Dawnflight (9 page)

“I don’t know, Gyan, what do you think?” Ogryvan’s lips were set in a grave line, but Gyan saw the sparkle of mirth in his eyes. “Will we have enough room and supplies for a family of freemen for the whole winter?”

As she was about to reply, Dafydd said, “Katra and I have talked it over. We’ll be happy to do whatever tasks you require of us, to earn our keep.”

Gyan held up both hands, palms open. “We appreciate your offer, Dafydd, but my father was only teasing. There’s really no need to—”

His expression grew earnest. “Please, my lady. We don’t want to be a burden to you. We see this service as our God-given duty, regardless of the”—his fingers brushed the scar on his neck—“circumstances.”

Shrugging, she turned to her father. “I don’t see why not, if this is something they want. Katra must be near to birthing her bairn.” This was confirmed by a nod from Dafydd. “But I’m sure Cynda can think of something suitable for her to do. Mending, perhaps.”

“Aye.” Ogryvan studied the former slave, slowly stroking his beard. “But fetching and carrying for me hardly seems appropriate for our master interpreter.”

A flush rose in Dafydd’s cheeks. “It’s all right, my lord. I don’t mind.”

“Wait, Dafydd. You may not have to.” Gyan put fists to hips, grinning. “That is, if you think you’re up to the challenge of teaching me that tongue of yours?”

“Breatanaiche, Gyan? That’s a splendid idea!” Ogryvan beamed first at his daughter, then at his interpreter. “What say you, Dafydd?”

The flash of Dafydd’s grin was eclipsed by his deep bow. “Chieftain Ogryvan, Chieftainess Gyanhumara, it would be my greatest honor. And my pleasure.”

“Good.” This was the best piece of news Gyan had received this morning. She could scarcely wait for the day she could speak with Urien privately. Perhaps then she would find the answers she craved. “When do we start?”

Dafydd gave a short laugh. “As soon as I can decide how best to go about doing this. If my lord and lady will excuse me?”

“Of course, Dafydd, of course.” Ogryvan thumped Dafydd’s back. “Take all the time you need, lad.”

“But before you do one more thing, Dafydd,” Gyan said as he began to leave, “I want you to gather up your family’s possessions in the slave quarters and speak to Cynda.” She nodded toward the Móranach contingent across the field. “I happen to know of some fine guest chambers that will be vacant on the morrow.”

“My lady, you are most gracious.” She couldn’t begin to measure the depth of his gratitude. Besides being in closer proximity for Dafydd to conduct her lessons, the guest quarters would be a much more comfortable place for Katra to have their bairn. She wondered if Dafydd was thinking of that as well. “How can I—we—ever repay your kindness?”

“Teach me well, and I’ll consider that payment enough.”

As she watched him stride off, humming, toward the slave quarters, groans of disappointment issued from the crowd around her. She faced the field to see Per and Urien, both standing, their weapons sheathed. The contest, she guessed, must have ended in a draw. Per approached her, staggering and panting heavily. Urien, slowly making his way toward his clansmen, didn’t appear to be in much better shape.

“Too much last night.” Per looked sheepish as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of a hand. “Finish later. Almost had him, though.”

This won shouts of encouragement from his clansmen.

Urien, it seemed, was making a similar speech to the Móranaich, who had split to surround their future chieftain as he crossed the field toward Gyan.

He emerged from the knot of Móranach warriors to join the Argyll group. Per and Urien clasped forearms, then faced Gyan. Urien’s look echoed the triumph she’d seen on his face the night before. Her instincts renewed their silent tirade. Yet she managed the expected smile. Urien took the cue and folded her into a crushing embrace, like a falcon stooping to the prey.

BREATANAICHE CAME easily to Gyan. She was amazed at the similarities to the ancient tongue of her people. And the words with no Caledonaiche equivalent were not difficult to memorize. In weeks, she and Dafydd were conversing freely in Breatanaiche. The other inhabitants of the Seat of Argyll grew accustomed to the sight of their chieftainess with the shorter, darker man as the pair spent hour upon hour in animated, incomprehensible conversation.

She was pleased with the speed of her progress but was not satisfied with learning only the speech. As the snows deepened and the sun grew ever more reluctant to stay aloft in the sky, she began to hunger for the written word as well.

One bitterly cold afternoon found her arranging hide scraps on her work table in the antechamber beside the pile of charcoal salvaged from the ashes of the previous night’s fire. Chafing her hands, she began to pace. Her wool-lined rabbit-fur cloak couldn’t repel all of the breath-stealing chill.

Not for the first time, she imagined the conversations she and Urien would share. There was so much to ask him: about his family, his battles, his education, his likes and dislikes, his desires and dreams. About his responsibilities as a Breatanach chieftain’s son and the customs of his people. His opinions about marriage and children and about having a wife who could wield weapons and ride horses as well as he could.

As she mulled the questions, each spawned a dozen more, enough to fill a lifetime!

A soft knock on the outer door nudged her thoughts. At her command, the door swung open. In the corridor stood Dafydd.

He was not late, she reminded herself, but boredom had driven her from her fireside seat. She strode to the table. “Here, Dafydd.” She dumped an aromatic load of hides and cold charred wood into his arms. “Let’s have our lesson in the Common. Today you will begin teaching me how to write your speech.”

Gyan scooped up the remaining scraps and headed out the door before he could acknowledge the change of plans. She smiled to hear him break into a trot to catch her.

The Common was a large, circular room at one end of the clan rulers’ private living quarters. The domed stone structure had been built soon after the clan’s occupation of the Ròmanach fortress. Its arm-thick walls had no windows and only one door. In this it was akin to the buildings constructed at settlements farther north, many generations earlier, to serve as easily defended refuges during raids.

There all similarity ended. At Arbroch, this building and its granite brethren were used year-round. The Common featured a central raised firepit, vented through a tin chimney tube disappearing into the hole in the dome. The door opened onto the narrow corridor that ran the length of the wing of living quarters. The room was a popular gathering place for Gyan and her family, especially during the hottest and coldest days of the year.

Today the room was packed. Near the firepit, Ogryvan and Per were discussing the journey to Dùn Lùth Lhugh with Rhys, Airc, Conall, and Mathan, who represented the rest of the Argyll warriors chosen to join the Breatanach ranks. On the far side of the room clustered Cynda and Mardha and many of the other female servants. The clack of the loom and the whir of the spinning wheels sang through the occasional lulls in the various conversations. Gyan recognized the pine-colored fabric on the loom as the cloth for her new tunic. The male servants, she guessed, were seeing to the comfort of the livestock.

Nods and smiles greeted Gyan’s entrance. Her armload of hides and blackened wood won a few quizzical looks. To these folk, she murmured a promise to explain later. The lure of learning was tugging too strongly.

At the firepit, the warriors made room for Gyan and Dafydd. She dropped her burden and removed cloak and boots, for the room was comfortably warm. She folded her cloak to use as a cushion on the dirt floor.

As Dafydd sat, something slipped from the neck of his tunic. A pair of crossed oak sticks dangled from a leather thong. The wood around the brass pin fastening the sticks was dark and shiny with age. The longest stick was no bigger than a finger. It seemed an odd adornment for a man. For anyone, she silently amended.

Pointing to his chest, she gave voice, in Breatanaiche, to her curiosity. “What sort of charm is that, Dafydd?”

“This?” His fingers curled around the trinket. “It’s not a charm.” A gentle smile suffused his face. “It’s called a cross. A symbol of my Lord, Iesu the Christ. In Caledonian, His name is Iesseu.”

Although the word “Christ” held no special meaning for her, and she had never heard of this Iesseu, she guessed Dafydd was talking about a god. But two crossed sticks? When most gods chose powerful animals or the wild forces of nature?

“What does it mean?”

Head bowed, his eyes fluttered shut for a moment. When he opened them, they seemed to burn with a calm intensity at odds with the Dafydd she knew, more like a lion on a leash.

“My lady, it’s a reminder of how He died.”

“Died? But the gods don’t die. They can’t!” She felt her eyebrows lower. “Else they’re not gods at all.”

“Mine did.” There was no shame in the admission, only quiet pride. “And conquered death to live again.”

To die and return to life? Impossible! How could anyone believe such obvious nonsense?

Her smile was not unkind, and not without a hint of pity. Poor, deluded Dafydd…perhaps she ought to share her beliefs of gods who ruled the lightning and summoned the seas, whose chariots were drawn by the winds. Of goddesses whose fingers lay upon the pulse of mortal events, deities truly worthy of worship.

But there would be plenty of time for these stories later.

“I think we ought to begin the lesson.” She gestured at the smelly, sooty heap between them.

“As you wish, my lady.” The fire in his eyes dimmed but did not die. He tucked the cross into the neck opening of his tunic. Selecting a hide scrap measuring perhaps two handbreadths by three and a slim piece of charcoal, Dafydd bid her to do the same. He said, “Parchment is more refined. But these hides and charred wood pieces will do nicely for practice, my lady. How did you know?”

She grinned at the approval in his tone. “Cold ash leaves a mark on your skin.” She passed over one blackened lump for one that fit more comfortably in her hand. “And what are hides, after all, but animal skins?”

Caledonaich left their marks in nothing less durable than stone, and only for such important monuments as grave and battle markers. The memorization skills of the seannachaidhean, preservers of law and lore, called “bards” in Breatanaiche, left no reason to do otherwise. But Dafydd had taught her that the Breatanaich and other folk who had fallen under Ròmanach rule used different methods.

“Excellent, my lady. Now, the letters.”

By the time for the evening meal, she could write her name in the manner of the Breatanaich. Her letters seemed wobbly and uncertain compared with Dafydd’s skilled strokes. He assured her this would improve with practice. Yet the accomplishment was heady: to see her name peering back at her, disguised in another tongue, a name that, paradoxically, meant “white shadow.”

Gwenhwyfar.

Chapter 7

W
HEN DAFYDD ARRIVED for Gyan’s usual morning lesson, he found she had donned her rabbit-fur cloak and fur-lined boots.

“My lady! Surely you don’t wish to have your lesson outside today. Why, the snow has to be knee-deep.”

She laughed lightly. “Of course not, Dafydd. Come.” She could barely contain her excitement as she strode toward the door. “Before we begin, I have something to show you.”

After stopping at his quarters so he could retrieve his outer gear, they stepped from the relative warmth of the building into a world of frozen white, where children and dogs romped and adults trudged as they performed their appointed tasks. About the snow’s depth, Dafydd hadn’t been exaggerating. But the main courtyard had been trampled to a more navigable level, and shoveled paths led between the buildings to the other areas around the fortress.

Off to their left, near the gate, clustered most of the slaves, carrying picks, shovels, food, and watered ale. Several priests surrounded the group, talking and gesturing. There was no mystery about what they were doing; this event occurred each year. For today was the eve of Àmbholc, the great festival of winter’s end, and the way to the Nemeton up in the hills overlooking Arbroch had to be cleared. Studying the activity, Gyan picked out the forms of her father and brother, standing near the priests. She wondered which of them would satisfy the law by accompanying the workers this year. Her answer came soon enough as Ogryvan clapped Per on the shoulder, and her brother moved off with the group, at the rear of the procession beside one of the priests. Ogryvan headed toward the feast hall and his waiting breakfast, Gyan presumed.