by Jules Watson
Tentatively, she found herself reaching for a spiral. Her palm spread across the whorl, and it was like dangling her fingers in a rushing stream, the current of energy dragging at her. She plucked her hand out and glanced over her shoulder. She wanted to leave, but then she remembered the hills, singing to her that time when she took Orla out to look for roots by the river. If there was pain in her dreams of this place, could there be something else, too? The song of the hills had hinted … something. Something she would have heard, if that Lorcan had not come upon her.
Wetting her lips, Minna stared at her hand as it drifted out again to the spiral …
… and instead of the grey rock there was a chariot racing underneath her. Her bare feet gripped the yoke just behind the flanks of two black ponies, which bunched as they ran. The warrior she was screamed as a line of armoured men flew by in a blur. She careened past a vast army, and she was a god, naked but for her sword, clinging to the jolting chariot, screaming fury and courage, knowing she would die, and not caring …
She fell back on her haunches, gasping. She wasn’t afraid, though, just assailed by emotion … pride, freedom, exultation. She’d never felt such a fire in her blood; no pain, just joy.
‘You found the hero carvings,’ Keeva said, peering over her shoulder.
Minna scrambled up guiltily, but the maid just continued munching on a handful of blackberries, unperturbed.
‘What are they?’
Keeva brushed the last berries from her hands. ‘When the great heroes died, the ancestors carved symbols for them. That, there.’ She pointed at the double spiral. ‘You can trace around all the way in, then all the way back out. It’s life, see: a cycle with no end, just another beginning. That’s what my father always said. We come from the Mother’s womb, we live, we die, we return to Her and then are reborn again. The endless spiral.’ Her voice had grown uncharacteristically soft. ‘On the islands we carve them, too, to remember the Goddess when so many forget.’
Minna’s mind reeled. ‘Reborn?’
Keeva glanced at her, shrugging. ‘When we die, we live in bliss in the Otherworld and then come back as babes again.’ She looked down at Minna’s bag. ‘Did you get enough roots?’ she asked cheerfully.
That night Minna was laying blankets on the floor in the middle of the night, unable to sleep as the girls tossed and turned. Her legs were still loose from the feeling of running that chariot … she stopped and stared into the shadows, her scalp prickling all over again. Then she tensed, glancing over her shoulder as footsteps came up the stairs.
‘Lass,’ a rough voice whispered. It was that man Donal, his bald pate shiny in the dim light. ‘You must come with me now. The king orders it.’
Minna thought she had misheard, but then her hackles went up again. ‘What do you mean?’
Donal seemed ill at ease, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding her eyes. ‘He needs you to attend him – he has a fever of some kind.’ When she stared, wide-eyed, he snapped, ‘Don’t be foolish, girl, you won’t be harmed. Hurry now!’
She had no choice but to follow, grabbing her cloak to throw over her bed-shift. Outside, the icy wind tugged at her hood, as torn banners of cloud streaked a yellow half-moon. His head down, Donal led Minna to Brónach’s house. ‘In there.’ He gestured Minna to the door. ‘He’s in there.’
Chapter 20
Clenching his teeth against the pain, Cahir raised his head when the girl came in, and his eyes went wide.
Her boy’s clothes and tightly-bound hair always made her look capable enough, and her face was angular and intelligent. Despite Maeve’s whim to buy her, Orla said there was no contact between his wife and this girl now; the queen’s thoughts had flitted on to something else. The girl cared for his daughters, she could heal and she was afraid of him. The perfect person to help.
Now this apparition came in her stead: hair a drift of black about her shoulders, face milk-pale, those stark features softened by the loose hair and lamplight. The fire picked out not the unearthly colour of her eyes now, but their shifting depths. And she was clad in a thin shift of linen with a lamp behind her, her outlined body definitely that of a woman. She looked young, vulnerable and very fair – and she was supposed to help him?
Cahir’s certainty wavered. Perhaps she did not have the experience. Should he wait for Brónach after all? He shuddered at the thought of his aunt’s bony fingers prodding him, her knowing eyes. The scent of his sickness soured the air, and the wound spasmed. Wincing, he leaned towards the slave. ‘Girl, I require your assistance, but I forbid you to tell anyone you have even been here. Do you understand?’
The white column of her throat fluttered. After a pause she blurted, ‘I will do so, but only if you swear you won’t hurt me.’
Cahir stared, then his surprise dissolved into a dry snort of amusement. ‘Ah, me.’ He looked at Donal. ‘What did you tell her, man? She looks like I’m about to gobble her up.’
Donal shrugged, said nothing. Cahir waved a hand at him. ‘Leave us now, but stay outside. I want to know the minute my aunt appears, and if you see her, detain her for me until I can make my escape.’
As soon as Donal was gone, Cahir spread his fingers over his side. ‘I am wounded,’ he said slowly. ‘Now it burns and I grow … concerned.’
Wounded? Minna’s attention narrowed to the lump under his tunic, before she glanced at his face, noticing only then a sheen of sweat. Infection. That explained the sourness. ‘But I don’t understand why you called me, why you do not wait for Lady Brónach—’
‘She sees too much as it is. But my daughters have told me you know some healing.’
And will keep my silence. That was the heart of the matter. She was a slave, and would hold her tongue out of fear. But if he had been wounded in an altercation with the Romans, why was that cause for secrecy?
To give herself time to think, she turned away. ‘I will need more light, a hotter fire.’ She stirred up the coals and fed them with twigs, then lit the lamps with tapers before returning to the king. Her hands trembled, but she settled her face into the mask of a healer, clung to that briskness.
The furrows around his mouth were deeper, his hair unbound and tangled with sweat. But it was only when she met his eyes that her healing sense spoke. In the firelight, his irises were flecked with gold and green, yet it was self-loathing that spilled from his black pupils. As soon as he met her glance, his lashes veiled his thoughts.
‘Standing there mute won’t help. You certainly didn’t have trouble finding your voice before.’
Minna’s fists curled. Then Keeva’s words came back to her. Make yourself useful to the nobles … you don’t know what could happen. She picked up the pot on the hearth. ‘I am not mute,’ she replied with dignity, going to the water barrel. ‘And I have a name.’ She could not help him with her whole heart while being seen as a thing, a possession. He might beat her, but still she had to speak. When she turned back, terrified and defiant, there was a definite spark behind his fevered glaze. This is it, she thought, he’ll just strike me and be done with it.
But the king only shrugged. ‘If that is what you need to fix this problem, Minna-the-slave-of-Eboracum, then I will call you anything you like.’
Flustered, she put water to boil and stood over him. He had a cup and jug in his lap, and when he poured the ale it splashed over the rim. She watched as he gulped, throat rippling beneath a dark pelt of stubble, then threw the cup on the rushes. Without looking at her he tugged off his plain blue tunic, wincing. ‘Do, then, what you will.’
Cautiously, as if approaching a chained bear, Minna went down on her knees. To her dismay his torso had been clumsily bandaged, the linen smeared with dried blood. The cloth looked as though it had been used many times. She gently picked the knot apart and began unwinding, turning her face away when leaning close to his armpit. To her surprise, underneath the scent of infection he did not smell anything more than musky. The last part of the bandage was stuck down with dried pus
, and as she eased it free he grunted.
Minna sat back swallowing, as Cahir stared straight ahead. He was letting her make of it what she would. And what was that?
She scanned the muscles over belly and chest, knowing enough of men to see it was the honed torso of someone used to rugged activity – sword-play, she amended, fascinated at the webs of random scars that marked his arms and hands. There was a tension in such muscles that was confronting, like a wild animal poised to spring. His ribs pushed against his skin in ragged breaths.
She lowered her eyes. Here were the wounds: two cuts of equal size and length, one under each pectoral muscle on either side of the abdomen. She knew immediately they were not battle wounds. Although she’d never actually seen a battle wound, it was impossible that any wild sword slash could replicate these symmetrical cuts. Minna padded her fingers with her skirt and rolled the flesh away from one, and Cahir stifled another grunt of pain. Because of infection neither wound had closed; their edges were angry red, the centres yellow. The skin was burning, but it wasn’t the most serious infection she’d seen and would heal well enough with care.
Then her belly plummeted.
She saw now that the skin above and below the wounds was scored with other marks just the same; perfectly even, perfectly executed. They were older, running in a knitted ladder down one side of his belly and up the other. Some were still red, raised scars; others had faded to silver. Minna stared, aghast.
Cahir’s faster breathing brought her back. Though his face was averted, his cheeks had coloured, and there were white lines of strain about his mouth. That was when she knew it was deliberate. She got unsteadily to her feet, turning to the fire and lifting off the pot with a stick.
‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘No.’ She levered off the lid, and steam washed over her. ‘I can heal them. They won’t get worse.’
After a pause, Cahir emitted a weary sigh, a sigh so full of pain that she stayed there, eyes on the fire. He did it to himself. A man like that, so tall and strong, would never suffer such humiliation unwillingly. She hastened to Brónach’s workbench, her mind jumbled. Groundsel and ivy leaves for a poultice. Yarrow ointment. Yarrow flowers, sorrel. Nausea stung her throat as she ground the herbs and stewed them. He cut himself.
Struggling to regain composure, Minna knelt by Cahir and dared a glance at him, recognizing there a grim determination to hold everything in with that tight mouth. She dipped a cloth into the yarrow broth and put her palm on his chest to dab the wound. So she touched the king of Dalriada at last, skin to skin.
And all his feelings were suddenly pouring into her, flowing from his flesh into hers. Brutal pain, guilt, fury. He gasped and turned his head and they stared, falling into each other’s eyes in shock. He felt it, too. Then his lips clamped down and he twisted away.
But it was too late, for Minna understood.
His fury was directed at himself, even though he wasn’t suffering in complete silence – he spoke with the blade of his dagger, his flesh the vellum upon which he scored his shame. She dropped the cloth as his repressed feelings reached for her like a flame for a gust of air, then she broke the hold and hurried outside.
Donal stirred, but when she merely leaned against the wall, holding her belly, he turned back to his watch.
Minna drew the freezing air in deep, trying to cleanse her soul. It was some time before she could go back inside, and the only way to proceed was to move her hands as if they were separate from her body, carefully avoiding his eyes. She bathed the wound, pulped the poultice and applied bandages, then poured the fever brew. They did not speak.
When she had finished, Minna fetched her cloak. ‘One week,’ she murmured, her eyes on the wall, her cheeks sore from being bitten. ‘I will need to change the poultice every day, then you can apply the salve yourself.’
The king nodded, face turned to the shadows. ‘Donal will fetch you.’
She fled into the night.
Chapter 21
Cahir ordered five grain pits to be emptied and loaded on to ships bound for the Wall. After considering all alternatives, he had decided to pay the tax. There was nothing to be done – if he did not comply, the Romans would deliver to his people the same justice meted out to Finn.
In the night, he lay with one hand pressed to the wall as if he could force a path through it, showing him the way forward. In his mind, he conjured an entire plan to summon the warriors, encircle the dun, send a message of defiance to the Dux and wait for the axe to fall. He lived, vividly, the moment he would throw himself on a Roman lance and pierce his bowels, ending shame for ever. But his mind was bred to be cool, and he knew he would be condemning his people to instant death.
It was simple: he did not have the numbers of men for defiance.
What made Dunadd useful for trade made it vulnerable. He had forces mustered on all the approaches to the south and east; guards for the coastal forts, garrisons for the signal beacons on the headlands. But a full defence was impossible without tens of thousands of men, and in all Dalriada he could probably muster only eight thousand.
If that was not bad enough – his people looking at him with accusing eyes as the pits were emptied, the still gnawing worry about where Ruarc and his comrades had gone – Cahir had now been unsettled in a far different way.
His daughters had reported to him in their childish chatter the things the slave Minna had been saying in her sleep.
Cahir was so shaken that so far he had merely watched her as she went about healing his wounds. He knew her eyes denoted her as unusual; that his skin reacted to her hands. That was only because no one beyond his daughters had touched him properly for years, though, he told himself. He denied himself soft caresses, tenderness, releasing only bare lust when he bedded women. That was the price, his penance.
But this stranger’s fingers moved like breaths across his skin, and the time he spent in the little schoolroom being salved were rare moments of peace. Sometimes, when he caught the girl’s glances, he could swear he saw sympathy and an odd understanding there. Sympathy, for him! That made her unique in all Dalriada, he thought grimly.
And now this.
She cries out, Fa, Orla said. We don’t wake her any more, because we like to hear what she says. The Boar! she cries, and Rhiann’s name sometimes, but Fa, she says other things, too …
Minna and Keeva were turning back from the grain pit with the girls when a deafening shout went up from the walls, followed by bloodcurdling shrieks.
Along with everyone else, they hastened to the gates and up the stairs to the walls. ‘The Lord Ruarc is back!’ came the cry. People crowded the palisade, crushing them against the stakes.
The king was standing in the middle of the gate arch. Before him, dancing around on his black horse, was Ruarc. Behind him was his friend Mellan and around ten other young warriors. Ruarc was dishevelled, his fine clothes muddy and blood-streaked, his face scratched and grimy. But he had paused to lime his hair, which was standing up in stiff waves on his crown and cresting down his back.
With a manic laugh, he untied something from his saddle and threw it in the earth at Cahir’s feet. Everyone craned to see what it was. As it rolled and came to rest, the exclamations spread. Minna peered hard, then gasped and moved to shield Finola and Orla’s eyes.
It was a severed head. Dried blood matted the long, black hair above blue tattoos on waxy skin. A Pict.
‘What is this?’ Cahir demanded.
Orla pulled away from Minna’s hand, staring down with an avid glee. People’s faces were lit with excitement, not revulsion.
Ruarc grinned, but his eyes burned with wildfire. ‘What does it look like, my king?’ He jabbed a finger toward the river, where a small herd of cattle milled about, penned in by circles of whooping riders. ‘A cattle raid! There are the cattle, and here is the head of honour, one of five Picts we killed!’
Cahir’s response was lost in the cheer that rose from the throng, whipped up by the appear
ance of the exuberant young warriors, spattered with gore but reeking of male pride and glory, their swords flashing under the sun. Orla and Finola jumped up and down beside Minna, giggling.
Then Ruarc looked down at his king and at last his smile faltered.
It was ridiculous, but in the middle of his rage Cahir nearly laughed.
Ruarc had set forth on a cattle-raid, just like the warriors of old, just as the bards sang in their sagas – though in those myths there was no need to consider consequences.
Still, as Cahir stood there before the restive stallion, he was shot through with envy. To have the freedom to swing his sword through the Picts like butter, and scream himself hoarse! His blood was Eremon’s blood, and he too was stirred up by warriors on dancing horses, swords unsheathed, hair flying in the wind. Lugh, give me strength. Put all that away.
He had beaten Ruarc, and now the young cockerel had challenged him again. He held those blazing eyes. ‘I thought we had settled this,’ he said evenly. ‘There, in the mountains. I make the decisions for us all. If you don’t like it, leave or fight me properly this time – to the death.’
Ruarc’s eyes flickered away, then abruptly he changed tack, tossing his golden mane. ‘Why, my king, we only did this to honour you – to honour all our people!’ He beamed that smile at all the spectators on the walls. ‘We raided the enemy to make them remember us, to know we are not weak. If they think us complacent, they might attack to test us. Now they won’t.’
Cahir studied him. Ruarc had got it out of his system, and was giving him a way out, too. He was not secure enough to challenge the king; but Cahir likewise needed his leadership of the young-bloods to make his kingdom secure.
‘I value your sword-arms too much to shed your blood recklessly,’ Cahir said at last, to a general murmur of approval. ‘But if any of you put a single foot wrong again you will be banished. You cannot challenge the king, and that is final. You break your blood oaths if you do.’