The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (46 page)

He blew out his breath and cocked one eye at Conaire. ‘Anyway, don’t you wish to know of your boy? He crawls so fast Caitlin can hardly keep up.’

‘He crawls!’ Conaire’s face couldn’t help but light up with pride, and Eremon knew then there was no earthly way for him to avoid the pain such love brought him. He would just have to bear it: there it was.

‘But tell me of what has happened here.’ Eremon gritted his teeth and bent to search his pack, tossing a leather flask to Conaire. ‘And by the way, Eithne has made a new batch of blackberry ale. Caitlin pressed it upon me, for you and I to toast the longest day together.’

Still eyeing Eremon with concern, Conaire stored the flask on a shelf in the rock, balancing it alongside a few tallow candle-stubs, two grooved sharpened stones, some travel bread wrapped in leaves, and flint and tinder. ‘We have done little since you left, brother. Yet Calgacus himself has been busy – he asked the Vacomagi and Taexali kings to withdraw their people into the hills. He has also evacuated his own dun.’

‘Ah.’

Conaire leaned against the tent pole, arms folded. ‘The young people were in the hills with the cattle anyway, and all who can move have done so. The duns are empty, and Calgacus seems sure the Romans will leave the crops.’

Eremon nodded, watching the strengthening rain kick up splatters of mud on the path outside. This is what he wanted, to bury himself in this. ‘No, they won’t burn the crops – they need the supplies for their own men. They will target the duns, where they believe the warriors are.’

‘Well, they won’t find anyone at all.’

‘And that will draw them on northwards.’ Eremon chewed his lip, a faint and familiar excitement stirring his gut. ‘Yes, I see what Calgacus is thinking.’

‘Then you can explain it to me.’ Conaire squatted at the fire and poked at the floating lumps of deer meat in the skin bag. ‘If Calgacus wants to keep the Romans away from his dun, then why draw them north? We have been tracking the whole army for two weeks, and not once has he ordered an attack.’

Eremon smiled and stretched the saddle soreness from his back, feeling a purer, cleaner energy flow into his limbs. This was what he did best. ‘The less resistance we offer for now, the further on the Romans are drawn, their guard going down. By the time we do attack, they will be far from their frontier, far from their reinforcements.’ He laughed. ‘Agricola has gambled much on this; he must be getting desperate.’

‘Brother, save your gloating.’ Conaire jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘When Calgacus got news of your approach, he called a meeting of all the leaders. We’ll need your cool head now to douse Lorn’s fire – perhaps you can calm him down before Calgacus does so with his fists!’

As they left the tent, Eremon’s mind turned over Nectan’s words:
if a man’s heart is full of rage, he should take it to battle
.

It must not be long before he drew his sword again – in fact, he intended to lead the first charge himself. Perhaps then he could blot out the sight of Rhiann’s anguished eyes, and forget all the harsh words they had spoken.

The wreaths of hawthorn and meadowsweet floated in pale rings on the copper sea, the largest ones – for Nerida and Setana – already disappearing into the flaming heart of the sinking sun. The glow was so bright Rhiann could not look at it, standing on the shore of the Isle of Deer, singing the Sisters’ souls into the west.

All through the rite on this warm, still eve, Rhiann had held back the anger and pain, forcing the chants of farewell and blessing out of her rigid throat. She felt she must not give in to the memories of love, for they were twined with the grief, and her fragile control would shatter again. Then she would be unable to give the Sisters the honour they were due. So she swallowed it back down, praying that they would see from the Otherworld what burned in her heart.

Yet as Rhiann turned away from the sun, her eyes fell on Linnet and Fola, still staring out across the shining, flat sea. Both of their faces were masks, every line of humour and softness sagging as if their features had melted, and Rhiann knew that after all these weeks her own must look the same. She jerked her eyes away.

Caitlin was standing back, for she was no priestess, but tears ran down her cheeks. She, who did not even know the Sisters, wept for them all the tears Rhiann could not shed. Rhiann found she was biting down hard on the inside of her cheek, and she closed her eyes to the soft, purple sky above the island hills, and the glide of a curlew over the bay, and tasted blood in her mouth instead.

And so it was the blood that undid her. Blood, drawn by Maelchon’s hand. Blood, wet on Nerida’s skin.

Suddenly, the swell of the curlew’s cry and the far murmur of the sea faded from Rhiann’s ears, as the memory of Nerida’s last words arced like an arrow into her mind.
In you lies our hope
.

Her gaze settled on the girls, who had turned from the water and were now stumbling along the darkening beach towards the boats in a ragged group, the dignity and grace trained into their bodies crumbling under the weight of grief. The strong, calm light of common purpose that had always held them was gone, leaving them all floundering. Their souls had vibrated as one song; now each one’s spirit trembled alone.

And what came to Rhiann then was simple:
I must lead them. It is surely what Nerida and Setana charged me with
. With the expression of that thought, so came the first warmth Rhiann had felt in weeks, settling over her in a blanket of relief.

She would turn this outrage into triumph, the pain into action, for the Sisters, so their sacrifice was not in vain; for these girls, to help them assuage their grief; and for her people, to give them the aid the Sisters had promised. Slowly, she began to breathe out, her shoulders widening, her fists unclenching as she searched herself for the strength she would need, a strength she had thought irrevocably broken.

Rhiann’s glance strayed then to the north, and the highland mountains.
This too I must do for Eremon. So we stand in my dream side by side again. So I make him proud of me. So he can forgive me
.

On the way home, Rhiann peeled away from the others, for she had one more offering to make. On a natural slab of rock on a hillside above Dunadd, the ancestors had made carvings for the souls of the greatest heroes. Here, over the centuries, spirals were drawn to remember the bravest of warriors, and here Rhiann had sent a carver a day ago to add a spiral for Didius.

Now, alone beneath the deepening sky, Rhiann knelt on the cold rock and traced the new design with oil and ochre and rowan ash, remembering what he had done for her. ‘The spiral is to show you the way home, Didius,’ she whispered, as the shadows gathered around her from the oak woods beyond. ‘Your soul comes from the Mother, and now it returns to the Mother, because there is no end or beginning.’

After filling the curving lines with mead, infused with sacred meadowsweet, Rhiann wrapped her cloak closed against the cooling night and shut her eyes. Then she sang a prayer, her voice carrying far on the clear, still dusk: that after resting in the Mother’s womb Didius would follow the path of his spiral back out to breathe again of Alba’s air.

For he had loved her land so.

The next day Linnet wished to return to her home, and Rhiann insisted that she, Caitlin and Fola accompany her. Caitlin kept her eyes fixed on the back of Rhiann’s head for the entire ride, concerned at this sudden burst of energy after the slow, unspoken grief of the previous day.

They ate fresh baked salmon in the shade of Linnet’s oak, played with Gabran and talked of small things, and all the while Caitlin could see Rhiann bursting with something. And when they had finished eating, Rhiann could wait no longer, rising and pressing her hands together. Then she announced that she had an idea, at last, of what to do about the Sisterhood.

Cross-legged on a deer-hide, Caitlin stayed silent as she listened, one hand on Gabran’s back while he rocked on his hands and knees. Yet as Rhiann continued to speak, Caitlin’s heart sank.

Rhiann explained how she originally considered establishing a new seat of the Sisterhood at Dunadd, but had immediately realized that without the elder Sisters that kind of power had been lost. ‘So then I thought that perhaps something different was being demanded of the Sisters now.’

Rhiann began pacing. She had wound her auburn hair in tight braids about her skull, and her cheekbones and jaw were all stark angles, her eyes hollowed. Caitlin knew she had hardly eaten for weeks, despite her and Eithne’s best efforts to tempt Rhiann’s palate. The softness of the extra weight her sister had put on this last year was already being stripped away. ‘I thought that we must harness the grief of this attack. As the news passes across Alba, and the Ban Crés do not return, the people will surely cry out for vengeance.’

‘Vengeance is not the way of the Sisters, daughter,’ Linnet interrupted quietly.

Rhiann came to a halt. ‘No, aunt, I speak of bringing the tribes together in defence!’

Caitlin read Rhiann’s desperation and grief, and longed to go to her. She sighed under her breath. Yet perhaps she could do nothing; perhaps the only thing to reach Rhiann would come from the Sisters.

Rhiann explained that thirty of the young Sisters were initiated, and knew the songs, rites and chants, the healing knowledge and the lore. So she proposed embarking on a journey north around Alba, visiting the kings who had not yet joined Eremon and invoking their people’s outrage, leaving a priestess at each royal dun to replace those who had been lost.

Caitlin immediately sat up straighter, alarmed at this suggestion, yet Rhiann was staring at Fola. Her friend was sitting forward on her knees, her dark eyes eager. ‘It is the rallying call,’ Fola murmured, her voice trembling with excitement.

‘Exactly! For the tribes will find it difficult to ignore this outrage when the Sisterhood itself – what is left of it – arrives on their doorstep!’ Rhiann’s eyes burned, though her mouth remained pained. ‘These girls will show that no sacrilege is beyond the invaders! They will be a reminder for all those kings, when their resolve to defend their land falters.’

Fola sank back and linked her arms around her knees. It is daring, courageous – a good idea. A fine idea!’

In Fola’s eyes, Caitlin saw an echo of Rhiann’s own strange glitter. She could stay silent no longer. ‘But … but surely when all of you are so grieved, it would be better to stay here and rest, and help each other?’

Rhiann stared down at Caitlin as if she’d just seen her. ‘What good is it to give in and surrender, sister? Then the Romans and Maelchon will have won!’

Lost for words, Caitlin drew a squirming Gabran into her lap, appealing to Linnet. ‘But they’re only young. Surely you cannot have them traipsing all over the mountains, not when their hearts are so sore.’
And yours
, Caitlin thought desperately, looking up into Rhiann’s closed face.
What about your heart?

‘The girls cannot be ordered in this; you will have to ask them,’ said Linnet with a resigned sigh. ‘The youngest can return to their families, yet the older initiates gave their service to the Goddess with their vow. If only we could be sure this is what the Mother asks.’

‘
I
feel sure,’ Fola declared, scrambling to her feet. ‘Rhiann told me that the elder Sisters said in the future
all
priestesses had to live among the people, be part of their lives.’

‘Yes, they did,’ Rhiann said, surprised.

‘And I cannot believe they meant this to be the end,’ Fola added passionately. ‘They must have meant for something good to come out of this – there
must
be something good!’

Suddenly Caitlin found herself on her feet, hauling Gabran into her arms. He jerked in surprise and broke into choked whimpers. ‘You are not strong enough to do this, Rhiann!’ Caitlin burst out, raising her chin as Rhiann’s eyes flashed. ‘You should be here, with those who … who love you.’ Trembling, she kissed her son’s head, trying to soothe his hiccupping cries.

‘Caitlin,’ Rhiann said, ‘don’t you understand? I have to do something.’

‘But you need time to grieve, to sleep—’

‘
This is my time!
’ Rhiann cried, and for a moment her fierce mask faltered. ‘Doing something so that their deaths are not in vain – can’t you see what this means to me?’

‘And I will be by Rhiann’s side,’ Fola interjected.

Moving Gabran to her hip, Caitlin’s head bowed. ‘It isn’t right,’ she repeated stubbornly. ‘But it isn’t my decision.’

‘There is more to this than even you know, sister,’ Rhiann whispered, and when Caitlin raised her head she saw that Rhiann was staring into Linnet’s eyes. ‘There is a greater pattern here, something I am being driven to, and this is part of it, I see that now.’

Linnet had gone completely still, the pallor of her face tinted green by the overhanging oak leaves. Yet Caitlin saw the faint understanding that passed between them.

‘So,’ Rhiann said, with a swift turn of her skirts, ‘it is decided then: I will ask, and the girls will decide. Let us go now, for I can waste no more time.’ Fola swiftly rose, and together she and Rhiann made their way towards the horses tied against the house.

Caitlin’s hand, however, fastened on Linnet’s arm and pulled her back. ‘How can you let them do this!’ she hissed, fright and distress loosening her tongue. ‘You sat there and said nothing!’

Linnet’s eyes finally met Caitlin’s glare, and all at once Caitlin saw there what Linnet had been keeping hidden.

‘My child,’ Linnet murmured, the pain pulling down the edges of her mouth, ‘I know you worry for her, but Fola loves and knows her well. Do not be wounded by the anger – the tide of fury can carry one far, but eventually it washes up on some shore, and then ebbs away.’

‘Yet that shore will be far from us,’ Caitlin whispered in anguish. ‘And you did nothing to keep her here, where we can help.’

Linnet’s eyes closed for a moment as the leaves stirred in the breeze, and then her trembling hand reached out to cup Caitlin’s cheek. ‘I have been shown I can do nothing to hold her back; nothing to change her future, for it is already written.’ Every year of Linnet’s age seemed to descend over her face at once, stopping Caitlin’s protests in her throat. ‘She must find her own way, or she will not find it at all. Believe me.’ She dropped her hand and looked around her yard, winding her arms around her chest. ‘And when I am here alone,’ she murmured, ‘that is what I will cling to.’