Dreaming the Hound

by Manda Scott

  A while later, when the smell of charring meat lifted from the fire, mother and daughter broke apart a little and drew the hare’s haunch from the embers and shared it with each other and with Stone who pushed between them to lie across their feet.

  Thoughtfully, Breaca said, “I’ll shave his hair this morning, before we move on.”

  “Whose hair?” Graine was leaning against her mother with her eyes shut and did not want to open them.

  “Stone’s. He’s too good a hound to be seen as he is in the east. The Romans make slaves of hounds as they do of people, but they have no eye for what lies beneath the surface. If I cut his pelt so that it looks as if he has mange, they won’t see past it and he’ll be safe.”

  A cool morning became suddenly colder. Graine hugged her knees to her chest. She stared into the fire and wished the grandmothers had spoken to her in the dark. On Mona, they would have done and she would understand at least a little of what was happening. “You’re still going to go east, to reclaim the torc of your people?” she asked.

  “Our people. They are yours as much as mine. Yes. And to raise the warriors to battle. The ancestor was clear about that. I could not, with any honour, go back to Mona.”

  Too much hung on too delicate a balance and Graine saw no way to move it in the way that she wanted. She had felt the cutting pressure in the clearing when Airmid had faced her mother and the worlds lay open and all possibilities were equal. There was one thing that had not been spoken and should have been. It was in her power to do so now.

  She tested it a time or two in her head and then, when the grandmothers did not chastise her for it, said, “Did you know that Gwyddhien was dead?”

  Gwyddhien had been Airmid’s lover from before Graine was born. She had led the warriors of the Silures and, in the Boudica’s absence, those of Mona. She had been killed leading a late-season battle against Cartimandua’s Brigantes, who fought for Rome. Afterwards, Airmid’s grief had been a private thing, not spoken of. The rush to leave Mona and find the Boudica soon after had been a good way for her to lose herself in action.

  There was no telling what the Boudica thought or felt. Quietly, without moving, she said, “Yes. Cygfa told me.”

  Cygfa. Not Airmid. Which meant either that her grief was too new and too raw to allow her to speak of it or, more probably, that she disdained to use so obvious a hammer to crush Breaca’s intransigence.

  Graine had no such qualms. She said, “Airmid will not go back to Mona now. Without Gwyddhien to hold her, she is free to follow you.” She did not say, “She would have followed you anyway,” because she was not sure of that, only hoped so.

  “I know.” Breaca nudged the fire with her toe, shifting the sticks to make heat without smoke. “We spoke of it last night. Airmid will not turn back to Mona and I have no power to make her. Cygfa will do as her own mind commands and she will follow me east whether I want it or not, as will Dubornos; both have said so. Cunomar might be commanded, but I think it more likely he will take it in his head to attack the legions alone to prove his worth. You are the only one I could send back. I could order Ardacos to take you back to Mona and he would do it, staying to be your protection, however much he hated me for it.”

  There was an odd tone in her mother’s voice. Caught between fear of leaving and terror of going on, Graine looked up. Understanding left her mute. Eventually, “You don’t want to send me back,” she said.

  Breaca smiled crookedly. “I want very badly to send you back, but I don’t have the right. You are bound to Airmid as mother to daughter. Where she goes, you go. It is not for me to force you apart.”

  The hollowness in Graine’s midriff became a void. Swallowing, she said, “Did Airmid tell you that?”

  “No. The ancestor tried to and I didn’t believe her. Then the other night, fleeing the legions, I knew it was true. When you were about to fall off Ardacos’ horse and break your neck, it was Airmid who saw what was happening. Her horse wasn’t fast enough to catch you, or you would have ridden these past two days with her, not with me.”

  A quantity of silences made some sense, and the uncertainty in her mother’s eyes. Graine found her hands wrapped tight in Stone’s pelt, as they had been in the mane of Ardacos’ horse. Her fear now was different, and very little of it for herself. She freed a hand and, searching, found her mother’s, which was cold, and squeezed it.

  There were no words that would set the world right again, or none that could be found. Presently, Graine felt herself gathered more tightly in her mother’s arms, felt her mother’s lips press into the top of her head and heard her own name spoken over and over, as a litany, too low truly to be heard. Warm breath filtered through her hair and the words rocked down through her skull to reach her ears from the inside.

  At the very end, when the hair of her crown was warmly damp, she heard a single sentence that made sense.

  “Small child of my heart, I love you; while I live, I will not let Rome kill you, I swear it.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THERE WAS SNOW IN THE LANDS OF THE ECENI, AND A heaviness to the air that smelled of old, uncleared dreams.

  The thin blanket of white did nothing to cover the starved ribs of the earth. The deeper Breaca’s group moved into occupied territory, the more the hedgerows were unkempt, ditches clogged, field edges a harvest of weeds. Paddocks were churned to slipping mud and yet empty; too many sheep and cattle had grazed too hard and then died for it.

  It was too much like the land of the ancestor’s vision. When Breaca said so, Dubornos said, drily, “The people pay their taxes in the meat of their beasts, and in corn. The land must yield twice over now: once for those who farm it and once for those who claim its ownership.”

  Ardacos said, “And the rest of life? Where are the birds? The foxes? The hares? Are they, too, paid in taxes?”

  “Some. Rome will take fox pelts and hare’s meat if there is no beef. As to the others, would you stay in a place where the earth itself was made slave to the legions? They have left, and will return when the gods have restored the balance to the worlds.”

  The knowledge did not make each day’s travel easier. Breaca led them, caught between the driving urgency of the ancestor’s command and the needs of her own oath, newly made on the head of her daughter, to keep Graine safe, and as many of those who travelled with her as may be.

  She rode as she had done since the retreat from the clearing, with Graine held on the saddle in front of her. Outwardly, all was the same. Inwardly, the quality of her caring was different and those who rode with her knew it. The part of her that remained bound to the ancestor-dreamer scorned the collapse of her resolve and predicted death of the worst kind for those who travelled with her.

  The rest of Breaca—the greater part—drank in the essence of her daughter as one dying of thirst drinks in cool water. Do you wonder that the children of your blood cleave to others? She had forgotten, if she had ever known it, what it was to be lost in the love of a child. She rode each step forward with equal weights of hope and terror balancing the two sides of her heart.

  In deference to Roman laws forbidding warriors to carry any weapon longer than a skinning knife, Breaca and her party rode unarmed into the occupied territories. Their blades, and all that marked them as warriors, were left in a grave mound of the ancestors to which Airmid had led them on the evening after Ardacos and Cygfa had rejoined the group.

  The mound lay low, hidden by scrub and thin plates of river mist. As they approached from the west, at dusk, the rising moon cast shadows along its length, making it larger and less welcoming than it might have been.

  There was no sense of safety here. Riding close brought the hairs upright on Breaca’s arms and made her mare snore steam into the frostbitten air. Stone walked stiff-legged at one side and Ardacos, cursing under his breath, held his horse tight at the other. Before them was only moonlight and shadow and a huddle of rocks and turf built around the bones of the dead; they were used to these things and should
not have felt so keenly the dread of ancient wrath.

  Airmid alone seemed untouched. She rode close to the mound’s entrance and slid to the ground. The moon cast her in silhouette, part of the rocks and the turf. She knelt a while at the guardian stones, tracing hidden lines on their surfaces. From where she waited, Breaca could hear the cadence of a murmured half-dialogue such as she might have had with the ancestor in the cave.

  “This is the place.” Airmid backed away from the mound. The pressure of the stones had softened her features, blurring them as if newly wakened from sleep. She said, “Efnís has been here, and one other of the tribes, but not in the past three years, and no-one of Rome. The ghosts of the ancients have guarded this place against all but the strongest dreamers. If there is anywhere better to keep your blades safe from Rome, I don’t know of it.”

  She spoke to a gathering of silent warriors, and one child. Ardacos coughed and pushed his horse forward. It was leery of the silvered light and crabbed sideways, unwilling to face the dark.

  Ardacos was not a weak man. Over twenty years, he had killed more Romans single-handed in service to the she-bear than any other living warrior. Breaca trusted him in battle as she trusted few others. It was not cowardice, then, that moved him when he said, “This place is Nemain’s as much as it is the old ones.’ The god is not of the same stamp as the she-bear and I would not willingly offend either. If it would be best for my blade to be buried in some place away from here, I will do it.”

  Airmid smiled. Her skin was bone white in the moonlight and quite beautiful. Her voice came from other worlds. “The bear is as welcome here as any other, or as unwelcome. It is the danger of this place that will protect what you would leave.”

  Cygfa, too, was not afraid of death. She said, “I would not anger the ghosts of our past, any more than would Ardacos. If they resent our presence, we could give you the blades, and you could hide them.”

  Airmid shook her head. “No. If I die, then they would be lost for ever. You must each come and place your weapons where they can best lie. Then if need be, any one of us can retrieve them when the war begins.”

  When the war begins… That much of the ancestor’s visions seemed certain. Sitting on horseback in the cold night, Breaca watched the many-led Eceni flood forward to crush the legions of Rome. A legionary eagle was ground into gore and the serpent spear hung over—

  “Breaca?” Airmid had a hand on her arm and Graine had turned sideways on the mare’s withers and was peering up into her face. “Can you get down? We need your blade and your father’s. They must go in first. Cunomar can go in with you, to see where they are placed. It may be he will be needed to retrieve them one day. The others can follow in what order they wish.”

  “You want me to go in first?” Walking unhorsed and unarmed into battle would have been easier.

  Airmid raised a brow. Her smile echoed the elder grandmother’s. “I do not. The ancient ones have asked for your daughter, for which we should all be grateful.”

  Breaca could forget that her daughter was a dreamer, save that the gods would not let her. As the warriors tethered the horses and retrieved their blades, Nemain edged across the sky, showing the way forward. Soft light opened what had been dark and, as had been asked, Graine led the way in. The moon made milk of her skin and dark fire of her hair. She could not ride a running horse to safety, but she walked into the mouth of the ancestors” grave as if it were her home. Breaca followed a spear’s length behind, in awe of her daughter’s courage.

  The entrance was small, so that they must crawl in, even Graine. Inside was tall enough to allow Breaca to bend only her head and shoulders and Ardacos could almost stand upright. Around them, hand-hewn rock closed on both sides, far more tightly than the towering walls of the ancestor’s cave had done. Except at the start, the stone was dry, and the marks incised in lines at shoulder height were clean-edged as if newly done. The smell was of old dust and bone and dry, crumbled turf and it tickled the nose so that, one after the other, the warriors sneezed. Graine and Airmid, who did not sneeze, led the way forward, talking to long-dead ears.

  Too soon, Airmid said, “Here. It opens into a chamber. There should be room for us all. Come forward slowly.”

  They could not have done otherwise. The torches held by the dreamers were of grasses and pine resin and sheep’s fat and the smoke they gave had filled the short corridor. In the chamber of the mound, they cast uneven light and made pale faces amber. Five adults and Cunomar formed two circles around Graine, looking inwards. The dead lay as dust in recesses of the walls. Their voices spat warnings of death and the fate of lost souls.

  Sharply, Airmid said, “I bring you the child of Nemain; do you not see?” The whisperings took on a new note and then stopped.

  Graine stood very still. The resin and tallow torch billowed in her hand. Wavering light rippled over her hair as if ghost hands stroked it. The noise and the palpable threat diminished. Breaca breathed through strained lungs and wished for the simple dangers of battle. She heard her daughter say, “Our warriors would leave their weapons in your care, safe until we need them to drive the men of the war eagle from the land.”

  Graine spoke clearly, with adult tones. The torch in her hand flared once more and settled. Patchy shadows fluttered on the walls.

  Airmid said, “Breaca, Eburovic’s blade must be hidden first. Show it now to the dark.”

  Breaca drew her father’s blade from the bear’s pelt wrapping. It lay on her hand, bright as a fish in the torchlight. The weave patterns in the metal were seven generations old and the notch on the blade could still clearly be seen from when her great-grandfather had fought the white-headed champion of the Coritani over a boundary dispute. Newer were the welts across the metal made when her father had fought Amminios’ men in the battle that had killed him. Breaca had taken the sword from his dead hand and had honed it since, but had never rasped the gouges flat.

  Her father had spoken to her by the river in the ancestor’s cave, but she had not seen him there. Here, with his blade and his blood in her hand, he became real for her in ways the grave-ghosts could never be.

  Breaca? His voice had more body to it than it had done in the cave. Give my blade to the stones of the past.

  He was not alone. Her ancestors stood behind him: grandfathers and grandmothers, warriors and smiths, hunters and harness-makers, all who had ever held and used the blade with honour crowded in and in until each one of them took up the space in which Eburovic stood. His many-parted voice said, Show the blade to the dark.

  Airmid had already said that, but it had not been clear what to do. Here, close to the wall, Breaca could see at shoulder height the ledge cut into the stone wall, of a size to hold a war blade of the old style.

  As if the ghosts of her lineage lifted her hands, Breaca felt her arms raised and the blade set into the ledge. It fitted, as if to a sheath, and the unstable flame of the torches brought the blade alive. Blue-black metal rippled as water in the light so that, for the first moments of its resting, the feeding she-bear cast in bronze on the pommel seemed to be drinking at a night-time pool.

  Breaca had forgotten that she was in company. Behind her, Cunomar gasped aloud. Ardacos, who was older, and had better control of himself, spoke through clenched teeth the first of the hidden names of his god, then, “I did not know your father was one of us.”

  Eburovic was gone, or had become part of the blade and the un-light that now concealed it. Breaca stared at the place it had been and could see neither her father nor the weapon. If she had not placed it herself, she would believe the wall to be of solid stone.

  Distantly, she heard herself say, “Nor did he. The bear was his dream, not his god. But he would have been honoured to hear that you think so.”

  An arm brushed Breaca’s sleeve. Graine’s hand fitted into hers, Graine’s voice, full of tides and the echoing ocean said, “It is safe. The ghosts of the many dead will keep it so until such time as the people have need of it. This i
s the blade that will raise the tribes and bind them together against those who would crush them. Do not forget it, nor let others do so.”

  “I won’t.”

  It was not enough, but it was as much as Breaca could say. The world was full of fire and shadows and a wren had just died, singing with her daughter’s voice. She felt Airmid’s hand on her shoulder and, as if through a storm, heard Airmid’s calm direction lead the others to place their own blades, and then fold the mail shirts, stolen from Roman cavalry, and hide them in the recesses of the dead. Last was a Roman officer’s cloak, taken from a dead man’s body and used seven times by Ardacos as a disguise to deceive the enemy.

  Cunomar alone had no blade and no armour. With no obvious role to play, he stood in the centre of the mound, watching and listening. Afterwards, when they had hidden the remaining weapons, thanked the ancestors and ridden away, the memory that settled on Breaca was the sense of her son at her left shoulder and the naked hunger with which he had watched her hide his grandfather’s blade. He had not spoken, but then he had not needed to; her lineage was his and the ghosts of their joint past knew both of them equally.

  What was not clear, and could not be asked, was whether Cunomar had heard Eburovic’s voice as the blade had slid home to its hiding place. If my grandchild ever wields it, know that the death of the Eceni will follow. I trust you to see it does not happen.

  They rode on without blades, at night, slowly, in land that had not been free for nearly fifteen years.

  By day, they camped without fires and with two of the four warriors awake on watch. Twice, they moved further into woodland, to avoid Roman patrols; not because the legions might see them, but because the officers’ mounts, more wary than the men, might have scented their horses, or Stone.

  Soon after they left the ancestors’ grave, Breaca gave the leadership of the group to Dubornos, who had travelled in the east most recently. After three nights, he gave it to Airmid, who slept alone on a river bank and then, on waking, lit a fire and piled wet leaves on it until a column of smoke as wide as a man rose thickly white to the sky.