The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Caitlin nodded, and wiped her eyes with determination. ‘When?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Rhiann replied. ‘Eithne must speak with Aldera when she brings the food this morning.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Linnet watched the rush lamp-wick sizzle out, plunging her hut into darkness.

  She sighed and rolled on to her back, kicking the clinging sheets off her damp, hot skin. Better that the light was gone, for then she did not have to see these dreadful men – Urben’s warriors – sprawled all over her floor, their feet on her chairs, their faces smeared with her food, their swords and spears sharp, bright flares in the light of her hearth. Oh, they treated her with the greatest of courtesies, and laid no finger upon her, but only Dercca was allowed the freedom of the sacred pool, the woods and goat-pen. Week after week, Linnet had sensed the path of the sun above, and she knew the moons of light and warmth were passing. Her anger and frustration grew.

  At first she’d treated Urben’s men with icy disdain, for only by holding on to her anger could she keep despair at bay. Even so, every night under the cover of darkness, the fear gnawed at her. How did Caitlin and Rhiann fare? And what about Caitlin’s pregnancy? Ah, Gelert had been so clever, even though the men had come in Urben’s name.

  That first day, she had listened to her new guards’ rhetoric with dawning amazement. Eremon must have been defeated, they said, in which case the threat of Roman reprisals or sudden raids by their neighbours was high, and it was with grave concerns for the Lady Linnet that Urben had given her four warriors for protection. Linnet had argued, of course, but it was so easy to hold her with the threat of those swords, for had she not, by her own choice, exiled herself on this mountain? No one would even know she was a prisoner.

  The greater frustration was that she could have escaped, for she knew some means of dealing with such obstacles. Yet the only useful place for her to go was Dunadd, and if caught there she had no doubt that Gelert would devise a far more secure prison for her – or worse. Then she would be unable to lend her daughters any aid at all.

  And Linnet knew that sometime, somehow, they would need that aid.

  That was why she began to hide her desperation and rage, dropped the disdain and began to serve the men mead at night with gracious hands, and smile at them when they gave thanks for the food. She treated the minor aches and ailments of warriors with sweet salves and wax rubs, and strengthening brews. The guards responded swiftly to this kindness, their natural awe of her transmuting into an eagerness to treat her well.

  She ensured that Dercca always came back from her chores exactly when she said she would, and only went a certain distance from the hut. After the first few weeks the warriors relaxed, stopped shadowing Dercca’s every step, and hardly gave any notice to the old maid. And Linnet noted this, as she sat weaving baby clothes on her loom.

  On the first day of Lugnasa, Linnet asked leave to make an offering in the sun-bright yard and, turning to the south, Rhiann came into her mind. She knew in that moment that the daughter of her heart was giving the same offering at Dunadd. And on the last day, heavy with restless heat, Linnet pricked her finger with the bone needle and threw down her sewing in frustration, knowing that something was very wrong. Yet because Gelert had forbidden Linnet access to the sacred pool or ingestion of any herbs, she might pace and wring her hands and send tearful prayers to her Goddess, but in all she remained blind and deaf.

  Just as on this night, when the lamp burned out and the restlessness returned with force. Linnet desperately needed to rise and do something, but she must never alert the men that there was anything amiss. Eventually, she turned to her priestess breath training to calm herself. In this way, she managed to make herself sink into an uneasy sleep.

  In her dreams, she often saw Caitlin and Rhiann, and would hurry after them on desperate feet. Yet always they were far away, riding on horses too fast to catch, or disappearing into the maze of paths between Dunadd’s houses.

  Which was why her sleeping mind shuddered with a kind of shock when, walking by the sacred pool as she often did in dreams, she saw on the path a figure robed as a priestess.

  A woman who was not running away. A woman, she realized with a jolt of joy, who was seeking her.

  Joined by a thin, silver cord, Rhiann’s spirit-self struggled to ignore the urgent feeling of sickness coming from her body far away, and stay within Linnet’s dreaming mind. Dimly, she sensed the presence of Caitlin, Aedan, Eithne and Didius around her, anchoring the root of the soul-cord in the body that writhed in agony on the floor at Dunadd.

  The rye fungus that released a spirit was the most dangerous of druid preparations, used only for the rarest trances with other trained people present. Yet those with Rhiann loved her, and she had discovered that love had a power and a will of its own.

  Of course, this knowledge did not completely still her fear that the cord would be cut, and she would lose her way, but each time the fear surged she returned to her priestess breathing. With each breath the silver light of the cord glowed brighter, anchoring her more strongly. And in the centre she focused on her heart, and what she had nestled there as a beacon to guide her – the exact texture of the baby’s cheeks beneath her fingers.

  Walking in her dream by the night-dark spring, Linnet had now seen Rhiann. She stood there, arrested in all her spirit glory, her blurred features communicating a yearning that required no words. Rhiann could not speak either, for the boundaries of her strength were close to their limits, but she could show Linnet the images that were in her own mind, and hope that she understood.

  For a long time they stood in the shadows among the sighing birches, hands clasped. Then Rhiann felt the tug of the cord grow insistent, and she reached out to caress Linnet’s face. By the light of joy that transfigured it, she knew that Linnet did indeed feel something, and it was only that glow that remained when all else in the scene faded.

  Suddenly, Rhiann was back in the swirling tunnel of light that she had first entered, spinning faster and faster. Whereas on the way from her body her spirit had contracted to a pinprick, now, as it re-entered, her soul seemed to swell. It expanded the faster she flew down the tunnel, growing denser and more solid and then spilling out to fill every vein and limb and pocket of flesh and muscle that was her body.

  This time, she found it easier to ignore the wild calls of the Otherworld beings and spirit shadows that reached out with glittering fingers and haunting voices to entrap unwary travellers.

  For waiting in a bubble of light before her, solid and strong, were those who called her back even more fiercely.

  Behind, in the darkness, the guard sprawled before Linnet’s door barely stopped his snoring as the old maid nudged him with her foot. He peered up at her in the faint starlight and rolled away as he did every night, when she went outside to pass her water. Old women!

  And at Dunadd, in the firelight, Caitlin held Rhiann with great tenderness as she retched over and over into an earthen basin. Eithne’s soft hands were there too, mopping her lip and brow, pushing a whining Cù away as Didius built up the fire.

  And Aedan sang softly by the door, a slumbering song for the guards outside, who perhaps had never heard such singing in their dreams before.

  Rhiann had used a great amount of the ground spores and, after the constant stress of the past moons, the reaction of her body was ferocious, and frightening for all those with her.

  By the time dawn came, her watchers were hollow-eyed with fear and lack of sleep, and Rhiann still lay curled by the crackling fire, her back against Didius’s solid knees, her robe soaked with sweat even as her shoulders shook with chills.

  Eithne had been dosing her with mint and tansy, but she could not keep anything down, and when she said, ‘It is time,’ through gritted teeth, Eithne laid a timid hand on her forehead. ‘Lady,’ she whispered, ‘You must rest now. Let me—’

  ‘No!’ Rhiann struggled to sit up, reaching for the child in Caitlin’s arms. She held her sister’s eyes. ‘
I did not go so far, at such great cost, to risk his life now!’

  Caitlin’s cheeks were streaked with dirt and tears, but at last she handed the baby over, carefully resting him across Rhiann’s knees.

  ‘Bring me the poppy tincture,’ Rhiann instructed, her voice hoarse and cracked.

  While they all gathered close, Rhiann rewrapped the baby’s linen swaddling clothes, binding his arms and legs to his body. Then, wiping her sweating face on one shoulder, she trickled the merest drop of the poppy into his soft, sucking mouth, as Caitlin’s hand cupped his head. His eyes, deep and colourless in the firelight, tried to focus on Rhiann, and she stared back, cradling his soul with some wordless reassurance.

  Then Rhiann heard the rhythm of Caitlin’s breathing falter, and she glanced up. ‘It will be well, love, I swear. It’s just enough to keep him sleeping; just enough for a little while, to keep him quiet.’

  ‘The milk has come,’ Caitlin murmured under her breath, her anguish plain. ‘What will he eat?’

  ‘Linnet can find goat milk,’ Rhiann soothed her. ‘It can be done. He is strong, remember?’

  In answer, Caitlin pressed her lips to the crest of hair sticking up at the crown of the baby’s head.

  As the day lightened outside, Rhiann murmured a blessing over the child, her eyes on the figure of the mother goddess Rhiannon on the darkened shelf above the hearth.

  The warrior sleeping outside Rhiann’s door squinted one eye up at Eithne as she stepped over him, the food basket balanced on her hip. She was a pretty little filly, he thought, with her dark hair and flashing black eyes, though she had been looking peaky recently.

  The girl blushed at his direct regard and glanced down at the covered basket. ‘I need to get the food from Aldera now, for she will be leaving the dun early to get herbs for my lady.’

  It was barely light – the sky still grey, the air chill – and the guard sighed, before throwing back his damp blanket. Then he heaved himself from his bed roll and followed the girl, stretching his arms as he buckled on his sword.

  At the Moon Gate, another two of Urben’s spearmen, unaccustomed to such an early awakening, grumbled at Eithne and spoke idly with the first guard about meeting for dice after breakfast. As they did, they caught the pretty maid’s eye and completely failed to see that when the smith’s plump little wife gave the food over and walked back down into the village, she still had a basket balanced on her hip.

  The warriors at the village gate were even more disgruntled, but at the scolding they got from the smith’s wife, who had been charged by the Ban Cré to gain some rare dawn plant, they fell over themselves to open the oak crossbars. After all, the warriors depended on Bran the smith to repair their weapons, and it wouldn’t do to attract the ire of his formidable wife, or suffer the lash of her sharp tongue any longer than they needed to.

  High on Linnet’s mountain, the guard across her door had to rise in the dawn light to pass his own water, and it wasn’t until he walked back inside the hut, yawning and cricking his back, that he noticed there was only one dark shape lying in the bed against the far wall. He cursed in fright and sudden anger, leaping over the other men sprawled on the floor to wrench the bedcovers back.

  The dark shape rolled over, and Dercca the old maid smiled up at him, the gaps in her teeth clear in the sun’s first rays.

  And in the shadows of a secret glen, where a stream formed a tiny pool known only to the women of the dun, Aldera uncovered the basket and the sleeping baby.

  ‘Lady,’ she whispered, bowing her head and holding out the basket.

  A sliver of sun broke over the far hills, reaching through the shadows of the whispering birches to light the face of the priestess, who waited, hooded and silent.

  Linnet smiled, and held out her hands. ‘Welcome, grandson.’

  CHAPTER 21

  The news of Linnet’s escape, Rhiann judged, would reach Dunadd by the middle of the day. She kept Caitlin to her bed, behind the wicker screen, and again sent Didius and Aedan to Belen. Didius refused to leave her unprotected, and was so distraught that tears nearly came to his eyes, but she was implacable. When Urben’s wrath fell, she wanted it to be on her and her alone.

  Only Eithne remained, grinding barley in the light of the doorway. Rhiann was proud to note that, tired as the girl was, she did not falter in her rhythm when Lorn appeared. Rhiann was setting out the goddess figurines on the hearth-stone, the offering of milk in a bronze bowl by her knees.

  Lorn waited for her to raise her face, and when she did not, he strode to the hearth. ‘I am here to enquire after the child.’

  Cù growled and edged towards Lorn on his belly, but Rhiann merely clasped her fingers in her lap and bowed her head to the goddesses, murmuring under her breath. With a muttered oath Lorn took a step towards the bedplace.

  ‘No!’ Suddenly Rhiann was on her feet before him, calming Cù’s frenzied barking with her hand. ‘Caitlin is not well.’

  Lorn glared at Rhiann, the high colour of his cheeks stark against the pale gilt of his unbound hair. ‘My men say they have heard no cries this day.’

  Rhiann said nothing and, to her surprise, Lorn crossed to her and gripped one arm. ‘I have also just been informed that the Lady Linnet has escaped our protection – as you will be pleased to know. Now, by the Mare, you will tell me about the child!’

  Rhiann raised her chin, meeting his pale eyes. ‘He is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Lorn’s face blanched, which only ignited Rhiann’s anger.

  ‘Yes, last night. The lack of food and air made Caitlin’s milk weak.’

  Lorn clenched his fists, and before Rhiann could stop him he tore back the screen hiding the bed. Caitlin cried out and curled up under the covers. With a sharp word Rhiann ordered Eithne to control the hound, then pushed past Lorn to stand with her hand on her sister’s shoulder.

  Silently, Lorn gazed down at Caitlin, at the tear-swollen eyes and anguished, drawn face that she did not need to feign. Then he stared at Rhiann, and he was breathing hard. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Rhiann passed a weary hand over her eyes; her head ached so much she could hardly focus. ‘Can you not leave us alone, out of pity if nothing else? Only yesterday we gave him to Aldera to bury outside the dun.’

  At this, Caitlin gave in to a muffled sob, burying her face in the checked wool blanket. Yet Lorn’s eyes never left Rhiann. ‘I don’t believe you. He lives, doesn’t he? You got him away.’

  Rhiann stayed completely still, though the fingers tangled in Caitlin’s loose hair trembled. She was surprised, though, to see something flash deep in Lorn’s eyes that was not the anger she was expecting. At last the tense, feline spring in his muscles slackened, and he turned on his heel for the door, sweeping past Eithne, who was crouching with her arms around Cù.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said over his shoulder, his arms braced against the door-post, ‘I sorrow for your loss, and will convey the news to my father.’

  To Rhiann’s relief, there were no reprisals from Urben or Gelert. Whatever plans Urben had for Rhiann and Caitlin, the child was not part of them, and no reaction was forthcoming from him. However, on her circuit of the walls late that afternoon, Rhiann saw a considerable detachment of warriors ride out from the dun, the golden light glittering on their spears as they broke into parties heading north, south, east, and west towards the sea. Urben might be willing to bide his time for the child, but not for Linnet.

  Rhiann stood there while the sun slid lower, spilling fire into the far glimpse of sea, the marsh darkened by the shadow of the headland. And she prayed that Linnet’s horse was swift, that the land itself, the Mother, would hide her. For Rhiann had done all she could – they would know no more until Eremon came home.

  Eremon … As the whisper of his name touched her lips, all the tension and pain Rhiann had been keeping at bay caved in on her heart with a thundering rush. She’d had no choice – she’d had to stay strong for Caitlin, for them all.

  Yet now the babe was safe
, and Caitlin healing, Rhiann would at last allow herself to hear the cries in her own heart.

  Every day for the next week, Lorn appeared at Rhiann’s door, and every day all inside ignored him. Soon even Cù stopped growling when he came. The Epidii lord sat on a hearth-bench and watched Rhiann pound herbs, strain honey and steep heather flowers for ale and dyes, and all the while he said nothing.

  As day followed day, Rhiann’s tension began to grow to an unbearable pitch, although neither she nor Lorn would break the silence. It was a game of wills, after all. A game she intended to win.

  Early one morning she’d managed to coax Caitlin, who was suffering her son’s loss greatly, to sit in the sun outside with Eithne. The lack of a sucking babe had brought the milk fever to Caitlin’s poor, swollen breasts, and she lay in bed most of the day with compresses of wood sage strapped to her chest. Yet Rhiann wanted her to get some air, and Aedan soothed her when he made up ditties about the great deeds Caitlin’s son would do when he came to manhood.

  This day Rhiann noted with a grim smile that Aedan did not soften the sound of his current song; about the king Caitlin had birthed, and what a warrior he would be, and how he would smite his enemies with a great sword. Lorn knew the baby was not dead, after all, though neither he nor Rhiann had mentioned it again.

  It was a warm morning. Rhiann, pulping more sage flowers and leaves at her workbench, kept wiping her sweating face on her shoulder, conscious of Lorn’s gaze on her. As usual she was ignoring it, when Lorn abruptly broke his long silence.

  ‘Why do you continue to invite my displeasure this way?’ His chin was shoved broodingly into his hand.

  Rhiann scraped mashed leaves from her fingers and wiped them on the rag on her belt. ‘Why do you invite mine?’ Today she wore only a rough, stained robe, and she was barefoot, her hair carelessly bound up. The very way she dressed was a deliberate signal to him, that he meant nothing to her.