Mother?”
“With God anything is possible. You know that, girl.” Magrethe patted Maere’s cheek, then gently directed her with her hand back down to the flat, straw-filled mattress. “For now, try and sleep. It’s almost time for Matins and Sister Aubrey will be most put out if you doze off during prayers.”
Dear Aubrey – her lined face – came to Maere. The image of the old nun tapping the sisters and novices on the top of the head with a thin willow stick as they fell asleep during the two-thirty a.m. service made her smile.
“There, now, that’s much better,” Magrethe said, as she stood and blew out the candle.
“Thank you, Mother,” Maere whispered.
Magrethe nodded as she left the small cell. She stopped outside the doorway to talk to the sisters who had gathered there to find out what the commotion was about.
“It’s the night terrors again, isn’t it?” whispered Sister Bernard harshly. “It’s the pagan soul in her, I tell you. The girl is tainted.” The tall, thin nun made the sign of the cross over her breast.
“Really, Bernard,” another scolded. “Her mother and father may have followed the old ways, but she’s been with us many years now, raised since but a small child to be a good Christian.”
Magrethe frowned. “Enough of this,” she quietly ordered, shooing them away with a wave of her hand. “Everyone, back to bed. Maere’s fine and there will be no more of this discussion tonight.” She offered one last glance at Maere’s now-sleeping form, Sister Bernard’s words echoing in her mind. Pagan soul. Tainted. With a shiver, she closed the creaking door behind her.
* * * *
“Come,” the sweet voice bade. “Come to me.”
Slowly, Dylan mac Connall opened his eyes and rose from the herb-and-grass stuffed mattress that served as his bed. Had he heard something? “Yes?” he whispered. He didn’t want to disturb his teacher, Aethelred, who was fast asleep in the adjoining room.
He pulled on his tunic, glancing about the small plain room that had been his home these past ten years. Attached to the back of Aethelred’s sod-and-timber home, it wasn’t more than five cubits wide and three cubits across. Despite the size, it served him well in his studies and had been a good place to live. If there could be such a thing for him, since the murder of his father, Fox.
“Come,” the voice called out again.
Dylan went to the window and pushed back the homespun curtain. To the west, the full moon was still high in the sky. He should be sleeping, but something inside of him was restless, eager to move. The breeze caressed him, pulled at him. Did he really hear a voice or was it his own imagining? He tugged at the strings of his tunic and went outside.
The buzzing sound of insects vibrated in his ears, urging him forward. He walked in the direction he was being drawn, the same as he’d done so many years ago when Aethelred had called him to her.
It was night then, too, when he’d evaded capture by Eugis’s men. They had been hard after him following the Samhain massacre, after he’d lost Maere and everyone dear to him, after he’d witnessed the murder of her mother and father and his own Da. He’d survived the treachery only by diving into the thicket and tumbling down a steep hill. They thought him dead and left him where he lay.
The buzzing intensified, his senses heightened. He pushed his way through the dense covering of bushes at the edge of the clearing, through the trees and saplings. Then, the faint gurgle of the stream and the tangy scent of the sea touched his spirit and he understood. Morrigu was here.
He hadn’t seen the goddess since the night Maere was born, but he always felt her presence nearby. He somehow knew, deep inside, that she guided him. Cared for him. Loved him.
“I’m here,” he whispered. A raven cawed in the distance, in response. Its raucous song came closer and closer until it seemed to come from all around,