Morning's Journey (The Dragon's Dove Chronicles Book 2)

by Headlee, Kim

  DISARMED AND stripped to the waist, Urien stood atop the long, flat, white Chieftain’s Rock outside Dunadd’s innermost gate while Clan Moray packed into the courtyard around him. Symbols had been carved into the rock ages ago: a basin, a footprint, and notches whose meaning not even the bards could recall. Another, more recent symbol adorned the rock’s face: the Boar of Clan Moray. At the chief priest’s signal, Urien knelt beside the basin. The priest dipped his fingers into the sanctified water to anoint Urien’s brow, chest, and both shoulders in the name of the Triune God. Tingling erupted at each point of contact.

  Urien resisted the urge to wipe the water away.

  He rose for the arming, which symbolized divine allotment of the chieftain’s power, whether performed by a Christian priest or one of another faith. No stranger to the trappings of war, the chief priest completed the donning of Urien’s padded undertunic, breastplate, backplate, belt, sword, helmet, and clan mantle efficiently.

  The priest bowed to Urien and jumped down from the knee-high rock, his part in the proceedings finished save for the closing prayer. The final step was Urien’s to take alone.

  Swallowing convulsively, he stared first at the hollowed-out footprint, then at his own foot, trying to gauge the sizes and wishing he had tested the fit beforehand. The depression accommodated an average-size foot against which Urien’s foot and, symbolically, his ability to rule would be judged. A smaller foot was viewed as a positive sign that the chieftain would grow into his responsibilities. A larger one portended an ill fit between the chieftain and the clan. No one would swear fealty to such a man.

  Urien drew a deep breath, strode forward, and crammed his foot into the hollow. A surge of relief dispelled the discomfort wrought by pinching rock.

  Planting fists on hips, he stared across the sea of smiling, cheering faces as the men lined up for the fealty-swearing, searching for anyone who might dispute his claim upon the hearts of Clan Moray.

  He had no takers.

  THE PROCESSION halted before the stone sentinels ringing the Nemeton’s Sacred Ground. While a beaming Ogryvan held his grandson, Arthur helped Gyan dismount. As the rest of the clan entered the clearing, she lingered in his arms, drawing upon his strength. She’d told him what would transpire, but this battle he couldn’t help her fight.

  She collected Loholt from her father, tucked a soft fold of the Argyll-patterned blanket around his wee face, and strode onto the Sacred Ground.

  “By what name is the Exalted Heir of Clan Argyll to be known?” The High Priest’s crackling tone carried across the hush descending upon the clearing.

  “Loholt.” Gyan readied her arguments like an archer collecting arrows. “Loholt mac Artyr.”

  The High Priest cocked an eyebrow, opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it and merely nodded. When Vergul began to voice disagreement, the High Priest silenced him with a glare. This seemed decidedly odd, but she wasn’t about to question her good fortune. She swallowed her relief as she entrusted her son into the High Priest’s care.

  After entering the inner stone circle guarding the Most Sacred Ground, he gently laid Loholt on a cushion atop the altar, unwrapped the blanket, and freed his right foot. The graying priest who had applied Per and Gyan’s tattoos stepped forward to perform the same service for her son. Loholt whimpered at the first prick of the knife on the back of his heel. She stood poised to rush to his side.

  The priest worked quickly yet carefully. Loholt didn’t make another sound. Gyan grinned. Her son had borne his ordeal like the true warrior he was fated to become.

  Recalling the rest of his prophesied fate, she suppressed a shiver. She would sooner take her own life than cause him to lose his.

  The High Priest picked up Loholt and wrapped the silver-trimmed blanket around him. “I present the Exalted Heir of Clan Argyll, lawful firstborn son of Chieftainess Gyanhumara nic Hymar and her consort, Artyr mac Ygrayna. This child is part Breatanach by blood. His name represents this fact—and rightly so.” Loholt cooed as the High Priest freed the newly marked foot and angled it for the crowd. Bright blue dye glistened in the outline of two tiny doves. “By the Mark of Argyll, let it be forever known to all that he is Caledonach in heart, mind, and spirit.”

  He kissed the bairn’s forehead and placed him into Gyan’s arms. “Clan Argyll,” he continued, the pride in his aged voice undisguised, “I present to you Loholt mac Artyr.”

  Chapter 21

  URIEN TRIED TO block out the noises and movements of the soldiers around him on Dunadd’s practice range to focus down the arrow’s shaft, his emotions as tight as the bowstring between his fingers. Chieftainship bore no resemblance to what he’d imagined.

  Certainly, he’d expected decisions to be made upon his father’s death: dismissing old advisers and appointing new ones; renewing trade agreements; assessing clan holdings, livestock, tax levies, and other assets; inspecting the war-band; forging alliances. He hadn’t expected these tasks to leave no time for plans of a more personal nature.

  His arrow sped toward the target and nicked the center’s edge. Damn.

  Having to send that thrice-cursed letter of support galled him like badly tanned breeches, but silence would have aroused Arthur’s suspicions.

  He pulled another arrow from his quiver. As he nocked and drew it, he imagined a different target, one surmounted by a scarlet-crested helmet. He released the arrow.

  It struck dead center.

  “Well done, my lord.”

  Urien turned, resisting the urge to train an arrow upon the intruder. He had ordered Accolon, his new aide, not to disturb him except with matters of utmost urgency.

  Accolon stood a dozen paces away, flanked by a man in travel-stained clothes. A leather pouch hung at the man’s belt under his dagger sheath. The courier’s Cwrnwyll-patterned cloak bore the Ivory Unicorn badge, but either Ygraine or Morghe could have sent him.

  Lowering his bow, he invited the men to approach.

  They bowed. “My apologies for this intrusion, my lord,” began Accolon, “but—”

  Urien waved Accolon silent and extended his hand to accept the letter from the messenger. As he examined the seals, he pursed his lips. The raven imprint identified it as a message from Morghe, but why the double seal? Urgency? Or some other meaning?

  He broke the seals and read about how she’d sent the messenger to Ygraine first, using the double seal to make sure the man didn’t deliver the wrong letter to her. Apparently, Morghe believed that traveling by way of Caerlaverock decreased the likelihood of the messenger being followed to Dunadd.

  Her plan didn’t account for the possibility of interception, but he was impressed that she’d taken a precaution that he might have ordered under similar circumstances. He grinned. Perhaps he shared more in common with his future bride than he had believed.

  “Get ready, Accolon.” He clapped his friend’s shoulder. “At first light, you embark on a journey as my envoy.” Triumph swelled Urien’s chest. “Of sorts.”

  LOHOLT WAS crying.

  Gyan pulled the covers up to her ears. Sometimes if she waited a few moments, he quieted on his own.

  Another angry squeal pierced the gloom.

  Groaning, she rolled out of bed. Even now at the height of summer, the flagstones chilled her feet as she crossed to the cradle. She picked him up, murmuring his name. His cries calmed and his lips puckered. She moved him into position. He latched onto her breast and began tugging furiously. She smiled at him, caressing his cheek, awed that she could meet his needs in such a primal, intimate way.

  He seemed content to feed while nestled in the crook of her arm. She paced to the window and swept aside the covering. The brisk morning spilled into the chamber, carrying with it the aromas of fresh bread and roasting beef. Beyond the guards’ crossed spears, some of the residents had already begun their day’s tasks. Most of the activity flowed toward the market square: wagons bearing casks and crates, tall covered carts laden with clanking pots and
flowery bunches of herbs swinging against the sides, youngsters driving squawking flocks between the vehicles. Dogs cavorted everywhere, adding their barks to the commotion as cats languidly observed the proceedings from doorsteps and windowsills. Of sheep and pigs and goats and larger animals, Gyan saw no sign, nor did this surprise her. The Lugnasadh festival and livestock show was only a fortnight away, and these animals would be moved to the meadows once the sale pens were built.

  She gazed beyond the thoroughfare to a training enclosure where one warrior—Seamus, she guessed, or perhaps Torr—towered over a circle of younger warriors. They stared in rapt attention as he used one of their companions to demonstrate what appeared to be a type of feint, judging by the quickness of his movements.

  Gyan ached to be with them, to grip the leather-wrapped hilt in her fist and know she could swing her sword with even a wee bit of her usual strength. Better still to be at her consort’s side, helping him recruit and train men for the Angalaranach campaign.

  Loholt finished his meal. After adjusting her tunic for modesty and patting his back, she held him up to watch his future sword-brothers. He made such a fuss that she had to step back from the window and pull the covering closed.

  She sighed. One day, she’d introduce Loholt to the warrior’s arts, but she heartily wished that time would come before she forgot them herself.

  Cynda bustled into the room, took Loholt, and proceeded with her usual efficiency to change his swaddling cloth. Cleaned and covered and cuddled, happily mouthing the head of his favorite rag doll, he settled down in Cynda’s arms.

  Gyan gazed longingly at the sword belt she was still too big to wear and the sword she was too weak to wield. Argyll’s smith had wrought wonders to obliterate all traces of the Angalaranach raider’s blow. Too bad he couldn’t repair her body as easily.

  “Go ahead, Gyan.”

  Startled, she spun toward Cynda. The woman was rocking, full attention upon the sleeping Loholt. She couldn’t be sure whether she’d heard Cynda or the prompting of her heart.

  Cynda glanced up, smiling. “You’re much thinner. Try the belt.”

  Gyan donned tunic and trews, pulled on her boots, and strode to the shelf where the belt had lain, carefully dusted and polished—and idle—for more than half a year. She delighted in the feel of its cool bronze ridges and valleys. The belt slid into place easily enough. Her joy evaporated when she failed to fasten the thongs.

  With an exasperated sigh, she glared at Cynda, who laid Loholt in his cradle and approached her.

  “Ach, I said you were thinner, my dove. I made no claim that it would be easy.”

  By the time Cynda managed to secure the thongs, Gyan could scarcely breathe, but she wouldn’t have traded the sensation for all the gold in Caledon.

  “You could get longer thongs.”

  “No!” Gyan experimented with a few kicks and lunges. Each movement eased the pinching. “No. These will stretch.”

  She regarded her sword, couched in its elaborate bronze scabbard, hanging above the belt’s shelf. The pommel’s sapphire shone invitingly in the lamplight. She gripped the hilt, sucked in a breath, and lifted the sword.

  Miraculously, it didn’t feel as heavy as she’d expected. As the blade sang free of the scabbard and she reacquainted herself with its balance, a tingle raced up her arm. She handed the scabbard to Cynda, who backed away to give Gyan room.

  She ripped the air with cuts and thrusts. Her form felt awkward, but that would improve with practice. Reflexes, too, sorely needed honing, but she had to start somewhere.

  “Why don’t you go down to the practice arena for a while?”

  An extraordinarily tempting idea…but reality lay cloaked in the form of a creature weighing half a stone who depended upon her for his very survival. “I can’t leave him, Cynda.”

  Cynda stepped forward, holding out the scabbard. “Nonsense, my dove. Of course you can. You should.” Cynda’s eyes glittered with a warrior’s fierceness. “You must.”

  Must? She longed to believe that. Cynda’s presence in the chamber and guards stationed at every door and window assured Loholt’s safety. However, his protection comprised only one facet of the issue. She took the scabbard and sheathed her sword.

  “What if he wakes up hungry while I’m gone?” Holding the scabbard in one hand, she held up the other to forestall the obvious answer. “The training arena isn’t that far away, and I can be sent for easily enough, but what if something happens and I must go somewhere else? What if—”

  Cynda chuckled. “What if we find him a wet nurse? That’s how Per was suckled.”

  “Really?” Gyan couldn’t curb her surprise. Every other clanswoman suckled her own bairns. It always seemed so natural, so right…and so unavoidable.

  “Oh, aye. Your mother was a busy lady, what with seeing after the affairs of the clan. Her consort was more interested in gaming and hunting and fighting. Chieftainess Hymar couldn’t afford to let a bairn slow her down.”

  Gyan gazed at her sword. All she knew of Per’s father, Byrn mac Lorana, was that he’d lost the challenge by Ogryvan mac Glynnis for the right to be Hymar’s consort. If Byrn had declined to share the responsibilities of clan rule, it was easy to imagine Hymar seeking a more capable partner and, in the meantime, a wet nurse for her son.

  “I suppose you have someone in mind already, Cynda.”

  Cynda grinned and scurried from the chamber.

  Gyan shook her head with a laugh. Cynda probably knew more about the daily workings of Arbroch than any hundred residents combined. As she settled into the chair beside the cradle, foot to the runner and sheathed sword lying across her lap, she wondered what she’d ever do without her.

  Cynda returned with a brown-haired slip of a lass. One of the freed Breatanach slaves, if Gyan read the scars on her neck aright, and a kitchen servant, judging by the old knife nicks on her hands and the odors that followed her into the chamber. The young woman glanced at Gyan nervously before lowering her gaze. Gyan’s gut lurched. Was this lass capable of meeting Loholt’s needs and ensuring his safety?

  “This is Tira.” Cynda urged her forward. “Her bairn died not a sennight past.”

  Cynda’s confident endorsement satisfied Gyan. She grasped her sword and stood. Gasping, Tira shrank back. Gyan gave Braonshaffir to Cynda and spread empty palms toward the lass. “No need to fear, Tira,” she said gently, in Breatanaiche. “I am very sorry for your loss.” Into the threatening silence, inspiration descended. “If you serve me and my son well, then once he is weaned, I will provide you with the means to return to your village. Would you like that?”

  Gyan scarcely needed to hear the profuse thanks that followed. The happiness mirrored in Tira’s pale blue eyes was payment enough.

  Tira assumed her post beside the cradle. Gyan kissed Loholt’s reddish-gold head. He stirred, uttering a squeaky sigh, but didn’t wake. Gyan’s heart surged with love for him and his father.

  Straightening, she faced the woman who’d suckled her, kissed her bruises, bandaged her scrapes, and listened to her joys and fears. Cynda fastened the scabbard to Gyan’s belt and stepped back, nodding her approval.

  Gyan snatched her cloak from its peg by the door. Flinging it about her shoulders and feeling much more like her old self, she left the chamber.

  A BABY cries and squirms in the arms of a peasant woman. The woman coos and rocks the child, to no avail. Another woman takes the baby. The cries cease. A foot kicks free of the blankets. The flickering firelight reveals the heel’s tiny blue mark.

  Over the older woman’s shoulder hovers a hulking bear of a man. “How do we pay for his keeping, eh?” He looks at the woman holding the baby. “Hers, too, for all that.”

  The man holds out a broken-nailed hand. Into the callused palm drops a plain silver ring. “Ho! You take us for fools? This scrap of silver won’t last a month.”

  “Take the wagon and harness, then,” says a third woman.

  “Your horse, too.”

&n
bsp; “No. She is my way home.” With an angry grunt, the man folds his arms. “Very well. I shall return with another in a day or two.”

  The man nods, grinning. “Done.”

  An earring appears, a golden loop strung with three pearls: white, silver, and black.

  Avarice ignites in the man’s eyes.

  “Do not give the child to anyone who cannot show you its mate.” The pearls seem to glow of their own accord before being swallowed by the peasant man’s grubby fist. “If you sell or lose this token, your lives are forfeit.”

  Niniane woke with a start. She pressed a hand to her throbbing temple and glanced around. By the full darkness, she guessed the time to be sometime between matins and lauds. The sparse but familiar furnishings of her quarters in Caer Lugubalion’s praetorium, silhouetted by starlight, met her eyes. She’d spent all these weeks ministering to the hundreds of pox victims but would have to pack today, for she was due to return to her priory on the morrow.

  Normally, she Saw snatches of battles, accidents, alliances, the forging of Arthur’s sword: events that shaped the future of Brydein. Why in heaven’s name had the Sight shown her a peasant baby?

  She felt perspiration bead on her brow. As she touched the spot, she dismissed the warmth as a reaction to the vision.

  Perhaps the child wasn’t a peasant.

  She closed her eyes and tried to recall details.

  Niniane had Seen through the eyes of the woman who had offered the jewelry, but she recognized neither the woman’s voice nor the items—not that this greatly surprised her. In an abduction, servants often performed the act.

  The child’s identity remained another mystery. The peasant’s hut had been too dark to make out faces. The blanket might have been dark blue or black. No features distinguished the baby from any other. The peasant man referred to the child as a boy, but that was all—