The Torc Part One Storm-enticer

By Gordon M Burns

“No? Not true, Malachias, that by fate of accident long ago, drifting essence became duped to life on Earth? Moreover, once here, split apart onto this azure globe devoid of pity, to wander lost and helpless through a weird entanglement of wordless description and forever kept apart?”

In intellect and looks mundane, Arianwyn - an innate stubborn and kind nature her only appealing features - is born of flawed parents and, ultimately, faces a pathetic future - conformity to the fundamental needs of society and others, closely followed by a lonely, dire death.
Gifted her name by her mentor, the Spaewife, and a chance-fortune friendship with Grainne, provide for Arianwyn a mystery of storytelling and confusing close relationships, which serve as an initiation in the search for the meaning of her existence. However, the manipulative world works to hold Arianwyn fixed to desires of human frailties where, driven by wants and needs and her attraction to the heartless Talorcan, the wanton world conspires to entice her emerging passions to be ruined by his avaricious character. Rash decisions rent deep the hopes of youth and no less, Arianwyn.

Storm-enticer is the first part of five stand-alone books in the epic romantic adventure ‘The Torc’ and covers the life of Arianwyn from birth to age sixteen. In ‘The Torc’, from her Dark Age world, Arainwyn - thrown into the wonder, adventures, loves and terrors of the Roman and Byzantine world of the 6th century - is supported by her friend and wearer of the torc, Grainne. This woman enthralls Arianwyn with her beauty, essence and enigmatic storytelling.
From prosaic and characters of mythical qualities to the Emperor and Empress of the Byzantine Empire, the life spark of Arianwyn beguiles a rich tapestry of characters, each of whom are caught by her charm and, alongside the gusty and earthy events surrounding them, help to build Arianwyn’s self-confidence in leadership to challenge the conventions of mortality. Though troubled by the constriction of her golden torc, Grainne is a constant support for Arianwyn, encouraging Arianwyn to believe that she and Talorcan, they are destined for a special relationship, but what is its nature? Also, Arianwyn and Talorcan, so opposed in nature, can surely never come together as one and defeat the wretched fate the world would have them meet.

Part Two Via Acerbum
Part Three World’s Desire
Part Four Waggle dancer
Part Five Well At World’s End
Revision of drafts underway, completed work proposed publication date end2014/early 2015

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gordon M Burns
• Release date: Jul 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310747113

Gordon M Burns

Writer living in Abernethy Perth Scotland. see my website for more details.

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THE TORC

Gordon M Burns

JULY 2014 copyright©

Disclaimer : This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

©Cover design by G M Burns July 2014

Published by Gordon Moncrieff Burns at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support

Part One

STORM-ENTICER

CHAPTERS

1. THE BIRTH OF ARIANWYN

2.. A DAY IN INFANCY

3. END OF INFANCY

4. ARIANWYN THE GIRL

5. THE LESSONS OF THE SPAEWFE

6. UNCERTAINITY AROUND

7. GIRLHOOD

8. PANGS OF MISCONCEPTION

9. DUNDURIN

10 WELCOMED GUESTS

11. TALORCAN

12. GRANINNE

13. SAMHAIN

14. CALLEACH

15. BETANE

16. PARTINGS

END OF BOOK ONE

POSTSCRIPT ... THE GLADWORD OF ARIANWYN (PORTION OF)

OTHER WORKS BY THE AUTHOR

A look at Torc Part Two VIA ACERBUM

THE TORC

Glossary: yowe trummle: (Scots) a cold, wet fortnight around midsummer, after the sheep shearing.wizzen: (Scots) v shrivelled, shrunken. n the breath of life.

Part One

STORM-ENTICER

"And Arianwyn asked, No? Not true, Malachais, that by fate of accident long ago, drifting essence became duped to life on Earth ?"

(from the Gladword of Arianwyn as recored by Kentigern, Bishop of Glaschu)

1

1

THE BIRTH OF ARIANWYN

AD 526

The world would have its way and tethered to its terror, take hope and spin it to despair for Queen Nia. Along with her women, the wailing waft of woe - and also her husband, King Necthan, draught-full of drunken health - but mostly Nia’s womb-fruit, the centre of attention and a life refuting stillness. An illusion’s folly in the gruesome game for life, fighting against the clay-set stipulation that ‘The World’ would twirl them all in this short, rough ride through the grim eternal cycle. Only ‘The World’s Word’ would have Nia linger longer, for had been only two days of lamentable labour and, tormented even further, she could writhe for one night more. Then, costively, it would allow her rip and ruin in the face of their pathetic pleadings, grab out the life of Nia, haul forth the breathless child and leave them all to fester in their grief.

At the dark of despondent dawning she, the Spaewife, materialised amongst them. Seeping in from her wanderings, she passed through the red-faced plastering of warrior-smirks towards the birthing place, full of flapping-worries, and went straight to the breathless pains of unforgiving agony set within a vortex of vexation in the time before the yowe trummle. There she soothed the mother’s fevered brow, woman-comfort to woman-plight, at the breach of birth.

Breathe easy, dearie, the Spaewife murmured, slowly, deeply, in and out, my poor wee lambie. And all the while, that ancient woman’s voice of calmness was solace to all around that cared.

The queen, two Beltanes past and then not fully fifteen Beltanes old, had, in arduous agony, birthed the king a son, and at that time the Spaewife issued warnings to the king. Nae mair or you will kill her. Dire consequences avoided by other means until, in heat of summer, came a night of jagged harvest rain fit for aught but floods of heather-tainted ale. Fit for little but the slurring of past brotherly bitterness the remembrance of their father in which, Alpin the younger twin brother, visiting from his Kingdom of Athflodda, scratched under the skin of his brother, Necthan of Forternn.

All that night Alpin belittled Necthan’s prowess and in front of all mocked his potency, riling him up with taunts that if Forternn could not rise, then Athfloddda would and seize all that needed ploughing in Necthan’s land. This sent Necthan into a stomp-jig, offbeat temper and, Alpin, leapt at the chance to twist the power from off his brother. Digging the ribs of his four-year old son, Talorcan, he passed the boy a wink then raised a hew and cry for drunken rabble response - Prove it if you can, show us the vigour of your proof! This he repeated three times, knowing full well that all those chanting with him in the hall, save his son, possessed smelt-instinct and were savouring the nearness of the red-moon rising in Queen Nia’s deportment. All through the previous days, granted courtesy and charm as befitted her position, it dominated all around in after looks but on that drunken night it raised lust within, urged beggared-thrills without and, raged by drink, lost all sense of dignity as she became as a rippling red-rag before their bull-like eyes and all women were there to wipe, this time it might not be vermillion.

The tonsil agony of Alpin’s visit suddenly gripped Nia by the throat. Her hands fell like broken scree over her husband’s rock hands as she saw more than the five years separation between them in his hard-set face. Even so, so she begged her husband, for pity-loving’s sake, that the obscene mood be subdued and that all should to retire to bed. The low hoots of jesting and urging on those misguided words received, irked him. Her simple girl-like folly niggled as an itch to which the humiliation of his brother’s caustic piping scorn - how lang marrit? The wee lass will be wondering if you ken what it is for - pricked him deeply. Nechtan responded to the want of all. He reeled Nia by her hair in a primal surge and for their witness - disgraced himself on her gentle grace - stained his soul - rutted eyes, ears and recall - rammed a penetration of the worth of all women into the mind of his nephew, Talorcan, by rasp of pain and boak of semen made - then wind-rolled into his cups of sleep and left the scandalised queen to the management of women.

The result of which was not expected to go this far - but unfortunately it had - and so the Spaewife struggled the feet and legs into a world of endless grief where, shaken from roof beams on cries of pain, soot floated down on the ripping haemorrhage that finally achieved - a gore-drenched cradle of foul excrement and a new life caught by the Spaewife. Woman’s hands took the child no further than the stretch of cord. The Spaewife stemmed the blood with herbs, fine bone needles, gut-threaded with the purest water. Eyes weighed the balance of the queen swinging between life and death, stinging tears at them for her bloodied child as Nechtan broke upon the door swilled by a spill of his supporters.

Out war-lorder! the Spaewife spat at him, this is no place for you or foot-suckers such as these!

Mouth-stuff your tongue, old hag and mind the place of women.

I know my place, brute man, and it is on your back. Nor am I the one who need stoppering hereabouts.

He understood her words; they held him nose-twisted so he snorted out - What is that? - his nose, a wrinkle of revulsion, caught the foul stench that filled the room, forcing short and shallow breathing that hit the back of his throat as an accusation. Before a slaughtered-blood as would match a battle-mud that should not agitate him, he visibly appalled and shuddered. He watched his frail child slip from his wife’s arms and swallowed on his wife’s swoon ebbing on her paling face. What is this I have brought about? He thought.

You have a girl, the Spaewife told him taking the child in her arms, for whose life your queen may yet pay the price, so why are you so tearful? Is it that you fear the bother of a wee lassie if she lives? Aye weel, live in hope then, for the child is a wally-draigle, small and weak and bound to die.

What bother will this litter-runt bring me? He mused for none to hear, and then spoke unto the crone. Have it your way then and bring me its name when you have divined it. Though I would have it called Nechtandochter. He left enfolded in cheers and bolstered by hearty claps resounding on his back.

The Spaewife spat his departing out the door and winching on the ache within her gums, she set unsound teeth upon the cord linking child and mother. Then having bitten through, she cleansed the child of birthing clay and gave orders to bring the wet nurse forth. When cleaned from within, the old woman set the flesh of foetus-feed to searing flames and bade the queen to eat. The queen ate but a little before she slipped into a troubled drowse with the child fading by her side.

Leaving the raven in its cage with neck and head intact, the guts in place and not bloodied in the bowl, she went and faced - king, warriors, druids and all men who thought themselves free and above the likes of her. She did not flinch, she knew the name to gift and refused to play druid’s delusion farce for sake of any man and told them straight, the child’s hallowed-gifted name would be - Arianwyn. A name sacrosanct for the child and as such bestowed for the good of all. A child of this name was pure silver, holy and spirit-twinned with truth.

Arianwyn? Questioned the king suspiciously sensing more than a name giving at work. That is not a Pictish name. A gut feeling churned at the break from tradition. How will others in the world view it? Do they not expect things as already set? What is so wrong with Nechtandochter?

Your name for her is one with no clear cause other than greed and fist-first for your will only. Think yourself anointed do you? Well, none of your oil on that lass’s head, this name for her is meant and the only blessing she will ever need so, foolish man, accept it as a blessing for the sake of all, and raise her by the name.

A warrior came to the king. Come on man, drink an ale to wet the lassie’s head. The horn of ale the man held at Nechtan’s face smelt stale below his beard and the daze of drink, the hold of the men lifted from him and he turned his back on them. Once more, he went through to where his wife lay and saw the women quake into the room’s recesses at the very sight of him. Fearful of his might, a girl slave cleaning the floor, cowed eyed and gripped the foul straw as a protection against him. He saw all this and was ashamed. Woefully he glass-eyed the ghostly-grey pallor of his wife caught in the mist between life and death. He looked and saw his child failure to take the wet-nurse’s teat. Beheld the life-skill of that woman to express the warmth of goodness onto the one weak swallow of the child. He watched as the babe gave up and closed her eyes on parted lips and regarded a bead of milk ringed as a silver sparkle in the cradle-angle of her mouth. A silver-slither of a thread linking lip to lip that stirred a string, which played his heart. He heard her the wizzen cry, he saw her wizzen body, he wished to take her in his arms but bit his heavy lower lip as the wet nurse gently wiped the fleck away.

The trouble this unwhelped quine will bring is what? He muttered to himself.

Then in a sudden fleen Nia shot up, banshee eyes searched for their mark and fixed on Nechtan King. All heard her wail of words. Here to gloat, eh, King of Squat? Should I be praising our wedding day, Nechtan? That fateful day set by your frosty father on fair spring blossom. Her voice wisped away like falling petals until, on a verge of bile-rise in her throat, she glorified her soul-purpose from this day onwards. This I rejoice, husband. The day your father, Talorc, went face-black. The hour his tongue a swollen worm within his mouth, shrivelled him as a nut and left him lonely on the floor to die. Once more, her voice weakened but not so, that he had to strain to hear the rest. Hear this my braw-brash-brute! No man or woman in man’s thrall will treat my girl as they have me! Then she fainted back into a sleep of laboured breathing.

Nia had scored the core of Nechtan but he saw no road to atonement. From that harsh summer’s night to this spring’s point he had withheld from Nia his supporting love, offered no understanding of her tribulation through winter unto now and showed no pride in her happiness and hope for the new life he had forced into her. He smelt the Spaewife close. The rankness of a sun-rotted, storm-cast seaweed made him turn prepared to be levelled before her, only to find calm eyes set on him. He listened to her wisdom.

Ach, what do you expect of yourself, you are but a man and only half the spirit of yourself. The other lies there, lambasting you from a dream-world. That part has will to live and yet may have the strength to do so. As may your lass. Nechtan, set aside your craven curse of manly mantle and be nurture for your children.

From behind her stain of peat-brown cloth, the Spaewife drew forward a toddler on her withered hand and presented to Nechtan his son. Below hooded eyebrows, Nechtan stood and gazed at Nechtanson. On weight of a heavy jaw, from in his red-rimmed eyes and from out thick lips he muttered acknowledgement of the boy, beholding the untarnished childhood of shining hope before him. He stroked the unkempt beard that framed his worn face. Nechtan’s heart-wrench brought the Spaewife as a shimmer of a summer haze to him that, through his winter-wind-watery eyes, seemed to life years off her, rid her rankness and make her serene.

Shaking his head from this reverie, he snorted quickly on a sudden smile. Come, Nechtanson, and see your bonnie wee sister. And taking that small hand in his calloused grip, led him over earthen floor of freshened straw. Then as in a hayfield’s summer heat, he told his son. Her name, Arianwyn, is special and so is she. He caught the scent of violets from the Spaewife and breathed deeply of her essence. Full and deep he breathed her purity, his chest and lungs filled to bursting and, with shut-fast eyes, loudly and slowly through pursed lips he emptied all his lungs. All those invisible elements trapped therein, were banished from him. Finally, when he could exhale no more, he raised his lids to view his family anew. Once more breathing in his nose filled with scents of hay and violets. Spaewife, clear the drunken rabble of men from under my roof. Tell them there are sheep to be shorn before the yowe trummle.

2

"Eventually he played a chord. Will that one do, my Lord? the harpist asked anxiously."

A DAY IN INFANCY

Nechtan admired his queen in the palace garden weeding. The beauty of nealrly eighteen summers on a wintered paleness; chill mementos of her birthing thorns. Below his feet his daughter idled, a little apart his four-year-old son gloried in a dub of drying mud. The daughter, bored with men talk, began her private game and though Nechtan’s unseeing eyes fell on his daughter, his thoughts mulled over the words of the man.

Nechtan pondered the politics of the proposition but the distraction of the marvel at his feet wandered his thoughts. Below him was the ceaseless-thriver who though all that childhood illnesses had brought upon the edge of darkness, contradicted what should be and lived these two years past. Though diminutive in stature, outwardly weak with quirky looks and a ceaseless bewilderment set on round and open lips, she was magnificence itself, fingering below and sat on the dirt. Only he never noticed the last detail for the sheer joy she gave him, for from the time of infant constant crying - when Nia plunged into a downward spiral from which he felt she would not return - he had lived his days and nights with the aroma of his daughter’s hair infused into his face. However, this day he breathed the oily liquid that the wizard presented to him and detected a deceiving sweetness in his nose linked to a sharp intoxication above the bridge of his nose. The man beside him stirred in his stance and brought the overwhelming power within the spirit rising up to rob Nechtan of all self-will. Without thinking, he tasted the liquid and swallowed sourness disguised in cloying sweetness and traced the flow of burning heat as it seared into his core. Is it by this wizard’s heather distillations that my brother’s eyes raise beyond the borders of his kingdom? A potent burning draught, emboldening no doubt, but as misleading as all weasel wizard words.

The libation is a gift from your brother, a stimulant I prepare for him. The wizard told him, although his eyes intently watched the child below their feet. The wizard’s tongue licked out the corner of his mouth at the game she played with fingers with herself. So many freckles on the face, no doubt her body too, but that one is the dandy of them all.

You look where you should not, wizard. Nechtan placed his daughter swiftly on his lap, smoothed her tousled red-fair-hair and bounced her on his knee.

I only see what she shows me and such does not interest me. Mind you, it leads to a portal plain enough to see as a peace offering between you and your brother. Nechtan did not hear these slimy words for he had melted once more before the innocent beguilement in his daughter’s trusting smile and the delight that glistened in her hazel pools for him. He felt a thick tightness in his throat that came when she giggled at his tickle. She would play well on any knee. She would raise more than a swan’s neck to take a glimpse, being as she is your daughter, Nechtan.

Still he did not hear the man’s crude speech for now he saw his son, Nechtanson, glancing puzzlingly at his sister’s glee. The father bathed in contentment seeing the boy returning to scrape shapes with fingers in the mud. The girl squirmed below his tickles. You have no idea of what you ask, no understanding in the slightness of the slender thread that holds her life. You see her as she seems now but this is new-gained by much grief and effort, not least by her. Let her be a while.

Undisguised scorn soured the sycophantic wizard’s face as he bared file-sharpened, yellowed upper teeth and spoke. Is that your answer, the one you expect me to hand to King Alpin, your brother?

The reply was swifter than the wizard expected. The queen will not agree. The boy is too young. He stopped jigging his daughter on his knee to listen to this man’s reply.

Come now, King Alpin is your younger brother, you know the man. Think of the future of your daughter. Even you must see that one like her would only be a guddled throw away for such as Talorcan will be, if she were not, as I say, your daughter.

Nechtan paused to consider if indeed he did now know anything of his twin brother or that son of his, in the desolation of the fastness of Athflodda. He knew the abrasiveness in which his father had raised his them both. Knew himself to be over-passionate by nature. Quickly fired at times but loving, now granted a second chance, of Nia and their children. His boorish edges smoothed by his wife would gall his brother for Alpin’s womenfolk had splintered from his brother’s side and become lost into a murk of mystery. He sat in a blankness of thought, a mist of threads that disappeared as he tried to fasten one onto the other. Bored by his lack of attention on her, the girl’s playing fingers wandered back to her private game.

She has your nature and is an ettler. That one will take to it and take it well, like a hind in season for the stag, he pointed out how she played, if evidence seen here is to be held to red-rag days.

In one smooth, caring, gentle action and the king straightened his daughter’s ragged hem and eased her play-fingers away. He cupped her hand in his palm and lightly tapped it with the other. She gleamed up at him smiling, then skimmed into simpers as he tittered tickle-fingers beneath her chin. A sprinkling of shivering delights exploded inside her, which made her squeeze her face against his hand. He buried his head in her hair, the smell catching in his throat. Before his eyes could fill, he swallowed, forcing down the taste of bitter spirit from the wizard druid. He set his heart and mind. He looked at man and met his eye.

She has nature of her mother in her also.

And one cannot help but speculate on what form that might take on, eh?

On words too far, Necthan sneered, fanged at the druid and set his mind in three twitching eyelid flickers to the thought of fie all diplomacy. See you, sharny-spurtle, my answer is no. The wizard appeared mockingly maligned. Aye, you heard me straight, pederast, the boy is too young, so tell that brother-mine that I might just, just mind, reconsider him for fostering when he is seven. As for this one, he looked into his daughter’s hazel eyes, she is too dear to us, heart-cherished and we shall keep her close. Arianwyn is an embrocation of soothing between my queen and I, if you have the wit to understand such things, and for now we will not have her separated from us. He looked away blocking any further discussion. So there you are, you have it.

Nechtan! He gladdened before the furious face of Nia, caused by her frustration of him. Look at your son, just look! I leave him in your care for just a moment and you let him play in mud. I ask you, just look at his state. Honestly, Nechtan, I thought I could trust you by now.

Till sun should rise no more, he said, the reprimand accepted. Then, carrying Arianwyn in his arms, he went to help his wife. As he walked away, he turned to the man and blanked the slight that raged within the wizard’s feeble frame. Ask my brother, to allow us yet a little time to enjoy the bosom of my family, here in the shelter of Forternn and the palace of Forthuirtabaicht. Take the message to my brother with greetings of goodwill. The wizard’s annoyance needed one more dig. Now, Murtholic, there is a laddie and go to it, you have yourself a safe journey back to Athflodda.

3

"Unclear beginnings struggle to be understood."

END OF INFANCY

A sound forced seven year-old Nechtanson to look up. A song of stone and oat, dared him to peek and seek from whence it came. He shot back down for did not wish discovery by eyes and certainly not of those his sister’s. However, he keeked up once again to see where she might be.

Below the adult world - to which he was beholden for everything - lay beneath him. The women, free and slaves, waulked the song to the spin that fed the quern stone’s hungry bite. That whirling gritty-song, dirling to the grinding of the grain made his hunger all the keener. The warming heat of day would have to do as food. He watched the washerwomen, baskets laden high with woollen cloth, descend the slopes to the washing stones by the waters of the May. Was he but like a speck of dirt that they wished to wash him from his home? He had seen anguish in his mother’s eye, the reluctance of his father’s will to have him go. The tear drops from his sister.

What works the world of grown-ups? He thought and on that thought pressed down into the thatch until another strain upon the air, the hammer and the heated iron, set to a choir of warriors clashing at their arms and enticed him to look up again. In fields, he saw the labouring thirlfowk. The free folk of Forternn, his folk and kin. The sheltered ones who, in deference to his father’s strength, submitted as his kin, electing him as their king-protector of all that was owned by everyone; kailyards, barns, byres, fields and houses and supreme above all this, set by the palace door, the boar-headed totem of his kin. A hand went to his neck where he wore his new tattoo. An adult enticement built up as something big boys do but when the muttering was done, no more than a prick of stinging pains made by a druid with sour breath. Dirt beneath that wizard’s nails and all cloaked in secret-dark