Blood Heritage – Historical Romance

	Front Cover

NOTE: To be published August 2010 by Equilibrium Books.

ISBN 978-1-921456-37-4

http://www.equilibriumbooks.com/bloodheritage.htm

Inge cowered in the corner of the turf cabin clutching her bairn to her breasts. The black knight stood before her holding her husband in one mailed fist and a screaming bundle in the other fist.

‘Is your woman suckling?’

The small man could only nod in reply for his tunic was so bunched around his throat that his face began turning blue in the suffocating grip. He was released, and fell on the earth floor. The tall man held out the bundle to the woman.

‘Feed this thing.’

She took the child to her breast, giving it the nipple, never taking her eyes off the spectre of death before her; a thin face, framed with lank grey hair; a thin cruel mouth below a thick moustache; and although a young man, fatigue had scored age lines down his cheeks and underlined his dark eyes in black. He was dressed in black chain mail, red with rust and blood, a long-sword hung from his belt. His leather boots she noticed were clean; from crossing the river, she thought, inconsequentially.

The couple were farmers who owed allegiance to some heather lord they never saw; only his maoracht, a steward, who collected tribute once a year. Transplanted from Ireland years before, they were trying to raise a herd of small black cattle and grow crops in this glen. They were Gaels; they understood this intruder’s language, better than the speak of their Caledon neighbours further up the glen who were Brythonic Gaels, called Picts by the Romans. These Irish and Pictish families, like hundreds of others in this mountainous country, lived in an uneasy peace with each other.

‘Feed my horse,’ was the warrior’s command to the husband. He took a swallow from a flask at his belt and a spoonful of porridge from the pot hung over the central hearth. He was so tall that the pointed tip of his blue steel helmet touched the roof thatch. But then the hut was not a big one.

‘Who are you?’

He addressed the woman, who was comfortably feeding two babes, eyeing her large breasts with an interest she found unsettling. She understood that he meant; ’what is your family’s ancestry?’ This subject was the defining of a man or a woman although not so important in her case, in the Gaelic culture. Few, very few, among the Scots were literate; each child learned to proclaim his lineage as soon as he could understand words. They were often the last words spoken by a warrior before his death in battle.

‘My man,’ she intoned proudly, ‘is Faelan mac Oengus mac Natfraech mac Core of Cashel in Ireland; we are of the cenel Gabrain. I am Inge.’

The man sat down on the only stool in the hut. The husband returned and stood at the door.

‘I’ve unsaddled your horse Lord, and hobbled him in the grass behind the cabin. Here are your saddle bags. What else can we do for you?’

‘I am Comgall mac Gabrain mac Fergus mac Fergus of the cenel Gabrain like you; and prince of Dalriada-in-Alba,’ he added as though it was of little moment to anyone. Each Scot thought himself equal to any king, or nobleman. All could trace their ancestry back to some king or other, however mythical, even the meanest farmer like this one. He began stripping his armour, his chain mail overcoat and leg coverings. Comgall gave the impression of a man who acted from instinct. Untrue; for he gave a lot of thought to his decisions, he just didn’t however share his thoughts with anyone. And tonight he must decide what to do with the child; whose arse the woman was now cleaning with docken leaves.

‘I’ll sleep here tonight. Then I have to get back to Dunadd.’

Faelan indicated the raised turf sleeping platform, and with a nod of his head to his wife, said, ‘we are honoured to have you here. You can have my bed, Lord.’

‘And your wife,’ thought Comgall.