The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  ‘I have been of great use to him in recent moons, as it happens!’ She so wished to tell him who was really behind the raid on the Sacred Isle, who had planted the whole delicious idea, but drew in a shaking breath to squash her fury. Before Eremon could draw further away she suddenly cupped his chin, her thumb stroking his mouth. ‘Perhaps,’ she murmured, ‘I actually came looking for you.’

  Eremon’s hand shot up to grasp Samana’s wrist in a bruising grip, his face leaning out of her reach. But yes … just for a moment, she’d seen his pupils flicker with something, and his lips had parted of their own accord. Stiffly, he released her and rose, putting a distance between them. ‘I am no fool, Samana, so do not treat me like one. As you said, it was not your choice to become our guest, so you were hardly looking for me.’

  Samana sighed, and then, despite her aching legs, she dragged herself to her feet. Honesty was occasionally a wise tactic to use, for it always surprised people. ‘Perhaps not,’ she admitted, ‘but I have nevertheless longed for some way to see you again.’ She softened her eyes. Across the narrow, dim space between them, her energy reached for him, her flesh yearning for his.

  Eremon must have sensed her rapid breathing, for a wary stillness now came over him.

  ‘Aren’t you at least going to feed me?’ Samana managed to ask, feeling surer now that he looked so unsure. He didn’t know what to do with her, that was plain, but at her words something in him uncoiled, and he went to the edge of the canopy and called out an order to a nearby warrior to bring meat and ale.

  Eremon said nothing while they waited, his features blurred by the shifting shadows of the canopy as the edge of the hide flapped in the wind. Samana was just as happy to be silent, for as he stared at the rock, she could feast her eyes on him, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the pulse at the hollow of his throat. She had kissed that soft hollow once, long ago, and now he stood there like a stranger. Inside, she sighed.

  Agricola still had a soldier’s body, but he was ageing. His power and danger excited her, yet Eremon was a different proposition altogether, and not just because of his beauty. Perhaps it was that with Agricola she enjoyed the game, the careful artistry, yet with Eremon she sensed she could lose herself, because he matched her in fire as well as strength. And this tantalizing promise of capitulation and loss of control – her first and last surrender – was what trapped her as nothing else could.

  Suddenly Samana heard the sound of returning footsteps, heavier this time, and her eyes jerked to one side as a loud oath was uttered. Goddess, it was that big blond oaf ! Infuriatingly, he had always been quite immune to her.

  ‘By the Boar!’ The oaf now turned to Eremon, huge and loud and rudely vigorous in the sun, his size and bounding energy annoying Samana further. ‘I heard the rumours of her on my return just now, brother. But I had to see for myself !’ His bright blue eyes flicked Samana up and down, and when she glared at him, he grinned. He stank of sweat, and there were dark patches under the arms of his tunic. ‘Still as haughty, I see, my lady. Perhaps you’ll be less so after eating this.’ He was holding out a chunk of half-charred flesh of indeterminate origin on a curl of birch bark, and a battered leather ale flask.

  When Samana tilted her chin up, looking away, he chuckled and dumped both on the floor in the middle of the tent. ‘Brother, I can stay and keep you company if you wish it.’ The amusement was thick in his voice.

  Eremon was silent for a moment. ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. I can handle this alone.’

  ‘Then I’ll be cleaning my boar spears in the next tent; call if you need me.’

  The oaf left, and Eremon stared down at the scorned food then back up at Samana. ‘Not what you’re used to,’ he remarked. ‘But then, the price of Roman luxury was too high for me.’

  Samana felt herself colour. ‘You are a man, and have a sword to protect you,’ she shot back. ‘What did I have?’

  ‘Quite enough, obviously.’

  Samana bit back a retort and, ignoring the food, swept across the space between them in two strides. ‘Ah, Eremon, why do we quarrel?’ She caught his arm, pressed it to her breast as she leaned into him. ‘We talked pleasantly before, why can we not do so again?’

  He carefully removed her hand. ‘Why indeed? After all, you nearly got me killed, tried to make me turn traitor, then did so yourself. Why should we not talk like old friends?’ He laughed and pushed her away. ‘I thought you were hungry.’

  Samana breathed to calm herself, her hands balled by her sides. ‘You know why I made the choice I did—’

  ‘Yet I still don’t understand it!’ Suddenly, Eremon looked very tired. ‘I’m not going to debate such things with you, Samana. We are each set on our own paths.’

  Our own paths. Samana stared at Eremon, and all of Agricola’s harsh words of rejection came rushing back to her, consumed as he was with his war. ‘Yes,’ she answered at last, surrender in her voice. ‘But my path is not immovable, and neither is yours, perhaps.’

  Eremon snorted. ‘So you’ll help us, then? My men will be pleased.’

  ‘Eremon.’ Samana fixed him with her dark eyes and took one step forward. She had long thought she would never get another throw of the dice with him. And here it was, but one throw only. She took another step, slowly this time, drawing him with every fibre of her body. ‘Eremon,’ she whispered again, and suddenly she was up against him. ‘It is you I wish to help. Let me join with you, as I offered to do before.’ She licked her lips with her small tongue and yes, his eyes were staring at them, held there. ‘You and I were meant to be together, cariad.’

  It was at the endearment that Eremon flinched; she saw the pain flare in his eyes. And that was when she first sensed the chink in his armour. Her magic had always been sexual in nature, for her senses were attuned to such things. So she suddenly knew, by the ripple of tension in Eremon’s arm, his harsh breathing, the flush across his cheekbones, that his body was suffering. A happily bedded man would not react this way. Something is amiss with Rhiann.

  Samana pressed closer, moulding her body to his so softly that he would hardly notice until it was done, reaching up on her toes so that her warm breath was on his face. ‘I would give you everything that is in me,’ she whispered. ‘For what we shared was rare, my love, so rare I have never forgotten it: how you buried yourself in me, how you suckled at my breasts, how you rode me until I wept for mercy.’

  His breath was coming faster now, his eyes glinting with pain.

  ‘All this and more will I give you,’ she continued in the same murmur. ‘Many halls to rule, many jewels to lay at your feet, many nights of pleasure in my bed.’ She parted her lips, her eyes sliding to his mouth. ‘And sons to rule after you, Eremon, strong sons.’

  At these last words, Eremon froze. Then suddenly Samana’s arms were encased in a brutal grip, and she gasped. The skin around Eremon’s eyes was taut, his mouth a grim line. The moment drew out, a moment where she saw him waver, something writhing in his heart she did not understand.

  Then, at last, he slowly and deliberately put her away from him. And when Samana was at arm’s length he gave her a shove, making her stumble backwards. She regained her balance and clasped her arms about herself, open-mouthed.

  ‘You are a prisoner, madam.’ Eremon’s voice was ice; there was no trace of that moment of weakness now. ‘So are you going to tell me what you know of the Roman movements, and Agricola’s plans?’

  Samana rounded on him like a cornered cat, her shock transmuting into spitting rage. ‘No, the Otherworld take me! Why would I help you – a stupid, blind, gelded stallion? Never!’

  Eremon smiled, all warrior-lord once more. ‘I didn’t think so.’

  ‘So what will you do with me, then?’ Samana’s chest heaved. ‘Torture me? Or don’t you have the balls to do that!’

  Yet her fury washed over Eremon, as he stared above her head at the rock. ‘No, I will not soil my hands that way. And I feel that it is not for me to judge you. Not me.’
>
  ‘You will send me away?’ Sudden fear extinguished Samana’s rage, for if she was not with him or Agricola there would be little chance for her. And where would he send her? Her hand crept to the leaping pulse at her throat. She had been so sure she could bend his will by mastering his body. Yet he had surprised her once more.

  Eremon strode to the edge of the tent and called the blond oaf’s name. In a moment the man appeared, his grin still intact.

  The prince gestured at Samana. ‘Bind her hands again for all to see, take her back to Gerat’s men, and send Gerat here to me to receive his orders. Oh, and send me Nectan’s last messenger.’

  Conaire cocked one fair eyebrow, his grin widening. ‘Gladly, brother.’

  Before Samana could even cry out, he swept her legs out from under her and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack. But it was as Eremon turned away from her with no glance, and no last words, putting her from his mind as if she meant nothing, that Samana snapped. With a screech, a stream of foul curses burst from her mouth, raining down on Eremon even as his brother shook with laughter and strode away from his tent.

  Shaking, Eremon sank down to his bed roll, and rested his pounding head in his hands.

  Hawen, but that was not what he had expected, none of it. Neither the rage that sprang up when he first saw Samana, though it was two years cold, nor the shocking pang of lust. He pushed his forehead into his hands until his eyeballs hurt, feeling ashamed.

  His body had betrayed him, just for that one moment. His mind had stayed firm, of course, for he would never entertain terms with a traitor such as Samana. But for a single, drawn-out breath, his body had wanted to give in to the kiss, to be possessed by Samana in a frenzy that would drown out all hurts and memories just as the fighting had done.

  For that moment, he’d yearned for the feel of a body wanting his, kissing him and murmuring soft words and stroking his flesh … and then the burning climax, followed by cool relief. Of course, there was nothing to stop him, nothing but the dictates of his own heart. For it was mention of sons that undid Samana in the end, the searing realization that it was Rhiann he needed to bury himself in, despite the hurt. Rhiann he wanted to bear his sons.

  Eremon’s chest clenched, and he took a deep breath. Rhiann would know he had betrayed her, and he could not hurt her again, or risk driving her further away. Slowly he let his breath out and raised his face, calmer. He had done the right thing; Rhiann would know he had done so.

  He picked at the chunk of deer meat on the platter, wondering about his decision over Samana’s fate. Should he actually try to extract information from her? He could threaten her with pain, but she was right: warriors did not torture women. And after that little show of theirs, he couldn’t pretend an interest in her body just to deceive her. Ah, and he didn’t have the energy for such games, anyway. The time for such things was long past, and that was why, he suspected, Agricola’s attentions to Samana might be waning. Agricola must know, as Eremon did, that it was about war now. If she didn’t know already, Samana would no doubt soon realize that her wiles had little place in such a situation.

  He sighed and tore off another chunk of flesh, thinking about what Rhiann would say when she saw the gift he was sending her. For as he had stared over Samana’s head, the impulse had come to him as a bolt of clarity. Samana had to be returned to the Sisters. It was for her fellow priestesses to judge her, woman to woman.

  Eremon prayed that Rhiann would see it the same way.

  CHAPTER 48

  Rhiann’s blood sang with a clear, hard strength this day, despite the sudden rainstorm that swept down the glen they were climbing, forcing them to put up their hoods and huddle over their horses.

  The progress north and west through Creones territory had been winding and difficult, but as the same scene from the crannog was repeated, and the calls for vengeance rang out in hall after hall, so the spirits of the young Sisters had soared. Rhiann’s instincts had been right. When the chieftains saw the priestesses’ faces and heard their tales, they had been stirred first to pity, and then to action.

  At first, though, Rhiann had deliberately avoided the Creones’ royal dun, the seat of its king. She knew that the news of their journey would travel faster than they themselves could. So the day she received an invitation from him to celebrate the longest day would remain seared in her memory for ever. From the moment of their arrival, the king regarded Rhiann with thinly veiled anger, despite the fact that his tribe’s dead Ban Cré had been his own sister. Rhiann nevertheless understood him, reasoning that he was a man woven of the same cloth as Maelchon: a woman-hater, jealous of sharing power. But a king ruled only as long as his people wanted him to. He did their will, not his own.

  And so he feasted the Sisters lavishly, and when they led the longest day celebrations with the most dramatic retelling of their story so far, Rhiann sensed in the mood of the people that the king would receive no rest until he agreed to join them. Through some careful questioning of the king’s aunts and sisters, she discovered that most of the Creones chieftains were now demanding retribution; that his people, young and old, clamoured for revenge; and that his own wife pecked at him night and day, urging him to do something.

  Of course, no mention was made of allegiance in any of the meticulously polite conversations Rhiann exchanged with him, but in the resentful cast of his eyes when he helped her to Liath’s back Rhiann sensed triumph. She bid him farewell, unable to contain the pride that glowed inside her, and which carried her forward for many days thereafter.

  We can do this for you, she said to Nerida, as her horse lurched its way over a high, windy pass.

  She’d made gifts of half the girls now, distributing them among the Creones, and they’d all gone eagerly to their new positions. Now the smaller party was wending its way further north to Decantae lands.

  ‘One of my scouts had news of the Decantae, lady,’ Nectan informed her, urging his stocky pony along the slope of the hill beside her. The horse was hock deep in heather, the glowing leaf-fall purple of the blossoms dulled by the rain and heavy cloud shrouding the sky. ‘They offered some warriors to Calgacus’s warband, and allowed him to station his scouts on their coast.’

  Rhiann turned to look at him. ‘That means they are already well-disposed towards the alliance. It will be easier to sway them, perhaps, than the Creones.’

  ‘It would not matter how difficult they were to win,’ Nectan declared. ‘You would still triumph!’

  He grinned, blinking rain from his black eyelashes. He wore a speckled seal-fur cloak but had scorned a head covering, and his hair was plastered to his forehead like tendrils of dark seaweed.

  Rhiann smiled to acknowledge the compliment. ‘It is the girls who have triumphed, and you and your men have played no small part in that, my friend.’

  Yet Rhiann’s voice faded, as Nectan suddenly tensed, peering over her shoulder back down the glen. ‘We are being followed,’ he announced, and pulled up his horse. While he sent two men to identify their pursuer, Nectan urged the remaining Sisters off the high trail and down the pine-clad slope to the stream that raced along the narrow bottom of the glen. There they waited beneath the spreading canopy of pine trees, the rain pattering down through the branches to the carpet of needles below.

  After a while they heard a high, swelling whistle, and Nectan and his men lowered their nocked bows. ‘It is safe,’ he told a relieved Rhiann.

  Yet her relief quickly turned to puzzlement when the man following them caught up, delivering to her Eremon’s message. Her husband was well, and so far had enjoyed great victories with their raiding, he reported. He had also sent her a strange gift, which was following with a band of warriors half a day behind.

  ‘And he says I will know best what to do with this gift?’ Rhiann repeated.

  The scout nodded, unslinging his bow from his shoulder. ‘He said that he hoped you would understand, lady, and not be angry.’

  ‘Angry!’ Rhiann’s brows drew together. ‘D
o you yourself know its nature?’

  ‘It is a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’ The pulse in Rhiann’s throat skipped. ‘Why would he send me a woman?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I do not know, lady. She was captured by the men that bring her. That is all I know.’

  A terrible suspicion was worming its way into Rhiann’s mind. Surely not …

  ‘Rhiann?’ It was Fola at her elbow. ‘Are you well? You’ve gone so pale.’

  Rhiann straightened and caught her breath. ‘Yes, Sister, I am well.’ She addressed the messenger again. ‘They are half a day behind, you say?’

  ‘Yes, lady. Once I’d found you, I was to go back and lead them here.’

  It was afternoon already, and although the evenings were long this time of year, they’d been hoping to reach the next dun quickly, to escape the rain. ‘Then we must wait, I suppose.’

  They were carrying waterproof hides on the horses for sleeping outdoors, and Nectan and his men now strung these up in the pine branches to give some rudimentary shelter. For the rest of the afternoon they huddled there, the damp seeping up from the ground. Rhiann sat just under the edge of the hide, on a rock slick with moss and spray from the rushing stream, while the others shivered and sang to pass the time. Nectan miraculously managed to light a fire to dry them out, and proceeded to roast some hares his men had caught the day before.

  Towards dusk they heard the whistle once more. Rhiann stood and tried calmly to face the men who came sliding down the slope from the path above, their boots skidding on the wet pine needles. There was no sign of their captive. ‘Lady.’ The leader of the men nodded awkwardly. ‘I bring you greetings from your lord.’

  ‘Thank you, and you are welcome among us. Yet where is your charge?’

  The man’s face contorted with amusement and resignation. ‘She won’t come down here. She waits on the path.’

  Anger burned Rhiann’s throat. ‘And who is she who waits on us?’