by Jules Watson
‘You can say that.’ Minna searched his eyes, her fear raw, naked and terrible in her face. ‘You have your dream, while my parents are gone for ever. So what does that make me?’
Her brow, nose and jaw were starlit curves, and Cahir stared at them, knowing it wasn’t just desire that gripped him now, not a sharp, swift heat but a shifting of the very world beneath. She had given him his future.
‘I will tell you this, as King of Dalriada.’ His voice was unsteady. ‘I cannot accept one truth from your visions and not the others. You are of the royal blood of Eremon and Rhiann, and you will stand in my hall as an honoured lady and take the place torn from you. This I promise, for the service you have rendered me and my people.’ It sounded stilted, when he really wanted to take hold of her and set free the fire coursing through him.
She turned to him, wondering, her face shining with tears. ‘I had not thought …’ She trailed off, and Cahir gritted his teeth to hold all that tumult of feeling at bay inside him: that she was the only one to see all the way into him and not turn away. That he knew her when first she touched him.
She broke his gaze to retreat to the safety of the stars. ‘Nothing from before can make sense any more.’
‘No,’ Cahir said, watching the silver light graze her cheek. ‘Not any more.’
The next morning the men gratefully turned back for Dunadd, relief and excitement quickening their movements. The horses picked up on it, tossing their heads and whinnying.
Minna, though, had woken to a day of shadowy bleakness, her soul left empty after that tempest. For the Source had gone from her, like a lamp guttering out.
After two days she was mired in too much doubt to feel anything. No more dreams came, no more voices telling her why she had found the stone and ring. The grave had illuminated Cahir’s path, but left her own dark – he had gained something, while she had only discovered what she had lost.
When she looked upon his glowing face, she knew it was worth it, but a small voice in her cried out that she would be a vessel for other’s fates, but not her own. Foolish … foolish! she berated herself. She wanted to cling to the memory of her father’s face, her mother’s smile, to take joy in them. To feel the wonder for ever. But she was so cold instead, cold and shaking.
As the triple peak fell away behind the mountains, the rocks closing about the valley, she glanced back, clinging to the pony’s mane as all the warriors gazed forward.
At night, stretching an arm across her forehead, Minna’s mind conjured up many other visions – Maeve’s furious eyes, the contempt in Brónach’s sharp face, the knowing smiles behind her back. It was not enough to stand up in Cahir’s hall and say she was some kind of kin. Who would believe it? Who would accept her? The fear began to gnaw like the cold.
She wondered later if she had not been struggling so she might have sensed the whispers from the moon. If she’d listened, she might have heard a warning.
One moment, there was only the night sky and the sleepy murmurs of the men wrapped in their bedrolls. The next, the rocks all around were moving and guttural voices split the air.
Between one breath and the next, Cahir and his men flew from their hides, their swords already drawn. Minna had a confused impression of babbling men in shaggy furs descending on them from all directions, before Cahir bellowed a war-cry and his men caught up their shields and formed an instinctive knot about him, swords up.
Donal paused to shove Minna into a cluster of boulders, and she hit her head as she fell. By the time she scrabbled around, screaming men were clashing with each other all over the narrow defile, lunging and pulling back. Moonlight and shadows flitted over their features, making it hard to see, but then she recognized the wild, curling tattoos from every Roman child’s nightmare, marking those white, snarling faces. Blueskins.
One Pict was already down, then two, as the patches of snow were spattered by blood, dark as pitch under the moon. Minna stared at a severed hand that fell near her feet with fingers spread, a tattoo curling up the wrist into the shredded flesh, and abruptly she was scrambling backwards, wedging herself into the cleft between two rocks as bile stung her throat.
The moonlight bounced off the frosted rocks and white ground, and by its light, Cahir circled one ragged bear of a man, lunging in then leaping back. His sword drew wild arcs which were met by his opponent time and again in a clash of metal, and Minna stifled a cry when Cahir slid on the ice and the Pict darted in with a stab that was barely blocked by a desperate swing of the king’s shield. She tasted blood on her lip, panting.
Around these two the others fought in pairs, almost evenly matched. Then Tiernan was struck down by a blow to the neck, his long moustache matted with blood, and Minna shoved her fist into her mouth, gagging. He told tales at night, and he had begun to smile at her, his eyes sharp but kind … The Pictish victor was standing there unchallenged for a moment, blood running from his chin. Then slowly he turned and met Minna’s stunned eyes, before lunging towards her.
With a yelp she tried to squeeze through the cleft between the boulders. She had her shoulders through the gap when the man grabbed her ankle and hauled on it, and her head struck rock. In panic Minna scrabbled at the icy stones, but the man pulled her again, growling, and her skull was pounded again, sending stars around it that exploded in darkness.
When she came to she was crumpled like a rag on the ground. The noise of fighting had faded; there were only babbling Pict voices. Minna’s head sprang up, thoughts flying to Cahir despite the flare of pain from the blow that made her whimper. A clutch of bodies were on the ground, but she couldn’t see who was who. As she tried to clear her head, the stink of wet fleece enveloped her and a cold blade was pressed to her throat. A Pict loomed over her, his eyes glinting in the moonlight.
‘Don’t move!’ came Cahir’s faint voice, before it was cut off by a grunt. With a gasp of relief, Minna twisted towards him but was pulled up by the point of the blade.
Amid a confusion of shadows, one attacker held Cahir at the tip of his sword, as the big man who had fought him fingered his fine bronze torc, both jabbering excitedly in their own tongue. Other Dalriadan warriors were also being held at bay – Minna counted seven standing, each with a sword or dagger at their throat. Mellan had been on guard, but he was there, thrown to his knees. She couldn’t see who else had died besides Tiernan.
The Pict leader barked something and his warriors answered, spitting in the faces of their captives. Minna’s captor dragged her head back by her braids, callused fingers cupping her chin. He grunted something to the big man, who was studying Cahir’s sword now while others picked over the Dalriadans’ clothing and weapons like crows on a carcass, holding them up to the silver light, squinting, relieving them of daggers, whetstones, bows and swords. The tattoos marking their cheeks and foreheads broke their features into leering patterns of light and dark.
The Dalriadan warriors were dragged to their feet, their arms bound with lengths of flax rope. They snarled, struggling, until Cahir managed to yell again, ‘Do not fight, by my order!’ With a growl, the big warrior turned back and struck him across the mouth to silence him, as Minna tried to tug free of the arms that held her. Though he stumbled, Cahir recovered and drew himself erect. ‘There is no chance if we run,’ he said steadily, staring the Pict leader down. The man glowered and spat at Cahir’s feet, then hauled him along on the rope. The horses were brought behind, tossing their heads, their eyes wide and white.
Minna was about to follow when, without warning, her captor seized her around the waist and flung her over his shoulder, holding her legs so she couldn’t kick. Agony lanced her head again but she instinctively struck at his back, making him snort with amusement. She writhed furiously for a time as he continued to laugh, holding her even tighter, then collapsed in despair over his shoulder. His shoulder-bone dug into her belly and she had to grit her teeth as she was jostled down the path that descended into the valley.
Chapter 32
‘I
would advise you to tell me who you are.’ The Pictish druid Taran sat erect on a carved stool in his chieftain’s hall.
Before him huddled the war party of gaels – the strangers, the Picts called them – whose tracks his chieftain’s men had fortuitously come across while hunting a rogue wolf on the highest ridges. The Pict warriors were circling the seven men and one woman, spitting at their feet, their jeers drowning his voice. Taran glanced at them. The old chief, gnawing a bone by the hearth, saw the druid’s cold look and shouted at his warriors until they subsided.
Taran sighed. One youthful lapse of judgement and here he was, posted to this barren outpost, far from his king’s court in the north. ‘There’s no point keeping your silence.’ The gael words were stilted on Taran’s tongue. Many druids learned the enemy language from captives; it was only prudent for situations such as these, though he never imagined he’d have cause to use it.
The tallest gael with the nobleman’s torc and upright bearing would not speak, his head turned away, though it was to him Taran directed his questions. Now the black-haired girl glanced at the man again, fear clouding her light eyes, and the other men darted furtive glances at him, too.
Taran rubbed the shaved dome of his forehead as if it would prod his brain awake. ‘The thing is, I am torn. The warriors here want your blood, and it is an easy thing to give them. I, however, see your jewels and the quality of your swords and know you are noble, and therefore of value. Surely your people would pay much for you to be kept alive? If you keep your silence, by dawn you will be dead. It’s your choice.’
At long last, just as Taran was regretfully realizing he’d have no chance to find out much about gaels before these were killed, the tall man stirred. When he turned to Taran, to the druid’s considerable surprise, there was no aggression in his face, and certainly no fear. He looked as though he’d been thinking, gravely and deeply.
He straightened, and Taran, fascinated, stared at the trickle of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. ‘What if I tell you not who I am, but what I am here for?’ The man enunciated each word of the gael speech carefully.
With a spike of irritation, Taran realized it was for his benefit. ‘That would be a start.’
‘Then allow me to withdraw something from my tunic without one of these crows skewering me. It is no hidden weapon – your men pecked us clean.’
Taran’s fingers drummed the chair. ‘Urben,’ he called one of his own warriors, ‘stand behind him with your dagger at his throat. If he threatens us, slit it.’ Then he gestured with his chin. ‘Show me what you will, then, gael. You intrigue me now.’
Slowly, the man reached into his tunic and drew out a flat black stone on a thong.
‘What is this?’ Taran sat forward.
The gael leader held the stone to Urben, who brought it to Taran. The druid turned it over in his long, sensitive fingers. ‘What … is this?’ he repeated. His breath wheezed, as it did whenever he grew excited. There were faint lines around the edge of the stone, and two images. His eyes weren’t very good, though, so he couldn’t see the detail.
‘It is a message stone from the old tales – a pledge between my people and yours.’
Taran held the stone for a moment and closed his eyes. He sent a probe of awareness into the cool, smooth disk, opening his inner eyes instead. A whisper tickled his mind. Old. Lost. A king’s pledge. Caledonii. Caledonii … His eyes snapped open. ‘Where did you find this?’ The chieftain’s ears pricked up, and some of his warriors crowded behind Taran to peer at the stone.
‘In your lands. We were brought to a hidden valley by a vision from our gods.’ The man paused, his breath releasing. ‘On my oath, we came not to attack, only to seek this, though we did not know at the time what the vision would reveal.’
Taran peered at the stone. He could barely make out the ogham lines, but the eagle … The whispers came again. The girl. The girl knows. He saw her gaze fixed on the stone with those unmistakably Otherworld eyes. Abruptly, he swung towards her. ‘And what does it say?’
The gael leader made a movement to silence her, but the girl stirred as if she had been in trance and answered automatically. ‘It says Calgacus of the Caledonii—’
‘Stop!’ Taran flung up his hand. She could not say the name aloud, not here. Heart pounding, he lifted the stone and turned to the lamp sputtering behind him. Now he made it out. Calgacus of the Caledonii pledges allegiance and brotherhood to Eremon of Dalriada. He felt it like a fist in his belly, though long training kept his face still. ‘It is an old form of language, and … an old name. A very old name.’
‘We didn’t know the words at first,’ the gael leader interrupted. ‘Yet the visions showed me—’
‘You?’ Taran glanced at the black-haired witch. You saw it, girl, I can see it in your face. It was your vision.’
Slowly, the girl nodded, her eyes on the tall man. Taran brushed his thumb over the carvings. One side the eagle; Calgacus’s eagle. The druid lore had preserved the old king’s name and symbol, even as it was banished from all thought and memory for everyone else.
The chief had come alongside him. ‘We will give them to the gods at dawn—’
‘There will be no deaths.’ Taran was trying to keep his excitement under control.
‘By my oath there will be! I am lord here.’
‘And I am here by order of the brethren,’ Taran shot back. ‘And with this gift these men have now passed from your realm into mine.’ As the chieftain’s men braced their spears, Taran met the old man’s eye and forced druid power into his own. ‘They bear something that will be of great interest to King Gede, as well as the chief druid. You may dismiss the latter as an old mutterer, but do you really want our falcon king swooping upon you from the sky in wrath for disobeying me?’
The warriors in the firelit hall became hushed. Bristling with fury, the chief glared at the gael, then at Taran, and eventually threw up his hands and turned away.
Taran rose and addressed the leader. ‘Your men will stay here, but you and the girl will come to my hut and tell me everything about how you found this. Now!’
They followed the young, stooped druid, Minna almost sick in the belly with relief. They would not be killed; not yet.
A pungent lamp filled with mutton-fat swung from a rafter in the druid’s hut. The other poles were hung with strings of wild garlic and all manner of odd bits and pieces, including the skulls of sheep, fox and bird and clusters of eagle and hawk talons. A table was scattered with coloured rocks, twisted branches smoothed by wind, and the corpses of small animals preserved in bowls of brine.
Minna felt the change in the air as she entered. It was thicker and hazy, vibrating in a way that made her scalp prickle. This power was different from that of her dreams, as if its substance would not meld with her own. The power of men.
‘This eagle is an old sign,’ the young druid wheezed, sinking into a rush chair by his fire. His face was thin and serious. ‘One we no longer use.’
‘And the boar is of Dalriada,’ Cahir said quietly.
The druid glanced up. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, tilting his head. The long, dark hair below his shaved forehead was braided with speckled hawk feathers. ‘So I have heard. But I have not heard of any such binding pledge between your people and mine before.’ He hesitated, his piercing brown eyes shifting to Minna. ‘If you have manufactured this for your own purposes …’
‘We have not!’ she cried. To think of all they had gone through for this, with Tiernan dead, and, she had learned, Brogan, too. The pain of those deaths was ground into Cahir’s face. Then he took a firm hold of her arm and her indignation died.
He turned calmly to the druid. ‘We came far and risked much to find this valley. We did not know there would be a message stone, or that it had anything to do with the Pict kind. We hoped to gain what we came for and return home with no blood shed. We have put our lives in grave danger in so many ways – why would we lie?’
‘To get yourselves out of a
tight place, now you’ve been caught raiding.’
Cahir let Minna go, and she immediately threw herself down by the druid’s chair. ‘You said it is a secret name of your people, an old form of your language. But I was told druids never write anything down, that their lore is held in their minds and passed on by word alone. So there is no way we could know what this said unless the stone is truly old and made by your druids.’
Taran pondered this, his face pale, as Cahir broke in. ‘You must feel this truth.’
At last the druid sat back, shrugging. ‘So you have found a stone buried many years ago. What of it? What has this to do with today?’ His glance was shrewd and testing. ‘Unless there is more, like your name, perhaps.’
Cahir stiffened, folding his arms. ‘As a warrior, that is for me to give when I will. Yet you are right. There is more. This stone has opened a new path for Dalriada that involves your people and your king – and the Romans.’ He paused, his tongue sliding over his cut lip. ‘It involves the Hill of a Thousand Spears.’
The druid’s eyes flickered with a revulsion he swiftly masked.
‘So you have heard of that, too,’ Cahir said softly, and Minna sensed the tension rise in the room.
‘That place is linked with the name on the stone,’ the druid forced out. ‘Calgacus was a king of the Picts long ago. But he died, and all are forbidden to speak of him now.’
‘Well, I will speak of him!’ Cahir was unable to hide the passion in his voice. ‘It is time to speak of what your own king has long fought for, and his father and grandfather before that. Ridding Alba of the Roman kind!’
The druid’s face lit with surprise, then calculation. ‘But not you, gael. All know the Dalriadans lick the Roman boot while we alone continue the struggle. So what right have you to speak of resisting Rome?’
Cahir kept a rein on his temper. ‘What you say was true once, but the wind has shifted now. My king has new thoughts, which I have been given leave to speak of to your king only.’ Minna’s ears pricked up at that; he had been keeping his own counsel for days. ‘The stone joined us a long time ago. Perhaps …’ He paused. ‘Perhaps our interests can align again.’
