The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (21 page)

At the second horn, Orla and Finola were running down the path, and by the time Minna got to the village gate there was no sign of them in the teeming mass of warriors and horses. She pushed between people clapping each other’s backs, hugging and laughing, and struggled to the schoolroom with her heavy bag of roots.

Tucked inside was one specimen that Minna knew, when her fingers first touched it in the soil, was powerful enough to help the young noblewoman Riona. It whispered to her as a potent womb-heal, its pleated leaves not yet shrivelled by frost this close to the sea.

She pushed the door of the schoolroom open and caught herself, nearly dropping everything. For Orla and Finola were there – and with them was their father. Minna merely stared, paralysed.

He was dressed in a rough tunic, hide trousers and filthy boots, everything smeared with dirt and sweat. A bronze torc was his only decoration, but there was no mistaking his presence. The light from the window played over his dark braids, showing up the same copper glints as in Orla’s hair. Beneath the stubble his face was finely drawn, with a wide mouth and taut jaw blurred now by a cut lip and bruises. But Minna could not look away, for his features were almost deliberately arranged to increase the power of his gaze. The lines bracketing his mouth led to sharp cheekbones, which angled to straight, dark brows that framed gold-sheened eyes as a doorway did a blaze of daylight. There was a wildness, an intense hunger in his gaze that did not match any kings in Mamo’s tales. Or Minna’s imagination.

He regarded her discomfort with grim amusement. ‘My daughters find this place a haven, somewhere they feel safe. Somewhere to escape … everything.’ His mouth tightened as he gazed out the window. ‘I see why they like it. From outside it is unnoticeable. No one would know you were even in here.’

She at last found her wits. ‘It is small and basic, lord,’ she murmured, placing the net bag on the nearest bench. ‘But also warm, because the fire heats it easily.’

He turned and looked at her. ‘And since you are Roman-born, I suppose you also think my land barbarically cold and wet?’

She heard the undercurrent of anger, and edged against the wall. ‘I am from Eboracum, lord, not Rome.’ Words rushed unbidden to her tongue. ‘And I can assure you the moors of my home are every bit as cold and wet.’

The king blinked, as surprised as she was at herself. Finola threw her arms about his knees. ‘Fa, Fa! Did you see the Wall again? Did you see wolves? Did you see Romans?’

Cahir smiled and brushed her head. ‘All those things, beside the wolves, lass. They live in the mountains between us and the Picts, not the south, as I am sure you know.’

‘Of course she does,’ Orla scorned. ‘Davin told us
that
!’ She sat on Minna’s desk, swinging her legs. ‘Look, Minna! We grabbed Fa and dragged him here, and he came.’ She giggled. ‘We told him we spent all our time here with you and learned Roman things.’

Minna winced, thinking of the conversation she had witnessed between the king, the queen and Garvan. Cahir warmed his hands over the fire. ‘Roman things,’ he muttered. She held her breath. The coals were dying, since they had been out all day, and now he bent to toss on more wood, poking at the fire with a stick until the flames caught. By the time he glanced up, his voice was level again, the anger under control. ‘I was not pleased to hear my girls were being schooled in Latin. However,’ he raised one of those dark brows, ‘they tell me they only enjoy
certain
parts, such as drawing, gathering plants and writing their names. That doesn’t seem so dangerous.’

The glint in his eye flooded her with relief. ‘They are very bright, lord,’ she offered, placing a hand on Orla’s shoulder. ‘And very dedicated … to their people. You can have no cause for doubt.’ Every word seemed loaded, and she picked them carefully.

Cahir’s stern face softened for a moment. ‘Yes, they are Dalriadans through and through. Aren’t you, girls?’

‘Yes, Fa,’ they chorused, glancing between Minna and their father, disconcerted by the prickle of unease in the room.

The king scratched his stubble, his eye on Minna’s hand placed so naturally on his daughter’s shoulder. ‘They tell me that you care for them, too, that you heal them when they are sick.’ Her heart skipped at his sudden change. His eyes were lucent, golden as those of a fox, and she didn’t know if he was amused or angry. ‘And all this, when I had made up my mind to be so unhappy about this Roman nursemaid … of my wife’s.’

She didn’t miss the pause. Disconcerted, she blurted, ‘But I am not all Roman! My grandmother was of the tribes, so I am quarter-blood, and I know all the old tales.’ Her teeth trapped her tongue too late.

The king’s expression lightened. ‘Indeed?
All?
’ As her face grew hot, a smile played about his mouth. ‘Well, you make my daughters happy, and the gods know, give them more care in one day than my … than they enjoy in a year.’ He glanced down at his children. ‘And they do get into scrapes, my little cubs. If only they were princes, what warriors they would make.’

Orla’s grave little face lit up. ‘We
can
be warriors, Fa. I’m nearly big enough to hold Garvan’s old sword, and when we are even bigger we’ll beat back the Romans with you!’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Just don’t kill them all until we‘re big enough, Fa.
Please
.’

Cahir’s bark of laughter was entirely bitter. ‘No, I won’t kill them all.’ From the side, Minna saw his mouth crease, holding in emotion. ‘There will be enough Romans, little one, even for you.’

A comb hit Cian on the back of the neck. He gritted his teeth but did not flinch, burying his head against the grey stallion’s scented neck – Ruarc’s other steed, since the bastard took the black when he disappeared in the mountains.

A brush followed the comb with a thump. Cian picked up both tools, tucking them with the horse blanket on a stool. ‘
Grates
,’ he said in Latin, then in Dalriadan, ‘I could do with an extra comb. Funny how they fall from the sky.’

His hatred beat in his blood, and all he could see behind his eyes was the man kneeling in the mud stammering out the story of his chief’s death, the sorry tale falling on deaf, cold ears. He cursed the king under his breath, rubbing hard at the horse’s coat.

‘Roman scum.’ The hiss came from the next stall. ‘Gelded bastard.’

‘At least
I
have something to piss with,’ Cian retorted.

There was a pause, a guttural laugh. ‘
Did your whore of a mother couple with pigs
?’

Cian’s hand stilled. He should ignore it; he had heard it all. But his mother … Marnaí …
named in their evil tongue …
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Cian threw down the brush and leaped over the stall as easily as he had once jumped on Bren’s shoulders.

Though he was stiff and bruised, his speed caught the little whelps by surprise. With a yell, Cian drove his worst tormentor to the ground and started pummelling him. Screeching, six other boys leaped on Cian and dragged him off, two sitting on his legs, two on his arms. The first boy, nose running blood, leaned over and, with great deliberation, began thumping Cian about the ears.

He reeled, lights sparking behind his eyes, but a noise from outside interrupted them and the boys melted away, guffawing. Cian crawled back to his own stall and staggered up against the stallion, which nervously twitched its ears, sensing his distress. Footsteps came to the end of the stable, and he scrubbed at his face with the cloth, hoping he did not bleed. The nobles beat them if they fought around their precious horses.

‘Cian?’ came a soft voice. His eyes briefly closed before he turned to Minna. ‘You came back,’ she said. Gods, he had forgotten, in the horror of the past week, how intense her gaze was.

His swollen mouth moved. ‘So it seems.’

‘But … why?’

He swallowed hard, shifting his gaze to the grey horse and studiously thumping its shoulder, feeling over its legs with sensitive fingers. ‘I wouldn’t leave you here alone, if that’s what you are suggesting.’ His hurt blocked his throat. Even she thought that of him.

When he straightened, her eyes were luminous and open, and he felt the change in her. Something had happened while he was away; his acrobat’s senses were attuned to such things. She was holding herself differently, more upright and contained, as if cradling a secret. Her hair was wound around her crown, the back falling in tendrils threaded with white gull feathers. The style softened her bony face. She looked … she looked like
them.
Cian’s pulse began to hammer.

‘I did not think you would come back for me.’ She hesitated, turning him inside out with her many-layered gaze. ‘You should have saved yourself.’

The hammering became a lurch, and he stepped back in anticipation of her coming near, for he didn’t think he could bear any hint of tenderness. But she didn’t move.

Did he think she would have begged him back, or fall on him now, weeping? Instead, she simply stroked the horse’s nose, absorbed in some internal world of her own.

‘We got into this together,’ he said hoarsely. ‘We should get out of it so.’

She glanced at him. ‘So this means that you will listen to me? That you will hold your tongue so we can bide our time?’

Scenes rushed through his mind: the Roman soldiers at the fort; the chieftain’s glorious, hopeless death; the way the king did nothing. And then the clash of swords in the duel, the twisting of their faces into bestial snarls. After five weeks, he felt sick at the idea of holding on here for any more time at all. Death would be better than that, he thought wildly – a spear in the back as he ran over the bridge.

Minna frowned. ‘What happened?’

His hands were tense as he untied the stallion’s head and threw down some hay for it. But the tale was pushing its way out of him like rising bile, and in the end it spilled out.

‘The bastard did nothing,’ he spat when he finished. ‘Even when his own chief was slaughtered. They are all craven cowards.’

She was calm, searching his face. ‘I did hear them say there was a reason …’

‘Minna!’ He cut her off, the fury overcoming him, utterly blinding. Yes, she had changed …
she was going out of his reach …
‘How can you argue with me over
them
?’

Her cheeks reddened. ‘It’s not like you to be reckless with your own skin; it’s not like you at all.’

‘Well, perhaps you don’t know everything. And it’s my skin, and my choice what to do with it.’ A hole had opened beneath his feet, a gulf he hadn’t seen coming, and so was helpless to cross.

Instinctively, he turned away from its blackness, stumbling sightlessly out into the village. Anywhere away from her.

‘Ruarc and the other lads have not come back, Cahir.’

Minna was sitting awake by her bed, her chin in her hands, her mind gnawing over Cian. Now she leaned down and pressed her eye to a gap in the timbers above the hall, which looked down upon the hearth-benches and the few men lingering there.

‘They will be the death of us.’ Cahir’s voice was infinitely weary.

‘They are frustrated, that is all,’ said the one with tufts of red hair in his ears. ‘Too much energy and nothing to do with it. You remember how it was Finbar, aye? You remember too, lad,’ he added quietly.

To Minna’s astonishment he had just addressed Cahir, for the king answered, somewhat testily, ‘I’m only eleven summers older than Ruarc, Donal. My bones don’t creak quite yet.’

‘At that age,’ one of the others put in mildly, ‘we fought the Picts in that battle for the Black Island, remember?’

‘Aye, Finbar, I remember,’ Donal chuckled, ‘and how that blue bastard’s sword nearly separated Fergal from the comfort of his wife’s thighs!’

There was a rumble of laughter, out of which Cahir’s voice rose. ‘My father fought then, too, I believe. Right before he signed the treaty with Rome.’

There was a pregnant silence no one seemed willing to break, until Cahir got up with agitation. ‘I am going out, and I don’t want anyone to follow me.’

‘You need your rest, lad. We all do.’

‘I believe,’ Cahir said stiffly, ‘that despite all said to the contrary, I am king here and my decisions are my own.’

It was Keeva who volunteered to come when Minna slipped away the next day to find more of the Lady Riona’s plant. The maid was bemused by all the secrecy, but Riona had ordered them to say nothing to Brónach, declaring she would come herself to the schoolroom, and Minna had complied, although somewhat uneasily.

She and Keeva left the dun with baskets, alone but for one surly old guard. ‘I don’t think this plant would grow near the fields or where people disturb it,’ she explained.

Keeva squinted into the cold winter sun, thinking. ‘There’s the ancestor valley,’ she suggested, pointing to the north.

But Minna had already seen that eerie place, the valley floor dotted down its length with old burial cairns, and stones and circles mysteriously raised by the ancestors to worship the sky. ‘People till the fields up the valley sides,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think it will be there.’

Keeva swivelled the other way. ‘There are hills that way, too,’ she said, pointing south. ‘And sacred places no one goes.’ She sent Minna a challenging look. ‘They don’t scare me, though – do they scare you?’

She smiled. ‘No.’ But she had no idea what Keeva was talking about.

They climbed far up into the forest, and she found three of the womb-plants with their pleated leaves, along with enough roots and mushrooms to allay Brónach’s suspicions. Her palms were soon stained with wet soil and, in the quiet of the winter woods, her tension over Cian began to melt from her shoulders.

Keeva left her alone, snatching a rare doze on her cloak in the sun, as the guard set himself on the edge of the hill, digging under his nails with his dagger.

Drifting along in the daze of the plant-song, Minna hardly noticed the grey stones set upright along the path. She did not see the cloths fluttering in the rowan trees, or the sharpened stakes nailed with rotting shields. Then light hit her, and she realized she’d wandered out of the bare trees on to a hillside of dying bracken, bathed by sun. Frost still filled the hollows on the shadowed edges.