by Jules Watson
She sat down on the hearth-bench, and Brica bent to unlace the thongs of her leather boots. Linnet and Dercca were unrolling their packs in the guest alcove, behind a wicker screen.
Brica looked up at her mistress, but Rhiann’s gaze was on the flames, trembling in the draught that came under the door. ‘The Goddess has given him to me, Brica, and I’ll use him for Her glory. And when he is no longer needed, then he can return from where he came!’
She said the last under her breath, for her own ears only, but she saw Brica cock her head.
Eremon had taken to watching the sunrise with Cù from a high, bare hump of rock that reared up just outside the Horse Gate, near the King’s Hall.
From his perch that morning, wrapped in his cloak, he watched the chief druid leading the sun greeting outside the shrine with a great deal more grimness than usual, his face belying the soft, fine dawning of the day. Below Eremon’s lookout, the dun burned with gossip. The princess of the Epidii, whom Eremon still had not seen, had apparently disappeared when told of the marriage.
Eremon could not understand her behaviour. His men had theories of their own, from Eremon’s poor reputation in the bed-furs, to his prominent lack of beauty, but they quieted when he pointed out that if the bargain fell through, they would be cast out to wander Alba alone in the long dark. No, the Boar was looking on him kindly the day He brought them to these shores. Surely this chance would not slip through his fingers. She must come back, she must.
The Epidii had hunted again to stock up the larders for a wedding feast, and the surrounding nobles of the royal clan had arrived from their duns in the hills. Eremon had been fitted for a new green tunic, and it was hastily being embroidered in gold thread by Talorc’s wife. He also considered his jewellery stores, and picked a delicate silver necklace of his mother’s as a wedding gift. A more lavish bride price was expected to come from his kin in time.
His kin. He fingered the other tusk from Conaire’s boar, now tied around his upper arm, against his skin. Ah, he was playing a risky game, he knew that. But when someone like his uncle changed the rules, a man must adapt, or die.
At times the guilt of his deception pricked at him, but he had been trained to be ruthless as well as practical, and to limit his attachments to those he must use. And although his men came first, he also knew that with them, and his control over the Epidii warriors, he could keep to his end of the bargain. That would weigh against the lie, in the eyes of the gods.
He would be a strong war-leader for the Epidii. He would be all they needed.
This day, he and Conaire were called to break their fast with the council again, but the thick porridge stuck in Eremon’s throat as much as it had on the last two mornings. Glances darted around the ring of benches in the King’s Hall, from elder to elder, eyes catching each other as the cold light from the open door shone on their rings and furs. No one seemed to have anything left to say. Well, not in Eremon’s hearing, anyway. Conaire and Eremon’s eyes met, too, but Conaire just pursed his lips and shrugged, stretching his sore leg to the fire.
Then a shadow darkened the door, and a slight, black-haired servant was standing there, curtsying stiffly. She looked familiar, but Eremon couldn’t place her.
‘What is it, woman?’ Gelert said irritably, his mouth full of bannock.
‘Pardon, my lords, but the Lady Rhiann is here.’
There was an explosion of crumbs from Talorc, and mutters from the others. To Eremon’s further surprise, the servant shot one venomous look at him, but before he could wonder why, she turned, and a girl – no, a woman – was standing outlined in the cold sunlight spilling through the doorway.
Belen was on his feet in an instant, as were all the others, except Conaire.
The woman glided forward. She was dressed in a tunic of saffron, and her hair was unbound to her waist. Eremon could not see her properly until she walked into the pool of firelight by the hearth, and then he reeled, for the wide, crescent-shaped eyes, high forehead, and amber hair were those of the healer. This was his bride? Into the shocked silence, Eremon blurted, ‘But you are a druid!’
The girl turned those arched eyes on him, and he saw some strong emotion there which chilled his blood. She swept him with a glance. ‘No, I am of the Goddess. You do not have priestesses any more in Erin, do you?’
She had not addressed him with his title, and he felt an odd surge of anger.
Gelert stepped forward. ‘Prince, this is the Lady Rhiann, daughter of Mairenn, who was sister of Brude.’ He paused. ‘Our Ban Cré.’
The girl bowed a graceful head, but when she straightened, there was a sardonic tilt to her smile. ‘And you are Eremon, son of Ferdiad, King of Dalriada in Erin,’ she recited. ‘I apologize if I have inconvenienced you.’
With no more than that – no muttered excuses or embarrassed wringing of hands – she turned to the elders. ‘The wedding feast will be ready as arranged.’ Then she addressed Gelert, not hiding her distaste. ‘The Lady Linnet is here to lead the wedding rites with you. We will be ready by noon tomorrow.’
Eremon’s alarm was growing. During her healing of Conaire, he discovered her name but barely spoke with the girl, worried as he was for his brother. Now he racked his brains. Did he say something then to offend her? Impossible: they only ever talked of Conaire, and only in passing, for she left every time Eremon appeared at the door.
He was assuming that his bride’s disappearance was a last attack of girlish nerves. But the remote face before him seemed to hold no fear, only contempt. Surely she welcomed the match? After all, he was comely, wealthy – what more could she want? Then he was struck by a new thought. What if she had bestowed her heart elsewhere? Perhaps she was one of those noble women who harboured dreams of marrying for love. Well, herders’ daughters could do so, but not princesses.
He glanced at Conaire, confused. Politics he understood, but dealing with a woman like this was something else altogether. If they were to forge some sort of partnership, they were getting off on the wrong foot entirely. So he tried the only thing that occurred to him, and gave her his most encouraging smile. But she turned away before she caught the force of it, sweeping out into the morning.
‘Prince,’ said Gelert, ‘when the sun is at its highest tomorrow, we will perform the rite. Bring your men to the forecourt before the shrine.’ The elders followed the druid out until only Eremon and Conaire remained.
Conaire let out a whistle, kneading the healing scar on his thigh. ‘Hawen’s balls! The Boar certainly gave you a beauty, brother, but she never looked that way at me when I was in her sickbed! Let’s hope your reputation in the furs holds up, for she’ll be using those claws of hers on you if it doesn’t.’
Chapter 14
By the middle of the next day, a merciful haze had settled over Rhiann, as a cloudbank from the west settled over the sun, plunging the crag into gloom.
She stood by her bed as the young noblewomen hummed around her like a swarm of bees, Linnet directing them with her firm voice.
Arms up, stiff as a corn-doll, and a fine linen shift floated over her head. Arms down, and sharp fingers pulled the embroidered sleeves to her wrists, and tied the gathering under her breasts. Arms up, and they eased the sleeveless undertunic over her shoulders; arms down, and it fell to the floor in a drift of green silk. Arms out, and they drew on the heavy, embroidered robe of crimson wool, pinning it on each shoulder. Arms in, and they flitted around her, tugging a bit of cloth here, settling a fold there.
Talorc’s two daughters were hovering over her hair, braiding the lengths into fine plaits, weaving gold thread in among each braid. They chittered and breathed on her neck.
‘That’s my thread, Aiveen!’
‘No, it’s not, you gnat. You’re taking too much hair!’
‘Girls!’ Linnet nudged one out of the way, and her soft fingers touched Rhiann’s skin as she continued to weave. ‘Breathe now, child.’
Rhiann nodded distantly, but she’d forgotten how to
breathe. She didn’t know what it felt like, what lungs were. She did not have a body, she was just a wisp of air, hardly chained to Thisworld any more.
This feeling was mostly due to the saor – the sacred herb draught that freed her spirit from her body. She took it whenever she was acting as the Goddess in a rite. Normally, it brought warmth and light-headedness, as if, every time she tried to move, her body lagged behind for a moment. In some dim corner of her mind, though, she knew this was a different haze today; warm still, but heavy, an escape rather than freedom. But she did not care. If it dulled the fear, then that was all that mattered. She’d drunk a double draught of saor, just to be sure, though Linnet did not know that.
She comforted herself with the fact that this was a public rite, not a private joining. It was not Eremon mac Ferdiad wedding Rhiann of the Epidii; it was the war leader joining with the Land. She was bestowing sovereignty – however temporary – on him with her hand, until a king could be restored, and in return he had a sacred obligation to protect and serve her people in war.
She wondered if anyone had bothered to explain that part to him.
On the other side of the bedscreen, the girls’ mothers rustled their dresses and gossiped by the fire, already shrill with the warmth of the mead. The highest ranking women were supposed to have a hand in her preparations, to bind them to the Mother. So far this had been perfunctory, sharp hands straightening a bit of cloth here and there, before they went back to their drinking. But when it came to her finishing finery, they crowded forward eagerly. She caught a glimpse of Aiveen with her mother, both faces bright with avarice.
A golden girdle, alight with garnets, went around Rhiann’s narrow hips. Bronze arm-rings came next; snake-coiled on one wrist, deer-headed on the other. Her priestess ring shone on the third finger of her left hand; her others were left bare. Her braids were tipped with tinkling gold balls, which pulled at her scalp. At last, Brica put her priestess cloak around her shoulders and fastened it with the Epidii royal brooch, and then Linnet was before her with the matching royal torc to replace Rhiann’s own. The eyes set in the mares’ tossing heads were cold dewdrops of garnet, and as it clasped her neck, so Rhiann, her body reeling with the effects of the saor, felt as if she were sinking into the ground under all the weight of wool and linen, gold and bronze.
Perhaps she really would sink, she mused, and could rest at last as the dead rested, in the cold of the earth.
But a horn was blowing, and the seated women rose excitedly, their calls raucous to Rhiann’s ears, scattering mead cups in their wake.
Linnet’s gentle hand came to rest on Rhiann’s shoulder.
Under a glowering sky she looks up at the prince’s face, swimming above her like a pale moon through cloud, a green jewel blazing on his brow. Gelert’s voice drones on.
The scene shifts and blurs, in and out of focus, and yet little things leap out in minute detail. The gnarled boles of age-darkened wood on the druid shrine. Light glancing off the boar that crests the prince’s helmet. The damp wind lifting the braids at her neck. The rigid line of Linnet’s mouth.
Beyond the murmuring of the crowd, the birds on the marsh cry, faintly. I could fly there right now. I could be with them.
A spot of rain falls, glistening on Gelert’s balding scalp. He steps back, and the raindrop runs down into his beard. His eyes are slits; what lurks in them, she is beyond. Today he cannot touch her.
Linnet comes forward with the golden cup, and wraps Rhiann’s chilled hands around it. Linnet blesses the prince with water from the sacred spring, while Rhiann stares at the clouds. One has billowed into the shape of an eagle’s head. Or is it a goose?
How did I get here? This man … this man will take me … I am afraid.
The stabbing fear breaks through the saor for a moment as the prince accepts the sacred bread from Linnet’s fingers. Then his sword is out, and he turns to her people, laying it across his hands. No! She pushes the pain away, not willing to come back into the shell of her body.
He is not marrying me. He is marrying the Goddess. The Goddess … I am the Goddess.
Yes … the cloak of numbness falls back into place, and she draws it tight. The fear recedes. She looks down into the cup of sovereignty in her hands. In it, there lies a pool of amber mead, like her hair. She must raise it to his lips now, so that he can drink and be one with her land, her people.
Don’t look at him, though, as he sips, and fixes her with those green eyes. Don’t look.
The Goddess. You are the Goddess.
Yes, he feels it too. He can look no longer: he knows that he does not join with Rhiann. And then it is over, and his eyes are hidden by his dark hair.
Linnet binds their hands together with a sash of deep red, a blood colour. His palms are damp. Linnet speaks of the Goddess and the consort, the defender of the land, ritually bound now with the bones of the land. And the people shower them with dried haws, for there are no flowers. No Beltaine flowers.
Goddess, he will take me. I am afraid.
‘Please, my lord. Let me sing.’
Aedan’s words were muffled, as Eremon tugged his helmet and circlet off and handed it to Finan.
‘You’d better let him.’ The older man winked at Eremon. ‘He’s got to show those fine threads off to everyone, after all.’
Now Rori was helping Eremon off with his mailshirt. As befits the new defender of the tribe, Eremon went to the ceremony in full war regalia, but he couldn’t sit like that all night.
‘And why did Aedan get that, while I got this.’ Rori looked from Aedan’s riotously embroidered tunic down to his own plain red one, which clashed with his hair.
The Erin men explained away their lack of feasting clothes by saying that their chests of personal belongings had been lost in the storm. The Epidii willingly furnished them with clothing for the wedding, although the quality had been a chance affair.
Aedan sniffed. ‘Well, perhaps these people understand the true status of a bard. Second only to his lord, is that not right, sir?’
‘In polite company, yes.’ Eremon was curiously tired. Standing up there in front of the shrine, before all the people, he had suddenly become aware of what he was swearing to. A defender of their land – he had agreed to that with Gelert. But a consort for their Goddess? Just where did that come from? He was taken unawares, asked to make a lasting vow when, come a year, he would be leaving. But how could he have backed out then and there? So he drunk from the cup, and swore the oath to that older priestess – his bride’s aunt – even though the girl herself would not even look at him.
Ah. He swore fealty to the Boar and to Manannán first, in Erin. He promised them he’d go back. This Goddess of the Epidii would just have to understand. He shrugged away an uneasy prickling that she might prove more demanding than he thought.
A bronze-rimmed cup of ale was thrust in his hand. ‘And here’s your first drink as a new husband.’ Conaire grinned at him, took a gulp of his own ale. ‘By the Boar, my leg was growling to stand so long! But this will take the pain away.’
The men were alone in the King’s Hall, except for the servants turning the spits of boar and deer over the fire-pit, and rolling barrels of ale and mead into place against the outer walls. The feast would begin soon, but they had a few moments to themselves. Cù was pacing around the hearth, watching the sizzling fat spit into the fire, and squabbling with the old king’s hounds.
‘So can I sing, my lord?’ Aedan was pleading now.
‘Yes, yes. But choose your tales with care. That goes for all of you – hold your drink well, and keep your counsel.’
‘Hold your own drink well, my brother!’ Conaire nudged him. ‘No going soft tonight, of all nights!’
‘And fill up on boar,’ Colum chuckled. ‘You’ll need your strength!’
Eremon forced a laugh, as the others let loose with a stream of sexual jests, while a servant refilled their cups. Tonight. He’d not forgotten that part.
A strange mixtur
e of desire and apprehension stirred in him. Hawen, it had been a while without a woman. Unlike Conaire, he’d had more to think about since their arrival. And his new wife was comely, if thin for his taste. There was little enticing roundness about her hips or breasts, as far as he could see, but she certainly had a striking face, with its high cheekbones and generous mouth. And unusual hair.
As Finan launched into a ribald story about a wedding night in his youth, and Eremon’s ale slid down his parched throat, he thought about that hair. An image flashed into his mind of pulling it down around his face, running his fingers through it. Hmm … now that thought was more interesting. His memory continued roving over her face, coming to rest at last on her eyes, and there the hot flush of desire abruptly faded.
Her eyes were striking, too, wide-set, tilted up at the edges. But they unnerved him. On the beach they held repulsion, in the King’s Hall that morning, hostility. And during the ceremony – well, that was the most unsettling part of all. She stood there, but she wasn’t there. Her eyes were not even cold; coldness requiring some emotion and presence. They were just blank.
He had seen plenty of druid rites in his time, and as the king’s son, was often close to the brethren when they were communing with the gods. But he never expected that one day he would see that same unearthly light in the eyes of his bride. The touch of the Otherworld.
Still, she was a priestess, which must be something like a druid. And after going through all that joining-to-the-land thing, he had realized that this must be business to her as well as to him. He sighed. Politics were all very well, but in the meantime, this betrothal could have been a pleasant interlude.