The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  ‘I do wish. Now leave me and do something useful with yourselves.’

  When the warriors had collected up their dice and disappeared towards the stables, Samana climbed the bank again and stared out at the ranks of disappearing spears, the glistening of the mud churned by the passing of thousands. Just where the encroaching hills loomed, a veil of rain was sweeping down from the high ground, swallowing the marching army in its dark folds.

  The thought of leaving the safety of the frontier to trail along behind that army into enemy territory terrified Samana. But, she reminded herself fiercely, it was nothing to the deeper terror of doing nothing – and thereby losing her precarious hold over Agricola. If that happened, she was truly lost.

  She raised her chin to the first spatters of rain, clenching her hands. This was the better way, no matter how dangerous. It would give her more time with Agricola, to soothe his muscles, satisfy his desires, show him he needed her wherever he went.

  Then he might take her south on his ship, and keep her by him through sunseason.

  After all, she chided herself, at last drawing her wool hood up against the rain, how much safer could one be but behind a Roman army? Yes, she was foolish to entertain such fears. She would put them resolutely aside, and plan what she would say to turn Agricola’s wrath when she at last came upon him.

  As the nights passed, Rhiann’s will gradually grew weaker.

  At first, the desperate numbness she clung to had carried her through not only her days, filled with the few repetitive tasks that she could manage, but also her nights. Even the news of Eremon’s sudden departure had fallen into her empty soul with barely a ripple, sinking to the dark depths inside. And though the dark monsters of her dreams were lurking there whenever she slipped into unconsciousness, she warded them away with sheer will.

  The monsters soon grew fiercer and more wily, however, lunging at her when her dream focus faltered, snapping at her heels relentlessly, as she ran from them through a colourless landscape of empty, frozen plains and dried-up rivers. And like any pack, they eventually began to wear her down.

  When Rhiann realized that her will was faltering – that snatches of violent memory were beginning to intrude on her dreams – she tried to stop herself sleeping. Yet even then she had to lie and listen to the stifled weeping of those who grieved with her, and worst of all, the murmurs of comfort that the Sisters offered each other, but which she could not accept.

  So she drifted for endless days between dream state and waking, searching for a haven that did not exist.

  Linnet hovered there on the edges with Caitlin and Fola, but Rhiann found the pity in their eyes the worst pain of all. For it conjured up the faces of the others who were lost for ever, and the bitter guilt would rise and sear Rhiann’s throat, and she had to turn away from them.

  Eventually, Rhiann had no choice but to fall into exhaustion. And as soon as she did the pack was on her, and after so many nights she had no strength left to fight. She saw and felt it all: the sword that split Nerida in two; blood spattering the Stones; Didius’s face, sliced into ribbons; Maelchon’s burning eyes; the wrenching of his hand between her thighs.

  … I did it to them I killed them it was me he came for it was my fault my fault …

  Rhiann screamed, and suddenly hands were on her shoulders, shaking her, and she opened her eyes to see Linnet’s face hovering over her in the lamplight.

  ‘Child, it is only a dream!’ Linnet’s face was streaked with tears from her own weeping, her hair wild and unbound. Behind her, Fola’s cheeks were creased with sleep, her eyes haunted by wherever she had been called from by Rhiann’s scream.

  Fola dropped to her knees, taking Rhiann’s trembling hands in her own. ‘It is gone, Rhiann,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘We are here with you.’

  Linnet sank onto a stool, balancing the lamp on one knee as she brushed her damp hair back with unsteady fingers. Judging by her face, she had been crying for some time. The dead ones had been in the house this night, and not for Rhiann alone.

  Shaking violently, Rhiann curled her legs up, pressing Fola’s hand into the covers. But it was Linnet’s eyes she sought. ‘I have to know,’ she forced out. ‘I have to find a way to know why.’

  Linnet swallowed. ‘Know why?’

  Rhiann swung her head to Fola, trying to calm her shivering. ‘The elder sisters knew, didn’t they? The way they were speaking, the way the Ban Crés gathered their secrets, the way they sent us away. They knew.’

  Slowly, Fola nodded, and Rhiann stared again at Linnet. ‘Then why did they let it happen? What did they hope to gain?’ Her voice broke, harshening with desperation. ‘Don’t you see, I have to understand!’

  Slowly, Linnet reached out and set the lamp on the table by the bed. The flame trembled and shook, then steadied, and Linnet stared into it so unmoving, for so long, that Rhiann began to hear the quiet noises of the house: the whimpers and murmurs of the girls; Fola’s harsh, uneven breathing; the tiny hiccups of Gabran in the other bed. Caitlin was so tired out by his crying that she had not even woken.

  ‘Why, aunt?’ Rhiann at last burst out. ‘They sacrificed themselves, and I have to understand why!’ Rhiann groped for her fingers. ‘I … don’t think I can go on unless I know … help me to find a reason, or all will fall into darkness!’

  Linnet drew a deep, shaking breath. ‘If as you say, they knew,’ she said heavily, ‘then perhaps there is a reason, though we may not be able to find it, child. It may be a reason beyond Thisworld, indeed, beyond this time.’

  ‘No.’ Rhiann’s eyes fixed unseeing on the lamp flame. ‘It is for now. They said they would give their strength to aid our people.’

  Wearily, Linnet shook her head. ‘Surely there can be no good in this,’ she murmured, touching her fingers to the tracks of tears on her face. ‘It is acceptance we must find …’

  ‘No!’ A blaze of anger burned Rhiann’s chest, and she hauled herself up on her elbows. ‘I will not accept,’ she whispered furiously. ‘I can accept anything but this!’

  Fola’s cheeks were flushed with high colour. ‘My sister …’ she began, as Rhiann turned on her, breathing hard.

  ‘There is but one thing we need that we have not gained.’ Rhiann kept her voice low, yet it came out in an impassioned rush. ‘An alliance of all the tribes. I hoped that if the Ban Crés believed in it, they could help to forge it – but perhaps that was not how it was going to be.’

  As some realization dawned in Fola’s eyes, Rhiann sat upright. ‘Perhaps there was only one thing that could convince the tribes to join: an outrage so complete, so painful, that the actions of the Romans could no longer be ignored!’

  The implications of Rhiann’s own words unfurled in her mind. If I can find a reason, then I will be able to go on without them.

  ‘Rhiann—’ Linnet implored.

  Yet surprisingly, it was Fola who spoke. ‘She’s right,’ Fola whispered, her dark gaze turned inwards. ‘The words hold truth.’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘All tribes share the Sisterhood; women from all tribes are trained on the Sacred Isle; all tribes celebrate the Mother’s gifts; all sing to Her at Beltaine. This raid strikes at the very heart of Alba, and if the warriors did not know it before they will now. For is it not only when the heart is wounded that it is truly felt?’

  ‘Daughters,’ Linnet’s brow creased with pain as she looked from one to the other, ‘we are all grieving. We must not grasp at what may not be there.’

  Rhiann’s fingers closed over Linnet’s. ‘Tell me one thing,’ she demanded quietly. ‘Put aside the mother and be the priestess. Do you think I am right? Could this be the turning point we were searching for?’

  The strength of her gaze, hardened by desperation, bored into Linnet. For a long moment Linnet’s jaw tightened, then her lids sank closed, breaking the link. ‘Yes,’ she said, in a quiet voice heavy with sadness, ‘I think something has happened to sweep us forward to a new future. But I don’t want to think it; I don’t want to know�
�’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what we want.’ For a moment Rhiann squeezed Linnet’s hand, before sinking back and staring up at the thatch, ridged by the lamp-flame and shadows, her thoughts taking flight. The violence of the dream-monsters was fast subsiding, and she felt empty again, and therefore clean. It doesn’t matter what any of us want. We can only deal with what must be.’

  The further Eremon rode from Dunadd, the more his anger faded, and the deeper his shame began to bite. He tried to stoke the rage by reminding himself what Rhiann had done, but day by day the ashes grew colder.

  What his mind relived instead was the expression of pain in Rhiann’s eyes at his childish words, a pain that overlaid the terrible marks of grief and fear already scoring her face. How could he?

  As his horse ate up the leagues, Eremon’s head sunk lower onto his shoulders, weighed down by shame. The scouts who led him seemed disinclined to break such a brooding silence, and kept to their own fire at night, as he kept to his.

  And every day the pain found some way to intrude. One day they surprised a doe and her fawn who leaped across the path before them and into the forest. As the two were caught in a shaft of sun, and the doe’s sides lit up to the exact colour of Rhiann’s hair, Eremon found the breath knocked out of him, as if he had fallen to the ground. When they passed the isolated steadings, and people came out to gape at their weapons and armour, a pair of blue eyes would always spear him in his saddle, whether they bore a resemblance to hers or not.

  So he drove the party relentlessly, exhausting himself so that sleep came quickly, before the despair could bite too deep.

  Eremon was greatly relieved when they met the first of Calgacus’s scouts, and were led deep into the northern mountains to the camp of the warriors. There, he could take up his mantle of war leader again. There, he could lose himself in talk of battle and raiding and strategy.

  Calgacus’s camp was hidden near the head of a broad glen that split the Mountains of the Sea, which ran down the eastern spine of Alba. The valley was leagues long, and gave good access to the interior of the mountains. At its inner, western end it branched into smaller side valleys, like a river delta, and in one of these the camp lay, a collection of hides and tents strung between the overhanging trees and rock outcrops. It could function as a long-term abode if needed, yet also be abandoned at the first cry of a scout. All that the Albans needed to wage war on the Romans they carried on their bodies: long swords; a brace of spears; a quiver of arrows. And, most valuable of all, the knowledge of the land.

  This was brought forcefully home to Eremon as the scouts led him by paths that he could not see, over what seemed impassable ridges, until he came upon the valley so suddenly he didn’t even know it was there. As he picked his way down the steep, precarious path between the rocks and bracken, this realization of the advantage they possessed gave Eremon the first pang of pleasure he’d felt for two weeks.

  For despite the Romans using scouts from conquered tribes, bought knowledge could never match the innate lore of a man born and bred to this particular glen, and the hills that surrounded it. Such a man knew all the paths in and out: which could be blocked, or were impassable in certain weathers; which gave access to ridge paths that could carry one far. He knew where the boggy ground was, the hard ground, and where the bracken hid broken rocks that could snap a man’s leg. He understood all the different clouds and how they moved over the mountains, when they presaged storms and snow, and when only light rain; how long a certain kind of mist would linger.

  At Eremon’s request the scouts led him to Conaire’s shelter, six deer-hides roughly cobbled together with rawhide, stretched from the ground to a central sapling pole to a large rock that formed the back wall. More muddy hides covered the ground beneath the bed rolls, for the mountains were always damp, running with water from the high peaks. In the centre a hollow had been scooped out for a fire, over which was strung a skin bag of simmering broth.

  Conaire grinned and slapped Eremon on the back as he dumped his pack and armour, and then took one look at his brother’s carefully masked face and grasped both shoulders in an iron grip. ‘By the Boar, brother, is it worse than you thought? Is Rhiann…?’ Conaire bit off his words, but his blue eyes widened with sudden fear, white against his sunburned cheeks.

  Faced with the warmth of Conaire’s hands on his shoulders, all of Eremon’s intentions to bury what had happened crumbled. He bent back to look up at Conaire, exhaustion sweeping over him. ‘Caitlin is well, as is your son. Rhiann is alive and unhurt, though much grieved.’ Eremon broke away and turned his back, blurting, ‘And I acted like a complete fool and hurt her even more!’

  Conaire remained silent, until Eremon wearily rubbed the stubble on his face with both hands, and told him all of what happened at Dunadd. When Conaire had digested it he moved to stand before Eremon, pity in his eyes. ‘I have never known Rhiann to do anything without good reason,’ he offered carefully.

  ‘Well, I never stayed to find out the reason.’

  ‘Yet love so hard to win cannot be easily undone, brother, or put aside.’ Conaire paused. ‘And there is nothing that cannot be forgiven, after all.’

  Eremon stared bleakly past his foster-brother to the sky outside, heavy and grey, as rain began to spatter the hides above his head. And he remembered lying in the honey-moon hut with Rhiann’s hair trailing between his fingers, thinking that what they had was unassailable. He was a warrior – he should have known that nothing was unassailable.

  He blew out his breath and cocked one eye at Conaire. ‘Anyway, don’t you wish to know of your boy? He crawls so fast Caitlin can hardly keep up.’

  ‘He crawls!’ Conaire’s face couldn’t help but light up with pride, and Eremon knew then there was no earthly way for him to avoid the pain such love brought him. He would just have to bear it: there it was.

  ‘But tell me of what has happened here.’ Eremon gritted his teeth and bent to search his pack, tossing a leather flask to Conaire. ‘And by the way, Eithne has made a new batch of blackberry ale. Caitlin pressed it upon me, for you and I to toast the longest day together.’

  Still eyeing Eremon with concern, Conaire stored the flask on a shelf in the rock, balancing it alongside a few tallow candle-stubs, two grooved sharpened stones, some travel bread wrapped in leaves, and flint and tinder. ‘We have done little since you left, brother. Yet Calgacus himself has been busy – he asked the Vacomagi and Taexali kings to withdraw their people into the hills. He has also evacuated his own dun.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Conaire leaned against the tent pole, arms folded. ‘The young people were in the hills with the cattle anyway, and all who can move have done so. The duns are empty, and Calgacus seems sure the Romans will leave the crops.’

  Eremon nodded, watching the strengthening rain kick up splatters of mud on the path outside. This is what he wanted, to bury himself in this. ‘No, they won’t burn the crops – they need the supplies for their own men. They will target the duns, where they believe the warriors are.’

  ‘Well, they won’t find anyone at all.’

  ‘And that will draw them on northwards.’ Eremon chewed his lip, a faint and familiar excitement stirring his gut. ‘Yes, I see what Calgacus is thinking.’

  ‘Then you can explain it to me.’ Conaire squatted at the fire and poked at the floating lumps of deer meat in the skin bag. ‘If Calgacus wants to keep the Romans away from his dun, then why draw them north? We have been tracking the whole army for two weeks, and not once has he ordered an attack.’

  Eremon smiled and stretched the saddle soreness from his back, feeling a purer, cleaner energy flow into his limbs. This was what he did best. ‘The less resistance we offer for now, the further on the Romans are drawn, their guard going down. By the time we do attack, they will be far from their frontier, far from their reinforcements.’ He laughed. ‘Agricola has gambled much on this; he must be getting desperate.’

  ‘Brother, save your gloating.’ Conaire je
rked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘When Calgacus got news of your approach, he called a meeting of all the leaders. We’ll need your cool head now to douse Lorn’s fire – perhaps you can calm him down before Calgacus does so with his fists!’

  As they left the tent, Eremon’s mind turned over Nectan’s words: if a man’s heart is full of rage, he should take it to battle.

  It must not be long before he drew his sword again – in fact, he intended to lead the first charge himself. Perhaps then he could blot out the sight of Rhiann’s anguished eyes, and forget all the harsh words they had spoken.

  The wreaths of hawthorn and meadowsweet floated in pale rings on the copper sea, the largest ones – for Nerida and Setana – already disappearing into the flaming heart of the sinking sun. The glow was so bright Rhiann could not look at it, standing on the shore of the Isle of Deer, singing the Sisters’ souls into the west.

  All through the rite on this warm, still eve, Rhiann had held back the anger and pain, forcing the chants of farewell and blessing out of her rigid throat. She felt she must not give in to the memories of love, for they were twined with the grief, and her fragile control would shatter again. Then she would be unable to give the Sisters the honour they were due. So she swallowed it back down, praying that they would see from the Otherworld what burned in her heart.

  Yet as Rhiann turned away from the sun, her eyes fell on Linnet and Fola, still staring out across the shining, flat sea. Both of their faces were masks, every line of humour and softness sagging as if their features had melted, and Rhiann knew that after all these weeks her own must look the same. She jerked her eyes away.

  Caitlin was standing back, for she was no priestess, but tears ran down her cheeks. She, who did not even know the Sisters, wept for them all the tears Rhiann could not shed. Rhiann found she was biting down hard on the inside of her cheek, and she closed her eyes to the soft, purple sky above the island hills, and the glide of a curlew over the bay, and tasted blood in her mouth instead.

  And so it was the blood that undid her. Blood, drawn by Maelchon’s hand. Blood, wet on Nerida’s skin.