The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  If this had been Eithne’s reaction to the news, Rhiann did not know what might be waiting for her at her aunt’s hut on the mountain.

  After taking Eithne to be reunited with Caitlin, Rhiann quickly returned to the stables, feeding Liath some barley mash before saddling her again. She had put aside her long dress, and changed into her usual riding outfit of buckskin trousers and tunic, her priestess herb-knife and pouch tied on her leather belt.

  As she was strapping on her pack, Eremon came looking for her, ducking in from the bright sun to the shadows of the stall. Yet when Rhiann fumbled with the saddle straps he was at her side in three strides, and Rhiann briefly closed her eyes as his thumb brushed her cheek.

  ‘You are tired,’ Eremon murmured. ‘Send a messenger instead, and go tomorrow.’

  Rhiann shook her head. ‘Rest can wait another day.’ She tugged fiercely on one of the buckles. ‘You know she will be desperate.’

  Eremon sighed, and when Rhiann turned to face him, her hand on her knife sheath, the light spilling through the open door had deepened the lines of tension around his eyes.

  Rhiann’s heart jumped. ‘What happened in the King’s Hall?’ she whispered, laying her hand over the tight skin as if her touch could smooth the lines away.

  Eremon shrugged, staring at the stable wall behind her. ‘Nothing that cannot wait for your return.’

  Rhiann’s impulse to discover what had disturbed him warred with her own haste. Yet her fear for Linnet was a keen, sharp edge under her breastbone, and she knew she must go. Her aunt loved her like a mother, and would grieve like a mother.

  On a sudden impulse, Rhiann leaned up and pressed her lips to Eremon’s mouth, and after a moment of surprise his hands came around her face to hold her there. The feathery touch gave another flutter low between her legs, as she pulled away, breathless, lowering her eyes.

  And as Eremon helped Rhiann to mount, and she nudged Liath out into the sun, somewhere below the tension of this day Rhiann felt the strange, cold fear again stir with the desire, each entangled in the other.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Epidii territory between mountain and sea was burgeoning into the full, fertile life of leaf-bud, with a mist of green leaves on the trees and new bracken unfurling across the hills. Yet Rhiann, who loved riding alone through her land, now barely noted its beauty. Instead her eyes were fixed on the distinct peaks of Linnet’s mountain ridge to the north-west, her weight forward in the saddle to urge Liath on with her knees.

  The wind off the far, white-capped mountains still cut, yet as Rhiann left the open valleys around Dunadd and entered the wooded glens below the hills, she was warmed by the pools of sun in the hollows, and the still, sheltered air. Here, drifts of hyacinths and pale yellow primroses carpeted the slopes beneath the mostly bare trees.

  For once, though, Rhiann didn’t draw the smells in: sun-warmed damp soil; dew on wet leaves. She couldn’t spare her heart for any of this. Caitlin, Linnet’s only blood child, had been lost as a baby, before returning by chance a year ago. After her loss, Linnet had raised Rhiann as her own. So if Linnet thought both her daughters had been taken by the sea … Rhiann leaned forward again, her thigh muscles burning, desperately urging Liath to greater speed.

  Dercca, Linnet’s maid, was nowhere to be seen when Rhiann cantered into the yard surrounding her aunt’s turf-roofed hut, which was nestled in a sheltered glen halfway up the mountain. Rhiann slid to the ground, looping Liath’s reins over the brushwood pen that held the four brindled goats. Then she hastened for the path leading to the sacred spring that Linnet tended.

  Rhiann hurried between the tangled hazels on the path, brushing away the catkins that caught at her hair. Yet when she came in view of the still pool surrounded by the circle of pale, silvery birches, she jerked to a halt. For a moment Rhiann didn’t see her aunt in the dappled shadows cast by the thin cover of leaves. Then a figure uncurled itself from a pile of deer-hides on the stone-built lip of the spring. It was a tall woman, as slim and elegant as the birch trees around her, with Rhiann’s auburn hair and fine bones, long nose, and tip-tilted eyes.

  Although Rhiann was breathing so hard she gulped air, and her muscles were cramped from riding, all this fell away when her eyes met Linnet’s. The impulse came over her to run like a child and fling herself into Linnet’s arms, as she had so many times when she was younger.

  But something arrested her feet. Rhiann’s aunt had not slept for some days, that was clear, and her skin was translucent, her fine features drawn. Her hair was unbound – tangled by wind and the nap of the deer-hide – and her eyes far away, as if her spirit had not quite returned from its journeys. Yet Rhiann did not see the deep lines of grief that she had so dreaded. Linnet had known they were not dead.

  Wordlessly, Rhiann and Linnet stepped forward at the same time, and then Rhiann found herself wrapped in the circle of her aunt’s arms, as Linnet pressed Rhiann’s face fiercely against her breast. And as they held each other, the sun at last sank below the crooked rim of the mountainside, and they were plunged into cold shadow.

  ‘I tried to watch over you after you left Dunadd,’ Linnet finally said. ‘Every day I spent time at the pool, and sometimes I was rewarded with a seeing: you walking on the walls of a great dun; stepping on to a boat. Then … nothing …’ She paused, and her collarbone moved against Rhiann’s cheek. ‘Until a messenger came with Gelert’s vision.’

  Rhiann stirred with renewed pain, but Linnet held her still. ‘I would not leave the pool then, night or day, and begged the Mother to give me some news of you, any news. Yet most of the visions made little sense.’

  Rhiann choked out, ‘How did you know we lived?’

  Linnet’s breast rose and fell, with a smile or a sigh, Rhiann could not tell. ‘There are other ways of seeing, daughter, between those who love each other.’ She drew back to cup Rhiann’s face with cold hands. ‘I knew, as surely as my body lay here, that you and Caitlin were safe. Gelert’s words came not from the Source; they were wrapped in the blackness that he himself carries. I would know, I would know, the moment you left Thisworld.’ For a moment she gripped Rhiann’s cheeks, her eyes burning fever-bright even in the shadows. The evening wind stirred the wisps of hair about her face as she gave Rhiann the Sisters’ kiss on her spirit-eye, in the middle of her forehead, before releasing her.

  Turning to the spring, Linnet swept up a handful of dried, crushed petals from beside the creased deer-hide, and scattered these over the dark water. ‘All my thanks to you, Lady,’ she said simply. Turning back to Rhiann, she took her hand, and they left the clearing together.

  Rhiann sighed and placed her willow platter on Linnet’s hearthstone, crossing her legs on the floor cushion. Her belly was warmed with fragrant lamb stew and Linnet’s goat’s cheese, and she had washed and changed into a clean robe from her pack. Now she drew up her knees, wrapping Linnet’s thick wool shawl around her so she was swaddled like a baby.

  She wasn’t sleepy, though. In between bites and swallows she had been telling her aunt all that had befallen them. The story was so long and involved that, by the end, the old maid Dercca was slumped against the loom by the wall, snoring softly, the grinding quern tilted between her knees.

  At this point, however, Rhiann was grateful for Dercca’s sleep, for the events on the Sacred Isle were for priestess ears only.

  Glancing at Linnet now, Rhiann saw the glitter of tears on one firelit cheek, as her aunt listened with her head half-turned away, staring into the leaping flames from her place in her rush chair. Only Linnet could grasp how much the welcome of Nerida, the eldest priestess, had meant to Rhiann, ending an exile that had festered as a wound in Rhiann’s soul for three long years.

  ‘What I said to them,’ Rhiann whispered, watching the birch logs snap and settle in the fire, ‘I thought I could never go back. I blamed them …’

  Linnet reached for the iron poker and nudged an errant branch back into the hearth. ‘I knew they would understand, child. They
were just waiting for you to return of your own accord.’

  Rhiann nodded, unable to speak, and drew the fringe of the shawl through her fingers.

  ‘And did you go to the village, daughter?’ Linnet asked, in a carefully gentle voice. To the beach. Where the raiders came.

  ‘Yes.’ Rhiann cleared her throat, glanced up at her aunt. ‘I had to. But Eremon was there, and that made it easier.’

  Instantly, the shadow of Linnet’s pain cleared, and her eyebrows arched. ‘Eremon?’

  His name hung there, all the unsaid questions behind it drawing a wan smile to Rhiann’s face. However, what happened in the stone circle was too new to share with anyone, and instead she told Linnet about Eremon as the King Stag, and his sacred tattoos.

  At that, the lines of strain remaining around Linnet’s eyes smoothed out in the firelight. Rhiann’s aunt was close to forty, but the fine bones of their family held the flesh well, and the life of a priestess – in Linnet’s case, a life of quiet duty separate from the cares of others – lent her face an ageless tranquility. Rhiann, cradling her cheeks in her hands, severely doubted she would ever look so serene. She was the Ban Cré, the Mother of the Land. Her role was not to retreat into a solitary life on the mountain, but to embody the Goddess for her tribe and live among them.

  And now I can serve them truly again. Suddenly Rhiann’s eye fell on Linnet’s doorway and the silver gleam of moonlight creeping under it, fading into the glow of the lamps. The joy that had infused her as she stood outside Dunadd’s gates fountained up again, tinged with excitement. If her full connection to the Goddess had returned, then she should be able to see visions in the sacred pool again. She would no longer be blind!

  ‘Aunt? Does the Goddess swim now in the sacred water?’ At this time of year, the moon often passed directly over the spring.

  Linnet sat up, the blanket in which she had wrapped herself falling from her shoulders. ‘Yes, child – do you wish to speak with our Lady? I will give you what you need.’ She rose, taking a rush lamp and making her way to the workbench that stood against the curved wall, between the two box beds. The rafters were so laden with dried herbs, roots and salted joints of meat that she had to duck to reach the shelves. ‘I have the saor here.’

  ‘No,’ Rhiann said quickly, rising from her cushion, letting the shawl drop away. ‘No saor.’She wanted to do this without the aid of the herbs that freed spirit from body. She used to be able to see unaided, when she was pure, before the raid. Now that she had returned to the fold of the Sisters, she should be able to do it again.

  Her whole body ached with yearning at the memory of the light she used to sense, filling her body. Surely she would feel it again …

  Out in the moist, silvered night, Rhiann tried to step softly and slowly. Yet as soon as the hazel trees closed around her she couldn’t restrain herself – for the first time since the stone circle she was alone, and at one of the Mother’s most sacred gateways. Rhiann’s feet quickened, and she began to run.

  Leaves trailed against her cheeks, and the cool air misted her breath, scented with loam and wet rock. Ahead, a soft light beckoned, and when she broke into the clearing, her chest heaving, it was as if she had fallen into a pool of molten silver, as moonlight spilled through the trees. The clearing held an unnatural stillness, too, as if the land was holding its breath, as if all the night sounds of wind and the stirring of the creatures had been suspended.

  With fumbling fingers, Rhiann unrolled the deer-hide on the lip of the spring, setting out the flowers and bronze finger-ring Linnet had given her. Then she dug in her pack, her fingers closing on her goddess figurines, wrapped in their soft linen bag. One by one she reverently lined them up on the spring: Andraste, war goddess, with her spear and shield; Flidhais of the woods; Rhiannon the Great Mother on her white mare; and Ceridwen with her cauldron, bringer of life and death. Finally, Rhiann knelt on the lip and opened the tiny vial of scented oil. With trembling hands she anointed her spirit-eye.

  Calm down! she told herself, almost laughing aloud. Then she realized she ought to try to be serious, and so she folded her hands together. The most important part of freeing the sight was the priestess breathing, which centred mind and body into one flowing whole. It certainly would not be summoned by a pounding heart and heaving chest. So Rhiann closed her eyes and bit her lip in concentration, striving to subdue her pulse.

  First, she took charge of her breath: one slow inhalation down to her feet, then up out of the crown of her head. Gradually, the breathing took up a rhythm of its own, and that in turn quietened the riot of her blood, until Rhiann began to feel the edges of herself merging more naturally with the steady glow of the moon on her skin.

  When Rhiann was calm enough, she sprinkled the flowers on the water, murmuring her invocation to the spirit of the spring, and sent the ring spinning into the darkness of the pool. Then she sat for a moment longer, letting the slight undercurrent take the flowers out to the pool’s edges, and using her breathing to expand the silver cord that ran through her body, anchoring spirit to flesh.

  With each breath, so her spirit cord swelled and brightened, until it seemed behind her closed eyes that she was a fluid stream of moonlight, like a cup, overflowing … That was how she’d always felt, when the Goddess came to her as a child. As she remembered this, warm relief began to course through her veins alongside the silver light.

  ‘Great Mother,’ she murmured. ‘Moon on the Water, Lady of the Three Faces, your daughter comes to you in love. If it be Your will, may Your light this night be revealed to me, illuminating what is darkness. By Your grace, so shall it be.’

  Now Rhiann fixed in her mind what she most needed to see:

  … the sun glancing off bright Roman helmets; the swirl of red cloaks; the ranks of painted Roman shields …

  … and her breath stilled as she leaned out over the pool, her eyes closed, muttering the prayers under her breath …

  … the eagle standards held aloft in rows; the blast of foreign trumpets; the harsh cries of men …

  … and somewhere inside, with the softness of a sigh, she opened her soul and surrendered all will so that she could see at last; really see …

  She hadn’t even opened her eyes when it hit.

  A bright flood of images erupted from inside her: a man running at her with his sword raised, his black hair dripping seawater into dark, burning eyes. She felt herself rear back, stifling a cry, and turned desperately to run away. Yet she had just reached the hillside when a bruising hand grabbed her ankle and pulled her down … and then there were three of them, their eyes feverish with lust … and a greasy beard suffocating her, and a crushing weight across her chest, and callused hands closing around her neck, and the pain … the pain …

  She screamed, as she had not been able to do then, and screamed again, and suddenly something took hold of her shoulders and Rhiann arched and flung herself backwards. The impact of her body jarring the ground shocked her eyes open, and abruptly the harsh daylight of that awful day was gone.

  It was night again, and Rhiann was sprawled in the middle of the birch clearing, wet grass soaking through her dress. Above her, Linnet hovered on her knees, trying desperately to take Rhiann in her arms.

  ‘I am sorry, child … I am sorry but I heard you scream and I ran, and you wouldn’t answer …’ Linnet’s face swam over Rhiann in a confused blur of silver and shadow stripes, as Rhiann, still fighting the terror, clawed her hands away. Something still felt tight around her neck; she gagged and coughed and fought for breath.

  ‘I had to shake you to bring you back,’ Linnet whispered. ‘I had to. You were strangling yourself.’

  Suddenly Rhiann became aware of the bruised ache around her throat, and she coughed again, blinking her eyes to clear her sight. Linnet’s arms closed again, seeking to rock her. ‘You were speaking what you saw … what you felt …’ Linnet’s voice broke, and hot tears fell on Rhiann’s cheeks. ‘Oh, Mother … my child …’

  Dazed, R
hiann fought her way free of the enveloping folds of Linnet’s priestess cloak. Blood roared in her ears, and she had to fight to draw in enough breath. Then her eye fell on the stones of the pool, the scent of the blooms sweet in her nose, and she suddenly realized what had happened – and what had not.

  ‘No.’ Rhiann staggered to her feet, glancing wildly around the clearing, which now echoed with the evil memories she had conjured, violating the sacred space. The moon’s grinning face mocked her from above. ‘No,’ she whispered in anguish, and then she sank slowly to her knees. It had not worked. There had been no Goddess, only her own poisoned mind. I cannot bear it.

  ‘Rhiann.’ Linnet’s hand was gripping her shoulder. ‘It was a memory of the raid, that is all. It cannot hurt you now, my child. I will hold you through it as I did before—’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Rhiann choked out. ‘I thought in the circle that She had forgiven me, that I was Hers again.’ Rhiann’s shoulders shook, and she curled tighter around her heart. ‘All this time … since those men … She has turned her back on me and I cannot feel Her any more!’

  Linnet was grasping Rhiann as if she could press her within her own body. ‘Child, you are a Goddess daughter, that can never change.’

  ‘No!’ Rhiann wrenched herself back and fell on her haunches, turning her face away with shame. ‘I thought … in the Stones … it was over.’

  She was barely conscious of Linnet’s touch on her back. ‘I don’t understand.’ Linnet’s voice trembled. ‘I have stood by you at the rites. You hold the Mother’s energy and let it flow for the people. I felt it touch them.’

  ‘For the people, for the people,’ Rhiann whispered harshly. ‘She comes to speak to them, to touch and love them, but not to me alone, when I call Her. Never me.’