The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (32 page)

‘Eremon!’ A flood of guilt sharpened her voice, and she tried to laugh. ‘You scared me half to death!’ She nudged him with her elbow, but he suddenly pulled her to one side, into a dark, doorway. The air within tickled her nose, thick with chaff and the scent of old hay. It was one of the small granaries, used only for horse fodder.

‘I wanted to see you alone,’ Eremon murmured, mouth buried in the nape of her neck.

‘Well, there were other ways to do that.

‘True, but none as much fun.’

‘Then all playfulness died as his lips claimed her own, his soft tongue reaching through her guilty pain and plucking a string that vibrated deep in her belly. As his warm hand slid under her cloak and dress and up the back of her thigh, she wrenched her lips free. ‘
Cariad
, it’s freezing in here!’

‘Don’t worry,’ he murmured, edging her back until her shoulders came up against the mud wall, ‘you won’t be going anywhere near the ground.’

‘Eremon …’

His palms were stroking her buttocks now, and then he dropped to his knees on the tumbled hay and lifted her dress, drawing her to his eager mouth, cupping her like a goblet in both hands. His tongue swirled and savoured, circling until her breath came fast and high, and she buried her fingers in his hair.

Just as the opening began inside her, the overflowing of the flame, he came to his feet and lifted her onto him, burying himself up to the hilt. Then all of her protests dissolved in the animal fierceness that swept her, born of guilt and desperation. And she clawed him deeper, faster, her back scraping against the rough wall.

Later, in their own bed, Eremon soothed her raw, swollen skin with a more languid tongue, and the second peak was slow and sweet, the fierceness a strange memory.

‘
A stór
,’ Eremon whispered into her hair, as their breath slowly calmed. ‘Never have I felt that you wanted me more, in the granary.’ He paused, touching his nose to her forehead almost shyly. ‘Perhaps it was a babe we called this night. In such fire, we say, a king is made.’

The warmth and sweetness in Rhiann was instantly drenched; she felt as if he’d thrown her into an icy stream. When he sensed her stiffen, Eremon cupped her head and pressed it into his shoulder. ‘Oh, love, I did not mean to hurt you.’ He hesitated. ‘It hasn’t been long. The babies will come soon, I know it. We must be patient.’

When Eremon felt a tear on his hand, he exclaimed and soothed Rhiann with gentle words. Yet each soft murmur was a blade sunk into her heart, twisted there on its hilt.

BOOK THREE

Leaf-bud, AD 82

CHAPTER 28

A
t the festival of Imbolc, Rhiann poured the streams of ewe’s milk into the river to thank the Mother Goddess for the return of the sun, despite the still-bare branches and continuing sleet. In defiance of the fertility blessing, a knife-edge wind caught the liquid and spattered it over Rhiann’s sheepskin cloak, and she needed two cups of hot mead around Aldera’s fire to unclench her frozen fingers.

And it was there, as the women passed the afternoon sewing, that Rhiann discovered it was not only she who had found the long dark so difficult, letting fears take root.

‘The warmth won’t come,’ one of the old women croaked, biting her thread off between two yellow teeth. ‘It is the doing of the ice spirits – we are unlucky.’

Glances came Rhiann’s way, but she kept her eyes on her sewing. She and Caitlin were making Eremon and Conaire a new battle standard, with blessings sung into every corner of it to keep them safe. Caitlin was hemming the white woollen background with neat stitches, and Rhiann was working on the boar figure, in crimson-dyed linen.

‘Aye,’ another woman said into the silence. ‘And just yesterday my man saw a flock of nine crows in the dead oak by the seal’s bay. Nine, and all lined up on one branch!’

‘War crows,’ one of Aldera’s grown daughters whispered, peeling a pile of rushes to make into lamps.

Aldera snorted loudly, plunging the glowing fire poker into more cups of mead on the hearth. When the steam cleared, she fixed her daughter with a sharp eye. ‘We all know the men will be going to war again – it doesn’t take any crows to tell us that! Isn’t your da up to his elbows in hot iron all day and all night?’

There were murmurs of agreement as she handed around the cups, but the bronze-smith’s wife, always in competition with Aldera, sniffed and wiped her long, dripping nose on her sleeve. ‘There are more signs than that. A redshank was heard calling eighteen times, exactly. A dead horse washed up below the Dun of the Cliffs.’ Her voice dropped dramatically. ‘And a grey man has been seen on the marshes.’

Rhiann stabbed her finger as her head jerked up. ‘Grey man?’

The bronze-smith’s wife smiled, her pointed teeth gleaming. ‘Yes, lady, with his pale robe flowing out behind him. Ebra saw him in the fog last week, flying over a marsh pool like a swan.’

Rhiann laid down her sewing and fixed a calm eye on her. Eremon wouldn’t want needless fears to flourish, for a warrior’s strength could easily be eroded by his woman’s talk. Yet the bronze-smith’s wife flushed at Rhiann’s regard. ‘That’s what Ebra said. But others have seen him, too, all cloaked and hooded.’

Another woman timidly cleared her throat. ‘My man swears he saw him gliding among the trees on the maiden’s hill.’ She spoke in a whisper, and many of the women darted fearful glances at each other and over their shoulder to the door.

‘What does it mean, lady?’ Aldera’s daughter asked Rhiann, nervously twirling one of the peeled rushes. ‘A grey man bodes ill … perhaps he has come to claim our men!’ She was just fifteen, and new-married. ‘Will the Romans kill them all, and us, too?’

Rhiann slowly let her breath out and smiled, looking around at them. ‘Your men are in the hands of the war leader, and a better war leader has not been seen in Alba since the Goddess herself walked these mountains; we all know that. So grey man or no, Eremon will guide our men with a clear head, as we must keep our own heads clear. Do not let your fears make you quaver, for the fire you hold steady in your hearts will reach out to your men and give them strength in battle.’ Suddenly an idea slipped into Rhiann’s mind as surely and rightly as a sword to its sheath. I myself’, she found herself announcing, ‘will be returning to the Sacred Isle when the sea lanes open.’ A surge of excitement and relief rose in her. ‘The Sisterhood gave us great aid before, and can do so again. So you see, there are many with the power of sight, working to keep your loved ones safe. Do not let your fears weaken your hearts.’

When Rhiann and Caitlin emerged, the wind had given way to a dank evening fog, dripping from the eaves of the houses, cloaking the dun in near darkness. The stones on the upper path were slippery, and Rhiann took Caitlin’s elbow protectively as they walked.

‘You’re going back to the Sacred Isle?’ Caitlin adjusted the hide wrap to cover Gabran’s bare head.

Rhiann nodded, the excitement still vibrating along her veins. ‘It came to me so clearly! After all, the men will leave when the weather breaks, and I cannot stay here while they risk themselves. I
know
there is more I can do, and the Sisters will see what that is.’

Caitlin glanced down at Gabran, as he began to fuss and wail. His cheeks were red and swollen from teething, and he had been fractious all day. ‘And I have to stay here,’ she said softly.

Rhiann halted, breathing hard as she felt herself fill with a new strength. Goddess, it was better than the guilt. She turned to Caitlin, slipping an arm around her shoulder. ‘Which is why I do what I do,’ she pointed out gently. ‘You have the important job of caring for our future king; I have another calling.’

At Rhiann’s house, Eithne knelt by the hearth, grinding roast barley in the quern, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Caitlin and Rhiann shook the damp from their cloaks and hung them by the door, and Caitlin stretched Gabran out on his sheepskin rug. Immediately, he wriggled on his belly towards Cù, and began tugging at the hound’s ragged grey ears.

‘Eithne,’ Rhiann distracted Gabran with a rowan peg to chew for his teeth, ‘have you heard talk of a marsh spirit around Dunadd? A grey man, they are calling him.’

‘Yes, lady.’ Eithne sat back on her heels and brushed sweat from her brow, leaving a smear of flour. ‘All the servants are speaking of it.’

Rhiann reached for the cooling brew of willow bark on the hearth, drawing Gabran into her lap as he began to fuss and suck on his fists. ‘Well, I’d like you to spread a new rumour at the well. Tell people I have said it is nothing to be afraid of, and we will drive him forth with the songs at Beltaine, if he has not returned to his Otherworld home by then.’

She measured the brew into water and held the cup to the baby’s lips as he cried. When it was down she kissed and rocked him, her chin pressed thoughtfully into his hair.

Over the past few weeks, Rhiann had noticed Eremon and Conaire huddled in conversation, glimpsing them in the smithy and the stables, and corners of the dun away from the other men.

Yet when a day dawned suddenly bright and still, with a warm sun glittering on the last frosts, Conaire took Caitlin and their son out walking alone, and Eremon appeared in the middle of the day outside the house. In his arms was his fighting saddle, and a pot of mutton-fat.

Scooping up two honey cakes, Rhiann joined him in the cool sun, pressing her lips to his forehead before settling down beside him on the bench. She drew up her knees and gestured at the four-horned saddle, which had been stored away through the long dark. ‘I take this to mean your plans with Conaire have been laid?’

Eremon paused at rubbing fat into the leather of one saddle horn, cocking an eye at her. ‘I didn’t want to burden you,
a stór
, until I had thrashed it out with him, until I was sure it was right.’

‘And now you are sure?’ Rhiann took one of the cakes, looking at Eremon expectantly. Despite the sun the breeze was still cold off the sea, and she drew her sleeves to the ends of her fingers before biting into the cake.

Eremon smiled, though his eyes were solemn. Then he seemed to brace himself. ‘Rhiann, after our success in the south, we think we should strike first this year. Agricola won’t be expecting it, which gives us an advantage, and we’ve shown our raiding tactics can work against the Roman army.’ He rubbed the cracked side of the saddle horn vigorously, rushing on. ‘If we lure them northwards, we can take them by surprise, and draw them up into the mountains. On their own ground, I have seen what the tribes can do.’

Despite the plunge in her belly, Rhiann recognized the light in Eremon’s eyes: the warrior’s excitement. She herself knew that zeal, after all, for her heart was also grasping for its strength. She cleared her throat. ‘Where will you go?’

Eremon glanced at her as if he had expected an argument. Yet Rhiann had something to tell him as well, and she certainly didn’t want an argument about that, either. ‘North, to Calgacus,’ he said. ‘To start a rebellion of our own. We need all the men he has pledged to us.’

Rhiann nodded and swallowed, slowly brushing crumbs from her skirt. ‘Then I must tell you that it is in my mind also to return to the Sacred Isle, for Beltaine. The strength of the Sisters helped you once, and this time I intend to call more priestesses to attend – all the Ban Crés and healers of our allies, and those of tribes who have so far refused an alliance. Through this, I may be able to convince them to pressure their kings to join you.’

Apprehensively, Rhiann glanced up to meet Eremon’s eyes. Over the long dark they had spoken many times of the stag rite, and so Eremon knew of its power, and what it had given him. With the other Sisters she had drawn the Source once, and knew she could do it again.
This
was her true path, her only path, and she hoped that the compulsion to follow it would assuage the guilt of betraying Eremon. She would give herself to their cause, and therefore to him, in the best way she could for now.

And though concern was there at the edges of Eremon’s mouth, something else passed between them with that one look, beyond the fear for each other: a simple, wordless acceptance of what must be.

CHAPTER 29

S
amana edged gingerly down the gangplank of the Alban ship, for the thick fog had coated the timbers with a dangerous slick of moisture. Underneath her feet, the Abus river was black and oily, and the sounds of the men tying up on Eboracum’s pier were strangely muffled.

It was too early in the season for trading ships to come inland from the sea to the headquarters of the Ninth Legion, and hers was the only vessel she could see, although the mist had turned its outline ghostly as it rocked on the slow river.

Before her in the near darkness loomed the legionary fortress, less than ten years old, with its huge square ditch encircling a high earth bank, topped by pointed timber palisades and gate-towers at each corner, looking out over the plain. Within the fortress was the town, a place for soldiers, made of straight streets, storehouses, long barrack blocks and workshops. Yet Samana had no intention of going into
that
. Her arrival here would be most unexpected, and probably unwelcome.

She shrugged deeper into her lynx-fur wrap, shivering, as two men shuffled past her with a large oak chest, pushing her back against a line of barrels waiting to be loaded. Hazy pools of torchlight spilled down from the fortress walls, illuminating a ragged collection of civilian buildings that had sprung up along the riverbank like mushrooms: houses for traders in hides, salt, meat and grain, she remembered Agricola telling her; craftsmen’s workshops; and rooms for whores.

Samana could see little beyond dark, humped walls, oddly angled roofs and glimpses of lamplight spilling under shutters. Dogs barked and people cursed, the sound faint in the mist, and from within the fort itself came clearer sounds of trumpets and shouted orders. Perhaps on a day like this, most people stayed inside.

Samana gripped the edge of the barrel behind her, struggling to calm her pulse, sucking in freezing, clammy fog with each breath. She was the queen of the Votadini, she reminded herself. Yet she didn’t feel her exalted rank here. Eboracum was a daunting place; the headquarters of Agricola when he retreated south from Alba in the long dark, and home to one of his legions. The thought of all those soldiers only a few steps away discomfited her in a way that living among them never did.