The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  This will be the last time we have the element of total surprise, Eremon realized. He tried to keep himself perfectly still, though he and his own men lay further back than the line of attack. Yet the midges were biting fiercely in the damp dawn shadows, and he worked a hand up now to scratch his nostril. His whole face itched terribly, from the dried stag blood with which the Caereni had marked him, and from the cracking river mud that smeared their naked torsos from head to trousers, to make them blend in with the land. Unfortunately, Eremon had missed his earlobes, and it was to these fleshy parts that the midges were applying themselves with vigour.

  Beside him, Conaire’s eyes were glowing white in his mud-smeared face, but he didn’t speak. Instead, they both listened to the shrieks of horses and angry yells of men, interrupted by the sound of confused splashing. For a moment, Eremon allowed himself some sorrow for the horses, but men on horseback could chase foot warriors and ride them down. There was no choice.

  Then he caught a slight movement in the trees, and in a moment three archers trotted out to the base of the knoll. Jerking his head at Conaire, Eremon scrambled down the steep slopes to join Fergus and Colum, who waited there on guard.

  One of the archers paused as they came up, grinning and wiping sweat from his brow, and only then did Eremon notice that this one was taller and ganglier than the others. He hadn’t recognized Rori, for the youth’s flaming hair had been completely caked with mud to hide its colour.

  ‘We shot around six horses each,’ Rori murmured, his eyes fierce but sad.

  Eremon swiftly calculated that for one hundred archers, and smiled at them all. However a sudden crashing in the undergrowth put paid to any verbal compliments, as they all turned.

  ‘They are in disarray,’ one of the Caereni men whispered, yet those nearest to us began to regroup. In rage, a few have followed us into the woods, though their commanders called them back.’

  ‘How many?’

  The man glanced at his other tribesman for confirmation. ‘We think nine. They stumble close together, but we have not the room to shoot between the trees.’

  Eremon caught Conaire’s eye, and both of their hands went to their swords. ‘Hasten to our meeting place,’ he said to the archers, pausing to grip Rori’s shoulder with a proud squeeze that brought a shine to the boy’s eyes. ‘We will join you there soon.’

  Eremon smiled grimly at Conaire, Colum and Fergus as the others hurried off, the pounding of his heart now a singing. This was what he wanted: blood. This would silence the hurt and the burning that would not ease. The strange, fierce power that had flooded him when the Caereni sung their stag chant still lingered in his limbs, surging along with his blood, but much hotter and purer and wilder.

  ‘So, brother.’ Conaire’s eyes creased as he smiled, the side with the old scar pulling down the top of one cheek. ‘Two each among us four. Then you and I must fight each other for the ninth.’

  Eremon drew his sword, light on his feet as the rising sun at last penetrated the woods, gilding the leaves that shivered in the wind. Some things were unchanged in this suddenly unstable world of his: there was always a place for what he did best.

  He grinned at Fergus, who was no longer scowling, and then glanced at Colum’s determined face. Finally he raised his sword-tip to rest against Conaire’s own. ‘Then may Hawen give me the victory over you, brother!’ Eremon turned to face the woods.

  CHAPTER 46

  The priestesses and their Caereni escort enjoyed fine hospitality on their way through the northern Epidii lands, and this more than made up for the difficulty in travel. And even though Rhiann drove them relentlessly up the winding, narrow glens to the high passes, and back along muddy mountain paths, Fola watched her friend closely and understood why, even as her own back ached in the saddle.

  It was as if a whip was being cracked over Rhiann’s shoulder. Fola saw it in the way she sometimes paused and looked back at the darkening clouds being blown in on the western winds. And at night, Fola knew that the same things that chased Rhiann in the day were there in her dreams, for Rhiann whimpered and tossed and only became still when Fola went to her on silent feet and placed her hand on her forehead.

  Fola was relieved that the early courage shown by the young priestesses had been borne out. For no one complained. Rhiann led them with a bright fever that somehow communicated itself to all: encouraging them, exhorting them and, above all, setting an example of single-mindedness to which they all held.

  It will burn out eventually, Fola thought one day, her eyes on the back of Rhiann’s rain-soaked hood as she rode ahead. And for me, too.

  Fola herself could not have kept going without her private prayers each night, clutching the figure of Rhiannon the great goddess to her breast. In Rhiannon’s compassionate, sweet face Fola saw a rope thrown to a drowning woman, the only thread that could stop her from falling beneath the waves of her own grief. Rhiannon whispered to Fola’s spirit that what they did was right, and that they were loved.

  On leaving Dunadd, Fola had seen Rhiann pick up her own figurines from the hearth, and then put them all down bar one, which she packed away somewhat furtively. It took seven days before Fola discovered which goddess Rhiann had taken for guidance, when she noticed that her sleeping friend’s fingers were clutching something. Fola had gently prised Rhiann’s palm open, and then she saw it was the war goddess Andraste, with her terrible face of righteous anger.

  We may be right, Fola thought sadly, yet there is a cost. And she closed Rhiann’s fingers again to veil those empty stone eyes, demanding vengeance for the sins of men.

  By the time the priestesses crossed into Creones territory, sunseason had bloomed again with vigour, and the rain cleared away as if a curtain had been flung back.

  Rhiann had taken Nectan’s advice, which was to head for the most isolated Creones dun first. To reach it they had to cross a wall of high, bare mountains, and after the recent rains the glens and passes were even tougher to traverse, treacherous with boggy ground, and filled with streams in full spate. They were forced to lead the horses, and underfoot the mosses and sedges squelched into puddles of peat-stained water, spilling over their boots. Nothing stirred on the high mountainsides except for clouds snagging on the peaks, and the shadows of a few lone eagles, gliding high in the blue.

  By the time they came over the mountain shield to a long loch on the other side, glittering under a bright sun, they were exhausted and unnaturally subdued. Yet the loch side was different from the high ground, hazed by the smoke of many houses clustering among the sprouting field-strips, the loch itself speckled with dugout canoes and curraghs. The sun glistened on piles of new thatch as people clambered to repair their roofs before more storms came.

  As the priestesses picked their way down from the pass, the eerie silence of the bare slopes was dispelled by the hails of those working the fields, and shouts and children’s cries echoed over the loch. From farther along, the low of a horn floated up from the chieftain’s dun.

  The dun was a crannog, a settlement built on a man-made island in the loch, connected to the shore by a narrow bridge that could be easily defended. Alder pilings supported a large platform on which sat two roundhouses encircled by a palisade of hazel saplings. The roundhouses were the chieftain’s hall and guest-lodge, for the bulk of the people lived on the loch banks and would only retreat to the crannog in times of danger.

  The chief and his warriors were out hunting, Rhiann was informed by his timid wife, but the Sisters were given beds in the guestlodge and asked to wait for his return.

  Rhiann’s hair was a tangled mess of damp knots, so while the other girls took turns bathing behind a screen, Rhiann laid out her jewels and clothes and gave herself over to Fola’s ministrations. As Fola tugged the antler comb gently through her hair, Rhiann stared at her pale face in her mirror. ‘It is wet,’ she observed of her tresses, unnecessarily. ‘If you coil it and bind it up, no one will notice.’

  ‘No.’ Fola spoke around the p
ins in her mouth, working on a particularly stubborn knot. ‘Let us leave the back unbound, Rhiann, and dry it by the fire. It is your greatest glory, better than jewels, I think.’

  Rhiann smiled, casting an eye over the fine dresses spread over the bed. ‘It seems a priestess of the island knows more of politics than she admits to.’

  Fola was silent, as the tugging continued. ‘I understand, yes, that you will need the power of your royal blood as much as the power of the Sisterhood, to win over these warriors and chiefs. That appearances do matter.’ A sigh came from over Rhiann’s head. ‘Yet you do drive yourself hard, Sister. Perhaps we should rest here for a night first.’

  ‘No!’ Rhiann’s belly tightened, and she clenched her hand over it. ‘There is no time for rest,’ she said fiercely. ‘We must use this season, for the Romans will certainly be using it to their own advantage. Even now …’ Eremon came into her mind then, unbidden.

  Fola’s hands stopped moving when she heard Rhiann’s voice roughen, and it was only then, in the sudden silence and stillness, that Rhiann realized how truly afraid she herself was.

  The fear had been growing the whole time they crossed that lonely moor, and as the plateau and its waters flowed around and away from her to the distant hills, indifferent to human suffering, she had felt unimaginably small, cold and alone. Insignificant.

  How could she ever persuade these hard-hearted men, her tribal enemies, to do anything? She had not spoken of her lack of a specific plan to either Fola or Nectan, so desperate had she been to get away from Dunadd. Yet now she was here, and being groomed for shrewd warrior eyes like a mare for trade, her fear was fast sharpening into panic.

  Abruptly, she stood up. ‘Then while my hair dries by the fire, let us speak of what we will do here. Call the Sisters in, and Nectan, too. We have to find a way to turn their minds, and we must start as we mean to go on. Here, we must strike the first, and most decisive blow.’

  The Creones chieftain took his wife’s news about their strange visitors with a burst of irritation. He was by no means young, and after his hunt he was uncomfortably hot and stinking of sweat and hounds, as well as hungry and tired.

  A bath had resolved the smell and sore muscles, and a platter of smoked trout the worst of his hunger, but what he really wanted was to lounge in his hall this night, drink ale with his men, and bed his new, young wife with as little effort as possible.

  Now he glanced up at his wife, who hurried over and poured him more ale, and then at the young people crowding his firelit hall, lounging on rugs, cushions and benches around the stone hearth. The chieftain was the only old one, unfortunately. He had young sons, a young wife, young kin, all of them rude with vigour and colour and noise.

  ‘I saw the Epidii princess, husband,’ his wife offered. ‘She is very young, but very gracious. I am sure she will not keep you long.’

  The chieftain patted her ample bottom. ‘I hope not. The sooner they retire, the sooner we retire, wife.’ He leered at her, and she blushed and giggled, batting away his groping hands.

  From outside came the sudden boom of a drum.

  The chieftain had been in many battles, but this was not a battle drum, and his head reared up in surprise, staring at his hall door as the drum bellowed again. By now, the rest of his warriors and their women had heard it, too, and their chatter and laughter, the chiming of bronze and copper cups, and the discordant sound of the bard tuning his harp, all died away.

  Aside from the hearth-fire, the hall was lit with pitch torches fastened to the roof-posts, and it was this light that glimmered on the first thing the chief saw coming through his oak doors – the black, shining eyes of a strange man.

  The man was short, with jet-and silver-threaded hair, wearing a strange tunic and trousers that seemed the colours of woodland, heath, sea and rocks combined. He bore a fine beaded quiver across his back, as did the other men who followed him, a score in all. They bowed and lined up in two columns, one on each side of the doorway.

  Despite their size, these men held themselves with compelling dignity, and it was only that which silenced the chief’s impulse to demand what they were doing. The escort of the women, his wife whispered. Caereni archers guarding an Epidii princess. How curious. He did like curious things.

  Now the drumbeat began again, solemn, and the lines of archers stared hard at the empty doorway, until the chieftain himself was leaning forward, peering at it expectantly.

  Then suddenly a woman took shape from the darkness outside. She paused in the half-light, drawing out the moment, and all the chieftain could glimpse was a stray glimmer of gold on her body. His wife’s breath fluttered in his ear, tickling him.

  The woman glided forward into the light, and when she came to a stop all the people in the hall gasped. The chieftain lived on the edge of tribal lands, yet had travelled widely. He knew beauty and refinement when he saw it.

  A blue cloak fell from the Epidii princess’s shoulders, pinned back by the most extraordinary brooch of two rearing horses set with amber. Underneath the cloak was a saffron-dyed dress, its edges glinting with gold thread. On her feet were pale kidskin boots; around her arms, bracelets of bronze, snake-coiled, deer-headed. But as his eyes travelled higher up her body, the chief realized that these trinkets were nothing compared to the twisted torc at her neck, the ends two mares’ heads. The torc framed a beautiful face, with a wide, full mouth and blue eyes that were tilted up at the edges, giving them an alluring cast. And though she wore a gold circlet on her brow, the woman’s hair was her true crown. It was a rare hue, amber and fire and copper threaded together, and swirled loose about her shoulders, finer than a silk veil.

  The chieftain was on his feet before he knew it, extending his hands to introduce himself with every extravagant word his memory could dredge up. The Epidii princess accepted his greeting calmly, and in her face he saw nothing of the imperious pride he’d been expecting. She was young and sweet, just as his wife had described. He ushered her to a bench beside his own, covered with his finest rug, and his wife approached with a jug of mead and a cup, visibly awed.

  The Lady Rhiann accepted the cup with a gracious nod, yet the chieftain’s wife still trembled as she poured and then retreated behind her husband’s bench. The chieftain then signalled to his bard to play while they spoke, but the Epidii princess raised her hand. ‘No, my lord. If you do not mind, I have a headache from our journey, and find that music makes it worse.’

  The chieftain waved his disappointed bard away. Then, my lady, food will be brought soon, yet perhaps you could tell me how I can help you?’ This wasn’t strictly polite – he should feed her before asking her business. But he was old and tired, and here in the more remote lands manners became a little more fluid. He glanced up at the Caereni men, still standing stiffly by the door. ‘And do you wish your escort to join us? There is plenty of ale and meat.’

  The lady shook her head, and the torchlight glittered on her gold circlet. ‘I thank you, but no.’ She signalled to the warriors, and they turned and departed, leaving four of their number behind.

  The chieftain stared at her, wondering at this dazzling young woman and her strange customs. He twirled his ale cup uncomfortably.

  ‘My lord.’ The lady suddenly fixed him with her blue cat-eyes. ‘I bear news of what happened on the Sacred Isle at Beltaine.’

  The chieftain blinked. ‘The raid? A terrible business, terrible!’

  For a moment, his heart darkened with sorrow over the old Ban Cré, his king’s sister and his own cousin. ‘But I have already heard this news, lady. It travelled fast among the tribes.’

  That direct gaze hardened imperceptibly. And were you told also that Maelchon of the Orcades led this raid?’

  ‘By Manannán, no!’ He started back, shocked. ‘I received the news from my king, but no mention was made of Maelchon. King Maelchon led it? Are you sure?’

  For a moment, that innocent girl’s mouth was twisted by bitterness. ‘Quite sure. I was there, you see.’<
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  ‘I am so sorry, lady, it must have been dreadful for you,’ he babbled, his heart going out to her when he saw the grief in her eyes. By Lugh, he had a daughter just this age! ‘I am sorry,’ he repeated, only just held back from taking her hand by the glitter of her finery. She was royal, after all.

  ‘Then, my lord,’ her voice softened, ‘since the news has already reached all the corners of the land, have you heard also what your king plans to do about it?’

  ‘Do about it?’ he echoed. ‘Are the Sisters’ houses being rebuilt, lady? Do the Sisters need food, shelter? I am sure my king would be glad to help.’

  The sweet mouth tightened. ‘No, my lord. All that is left of the Sisterhood travels with me. There will be no rebuilding, not of the kind you mean.’

  Behind the chieftain, his tender-hearted wife gasped. He’d not known or understood the extent of the loss, and a renewed surge of pity overtook him for this girl and her wards. It was a sorry business, a sorry business indeed. He would feed them as well as he could before seeing them on their way.

  Yet suddenly the Epidii princess leaned forward, reaching into his vitals with those eyes and gripping him so he couldn’t look away. Vaguely, he noticed that the four Caereni men had taken up position by the fire and the roof-posts.

  ‘Do you realize,’ the woman continued coldly, ‘that apart from myself, all the Ban Crés were slaughtered among the sacred Stones – the blood kin of kings? Do you realize that the cauldron of wisdom guarded by the Sisters was extinguished that day – the healing knowledge, and the songs and rites that keep the Otherworld and Thisworld balanced, your crops thriving, your cattle swelling with calves?’

  The chieftain found his mouth dropping open again, as abruptly, the Lady Rhiann stood. ‘Then permit me to enlighten you,’ she said, and raised her hand. The Caereni men took packets from their tunics and threw their powdered contents on to the hearth-fire and up over the torches, and the hall was instantly plunged into near darkness, the smoke tinged with a sharp smell.