The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (69 page)

Eremon nodded slowly, with resignation, but kept close to her for the remainder of the night, fetching her moon cakes and mead, and seating her between his legs on the valley slopes, so he could wrap his cloak around them both.

In contrast to the wild antics of the Epidii, Conaire and Caitlin and the rest of Eremon’s men were subdued. They knew why Eremon had instructed Conaire to push the warriors so hard all through the long dark, why he quizzed the Epidii scouts every night, and scratched out endless new versions of his charcoal maps, poring over the lay of Alba’s land.

‘What do you think the Romans will do, my lord?’ Rori asked later, in a low voice, tossing a dagger restlessly in his hands as he watched Eithne by the fires.

‘Agricola will try to force us to face him,’ Eremon answered. Rhiann was conscious of his heartbeat against her ear, the stirring of his muscles when he picked up his mead cup, the rumble of his voice. ‘He knows, as I do, that neither side can ultimately win through these raids and counter raids.’

There was a long pause before Aedan said, ‘How will he force us?’

From the corner of her eye, Rhiann saw the swift glance that Conaire sent Eremon.

‘We don’t know,’ was Eremon’s simple reply.

Rhiann was only half listening, for her heart had not resumed its normal beat.

The vision she had received bore no relation to anything she had experienced before: neither the seeings on the Sacred Isle when she was younger, nor the deep connection to the Mother and the Source that she yearned for; neither the haziness of
saor
, nor the journeys to the Otherworld.

It was as if she had been
there
. Was it some aberration, someone else’s stray memory that had darted between Thisworld and the Otherworld? She dismissed that. It had felt, in truth, like
her
memory, of another, lost life. And why would she receive her dream of the eagles no longer, yet suddenly receive this? If it was a message, she could see no meaning in it. If it meant she was regaining some power, she did not know why, for she had not yet fulfilled her task. In fact, only two things had changed in recent moons. One was her surrender in the Otherworld; the other was the child.

And as if in answer, Rhiann suddenly felt a delicate, queer feeling in her womb, a fluttering, like butterfly wings beating against her insides. She gasped, all her racing thoughts forgotten, and her hand cupped the swelling under her cloak.

The gasp was so faint that Eremon and Conaire remained oblivious. Only Caitlin heard, her small face rosy in the firelight, peeping out from the circle of Conaire’s arms. And when Caitlin met Rhiann’s gaze, her eyes were shining.

Eremon waited only long enough for the worst effects of the Beltaine mead to wear off, before he dragged all the warriors back to the training field the day after the festival.

Yet as Rhiann returned from the riverbank that afternoon, a damp bag of lily tubers and comfrey leaves looped across her chest, she glanced up to the inner palisade in case he was there. Eremon had resumed his own training, and command of the warriors with Conaire and Lorn, but he often broke away to climb the crag, and there observe the war games from above.

Coming through the Moon Gate, Rhiann carefully climbed the stairs to the staked wall built on the rock. ‘
Cariad
.’ Nestling up behind Eremon, she rubbed the back of his neck, and reached around to kiss his jaw. ‘I see you thinking much, but resting little.’

Eremon kept his eyes fixed on the men below. ‘There will be little rest from now on.
I
cannot afford it, at least.’ The day was overcast, with a threatening dark bank of clouds rolling in from the sea, which is what had driven Rhiann back inside. The cold, gusting wind was now drying the sweat on Eremon’s sleeveless tunic and bare arms. He had obviously been training hard, making up for lost time.

‘You cannot afford to become ill, either, from pushing yourself too much.’ Rhiann followed Eremon’s gaze, because he didn’t seem to be listening to her. Across the river meadow, Conaire and Lorn were now gesturing angrily at each other, Lorn from his chariot, Conaire on foot.

Yet while in the past Conaire would have probably put an end to the argument with his fists – and laughed while he did it – now he reacted as only Eremon would, folding his arms and planting his feet, calm authority written into the line of his shoulders. At last Lorn threw up his hands, spun the chariot with an expert flick of the reins, and tore back up the field to rejoin his men, mud flying grandly from his wheels. Without another glance, Conaire turned back to his foot warriors, directing them in another tight, wheeling formation.

Rhiann sighed and leaned her arms on the palisade, stretching her aching back. ‘I don’t understand why Lorn still acts this way, after all that has happened.’

‘Do you not? He has his eye on the aftermath of this war, wife, that is all. He gave me his oath, but he must be seen to challenge me as well, or be thought weak by those he rules.’

Rhiann threw her hands up. ‘Men! I cannot see women getting themselves into such a muddle.’

Yet Eremon did not respond to her teasing, and there was a frown between his brows now, as his agitated fingers tapped the oak stakes. Rhiann placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘You have enough to carry,’ Eremon replied grimly.

Rhiann shifted the bag across her, and patted the swelling. ‘We are your family, babe and I. All fears must be faced together now.’

Eremon kissed her fingers, his eyes still veiled. ‘You know them well. Agricola will come, he must come, this season. I feel it. We will, the gods willing, have an army to match his. All I need to know, and decide, is how the pieces will be moved across the board.’

‘Yet there is still something else,’ Rhiann said quietly.

Eremon sighed, his eyelids flickering shut for a moment. ‘Where is the quiet, plump little cow-herder’s daughter when I need her?’

‘You mean the one who never asks you anything? The one who bores you silly?’

‘Aye, that one.’ Amusement warmed Eremon’s eyes.

Rhiann smiled sweetly. ‘This is not very informative, Eremon.’

Eremon grunted in exasperation, and gripped the palisade. ‘Saying it aloud seems some kind of defeat …’

‘What is it?’ Rhiann demanded, her patience wearing thin, the wind cold on her drying dress.

Eremon raised his chin; Rhiann saw the resignation clearly in his eyes. ‘I think we must abandon Dunadd.’ As Rhiann drew in her breath, he added hastily, ‘Only for this season, not for ever. I know Agricola will take a stand, but not where. If our fighting force was mobile, we could react much quicker.’

Closing her eyes, Rhiann saw a flash of Dunadd as she had once seen it in a vision: an empty, grass-smooth mound. Her throat suddenly ached.

‘Dunadd is a target,’ Eremon continued. ‘Our men would move more freely and fight more wholeheartedly if they knew their loved ones were safe, and it means we will not have to leave warriors to guard it, either.’ At last he glanced sidelong at Rhiann, plainly apprehensive. She took a deep breath. ‘I agree.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. Agricola has struck at Dunadd twice now, and you cannot afford to be concerned for us when you are so far away.’ She looked directly at Eremon, his relieved smile going some way to easing the barb lodged in her chest. ‘It makes sense, Eremon. Calgacus’s people took to the mountains last year. We can, too.’

He was watching her closely now. ‘Can we?’

Rhiann clasped his hand, for her own fingers felt so cold. ‘Yes. We can survive in the warm season; survive and be safe. After all, you say this war will not be fought in the hills, but in the open.’ Rhiann bit her lip, her eyes fixed on the village below, its pall of cooking smoke blown into long streamers by the wind. ‘It is just … as my dream comes no more, there is no guidance there from the Mother.’ She shivered, and leaned into his side. ‘I will follow what you say.’

Eremon drew back to look down at her, squeezing her fingers. ‘Rhiann. The abandonment of Dunadd I must leave to you.’

Samana’s mutterings were shattered by a violent oath, as the bone needle missed the edge of her hem and stabbed her finger. She cursed again, and sucked at the bead of blood that appeared. ‘
Whore-son
…’ She glared down at the needle, gleaming quite innocently now among the folds of her dress.

Sewing! Samana had never done her own sewing, but as the supply of servants and bolts of cloth had abruptly dried up since her banishment, there was no other way to keep her two dresses in some kind of repair. As if called forth by her curses, the dark, greasy head of Agricola’s body-slave appeared around the doorway of the bedchamber. ‘Lady,’ he murmured, his fat, sleek body following the head.

‘What?’ Samana cocked one sharp eye at him from the bed. She and the slave had at last formed an uneasy alliance, after some years of profound hatred on his part, and condescension on hers. Yet now, after this winter, the little fool had seen for himself the depth of control Samana wielded over his master. It was bizarre that at the very moment Samana lost her own tribal power, the slave decided to court her favour.

‘The soldiers are massing on the parade ground for inspection. The others have arrived. All of them.’

Samana’s finger popped from her mouth with a small, sucking noise. ‘All?’

The Britannia legions had arrived back from winter quarters days ago, and Agricola’s missing men from the east were also expected from Eboracum by sea. So, they must have arrived. Trust Agricola not to think of informing Samana of a group inspection. Well, she wasn’t missing that. She had sacrificed much to bring this about.

Samana threw down her torn dress, and groped for her cloak, hanging on a peg near the bed. ‘Perhaps,’ she took a breath, ‘perhaps you would escort me.’ She tried not to make it a question, but an assumption, verging on a command. Luckily, the slave grinned, his plump cheeks bunching up like a squirrel’s. He would not be able to go to the parade ground alone, and neither would she.

With a peek outside, Samana saw that though it was a cool, windy day, the sun was bright in a clear sky. Pausing at a chest of her own belongings, she extracted her parasol, the Greek fancy Agricola had given her years ago. When he gifted her with things. When she had information to give him.

Crushing that line of thought, Samana flicked the parasol open and took to the path outside, the slave trotting in her wake. The parade ground was on the flat land to the south of the camp, and while they passed few soldiers on the pathway, when they reached the meadow Samana realized why. Instantly she was frozen to the spot under the gate, barely able to breathe.

For never in her life had Samana seen anything to match the spectacle of a Roman army, 20,000 strong. She had seen the detachments of the legions numbering a few thousand, even a whole legion of 5,000, but not this.

The sun spilled down with abandon, its eager rays glittering on thousands of lance-blades, helmets and segmented breastplates; leaping from sword-tip to shield-boss, the brass disks of the
signum
poles, the bronze eagle standards standing proud above their massed legions. The coats of the Iberian horses gleamed among the cavalry, the mail shirts of the barbarian auxiliaries rippled as if alive, and the banners of fur that crested their helmets and lances ruffled in the breeze.

All had come, just as that snivelling brat Tacitus said they would. Samana still hated him, but she could not hate what he had wrought. She could do little but gaze, feasting her eyes on the streaming scarlet cloaks, the feather crests and bronze-tipped parade armour that the officers wore, high on their shining horses.

The light of the reflected iron was the glitter of conquest, and conquest was Samana’s passage out of this cold, backward land. These weapons were the doorway to her new life. So she gulped down the sweet saliva that surged in her mouth, drawing deep lungfuls of the scents of churned mud, male sweat, oiled leather and horses. Her heartbeats shook her whole body, and there was a warmth between her legs, a loosening, as she thought, not of the fervour with which Agricola was sure to take her this night, but of cool Roman halls, perfumed baths and delicate foods fed to her by slaves. It was all waiting for her to pluck, like some ripe, exotic fruit. And pluck it she would, and devour it, then lick the juice from her chin.

Now Samana glimpsed Agricola himself, stepping down the lines on his horse, the feathered crest on his gilt parade helmet rippling. He wore a blinding white tunic edged in purple, and over that a polished breastplate and fringed leather apron, with a scarlet cloak pinned on one shoulder.

In this last year, Samana had seen Agricola furious, excited and lustful. Yet now, in the set of his shoulders, the quick movement of his hands on the reins, she saw more than he could ever reveal in his eyes. And why would he
not
look as though the sun itself had risen in his face? Who would not think himself a god, at the head of this army?

As Agricola drew nearer, to her surprise and satisfaction he turned his head, catching her eye. And even though the curving plates of his helmet masked his true expression, Samana felt the stab of lust that pierced her where she stood. She drew back a little, her legs trembling. He was well within her control again. She knew it, with all the certainty of her sex magic. This man, holding this power in his hands, had been hard to win, but she had done it.

And this magnificent army, arrayed before her as if
she
were its queen, would crush the Alban rebels who had dared to scorn her. All the land would be won for her, and all those who had opposed or ignored her would be given painful deaths, or sold into slavery. And then, when it was done, and the land cleansed of her kin by fire and sword – why, then she would leave it behind for ever, to take up her life of luxury in Rome.

It was so close now, for Agricola had his men. And she had him.

Samana suddenly felt the stickiness of blood still oozing from her stabbed finger. She put it in her mouth and sucked it, savouring the taste.