The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Excitement ran among the men like wildfire.

  Her knee against Cahir’s, Minna savoured the power flowing from his flesh to hers. When had their hearts become so entwined they soared or fell together like this?

  It was the kiss. She had understood at that moment that she had been drawn across the wild moors not just to this land, but to his side. If Alba was her fate then Cahir was, too. All along, she had been returning to him.

  The druids gave her a robe of coarse wool to wear over bare skin, and Taran said she must go barefoot as well. When she emerged from the lodge, the night air chilled her skin and the pit of her belly. As the druids closed about her with torches, Minna cast one glance at Cahir. His eyes reflected the flames. ‘I will be close behind you,’ he said, and only then could she let go and not look back.

  The moon was a ship of bronze sailing over the sea from the east. The sea-wind buffeted the walls, lifting Minna’s unbound hair from her neck. Behind her walked Gede and Cahir, side by side.

  Then the entrance to the Water of Seeing yawned before her, a black doorway in an outcrop of pale stone within the walls, not far from the king’s hall. Steps led down into the darkness.

  Taran stood before her. The druids had begun singing under their breath, their torches wavering lines around her. ‘So you leave Thisworld for the Otherworld,’ he intoned, then whispered, ‘Do not fear: even if you cannot see, we will not let you die from the Water’s cold. And if you are who you say you are, then you will surely not travel so far that the cord breaks and your spirit become lost among the other worlds.’ His teeth gleamed slightly. ‘The moon will no doubt still be up when you emerge.’

  After these barely encouraging words, Minna walked carefully into the blackness and progressed down slippery steps that were cut into the rock, her toes curling over the edges. The light from the torch-bearers sparkled on pale flecks in the dark, mossy walls. The druid singing vibrated off the stone in discordant harmonies that shattered all clear thought, and she felt the song summoning the power of the rock, the earth, the sky.

  The water.

  At the bottom of the stairs lay a small chamber of curved walls and vaulted roof barely the height of a man, its entire floor forming the pool. As she came down, the draught from the stairs riffled the surface, black and impenetrable but sheened by the torches.

  She came to a shivering stop on the lowest step, slimy with weed. Wavelets lapped over her ankles, the water biting cold, for it had never seen sun. Taran moved to a narrow ledge that edged the chamber.

  ‘Daughter.’ Galan’s deep voice boomed from the rock walls all around. The smell of pitch was sharp in the dank air. ‘You must enter the place day never comes, and emerge with a vision. As your body is of water, so this pool will melt the bounds of your flesh and allow your soul to be one again with spirit. But if your soul is too weighted with darkness, you may sink and not come up, and the water will claim you.’

  They are just ritual words, Minna cried to herself. Taran said I would live and see the moon.

  ‘So, gael child: do you come to the Water of Seeing with a clear heart, with no blemish upon it of lie or betrayal or dishonour or hurt done?’

  Unexpectedly, Cian’s face appeared in Minna’s mind, his eyes stormy with pain. ‘I have done no hurt intentionally,’ she whispered. ‘But … I have hurt, nonetheless.’

  The druid grunted, the sound amplified by the enclosing walls. ‘The Water will accept you if hurt was done while you followed your higher truth, and that is all. Was it so, child?’

  She saw Cahir now, his smile tender. Behind him were Alba’s hills, clothed in the flame of leaf-fall, and Alba’s sea, dark as night. Cian, I am sorry. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Then the Water of Seeing lays before you. Step down into the pool and lay back in the water. You will be held.’

  She stared at Taran, his glazed pupils large and black in the flickering light. Behind came the ponderous footsteps of the old druid passing her, and both entered the water up to their chests. The druid singing on the stairs intensified, and the surface of the pool shifted.

  Bracing herself, Minna stepped in, and though her feet went out from under her and she gasped, Taran held her shoulders. The water was so icy it burned, sucking all the air from her lungs. Panting, she sensed the two druids tip her back, supporting her head and feet. She closed her eyes and struggled, for the cold was a band of iron around her body, stiffening it. A hoarse whimper escaped her.

  ‘You must merge with the water, child, take the cold into your flesh, slow your blood,’ the chief druid murmured. ‘Do not fight it.’

  She blinked away the biting pain. This is what seers do, came the thought. This is what they train for. Rhiann was a priestess; she would have done this with no cry of pain or fear. But Minna had not been trained.

  Above, the torches sprinkled the dark, moist roof with points of fire, like stars. ‘Surrender,’ Taran whispered. That had always been hard for Minna, for the fight in her heart and soul was instinctive. But she closed her eyes and fixed on an image of the pool seeping into every hollow of flesh, muscle and bone, slowly weighting her as if she were a hide bag filling with water, until her skin dissolved and she became only fluid.

  ‘Good, good,’ Taran breathed. The pain had lightened to a vague, numb hurt now. Then, so low she almost couldn’t hear it, Taran joined the singing, and as the water became her, the vibration of his voice travelled through it to envelop her with song.

  Her breathing grew slower, and she realized she was growing warm: the resisting flesh surrendering, melting into spirit, losing the sense that said: I am one thing; and that, another. Her heart struck her ribs, a beat that makes blood flow … the warm blood in which she floated … the womb blood …

  Behind Minna’s eyelids, a diffuse, golden glow appeared, brighter in places with points of fire. ‘See the true pool,’ the chief druid murmured. ‘This – not the water – is the font of all seeing. Do you see it as light, as an opening?’

  ‘I see,’ she whispered, tears running down her chin. ‘I see.’

  The druid said something else, but the meaning was lost as Minna was abruptly pulled into a whirling circle of colour and light, all sounds receding. The light writhed, then resolved itself into the figures of men fighting, arms and legs striking out, bodies falling. It was a battlefield – the battlefield. Above her she saw the crooked ridge of what she knew now as the Hill of a Thousand Spears.

  She floated above the desolate scene, as below a tall warrior in a magnificent helmet was struck from the platform of his jewelled chariot, his horses collapsing in their traces. It was King Calgacus, his mane of golden hair matted now with blood. One eye was nothing but a pulpy wound, but he regained his footing and began to swing his massive sword around his head in great arcs. The men he faced were covered with polished plates like fish scales, helmets red-crested.

  A soldier came up behind the golden king with javelin poised, and Minna saw that Calgacus’s guard had been cut down around him. Only one was left, a bard caught in the web of the chariot harness, watching the Romans advance on his king. He was weeping. Minna tried to shout a warning, and found she was voiceless. But below her it was the bard who screamed, and the king heard him and whirled, bringing his long sword across the enemy behind and slicing into his neck. Blood sprayed over the king’s face, and as he faced the other red wolves who circled, he smiled and licked the blood from his chin.

  Then he threw his head back and roared a challenge, and all the Romans ran at him, snarling. He ducked and struck out, and one, two, three went down. They lay awash in a sea of blood at his feet, and so more soldiers were drawn by the scent, and more again. Calgacus bellowed, and in answer the Romans piled in on each other in their eagerness for his death.

  He disappeared beneath them, and Minna found herself reaching for him, trying to save him … and the noise and stench of battle were suddenly released to her senses. She heard the screams and groans, the whinnies of horses; smelled the ur
ine and sweat. She felt the blades enter his chest his arm his belly his neck his eye his spine his leg his feet his heart … and she lived his desolation at the loss of everything.

  But even this was eclipsed by an even greater flare of pride that he died on his own terms. Calgacus the Sword, King of the north, last to fall for Alba.

  So were his thoughts, before all went dark. And Minna wept.

  After a time, the lights came for her. In that moment, she knew she had been drawn here to this place-of-no-place for herself as well as for Cahir and his war.

  They whirled about her, diaphanous as silk veils; a slow-turning cloud of spirit-lights. Do not be afraid.

  Though she desperately strained to recognize the speaker, it was not the tender guide of her eagle flight. This was a melding of more than one voice, shimmering layers of different souls: one deep and wise, the other silvery and light. Do not be afraid, daughter. But she knew them.

  The spirit-lights spun closer, gathering momentum until a column encased her in a whirlwind of light. Were these the whispers that haunted her sleep? Invisible fingers pressed her eyelids closed. Do not think. Feel.

  The voices began to sing, mingling in an old melody that spun a cradle of sound around her. The fingers turned Minna’s palms upwards, though she could see nothing but light. Dizzied, she tried to form words. Who are you? Why are you here?

  The answer came immediately. Speak not. Fear not. You are safe, and your Sisters love you.

  Her soul spun. Sisters. She knew that name, and it was not about blood kin, but … soul kin. An endless longing overtook her, and she knew she had borne it from birth, and it had festered like a wound on her soul. A longing to be one with many others, not alone. To be a single note in a song greater than herself. To share warm bread around a dawn fire.

  Minna’s palms fell open in supplication. Let me come to you, she pleaded. To be one again.

  We are always one. We are all beloved of the Mother. A drop of water landed in one palm, and she felt the smoothness of a river pebble in the other, warmed by fire. Or was she someone else, and this a distant memory? You have merely fallen into forgetfulness, into sleep. But you will awake now, Minna, daughter of the Goddess. Awake, and know your true self.

  As she slipped back down the tunnel of light, her body calling, she heard one last thing, proclaimed as if by a chorus of women around her: The One who was filled is awake, and now must become Many.

  Chapter 36

  Cahir spent the night pacing, his muscles aching. Minna was safe in bed now but she slept strangely, tossing and murmuring. Nor could he ease himself by hammering out a war plan with Gede. The Pict king had disappeared with his druids to confer, all of them set-faced after Minna’s revelations, and Cahir had been left to pace and think, and pause every now and then to gaze down at his lennan.

  He wondered again where that urge to bestow such a precious name on her had come from, for in speaking before witnesses he had made an irrevocable decision. But it must already have been made inside him, the path simply laid at his feet. And perhaps his mind had just caught up with his emotions at last.

  Cahir pulled a tendril of black hair away from Minna’s alabaster cheek and intently tucked it behind one ear. What man would not desire her? She was a unique beauty, a seer, and as kings were emissaries of the gods an Otherworldly mate was entirely fitting. Such matches were valued by his people, lauded in song and tale.

  He stood for a moment and smiled at himself, because it was really about so much more, and so much less. Love, unlooked for and utterly surprising.

  He turned, his smile fading as he thought of Maeve. She was Roman, a Christian – she would not accept a lennan. His fingers brushed the loom against the wall, threaded with a half-finished bolt of checked cloth, and he chewed his lip. He was king, she would have to accept it. And anyway … he stopped at the end of Minna’s bed. How could he care for Maeve’s rages when this mysterious girl with the water eyes had just described the dying moments of the most famous Pict king; a tale only one bard had brought back from the battlefield, a secret hoarded by their druids for centuries?

  Calgacus did fight at the Hill of a Thousand Spears, at Eremon’s side, and he was blinded before he fell. Among the Picts there could be no argument now that she spoke the truth. What Gede would do about it was another matter.

  Reliving the wonder of the dark cavern and the flickering water, Minna’s soft voice echoing from the walls in her trance, Cahir breathed hard as he stared down at her pale face.

  A stór. My beloved.

  At midday Minna woke.

  Cahir sat on the bed and held her hand as her eyelids flickered open and colour flooded her cheeks. Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed his face against her forehead.

  When she was fully herself, he told her everything that Taran had told him. Minna stared at the wall as he spoke, unmoving.

  ‘… At the battle, thousands upon thousands of Pict warriors were slaughtered, and in the moons afterwards, the women and children struggled to survive. The warriors were decimated, there were not enough men … it was chaos. People died of famine, then from the cold of a long dark that seemed to have no end. The shame and grief was so great they have blotted it from common memory. The bards were forbidden to sing of it, the druids from speaking it. They could not bear for the tale to be remembered.’ He paused. ‘The same battle is in my ancestry, but it does not carry that darkness.’

  She turned to him, and Cahir was so entranced he fell silent. If he saw a light there before it was nothing compared to what was there now; not strength this time but peace, as if her eyes had opened on another world of great beauty he could not see. ‘Rhiann, my mother, gave your prophecy to Gabran.’ Even her voice was richer and more resonant. ‘She spoke of it with pride, found hope even in defeat. She preserved the tale.’

  Cahir brought her fingers to his lips. ‘She must have been a seer of the highest order.’ His eyes roamed her face. She was still his Minna but different, timeless. What had happened to her in her dreams? ‘The boar stone was a strong talisman and would have wrought much on its own. But this … you have given them a message from their gods which is undeniable. The druids have acknowledged you as a true seer.’

  Her face was more open than before, and he saw the reverberation of seer ringing like a bell through her soul. Her lips formed the word.

  ‘Minna.’ He searched her eyes. ‘Are you still mine?’

  She was slow to absorb that, as if still far away, but then a smile bloomed over her face. ‘Certainly, if you are mine.’ And unexpectedly she reached up and drew Cahir’s lips to hers, and as he overbalanced on the bed she turned on top of him, her hair hiding them in a black, fragrant tent.

  ‘You are sick,’ he protested.

  She smiled radiantly. ‘I am not sick – I feel … I feel awake.’ She laughed. ‘So awake.’

  Her hip was tucked into the groove between his legs, and there was no way to hide how his body was responding. And here she was, an invalid. ‘I’m not sick!’ she laughed again. Giving up, Cahir buried his grin in her mouth, tangling hands in her hair. It still smelled of moss and cold water.

  Their tongues met; she was tentative at first, hesitating in wonder before giving herself up to response. Then the heat grew, became hungry, and Cahir felt he was falling upwards into the melting wetness of her mouth, craving her taste and smell. His fingers moulded each delicate bone in her spine … he could snap her in two, but he would cradle her instead, and the vulnerability made him groan, and she pressed closer.

  A noise outside broke them apart. For a moment Cahir could only lie there, dazed. He had to take her to his bed. But where? In the middle of an enemy dun? Aye, he could see himself buried in her, lost in her … and then having to be a king, a commander, sparring with Gede. And yet it would release him, clear his head. Make him whole again.

  ‘See?’ Minna raised herself on one elbow, her lips swollen. She was not glowing now, but dangerously on fire.

 
; ‘See what?’

  ‘I’m not ill, I am alive! Now you can let me out of bed.’

  A pause, as he traced the soft skin of her arm. ‘I might, I might not.’

  A trail of goose-bumps rose under his fingers, and their gazes met, incandescent. Then the noise outside became a knock. With a chuckle Minna scrambled under the covers as Cahir hastily got up.

  Brimming with laughter, Minna glanced at Cahir at the last moment before Nessa entered the women’s house.

  He had bathed and shaved, revealing the wind-burn across his cheeks, his chapped lips. But with every step away from the cave, ringing with his men’s voices, the lines of his old pain were smoothing out. It was as if a deeper layer of sight had opened to her in the Water of Seeing, revealing his noble beauty and strength. Her heart contracted.

  Everything was more vivid suddenly: the flames of the fire shimmering violet, the touch of the wool blanket on her bare legs. Something happened when the voices filled her …

  ‘Oh!’ Nessa cried in dismay, spotting Cahir. Her hand shot out to grab a little boy who had toddled into the room at her feet. ‘My lord, I am so sorry, I thought your lady was alone.’

  Minna glanced at Cahir again, stifling a smile. ‘Please, lady, it is all right.’ She extended an unsteady hand. ‘This is Cahir son of Conor, King of Dalriada. And this is Gede’s queen, my lord. Queen Nessa.’

  Nessa dipped her head and murmured a platitude while Cahir bowed. ‘Please stay seated.’ She gathered the toddler into her arms. ‘I will leave you—’

  ‘No, no,’ Minna protested. For as the laughter died and she looked upon mother and son, the firelight seemed to flare into a nimbus of gold all around the babe’s head, while Nessa’s shoulders hunched about a secret, dull as lead.

  ‘Stay,’ Cahir also urged the queen. ‘I have not slept well myself for two days, lady. And I could do with time to speak with my men.’ As Nessa slid the boy to the ground, Cahir glanced down at Minna, his eyes caressing her. ‘You should also sleep again, a stór.’