A young girl is found beaten and left for dead in the forests of first century Ireland.  A kindly Druid nurses her back to health and takes her in as his apprentice.  She flourishes under his tutelage, but is her knowledge enough to protect her from Ulster's lecherous king?
 

The aroma of roasting meat lured Avon out of sleep.  Her stomach gurgled in anticipation as she slowly became aware of her surroundings.  She lay on a roughly hewn litter in a tent made of branches and animal skins.  Her father had been a bard, so she’d lived in tents most of her life, but her parents died years ago.  Didn’t they?  Had she only dreamed living in a kindly old widow woman’s hut for the past two years?  What happened?  She couldn’t remember anything after leaving to gather firewood earlier this morning.

Avon tried to sit up, but she could only move her head.  She panicked for a moment afraid she’d gone lame.  But a dull ache rose throughout her body, and she realized she could feel something clinging to her skin, completely binding her from shoulders to ankles.  Relief washed over her; if she could feel, she couldn’t be lame, right?  However, other terrible possibilities began to occur to her.  Could she have injured herself to the point where she had to be bandaged from shoulders to ankles?  Had she been captured by bandits or wild men?  Her head began to swim with horrible images as her heart beat harder and harder and her breath came in ragged gasps, rattling in her chest.

A thousand nagging patches itched incessantly.  She wiggled, trying to relieve the itching, but the ache exploded into a burning pain.  Avon gave up and let her head drop back onto the litter; however, her body didn’t let her rest for long before her breath rattled again and caught in her lungs, causing her to dissolve into a coughing fit.  It felt like someone kicked her in the ribs over and over again, but she couldn’t stop.  When the barrage finally ceased, Avon called out weakly before everything went black.