Read Online The Knights of Christmas by Suzanne Barclay - Free Book Online Page B

valley and up through the trees to the hilltop. Slowly they approached the circle of ancient stones where the ceremonial fires had been lit from earliest times. Piled in the center were branches of rowan, for luck, and oak for strength.
    When all were assembled, Morag, the bent crone who was the keeper of the flame, stepped forward. Holding a torch in one hand, she began to chant in the lost tongue of the Celts.
    â€œWhat is she saying?” Duncan asked stiffly.
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    â€œShe’s calling on those who have left us, telling them we come to honor them, to praise them...”
    â€œAnd to protect the living from harm,” Duncan added.
    Kara smiled. “You’ve been to a Samhuinn before.”
    â€œAye. Long ago with my parents. I thought it exciting. We danced around the fire, calling the names of the dead.” He grimaced. “Pagan nonsense.”
    â€œYou need not stay.”
    Duncan hesitated, fifteen years of Niall’s dictates warring against the lure of an old, pleasant memory. As the fire crackled through the dry wood, he stared deep into the flames. The scent of wood smoke and the low musical litany of old words swept him back. He remembered sitting on his father’s lap, watching the fire, listening to the seanachaidh, the clan storyteller, weave tales of times gone by. In turn, the other folk told their own stories, adding the thread of a loved one’s life to the tapestry.
    His father had spoken of his mother, a woman of rare courage, keen wit and dazzling humor. “I’ve been lucky to snare such a lass for my own,” he’d added, gazing deep into his wife’s eyes. “She’s the only woman I’ll ever love.”
    â€œNor could I love another,” his mother had whispered. “If aught should happen to ye, I’d curl up and die myself.”
    â€œDuncan?” Someone shook him. He started, surprised to find the fire blazing high and Kara watching him.
    â€œYou had a vision, didn’t you?” she murmured, the firelight playing over her exotic features.
    â€œI did not.”
    â€œYou saw something in the fire,” she insisted.
    â€œI was thinking about my parents. Naught more.”
    She smiled slowly, softly. “And what do you think a vision is, Duncan MacLellan? A blast of unholy light and a whiff of black smoke?”
    â€œI did not have a vision.”
    â€œCall it what you like, you saw—or remembered—something that eased your soul.”
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    Duncan looked away, but he could not escape the fact that she was right. He remembered what he’d forgotten in the grief of losing his mother and being sent to Threave. He remembered how much his parents had loved one another. Small wonder his mother had never wed again. Small wonder she’d died a scant two years after losing her beloved husband.
    Duncan remembered something else, too. He remembered the last words she’d spoken to him.
    â€œI wish I could live to see the man ye’ll become, my love,” she’d whispered. “I know ye’ll be as great and good a man as yer father was. But I cannot bear to be without him, and so I must leave ye. I stayed till ye were old enough to find yer way.”
    He hadn’t understood then. Now he did. She’d hung on, a hollow husk, till her son was old enough to care for himself.
    â€œIt makes all the difference, doesn’t it?” Kara asked.
    Duncan looked at her, touched by the compassion glowing in her eyes. “Aye, it does,” he admitted. “But it was not a vision.”
    â€œWhatever you say.” She grinned cheekily. “Are you not going to ask what I saw in the Samhuinn fires?”
    â€œI’m afraid to.”
    â€œThe two of us...dancing to the pipes.”
    Right on cue, the pipers stepped into the firelight and began to blow. The shrill wail of the pipes filled the dark night, and Duncan’s heart soared along with the notes. The music eased a