The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One

by Jules Watson

  He turned back to his own oar. This was bad. Conaire had never been afraid of anything in his life – man or beast. He met every fight, every challenge, with fierce joy and laughter. But even Conaire had never been in a boat before. Eremon thought: He doesn’t believe we’re going to make it.

  And then the next surge hit. The men held tight to their oars as he’d instructed, except young Aedan the bard, who would not let go of his precious harp. However, this wave was the greatest yet, and it felled Aedan with one blow, and tore him from his braced stance against the ribs of the hull. For one frozen moment he hung over the stern in a cascade of foam, scream lost in the wind.

  Eremon pushed Cù away and launched himself across the oar benches, heedless of the men he was trampling. Conaire was already there, his great bulk steadying Aedan’s flailing body, and together he and Eremon fought the surge until the water surrendered the bard, and he collapsed at their feet. Panting, Conaire stared blankly through his dripping fringe, eyes fixed on a place over Eremon’s shoulder. Eremon took a breath and turned.

  The mast, weakened by the waves and wind, had finally cracked, and now leaned at a crazy angle, sail and ropes flapping uselessly. Eremon let the breath out in one long hiss of despair. When would it end? Then he looked past the shattered timbers to twenty pairs of eyes, all turned to him for guidance.

  At Rori on his oar bench, scarlet hair slick with water, chin thrust out manfully despite his quivering lip.

  At grey-eyed Aedan, who cradled his harp so carefully as he retched.

  At burly Finan, who had fought battles when Eremon was a baby at the teat, and who now clung fiercely to the tiller that had been abandoned by the cowering fisherman.

  Around Eremon huddled the rest of his warband. Some were young warriors with hero-light in their eyes, desperate to follow a prince to glory; and others, veterans like Finan, were loyal friends of his dead father, King Ferdiad of Dalriada.

  Though he was only one and twenty himself, they followed Eremon because they believed he could reclaim his father’s hall from his usurping uncle, a man who wrenched it from him by sword and betraying tongue. All Eremon had managed to salvage were these twenty men and some jewels and weapons. They had barely escaped from Erin’s shores alive, in that last, surprise attack on the beach.

  And now death will claim us anyway …

  ‘We can’t keep this up!’ It was Conaire, yelling in his ear above the wind. ‘We have to hold, not row, or we’ll be food for fish by morning!’

  Eremon blinked rain away. Conaire spoke sense, but he knew that if they stopped rowing they could not keep head on to the waves, and would surely tip. Torn, he gnawed the tiny, puckered scar that worry had worn inside his lip. He must decide, and quickly.

  He reached out to grip Conaire’s shoulder, more for his own comfort. ‘We’ve fought plenty of battles, and this is no different!’ he cried. ‘I say we row!’

  Conaire’s face fell, but before he could answer, there came a hissing voice, and they both looked up to see a curling wave-crest begin its deadly descent towards them. They just caught the mast before it hit, and this time, when the spume cleared, it was Finan sprawled on his back.

  The tiller yawed, caught by a blast of wind, and as if waiting its chance, the sea grasped the boat and spun it wildly. They were wrenched side-on, and as the next wave swelled beneath them, the hull rose and tilted, until they were all staring into the black depths below. For an endless, sickening moment, the boat clung bravely to the wave shoulder, and every man aboard braced himself for the long fall, and the heart-stopping, icy splash.

  Then the wave released them, and the boat rolled down into the trough, upright again. Finan was on his feet before Eremon reached the stern, and between them they wrenched the tiller around, desperately turning the bow back into position.

  ‘Get to those oars!’ Eremon roared, chest pounding. The terror was so great that it immediately cleared the sickness, and he gave his belly no more thought. ‘Diarmuid, Fergus and Colum, keep bailing – everyone else row as if the hounds of the Otherworld are on your heels! To Alba!’

  Alba of the waves, of the moors, of the mountains. Though they had been blown north, not east, he knew his goal loomed somewhere near, just out of reach. But he could not spare any thought to what awaited them there.

  There was just the now: wind, black rain, and the hungry sea.

  Chapter 3

  ‘The funeral is at dawn in two days.’

  Rhiann felt Linnet, beside her, stiffen at the chief druid’s clipped words. The roof of the druid shrine was open to the clouded sky, and dull morning light striped the rain-soaked earth between the massive oak pillars. But the face of the chief druid – Gelert – remained in shadow.

  He had just performed a sacrifice for King Brude’s soul. Blood streaked one gnarled hand and spattered his bleached robe, and behind a half-circle of other druids, a yearling calf lay across the stone altar. At the base of each oak pillar, the wooden idols of the gods stared down with empty eyes, stained with ochre, wreathed with withered flowers. Dried petals littered the floor around their feet.

  ‘Surely we need time to prepare.’ Linnet’s tone matched the druid’s coldness.

  Gelert dipped his hands into a bronze washbowl held by a young novice. ‘All is prepared. The nobles will journey to the Isle of Deer before first light in two days. We burn him at sunrise.’

  ‘I see grief has not slowed you, Gelert.’

  The druid waved the novice away, moving forward into the sunlight. Rhiann caught her breath, as she always did when she was near Gelert. The fading tattoos on the old man’s cheeks were twisted by the wrinkles that seamed his skin. The flesh of his nose had shrunk away from the bone, and it cleft his face as a prow cuts the waves. Lank, white hair straggled to his shoulders. But it was his eyes that repulsed her, and no more so than when they were fixed on her. The lashes were nearly gone, and the irises were yellow and flat, like those of an owl.

  ‘What is the point of grief?’ Gelert shrugged. ‘I knew he was dying. I, at least, saw it. And unlike you, I have little time to indulge myself in women’s grief.’ Another novice appeared with a wolfskin cloak, and Gelert drew it around his bony shoulders. ‘Other matters require my thought.’

  Linnet folded her hands into her sleeves. ‘You mean the rumours of Roman soldiers to the south. But we all know they won’t come into Alba.’

  Rhiann started. Lost in the depths of her misery, she’d not heard any such rumour about Romans. The invaders had been on the islands of Britain for nearly forty years now, so the lore of the priestesses said. Though they advanced north at intervals, they seemed to have stopped, content to sit and bleed their new province dry. But Alba? It was too cold and rugged for them, and the tribes too fierce. This is what Rhiann had heard around the cookfires since she was a baby. Everyone knew it.

  Gelert smirked. ‘Well, I would not expect women to appreciate such matters. That is why they are safely in other hands.’

  Rhiann knew Linnet would not rise to this, for Gelert always spoke so to her aunt. His hatred for those of the sisterhood – those of the Goddess – had been a steady thread throughout Rhiann’s life. The druids drew increasingly close to their sword, thunder and sky gods, although most of them at least still paid their respects to the female face of the Source. But not Gelert. He would sweep the whole sisterhood from the face of Alba if he could. To him, Rhiannon the Great Mother, after whom Rhiann was named, was no more than the ornamental wife of a god.

  Which was even more reason for Rhiann to stop standing there, gawking as if she were a child. She was a priestess, too, and must act like one. ‘What of the symbols for the King’s journey-boat?’ she broke in, returning to the matter at hand. The Romans would remain a rumour, so she put them out of her mind.

  Gelert turned to her, and the power in his eyes was like yellow flame spilling from two oil lamps. ‘All done. While you were off delivering that fisherman’s cub, my brethren were preparing the King’s way. You
need only grace us with your presence. Unless you object?’

  She did not reply, only raised her chin.

  He smiled. ‘Ah, yes, our proud Ban Cré, our Mother of the Land. Our Goddess-incarnate, our royal priestess.’ He always managed to imbue her titles with such contempt. ‘The people would be so disappointed to see you fail your kinsman.’

  ‘Of course we’ll come,’ Linnet snapped. ‘Unlike you, we respect the dead.’

  This was uncomfortably close to a lie in Rhiann’s case, but she had tried to save her uncle’s life. Not Gelert. As soon as the King fell sick, the druid had obviously set about organizing the funeral, not even waiting for the spirit to relinquish the body.

  Rhiann considered that as they left the shrine. She did not expect to see Gelert grieving, but she had anticipated more respect.

  Linnet’s arm slipped around her waist. ‘Don’t let him upset you, daughter. His words do not come from the true Source.’

  ‘He doesn’t upset me,’ Rhiann lied.

  But the memory of those owl eyes stayed with her throughout the day.

  The bodhran drums began at dusk, rolling from the peak of Dunadd like storm-claps, shot through with the flash of bone pipes and strident horns.

  The druids were conducting their own rituals with the King’s body, for he had worshipped the sword gods, paying little heed to the Goddess, and Linnet and Rhiann would stay away until they were done. Rhiann did not like the smell of druid magic. Or perhaps it was just that it always carried the taint of Gelert’s soul, and she felt it keenly.

  She and Linnet ate by her hearth-fire while the wailing and singing swirled outside. The first rams had been slaughtered now the long dark grew near, and the mutton broth was warm in her belly, though no more than ashes on her tongue.

  That day Brica had replaced the stale rushes on the earth floor, and so at least the familiar smells of home were around her: fresh plants, herb stew and peat smoke.

  She thought about the King’s Hall, with its taint of blood and half-cooked meat, its gaudy banners, and walls bristling with spears and shields. The curved walls of her single-roomed roundhouse were softened by hangings woven by her mother, and only bunches of herbs and net bags of tubers decorated the rafters.

  On the hearth-stone lay a deerhide bag that needed mending, and by the door rested an assortment of digging sticks, stained with mud. Hanging above them were weaving shears, and knives for herb-cutting, their blades blessed in sacred wells. On a low shelf a line of tiny wooden figurines rested: statues of the Mother Goddess, ochre-stained.

  There were no hunting spears or shields propped up, no horse harness waiting for repair, no long bracae trousers spread on the loom by the door, half-woven.

  But for how much longer? A man was going to invade her home.

  As he would invade her.

  Chapter 4

  The world was still ragged with scudding cloud, and beneath a dawn sky the colour of cold ash, Eremon sat alone in the bow of the boat.

  Eremon, son of Ferdiad. Rightful King of the people of Dalriada, in Erin.

  The corner of Eremon’s mouth lifted bitterly. King of nothing, and no one. He glanced at the huddle of men in the stern. Well, King of twenty good men, at least.

  Over their heads, he squinted across the waves, now only rocking the hull with light, insistent slaps that nudged them shoreward. Another day and night after the storm, it was only clear now that they’d been swept north along the Alba coast, and not out into the trackless reaches of the Western Sea.

  The sharp tang of brine was strong on the west wind now, but in the still air before dawn, he’d caught the scent of wet pine and mud. Earth; good, solid earth.

  He idly fondled Cù’s ears, too weary and heartsick to appreciate this good fortune. Then he was struck by a new thought, and sat up a little straighter. Against all odds, they’d come through the storm and were close to land. So perhaps Manannán had sent it to test Eremon, to know that he was worthy to take back his father’s hall and rule the people of Dalriada. Maybe he could earn the blessing of the gods after all.

  Eremon’s hand stilled on Cù’s warm head, his eyes glazing over. The storm was the first test, then – so there would be others. And he would pass every last one of them, until he returned to Erin to kill his usurper uncle, Donn of the Brown Beard. He lost himself for a moment in a dream of a blazing sword, and the expression on his uncle’s face when it bit him through the neck.

  ‘Wake up!’ Conaire waved a hand before Eremon’s eyes, and squatted down, passing over a hunk of damp bread. Cù thumped his tail on the deck and raised his head for a sniff, then flopped back in exhaustion.

  Eremon patted him, eyeing the crumbling bread with sudden, ravening hunger. After all, there had been nothing in his stomach for two days now. He tore off a chunk and chewed in silence.

  ‘So we are near land after all,’ Conaire offered. He paused. ‘You were right about the oars.’

  Eremon snorted, picking barley grit from his teeth. The memories of the storm were now just a hazy blur of rain, wind, and terror. He knew they had come close to passing over to the Otherworld, and even though the druids said this was nothing to fear, he’d realized just how much his body wanted to stay right here. Trust Conaire to forget it all so quickly.

  Then Eremon cast another glance at his men, chewing their bread. They were worn and wet, with new bruises and oar blisters. And yet, they’d somehow made it through the storm alive. He should be thankful, and leave it at that. He cocked his head at Conaire. ‘You admit that I’m right, do you, brother? Did the mast catch your head as it fell?’

  Conaire grinned in answer, and stretched his long legs out along the rough-hewn planks.

  The two men were an unlikely pair. Conaire had been a giant even as a babe, with hair that shone like ripe barley, and the wide, blue eyes of his people. Next to him, Eremon always felt too dark and lean. His own eyes were a shifting sea-green – the legacy of his Welsh mother, along with his hair, the deep brown of a mink’s pelt. Both had marked him as different when he didn’t want to be.

  As a boy, Conaire had raced around in a storm of yelling and running and laughing. That exuberance did not come easily to Eremon, and less so when he realized he was a prince, and must learn how to be a king. Conaire’s sire was only a cattle-lord, and Conaire could fulfil his expectations easily. Be as quick to fight as to jest. Hold a man’s fill of ale and boar. Oh, and bed a woman as soon as physically able, which in Conaire’s case was before his eleventh birthday.

  But Conaire had a sense his bluff father would never have appreciated – he always knew when Eremon was brooding. So now he brushed the crumbs from his thighs and clapped Eremon on the back. ‘What say we get some earth under our feet then, brother? My balls are turning bluer by the day, I swear!’

  The thump set Eremon choking, and it took some moments of coughing and laughing before he could reply, by which time the dark hurt of betrayal and home had fled. Donn and revenge could wait a little while; there were more pressing issues to take care of first.

  ‘Now that you’ve woken me up,’ Eremon cleared his throat, ‘we need to find out where we are.’

  ‘Right.’ Conaire leaped to the oar benches, and in three hops was standing over the fisherman, who was gnawing half-heartedly at a hunk of bread.

  Eremon watched the ease with which his brother moved, despite his great bulk. Sometimes, just sometimes, he longed to be like Conaire: to follow some other man’s orders, to ride into battle behind someone else’s flying banner, giving no thought to strategy, just to fighting. Ah, to fight and become lost in blood and heat and the glorious surrender it gave …

  He took a breath. That was not for him, especially not now. He must be a leader from the moment they landed in Alba. A prince, not – Hawen forbid – an exile.

  He followed Conaire, pausing to check on Aedan and Rori as he passed. Rori was thin and pale, his freckles standing out like spots of blood on his white cheeks. Aedan was drawn and bruised, and his
grey eyes were shadowed. Yet both youths straightened bravely when their prince touched their shoulders.

  Then Eremon was staring down at the mottled top of the fisherman’s head, which was burned the deep colour of skin that lived in the sun. Conaire was standing over him with hands on hips; plainly, he’d got nowhere.

  ‘Where are we?’ Eremon demanded.

  The fisherman squinted up at him sourly.

  ‘Answer the prince, man!’ Conaire growled.

  The other dropped his gaze. ‘Aye, it smells like Alba’s air, all right. But not the Misty Isle, we’re north of that. Where, though, only Manannán knows.’

  Eremon met Conaire’s eyes. They must go ashore sometime soon, for they were running out of water. Chances were that they’d arrive on an island of poor fishing folk, anyway. This would suit him well, for they could rest and get their strength back before seeking out the local chieftain.

  ‘We’ll row this coast until we find a safe landing; somewhere with few people. We can hold out another day or so.’ Eremon then addressed the fisherman. ‘And as I promised, I’ll find you a boat to return you to Erin.’

  ‘Good!’ the man spat through rotting teeth. ‘Savages, the Albans are. You’ll probably all be eaten alive come night—’ He was silenced by the crunch of Conaire’s great hand on his shoulder, and he gulped and slipped into more respectful silence.

  No matter who they first met, Eremon knew they must make a show of strength. News travelled fast among the islands, and the more fear and awe they could inspire at the outset, the better. The tale would grow in the telling, and by the time it reached the local ruler’s ears he would think twice about attacking them.

  Or so Eremon hoped.

  At the very least, they should not look like the sorry pack of refugees that confronted him now. So as they rowed towards the distant coastline, the men took it in turns to clean their weapons and faces, and comb and braid their hair. Shields were polished and tied in lines down the flanks of the boat, and spear-tips, helmets and mail shirts were burnished.