Morning's Journey (9 page)

She broke the seal to read the dispatch and quelled a groan. According to the Dhoo-Glass harbormaster, the horse-transport ship carrying the Tanroc centurion and cavalry reinforcements had been sighted offshore and was expected to dock within the hour.

Exactly what I need: more Breatanaich who have no desire to be commanded by a Caledonach. Or a woman.

She crumpled the parchment and promptly wished she hadn’t. With seven of the eight Horse Cohort alae composed of Caledonaich, odds favored the replacements being her countrymen. Of the centurion, she felt less certain. Arthur probably had appointed someone he knew well, which would rule out the Caledonaich and potentially cause more trouble in the ranks. She sighed.

“Orders, Commander?” A brief hesitation punctuated the courier’s use of her rank.

She regarded the courier levelly. Orders, indeed. Longing for her husband competed with a twinge of bitterness. Arthur never would face the dual hurdles of race and gender.

“Dismissed.” The junior officer rendered a passable salute and turned to leave. An idea occurred—not a strictly military one and perhaps not one Arthur would have employed, but she didn’t care. “Take your midday meal with the men here, if you wish, before returning to port.” She wanted no company on the ride back and no more witnesses to her meeting with the reinforcements than necessary.

He nodded once and strode toward the mess tent, which was attracting more occupants as the shadows shortened and the work crews reached sensible stopping points. As she vaulted onto her horse and spurred the animal toward the hawthorn hedge wall’s main portal, she caught tantalizing whiffs of bread and roasted pork. Her stomach grumbled. She ignored it.

Ten miles of brooding left her ill prepared for what awaited her at the Dhoo-Glass docks.

The twoscore and ten Tanroc reinforcements had been culled from the best horse-warriors of Clan Argyll.

As Rhys and Conall and the others streamed by, she welcomed each with words laced with heartfelt gladness. They greeted her with respect mixed with affection before swaggering toward shore.

She felt a tug on her braid and whirled around.

The offender stood before her, hands on hips and a cocky grin painted across his face. She threw her arms around his neck, blinking back tears and releasing a long sigh.

“Missed me that much did you, dear sister?”

She let him go and swiped at her eyes, returning his grin. “Beast!” She enjoyed using the familiar epithet, but reality blunted her smile. “Yes, I did. You, and”—she glanced over her shoulder at the last of their clansmen disappearing into the crowd arrayed between the wharfside storage buildings and merchants’ shops—“them.”

Per clasped her hand. “And Artyr?”

She turned her head, not to look at Per but beyond him, a hundred miles north and east. “Constantly,” she whispered.

“He asked me to give you this.”

Per lifted her hand to his lips and bestowed a lingering kiss.

Intense longing for her consort threatened to sunder her heart.

Mercilessly, she reined in her emotions; the Breatanach soldiers would never come to respect her if they saw her in this condition.

Drawing a determined breath, she thanked him and stepped back to inspect his appearance. Over traditional Caledonach black leather battle-gear he wore a woolen mantle woven of Clan Argyll’s deep blue highlighted with crossing bands of saffron and scarlet. A red-and-green-ringed copper brooch rode the cloak’s folds. Its dragon winked with a sapphire eye, Per’s due as an Argyll nobleman.

“You have a new legion badge,” she said. To signify his status as an ala commander, the ring of his old badge had been red. Copper designated centurions—infantry, cavalry, and navy alike—but the presence of the dual colors could only mean, “Artyr put you in command of Tanroc?”

“Who else? No Breatan could hope to keep Conall and the others in line.” He displayed the teasing grin she loved so well. “Your consort is smart enough to know it.”

She answered him with her own smile. “And is my consort’s brother-by-law smart enough to recognize who’s in command here?”

Per swept her an elaborate bow. “You have always ruled my heart. Why should this arrangement be any different?”

“Beast!” As he straightened, she gave his shoulder a playful shove, and he chuckled.

They stepped off the dock to make way for the dockhands reporting to unload the ship’s hold. Listening to the restless stomping and whickering of the horses, she wondered what else might be stowed in the belly of the huge cargo vessel.

Before she could voice her question, Per said, “You look wonderful, Gyan.” Switching to Breatanaiche, he added, “Marriage favors you.”

Without thinking, she also switched tongues. “So. I imagine Arthur told you…” She looked at him, astonished. “When did you learn Brytonic?”

In Caledonaiche, he said, “All of us had to learn enough to get by. Cavalry commands, where to piss, how to get meat, ale, women—”

“Peredur mac Hymar! You are terrible.” She laughed. “I wager you ran right out to test that newfound knowledge of yours.”

“I didn’t have to run.” His smile deepened. “My tutor was quite pretty and willing.”

“Ha!”

“I never could keep secrets from you.” Draping an arm across her shoulders, he leaned closer. “But for her, I would have been bored out of my skin. Nothing but drills, drills, drills. New tactics, new formations, and new gear, like those saddle toe-loops.”

“Hard to believe something so simple can help a horseman so much.” Gyan nodded pensively. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

If the Caledonaich had possessed such devices, the Ròmanaich never would have troubled the Highlands.

Nor would she have met her soul’s mate.

“Aye, amazing wee things they are. And I cannot forget those backbreaking stints on wall and road repair—gods!” Hand to neck, he stretched as though reliving a particularly painful event. “You have seen all the real action this summer.”

“Ha.” She rolled her eyes as they trod the path their clansmen had taken. “If you expect to escape repairs, think again. Tanroc’s palisade is far from being finished. Not for lack of effort, either.”

“Tanroc’s palisade can wait.” Per paused at the tavern’s door. “Care to join me? The salty air has given me a powerful thirst. Besides, now that we’re not caught up in bondings and joining ceremonies and cavalry games and the like, I want to hear about your battle.” His gentle elbow found her ribs. “According to the latest tales, you stand ten feet tall, wear three skulls for a headdress, and wield a firebrand for a sword.”

“Indeed! I don’t know where people come up with these stories.”

“It’s the stuff legends are made of, Gyan.” His abrupt seriousness banished the teasing banter.

“Me? A legend? Ha! You need that drink, Per.” She tugged on his tunic sleeve. “The sun and sea have addled your wits.”

He pulled open the door, and she stepped inside to a chorus of shouts and cheers. Her clansmen, grinning through foam-flecked mustaches and beards, raised flagons in salute.

“You planned this!”

“What of it? They are here and so are we. Go on in, Gyan.” Per gave her a nudge. “They have saved us some seats.”

Indeed they had, she observed with wry amusement, in the center of the gathering.

Conall called for her story of the Scáthinach invasion. The rest escalated the chant, punctuated by the drumming of fists upon tabletops, until the noise threatened to blow the timbers from the tavern’s roof. Gyan shot her brother a teasing I’ll-get-you-for-this-later look and stood. Silence descended.

“Tavernkeeper,” she called, in Breatanaiche. “Please bring out the jars. Another round for everyone.” Her upraised hand forestalled the cheers. “One round while I tell you my tale, mo ghaisgich.”
My heroes.
And she meant it. “Then it’s to work.”

Good-natured groans melted into grunts of pleasure as the ale went around.

In Breatanaiche, the words rushed forth: her capture by the Scáthinaich, imprisonment on the rainy ridge, rescue by Arthur, the ensuing battle, the wound inflicted upon her by General Niall, and that duel’s final result. The story unfolded easier than she’d expected, perhaps because in a month’s time she’d gained enough distance from the harrowing events.

“And you may see the Scotti cù-puc,” she concluded after the roaring approval had died, grinning at the association of Niall with the impossible offspring of a hound and a pig, “when you report to my workroom for your assignments. Now, to the quartermaster with you.”

She shook her head at Per when he rose to join the men. He sat again, and they watched the tavern empty.

The proprietor scurried over with a jar of his best wine, demonstrating a remarkable memory for her preferences. She hadn’t returned to this establishment since the day, months ago, when she had first begun to understand the depth of her folly in becoming Urien’s betrothed.

Gyan accepted the wine with thanks and downed the first cupful in one breath.

“You didn’t talk about the other fight,” Per said quietly, in Caledonaiche.

She didn’t believe Arthur would have mentioned his duel with Urien but wasn’t surprised that Per had found out. “I’ll defer to the storytellers,” she answered, also switching to Caledonaiche.

“But you were there?”

“Oh, yes.” Closing her eyes, she relived that whirlwind night, when at swordpoint Arthur had challenged Urien’s right to become Àrd-Ceoigin of Clan Argyll. For the first time, she felt the full impact of how many lives had ridden on the outcome. Gyan’s people, and Urien’s, and Arthur’s army, and those who depended upon the army for aid in peacetime and in war. “But I was too nervous about who was going to win. I don’t remember many details,” she confessed. “Let it grow with the retelling. There is no harm in it.”

“Not for Artyr, and no mistake.” He gripped her shield arm over her consort’s dragon tattoo. “He is a good man, Gyan. But Urien…”

She sighed, staring into her empty cup, half expecting to see Urien’s face leering back. “I suppose this was Artyr’s idea. To give me extra protection.”

“What, sending some of our clansmen to Maun? In a way, it was. He gave me leave to select my men.”

She debated whether to be irritated that Arthur seemed to think she couldn’t take care of herself or grateful for his considerate actions. She opted for the latter. Thinking about him heightened the ache of their separation, but the harder she tried to clutch pleasant memories, the quicker her thoughts returned to the enemy of everyone she held dear.

“Do you know what Urien is doing now?” She reached for the wine jar, mulling over Angusel’s accident and Urien’s probable involvement. “Have there been any other incidents?”

“
Other
incidents?”

She chided herself for the slip. To the rest of the world, Urien had appeared innocent. Per was the last person to whom she’d ever confide her suspicions; the political chaos he would create by taking matters into his own hands was too disturbing to contemplate.

“At the cavalry games, he seemed…insulted.” She poured more wine, took a long swallow, and stared into the cup.

“Something happened yesterday, in fact.” A catch in his voice made her look up. “A Caledonach in Fourth Ala was flogged.”

“What?” She felt her eyes narrow as her anger rose. “Unjustly?”

“No. The man failed to obey his decurion’s orders.”

She didn’t want to ask her next question, afraid of how she might react to the answer, but she had to know, “Was he of Argyll?”

Per shook his head. “Clan Tarsuinn.” Again that strange tone—disbelief? “Urien flogged the man himself.”

Normally, a soldier’s direct commander administered discipline, not an officer several ranks higher. To Gyan, Urien’s involvement smacked of revenge.

Instead of sharing this troubling idea with Per, however, she asked, “Is the warrior all right?”

“He will recover. The rest of the cohort is spitting mad, but no one dares to speak out for fear of finding himself on the wrong end of the lash.”

She hoped her countrymen would continue to exercise restraint. At least Per and some of her clansmen had escaped beyond Urien’s reach, thanks to Arthur’s thoughtfulness, which surfaced another issue. “Now that the feasting is over, what is the reaction at headquarters to our marriage?”

“To be honest, Gyan, it’s mixed.” He forced a smile. “The army would support Artyr’s marriage to the Hag of Death, but every eligible lass within a day’s ride must have died of a broken heart.”

That won her chuckle. “It’s more or less like that here. But they resent me because I’m not a Breatan—and not a man.”

“The soldiers?”

She nodded. “They all know very well why I replaced Urien.” With another sigh, she gazed into the dark depths of her wine. No reassurances swam there. She whispered, “I don’t know if I can really trust any of them.”

Closing his hand over hers, he said quietly, “It’s only because they don’t know you yet. Give them time.” After a few moments, he added, “I have a surprise to show you.”

“Those reports Artyr wants me to read. Thrilling.”

“Aye, but that isn’t the surprise.”

She lifted her head. “What is it? Oh come on, Per, tell me!”

“It’s in the boat,” was the only information he would divulge.

After they reached the docks, he waved at the captain to have something brought from the hold. A crewman led it blindfolded, snorting and prancing, down the gangplank.

Once the white yearling stallion had found his footing on land, Gyan slipped off the blindfold. A pair of dark, intelligent eyes regarded her solemnly. She rubbed the creamy nose, and he blew a puff of moist air onto her palm.

“Oh, Per, he is magnificent!” She kissed her brother’s cheek.

“Don’t thank me. He’s Artyr’s gift. Sired of his favorite, Macsen.”

“Macsen” in Breatanaiche, Gyan recalled, meant “great.”

“Since he has come to me from across the sea, he shall be my Son of the Sea. Macmuir,” she murmured to the stallion, patting the deeply arched neck. Macmuir’s mane shimmered like liquid silver as he shook his proud head.

“Mordragh” would have been more accurate: big trouble.