The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (55 page)

Then he came back north and claimed Nessa, but it was not for love after all, only for the throne, the blood.

‘Then how could you wed him?’ Minna’s words were squeezed from a tight throat.

Nessa buried her face in her hands. Gede implanted his seed in her before he went to war with his brother. When he came back, and Nessa surmised what he’d done, she got rid of the child with Darine’s herbs. Furious at being denied his own royal son, Gede said if Nessa ever told the truth of Drustan’s death he would say
she
had done it, freeing herself to marry him. She flung back that she would tell the truth if he did not leave her body alone. They had been living in mutual loathing ever since.

Minna’s mind was spinning. ‘But how would anyone believe you killed Drustan if he was so far away on campaign? And did no one see Gede attack his brother?’ Her mouth formed the questions, but a terrible thread was already unrolling in her heart. She grabbed Nessa’s arms, her thumbs digging into her flesh. ‘
How did Gede kill him
?’

Nessa swallowed a sob. ‘I’m sorry … sorry I did not tell you before.’ She closed her eyes. ‘He did it with poison.’

Weariness had no hold over Cahir.

He strode tirelessly at the head of his army, his triumph a storm in his blood. He saw more keenly in the clear air, as if all the veils of shame and disappointment had been stripped from his eyes.

It had taken some time to gather his men together after the great battle, but now they were marching with the Attacotti and their Erin brothers in one enormous flood down the west side of the central hills. Fortunately this route took him away from Gede, who had chosen the east side.

For though the two kings raised cups of victory ale together on the battlefield, and Gede smiled and spoke rousingly amid the cheers of their combined forces, his eyes when they passed over Cahir were always cold, with speculation in their depths.

Cahir was heartily glad to turn his back on the Picts and head south, for they had news that the forces of the Count of the Saxon Shore – Fullofaudes’ southern counterpart – were being recalled from their bases on the coasts.

Other battles were coming, and Cahir did not want coldness and watchfulness. He wanted to lose himself in passion and fire. He wanted to breathe freely for the first time in his life.

Chapter 50

M
inna hunched miserably in the stern of the
curragh
which ploughed through the waves.

As the fishermen and six warriors rowed into a southwesterly wind, her belly was reliving its previous sea journey on Jared’s ship. She spent her time beneath a pile of cloaks, shivering and retching over the side.

Donal tried to point out practically that no healthy man ever died from sea-sickness, but after she cocked one bleary, vengeful eye at him he let her be. After that, only desperate thoughts of Cahir stopped Minna wanting to follow her bile down into the dark, foam-laced waves. Everything stank, from the tar of the hides to the fishy smell of ropes and sails.

Finally, on the sixth day, they sailed into a broad estuary from the open sea. It was low water, and in the morning light the inlet was a vast plain of glistening sand and mudflats, edged with marsh grass. Far away to north, east and south there rose mountains, blue and hazy in the sunshine after days of rain.

The fishermen said they must stand off for high water, for it was dangerous, with the swirls of sand sculpted into underwater sandbars and treacherous bore tides. ‘I think it’s wiser to land north of the Wall anyway, rather than row straight up to the walls of Luguvalium,’ Donal pronounced after consulting with the other warriors. ‘Two rivers join this inlet: the southern leads directly to the town; the northern just leads into the marshes behind the town. I think we should take the northern river.’

Minna sipped water, her thoughts suddenly roaming back in time to Broc. It was ludicrous to wonder if she might see him, for the frontier was hundreds of miles long. But she was closer now than she had been for so long. What was he doing? Was he involved in the great battle? She didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. When she thought of him, there was a blank space inside that frightened her, as if she couldn’t feel him anywhere. Her eyes on the glittering water, she held that ache in her throat, knowing the unbridgeable gulfs between them now, thinking of the boy he had been. There was a tug in her heart towards those memories. But that’s all they were, memories. And as for Cian, she pictured him far away in Gaul, or even Rome, watching silver tigers in the arena. She slowly wiped her quivering lip. She knew he was clever enough to have fled far from Alba, far from this danger. ‘Cahir’s letter said they had taken Luguvalium,’ she croaked.

‘True,’ Donal was saying, ‘but there might be remnant Roman bands close to the town still, and our boys will have their hands full with the civilians as well. I can’t take that chance with you. Nor do we know what has happened to the Carvetii nobility.’ The shadowy presence of Maeve reared up between them. Was she being held in the town? ‘No, we’ll land where it’s quiet, give Luguvalium a wide berth and circle about from the north through the empty lands to the Wall forts further east. They will have a better idea of the lay of the land.’

They beached to wait for the tide in a tiny cove on the northern shore. Watching Minna crawl on hands and knees to retch up the water, Donal said, ‘You know, lass, aside from your stirring words that day, I’m not sure I should have let you come.’

She wiped her mouth and pulled her cloak around her with shaking fingers. ‘
Let
me? I don’t think you had a choice.’

Donal grinned. The wind stirred the tufts over his ears into a ruddy halo, and his balding pate was burned an angry red. ‘Aye, but imagine me saying that to Cahir. “Sorry, my king, but she
made
me do it – that bitty slip of a girl.”’ He sighed. ‘Make no mistake, he’ll have my innards roasting over a fire shortly.’

‘Donal.’ She squinted out at the sun on the mudflats. ‘It is not only men who can be brave and bold and foolhardy. It is not only men who can risk themselves. When Cahir took me as his seer, it wasn’t just a name.’ She buried her chin in her shoulder, voicing the thing that whispered to her in the dark hours, when her guilt grew into a monster. ‘If he dies, I do, too. I am bound to him.’

Behind her, Donal was silent. ‘However he bellows,’ he said quietly at last, ‘my king would do well to have you by his side. Whatever comes.’

When the estuary was covered with water once more they pushed off again. Before they left, Minna went behind the rocks and changed from her stinking tunic, stained with vomit, into a dress of blue wool from her pack. Around her neck she looped the crystal necklace Cahir had given her, and wound her hair up with bronze pins. Though her clothes were barbarian, she thought she could pass as a Roman lady without much scrutiny.

They rowed to the northern rivermouth, the banks of the inlets deserted islands of saltmarsh and bog, carpeted with moss and, in drier parts, thrift and grass. There were no sounds but the calls of the gulls and the wind scratching the leaves of the scrubby trees. The fishing huts they passed, covered with seaweed, were abandoned and smokeless. They glided past one settlement that was nothing but scattered ashes.

The silence became oppressive. The wide skies and endless snaking channels were lonely, the braying of geese swallowed by the emptiness. Then the salt-flats eventually gave way to abandoned fields, and still there was no sign of life. Minna sat in the bowels of the
curragh
, her knuckles white as she gripped its side. The sun was behind their heads when they at last coasted around a bend and saw a village. Clusters of half-burned houses surrounded the river, and the air was tainted with smoke.

Ashore, a horse whinnied.

Squinting, Minna could just see men picking over the remains of the buildings. Their hair and clothes were dirty and smoke-blackened, merging into the background of mudflats and low hills. Then, as if struck by a flint, the sun moved between the hills and trees, and lit up metal armour.

Warriors. She felt herself blanch as Donal growled an order and their men stopped rowing, their oars dripping in the air. But there was no halting the boat unless they made a lot of noise with reversed oars, and so for an endless moment it glided forward like a swan.

Ahead, a wooden bridge spanned the river, and it was lined with warriors, the slanting sun picking out the chainmail, their gazes fixed on the
curragh
. Minna’s eyes flew over them. She saw leather jerkins, battered helmets, lances, bows and swords – but all warriors looked the same from afar, barbarian and Roman alike.
Was their hair long or short … did they bear the checked tunics of the tribes, the tufts of fur and skin tipping spear-hafts, the bronze mounts on helmet crests
? Donal rose to full height in the bow. He would know, he could tell …

His curse pierced Minna’s breast, just as a man on the bridge bellowed a challenge. ‘Halt, or we’ll shoot!’

He spoke Latin.

Chapter 51

M
inna clung to Donal’s arm as the men on the bridge trained their bows. ‘Pull over now!’ the commander yelled. ‘Down your weapons
now
!’

‘They are not ours.’ She could not form words properly, but Donal grunted agreement, scanning the shores to either side. The Roman soldiers were already swarming along the turf banks, their spears braced.

She fought panic, grinding her fingers into Donal’s bones to steady herself. Then something forced its way out. ‘Don’t shoot!’ she cried in Latin. ‘We are no raiders!’

The captain paused. ‘Name yourself, or we’ll stick you with so many spines you’ll look like bloody hedgehogs!’

Minna let go of Donal to draw herself up, glimpsing the fury settling over his face. She made herself stop thinking so wildly of Cahir. ‘My name is … Ana Lucilla,’ she replied hoarsely, digging up a friend of Mistress Flavia from her memory. The man on the bridge squinted down.

‘Hold away from the shore,’ Donal muttered at his oarsmen, eyeing the soldiers on either bank. The oars dipped, steadying the boat in the current.

‘And what the devil are you doing sailing in like this, girl, in such rough company?’

She braced herself on the mast. She had made up stories for Marcus, after all, all the time. ‘I was with my kin in the south when news came of the attacks. I have to return to my father.’

‘Bloody hell!’ The man barked a laugh. ‘You’ve got nerve. This place is crawling with savages, don’t you know?’

‘We’ve been at sea,’ Minna ventured, hoping the man was simple, or tired, or both.

‘It’s fortunate for you then that we just wrangled this town back from those bastards, though whether you’ve got any family left alive is another matter.’ He shrugged, and spat into the water. ‘People fled by the cartload.’

She made no reply, hoping her terrified expression spoke for her. The soldier stepped back from the edge of the bridge, though his shoulders did not relax. ‘Get those clods of yours to lay down their weapons. You can land … there …’ he pointed, ‘but as soon as they ship the oars they put their hands out or we’ll spear every last one of them. Got that?’

Minna whispered the translation to Donal. ‘Is there anything to—’

‘No.’ Donal cut her off. ‘If we land, you buy us time. I don’t know what for, but time.’ Slowly, with a look of pain, he unbuckled his sword-belt. ‘Ah, lass.’

‘Don’t say it,’ she replied through clenched teeth.

As the boat hit the shallows, the Roman soldiers splashed out to take hold of the bow. One by one, the Dalriadans stumbled over the side into the water. Grimly, Donal ignored all the spears to lift Minna and struggle to the bank, placing her gently down.

The commander had by now made his way down to them. He and his troop were filthy and ragged, some outfitted with pilfered armour, and shields painted with the boar of Dalriada, she shuddered to see. ‘You travel in strange company, girl,’ the leader muttered, eyeing the long moustaches and braids of the Dalriadan warriors.