It is useless for me to even try to fight. Before I know it, I'm bound hand and foot. Spears bristle all around me, two of them so close to my face that the stink of their metal burns my nose. All the while, the piper sits on his mat, scowling and silent.

Once I am hobbled and tied, someone gives me a rough push. I try to keep balance but I end up toppling like a felled tree.

On my knees in front of the piper, I cannot stop staring at him. He stares right back at me with equally intense interest. He has laid down his pipes, which now rest in the nest of his long, crossed legs. Never have I seen a creature so proud and strange looking. His hair is red-gold, like Dobhar's, but it hang in bejewelled and beribboned braids over his shoulders and down the front and back of him, trailing off in the grass. One cheek bears a dark blue spiral, the other a crescent moon. His brow is striped with jagged lines that remind me of the bolts that come down from sky-fire. And his eyes, oh those eyes! They are palest blue and they shine with dazzling silver beams of starry kenning. His entire person fairly drips with adornments of gold and precious stones, even a gilded ring through one nostril and a crystal stud that scatters rainbows from his lower lip. Every colour I know and a few I've not yet learned are woven into the intriguing patterns of his leine.

He must be a king!

Slowly he reaches out one hand to me, as if his touch might make me break into a thousand pieces or vanish into the air. His warriors all take a step closer, weapons poised. Suddenly, with one flashing slash, my cloak is ripped from my shoulders. His gaze becomes even keener, focusing hard along my bare arms.

He shakes his head. Tiny bells jingle in his hair. There's a muttering from all sides, and I can't understand a word of it except for one - and it freezes me to my bones.

"Verica!"

They think they have captured the Brude?!

Then I am surprised to hear the cry of an osprey very close by. There is not time enough for another thought. Suddenly the entire glade erupts in a bloody clashing madness! I hear screams of battle and pain, the horrible noise of killing, and in the midst of it all Cinaedh appears at my side. He slices though my bindings and I am quick to take out my wee knife from its hiding place, ready to stand beside the Bear-Slayer and fight for our lives.

It is over as quickly as it came. I see Dobhar, Drust and some other familiar figures, along with bloodied bodies lying all around this green grove. I don't see the king. Perhaps he is dead, or perhaps he has fled.

Secure in Cinaedh's arms, all I can do is weep and tremble and say, over and over again how sorry I am for this.