The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  Snatches of vision and sound and smells swirled around her, glimpses of the Sisters, Maelchon and Didius, and the vileness stopped her tongue in her throat and her heart from beating, and she wished she need never breathe again. Yet the black wave was still behind, coming on, and though Rhiann closed her eyes and stilled her chest, it rushed on, and finally broke over her in a maelstrom of regret, shame and guilt that would outlast memory, always.

  They died because of me, because I called them there, because I drew the dark king.

  Endlessly, the wave wept from her eyes, pouring through her with such force that she was taken down into darkness again. I am not worth the love they bore me.

  Eremon and Nectan were breaking their fast on a bench outside the King’s Hall when the Caereni chief suddenly straightened, his eyes fixed on the arch of the Horse Gate. Eremon laid down his platter of cheese and bread, and pulled his aching legs under him to rise.

  It was a young messenger who appeared, muddy from his riding boots all the way up his thighs, with red-rimmed eyes and stubbled cheeks that signalled hard travel and no rest. Eremon decided he must be Caledonii, since he did not recognize the youth, and Nectan made no move to claim him as his.

  The boy looked as if he would drop in his tracks, so Eremon hastened to draw him to the bench and thrust a flask of ale in his hands. ‘Drink,’ he ordered, and the youth did as he was bid, staring up at Eremon with trepidation as he swallowed.

  ‘My lord,’ he gasped at last, wiping his thin moustache and leaving a wet streak across his dirty cheek. ‘I come from my king, Calgacus the Sword.’

  ‘So I assume. What then?’

  The boy seemed uncomfortable delivering his message while he sat and Eremon stood, so he rose shakily to his feet, grasping at the wall above the bench. ‘My lord bid me tell you the Romans have assembled an enormous force, bigger than any we have ever seen. We have information that it is making ready to leave the Forth, to go north. My king fears this army will seek for the Dun of the Waves, and any other duns in its way.’

  Eremon’s chest was gripped by the first coldness in days to penetrate his rage. ‘How long did it take you to get here?’

  ‘Four days and no sleep,’ the boy announced, with a glimmer of exhausted pride. ‘But my king is not planning to attack the Roman column. He will wait until they have committed themselves far enough to be beyond reinforcements; until they have stretched their supply lines. He is waiting for you, lord.’

  Eremon rubbed his chin. ‘So it begins in earnest then, friend,’ he said to Nectan, even as his gaze slid in the direction of Rhiann’s house.

  ‘If a man’s heart is full of rage,’ Nectan murmured, ‘he should take it to battle.’ Thoughtfully, he fingered the shell collar across his breast. ‘So he tames the beast within. So he sees then with a clearer mind – and a clearer heart.’

  Eremon summoned a pained smile. ‘You are right, as ever.’ He glanced back at the messenger. ‘You have done well, yet your ride is over now, as mine is about to begin. Stay here and rest: I will go on alone.’

  The youth’s mouth dropped open and then clamped shut, twisting indecisively, until Eremon’s hand came down most firmly on his shoulder. ‘There are scouts only two days away,’ the boy offered at last in surrender. ‘They can guide you to where my lord waits.’

  Eremon forced the flask on him once more. ‘Then drink your fill, lad. I will leave before dusk.’

  Yet as he was turning back to Nectan, Eremon’s attention was arrested by Linnet, standing under the Horse Gate.

  ‘At last she weeps,’ was all Linnet could say when Eremon hurried to her. Her hands were spread, eloquent in helplessness. ‘She weeps, and will not stop.’

  This time Eremon did not pause to consider whether his presence was appropriate or not; he ran and then flung himself under the door-hide of Rhiann’s house, to be confronted by an empty room. Linnet had cleared it of all people, even Caitlin, and it was silent but for the sobs that echoed from the rafters; sobs of such a wrenching pitch that each one seemed to curl around Eremon’s heart and squeeze it painfully.

  Rhiann was crouched against the wall by her herb shelves, her head in her arms, and when he went down on his knees and gathered her close, this time she did not resist. Yet the relief that came with that was instantly quenched when Eremon felt the true depth of her weeping, which racked her body.

  She clung to him, fingers digging into his arms, her words barely coherent between each wave of tears. ‘I did it to them, Eremon, it was me … me he came for, only me … I brought him, I brought him!’

  These last words were so anguished that Eremon could only rock her, his lips against her damp hair. ‘No, love,’ he whispered. ‘This is not your fault.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it is!’ Rhiann choked a breath. ‘I did not foresee them, but the Sisters did, they knew.’ Suddenly she wrenched back her head so violently that Eremon was caught off-balance. ‘It happened again, didn’t it?’ Rhiann cried, staring wildly up at Linnet. ‘Why couldn’t I see in time? Why? The Mother has truly forsaken me!’

  Linnet shook her head, her hand at her mouth. ‘You are not forsaken by Her, my darling. Never, not by any of us.’

  Yet Rhiann was beyond hearing, head buried once more in her arms. ‘It is that – I must be cursed! I cannot save them, and when they love me they die!’ Eremon gathered Rhiann closer, mute with shared pain, but she pushed weakly on his chest. ‘Leave me; you must leave me or the curse will claim you, too!’

  ‘Hush,’ Eremon murmured, pressing her face into his chest. ‘I will not leave you, ever. I love you.’

  Yet that seemed to bring no comfort. ‘No, no, I don’t deserve it…’

  Eremon caught Linnet’s eye, and the raw distress there stabbed him to the core. ‘Do not speak such words. I love you and you love me, it is what we have—’

  ‘No!’ With surprising strength, Rhiann threw him from her, and he fell to his haunches, his fingers and palms spread in the rushes. ‘No!’ she cried again, her hands balled into her eyes. ‘I am not wife to you, not wife enough, and I fail you as I failed them …’ She stopped to struggle for breath, her shoulders heaving.

  ‘You’ve never failed me—’ Eremon began, confused.

  But Rhiann gave a piercing cry and lowered her hands, her eyes wild with grief and fury. ‘And what wife would keep a babe from her womb! What love is that, to make it a barren place where no child can take root, no child so wanted by the man who loves her! I am cursed, cursed !’

  Eremon reared back, too shocked to do anything but stare at Rhiann as her words penetrated the haze in his mind. Beside him, Linnet gasped and clutched at one of the roof-posts, swaying.

  ‘You …’ Eremon had to clear his throat. ‘You stopped … a babe? Those draughts of yours, that’s what they were?’ Yet the only answer he had was Rhiann’s sobs as she turned her face away. And suddenly Eremon couldn’t feel her pain any more, only his own, which split his chest like the bloody rent of a sword, snatching his breath away.

  Betrayal.

  The betrayal of his own kin in Erin turning on him, exiling him; the wound it had torn which had never healed but only festered, for it broke open again now as he stared at his wife. ‘So you … never really gave yourself to me?’

  ‘Eremon,’ Linnet broke in sharply, ‘control yourself. She is overwrought; she speaks from grief. This is not about you.’

  He ignored her and rose to his feet, the hurt taking away all reason and control. ‘Did you?’ he demanded hoarsely, glaring down at Rhiann.

  Rhiann’s head jerked up, her swollen face unrecognizable. ‘No, no I did not! Is that what you want to hear?’ She knelt and shuffled towards him. ‘Then hear it. I cannot love you, Eremon of Dalriada; I cannot love you true! So by the Goddess, leave me with my shadows and my cursed love, and go far from here!’ She flung her hand at the door, and then buried her face in her palms, her sobs robbing the words of all meaning.

  Eremon had been slowly backing away, and when his hee
ls struck the hearth-stone he halted, panting and staring at Rhiann as if she were a stranger.

  ‘Eremon, stop it now!’ Linnet cried, her own voice cracking. ‘She knows not what she says.’

  But he heard no more, and stumbled from the house towards the marsh.

  And all that afternoon he walked as if sightless among the reeds, for all he could see in his mind were Rhiann’s eyes. Where once they had looked on him with soft love, now they lanced him with the greatest pain she could inflict. And deep inside something in him cried with a wordless anguish, something that had once been betrayed and abandoned and could not bear it again.

  His babe, she didn’t want his babe.

  Then she doesn’t want me, he thought, dazed. She cannot want me.

  CHAPTER 42

  As the day ended, Eremon could put off leaving no longer: they needed him in the north, and there was no reason to stay. He could do nothing for Rhiann; he seemed only to cause her more pain. He must leave her to her women and their songs.

  ‘Prince.’

  It was Linnet at the door to Dórn’s stall. Eremon stood by the stallion’s flank, tightening the buckles holding his sword to his saddle. The shadows inside were a cool respite from the blazing day, and the headache that pounded on his temples. Silently, Eremon wrenched at the saddle straps with sweaty fingers, until he fumbled and cursed, and had to rest his head against the horse’s shoulder.

  ‘You forget yourself,’ Linnet prodded softly. ‘She is not in her right mind. You must ignore what she says.’

  Eremon cut her off with a raised hand and a jerk of his head. It is not what she said, but what she’s done! All the while she said she loved me, and she was ridding her womb of my children!’

  Standing in the drifting dust motes, Linnet stared at his creased face for some time without moving. ‘Forgive me,’ she murmured then, ‘but you react too strongly. Do not allow an old wound of your own to make you foolish.’

  He flinched, for she struck too keenly, this priestess. ‘Rhiann may be your charge,’ he bit out, conscious of keeping some rein on his temper. ‘I, however, am not, and so I would ask you to stay out of my mind and heart.’

  Later, when he had calmed down, Eremon would admire Linnet’s forbearance at that moment, and how she did not answer his insult with anger of her own. Instead, sympathy darkened her eyes.

  ‘Rhiann is not like other women, Eremon. She questions her life more deeply than others do – for good or ill. And that, I believe, is also what you love in her, even though the fire, strength and stubbornness can descend into such darkness.’ She strode into the shadows to grip his shoulder, and that gesture revealed more of her distress than even her face. ‘Yet she loves you as she has never loved anyone, not even me. You must trust that.’

  ‘You heard her,’ Eremon muttered, his breath catching in his throat. ‘She doesn’t love me; she hates all I represent as a warrior. I can only bring her more pain.’

  ‘Her grief has taken her into a place of rage,’ Linnet argued. ‘It is not you she hates, but life. She does not know of what she speaks. You must believe that.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Eremon said flatly. ‘I just … can’t. She lied to me, and she severed the thing that could join us for ever – all the last long dark, when I thought we were so happy!’ A fist tightened around his heart. ‘Manannán save me, but you don’t understand either!’ He twisted to face her, one hand tangled in the bridle. ‘I lost my kin, lady, my home, my place in the world! A family could return this to me – Rhiann could give me that, and I could do the same for her, if she’d let me.’

  Linnet hesitated, and her dark eyes flickered. ‘I do not understand her choice in the matter of a child. Yet you are reacting out of old pain that has nothing to do with Rhiann, and this is a mistake …’

  ‘Nothing to do with her? She won’t let my child take root in her. She rejects the greatest bond we could forge, a bond of blood. She therefore rejects me, in the deepest way.’

  Linnet’s mouth trembled with pain. ‘You are being too cruel,’ she whispered.

  ‘Perhaps I am!’ Eremon suddenly cried. ‘But there, I will be strong no longer, nor wise, nor steeped in the control you so value!’

  Linnet’s eyes dropped and she turned away. ‘All of this will pass, prince, remember that. The shock has broken, the tears have come, and even they must dry eventually. Just give her, and yourself, some time.’ She glanced back. ‘She needs women around her now more than men. Let her come to some healing, and she will see things more clearly. Remember the love. It is real.’

  Eremon wanted so much to believe her, and yet … he just couldn’t blot the image from his mind, of Rhiann drinking her tea, bare hours after sharing the inner places of her body with him.

  And with that memory the hurt suddenly bloomed anew, with exquisite, surprising force. He knew then that his uncle’s betrayal had never healed at all.

  CHAPTER 43

  Despite the spectacle taking place outside the camp gate, Samana’s heart was as heavy as the dark clouds marching over the sky from the western mountains.

  An army of 5,000 men arrayed for battle was a new sight to her, for in all the time she’d known Agricola his units had either not been at full strength in Alba, or dispersed over the territory. Now many of the elite soldiers and auxiliary regiments of the Twentieth Valeria Victrix legion had been gathered in force from Viroconium in Britannia’s west, and marshalled here on the gravel plain by the Forth for their journey north.

  It should have stirred Samana, excited her, yet the proud eagle emblem on its tasselled pole, the bronze discs of the signum standards, the ranks of iron helmets and shining, segmented plate armour across chest and shoulders left her unmoved. For she was drowning in a soup of bitterness, indignation and, would she admit it, fear.

  There was a burst of cheering and cacophony of trumpets from the remaining garrison, as a mounted Agricola passed under the gatetower to lead his men, flanked by his tribunes in their parade armour and the legionary legate, that humourless fool Lucius. And of course, Agricola did not even pause to look up at Samana on the bank, or throw her one crumb of farewell. His dark eyes remained narrow and keen beneath his polished helmet, its red feathered crest rippling in the harsh wind that blew from the clouded west.

  Samana cursed him under her breath. Of course, he had not been so cold two nights before, when she took him in her mouth and made him cry out to all his gods twice over! Hypocrite! And what had she won with such artistry, but careless rejection? All that begging and pleading to let her accompany him and his legion on this northern expedition, and where had it got her?

  I have an important meeting with my legate and centurions, Samana. Leave me now.

  Samana had merely smiled, pulling up Agricola’s tunic once more and touching her tongue to his thigh. Yet to her horror he had actually thrust her away, and his words were still reverberating through her skull.

  This is a huge gamble.

  Those savages could pour down on us from the mountains at any moment.

  You don’t belong with an army on the march, or with me. I can afford no distractions.

  With an effort, Samana could overlook such words, for Agricola was beset by worries. Yet the worst thing of all was that he was slipping out of her hands again for some moons. And so soon!

  Her smug assumption about the settled peace of Britannia had proven premature. Another rebellion had sprung up in the far south-west, just as her Alban countrymen launched their own uprising in the north, forcing Agricola to split his command. He was only accompanying the Twentieth northwards for one week, to assess the situation on the Caledonii plain, and would then meet a ship at the Tay to take him south to Londinium with his Ninth Hispana legion, leaving units from the other two legions to guard the province.

  Yet if Samana could not stay by Agricola’s side, how could she cling to the control over his body? Grinding her teeth, she abruptly turned her back on the lines of soldiers as they flowed away in a rustling, rippli
ng flood towards the north. However, though her eyes no longer looked, she could not block her ears to the sounds: the grate of thousands of soldiers’ boots on the gravel road; the neighs of horses and lowing of oxen; the rumble of cart wheels; and the murmur of men’s voices.

  Samana clamped her lips together, her muscles quivering with the effort of holding her temper. Below her, at the base of the great bank which formed one side of the camp, ten of her own Votadini warriors lounged. They seemed to have accepted their surrender to the Romans easily – in fact, though they had only recently arrived from Samana’s dun, they had already become a shade too enamoured of Roman dicing games for her liking.

  Samana strode down to them, drawing level with her leading warrior, captain of the little band. He straightened from his dice roll most swiftly.

  ‘In two days, we will follow them,’ she murmured to him, pressing her knuckles into one palm, her eyes restlessly scanning the barracks and tents spread out before her, and the dome of the tiny bath-house.

  The man was silent, but she felt him staring at her. ‘Will that be safe, my queen?’ he at last ventured. ‘The mountains are near, and we do not have the markings of the northern tribes on our faces.’

  ‘I know!’ she hissed, furious that he, of all people, had to speak aloud her own persistent fears. She skewered the man with her black eyes, twisting the rings on her fingers with agitation. ‘In two days,’ she repeated, ‘we will follow that army. You organize the men and supplies. Tell the Roman quartermaster that we are returning home, and need food for the journey.’

  The man’s mouth set beneath his sweeping brown moustache, his eyes flicking up to the bank and the palisade. ‘As you wish, my queen.’