The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Aldera placed a solid hand on Rhiann’s aching shoulder, the pity clear in her eyes. ‘Then we can do little but pray to the Mother for deliverance. For her, for the babe.’

  Rhiann’s eye fell on Eithne kneeling before the hearth, sprinkling more grain at Ceridwen’s stone feet as she muttered her prayers. Ceridwen, goddess of life – and death. She wished Caitlin and the babe to be delivered from the agony. But to what? The Otherworld? No!

  Yet it had been too long; a body could not last much longer.

  With a deadened mind, Rhiann drew back the damp, rumpled sheets, and checked Caitlin once more. The skin of her poor, distended belly was pale, sweat-sheened, rippling with wrenching pains that brought only faint gasps. The child had dropped, but it must be twisted. The womb gateway had widened, yet still he would not come.

  Rhiann covered Caitlin’s naked body again. ‘Leave us,’ she ordered hoarsely, and with no arguments all the women did. Then Rhiann considered Eithne, hovering by the bed. She could send the girl on an errand, but they had shared too much for anything to be said that was not the utmost truth. ‘I need to be alone with her,’ Rhiann said simply. Eithne nodded, choking down a sob as she left.

  When they were gone the house fell silent, and Rhiann drew the stool closer to the bed. Only Caitlin’s laboured breathing disturbed the close air, scented with the cleansing herbs thrown on the fire. Every few moments Caitlin’s breathing caught, and the hand that Rhiann held went rigid and clawed into a ball. At those times, Rhiann murmured, ‘Breathe, cariad, breathe with me. Like this: one … in … two … out … there … there.’

  And Caitlin’s thin chest would sink back down under the covers, and the laboured rasping of the breath-between-pain would begin again, rasping until it rang in Rhiann’s ears and she could barely stand it.

  The day slowly brightened, yet only the fire, set for boiling water, gave the bedplace any light – a lurid glow that painted Caitlin’s cheeks with false colour. Rhiann sat without moving now, her forehead resting on Caitlin’s fevered hand. Now, when that hand clenched, Rhiann no longer raised her face to give any encouragement, for she was sure that Caitlin was beyond hearing. Instead, she found some part of her listening to that breathing and hoping – for one moment – that it would end, so that at least her sister would be free of the pain and struggle.

  Rhiann had attended many births like this, first with Linnet and then on her own, and so much could go awry in bearing. Sometimes the babe would not come, and the massaging of the belly, the concoctions, the chants and prayers would be to no avail. The woman’s strength would ebb, the cries turning to moans, and the moans to gasps, just like Caitlin now. The rippling of the belly would slow and stop, and more blood would leak from between the mother’s legs, and when she died, sometimes the babe would be released from the body alive, and sometimes blue and still.

  Conaire will not want the babe, Rhiann found herself thinking. Conaire will not want the babe without her. And as she said the words to herself, pain lanced her own belly.

  Her mother, her father, her foster-family – all had died. Yet her love for Caitlin was an adult love, not that of a child, the love of soul-friendship found in the most unexpected place, shared and given back in abundance. And so its loss would be all the more unbearable for that. Only Caitlin had Rhiann been able to love freely, without fear or reservation.

  The house was completely silent now, holding its breath, as once before it had waited, on a night when Eremon took Rhiann’s hand for the first time. No wind crept through the door; no dogs barked. Nothing came but the occasional crack and spit of the fire, and that was all. Rhiann knew that the silence was creeping in from the edges of the house until, at the last, Caitlin’s breathing would also stop, and then there would be nothing.

  We need her, she found herself whispering. Goddess, we need her. She, the smallest of them, was their anchor. Someone moaned, and Rhiann raised her head, thinking it Caitlin coming back to herself. But it was not; the sound had escaped from Rhiann’s own throat. My sister …

  Suddenly, Rhiann sprang to her feet, surprised by the bolt of rage that struck her, a wild fury as bright and hot as the pain had been. ‘No!’ she cried, leaning over Caitlin, grasping her thin shoulders and raising her up. ‘No, Caitlin, you will not! You will not go! You are my sister, my heart’s kin. Come back to me!’

  Caitlin’s head lolled back, and now she did groan, her eyelids fluttering, her lips dropping open with a sigh. In the grip of the rage Rhiann shook her, as she would shake life into a baby who would not breathe. ‘Caitlin!’ she cried. ‘Listen to me, Caitlin! This babe is a boy. He is a warrior, strong and handsome and fine! One day, he will bear a spear and shield and sword in great hands, just like his father, and strike down his enemies with fire and blade! He will be proud and fearless, Caitlin, and so you must be! Come now and fight for him! Come!’

  She shook Caitlin again, her sister’s head snapped back and, miraculously, Rhiann saw her struggling to open her eyes. It was then that Rhiann knew she had heard. With a relieved sob, she rested Caitlin back on the bed and grasped her hands, chafing them between her own, willing life back into her eyes.

  And so it came, slowly.

  ‘Fight, Caitlin!’ Rhiann begged then. ‘Scream and fight and never give in! Fight!’ Her fingers dug in to Caitlin’s arms and, with sheer will, Rhiann forced her own strength down into Caitlin’s body.

  And at last Caitlin’s eyes focused, as she took the first deep and true breath of the day.

  ‘Caitlin,’ said Rhiann, her voice shaking as she dashed her hands in the bronze basin of warm water, ‘I am going to reach inside and turn the child. It will hurt and tear, but you must be strong. Will you let me do this?’

  A pained sigh escaped Caitlin’s dry lips, but with an effort she nodded. ‘Do anything, Rhiann,’ she whispered. ‘Anything to save him. Let me go if you need to …’

  ‘No.’ Rhiann wiped her hands and set the rowan stick between Caitlin’s lips, pausing to stroke her damp hair. ‘I won’t let either of you go.’

  A shriek sounded, the first for many hours, and another, and another. And when Eithne and Aldera and the other women rushed in, prepared for the worst, they found Rhiann kneeling behind a squatting Caitlin on the bed, holding her up, their hands interlaced.

  Aldera rushed to the bed, pushing aside the tangle of bloodied sheets around Caitlin’s ankles. ‘Good girl! Keep at it, not much more now! Push! Push!’

  All the women leaned into the bearing. Yet with Caitlin’s back wedged between her legs, Rhiann felt as if she was squeezing every grain of strength she possessed into that straining body, as if they both bore the child.

  ‘I see the head!’ Aldera cried. ‘It’s coming, Goddess be thanked, it’s coming!’

  Caitlin let loose one great, hoarse scream, her thighs rigid against Rhiann’s own, and sagged back so violently that Rhiann could only collapse under her, bracing her fall on the bed, tears streaming down her face until everything was a blur.

  Yet Rhiann didn’t need to see, for over the exclamations of the women and Caitlin’s wrenching gasps, the high, thin wail of a baby pierced the air.

  CHAPTER 19

  Rhiann jerked awake and, in the confusion of her returning senses, heard only the silence around her.

  She half started from her rush chair, struck with terror, desperately blinking sleep from her eyes. Yet something stopped her; an unexpected, languid weight across her breasts, a faint tug in her hair. It was a tiny hand, caught in the sweat tangles at the nape of Rhiann’s neck. And in her ear was the strangest breath of all, rapid and shallow, like that of a bird. Nodding asleep in Didius’s chair, Rhiann had held the babe across her chest, his head over her shoulder, her hand spread protectively across his skull.

  For a long moment she didn’t move, absorbing every detail of the warm weight on arms and chest and shoulder, the scent of new skin and tiny, wheezing breath. The first day with my nephew. The surge in Rhiann’s chest then was a feeling that
had no name. It stopped her heart and took her own breath completely away, so she could hear only his.

  At last the beat of her blood returned, and she shifted in the chair, rising to stretch her aching back and stiff legs. From the open door came a waft of air, heavy with the last of the day’s salted, briny heat. Rhiann tiptoed past Eithne on her pallet, and in the doorway carefully tipped the baby off her shoulder until he lay back in her arms, his fists falling out to each side from the linen wrap. The dusk glowed on his new skin.

  At the disturbance the child squirmed and whimpered, but then his eyelids fluttered open and he stopped moving, looking straight up at Rhiann, his eyes dark and bottomless. As she’d expected, he was heavy as well as long and, though six weeks early, was nearly as rounded as a full-term babe.

  ‘What will you be then, cariad?’ Rhiann crooned to him, echoing the question all new mothers asked the priestess who attended their birth. What do you see, lady? What will he be?

  And as his eyes caught and held hers, and she lifted him closer to her face, the colourless light seemed to waver before her sight, and for a moment out of time Rhiann glimpsed something that made her gasp. For the tiny, wizened face before her shimmered into the features of a man. The whisper of fuzz on his head flowed into braids of barley-gold, and the blue eyes now shone with such a commanding power, such fierce determination, that Rhiann did not need to see the circlet of gold that sat on his brow.

  Her hands tightened with shock, and the child squawked and became a wriggling, squirming babe again. She clasped him to her chest, her eyes blurring, and then she heard a stir from the bed behind her. ‘Rhiann?’

  Rhiann smiled shakily as she returned the child to Caitlin’s arms, helping her to sit up against the pillows. The flushed lamplight hid the worst of the exhaustion and pain scored into Caitlin’s face, and only pride and joy gleamed in her eyes as she gazed down at her son, stroking his cheek with one finger. Then at last she broke the long silence with a voice that breathed tiredness, yet great solemnity. ‘What will he be, lady?’

  Rhiann laid her hand on the child’s head, still trembling with the wonder. ‘He will be a king.’

  Caitlin seemed to absorb that with no visible reaction beyond the ghost of a nod. ‘I knew. I always knew.’ She raised her face to Rhiann. ‘You saved me, and him. I owe you our lives.’

  Rhiann stared at the babe’s mouth moving against his fist, until Caitlin grasped Rhiann’s fingers in a firm grip. ‘I heard you, Rhiann, when you called me. I floated far away, but I heard you.’

  Rhiann’s throat ached, and she swallowed to ease it, meeting Caitlin’s eyes.

  ‘In my heart I always knew, anyway.’ Caitlin smiled through her tears. ‘I always knew you were my sister.’

  This time it was Caitlin who enfolded Rhiann in her embrace, her arms strong enough to hold. Squashed between them the baby woke and squalled, and as they both fussed over him, Rhiann at last unburdened herself about the truth of Caitlin’s own birth. And in the end it didn’t matter, because of what Caitlin held in her arms.

  Yet it wasn’t until Rhiann had bathed Caitlin’s stitches and changed the moss pads between her legs that her sister asked what pressed on her most strongly.

  ‘Rhiann.’ Caitlin cupped the babe’s head to her breast and rested her own back on the pillow. Her eyes were steady. I won’t be able to carry another child, will I?’

  Rhiann paused in wrapping the bloody pads in a linen towel. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she whispered. ‘I am sorry.’

  Caitlin was silent, looking down and tracing the curve of the baby’s cheek. ‘It is well,’ she said slowly, almost to herself. ‘A king needs much care to guide him to his Hall. Now, he will have all of me.’

  There was no chance of keeping the birth a secret, and the sun was barely one hand-span above the horizon the next day when Urben and Lorn appeared at Rhiann’s door.

  ‘Show me the child,’ Urben demanded, shouldering his way into the room, glancing at Rhiann’s herb stores, drying roots and goddess figures with such disdain that she burned to refuse him.

  Yet Lorn rocked on his heels, for once catching her eyes, and in his gaze Rhiann saw pleading. She glanced at the two guards that hovered at Urben’s shoulder, and went behind the screen to Caitlin’s bed.

  ‘No,’ Caitlin whispered, clutching the babe to her breast, her knuckles white.

  ‘We must,’ Rhiann murmured. ‘But I will not let them touch him, I swear.’

  Reluctantly, Caitlin gave the child over, groping Eithne’s hand for support. Holding him to her chest, Rhiann placed herself before Urben.

  The old chieftain peered into the child’s face. ‘A boy?’ he asked gruffly.

  Rhiann nodded, her chin high. ‘Indeed.’

  Urben’s cool eyes slid to the wicker bedscreen. ‘And the Lady Caitlin? When will she be recovered?’

  Rhiann frowned in some confusion, for Urben had never shown any interest in Caitlin’s well-being. Yet her sharp eyes noticed the betraying flush creeping up Lorn’s neck – the heat of guilt and shame. And the truth of their position came crashing down around her. Of course! All this time she had puzzled over what Urben wanted of her and Caitlin. Now she understood.

  Lorn’s claim to the kingship was through a kinlink several generations old, but if he wed either Caitlin or herself his claim would be much stronger. Sons gotten on them would be heirs of the last king, her uncle Brude. She and Caitlin would be Lorn’s links between the old line and the new. No wonder Urben had not harmed them! Though this consideration, she realized with sudden terror, did not apply to the babe.

  Her arms closed tight on his body, and he squirmed and mewed. ‘My … my lord.’ Rhiann’s mouth had gone dry; she was too scared to be angry. ‘Caitlin is not well; she had a hard birth. And as her healer I advise that she lay abed for some considerable time yet.’

  Urben’s grey brows rose, yet Rhiann ploughed on. ‘And … it is vital that she be left to feed the babe herself, for the drawing of the milk will likewise draw strength back into her heart and limbs.’

  Urben stared hard at Rhiann, blinking once. ‘Then take good care of her, lady.’ He paused as he turned to go. ‘And yourself.’ The smile that he hid in his moustache was not returned, and Lorn did not glance Rhiann’s way again as he trailed out behind his father.

  That night, Rhiann watched over Caitlin as she slept, the baby tucked into the crook of his mother’s arm. In repose Caitlin’s face was as childlike as her son’s, both of them so small and vulnerable, and Rhiann was swept with a fierce urgency to protect them both.

  Yet how? Gingerly, Rhiann lay down beside them on the furs, her face pillowed in one hand. I must get the child out of Dunadd, she thought desperately. It wouldn’t be long before Urben – or Gelert – moved against him, for Gelert’s scrupulous appearance of neutrality did not fool her.

  The people would never accept a king who murdered a child, but they were alone in this house, hidden, and what was to stop Urben spreading the rumour that the baby had died? The women of the dun knew that Caitlin’s son had come early.

  Slowly, Rhiann rose. The night was still and warm, and her bare arms beneath the thin bedshift were damp with sweat as she stirred up the coals and steeped some dried cowslip flowers for a sedative tea. Didius and Aedan had not yet returned, and only Eithne’s sleeping breaths disturbed the silent hearth-place. Staring into the glowing coals, her hands around her cup, Rhiann set her mind free to wander, to find the solution that danced there on the edge of her consciousness, elusive.

  And at last it came. She had been so taken with the concerns here at Dunadd that her focus had narrowed to what went on within these walls. Only two things lured her mind away. One was thoughts of Eremon – and she certainly could not reach him. The other was Linnet, a fellow priestess.

  Though Rhiann’s own true powers had dimmed, as a priestess she had other means at her disposal for communication – and had used them before. It had crossed her mind, many times, to make the effort
to reach out to Linnet, but besides assuring her that they were all well, there seemed little point. Such an undertaking left Rhiann weak and vulnerable, and she could not afford to undermine her own defences when so many were relying on her. Yet now, the need had become more urgent than the risk.

  Only once had she used the sacred spores of the rye fungus to free her spirit from her body, and that had also been a period of dire need. It was time to try again, whatever the cost.

  When Caitlin woke the next morning, Rhiann was sitting on her bed, rubbing the sleeping babe’s back with scented oil.

  As Caitlin yawned and carefully stretched her aching body, Rhiann’s hand closed over her own. ‘Sister, I must speak to you of the babe, and Urben.’

  Caitlin stilled and, for a fleeting moment, Rhiann debated how honest to be. She feared hurting Caitlin, but she must communicate the urgency, and in the end she decided to be blunt. ‘Your son is not safe here,’ she began, tightening her hold on Caitlin’s fingers when they jerked. ‘But I have thought of a way to make him so.’

  Swiftly, she outlined what she proposed to do, as Caitlin wrapped the sleeping child and drew him to her chest.

  ‘He can live on goat’s milk, Caitlin, for a while. And your milk will come back if it is only a few weeks. Conaire and Eremon will be back then, I am sure of it.’

  Caitlin shrank into the pillow, shock and fear stiffening her features. Then she swallowed hard and gazed down at her son, silent for a long moment. ‘It’s the only way, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes. But do you trust me?’

  ‘With all I have.’ Caitlin’s eyes rose to meet Rhiann’s, shining with tears. ‘But, oh, it is dangerous for you – you said it yourself !’

  Rhiann shook her head. ‘None of that matters, for sake of him. But I will need everyone’s help to keep me safe, as well.’