The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (28 page)

She heard a tiny movement now, and glanced up to see Eremon standing just inside the doorway. His stance was tense, and she thought his body quivered slightly, although it may just have been a breeze across the flames.

‘I came only to get this.’ He strode across the room and swept up his cloak from where it lay over his leather pack, then began to dig around, looking for something. ‘The men and I are going back to the port. We’re hoping to find out something from those Roman traders. I may not return until late.’ His voice was strangely harsh, as if he could not breathe properly.

She rested the comb on the fur bedcover. ‘Eremon, we must work subtly. Such a visit could be dangerous.’

He straightened, and she saw a stain of colour flush his face. His eyes were wild, the gaze far away. ‘Don’t question me! Outside these walls I
may be your servant, but certainly not within.’ He threw the cloak over his shoulders, tucked a dagger into his belt and was gone.

Well!

Rhiann rose and walked to the door after him, pulling back the cover and looking up at the sky. The clouds had all fled, and moonlight spilled down from the velvet darkness above.

But as she stood there, still smarting from Eremon’s harsh words, she suddenly felt again the strange presence that had been pulling at the edges of her soul for the last day. With the other distractions of the port and her talk with Samana, she had successfully ignored it. But now, alone in the clear night, her full awareness rushed in.

There was some power at work here, whispering to her, taunting her. She sensed it within the pit of her belly, warm as it rose up the length of her body: a cloying warmth, slippery and mocking, yet with a chord of something primal. Closing her eyes, Rhiann held the doorpost and leaned out. And with her spirit-eye she glimpsed it; an energy, a vibration, snaking in streamers of fog, dark as dried blood, along the paths between the houses. It coiled into doorways and crept around corners, wreathing the feet of those few people walking by.

Although somehow Rhiann knew that the magic was not made for her, a sudden fear rose up from deep within, and with a silent cry she warded it away.
No! Be gone from me
!

The fingers of fog halted, and slunk away from her feet, and in their place a gust of icy wind blew up the village path, lifting the sweaty tendrils of hair from her face.

Rhiann shook herself free from the heavy warmth and breathed deeply. Whatever it was, it had gone, and would trouble her no more tonight. Magic could only gain entrance where someone had given it leave willingly. And she was not willing.

She remained at the doorway for hours, watching the stars sweep away the evil warmth in a flood of silver.

In the small room, all was golden heat and ruddy light. No breath of air crept past the fleece over the window, and the stillness was filled with liquid warmth, and the heavy scent of sweet, ripe apples.

Samana lay, her throat arched back, her hair a black fall of silk across the pillow. Sweat trickled over her breasts, and the man bowed his head to lick it from her skin, a deep groan escaping his throat. ‘Again!’ she cried, and he thrust deep within her, and she dug her nails into him fiercely, raking more welts among the tracery of red lines across his back. Their mouths met, tongues reaching for each other in animal hunger, and she raised her hips to plunge him deeper into her, grasping her white legs around his waist.

He wrenched her over then, and they tumbled, struggling and
scratching, driven by the hot need of their bodies, yearning to go further to the wild places within. At last Samana pushed him back, her hair falling in a dark curtain about them, pausing for a moment to catch her breath.

His eyes were closed, his sweat-streaked chest heaving. She always left the lamp burning to let them see her beauty, to drive them mad with need of her, but this one did not want to look long at her. Oh, no. He wanted to lose himself. And to this she drove him, like the whip drives the slave, like the storm drives the waves before it.

So he bore her down again, hands hard on her shoulders as he found the warm, wet opening and entered anew, and she smiled to herself at his force and great strength. It always took her breath away, to feel the ridges of muscles tensing, hard as iron under her fingers, to know that she mastered a beast such as this.

She opened her legs wider, drawing him into the well inside her, drawing him into the centre of her power, clasping him with her legs so there was no escape. Then she raised her head and sunk her teeth into his shoulder, and his thrusts grew more frenzied, and he wound his fingers into her black hair and pulled her head back.

With a jerking, agonized cry, he reached his peak, and she followed, screeching like a wildcat into his shoulder. When it was over he collapsed on to her flushed breasts, legs tangled in the bedcovers, his body pinning her to the damp bed.

After a while, his breath stilled, and he slept.

Samana lay awake, triumph in her smile. For a while she watched the play of shadows on the walls around her, but then she closed her eyes and sent her awareness outside to seek the roiling and curling of her lustful spell as it snaked through the village.

She had always been able to see her magic working, and so now she hovered at doorways, listening in satisfaction to the animal cries of pleasure she drew from the people this night, and in even greater satisfaction to the cries of pain.

And then she saw the woman, a cold, still woman, outlined by the starlight in the doorway of her guesthouse. Samana laughed to herself as she saw that the spell had been warded there, and so lost its power.

And her body’s hand drew a nail lightly across Eremon’s sleeping back.

Chapter 26

R
hiann was gone before Eremon rose that morning. He asked one of the servants where she was, and discovered that she’d taken a horse to the beach. No one knew when she would be back.

He splashed his face with water from a pottery basin, and rubbed his bleary eyes. Gods! His head felt as if he had consumed the entire stock of Samana’s wine, but he had only drunk two cups. His mind ached, intensely weary, but his body still thrummed with a heightened tension that he found almost uncomfortable. It was like an itch, making him feel jittery in his own skin.

He stretched his back and neck muscles, and sat down on the bed to comb his hair. What a surprise Rhiann’s cousin had turned out to be! He smiled to himself. Only a madman could look at those curves and those sensual eyes and not want to bed her. Still, it wasn’t like him to be swept away by such a feeling – although he was glad he had given in to her invitation.

By the Boar! Comparing Aiveen to her was like comparing a soft, fluffy kitten to a sleek wildcat. She had certainly given him a night to remember.

Suddenly restless, he rose and began searching through his pack. After such a night, his limbs should be heavy with the languor that follows the release of pent-up energy. But he could not sit still long enough to braid his hair! He found a fresh tunic and pulled it over his head, tugging his hair into submission with his fingers, stopping to detangle a few sweat-tied knots.

And then he realized that, far from seeing more of the Votadini lands this fine morning, or even talking with his men, there was only one thing that he wanted right now.

And that was to do it with her again.

It was much later than he thought, and when he got to the house where
Conaire was staying, he found that his men had already gone.

‘The Lady Samana sent her huntsman here quite early, lord,’ the servant emptying the wash basins informed him. ‘I hear he is taking them on a long ride to see one of the deserted Roman camps.’

‘And why was I not woken?’

‘The lady told us not to disturb you.’

‘Did she now?’

‘She also said that when you did wake, to tell you that you could break your fast with her.’

Well. There was only one thing for it, then. He found Samana standing by the window in her reception room, frowning over a wooden writing tablet. She wore her saffron robe again, and the sun filtered through the oiled paper, gleaming on her black hair and the gold rings on her fingers.

‘Lady.’ He bowed to her.

She smiled and swayed closer to him. ‘Come now! There is no one here. Do you need to call me lady now?’ She reached up and buried her free hand in his hair, drawing his lips down to hers. With her first touch, the burning that had driven all thoughts from his head the night before was ignited once more, and he forced her lips apart until their tongues met with the same devouring need.

When they broke apart, he was shaking at the strength of it, but had just enough presence of mind to turn away to the table. As he poured some ale he cursed himself roundly. He was no virginal boy, to react this way! He shook his head, for his mind was hazy, though every fibre of his body sang with lust. He took the ale in one draught and poured another, turning back to her.

Samana was sliding her eyes over him with frank admiration. Which made a change, he had to admit, from Rhiann’s cold regard. Perhaps that was why his body was betraying him so soundly.

She offered him some bread and cheese from a platter, with deep speculation in those darkest of eyes. As he munched, he said, ‘Why did you separate me from my men so neatly?’

Her smile widened as she put the platter back on the table. ‘Ah, and a fine brain, too. I wanted to speak to you alone, of course.’

‘You could have spoken last night.’ Even saying the words brought a flood of warmth to his skin.
Now I am acting like a virginal boy
!

‘I think we both had more pressing concerns last night.’ She took a sliver of cheese from the platter and nibbled on it delicately.

‘I am here to find out about the Romans. I need to be with my men to see what they see.’

‘Oh, they won’t see much.’ She waved her hand. ‘You will get your information by staying here. You must trust me.’

‘You talk in riddles, lady. Speak plainly.’

Samana put the cheese back on the platter, and brushed off her hands. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’m tired of having endless conversations in this room. It is a blustery day. Let us walk on the walls.’

The wind whipped Eremon’s hair across his face, and slapped the tribal standard on its post above the palisade. Far off, the sea was a shining bowl of molten gold in the sun.

‘You are proposing that I go with you right into a Roman army camp. Not a deserted one this time.’ He leaned his back against the palisade, regarding Samana with wary surprise.

‘You will be safe, I vouch for it.’ Samana took his arm, the wind pressing her skirts about the outline of her legs. ‘I have a contact high up in the administration. I must go and talk to him about the new taxes the Romans wish to levy. You can be my guard.’

‘A “contact”, Samana?’

She smiled thinly. ‘Know your enemy is a basic tactic, is it not?’ She tucked his hand in the crook of her elbow and pressed the length of her body up against his. ‘Eremon, you know that the Romans have most of Britannia, and they are not going away, I promise you. You have not seen them, but I have! They are incredible soldiers, and they have not been removed from any of the lands they’ve taken over. As they will not be removed from our lands.’

‘We can stop them advancing.’

‘Then we will be at war for ever! For they will be here for ever, make no mistake about that.’

He pulled her away from him, and looked down searchingly into her upturned face. In the sunlight, her dark eyes were sheened with gold. A flame-hued silk wrap set off the colour of her stained lips. ‘So you say that we should give in as your king did, Samana, is that it?’

‘No! I would never say that. What I say is this: make friends with the Romans, as I have. You have some influence to convince the northern tribes to make a treaty with them.’

‘A treaty! I did not come here to be a Roman pawn!’

‘You don’t understand! Alba is different from the rest of Britannia, mountainous and hard to control. All we have to do is give in – temporarily. Agricola will not station many men here; he’ll just claim the whole island to please his god-king in Rome, and then turn his back on us.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘My friend told me.’

‘Samana, I know enough to understand that when the Romans take your lands, you are no longer free. I do not want to be part of an alien empire – no man of Erin would.’

‘Extraordinary threats require extraordinary decisions, Eremon.’
Samana tossed her head. ‘Men! They think only of honour, not of practicalities. All we have to do is
appear
to give in. They will not have the inclination to build roads in Alba, or construct great towns – they hate it here. So we just go along with them, until they do not care about us any more, and then we take Alba back!’ Her smile was triumphant.

Eremon removed her hand from his arm. The ripe smell of her and the press of her breasts was making it hard to think. It was a strange and unexpected power that she wielded over him. ‘It is a large gamble to take.’

‘You are being too cautious!’ She strode to the palisade, before turning to look up at him pleadingly. ‘You came here to find information, and now I give you the chance to hear it from Roman lips! Who else could help you to do this? You will be safe as my guard, I swear it. If what you find convinces you to make a treaty, as we have, then that is well. If not, you have lost nothing, but gained much.’