The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  The prince’s frown deepened. ‘Another season for what?’

  ‘To convince more kings to join together – only an Alban alliance gives us any hope of real victory.’ Suddenly, Eremon grinned, brushing charcoal from his hands. ‘Of course, in the meantime we may frustrate these Romans so greatly that they think twice about the whole matter of Alba!’

  Eremon’s grin was disarming when he wanted it to be, and he was pleased to see the frown melting from the Novantae prince’s face, to be replaced by a wary hope. ‘If what you say is true you have picked the right territory for that, prince. From our hill-tops we can see them coming from leagues away, for they must keep to the river valleys if they want to stay together.’

  Eremon drained his ale cup and wiped his mouth. ‘What of your women and children?’

  ‘They will be safe in our coastal duns.’

  Eremon tented his fingers and rested his chin on them, thinking, as the wind threw itself against the walls of the hut, screeching like some Otherworld spirit. ‘No,’ he said at last, straightening. ‘Remember the fate of the Damnonii? I have another suggestion.’

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘What do you mean, you cannot find them?’

  Agricola stared along the churning line of white surf, whipped into froth by a strong wind. Higher up the beach behind grassy dunes squatted a collection of thatched roundhouses, but there was no trace of smoke in the air above them, and no sound beyond the shouts of his own men as they searched the buildings.

  The centurion, holding his helmet, nervously ran one hand through his sweat-soaked hair. ‘They are gone, sir. Just like the last village. And the one before.’

  Agricola bit down a curse and walked his horse a few steps along the beach, gazing out at the choppy, grey waves. Behind him his officers trailed closer, as silent as he.

  Agricola was bone tired. The vigour that had flowed through his ageing limbs at the news of Domitian’s orders had been seeping away for weeks now, the further south they marched. The Novantae lands they crossed were part of it – exceedingly bleak, cold and damp. And somehow, deserted.

  The information he had from his southern forts was that the Novantae scratched a living along the sandy fringes of their territory, so naturally Agricola had targeted this area. After coming down the river valleys from the north-east, he split his detachment of 3,000 men into two columns, sending one north around the hilly, difficult core of the terrain, and taking the other column south. The plan was for both to reach the coast, then work their way around, subduing the Novantae villages until the two columns met. This plan fitted well with what he knew and yet, something had changed. The people had abandoned their villages, taken everything of worth, little though that was.

  Agricola exhaled through his teeth with frustration, and the horse, feeling the tension in his legs, snorted and stamped.

  One of his tribunes at last broke the silence. ‘Where are they, then?’

  ‘They must have retreated into the mountains.’ Agricola folded the reins in his palm, restlessly turning them over and over.

  ‘This is a change of tactics for them,’ the primus pilus said, the senior centurion of the Ninth Legion, from which Agricola had drawn his detachment. His breastplate, greaves and crested helmet were always the most carefully polished, reflecting the glare even on such a cloudy day. ‘They stick close to the coasts; they always have.’

  Agricola nodded to himself, his apparent calm belied by his restless fingers on the reins. ‘Yet it only continues the pattern we’ve seen with these savages elsewhere. They were quiet and subdued, and then they rebelled.’ He paused. ‘Some of them have begun to think differently, but it is nothing we have not dealt with before. They appear to mount a resistance, but at the first sign of real discipline and determination it all crumbles and collapses into ruin. Then we pick them off, one by one.’ He turned his head, straightening his shoulders and spearing them all with his eyes.

  Never let them see him doubting.

  ‘They can run, but we know they are not many, and cutting them off from their villages will weaken them.’ Agricola began to draw in the air. ‘We will catch them – so! – between our two columns, and crush them.’ He dropped his hands. ‘Remember that whoever is directing them has shown neither inventiveness nor courage by raiding in the dark, then disappearing. This is the behaviour of a disorganized rabble, not a formidable enemy, gentlemen, and we will treat them with the contempt they deserve.’ He eyed his officers, one by one, pleased to see the same firm resolve settling over their faces.

  And so it lasted, at least until the greasy platters had been cleared away in the command tent that very night. For a muddy, wearied rider arrived then, gasping out the news that the northern column had been attacked by a significant force of barbarians, and could not win through to the coast. It could not even move beyond the valley in which it was penned, like a fish behind a weir.

  It was waiting to be rescued.

  In the silence that followed this announcement, the bravest – or most foolhardy – of the young tribunes once again ventured his opinion.

  ‘So,’ he said, carefully placing his cup on Agricola’s map table, ‘that’s where their men have gone.’

  ‘Goddess Mother of All!’ Rhiann squawked, dropping the pot of boiling water and steeping seaweed, jumping back so the scalding liquid splashed the floor of the dyeing shed and not her feet.

  ‘Rhiann!’ Scattering shavings of alder bark everywhere, her friend Fola was at Rhiann’s side at once, pulling her hand out from under her arm as Rhiann hopped on one foot. Let me see, Sister, ‘let me see!’

  ‘Ah …’ Shaking her hand in pain, Rhiann let Fola uncurl her fingers to peer at the rapidly reddening skin on her palm.

  ‘You poor thing! Come’, Fola tugged at Rhiann’s elbow, ‘into cold water, now!’ Leaving the trays of steeping bark and empty basin, she dragged Rhiann to the water pot on the bench and plunged her hand into it.

  Rhiann squeaked again as tears stung her eyes, drawn not only by pain but also by a fresh waft of the stale urine with which they set the dyes. ‘It hurts more now,’ she whispered.

  Fola’s broad, solid face only set more implacably, and she shook her head, fanning her black fringe over her eyes. ‘I know, but keep it there for a moment longer. It helps, as you well know.’

  When she saw that Rhiann would comply, Fola settled her green-stained hands on her generous hips. They both wore work tunics of brown wool, smeared with fading streaks of dyes. ‘And how did you ever pour boiling water on your own hand?’ she demanded now. ‘You are never clumsy!’

  Rhiann blew wisps of hair from her mouth. ‘I don’t know how I did it – but scolding me is hardly going to make me feel better!’

  The edge of Fola’s mouth twitched, and her eyes, dark and round as blackberries, sported a distinct twinkle. More gently, she retrieved Rhiann’s hand and peered at it once more. ‘Your cursing made me jump, that’s all. Few of us here use the Lady’s name in such a way.’

  Rhiann bit her lip. ‘I think I picked it up from Caitlin,’ she muttered, shamefaced.

  Fola said nothing as she looked closely at Rhiann’s palm. ‘It is burnt,’ she announced, somewhat needlessly, for the stinging was setting Rhiann’s teeth on edge. ‘Let us find a burdock salve for that; Tirena will have some.’

  The sweet, high voices of the novices drifted out from the doorway of the meeting hall as they passed. The longest day was fast approaching, and there were wreaths of hazel branches and sacred herbs to be woven for decorating the Stones. Ducking through the drizzle, they skirted the back of the healing house, stepping between the little herb plots that Tirena guarded so carefully with stone walls and straw and lean-tos of willow.

  The house itself was empty, and Fola made Rhiann sit quietly on a stool while she searched the benches laid with drying herbs, shelves full of jars and vials, and baskets that lined the walls. Carefully peeling back the linen cap on a small pot, Fola sniffed deeply and, having found what she w
anted, drew a bench close to Rhiann. Laying the injured hand in her lap, Fola began dabbing the salve on Rhiann’s palm.

  ‘Why did you stumble, really?’ Fola asked then, her dark head bent over Rhiann’s arm. Black eyes darted up to Rhiann’s face and then down. ‘You have been strangely distracted this past week.’

  Rhiann gasped a little at the pressure on her palm. ‘I told you why I am troubled.’

  When she was finished, Fola sat back and looked at her. ‘I do understand, about Eremon and his men,’ she said slowly.

  And Fola did understand in her head, even though, like many of the priestesses trained here, she had decided to stay on the island to serve the elders and the Stones, not return to her tribe like Rhiann. As a Ban Cré, a noblewoman who was also priestess, Rhiann had always known she would have to face the tangled loyalties and threats of the outside world. Yet her friendship with Fola had always been a haven for her because of its simplicity, because Fola was not exposed to these things, and when they were together Rhiann forgot so much else.

  Except before, when the wind changed course for a moment, and brought to Rhiann a vivid snatch of low priestess chanting. It was the elders this time, not the novices, drawing the Source up from deep within the earth for the longest day. Rhiann’s sharp anxiety had suddenly flared, and she had jerked as she poured the boiling water on to the pulped seaweed.

  She sighed now, rubbing her brow with her other hand. ‘I am well enough.’

  Fola’s dark eyes, however, were veiled. ‘You left here so happy … and yet now, you are as much troubled as you were joyous.’

  As Rhiann’s lips compressed with denial, Fola set her chin up. ‘I hear you at night, in the hut. You do not sleep, and when you do, you whimper and mutter. Look at your face, how drawn it is; your eyes, so shadowed.’

  ‘I fear for Eremon,’ Rhiann murmured, and that was true, but the rest of it was weighing so heavily on her that she thought she could hardly draw breath. And it was only getting worse, as the longest day approached. Yet how could she tell anyone here of her shame? It ran too deep, and if she spoke of it she would have to feel it in all its clarity. She didn’t even know if any priestess had lost her gifts before.

  ‘If you won’t unburden yourself with me,’ Fola said, with her usual directness, ‘then do it somehow.’ She gathered up the salve pot and returned with a fresh comfrey leaf, which she bruised and bound to Rhiann’s wrist. ‘I must finish this batch of dyes now, for they are to be traded next week. You, though, should rest.’

  Rhiann shook her head. ‘I must do some collecting of my own.’ She gingerly pressed the bandage into her palm. The herbs for her womb tea were running low.

  ‘Does Tirena not have what you seek?’

  ‘No.’ Rhiann smiled tightly up at Fola, her good hand resting for a moment on her friend’s fingers. ‘In any case, my moon bleeding has begun, and we can always do with more moss to dry.’

  ‘Moss we have,’ Fola murmured, then said no more.

  A man is at the top of the world here, Eremon thought, standing so high on a bare hill-top that if he reached one hand up he could touch the blue bowl of the sky, up-ended over his head. He could see for leagues in all directions through the thin, cold air: to ridges and banks of hills, green with sunseason growth; shadowed peat bogs; glens filled with bracken; and the dark teeth of rocks thrusting upwards. The wind was so harsh it nearly sliced the stubble from his chin, sharper than any razor, stinging his eyes until they wept. Beside him the Novantae prince also stood, one hand on his sword hilt.

  From this height, they could not see any detail of the river valleys, and indeed there was no reason for them to be up here, except that Eremon wished it, for he loved to be scoured clean of camp smoke and the man-stink of war. Their scouts had certainly been tracking the Romans, however, and it was fitting to discuss their latest information up here, in the abode of eagles.

  ‘You called, and the Romans followed,’ the Novantae prince marvelled. He was eyeing Eremon with new respect, sunburn painting a swathe across his squashed nose and heavy cheeks.

  ‘They followed because we gave them no choice,’ Eremon amended. ‘They have but one way to rejoin their northern column, and that is straight through these hills. If they go around the coast, their comrades will be dead before they get there. This is obvious to them, and so they have taken the road we wished … but only because it is the lesser of two evils.’ He turned his gaze on the other man, squinting up from under his helmet into the bright sun. ‘Do not ever make the mistake of thinking these Romans foolish. They are not the kind to come after us out of fury.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  Eremon shrugged one shoulder. ‘I have met their chief commander Agricola face to face, and spent … some time … studying what he does.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The prince jiggled on his heels with the cold. ‘Then around our fire this night you must tell me of these meetings.’ He grinned. ‘It appears that my trust of you was not misplaced – despite what you said about the Damnonii.’

  Eremon’s mouth tightened grimly. ‘We learned from the Damnonii. It was well to hide your people in the hills. Now you don’t need to be concerned for them – the wrath of the Romans can only fall on the warriors, where it belongs.’

  The Novantae prince fingered his sword hilt again, the bronze piece cast into the head of an owl. ‘I see now that the Romans and my own tribe do have something in common.’

  ‘What is that?’

  The young man’s eyes were pained, thinking, perhaps, of his father. ‘You say they have no choice but to take this way between the mountains. We had no choice, either, when we rebelled.’ His mouth quirked at Eremon; wry, accepting. ‘For it is better to die, after all, than to live under the heel of others.’

  Eremon smiled and rested his hand on the prince’s shoulder. ‘If only I could convince the rest of the kings so, sword brother. If only.’

  With a start, Rhiann was woken from her trance by the beat of a drum at the door, and a soft hand tracing patterns above her brow. With an effort, she blinked heavy lids and struggled to focus, and realized she was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Fola’s hut before the fire.

  She had begun the chants staring into the flickering flames with the other young Sisters, yet as their voices gradually wove a soothing cradle of sound around her, she did not remember to where she had flown. After two days of fasting, a night of chanting and the saor, she had entered a state where time and place had no meaning.

  ‘It is time,’ Setana said now, tracing the last spiral on Rhiann’s forehead. The fire had burned to coals, yet behind Setana Rhiann could still glimpse the Sisters swaying on their knees. ‘We have drawn the Source to the Stones; we have sung to Mother Earth and Father Sun. Now the Caller must come.’

  Rhiann drew a deep, shaky breath, as consciousness plucked at her mind. ‘He fights now?’ she whispered.

  Setana’s hand cupped her cheek in the half-dark. ‘This is the longest day, and here we open the gates of time. What has happened, will happen, or is happening, does not concern us. With you there, the power we call will find him when he most needs it. Come.’ There was a swish of skirts and a draft of cool air, as Setana lifted the door-hide and slipped back outside.

  Rhiann was roused by Fola and attended by the maidens around her, for she could barely move. Her body was heavy and warm, the edges of her limbs blurred. She could not feel where her physical self finished and the air around her began, and her thoughts turned slowly in her mind. Even the fear, which had so consumed her, was now only a dull ache.

  By lamplight Rhiann’s hands and feet were bathed, and she was clothed in an undyed linen dress, pinned with slivers of deer bone. Over that came a heavy deer-hide robe, tanned with smoke. A robe for the Caller.

  Two young priestesses Rhiann did not know entered the room, their clay-painted faces a blur of white, black and brown. With gentle fingers and chanting, they painted the faces of Rhiann and the others, then all the Sisters don
ned their priestess cloaks, drew up their hoods and led Rhiann into the moonlight.

  The night was cold for sunseason, the stars dimmed by the grey half-light. As she took the path up to the Stones, Rhiann could already hear the sacred drums booming, and sense something else through her feet: a pulse in the earth, a heartbeat. For a moment, sharp relief penetrated the veil of the saor. She could feel the Source.

  Perhaps it was because she was not alone, that must be it; because she had the strength of all the Sisters. Raising her face, her cheeks stiff with the clay, Rhiann stepped strongly down the avenue to the inner circle, towards the fires burning in a ring.

  The leaping flames illuminated a crowd of priestesses, painted and hooded, circling slowly in a spiral dance. They had been calling the Source for hours, gathering and focusing it here between the Stones, and as Rhiann crossed the boundary of the inner circle, the power hit her in a cresting wave. And through the eyes of the saor, Rhiann found she could see the Source as threads of light emanating from each priestess and the ground and streaming out from each Stone. The threads rose, glittered and rippled, twining together and parting, then crashing back again in bursts of light like sea-foam on a rock.

  And Rhiann could see it, because they all held her.

  Step by step she advanced to the centre of the circle, allowing the wave to sweep over and through her.

  Then she was before Nerida, and all Rhiann could see was the firelight glittering in those aged eyes, deepening their power. ‘Is the Caller ready?’ Nerida’s voice echoed around the circle.

  Ready? Rhiann wondered. Yes, she was ready to try, for there behind Nerida rose the greatest Stone, and at its hallowed base Eremon had joined with Rhiann, and they had drawn the stars to earth. A pang of love arose in her, making her catch her breath, and she knew it was him she must feel, him she must call. As if in response to this thought, the threads of the Source swept around her, enveloping her in a whirl of light.