The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy (7 page)

Linnet clutched at the moonstone pendant around her neck, fingering the smooth stone as she repeated the brutal words that after all these years her heart must accept:
I cannot give her the understanding; she must find it herself. The path must be walked alone or the knowledge has no value
.

So many times she had clung to these words, given to her by the Goddess on the day of Rhiann’s birth, when Linnet glimpsed in vision the great deeds – and griefs – of Rhiann’s life. She had understood then that her role was to prepare Rhiann and train her; to nurture her into a strong, accomplished woman who could face everything to come.

Yet the crushing part was that Linnet could not intervene in any significant way, because Rhiann would only then learn about Linnet’s path and Linnet’s choices, not her own, nor would she develop any strength of will. And so, although it had tried her hard, Linnet had for years bitten her tongue and held her counsel.

At first it had been simple. It was easy to let a three-year-old thrust her hand into a patch of nettles because she must feel how they stung, and respect them in future. It was not easy to behold a woman so despairing that she would cut herself off from her own heart, and say she must find her own way.

Linnet had felt the crushing loss of Caitlin, her own child, the guilt of that, and the grief of losing a sister. And when she saw Rhiann struggling with such pain, she burned with the need to soothe it all away. Yet Linnet had seen more than pain at Rhiann’s birth; she had caught a glimpse, a bare glimpse, of Rhiann’s fate.

A fate to change the destiny of a whole land
.

And what did such a fate ask of someone? How could anyone counsel such a soul? What Linnet thought of as right in one moment may not be right in the greater pattern of Rhiann’s life, which only the Mother could see.

A single tear squeezed out from one tightly closed eye, and Linnet let herself feel its long, slow slide down her cheek. Then she glanced over at the bed; at Rhiann’s outflung hand, a pale flower against the dark fur cover.
All I can do is love her
, she thought, getting up, stiff-kneed.
If I tell her the Mother loves her, and that is all that matters, then that is all I must give, too
.

People had many illusions about priestesses, that embodying the Goddess must be simple and beautiful. And it was, sometimes. But not always. Linnet lived on this mountain, distant from the cares of the tribe, and made offerings at the gateway and kept the Source in balance as best she could. And sometimes it was lonely, and often difficult, for all the things she must see but not speak. Rhiann lived among the people, tending their daily hurts and giving her body as the Mother’s vessel. Yet who could say which was easier?

Wiping her eyes, Linnet gently tucked Rhiann’s errant hand beneath the cover, smoothing the fur up to her chin. For this brief time, at least, she wore only the face of the Mother, warding the hours of darkness for her child.

CHAPTER 5

B
raced on the walkway atop Dunadd’s upper palisade, Eremon waited only long enough to see Rhiann safely away to Linnet’s before tackling his next challenge – the chief druid.

When Liath’s coat was no more than a pale glimmer against the green hills, Eremon finally let his eyes drop. Below him, the bustling village sprawled around the crag’s feet in the afternoon sunshine, cloaked in the thick haze of cookfires that curled lazily above the thatch roofs.

Sounds floated up in a murmuring cloud: children’s cries and playful screams; the clink of smiths’ hammers; and the thunk of axes on wood. Eremon even fancied he could sense relief in the air, floating with the homely smells of smoke, animal dung and baking bread. The mourning feast would go ahead as a celebration when Rhiann returned tomorrow night.

Peering into the long afternoon shadows, he studied each layer of Dunadd’s defences in turn. First, the main timber palisade encircling the village, guarded by the great gatetower. Then, the palisade on which he stood, on a natural rock tier of the crag.

The village gate was manned by a brace of warriors, the sun gleaming on their bristling spear-tips. Others strode the length of the palisades, their bright-painted shields hung for decoration on the pointed stakes. Eremon turned his face to the north. More spears glittered in a rain of iron above the river meadow, for already Finan had resumed the training of the warband. In the dusky light some warriors were wheeling on horseback, or practised with sword, while others hefted spear or bow for target practice.

A heavy thudding interrupted Eremon’s thoughts, as Conaire’s fair head appeared at the bottom of the palisade stairs. Taking them three at a time, Eremon’s foster-brother sprang to his full height on the top planks. ‘Caitlin is abed and feeling well again,’ he announced, then stopped as his gaze took in Eremon’s stance. ‘You sport a face like thunder, brother. Is there a problem with the men? Have they grown soft while we were away?’

‘Nothing a few days of our drilling won’t fix.’ Eremon gripped the edge of the palisade with white knuckles. ‘It’s not that. My guts are gnawing on something else, very unpleasant, and I’m just getting ready to fix the pain.’

At Conaire’s raised eyebrow, Eremon flung out his hand angrily. ‘Look! So many men, so many guards, so many gates. And it is us, from Erin, who have given the Epidii such strength; strength for more than a petty cattle raid, strength to resist the Romans! Gathering and training such a large warband was our idea. The tactics are our idea. The guards and the signal beacons – our idea.’

‘
Your
idea,’ Conaire interrupted quietly, folding his arms.

‘My idea, then,’ Eremon growled. ‘
And
the border patrols,
and
the scout network – and after all we’ve done, the attempt on our lives came not just from Maelchon, but from the Epidii!’

Conaire’s brows rose higher. ‘This you did not tell me.’ Then the confusion on his face cleared into realization. ‘You mean the druid.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Eremon answered bitterly, and both their heads turned in the direction of the druid shrine on the crag’s crest. A wreath of smoke rose above it, merging with the high, white clouds drifting in from the sea. ‘He watched us leave Calgacus’s dun, he announced our deaths – he had a hand in it, I would swear it on my father’s honour.’

At that, Conaire’s mild, boyish features hardened, the scar at the edge of one eye flushing purple with blood. Caitlin and his unborn child had been on the boat that sank, after all. He flexed his broad shoulders, one hand coming to rest unconsciously on the sword at his waist. ‘I will come with you.’

For a moment Eremon glanced back at his brother. In the low sun, the hair on Conaire’s neck and arms was bristling with hostility, like a boar’s crest. But this was something begun with the druid long ago, and it was Eremon’s fight to pursue.

‘No.’ Eremon gripped Conaire’s forearm to soften the word. ‘Alone, he offered me this place in the tribe. And alone I will confront him.’

He didn’t say that he wanted Gelert’s wrath to fall on him alone. Better that he keep his men out of this. If there was one thing he had learned in Alba, it was to be wary of druids and their devious ways.

Eremon did not need to search for Gelert, for the old man was in the shrine conducting a sacrifice. Waiting for the attending druids to leave, Eremon edged around the outside of the pillars to where the shrine fell away directly from the western cliff to the plain below. Beyond the marsh and shining thread of river, the sea gleamed its last for the day.

When Eremon heard the murmur of voices and footfalls, he quickly ducked around to the side and entered between the pillars. Gelert was still standing before the bloody altar stone, the offering smoke curling to the sky.

The setting sun filtered through the wings of Gelert’s unbleached robe, and ignited the expanse of marsh beyond to a glowing crimson. This spectacle, and the dark blood on the stone altar, the tainted smoke, and leering ring of oaken gods at the base of each pillar would have awed and intimidated anyone else. But Eremon was too angry to be awed, and he knew that of any druid he had met, Gelert was driven more by the lust for earthly power than doing the will of the gods.

‘This was an offering of gratitude for our safe return, I presume?’

At the sound of Eremon’s voice, Gelert swung around, his arms dropping to his sides. His face was in shadow behind a ragged curtain of pale hair, but his odd, golden eyes were unblinking and cold. ‘Your manners leave something to be desired as usual, prince,’ the druid replied, and with a flick of his fingers dismissed the last two novices. The white-clad youths dragged the calf ’s body to one side, took the sacred knife from Gelert for purification, then melted away.

Eremon and Gelert waited in silence as the boys’ footsteps faded, facing each other across the roofless centre of the shrine. The sun gleamed on the torc set around each idol’s neck, below oaken faces smeared with ochre and blood.

As soon as the novices were gone, Eremon’s simmering anger could no longer be contained, and he strode forward. ‘I know you planned our deaths.’

At Eremon’s approach Gelert glided around the other side of the altar, folding his hands in his sleeves. The fading tattoos across his cheeks were drawn into grotesque lines by the deepening seams of age, and his lids drooped over those yellow and black pits of eyes. ‘You rave, prince.’ Gelert’s white brows arched high with apparent surprise. ‘I know nothing of what you speak.’

Breathing deeply, Eremon fingered the jewels on his sword hilt. ‘Do not play innocent with me, druid. You had a hand in that shipwreck.’ His voice was not steady, for he was finding it harder to keep his emotions in check than he’d expected. For the first time in weeks, snatches of memory kept darting through his mind: the fear in Rhiann’s face when they knew the boat would sink, the moment that froze his blood more than the icy water – when he flailed in the pounding surf, and Rhiann’s hand slipped from his grip.

Gelert was smiling thinly, as if he could read Eremon’s thoughts, his face creasing like a scrap of old parchment. Then he raised one bony shoulder. ‘I am of course innocent of this outrageous charge.’ Abruptly the smile faded, the bloodless lips pursed. ‘Need I warn you what a serious offence it is to accuse a druid falsely, prince? With so much on your mind, do you wish to risk the repercussions? A trial that will split the tribe, and lose you the whisper of support that you do enjoy?’ He paused. ‘You and your …
wife
.’

There it was, the special tone Gelert reserved for any mention of Rhiann, a mixture of fury and bitterness, but also, more alarmingly, a zeal that bordered on madness, a need to destroy. Rhiann had told Eremon how Gelert was scorned by her mother, and how his hatred of all women had been focused on her. But for the first time Eremon heard it clearly, in that one word.

Eremon didn’t realize he’d stepped around the altar and drawn his sword until the tip reared between them, flashing brightly. ‘Do not even
try
to play that game with me!’ he found himself hissing. ‘This is between you and me, as it always was.’

Gelert snorted, and the grey wisps of his beard stirred, stained brown around his mouth. ‘You flatter yourself, prince. Why would I be concerned about a beast like yourself ? You have your uses, of course—’

‘Your concern with me is exactly the point.’

Faintly, Gelert’s lip curled, yet his face drew back imperceptibly from the sword edge. ‘I had more important concerns long before you came along – that was the only reason I supported you in the first place.’

Eremon barked a laugh. ‘What you wanted, and thought you’d found, was a dim brute with war on his mind, a man you could prod and goad to do your bidding, a man through whom you could rule! You don’t keep your concerns any more to the spirit world than I do. You want earthly power, want it so bad it twists in your gut and curdles your blood!’

The only movement in Gelert’s face was the slow blink of his cold, yellow eyes, but his breath rattled suddenly in his chest, and his ribs fluttered. Too many times, Eremon had seen the moment when his own death leaped into someone’s eyes, and he saw it now, recognized the wild fury that could strike out.

In answer, Eremon tilted the sword until it wavered only a breath from Gelert’s sharp, red-veined nose. ‘I know I cannot lay hands on you and live, that I will be thrice-cursed and put to death for a traitor, but I tell you now,
druid
,’ he spat the word, ‘if you harm my wife in any way, I will stab this sword through your rotten guts, and die gladly in your blood. Be careful what schemes you weave, for no afterlife punishment will ever stop me seeking revenge for her.’

Eremon sheathed the sword, and noted with satisfaction the slight flinch of Gelert’s cheek at the grate of iron. Then he strode to the shrine’s entrance, and turned. ‘By the way, a majority of your council members have already agreed to make my marriage binding, to the highest grade.’ Eremon smiled. ‘So there is no way to unseat me now, druid, no way to take from me what you yourself delivered into my hands. Let that thought be your bedfellow at night.’

Gelert’s voice stopped him at the edge of the pillars, each word dripping with suppressed fury. ‘Know that you risk banishment for drawing your blade in this shrine. And the punishment for threatening a druid can be death.’

Eremon did not deign to turn. ‘See how the people heed your words, old man, now that you have shown your much-vaunted powers of “sight” to be so fallible. It is the Romans your people truly fear, and it is I who hold the strength of the swords that defend them.’

There was only silence behind him as Eremon came out into the light, and when he broke from the dark circle and the sun hit him, his breath gusted from him with relief, and he brushed it all away with a shake of his shoulders.

The following day Linnet was silent at breakfast, but she gently touched Rhiann’s cheek as she brought her nettle tea in bed, and Rhiann felt her steady compassion as a warmth reaching around her heart.