Morning's Journey (35 page)

Caledonaich believed a woman would bear as many children as the number of Beltean she had danced with the virgins. If this proved true, Gyan’s return to the world of swords and spears would be short-lived at best. When the Doves of Argyll had first adorned her sword arm, bearing children hadn’t ranked highly on her list of priorities. But she firmly believed in taking all her responsibilities seriously.

A chilly gust made her reach for the edges of Arthur’s heavy black traveling cloak. She’d felt a wee bit silly when she’d asked him to leave it with her, wielding the excuse that as the weather warmed, it would be excess baggage. She inhaled deeply of its masculine scent, regretting not having told him that she needed it as a reminder of his presence. In the next breath, she despised the circumstances that birthed that need—and in the breath after that, she despised her resentment.

Her bairn squirmed, as if sensing her turmoil.

She laid a hand over the spot and squeezed her moist, stinging eyes shut.
Please forgive me, my son! This is not your fault. Or your father’s.

The fault lay with her chosen response.

She still loved Arthur, she insisted to herself, fingering the cloak’s edge. During the past few months, the character of her love had changed; gone was the unbridled passion they’d enjoyed. Cynda called it normal and temporary. Gyan hoped both would prove true.

Yet this hope, coupled with her remaining shreds of love, had failed to prevent her from lashing out against Arthur, her father, her brother, Cynda, Angusel, and anyone else unlucky enough to cross her path whenever her mood darkened.

If Arthur’s absence stretched into years, she wouldn’t blame him. She’d bid Per and Angusel farewell, but her parting gift to her consort had been stony silence. Arthur had looked back after the column had started moving, and she’d glimpsed his hurt. More than anything, she wished she could live that day over again. She didn’t know how to repair the damage her behavior had wrought.

Affixing a smile to her lips to mask the guilt smothering her heart, she joined her clanswomen.

A place opened between Bryalla, huge with her fourth, and Mardha, who showed no sign of being with child. Though Mardha never boasted, Ogryvan made no secret that she warmed his bed.

Did she carry Gyan’s half sibling, perhaps conceived during the March storm that had immobilized Arbroch for a week? A child who might become playmate and friend and companion-at-arms to Gyan’s son? Mardha’s radiant smile told Gyan everything. The mothers clasped hands, and Gyan gave Mardha’s an extra squeeze.

As the virgins stepped forward to receive the blessing of new birth, Gyan recalled her feelings from prior years. Even before putting her life into the hands of the One God, she’d never approached her gravid clanswomen with the desire to receive blessings for any future children she might bear. Still, she’d always taken care to lay hands upon each one, a happy duty to conduct.

The first approached, a shy lass not long out of swaddling bands herself. Mentally, Gyan braced herself for the touch. The maiden’s fingertips barely brushed Gyan’s belly, but her surprised giggle announced that she’d felt the bairn’s nudge.

Gyan’s smile felt more relaxed and genuine than any she’d given in months. A tingling raced from crown to soles.

The rest of the clan followed the maidens. Mardha, Bryalla, Gyan’s father, Cynda…the surprisingly long parade of faces blurred in the firelight. As each pair of reverent hands sought her blessing of renewal, the tingling intensified. The clan’s support had always boosted her spirits, but never like this, as if blessings—and forgiveness—poured upon her instead.

Perhaps that wasn’t far from the truth.

For her heart felt as if it had shed invisible shackles. She had no idea what was happening to her or why, and didn’t want to know lest this sensation die before it could bear fruit.

The tingling ebbed at the end of the blessing ritual. Her newfound peace remained.

As she returned to the grassy rise overlooking the Belteine bonfire and its myriad tiny brethren being stoked for the evening’s conclusion, she thanked the One God for using her clan to bestow His precious gift.

Chapter 19

A
RTHUR WATCHED GAWAIN—Sixth Ala’s newest member—spur his mount after five cows that had decided to bolt rather than step onto the path that led up to Dunpeldyr’s summit. Angusel drew rein to follow.

“Hold, Angusel,” ordered the Pendragon.

The lad obeyed, none too happily, and nudged Stonn over to where Arthur sat astride Macsen, overseeing the final leg of the final drive to recover Clan Lothian’s stolen cattle. Questions and disappointment paraded across Angusel’s face, but to his credit, he remained silent. Life with First Turma, Sixth Ala these past seven weeks since leaving Arbroch—not as an official conscript because of his youth but rather more of a unit mascot as an unspoken favor to Gyan—had at least taught the young Caledonian warrior not to argue every order.

Though Arthur had several reasons for wanting Gawain to handle the wayward cattle solo, none of which were Angusel’s concern and not the least of which being that Arthur’s nephew had all but cut his first tooth on a cattle raid, he rewarded Angusel with, “Watch. If Gawain needs help, then we’ll act.”

“Aye, Lord Pendragon,” Angusel replied evenly.

True to form, Gawain had already headed off the strays and turned them back toward the herd. Angusel kneed Stonn to a position estimated to prevent Gawain’s charges from bolting in other directions and looked back at Arthur for approval. He bestowed it with a short nod.

As the other horsemen kept the rest of the herd moving up the steep, rocky switchback path that had earned Dunpeldyr the Caledonian name Dùn Pildìrach, Arthur swatted at the hundredth fly to circle his grimy face in the past hour. A score of its brethren were pestering Macsen; his beleaguered horse tossed his head and shook his mane and fretted and fidgeted like nothing Arthur had ever seen—except during other cattle drives. In silent apology, he reached down to brush a buzzing, biting swarm from Macsen’s neck and gave it a reassuring pat. The damned flies returned moments later.

On his list of military operations, cattle raiding ranked dead last.

Never mind the moral ambiguity of stealing property that had been stolen from his countrymen at the outset—people who, because of that same property, lay long past the need for its return; thus, their chieftain reaped the benefits. Never mind that the unfenced summer pastures made guarding the animals nigh impossible, even for veteran Angli warriors. Never mind the minimal casualties. Never mind the fact that Arthur’s men and Loth’s treated each raid like a cavalry-games competition, whooping and yelling and guiding their mounts with speed and precision to encircle the herds and stampede them past any hope of pursuit…and keeping a tally among themselves that stopped mattering after the first half dozen pints of the night.

At this stage in every raid, Arthur chose the rear position to make sure no man or beast got lost on the return ride, and the view—along with the stench, dust, flies, and his mood—never improved.

Gawain drove all five rogues back into the herd and would have joined Arthur had he not signaled Gawain and Angusel to ride farther ahead as moving buffers between the cattle and the sheer drop. Two raids back, a bull had plunged to its death. At Loth’s insistence, the man whose inattention made him responsible for the loss had received ten stripes, which Arthur had negotiated down from twenty, and he’d wielded the whip himself to make sure that was all the soldier got.

God, he hated cattle raids.

He was thankful when this herd passed through the upper rampart without incident, and the men secured all threescore and two head in the market pens.

Loth was waiting for him at the cattle gate, looking as unappreciative—and free of sweat, flies, dust, and dung—as ever.

“A word, Arthur…” Loth began.

Arthur could well imagine what that word would be. He ignored Loth and rode to where his men were dismounting in front of the stables.

“Fine work today, all of you. The first round is on me.” Their cheers buoyed Arthur’s spirits some. He felt even better to see his brother-by-marriage puffing to join the gathering. Suppressing a wicked grin, Arthur called his nephew forward. “You may put an extra pint on my tab, Gawain, for preventing those rogues from escaping.”

Any day Arthur could needle Loth for the despicable indifference he showed his firstborn was a good day, cattle raid or no.

Arthur dismissed the men. As he dismounted and handed Macsen’s reins to Angusel, he noticed Gawain collecting good-natured ribbing from his envious companions and a frosty look from his father. Arthur stepped in front of Loth to eclipse it.

“You wanted to speak with me?” Behind him, he heard the diminishing sounds of men and horses moving away and heartily wished he could join them.

Loth glanced toward the pens. Most of the cattle had found the feed and water troughs, though a few stood at the fence, looking decidedly wistful. Arthur knew exactly how they felt.

“Good haul today, Arthur. Thank you.”

He covered his surprise with a nod. “My last haul.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to—”

“Hell, no.” Tugging off his gloves, he turned to stride toward the stables, where the last of his men were disappearing with their horses inside. “I have more important work to do.”

“More important than punishing Colgrim?” Loth called after him.

Arthur halted, clenching his jaw. Mucking a midden was more important than lining his brother-by-marriage’s pockets for no more compensation than room and board for him and his unit. He faced about. Loth had made no move to close the gap. That suited Arthur just fine.

He pitched his voice to battlefield timbre. “If you want to conduct punitive raids and strengthen that royal Angli bastard’s resolve, you go right ahead. I’ll start writing your eulogy.”

Horror cascaded over Loth’s face. He hurried closer to Arthur. “But your sister, our children—you would refuse to help us? You can’t! You swore—” Abject fear leached through the harsh whisper.

His pity for the man went only as far as lowering his voice. “I swore to defend the northern Brytoni clans from foreign threats. Don’t stretch that oath to cover defending your stupidity.”

Loth’s cheeks flushed crimson. “Punitive raids will weaken King Colgrim, not make him stronger! Maybe even destroy him!”

“Loth, if you truly believe that—”

The sound of cantering hoofbeats cut off Arthur’s retort. He looked past Loth to see a lone armor-clad horseman in a legion officer’s cloak emerge through the rampart’s gates and follow the invisible line drawn by the settlement’s guards straight toward Arthur and Loth’s position. The courier, noncommand optio rank, halted his horse, dismounted, and saluted Arthur while Loth stood scowling, arms folded. After Arthur accepted the small scroll and broke the seal to begin reading it, the optio acknowledged the chieftain with a polite nod.

Arthur closed the scroll and regarded Loth. “My service here is done.” He dismissed the courier and resumed course for the stables.

Loth lengthened his stride to match Arthur’s. “The message?”

“Merlin needs me,” was all Loth needed to know. Arthur intercepted Angusel as the lad emerged from the shadows of the stables’ central aisle. “Find Lord Peredur. He and ten men of his choosing shall accompany me to Senaudon. You and Gawain, too. Everyone is to wear battle-gear, pack light, and meet me in front of the tavern. We depart soon thereafter.”

Angusel rendered a sharp legion salute, but life with Sixth Ala hadn’t erased his grin. Arthur felt like grinning, too. Merlin had not supplied a reason for the summons, but anything short of administering corporal punishment was better than dealing with Loth.

Or Gyan.

The pain of their parting surged again. He set a brutal pace for the living quarters but knew he’d need Mercury’s wings to outdistance the ache. He wasn’t sure even that would work.

Loth caught up with him in his quarters. Arthur had finished sluicing the remnants of the raid off his face and was stripping out of his riding leathers.

“You’re not taking all your men with you.”

Arthur chose to interpret the statement as an observation, not a command, though Loth stood within his rights to make it one. After wrapping his neck with a light linen stole, he lifted a neatly folded scarlet tunic from the clothes chest. “The soldiers guarding Lothian villages may stay as long as necessary. Send them to the Senaudon staging area when you have no more need of them.” As he pulled on the tunic, he regretted having to wear a clean one over his unwashed body. So be it. He donned the double-fringed, metal-studded battle-kilt, strapped on his footgear, and reached for his torso armor.

“Humph. In this you trust my judgment. But—”

“I trust you to do the right thing for Clan Lothian in every decision you make. I hope that trust isn’t misplaced.” Arthur finished buckling one side of the breastplate to the backplate and shrugged on the heavy bronze rig. “The courier and the rest of my men quartered here can expect recall within the week.”