by Jules Watson
The warmth and sweetness in Rhiann was instantly drenched; she felt as if he’d thrown her into an icy stream. When he sensed her stiffen, Eremon cupped her head and pressed it into his shoulder. ‘Oh, love, I did not mean to hurt you.’ He hesitated. ‘It hasn’t been long. The babies will come soon, I know it. We must be patient.’
When Eremon felt a tear on his hand, he exclaimed and soothed Rhiann with gentle words. Yet each soft murmur was a blade sunk into her heart, twisted there on its hilt.
BOOK THREE
Leaf-bud, AD 82
CHAPTER 28
At the festival of Imbolc, Rhiann poured the streams of ewe’s milk into the river to thank the Mother Goddess for the return of the sun, despite the still-bare branches and continuing sleet. In defiance of the fertility blessing, a knife-edge wind caught the liquid and spattered it over Rhiann’s sheepskin cloak, and she needed two cups of hot mead around Aldera’s fire to unclench her frozen fingers.
And it was there, as the women passed the afternoon sewing, that Rhiann discovered it was not only she who had found the long dark so difficult, letting fears take root.
‘The warmth won’t come,’ one of the old women croaked, biting her thread off between two yellow teeth. ‘It is the doing of the ice spirits – we are unlucky.’
Glances came Rhiann’s way, but she kept her eyes on her sewing. She and Caitlin were making Eremon and Conaire a new battle standard, with blessings sung into every corner of it to keep them safe. Caitlin was hemming the white woollen background with neat stitches, and Rhiann was working on the boar figure, in crimson-dyed linen.
‘Aye,’ another woman said into the silence. ‘And just yesterday my man saw a flock of nine crows in the dead oak by the seal’s bay. Nine, and all lined up on one branch!’
‘War crows,’ one of Aldera’s grown daughters whispered, peeling a pile of rushes to make into lamps.
Aldera snorted loudly, plunging the glowing fire poker into more cups of mead on the hearth. When the steam cleared, she fixed her daughter with a sharp eye. ‘We all know the men will be going to war again – it doesn’t take any crows to tell us that! Isn’t your da up to his elbows in hot iron all day and all night?’
There were murmurs of agreement as she handed around the cups, but the bronze-smith’s wife, always in competition with Aldera, sniffed and wiped her long, dripping nose on her sleeve. ‘There are more signs than that. A redshank was heard calling eighteen times, exactly. A dead horse washed up below the Dun of the Cliffs.’ Her voice dropped dramatically. ‘And a grey man has been seen on the marshes.’
Rhiann stabbed her finger as her head jerked up. ‘Grey man?’
The bronze-smith’s wife smiled, her pointed teeth gleaming. ‘Yes, lady, with his pale robe flowing out behind him. Ebra saw him in the fog last week, flying over a marsh pool like a swan.’
Rhiann laid down her sewing and fixed a calm eye on her. Eremon wouldn’t want needless fears to flourish, for a warrior’s strength could easily be eroded by his woman’s talk. Yet the bronze-smith’s wife flushed at Rhiann’s regard. ‘That’s what Ebra said. But others have seen him, too, all cloaked and hooded.’
Another woman timidly cleared her throat. ‘My man swears he saw him gliding among the trees on the maiden’s hill.’ She spoke in a whisper, and many of the women darted fearful glances at each other and over their shoulder to the door.
‘What does it mean, lady?’ Aldera’s daughter asked Rhiann, nervously twirling one of the peeled rushes. ‘A grey man bodes ill … perhaps he has come to claim our men!’ She was just fifteen, and new-married. ‘Will the Romans kill them all, and us, too?’
Rhiann slowly let her breath out and smiled, looking around at them. ‘Your men are in the hands of the war leader, and a better war leader has not been seen in Alba since the Goddess herself walked these mountains; we all know that. So grey man or no, Eremon will guide our men with a clear head, as we must keep our own heads clear. Do not let your fears make you quaver, for the fire you hold steady in your hearts will reach out to your men and give them strength in battle.’ Suddenly an idea slipped into Rhiann’s mind as surely and rightly as a sword to its sheath. I myself’, she found herself announcing, ‘will be returning to the Sacred Isle when the sea lanes open.’ A surge of excitement and relief rose in her. ‘The Sisterhood gave us great aid before, and can do so again. So you see, there are many with the power of sight, working to keep your loved ones safe. Do not let your fears weaken your hearts.’
When Rhiann and Caitlin emerged, the wind had given way to a dank evening fog, dripping from the eaves of the houses, cloaking the dun in near darkness. The stones on the upper path were slippery, and Rhiann took Caitlin’s elbow protectively as they walked.
‘You’re going back to the Sacred Isle?’ Caitlin adjusted the hide wrap to cover Gabran’s bare head.
Rhiann nodded, the excitement still vibrating along her veins. ‘It came to me so clearly! After all, the men will leave when the weather breaks, and I cannot stay here while they risk themselves. I know there is more I can do, and the Sisters will see what that is.’
Caitlin glanced down at Gabran, as he began to fuss and wail. His cheeks were red and swollen from teething, and he had been fractious all day. ‘And I have to stay here,’ she said softly.
Rhiann halted, breathing hard as she felt herself fill with a new strength. Goddess, it was better than the guilt. She turned to Caitlin, slipping an arm around her shoulder. ‘Which is why I do what I do,’ she pointed out gently. ‘You have the important job of caring for our future king; I have another calling.’
At Rhiann’s house, Eithne knelt by the hearth, grinding roast barley in the quern, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Caitlin and Rhiann shook the damp from their cloaks and hung them by the door, and Caitlin stretched Gabran out on his sheepskin rug. Immediately, he wriggled on his belly towards Cù, and began tugging at the hound’s ragged grey ears.
‘Eithne,’ Rhiann distracted Gabran with a rowan peg to chew for his teeth, ‘have you heard talk of a marsh spirit around Dunadd? A grey man, they are calling him.’
‘Yes, lady.’ Eithne sat back on her heels and brushed sweat from her brow, leaving a smear of flour. ‘All the servants are speaking of it.’
Rhiann reached for the cooling brew of willow bark on the hearth, drawing Gabran into her lap as he began to fuss and suck on his fists. ‘Well, I’d like you to spread a new rumour at the well. Tell people I have said it is nothing to be afraid of, and we will drive him forth with the songs at Beltaine, if he has not returned to his Otherworld home by then.’
She measured the brew into water and held the cup to the baby’s lips as he cried. When it was down she kissed and rocked him, her chin pressed thoughtfully into his hair.
Over the past few weeks, Rhiann had noticed Eremon and Conaire huddled in conversation, glimpsing them in the smithy and the stables, and corners of the dun away from the other men.
Yet when a day dawned suddenly bright and still, with a warm sun glittering on the last frosts, Conaire took Caitlin and their son out walking alone, and Eremon appeared in the middle of the day outside the house. In his arms was his fighting saddle, and a pot of mutton-fat.
Scooping up two honey cakes, Rhiann joined him in the cool sun, pressing her lips to his forehead before settling down beside him on the bench. She drew up her knees and gestured at the four-horned saddle, which had been stored away through the long dark. ‘I take this to mean your plans with Conaire have been laid?’
Eremon paused at rubbing fat into the leather of one saddle horn, cocking an eye at her. ‘I didn’t want to burden you, a stór, until I had thrashed it out with him, until I was sure it was right.’
‘And now you are sure?’ Rhiann took one of the cakes, looking at Eremon expectantly. Despite the sun the breeze was still cold off the sea, and she drew her sleeves to the ends of her fingers before biting into the cake.
Eremon smiled, though his eyes were solemn. Then he seemed to
brace himself. ‘Rhiann, after our success in the south, we think we should strike first this year. Agricola won’t be expecting it, which gives us an advantage, and we’ve shown our raiding tactics can work against the Roman army.’ He rubbed the cracked side of the saddle horn vigorously, rushing on. ‘If we lure them northwards, we can take them by surprise, and draw them up into the mountains. On their own ground, I have seen what the tribes can do.’
Despite the plunge in her belly, Rhiann recognized the light in Eremon’s eyes: the warrior’s excitement. She herself knew that zeal, after all, for her heart was also grasping for its strength. She cleared her throat. ‘Where will you go?’
Eremon glanced at her as if he had expected an argument. Yet Rhiann had something to tell him as well, and she certainly didn’t want an argument about that, either. ‘North, to Calgacus,’ he said. ‘To start a rebellion of our own. We need all the men he has pledged to us.’
Rhiann nodded and swallowed, slowly brushing crumbs from her skirt. ‘Then I must tell you that it is in my mind also to return to the Sacred Isle, for Beltaine. The strength of the Sisters helped you once, and this time I intend to call more priestesses to attend – all the Ban Crés and healers of our allies, and those of tribes who have so far refused an alliance. Through this, I may be able to convince them to pressure their kings to join you.’
Apprehensively, Rhiann glanced up to meet Eremon’s eyes. Over the long dark they had spoken many times of the stag rite, and so Eremon knew of its power, and what it had given him. With the other Sisters she had drawn the Source once, and knew she could do it again. This was her true path, her only path, and she hoped that the compulsion to follow it would assuage the guilt of betraying Eremon. She would give herself to their cause, and therefore to him, in the best way she could for now.
And though concern was there at the edges of Eremon’s mouth, something else passed between them with that one look, beyond the fear for each other: a simple, wordless acceptance of what must be.
CHAPTER 29
Samana edged gingerly down the gangplank of the Alban ship, for the thick fog had coated the timbers with a dangerous slick of moisture. Underneath her feet, the Abus river was black and oily, and the sounds of the men tying up on Eboracum’s pier were strangely muffled.
It was too early in the season for trading ships to come inland from the sea to the headquarters of the Ninth Legion, and hers was the only vessel she could see, although the mist had turned its outline ghostly as it rocked on the slow river.
Before her in the near darkness loomed the legionary fortress, less than ten years old, with its huge square ditch encircling a high earth bank, topped by pointed timber palisades and gate-towers at each corner, looking out over the plain. Within the fortress was the town, a place for soldiers, made of straight streets, storehouses, long barrack blocks and workshops. Yet Samana had no intention of going into that. Her arrival here would be most unexpected, and probably unwelcome.
She shrugged deeper into her lynx-fur wrap, shivering, as two men shuffled past her with a large oak chest, pushing her back against a line of barrels waiting to be loaded. Hazy pools of torchlight spilled down from the fortress walls, illuminating a ragged collection of civilian buildings that had sprung up along the riverbank like mushrooms: houses for traders in hides, salt, meat and grain, she remembered Agricola telling her; craftsmen’s workshops; and rooms for whores.
Samana could see little beyond dark, humped walls, oddly angled roofs and glimpses of lamplight spilling under shutters. Dogs barked and people cursed, the sound faint in the mist, and from within the fort itself came clearer sounds of trumpets and shouted orders. Perhaps on a day like this, most people stayed inside.
Samana gripped the edge of the barrel behind her, struggling to calm her pulse, sucking in freezing, clammy fog with each breath. She was the queen of the Votadini, she reminded herself. Yet she didn’t feel her exalted rank here. Eboracum was a daunting place; the headquarters of Agricola when he retreated south from Alba in the long dark, and home to one of his legions. The thought of all those soldiers only a few steps away discomfited her in a way that living among them never did.
Suddenly she heard a slip and curse, as a sailor stumbled off the end of the gangplank from her ship, an amphora in his arms. This, and the thought of how angry Agricola would be, were enough to rouse her. ‘You!’ she barked, straightening. ‘I did not pay more money for that wine than you will ever see in your life, only for you to spill it into the river!’
The man gaped at her, open-mouthed.
‘Put it safe in the cart,’ she ordered, through gritted teeth, and find me someone to take a message inside the fort.’
The man bowed. ‘Yes, lady.’
Because of her bribes, he at least knew she was important, even though she had kept her hood up for the entire journey down the coast from Alba. It would not do to embarrass Agricola openly, after all. She had not seen him for more than five moons, for when he was not subduing the wild northern tribes, he must govern the province itself. Every long dark he came south with his men, the four legions he commanded dispersing to their fortresses in other towns. Then he attended to all the business that had been delayed while he was in the field – correspondence with the emperor and visits from leading citizens and officials of the southern cities to discuss taxes and complaints and building programmes. There were, as Agricola explained to her, always minor rebellions to quell, outlaws terrorizing citizens in country estates, tribes defaulting on payments, and native princes pleading for aid against their enemies.
Samana knew all this would have been dominating Agricola’s thoughts and energy. Yet she was gambling that her body, expensive gift and new idea would all help to quell his fury when he found her on his doorstep.
A native boy skidded down the muddy bank out of the dark fog, and once she had given him her message, and a coin for his troubles, she asked him where travellers stayed when they came to town.
The boy sniffed. ‘Officials and messengers all stay in the fort,’ he offered unhelpfully.
Samana shook her head. ‘Not inside. Is there anywhere in the village?’
The boy’s white teeth flashed in the gloom. ‘My aunt has the only inn, lady. It’s cheap.’
Samana clinked her other coins in her hand. ‘Clean is better than cheap; I do not wish to be assaulted or robbed.’
The boy shrugged. ‘Sometimes traders come, who want a good bed and meal. It is clean.’
‘Then take me there. And remember: when you deliver your message to the commander, say only that a gift awaits him at the river, and his benefactor awaits him at this inn of yours. You will not say it is a lady, you will say it is … one who bears the mark of the panther.’ She smiled to herself. Agricola once said she reminded him of a black panther he saw in a theatre in Africa, although she did not know what such a creature was. She stared down at the boy severely. ‘You will only get the other half of your money if he comes alone, and if you deliver this message to him exactly as I have said it.’
The boy nodded and pocketed the coin she dangled before him, then darted off so quickly she had to shout at one of the sailors to guard the stores, before hurrying after him.
The child led her into the maze of buildings by the river, most of them stinking of fish, tanned hides and damp, and she was so busy dodging the puddles that she failed to notice where they were going. Those few people about were huddled in cloaks, their boots barely crunching on the gravel paths, yet from far above, on the fort walls, came the thud of marching feet and the muffled clank of weapons.
Suddenly the boy stopped before one of the only properly constructed buildings, a long, low house of wattle-and-daub, with a dripping thatch roof. He left her then, and a show of her precious coins to the woman innkeeper got her ushered through a smoky den of men and bright-painted women, already gabbering drunkenly, and along a corridor to a tiny room, which fronted the path. The woman who led the way paused at the door to light an oil lamp with a pine
taper, and as the room filled with soft, wavering light, Samana saw that there was a narrow, straw-filled bed, a three-legged brazier, a bedside table and a bench set before the window.
As the woman bustled around, lighting the coals in the brazier bowl and muttering about the chill fog, Samana pulled back the blanket on the bed, and from the smell she could tell it was reasonably clean, the sheets laundered, the ticking fresh. It would do.
When the innkeeper left, Samana opened the shutters on the single window and looked out over the foggy river, wrapping her cloak about herself with mingled terror and elation. She had done it! Agricola wouldn’t turn her away, not now. He had been away from her body for more than five moons, and though she knew he would have sought relief elsewhere, surely no whey-faced southern whore could be any match for her beauty or sexual prowess.
Over the next few hours, the afternoon gloom deepened. Samana riffled her damp hair over the brazier to dry it, hung her cloak over the door, and sat on the bench and dozed, jerking awake at every noise on the path outside. Irritable and aching, she roused herself long enough to order some hard cheese and cold fowl from the innkeeper, then picked at the clay platter without enthusiasm. Finally, she realized that it would not do to be so ill of temper when Agricola came, so she ordered a basin of hot water and sponged herself, combed her hair and dressed in his favourite red robe.
The fog outside was darkening into night when at last he arrived.
There was no knock at the door; he just burst straight in and stood staring at her, until the innkeeper had puffed her way back down the corridor. Then he kicked the door shut and unwound the long cloak from his head and shoulders and tossed it on the bed. Underneath, he was dressed in his plainest tunic and boots, with no armour or insignia of rank. He had taken a chance coming here; she knew it. Samana adopted a meek expression and waited for the explosion.