The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (44 page)

She gagged on her protests. Here it was, then, the reality behind the glory of Mamo’s tales, the stories of men riding to war – here it was. Terror like a vice on her chest, wondering if she would see him again, or if his life would be ended in a heartbeat by a blade, or an arrow. It wasn’t glorious, it wasn’t proud!

‘Minna! Are you listening?’ Cahir shook her, and she forced herself to nod.

He cursed then and kissed her, holding her so tight she couldn’t breathe.

Cahir, Minna, Fergal and Ruarc galloped across the meadow towards Dunadd with the sun stretching low across the grass. Inside her cloak and hood, Minna clung to her pony’s mane as it followed Cahir’s, bumping along so her teeth rattled in her jaw.

The guards along the walls caught up their spears when the four riders – three of them armed warriors – clattered across the bridge to the dun, but no horn shrieked a challenge. Finbar had done his job. Though people milling about the entrance hurried inside at their urgent approach, some men pushed themselves between the timber gates to prevent them shutting: the traitors, confused but obeying Oran’s orders.

Cahir reared his black horse before the walls, throwing back his wolf-fur hood and holding up his sword. Shock ran among the warriors crowding the walls and gatehouse, the women and children. ‘The king! It is the king!’

Finbar was on the palisade directly in front of the watchtower, his eyes meeting his lord’s, a nod of understanding passing between them. Cahir turned to Fergal. ‘Ride as fast as you can to the port and find Finbar’s men now. Maeve and Oran are to be seized and held captive, the others disarmed. Hurry!’ Fergal wheeled his horse and set off along the river.

‘Warriors, hear me!’ Cahir cried up at the walls of Dunadd, spinning his horse and trotting it back and forth. ‘Treachery is being done this day! The conspirators are even now within these walls, even now at the port waiting for Roman ships to invade our lands!’ Gasps punctuated the air. ‘But I have returned in time, and we know who they are.’ His sword stabbed high above a face lean from weeks of deprivation, scoured by wind. ‘They are led by the queen, Maeve of the Carvetii, but these are
Dalriadans
who do this, warriors sworn to
me
! Traitors, I name them now, and I order them seized and held under guard! Follow Finbar!’

There were shouts as Finbar disappeared down the stairs, and scuffles broke out on the walls and behind the gates. Finbar’s warriors had their swords out now, and metal clashed against metal, as women squealed and grabbed their children, fleeing further inside. Some of the traitors tried to slip out of the gates and were hauled back.

But the greater part of the Dalriadan warriors were undecided, caught in confusion. They milled about the walls and muttered among themselves, their eyes darting from Cahir to the fighting inside the dun.

All of a sudden Ruarc kicked his horse level with the king, flinging his helmet to the ground so his golden hair spilled out. ‘
What is this, my brothers
? Here I stand by my king’s side, as loyal to his name as this treachery is vile. I say take hold of these men who would sell their people for greed, who taint the blood of every one of you in the eyes of the gods. Hurry! We have no time to lose!’

Ruarc’s youthful voice was a stirring clamour, his appearance cutting through the confusion like a knife. Suddenly the warriors on the walls were screeching their rage, racing to join Finbar. The shouting intensified, and the gates were flung fully open.

By now the children and women had been dragged inside the houses, and Cahir kicked his horse through the gates into the yard. Minna’s pony leaped after him, but just as she got inside, a man tumbled off the wall above. His body thudded at her feet, her pony stumbled, and she slid off its back into a pile of hay outside the stables. Lying winded in the tangle of her cloak, she stared at the dead man’s face, and the bloom of blood over his chest.

‘Do not kill the traitors yet!’ Cahir cried, leaping to the ground. He spared a glance for Minna and, seeing she was unhurt, gestured her back against the wall. ‘Take them alive if you can.’

It was over almost as soon as it had begun. A group of bruised and cut warriors were herded out by Finbar, swordless, and Finbar and Cahir embraced as the warriors clustering the walls and streets cheered.

Then Cahir took Minna’s arm and pressed her up the stairs out of the surging crowd. ‘Now the real test begins.’ He was scanning the men. ‘I make for the port, and I won’t be back tonight.’

‘Take care.’ Minna stared at a spatter of blood across his arm, her head swimming from the fall. ‘Take care you come back to me.’

Cahir glanced down and, astonishingly, grinned. His face was flushed with triumph. ‘We have the advantage, my love, so do not worry.’

‘Do not treat me like a foolish girl, Cahir! Who would not worry?’

His grin widened, eyes sparking. ‘Not a girl, no.’ He looked as if he might kiss her, then merely squeezed her hand and raced back down the stairs. ‘To me, all of you who ride! We must away to the port and lay ambush for the invaders at dawn.
To me
!’

Minna ran up the stairs out of the way as dozens of horses were loosed from the stables, men throwing themselves up bareback, brandishing swords. As the tide of warriors flowed out of the gate and over the marsh, the dun suddenly emptied, women rushing out to watch them go. Minna hurried up the path to the crag, scrambling up the rock steps past the king’s hall to the cliff edge. There she stared into the flaming heart of the sun, watching Cahir streaking away along the trade path.

‘Minna, Minna!’ Orla and Finola flung themselves at her, screeching like wildcats. She hugged them back, trying to answer their questions, as Lia leaped and yapped, running around in circles chasing her tail. Then Keeva and Clíona came up behind them, and she extracted herself long enough to catch Keeva’s arms. ‘You saved him!’ she cried, nearly insensible with relief. ‘I can never thank you, never.’ She looked over Keeva’s shoulder to Clíona. ‘The king knows of your part in this, too, both of you. I swore to him you would be loyal – I knew I was right.’

The words poured from her, and she did not pause to think what change had been wrought in her since she left. But Keeva, who had opened her mouth to cry a greeting and then shut it, held Minna now at arm’s length.

Clíona was also staring in profound shock. ‘What happened to you? We heard about the children in the dun.’ She clucked and shook her head. ‘You have been the talk of Dunadd for weeks. Saving all those babies and then disappearing, and the king with you …’ She trailed away, for once speechless.

‘Minna,’ Keeva said slowly. ‘The king?’

Then Minna realized she had instinctively spoken of Cahir with passion in her voice. ‘I cannot explain now,’ she stammered, suddenly becoming aware of Orla’s green eyes fixed on her face.

Clíona and Keeva exchanged glances, then Keeva shrugged, trying to smile. ‘Tell us later, if you wish – I am just glad you are back safely, whatever happened. When I heard what I did, at first I didn’t know what to do …’

Keeva blurted out the whole story, as Orla and Finola clung to Minna’s legs and the sun sank. After fielding another torrent of questions, at long last Minna glanced up to steady herself, and there grew still. On the other side of the king’s hall, a lonely figure was standing looking out across the marsh, huddled in a dark cloak.

Brónach’s cold eyes shifted from the horizon to Minna’s face and there paused. By the jolt of recognition she knew that, of all people, Brónach understood exactly how she had changed.

Chapter 41

T
he band of Finbar’s warriors who had cordoned off the port were hidden in the woods. They recognized Fergal immediately and signalled him to halt. In twos and threes they then crept in among the narrow streets, and seized the small group of traitors before they could defend themselves.

Maeve and Oran, holed up awaiting the dawn, were run down and captured as they tried to escape across the winding channels of silt at the river mouth, dragging the prince Garvan with them. By the time Cahir arrived the port was already his.

Dusk was falling, the sunset gilding the water. The headland that shielded the bay from the sea was already steeped in shadow. Cahir ordered the Dalriadan traders, fishermen and farmers, and all women and children evacuated to Dunadd. Any remnant Roman traders were put under guard, as were Cahir’s wife and son, whom he could not yet face. Nearby he quartered Oran. The so-called priest – in reality an assassin provided by King Eldon – killed three of Cahir’s men with the dagger under his cloak before being brought down by weight of numbers and impaled on a spear.

Cahir tried to put them all out of his mind, his rage at Maeve and his pain over his son held in check by cold thought until this rebellion was dealt with and he could release it.

On the morning of Beltaine, the sun rose over a choppy sea, whipped up by a southerly wind. Cahir stood helmeted and armed, his wolf-fur cloak thrown aside to reveal his polished mailshirt and long sword at his waist. He raised his head and sniffed the wind: this would fill the sails of any craft heading north.

The sheltered bay was cut off from sightlines to the ocean, which was why Cahir kept beacons ready on the cliffs to sound an alarm for raiders. This morning the raiders would come, but there would be no alarm.

When the sun was a handspan over the eastern hills, a man on horseback came galloping down the track from the southern cliffs. It was Donal, puffing from the effort, his cheeks so sun-burned they merged into his ruddy moustache. ‘The ships have been sighted,’ he reported to Cahir.

‘Well?’ The king turned to the man curled on the sand at his feet, his arms bound behind him.

The fisherman squirmed. ‘There will be two ships, with double masts and red-painted sails.’ He bit his lips, shuddering too hard to continue.

Finbar cursed and kicked his rump. ‘Come on, out with it!’

The man scooted away from Finbar’s boot. Cahir did not move. This traitor had capitulated as soon as he lined him up with his companions the day before, screeching that he had been forced – he didn’t want to go against his king – that he would tell them everything in exchange for his life.

Now Cahir glanced at Donal, who nodded. ‘Two masts, there are, my lord. Red sails.’

‘Good,’ Cahir said encouragingly to the traitor. ‘You are pleasing me. Go on.’

The man shot a pleading look at his king. ‘That is how we were to know them. But when they land, four men will come off first, just four. The others will pour ashore only at the signal.’

Cahir squinted at the sunlight now shining on the mudflats at the rivermouth, then turned to his men. Ruarc, Mellan and Ardal were back together again after the latter two brought fifty men apiece in from the outlying duns, giving him a force of three hundred in all. ‘Here is what we do. I want Eldon’s men thinking all is well when they land, so we need to draw them off the ships. Set a score of men without armour or weapons to pose as fishermen and carters on the pier and nearby streets. The rest are to hide anywhere they can.’ He turned to his younger warriors. ‘Pots of coals are also to be set up behind the first line of houses, and good archers alongside. If they don’t come off at once, we will fire the ships.’

As he turned away, the fisherman whined again. ‘And me, my lord? You must spare my life, as you said? I have told you everything, everything!’

Cahir paused and gazed down at him coldly. ‘
You
offered this information in exchange for your life. I never promised any such thing.’ Without a backwards glance he strode away, ignoring the wail of defeat and terror that rose like a gull’s cry above the waves.

*

Under full sail, two sleek ships with painted eyes on their bows glided into the bay of Dunadd.

Ahead, all seemed normal to the commander of the Carvetii forces, a Roman centurion with many years of service to the Dux under his belt. He squinted at the shore. Cookfires hazed the thatch roofs of the port. Men went about their business, unloading fish from
curraghs
, heaving sacks into carts. Log-boats trailed nets as they criss-crossed the river mouth. Washing flapped on ropes between the houses.

The furthest house to the right was set on a spur of rock, and flew a long, tattered banner of red wool from its roof. So the signal was in place; all was well. The Dalriadans shuffling about had no inkling that their lives were about to change.

The commander slid down the ladder into the hold, where the Carvetii warriors crouched in rows. ‘Keep your swords hidden. Wait until you hear my whistle, then get ashore as swiftly as you can. It is imperative we take them by surprise.’

A greater number and size of ships would have alerted the Dalriadans that these were no traders, so they could only bring eighty men in total. King Eldon had informed him there was only a small guard in the port itself, however, and the rebels would have dealt with them by now.

Tucked around the corner of a storehouse, his helmet pulled over his brow, Cahir watched the ships tie up on the pier.