The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (10 page)

Caitlin drank and grimaced, resting the cup beside her on the rushes. ‘Urgh!’

‘Urgh indeed.’ Rhiann tucked loose hair behind her ears, sighing as the tension of her uncoiled braids eased. ‘But it will strengthen your womb.’

‘It was just the normal expecting sickness.’ Caitlin flicked out her fingers as Rhiann peered into her patient’s eyes. ‘Honestly, do stop looking at me like that!’

‘You should get to bed and rest,’ Rhiann murmured.

Caitlin tried to toss her braids defiantly, but as they were wound about her head, her jerky nod did no more than make Eithne smile as she glanced up from her sewing. ‘You’re not really going to be like this for the whole five moons, are you?’ Caitlin demanded of Rhiann. ‘Once I’m back on my horse and in the fresh air I will feel fine!’

‘Horse!’ Rhiann’s eyebrows rose. ‘And just what do you expect to be doing? Riding the borders with Eremon’s men again? Hunting for deer with your bow? Or perhaps raiding a Roman fort?’

Caitlin sucked in her lip as if considering. ‘Yes, well, why not? Although not a Roman raid, of course, that might be too dangerous.’

Rhiann broke into a laugh that was echoed by Eithne. Even Didius gave in to a tentative smile, looking up from the stone loom-weight he was boring. In the days of Rhiann’s absence he had taken refuge at Bran and Aldera’s house, for he never spent time near Eremon and his men without Rhiann. He had combed his beard and braided his thatch of black hair in Epidii fashion, and the colour had returned to his round cheeks.

Rhiann smiled at him, but just then she sensed eyes on her, and she looked across the fire and met Eremon’s gaze. The bones of his face were stark with a hunger her belly recognized, and as it lurched she realized that tonight they were going to their marriage bed, as if for the first time.

For the bed of furs in the alcove above had always been a cold place. Once Eremon was made war leader Rhiann had formally moved into the Hall with him, yet in reality she had often slept in her own house – and he in other beds if they were available. When they did share a sleeping place, they lay with their backs to each other, the gap between their bodies a symbol of the distance between their hearts.

Rhiann started now, realizing that her thoughts had made her blood beat faster at her temples. This husband was alive and real, and could no longer be kept at bay, far from the inner recesses of her heart, or her body. And she didn’t want him far away, she didn’t …

She forced herself to look at Eremon again. Conaire was talking animatedly to Rori on his other side, but Eremon’s eyes rested on Rhiann, as warm as the touch of his hands. A knot of panic tightened in her, because she didn’t want to fail him, and her eyes blurred as she turned her cheek away, cursing herself.

‘
A stór
.’ Suddenly Eremon was before her, holding out one hand, in his other a lit pine taper. Rhiann stared at the tiny, spitting flame and took Eremon’s fingers, letting him draw her to the stairs, which led to the gallery above. The sound of Aedan’s harp, the farewells of those well loved, all passed her by in a haze of woodsmoke and firelight.

As they climbed, the darkness took them, each bedplace along the gallery a pool of shadow, the fire-glow drifting up through the opening in the floor to dance on the sloping thatch. The bed boxes themselves, filled with heather and bracken, were surrounded by wicker screens and hangings on all sides, to afford some privacy. Yet sounds still carried, and there was always the sense of people close all around, breathing in the darkness.

When they reached their bedplace, Rhiann’s limbs froze of their own accord, as Eremon touched the taper to the rush wick in the mutton-fat lamp. In the little pool of flickering light, he carefully took off his empty belt and laid it over his scabbard on the cherrywood chest at the bed’s foot. He sat down on the fur covers to slip off his boots and unlace his trousers, and then he was before her in just his tunic, unpinning her dress with gentle fingers until it fell to the ground.

Fear was rising in Rhiann’s throat, choking her, a fear that did not listen to her reason, that she loved him with all that was in her, that he was a man who would never hurt, never take what she would not give. The roof, sloping low over the bed, seemed to press down on her, and she realized she was clutching at the folds of her shift with rigid fingers.

With still no word, Eremon took her hands and eased them flat against his own breast, wrapping her in a warm circle of arms. When she at last slid her palms around his back, he sank to the bed, the bracken and feather mattress crackling beneath their weight. ‘
Mo chroi
, my heart,’ he murmured, pressing her face into his chest. ‘Do you think I’ve forgotten what you told me not one moon ago? Do you think I would take you, all unwilling and terrified, like those men did?’

His heart thudded against Rhiann’s ear, strong against the uncertain tripping of her own. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No,
cariad
.I … I just—’

‘Shhh.’ He held her tighter, and she breathed deeply of the smoke caught in the folds of his tunic. ‘I told you I would be there as you faced those memories, and here I am. There is no rush, sweetheart, no rush at all.’

Her bitter laugh was half a sob. ‘No
rush?
When you will be gone to war soon, and may not come back?’ She curled around the sudden plunge of shame in her belly, but he only held her tighter.

‘I knew it would be hard for you,’ he continued evenly, ‘lying here so close to those you know. But I have in mind a place, a way to make you feel safe, and there I will show you what it means to love, in a way that leaves no room for fear.’

‘A place?’ She raised her face, searching for his darkened eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

He loosened his arms and pressed one finger against her lips, pupils wide in the flickering lamplight. ‘You’ll see. Just trust me.’

She stroked his cheek. He still hadn’t paused to shave, and she wondered at the unfamiliar feel of stubble. ‘I do trust you; you mustn’t think I don’t. Or that I don’t … want you.’ She glanced down to where his brown throat disappeared under the embroidered hem of his tunic, saw the lump there bob as he swallowed, his gaze following her own. She remembered when that wanting did flow through her, in the stone circle, the feel of that smooth skin under deer-hide. ‘I won’t disappoint you,’ she whispered desperately. ‘I won’t—’

‘Hush,’ he only said again.

And though Eremon kept his tunic on as he always had, everything else was different this night. For the gulf of cold sheets between them was no more, filled now with the sweet, warm curve of bodies, as he held her, back tucked against his belly, legs tangled into one.

Over the years Rhiann’s dream had evolved as she evolved, and this night it changed again, as she and Eremon held each other for the first true time in their own bed.

The valley was the same, just as she described it to Linnet, the cauldron warm and tingling in her hands, brimming with the light of the Source. Beside her, Eremon stood, his unsheathed sword in both hands. But now she could see his face fully, his dark hair spilling from beneath his Erin boar-crest war helmet, the line of shadow that edged his jaw as he raised his face. Up there, where the jagged peaks reared, the far clash of arms sounded, accompanied by the scream of eagles.

‘Eremon.’ She heard her own voice, a note of fear in it. ‘They’ll take it, Eremon. They’ll take the Source and leave us nothing. I can’t save our people then, don’t you see? I can’t save them without the Source.’

Yet Eremon gazed at her calmly, and the flame that licked up from the cauldron was reflected in his eyes. I won’t let them take it, my wife.’

Suddenly an eagle’s shriek pierced the air directly above, and they both looked up. For the first time in memory she saw it then: a shadow of great wings, a huge, outspread figure that blotted out the stars. And the cry broke free from Rhiann’s throat. ‘
They come! The Romans come!
’

And Eremon’s hands were on Rhiann’s shoulders, shaking her gently awake. She blinked her eyes open into pure night, still tasting the echo of that cry on her tongue.

‘It is me, love.’ Eremon’s voice was soft and sure in her ear. ‘I am here. You are safe.’
His
hands, pulling her back to herself.
His
breath brushing her face, moth wings in the dark.

Rhiann’s chest heaved, and she pushed a hand under her breastbone to calm it. When at last she could speak, it was not to allay his fears. She groped for his cheek, cupped his chin. ‘Eremon,’ she hissed. ‘The Romans are on the move – you must find out where they will strike, for they sit idle no longer.’

He was silent for a long moment. ‘Are you sure?’

In answer her fingers found his mouth, and unthinking, desperate, she pulled his lips to hers as if to assure herself he was here, warm and alive. He tasted of ale and salty meat, he tasted of Eremon, and she broke away and buried her face in his shoulder.

When he felt her trembling, he rolled over to his back and pulled her into the curve of his body.

‘I am sure,’ she whispered, her eyes open in the darkness. ‘They are moving.’

Though Eremon at last fell into an uneasy sleep, Rhiann could not. She lay until the grey dawn crept under the wide oak doors below and climbed the stairs.

Then she rose, sliding her cloak from the wicker screen, taking her shoes from beside the bed. Silently she crept past the other bedplaces and down the stairs.

By the banked fire, Cù raised his grey snout from among the old king’s hounds. She paused to pat him as she stirred the coals up with a poker, feeding them with twigs and bark from the wood basket until the flames were bright and new, pushing back the last of the darkness. Against the walls, the dark humps of the other men did not stir, for they had sat up late drinking, judging by the scattering of empty alder cups on the hearth-benches, and the few pig-bones that even the dogs had left.

Rhiann set the tripod over the low flames, filled the iron kettle from the water pot by the door, and scattered in a handful of dried nettle-leaves. Then she went to the porch and scraped open the door, settling her cloak around her shoulders, deep in thought.

The eaves outside dripped with dew, and all was grey and cold, the thatched houses below hunched and silent, awaiting the sunrise. The women’s waste pit was against the south-east wall of the crag, and she was returning through the Horse Gate, her head burrowed into her cloak, when she realized someone was blocking her path.

It was Gelert, on his way to the shrine for the sun greeting, his owl-head staff held high before him as if to cleave the mist.

The druids concerned themselves with things of the sky and stars; the science of marking time; when to sow and harvest and hold the festivals to honour the gods. The priestesses were of the earth, the slower rhythms of growth and birth. Each could respect the other, yet Gelert despised all things female. Rhiann knew that her mother had rejected him in his youth, but the hatred of women must come from somewhere deeper even than that. She didn’t understand; she would never understand.

Such confusion always unnerved her, and now Rhiann drew her cloak closed and made to go past him, her chin down. As she did, she glimpsed the way Gelert’s cold, yellow eyes slid over her body, suggestive not of lust, but of other dark things. Once, he’d waited to see that belly swell, as proof Eremon had taken her by force, making her life a misery. Now, she realized, he would want to see it flat, for his hopes of controlling them had come to nothing, and he would not want their heirs ruling Dunadd.

In a sudden burst of defiance Rhiann dropped her crossed arms and straightened.
Don’t be afraid. It feeds him
.

At her scornful gaze, something in his own eyes lit and he smiled, the faint tattoos on his ageing cheeks stretching into jagged lines. ‘I am pleased to see our Ban Cré so robust, so healthy. So unharmed by her recent travails.’

Rhiann’s mouth twisted, the accusation hovering on her tongue. But she’d already decided she didn’t want to invite his ire; she didn’t want him to think of her and her loved ones at all. So she swallowed down the bitter words, brushing her hair back from her shoulders. ‘Yes, I am well, as you can see, and I have you to thank for that.’

The wing of Gelert’s eyebrow quivered among the straggling strands of his long, grey hair. ‘Oh? Pray do tell me, that I may serve you the greater.’

‘Why, choosing such a man for me, brother druid.’ Rhiann smiled sweetly and, to her satisfaction, the muscle in Gelert’s flaccid cheek jumped. ‘You have given me more than I ever hoped for – how could any man win the hearts of the Epidii so quickly, so completely, as Eremon? Such a man has not been seen for generations.’

Gelert’s thin mouth worked in what passed for a smile. ‘He’s won nothing so completely, girl.’ His glance dropped again to her flat belly. ‘Neither have you, I see.’

So insolent, as if he owned her. Hot anger rose in her throat. ‘And yet a child of the Erin blood, of
my
blood, does indeed already quicken, as you well know. He will sit in this Hall when you are no more than ashes on the wind.’

Gelert blinked. ‘Ah, yes, the other whelp breeds, does she not? Interesting.’ He spoke of Caitlin as if she were a dog.

Rhiann’s bold spurt of anger quickly died. She crossed her arms again. Under her fingers, bumps had risen on her skin. ‘Conaire and Eremon, indeed all the men, have taken this child to their hearts, though he is not yet born.’ She didn’t know why she said it, for her voice was strained, and Gelert’s gaze came back from the distant sky and sharpened on her face.

‘Indeed? Then I hope that the child comes safely in these uncertain times.’

At those words the chill sank through Rhiann’s skin. Then Gelert’s eyes slid to one side, as a cough and shuffling of feet came from behind her.

Rhiann glanced back. It was Didius, standing there with a determined look on his face, his dark eyes wavering only slightly as he stared somewhere towards Gelert’s knees. Rhiann nearly laughed aloud with relief. Didius had once vowed to be her personal guard, and he certainly had an uncanny knack of knowing when he was needed.