Chapter 1

The weather had turned. A heavy drizzle was coming down and everything felt cold and dank. Kristabell shivered as she climbed reluctantly out of the warm bed and began pulling on the sturdy travelling clothes that Fenna had dug out for her. Rowan was already dressed and was buckling on a sword belt. He watched her pull on the boots.

“I haven't seen those in years,” he chuckled.

The castle was quiet as they walked to the kitchen for a quick breakfast. There was a fire blazing and fresh bread with butter waited on the table. It was still very early. Rowan wolfed his food down. “Take your time. Eat a good breakfast,” Rowan said to her. “I have a few things to do, just come down to the stable when you're done eating and we'll leave from there.” He kissed the top of her head, hugged his mother and sisters who had just walked into the kitchen, then strode out the door.

Kristabell sat at the big table and ate bread and figs and drank some of the fresh milk that Nessa had just brought in from the dairy. Nessa, Fenna, and Bronwen sat with her but they didn't talk. When Kristabell stood to go Bronwen rose and looked into Kristabell's face. “I've always felt that I should have had three daughters . . .” A strange sad expression passed over Bronwen's face and she opened her mouth as if to speak but then thought better of it, closed her mouth, hugged Kristabell, said goodby, and then left the kitchen.

Fenna and Nessa walked down to the stable with her. She felt heartachy and uncertain and was relieved to see Fenna wiping at her face first. She turned and hugged Fenna hard then hugged Nessa who was getting more sombre looking by the moment. “You'll be fine,” Nessa was saying gently. “Nothing bad will happen while your with Rowan and Leif.” And Kristabell wondered what, exactly, was showing in her own face to make Nessa say that.

“Thank you for letting me take Strawberry.” Fenna had introduced Kristabell to Strawberry the previous afternoon. Strawberry had been Nessa's horse as a child but she was far too tall now for the little skewbald mare with the pink vaguely strawberry shaped mark on her nose. Strawberry was gentle, easy to ride, and according to Nessa, darn near impossible to spook. In short, perfect for someone like Kristabell who had never ridden in her life.

“Don't worry about it. She's the only horse here that I would let you take even if Rowan hadn't asked first.”

Kristabell slipped her foot into the stirrup the way Fenna had shown her, pushed herself up and swung her leg over, then Rowan was riding up to her on his own massive black warhorse. Kristabell stared at him for a moment. He was wearing a sort of light armour, was armed to the teeth and looked efficient and dangerous. It was a part of him that Kristabell didn't know. Unbidden the memory of Rowan slaughtering the elf in the forest the first day, the first moment, she'd known him came to her. It just didn't jive with the Rowan she knew.

“Hey . . . hey . . . Don't look at me like that. I'm still me,” he said as he pulled off his gloves and manoeuvred his horse next to hers.

She nodded and he reached across taking her face in his hands and kissing her then wiping away the tears that she couldn't seem to get a handle on. “I love you,” he told her and looked into her eyes and smiled so that she would smile back like he knew she would. “We have to go now. Did Fenna show you how to canter and what to do if we break into a gallop?”

She nodded.

“This might be strange for you, just remember that I love you. Okay?” he was still looking into her eyes.

Kristabell nodded again then Rowan pulled his gloves back on, took hold of Strawberry's bridle and kicked his big war horse into a trot. Kristabell pressed her feet into the stirrups as Strawberry followed suit. They rounded the corner of the stable to where several of his men were waiting. Rowan signalled them to follow and they fell in behind. Kristabell looked behind her as they turned down the road that lead to the gatehouse, at Fenna, standing alone now in the rain. Kristabell raised her hand in farewell and Fenna's hand went up in response. Kristabell's greatest hope in the world at that moment was that someday Rowan would bring her back and that they wouldn't need to leave, ever again, then Fenna was out of sight and there was a lurch in Kristabell's heart.

When they reached the gatehouse, forty-eight armed mounted men in uniform waited in formation. There was a small barracks in the gate house that had been sufficient to house them for the night and now they stood stock still awaiting orders. Rowan motioned to Leif to come wait with Kristabell and she watched from where she sat, on Strawberry's back with Leif next to her on a giant dun horse, as Rowan handed out orders. He didn't bark or yell. He wasn't a cold bastard but even though he wasn't loud or aggressive Kristabell could hear in his voice and see in his look, an iron expectation of complete obedience. It was strange. Ten men peeled away from the main group and started east at a brisk pace, then Rowan selected six from the main group who immediately lined themselves up on Leif's other side, then Eric, whom she had met the night before, rode away in command of the twenty nine remaining men.

Rowan turned to the small group of men who were left behind. “Brian has already explained to you what we are doing today. Are there any questions?” He gave them a moment. “No? I realize that this is somewhat irregular but I do expect you to be courteous and watch your talk while my wife is with us, and thank you for volunteering. Thaylum, Cole. Take the point. Fredric and Ivar, I want you at the rear. Lets move.” And that was it.

They followed the main road until they came to a narrower track that angled to the northwest. Kristabell watched the men as they rode. They were all tall Scandinavian or Celtic types. The darkest hair she could see was a light golden brown with the exception of Rowan and a very young man at the front. The one Rowan had called Cole. He was a bit shorter too with a solid build. He had black hair and pale skin with big brown eyes. Not dark, wild, almost black eyes like Rowan's, but soft sweet dreamy eyes, like a cow's eyes or a seal's eyes. He had turned in his saddle two or three times and stolen surreptitious glances at her and when their eyes had made contact he'd grinned and given her a goofy salute. They were all wearing the same light functional armour as Rowan. It wasn't like the armour that you would see in a museum in the world that she had come from, although it had obviously evolved from it. These people might not have the technology of her world but they were not without their own sophistication. These were highly trained men. Each had a sword at his side a quiver of arrows at his back and a crossbow or bow at hand. Some, like Rowan, had a row of small daggers sheathed in their saddles. Kristabell suspected that they were for throwing and she also suspected that only the ones who could throw with deadly accurate efficiency would bother carrying them. Despite the fact that this was a casual ride she could see the men constantly scanning the deep cathedral like forest, always on alert. Rowan was restless and would ride to the front and stay there for a time then pull his horse to the side letting everyone pass, taking the rear.

“Is he always like that?” she asked Leif, who was still beside her.

“Yes. Very much so.”

Brian, who rode on her other side, added to this, “He is always this diligent. He never assumes that every man is doing his job. He makes his presence felt and it keeps the men diligent. Nothing would be so humiliating as having your commander do your job for you.”

She watched as Rowan rode once more to the front of the line. She had asked him once how it was that he had come to be a knight. “My grandmother, my mother's mother, has been the elected head of the King's council for the last fourteen years,” he'd told her. “It is common with some families to send oldest sons to be pages in the King's castle. I think in part because my grandmother was there and because my father had done it as a boy, it was simply something that my parents saw as a part of a boy's education. I didn't want to go and I told my parents that I wouldn't go without Leif. I don't think that they expected us to find places as squires and then make careers of it, but I don't think that they expected a full blown war either.”

She looked at Rowan again. He looked so much older, stern even, sitting astride his war horse. Brian's voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you know how it is that your husband came to be Captain of the King's Army?”

“Rowan told me that he fought well in a particular battle. I don't think he's very comfortable talking to me about fighting.”

“Is that all he told you?” Brian asked.

Kristabell told him everything that Rowan had said. “He said that it was three years ago. He said that, he 'guessed' he'd fought well.”

“That's really all he said?” Leif questioned in an incredulous tone.

“That's all,” Kristabell said softly, looking ahead at Rowan's back. “Why, is there more?”

“Not only more. For him to say that 'he guessed he fought well', is the understatement of the century,” Brian told her. “He won the battle for us. He stopped what would have, most definitely, been a decisive loss and turned it into a decisive win. We had received faulty intel. Rowan suspected it but no one else did. He said that it didn't add up over and over in the war council. He was twenty and had made it to the rank of Lieutenant already. He was in command of a small regiment that included Thaylum, Fredric, Cole—he had just joined—, Leif here, and about twenty others and even though he wouldn't disobey orders he secretly came up with a backup plan just in case he was right and we were being double crossed. And we were. Our army departed, so we thought, to intercept the enemy but we didn't find them where we thought we would. We were ambushed and forced against the base of a mountain. Rowan saw it coming from miles away and broke his regiment off from the main body of the army. We were being picked off by archers from above. When it was apparent that we were losing we realized that the double cross had come from the top, and that the entire army had been handed over on a silver platter. The captain of our army, a man named Tor, had changed his colours and was killing off his own men. Now you have to understand that when the exiled prince turned against the kingdom he took certain people with him. Supporters who, for various reasons—desire for more power, dislike of the Fay, a hankering for more land or more money—would rather have a new system. Although we didn't see it until it was too late, Tor was one of those who had turned. He and Rowan had never seen eye to eye. Tor recognized that Rowan was popular amongst the men and that he had remarkable skill and promoted him in the hopes of controlling him that way. He recognized that Rowan would be a dangerous enemy, but Tor always hated the Fay and while he was never public about it, it was known that he was not unfriendly to the idea of forcing them out of the kingdom.” Brian paused before asking, “You're er . . . new, to these parts? Am I correct?”

Kristabell nodded

“Well,” Brian continued, “What we have now is essentially two overlapping kingdoms. It has worked for eight hundred years and there is no reason to change, but some feel differently. When the battle was, as we saw it, a complete loss, and all we could do was try to go out with a bang, Rowan's regiment snuck into the fray and attacked from the behind. At the same moment, what looked at the time to be about half of Seamus' army, turned and started attacking their comrades. Rowan had managed to procure some eighty enemy uniforms, still don't know how he did it, and Rowan's regiment plus the eighty men hidden in the enemy ranks managed to break an opening. The archers from above didn't know who to shoot at any more. It was mass chaos but we managed to gain the upper hand. Rowan single-handedly fought his way to Tor after that. He fought Tor in single combat. This was a man in his prime who was bigger, and more experienced. Rowan took him down.”

“He killed him?” Kristabell asked, her voice small and thin.

Brian nodded.

“The first time I ever saw Rowan, he was killing an elf who was about to kill me. Sometimes I find it difficult to reconcile his two sides.”

Kristabell sat quietly astride Strawberry's back thinking about everything, the tall armed men in front and behind, Rowan, the story Brian had just told her. Knights. I am surrounded by Knights. Something that didn't even exist in this capacity in her world. She was, for all intents and purposes, married to a knight. She loved him and she would follow him anywhere, but it didn't make the situation any less surreal. In the world she had come from she would never have attached herself to a military type.

At what felt like lunch time they stopped. Rowan rode up to her and dismounted with ease, “Are you very stiff from riding? Here let me help you.” And he reached up and took her waist as she swung her leg over Strawberry's rump, so that she wouldn't stumble as she dismounted, not that Kristabell was ever particularly clumsy, but he was right. She was stiff from sitting, especially in this cold damp weather. She was glad of the heavy green wool hooded cloak she had been given. Rowan opened her saddle bag, took out a wooden box and passed it to her. “Fenna packed you a nice lunch. The rest of us got bread, apples, and cheese.”

He took the reins of the horses and lead them a little way off the path, stopping near an old moss covered nurse log where they could sit and eat. Rowan pulled a piece of oiled canvas out of his own saddle bag, spread it on the log and sat leaving room for Kristabell. He was right about the food, Fenna had packed her a nice lunch. Leftovers from last night's dinner. Lima beans that had been baked into a casserole with potatoes, cheese, butter, onions, and marinated greens, and a piece of apple pie. She had no idea how sitting on a horse could make her so hungry but she was glad to eat and sat silently, concentrating on her food. “We'll be at the stronghold in about two hours. The men will make camp outside and I'll take you in.”

They ate then walked for a few minutes, hand in hand. Kristabell pretended that they were alone as Rowan walked her back to Strawberry, kissed her, and then made sure she was comfortably mounted. She couldn't help notice, though, the way they were watched by some of the men. That odd curiosity. Thaylum, even at dinner the night before, had looked at her with a sad fascination. Sometimes she wondered if there was something that everyone else knew that she simply wasn't privy to, but she told herself that she was being paranoid.

*

They had left the track that they'd been travelling on and were forced now, by the narrow trail that they were following, to ride single file. They didn't stay on the trail for long and came out onto a path. The path, obviously, rarely saw cart wheels or even horses hooves as it was mossy and grassy green. They followed the path for maybe five minutes, the moss muffling the sound of the horses hooves, when Kristabell saw Rowan stiffen. He gave a signal then cantered back to where she was riding between Leif and Brian, took hold of Strawberry's reins and lead her off the path and deeper into the trees, his eyes scanning the forest all the while. He drew her horse around to the other side of a tree trunk as thick as a small house, then turned to the others who had left the path at his signal. Rowan motioned to the two men at the front to go ahead on foot and make sure the path was clear.

“What is it?” she whispered to him, feeling uneasy and not only because of Rowan's sudden order to move them off the path but because of the achy feeling in her bones.

“I'm not sure but I thought that I heard something that was out of place up ahead. I'm not taking any risks today.” He didn't tell her not to worry, he just reached out and touched her cheek then rode over to Leif. She couldn't hear what they were saying. Brian gave her a reassuring smile but she had an uncomfortable feeling. Like there was a dark current moving closer to them, closing in. The two scouts had returned. Apparently there was a small band of elves and men on the path ahead, about twenty of them. Rowan cursed. Kristabell could see the worry in his eyes. He didn't like being in this situation. He turned to Leif, “We'll skirt around to the north. There's a grove there and the elves don't like the groves, then it's not far to Lugh's stronghold.”

Leif nodded.

They began picking their way north through the dense undergrowth of the forest. The going was slow and tedious. There didn't seem to be any sign of people but there was a hum in Kristabell's head and the ache in her bones was getting worse. She looked back and one of the knights who was taking up the rear looked back at the same moment. She saw him loose his crossbow. “Rowan,” Kristabell's voice shook as she said his name, the pain getting worse and fear creeping through her. Suddenly Rowan reached over and grabbed her, pulling her onto his horse with him.

“Ride west!” he shouted, “They're on us at the rear!” He ordered his men to turn. They rode as hard as they could through the forest, low branches whipping them. “Stay down,” he told Kristabell. She held on to the horse's mane, staying as low as she could and holding on tight with her legs. Rowan's bow was in his hands and he was loosing arrows rapidly. She could hear the arrows hitting their marks and the sound made her want to vomit. They broke out of the underbrush. This must be what Rowan referred to as the 'grove', she thought.

But it wasn't a grove anymore. The trees that had been standing in the mossy area that was free of underbrush—beautiful, magnificent, majestic trees—were being pulled down by men as elves stood by watching. Oak, birch, rowan, cedar. The oaks looked as if they must have been hundreds of years old and there were standing stones in the centre of the grove, but they had been toppled. Kristabell realized that this was where the pain, that was running through her body now, was coming from. The trees were screaming in her head. Rowan shouted an order to cut west across the edge of the grove to get them back to the dense forest where there was more shelter. Kristabell caught sight of an elf, crossbow in its hands raised to shoot but too slow, as Rowan loosed an arrow and the crossbow fell followed by the elf. The elves were strange and almost human looking. They had bloodless skin, black eyes and hair that had an unnatural depth of colour, with faces that could almost be beautiful yet somehow weren't. They looked hard. Like the closest thing to a smile they were capable of was a sneer of malice.

They hurtled back into the dense forest. Two of Rowan's men fell. Arrows were falling all around them. Another man fell. Leif leapt from his horse, sword in his hand and placed himself between the advancing elves and Kristabell and Rowan, who was still loosing arrows at rapid speed, but it wasn't enough. They were outnumbered and surrounded on all sides. Kristabell could feel terror and panic filling her breast. Rowan had dropped his bow and now had a death grip around her middle and his sword in his other hand. “I'm sorry my love. I'm so sorry,” he whispered. Leif was backed up against Rowan's horse as elves and cruel looking men closed in on them. Kristabell had no idea what she was doing, but something was building inside her and it felt familiar. It built until she couldn't hold it in but now she knew what it was and she welcomed it. She let it loose and felt the world shift around them. She grabbed hold of Leif's armour and then grabbed the reins and pulled hard. The forest, the elves, the men with swords and axes all disappeared.