Chapter 1

The sun rose feebly in the sky, the first rays of spring warming the ground. Anna and Catherine had taken the opportunity to leave the rath, the excuse being to look for first tiny blossoms of the season, the real reason to converse away from the ears of Raymond of RathSteele.

Anna spread her cloak on the ground, and kicking off her shoes, stretched out and wiggled her toes in the grass, enjoying the sensation after a winter in thick woollen socks.

'You won't be doing that much longer Anna', Catherine grinned down at her friend.

Shading her eyes from the weak Spring sun she looked up at her best friend and foster sister. This year they would be eighteen summers old, ten of them spent as foster siblings. Before the fortnight was out Anna would be married to a merchant from Dubh Linn, ten years her senior.

Catherine would wed Joseph, Anna's brother, within three moons, when he returned from his own fosterage with Catherine's clan. Raymond of RathSteele had been sorry to see him leave; Joseph had been found nearly dead in a little coracle washed up on the shores of RathSteele when he could not have been more than five summers old. Raymond adopted the boy with the deep brown eyes, and hair as black as night. With Anna as his only natural child, Joseph became his son and heir.

''Tis a travesty, Catherine,' Anna grumbled. 'I may as well be in Orkney as be in Dubh Linn. 'Tis the end of the world.' Raymond had made the match when John MacHyde sailed north the previous Spring. Anna had thought him a peacock; his elaborately embroidered light cloak and mantle ridiculous in the bright cold Donegal Spring. But he had coin and connections and Raymond had agreed.

Catherine sighed in agreement. The MacHyde lands were four days away by boat, down the coast between the islands, and on the border of the Viking settlement of Dubh Linn. 'I know it seems so far now, but remember, as part of your marriage contract, MacHyde did agree that he would bring you to Donegal for the old festivals of Bealtaine and Samhain.'

She understood Anna's fear of leaving their home, but Catherine's own worries were different. She and Joseph had exchanged places, and he had been fostered by her own sire, chieftain of the neighbouring clan to the lands of RathSteele. As a sister she loved Joseph dearly but she was only the bride in this political match. Knowing her expected future from the time she was fourteen summers, Catherine had resigned herself to fate.

'It's not the same and you know it.' Anna repeated to herself softly, twirled her fingers in the grass and rolled onto her belly. Looking at Catherine staring up into the sky, Anna seemed to read her mind. 'It might not be a love match, but at least you get to stay in the land that you love, with the people that you love.' She brushed an escaped tendril of Catherine's long blonde hair off her cheek.

'But marrying a merchant will take you to all sorts of strange lands, with different tongues and people.' Catherine longed to hear the storytellers weave their fables of faraway lands. She wasn't entirely sure if they existed, but in her imagination it was heaven itself.

Anna paused, chewed her lip, rolled back onto her back so she too could enjoy the rare sight of the blue sky, '...he deals with the Viking in Dubh Linn...' There hadn't been a Viking raid in five summers, but the fear was still there, the imagination of sinister long ships on the horizon, preying on the fears of all who lived within a league of the coast.

'Is it not bad enough that I have to leave home, as a prize to ensure better trade with Donegal, as well as play hostess to heathens who have ransacked our shores?' Anna could not soothe the unease in her belly. Thinking of MacHyde during their one and only introduction, in his ornate garments, failing to hide his paunch and his overloud laugh made her cringe. She did not trust him, but could not say why.

Catherine looked across at Anna, and wiped the tear running down Anna's cheek. 'Sweetling, you know your father means the best for you. Think of that scriptorium and a library to rival Clonmacnoise he said he had. I would dearly love to see those illuminated manuscripts. It is said the monks worked on each one for years.' If his manuscripts looked anything like the man, they would be gaudy indeed and unpleasant on the eye. Anna pressed the heels of her palms against her eyelids, trying to block out the garish view of MacHyde.

Catherine sat up, pulled her knees to her breast and rested her chin on them. The pause in chatter did not last long. Sighing, she stood up, nudged Anna gently with her foot, hitched up her skirts and ran down to the stream. 'Last one in washes the linens for a sennight!'

From the oak trees south of the rath, two men were looking down at the antics of the girls below.

'Well, brother, is that her?' The blond man looked to his right. He had straight fair hair tied with a leather thong. He wasn't smiling now, his normal good natured face set in a frown.

'Ja. That is she.' MacHyde's betrothed He pulled off his helmet and ran his hand through his unruly hair.

'If you weren't quite so tall, little brother, that fine red hair of yours would make you appear an Irishman.'

'Ellrik, my hair is not the subject today.' He nodded towards the women 'That is what is important, and you gibbering on about hair as if you were one of those wenches. You'll be discussing silks from Byzantium next. Besides you know where I got my hair from, unlike the typical Norseman you are.'

Ellrik shrugged. 'I can see that the little brown haired one is comely, but her companion could warm my furs any day. What say you I bring her too?'

'You might be more clever than you appear, Ellrik, but if you take her, she is your responsibility.' The peacock MacHyde had cheated Kristr out of a piglet's weight in silver the previous Winter, and Kristr did not take lightly to this affront. Kristr had paid the scout, Johan Flynn, plenty of coin, and his report did not disappoint. Johan, sired by a Irish father with a Norse mother, and with a foot in each world had great skill in getting even the most secretive to reveal their deepest thoughts.

'Her name is Anna of RathSteele.' Ellrik raised an eyebrow. Kristr liked to be prepared, and today was no exception. He decided to test his fiery haired brother.

'And what is the name of that blonde beauty?'

'Catherine.' Kristr narrowed his eyes at Ellrik. He would not make this easy for him. He knew his good natured brother wanted to play, and ease the tension of their plans.

'And? Who is she to marry? Or is she to take the veil and hide in one of those Christian convents?' Kristr gritted his teeth at the mention of the faith.

'She is to marry Anna's brother, Joseph.' Ellrik saw Kristr's plans clearly. By taking both for ransom, Kristr would retrieve the silver owed to him, by the men of RathSteele father's purse or from MacHyde.

Kristr stared down at the women splashing in the stream. That tiny brown haired slip of a girl was too pretty and innocent to waste on the odious MacHyde.

Patting his shoulder, Ellrik said 'I know how important this is to you, brother. We have time to talk of that later. Now, let's see to our horses because they'll have a tiring ride back to the coast and our longship'

Starting on their walk through the woods towards the stream, Ellrik once again could not resist teasing his brother. How is your Gaelic? It's been over a year since you have been to Dubh Linn.' Ellrik finally smiled, his blue eyes twinkling, the creases around showing his good nature was displayed often.

'Better than you, Ellrik, and by the time the ransom comes, they will be speaking Norse. I have no time to dance attendance to women.'

Drying off their feet with Anna's cloak, the pair pulled on their socks and shoes again. 'That was refreshing. Don't the first outdoor bath of Spring, Anna?' Catherine shook out the damp cloak, and Anna shrugged. Another game of childhood ending.

'Come, let's go through the woods home, I want some willow to make a new basket for my stitching.' Linking arms, they headed to the woods.

'Let's stay to the outside of the woods, I'd not want to come across an angry boar.' From they were little girls, Raymond had lectured on the dangers of the woods without a chaperone. No amount of pleading to learn to defend herself had worked on her father. Once again, I'm nothing but property to marry off, she thought. No rights of my own, to be passed from one man as daughter to another as wife.

Shivering from their dip in the river, the cool green light of the woods didn't let many of the weak sun rays through. Keeping a brisk pace to try and get warm, Catherine and Anna didn't say much, and in the stillness, they heard a crack behind them. Boar! It had to be a boar, but Anna did not want stay around to hear its meanacing squeals of attack. A surge of panic fled through her as she and Catherine grabbed hands and started to run, aiming for the rath, but as they saw the welcoming blue skies again, they were stopped in their tracks by a giant blond man. Spinning on her heels Anna grabbed Catherine to run the other way, but locked eyes with another giant, this time with red hair and grey eyes blazing like Toledo steel. She gasped when she saw the leather bindings he was holding, and her stomach lurched. Frozen with fear, she could hear her blood rushing though her ears, and saw stars in her eyes.

She could hear Catherine sobbing, 'Anna, run! You must raise the alarm!'

'I don't think so, Anna,' the red haired giant said in Gaelic with enough of an accent for Anna to realise he was not of a rival clan.

'Vikings!' she finally found her voice screamed as loud as she could. 'Viki...' The words fell away as one calloused hand covered her mouth, and another pulled on her long nut-brown braid.