by Jules Watson
‘You hate me.’ Lorn’s voice was flat, expressionless.
Rhiann snorted. ‘Oh, and you expect me to flutter around you, do you? Ask if you would like an ale, my lord, a mead? Or one of these bannocks here, my lord, my king!’
Lorn’s spirit had always been fiery, and even in his dark mood he could not resist such jibes. He sprang to his feet. ‘I do not expect you to welcome me, but by the Mare you will give me some respect – and listen to what I have to say!’
Rhiann laughed bitterly. ‘Listen to you now, after all these moons? You certainly took your time.’ Suddenly her laughter died in her throat. ‘And why now, then?’ She caught the betraying quiver in Lorn’s cheek, and her mind and heart leaped at the knowing. ‘You’ve heard something, haven’t you? About Eremon!’
When Lorn didn’t answer, Rhiann flung the rag to the workbench and strode around it to grasp his arm. ‘Is he alive? Is he coming? Tell me!’ Lorn didn’t have to speak for her to see the truth in his eyes, and she nearly cried out with relief. ‘So that’s what this is! You’re afraid, aren’t you, my lord!’
He shook off her arm. ‘Stop calling me that!’
‘And what would you rather I call you, son of Urben!’ Rhiann thrust her face closer. ‘Traitor, perhaps? And now the wolf returns to his den, and you are afraid!’
Lorn flinched. ‘My first loyalty is to my father.’
‘Your loyalty is to your people! And you gave your allegiance to Eremon because you knew that he was their best hope. So you do not only break faith with him, but with them!’
Lorn backed up until his calves collided with the bench. ‘And what would you have me do?’ he hissed, trying to lower his voice. ‘By the Mare, he is my father! For the last two years my clan has expected me to take the kingship. They are my kin!’
‘And their blood will flow the same colour as yours when the Romans overwhelm us.’
Lorn’s head reared up at that. ‘Do you think your lord is the only man who can save us? Can I, too, not command our people?’
‘Your impulses put men in danger!’ Rhiann cried. ‘Yes, you are a fine warrior, and that is why you are able to make good your mistakes of judgement. But lead us to safety? Join all the men of Alba under one banner? That you cannot do!’
Abruptly, Lorn grabbed her wrist and pulled her close in his rage. ‘And why not? Why can’t the son of Urben lead us to glory?’
Deliberately, Rhiann curled her lip. ‘Why indeed?’
Lorn’s pale eyes blazed a handspan from her own, before he flung her away. Rhiann clasped her workbench for support, pulling herself upright, breathless with triumph. Lorn was a man of impulse, acting first, thinking later. But not now. She’d goaded him to rage, plucking at his pride, and he’d wanted to strike her, she saw it. Yet he didn’t. He mastered the rage, fought for control and won. He must feel something for Eremon, then, and for her, for them all.
She dropped her voice, panting. ‘You can answer your own question, Lorn, though it might have been better for you to seek my insights long ago. So listen now: if you try to lead our army, the other Epidii clans won’t join you. You’ve shown that you can take the kingship by force, so do you think the other clans won’t try the same? And while Epidii warrior fights Epidii warrior, weakening everything that Eremon has built, the Romans will be getting closer, day by day. And when they get here you will be too busy arguing over that Hall up there to notice when they burn it around you!’ Rhiann reached out to touch Lorn’s arm, but he averted his face, and she could only see the pulsing of blood at his throat. ‘You are a fine warrior, one of our finest. But Eremon has shown he can bring all the clans together. He has made an ally of Calgacus, the most powerful of kings! The Caereni and Carnonacae have sworn to him as their Stag, their war leader in spirit as well as in blood. Can you say the same? Can you draw on such allegiances to protect us?’
For a moment the muscles along both sides of Lorn’s jaw worked in anger, and his eyes blazed their defiance. Yet in the end the breath went out of him in one rush. ‘No.’ Lorn’s shoulders slumped. ‘No, the gods save me, I cannot.’
‘Then you would prove yourself a king by putting your people first.’
At the anguished twist of his mouth, Rhiann was swept by a surprising surge of pity. And with that abrupt fading of anger came exhaustion, and she groped for the nearest stool and sank on to it. ‘So,’ she said at last, ‘we are both trapped, are we not?’
Lorn stared down at her warily.
‘My bonds, however, are not of my own making,’ Rhiann added. ‘And unlike you, I do not have the power to break them.’
Their gazes locked: his groping for understanding; hers holding a question. Yet there was no time to continue, for one of Lorn’s guards appeared at the open door, blocking the sunlight. ‘My lord,’ he said, his tone rising with the barest note of urgency, ‘you must come to the gate.’
It was when the man’s eyes strayed to Rhiann that it came to her in a rush of blood to her face. And without making a sound she was out of the door before any could stop her, flying past the surprised faces of Didius, Caitlin, Eithne, Aedan and the guards, who reached for her, shouting.
As she raced for the high walls of the crag, her heart sang over and over. He lives!
CHAPTER 22
Eremon stood so still in the fluttering shadows of the hazel copse that he could have been one of the trunks himself. Conaire had moved to stand two paces behind, but otherwise made no sound.
From the slopes of the hill, Eremon gazed west to Dunadd, separated from him by the track, the river and the water meadows. At first he’d thought it looked little different from when he left, except for the trading punts clogging the pier, and the thick green of the trees, which had been in bud yet now were in full leaf. Then one of his Epidii warriors had pointed out Urben’s bear emblem flying above the King’s Hall, and it was on this that his eyes were now fixed, as well as the blur of Urben’s warriors lining Dunadd’s walls.
He knew I would come, Eremon thought. Yet he has kept all his men within Dunadd, the coward. He didn’t try to head us off.
The reason was obvious. Eremon would never attack Dunadd with the women inside, and therefore inside Dunadd was the safest place for Urben’s warriors to be. The old chief must have already stretched his men thin between his own dun and this. All these cool thoughts slid one by one through Eremon’s mind, but they only skittered over the turmoil of emotions battling within him, freezing his muscles rigid.
The extent of his immediate, towering rage around the campfire last night had been enough to scare Urben’s scout back into the saddle, and from there back to Dunadd, the answer to his message Eremon’s dagger stuck through his shield. Yet with the dawn, and his first sight of Dunadd, the hue of Eremon’s fury had deepened, fuelled by a gnawing fear that he had never felt before. After so long as warriors, he and Conaire had forgotten to fear for themselves. Now he did fear for someone else, someone he loved, and it terrified him just how much more intense it made his rage. For that kind of rage could make him foolhardy, and prod him into mistakes.
I can afford no mistakes. Not for her.
With trembling hands, Eremon rubbed his eyes and massaged his aching jaw. After chasing Agricola most of the way to the Forth these past moons, his exhaustion ran bone deep, and he could ill afford more stress. Yet more had come.
After leaving the rest of his warband on guard in the mountains, he, Conaire and an escort of fifty Epidii had hastened here on foot. With little rest, they had all been dropping in their tracks, longing for hot baths and proper food, when Urben’s scouts came upon them in one of the long glens that crossed the hills around Dunadd.
The scouts had been alerted to his movements, he now knew, by intercepting all the messages that he had sent since the first great victory in the Novantae lands, where they killed perhaps 700 Romans for the loss of 200 Albans. So he expected that Rhiann may not have received a single one of his messages – perhaps she did not even know if he lived. And las
t night, as Urben’s words spilled from his scout’s mouth into Eremon’s disbelieving ears, the rage had consumed the last dregs of his strength.
Now Conaire’s voice came from over his shoulder, roughened with exhaustion and strain. ‘Does Urben honestly believe that we would leave our women, and sully our honour, by handing over the dun to him and riding away?’
‘No,’ Eremon forced through gritted teeth, scanning Dunadd’s crag. ‘Urben is marginally smarter than that. He wants something else.’
‘Well, what? Our forces are evenly matched now that we come with so few. Perhaps he wants us to challenge his clansmen to battle.’
‘Perhaps,’ Eremon replied. ‘But we don’t want that.’
‘Eremon.’ Conaire propelled himself forward, his arm gripping one of the hazel trunks. ‘My wife is in there, my unborn child. I care nothing for the safety of this tribe! I will storm their dun myself if I have to …’ He bit off his words, and Eremon glanced at him, pained at the gauntness of Conaire’s cheeks, ragged with dirty, blond stubble against grimy skin. Rhiann and Caitlin would hardly recognize them when they saw them again.
‘Peace, brother.’ Eremon struggled to draw air into his lungs, as his own turmoil threatened to break free. For her, he needed to keep his cool head. ‘We will circle around to the southern ridge where the druid huts are, but cautiously in case Urben attacks.’
Conaire’s shoulders fell in a sigh, and he took off his helmet and rubbed his forehead. When he looked at Eremon he seemed to have gained some control; his blue eyes harder, bright with thought rather than rage. ‘We could use that Roman formation we’ve been teaching the men, to defend on the move.’
Eremon nodded, returning a weary smile. ‘Good idea. They might suddenly release archers or spearmen on horseback, and we can’t afford to get caught in the open and surrounded. With the shield wall we could hold them off and run for it, and that ridge is more easily defended.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then, we wait.’
The grunts and shouts of Rhiann’s guards had soon faded in her joyous scramble to the rock outcrop that rose just outside the Horse Gate. It could not be built upon, and therefore gave a fine platform for viewing the river and plain to the north and east. Rhiann didn’t even notice her panting captors catch up with her, for she was already squinting into the low morning sun, her eyes fixed on Eremon’s warband.
It had appeared on the edge of the eastern hills, and now began to circle around Dunadd on the other side of the river, moving south. Stretching up on her toes, Rhiann struggled to make sense of what she saw, for the men were still in the shadow of the hills.
‘What are they doing?’ one of Urben’s guards ventured to ask.
Rhiann didn’t know, but she watched the warriors splash across the waist-high river where it swung around to the south of Dunadd in a curving arm, and then the sun wasn’t in her eyes any more. ‘They are using their shields as a wall!’ she exclaimed.
At the initial shouts from the gatetower, Urben’s warriors had come running from every corner of the dun, buckling on swords, catching up spears. The gates had been barred, and men lined all the walls, but no defence party rode out to beat Eremon back from the river.
‘So they are,’ the other guard muttered. ‘By Mannanan’s breath, they are.’
Rhiann couldn’t tell which of the men was Eremon until they cleared the cluster of druid huts and climbed the ridge that lay only half a league from Dunadd. There she could discern Conaire because of his size, stabbing the standard with its tanned boarcrest into the ground, as another man strode to the edge of the rise to gaze across at Dunadd.
Even from afar Rhiann could sense the quivering fury that cloaked Eremon like a heat shimmer over the marsh. She couldn’t make out any other details, and she was sure Eremon couldn’t see her, but she waved anyway, with both arms, her heart breaking free of the dark chains that had bound it these past moons. He didn’t return the wave, but he stayed there without moving for a long time, until his shadow grew shorter as the sun rose.
Rhiann would have remained there all day, holding her joy to her chest like a precious jewel, but she must tell the others. So at last she slid down off the rocks and ran back to Caitlin. And it was this news that brought the first real colour to her sister’s cheeks, as Caitlin’s face softened and bloomed like a flower unfurling.
Over the next two days the atmosphere of the dun thickened, the tension rising like a heavy fog over the village, the shrine and the King’s Hall. The traders from foreign tribes hastily retreated to their boats downriver in the bay, and the village gates remained barred, the people within as securely imprisoned by Urben’s men as Eremon and his warband were excluded.
From her outlook, Rhiann saw the villagers huddled in groups, talking, as messengers went from the walls to Eremon’s camp and back again. Yet no one would tell Rhiann what was happening, and she could not discern the mood of the people beyond profound confusion. Those nobles on the upper crag, like Belen and Talorc’s wife, had been roused by Eremon’s appearance, for they had more reason than anyone to hate Urben.
But as for the others … Rhiann only hoped that the loyalty Eremon had gained was solid enough, the manner of Urben’s takeover distasteful enough, that Eremon only had to face Urben’s own men. Hopefully the other Epidii would wait until the two parties decided things for themselves.
After the initial joy, the tension also began to affect Rhiann’s house. Aedan broke a string the first evening, as he nervously played a song out of tune. Didius immersed himself in endless tasks, fashioning loom weights, bone needles and more toys for the child. Caitlin’s tension was at least productive, for it suddenly quickened her healing. She threw off the weakness along with her bedclothes, pacing the hearth to strengthen her legs.
Of them all, Rhiann was the most still, taking herself up to her rock outcrop every afternoon when she could clearly see Eremon’s camp by the outline of the setting sun.
Eremon was often visible at the same time, for he left his distinctive helmet on – she liked to think it was so that she could know him. As she stared at the pale oval of his face above his shining mailshirt, she would imagine his gaze reaching for her own, telling her it would be well.
And then she would have to lower her face, and hold everything still inside her.
It was late night in the druid shrine, and a cluster of rush lamps on the altar gave off a flickering light, gleaming on the torcs of the wooden idols, masking their leers. The breeze was cold and fitful, gusting about the oak pillars, tugging at Lorn’s cloak.
He gazed at the pinprick campfires on the ridge to the south, then turned his back firmly on them. ‘You didn’t really think he would just ride away and leave the women, Father? It was a gamble at best.’
The lamps only lit up one of Urben’s eyes and half his mouth, but the shrug of his heavy, fur-clad shoulders was eloquent. ‘I knew he would not.’
In the shadows behind the altar, the chief druid stood silent and hooded. At news of the Erin prince’s approach Gelert had left the cluster of druid huts on the southern ridge and slithered inside the dun, with his brethren trailing behind him. Yet he still baulked at being seen too often with Urben – he preferred to work his schemes through others, as Lorn knew well.
Lorn sighed wearily now. ‘You could always let them go, Father. All of them. Then it would be over.’
Urben’s head whipped around. ‘Over?’ he roared. ‘It will be over for us, yes!’ He strode forward and thrust his face close to his son’s. ‘So the prince and his little band will just trot away, in possession of the royal bloodline, and his alliance with Calgacus, and the loyalty of most of the Epidii warriors! And you think that’s the last we’ll see of him, do you? Stupid boy!’
Lorn flinched, but checked his rage. The only thing he was afraid of was his father. He lowered his voice, along with his eyes. ‘If we fight him here, many will die. You don’t know how good he is on the field, Father, you haven’t seen—’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard every damn song about him from every damn bard. I know!’ Urben’s eyes glittered in the lamplight. But you, my son, are also fine, as fine as we could make you. You came close to defeating him once; you could do it again.’
As the meaning of his father’s words sank in, Lorn’s blood ran cold. ‘Single combat? By the Mare, you cannot be serious!’
Urben raised one eyebrow.
Lorn’s mind whirled, and he gripped his sword hilt to steady himself. ‘Father, I am not afraid of an honourable fight. But it is risky, for we are evenly matched, the prince and I. How could you gamble all our clan has planned for, on the outcome of one duel? There must be another way!’
‘My lords,’ Gelert broke in silkily, ‘the Erin prince, for all his faults, is known for his sword skills. While his defeat would solve all our problems, the risk to your son is too high.’
Lorn spun to face Gelert, surprised. But then he remembered those moons last year, when the druid fed him hatred for Eremon, whispering how the old man would bring Lorn to power, how they would rule together … Gelert wanted to strengthen the obligations between them then. He wanted Lorn to be king, for the time he had invested in trying to make Lorn’s soul his own. Lorn wondered briefly, if the druid was so clever, why he didn’t know he’d already lost that battle.
‘It is a risk,’ Urben agreed, striding to the altar and placing a hand upon it. ‘Yet the prize is too tempting. Killing the prince would do away with all opposition in one stroke. I deem it worth the risk.’
I deem it worth the risk.
Lorn was speechless with disbelief. Urben had said nothing of the risk to his own son. Shocked, he stared at his father as if for the first time, and just then the moon swam free of the heavy clouds above, illuminating in his sire’s face what he was not meant to see. His father’s eyes were unguarded, dark pools of shadow, but Lorn could easily read there the brutal truth. He didn’t care.
And the reason why came to Lorn as a stab under his breastbone. For all that Urben had supported Lorn, he had other sons, three others to be exact, and all of them fostered out to outlying clans. Lorn was expendable, then. He had a good chance of killing the prince, and that was worth the risk of Eremon killing him. If Lorn died, Urben could take another son and form a new plan. And then another – if he chose.
