long and hard about whom to promise her to, and when,” her father said. “Certainly none of the oafs around here are proper suitors. Not that they haven’t tried. I have to keep myself from laughing each time one makes an offer for her hand. They all smell like billy goats and have as much money to their names.”
A chair creaked. “Vortipor will hold great power one day.”
“You are sure he will succeed you?”
“He’s already one of the war chieftains, and I will arrange things. I’m near forty winters, and the road is hard. Soon I will … I will rest, yes. And if I rest, then my sister, Queen Igerna, will agree to Vortipor’s advancement.”
“Does Vortipor have an annulus pronubus?”
Vortigern coughed. “A troth ring? You want to do this Romanlike, eh? Why not a handfast? We could bind their hands — and lives — together tomorrow if we wished.”
“It is my way. If you don’t like Roman customs, we can call it off —”
“No, no. Your method just takes so long.”
Her father’s voice became demanding. “So … you are saying he does not have a ring?”
“Ahh, he could come up with one.”
“Do you require a dowry?”
Vortigern snorted. “From you? In exchange for your timely support, I require only the things to make a home proper for a woman. Of gold, nothing. Vortipor has won much spoil. He already owns a large house on the coast near Regnum.”
“It is agreed, then,” her father said, sending a shiver down Natalenya’s spine. “A sponsio before you leave. How long will you stay?”
“A day, maybe two. But why have a formal betrothal ceremony? Just let him ride away with her!” He laughed.
Natalenya fumed at this. What a swine!
“That is not our way,” Tregeagle said. “An agreement now and a proper ceremony later. The most propitious would be after Vestalia. Maybe the second half of Junius?”
“Come, Tregeagle … it would save you the cost of a wedding.”
“Her mother would not agree —”
“Who says she has to agree?”
Both men laughed.
Natalenya chose that moment to leave, her heart racing three times faster than her quiet feet could take her. Back down the hall she flew, past the bend, and to the culina, where she put the wine back and slid the stone slab over the enclosure.
Turning around, she nearly collided with Vortipor, who towered over her, his face in deep shadow. He raised his arm threateningly above her.
She flinched and tripped back, knocking over a basket of grain.
Dybris sighed as he placed his last rock on Abbot Prontwon’s cairn, which stood on the very top of the mountain. If he’d thought that losing Garth’s allegiance to the druidow had been hard, this was worse. How could Prontwon have died like this?
This worship of the Stone had to be stopped — changed. Somehow.
The sun set as Brother Crogen’s soft voice chanted over the new mound, calling out for God to guard the dead abbot’s body, soul, and spirit. The other monks echoed his words. At the base of the cairn, Brothers Nivet and Migal placed a stone marker carved with the cross of Christ.
Dybris gazed at the cross a long time, remembering how he’d met Prontwon when the old man had visited their abbey on the coast. Brushing a tear from his cheek, Dybris recalled the abbot’s firm hand grasp and friendly smile. His call for Dybris to join them at the mission up on the woodland moor. His counsel. Laughter. Sternness. Teachings. Hard work. Care. Someone coughed, and his memories fled. The cairn stone with the carved cross came into focus again.
In that moment an idea sprouted: a way to defeat the druidow and bring the villagers back to Jesu. It was dangerous, and Dybris knew it might fail. He looked out to the bleeding sun sinking in the west — and smiled for the first time that day.
Yes … he would dare it.
Merlin and his father smithed together for the first time since Merlin’s flogging. While they worked, his father described to him how the blade’s bevels became smooth and straight. How the tip formed a more graceful arc and the tang was lengthened.
During each heating, Merlin worked the bellows while his father tended the coals. The bellows were positioned near the window so they could suck in the extra fresh air and feed the fire. More than once Merlin reached out and touched the new iron bars his father had fit in the window. No more wolves will get through there, he thought contentedly.