The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (68 page)

Rhiann examined her memories of the dream, holding them up one by one, and then she knew that was Eremon’s mistake. For she had not yet done what the dream had asked of her: to gather the Source and, in that, save her people. The destiny that had called her for more than three years had not been fulfilled. All she had done, the travels in inner and outer worlds, had been a prelude to the real exercising of her power.

And that was what struck Rhiann with such fear, lying there in the warm darkness. For if she had not discharged her duty, then she was not in fact meant to slip away into the slow season of motherhood. She would be called on, in a way she could not foresee.

Much later, Rhiann opened her eyes to the dancing shadows cast by a single lamp. Eremon was lying with his arms behind his head. ‘
Alea iacta est
,’ he said.

Groggily, Rhiann blinked. ‘What?’

Without looking at her, Eremon gathered Rhiann close with one arm, as if they had not quarrelled at all. ‘I’ve never told you much about my home, have I?’ he said, his voice rising and falling in a dreamy cadence. ‘We were on a busy trade route, despite being in the far north of Erin. We had traders come direct from Gaul, and even as far as Hispania!’ The hollow of Eremon’s throat moved as he smiled. He smelled of damp night air and wood-smoke. ‘Some would think Dalriada a backwater, but we received a fair amount of news and goods from the empire of Rome. You could even get scraps of copied texts – if you knew whom to ask, and if you paid well.’

Rhiann murmured, ‘And you were interested in such?’

‘Yes!’ Eremon chuckled. ‘My father would not have understood, but my druid teacher did. He was so proud I could read a little bit of Greek – the druids always respected the Greeks, he said. That is how I found out about the Greek historian Polybius, and what he wrote about the Roman army.’ His chest moved in a sigh beneath her cheek. ‘All young warriors are interested in fighting, but I was fascinated by the thought of fighting in far away lands, fighting with armies.’ He hesitated. ‘Little did I know I would call upon that knowledge after all.’ Then he gave a faint shrug. ‘I also found out about Julius Caesar, the Roman general. Once, he crossed a great river with his army, invading his own country and breaking its law to seize power. After they crossed, he said, “
Alea iacta est
”. It means “the die is cast”.’

Rhiann rolled off Eremon’s chest so she could see his face, resting her chin in her hands. ‘But what does it
mean
?’ she asked.

The edge of Eremon’s mouth lifted wryly, his eyes on the roof. ‘It means, sometimes there is no going back.’ Both of them lay entirely still. ‘I think,
a stór
,’ Eremon added quietly, ‘that we reached that place some time ago, though I never marked its passing.’

Rhiann swallowed hard, her fingers folding the edge of the linen sheet, remembering her dream. If neither of them had fulfilled their destiny, there was no running away. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, knowing now that she must surrender such thoughts. ‘I think so, too.’

They were both silent, and when Rhiann saw how Eremon’s gaze still moved dreamily over the firelit roof, she suddenly said, ‘Is it very beautiful?’

‘What? Erin?’ Eremon smiled, his eyes lighting up. ‘As beautiful as the dawn. So green … a green never seen in this land, a stór, so bright, so pure. The grass is sweet and fresh, the winds are mild, the cattle are fat!’ He laughed like a boy. ‘The rivers run with gold, the plains are flat and endless, and you can race your horse for leagues and leagues, as fast as the wind!’

Rhiann watched Eremon’s hand move gracefully through the air, drawing pictures.
I would like to have seen him then
, she thought suddenly, warmed by the curve of his smile, soft with memory.
Unburdened, before the hardening
.

Suddenly Eremon’s eyes came back to her, and he reached out to tuck Rhiann’s hair behind one ear. ‘I would love to take you there and show you,
a stór
. Show you my home.’

His tender fingers drifted to the soft skin behind Rhiann’s ear, and suddenly a column of heat swept through her, tingling along her thighs. She gazed down at him, frozen, her breath so shallow that he could not fail to sense it. And indeed, by the faint stirring of the sheet between his legs, she knew he was quite aware.

Yet Eremon didn’t meet Rhiann’s eyes, and when her fingers played over his mouth he did not suckle them, but pressed his lips together into one of those annoying, firm kisses that he kept dropping on her head. Rhiann reared back as if stung, pounded her pillow and flung herself down onto it, her face turned away so he would not see her trying to stop her tears. Curse these breeding emotions! And curse him for making her feel so close to him, making her forget her anger.

‘A stór?
’ Eremon leaned over her, awkwardly patting her shoulder. ‘Do not cry, love. I’ve said I will keep you safe.’

With a splutter, Rhiann rolled over and glared up at Eremon, her brows drawing together as if that might firm her trembling lips. ‘You’ve changed,’ she suddenly blurted. ‘You don’t want me any more. I don’t know why but ever since the baby.’ She blinked suddenly, defiant with hurt. ‘Is it that you find me ugly?’

Eremon was as surprised as if she’d slapped him. ‘Ugly? Don’t be … I only thought … the baby would be hurt.’

Rhiann frowned, swallowing hard. ‘Eremon, I am not sick. I need your comfort, I need your life, to know we are alive.’ Tears welled in her eyes, and she didn’t force them away. But you won’t touch me and you leave me feeling so alone.’

With one sweep, Eremon caught her to his chest. Hawen’s balls,’ he muttered, and then laughed, an explosive sound in Rhiann’s ear.

Enraged, Rhiann pushed at his chest, her mouth muffled in his shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me now, Eremon of Erin! If you find me so repellent, there are other women no doubt waiting for the attentions you are determined to deny me!’

Eremon drew back and looked down at Rhiann, his eyes sparkling for the first time in days. ‘Hmm.’ He put one finger to his chin, tapping it in consideration. ‘Well, you are enough, at times, to drive any man away.’

Rhiann gasped and furiously tried to wriggle free, but Eremon only smiled and held her there, his hands firm on her shoulders. ‘That’s enough misunderstanding for one week. I thought breeding women did not want … oh, never mind.’ And his mouth came down on hers, hard and bruising, as his hand cupped one swelling, tender breast.

So among the shadows of their bed Eremon set about showing Rhiann, with demanding hands, that his reluctance had nothing at all to do with waning attraction. And he took her gasps from her with his open mouth, as she rode above him, his hands cradling her buttocks as he had cradled her belly.

Rhiann slept, her breaths deeper and more even than they had been before, every now and then punctuated with a little sigh. In the last flickering of the stone lamp, Eremon touched his finger to the tears still wet on her cheeks.

This wife of his had often been able to lead him where he did not wish to go, and now she wielded a weapon more potent than any she had possessed before. For while it was true he had avoided her for the baby’s sake, if he was brutally honest, there was more to it than that.

Eremon lay back now, one arm behind his head, the other curving around her, their thighs touching. The truth was that in his own dreams something was calling him. It would, he knew, draw him to a battlefield, where a great hill reared behind him, and an army larger than any he could imagine spread before him.

Eremon turned his head slightly, his gaze sliding over the line of Rhiann’s throat, the amber hair framing her shoulders, the pale tips of her outflung fingers. Below, he could just make out the swell of her belly beneath the sheets. He sighed, a drawn, pained sound.

He had avoided her, because in their joining he lost the separateness of himself. And he feared now the twining of that uncontainable bond with a baby, for in that summons to the battlefield he had also sensed a severing.

So he had tried, like a fool, to carve a tiny gulf between them, a way to make the severing less painful, if that was what the gods decreed. Yet Rhiann, with her honey scent and the fire in her lips, and her emotions flickering from dark to light, had pulled Eremon back. She had tempted him once more to surrender his heart, and he had gone and done it, and so lost himself in her again.

Now, tonight, Eremon knew he was doomed. For as he abandoned the edges of himself, and gave it all to her, he had heard the song of the child around them both, the three heartbeats wound together. Now he understood that there was no drawing back from that marriage of souls, that unending vow.

Alea iacta est
.

CHAPTER 61

A
t Beltaine, Rhiann’s visions began, more vivid and more disturbing than anything she had felt before.

As she stood on the tomb mound, the night was so calm she could clearly hear the crackling of the two great bonfires beneath her, and beyond, further down the ancestor valley, the faint lowing of the cattle that would soon be driven between them for blessing. The stars were faint, outshone by a great bronze moon that had risen over the eastern hills. It hung above the dark slopes, spilling light over the oak woods and leaching the bright colours from the people’s robes, jewels and crowns of hawthorn blossoms.

As Rhiann stood with her arms out, willing herself to open to the Source, the breath of the crowd spread out below seemed to her like the soft lapping of a wave on a shore. She used its ebb and flow to anchor herself, to seek for and find a thread of the Source, running as a vibration beneath her feet.

As she did when she searched for Eremon, Rhiann closed her eyes, feeling the love she had for her people, the strength of her need to protect them. And in answer to her summons, a golden glow surged up from the ground, brighter than the moon, and sparkling light streamed up from each person’s heart to meet it. It was their own love, for their land and for each other, made visible to her by the
saor
.

The people did not yet know of Eremon’s acceptance of the inevitable Roman return. They knew only that their war lords had brought them great victories, and beaten back the shadows, just as, day by day, the sun beat back the cold of the long dark. They knew only that soon they would lie with each other in the darkness of the valley, and so honour the gods many times in the long nights to come. The fields were sprouting, the boats hauling in silver fish, and the woods fruiting with good eating.

Eventually, Rhiann was able to give herself up to the song that swirled from her mouth, bestowing the Mother’s promise of a season of soft air on bare skin, the tart taste of strawberries, and long twilights that melted into warm, starlit nights.

It was as Rhiann stood entranced, enveloped by the wings of the people’s joy, that it happened. The world around her abruptly darkened.

And she was in a wind-whipped, shadowed place with the salt of a wild sea stinging her face, her arms still outstretched, the insistent tug of wind on her sleeves. The golden wave of light was now made of night and freezing water, rearing above her in white-capped, whirling fury, an ocean wave higher than a cliff, which would bring death in moments
.

Someone called her name, a name to which she once had answered, though no longer. The voice was urgent, yet also sought to imbue her with calm, so that her growing despair did not claim her. And Rhiann knew the voice as she knew her name, and the strange, familiar shadow of the woman’s headdress outlined against the lightning. Her robes, pulled against her body by the screaming wind, were of a curious, shimmering cloth, the jewels on her rings unlike anything she had seen, and yet she knew them
.

The imperious voice came again. ‘Hold this in your soul!’ it cried. ‘Do not forget!
’

And then Rhiann was tumbling, her mouth and nose filling with salt water. Desperate to clear her lungs she cried out, and suddenly found herself returned to the Beltaine rite, stumbling to the bench on the mound. She sank on to it, gripping the edges of the seat, head forced down to her knees. Immediately, Linnet was there.

‘Did you see it?’ Rhiann gasped, her hands fluttering over her chest, for she couldn’t breathe.

Linnet squatted beside her, her anxious eyes swimming in and out of Rhiann’s wavering sight. ‘See what? What ails you?’

Rhiann sucked desperately at the air, clung to every wisp of it. Abruptly, the dizziness that had risen up ebbed away, and the night leaped into focus: firelight flickering on Linnet’s face; the ragged music of pipe, flute and drum; the raucous cries of the people. Even the cloying scent of the roast boar was welcome to Rhiann, for it meant fire and warmth, that the sucking, freezing sea had been no more than a vision.

Rhiann shook her head as she coughed, the hawthorn crown on her brow scattering its pale blossoms. Then she forced herself straight. ‘I am well, aunt. A moment of dizziness, that is all. The
saor
…’

Linnet turned to take a cup of mead from Eithne, and pressed it into Rhiann’s cold hands. ‘Drink this,’ she ordered. ‘It will draw you back to your body.’

Rhiann sipped, the warmed mead trailing down her throat.

‘What is wrong?’ Eremon’s solid presence was behind her now.

Rhiann took another deep breath, clutching the pottery cup in both hands. ‘I am well,’ she said, steadying her voice. ‘The Source was strong this night, that is all.’ She closed her eyes, concentrating on the glow of warmth between her fingers. ‘Please do not worry.’

Eremon’s hand stroked the hair back from Rhiann’s temples. ‘A fine sentiment, but quite beyond me.’ He addressed Linnet now. ‘I will take her back to the dun. She shouldn’t be doing this when she carries the child.’

‘Eremon!’ Rhiann struggled to rise, her hands on her belly, which was still only a subtle swelling beneath her robes. ‘I am the Ban Cré, and it is my duty to hold the Mother’s light for the people. The
saor
does no harm to the child; we are both well.’ She said it emphatically, holding Linnet’s eyes now. This Beltaine might be their last together. She must be with her people, all of them. ‘I will sit a while, and warm myself, and watch the dancing.’ She turned to Eremon. ‘I
won’t
miss this Beltaine.’