. Fire was—is—she reminded herself, very important in Pictish rituals. It cleansed. It told truth. It gave life, and protected it. Her wary gaze skimmed the crowd. What kind of ritual was happening tonight?
It slowly dawned on her that despite the beauty of the night, something didn’tfeelright. As she looked around, trying to make sense of everything, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up with some long-forgotten instinct.Danger. Something bad was going to happen; she could feel it now in the tension of the air. Namet brought her to a stop directly in front of the dark alter. The edges of fear skirted her mind with icy fingers, and she had to work hard to tamp it down. Then King Bridei was walking towards her, and her fear was abruptly, if momentarily, overshadowed once more by sheer fascination.
His skin was golden and his long hair shown in the firelight, which also accented the dark tattoos on his high cheekbones. There was something about him, a primal energy maybe, that drew all of her attention, and she was certain that she could look at him for hours and never be bored with it. He moved with an animal grace, and so much poise and power. He was her fantasy warrior-king come to life and stepping right out of her darkest dreams. And she had had dreams of him…oh had she ever. When other young girls were mooning over the latest gorgeous movie star, Nessa had been picturing herself in the arms of a sword-wielding barbarian.
Bridei came to a stop just beside her. He was so close that she could feel the heat of his body, even above that of the fires, and once more smell the musk of his warm skin. Her heart pounded so loudly that she was certain he must hear it. His hand settled on the small of her back, and only then did she notice that Namet’s hand was no longer locked around her arm; at some point he had slipped away into the crowd.
She looked up at Bridei, and he met her gaze. His eyes were dark, and the dancing flames were reflected in them. They were different than the flames of the torch that had reflected in Namet’s eyes. These flames almost seemed to come from within. The black tattoos on his cheekbones blended into shadow near his temples, but she could see his mouth clearly. His lips were full and soft looking against all of that raw maleness. Something flickered in his eyes as he regarded her, and she felt a subtle pull on her body, or her mind…or maybe it was both. Maybe it was just a trick of her fear and the firelight.
A cheer rose from the crowd, and Nessa tore her gaze from the King beside her to see a man being dragged up onto the platform by a rope around his neck, his staggering, shuffling steps and air of hopelessness holding her bewildered stare. She sucked in a startled breath.
“What’s happening?” she asked in a rough whisper.
“Watch”, he commanded. But he was watchingher. She could feel his dark eyes on her almost like a physical touch.
She did watch; though later, and forever after, she would wish that she had looked away.
A burly man holding a very long, very sharp-looking knife stepped up to the platform. Another stood beside him, speaking in a steady, monotone chant. Her ears strained to hear what he was saying, but she couldn’t understand a word of it, even though the crowd had suddenly gone quiet.
She shook her head slightly in confusion. “That’s not Pictish. What language is he speaking?”
Bridei leaned closer, and his warm breath near her ear made her shiver. “It’s the old tongue. A language much more ancient than our own. The priests use it because it is sacred. Have you never heard it before?”
“No…I haven’t.” How did she not know about the existence of an ancient ceremonial language? Was it in a book that she had somehow missed? A scroll that had crumpled to dust before anyone thought to copy it? How oldwasit? She sighed. If she’d known she would actually end uphere, she would have read and re-read every last book in her family’s collection. Then she at least might have been more prepared.
Her budding curiosity died a sudden and violent death when the man with the knife held it high above his head, shouting his strange, beautiful words to the crowd. They answered as one, every man, woman and child, and she thought she imagined the fires blazing a little taller and brighter as they did. The knife came down and settled against the captive’s throat. The poor man had gone still, his eyes closed, waiting…
She gasped when it dawned on her that she was about to watch an execution…or a ritual human sacrifice? Or maybe a little bit of both? After all, they were not that different when it came down to it. Her mind chose that moment to draw a sudden and horrible conclusion.The altar was a darker color because it was soaked with blood.
And then it came: the pull of the knife across his throat, and a sick, gurgling sound as his lungs tried to draw in one more breath through a butchered windpipe. But before the man could bleed or suffocate to death, the executioner brought the blunt end of an axe down on his head, and his eyes closed forever. An act of mercy?
