The Winding Road of Fate
 
 

by
 
 

   Michael Lee-Price
 
 

     Copyright © 1999
 
 

He stood impassively studying the sky, aware but impervious to the encroaching dark clouds from the north, and watched as an eagle majestically soared across the azure blueness above him.

His lips curled into a bemused smile as the memories of the day when he scaled the craggy cliffs of Tailltiu to retrieve an eagle feather for her filled his
thoughts. He remembered the embarrassment he felt when, under her watchful gaze from the beach below, he had misplaced his footing and was sent hurtling to the ocean below. She had found it all very amusing, after her
initial reaction of anxious concern, watching him resurface an emerge from his watery encounter with the dripping wet eagle feather clenched firmly in his hand.

He laugh out load, and turn to find the were abouts of the recipient of his gift. Beneath the shade of a sacred oak she sat, plucking wild flowers and fashioning them into garlands, for her hair. Her beguiling gaze greeted his and she mouthed the words: "I LOVE YOU" as a gentle smile creased her lips.

An overwhelming sense of dread filled ToR's soul.  Clara was in her ninth month of child and although, his concern for her outweighed all other considerations, this nagging sense of impending doom persisted.

Spring had returned once more to the Isle of Monapia and although cold winds and gale raised seas lashed the northern coasts , the sun finding cloudless skies for a change to pour forth welcome warmth on the cold earth, also brought the raiding Scotti bands from Erin.

Clara's loving smiled changed to a thrown as she noticed the worried expression crease her husband's face,  and before she could venture to ask what troubled him,  the sound of the watcher's warning horn had filled the valley,  as if in answer to her unspoken question.

A raid.

"Hide!" yelled ToR, as he unsheathed his sword and ran to where others of his tribe had gathered to dispel the invaders.

The Scotti's large ships could now been seen approaching the beach and worried clouds swiftly skimmed across the sky, as if racing to to shield the afternoon sun from the heart break soon to be felt in the serene coastal village of Doa^D`anu.

Clara lingered, camouflaged in the bushes, to watch the onslaught. Twice the defenders broke against the pressure of the invaders. The Scotti looted and then burned two huts and bored away the wife and young male child of Howart.  ToR and his close friend Vultix remained in the thick of battle heading the defenders counter attack and refusing to retreat when the others of the tribe broke and ran. The death of her clansmen was horrific to witness but nothing prepared her for the nightmare that followed.

She suppressed a warning scream as a sword thrust aimed at ToR's back was taken instead through the heart of a intervening Vultix but it was the swing of the club which caught her husband from behind as he went to aid his fallen comrade which would torment her heart and soul until the day she died.

She fought back tears and bit hard into her hand to hold back her cries of anguish.

"Vow me this, Clara" she remembered ToR had recently said, "If the raiders come and from your hiding place you witness me fall, for the love of our unborn, do not break from concealment. Do not reveal yourself. Remember...  I will always Love you!"