Chapter 8 | Relics of the Heart

I made my way home, feeling flustered with all the new information. What point is that stone when I don't know how to use it? I looked around with uncertainty. It was broad daylight just a minute ago, and I wasn't afraid one bit to walk alone. But that changed very quickly when the sun went down. Darkness engulfed the village within seconds. 

    A lurking shadow loomed out of the dark and made me jump and scream involuntarily. I was too scared to look at what or who it was. I ran towards the hillfort but it caught up with me. Someone's arms forcefully grabbed my waist from behind.

    "Calm down," said a man's voice against my ear.

    His touch gave me chills, don't know why.

    "LET ME GO!" I screamed and put up a fight hoping for someone to hear me. 

    My home was not very far and I could see it on the hillfort from where I was standing.

    "I know you are mad at me," he said.

    This must be Neill. I relaxed and slowly turned to face him.

    "Are you crazy? Could you not approach me like a normal person?"

    "I tried..."

    "Neill! I warned you," Aiden's voice was booming with anger as he approached Neill and punched him in the face before he got off his horse.

    Devin followed closely behind him. "Let's go, Aiden will take care of him," he said to me. 

    "What does he want to talk to me about?"

    "He played you for a fool. And then he rejected you when you didn't want to sleep with him. I'm sure he wants to manipulate you to get laid." Devin looked angry too.

    "Do I have to be a virgin for Marcus?"

    "Yes, you do. And they are monogamous people." Devin lifted me to sit on his horse when I didn't budge. 

    I was feeling restless and did not want to see any blood. I plead to Aiden before leaving. Neill took the chance and fled when Aiden turned to look at me.

    "If Marcus finds out that you still have feelings for Neill, he will kill you both Allena," said Aiden.

    "No, he won't," I said, "He was trying to find reasons to reject me. He told me that he only wants his girlfriend and I am never allowed to touch him."

    "Did that motherfucker really say that?" Aiden was fuming, "I knew this was a horrible deal but father won't listen to me."

     I nodded.

    "I will come to visit you often. I will make sure that they don't mistreat you." He squeezed my arm and nudged Devin's horse.

    When we returned, I found my dad and uncles in deep discussion with hand-drawn maps spread out on the floor.

    "Allena, where were you? Go wash up, you will be cooking a Roman-style dinner for us today." My mom called from the fireplace in the center as I was going into my room.

    "Oh no! Not her!" Devin complained.

    They surely did not know about pizza yet. My mouth watered at the thought of hot and cheesy slices with all my favorite toppings on them. It would be so perfect to have one delivered to the doorstep right now. Darn it! I miss the modern times.

    I changed and went to help my mom. She was trying to understand the inscriptions on a bronze tablet. Marcus's mom handed twenty-three recipes with detailed instructions. I rolled my eyes when I thought about having to cook for Marcus while he is out riding horses with his girlfriend. 

    Selma was making a thick prune-based sauce. Iona was chopping parsley. 

    "Will you ever be done with that parsley? You girls are hopeless. You just like to ride horses and fight like men," my mom looked stressed. She turned to me and said, "You will be asked to cook for the whole family sometimes. It was bad enough being a terrible cook that you were, and now you probably don't remember the little bit that you knew about cooking."

    Iona and I exchanged smiles. I looked over what my mother was marinating.

    "Kebabs?" I asked her. 

    She looked at me surprised, "You know about these?"

    "S-someone um... told me about them Yesterday at the feast. I didn't think that they were part of the Roman cuisine."

    "Beer and kebabs are one of their party favorites."

    I put pieces of meat and vegetables on the skewers and chopped a little bit of dill to sprinkle on them before placing them over the fire. My mom was amazed by the speed at which I got things done. Raised by a single parent, I made my breakfast and dinner since the age of twelve. Sometimes I wondered if Jonathan was interested in me solely for my cooking skills. He never liked my mom because she let me deal with my dinner plans while she was gone until midnight on most nights.

    "Looks like Allena knows more about her husband's cuisine than any of us," Selma teased me.

    "I see that! A newfound passion for cooking," Iona grinned widely at me.

    "I still need to learn how to make fire, and how not to burn the house down." 

    "Iona will show you. You just forgot. It won't be difficult to relearn," My mom said.

    "And what is this?" I asked pointing to a huge stone next to the fire. 

    "It's a saddle quern, to grind wheat," my mom added, "It was your job to grind when we baked bread."

    Jeez!  

    I went to my room after dinner and tied the trinket to my arm with a black string. Since when did I start believing in amulets and trinkets? I sighed and went to bed.

    "Allena, are you awake?" The door creaked open and my mom was in my room.

    I got up wondering what she had to tell me. It was dark in the room to understand the expression on her face.

    She touched my hand and kissed me on my forehead saying, "You did so well in the kitchen today. It felt like you grew up by a couple of years overnight. I am so proud of you."

    "When do we leave mother? Day after tomorrow?"

    "Yes, the boats have already been arranged last week. We will have horses on the other side of the land when we reach there in a few days. Only your father and a few people in our tribe traveled that far before."

    "Will you be leaving right after the wedding?" I felt like I belonged to this family. A feeling that I had never experienced before.

    "We will stay for a day probably. Your brothers and Marcus's friends didn't get along well last night. We will leave before things turn sour." 

    I don't have that option, do I? I felt sad at the thought of being abandoned again.

    My mom seemed to have understood my worries, "We will always be there to support you. They only live a day away from here once they return from the fortress. Remember sweetheart, when you take a leap of faith, the person who will catch you on the other side won't be Marcus, but a stronger version of yourself. You have to give Marcus your best chance though, and not worry about getting hurt or rejected."

    "Okay."

    "Get some sleep, then."

                                                           **************

    The next day was pure chaos in and around the house. Preparations for food and other necessities were going on in full swing. There were baskets full of freshly baked bread coming out of the oven for hours. My dad, brothers, and uncles made a stash of extra sword blades, spears, and other fighting weapons. They wanted to be prepared for any sort of ambush by Gallic tribes who predominantly lived in France. 

    Iona and I rode along the river and the mountain terrain to get me comfortable riding for days. The druid was right about muscle memory; I just needed the courage to mount the horse, the skill was already there. Bless Allena, I didn't have to learn this stuff from scratch. I wondered how much of a fighter I was. I didn't get a chance to wield any weapons except a kitchen knife so far. 

    Iona took me to the place where Allena met with her accident. It was about an hour away from where we lived. Not sure what Marcus was doing so far from his home with his girlfriend the other day. The other side of the river was only thirty minutes away from where we were.

    "That's a good point. I have no idea," said Iona when I asked her, "He is involved in a lot of Italo-Celtic deals around the area though." 

    The thought of not having Marcus around in this region made me feel strangely sad for some reason. He probably crossed the ocean already. I was looking forward to the trip and seeing him again. It was only yesterday that I felt so mad and disappointed in him, and yet, I miss him already. I miss that warm laughing face I saw on the bonfire night.

    The next few days felt like a month; they were slow and miserable. At first, it was fun to see the moorlands that seemed to stretch for miles and miles but once I realized that they did actually stretch for hundreds of miles, I was not interested anymore.

    The ocean finally became visible and I missed my phone a lot because I could only capture the gorgeous views of cliffs and water in my memories. The boats were made out of oak and limestone. I wasn't sure if they could withstand rough waters. Most of us got to rest a bit before we hit land again. My dad directed us into caverns instead of providing us with horses.

    "This is to be safe. We will go underground for the most part until we cross the troubled areas," he said. 

    "How many days do we go through these dingy caverns?" Selma asked Aiden.

    She fell sick during sea travel and did not like that the caves felt so cold.

    "One full day if we did not rest, but we are all exhausted and the Romans won't be expecting us until another three days. We will rest and cook some fresh food," he said.

    "Rest will make you feel better too," my mom added, who looked the most exhausted.

    We went to a different tribal village the following day once we left the caverns. They exchanged several horses with us for gold and silver. We rode for another two days before we neared the fortress.

    I saw a muscular figure waiting on his horse about a mile away from the fortress entrance. My heart leaped with joy when I realized that it was Marcus waiting for us.