The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (23 page)

The king nodded, face turned to the shadows. ‘Donal will fetch you.’

She fled into the night.

Chapter 21

C
ahir ordered five grain pits to be emptied and loaded on to ships bound for the Wall. After considering all alternatives, he had decided to pay the tax. There was nothing to be done – if he did not comply, the Romans would deliver to his people the same justice meted out to Finn.

In the night, he lay with one hand pressed to the wall as if he could force a path through it, showing him the way forward. In his mind, he conjured an entire plan to summon the warriors, encircle the dun, send a message of defiance to the Dux and wait for the axe to fall. He lived, vividly, the moment he would throw himself on a Roman lance and pierce his bowels, ending shame for ever. But his mind was bred to be cool, and he knew he would be condemning his people to instant death.

It was simple: he did not have the numbers of men for defiance.

What made Dunadd useful for trade made it vulnerable. He had forces mustered on all the approaches to the south and east; guards for the coastal forts, garrisons for the signal beacons on the headlands. But a full defence was impossible without tens of thousands of men, and in all Dalriada he could probably muster only eight thousand.

If that was not bad enough – his people looking at him with accusing eyes as the pits were emptied, the still gnawing worry about where Ruarc and his comrades had gone – Cahir had now been unsettled in a far different way.

His daughters had reported to him in their childish chatter the things the slave Minna had been saying in her sleep.

Cahir was so shaken that so far he had merely watched her as she went about healing his wounds. He knew her eyes denoted her as unusual; that his skin reacted to her hands. That was only because no one beyond his daughters had touched him properly for years, though, he told himself. He denied himself soft caresses, tenderness, releasing only bare lust when he bedded women. That was the price, his penance.

But this stranger’s fingers moved like breaths across his skin, and the time he spent in the little schoolroom being salved were rare moments of peace. Sometimes, when he caught the girl’s glances, he could swear he saw sympathy and an odd understanding there. Sympathy, for him! That made her unique in all Dalriada, he thought grimly.

And now this.

She cries out, Fa
, Orla said.
We don’t wake her any more, because we like to hear what she says. The Boar! she cries, and Rhiann’s name sometimes, but Fa, she says other things, too …

Minna and Keeva were turning back from the grain pit with the girls when a deafening shout went up from the walls, followed by bloodcurdling shrieks.

Along with everyone else, they hastened to the gates and up the stairs to the walls. ‘The Lord Ruarc is back!’ came the cry. People crowded the palisade, crushing them against the stakes.

The king was standing in the middle of the gate arch. Before him, dancing around on his black horse, was Ruarc. Behind him was his friend Mellan and around ten other young warriors. Ruarc was dishevelled, his fine clothes muddy and blood-streaked, his face scratched and grimy. But he had paused to lime his hair, which was standing up in stiff waves on his crown and cresting down his back.

With a manic laugh, he untied something from his saddle and threw it in the earth at Cahir’s feet. Everyone craned to see what it was. As it rolled and came to rest, the exclamations spread. Minna peered hard, then gasped and moved to shield Finola and Orla’s eyes.

It was a severed head. Dried blood matted the long, black hair above blue tattoos on waxy skin. A Pict.

‘What is this?’ Cahir demanded.

Orla pulled away from Minna’s hand, staring down with an avid glee. People’s faces were lit with excitement, not revulsion.

Ruarc grinned, but his eyes burned with wildfire. ‘What does it look like, my king?’ He jabbed a finger toward the river, where a small herd of cattle milled about, penned in by circles of whooping riders. ‘A cattle raid! There are the cattle, and here is the head of honour, one of five Picts we killed!’

Cahir’s response was lost in the cheer that rose from the throng, whipped up by the appearance of the exuberant young warriors, spattered with gore but reeking of male pride and glory, their swords flashing under the sun. Orla and Finola jumped up and down beside Minna, giggling.

Then Ruarc looked down at his king and at last his smile faltered.

It was ridiculous, but in the middle of his rage Cahir nearly laughed.

Ruarc had set forth on a cattle-raid, just like the warriors of old, just as the bards sang in their sagas – though in those myths there was no need to consider consequences.

Still, as Cahir stood there before the restive stallion, he was shot through with envy. To have the freedom to swing his sword through the Picts like butter, and scream himself hoarse! His blood was Eremon’s blood, and he too was stirred up by warriors on dancing horses, swords unsheathed, hair flying in the wind.
Lugh, give me strength. Put all that away.

He had beaten Ruarc, and now the young cockerel had challenged him again. He held those blazing eyes. ‘I thought we had settled this,’ he said evenly. ‘There, in the mountains. I make the decisions for us all. If you don’t like it, leave or fight me properly this time – to the death.’

Ruarc’s eyes flickered away, then abruptly he changed tack, tossing his golden mane. ‘Why, my king, we only did this to honour you – to honour all our people!’ He beamed that smile at all the spectators on the walls. ‘We raided the enemy to make them remember us, to know we are not weak. If they think us complacent, they might attack to test us. Now they won’t.’

Cahir studied him. Ruarc had got it out of his system, and was giving him a way out, too. He was not secure enough to challenge the king; but Cahir likewise needed his leadership of the young-bloods to make his kingdom secure.

‘I value your sword-arms too much to shed your blood recklessly,’ Cahir said at last, to a general murmur of approval. ‘But if any of you put a single foot wrong again you
will be banished.
You cannot challenge the king, and that is final. You break your blood oaths if you do.’

Ruarc stared down, eyes bright. He went to say something then swallowed it.

‘Secondly,’ Cahir went on, ‘though I acknowledge your bravery, you cannot keep these spoils. In disobeying your lord, the wealth is forfeit to me, to be distributed among the people for the long dark.’

Ruarc’s throat moved again. ‘Of course!’ he cried, after only a moment’s hesitation. ‘This is all for the people. We did not do this for wealth! Regaining our honour –
their
honour – is all that matters.’ He waved his sword over his head, and the people went wild, shouting and cheering.

Cahir watched with a half-smile. Gods, but he would make a fine king for the spectacle alone!
He’d
bedazzle the Romans into submission. Then he thought of the Dux’s hard face and knew he would never be bested by someone like Ruarc. He would eat him for breakfast, and then come calling on Dunadd with fifty ships at his back.

Cahir held a hand up. There must be a way to cool all this hot blood. ‘Your prowess, though admirable, will have inflamed our enemy. We are all in danger now of their revenge. So I am sending you to guard the hills, at least until snow blocks the passes. That is my will.’

At the moment Ruarc met Cahir’s eyes, something passed between them that recognized this as the best way. Cahir sighed inwardly. ‘In four days, we will slaughter one of the bulls and have a feast in honour of the gods who brought our warriors back safely.’

More excited murmurings ran across the crowd, and Ruarc broke into a triumphant smile. Cahir eyed him grimly. ‘Let that fill your belly for the cold moons you’ll spend on watch.’ He turned away, walking stiffly. In his anger, he had been tensing too much, and now his wounds throbbed.

Minna usually changed the king’s poultice when the girls were at lessons, but after the scene with Ruarc he did not come, and it was only at dusk that Donal drew her away from the king’s hall to the empty schoolroom.

The wind rattled the darkened window as Minna knelt beside Cahir in the lamplight. In the week she had been treating him, she kept her gaze confined to his wounds. If she attached that flesh to the muscles that moved as he breathed, the sweeping lines of his arms and neck, or worse, the weight of his golden eyes on her, she grew clumsy and thick-fingered.

She had never touched a man, and now she had to touch one that looked like
this.
And she found, frighteningly, that the feelings she had deadened long ago were stirring because the other parts of her were being broken open, too. Since first she touched him, the pain in the dreams had sharpened, like a knife through her heart. Whispers fluttered around her incessantly at night, just below her hearing, as she clutched the sheets to her chin. She did not understand.

She could barely eat for the sense of foreboding that hung over the dun. And now he made her feel this – when he was a king, cold and hard, unreachable, and she should be terrified instead.
I do not understand.
She was going mad.

Her palms were slippery, and she rubbed them irritably down her trousers. Disconcertingly, Cahir was studying her. At last he cleared his throat, and then it came at her like an arrow. ‘Orla told me about your dreams.’

Minna dropped the pot of comfrey salve into the folds of her tunic. ‘I have heard the tales from your bard, my lord,’ she stammered, retrieving it and clumsily putting the lid back on. ‘The songs, the stories, the new things around me … they give me nightmares. That is all.’

His eyes fixed on her, like a cat about to spring. ‘We know about such awake-dreams – there is no reason to hide them from me. I want to know …’ He blew out his breath, and she realized how disturbed he was. Self-preservation flooded her. ‘There is something you said in sleep, a war cry—’

‘I heard it from Davin!’

Cahir caught her wrist so hard it hurt, his eyes flashing. ‘Not the Boar of Eremon’s lineage that my own warriors scream every day! It is a far older oath, used by those at Dunadd before my ancestors came from Erin. The oath of Rhiann’s tribe: the Epidii, People of the Horse.’

Minna went cold, her lips moving in memory.
The Mare. The Mare.
A white horse on a blue banner, once raised alongside the boar in battle many years ago.

‘See?’ Cahir snapped. ‘No one says these sacred words any more, no one even knows them except for the druids – and me. And there is more.’

Minna’s nostrils flared as he pulled her closer. ‘In your dreams you spoke of a hill: a crooked ridge that rears alone from a flat plain.’ He paused, his face grim. ‘It is the Hill of a Thousand Spears, our only description of this place, wherever it may be.’

‘I heard it from Davin … I heard the tale one night—’

‘Its appearance isn’t in any songs. Again, it is druid lore.’

Minna subsided into silence, panting.

‘I gained everything from Orla and Finola, Minna. They know more than you think, though they told me in innocence and, I have to say, love you well. But this does not detract from the real matter: you speak the names of my ancestors, shout the war-cries and see what few have seen, the greatest battlefield of all. So why is it that you, a Roman slave, summon my royal blood?’ His eyes staked her there. ‘
Who are you
?’

His fist was holding hers captive, his breath hot on her cheek. It was the first time he had touched her with his fingers, and they burned. ‘I know nothing. Please …’

Horror flared in Cahir’s eyes. ‘It cannot be that
she
told you to taunt me so? You are not her puppet after all?’

Maeve. ‘No! I would never betray you …’ she caught herself, ‘… your daughters. Never!’

‘Do
you swear it
?’

It was as if his power had taken hold of her, and Minna was drawn inexorably towards him, though she fought it, horrified. ‘I will swear on the spirit of the only person I have ever truly loved, my Mamo,’ she cried desperately. ‘I swear!’

For a long moment he searched her face, and she tried to lay herself bare, let him see she was no threat. She distinctly felt his awareness brush hers, as she had seen into him once. The world moved beneath her … his breath was scented with berries and ale … then she felt his fear of betrayal, sickening.

At last, Cahir released her wrist. His hands trembled as he placed them flat on his thighs, his face turned away. ‘When Orla told me, I thought after all you were a spy. Anyone could have planted you: my wife, her father, the Dux Britanniarum himself, for all I know.’

Minna rubbed her wrist. ‘I am no spy.’

‘I can see that now. I would not be a king if I could not read men – or women. You do not have the skills to dissemble. There is no slyness in your eyes, and so far I have seen you speak always without thinking.’ His voice was remote, but when he turned he was clearly shaken. ‘We call you a dreamer, though I had not heard of this gift among the Roman kind. If anything else comes to you, you
must
tell me. It is vital, to me, to my daughters, if you care for them at all.’