by Jules Watson
‘Fa is coming home!’ Orla shrieked, and hurried inside to tell Finola.
The warriors that had accompanied Minna leaped up the stairs with no glance for her, their faces grim.
Minna’s feet, however, were rooted to the spot. For above the gates a banner hung, scarlet and red. She knew it must have been there before, but the only time she had entered these gates she was staring at her feet.
Now the wind was blowing straight from those fiery mountains, and the banner spread over her head against the sky, unfurled. A red boar was caught racing furiously across a white field, crest raised in attack. It drove every other thought from Minna’s head.
The Boar! The Boar! The cry she had uttered by Mamo’s deathbed.
Chapter 14
It was a freezing dawn, the grasses white-tipped on the meadow.
Up in the gallery of his hall, Cahir, King of Dalriada, unbuckled his sword-belt and flung it wearily to the chair. This small space for two seats and a brazier was his only retreat from the sharp eyes that were always following him: servants, warriors, druids, nobles. Everyone watching him, all the time.
At least he didn’t have to face his wife yet, he thought with a grim smile, listening to Maeve’s faint snores further along the gallery. Judging by the volume, she had guzzled her usual bucket of Roman wine last night.
Cahir massaged the knee which played up when he rode, then caught himself doing it and frowned. When tired he often slipped into thinking himself old, even though he was barely past thirty. He briskly stirred up the coals instead and left the poker in to heat the mead. There. He sat back. One moment with no one staring at him. One moment with no one trying to look inside him while masking their own thoughts. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Five heartbeats. Nothing.
‘Fa!’ Orla squealed, dashing over in her night-shift and throwing herself across his lap. His little Finola followed, padding up on baby feet.
Cahir mustered a tired smile. ‘Hush, lass. You don’t want to wake your mother, do you?’
That always quieted them.
‘Did you just come back?’ Orla asked, in a loud whisper.
Tenderly, he nodded and smoothed her braids. She was the only child with hair like his, dark with an auburn tinge. Finola, clutching her doll, gazed up as if his size and sword and smell of horse scared her, but that wouldn’t last. Though she resembled Maeve, his younger daughter had a heart as courageous as the elder. If only it was his son who looked up so adoringly, desperate to wield a sword for him like these foolish, brave daughters of his.
Cahir drew Finola close with one arm, and, after a moment, she melted into his side. ‘Did you see the Wall?’ she whispered.
‘Not this time, but I’ve seen it many times before.’ Cahir tried to hide the roughening of his voice. ‘The Wall is tall and grey, I told you, and long like an eel.’
‘Taller than you, Fa?’
Cahir’s heart stopped. Those trusting eyes only made the rest of his life seem so barren, full of treachery, compromises and betrayals. ‘No, not taller than me,’ he said, as if a simple lie could make the Wall shrink, the Roman soldiers on it fade away. As if he could shield his children from the swords that one day must come for them, along with Roman ships massing in the bay and fires blooming like scarlet flowers on the thatch.
For Cahir had already seen with his own eyes Alban land laid waste by Rome, and Alban bodies hung from trees with Roman rope.
Minna heard the girls gasp, ‘Fa!’ and bound from bed.
She roused herself, pulling a wrap around her shoulders and going to follow them. Then a deep voice sounded like a bell, and she slowed her steps. The voice rumbled again, answered by the girls in tones of affection she had never heard them use, except when they spoke of … their father.
Holding her breath, she crept to the wicker screen that shielded the alcove and pressed her eye to a gap.
The brazier was small, the coals dim, so it was hard to see him. His face tilted as he spoke and dark hair fell over his shadowed cheeks. She could only make out a glimpse of clean-angled jaw and nose. Why, he wasn’t old at all. Then he moved back, the firelight gilding his outline, and Minna’s thoughts stopped altogether.
Everything she had ever heard of barbarians and Albans, even men, collided with each other in her mind.
She could see how powerfully built he was, clad in polished mail, with muddy boots laced up long, sprawling legs. Next to him leaned a daunting sword in a battered scabbard – blood-stained, she was sure. But in the midst of all that his hands moved gently, tenderly stroking through Finola’s hair, then cradling Orla’s chin. The clash was so unexpected that for a long moment Minna’s eyes simply followed those rhythmic fingers back and forth, mesmerized.
And he was entirely still apart from his hands, though she could sense the force that would be unleashed by those arms and shoulders, built up far beyond those of the men she knew who worked the villa fields. She must be scared, for her stomach lurched in a sickening way. This man was the leader of the tribe which had enslaved her. He was a bloodthirsty savage. She had anticipated being repulsed. Minna turned her cheek to the darkness, unable to keep her eyes on that gentle stroking.
After a moment, the king said he was filthy and the water downstairs would be boiling so he must wash. He wanted his daughters back in bed until it was light.
Minna crept away before he saw her. When the girls crawled into bed, even though they were whispering with excitement they soon dutifully returned to slumber. So he can even order sleep, Minna thought to herself, and tensed with a shameful excitement. Here was a king straight from Mamo’s tales.
The next night a welcome feast was to be held for the returning warriors.
In the afternoon, Minna worked by Keeva’s side, rubbing butter and salt into a skinned pig and setting a pit with wood to bake it. Later, unable to stand without having her toes crushed by harried servants, Minna slipped upstairs and readied the girls for bed.
She had been afraid she would get into trouble for injuring the warrior, though no one had said anything, and in fact the young men downstairs were avoiding looking at her, which suited well. As for the boar banner, the boar god … her thoughts could not venture there.
‘Ow!’ Finola cried, when Minna caught her tangled hair in the comb.
‘I’m sorry, little one,’ she whispered, but her mind was far away.
Soon the hall was resounding with talk and laughter, and the chiming of bronze cups. The din grew, edged with harsh male voices, jests and shouts. In their bed-shifts, Orla and Finola wriggled to the edge of the gallery to look down, and Minna joined them.
The entire fire-pit was filled with burning wood, and thick smoke clouded the air and stung Minna’s eyes so she couldn’t see. But just when she thought she might give up, the twang of an instrument pierced the chatter. Notes wandered up and down as strings were tuned, there was a pause – and then a rich chord chimed throughout the hall, filling it to the roof. Instantly, the room grew hushed.
And so the music began, a pure, voiceless song that swelled into powerful life. Minna had never heard anything like it, and after a moment she sank onto her back, listening. The music wove a shimmering web, one moment suggesting laughter, the next a lament. It was wind lifting her hair, then the cool of the hills, then the scent of salt spray. When a voice at last joined the music, wound about the notes like woodbine, she turned over and peered down.
‘It is Davin the bard,’ Orla whispered, her eyes shining. ‘He sings like the birds.’
Mamo had told her about the tribal bards. Minna cradled a pained smile in her fingers, swallowing her fierce grief. Look, Mamo!
Someone opened the doors for a moment and a gust of air blew in. As the smoke lifted, she glimpsed the bard himself in the centre of the hall. Davin was ageing, thin and fair-haired, stooped from crouching over his harp. But his dignified bearing and the gold rings on his arms said this man was greatly honoured. With closed eyes, he lifted a transcendent face and
opened his throat.
The longing in his voice gripped Minna, an ache for something almost outside the bounds of this world. Her hand crept to her throat. She knew this music in her soul, like a voice long missed. For a moment guilt fought in her, for she must be a traitor to feel these things. But the rapture was stronger.
Then, one by one, the words Davin sang began to gain sense in her mind, pictures forming then fading. It was a song of the ancestors of King Cahir, and a famous battle hundreds of years ago. The people below became hushed, the air expectant.
Rhiann, princess of Dunadd, Davin sang, she of the russet hair and heart of courage, drawn by love to Eremon, valiant prince from over sea, the green jewel of Erin on his brow.
Minna sat up and stared into the shadows. The names reverberated through her body. Rhiann. Eremon. She could not move.
Orla and Finola, their faces rapt, did not notice her discomfort.
The song told of the warrior Eremon, a prince of the province of Dalriada in Erin, who was exiled to Alba. There he wed Rhiann, a princess and priestess of the Epidii people at Dunadd, and hundreds of years ago they resisted the Romans when no one else would. Again and again the grim General Agricola tried to invade Alba with an army, and each time he was outwitted by Eremon and Conaire, his foster-brother, as they ambushed Roman patrols and burned down forts. Conaire was wed to Rhiann’s sister Caitlin, and they had a royal son, Gabran.
Eremon. Rhiann. Conaire. Caitlin. The four of them loved each other, they were family. Faces swam before Minna’s eyes, pale, unformed shapes in the darkness. Wisps of memory darted around her rigid body.
At last, Davin recited, Eremon and the warriors of Dunadd faced the Romans in a great battle at a place called the Hill of a Thousand Spears. No one knew where it was. There the steadfast Conaire died, and the Albans suffered a terrible defeat at the hands of the Romans.
Surprisingly, Davin sang of the defeat with immense pride. The bravery shown by Eremon and his warriors was all-encompassing, as if that was all that truly mattered to these people. The music rose, rousing and proud even as death claimed them, afire with a sense of courage, honour and glorious deeds done, outshining all thoughts of defeat.
Lightning in his arm
a storm in his eyes
Eremon looked to the hills,
defeat a cloud gathering.
But against the red-crest sea
Undaunted he stood
Bright in truth’s light
Even as his enemy
broke over the rocks of the land …
Afterwards, Eremon and Rhiann were forced to flee the battlefield and sailed to Erin for their own safety. They birthed a family there, a dun where many found protection and justice, and strengthened the kingdom of Dalriada.
‘Gabran became king here in Alba,’ Orla whispered, reciting faithfully, her eyes bright with the war-light though she was but a child. ‘And later the kin of Eremon and Conaire joined when Eremon’s granddaughter wed Gabran’s son, and their children founded Dalriada in Alba. So Fa is descended from Eremon and Conaire, the greatest warriors ever! Isn’t that wonderful? And we are, too!’
Minna’s breath whistled out, her eyes wide open as if she could see in the shadows the pictures Davin was painting. A strong man on a horse beneath a banner, turning as the Romans poured down a slope.
She did not want to face it, admit it, even to acknowledge the inevitable shock as the song ended with the same war cry: The Boar!
The chant was taken up by the drunken warriors downstairs, overflowing into a great roar that shook the hall. ‘The Boar! The Boar!’
Gradually, the music slowed until Davin dropped his head for the last flourish of strings, a haunting refrain that spoke of a yearning farewell. As the final note faded, the smoke took the bard from view. Silence fell.
After a moment a great sigh was released, and rustlings broke out once more as people stirred. Murmurs began, growing louder, breaking into laughter. ‘Open the doors!’ someone cried drunkenly then. ‘The firewood must be wet – I can’t breathe in here.’
‘Too cold,’ someone answered.
‘Bah! Open them, I say.’
Servants dutifully scurried, the doors creaked open and the air finally cleared. ‘Look now, Minna!’ Orla cried. Her eyes stinging, Minna did.
She had grown used to a quiet hall with Queen Maeve on her couch, her advisers and dull lyre player. Now it was as if one room had been replaced with another. A tide of colour and movement eddied around the fire: the sheen of furs, the bright dyes of tunics and cloaks, the lustre of swords and jewellery. Ruddy warriors with wild hair gesticulated while servants ducked under their arms with ale jugs. The firelight glinted on their arm-rings, and the torcs at their necks. Tall women in colourful dresses laughed and caught the eyes of passing men, bracelets looped up their wrists, jewel-drops at their ears, gold threaded through their long braids. The scents of roast meat, ale and sweat floated upwards.
‘There’s Fa.’ Finola pointed.
Minna couldn’t see much more than the top of his head. His long, dark hair was braided back at the sides, and an immense, twisted gold ring sat about his neck: not a slave-ring, but a royal torc. He strode confidently among his people, pausing to speak to a warrior here, a merchant there, clapping shoulders. But there remained something tense about him, which Minna could feel even from her place in the gallery.
‘Ooh, and there’s Darach,’ Orla said. An old man in a pale robe sat on a stool, and the people had left a space around him. The forelock of his white hair was twisted into tiny plaits, each tipped with a gold bead. The chief druid. Darach was sitting where Oran usually positioned himself, beside Maeve’s couch. Next to Darach the queen was frowning with a disdain she did not trouble to hide. Behind, half in the shadows, was Brónach, her face impassive, showing nothing.
King Cahir was speaking to that warrior Ruarc now, their stances betraying unease, hackles raised despite their smiles. But just as Minna was about to draw back, as if he felt her eyes, the golden king glanced up and looked directly at her.
She couldn’t register any features beyond a glimpse of black brows, leanness and steady eyes, because a falling sensation nearly sucked her over the edge of the gallery. And all he would see, she thought, were the whites of her eyes and her knuckles in the firelight, like some crazed spirit gazing down from the rafters.
Minna rolled to her back, breathless, the words of the bard’s song still ringing in her heart.
Chapter 15
The wax tablet slipped through Minna’s fingers again and thudded on the earth floor. She cursed under her breath and squatted to retrieve it, praying it wasn’t broken. Lia yipped, bounding about as Minna impatiently pushed her snout away.
On their benches, Orla and Finola were apprehensive as they watched her. She had been nervy and irritable all morning, Davin’s song going around her head, the echo of the war cry ringing in her ears. She couldn’t steady her hands.
The doorway darkened and Minna glanced up, then blushed and leaped to her feet, brushing herself down. ‘Domina.’
Queen Maeve’s hand rested on the shoulder of a sturdy, blond boy. ‘This is the Prince Garvan,’ she announced, her face still puffy from the wine the night before.
Minna hailed the child, but the scowl given in answer made her heart sink. Garvan was in body like his mother, round-faced and freckled, though with green eyes instead of blue.
‘He is very intelligent,’ Maeve continued, with a fond glance at her offspring. ‘You will find his mind to be exceptional.’
‘Mother—’ the boy began.
‘There, now.’ Maeve, who never touched her daughters, pressed her lips to his brow, and he flinched, screwing up his nose at her stifling cloud of perfume. ‘You will be good and learn all you can, as I asked you to do.’
At the door the queen glanced at the girls. ‘Do not hold him back for the younger ones,’ she instructed, blue eyes resting on Minna. ‘He will be king; they will be married. Have I made
myself clear?’
Minna felt the girls’ eyes on her. ‘Yes, domina. Perfectly.’
Garvan threw himself to an empty bench, barely glancing at his sisters, and folded his arms. There followed a most difficult hour. The prince spoke Latin well and wrote a small amount, taught by his mother, but sneered when Minna asked him to copy out the one line of Virgil she remembered, which she wrote on his wax tablet. ‘Poetry is for girls,’ he taunted. ‘Not warriors.’
She breathed through her nose. ‘And yet this is what your mother has ordered.’
‘I don’t care,’ Garvan snapped, and dashed the tablet to the ground. Again.
With gritted teeth, Minna bent down for it. ‘Then I suppose you know history better,’ she said with narrowed eyes. A headache had started banging on her temples. ‘Livy, pray tell? Tacitus? Plutarch? Polybius?’
Garvan merely scowled again, and Minna regretted her flash of temper. This sulky boy was to be king some day, though she couldn’t reconcile that with her glimpses of his father. She decided to continue with the girls, hoping he might join in out of boredom, or even to boast. But Garvan turned his attentions to the puppy’s tail instead, and when Minna admonished him mildly, he gave a sly smile and yanked Lia into the air by her back legs. Orla screamed and tried to reach her dog, while the puppy yelped and Finola burst into tears.
At thirteen Garvan was just shorter than Minna, and at last she managed to furiously wrestle the whimpering pup off him and hand her to Orla. ‘That is not becoming behaviour for a prince!’
Garvan’s plump cheeks mottled. ‘You’re a slave: I’ll have you whipped for that.’
‘I think your mother would be more concerned about your disobedience of her.’
‘Oh, really?’ he cried. Without further ado, he stalked out of the door.