Daughter of Fire

Daughter of Fire

Merlin’s Legacy

Book I

Carla Simpson

writing as

Quinn Taylor Evans

Reviewer's Choice Award – Best Historical Fantasy

A GENTLE TOUCH

He watched the sleek falcon move to Vivian’s arm. She seemed to have a rare calming effect on the bird. “Who taught you to gentle a falcon to your hand?”

“One learns quickly when dealing with a wild creature what to do and not to do. She has never harmed me.”

Rorke watched, fascinated, as the falcon cocked her lovely head this way and that to catch the soft nuances of Vivian’s voice. He reached out and stroked the falcon’s downy breast; it recalled the satin texture of Vivian’s skin.

A faint frown wrinkled Vivian’s forehead. “She has never taken a stranger’s hand before today,” she said, “nor tolerated another’s touch.”

“And what of her mistress?” he asked, reaching to stroke the back of a finger along the curve of Vivian’s lower lip. His voice had gone low in his throat, as though he sought to gentle her with touch and words.

Strange feelings, remembered vaguely from a summer day long ago, spiraled through her. How was it possible that such a hard, brutal hand could be so gentle?

He felt the tension that quivered through her. The heat of innocent sensuality glistened at her parted lips. A raw desire, naked and powerful, clenched inside him, a taut fist low at his belly, as he imagined her slender hand stroking him as she stroked the falcon...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First published by Zebra Books, 1996

Copyright ©1996 by Carla Simpson

EBook publication by Carla Simpson, 2012

EBook copyright © by Carla Simpson, 2012

Cover art by
Dreamstime

EBook Design by
A Thirsty Mind

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Legend

“M
erlin is dead!”

The rumor swept the land and men, both highborn and low, wept with grief. “The enchanter, the sorcerer, the kingmaker is dead.”

And from remote fortress castle, from fields tending their flocks, from boats with lines cast into gleaming dark waters, and blazing forges, men looked toward the hollow hills for the glow of the sorcerer’s funeral pyre. But instead, they saw a bright blue star high in the midnight sky like a brilliant jewel suspended between heaven and earth.

A sign, some said, as the star streaked the sky, a fiery beacon that lights a path, a dragon’s eye that sees beyond the mists of time. And even as word of Merlin’s death reached the farthest shores of the realm, another story was whispered around the fires and at water’s edge, like a promise on the cold night wind.

“Not dead, but asleep... asleep in the mist.”

Prologue

Amesbury Abbey

“E
lement of fire, spirit of light, essence of life, awaken the night. Fire of the soul, flame of life, as light reveals truth, burn golden bright.”

High in the tower of the crumbling abbey the ancient words whispered across cold, damp walls.

A single candle glowed, the flame steadily growing stronger with each word. At her perch in the corner of the tower, a small falcon flared her wings, golden eyes fastened on the flame.

Vivian leaned over the candle, its golden light bathing across pale, taut features, delicate auburn brows, high cheekbones, gleaming like molten fire in the flaming torrent of unbound hair that cascaded down her back. Dark lashes lay against her cheeks as with eyes closed she repeated the ancient words.

Brilliant blue color blended with bright gold in spinning, shifting patterns across stone walls as the flame reflected off the large blue crystal she held suspended before the candle. It created a tapestry of light that glittered and winked as if the walls and ceiling had suddenly become the night sky filled with stars.

Then, as if it obeyed her command, the light suddenly swallowed itself, the glittering patterns of light at the ceiling coalescing into a single point of light until all that remained was the flame that now burned inside the crystal.

“Reveal to me a time that is not yet time, on a day that is not yet a day,” she whispered.

The flame pulsed and quivered with each word, like a heart beating in silent, still air. It had been over five hundred years since a vision last appeared in the ancient blue crystal. As Vivian opened her eyes, a scene slowly revealed itself. She saw two great armies joined in a fierce battle of fire, death, and destruction, and bodies lying on a vast, dark plain. Her heart ached as she saw the Saxon Stag consumed by the Serpent, knowing with a certainty the army of King Harold would fall before the army of William the Conqueror, knowing also that she was powerless to prevent it for what she saw was the future that was already written.

Tears slipped down her cheeks. She didn’t want to see any more of the death and destruction, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the tragic images as she saw her world ending. But a power stronger than her own compelled her to look once more into the crystal. For such was the curse as well as the blessing of the gift she’d been born with. Once a vision revealed itself, she must see all of it no matter how painful or terrifying. And as the vision continued to unfold at the heart of the crystal, she knew the fate of her people was in her hands.

The flames of death and destruction she had first seen slowly burned to ashes, and the smoke of battle cleared as another prophecy revealed itself. From amidst the dying flames and ash, a magnificent creature raised its head—a creature born in the fire and blood of destruction.

It was sleek and powerful, and at the same time fierce and terrifying. A great predatory bird, with feathers of yellow, orange, and red flame as wings slowly unfurled in a blaze of fiery grace amidst a gathering darkness, and words whispered to her from the heart of the crystal.

“Beware the faith that has no heart, and the sword that has no soul.”

As if the creature knew she watched, its head turned toward her. The blood of war stained its beak, eyes burning into hers. And a new and far different emotion swept over her, unlike anything she had ever experienced.

The creature rising from the ash and flames like the mythical phoenix took on the features of a man, and a wild, savage passion reached out from the heart of the crystal.

One

Amesbury Abbey

October, 1066

“S
oldiers!”

The cry of alarm rang out in the chill morning air from the yard below and was heard high in the abbey tower.

At her perch, the falcon’s plaintive warning cries joined the alarm, glossy wings poised for sudden flight. The cat, Nicodemas, sleeping contentedly by the brazier, suddenly jumped to the floor and fled under the table.

Beware!

The warning whispered along the walls of the herbal, the words urgent amidst the bubble and hiss of concoctions simmering at the brazier.

Vivian ran to the narrow window at the east wall of the tower and caught a glimpse of young Tom, the smithy’s son, in the yard below. He ran past the pigsty, where the sow suckled a new litter of piglets. Skinny legs pumped furiously as he crossed the stream and ran down the cart road, spreading the alarm.

In the distance, Vivian saw the mounted soldiers emerging from the forest on the old Roman road. Their battle armor was deadly gray beneath the bleak late autumn sky, and the banner they carried as they rode toward the abbey was a serpent on a field of black, seething overhead on the bitter cold wind.

Fear clutched at Vivian’s heart for she had seen the serpent in the vision that appeared in the crystal. Ever since that day, the villagers of Amesbury had awaited with dread, for many men and boys from the village had gone to fight with King Harold at Hastings. Now the prophecy of the crystal had been fulfilled. England was lost.

The villagers would already have been warned by Tom, who spent his mornings hunting in the forest. Therefore, her first concern was for her guardians, the monk, Poladouras, and her old nurse, Megwin. For they might not have heard the boy’s warning of the soldiers who now rode toward the abbey.

Earlier that morning, she and Meg had gone to the garden to gather the last of the herbs before the first winter snow fell. Vivian had returned to the herbal to brew the medicinal concoctions needed by the villagers through the coming winter. Meg had remained behind to finish the gathering.

Poladouras had spent most of the morning with her in the herbal, for the light there was better for studying his ancient journals. Long ago the roof timbers at the uppermost part of the tower had rotted away from neglect, after his fellow monks had abandoned Amesbury for the newer abbey at St. Anne’s in Croydon.

The gap in the roof let in light during the day and provided a window on the sky at night for the scholarly monk to chart the stars. Only a short while earlier, he had returned to the chapel below for one of the ancient manuscripts that he was constantly studying.

As if the crystal sensed her fear, it shimmered and glittered about her neck with a sudden fiery light amidst the fire fall of red hair that swirled loose about her shoulders as she ran for the stone steps leading to the chapel below.

Fear tightened around her heart and hastened her descent faster than was wise without a candle or torch to light the way along the steep downward spiral of stone steps. But Vivian had crawled these steps since she was a babe, after she and Meg first came to the abbey.

They had been pilgrims led by another falcon on an uncertain journey, taken in by the reclusive monk in the midst of the worst storm that anyone at Amesbury remembered. When winter ended they remained at the abbey.

As she grew and learned the healing ways from Meg, mornings were spent in the herbal brewing the ancient healing concoctions that had been handed down through generations, but afternoons were spent at Poladouras’ knee learning languages, mathematics, and sciences that he acquired a knowledge of on his travels through the Eastern empires.

Life was quiet at the abbey, their few needs provided by the small garden Meg and Vivian planted, and the food and wool provided by the villagers out of gratitude for Poladouras’ spiritual guidance and Vivian’s healing tonics.

The villagers were simple people who barely eked out an existence. While to the east, the village of Croydon, located on the main road to London, was far more prosperous. Because they had nothing of value, Vivian had been certain the villagers of Amesbury had little to fear from the Norman invaders.

Amesbury Abbey had fallen into neglect and ruin over the years since it was abandoned by the monks. Only Poladouras had remained, ostracized by his fellow brethren for his learned ways. The outer walls were little more than a pile of loose stones, the mortar between, long ago crumbling away and exposing gaps that let in the cold and rain. All that now remained of Amesbury Abbey was the dingy, soot-filled kitchen, a handful of niche chambers once occupied by the monks, the tower that she used for her herbal, and the small chapel where Poladouras read of an evening before a brazier and old Meg worked at her spinning wheel.

Why then, she thought frantically, were Norman soldiers now riding toward the abbey? What did they want?

Beware, my child!

Again she heard the urgent words, as if the stones of the tower whispered the warning to her.

She reached the bottom landing and immediately saw Poladouras hobbling toward her. The meager light from the nearby brazier, which had been lit against the cold of the morning, played across her pale, taut features, and reflected in eyes as blue as the ancient crystal that hung about her neck.

“Young Tom...!” she said breathlessly.

“Aye,” the monk nodded gravely. “Norman soldiers. Just as you have foreseen.”

There was no surprise in his voice, for the monk learned long ago to trust her visions. “King Harold’s army has fallen then,” he said grimly. “ ’Tis a tragic time for all England.”

“Meg?” she asked anxiously.

“I am here,” the old woman called out.

With the bond that connected them from the first moment the old woman held the newborn child in her arms, old Meg’s gaze turned toward the steps as she crossed the chapel with surprising spryness for one so bent and crippled by the painful stiffness in her joints. Her thin hand, which had eased childhood pain and fears, was surprisingly strong as it closed over Vivian’s arm.