The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (38 page)

A bench was brought out for her to the Horse Gate, and a stool for Didius. Eremon stood on one side of him, his arms crossed, and Conaire stood at his most glowering on the other side, one hand resting on his sword.

Eremon’s men were gathered close, and many of the nobles and their servants from the upper tiers had joined them. Even Talorc had dragged himself from his morning meal, chewing on a mutton bone.

Rhiann smiled at Didius. The little Roman was clean now, at any rate, and the black bruises around his eyes from the rough ride home were fading to green. His Epidii tunic came past his knees, and the sleeves were so long he looked as if he had no hands. But he refused to wear trousers, and his ankles were mottled with cold above the skin boots. He glanced up at Eremon apprehensively.

‘Do not fear,’ Rhiann said in her halting Latin. ‘We need information. No one will harm you.’

Didius regarded her warily. ‘Information?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘We have given you food, and a bed. There will be no harm, I promise.’

The Roman’s eyes strayed up to Eremon again. The depth of fear in them was almost painful to see. Plainly, Didius had not recovered from his first meeting with the prince.

‘He won’t hurt you,’ she hastened to add. ‘I give my word. We need to know about the …’ she sought for the word, ‘the forts.’

Didius’s eyes jerked wider with alarm. ‘You want me to betray my people?’

Rhiann considered how to answer this, and then realized she could not. After all, she would refuse if it were her. There was no way to trick him. She shrugged helplessly. ‘I need you to answer this. It will keep you safe.’

Didius shook his head, his chins quivering, and Eremon’s dark brows drew together. Then Rhiann thought of one tack to use. ‘We need only to destroy the buildings. Tell me how many men there are, and their … positions … and they will be safer.’

She doubted the real truth of that, after seeing the look on Eremon’s face before attacking those soldiers. But she was caught in this, just as Didius was. If it saved her own people … her friends … then a half-truth was a small price to pay. Wasn’t it?

But her heart sank when she saw the Roman’s face harden into refusal. Eremon once said that Didius was a coward. Perhaps he had more backbone than they had supposed.

‘No,’ Didius said, lifting his chin. ‘Just kill me. You are barbarians. You care for nothing. You—’

But there he broke off, for Eremon drew his sword with one sweep, grasped the Roman’s hair and wrenched his head back until his stubbled throat was exposed. Rhiann went to cry out, but bit her tongue.

‘Rhiann.’ Eremon’s voice was mild. ‘Tell him that if he does not give us the information we need, I will cut his fingers off one by one.’

‘You would not!’

His eyes flickered her way. ‘Tell him.’

‘He said he’d rather die.’

‘That can easily be arranged. But lingering pain is more persuasive. Tell him.’

‘Release him first.’

Eremon let Didius go and stepped back. With more speed than anyone would have expected, looking at him, the little man wasted no time coughing or rubbing his throat, but immediately threw himself off the bench. The leg chains tautened, and he fell down at Rhiann’s feet, grasping the hem of her dress and pressing his face into it. ‘Mercy!’ he cried to her, his shoulders shaking. ‘Lady … mercy! Give me protection!’

Eremon jumped forward at the sudden movement, and his face was now close to Rhiann’s own, his sword a breath away from the Roman’s neck.

Rhiann glared at Eremon, then took a breath. ‘My lord,’ she said with calm formality, as if she did not have one man snivelling into her robe and another with drawn sword at her knee, ‘I ask a boon of you.’

The shadows of the gate deepened Eremon’s frown. ‘What boon?’

‘As my husband, I must crave it of you. Will you give your word to grant it?’

Eremon suddenly seemed to remember his audience, which was gaping at the little scene, and he straightened and sheathed his sword. But his gaze held a silent warning to her. A warning she ignored.

What could he do but agree? Generosity was valued in kings – or princes – above all things. He nodded at her stiffly.

‘Then,’ she said, ‘I ask you to give me this Roman for my own household. As a servant.’

There was a collective gasp. ‘If I have more time, if I show him mercy, I can win his trust,’ she added swiftly. Eremon’s eyes bored into her, burning with the things he so obviously wanted to say, but could not. She thanked the Goddess for the foresight to arrange this in public.

At last Eremon bowed. ‘As you wish, lady. May he serve you well.’ He looked around, addressing the crowd. ‘We know where the fort is, and we have seen them building. With or without this man’s aid, we will burn it to the ground!’ He glanced down at Didius, his mouth curling. ‘At least tell him that!’ Then he flung his cloak over his shoulder and stalked away. Conaire raised one eyebrow in Rhiann’s direction before following him.

Rhiann stayed there without moving, straight-backed, until the murmuring crowd dispersed. Didius was still face down at her feet.

‘It’s safe,’ she said in her own language, touching his shoulder. When he looked up, she saw that his face was not as crumpled or tear-stained as the shaking shoulders had led her to expect. Instead, his eyes were bright as they darted around.

‘You are mine now,’ she said slowly in Latin, and shrugged, smiling. ‘If you serve me, I can keep you safe. You can learn our words. Then we can speak.’

He nodded, the colour flushing back into his cheeks.

It was as she turned to lead him, hobbling, towards her own house, that she became aware of a slight figure hovering near her elbow. ‘Lady?’

It was Caitlin, her helmet under her arm. She was pale beneath the grime, and Rhiann’s practised eye fell on a dark bruise along her jaw that had not been there before. This girl, for she could not help but think of her as a girl, was being hard treated. ‘Congratulations on your win.’

Despite her previous bravado, Caitlin darted wide eyes towards Didius, then along to the King’s Hall, where Eremon and Conaire had gone. ‘I did not know that the prince was your husband, lady,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘All the camp is talking of him: his sword, the warband he is gathering.’ She took a deep breath, steeling herself. ‘Do you think that he will let me join?’

Rhiann glanced at the bruise again. ‘You know that you will need to leave your home and live here. What about your family?’

Caitlin’s blue eyes slid down. ‘They’re not really my family,’ she confessed. ‘But they won’t like it, all the same, because my hunting keeps them in meat. My furs bring them wealth. That is why I come to you now. You seemed … kind.’ She smiled shyly, and something about the set of her mouth caught Rhiann’s attention. Again, that sense of familiarity nagged at her.

She patted the girl’s arm. ‘My husband demanded levies from the other clans, so he can certainly demand that your family release such a talented archer into his care. For the cause.’ She held Caitlin’s eyes. ‘You will have your wish.’

Some understanding passed between them of what they truly spoke, and Caitlin propped her helmet back on her head with a relieved air.

Rhiann avoided asking Eremon anything until she judged that he had cooled down after their altercation. Yet though he ignored Rhiann herself, he readily agreed to her request, and took Caitlin’s solemn and over-elaborate vow of allegiance with some veiled amusement.

As they both left the hall, Rhiann sensed Caitlin’s glowing excitement begin to dim. Looking again at those bruises and the shadow of fear in Caitlin’s eyes, Rhiann decided to set aside her gathering expedition and accompany the girl to the river camp to tell Fethach of her decision.

Among his scruffy, bickering, black-haired clan, Caitlin’s colouring blazed out like bronze against dull iron. It was as she said, Rhiann thought, watching a glowering Fethach thrust Caitlin’s small pack at her – there was no possibility in the Mother’s name that Caitlin shared any blood with these people. So how had she come to belong to them?

Caitlin turned away from the jumbled tents and scratching hounds without so much as a backwards glance. It may have seemed heartless, especially as Fethach’s wife set up an obligatory wailing and show of tears, but Rhiann, watching Caitlin closely, thought she could guess what sort of home life the girl had enjoyed.

She brought up the subject of parentage as they returned to the King’s Hall. Caitlin waved her hand. ‘Warriors did battle in our valley with Damnonii raiders. After it was over, Fethach’s wife found me, a babe, caught under one of the dead man’s bodies. She took me in.’

‘That’s all you know?’ As Caitlin walked, Rhiann was admiring the feline grace that would suddenly suffuse the girl’s movements when she was unaware; the grace of a hunter, a bowman. No, she was surely not made to live out her life hidden away in the mountains. She had the stamp of something else upon her; Rhiann’s senses fairly hummed with it.

‘Fethach’s half-wit sister also said once that my blanket was of fine blue wool. And there was a shell necklace – but I broke it when I was small.’ Caitlin smiled. ‘I’m of warrior blood, I am. I’ve always known that. And now, at last, I’ll have the chance to prove it!’

Eremon tested the spear-tip on his finger, and smiled as a drop of blood welled up on his skin.

‘The best we can make in the time,’ Bran said gruffly, wiping soot from his face with his hand.

‘You have outdone my expectations,’ Eremon replied, surveying the pale shafts of new spears with satisfaction, the piles of studded shield bosses, ready to go to the woodworker’s shed, the mounds of arrowheads.

As Eremon left the smithy, taking the spear to test its balance, there came a trumpet call at the gate. A party of men on horses was riding under the tower, and Eremon saw silver hair flowing from beneath a helm of iron.

Lorn dismounted and strode up to him. ‘We received the news of your planned attack.’ The young warrior’s gaze was distant, fixed at some point over Eremon’s shoulder. ‘My father requested that I come to lend you the aid of my arms, and those of my clansmen.’

To keep an eye on me, more like
, Eremon thought. He knew that the Dun of the Sun bred good fighters. But would the extra strength be worth the disruption? Lorn’s rivalry with Eremon would make him a weak link, and this warband must act as one man.

‘I would be honoured to accept your aid,’ he replied carefully. What could he say? Lorn’s father was one of the most powerful Epidii nobles. It was likely that only fear of reprisals from Eremon’s kin had prevented him from yet mounting a direct challenge for the King’s Hall.

Lorn looked directly at Eremon now, disdain in his pale eyes. ‘When do we leave?’

‘In four days. Tonight, I will brief the chieftains’ sons on the plan.’

‘Then I will be there.’ Lorn nodded at his men, and they followed him up the village path to the houses of his kin.

Eremon watched him go. He knew why old Urben had sent Lorn here. A man would soon lose power if he kept to his dun, away from the centre of tribal defences. Urben did not want Eremon winning any glory that was not shared by his son.

As Eremon returned to the hall, he chewed on his lip, trying to weigh up the risks. Lorn was impulsive and fiery, and chafed at following Eremon’s lead. Yet he commanded many good fighters. And what of his father’s men, his father’s might?

At last Eremon sighed, for there was only one answer. He could not refuse Lorn’s aid: it would shame Urben’s whole clan, and antagonize the council. Such a rift between two men would soon widen to a tribal divide.

Suddenly, Agricola’s face swam into Eremon’s mind, the mouth curved with customary contempt.
He
would be pleased by such a rift, for that is how the Romans won power.

‘And so you will not have it,’ Eremon muttered, and, lifting the spear, drove it into the ground at the door of the hall.

Full of misgivings, Rhiann stood on the palisade above the cheering crowds at Dunadd’s gate. The horse fair was over, but all of the visitors had stayed to see the spectacle of the warband’s departure.

Eremon was taking 200 of the best-trained warriors, and though the day was heavy under cloud, still the mailshirts shone, and helmets and spear-tips glittered, newly burnished, as lines of men marched out of the gate across the causeway, shouting war songs.

All of the fear of the Romans had been focused here this day, and in defiance, had emerged as fighting spirit. The energy of the milling crowd grew and swelled behind the wedge of marching men, pushing, thrusting, like the arm that sends the blade home.

Linnet heard her niece’s sigh. ‘It will be well, daughter,’ she murmured, her eyes on the men filing past below.

Rhiann folded her arms. ‘I still don’t understand why he needs to do this. It’s too dangerous.’ Far off, at the head of the lines, she glimpsed Eremon’s dark hair flowing from beneath his boar-crest helmet.

‘Something drives him,’ Linnet replied. ‘He seeks to make his name, and soon. You understand this, surely?’

Rhiann dropped her arms. ‘And when did you become such a defender of my husband, aunt?’ she teased, pursing her lips. ‘Can I not use your ear to complain about him? Is this not what wives do?’

Linnet smiled serenely. ‘I think it sits hard on you to remain behind. Perhaps your journeying has made your heart restless!’ She reached out, as she often did, and tucked Rhiann’s hair behind her ear.

‘That’s what
he
said!’ Rhiann grumbled. But then she felt Linnet’s hand freeze, and her eyes fixed on something below them.

‘Who is that woman?’

Rhiann followed her gaze. Below them, a familiar figure in buckskins was waving up at her madly. Before she left, Rhiann had managed to get Caitlin into a bath, with heated water and soapwort, to scour off the years of dirt ground into her skin. The wooden tub behind Rhiann’s bed-screen had to be emptied twice, much to Brica’s disgust, before the water ran clear.

Now, with her helmet under her arm, her clean hair tumbling down her back, the girl’s features stood out. ‘That is Caitlin,’ Rhiann answered, waving back. ‘An archer, from a small steading in the far south. She came here to join Eremon’s warband. She is exceptionally skilled, I hear.’