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Ross Richdale

In 865AD, Vikings attack the female Bramingham Monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria. The building is looted with everything of value taken by the pagans. Abbess Jane and senior nuns are slaughtered and the younger nuns abducted into slavery. Maiden Kendra, minding the monastery sheep on the top plateau during the attack survives.

This is her story.

PART 1

KNOW THINE ENEMY

In 865AD Vikings attack the female Bramingham Monastery in the Kingdom of Northumbria. The building is looted with everything of value taken by the pagans, Abbess Jane and senior nuns are slaughtered and the younger nuns abducted into slavery. Maiden Kendra, minding the monastery sheep on the top plateau during the attack survives.

One other survivor, postulant Jolene finds her and together they return to the monastery. Secrets are discovered that both help and hinder, including secret tunnels, a mine and evidence of clandestine trading with Vikings. A knight from the King's army arrives but is as ruthless as the Vikings. He is driven from Bramingham but places the monastery under siege. With winter coming there is every chance that they will be starved into submission.

PART 2

KNOW THY FRIENDS

One night, Kendra awakens to see a Viking standing by her bed. He is Rodmaf who tells her she is the daughter of Thorodd, a dying Viking chieftain who wants to see her before he dies. Under threat of having her friends killed, she agrees to accompany him back to his homeland. At the Viking village of Brodsted Kendra meets Hendrix, Thorodd's wife and the old man who is her father. She learns that her mother died giving birth to her and that Rodmaf is her half-brother. Thorodd dies and a terrified Hendrix tells her that they must leave otherwise they will be sacrificed at Thorodd's funeral.

PublishDrive

Our Ancient Ancestors

When the Longships Came

It is 320 AD and Hadrian's Wall separates Roman Britannia from the lands to the north where the village of Darbarri is located. There, Jelena is asked by her father, Druid Floyd, to travel south of the wall into Roman territory to help the people in the village of Bramfield. It is a dangerous area for the new Roman emperor has declare that everyone living in the Roman Empire should convert to their new faith.

For the Celtic, this means giving up their beliefs with numerous gods and practices. Druids are not welcomed in Roman lands anymore even though they had helped villagers for centuries. With three friends, Olwina, Tad and Craddock she manages to reach Luguvahum the largest city south of the wall but with it, a surprise and perhaps the reason why her father sent her south in the first place.

The Druid's Daughter

Meztli and Cualli are rescued from a Inca human sacrificial site where virgins are left to die to appease their gods after conquistadors invade their lands. Zolin, Meztli's childhood friend has been sent by Hermit Tupac to rescue them, which he does.

They now must follow a perilous journey along ancient Inca trails through the mountains to interior lands and Inca towns.

Etalpalli, one of the seven priests who brought the virgins to the sacrificial site has an agenda with loyalty to nobody but himself. He murders the six other priests who accompanied him to the site and on learning that two of the three virgins are still alive attempts to find them.

Conquistador Capitán Buena Giraldo, commander of the sector of the Inca empire where Meztli and her friends live has more interest than just converting locals from their heathen ways. He wants to find a rumoured lost gold mine in the area. He teams up with Etalpalli who lies about his knowledge of where the mine is when really his aim is to find Meztli to enslave.

On their way to the east, Meztli and her two friends are met at a junction in the trail by Urco, from Cualli's village. He has been sent by Tupac to tell them that all the lands have been conquered by the conquistadors and there is no safe haven through the mountains. Instead they must follow the strings and knots, that Incas use to communicate instead of a written language, to a secret cave that goes under the mountains to a hidden valley and golden pyramid. There they would be safe.

But are they?

Meztli-Sacrificial Maiden

In 450 AD there was no United Kingdom, the Romans had left Britannia a generation before and the land was ruled by dozens of waring pagan kingdoms. This left the way open for different invaders from across the sea. Saxons arrived and violently overran Glouvia Kingdom in the southwest where nurse Kyla O'Knife was helping survivors of a recent plague, wounded warriors and civilians in distress.

However, fate was about to deal Kyla a hand. Whether it was good or bad was still to be determined when Kyla was summoned to the dying king's bed and informed that she was his daughter by one of his wives. The entire royal family had been assassinated so after the king's death she became Crown Princess Kyla and ruler of Glouvia.

This was a pyrrhic position for the Saxons now ruled the kingdom. They wanted her dead to discontinue the royal family line and she became a refugee. After rescuing enslaved women, Kyla who was helped by independent forest people, headed towards the hill country and sanctuary at a Christian monastery.

Her troubles were not over for Llandover Monastery had been hit by the plague and only one monk survived. He was Brother Anthony who declared that the sacred building was for males only and women were not permitted.

How did Kyla persuade Brother Anthony to let the women and herself in? What problems were there with a clash of beliefs and personalities? And what of the land left behind?

Kyla was determined to help and set about to do just that.

This is her story.

Other novels in the Ancient Ancestors Series

When the Longships Came

The Druid's Daughter

Meztli-Sacrificial Maiden