The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Gelert was smiling thinly, as if he could read Eremon’s thoughts, his face creasing like a scrap of old parchment. Then he raised one bony shoulder. ‘I am of course innocent of this outrageous charge.’ Abruptly the smile faded, the bloodless lips pursed. ‘Need I warn you what a serious offence it is to accuse a druid falsely, prince? With so much on your mind, do you wish to risk the repercussions? A trial that will split the tribe, and lose you the whisper of support that you do enjoy?’ He paused. ‘You and your … wife.’

  There it was, the special tone Gelert reserved for any mention of Rhiann, a mixture of fury and bitterness, but also, more alarmingly, a zeal that bordered on madness, a need to destroy. Rhiann had told Eremon how Gelert was scorned by her mother, and how his hatred of all women had been focused on her. But for the first time Eremon heard it clearly, in that one word.

  Eremon didn’t realize he’d stepped around the altar and drawn his sword until the tip reared between them, flashing brightly. ‘Do not even try to play that game with me!’ he found himself hissing. ‘This is between you and me, as it always was.’

  Gelert snorted, and the grey wisps of his beard stirred, stained brown around his mouth. ‘You flatter yourself, prince. Why would I be concerned about a beast like yourself ? You have your uses, of course—’

  ‘Your concern with me is exactly the point.’

  Faintly, Gelert’s lip curled, yet his face drew back imperceptibly from the sword edge. ‘I had more important concerns long before you came along – that was the only reason I supported you in the first place.’

  Eremon barked a laugh. ‘What you wanted, and thought you’d found, was a dim brute with war on his mind, a man you could prod and goad to do your bidding, a man through whom you could rule! You don’t keep your concerns any more to the spirit world than I do. You want earthly power, want it so bad it twists in your gut and curdles your blood!’

  The only movement in Gelert’s face was the slow blink of his cold, yellow eyes, but his breath rattled suddenly in his chest, and his ribs fluttered. Too many times, Eremon had seen the moment when his own death leaped into someone’s eyes, and he saw it now, recognized the wild fury that could strike out.

  In answer, Eremon tilted the sword until it wavered only a breath from Gelert’s sharp, red-veined nose. ‘I know I cannot lay hands on you and live, that I will be thrice-cursed and put to death for a traitor, but I tell you now, druid,’ he spat the word, ‘if you harm my wife in any way, I will stab this sword through your rotten guts, and die gladly in your blood. Be careful what schemes you weave, for no afterlife punishment will ever stop me seeking revenge for her.’

  Eremon sheathed the sword, and noted with satisfaction the slight flinch of Gelert’s cheek at the grate of iron. Then he strode to the shrine’s entrance, and turned. ‘By the way, a majority of your council members have already agreed to make my marriage binding, to the highest grade.’ Eremon smiled. ‘So there is no way to unseat me now, druid, no way to take from me what you yourself delivered into my hands. Let that thought be your bedfellow at night.’

  Gelert’s voice stopped him at the edge of the pillars, each word dripping with suppressed fury. ‘Know that you risk banishment for drawing your blade in this shrine. And the punishment for threatening a druid can be death.’

  Eremon did not deign to turn. ‘See how the people heed your words, old man, now that you have shown your much-vaunted powers of “sight” to be so fallible. It is the Romans your people truly fear, and it is I who hold the strength of the swords that defend them.’

  There was only silence behind him as Eremon came out into the light, and when he broke from the dark circle and the sun hit him, his breath gusted from him with relief, and he brushed it all away with a shake of his shoulders.

  The following day Linnet was silent at breakfast, but she gently touched Rhiann’s cheek as she brought her nettle tea in bed, and Rhiann felt her steady compassion as a warmth reaching around her heart.

  ‘I will be here for you,’ Linnet said, as Rhiann mounted Liath. ‘Come whenever you need to.’

  A sheet of heavy drizzle blew in from the sea as Rhiann rode home, veiling the green of the trees and the bright flowers, turning the tracks to mud. Yet though her fleece hood was drawn up, Rhiann rode straight and tall in her saddle, with the water trickling down her cheeks. She almost welcomed the fresh coldness of the air, the brisk wind, for she had woken that day with the same fragile resolve that had taken her into sleep the night before.

  The nettle tea had not masked the taste of bitter failure on Rhiann’s tongue, but she had found something last night, a shaky sense of purpose, growing clearer all the time. And she had come to some new thought, too, as she rode along.

  She would follow the dream and fulfil her duty, yet not allow herself to freeze into numbness, as she once had. She would not hide from the pain or deny the ache, because she had opened her heart now and would not close it down. Yet she would not let it conquer her, either. There was a path through all of this; she just had to find it, no matter how it twisted and turned.

  She stopped only once on her way home, to make an offering of mead in the stone circle at the end of the ancestor valley, to Dunadd’s north. There, a strong river of the Source ran close beneath the earth, and the Old Ones had marked it with a line of tomb mounds and standing stones.

  Kneeling on the peat among the stones, Rhiann did not weep, but held the pain still in her chest as she would cradle a child. She prayed then to her ancestors, the Sisters who had channelled the Source for the Old Ones, for strength, wisdom and compassion, and that one day she would be accounted as an equal among them again.

  She entered Dunadd more slowly than she had left it the day before, pausing to shake the rain from her cloak beneath the eaves of the King’s Hall.

  Inside, she raised her head in surprise when she saw Eremon on a stool by the long hearth, playing fidchell with Conaire, his wolfhound Cù stretched at their feet. The heavy drizzle was veiling the river and marsh, turning the training ground into a slippery mudpit, and the warriors on it into clay-cloaked wraiths. Yet only weighty matters would have kept Eremon and Conaire here alone, with no one but a few servants tending the fire.

  Rhiann slipped off her muddy boots, laid them on the hearthstone, and tip-toed over to Eremon. With a glance over his shoulder, she saw immediately by the dire position of his pieces that he hadn’t been concentrating very hard.

  Conaire glanced up. ‘Rhiann, I will gladly concede the game if you’ll only put him out of his misery. Such an easy win is, quite frankly, an insult to my honour.’ Yet Conaire’s light tone could not hide the concern in his eyes, and he swiftly excused himself to go to Caitlin, leaping up the stairs to the sleeping gallery that ran around the inside of the roof.

  ‘A stór,’ Eremon murmured, by way of greeting.

  Rhiann did not move around to face him then, for she also heard the sigh under his breath. Despite her own exhaustion, she drew Eremon’s head back to rest on her chest. ‘How is Caitlin?’ she began, digging her fingers into the hard muscles of Eremon’s shoulders.

  Eremon sighed again, then gasped as she burrowed into a tender spot. ‘Well, I think, although she has not risen from her bed this morning. Eithne is with her.’

  Rhiann stored that fact away with a stab of unease, knowing that Caitlin, when she questioned her, would no doubt make light of it. Looking at Eremon upside down, Rhiann could see that the tautness in his face had not relaxed; in fact, he looked even grimmer than usual. He wore buckskin trousers like her own, muddy to the knee, and a scarlet tunic that for once made him look pale.

  ‘You found something out about the Romans?’ she ventured, digging her thumbs deep into the base of his skull.

  ‘Ah … What? No.’ Eremon shook his head, yet his pupils were wide and dark, and fixed blankly on the roof as if his thoughts were turned inward. ‘I’ve just sent the messengers to our border patrols. I am still waiting for answers.’

  Then that was n
ot it. Forcing a smile, Rhiann flicked the end of his nose. ‘If our entire marriage consists of waiting to extract information from each other, I fear it’s going to be somewhat boring.’

  Eremon didn’t smile back. Instead his hand reached up to clamp on her wrist, and gently he drew her around and pressed her into Conaire’s place on the other stool. ‘Rhiann. There is something I must tell you.’

  She sank back, surprised at the hard tension that gripped Eremon’s forearm. And when she looked him full in the face, in the brighter flare of the great hearth-fire, she realized it was not mere preoccupation that silenced him, but fury, barely held in check.

  And so Eremon proceeded to tell her about his confrontation with Gelert. As he spoke, every one of Rhiann’s muscles became so still she felt as if she were carven from ice.

  ‘Rhiann,’ Eremon prodded at last, when she still had not broken her silence. ‘You do understand? I saw with my own eyes that what we thought is truth. He tried to kill us.’ His voice was harsh, but she only stared at the shower of sparks, as a servant offloaded an armful of hazel logs onto the fire.

  ‘Yet he denied it,’ she whispered at last.

  ‘Of course he did! That changes nothing!’

  When Rhiann next spoke, each word sounded thick, as if forced through honey. ‘It is a serious thing, to accuse a druid of such a deed, with no proof, and no way of getting any.’

  Eremon sucked in his breath, drawing back from her. ‘What are you talking about?’ he burst out, ignoring the faces that turned their way. ‘None of this means anything to me. He tried to kill us, and I should have dealt with it then and there.’

  ‘No!’ At last Rhiann’s hand shot out, groping for his fingers and pressing them. ‘Lay no hand on him, I beg you, Eremon. If you harm him, the council will kill you.’

  Eremon only stared at her, furrowing his brow. ‘They would never do that.’

  ‘They will, they will do it. Despite how far you’ve come, you are still an outsider. He is the chief druid. Only a trial of the Brotherhood itself can lay charges – they deal with their own.’ Her nails dug into his palm. ‘Please, please say you’ll listen to me. Please, Eremon.’

  Eremon’s cheeks flamed as bright as his tunic. ‘Then what do you suggest?’ he forced out.

  Rhiann was silent for a long while, before she lowered her face. ‘We are home now; we are all here in our strength. We must watch him from afar, yet stay away from his sight.’

  ‘Rhiann!’ Eremon’s anger roughened his voice, and Cù slunk close to his legs. ‘The man tried to kill us, and you’re giving up? Gods, woman, but you cannot seriously leave it at that. We can bring our own charges. I can challenge him.’

  ‘No!’ In her exhaustion Rhiann’s anger flared. ‘This is my tribe and I know its customs! Until we have proof, until we can accuse Gelert properly, it is too dangerous to confront him. He could weaken you, Eremon, split the warriors, undermine you.’

  With a violent curse Eremon thrust her hand away and rose, placing both hands on the nearest roof-post. The servants discreetly melted away to the shadows of the storage alcoves that lined the walls. In the silence that fell, the only sound was the simmering cauldron of broth suspended on its chains above the hearth, and the crackling of the burning wood beneath.

  Eremon stared into the licking flames, and then around at the swords and shields on the walls. ‘Proof,’ came his ragged voice. ‘Aye, I’d get my proof, when he kills you.’

  A bright warmth flooded Rhiann’s veins, as she suddenly realized what Eremon’s rage really was, and her own. They were the same thing – stark fear for each other. And when Eremon spun to face her, his eyes weren’t hard now but wide, a pool of fear so deep she felt she could drown in it.

  ‘Then’, she said quietly, anger draining away, ‘let us not force Gelert to take that road. If we corner him, he will have more reason to do it.’

  Eremon gazed down at her uncertainly. ‘I thought you were as angry as me. I thought you wished revenge.’

  ‘I do not wish revenge,’ she said simply, ‘if it means the sacrifice of you.’

  She knew he understood, unwillingly, for fear, anger and confusion were at war in his eyes. But he wasn’t going to say so. With a twist of his mouth Eremon swept up his sword from the fidchell table and made for the entrance, snapping his fingers for Cù.

  In the daylight of the doorway he paused, his shoulders a blaze of scarlet. ‘I will bow to your knowledge in this, Rhiann, yet I think you make a mistake. If we leave him, we leave him to do great harm.’

  Rhiann drew a breath. ‘Nevertheless, it is my wish.’

  She knew they took a risk, yet last night had shown her that there was only one path for her to follow to make everything right again, and she must stay on that path, however many obstacles arose before her. A rift in the Epidii now would only weaken both of them, and she knew Eremon did not want that. They had to take the chance that they could deal with the druid later, once they were in a stronger position.

  Wearily, Rhiann dropped her forehead in her hands and closed her eyes.

  There was another reason for suppressing all thoughts of revenge, of course; a reason above all others. For Eremon was Rhiann’s only light, since she’d been wrong about the other, and though she might risk herself she would never risk him.

  Gelert hated her more than Eremon – and she wanted to keep it that way.

  CHAPTER 6

  The new commander’s quarters in the centre of the Roman encampment reeked of lime-wash and raw timber, making Samana’s eyes smart. Drawing her silk veil over her nose, she leaned on the door-post and gazed out at the ranks of Roman tents, workshops and armouries, crowding every foot of ground between the high, square ramparts.

  Agricola said there were only 10,000 men here now – a portion of the full force he could draw from the province – yet there were still more soldiers than Samana had ever seen in one place. Her blood quickened as she scanned the perfectly straight rows of tents, with the racks of weapons, armour and standards staked outside.

  The camp was on a gravel plain by a river that eventually ran into the Forth inlet, and then to the sea. The plain had been stripped of all trees, though, except the few alders that still clung to the stream banks, for this place had long been a marshalling site for the Roman army, and Roman armies ate up wood. The huge earth ramparts were surrounded by a deep ditch outside, and topped by a row of sharp stakes, and the ground within was churned and boggy, the paths rutted by wooden carts, artillery machines, hoof-prints from horse, ox and mule, and the endless streams of iron-studded soldiers’ boots.

  This was like all other Roman camps Samana had seen, and yet was growing differently. Between the rows of leather tents and lean-to workshops, timber barracks were also sprouting, with white walls of wattle-and-daub, and red tiles marching across gaping roof-spaces. The Romans were putting down roots in Alba.

  The river was choppy and grey this clouded morning, and recent rains had made the going hard for the three ox-carts that lumbered up from the landing place by the stream. Every now and then a wheel got stuck in the mud, and the stacked jars of wine and oil lurched at crazy angles. The curses of the carters floated up then, accompanied by whip-cracks and bellows.

  Samana drew a deep breath of the salt-tanged air, but she wasn’t revelling in the view, or the fresh wind, or the smell of coming rain. Instead, her eyes were narrowed on the carts, and what they carried. A Roman trading vessel must have come up the estuary from the sea, filled with the goods that Agricola deemed necessary for his officers in this cold, god-forsaken place at the end of Empire.

  God-forsaken. She had heard Agricola call it that so many times that she no longer took offence, even though it was her country. After all, she would give up the grim mountains, moaning wind and endless rain in a heartbeat if she could gain access to a land that was warmer, gentler, and richer.

  She sighed, counting her meagre blessings. Despite Agricola’s status as governor of the entire province of Bri
tannia, and commander of its army, the two rooms behind her were equipped with the same sparse furniture of all his war camps: folding map tables; stools; camp bed. Agricola was a true soldier, and would never possess anything that was not useful or functional, including herself.

  Of course, she could have spent more time this past year at her own fort, the Dun of the Tree, which lay to the east, in the centre of Votadini lands. Yet despite ruling her tribe, she couldn’t afford to stay away from Agricola for too long. She had spent so much personal time and effort on him, but her hold was not secure, she could sense it. Without her constant presence, perhaps he would forget her, and she would lose her chance to become a real queen. Or worse.

  ‘Madam.’

  Her eyes came back into focus. One of Agricola’s slaves stood outside the door. Behind him was a man in the garb of a government messenger, dismounting from a stubby little mule and shakily wiping his face with a fine linen napkin. Samana had seen a few such messengers in her time with Agricola and knew the insignia on his armband. Yet this man’s clothes were damp, his face pale, and he smelled of sea-wind and sickness both. Obviously, he’d come from the trading ship docked on the Forth, and then by punt up the tributary.

  Samana went to move aside from the doorway, but when her eyes fell on the messenger’s face, she checked herself. In training on the Sacred Isle she had learned to wield the sight, and though she was never quite so gifted as her Epidii cousin Rhiann – the Goddess curse her memory – still Samana retained some useful powers.

  So it was that suddenly she knew this man was not from Britannia, to their south. His body was fat and sleek, his dark skin sheened with oil, black hair trim, nails on his soft, pudgy hands clipped. The wool of his tunic was so fine it was nearly silk, the laced boots new-cut, the red cloak new-dyed. This messenger came direct from Rome itself.

  Rome, the city of legend, with its gold and marble and perfumes, its cheering crowds, bustling markets and marching armies. All of it the ultimate prize, for her. And here was an imperial servant, straight off the boat from Rome. From the emperor himself, it must be.