by Jules Watson
She saw the tip of a scabbard and the gaudy check of the warrior’s trousers. She saw his broad fist, curled around his spear. But she could not bring herself to raise her face and see his eyes, his wildness.
However, after nearly an hour of trudging along the riverbank, Cian silent behind her, something did at last draw Minna’s head up, and she stopped then and could not go on.
Ahead rose a crag. It loomed up alone from the marsh, circled by an arm of the river. The teeth of rocks showed between houses clustered on its slopes, and on the crest sat an enormous roundhouse swathed in cooksmoke, its roof sweeping the ground. A village sprawled around the base of the crag, on the river meadow.
Minna’s eyes desperately darted back and forth, as if the shapes might make sense to her. But there were no great town walls here, only rough palisades of timber stakes, one around the village and one circling the crag. There were no straight roofs, marble temples or colonnades, just squat round walls and thatch. It seemed squalid, awash with mud and smoke.
One of Jared’s men cursed her, prodding her forward, and her legs wobbled back into life.
As they came closer, the stink of dung and smoke enveloped them. People milled about the gates chattering, saddling horses, hefting barrels into carts. Warriors with shining spears paced the timber walls above.
At that point, Minna ducked her head and squeezed her eyes almost shut. And so, as she entered the fort of Dunadd in Alba, she beheld only one thing: her own shoes, splashed with mud, the bare skin above crusted with salt.
The gates were flanked by two timber towers. Inside, she was jostled in a crowd, and startled by a dog thrusting its wet nose under her skirt. Houses, barns and stables were jumbled close together, the wood running with damp. The babbling voices beat on her temples.
The path curved higher to climb the crag, and the crowds thinned. Soon Jared was dragging them up tumbled stone steps so steep that Minna had to clamber on hands and knees. She glanced up, then wished she had not. Rocks reared up from the higher slopes like fangs, forming buttresses above the narrow path.
Through a gap in the wall of rock, capped by another immense gate, they emerged on to the upper tier of the fort. Here the houses were larger, decorated with lurid banners, painted walls and carved doors, their colours glowing through the drizzle.
Catching her breath, Minna plucked at the slave-ring and stumbled backwards into the path of two Alban warriors. Their long, ruddy hair was braided with gold thread, and moustaches drooped over shaven chins. Bronze rings and brooches adorned shoulders, forearms and fingers. But it was their fearless, bold eyes that struck Minna like a blow. One said something about her and they both laughed as they went through the gate, leaving her reeling.
‘Oi! You two, get over here!’
She pulled Cian towards Jared, as the trader suddenly stiffened and bowed to someone behind them. Minna and Cian both turned, dazed.
A woman was gliding down the rocky path in a hooded cloak. A wisp of grey hair showed from the hood, but she was unbowed by age, her stride proud. Jared greeted her deferentially with the name ‘Brónach’ and some other address.
The imposing woman put back her hood. Beneath coiled braids her flesh was pared back over prominent bones, and slate-grey eyes gazed down an eagle nose. Her bony fingers shone with rings of jet and amber.
Until this moment, Minna had been too stricken to take note of the language spoken around her. Jared and his men used Latin, but she realized now that the flow had entirely changed to a musical cascade of barbarian speech – and she had not noticed.
Stunned, Minna was caught by the old woman’s commanding voice. Somehow, she sensed a meaning: the boat was late. She tensed. The woman spoke a little like Mamo, that must be it. Her grandmother used the Parisii dialect when they were alone, and here the rhythms were similar. Surely she could not … But she did. It was like a tune she had been taught as a child and now dimly remembered.
The old lady turned to inspect them. Her keen eyes swiftly dismissed Cian before resting on Minna. As the woman’s nostrils flared, Minna had the strangest sensation of her belly being turned inside out. She thought she might be sick again and her hand went to her mouth.
At the point it became unbearable, someone else cried out, and Brónach swung around, releasing her.
Coughing, Minna squinted up from watering eyes. A blonde woman of middling age was prancing down the path, accompanied by a gaggle of younger ladies, all brightly dressed. The noblewoman halted in a flutter of silks, exclaiming in accented Latin, ‘You are late, trader Jared. So have you brought me some fine jewels this time, hmm? Falemian wine? Iberian olives?’
At the shock of the Roman speech in this barbarian land Minna glanced at Cian, but he was staring straight ahead, his face white as bone.
Jared bowed. ‘No, my queen. But I have something better – two fine, young slaves from the Wall.’ He unfurled one arm.
A queen? Minna thought, struggling to take it in. The woman’s small mouth pursed, disappointed.
It was then that Cian did something unexpected. Raising his chin, he blurted in Latin, ‘The girl is from Eboracum, mistress. She tutored the children of noble Romans. She is highly educated.’
Jared frowned, but the queen’s attention had already focused on Minna.
‘The sons of a councillor,’ Cian continued desperately.
The queen stepped up. One of her hairpins was hung with tiny golden balls, and they chimed as she tilted her head. A heavy perfume wafted around her.
Minna saw in a glance that cosmetics and jewels gave her an aura of beauty at a distance that faded somewhat up close. Those buttery curls were bleached with urine, the plump cheeks stained with berry juice. Her skin had been whitened with flour, but the powder had caught in the petulant wrinkle between her brows. ‘Is this true?’ she demanded. ‘Can you teach Roman writing and history and poetry?’
The image of Nikomedes was there before Minna, gazing sternly at her, and she felt compelled to reply that she knew nothing about teaching. But Cian’s eyes were boring into her, twisting her tongue back on itself. In that pause a messenger that Jared had sent scurrying off returned. With him was a young warrior, more gilded than all the rest.
The warrior was clean-shaven but almost as bejewelled as the queen, his golden hair stiffened into a spiked mane that fell down his back. Rings shone on every limb as he sauntered up, crossed his arms and surveyed Minna and Cian.
The queen glanced at him and snapped, and it came to Minna as a tantalizing flash: she had said his name – Ruarc – and told him to go away.
The warrior answered smoothly with a little bow, and the queen said, ‘Tsk,’ and began preening. But this Ruarc’s eyes, a darker shade of his green tunic, slid languidly over Minna now and it was that look which jolted her instincts back to life. Jared had dispatched a message to this man particularly, as soon as they entered the gate, a warrior who reeked of boredom and vanity. She remembered the argument on the ship: Those savages at Dunadd pay good money, but only for unmarked flesh, and if she’s a maid I want her to stay that way. Jared intended to sell her for his bed.
Instantly she straightened, and her eyes swept up to the queen with a deference honed over years with Mistress Flavia. ‘I did teach, domina,’ she agreed humbly.
The queen’s eyes flared with pleasure at the noble address.
‘I had charge of my master’s two boys at a great villa in the south. I taught them grammar, poetry and history.’ The lie tainted her tongue, but Minna made herself swallow it.
‘Ah,’ the queen breathed, clasping her plump hands together, eyes bright with a mysterious triumph. ‘Quite a find then, aren’t you? Such a fine surprise, and just what Garvan needs. All right, you will be mine, then – how dreadfully amusing.’
With that cryptic comment she waved over the lady called Brónach, murmured instructions and then continued on down towards the carved gate, her attendants fluttering behind her.
Brónach glanced at Minna with
more interest now, her gaze sharp as a stone barb, and drew Jared aside to negotiate. In the meantime the young warrior stepped up. Minna stiffened as he gripped her chin and tilted her face, turning it so the gusts of fitful drizzle spattered her cheeks and eyelids. The glare of the clouds blinded her, but she forced herself to remain still, refusing to meet his eyes. A lifeline had been thrown and she must hold tight to it.
With a regretful sigh, the warrior turned to Cian and hammered out a few terse words in the barbarian speech. Cian replied in kind. Minna stared at him.
When the warrior went to join Jared’s negotiations, Cian ran his fingers through his black hair, mumbling, ‘I am to be the golden god’s new horse-boy. So you’ll be in the hall up here, and I’ll be down in that stinking village – though at least I’ll sleep in the stables, with the horses.’
She was still reeling. ‘But how could you talk to them?’
He shrugged, his lashes sweeping down. ‘I’ve travelled north of the Wall many times, you know that.’
She wondered about it, went to touch his slumped shoulder and then pulled back. ‘Thank you for speaking up for me.’
His head whipped up, the line of his mouth white with strain. ‘Stop it, Minna! Stop trying to make this better when it’s all my … ’ At her stricken expression he struggled to soften his voice. ‘I wanted the money I was owed as much as you wanted your brother, and I should have been smarter, quicker.’ His eyes burned into her. ‘Look, Tiger, we’ve been tossed into the ocean now, and all we can do is swim. Swim as hard as you can until I can get us out of here.’
Though it sat loosely, the slave-ring still strangled her. ‘Swim,’ she agreed hoarsely.
The bright warrior came and led his new horse-boy away.
Chapter 9
‘Come,’ the Lady Brónach said, mustering up that distasteful Latin she had to use with the traders. She turned on her heel, the slave-girl hurrying to keep up.
She strode past the houses of the nobles to her own dwelling on the cliff-edge, where the crag fell away to the marsh. Her home was so much more restful on the eye, with plain walls devoid of those boastful carvings and paintings. With the unimpeded view to the southern hills, Brónach could easily pretend she lived entirely alone.
Inside, she drew her robes out and sank into her rush chair by the hearth. Around the walls of the roundhouse, bed-boxes were neatly separated by carved screens, and the piles of baskets, pots and clay crocks on her workbench were orderly. All was calm on the eye, as she liked it. And now this.
She stared at the girl, tapping her fingers on the chair. Trust Maeve to take her on a whim and then leave her to Brónach to manage. But then, to her, what else have I to do? A Roman-born queen could never know what secrets ran in the female royal blood of Dalriada.
In the sputtering glow of a seal-oil lamp, the startling hue of the girl’s eyes blended into her dark hair. ‘Sit.’ Brónach pointed an imperious finger at a bench. The girl hesitated, peering up at the bunches of dried herbs, twigs and bark that covered Brónach’s rafters before gingerly perching on the edge. She was afraid, which was expected, but Brónach had sensed something more sinewy in her spirit when she probed her heart outside. She needed to know more about that; to be sure of someone who, slave or not, was to tutor royal children.
Brónach reached for a box behind her chair, clutched leaves and sprinkled them in a pot over the fire. Steam rose in an acrid cloud. The slave coughed, glancing at Brónach. She tried to block the vapour, then choked and drew it all the way in. Brónach watched her from hooded eyes, stirring the pot one way and then the other, humming under her breath. After a time the heavy air made the girl’s eyes flicker.
Brónach abruptly sat back. ‘You are of the old blood,’ she said in Dalriadan.
At first the girl did not realize she’d spoken. Then she blinked and coughed. ‘Lady?’ she replied in Latin. ‘My … blood?’
Ah. She didn’t realize that Brónach had spoken the local language, and she had answered the question. Odd. Suspicious, perhaps. Could she be a Pict spy, sent here in some treachery? She certainly had the dark hair. Pict women were only tattooed on belly and breasts, so unless she stripped her off right here, Brónach couldn’t know for sure. There were, however, other ways.
Brónach reverted to Latin. ‘Your Roman blood, it runs less strong than the other.’ She had smelled it at once. The queen had the mingling, too – she was a princess of the Carvetii tribe near the Wall – but in Maeve the traces of old blood had been stamped out by her family’s avarice and aping of Roman ways.
Yes,’ the girl whispered, eyes wide. ‘My Mamo was part Parisii. From Eboracum.’
Ha! Brónach smiled. Her senses weren’t completely dulled by age, then. She exhaled and closed her eyes, opened the spirit-eye on her brow. She felt the fear churning inside the girl and tried to probe beyond it, though it took all her effort. She wanted pictures, memories, thoughts. Sweat was beading her lip when she opened her eyes at last, frustrated. All that came was a vague feeling. ‘I do not think you would harm a child,’ she said heavily.
‘Harm a child!’ the girl repeated indignantly.
‘Not even the son of a barbarian king?’
The girl’s face was flushed by steam. ‘No … I would never …’
Brónach nodded, covered the pot and got up to pull back the thick door-hide over its peg. A salty breeze rushed in, blowing the herbs away. She sighed as she sat. Every year the meagre glimpses of sight were harder to gain, when they should be easier. With age. With wisdom. She crushed that sharp pain. ‘And the Latin teaching? Is that true also?’
The slave nodded, shivering. Then the girl surprised her, pointing at the rafters. ‘My Mamo also taught me much of herb-lore,’ she said, visibly firming her mouth. ‘I looked after the children when they took sick. I nursed my Mamo …’ She trailed off.
Brónach’s brows arched. This odd one got more interesting by the moment. Her face wasn’t sly or stupid like most slaves, but strongly drawn and intelligent. Brónach folded her hands in her sleeves, resting her head back. ‘Then we share something. There are many healers in my royal line. My ancestress lived here in another house long ago, and she was a queen and healer both.’
Silence fell. After a moment, something alert in Brónach wondered why this girl, as a stranger, a foreigner, did not grate against the harmony of the room. Instead, she was staring at the niche beside Brónach’s door that held the goddess figurines. There were a clutch of them: Rhiannon the Great Mother; Brigid the healer; Ceridwen the crone, birth and death goddess; Andraste of war; Flidhais of the woods. Each was different, the pale clay yellowed with age, their feet stained with ochre and the residues of milk and split grain.
There was a light in the girl’s eyes as she gazed at them that discomfited Brónach. Abruptly she rose. ‘Come. You will not sleep here, but in the king’s hall. I will show you.’ She watched grimly as the slave’s face fell.
King Cahir and Queen Maeve of Dalriada – the Alban kingdom of which Dunadd was the seat – had a son of thirteen and two daughters, one seven and one five, Brónach explained. Minna would teach Latin grammar, writing and history to them all – they already spoke the basic language because of their mother. The girls would be Minna’s charge at all other times.
As Brónach strode along dispensing these scraps of information, Minna kept her eyes down, trying not to slip in the mud. The wind blew across the exposed crag, passing through her thin dress.
The old woman glanced at her. ‘You are very lucky, slave-girl. The children had a nurse, but she died. Only the queen and a few Roman-loving nobles keep slaves here, let alone learned ones. It seems your timing was providential.’
‘Died?’
‘Died with child.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘It would not do for that to happen again,’ she said pointedly. ‘It is expensive for the queen and inconvenient for me.’
Mouth dry, Minna clambered up an even steeper set of steps, under the shadow of another arched gate
, watching her feet, before she and Brónach emerged on the wind-blown crest of the crag.
The view of the marsh and hills spread in every direction, but Minna’s attention was claimed by the enormous roundhouse which crowned the entire fort and which she had seen as she trudged along the riverbank. This timber hall of rough wattle-and-daub could not be compared to the elegant, columned forum at Eboracum, but its vast size and girth bellowed its majesty and power as it towered over the houses and the village below. The wind buffeted it on all sides, plucking at the weighted thatch roof, and still it stood there, immovable, impassive. A red and white banner streamed from its peak in the high wind.
Minna’s new-found courage quailed.
A crescent of spears were planted before the double oak doors, each capped by a streamer of bristly hair. ‘Boar crests,’ Brónach remarked briskly. ‘The king’s totem.’ Dropping her eyes, Minna hurried after her, past grotesquely leering heads carved into the door-posts.
On the threshold, they crossed from daylight into an immense smoky cavern. Two circles of oak posts held up the soaring roof, and a roaring fire sat in the centre. Brónach strode past servants stirring cauldrons, chopping roots and kneading bread. All paused to bow their heads to her.
Minna gained an impression of luxurious wall hangings and floor cushions, and shields and spears lining the walls, before Brónach led her up a set of wooden stairs.
A gallery ran around inside the thatch roof and tucked under the eaves were beds separated by wicker screens. The hole in the upper floor opened to the hall below, flooding the eaves with light and the heat of the hearthfire.
‘The king’s bed,’ Brónach directed as she walked, waving a hand. Minna was rushed past, unable to see clearly. ‘The queen’s bed-place is down there at the end.’ Meanwhile, Brónach had stopped at another bed, which was almost as wide as the gallery and was covered with blankets and pelts, flanked by chests strewn with dresses and shoes. The woollen face of a little doll peeped out from the pillows.