Stone Heart

Chapter 1

The old druid coughed and the coarse sound of it rattled across the grasses and the herbs outside his home. His tribe, led by their chieftain, came one by one to his bed, whereupon they would touch his hand and he would tell them their truths. For Áed, eight winters old, he assumed he had no hidden truths to tell.

The men of the clan had been off at war since before Beltaine, the fire celebration that marked the beginning of summer, fighting a foreign force that had brought massive warships to their shores. The wives and children that had been left behind had heard nothing of the fighting in the east since it had begun.

Áed stamped his feet on the cold ground. It was almost Yule and the sun was weak. A black storm fogged the southern horizon and it was coming in fast.

The line of tribeswomen and children before him stretched beyond the old druid's garden patch and across the central field in which Ultán would normally perform his ceremonies. But he had been bedridden since Samhain, the festival that celebrated the end of harvest.

He shuffled forward as the line moved, an older woman coming out of the druid's roundhouse, her face contorted in tears. Áed wondered what her truth had been.

'What kind of truth makes a woman cry?' he asked. He clung tightly to the deer-fur cloak that was pinned around his shoulders. He could see his breath on the air before his face.

'Hush, child,' his mother said. 'Show some respect.'

Doirean had kept her children close to her since her husband left for war last year. Áed had been too young for war, but that did not stop his mother from entrusting him to his father's smithy. Before he went to battle, his father, Airic, had gone to his knee in front of his only son and said, 'Continue to learn the metals, and look after your sisters. You are the head of my house while I am gone.'

They shuffled forward again.

'If Ultán knew he was dying,' Áed whispered, 'couldn't he have done it in the summer?'

Grainne, his sister, lowered her head and chuckled into her fist.

Doirean smacked them both on the back of the head, and then she adjusted young Bec in her arms. Her youngest daughter, whose real name was Maebh, was known among the settlement as Bec, meaning small, since the moment that her tiny legs could carry her around and she was capable of crawling through the narrowest gap in a fence or barred doorway.

They could hear Ultán's cough again as the line of people moved forward another step. Áed was convinced the old man would die before they made it to his doorway. He strayed aside from the queue and kicked a stone, but his mother pulled him back.

When the skies opened and the rain lashed them, nobody moved, respecting the will of the gods. Ultán had served the tribe for more than fifty years and speaking to each of them from his deathbed was an honour that no one would fail to fulfil.

Áed groaned and now even Grainne, a year younger than him, nudged him to silence with her elbow. She was shy and homely for the most part, preferring to learn the arts of weaving from her mother, or picking flowers from the gardens to string into a crown for her mother's head. Áed, on the other hand, would much rather tumble in the fields, chasing the sheep as though he was a mighty warrior destined for greatness.

All boys had the same dream: to fight in a great war and return home the victor, rich in property and land. Since Áed was old enough to walk, he would brandish a wooden sword and shield and he would fight against his friends, each desperate to outmatch the other.

The grasses, browned from the winter, flattened against the wind and the line moved again.

When they had reached the old druid's door, they waited to be called inside. A much younger druid, who had come to the tribe's sept at the request of Ultán to act as his aid in his failing health, opened the door and asked that they enter.