by Jules Watson
The young druid stared at Cahir for a long time. At last, his gaze dropped to the boar stone. ‘None but druids have spoken this king’s name for three hundred years. This eagle sign was scratched from the boundary stones before they were buried, along with the secret shame of our defeat. Never have my people and the gaels been linked by anything but bloodshed.’ Abruptly, he rose to his feet. ‘This stone and what it means is beyond my authority. I am travelling north for Beltaine to see my brethren at King Gede’s dun – and you will come.’
Minna went cold.
‘He needs to know of you, and judge himself what your punishment will be.’ His mouth lifted. ‘He will get from you what I cannot, believe me.’
It took all of the druid’s powers of persuasion to make his chief agree to the loss of the prisoners. The old man stormed about, whipping up his warriors into a baying frenzy, but no flicker of fear crossed the set features of the Dalriadan prisoners, not even when they were prodded by jeering Picts.
Only Ruarc showed his temper as a Pict dug him in the ribs with a sword hilt, Ruarc landing a kick that crumpled the man to the floor. Chaos erupted. The fallen warrior scrambled to his feet and struck Ruarc across the face, and swords were drawn with shouts of rage. It was the young druid who waded in, holding them all with the force of his trained voice, preventing the blades making contact with flesh.
Eventually Ruarc sank back, meeting Donal’s eyes with a lift of his chin. Then something in the older warrior’s face reached him and he sat straight and silent like the others, glancing neither left nor right. In that moment, Minna’s fear was eclipsed by pride. Somehow, through days of sleet and wind and exhaustion, these rough men had become her people. If she had to die, she would rather perish surrounded by such bravery. Perhaps they would help her to be brave, too. She huddled around her knees on the floor, one hand pressed to the cold place inside her belly.
The Picts eventually drifted away to their own beds, leaving only guards. The druid returned the stone to Cahir and headed for the door. Outlined in the square of darkness, he turned, the wind swirling his robes about his legs. ‘I will offer names first then, gael. I am Taran. On foot to King Gede’s dun will take four days.’
Their musty bedrolls had been thrown by the fire and the coals banked, leaving the hall nearly black. The men were settling down on the other side of the hearth, by unspoken agreement leaving Minna and Cahir alone. Every now and then one of the Pict guards paced past, brandishing his spear, and the Dalriadan murmurs sank into whispers.
In the dimness, Minna wriggled into her hides next to Cahir’s pallet, as aware of his nearness as the Picts looming over them. Because she couldn’t see much she could hear her heart even louder, thumping in her ears. King Gede. A cold feeling snaked up her spine whenever she thought of him.
Next to her, Cahir was pounding his cloak into a pillow with agitation. All at once he turned on his knees, startling her. ‘Why did you say you saw the visions?’
Minna peered at his outline in the half-dark. He was sitting on his heels, his ears cocked to the guards rustling behind, but his eyes intent on her. ‘Because that was the truth,’ she said.
‘I was trying to protect you – you had no right to speak without my leave.’
His anger silenced her, and she stared at the shape of him, her throat tightening. He was going north now to speak about wars, king to king, if they lived at all. There would be no place for her there. Of course.
Cahir’s hissed curse came at her like a slap. ‘Gods! If you call attention to yourself this way you share my fate. It was a foolish thing to do!’
There was a charged silence where the air seemed to vibrate, because they had nearly died, and now they were alive, blood racing. Then she jumped when the touch came out of the dark, fingers tracing along her cheek. ‘I do not want you …’ Cahir began, his voice failing.
Her heart finished it. He did not want her harmed. Another curse came, muttered low in his throat, and out of nowhere his lips were suddenly pressed to hers.
The kiss was swift and hard, and Minna was dizzied by the alien taste of last night’s ale on his mouth, the scent of his skin. He is a king. He has a wife. I am nothing, nothing. So her mind hammered out in the moment before it was drowned by the sensation of his tongue softening against hers.
One of the Pict guards came closer – she heard his footsteps – and Cahir broke away, catching her head between his hands. ‘I knew!’ he whispered fiercely into her mouth. ‘I knew when you first touched me this lay between us.’
I knew. Minna’s fingers tangled in his lips, but the Pict grunted something guttural at them and they sank back in their hides, their hands barely touching.
Minna lay in the dark, searingly awake, sensing Cahir tense beside her. And her heart drummed something else now. He has no love. I am his blood, his breath. I am his.
Chapter 33
‘Mithras!’ the Roman scout breathed. ‘They are right in our sights!’
Cian did not answer. Lying on his belly in the undergrowth, he was peering through a hawthorn brake, his palms slick around his bow.
The blueskins were usually the ones who became part of the silent forest, attacking suddenly from the shadows. But on this squally day above the Wall one of their ponies, heavily laden with booty from pillaged Votadini farms, had stumbled while crossing a stream and crushed its rider.
Cian and his fellow scouts had been alerted by the screaming of the horse with its broken leg, and though its throat was swiftly cut they were on the trail by then. They watched the Picts drag the injured man away from the stream into the trees and crouch there jabbering, agitated. The downed man seemed important.
‘Enough,’ Cian’s comrade muttered. ‘They’ll kill him in a minute and be off before we can get them.’ He wriggled backwards to the larger troupe of soldiers hidden in the woods. The sound of the rushing stream had covered their approach.
Cian’s pulse was galloping. This was it: his first fight with the Painted Men. A vein in his forehead throbbed.
The signal was given – a cuckoo’s call – and the Roman soldiers sprang out of the bushes as the Picts shrieked, fumbling for their weapons. Cian steadied himself against an oak tree as his first arrow cleaved the air, burying itself in the chest of one blueskin and felling him. Three others met the same fate before the Romans crashed into them, fighting hand to hand. Cian dropped his bow and seized a short sword from its scabbard. Then, with a screech that flew up into the grey clouds above, he barrelled into the fray.
Abruptly, all noise ceased and time slowed.
Pale faces loomed all about him, features twisted with hate, lips spittled, the skin carved up by tattoos. Blades lunged at him. His nerves strained to break into blind panic as the faces kept coming … the swords coming … as they did in his dreams. No. Don’t you dare. Cian screwed up his face. Don’t you dare be a coward. Don’t you dare run.
Instead, he wrestled his fury into action, used it to steady his legs and brace his arms. Mamaí. For you, Mamaí. He saw his mother’s face, white and sunken – and so at last the rage flowed freely.
Cian struck and spun as he had been taught to do once long ago and never forgotten, and his blade sliced across an exposed neck. The give of the sword into flesh shocked him, as did the scarlet spray of arterial blood.
Then a Pict caught the edge of his mailshirt with a dagger, hauling him back to awareness. He hacked again, and another of the feared warriors went down. The sight of blood welling across the blue tattoos did not make Cian feel sick now, but elated. Something hot bloomed in his chest, and he was yelling until he was hoarse, his sword a blur in his hands.
His lithe grace and acrobat’s skill was a weapon in itself: he could react faster, turn on a heel, duck and roll and weave. It was beautiful … as more men fell, their bodies broken … and exhilarating … as he hacked at one man long after he was dead, sawed the head off and held it up by the hair, panting.
All the Picts were slaughtered now, and ther
e in silence Cian’s own troupe stood, gazing at him. His hair was soaked with blood, his mail running red. In the eyes of the other soldiers were both horror and respect as they stared at the severed head clutched in Cian’s fingers. Yes, respect.
Cian threw the head on the ground and turned away for the stream, his head buzzing, his breath like a rushing wind.
King Gede’s fort, the Dun of Bright Water, was built on the northern coast at the end of the great glen. As they dropped down from the high ground it became warmer, the breeze tinged with salt. The trees were coming into leaf, the new bracken unfurling through the dying brown of last year.
After that one, searing touch, Cahir and Minna had to avoid each other or expose themselves to the sharp eyes of the Pict guards, Taran and not least their own men, who darted many speculative glances at them. But every now and then their gazes met, hot and bright, before flickering away. They had barely escaped death, but they might die even so – this could be all the time they had – and the mingled fear and danger brought every nerve of Minna’s body alive.
If only her inner eye was so. They did not know what would be done with them, and though she prayed and strained for some glimpse of their fate – anything – her voices were silent, her dreams confused. She was bereft, and had only Cahir’s gaze to cling to, brilliant and unwavering across the campfire. To be worthy of him, she must set fear aside.
The valleys opened out to wide marshes rippling in the cold sea-wind, clouded by squawking eddies of white and black birds.
There were scouts to deal with, and watchposts to pass, and it was afternoon by the time they came along the ridges of higher ground that eventually led to the king’s fort on a headland surrounded by crashing sea. From a rise inland floated the clear note of a hunting horn.
‘That is my king,’ Taran said, suddenly nervous. ‘We will go to him immediately.’
The king’s party was ranged around the crest of a hill that dropped sharply to the marshes below. Warriors lounged on horses or stood among milling hounds. The Picts were thickset, dressed for the northern wind in rugged fur cloaks pinned with enormous, boastful brooches, arms decorated with wide, bronze bands. Above black, bristling beards and moustaches, florid cheeks were painted with blue whorls and spirals.
As Taran greeted the king’s guards, Minna’s eyes were drawn to the figure sitting alone on a horse at the cliff edge.
The man’s wrist was stretched out, his eyes on the marsh, and a moment later his nobles let out a deafening shout of approval as an enormous bird shot up over the cliff. It was a falcon of some kind, its plumage snowy-white, a smaller seabird caught in its talons. To Minna’s astonishment, the falcon – its wing-spread twice that of a man’s arm – dropped the limp bird at the hunter’s feet and landed neatly on the pad bound to his wrist. Murmuring, the man fed a sliver of meat into the dagger-sharp beak and slipped a hood over its head.
Taran had been deep in conversation with other druids in white robes, and now a guard with a bow slung over his back went and whispered in the man’s ear. Gede, King of the Picts turned in his saddle and stared down at Cahir.
He was slightly older than the Dalriadan king, his dark red hair threaded with copper and silver. In contrast to the rough appearance of his nobles, everything about him was neat and precise. Gede’s hair was caught sleekly, bound with a golden ring to direct it in a ruddy horse-tail down his back. His beard was clipped to a sharp point, dyed scarlet.
Minna darted a swift glance from lowered eyes. Curving tattoos entirely covered Gede’s cheeks, jaw and brow – and the pattern formed the face of a falcon. A ferocious bird-eye was angled on each cheek, ruffled feathers drawn above his brows, and his sharp, dyed beard was the beak. His eyes were a cold blue, his flesh as spare and honed as his gaze.
With a swift movement the Pictish king dismounted. She could see now that he was not tall, and when the wind flattened his long tunic and cloak it revealed a wiry build and narrow shoulders.
Gede passed the falcon to a retainer, then rested his hand on his bridle as if to show off the rich coral and amber decorations. He had only to turn his head slightly before a white-haired druid hastened to his side.
Gede quelled his revulsion as the old druid Galan addressed the interlopers in the gael tongue. The merest glimpse of unpainted skin was enough to blot out the cold sun. Who were they, and how dare they enter his domain?
He glared at the young druid who had brought them, satisfied to see him pale at his king’s displeasure. Druids! They were always skulking about with secret plans that served their own dark arts more than their king. There was only one way to deal with trespassing gaels – a sword across the back of the neck.
Gede smoothed his anger so he could think, focusing on Galan translating his words to the enemy leader. ‘Long has it been since any gael trod these lands.’
The man sent Gede a look of insolent pride. ‘True enough,’ he replied through Galan. ‘But when my people last rode these shores we came as sword brothers.’
Sword brother! Gede’s hand tightened around his horse’s bridle. ‘Of what do you speak?’ he demanded.
The tall man paused. ‘I speak of the Hill of a Thousand Spears.’
Galan the druid caught his breath as he translated: Gede knew that place, and how it was forbidden to speak of it. A cloud of shame hovered over it, blotting out all memory.
‘That is a place where our people’s blood was spilled,’ Gede said sternly. ‘Who are you to name it as your own?’
The gael leader paused, standing straight and unafraid – and he should damn well be afraid, by Taranis! Gede strode forward and challenged him. ‘No man can come into my presence who has not named himself! No man can order me who has claimed no rank. No man can gain admittance to my gates without offering the oath of his lineage.’
‘Indeed?’ The gael held his eye for far too long. ‘Then know that I am Cahir son of Conor, King of Dalriada in Alba, direct in line from Gabran himself.’
Gede was too well-trained to react, even though a bolt of fury and triumph went right through him. By Manannÿn’s breath and balls! The gael king, fallen into his hands as if from the sky? The gods could not be so generous.
Taran hastened forward. ‘My lord,’ he stammered. ‘I did not know, my lord. He would not tell me—’
Gede silenced him and smiled coldly at this Cahir. ‘You risk much to come to my hall, with the blood of my people on your hands.’
‘No more than the blood of mine on yours.’ He paused as it was translated. ‘And yet once long ago it was all spilled together at the Hill of a Thousand Spears.’
Galan hissed. ‘He speaks sacrilege, my lord!’
The gael king continued. ‘I speak only truth. My people were there. They fought with the Picts – the Caledonii as you were then known – side by side against the Romans. As our young druid friend can tell you, we have proof of this: that our people and yours were allies once.’
The Pict warriors around Gede muttered. Allies. The word thundered in his mind. His men were a dark wall of bodies, gazing at him angrily. Why was he allowing this?
‘The gaels infect our shores like creeping mould, like the rotting of flesh in a wound,’ Gede retorted scornfully. ‘They can claim no blood brotherhood with us.’
‘And yet our people died fighting together once. I have proof.’
Gede’s skin prickled, and Taran slid to his side. ‘They have found a stone, my lord,’ he murmured. ‘It is a message stone, and yes, it tells of a binding alliance between an old king of the Dalriadans and …’ he gulped, took a breath, ‘and King Calgacus, my lord.’
‘What?’ Galan hissed. ‘That is a forbidden name, my son!’ He glared at his young druid. ‘Was your exile in the mountains not cold enough to quell your runaway tongue?’
Taran went white, as Gede held up his hand. ‘Peace. Whatever he says, it is right he brought the gael king and placed him into my hands.’
Then he smiled.
Chapter 34
> When they approached the Dun of Bright Water, the sand around the headland was shining wet with the receding tide. Boats were scattered over the beach, with fishermen mending nets and farmers tilling seaweed into the fallow fields behind the dunes.
The defences of the dun itself were formidable. Across the promontory, immense bastions of multiple ramparts had been raised, with deep ditches delved before them. The gates and their rearing towers were painted, gilded and streaming with banners, the rock tunnels they passed through carved with curling designs. The ramparts bristled with spears, as heavily-armed warriors lined all the palisades and towers and paced the walkways, watching the sea and land approaches.
Inside, the enormous fort was on two levels: the lower ringed by high, cliff-top walls that faced out to the crashing waves, the upper crowned by grand buildings and the king’s hall with its soaring roof.
They climbed up wide stairs flanked by armoured warriors and eventually reached the hall, which was draped in gold and blue standards showing a falcon poised for the kill, with outstretched talons and spread wings. Rows of spears in the ground fluttered with pennants of brown and white feathers, and the double doors were hung with bundles of human skulls, yellowed with age.
Minna went to follow Cahir inside, but the Pictish guards at the door lowered their spears to bar her way. She did not think she imagined their expressions, as if she were a deformed thing that had crawled from shadow to sun.
The old druid barked something, and Taran hastily stepped forward. ‘Women are not permitted in the king’s hall except to serve food,’ he said. ‘And certainly not present for matters of state, even if your situation is rather … unusual. You will be taken to the women’s house for now, where servants have orders to attend you.’