Cover Reveal!
Book 1 of the Celtic Highland Maidens!
The Maiden of the Storm -- look for it at your favorite retailers soon!
Here's a rough excerpt:
Riana watched as her father and his creepy adviser led his men to their
door, throwing a dirt-encrusted form near her feet. She stood with her
sister, Aila, watching her father with a measured expression. Life had
calmed since the supposed peace treaty with the Romans, the lie that it
was, yet here was her father bringing conflict right to their door.
Riana bit the inside of her cheek and shared a knowing look with her
sister. Typical.
The damp air of the evening combated the warmer air of the wheelhouse, and Riana gathered her woolen, checked breacan more
tightly around her shoulders. After her father’s men deposited the
dirty form on the floor, they gave him curt bows and departed. Only Ru
and Dunbraith remained.
“Take care of the man, will ye, Aila?
Riana will help ye. Bandage up his arm. Make sure he has use of it. He
will need it shortly to work in our clan.”
“Work in our clan?” Riana asked, spinning to her father as he made his way to the door. “What do ye mean?”
Ru sighed at his daughter, hating how she always seemed to second guess
him. His oldest child, the eldest of six daughters, she most resembled
her mother, these years-long dead. Her deep red hair, like blood on the
earth, fell about her shoulder in wild pandemonium, untamed by circlet
or headdress. She wore it loose, in the way of the Caledonii, long and
curly.
Of a fair size, the tallest of her sisters, she exuded a
sense of leadership and authority that burned from the green of her
eyes. Her ferocious sense of responsibility was a gift from him, that Ru
well knew. She reminded him of his own youth, an unfortunate trait in a
daughter. At least she wasn’t always taking off with a bow at her back,
unlike her younger sister. Who would marry a willful woman who also
served at the hunter? What would be left for her husband to do?
Not that anyone had yet asked. Most young men cowered in the shadows of
the bear-like chieftain and his warriors, so few dared to ask about the
lass. Nor would anyone Ru had met meet his own high standards as
potential suitors for any of his daughters.
And though he wore
his tough exterior inthe same way the Romans wore their armor, when it
came to his daughters, he was pudding on the inside. And his firstborn
daughter of his tribe, for her he had the softest heart.
Until
recently, when some of her actions threatened her safety and the
security of the family. Her delicate features and smooth, womanly skin
belied a sharp tongue that questioned every decision he’d made as of
late, and his temper reared its ugly face to Riana more often than he
cared to admit.
So when she questioned him this night, in front
of the injured Roman and his man at arms, ‘twas the last straw. He bit
the inside of his mouth to stop the roar of anger that erupted inside
him, yet his words still held a tone as sharp as a dirk.
“Lass,
the man needs to use the arm, as a one-armed slave is of no value to
me,” he growled at his daughter, putting her in her place. Aila froze in
her place by the downed man, her own deep green eyes wide with fright.
“Help Aila heal the man so he can live.”
The giant of a chieftain gave his daughter a final glare and exited the roundhouse into the cloak of night.
Riana remained where she stood, mouth agape, shamed at being chastised
like a bairn. Her face burned as red as the fire in the hearth in the
center of the wheelhouse. She daren’t look at her younger sister out of
fear of losing the tears that burned in her eyes and threatened to fall.
“Riana,” Aila called to her, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Help me with the man, aye?”
Riana wiped at her eyes with her plaid cape and moved to her sister’s
side. Scarcely shorter than Riana, Aila’s interests lay far from
leadership and confrontations with her father -- rather she saw herself
as the healer for the camp, hoping one day to train under a crone-healer
to learn all she could. As part of her commitment to healing, Aila
believed she needed to remain untouched. To accomplish this, she wrapped
any skin exposed from her low-belted léine, or plaid arasaid tucked into the belt if the weather were cool, in strips of flax linen. Only her fingertips showed.
Unlike Riana, Aila also wore a headdress that covered her neck and most
of her hair, with only vermilion curls escaping around her pale face
that she painted with stripes of blue woad. If she weren’t a full healer
in her own mind, she surely presented herself as an accomplished one in
her outward skin.
Tonight they would need to rely on whatever
healing skills Aila did have to heal the man. Riana lifted the man’s
strange tunic, noting the stain of blood. ‘Twasn’t the wound itself that
either Aila or Riana worried about, ‘twas if pus sent into the wound.
Any man could recover from a strike to the shoulder. Recovering from the
curse of heated pus, however . . .
Riana caught Aila’s matching verdant gaze as she squatted next to the man. They both knew the ending to that curse.
“Have ye the herbs to treat the lad?”
Aila snorted. “Nay a lad, a full man just with lean muscle. His chest
is well-formed, which means he is well-fed, and we can hope hale as
well. If he be that, then the herbs I have should work. Praise Airmid.”
“Praise Airmid,” Riana echoed. Calling on the Goddess of Healing may
not help, but ‘twouldn’t hurt, and they needed all the assistance they
could get to help the Roman.
“Put him on my pallet,” Riana directed, clasping him as gently as she could under his injured arm.
Aila grabbed his other arm and they dragged him to her padded tartan
pallet, flipping the furs to the side so he wouldn’t bleed all over
them.
Riana turned to the fire and fed it some peat, its flames offering a dancing light by which Aila could treat the poor man.
And truly, ‘twas what Riana thought of the Roman. Ripped from his
legion, assaulted and left bleeding on the floor of their wheelhouse,
and now needed the surgical aid of a young, untested woman. Poor man
indeed.
Though his body surely pained him, the man had remained
silent, unmoving. Riana moved to toe him in the ribs when Aila spoke.
“Help me remove his léine, so I can properly treat his arm.”
The Roman was limp as they tugged and yanked, finally pulling the
stained garment from the man. Riana gave it a sniff, and in a quick
decision, tossed it into the fire. He would be given new clothes
reflecting his enslaved status once he was healed.
If he healed.
“Do ye have the skills for this Aila? His wound seems significant.”
Aila’s studious face didn’t shift but remained intent on the wound.
Small beads of sweat glittered across her forehead. She sniffed in
disgust at Riana’s implication of any lack in her skills.
“‘Tis no less than Eian’s wound these months past,” Aila answered in a low, flat tone.
She stuck her finger inside the open wound. The Roman’s reaction was sharp and immediate.
His back arched as he inhaled a screech. He trashed about, trying to
throw the women off. Riana pressed her weight on his torso, and the man
stilled, gasping loudly.
“Weel, we ken he’s no dead,” Riana stated.
Aila retrieved a bowl of hot water from the pot above the hearth. Her
stark gaze caught Riana’s. “Hold ‘im again. He will no’ like this.”
She poured the scalding water into the wound. This time the man screamed.
Riana placed her hand on his forehead, whispering subtle cooing sounds
to calm the man. Aila scrubbed the wound briskly, then added several
grains and crumbled dried leaves into the water left in the goblet. She
mixed that into a paste that stunk up the entire roundhouse.
Riana crinkled her nose in distaste, running her hand over the strangely
short hair of the Roman, as though he were a child. He stayed still
enough at her efforts, allowing Aila to apply a thick layer of paste
into and over the wound. She then wrapped his arm with strips of flaxen
linen, protecting it while it healed.
“‘Tis in Airmid’s hands
now,” Aila said. “We will ken in a day or so if feverish pus sets in. If
it does, his woes over his enslavement are over, as he will die soon.
But he seems a strapping man. Mayhap he is strong enough to heal well.”
“Ye forgot the third possibility. If the arm is diseased, he will lose
the arm, and father will turn him out on his own devices, where he will
surely die. Poor lad. ‘Twould seem all his options are sorry ones.”
“Aye. Ye are right in that, Riana.” Aila gathered her items and removed
them to a wooden box in her area of the roundhouse. “Watch over him for
a bit, will ye? I’d rather nay speak to the man. Ye can break the bad
news to him if he wakes.”
Riana cut her a sidelong look. Leave
it to Aila to get out of the dirty work, delegating it to Riana. Though
it seemed a nasty trick, Riana was used to it. Between her father,
stepmother, and sisters, they all left the less desirable endeavors to
her. The injured Roman notwithstanding.
She stood and nudged him with her toe again.
“Roman, are ye awake? Roman?” She hoped the young man spoke some Gaelig, otherwise ‘twould be a rough several months for the Roman. The man groaned in response.
He tried to say something in his strange language, the one that had too
many “us” and “ee” sounds. How did one learn such a redundant-sounding
language? She squatted down to be nearer to him.
“Try again, Roman,” she said in a low tone.
Her eyes flicked around the wheelhouse. Her stepmother was behind her
partition, as were her other sisters. ‘Twas only herself and this man at
the hearth in the center of the house. She rubbed her hands over his
hair and face in gentle swirls, trying to bring him to life.
He spoke in his language again.
“Ye need to speak the Gaelig, Roman. Have ye the tongue?”
“Aye,” he croaked, then feel back into oblivion.
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