LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Late June AD 873—Manor of Baelle Heale, Forest of Arden, West Mercia, now modern-day Balsall Common, near Birmingham, England

      A late-morning heat haze shimmered on the water meadow, where a cloud of blue butterflies rose in the slight breeze. Peace personified. Ansithe, middle daughter of the ealdorman Wulfgar, whose manor lands included the meadow, breathed in deeply and made a memory before adjusting the quiver of arrows she’d slung over her back.

      The water meadow in bloom with yellow, pink and blue wildflowers had to be one of her favourite places in the whole world. No one bothered her here, or complained that she was weaving a cloth of dreams instead of a woolen one. Her eldest sister’s jibe earlier that day about Ansithe’s housekeeping standards and how no one decent would want a widow whose weaving threads always tangled rankled. She had run the household capably before Cynehild and her young son had arrived, fleeing the Mycel Haethen or the Great Heathen Horde of Danes’ inexorable advance in East Mercia. And she did her best thinking outdoors, always had.

      Someone had to work out a way to save their father and Cynehild’s beloved husband who had both been taken prisoner. They could be freed, according to the message from the Danish warlord who held them, for a price, gold that they didn’t have. He had sent the severed finger of Cynehild’s husband to back up his demand. If Ansithe could engineer a way to free them, then maybe her father would understand she was indispensable to the smooth running of the estate and any talk of her entering into a new betrothal would cease. One unhappy marriage was enough for a lifetime.

      She withdrew an arrow from her quiver, imagining the tree knot was the commander’s head, but the sound of tramping feet made her freeze.

      Ansithe retreated to the shade of the great oak which stood at the edge of the meadow. She concentrated on forcing air into her lungs. It would be nothing—a deer if she was lucky, or a wolf if she wasn’t.

      She turned slightly. Her heart skipped a beat. The Heathen Horde, here in Baelle Heale rather than where they should be—fifty miles to the east in the conquered lands. Openly. And not skulking in the shadows or keeping to Watling Street, the Roman road which ran a few miles from Baelle Heale.

      Ansithe flattened herself against the oak and watched their progress as the group of warriors emerged from the woods. They seemed in no hurry and in no mood to conceal themselves.

      The lead warrior, a tall blond man with broad shoulders, put his hands on his hips and examined the water meadow as though he owned it. She admired his chiselled cheekbones, and tapered waist for a long heartbeat until she noticed the large sword hanging from his belt alongside the iron helm. Her blood ran cold.

      She wanted to scream that it wasn’t his land, that the people here were not weak and lily-livered like the Eastern Mercians, giving in without a fight, but managed to choke the words back.

      Shouting at a warrior was likely to get her killed. Despite the sentiment her older sister had recently voiced about her reckless, mannish ways, Ansithe knew she possessed some modicum of self-preservation. She concentrated on keeping still and silently willing the warriors to move on.

      The warlord turned his head as if he’d sensed her unspoken defiance, gazed straight towards where she stood and took a half-step towards her, saying something to the others with a slight smile on his lips.

      With trembling fingers, she notched her arrow in the bowstring and muttered a prayer to all the saints and angels. Just when she thought she would be forced to loose the arrow and fight to her death, a wood pigeon arched up into the sky, launching itself from a branch above her with a loud clap of its wings.

      Another man pointed to it, giving a harsh laugh and saying something that Ansithe didn’t quite catch. Her warrior nodded, but gave one last searching look at the oak before striding in the direction of the river.

      Ansithe lowered her bow and drew further back before his ice-blue eyes spied her again.

      She knelt on the ground, grabbed a handful of dirt and raised it.

      ‘I will defend this land or die,’ she vowed.