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- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
It is around 400 AD. Rome is still paramount in Britain. From behind Hadrian’s Wall forays are still made into the north. But Roman power is being undermined; on the continent of Europe German tribes are pushing down not only in the west through Gaul but also in the east, crossing through the Alps into northern Italy. A young Pictish girl and a highborn maiden are captured and sold into slavery by Roman slavers.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Return of The Salmon
A story from Pictland
.................. To the Picts who held to their home.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichReturn of the Salmon
Return of the Salmon
A story from Pictland.
It is around 400 AD. Rome is still paramount in Britain. From behind Hadrian’s Wall forays are still made into the north. But Roman power is being undermined; on the continent of Europe German tribes are pushing down not only in the west through Gaul but also in the east, crossing through the Alps into northern Italy.
Embo
Brith flicked her hair out of her eyes and adjusted her knees on the leather mat.
She resumed her work at the quern. “Kirl, kirl,” went the top stone; turning and turning. She drove it round with a wooden baton in the offset depression, while her younger brother poured the grains into the centre hole.
The sun was well up now; they had been grinding barley since early morning. Mother had said that if they had a pot full they could stop and be free to play.
Her dog Bran lay sleeping beside her.
Brith’s arms ached from the motion. She had cast off her plaid in the heat of the work and knelt in her bare armed tunic, her Cènel salmon totem clear to see on her upper arm.
Beyond her lay the sea, today bright, blue and calm.
Behind her lay dark pine forest. To her left rose the broch of Embo. The huts of the salmon Cènel clustered in a clachan round the base of the Dun.
“There, we are finished,” said Brith throwing down the hand smoothed baton.
“Talorc, take this to mother,” she ordered handing him
the bag with the barley meal. The boy rose and went off, the dog leaping up and following him.
Finechta her mother was a hard task master, strict and sharp tongued.
“The tasks have to be done before you can go free,” she had insisted.
Brith rose from her knees and brushed the barley dust from her tunic.
A girl of nine, slim and lithe, a fair complexioned face with raspberry red lips and a full head of red hair.
Her father Bruidhe was chief of the Cènel but still her mother insisted Brith work, saying,
“Life is strange - you may not always be a chief’s daughter and may have to keep your own hearth.”
Bruichan the druid, had hinted to Finechta that Brith had a troubled life ahead of her.
At her birth he had said,
“This pretty bird will be caught in a cage, yet in time shall go free.”
Brith wrapped her plaid over her shoulders and walked off along a well beaten path to the burn. There she washed first her hands then her hair, pulling the long tresses forward and flinging them onto the running water.
And, for a moment, beneath her hair she was absorbed in the sound of the burn gurgling to the sea.
She felt her head pulled back with a jerk, a voice in another tongue spoke harshly.
“This one will fetch a good price.”
She was yanked to her feet and found herself surrounded by warriors clad in armour. They were not of the Cènels or the Clanns.
“Bind her.”
Roughly her hands were bound behind her back.
She heard shouts in the distance, screams, then the clash of arms.The Dun was being attacked.
She was passed quickly to men who already guarded a group of her people, but not her brother nor her mother nor father. Her leg was tied to a younger boy. Like hobbled livestock they stood bewildered.
Smoke began to rise from top of the links above - these men
had set fire to the Dun.
Brith said to herself,
“Look listen, remember, remember this all.”
Muttering harsh words the men prodded the little group to move.
They stumbled off; young women, girls, a few young boys.
By the sun they were taken south.
Two days later the captives were led into a square Dun of newly stripped pine logs. Many metal clad warriors lived here.
The captives were housed in a stable for the night.
But the next morning they were taken outside the camp and there stripped naked. Brith recognises a market. They were quickly sold to fatter men, not warriors, who prodded them and looked at their teeth before they bought.
Her captor chaffed the buyer,
“This one will make a pretty penny in Rome.”
“Aye she will,” replied the buyer, but the cost of getting her there is high. I’ll give you 20 denarii.”
“She will make you a profit.”
The men haggled back and forward. The deal done the fat man bad Brith gather her clothes and hobbled her to the other captives he had bought - some from her own Cènel some from other Cènels.
