Pagan Fire Read Online Free Page B

smiled tightly. “Now, are we in agreement?”
    Maere seethed. Her first thought was to shake the evil out of the girl. How could she call herself a friend and then threaten to betray her practically all in the same breath? It was so hard to control the temper she felt brewing a good deal of the time. It rested just below the surface of her skin and threatened to lash out when she least expected it. Always avert your bad thoughts to the Virgin Mary and ask her for forgiveness, Abbess Magrethe kept telling her. But she knew the other sisters whispered that her temperament came from being tainted as a child, raised wild by the Keltoi. She sighed. “Agreed.”
    Seelie’s face lit up and she clapped her hands together. “I knew I could count on you!” She turned to leave. Maere touched her arm and she turned back. “Yes?”
    “There’s one thing you must tell me before I’ll lie for you, Seelie. Where exactly will you be during the time we are supposed to be practicing our prayers?” Why’d she even bother to ask? She knew the answer before the girl spoke.
    “With the young monk.” Seelie leaned forward and giggled. She whispered into Maere’s ear, “We’ve made arrangements to meet in the old hermit’s cave near the outer wall. And when I return, I promise I’ll tell you every last detail.”

Chapter Three
    Dylan cast a final glance to the sky as Morrigu’s raven form disappeared from sight. With a sigh, he pushed open the door to the home he’d shared with Aethelred these past ten years. The rising orange-red sun glowed in the morning haze, outlining his body as he stood in the portal.
    Aethelred glanced up from where she sat at an old worn table in the center of the plain room, squinted against the filtered sunlight, then returned to her work. The clatter of the wood mortar against the clay bowl as she ground plants and roots grated against the stillness of the morning, and Dylan’s nerves. It seemed so out of place with the experience he’d shared with the goddess, learning the ways of a man and a woman both the night before and, then, only moments ago.
    He walked in, ducking his head to avoid the dried herbs that hung from every rafter, nook, and cranny. As he pulled out the chair opposite the old woman, the pungent odor of garlic and rosemary filled his senses. So many days and nights he’d spent in this very seat, since that first night when she’d found him running from his would-be captors. The rhythm of Aethelred’s work, combined with the warmth of the room, took him back to that time. Back to the night he lost all that was dear to him, everything and everyone he loved.
     
    Just a boy of fourteen, he had stood between the dying flames of the many Beltane festival fires, clutching Maere’s white mantle to his breast. It was all he had left of her; all he managed to grab when Eugis rode off. Dylan tried to pull Maere off the horse but it was too big and too fast for him. How did this come to pass, he wondered, that his father and Maere’s kin should be murdered? That his newly betrothed should be stolen from him, dragged off screaming into that Beltane night?
    The people of his village, chased away by Eugis’ men, were gone. Dylan was sick and disoriented, vomiting over and over onto the hard ground until there was nothing left in him but the bitter taste of bile. He watched, in dazed silence, as the fluids his body had given up flowed into the hot coals of the sacrificial fire, simmering and then evaporating in the heat.
    Eugis’ men reappeared. “There he is! Grab ‘im!”
    Dylan, crouched near the ground, spun around on the balls of his feet. Three men on horseback were almost upon him.
    There was no escape through the hot embers of the Beltane fires to his left or right. He scrambled to his feet, kicking up dirt behind him, and bolted for the forest. He ran fast and hard as the attackers followed. The low underbrush and sharp brambles tugged at his stocking covered legs. The plants