The Age of Scorpio Read Online Free PDF Page B

his hand.
    She could hear the sound of voices raised in jest and laughter, accompanied by the crwth lute, bodhran drum, the feadan flute and the triple pipes, though they were playing softly. People would be relaxed now. Cruibne would have displayed his largesse but there would still be business to discuss.
    Britha rode to where the rest of the horses had been tethered. She did not like that there were not nearly as many guests as she had expected. She dismounted Dark Cloud and slipped the rope off her neck. Talorcan watched impassively as Britha whispered into Dark Cloud’s ear. Then she slapped the large pony on her flanks. Dark Cloud was free to roam. She knew to come back close to Ardestie once night finally fell. Even a pony trained for war by the Cirig was no match for a pack of wolves or a bear, both of which lived in the forest to the north and east of them.
    Britha turned towards the feast.
    ‘Why haven’t the others come?’ Britha asked Talorcan, seeking as much information as she could find before she had to join the feast and play her part. Talorcan just shrugged. ‘Do you receive many compliments for the way you use your tongue?’ she asked. Talorcan finally smiled but didn’t answer. Britha sighed and turned, heading towards the feast.
    ‘Look at the size of this head!’ Cruibne said. The hulking grizzled old man held up a massive misshapen skull that had been embalmed in cedar oil. Rents and cracks in the skull had been filled with pewter. ‘This one gave me no end of trouble, I tell you!’ The mormaer was wearing his best plaid trews – well, his only pair but it looked like he had dunked them in the river – and a new blaidth . He had iron rings in his beard made from the blades and spearheads of dead enemies and a thick white-gold torc around his neck as befitted his position in the tribe. Similar torcs, also of white gold, were wrapped around either arm. Because of his advanced age – he was in his late thirties – most of his skin was covered in the tattoos that told his story, armoured and protected him. What skin that wasn’t tattooed tended to be scar tissue. He was missing three fingers from his left hand and two from his right. Part of his skull was misshapen and no hair grew there due to a blow from an axe swung by a sea raider not three years past. ‘A sea demon! Allied with the Goddodin!’ The Goddodin were a tribe of Britons to the south, constantly warring with the Fib and the Fortrenn.
    ‘Or another small man with a huge swollen head!’ Britha smiled. It had been Ethne who had shouted. She was Cruibne’s oldest and fiercest wife, a heavyset woman of an age with Cruibne and just as scarred and tattooed as he was. In battle she could be looked for standing next to the mormaer or driving his chariot. Like the rest of the cateran she wore a thick silver torc around her neck. Ethne had killed more than one of Cruibne’s other wives whom she had felt was getting above herself. There was laughter at Ethne’s comment.
    Good. They were already in their cups . Britha had brewed the heather ale herself, an old and secret recipe. Cruibne had made sure that there would be more than enough of the uisge beatha , and he was not drinking as much as he appeared to be.
    ‘Och woman, you spoil all my stories. Well I tell you, it was worth taking his head. Look how much drink it holds!’ Cruibne tipped the massive skull and drank deep from it, much of it running down his neatly trimmed beard to the sound of more laughter. Cruibne had a hundred skulls and a hundred stories.
    Some of the guests at the feast were starting to notice Britha’s quiet approach. Her hood was up. Much of what she did was about performance, a lesson she had learned early in her training. Hush spread across the feast. She had timed it well: the sun was bleeding into the sky and the light was changing. The time between times, a good time to evoke the Otherwold.
    The quiet was broken only by the sound of one of the