She was present at the birth of a nation. Her descendants sit on the British throne to this day. But history does not even record her name... In ninth century Britain, the Picts and the Gaels are fighting for supremacy over the North. In one of their rare truces Baena, a young Pict woman is reluctantly married to a Gael warrior, son of one of the great Chiefs of Dal Riata. Leaving behind her family and the Pict lord she had hoped to marry she travels west to the household of Alpin, where she is viewed with suspicion by many of her new kin. The collapse of the truce and the indifference of her husband leaves her position in her new land increasingly vulnerable, as war breaks out once again. Forced to forget her Pict heritage, she fears the day when she will have to make an agonising choice between the victory of her husband or her father. Her journey will take her from the splendours of the Fortress of Dunadd to the tranquillity of the sacred Isle of Iona, where even greater danger lurks as the terrifying Norsemen plan their own attacks. However, it seems that her hardest battle will be to win the heart of her husband, the brave, cunning and often ruthless Cinaed as he fights his way towards a destiny that could be greater than anyone imagines... The man known to history as Kenneth Mac Alpin