The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Understanding began to flood through Rhiann’s mind. ‘But Caitlin, Conaire could never doubt he is the father. And what do the rites of Erin matter, anyway? This babe is of Alba.’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘I know. And so Erin will never claim this son, and Conaire will never pass him his own father’s Hall. That is why I want to give him this.’ She wrapped her arms around her belly, and Rhiann glimpsed what she would not speak: the deep shame she felt for surrendering her child. ‘I must give him this, Rhiann – it is right and proper. Now, he will be here any moment, and I must slip away before he comes and stops me! Let me go!’

  Rhiann pulled Caitlin close, breathing in the smoky scent of the tanned buckskins, and then released her. ‘Eithne, at least take it slowly. And keep her warm, and keep to the paths – do not let her hurry! Do you have yarrow, and comfrey?’

  ‘Yes, lady.’ The maid smiled, proud of her responsibility.

  A shout went up, louder than all that had gone before, and a crowd of people spilled into view, milling around the open yard inside the gate. In its midst, one golden-haired man towered over the others, trying to pull away from those who threw questions at him and hung on his arms.

  Caitlin stifled a soft cry, flattening herself into the darkness of the stable wall, as Conaire finally broke free and ran up the path to the crag. Her eyes lingered on his long back for one moment, before she turned to Eithne. ‘Quickly now!’

  With a brief, fragrant kiss on Rhiann’s cheek, Caitlin pulled the hood of her cloak up, and together she and Eithne led their horses past the crowd and through the open gate, until they disappeared among the mass of jostling heads and spears.

  Rhiann watched them go, and then lingered, indecisive, on the path before the stables. She knew that her duty lay in delivering this news to Conaire. And yet … her eyes strayed to the village gate. Eremon must be there. Torn, she gazed back up the path. No, Conaire needed her; he must be nearly mad with worry. Let Eremon enjoy the welcome of the people first.

  She straightened her shoulders and turned to follow Conaire up to the crest of the crag, but just as she reached the Moon Gate she was halted by a striking sense of warmth between her shoulder blades, as if a ray of sun had pierced the shadows between the houses. And alongside it, she imagined she heard a sharp cry – her name. Her steps faltered.

  No, Eremon would never cry aloud; he was the war leader, and must be strong and sure before his people. It must have been in her heart she heard it. And there was no power in her to ignore his call. For one moment she forgot Conaire and turned.

  He stood halfway up the village path. Behind him, Lorn was smiling wearily, fielding questions from warriors and villagers alike. Yet Eremon stood separate, and her gaze took in his matted hair, his scruffy beard and the tunic stained with battle-blood weeks old. He was dirty and sweaty and unkempt, yet his eyes blazed bright, almost fevered. It was as if the sun shone on him alone.

  Their eyes locked, and she began to walk towards him, stepping gracefully as befitted their rank and public dignity. But her feet quickened, and his slow smile broke out radiantly over his face. Then he opened his arms wide and she was running, heedless of the faces surrounding him, of everything except the moment when she flung herself into the circle of his arms.

  It was as they closed about her, solid and warm, that all the fear and pain she had held at bay for moons crashed down upon her. And as he breathed in her ear, ‘A stór!’ she laid her face in his shoulder, and at last wept.

  CHAPTER 24

  ‘The valley attack turned the tide,’ Eremon was saying to the warriors around him. Many of the red invaders died, and many fled, but by the gods we poured after them – nipping their heels all the way to the Forth!’

  A murmur of laughter swelled. Seated on a hide by the riverbank, Rhiann could only see Eremon’s back outlined against one of the bonfires, yet despite the wild music of the pipes and drums she could hear him clear enough.

  Though it was late, few people had left the feast, and torchlight still bloomed all along the palisade. Many revellers still crowded around the baking pits, picking at the carcasses of the deer and pigs among the hot stones, and groups of men lounged by the ale kegs, watching people dancing at the fires. Even the children were still awake, screeching and dodging between the dancers’ legs. A haze of rich, sweet smoke hovered over the riverbank.

  ‘Lady.’ Didius’s shadow detached itself from the people as he squatted beside Rhiann, handing her a basket of hazelnuts, hot from the coals. Placing it between them, Rhiann crossed her legs and drew the wool wrap tighter around her neck. The first hint of crisp cold had come this night, as if in recognition that Eremon and his men were now safe at home. She crunched a nut and smiled at Didius, touching her mead cup to his as he settled beside her.

  Rhiann was happy to stay on the edges here, listening to Eremon, savouring the relief that was seeping into her tight muscles along with the mead. Urben had left the dun, and Gelert had made himself scarce, and only Lorn remained with his retinue and some of his father’s warriors. Rhiann caught snatches of conversation from the huddled groups of older fighters and cattle lords, and the talk seemed to be that the forced rift in the Epidii had not been a popular decision after all, even if Lorn did have a valid claim to the kingship. It was the underhand manner in which it had been done, the old men grumbled, with the warriors of the royal clan all off fighting with Eremon. Of course, Rhiann thought wryly, looking into her mead cup, they were happy to make such pronouncements now, once the situation had been resolved.

  The council members had addressed Eremon and Lorn in manners that ranged from relieved to reserved. No one would own to supporting Urben, protesting that they were afraid to resist. Even Tharan had paid Eremon his grudging respects. Despite his truculence, he was a member of the old royal clan, after all.

  Another burst of laughter rose from those crowding around Eremon, as he described the disintegrating confusion of the Romans when faced with organized attacks, and their haste to rush back to the safety of their lowland bases. This was Eremon’s first test of his ambush tactics, and he was making quite a point about their success.

  The success of the stags, Rhiann thought, with a swell of pride that warmed her. The stags did give him the strength, after all.

  Eremon turned to grip old Finan by the shoulder now, speaking quietly, and Rhiann gazed up at the side of his face. Though he had bathed and shaved, the exhaustion and aftermath of fear were still engraved around his eyes, and she could sense the effort to appear strong and bright and alive, to reassure the people.

  Rhiann picked another roast hazelnut and gnawed it nervously. Surely he would leave for bed soon, he was dropping from exhaustion. Abruptly, she swallowed, as her lips suddenly remembered the taste of Eremon’s skin, when she pressed them to that curve between neck and shoulder. As if he felt a touch, Eremon glanced over, his smile fading as his eyes ignited with a naked need. She fixed her eyes on her lap.

  ‘The Erin lord misses his lady,’ Didius said softly in her ear, crunching a nut, and Rhiann’s cheeks flamed. Confused, she opened her mouth for some suitable reply, but then she saw Didius was not looking at her or Eremon, but up at the village palisade. Twisting to follow his gaze, Rhiann glimpsed a tall, broad figure pacing the walls. Conaire.

  With a sigh, Rhiann handed her cup to Didius and rose, tucking her shawl under her elbows. With a small smile at Eremon she slipped away inside the gatetower, and climbed the torch-lit stairs. ‘She will come back soon,’ she said softly, pacing the walkway behind Conaire. ‘Two warriors have been sent to Linnet’s home, so Dercca will be a prisoner no longer. Yet Linnet also will know when to emerge – she sees these things.’

  At the mention of Otherworld powers, Conaire’s head sank down further into his neck. ‘I should have been here, with her.’

  ‘And the Romans should never have come.’ Hesitating, Rhiann laid her palm on his back, between his shoulder blades. The iron-hard muscles trembled beneath her fingers, and she soug
ht to send reassurance into his heart. ‘It was women’s business – her fight to win. And fight she did; you would have been proud of her.’

  There was a muffled exclamation of pain, and Conaire’s hand reached up and covered her fingers. ‘I thank you, Rhiann, for looking after her so well, and for getting my son away. Neither of them would have been safe if it wasn’t for you.’

  Rhiann thought of the peace Eremon wanted so badly. Lorn protected us, too. I have no doubt that the babe would have come to harm if it wasn’t for him. Do not hate him. He was trapped, I think, as we were.’ When there was no answer, she squeezed his shoulder. ‘Eremon needs us to be one people.’

  And what about you? she asked herself, remembering the burning of her own rage. Can you forgive? She didn’t know yet, but Conaire’s peace was more important than hers, for he must fight by Lorn’s side.

  Deep in dreams of Urben’s mocking face, and Gelert’s thin smile, Rhiann blinked awake, disorientated. Something had touched her neck.

  Then a much-loved voice whispered, ‘Rhiann,’ and instantly she came fully awake with the scent of Eremon’s bare skin against her own. She groped for awareness of where she was. The air behind the bedscreen felt different, wafting up from the floor below, and the snores all around her spoke of the presence of men. She was back in their bed in the King’s Hall, because Eremon had asked her to sleep there. He wished to make it plain to the warriors he still held power here, along with Lorn, and had lost none of his influence.

  Under her fingers Eremon’s arms felt wiry and lean from moons of travel and rough eating, and all the pain of missing him suddenly choked her.

  ‘I am home now,’ he murmured, cradling her. ‘I am yours again.’

  Rhiann tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come, and so instead she repeated his words in her mind, over and over, as his softly stroking hands drew her back into her body. And as the tension of the dream fled, her skin came alive, burning at every place that their bodies touched. He went to caress her again, his hand moving up from thigh to waist, but she said, ‘Wait,’ and struggled out from under him, pushing him back on the bed.

  In the faint glow of firelight her fingers found the curve of his neck, just as she had seen it at the bonfire, and she pressed her lips there as she had longed to do. He gasped, but held still as she kissed her way along his collarbone and shoulder, reminding herself of every dip and rise in his form. To the soft place under his arm she moved, and across his chest, her hair brushing his neck and flanks. Then her lips found one nipple, and she sucked and kissed it tentatively at first, and then with greater force when he moaned and clasped her head.

  Yet she never got to the other side, for as she moved over him he grasped her hips and pulled her down on top of him, and they joined easily. Then in the darkness she did not know where her skin and his ended, only that the exquisite burst of fire took them both by surprise, and melted away all the cold tears in her throat with its heat.

  At the Dun of the Tree on the other side of Alba, Samana was enjoying no such soft reunion.

  She watched Agricola eating by the blazing light of five oil lamps, which pushed the shadows to the far corners of her Roman-style dining room. She had thrown a blue wool robe carelessly around her nakedness, and her black hair fell down over the honeyed skin of one breast.

  She knew she looked ravishing. And yet, after riding into her own dun in the middle of the night, wet and muddy, Agricola had paused neither to change nor bathe, but taken her almost brutally, with a single-minded fury.

  Even before this southern expedition, he had been taking her this way with increasing frequency. The long nights of moans and gasping surprise were growing fewer, and instead he rode her mechanically, only interested in his own quick release.

  Watching him eat now, Samana’s priestess mind mused that perhaps he saw her body as all Alba, and attacked her as a way to conquer what he did not yet possess.

  This was a most uncomfortable idea, and abruptly she rose from the couch to pour more spiced wine into his green-glass beaker, allowing the robe to fall completely open, hoping that the old desire would ignite in his face now his immediate urgency was assuaged. Yet Agricola only continued to shovel the beef broth down in between gulps of wine, his eyes fixed on the wall painting behind her.

  Samana sighed and rested the ornate silver ewer on a three-legged table, folding her robe closed. ‘Are you going to tell me anything?’ she asked gently.

  At last Agricola looked at her, and then threw his spoon into the half-empty bowl, splashing broth all over her new dining couch. His breastplate and tunic were smeared with fresh mud and old blood, his grey hair ragged, stuck to his forehead by rain and mist.

  ‘The rebels were in far greater numbers than I could have foreseen,’ he admitted, his voice shredded with exhaustion. ‘And they were organized – they attacked us from the hills as we travelled up the valleys.’ Here Samana detected a dark flicker of memory in his eyes. It was fear, which she had never seen in him. ‘They killed half my men before I sounded the retreat.’

  ‘But why did you not get more soldiers from your southern forts?’ Samana ventured in a low voice, taking the empty bowl and placing it beside the ewer. The fine red tableware he had given her was rare and valuable.

  The lines of age and weariness on Agricola’s face were deepened by the shadows of the lamps. ‘The barbarians gave us no chance, but hounded us from valley to mountain and back again. They did not seem to sleep, leaping from hill to hill like mountain goats, killing at night, their archers flying ahead to attack when we least expected it.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The prince of Erin’s skills have grown.’

  Samana’s sip of wine stopped in her throat, and she had to force herself to swallow. ‘Prince of Erin?’ Her blood roared in her ears, but she schooled herself to stillness. Agricola could never know of her long-standing struggle over Eremon mac Ferdiad. He knew only that they had shared the bed furs, as she endeavoured to make Eremon join the Romans, when he first arrived in Alba. But Agricola knew nothing about the spell Samana had woven to lure the Erin prince to her bed, or how it had turned on its maker and ensnared her as well. Eremon might have escaped its clutches – she must assume that, since he had then scorned her! – but the potent mix of rage and desire would not leave her at peace.

  ‘Yes,’ Agricola bit out. ‘I saw him … I think. Someone was directing them, at any rate, or we would have crushed the rabble of fishermen I expected to find. They had a leader, and a good one.’ He wiped his hands on the grimy edge of his knee-length tunic, rubbing intently at the ingrained dirt. ‘It has taken me two months to get back, and altogether I lost three-quarters of my men – two thousand soldiers! Domitian has not returned my Ninth Legion units, and he may well not do so at all when he hears of this!’

  Samana was dry-mouthed with shock, and a deeper fear. She had never seen Agricola defeated. She knelt by his side. ‘My lord, you still have many, many more men than the prince of Erin. And he is no match for you in battle; you must know that!’

  Agricola’s gaze came back from far away, and he gained some hold of himself. ‘I do know that,’ he agreed, scratching the grey stubble on his neck. ‘But I cannot let them band together like this. I must pick the tribes off, one by one.’

  ‘Starting with the Epidii?’ Samana was suddenly breathless. Perhaps Eremon’s enslavement of her could be over soon.

  Agricola frowned down at her. ‘You do not start with the strongest; you start with the weakest. Divide and conquer has been the Roman strategy for two centuries now. It should not be difficult to shatter his support – after all, what is he but an exile, an upstart?’

  ‘He is close to the Caledonii king,’ Samana whispered.

  Agricola shrugged, suddenly sure of himself after his moment of weakness. ‘Our intelligence hinted that the outcome of the war council last year was not good for the rebels. We must assume that although the Erin cub has wriggled his way into the Caledonii king’s graces, he enjoys little other su
pport. He is a foreigner – with a talent for war, I grant you – but no Alban, nor will he ever be.’ He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and rose. ‘I must see to my men and horses.’

  Samana placed a hand on his iron breastplate, over his heart. ‘Won’t you stay? We have only just begun to know each other again.’

  Yet Agricola only snorted, tucking his war helmet under his arm and picking up the greaves he had discarded when he took her. ‘My men and I have shared much these past months. I must be with them, not lounging in luxury with you.’ His tired mouth quirked. ‘Or have you learned nothing of leadership from me, my dark witch?’

  Hiding her fury behind a bland smile, Samana waited until he left and then flung herself on to the couch. She tapped the silver spoon on the edge of the empty bowl, her thoughts churning.

  Since the death last year of Calgacus’s son, Samana had no more informants of her own to call on. The tide of battle had swept far beyond her and her own allies. All she’d been relying on these past moons were her abilities to please Agricola in bed, but even these were growing less powerful. A primal panic writhed inside her.

  If bedding him no longer bound Agricola to her, and she had no information to sell, what good was she to him? If she wasn’t useful, he could easily cast her aside, and she’d lose her chance of becoming queen of Alba. She gazed around at all the fine things in the room, so different from the dark, smelly roundhouses of her own people. There were wall paintings, clean floor tiles, dining couches covered in linen, three-legged braziers instead of smoky fires, silver and red tableware, and jewelled goblets and platters. All this, she could lose.

  Samana rested her forehead in her hands, rubbing her temples with frustration. Think!