by Jules Watson
‘And now I am up,’ he declared, ‘I must address the army, for something came to me in my sleep, my—’ he broke off, wondering, ‘yes, my vision. When I was sleeping I saw Eremon, I know I did, and he told me what I must do.’
Minna tried to speak but his passionate kiss took her breath, and the faint glimpse of a shadow around him simply faded as his mouth drank her in. ‘As to what we should do,’ she eventually murmured, ‘I would rather it was home so you can heal properly, and gain your strength.’
His eyes dancing, he released her to gaze out at the riverbanks, where the thousands of cookfires smoked. There, his men waited for their king, their weapons flashing in the sun over the water. ‘I cannot. The news may have travelled of the attack on me, and that is not good when there has been so much upheaval, when the people know of the destruction and disruption on the Wall, when they will be afraid of what might happen now. I have to show my face to them, so they will know they are safe.’
His dark hair flowed over his shoulders, glossy now Minna had brushed it, and she longed to lift it and kiss the nape of his strong neck, never letting him stray from her side again.
But as she opened her mouth to protest that surely they must return directly to Dunadd, she took a step back instead, her words dying on her tongue. One could do nothing in that moment but surrender to what surrounded him, what had filled him.
As she had given her life-force, her essence to him, he must do the same for his people. The light was not him, Cahir; it was the God coming through him. Suddenly humbled, she knew she could not hold that power for herself.
Minna wandered far downstream on the riverbank, scattering flowers on the dark green water for Donal and his men, singing the death-song she had been unable to sing before. She squatted on the muddy bank among the bullrushes, letting the sun play over her eyelids. The warmth could not touch the cold place inside that held her guilt, and the weight of responsibility.
Perhaps she would carry it always, another thread wound into the fabric of her soul.
Her reverie was broken by all the war-trumpets calling from the walls of Luguvalium at once. She turned her head. Three short blasts and a long one came again: a royal summons.
She bowed to the water and finished her prayer, for it would take some time for all those men to down whatever they were doing and gather in to the town. By the time she got back to the gates, warriors were crowding the market-place, climbing the walls and ramparts, and eventually, pressed by space, being forced back out along the riversides, straining to hear and see their king.
Minna squeezed inside the fort and wove her way between the men. They turned, towering above her, smelly and noisy with their clanking armour, their dirty, bearded faces alight. Then the whisper went before her, ‘The king’s lennan,’ and they shuffled back further for her, nodding respectfully. Eventually, she came to the fountain at the centre of the square that she had drunk from before being seen by Maeve. Holding the headless marble nymphs, she leaned up on the fountain’s plinth to see.
The Attacotti had already sailed for home, and many Dalriadans were on duty at other forts or further afield, but still there were five or six thousand warriors crowding the town.
The trumpets clamoured again, rousingly, and the men pressed closer to the street that led to the royal hall, their voices a restless rustle and murmur. Cahir’s guard then came out into the square, Mellan on horseback holding aloft the boar banner, which was proudly stained by blood and the smoke of many fires.
But when Cahir himself appeared on a long-legged Roman horse, all the buzzing and chatter was lost in an enormous cheer that shook the walls and towers. Spears and swords were waved wildly and dangerously over heads, and in the midst of the frenzy Minna, propped on her fountain, looked over the throng and simply drank Cahir in.
The sun flamed on his boar helmet and mail-clad shoulders, and the fire of his eyes was framed by his dark brows and hair, intensifying its heat. As the warriors went wild, Minna realized her spirit-eye was only revealing to her sight what the men instinctively felt. Their god-king had been returned to them from death.
‘Hail, my bright warriors, my brave brothers!’ Cahir boomed, and the volume of acclaim rose to fever pitch. Minna closed her eyes as his voice penetrated her chest. ‘We have secured a great victory over the Romans, and, as foretold, they have been banished from our lands. They will bleed us dry no more.’ An enormous cry of pride beat on her ears. ‘But this is only the start of a story, not the end. Now we must hold what we have fought for: Alba without Romans, without forts and ports, taxes and tithes, scouts and burning duns. Some of you will be left to garrison the Wall forts, and some to hold Luguvalium as long as you are able. The outpost forts – those to the north of this Wall, in Alban land – have already been burned, their soldiers slain. No Roman now walks our land, and we will keep it that way!’
Minna opened her eyes as swords were thrust towards the sun and spears danced against the blue sky. Cahir raised a hand. ‘Those warriors not guarding the Wall will set out for home today. I, however, will not be going straight to Dunadd.’ Cahir’s hand shifted to his sword as he laid it across the saddle and told them how many in Dalriada would not know of the victory, and could be mired in fear and uncertainty. Trouble could arise with no strong guiding hand, which is why they had to see him and know his will.
The noise grew at this announcement, and Cahir smiled into the sun and shouted above the crowd. ‘So I will see you at my hearth when I come home, and together we will make a song to last a thousand years, a song of your bravery, a song of your courage. To the Boar!’
Cahir’s men took up the chant, bellowing the war-cry as they lifted their swords in unison with Mellan’s dipping banner. The cry spread through the crowd of warriors, clashing shouts resolving into one song at last, rising up and down. The Boar! The Boar!
The king sat on his horse with an exultant smile, and Minna’s heart took up its rhythm again, banishing any remains of the shadow. She was pulled into that conflagration that encompassed all the warriors, the triumphant army, and if it burned her to ashes it would still be glorious.
And one day soon, when this was over, she would be able to rest her head on Cahir’s shoulder and be strong no more.
Chapter 61
Cahir sent his army ahead with orders for messengers to summon all the northern and island chiefs and the Attacotti leaders to Dunadd.
And then, in the glory days of that long, golden summer, he wove his way home in a royal procession that passed through every dun in the south and west, and every cluster of steadings in the major valleys. As news went ahead, people poured down from the mountains and remote glens, waiting for a glimpse of him and his dazzling retinue of warriors.
Travelling at his side, clinging to the mane of Cian’s sturdy pony, Minna slipped into a parallel existence where her body walked on Alba’s soil but she looked upon Cahir and the land with eyes of the Otherworld, seeing what lay beneath the surface. Standing at his shoulder, she witnessed the Source being drawn to him at each place he stopped, gathering where he spoke words of love and strength to his people. She saw the heart-fires flare in those who hearkened to him, and how they joined with his and made Dalriada stronger, the roots of light going deeper into the land. As they left, she looked back on people who had a new hope to lift their weary bodies, relief in their lined, fearful faces.
At night, in rude huts and grand halls, Cahir spoke long by the fires with the chieftains and warriors, and when he came to bed, he curled about Minna, resting his large palm over the baby in a silent communion.
Only once did she argue with him to return home. She saw a flicker through the god-light, glimpsed a drawn face and heard harsh breathing. ‘Surely you’ve done enough now?’ she said. ‘Surely we should go home?’
But he only gazed at her with those luminous eyes and said softly, ‘You helped me find my kingship, Minna, and so now I must be king.’
She did bow to that in the end, but because she
loved him, fear lodged in her breast like a tiny sliver of bone and pained her dreams.
He saw how quiet she became, however, and one day, after he had spoken and feasted all afternoon, he took her hand in the dusk and, with a smile, led her to his horse. Everyone stood still in the courtyard to watch them go.
Far up in the mountains he rode, where the heather was in full bloom in whorls of purple, and the bracken beginning to turn copper. The valleys below were rivers of gold, thick with nodding heads of barley, the falling sun hazed by whirring insect wings and the damp heat coming up from the ground.
‘See,’ Cahir murmured, as Minna clung to his waist in the saddle. ‘The chiefs say no one has seen such a summer harvest, such growth. The cattle are in twins again already.’ He gazed at her over his shoulder. ‘Our love did this at Beltaine, just as you said. You did this.’
She reached out a finger and softly outlined his nose, chin and jaw just as the sun did, and he twisted around far enough to kiss her, until the horse nickered and shifted restlessly under them, and they laughed. Up on the slopes where the bracken ran out to heather, he stopped the horse and helped her down.
They stood looking far out to the west across the peaks, marching in ever fainter bastions to the islands in the sea. The sunset was a bonfire raging across the clouded sky, turning the ocean to molten copper and the lakes to bronze.
Cahir looked out across this beauty and his face was grave, the gold reflected in his irises, the copper in his hair. She thought of Lugh now, not Apollo, the god of the Alban sun. He caught her staring at him and his eyes grew hazy with a most human desire, and he tilted her chin to kiss the pulse in the hollow of her throat. His palms were warm on the back of her thighs, bare under her long dress.
He paused and drew back to look down at her. ‘Will it hurt the baby?’ he said softly.
She smiled, then laughed at the concerned frown on his brow. ‘Not that I’ve ever heard.’
‘And you are the healer,’ he murmured, cupping a palm around her breast, which already sat more rounded and heavy in his hand. He went to the horse and untied the saddle hide, rolling it out in the heather. Then, resting her down as reverently as an offering to the gods, he loved her.
With her fingers spread across his flowing back, Minna felt as if she held a living flame in her arms, consumed by the power running through him so she hardly felt her body at all. The ecstasy surged but did not crash, soaring free as if it had no end. It was not sharp and earthy this time but an incandescence – spirits merging, heart, soul, body consumed by the same fire. Their soul-flames overflowed and spilled across the land until they ran together as one Source. And taken by that wildfire, Cahir loved Minna again and again until the light was exhausted.
Still he would not leave her body, rocking them slowly as a chill crept across the darkening hill, and tears were drawn from them both. She held him to her, raised her eyes to the purple sky and gave herself up to the lift and dip of that softer sea.
As she drifted slowly back to the earth around her – the scent of damp soil, the sharp tang of smoke on the air, the cold creeping under the hide – the final words came to her lips from the Goddess.
It was a blessing from the stars that littered the heavens, brought down for him alone. Your ancestors smile upon you, Cahir son of Conor. You have done what you were born to do.
Chapter 62
Three weeks after leaving the Wall, they returned to Dunadd. The warmth of the sunseason afternoon was gathered in the bowl of purple hills, perfumed with heather and thyme.
The army had gathered on the marsh and river meadow, with the chiefs who had not gone to war from the far islands and most remote duns, as well as Kinet the Attacotti king and his chieftains. All had come as Cahir asked, to renew their oaths now to him alone and to a free Alba, ridding their sacred bond of the taint of Rome.
Cahir paused before the walls of his dun as the crowd that lined them cheered and struck the timbers, their feet thundering along the walkway as they ran to see him. Minna, riding by his side, saw the slight compression of his mouth, whether with emotion or pain, she could not tell. But he was sitting slightly lower in his saddle. She knew he was exhausted and now it had hit. But at least he was back home, and could put aside his war helmet.
Then she glanced up at the screaming crowd, chanting their praise, their thanks to the gods, their joy like a wild storm in spring. No, he would not lay it aside yet. There would be no rest for the king until all was done.
Banners draped the walls and were waved over the gates. swords and spears raised; horns pealed in a discordant song as drums were beaten in no pattern at all but to make a joyous noise. At last Cahir smiled, with a proud lift of his chin. ‘I have done what I was born to do,’ he repeated softly, and only she heard him, as the men close by laughed and waved up at the people.
She longed to touch his hand on the rein, but before she could lean over he had moved off to enter the gates alone, and the other horses surged after him with Minna in the midst.
Once inside, she immediately lost him to the chaos, and instead was jubilantly greeted by Orla and Finola, with a long-legged Lia yapping at her ankles. To Minna’s surprise, Clíona took one look at her and the king and buried sudden tears in her skirt, flapping away Keeva’s amused consternation.
Later, Minna stood with Orla and Finola by their father’s chair in his hall, as, one by one, every chief and headman in Dalriada and the Attacotti islands came before him and knelt with their swords across their hands. There they were blessed, taking the oath on their own iron, and raised up by their king.
His voice rang out with an almost feverish energy that caught everyone in its excitement. Councils had already been held, with plans settled for a stronger cordon of defences to be thrown around Dalriada by land and sea. More men from all the duns had been pledged to the borders to hold them against any Pictish or Roman reprisals.
The toasts and oaths were concluded when Davin came out into the centre of the hall, and sang a new lay of the great battles of the Wall, in which Ruarc featured prominently as saviour of the king.
Orla gabbled at Minna’s side, excited by the din of the music and the ceaseless cheering outside, but Finola was quiet. Minna went down on one knee and gently turned her around, and only then saw that the child’s small face was transfigured with awe and joy. ‘He is bright!’ she whispered, trembling as she gazed up at her father. ‘Like a light, like a fire.’
Minna smiled at her, and touched her face. ‘He is, my little dreamer.’
Finola’s blue eyes gradually focused on her. ‘And is it the Otherworld, Minna, like the druids say? Is it the Otherworld light?’
Though she knew this, the answer died on her tongue and she found herself looking at Cahir again. Yes, it was the Otherworld light, only she had not put it into such words in her own heart. Now she could not see his features at all, for, as Finola saw, there was only the fire of the king.
‘Minna.’ It was Keeva, who had squeezed through the crowd to pluck at her elbow. ‘Someone has found me to give a message to you. The Lady Riona has been brought to her birthing bed.’
She turned with an exclamation of pleasure, for she had not yet seen her friend in the crowd. But Keeva was frowning, shaking her head. ‘No, Minna, she is a moon early, and was visiting some kin at the Dun of the Cliffs when she was suddenly taken with the pangs. It has been hours already, and they think she is in trouble. When she found out you were back, she asked for you.’
Minna glanced at Cahir, and the throngs of warriors spilling over the dun outside the doors. She would not be missed, and a difficult birth could be dangerous. She kissed Finola’s head. ‘Clíona, would you take the girls, and Keeva, will you come with me?’ Both maids nodded.
‘Then get us horses while I gather what I need from Brónach’s house,’ she said to Keeva. ‘I will meet you at the stables.’
Three days that birth lasted, and Riona was in great travail and pain. Minna tried everything she could think
of, and many more things that came to her like soft touches on her brow amid the screams and the bloodied towels, the rocking and chanting of the old women, and Riona’s clawing of her hand.
The baby was turned, its shoulder jammed into the wrong angle of the womb, and it took much gentle encouragement and long hours to turn it again. Riona’s pain could not be eased too much for fear she would swoon and not be able to push, so she bit down on sticks, and sweated, and crushed the bones of Keeva’s hands in her own, and cried out to the goddesses when she could not hold it in.
There were herbs to ease the gripes of the womb, though, so Minna could turn the child in stages, and others to start them up again in the exhausted mother when he was head down at last. After three nights with no sleep, existing in a kind of focused dream, she pulled from Riona’s womb a tiny, squalling man-child whose lusty strength was the only thing that kept him alive.
Minna stitched up Riona and dosed her with healing brews, and, after assuring herself for another two days that both mother and child were well, she took leave of her tearful, exhausted friend with promises that she would return every day until Riona was recovered.
Utterly exhausted, nevertheless Minna wanted to hurry back. For when she left the smoky confines of the birthing hut, she saw that all the chieftains’ ships were leaving the bay and heading north and west, their banners flying.
Cahir had received his oaths, and now could be hers again.
When Minna and Keeva rode back under Dunadd’s gate, Clíona was waiting for them like a pale wraith on the ramparts.
Instinctively, Minna’s heart swooped in a great plunge before she even slipped from the horse. Clíona came down the stairs, her face as white as bone in the shadows of the gate. ‘What?’ Minna whispered, but a terrible knowing was already descending on her in a dark storm.