The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (9 page)

There was a silence as Minna lay in the blackness, her skin crawling. ‘Few care for such things, aye. But some do, and they pay for it.’ There was a stomp of feet up and down. ‘So she stays untouched, or I’ll have your balls off with my knife here, and your cock not far behind.’ A few dared to grumble, and Jared raised his voice. ‘I have your whole year’s wages hidden ashore, you bunch of mangy mutts, and only I know where it is, and it
ain’t
on this ship. So obey me, or you’ll lose more than your cocks!’

The men dispersed, muttering, while Minna stared into the empty darkness, shame a burning trail from belly to throat. When she at last heard Cian stir she turned her head. Dawn had crept over the world outside and beneath the hatch she could see his face was grey, bleached of feeling.

‘We are going to Dunadd,’ she whispered fearfully. ‘Where is that?’

Cian’s eyes were suddenly blank. ‘Alba,’ he said. ‘It is a fort in Alba.’

*

On the fourth day the sickening yaw of the boat calmed. The blows of the waves echoing around the hold turned to slaps, and they glided on more sheltered waters.

For Minna and Cian, the taint of the red flower had lifted only gradually, dulling their minds and tongues. By the time Minna felt the ship nudge against something solid, however, a yearning for land had shaken off her malaise. She strained her chin up, longing for air.

Ropes rasped across wood; feet thudded on decks. ‘We’ll be ashore soon,’ she murmured, through cracked lips.

Cian’s eyes flickered towards her. ‘Yes,’ he said, and then laughed, a shocking, bitter sound.

‘Come on, then!’ Two sailors slid down the ladder, unchained them and bound their hands in front with rope. When she was hauled on to the deck, Minna’s eyes squeezed almost shut against the dull, grey light. Someone tossed them, stumbling, onto a wooden jetty.

Through slitted eyes, she glimpsed a silty beach and a humped rock outcrop scattered with little, round houses, smoke leaking from their thatched roofs. To the south were shining mudflats at a rivermouth, and all around, looming hills. The jetty was crawling with people unloading ships, the grey beach beyond scattered with hide boats and canoes. The air was split by shouts and laughter, the thump of barrels and crates. A cold mist hung over the black water of the bay, and a freezing wind cut to her bones.

Jared stood before them, scrutinizing Minna’s grimy legs and stained tunic. She wanted to spit at him again, but her mouth was too dry and she was weak after little food but stale bread.

‘This won’t do,’Jared muttered, taking her rope. She noticed dizzily that the dark water beside the jetty was growing paler as they neared the beach. Jared halted. ‘Into the drink, then, both of them.’

Minna was shoved from behind, her breath extinguished by freezing water. She scrabbled ineffectually with tied hands, struggling upwards, until someone grabbed her by the hair and hauled her head free. Above, Jared’s sailors laughed as she spluttered and gagged, curious faces peering over their shoulders. Alongside, another sailor was dunking Cian in the thigh-deep sea. Before Minna could speak, her head was shoved under again and shaken around.

Hands rubbed roughly at her legs, arms and hair, and at last she and Cian were dragged from the water onto the pebbly beach, where Jared sawed away their bindings as they crouched there shivering. He prodded Cian, tossing him a tunic and trousers. ‘Here.’ He dragged Minna to her feet. ‘Strip down and put this on,’ he directed, holding out a folded column of red wool.

Rubbing her wrists, she looked behind him to his men. Most had gone to unload the rest of their cargo, but four remained, eyes greedily fixed on her wet, clinging tunic. It was too much; it would be her undoing. She looked Jared in the eye, though she trembled all over. ‘No.’

He considered her for a moment, gaze roaming over her fair skin. Then – utterly exhausted, shocked out of her old self – Minna’s mind made a surprising leap. She saw into Jared like a gull diving into the sea; sensed his thoughts, felt his emotions.
She heard his mind.
It had never happened before.

Jared was wondering how much she would bruise if they forced her, and how it would affect his price.

Her wrists were already chafed from the chain, and the slave-ring, though thin, was wearing welts on her neck. She clenched her fists, bracing her arms. If Jared forced her, she would bruise badly. She showed that with her face, her body.

‘Right!’Jared snapped, and pointed behind her with his dagger to a tumble of boulders at the base of the outcrop. Weak with relief, Minna wedged herself in and tugged off her wet tunic. Still shivering, she held its stinking folds for a moment, thumbs moving over the embroidery sewn by Mamo. She touched it to her lips, slowly, and then drew the barbarian dress over her head. It fell to her ankles, a shapeless tube sewn on each shoulder with long sleeves attached. Slowly, she emerged from the rocks, trailing her old tunic.

Cian had pulled on his trousers to the sound of jeering laughter from the sailors. A tremor ran across his lean muscles as Jared studied his naked torso with a keen eye. ‘Well, well, I had no idea you were as sweet and hairless as the girl.’ The trader’s teeth flashed. ‘Could get more money for him, lads. Might sell him to one of the warriors as a body slave, ha!’

The sailors yelped, and Minna stood defiantly by Cian’s side as he tugged the tunic over his black curls. ‘I am the finest horseman you’ll ever see,’ Cian announced suddenly.

Jared’s face hardened. ‘You keep your mouth shut and do what I tell you.’

Cian took a deep breath. ‘They can have me for the horses. They value their horses above all things.’

Jared’s eyes went blank as he moved closer, then, without warning, he sunk a fist into Cian’s gut. Cian grunted, doubling over, and Minna dropped her tunic and sank by his side, holding his shoulders. They were crusted with sand, quivering between her fingers.

Jared ignored her, flexing his fist. When he spoke he was perfectly pleasant. ‘I think it’s time you learned your place, boy. No one cares what you think. If they say carry, you’ll do it; if they ask you to lick their feet, you’ll do that, too. Got it?’

Cian was winded, his chin tucked into his chest. It was Minna who answered. ‘You are an abomination to all the gods.’ Her voice was strained with fury. ‘I bring all their curses down on you, trader Jared.’

Jared grinned. ‘I’ve been called worse things than that, sweetness, and cursed better in a dozen languages. But don’t worry, you’ll have a new master shortly and if you’re lucky you won’t need to see my puking face again.’ He threw a bone comb in the sand at her feet. ‘Comb your hair and his while we unload.’ He yelled some instructions at his men and made his way back to his ship.

Cian knelt in the sand with Minna’s arms around him until he could breathe again. Then he pushed her away and staggered to his feet. He turned his back on land, faced the water, and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

When they were finally dragged away, Minna’s embroidered tunic was stamped into the sand by marching feet. She never saw it again.

As she was prodded inland along a road that hugged the river, Minna kept her eyes lowered, her breath swift and shallow. But she could not blot out this land that somehow still forced itself inside her.

Instead of pastures and tame fields, Alba was the hue of rusted iron and blood, with ruffled grasses bronzed by cold and wind. Yellow trees lined the brown, foaming river, and the marsh beside the path was a copper sea, carpeted with moss. The wind had a blade’s edge as it sliced down from the mountains, flinging spatters of rain into her face.

From downcast eyes, she caught glimpses of muddy boots as people passed. Voices babbled unintelligible words. Cart wheels rattled and the spindly feet of bleating sheep being driven along the track pock-marked the mud. Then her gaze came to rest on the painted hooves of what must be a warrior’s horse.

She saw the tip of a scabbard and the gaudy check of the warrior’s trousers. She saw his broad fist, curled around his spear. But she could not bring herself to raise her face and see his eyes, his wildness.

However, after nearly an hour of trudging along the riverbank, Cian silent behind her, something did at last draw Minna’s head up, and she stopped then and could not go on.

Ahead rose a crag. It loomed up alone from the marsh, circled by an arm of the river. The teeth of rocks showed between houses clustered on its slopes, and on the crest sat an enormous roundhouse swathed in cooksmoke, its roof sweeping the ground. A village sprawled around the base of the crag, on the river meadow.

Minna’s eyes desperately darted back and forth, as if the shapes might make sense to her. But there were no great town walls here, only rough palisades of timber stakes, one around the village and one circling the crag. There were no straight roofs, marble temples or colonnades, just squat round walls and thatch. It seemed squalid, awash with mud and smoke.

One of Jared’s men cursed her, prodding her forward, and her legs wobbled back into life.

As they came closer, the stink of dung and smoke enveloped them. People milled about the gates chattering, saddling horses, hefting barrels into carts. Warriors with shining spears paced the timber walls above.

At that point, Minna ducked her head and squeezed her eyes almost shut. And so, as she entered the fort of Dunadd in Alba, she beheld only one thing: her own shoes, splashed with mud, the bare skin above crusted with salt.

The gates were flanked by two timber towers. Inside, she was jostled in a crowd, and startled by a dog thrusting its wet nose under her skirt. Houses, barns and stables were jumbled close together, the wood running with damp. The babbling voices beat on her temples.

The path curved higher to climb the crag, and the crowds thinned. Soon Jared was dragging them up tumbled stone steps so steep that Minna had to clamber on hands and knees. She glanced up, then wished she had not. Rocks reared up from the higher slopes like fangs, forming buttresses above the narrow path.

Through a gap in the wall of rock, capped by another immense gate, they emerged on to the upper tier of the fort. Here the houses were larger, decorated with lurid banners, painted walls and carved doors, their colours glowing through the drizzle.

Catching her breath, Minna plucked at the slave-ring and stumbled backwards into the path of two Alban warriors. Their long, ruddy hair was braided with gold thread, and moustaches drooped over shaven chins. Bronze rings and brooches adorned shoulders, forearms and fingers. But it was their fearless, bold eyes that struck Minna like a blow. One said something about her and they both laughed as they went through the gate, leaving her reeling.

‘Oi! You two, get over here!’

She pulled Cian towards Jared, as the trader suddenly stiffened and bowed to someone behind them. Minna and Cian both turned, dazed.

A woman was gliding down the rocky path in a hooded cloak. A wisp of grey hair showed from the hood, but she was unbowed by age, her stride proud. Jared greeted her deferentially with the name ‘Brónach’ and some other address.

The imposing woman put back her hood. Beneath coiled braids her flesh was pared back over prominent bones, and slate-grey eyes gazed down an eagle nose. Her bony fingers shone with rings of jet and amber.

Until this moment, Minna had been too stricken to take note of the language spoken around her. Jared and his men used Latin, but she realized now that the flow had entirely changed to a musical cascade of barbarian speech – and she had not noticed.

Stunned, Minna was caught by the old woman’s commanding voice. Somehow, she sensed a meaning: the boat was late. She tensed. The woman spoke a little like Mamo, that must be it. Her grandmother used the Parisii dialect when they were alone, and here the rhythms were similar.
Surely she could not …
But she did. It was like a tune she had been taught as a child and now dimly remembered.

The old lady turned to inspect them. Her keen eyes swiftly dismissed Cian before resting on Minna. As the woman’s nostrils flared, Minna had the strangest sensation of her belly being turned inside out. She thought she might be sick again and her hand went to her mouth.

At the point it became unbearable, someone else cried out, and Brónach swung around, releasing her.

Coughing, Minna squinted up from watering eyes. A blonde woman of middling age was prancing down the path, accompanied by a gaggle of younger ladies, all brightly dressed. The noblewoman halted in a flutter of silks, exclaiming in accented Latin, ‘You are late, trader Jared. So have you brought me some fine jewels this time, hmm? Falemian wine? Iberian olives?’

At the shock of the Roman speech in this barbarian land Minna glanced at Cian, but he was staring straight ahead, his face white as bone.

Jared bowed. ‘No, my queen. But I have something better – two fine, young slaves from the Wall.’ He unfurled one arm.

A queen? Minna thought, struggling to take it in. The woman’s small mouth pursed, disappointed.

It was then that Cian did something unexpected. Raising his chin, he blurted in Latin, ‘The girl is from Eboracum, mistress. She tutored the children of noble Romans. She is highly educated.’

Jared frowned, but the queen’s attention had already focused on Minna.

‘The sons of a councillor,’ Cian continued desperately.

The queen stepped up. One of her hairpins was hung with tiny golden balls, and they chimed as she tilted her head. A heavy perfume wafted around her.

Minna saw in a glance that cosmetics and jewels gave her an aura of beauty at a distance that faded somewhat up close. Those buttery curls were bleached with urine, the plump cheeks stained with berry juice. Her skin had been whitened with flour, but the powder had caught in the petulant wrinkle between her brows. ‘Is this true?’ she demanded. ‘Can you teach Roman writing and history and poetry?’

The image of Nikomedes was there before Minna, gazing sternly at her, and she felt compelled to reply that she knew nothing about teaching. But Cian’s eyes were boring into her, twisting her tongue back on itself. In that pause a messenger that Jared had sent scurrying off returned. With him was a young warrior, more gilded than all the rest.