Prequel to Wild Angel

Sasha Lord

“You will never see him again!” Laural-Anne shouted at her daughter, Mary. They stood in a large, stone cottage located on the outskirts of Lord Harold of Dunkeld’s massive lands. Outside the open doorway, Mary saw a glimpse of the bare boughs of a red maple tree swaying in the wind. A man stood on the threshold, his arms overflowing with wildflowers, and his long hair tied back in a red strip of cloth. His eyes narrowed and he stepped forward as if to enter the cottage.
Laural-Anne slammed the door in his face and turned toward her daughter. “He is a common gypsy and you have royal blood!”

“He is not a common gypsy; He is Romil, the Master Magicion, and I am no better than he, for I only have bastard blood running through my veins,” Mary fiercely replied. “Dunkeld is only my father because he used your womb to breed me, but he is not my true father, neither by law nor by heart.”

“How dare you use that language,” Laural-Anne snapped. “You are highborn, whether you live in the castle or in our cottage, and Harold Dunkeld has given you everything you have- your clothes, your food, even that aviary in the meadow where you raise those horrid ravens. You should show more gratitude. What is more, Dunkeld has already arranged a marriage for you.”

Mary gasped. “A marriage?”
“Of sorts. You will be hand-fasted to a second son of a well-landed highland lord. If you please him, you will become mistress of your own home and will have status and respect.”

“No! I do not want to hand-fast! It is akin to being lent out to a man for his sexual pleasure, and then should he tire of me, he can return me, tarnished and used. I want-”

“What?” Laural-Anne interrupted. “You want to live like a gypsy and romp around all day, doing nothing but singing and dancing and begging for alms? Is that what you think will make you happy? It won’t. That is just a fanciful dream, but life requires that you place bread upon the table and sleep under a roof. Accept the hand-fast and use your beauty to your advantage. If you play him correctly, you will have him eating out of your palm and he will make the union official.”

“I will not.”

“Don’t be a fool, Mary. You have always been a good, obedient child so I do not understand this sudden obstinance and rebellion. It all started when you met the gypsies last cycle of the moon. They put ideas into your head which you must forget.”

Mary shook her head, her blue-black eyes filling with tears. “No, Mother. Please listen. I love Romil. He makes me happy. I feel as if I am dancing on air every time he comes near. He opens my eyes to the miracles surrounding us and fills my soul with peace and harmony. He is the man I want to wed.”

“No,” Laural-Anne hissed as she gripped Mary’s shoulders and shook her. “I know best. Besides, Dunkeld promised the family, and Lord McBeth is already enroute to collect you and bring you to his castle.”

Mary yanked out of Laural-Anne’s hold and placed a hand over her belly. “’Tis impossible for me to accept this lord, for I already promised Romil.”

“What do you mean?”

“Romil asked for my hand last moon, and I accepted.”

“And you never asked me?” Laural-Anne questioned angrily. “How could you be so deceitful?”

“I knew you would not approve, but Mother, I know he is the right man for me. Surely you want me to be happy?”

“Your promise means nothing. You will not see him again. In time, you will come to thank me for saving you from that gypsy’s enchantment.”

“My promise means everything,” Mary replied. She fell to her knees and clasped Laural-Anne’s hands in hers. “I implore you, Mother, do not force me to go to a man I have never met. Allow me to wed the man of my own choosing.”

Laural-Anne shook her head. “You will not marry a gypsy. You are a MacLauren, and your father is a Dunkeld.”

Mary pressed her head against Laural-Anne’s calves. “I carry his child,” she whispered.

Laural-Anne ripped her hands free and rapidly stepped backward, making Mary collapse face first onto the floor. “You fool!” Laural-Anne shouted. “How could you waste your maidenhead upon a commoner?” She spun around and began pacing back and forth. “We will have to develop a ruse… someway to make Lord McBeth believe you are still a virgin, then pass the baby off as his own.”

Mary slowly rose and her eyes dried as she watched her mother stride back and forth. An emotion washed over her… realization and deep, echoing pain,. Her mother would never understand. She would never accept. “I am going to wed Romil, and nothing will stop me,” she said, her soft voice stopping Laural-Anne in mid-stride.

“If you dare say that again, I will banish you from my home and will cease to consider you my daughter.”

“You would cast me aside for an alliance created by the man who has kept you a mistress for twenty years, yet never once allowed you into his own home? You would banish me because I have found love, yet his clothes and abode do not meet your standards? What about me? Why don’t you care about me? Have you ever cared about me or done something just for me? This is so important… can you not put aside your own needs for once and acknowledge mine?”

“I do care, which is why you will forget the gypsy and do as I say.”

Mary bowed her head. She took several deep breaths, then looked at her mother with sorrow. “I will marry Romil.”

“Then you will never be welcome in this home again,” her mother replied coldly.

Mary walked to the door, opened it, and beheld Romil standing on the steps. He was waiting for her, his arms still filled beautiful flowers. His swarthy skin and hardened body made her smile, and his concerned and compassionate eyes convinced her that she was choosing the right path. She glanced over her shoulder. “You once told me that you wanted to name me Ashleigh, but Dunkeld demanded that you call me Mary. Should my babe be a girl, I will name her Ashleigh.”

Laural-Anne picked up a cup and flung it at the door, narrowly missing her daughter as Mary ducked out and shut it behind her.

“Don’t ever come back!” Laural-Anne screamed from inside the cottage. “Your name will never cross my lips again!”

Tears rolling down her face, Mary placed her hand in Romil's. "Are you certain," he whispered. "I never want to cause you pain."

Mary nodded. "Our love created a baby angel, and I want her to be born into love and acceptance. My life has been a world of chaos, fear and anger, but I no longer want to live in such a manner. I want peace, for me and for my daughter, and I find it with you." Mary wiped her face and smiled. "I love you. Let's go... let's go far from here. Take me away... take me to France!"



Ashleigh galloped her grey steed through the forest, her black hair trailing after her in wild disarray as her lithe young legs wrapped themselves around the horse’s sides. She urged the gelding faster as each stride carried her further away from the boy on horseback who chased her with a wedding stick. She glanced over her shoulder and laughed, then she and her horse swung in between two trees, slid down a short ravine and splashed up a fast-moving stream until it curved toward the setting sun and out of sight of the boy and his horse.
“Good, Franco!” Ashleigh whispered to her horse. “We will reach the finish line well before Tredon, and I will be safe from marriage yet again.”

Spying a thicket of blackberry bushes, she abruptly reined Franco in and guided him behind the foliage, then hunkered over the horse’s neck so as not to be spotted. As the boy rode past her hiding place, she picked a few berries and popped them in her mouth. The succulent fruit stained her fingers, but she did not care. Instead of washing, she clucked to her horse and aimed him back toward camp where the twin poles had been raised for the race. If Tredon hit her with the wedding stick before she reached the poles, he would win the right to her hand in marriage. But if she ran between the poles before he caught her, she would be free to make her own choice.

Although young in years, only six and ten, she was wise in the ways of the gypsy law. Her gypsy troupe had traveled France’s coast for as long as she could remember, and she had learned their craft with innate ease and embraced their beliefs with complete faith. She was skilled at pick-pocketing, palm-reading and begging, but performing feats of magic was her favorite task. Her father, Romil, was the troupe’s master magician, and he could make a crowd gasp in collective awe, then screech in fear as he mixed his potions and worked his deft fingers upon a black velvet table to demonstrate extraordinary illusions and seemingly miraculous events.

But despite all his skill, he always stated that his greatest accomplishment was in successfully wooing her mother, Mary, and then producing such a fantastic daughter as Ashleigh. Mary was the bastard daughter of a Scottish noble and his long-term mistress named Anne, but Mary’s gentle demeanor belied her early, unhappy childhood and the colossal act of courage it took for her to leave her mother and run off with the gypsy magician.

Ashleigh rarely thought of her parents’ trails and tribulations. She was a carefree, golden skinned gypsy-child who followed few rules and had even fewer restrictions. Her black eyes contained a bright rim of sapphire blue around the outer edge of the irises, and her long lashes cast spiked shadows across her cheeks. Her youthful body was tall and slender, but the curves of womanhood showed clearly through her colorful skirts and gathered blouse. She wore no shoes, but rather a small jingling anklet that matched a similar one around her wrist.

A flash of red suddenly caught her eye and Ashleigh saw Tredon and his horse sneaking through the trees toward her. “Oh!” she cried as her heels thrummed Franco’s sides and she sent him thundering through the forest, ducking and weaving to avoid the heavy branches that tried to bar her way. The camp was directly ahead and she could see the ribbons fluttering from the wedding poles. She had to reach the poles first!

“I will catch you!” Tredon shouted as he angled his steed to head off hers. “Yield and I will be gentle on our wedding night!” he declared as his horse nearly crashed into hers as he reached for Franco’s reins and raised his stick to strike Ashleigh’s thigh.

Ashleigh kicked Tredon’s shin, then punched him on the chin and sent him crashing backwards off his horse. Still astride and with arms akimbo, she and her horse towered over Tredon she and glared at his shocked and bleeding face.

“You will not win,” she snapped. “I have told you thrice that I will not live in your wagon, and beaten you to the pole as many times.”

“But you must accept someone,” Tredon whined. “You have refused all within the camp. ‘Tis time for you to wed.”

Ashleigh turned away and sent Franco cantering to the wedding poles where she knew her mother and father were anxiously awaiting her arrival.

Movement to her right made Ashleigh look back into the trees, fearing that Tredon had somehow managed to catch her again.

A large, well-muscled man, his heavy broadsword dark with dried blood, rode a war stallion and was weaving his solitary way through the forest toward her. His gaze caught hers and he stopped abruptly. They stared at one another for a brief moment. Ashleigh saw something in his eyes… deep sorrow... immense loneliness. Something she had never seen before.

It stirred her soul, and suddenly she was not the carefree gypsy child, but a woman. Her stomach tightened and her breath grew short. Her toes curled and the bells on her anklet tinkled. A fine bead of sweat broke out across her forehead yet chills whispered through her flesh.

Then, as quickly as he appeared, he was gone.




Mangan O’Bannon’s brave Scottish heart thundered and his muscles shook with power as he swung his broadsword and buried its deadly edge into trunk of a tree, then sank to his knees and buried his head in his hands.

A man gasped as he lay dying at Mangan feet, at first not feeling anything from his mortal wound. Then pain burst forth, shooting through his limbs and racing through his blood in a blaze of anguish. He moaned, his face contorting in agony. As the pain spread, he screamed, a long, inhuman howl of desperation, then his lips drained of all color, of all passion and life, until his head lolled to the side and his lifeless eyes stared out over the battlefield.

From dawn ‘till dusk, Mangan had fought on this field. Over and over, again and again, he had swung his sword, maiming, mutilating, … killing. The sun had risen, climbed over the noon horizon and slid down toward sunset, yet still he and his men had fought the French legion until now the meadow was field of dead and dying bodies.

"Why?" Mangan whispered. "Why have we fought this war? Why have these brave men died? French or Scot… those that have fallen and those that still remain… why are we here?"

He looked up and saw the mangled body of one of his men. The man would never go home. He would never see his two sons grow up to be men, nor hear the sweet words of his wife welcoming him back.

Mangan rose and yanked his blade free, his thumb absently caressing the inlaid hilt. Several lengths away stood his horse, Sir Scott, with his head hung down in exhaustion and his reins trailing the ground. The horse was draped with expensive fabric and wore and equally expensive saddle. Jewels winked in the setting sun, and golden threads shimmered as the horse took several labored breaths. Two flags were mounted on the back of the saddle, one for Scotland and one of his family’s crest. Both still fluttered in the breeze, mutely proclaiming both Mangan’s status and his loyalty to his king. If he had fallen, a Frenchman would have cut the flags down, but since he still stood, the flags symbolized his victory.

Mangan ignored the flags and walked over to his soldier and touched his shoulder, but the man’s flesh was cold. Fury surged through Mangan’s soul and he ran toward Sir Scott and vaulted aboard, then kicked the stallion’s sides. Sir Scott’s head rose and he surged forward, his heart as powerful as his body.

A few men stood or rode their horses as he did, looking around themselves at the vast expanse, listening to the torturous moans of the wounded and seeing the vacant faces of the dead.

They were fellow Scots, but even so, they steered clear of each other, knowing that battle lust often made soldiers into murderers. Until morning when they could gather in their tents and see each other in the light of day, it was best to avoid one another after a battle such as this.

Mangan knew because he had survived many such battles.

He slowed his stallion and peered down at the form of a young man, not even five and ten. He jumped down, recognizing one of his pages. He would tell the boy’s father that his son had died a courageous death and his family should be proud, but French and Scot blood melded in sticky pools… black, blond and red hair lay matted against too many faces. No nation could claim victory on this field. No leader could cry out triumphantly and brandish Scotland’s flag over the field in glory.

Mangan staggered back, his heart collapsing under the weight of his guilt. As beautiful streaks of sunset yellow and gold danced across the far horizon and the sun burst into a glorious display across the sky, Mangan cast haunted eyes through the lengthening shadows, seeing only pain and destruction.

He was the son of the great Earl of Kirkcaldy, heir to one of the richest and most powerful lands in all of Scotland. Mangan O’Bannon, a warrior whose prowess with the sword was known throughout Scotland and beyond. A leader of armies, a man who remained boldly victorious in battle despite all odds. Nine and twenty years old and brashly handsome, he was as politically astute as his father. He was a King’s man who carried Scotland’s banner with courage and pride.

Until today.

Mangan lowered his sword and stared around him in horror. No victory. No surrender. Just death.

The army followers began creeping across the field like shadowy specters from the underworld. Stealing a ring here… a jeweled dagger there. One took a rock and smashed a dead man’s teeth to knock loose a gold filling. Although Mangan had seen them pillage a field before, he had never felt such heart-wrenching despair at their mercenary lack of compassion.

A sudden fight erupted between two female marauders as the women grappled over a silver chain one had ripped from the neck of a fallen warrior. They screamed and scratched, then tumbled to the ground and rolled over each other as their legs kicked and their hands struck.

Then one woman plunged a knife into the other’s side and sprang to her feet, cackling with glee.
War.

Politics. This field was in French territory, but the Scottish king wanted it for himself. He had instructed Mangan to lead an army of a thousand men into battle to claim the field for Scotland. And now the field was blanketed with a thousand dead souls whose lives would have no everlasting meaning.

Where was God? Where were compassion and kindness? Where were truth and justice in this senseless battle of king against king? Why were they fighting over a tract of desolate land? Why were they dying for something as nameless- as faceless- as power?

The agony in his heart made him weak. He had contributed to this carnage. He had led a thousand trusting men into battle and let them be massacred. The names of his soldiers rippled through his mind and at each name, the pain in his heart twisted deeper. The men should not have trusted him. He had failed everyone. His father, his mother, his country…

But mostly, he had failed God.

The sun blazed, flooding the field in a blanket of red just before it sank beneath the horizon.

Mangan re-mounted his horse, sheathed his sword and flung his flags to the ground. As his soul keened in mourning and his heart filled with agonizing guilt, Mangan reined his horse around. Then he left the field, the army, his grand inheritance, and rode away to find solace.



Two young babes were born the same year…

One was born into a poor family. She was bundled in old, discarded linens and was nourished through the breasts of her mother. The weather outside the thin animal skins that formed the roof of her meager shelter whistled with frequent bursts of piercing cold, and the warped slats that formed the home’s floorboards allowed bone-chilling shafts of freezing air into the abode. Although the French landscape was breathtakingly beautiful, her winter mornings were cold, especially for the Gypsies that lived in rickety wagons and camped in hidden meadows where the wisp of a campfire might betray their unwelcome presence.

Yet, despite the perceived lack of comfort, the baby snuggled happily in between her two parents, warmly basking in their devotion. Her tiny fists clutched several strands of her mother’s black hair, and she jammed the tresses into her mouth, sucking and tasting the unique scent of the woman who had given her life. The baby’s unusual eyes peered at her mother’s sleeping face, memorizing the gentle oval, the slanted brows, the smiling lips.

Peace filled her heart as her tiny body rested with one of each of her parents sleeping on either side of her. The sound of a raven’s call had awakened her, but she was merely curious, not startled. She heard her father’s heart beat in synchrony with her mother’s softer beats, and felt the easy breaths with which they both breathed. The world seemed to move with an elegant rhythum, one that matched her own.

The bird cawed again and the baby listened. All was familiar… all seemed safe and secure.




Far away, another baby shivered in the sheltered confines of an elaborate bassinet. A fire chased the chill from the stone walls and held the cold, Scottish winds far at bay. The baby rested on silken sheets and piles of silver and sable colored furs covered her small body. She, too, woke to the call of a raven, but unlike her counterpart, she fidgeted restlessly in her warm cradle until a woman bent over her and gave her a bottle of warm goat’s milk.
“Go back to sleep, little one,” the woman whispered.
A man grumbled from his resting place in the large bed on the far side of the room. “Why do you keep the child in your room, woman? She is disturbing my pleasure.”
“She will not sleep in another room,” the woman replied. “Her angry cries will disturb you far more than her movements.” The woman gently stroked the baby’s head, sighing at the striking difference between the baby’s smooth face and her own wrinkled hands. She was old enough to be the baby’s grandmother, yet she had birthed the child only months ago. The birth had been easy… the pregnancy even more so. Such a lovely babe… so perfect. Every toe and every finger looked as if it had been sculpted by a master artesian. The baby was strong and healthy, and nearly always quiet, except when you looked deep into her restless gaze.

The baby stared up at her mother’s face and their eyes locked. A strange emotion passed between them. Shared emotional need… loneliness… yet a sense of independence that was at odds with their given ages. The baby broke eye contact first, kicked her covers away and lifted one foot to her mouth. She knocked the bottle from her mother’s grasp and chose to suck on her own toe instead.
The woman picked up the bottle and placed it on a table beside the bassinet, then went to the shuttered window. She, too, heard the raven’s cry.
A bird cloaked in black feathers; she could see it in her mind’s eye, for it was always near. In fact, the raven had appeared on the day of her first child’s death, almost ten months before this baby’s birth, then remained to hover near her window as if trying to shelter the baby within from a similar fate. The bird was like a dark shadow that drifted stealthily through her memories, bringing thoughts of pain and betrayal, yet also the promise of rebirth and renewal.
The man swung his legs over the side of the feather tick mattress and glared at the woman. “You know that I must go to my castle today.”
The woman nodded. “You must go to your wife.”
“Aye.” He scratched his chest and stretched his back. “When I return, I expect you to have moved the babe to a nursery.”
“Must you insist I lose another of my children?” the woman whispered.
“You will do as I say,” he replied, then pulled on his breeches and left the two of them alone.



Mary grasped Ashleigh’s hand and together they raced across the drawbridge and entered the castle’s bustling courtyard. They were laughing, feeling wonderfully happy at the prospects of a fabulous day of eating, dancing and earning coin as hired Gypsy entertainers. Two sets of intricately sewed banners snapped in the breeze above their heads, proclaiming the impending union of two French highborn families. The fancy wedding guests had been arriving for days, and the castle population had swelled to bursting as more and more attendees journeyed across the continent to pay their respects to the royal family for this auspicious event.
“Where are we going?” Ashleigh gasped as she and her mother paused against a stone storehouse as a wagon barreled past them on its way to the stables.
“Our play will be presented in that tent,” Mary replied, pointed toward a yellow and white striped cloth just barely visible in the inner courtyard. “Your father is already demonstrating his magic.”
A puff of smoke suddenly billowed out of the tent’s entrance, followed immediately by cries of delight audible even over the sounds of horses, wagons and servants. Mary grinned and nodded to her daughter. “Aye, ‘tis your father, working his illusions. Come, let us go to the tent before he sets it afire!”

Ashleigh giggled and lifted her bright, Gypsy-colored skirts as she scampered forward, delighted by the prospects of the day. She had never been inside a castle before, and was thrilled her Gypsy camp had been invited to provide entertainment for the wedding guests.
“Mother?” Ashleigh asked, her voice high with excitement. “Do you think the guests will give us extra coin if the play runs perfectly? Do you think I should pass the basket dressed as I am, or should I put on my crone disguise?” Ashleigh frowned when her mother did not reply. She spun around just as a man in a Scottish kilt swung off his sturdy horse and stared curiously at Mary, blocking her way.
“Mother?” Ashleigh asked, abruptly concerned. Her mother’s face was pale and she had her hand pressed against her mouth. Ashleigh made to leap toward her, but a wagon loaded with caged chickens nearly rolled over her feet as the horse’s bolted forward, their driver clearly as inexperienced and terrified as the horses themselves.
Gasping, Ashleigh scrambled backward, then craned her neck as the chicken keeper’s wagon wheel lodged against a stone, bounced, then landed in a rut, whereupon it cracked. The wagon listed to the side and the cages slid sideways, several tumbling to the ground, bursting open and freeing their squawking inhabitants. The driver burst into tears and screamed at the horses, frightening them more, until an older man rushed forward and grasped the horse’s head straps in an attempt to calm the situation.

It took several moments before Ashleigh could circle around the melee, but when she did, her mother was shaking and the Scot was gone.
“Who was that?” Ashleigh asked.
Mary clenched her fingers until the knuckles showed white.
“Mother?” Ashleigh asked once again, her voice rising. “Who was that? What did he say?”
“Nothing…” Mary mumbled as her eyes filled with re-awakened pain. “Nothing important.” Taking a quick breath, she smoothed her face and forced a smile to her lips. “Come, I find that I am weary and do not want to do the play today. I want to return to our camp.”
“But-”
“Now,” Mary interrupted sharply. “We are leaving this castle now. I will send someone to fetch your father and we will await our Gypsy brethren at the next town.”
Confused but obedient, Ashleigh followed her mother back across the drawbridge. She had never seen her mother so frightened, and it made her own heart beat unnaturally fast. Casting a look over her shoulder, Ashleigh was startled by the gaze of the Scotsman as he re-appeared with another man and pointed at her and her mother.
His eyes bored into hers as he stepped forward and raised his hand to signal her to halt.
Taking her mother’s hand this time, Ashleigh tugged on Mary’s hand. “Hurry, mother,” she whispered, foreboding snaking through her. The man’s look was possessive, dominating and frightening. Without knowing why, Ashleigh was terrified of him.
Together, she and Mary broke into a run, sprinting across the road and escaping into the safety of the forest.