The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One

by Jules Watson

  Though he was soon deep in conversation with the warrior to one side, Eremon remained conscious of Rhiann beside him. Her beauty, which shone this night as on no other, had left him with an awareness of her every gesture. He even caught her honeyed scent when he moved his head to take a draught of ale.

  So he noticed when she suddenly tensed, and without breaking off his conversation, he followed her gaze. A young man had entered the house, and was standing with Calgacus in the centre of the room. He was close to the King’s height, and their faces shadowed each other, though his hair was darker. He moved his hands expressively as he spoke, head held high and bright eyes restlessly scanning the room. His clothes were very fine, finer even than those of Calgacus himself, and coloured with a multitude of hues. Jewellery glittered and shone from every limb, setting off the gold lights in his hair.

  Eremon glanced again at Rhiann. Her face had drained of colour, and she had a look in her eyes that he had never seen before. Fear, and something else. Suppressed excitement … tension. No, it could not be what he thought it was. Not desire!

  His stomach turned. Before he could stop himself, he leaned into her ear and said, ‘Who is that man?’

  She jumped, drawing away. ‘That is Drust, the son of Calgacus.’ She reached for her cup of mead.

  Eremon’s companion stopped talking when it was clear that Eremon was paying him no attention, and turned to the man on his other side, insulted. Eremon knew he should get back to his discussion … but the words leaped out of his mouth nonetheless. ‘And you know this man?’

  Rhiann took a sip of mead, and spoke reluctantly, it seemed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you had never been here.’

  ‘He came to the Sacred Isle when I was young.’ She turned her head, and the tiny gold balls on a jewelled hairclip rang softly. ‘Remember our lineage laws, Eremon. You should concentrate your diplomatic efforts on Calgacus’s heirs – his sisters’ sons. That man means nothing to you.’

  Not to him perhaps, but Eremon remembered Rhiann’s fingers dabbing the berry stain on to her mouth. He fought the desire to question her more, and she turned away.

  She did not seem to be looking at the golden man any more.

  Chapter 46

  Once hunger had been sated, but before heads were too dulled with ale, Calgacus rose from his bench to retire. ‘Tomorrow I will begin to consider the issues of this council,’ he announced. ‘We will need clear heads to share our ideas.’

  ‘Or our misgivings,’ the warrior next to Rhiann muttered.

  With a sinking heart, she realized how hard it would be for the warrior-nobles to come to some agreement. The ability to act with one will was not bred into them as into the peoples of the Middle Sea: the Romans, and before them, the Greeks.

  But that was even more reason why they could not fall under the Roman yoke! Her people would wither and die, like caged hawks. And the land would die, too. With no one to sing to it, to guard the gates to the Otherworld, to commune with the sacred spirits of tree and spring, the land would become a barren place, bereft of its soul. The Mother would be ground under heavy Roman tread, and the air would stink of temple fires to Roman gods. Sightless statues would stare out across the mountains.

  She could not allow that!

  She looked up. Eremon was standing before her, offering his arm so that she could rise. Once on her feet, a lightness in her head told her that nerves had made her drink more than usual, and when she stumbled, Eremon looked at her keenly.

  She wished he would stop paying her so much attention! But she knew why – he had seen her looking at Drust. Men, even when they did not care for a woman, were as jealous as fighting stags.

  As if saying his name in her mind drew her, she found herself gazing at Calgacus’s son. What a fine man he had grown into! He was at the centre of a crowd, and she watched covertly, as he threw back his head to laugh, exposing the tendons in his throat. His teeth were white, and his eyes flashed as he held the circle around him in thrall. A few steps more, and she was close enough to hear the laugh, as it rang out over the heads of the people around him, cleaving the bustle of talk. That laugh rooted Rhiann to the spot.

  In a whirl the years seemed to fall away, and the one fragile place within her that held memories of passion, of burning touches in the night and stolen kisses, leaped into flame. Her breathing quickened, and hidden behind Eremon in the crowd, her hand pressed her belly once more, as if she could feel the tattoo designs taking shape there all over again.

  She had edged closer to Drust in the press of bodies, and from the corner of an eye she watched as he sketched a story in the air for his audience. He had fine, graceful hands, with no sword calluses, only the honest grit of stone-dust beneath his nails, the thickening of skin on fingers that held a chisel, an awl. This man created; he did not kill or maim.

  Suddenly, Eremon turned to introduce her to someone, and she struggled to regain her poise. But even with her back turned, she could still feel the golden heat emanating from Drust.

  Soon she would speak to him. Somewhere quiet, so she could see if he remembered her. Surely he remembered her!

  Later that night she lay beside Eremon in the narrow bed. His broad back was towards her, as it always was, and in the last light of the fire, she could see its darker shadow against the plastered wall.

  For once she felt, acutely, the great gulf that lay in that single hand-breadth between them.

  It must be the memories of Drust that had given her this new awareness. She could just feel the heat coming from Eremon’s body, but it did not draw her closer as had happened with Drust all that time ago.

  Seven years ago …

  Those memories were all of heat and flame, whereas with Eremon there had only ever been the chill of fallow land; the coldness of rain. She turned over to her belly, restless.

  Something happened as she stood in Calgacus’s hall that night. A door she had thought closed burst open; feelings she had thought destroyed by the raid now lanced her anew. Yet, how could she feel any of this after those men? Was that part of her not dead and buried now?

  She turned over again, trying not to wake Eremon.

  Ever since the day on the beach with Linnet, everything had changed. The tears had washed something away; or woken it. The wound between her and Linnet was healing. The dream of glory had revealed its purpose, with its promise that she would regain her access to the Source, and take up a role to save her people. And Caitlin … Caitlin drew her into life, with her laughter. All these things had given her hope.

  So perhaps other things were melting too, now, like the leaf-bud flood, when streams were released from the ice peaks to cascade down the mountains. The thought was immensely frightening, for once started, where would it stop? She glanced at Eremon’s sleeping back. Floods destroyed things, too.

  She put a hand behind her head. The day she rode Liath back from Eithne’s house after the birth, she had reached out her hand, longing to be drawn into the Otherworld. Longing for something else. Well, the Goddess had heeded her call, although not in the way that Rhiann had foreseen. She yearned for change, and it had been forced upon her, with this marriage, with Caitlin, and now, with meeting Drust once more.

  You have two choices, her practical voice asserted. You can blind yourself to it, and retreat again. Or you can let the flood take you. What will it be? The throb of excitement in her belly beckoned. It pulled her, called to her. She closed her eyes, and just slipped into the stream, to see how it felt.

  And as she did, every limb was enveloped by the memory of a time before pain ever stalked her. Seven years ago … Goddess! How innocent that girl with Drust seemed! The memories were of touch and smell as much as sight …

  Drust when she first saw him, his hands drawing tales in the air …

  His hot breath on her fingers, when he kissed her hand in greeting…

  And later …

  … there had been warmth all around, and firelight gilding her skin. She lay na
ked on a bed, sheened with sweat. Drust’s face glowed above her, his eyes closed, his hands poised.

  She looked up at him, her body quivering, almost straining towards those hands. She could feel the heat from his palms, burning a trail from her neck over her breasts. But he did not touch her, did not part the sweet folds between her thighs to find her core, that lay, throbbing, aching for his fingers.

  A tide of longing rushed over her as her eyes devoured the fine lines of his face, the long eyelashes. And then to his hands, with their long fingers, stained with the dye of the woad. They looked so soft. If only she could feel how soft they were …

  She squirmed, and he opened his eyes and smiled at her. ‘Ah, my beauty.’ His voice was velvet, like the tines of the stags in leaf-fall. ‘What art I can create, with you as my inspiration.’

  She smiled. No man had ever spoken to her this way. No one had ever looked at her this way. Men in the dun were rough and red-faced, with gravelled voices. But this man was soft and refined and clever and beautiful.

  And then, bliss, as he touched his finger to the hollow at the base of her throat. She closed her eyes and listened to his voice, as he glided his finger in spirals and whorls, down over her breasts and slowly around each nipple, then over the ridges of her ribs and on to the swell of her belly.

  He traced the design he would create with a finger, telling her of the sinuous curves of the river that ran through the heart of her homeland, and how those same lines would run on her body. In delicate strokes he drew the deer of her islands and mountains, and then, right on the greatest curve of her belly, the horse. For the Epidii. He traced the lines that joined the places of power, where the Old Ones built their stone gates, and the springs marked doorways to the Otherworld, and finally, the sacred symbol that showed the male and female halves of the Source; two spears guarding a crescent moon. All of them would mark her, brand her, tie her to the land, channel its power into her body so that she could be Ban Cré, the Mother of the Land …

  The tattoos took ten nights.

  Ten nights of lying there motionless under Drust’s softly moving hands, of sharp pinpricks from the bone needle, pinpricks that rode the unbearable line between pleasure and pain so that he often had to lay down the needle and hold her until the shivering ceased.

  For a week her world shrunk to tiny, focused senses: the glow of firelit walls, the butterfly touches of his hands, the forest smell of the woad steeping in pots on the fire. There was no sound except their breathing. No feeling except the needle, and the brushing fingers.

  And then, on the last night, he laid down the needle. The skin on the front of her body was tender and swollen, but she hardly felt it. All she knew was his eyes.

  He kissed her then, over and over, murmuring words of love, words of beauty, words of desire. He was glorious …

  Rhiann lay next to Eremon’s cold back and stared at the roof.

  After the tattooing, Drust left the island. He did not return for her, but she had been so young, and soon she became ever more drawn into her priestess training. She did not forget the nights of flame and soft fingers, but gradually, the memory receded until it was like a pleasant dream.

  At times she caught herself thinking of him, and when she did, the deep knowledge came that one day they would meet again, when she was older. And then, perhaps, she would ask for him to be her husband. In the dark, now, her mouth curved with its customary bitterness. Many things had intervened in that plan.

  But then she thought of her golden dream, and the face of the beloved, always hidden. And she asked herself the question she had asked a hundred times and more. Could Drust be the man in the dream? No man had ever awakened such feelings, so it must be him.

  And if he had done it once, then perhaps Drust could awaken her a second time! Perhaps he could bring those feelings back, so that she felt innocent and untouched again. Perhaps he could sweep away the stink of the raiders’ coarse hands, the searing pain of them invading her body.

  A shudder went through her. As much as the fire, the desire, beckoned, she was afraid to find out. She didn’t want to open up to anyone ever again.

  For what if she did, and inside she was just cold: cold ashes in a dead fire? What if she was unable to rouse or satisfy a man?

  What if she was not a real woman at all, and he found out?

  Chapter 47

  The next day, Eremon received an invitation from Calgacus to ride out with him to his coastal defences. Eremon thought they would speak alone, and instructed Conaire and his men to join a hunting party, but to his disappointment, he and the King were accompanied by some of the more glowering of Calgacus’s nobles.

  The vast inlet that split the eastern coast was shaped like an arrowhead, with the dun right at the point. Offshore, in the head of the arrow, an enormous peninsula formed a narrow strait, guarded on each side by heavily-manned duns that oversaw all sea traffic on its way to the Dun of the Waves.

  As they rode around the shore dun, Eremon looked suitably impressed, and asked many questions, which Calgacus’s nobles fell over themselves to answer. He could almost see what was going on in their minds. We are invincible. We don’t need you, foreigner. We will fight our own battles. Yet Calgacus himself said little, and every time Eremon turned his way, he saw those gold-flecked eyes on him; penetrating and far-seeing.

  As they left the gate in the dun wall for the curving beach beyond, Calgacus called Eremon up to ride beside him. After a while, the King abruptly said, ‘Do you race on beaches in Erin?’

  Eremon was surprised. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Without warning, the great man flashed Eremon a challenge, and drove his heels into his mount’s flanks, a big bay with fire in his eye. The horse sprang forward, and in a heartbeat Eremon had Dòrn beside him, until both stallions were racing neck and neck, their hooves pounding on the wet sand. The wind sang in Eremon’s ears, and he nearly laughed.

  When they pulled up at the rock headland that blocked the beach, panting, Calgacus’s eyes were fiercely bright. He glanced back, to see his more portly nobles trotting sedately along behind. For a moment, they were alone.

  The horses shook their heads and snorted, their sides heaving. The sun was hot above this day, a bright glare on the sands, and Eremon massaged his scar, strained by the ride. Rhiann would not be pleased.

  ‘So now I know you have a good seat,’ Calgacus remarked. ‘Yet there are many other mysteries about you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You come here to trade, and yet instead you take up arms against the invaders.’ The eyes were eagle-sharp now. ‘You walk into, and out of a Roman camp. You attack a fort. You seek me out as an ally. Why?’

  Eremon’s mouth went dry, and he remembered clearly the day he had to defend himself to Gelert. The first day he had to lie. And watching now the directness of the King’s gaze, Eremon felt a deep pang of regret that he would have to lie to such a man as this. A man whose respect, he suddenly realized, he desperately wanted.

  By the Boar, I wish the day would come where I never had to lie again, he thought bleakly. But Calgacus was waiting, so Eremon took a deep breath. ‘It is simple. When I met Agricola, he was looking over the sea to Erin. My land is no safer than yours. I may have come to trade, but I did not count on the Romans. I am only doing what you yourself would do. Will do, I hope.’

  Calgacus weighed that up, fingering the eagle talon around his neck. Then he smiled. ‘You presume to know my mind! You are a great judge of men, for one so young.’

  ‘I had little chance to be young, my lord.’ He had not meant to say that.

  But Calgacus did not laugh at him. ‘When you are marked for the throne, there is little time for boyish games. That is why it is the King’s prerogative to have a little fun when he wishes.’ The light of the wild ride flickered in his face. ‘You should remember that.’

  The pang of the lie returned. ‘I will do so, my lord.’

  Calgacus was measuring again. ‘I like you, prince of Erin. Y
ou have great strength in your face. You have proven your courage, your foresight. Unlike them.’ He threw an impatient glance over his shoulder at his nobles. ‘They only care for their furs and gold, and their Roman wine and oil. They see Roman coin in one hand, and not the dagger concealed in the other. You, though, I feel, had to fight for your birthright, as did I. There was more than one possible heir to my uncle’s throne, and I had to win it with a sword, not with flattery. And I do not intend to lose it through the seduction of wealth, or power.’ He patted the sword at his side. ‘Here lies power.’ Then he laid his hand on his chest. ‘And here. I trust only my own heart, and that is how I keep my throne. We speak the same language, do we not?’

  Eremon’s breath caught. Did this mean that Calgacus would support him? ‘We do, lord,’ he replied. ‘Except that you have someone else to trust, now. For I tell you on my father’s honour, that the Romans will come for your lands. Only by standing together can we defeat them.’

  ‘Perhaps. I believe in their danger, as my nobles do not. But I do not think that they will come north.’ Calgacus looked over his shoulder again. ‘Know also that there are many kings in Alba. And we have never, in living memory, acted together.’

  ‘The world changes,’ Eremon said shortly. ‘We change too, or we fall to Roman swords like grain to the scythe.’

  At that Calgacus smiled. ‘Perhaps you should have been a poet, prince. If you use such gilded words with my chieftains, and the other kings, you may get your wish. Do you fight as well as you speak?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. A king should be truthful above all. If you can fulfil any boast, then the bards will sing of you for generations.’

  Hot sun beat on Rhiann’s brow as she left the lodge of the Caledonii Ban Cré, an old aunt of the King. The priestess was bent and lined, with swollen joints, yet her eyes had sparked with vigour as she and Rhiann spoke of the coming celebration for the longest day. The second turning of the year was fast approaching now; the night sky held its grey until morning, and the sun hardly seemed to sink before rising again.