The Exile (8 page)

"Fair's fair," he said, grinning as he held up a sprig of poison oak. "In and out. All you have to do is rub the poison oak inside the king's loincloth and he'll be scratching like a pox-ridden doxie for weeks. So, who's game? Cullen?"

Wide Mouth shook his head. "Uh hunh, no bleedin' way. I may be ugly but I'm not stupid."

"Ugly and a coward," Sláine said. "Give me the poison oak. I'll be back before sundown."

"You're mad!" Núada said, more than a hint of envy in his voice. There was an edge of recklessness about Sláine that the others admired even though, more often than not, it was that recklessness that landed him in the most trouble.

He wrapped the poison oak up in a small oilskin and stuffed it inside breeches, careful that none of the flowers were loose. The last thing he wanted was to be itching for a week.

The trick was to make it look as if he belonged there. If he acted suspiciously Grudnew's guards would become suspicious. He walked along the banks of the River Dôn looking for a good place to ford it. There was only one place that was safe to cross. That was where he had crossed the river in the first place. His plan had been to swim to the far side, skirt along the treeline and come into Grudnew's roundhouse from the back, out of sight of the guards. It was a simple enough plan but simple or not he had already found one rather considerable flaw in its logic.

The River Dôn was fast flowing and deep enough to be difficult to negotiate, even for a strong swimmer. And it wasn't just a river - it was an entire landscape of stagnant pools, shingle and rocks waiting to break the flesh of those stupid enough to try and cross, pebbles that massed to from beaches, and sand that banked up against the meanders. The Dôn itself snaked down through the dark heart of this water world, a white water rush.

The only good fording place was too far away to allow him to sneak up unseen by Grudnew's guards and on this side of the river he had no cover. So he had no choice, he would have to risk the deep water and that required precautions if he didn't want to be swept away and broken on those angry rocks that jutted out of the Dôn like the teeth of some vast sea monster.

Sláine moved deeper into the trees, out of sight of prying eyes while he foraged for things that might somehow help him cross to the other side. For the first few hundred paces he moved along parallel to the water's edge but he couldn't find what he was looking for so he was forced to move deeper into the woods, away from the trail. Branches hung down low, snagging at his clothes and hair as he pushed through them. He pushed on. The white water rush of the river faded as he moved further into the forest. Then he found it: a huge tree trunk smothered in moss and wrapped in thick creepers.

He silently thanked Danu and unravelled the thick vine from where it clung to the tree trunk. He coiled it up, slung it over his shoulder and headed back towards the water.

It took him another ten minutes to find a boulder big enough to anchor him without weighing him down as he battled the current of the Dôn. He made a cradle out of the vine and fastened it around the boulder, tying the loose end around his waist.

The shallows along the riverbank were low enough for him to splash along in without risking being caught unawares and swept away. It widened as he followed its curve, but the curve itself served to slow the current. He found the perfect spot, masked by the far bank and the roundhouse itself, and plunged away from the shingle into the swirling water. The shock of cold was fierce. He gritted his teeth and sank lower, until the icy water washed up around his shoulders.

Five paces in, he was glad of the boulder.

For all his preparation, Sláine had underestimated the river's power - it lifted him bodily and carried him twenty floundering paces sideways. Without the boulder's weight to drag him down he would have been carried away. As it was Sláine scrambled around, splashing up great plumes of water until he got his feet under him. An entire tree had been uprooted, stripped clean and washed downstream during a flood. The branches broke up the water, forming rapids.

Sláine plunged forwards again, the white water cuffing him around the ears. The surge and splash were deafening. For a full five seconds he was completely under. He surged up to the surface, sucking down huge mouthfuls of air. He forced himself deeper into the river until he felt the shelf beneath his feet begin to creep upwards again. He risked fighting to get his head well up above the waterline just long enough to be sure he was passed the middle. The sooner he was out of the river the happier he would be.

He pushed on.

In six paces the water was around his waist and he was coming out on the other side. His feet sank into the shingle as he struggled out of the water.

He clambered up onto the bank and collapsed onto his back, gasping as the sun dried him off. He didn't move as a mosquito landed on his arm and began to feed greedily, sucking the blood out of him. He let the insect have its fill and watched it fly off drunkenly.

Sláine dragged himself onto his stomach and forced himself to stand.

The river had pummelled him. Every muscle ached. Every ache was driven in bone deep, but he was on the other side.

He fumbled with the knot of vine around his waist, picking it loose. He let it fall and crept up behind the roundhouse until his face was pressed up against the daubing on the wattle wall.

He couldn't risk going in around the front so he was going to have to pry open the shutter and squeeze through. Sláine pulled the long-handled hunting knife from the sheath in his boot and worked it into the crack where the shutter joined the frame until he found - and cut through - the catch securing it.

Grinning, he popped the shutter open and squirmed through, dropping awkwardly into the king's roundhouse.

He was in the bedroom.

It wasn't dark, as he had expected it to be. Candles burned. A tapestry was half-woven on a loom. The shuttle was dangling on the thread, still spinning.

Grudnew's huge cot was piled high with animal skins and pillows of down. It was big enough to sleep a family of six. A curtain at the far side of the room was drawn over the king's changing room. Sláine pushed back the curtain and slipped inside. It took him a few minutes to find the chest containing Grudnew's various loincloths, and a few moments more to smear the poison oak inside the materialcups. The poison oak disintegrated in his fingers. He closed the chest and slipped out of the changing room.

He walked over to the loom. The shuttle had stopped spinning. That was the first thing that he noticed. He didn't move. He breathed deeply. His nostrils flared as he caught the faintest musk of perfume.

Sláine let his fingers linger on the loom and turned slowly. That was when he saw her, cowering in the corner. At first he thought she was one of the Sidhe, a fey spirit slipped through from the Otherworld. Her skin was pale; white where it should have been tanned from the wind and sun. Her hair was dark, black where the shadows of the candlelight failed to lighten it.

He stared, dumbstruck and slack-jawed.

She was a thing of beauty.

No, beyond beauty - she was a thing of heaven, proof of the Goddess's hand in the perfection of creation.

She looked at him with wide frightened eyes.

Sláine stared. It wasn't often you met divinity without dying first - although he had come mighty close to that in the river.

He held out his hand to her.

She shook her head and pushed back against the wall as if hoping to disappear into it.

She was a new day rising. She was a perfect clear blue summer sky. She was the pinpoint silver of the stars at night. She was the first flower of spring. She was the last leaf of autumn. She was the savage sea and the towering cliff. She was raw heart-stopping beauty.

"My name is Sláine Mac Roth," he said, hoping that it might coax beauty into talking. She shook her head again, her hair falling in front of her face. He stared at her lips as they parted slightly with her frightened breath. He wanted to kiss those lips. He wanted to kneel down at her feet and worship. He wanted to offer her all the devotions her body deserved.

He knelt and tried to take her hand, but she opened her mouth to scream and he backed off with his hands raised, palms out, trying to show her he meant no harm.

"I'll go," he promised. "Just please, don't breathe a word. Don't tell a soul I was in here. They could hang me for this." As soon as he said it he regretted giving beauty his name for surely she would betray him to the king. "Sorry. Sorry. I just-" but he didn't know what he wanted to say. He couldn't find the words to express the confused mess of feelings surging around inside him.

He edged back to the wall, hands in front of him all the way, turned and scrambled back out through the window. He landed with a thump, rolled and came back up to his feet. Without thinking about it, he pushed open the shutter and leaned back through. She was standing by the loom, the shuttle in her hand. Her azure eyes met his and he fancied he saw the ache in them even from here. "You have placed a claim on my heart, beauty," he said, flashing her a dangerous grin.

"No," she said, coming over to the window. "It cannot be."

With that she closed the shutter, barring it behind him.

There was no point calling out to her - any noise would only attract Grudnew's bodyguards. Sláine gazed at the shuttered window and smiled. She had talked to him. He kissed his hand and pressed it to the wooden shutter. "I'll be back," he promised, his voice barely a whisper. It didn't matter that beauty wouldn't hear his words; she could surely hear his heart.

He crept cautiously up to the curve of the roundhouse and peered around it. There were two guards but their attention was turned towards Murias. All he had to do was skirt the compound and come out a little further down the road and no one would be any the wiser. With one last backwards glance he dropped down into the gulley that ran alongside the river and shuffled forwards in an awkward crouch until he was far enough away to be safe.

He didn't return to the others. With night coming he went in search of Brighid, almost banging her door down. The fear was bright on her face as she opened the door. In a single breath the Daughter of Danu relaxed and opened her arms to him. "Oh my beautiful boy, what's wrong?" She kissed him tenderly as he fell into her embrace.

"I... I..." But he couldn't tell her. Instead, that night, as he offered his devotions to the Goddess it wasn't Brighid's face he saw beneath him as he buried himself in the warm flesh of the Earth Mother, it was Beauty's.

Even when he closed his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Brighid asked again, hours later.

It was too dark for him to see her face.

"Hold me," he said after a while.

They lay in silence until he found the courage to talk.

"I saw the Goddess today," he whispered, barely daring to give voice to the words.

"You did?" Brighid said, smoothing his hair back from his brow. "Tell me about it. I would hear all about my mistress."

"It was Dian's fault."

"Ah, isn't it always?"

"I crept into Grudnew's roundhouse, to smear poison oak in his loincloths." Brighid laughed. He liked the way she laughed. She laughed with all of her body.

"Oh my."

"She was in there. She was beautiful, Brighid. No, not beautiful. That's the wrong word. She was different. She was unlike anyone I have ever seen, but you know that, surely? You have seen the Goddess."

"Oh my sweet beautiful Sláine, that wasn't the Goddess. That was Niamh," Brighid said, the amusement gone from her voice. The darkness couldn't hide her sadness as she spoke.

"Heaven?" Sláine asked, misunderstanding. Niamh was the old world for heaven.

"Grudnew's chosen bride. She was raised by women in Rath Grainne, I think, and brought to camp not three moons since. No man has ever seen her. No man will until she is wed to the king. There is to be a huge ceremony."

"I have seen her," Sláine said simply.

"And you must never see her again, my beautiful boy. To do so can only bring you pain. Promise me, you will never see her again." She leaned over him. "Promise me, Sláine."

He made the promise, but like so many midnight promises shared between lovers it was made to be broken.

Five

Warrior's Dawn

It was Dian's idea to repeat the poison oak gag on an unsuspecting Cullen, smearing the prickly herb inside his breeches while he slept and then delighting in Wide Mouth's discomfort as he itched and scratched his way through the best part of the day.

Sláine made the mistake of laughing as Cullen rooted around in his crotch trying to ease the poison oak's sting.

"You're hopping around like a whore in heat, Wide Mouth. You got some little love bug you didn't think of mentioning when you were getting deloused by the druids last week?"

"Shut up, Sláine. I know it was you. I'll make you pay for this you miserable sack of shit. You mark my words."

"Trembling in my boots."

Today was the day their training began in earnest. The past few months since having taken the Red Branch had been spent on exercises aimed at working on general fitness and stamina. Gorian drove them hard, pushing the boys beyond the limits of endurance to the point where mind and body wanted nothing more than to break. Then still he goaded them into doing more.

The drills were repetitive, running, lifting, carrying, running, lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying and running some more.

Over and over and over again.

From sun up every day for the last week they had laboured on the new roundhouse, building muscle by lifting huge blocks of stone and carrying them into place for the masons to lay into the complicated mesh they were constructing. The physical labour was a welcome change from the endless running.

It was all about turning the soft flesh of youth into the iron muscles of a fighter. They hadn't lifted a weapon since being sworn into the warrior's sect.

"Just shut up." Something in the way he said it made Sláine do just that.

It had been raining the night before. The soil was still damp underfoot.