The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (19 page)

What she saw was the last thing she expected, the last thing of all. His eyes were green and unflinching, and in them dwelt puzzlement, curiosity and … pity? ‘Lady,’ he said again. ‘I behaved unspeakably last night, and I seek your deepest pardon.’

She was speechless.

‘I have no excuse but that of mead, if you will take that as any excuse at all. Be assured that, in answer to your request, I will not lay a hand on you again.’

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

He was adjusting his scabbard on its chains, and peering out at the sky
as if getting ready to leave. ‘In view of the alliance between our two peoples, could we agree to keep my … indiscretion … to ourselves? Please trust that you have no cause to fear my attentions again.’

She nearly laughed with disbelief. But he had offered her the way out, so instead, she drew her cloak around her shoulders and nodded stiffly. ‘I will not speak of it to anyone.’ She wondered what else to add, and could think of nothing.

‘Good.’ He was brisk now. ‘And our living arrangements are …?’

‘I am expected to move into the King’s Hall. With you and your men.’ At that, her voice caught a little, and he glanced at her keenly. Pity indeed! She put her chin up. ‘However, I will keep my house as it is, for my healing and ritual duties, for which I need quiet, and space. I will spend most of my time there.’

‘I see.’

A silence fell at last.

‘Well, then,’ he added, ‘I have duties of my own to attend to. Lady …’ He bowed to her gracefully, and then he was gone, the clasps on his belt clanking with each step.

She slumped on the bench, blowing out her breath. She had agreed to share a secret. With her husband. In other words – despite her wishes, in defiance of all her plans – a bond of sorts had been formed.

Between her and the prince of Dalriada.

The sling-stone whizzed through the icy air over the marshes, and fell harmlessly into a frost-fringed pool. The flock of black-striped geese rose with honking cries, before wheeling out over the Add, settling far to the north against the hills.

‘Hawen’s stinking balls!’ Conaire slapped the leather sling against his good thigh.

‘If you keep yelling like that, you’ll scare them all away.’ Eremon was crouched in the reeds, blowing on his chilled hands.

‘Ah, I don’t have your patience, brother. Give me a boar to run down any day!’ Conaire squatted awkwardly on his haunches, still favouring his scarred leg, and rooted through his satchel.

Eremon worked the sling between his fingers, rolling the stone around. ‘Patience … ah, yes, a great virtue of mine.’

He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, and Conaire glanced up, his hands around a flask of stiffened boar hide. ‘Still proving elusive, is she?’

Eremon nodded, his fingers tracing the tiny scab on his throat, which he had explained away as a razor nick. He could not tell Conaire what really transpired in the bridal hut a week ago. He was too ashamed – not of his own behaviour, which was barely at fault, whatever he told the girl. But how could he admit that he’d not yet consummated the
marriage? Or that a woman had drawn a knife on him; drawn blood? He could not bear the shame. And as for Talorc and the rest of the Epidii; he would instantly lose every grain of their hard-won respect.
And
he could say goodbye to any chance of leading them, of making his name, of returning to Erin in glory …

‘I’m sure she’ll come around soon.’ Conaire shrugged. ‘She must be shy, that’s all.’

She’s mad, that’s all
. Well, perhaps not mad. Something must have occurred in her past to make her like that – she had been sorely treated, that was plain. It was only this realization that had stayed his anger the morning after.

That sudden stab of pity had surprised him, as he looked down at her hunched on the bench. Until then, she’d been a forbidding figure, but in that one fleeting moment, she was just a frightened child. Then she thrust out that proud chin, and the moment was gone. But there was a mystery there, it was clear.

And what do you care for such mysteries
? he chided himself.
What time do you have for such follies
? Rhiann of the Epidii was a riddle, best left unsolved. He forced a smile, his jaw tight. ‘Let’s just say that this alliance better prove its worth!’

‘It is that bad?’ Conaire took a sip of elderberry ale, and held the flask out for Eremon. ‘Maybe you need some lessons in the bed-furs, brother!’

Eremon did not return the grin, and the twinkle in Conaire’s eyes faded as he wiped his mouth. ‘Come now! They are expecting an heir, and that is all you must give them. If it’s like that, then grit your teeth once a week with her and think of Erin. Meanwhile, there are plenty of women willing to have some fun. That maid Garda says you are the talk of the dun – the fact that you have not partaken of their charms is driving the women even wilder for you. I say enjoy it.’

Eremon drank, his eyes far away. Then he came back to himself, his face relaxing into a proper smile. ‘You’re right, of course. And anyway, we have more important things to think about. Come.’

They continued down the path that ran between the tussocks of red moss, rimed with frost in the dawn shadows. ‘I’ve decided to ask the council to call in levies from all the Epidii chieftains,’ Eremon announced. ‘We can house the extra warriors here at Dunadd.’

‘But that’s a standing warband – and not how things are done here, Eremon. Just like at home, each chieftain keeps his own retinue of men.’

Upright, they were in the full force of the bitter wind soughing across the marshes, and Eremon tucked his sling in his armpit and blew on his hands again. ‘That is all well and good for cattle raiding, brother, but the Romans are an invading army! The Epidii will have to adapt – or die.’

‘From what I understand, the council won’t be happy to bring in
warriors from the other clans. They’ve been concerned about a challenge to the kingship, remember.’

‘And this is the best way to avoid such a challenge!’ Eremon halted, scanning the reeds. ‘Look! Are they swans?’ For a few moments they searched for a path to the south, until they found one and set off, talking more quietly now.

‘The best way to take control is to weaken the clan divisions,’ Eremon pointed out. ‘We bring the young warriors here, and work on making them loyal to me. They won’t have a chance to get embroiled in any conspiracies. Not only will they be cut off from their own elders, but they’ll all spy on each other, which saves me doing it.’

‘As usual, you’ve thought this through.’

Eremon snorted.
And there’s not much else to do on these long nights, when my wife lays with her back to me
. ‘There’s another reason,’ he continued aloud. ‘I have to meld them into some sort of coherent fighting force. That Greek treatise was clear: the Romans fight as one. We don’t.’

Conaire sighed. ‘I hear you, but what happened when we tried it in Erin? Everyone broke formation and scattered, but by the Boar we fought like devils! Who thinks of strategy when hungry for blood? For honour, a man fights alone.’

‘Then we’ll all die alone, too.’

Now it was Conaire’s turn to halt in his tracks. ‘There
are
swans! Quick.’ He pulled Eremon down beside him. ‘Steady now. Let’s take it slow and sweet.’

‘You don’t need to tell me that, you great lumbering bear!’

They wound their slings around their hands, and began to creep along the path. Through a gap in the reeds, four white shapes sailed across a dark pool.

Eremon carefully loaded the sling with a ball from the pouch on his belt. Out of the corner of his mouth he whispered, ‘How many women was Garda talking about?’

They returned to the gates of Dunadd at full morning, a swan slung across each back, fingers raw with cold, bellies growling. As they neared the King’s Hall, Eremon caught the arm of one of a passing pair of servants.

‘Girl!’ Eremon untied the swan from his shoulders and shrugged it to the ground, gesturing to the girl and her companion. ‘I want you to take both these birds to the Lady Rhiann. The feathers are a gift, tell her, from me. From me, do you understand?’

‘Yes, lord.’ The girls giggled, glancing covertly between the swansdown and Conaire.

As he and Conaire strode away, Eremon caught his brother’s raised
eyebrow, and in answer he shrugged. ‘No harm in trying. She is a woman, after all.’

The festival of Samhain had arrived at last; the greatest of the four fire festivals, for it marked the dying of the old year and the renewal of the new.

For days beforehand, the herders drove great streams of cattle down from the summer pastures to gather on the fields about Dunadd. There they were penned, until the druids had made the choices of which would be kept for breeding, and which would be slaughtered. The air was filled with the sound of their lowing, and the rich smell of their dung.

It was not only cattle gathering in from the far glens. People, too, were coming, for all the tribe must participate in Samhain. Now, the veil between the Otherworld and Thisworld grew thin, and it was a dangerous time: mortals could be drawn into the arms of the faery-people, the dead walked again among the living, shape-shifting beasts stalked the land.

Against this, the people must come together to be renewed by the Goddess, to commune with their ancestors and placate the forces that threatened to bring them into chaos.

On Samhain eve, Rhiann sat by her own fire in silence. This night she wore only one robe of undyed wool, and no ornaments beside a crown of rowan-berries. Her body felt lighter than it had at the betrothal, weighed down as it was then with gold and heavy wool. That had been an earthly rite, and as such needed the material things to bind her. Tonight, she must have as little as possible between her and the Otherworld.

‘Mistress.’ Brica was by her side, holding out an earthen cup of a dark liquid. The
saor
.

Rhiann drank deeply, fighting down the sickness in her belly. Samhain was the most sacred of nights, the start of the new year. The Goddess must be able to manifest, to calm Her people’s fear at the coming of the long dark. But would this be the night when Rhiann was unmasked? When all would know that she no longer felt the Goddess within? That she could no longer see?

Rhiann sighed and rose, standing before the sacred figurines on their shelf. Then her fingers closed over one, the image of Ceridwen in her guise of Crone, the cauldron of rebirth in her hands. Tenderly, Rhiann placed the tiny figure in her waist pouch, under her robe, close to her skin.

Brica lifted the door cover and peered out, and Rhiann saw the triangle of black above her head, spangled with stars. Her escort would be here soon.

Now Brica came back to the hearth with the kettle in her hands, and she doused the last coals still glowing in the fire-pit. The house was plunged into blackness, and with the light went the old year. The new year would begin when Rhiann lit the great fire in the valley of ancestors, to the north, and the riders returned with flaming torches to ignite every hearth-fire at Dunadd.

There was the triple rap of a staff on the wall beside her door.

‘Mother of the Land, rider of the White Mare. Your people need you to renew the fire. Come!’

Meron’s voice soared to the cold stars above. From her position atop the old mound, Rhiann could see the black hole of the fire-pit yawning below, filled with the nine sacred woods, unlit. Although the moon was dark, and the crowd of hundreds silent, she could sense them on the plain around her, their breath rising in the frosted air.

The
saor
began to throb through her veins in time to the single drumbeat that accompanied Meron, and when his song ended, Gelert took up the chant to the dead, who this night walked in Thisworld as if alive.

By now, Rhiann was in the floating place where she saw little, and felt even less. Even so, a fleeting sorrow brushed her, light as a swallow wing, when she laid down a honey-cake for her foster-family in the feast of the dead. Yet that was all that came.

She sensed the Goddess presence on the fringes of her consciousness, just beyond her finger-tips. But the burning that used to envelop her was no more than a feeble warmth now that did little to thaw her heart. She hoped that the people could not see this; that to them she appeared as she used to, the priestess glamour swathing her like a cloak, making her taller, straighter, greater …

Linnet’s touch came at her elbow. At her feet, two druids had kindled the need-fire, and were handing her a pitch-soaked brand. She held the torch in the fire until it burst into flame, and straightened, the sparks streaming away above her head.

And then, through her fear, words came, and the priestess voice to carry them, more resonant than her own, more ancient.

‘My people!’ she cried. ‘The land returns to My womb, there to be renewed. All will sleep the long sleep, but in My Darkness, old shall be made new again. As you shall be. Take this fire as a symbol of the light that will continue to glow, ready to flower once more when the sun returns. Fear not! For I am with you in all the turns of the days!’

From the flat valley bottom, Eremon watched the brand arc high in the air as Rhiann threw it into the great fire-pit. But he could not take his eyes off her, not even when the crowd parted to make way for the
cloaked riders who, crying to the Mare, streamed back towards Dunadd with flaming torches.

It was the first time he had seen his new wife as Goddess, and when her voice changed as she made her proclamation, growing sonorous, deeper, the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Yet as the drums and pipes began, and figures began to dance around the roaring fire, he also saw that she was untouched by the crowd’s release of tension, the renewal of laughter and talk. She remained unmoving atop the mound, and in her pale robe, her hair bleached by the starlight, she was a shard of ice: detached, unreachable, untouchable.

His heart chilled, he turned away.

There was mead and ale flowing now, and he drew a drink from the barrels, content to wrap himself in his cloak on the frosted slopes of the narrow valley that cupped the line of ancestor mounds. So much had happened in such a short time, that he took any opportunity he could to sit and think. It was, after all, the thing he did best.