The Dawn Stag: Book Two of the Dalriada Trilogy

by Jules Watson

  With the proper resources, at last, I anticipate a great increase in the glory of your name,

  Your respectful son-in-law,

  Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  Agricola read the letter through once more, and again, then crumpled it on his knee, staring into the brazier.

  When it became apparent that he was overcome with some emotion, and was not going to speak, the messenger, ‘poor Marcus’ of Tacitus’s letter, rose to his feet. Drawing his wet cloak from his shoulders, trying to stand straight, he said, ‘Sir, I have another message for you, for our ship put in at Eboracum. I understand you are awaiting some news from there.’

  Agricola’s head immediately jerked up, and he fixed the man with sharp, eager eyes. ‘Yes?’ he barked.

  Marcus swept his head down gracefully, using the movement to surreptitiously wipe his nose once more on his sleeve. ‘I have the pleasure of informing you that early in the winter your wife was delivered of a son. I am to convey to you that she and he are in good health.’

  Instantly, Agricola was on his feet, the scroll falling unheeded to the ground. Samana shot him a black look, but he cared nothing for that. It was as if the coals of the brazier were filling his own breast with enervating warmth, and suddenly he knew that the darkness of the long winter was behind him.

  This year.

  The gods had smiled on him, at last, setting their glorious hands over his head, blessing him with luck and joy. They had shown him the fates, they had given him the signs. Five thousand men returned to him, after such a wait. And a healthy son, born of his house, after so many years of stillbirths.

  Now, this year, Agricola knew he would find resolution. And the Albans would find death.

  None of the women close to Rhiann took notice that, in the first weeks after the longest night, she did not unpack any of the bundles of dried moss from the storage chest on her shelf.

  Caitlin’s moon bleeding had not yet returned, as she was still feeding Gabran, and Linnet’s came no more. Eithne and Rhiann’s cycles had once waxed and waned together, yet with Rhiann’s absence over sunseason this pattern had been disrupted. Fola, too, followed her own rhythm.

  If anyone thought of it, Rhiann knew that they would assume it was the aftermath of the illness, along with the sudden tiredness which forced her to bed every afternoon. Indeed, Linnet began to peer at her sharply once more, feeling her head, and, to Rhiann’s mortification, even went so far as to send some stern healer’s words Eremon’s way, for their eager nights abruptly slowed into bouts of more tender affection.

  Indeed, Rhiann mused if a good sleep was all she needed. Yet somehow, she knew it was more than that, especially when she remembered the other light dancing around her, in the explosive fire of the longest night.

  Though the festival of Imbolc was nearly upon them, the weather was still too unpredictable for long gathering expeditions, and Rhiann had little chance for time alone. Yet every now and then, a few bright hours seeped between the clouds which swept across the crag. Then, Rhiann would take Liath and plough through the snow sludge and bare, black woods to the eastern spring above Dunadd, and kneel there on a deer-hide by the frozen fringes of the water.

  What she asked then was not something of the Goddess, but something of herself.

  Why, she wondered, with Eremon’s seed being spent inside her every night, had she refrained from brewing the womb herbs? It could have been from simple fear of Eremon’s reaction, but after what they shared in the Otherworld, she didn’t think she feared that severing any more.

  Sitting there by the spring in the feeble sunlight, among the frosted branches of rowan, Rhiann touched her belly with awe, unable to name even to herself why she had let this be. The apprehension about how it might affect her position had not changed, nor the questionable wisdom of bringing forth a child at this unstable time.

  And yet … Rhiann had travelled far to reach Eremon, and she found she could not rid herself of a part of him that had taken root in her. It would be a denial of all they had shared, the value of his pain and hers. It would be sacrilege, not because of the Goddess, or Linnet or Caitlin, or even Eremon, but because of Rhiann herself and the promise she had made, to love him in Thisworld and keep no part of her heart back.

  Rhiann now spread her hands fully over her belly, each finger glowing in the weak sunlight. The air was still so cold it felt like a burning on her skin. ‘Hello,’ she whispered, hardly daring to breathe it aloud. And under her fingers, something trembled and was woken, and she knew it was not the child, for it was too early for that. No, it was something in her that had woken, something that quivered with new life, as tiny and fresh as the child itself.

  Mother. Me.

  A part of her that had only been sleeping, perhaps; sleeping like the soul of the child had slept in the Otherworld, waiting for her call.

  Despite the late thaw, Imbolc dawned clear. The stream of mare’s milk fell straight into the river; a column of polished crystal, gleaming in the sunlight.

  This was Rhiann’s first official duty since her illness, for Linnet had led the longest night rites to call back the sun with drum and voice. Now as Rhiann leaned out over the water, tilting the fluted bronze jug, she had the uncomfortable sensation that all the keen eyes of the women were fixed on her belly under the wool dress. With her free hand, Rhiann clutched the folds of her sheepskin cloak closer around her, telling herself she was imagining the sharp edge to their collective gaze.

  No one knew. No one could know, so early. Yet she was glad when the river rite was over, and the women all trooped to Aldera’s house for hot mead and gossip.

  Aldera had prepared them a special treat this day, slaughtering an old ewe that had been kept alive on dried grass all through the long dark. The meat was roasting over her fire-spit as they all took their places on the benches and chairs, the scent of fat and flesh a thick, greasy mist above the hearth.

  It was as the women chatted about their concerns – who was breeding, who was ill, who was lying with men other than their husbands – that Rhiann began to notice the prickling at the base of her spine. She shifted in her seat, narrowing her eyes at the embroidery in her lap. She was embellishing a tunic for Gabran, as he was growing at an increasing pace, and she was just finishing the intricate curls of the hound chasing a boar around the hem.

  Then Aldera stood to baste the ewe with fat from the drippings tray, and a rich surge of meat scent flooded Rhiann’s nostrils. She realized she was breaking out in a fine sweat across her forehead and, frowning, she closed her eyes and lowered her face so her hair swung forward to cover it. Yet the prickle in her spine soon swelled into robust life, curling tentacles around into her belly, and she bit down on her lip and swallowed, her tongue thick and slimy in her mouth.

  She glanced up to see Linnet looking at her appraisingly, and Rhiann smiled and sat straighter, struggling to contain the turning of her stomach. Yet it was so hot and close, the air heavy with the smells of flesh and sweat and someone’s cloying, imported perfume.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Abruptly, Rhiann stood, her throat moving. ‘Aldera, I left a brew simmering that I must check.’

  That was all she could get out, and ignoring Fola’s sharp glance of concern, she bolted for the door. Outside, the glitter of sun on the icy cobbles was a welcome distraction, as Rhiann ducked around the back of Aldera’s house, past the pig pen, and bent over. Yet her buttocks against the mud wall and the blast of cold air steadied her almost immediately, sweeping away the heavy richness of the fatty meat, and her nausea ebbed.

  Thankful that she’d escaped vomiting before every noblewoman in the dun, Rhiann straightened. Yet as she did, her eye fell on the remains of the drain Didius had constructed for Bran so long ago, now filled in with the season’s mud and animal bones. And at the thought of him, and his people, Rhiann’s hand crept across her belly. What was she thinking, to bring a child into the world at this time? It was wrong, it was all wrong.

  ‘The air was stifling, w
as it not?’ Linnet’s hands were folded into her blue cloak, her deep-set eyes floating around the yard with apparent interest, despite the fact it held only a scattering of rusting, half-finished cart wheels and ploughs, all protruding from the snow.

  Rhiann blew out her breath. ‘Yes, I find I am not as recovered as I’d like to think.’ She squinted down at her boots, the soles wet with melting frost.

  ‘Well.’ Gently, Linnet took her arm. ‘These things take time, as we both know.’ With a soft pressure, she urged Rhiann up the main path through the village, as Rhiann tried to think of some better excuse for her abrupt departure. And another part of her was wondering, as she did, why she shied away from telling Linnet her suspicions then and there.

  Yet at the door of Rhiann’s house, Linnet took her by both arms and looked deep into her eyes. ‘In fact, child, take all the time you need. There is no rush, after all.’

  Rhiann watched Linnet glide away, realizing that her aunt was giving her the time to come to some understanding of her own feelings. And so inside her house, Rhiann stood unmoving before her fire, her gaze lost in its flickering glow, wondering just when these feelings would become clear to her.

  Traders were not expected so early in the year, but just before the moon turned again, two visitors did find their way to Dunadd out of the frosted reaches of the northern mountains.

  Rhiann was standing beneath the gatehouse, peering dolefully out at sheets of rain which were marching grimly down from the valley of the ancestors. She stared at the two warriors as they dismounted in the shelter of the gatetower, struggling out from under long skin riding capes that covered them from head to toe, and realized with a shock that she knew them. One was the Creones messenger she had greeted the preceding leaf-fall on her return to Dunadd, when Eremon was in the east. He had proven to be a more amiable warrior than his king, and now he nodded respectfully as he recognized Rhiann.

  ‘Lady,’ he said by way of greeting, brushing drips from his moustache and shaking his hair so the rain ran from the ends of his braids.

  It was common courtesy to warm and feed such arrivals before seeking their news, but Rhiann could not stay silent, not when she had watched Eremon being eaten away by frustration these past moons. She cleared her throat. ‘It takes courage to come so far in such a season.’

  The other man, the Boresti, paid Rhiann little attention, his dark eyes darting to the Epidii warriors who warmed their hands before a fire under the eaves of a nearby storehouse. But the Creones warrior turned to Rhiann with a grin, and she saw then he was much younger than she’d first thought. He leaned close to her, with a swift glance over his shoulder. ‘My lord king has enjoyed no peace this long dark, for the fire that you lit, lady, shows no signs of dying. When I returned with news of your war leader’s victory, defying the Romans before your very gates, the frenzy of our swords and shields was deafening – like a storm breaking over the mountains!’

  Another frustrated bard, Rhiann noted. ‘Yet when you left, my lord was gravely ill,’ she replied. The words brought an echo of panic, even now, and a sudden suspicion: that the Creones king might be seeking to confirm a weakness among the Epidii. ‘So I am gratified to see such support still burning among the Creones,’ she added carefully.

  ‘I understand.’ The messenger spoke just as carefully. ‘Yet that is why we have come. If he is still your war leader, then we still wish to give him our allegiance.’

  Rhiann blinked, her mittened hands over her mouth. She waited for the rush of joy … this was what she had worked for … travelled all that way for … but it was not forthcoming. All she felt was a recurring lurch of sickness. Abruptly she clasped her belly as if she could keep the contents of her stomach down there by will alone.

  ‘Lady?’ The warrior ducked his head, peering at her in the dim shadows of the gatetower, and Rhiann forced a shaky smile, raising her face.

  ‘Then your journey was not wasted,’ she informed him clearly, ‘for if you come with me, my lord will greet you himself in the King’s Hall.’

  At these words, the sleek, wet head of the Boresti messenger also swung around, and Rhiann led the way up the path through the rain, the two men behind her. Yet she found her steps were heavy in the mud, a weight echoed strangely in her heart.

  That night, Eremon gave an intimate feast to seal the new bond between the tribes. Determined to be the gracious hostess, Rhiann nevertheless found her stomach turned yet again, this time by the copious stench of male sweat and ale fumes. Poor Aedan only got halfway through a new lay he had composed, when his song was swept aside by a shout from an increasingly drunk crowd around a fidchell game, and he put away his harp and went off to sulk somewhere else. Taking her cue from him, Rhiann caught Caitlin’s eye, and they took Gabran to join Fola and Eithne at Rhiann’s house.

  Soon, Rhiann found herself aching for bed, so tired, in fact, that she was almost glad that she had it to herself, for she was sure Eremon would stay with his men in the Hall.

  Yet deep in the night he crept in beside her, his nose chilled from the night air, his hands warm as they roused her from sleep into desire. Without pausing to undress, he slid on top of her, the legs of his trousers rough against her thighs, his ale-soaked murmurs drawing forth not tenderness, but an urgency that was just as sweet. Blinking sleep away, Rhiann clung to him as he entered her, her nose buried in his smoky tunic.

  Later, as Eremon fell down into a solid sleep, Rhiann lay under his weight, stroking his thick hair back from his temples in the dark. She knew what these messengers meant to him, and yet her own feelings were mixed. If the other tribes joined Eremon, war was a surety. And if they did not, the Romans would roll over them like a stormcloud. Was there another way? An alliance was what Eremon wanted, but perhaps the whisper of the child had lent Rhiann a new acuteness of sense, for the sickness in her belly, the dread, told her that an alliance would also take them to a place from which there would be no return.

  A place where this man of hers, whose heart now beat in her own breast, would face the greatest danger of his life.

  It was a terrible time to be breeding, as she had always known it would be.

  CHAPTER 59

  Goddess Mother of All!’ Caitlin’s frustration released itself in a barrage of white-fletched arrows that sang through empty air, spurning the dead oak tree for which she was aiming.

  ‘Look!’ she squeaked, brandishing her bow angrily at Rhiann and Linnet, who were seated on hides on the slopes of the ancestor valley, where the low morning sun warmed the turf to a brilliant green. ‘I am useless now,’ Caitlin grumbled. ‘Worse than useless, in fact! Like a child with its first bow.’ She disappeared behind the tree and began plucking wayward arrows from the undergrowth, muttering to herself.

  ‘Such impatience,’ Linnet murmured, cutting another slice of cheese with her herb-knife. ‘I think she shares that with you.’

  ‘I can hardly defend myself on that point,’ Rhiann agreed.

  By careful study of stars and sun, the druids marked the leaf-bud solstice – when day and night were of equal length – by burning offerings in the stone circle at the end of the ancestor valley. Declan and his brothers had concluded their rites to the sky gods at dawn, and now Linnet and Rhiann would shortly make another offering to the ancestor priestesses at the base of the stones. Since Gelert’s departure, the dealings between druid and priestess were proceeding with a lot more ease and respect, at least.

  Linnet had also asked Caitlin to come this day without Gabran, and now she seemed in no hurry to begin the rite, taking a leisurely meal on the flat ground outside the lichen-stained stones. At the top of the slope the hazels and oaks reared wet and nearly bare, though the hazel catkins misted the copse with a veil of green.

  Another curse floated from behind the stump, and an arrow sailed across the clearing into the shadows of a hawthorn thicket beyond, its branches clouded with the first blossom.

  Momentarily distracted, Rhiann took the cheese and bannock from Linnet an
d bit into it, watching her aunt out of the corner of her eye. Ever since arriving at the circle, Linnet had been speaking in a most uncharacteristic way, a brittle chatter that set Rhiann’s teeth on edge. Now Linnet was staring down at the deer-hide, one fingernail tapping the hardened leather of a small mead flask.

  Rhiann swallowed, the cheese and bread a hard lump in her throat. She only had one thing to say, yet the words kept sticking there, for somehow speaking them aloud made them real. A part of her still felt that the babe was a dream, she supposed. Voicing her news meant that a door would close behind her: a time when it was her secret alone. Hers and the child’s.

  Furtively, Rhiann leaned back on one hand and peered down at her flat belly. The babe itself was still a vague concept to her. She stared harder, half expecting the child to sit up and make itself known. Something was in there, she told herself again. No, someone. At that thought, a thrill of mingled terror and wonder shot up Rhiann’s spine. A person was in there, not an idea, a person closer to Rhiann than anyone had ever been. And she was giving that person life.

  The oak tree let out a satisfied clunk. A sigh of pleasure followed.

  Raising her gaze, Rhiann saw that Linnet’s eyes were now fixed on her, expectant. ‘Never have a priestess for an aunt.’ Rhiann forced a smile, but Linnet’s mouth was pained, uncertain, and Rhiann’s attempt at flippancy trailed away.

  It was then that Rhiann understood that this babe was not just hers after all. This child was for her kin, as much as for Eremon, and would be loved by them all. It was all the more precious because of those they had lost – Rhiann’s mother and father, her foster-family, the Sisters.

  Linnet, who had lived with so much loss, was waiting for the gift Rhiann could give her.