The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (37 page)

As she spoke, the Pict druids leaned together and murmured animatedly, waving their hands. Gede, as usual, betrayed no feeling in his hawkish face.

Minna suddenly turned on Taran. ‘Perhaps the battle is why the child was buried in your lands. Whatever it was, there was trust enough between your people and ours for them to mark it in stone for ever, enough for them to go to war together.’ Her nostrils flared.

Minna
! Cahir despaired. He could have accomplished this alone. But the druids were having none of it.

The chief druid came stiffly to his feet. ‘We know the stone is old, and what it says, and the name of he who is not named. The letter symbols are sacred to druidkind, and no untruth can be so written. But there is one more vital test, girl. We wish to know more of these visions of yours. You will
see
for us.’

Cahir shot out of his chair. ‘
No.
She has given you what you need of the past – now we must speak of the future. That is my realm, my risk.’

The old druid faced him with a sneer. ‘You ask us to accept something that goes against all our lore, from a slip of a slave-girl? You seek to turn years of enmity on its head because of a grave offering lost to the years?’ He pointed at Minna, his hand trembling with age. ‘If she truly is god-blessed, then she must be tested by the Water of Seeing, for it reveals only truth. My king will accept no less than this show of faith.’

Cahir saw Minna’s face set with determination. Before he could move, she strode before Gede himself. ‘I accept this test.’

‘No!’ Cahir repeated. ‘
I will not allow it
.’

Her lips compressed and she lowered her eyes – though he wasn’t fooled. ‘My lord, your subjects are expected to show their loyalty to you, each in their own way. It is what you demand of them. So why will you not demand it of me?’ Despite her tone, her eyes flashed up and twin flares of indignation passed between them.

Gede’s evident amusement silenced Cahir. The Pict king eyed Minna up and down, then said something to Taran.

The druid coughed, embarrassed. ‘My lord wants to know what slave speaks thus to a sworn king, and what king would suffer it?’

Minna and Cahir were both caught out. Then the words that came to Cahir’s lips shocked him, rising from what had always been a barren place and filling all the aching, lonely reaches inside him. He instantly knew he could no more deny this impulse than deny his own fate – for she simply was his fate. Since the night in the hut by the pool, when Minna had uttered the sacred war cry, he had been ruled by feeling and instinct alone, and so he was taken over by this now like a rush of flame. In a heartbeat, the flare rose and consumed all he had been before, and in its wake the tension in him utterly surrendered.

‘She is no slave, but the seer of my hall.’

Minna’s eyes widened with confusion, but they were tender, shining, and suddenly it seemed as if he and she were alone. ‘And she is my
lennan
.’

Cahir barely registered the grunts of surprise that came from the direction of his own men. But then the old druid let out a phlegmatic cough, and he and Minna were wrenched back to a room of hard-eyed Picts, the walls ablaze with firelit weapons.

‘Royal kin makes no difference to us,’ Galan huffed. ‘Only the Water of Seeing can prove whether she is seer or not.’

Minna dragged herself away from Cahir’s charged gaze. ‘I will undergo that test,’ she repeated. ‘Whenever you desire.’

‘Now,’ King Gede announced, on his feet in one swift movement.

His chief druid nodded. ‘She must be at the pool at moonrise.’

‘She should rest another day before facing any cold pool, or any spirit test at all,’ Cahir protested.

The druid shrugged bony shoulders. ‘Tired, rested, it matters not if one is truly a seer.’ His unblinking eyes rested on Minna. ‘She should know that when the mind is dulled by the privations of the body …
then
can the visions come more clearly.’

Minna touched Cahir’s arm, softly. ‘I will go now and prepare, if you will it,’ she said to Galan.

‘At moonrise,’ the druid confirmed. ‘When the tides run high in sea and blood both.’

Chapter 35

P
ictish guards escorted the Dalriadans to a guest lodge then flanked the inner doorway. Cahir held Minna back, hidden by the screen of the porch. Above them, a pitch torch flickered and dipped in the sea-wind.

She knew he would try to argue again, but there was something more important to address. She caught the front of his tunic, the strength she had found before all those warriors beating in her breast, sweeping all shyness away. ‘Do not say a single
thing
about being careful or being tired or straining myself. What is this
lennan
?’

For a moment he struggled to find words, then merely cupped her cheeks. ‘It means sweetheart … lover … but more than that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It is the wife, Minna, taken for love, not treaty. The second wife, but some say the true wife.’

Heat surged up Minna’s body. She tried to clear her throat and failed. ‘And is this not something you ask someone, whether they want to be a
lennan
?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘Or do you just make your mind up and get around to telling her later?’

Cahir’s hands buried themselves in the silky strands of hair that escaped the net. ‘I didn’t have a chance to tell her, because it came to me all of a sudden. But now she can say no if she wants.’

Minna’s breath caught on a laugh that was half a sob. ‘But we are not … lovers.’ Her blood leaped, wilful and swift.

‘Then that is your decision, too.’ There was a fire in his eyes she had not recognized before, and it turned her belly.

Slowly, conscious of the Pict guards standing so close, her thumbs traced the angle of his high cheekbones, moulded the fine hollows and curve of his brows. His eyes shut briefly, as her fingers brushed his wide, full mouth with a shy wonder. ‘My decision,’ she repeated. And it came to her in a rush that she had choices now, where before she had none. Not like a slave.

She buried her face in the curve where Cahir’s neck met his shoulder, breathing his skin, touching her lips there. Giving him her answer.

There was little time until moonrise. The warriors ate a meal of roast venison and bread, gathering close by the hearth to talk unguarded. Her cheeks still warm, Minna darted glances at them from the corner of her lowered eyes. In a moment, everything had changed.

Mellan and Ardal were not even trying to hide the speculative, wondering looks they sent back and forth from Minna to their king, though they swiftly turned away when they caught her eye. But a smile was playing about Donal’s mouth. Seeing that, Minna felt the tension begin to leave her body. She dared a glance at Ruarc. He sat back, arms folded, but though he never once looked at her, his eyes on his king were fierce and proud, not hostile. Perhaps all it took was a woman nearly killing herself by cold and exhaustion, Minna thought, the mingled bubble of joy, shock and fear inside making her light-headed.

She ate nothing, instructed by Taran to fast, though she sensed the Water of Seeing waiting for her, moving and shimmering with her thoughts. She dragged her attention back to the men.

‘What I want to know, Cahir, is what you will propose to Gede once they are happy with this,’ Gobán broke off and turned slightly to Minna, his head sketching the merest nod, ‘
seeing
business of … of the lady’s.’ There was only a faint stumble and, ever gruff, he frowned it away. The ale had veined his nose and heavy cheeks.

There was a distinct gleam in Cahir’s eye as he answered. ‘It depends on what my lady
sees
,’ he said distinctly. Then he placed both hands on his knees, looking at each man in turn. ‘But I promised I would share my heart when I knew it, and now I have seen Gede, the pieces have already come to me more clearly.’ They all leaned forward, heads almost touching, the firelight aglow on their eager faces. ‘Neither Gede nor I have ever had the numbers to resist the Romans as an army – Gede could never do more than raid the Wall. No people outside the Empire possess that power on their own, not the Saxons over the northern sea, though they shake their axes, nor the Attacotti in the Western Isles. The Erin chiefs might have it, though they squabble among themselves too much to band together. But think on this.’ His voice dropped. ‘Gede told me he has made strong trade alliances with the Saxons that he thinks he can easily turn to military support, for they are greedy for plunder and glory. So they will follow
him.
The Attacotti are already our allies, and the Dalriadans in Erin under Fergus are our kin. They will all follow
me.
It is the merging of our two peoples – Pict and Dalriadan – that will draw in the others and create the greater force: an army of five peoples that spans the northern sea.’ He sat straight, pride in his shoulders. ‘Nothing like this has ever been wrought before.’

‘Not even by Eremon,’ Donal said softly.

Cahir met his eyes. ‘No.’

Excitement ran among the men like wildfire.

Her knee against Cahir’s, Minna savoured the power flowing from his flesh to hers. When had their hearts become so entwined they soared or fell together like this?

It was the kiss. She had understood at that moment that she had been drawn across the wild moors not just to this land, but to his side. If Alba was her fate then Cahir was, too. All along, she had been returning to him.

The druids gave her a robe of coarse wool to wear over bare skin, and Taran said she must go barefoot as well. When she emerged from the lodge, the night air chilled her skin and the pit of her belly. As the druids closed about her with torches, Minna cast one glance at Cahir. His eyes reflected the flames. ‘I will be close behind you,’ he said, and only then could she let go and not look back.

The moon was a ship of bronze sailing over the sea from the east. The sea-wind buffeted the walls, lifting Minna’s unbound hair from her neck. Behind her walked Gede and Cahir, side by side.

Then the entrance to the Water of Seeing yawned before her, a black doorway in an outcrop of pale stone within the walls, not far from the king’s hall. Steps led down into the darkness.

Taran stood before her. The druids had begun singing under their breath, their torches wavering lines around her. ‘So you leave Thisworld for the Otherworld,’ he intoned, then whispered, ‘Do not fear: even if you cannot
see
, we will not let you die from the Water’s cold. And if you are who you say you are, then you will surely not travel so far that the cord breaks and your spirit become lost among the other worlds.’ His teeth gleamed slightly. ‘The moon will no doubt still be up when you emerge.’

After these barely encouraging words, Minna walked carefully into the blackness and progressed down slippery steps that were cut into the rock, her toes curling over the edges. The light from the torch-bearers sparkled on pale flecks in the dark, mossy walls. The druid singing vibrated off the stone in discordant harmonies that shattered all clear thought, and she felt the song summoning the power of the rock, the earth, the sky.

The water.

At the bottom of the stairs lay a small chamber of curved walls and vaulted roof barely the height of a man, its entire floor forming the pool. As she came down, the draught from the stairs riffled the surface, black and impenetrable but sheened by the torches.

She came to a shivering stop on the lowest step, slimy with weed. Wavelets lapped over her ankles, the water biting cold, for it had never seen sun. Taran moved to a narrow ledge that edged the chamber.

‘Daughter.’ Galan’s deep voice boomed from the rock walls all around. The smell of pitch was sharp in the dank air. ‘You must enter the place day never comes, and emerge with a vision. As your body is of water, so this pool will melt the bounds of your flesh and allow your soul to be one again with spirit. But if your soul is too weighted with darkness, you may sink and not come up, and the water will claim you.’

They are just ritual words
, Minna cried to herself.
Taran said I would live and see the moon.

‘So,
gael
child: do you come to the Water of Seeing with a clear heart, with no blemish upon it of lie or betrayal or dishonour or hurt done?’

Unexpectedly, Cian’s face appeared in Minna’s mind, his eyes stormy with pain. ‘I have done no hurt intentionally,’ she whispered. ‘But … I have hurt, nonetheless.’

The druid grunted, the sound amplified by the enclosing walls. ‘The Water will accept you if hurt was done while you followed your higher truth, and that is all. Was it so, child?’

She saw Cahir now, his smile tender. Behind him were Alba’s hills, clothed in the flame of leaf-fall, and Alba’s sea, dark as night.
Cian, I am sorry
. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Then the Water of Seeing lays before you. Step down into the pool and lay back in the water. You will be held.’

She stared at Taran, his glazed pupils large and black in the flickering light. Behind came the ponderous footsteps of the old druid passing her, and both entered the water up to their chests. The druid singing on the stairs intensified, and the surface of the pool shifted.