The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (3 page)

Conaire was nodding as he curved his broad arm protectively around his wife, his gold hair a fierce beacon in the sun. ‘We can see nothing from here anyway, brother. If anything is amiss, we are few enough to land and approach Dunadd by stealth, in case there are scouts.’

Rhiann was feeling sicker by the moment, still trying to shake off the daze of the rocking sea and sunshine. It was still so early in leaf-bud, despite the fine weather. The marsh grass was new and green, yet the tops of the mountains that ringed the plain were still dusted with snow. How could the Romans have come so early in the season? How could they have been caught out again?

As soon as the boat grated on the mud beach beside the first pier, the warriors were splashing through the shallows, swords drawn. Above, on a spur of rock that guarded the river mouth, the scattering of roundhouses crouched silent beneath their pale thatch roofs. As Eremon had seen, the nobles’ timber boats with their carved prows were bobbing unharmed on their weed-furred ropes. The little hide
curraghs
were drawn up in rows above the tideline, alongside dugout canoes. Yet there was no bustle of people coming and going, and no children crying. Only a lone dog, tied up against the first house, barked at them in a frenzy.

At Eremon’s orders, Rhiann and Caitlin stayed in the boat with the Sacred Isle sailors, ready to push off at his sign. But no sooner had his warriors disappeared among the rocks, than Rhiann’s eye was caught by a pale blur in the shadows of the houses. Her heart gave a great lurch as she recognized the shape – her mare Liath, led by a short, rotund man who stumbled past Eremon in agitated haste.

Drawing up her long robe with both hands, Rhiann put one foot on the railing and jumped down into the shallows, heedless of the freezing water that soaked her leather boots to the skin. ‘Didius!’ she cried, splashing free and breaking into a run.

In the middle of the sand they met, Didius stumbling and yanking on Liath’s reins, making the mare throw up her head in protest. Rhiann halted, her initial smile of greeting faded. Didius’s plump cheeks were quivering beneath his straggly, black beard, and his nose, the only large, straight thing about him, was red and streaming. ‘Didius?’

Didius stuffed his fingers in his mouth to halt the sob that rushed out, his black, Roman eyes shining with tears. ‘Lady, I am sorry,’ he gulped at last, the musical Alban speech thickened by his native Latin.

As Rhiann soothed the mare, stroking her cheeks, Didius snorted and wiped his nose on his tunic sleeve. All of his Roman clothes were long gone, as were his clipped hair and shaven face. If it wasn’t for his swarthy skin and oval eyes he could almost pass for one of the Epidii now, though, because of his girth, not a warrior.

‘Didius, what is wrong? Where is everyone?’

Eremon stepped up now, sheathing his sword on his belt, and the Roman glanced up at the prince with some of his old fear. Yet his distress got the better of him, and he grasped Rhiann’s hand and pressed it between his own. ‘Lady, we thought you drowned! All of you, in the sea!’

Rhiann drew in a sharp breath.

‘Dead?’ That was Eremon. ‘Who said such a thing?’

‘The – the chief druid. Gelert.’

Eremon’s eyes met Rhiann’s, and she saw the same terrible question dawning there.
How did the druid know about the shipwreck?

‘Didius,’ Rhiann strove to calm her voice, ‘tell us how this happened.’

Didius’s throat bobbed as he stumbled through an explanation: that after returning from Calgacus’s fort by land, the chief druid went into seclusion, and then emerged to announce that he had been sent a vision from the gods. Rhiann, the tribe’s Ban Cré, the sacred Land Mother, and her husband, the war leader, had drowned at sea.

As Didius reached the end his breath caught, and Rhiann closed her eyes for a moment, knowing exactly what this news had meant to him, a Roman prisoner, whose only protector among the Epidii had been Rhiann herself. She reached out to squeeze Didius’s callused hand. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, that was three days ago, and the mourning has been terrible. People burned offerings in a big bonfire at the water – see, over there – and they lit all the beacons on the cliffs. Now many have gone to Dunadd, and the keening of the women has left no peace anywhere in the fort. The council of elders is at the King’s Hall, and a mourning feast is being prepared. No one will speak to me, they are all so anguished!’

A chill crept over Rhiann’s skin, for there was one other person who would be utterly devastated by this lie. ‘And what of my aunt, the Lady Linnet? Have you seen her?’

Didius shook his head until his chins wobbled. ‘No, lady, she has not come.’

‘Goddess!’ Rhiann whirled to Eremon. ‘I must go to her
now
; she will be frantic!’

Eremon laid a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘Soon,
a stór
.’ He addressed himself sternly to Didius. ‘If this was the news, son of Rome, then why are you here unaccompanied, with my wife’s horse?’

‘Eremon!’ Rhiann exclaimed.

For a moment, the single, buried thread of iron in Didius rose to the surface, in a compression of his wet lips. Yet then it sank away, and embarrassment stole over his plump face. ‘I wasn’t escaping – where would I go? I wasn’t. I just … didn’t believe it.’ He gazed pleadingly at Rhiann. ‘I
knew
you would return, and I’ve been sleeping here with Liath ever since the druid emerged. Three days now, and watching the sea every day.’

Rhiann slowly nodded. ‘Then you prove both your loyalty and your keen senses for, as you can see, we are alive and well.’

Above, faces were now appearing at doorways, and there was a growing murmur of surprised voices from the cluster of houses.

‘Rhiann, we must go,’ Eremon ordered, jerking his hand at Colum and Fergus.

Taking a deep breath, Rhiann glanced over her shoulder at the boat. Conaire had returned to sweep Caitlin into his arms, depositing her gently on the grey sands as Fergus and Colum now began tossing their belongings on to the beach.

Taking Liath’s reins, Rhiann led the mare to Caitlin and explained what had happened. ‘We must hurry to Dunadd,’ Rhiann finished, ‘and so I wish you to ride Liath,
cariad
.’

Caitlin swallowed hard and shook her head. ‘Oh, no, Rhiann, I can’t. You’re the Ban Cré; the people need to see you entering at the gate with proper ceremony.’She tried to draw herself taller, with a bold toss of her fair hair. Yet though she was kin to Rhiann, she didn’t share Rhiann’s height, and the effect was less than defiant. ‘I will walk.’

Conaire’s blue eyes were shadowed with concern, and he bent his head close to his wife. ‘Beloved, please ride. You got so sick on the boat … ‘

Conaire caught Rhiann’s eye, as Caitlin set her lip and jutted her chin. Rhiann dropped her voice, wielding her best weapon. ‘Do it for the babe, Caitlin. As your healer, I strongly advise you to rest yourself during these early moons.’

‘I don’t …’ Suddenly, Caitlin clapped her hand to her mouth, her arm holding her belly. Her throat moved convulsively, as a fine sweat beaded her forehead, and Rhiann put her hand gently on the back of her neck. Choking down the spasm, Caitlin dropped her hand and breathed deeply. ‘I suppose I must then,’ she conceded at last, and in a rare show of submission allowed Conaire to lift her to the mare’s back. The crew of the boat offered to accompany them, but Eremon refused, telling them to ask for food at the port and return home.

Desperate with haste, they could spare only moments for the few fisherfolk who emerged from their houses as they passed, touching Rhiann’s hands. Throwing hurried answers to the questions coming from all directions, they took the trade path, which led along the river and across the marsh to Dunadd.

The banter of the sea journey had been replaced with silence. Colum’s face had set into even grimmer lines than usual, his blue eyes hard beneath his stringy cap of thinning, grey hair. Fergus was watchful, scanning the shadows beneath the river trees. Didius’s short legs made him the slowest, and though he must puff and pant with his head down to keep up, his black eyes kept darting to Rhiann’s face, as if to assure himself she was truly there.

When Dunadd emerged into view above the banks of river alders and willows, Rhiann realized she had braced herself to see some sign of disaster on the walls. But from afar there seemed nothing amiss.

The single rock crag still reared proudly from the red marsh; the timber palisade of the village at its feet marching around it in stout oak stakes. The thatched roofs of the nobles’ houses, high on the crag’s crest, glowed like sun on ripe barley. And the scarlet and white banner of the White Mare, the emblem of Rhiann’s royal clan, rippled from the apex of the King’s Hall, set on the dun’s highest point.

Something else was the same, too. The roofless circle of oak pillars that was the druid shrine still squatted beside the King’s Hall, as threatening to Rhiann as ever. For the shrine was the chief druid’s realm – Gelert must have announced their deaths there.

And how?
Rhiann wondered again.
How could Gelert know?
Yet Didius’s words called forth a powerful memory that had been subsumed by the shipwreck and all that happened after; the druid standing on the shore above Calgacus’s dun, watching their boat leave.

Glancing at her, Eremon immediately drew her close and raised her hand to his lips.
I know
, his look said.
I know, too
.

Even in his salt-stained tunic and trousers, with stubble shadowing his brown skin, Eremon looked every bit a prince, and Rhiann resolutely tried to take comfort from that. The more plainly he dressed, the straighter his back and shoulders seemed. And when his face was darkened with sun and dirt, the green of his eyes blazed all the brighter. He was a match for Gelert, she had to believe that.

And what about me?
Rhiann thought, with a flare of fierce pride, remembering what lay within her own soul. In the stone circle she had felt the Goddess fill her with the light of the Source – the life force which ran through all things. In that sacred space and with her surrender to Eremon, the connection between her body and the spirit world had been mended.

And as she summoned it, the wordless joy Rhiann had floated in that night now surged again, strengthening her. Slowly, she opened her eyes, the afterglare of the sun dancing in spots before her nose. She could face Gelert and Maelchon and even Agricola. She could. She must.

They had not even fully crossed the causeway over the river when the first shouts rang out from people gathered on the meadow, digging the baking pits for the mourning feast. Then the cry of a horn soared up from the timber tower that spanned Dunadd’s main gate.

They had been seen.

CHAPTER 3

T
hey had barely emerged from the gatetower into the sun-filled yard inside the palisade when the shouts of recognition and surprise began, and the bellows of warriors from the walkway that ran along the walls.

Most people had been inside, sharing the quiet of mourning, their doors smeared with spirals of rowan-ash and mutton-fat, their house banners taken down and folded away. Yet now, drawn by the noise, people came running from their clustered houses and down the twisting paths between the workshops and granaries: men with skinning knives; women with flour spilling down their skirts. Dogs writhed and jumped about in a frenzy of barking, and crying children were dragged along by their mothers. Within moments Rhiann was surrounded by a crowd all talking at once, as Conaire lifted Caitlin down from Liath, and Eremon tried to field the clamour of questions.

Pale faces swam in the shadow of the gatetower, or were lit to blinding brightness in the sun. People touched Rhiann’s cloak, grasped her hands, assuring themselves she was alive. Their distress and relief was palpable, catching Rhiann by surprise.

She was the Ban Cré, sacred vessel for the Goddess, servant for the people. Yet she hadn’t understood, or allowed herself to believe, that they loved her. The realization rose warm in Rhiann’s heart, overwhelming after what she had felt outside, and she had to swallow it down to smile her reassurance for them.

Caitlin, whose bravado had made her a favourite since her arrival the year before, had now all but disappeared beneath a mass of milling women, and Rhiann was just about to rescue her when a pair of sturdy arms were suddenly flung around her.

Stunned, at first Rhiann could not recognize the broken voice babbling in her ear, and it wasn’t until the woman held her at arm’s length that Rhiann recognized her friend, the blacksmith’s wife Aldera, her round, ruddy face streaming with tears, her butter-coloured hair wet with them.

‘Rhiann, we thought you dead! Yet Didius was right that you were alive … by all the gods!’ Rhiann’s face was pressed into a plump shoulder redolent with the scents of woodsmoke, swaddling cloths and sour milk.

‘It … was a mistake …’ Rhiann mumbled into the folds of Aldera’s dress.

Then Aldera was holding her out again with one hand, wiping her tear-streaked face and blowing her nose into her sleeve, as three of her five children tugged on her skirts, the baby wailing at this unusual show of emotion. Aldera looked down at her eldest boy. ‘Quickly now! Run to the King’s Hall and tell the council there the war leader and Ban Cré have returned safely!’

The child nodded and rubbed his nose, his eyes huge, but as he turned to scamper away, a hand shot out and grabbed the back of his tunic, pulling him to a startled halt.

‘No,’ Eremon said, his eyes meeting Rhiann’s over the boy’s head. ‘I will go myself, and deliver my own surprise.’ He released the boy and clapped his shoulder in a more manly way. ‘You stay here, lad, and look after the women.’

Eremon spared a glance for Conaire now and, as usual, the two brothers needed no words between them. Jerking his head at Fergus and Colum to follow, Conaire dropped a kiss on Caitlin’s head and fell into step behind Eremon.

Those people flowing down towards the gate parted as the four warriors drove their way up the muddy path that snaked between the roundhouses, granaries and stables, up the steep, rock stairs of the crag and under the carved wooden arch of the Moon Gate, which guarded the crag’s first tier.