The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (51 page)

Moved by a great reverence, Minna sensed the light growing behind her closed eyes, a glow that enveloped them both. This was sacred, too; an act that blessed them both. Cahir gasped, and she smoothed back his unbound hair, drawing her legs together so she could feel all of his skin from breast to flank.

‘I love you.’

Cahir kissed her palm, moving within her like the sea. ‘I know. I have seen it in your face.’

‘But it’s dark,’ she whispered, tears standing in her eyes.

‘Then I can feel it.’ He dipped his head, his tongue drinking from the scented hollow of her throat as he buried himself again. ‘Can you?’ he whispered. ‘Can you feel it,
mo chridhe
?’ My heart. He murmured into her hair, winding endearments around her like a soft mantle.

She couldn’t answer, though, her body cleft by loss as well as his warmth. This might be the last time he loved her, when her skin was only just coming to know the moods of his touch. She needed more, for that flame to be exhausted. She needed years.

The terrible longing intensified the joy, and they were drowning in a rush of breath and pounding hearts, sweat on skin, and her cries that he swallowed with his kisses, as if tasting them.

And at last there was no more to say, for the love lay between them unhindered and unbound, and held them as the darkness did.

Chapter 46

‘I
will write to you.’ Beneath the brow-guard of Cahir’s boar helmet, his eyes scanned the warriors crowding the port. Two weeks after Beltaine and the bulk of the army had slipped away on foot through the mountains. Day by day Dunadd had emptied.

Minna wrapped her arms around her chest, huddled in her cloak, trying to look as if she were not dying inside. ‘Write? I thought you despised Roman learning.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘So now you speak
Latin
?’

Cahir grinned, but he was also avoiding her eye. ‘I don’t, minx – I’ve rounded up a trader who does, though. A British trader.’

‘Poor man.’

‘I can’t trust messages will get to you over land, but sea-traders can avoid the armies. And you will receive news in my own words.’

‘That would be wonderful.’ She looked away, blinking in the harsh sunlight.

All of Dunadd had come to farewell the king. Minna stood by Cahir’s command ship, a plank trader with square sails that was tied against the pier, shifting with the swells from a north-westerly wind. Around it, boats of all sizes cluttered the bay. The shoreline was jostling with people; the scent of fear and nerves was as sharp as sweat in the air.

Leather jerkins had been greased, mail and spear-tips burnished, hair limed into ferocious peaks. Ruarc was resplendent in bronze and iron armour and a gilded wood scabbard, his leaf-green cloak caught by an enormous brooch. On his head was a helmet as ornate as Cahir’s own, winged like a seabird.

Women and children lined the beach. Orla and Finola were standing at the end of the pier with a grim Clíona: Orla was fighting to look brave, her mouth pursed; Finola was less successful. Garvan was also there, sporting a defiant scowl, though Minna had seen the confusion in his eyes. However, despite his best efforts, Cahir had enjoyed no success in softening his son’s heart yet.

Nearby, the noblewomen did not wail and wring their hands but stood in a silent group, bejewelled and finely dressed, their faces proud. Minna summoned her courage; she had to be like them.

Gobÿn strode by, shouting Cahir’s orders to the men loading the boats. War horns brayed, pipes skirled. Finbar and Donal stood by Cahir’s side, for it was to them he was entrusting Dunadd, along with a significant contingent of warriors to guard the fort.

A deep voice boomed out now, trained to reach across the water with a precise volume and clarity: Darach. Cahir removed his helmet and bowed his head before the chief druid. The bustle of movement faded, replaced by expectant silence. There was only the cry of gulls, the slap of the waves.

Darach sprinkled sacred water on Cahir’s brow with rowan-wood, then turned to the four directions, arms raised. ‘Lugh, son of the sun, we ask you to bestow your light on our son Cahir, King of Dalriada, so that he may see his path clearly and follow it. Manannán, lord of the sea, we ask the waves, your steeds, to bear these ships swiftly to the Roman shore. Hawen, boar god, make keen the edge of these blades, and strong the arms that bear them. And the lord of death, he who is not named: if you claim your sons then feast them on the Blessed Isle as befitting their bravery, and return them to life with us once again.’

When Darach had fallen silent, Cahir raised his head, his face shining. A younger druid came forward with his great sword in its battered scabbard and handed it to Minna. She had been told what to do, but never could she be prepared for this.

She bowed her head over Cahir’s sword, struggling to hold it up. ‘My lord.’ Her voice sounded small amid that vast crowd. ‘As your
lennan
I arm you and send you to war. In this way, may the blessings of the Goddess also be laid upon you and your endeavours.’
And bring you safely back to me
, she added silently.

Cahir placed his hand over the scabbard. ‘My lady,’ he acknowledged, and stood with his arms out so she could belt it on him as the noblewomen had done for their warriors. It was awkward, but she must not let the tip touch the ground. Every eye was fixed on her as she self-consciously sank to her knees to fasten the buckle, leaning around him. His breath brushed her brow, sending a tremor through her, and when the sword lay against his thigh he helped her to her feet.

A deafening cheer went up from the warriors, echoing back from the hills and across the water. Those on the ships struck their swords on their shields, making a noise like rolls of harsh thunder. In the midst of that roar, Cahir held Minna’s eyes. ‘Can you see it?’

Confused for a moment, Minna smiled softly. His love. ‘I can see
it.’

Then, to her surprise, Cahir did not kiss her formally on both cheeks, but claimed her mouth instead, impetuous and passionate. The cheering swelled, and Minna could still feel the last hint of warmth on her lips even as he turned away to board his ship. The boar banner rippled over his head in the wind, and his men closed about him. He was hers no longer.

She stayed there as the ships left the bay, the banks of oars rising and dipping, the sails filling out as they reached the open sea. Only when the command ship disappeared around the headland did she take a shuddering breath.

She could not turn back to land, though. She knew all the noblewomen stood there, watching to see what she might do now that she was alone here. As she paused, struggling with herself, a touch came on her shoulder.

It was Riona, smoothing a cloak across her swelling belly. ‘Lady,’ she said, her voice raised to carry, ‘if you would be so good as to come to my mother-in-law’s house, she would like to share a cup of mead with you. One of my nephews has a rash, and she requests your help if you would give it.’ Minna swivelled to shore, with a grateful smile at Riona.

There was a moment of indecision as together they reached the knot of noblewomen. Then one with a babe-in-arms detached herself and strode boldly towards Minna. She nodded respectfully, and, as the child began to wail, Riona broke in. ‘The Lady Breda is worried for her son.’

‘He cries all the time,’ the woman murmured, jiggling the boy on her hip. ‘And he holds his belly. I fear …’ her haughty face twisted, ‘that he is not well.’

So this would build the bridge. Minna straightened, and reached out for the child.

BOOK THREE

SUNSEASON,
AD
367

Chapter 47

F
ullofaudes raced his horse along the ranks of men, its hooves spattering mud around his ears. He pulled up at the lip of the hill so abruptly that the horse shied.

At first the Dux said nothing, gazing into this cursed mist that had fallen over the rolling hills below the Wall. It was only now being burned off by a rising sun. ‘Do we know the numbers?’ he bellowed to his officers, sitting on their mounts beneath his standard.

Their faces sported the same carefully blank expressions, but Fullofaudes saw in their eyes the stark fear he was trying to suppress. ‘Not yet, sir,’ one said, clearing his throat. ‘We can’t see far enough, so I have sent riders along the fringes to determine the extent of the enemy force.’ Fullofaudes watched his lips move.
The enemy force.
Tugging off his helmet, he ran his hands through sweaty hair, conscious of the grime coating his face and muddied armour. He was not his usual self, precise and hard: he was undone.

The first message had been a brutal shock. He received the news in Brigantes territory, after quelling another riot about taxes. A sudden attack had been launched by Picts landing at the eastern end of the Wall. So many warriors had stormed the shores that the forts had either been taken or abandoned. Fullofaudes thundered back north with cavalry and infantry units drawn from his hinterland forts, furious but ultimately confident.

Now, after three days, he had gained no sleep, and his mind and body were struggling. More messages had come in, relentless messages, and with each one his world had darkened around him. What he had thought was another sporadic raid, like the Pictish one three years ago, turned out to be something entirely different.

A force had not only landed in the east, but an even bigger one had invaded the west, with scores of boats and columns of warriors pouring down from the northern moors and across the Erin sea. Two armies, west and east, swarming together like ants.

Then more riders came in. Luguvalium fallen. His outpost forts destroyed. His scouts scattered. The Wall burning. He barely had chance to abandon his positions and regroup his forces here in the hills, to stop the barbarians heading any further south.

Worse was to come, though. When Fullofaudes summoned his reserve troops he discovered that four
vexillationes
of cavalry, two thousand men, had already been annihilated by a night raid on one of the recently reoccupied outpost forts to the north. How did the Picts know where they were stationed, when he had ordered its occupation a secret?

That question still gnawed on his exhausted mind, but there was no time to digest its implications. This behaviour went against everything he knew about the northern peoples – that they were squabbling beasts whose infighting did his work for him. This was something not seen for centuries; they had joined together in a great alliance, the first since Agricola’s days. And unless the Dux was willing to abandon the north of Britannia to their fire and swords, he must accept the terrible challenge of open battle.

Spurring the horse to the edge of the ridge where the ground fell to scree, Fullofaudes peered into the mist, which was breaking now in ghostly swirls. He could just glimpse dark masses of men on the farther ridge, although as yet they were silent, like wraiths emerging from another world, another time. He curbed his fears and his wandering mind once more. They were men, and they could die.

His scouts came galloping back, milling about on sweaty horses behind him. Unable to see clearly, they had ridden perilously close to the enemy flanks on west and east, hazarding a rough count of men. As they stammered the numbers to him now, Fullofaudes did not turn around in the saddle. Ten, twenty,
thirty thousand or more
. It could not be. He had seven thousand, if he was lucky, the rest spread over the Province, guarding the borders and coasts.

Fullofaudes knew he was on the edge of an immense precipice. Dread and disbelief clawed at him, threatening to break him.

Then the drizzle began to lift, revealing rank upon rank of tattooed faces, wild hair and beards, tattered banners and shaggy cloaks. The dark, endless masses blanketed the opposite ridge, covering the ground for miles around.

‘Dear God … Jupiter and Mars … Mithras …’ he gasped, calling on every god he knew.

*

‘… by Hawen, lord of the boar …’ Cahir murmured.