by Jules Watson
Suddenly, the swell of the curlew’s cry and the far murmur of the sea faded from Rhiann’s ears, as the memory of Nerida’s last words arced like an arrow into her mind. In you lies our hope.
Her gaze settled on the girls, who had turned from the water and were now stumbling along the darkening beach towards the boats in a ragged group, the dignity and grace trained into their bodies crumbling under the weight of grief. The strong, calm light of common purpose that had always held them was gone, leaving them all floundering. Their souls had vibrated as one song; now each one’s spirit trembled alone.
And what came to Rhiann then was simple: I must lead them. It is surely what Nerida and Setana charged me with. With the expression of that thought, so came the first warmth Rhiann had felt in weeks, settling over her in a blanket of relief.
She would turn this outrage into triumph, the pain into action, for the Sisters, so their sacrifice was not in vain; for these girls, to help them assuage their grief; and for her people, to give them the aid the Sisters had promised. Slowly, she began to breathe out, her shoulders widening, her fists unclenching as she searched herself for the strength she would need, a strength she had thought irrevocably broken.
Rhiann’s glance strayed then to the north, and the highland mountains. This too I must do for Eremon. So we stand in my dream side by side again. So I make him proud of me. So he can forgive me.
On the way home, Rhiann peeled away from the others, for she had one more offering to make. On a natural slab of rock on a hillside above Dunadd, the ancestors had made carvings for the souls of the greatest heroes. Here, over the centuries, spirals were drawn to remember the bravest of warriors, and here Rhiann had sent a carver a day ago to add a spiral for Didius.
Now, alone beneath the deepening sky, Rhiann knelt on the cold rock and traced the new design with oil and ochre and rowan ash, remembering what he had done for her. ‘The spiral is to show you the way home, Didius,’ she whispered, as the shadows gathered around her from the oak woods beyond. ‘Your soul comes from the Mother, and now it returns to the Mother, because there is no end or beginning.’
After filling the curving lines with mead, infused with sacred meadowsweet, Rhiann wrapped her cloak closed against the cooling night and shut her eyes. Then she sang a prayer, her voice carrying far on the clear, still dusk: that after resting in the Mother’s womb Didius would follow the path of his spiral back out to breathe again of Alba’s air.
For he had loved her land so.
The next day Linnet wished to return to her home, and Rhiann insisted that she, Caitlin and Fola accompany her. Caitlin kept her eyes fixed on the back of Rhiann’s head for the entire ride, concerned at this sudden burst of energy after the slow, unspoken grief of the previous day.
They ate fresh baked salmon in the shade of Linnet’s oak, played with Gabran and talked of small things, and all the while Caitlin could see Rhiann bursting with something. And when they had finished eating, Rhiann could wait no longer, rising and pressing her hands together. Then she announced that she had an idea, at last, of what to do about the Sisterhood.
Cross-legged on a deer-hide, Caitlin stayed silent as she listened, one hand on Gabran’s back while he rocked on his hands and knees. Yet as Rhiann continued to speak, Caitlin’s heart sank.
Rhiann explained how she originally considered establishing a new seat of the Sisterhood at Dunadd, but had immediately realized that without the elder Sisters that kind of power had been lost. ‘So then I thought that perhaps something different was being demanded of the Sisters now.’
Rhiann began pacing. She had wound her auburn hair in tight braids about her skull, and her cheekbones and jaw were all stark angles, her eyes hollowed. Caitlin knew she had hardly eaten for weeks, despite her and Eithne’s best efforts to tempt Rhiann’s palate. The softness of the extra weight her sister had put on this last year was already being stripped away. ‘I thought that we must harness the grief of this attack. As the news passes across Alba, and the Ban Crés do not return, the people will surely cry out for vengeance.’
‘Vengeance is not the way of the Sisters, daughter,’ Linnet interrupted quietly.
Rhiann came to a halt. ‘No, aunt, I speak of bringing the tribes together in defence!’
Caitlin read Rhiann’s desperation and grief, and longed to go to her. She sighed under her breath. Yet perhaps she could do nothing; perhaps the only thing to reach Rhiann would come from the Sisters.
Rhiann explained that thirty of the young Sisters were initiated, and knew the songs, rites and chants, the healing knowledge and the lore. So she proposed embarking on a journey north around Alba, visiting the kings who had not yet joined Eremon and invoking their people’s outrage, leaving a priestess at each royal dun to replace those who had been lost.
Caitlin immediately sat up straighter, alarmed at this suggestion, yet Rhiann was staring at Fola. Her friend was sitting forward on her knees, her dark eyes eager. ‘It is the rallying call,’ Fola murmured, her voice trembling with excitement.
‘Exactly! For the tribes will find it difficult to ignore this outrage when the Sisterhood itself – what is left of it – arrives on their doorstep!’ Rhiann’s eyes burned, though her mouth remained pained. ‘These girls will show that no sacrilege is beyond the invaders! They will be a reminder for all those kings, when their resolve to defend their land falters.’
Fola sank back and linked her arms around her knees. It is daring, courageous – a good idea. A fine idea!’
In Fola’s eyes, Caitlin saw an echo of Rhiann’s own strange glitter. She could stay silent no longer. ‘But … but surely when all of you are so grieved, it would be better to stay here and rest, and help each other?’
Rhiann stared down at Caitlin as if she’d just seen her. ‘What good is it to give in and surrender, sister? Then the Romans and Maelchon will have won!’
Lost for words, Caitlin drew a squirming Gabran into her lap, appealing to Linnet. ‘But they’re only young. Surely you cannot have them traipsing all over the mountains, not when their hearts are so sore.’ And yours, Caitlin thought desperately, looking up into Rhiann’s closed face. What about your heart?
‘The girls cannot be ordered in this; you will have to ask them,’ said Linnet with a resigned sigh. ‘The youngest can return to their families, yet the older initiates gave their service to the Goddess with their vow. If only we could be sure this is what the Mother asks.’
‘I feel sure,’ Fola declared, scrambling to her feet. ‘Rhiann told me that the elder Sisters said in the future all priestesses had to live among the people, be part of their lives.’
‘Yes, they did,’ Rhiann said, surprised.
‘And I cannot believe they meant this to be the end,’ Fola added passionately. ‘They must have meant for something good to come out of this – there must be something good!’
Suddenly Caitlin found herself on her feet, hauling Gabran into her arms. He jerked in surprise and broke into choked whimpers. ‘You are not strong enough to do this, Rhiann!’ Caitlin burst out, raising her chin as Rhiann’s eyes flashed. ‘You should be here, with those who … who love you.’ Trembling, she kissed her son’s head, trying to soothe his hiccupping cries.
‘Caitlin,’ Rhiann said, ‘don’t you understand? I have to do something.’
‘But you need time to grieve, to sleep—’
‘This is my time!’ Rhiann cried, and for a moment her fierce mask faltered. ‘Doing something so that their deaths are not in vain – can’t you see what this means to me?’
‘And I will be by Rhiann’s side,’ Fola interjected.
Moving Gabran to her hip, Caitlin’s head bowed. ‘It isn’t right,’ she repeated stubbornly. ‘But it isn’t my decision.’
‘There is more to this than even you know, sister,’ Rhiann whispered, and when Caitlin raised her head she saw that Rhiann was staring into Linnet’s eyes. ‘There is a greater pattern here, something I am being driven to, and this is part of it, I see tha
t now.’
Linnet had gone completely still, the pallor of her face tinted green by the overhanging oak leaves. Yet Caitlin saw the faint understanding that passed between them.
‘So,’ Rhiann said, with a swift turn of her skirts, ‘it is decided then: I will ask, and the girls will decide. Let us go now, for I can waste no more time.’ Fola swiftly rose, and together she and Rhiann made their way towards the horses tied against the house.
Caitlin’s hand, however, fastened on Linnet’s arm and pulled her back. ‘How can you let them do this!’ she hissed, fright and distress loosening her tongue. ‘You sat there and said nothing!’
Linnet’s eyes finally met Caitlin’s glare, and all at once Caitlin saw there what Linnet had been keeping hidden.
‘My child,’ Linnet murmured, the pain pulling down the edges of her mouth, ‘I know you worry for her, but Fola loves and knows her well. Do not be wounded by the anger – the tide of fury can carry one far, but eventually it washes up on some shore, and then ebbs away.’
‘Yet that shore will be far from us,’ Caitlin whispered in anguish. ‘And you did nothing to keep her here, where we can help.’
Linnet’s eyes closed for a moment as the leaves stirred in the breeze, and then her trembling hand reached out to cup Caitlin’s cheek. ‘I have been shown I can do nothing to hold her back; nothing to change her future, for it is already written.’ Every year of Linnet’s age seemed to descend over her face at once, stopping Caitlin’s protests in her throat. ‘She must find her own way, or she will not find it at all. Believe me.’ She dropped her hand and looked around her yard, winding her arms around her chest. ‘And when I am here alone,’ she murmured, ‘that is what I will cling to.’
Swept with pity, Caitlin took Linnet’s hand as Gabran paused in his whimpering to stare up at his grandmother, blue eyes swimming with tears. ‘You will not be alone, mother,’ Caitlin whispered. ‘I may not be a priestess, but Gabran and I can bring our own healing.’
As they moved into the sunlight spilling over the hut’s roof, Linnet took the child in her arms and held him close. The horses were already untied, and Rhiann was in the saddle, impatient for home.
CHAPTER 44
The reaction of the young initiates to Rhiann’s plan was instant and unanimous, and many faces that had been drawn by grief and bewilderment seemed to strengthen with a new resolve and boldness. No one showed any fear, and Rhiann felt great pride as she looked around at them on the hearth-benches of the King’s Hall. The Sisterhood was still strong, she told herself. The spirit of the elders lived in them all.
Nectan and his men had not yet returned north to his home, held at Dunadd by shared grief and his concern for the remaining Sisters. He immediately volunteered the services of his warriors, and Rhiann and her party had their escort.
The next day Linnet and Rhiann made one of the yearly offerings to the old spirits at the stone circle in the ancestor valley, laying meat and mead in a hollow at the base of the stones. There, they sang another chant to invoke the Source in that sacred place, to bless the Sisters for their journey.
‘Where do you intend to go?’ Linnet asked Rhiann as they packed their baskets and left, stepping carefully over the peat on piles of pebbles.
Rhiann moved her basket to her other hip and glanced back at Linnet. ‘We will go to the Creones land first.’ She remembered well how scornful the Creones king had been at Calgacus’s last council. ‘Once his chieftains are banging on his door, baying for blood, perhaps he won’t be so quick to dismiss the war leader of the Epidii again.’
When they reached the horses on the solid ground beside a stream, Rhiann began to strap her basket behind her saddle. ‘Aunt,’ she said then, for she had something most difficult to broach. Linnet paused from untying her stallion and Rhiann took a deep breath and ploughed on. ‘You have never said anything of what I revealed to Eremon that awful day. About babies … my decision.’ Rhiann fixed her eyes on her fumbling fingers, tying the leather thongs too tight.
Linnet said nothing at first, then she stepped forward and raised Rhiann’s chin with a gentle hand. Her eyes were paler in the direct light of the dawn sun, but the colour shifted with some strong emotion. ‘I sent Caitlin away for my own reasons,’ she whispered, ‘then nearly lost her for ever. I have tasted the bitter cup of guilt as priestess and mother both. Who am I to judge you?’
Rhiann swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘But Eremon,’ she said. ‘I never wanted to hurt anyone like that … as I have been hurt.’
Linnet’s hand dropped. ‘A large part of Eremon’s hurt was done to him long ago, and not by you. That is why his sense deserted him. He will find himself again, child, in time.’
Yet Linnet’s words did little to assuage Rhiann’s gnawing guilt on the ride back to Dunadd. And she pondered on time, and how much of it she and Eremon would be granted together. Perhaps when Eremon’s hurt had dulled, when she had a triumph to lay at his feet, then she could go to him and look him in the eye once more.
Samana and her escort, hugging the eastern coast, were only two days behind the Roman army now, judging by the vast, abandoned marching camps they came across on their way north. As nervous as she was, Samana could not help but marvel at the speed and efficiency of the Roman military machine, the vast ditches the army delved and high earth walls that were raised to camp for one night.
Yet even though her party was on horseback, Roman soldiers were trained to march twenty miles a day with a heavy pack, and so Samana pushed her own warriors hard, rousing them early and driving them late, barely stopping for food and drink. She had to get to Agricola’s side before he turned back south.
At last, though, the captain of her Votadini guard said the men must take a proper night’s sleep, if they were to be any good to her.
Samana chafed at the decision even as she accepted its wisdom, and grudgingly called a halt in a clearing by the Isla river, its banks wooded with scrubby alder and willow, the higher ground behind thick with spreading oaks.
‘Do not fret, lady,’ her captain said as he helped her to dismount beneath a tall elm tree, the shadows already cooling with approaching night. The man was irritatingly cheerful now he was closer to a full belly around a fire. ‘There’s been no hint of any trouble, none at all. The highlanders won’t come down so close to the Roman forts anyway.’
Samana whipped around. ‘Fool! They raided and burned some of those forts to the ground! And how? With magic?’
The warrior’s face fell as he sought for some other platitude, yet Samana only hissed impatiently and turned her back, stalking off to the gravel banks of the river. Far to the west the mountains reared, dark banks of cloud shrouding their peaks. The surface of the swift river at her feet was dark and opaque in the valley, breathing a mist that curled over her skin.
Agricola had always spoken of keeping to the coast, and Samana wanted nothing more than to stay as far from those mountains as possible. But she couldn’t. The swiftest route was along this broad valley, which funnelled them between the mountains and a range of heavily wooded hills closer to the sea. She didn’t like it, but the ease of the ground meant she would be out of danger and in Agricola’s arms all the sooner.
No one would attack me, she blustered to herself. Why would they? The highlanders sought only Roman blood.
Samana had been repeating the same litany in her head for the past three days, though it did not shake the dread that kept sending cold tendrils up her spine. And she’d put herself in this situation for a man who had tossed her aside like some common whore. Well, when she gained his side once more she would not let go, and he could take her south with him, or … or … she would think up some threat significant enough to make him agree.
Anger was better than fear, and so strong was her ability to ignore what troubled her that when Samana was woken in the night by a scuffle outside her tent she did not at first register what it might be. Then her mind, scrambling for awareness, at last recognized the sounds: the gru
nts of men being stabbed by blades; the gasps of the dying.
By the time the flap of her tent was wrenched back and a brand thrust inside, Samana was crouching against the far wall, her meat-dagger clutched in her hand. As she held a fur across her shift, one thought sparked in her mind, appalling her: few women possessed her sensual beauty, she always gloated, few could catch a man’s eye like she could … Samana’s mouth went so dry her tongue stuck to its roof, but she faced down the four men who pushed their way into the tent, stinking of sweat and blood and Goddess knew what else. Their hair was straggling, their tunics filthy, but they were armoured, too, with helmets and hardened leather breastplates, and all bore swords.
Now the one with the brand held it higher, and that was when she saw the blue tattoos curling fiercely over their cheeks; some depicting bears and stags and wolves, but all bearing on one side the sharp outline of the great eagle.
The eagle. Calgacus.
For the first time in her life, Samana knew visceral, gut-loosening fear.
‘This is her,’ one of the men said, and spat onto the fine furs of otter, wolf and seal tumbled across her bed roll.
‘You know who I am?’ She tried to sound imperious, but sweat was trickling down under her breasts, and her palms were slippery on the knife.
The man who held the torch was studying her with appraising eyes that held little pity. ‘No,’ he replied curtly. ‘But we’ve been tracking you for days. And what would a beautiful Alban maid like you be doing marching in the wake of a Roman army?’ He stepped closer, then wrenched the fur cover away from her and dropped it. ‘Why would you show no fear of them? Why would you hurry to catch them?’
Samana backed up against the wall of the tent, the slope of the taut leather pressing down on her head. ‘I … I was a prisoner. I am of the Venicones, and the Romans took me because I am high born. He,’ she bit her lip, ‘they were sending me south, to be a slave in their camps.’ She forced a tremulous smile, reached out to him. ‘And thank the Goddess you saved me! My people will be grateful.’
