Free Divine Sacrifice, The by Anthony Hays

have spent my morning playing with my daughter, Mariam, and taking my noon meal with my dead brother’s wife, Ygerne. She and I had become good friends in the
months since his death. I had begun to wish that I had found her before my brother, but such was not to be. I was old and one-armed, not fit for a woman as good as Ygerne. Of that much I was
certain.
    But instead of the simple pleasures of home, I found myself following after Arthur and straightening out messes.
    I heard the horses’ hooves before I looked up and saw them.
    Soldiers, in purple tunics, two riding abreast. Their hair was long and flowing, sweeping behind them as they bore straight down on me.
    Stopping dead in my tracks, I watched as they paid no attention to my crimson tunic, sign of my service to the Rigotamos. Only my quick feet took me from their path as they gave no ground. I
stumbled and fell to my knees, scraping one on a stone and covering my knee in mud.
    “Out of the way!” one of them shouted, already past me. They pulled their horses up short in front of the old church.
    Heat radiated up my neck and my eyes grew wide in anger. As they dismounted, I took a stone the size of my hand and hefted it. The pair was laughing and talking, their backs to me. With a skill
born of practice and necessity, I flung the rock with my left hand and was lucky enough to strike one of them in the head, dropping him in his tracks.
    The other whirled around, reaching for his sword, and came for me.
    But by that time, I had my sword in hand and gave it a quick tilt upward, inviting him to come forward. I saw then that this was barely a boy, a mewling upstart of a boy to be certain, but a boy
nonetheless. Fright showed in his eyes, and he glanced quickly left and right. And saw no allies.
    “Do you not recognize the tunic of the Rigotamos’s household?” K illing him would do no good, and the child must learn sometime.
    He went pale as a corpse, pale as poor Elafius. “I’m sorry, master. I did not know.”
    “No, you young whelp, you did not think. Your Lord Lauhiir should train his soldiers better.” At that, I turned and gave him my back as I walked into the abbot’s hall.
    The soldiers had indeed taken Rhiannon into custody.
    I walked into the hall amid the screams and shouts of a tall but slim and buxom wench, her arms held by two soldiers who were barely managing to keep their grip.
    “Release her,” I ordered. “She is no prisoner.”
    And the dark-haired woman, now free, turned to see her benefactor. Oh, she was a handsome one. Though Ygerne had been filling my thoughts, I cannot deny that the fire in her eyes sparked a
rumbling in my loins. By Arthur’s God, she was a beautiful woman!
    “Who are you?” Her predicament had apparently not sunk in as yet.
    “I am Malgwyn, counselor to the Rigotamos, and
iudex pedaneous
in the affair of Elafius’s murder. The Rigotamos ordered that you be brought here to be questioned by me. If
you choose to blame someone, then blame me.”
    “I will. Should I choose.”
    The Rigotamos entered with Coroticus. Arthur stayed silent, knowing that it was my duty to perform. Coroticus looked ill.
    “As you most certainly know by now, Elafius is dead. It is known also that you argued with him. I wish to know why you were arguing.”
    She tossed her long tresses back and laughed. “That you must ask that question exhibits your stupidity, not your sagacity.”
    Ahh, this was one for the parchment. Our lady Rhiannon, head of the women’s community, was truly a formidable woman. But I would not take her challenge. “Answer the question, woman,
or you will be under arrest, bound and gagged.”
    “And you think this would be the first time? You are a simple man.”
    Arthur was about to say something, but I stalled his assault with one of my own. I laughed. Laughed at her. “Woman, if you think you are the first to call me stupid then your own idiocy
surpasses mine.”
    And that shut her up. And it gave me a