The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy (47 page)

‘Here is your seer!’ Cahir was drunk with a savage joy, and she tensed as he extended one hand towards her. ‘Minna of Eboracum, the slave-girl that was!’

A cacophony greeted this revelation: shock, excitement and disbelief. Heart pounding, Minna held to the shine of Cahir’s eyes as if she were drowning.

He told them what she had done, and seen, just as she had repeated it faithfully to Darach the chief druid when he probed her that afternoon. Some people grew restless after Cahir’s telling, as if they might argue, but then their eyes flew between Minna and the king. Vibrating with the sense of the Other, Minna felt the understanding sink through their minds. Minna and Cahir
were one
.

‘And what say you, chief druid?’ Cahir spun towards Darach.

‘My lord,’ Darach offered, unblinking. ‘We have examined the stone, and tested the girl; we have consulted the stars and the entrails of a raven; and we conclude that her visions are true.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘The gods are apt to provide their messages and signs through unexpected means. As to the other, the question of war – all people know the Romans are no friends of the brethren.’

The king replied with a gracious nod, while Minna’s belly churned. ‘So the choice is made,’ Cahir boomed, ‘to fight for who we are, to listen to the gods, to do their will on earth and regain our pride. In the coming days, I will answer all your questions until there are none. But for now, know that my own choices have also been made.’

His eyes were at last on Minna, warm and liquid, and Donal’s hands were on her waist lifting her down, and in that moment the old warrior, irreverent as always, caught her eye and winked. She looked at Cahir’s hand extended towards her and could not move, until Keeva bowed and nudged her on. And so she let Cahir catch her fingers and draw her up on the platform.

She saw nothing for a long moment but the blaze in Cahir’s face, and behind him, the shining points of his men’s eyes in the firelight.

‘My people, I bring you one who is not only
seer
, voice of the gods, but one of the many-born who once long ago was of my royal blood. Now she has returned to us.’ Cahir paused, his smile tender. ‘And so I also name her my
lennan
, dearly beloved of the king.’

Her heart was a bird caught in a snare, beating wildly, and in that moment of disorientation Cahir delivered his last surprise. With a turn of his head he beckoned someone forward, and Minna could only stare at Fintan the smith as he emerged into the firelight, a hammer and chisel in his broad hands. Lonán followed, hoisting a block of wood and wad of linen.

‘As I take her as my
lennan
,’ Cahir announced, ‘and the seer of my hall, so I free Minna of Eboracum.’ There was an exclamation of pleasure from Clíona, and this was taken up by many others in the crowd. Smiling, Cahir raised Minna’s trembling hand to his lips and then led her off the platform.

She saw only a blur of wondering faces as Lonán set the block down and Cahir unclasped his cloak and spread it on the ground. ‘Lady.’ Fintan bowed. ‘Do not be afraid, for if you kneel there, and we put this pad under your ring, I can strike it off with no pain at all.’

She didn’t trust herself to speak, and under a great silence she knelt and laid her head on the block, fixing her eyes on the rising sliver of moon as the smith positioned his chisel on the hinge of the ring. The Lady had given Minna strength when the hated ring was bound around her neck, and now She was here to see her freed.

‘Breathe out,’ Fintan instructed, and swiftly struck the chisel with his hammer. Suddenly the iron ring was in pieces on the ground.

There was a clamorous cheer, as Cahir raised her to her feet and held her there. She was swaying, light-headed. ‘As we strike off the bonds of Roman slavery from Minna of Eboracum, now Minna of Dalriada, so we strike off the Roman shackles from our own necks!’ Cahir cried, and before everyone he circled her waist and kissed her.

At this, the people went wild.
This
was the excitement they longed for after the dreary season of endless dark. Their brooding king had been transformed into a figure of legend, and he had a maiden by his side, not the hated Carvetii princess.

Minna smiled even as her eyes stung, her mouth curving against Cahir’s in a secret joy they shared alone. The musicians could no longer be contained, and the pipes had immediately broken into song, backed by urgent drumming.

‘Lord.’ It was Darach. Behind him, dancers had joined the music, for there seemed nothing more to be said, and much to celebrate. ‘We will bless the cattle now, driving them between the fires, but the betrothed couples await you to be wed.’ He hesitated, glancing at Minna, then merely nodding gracefully. ‘My lady.’

Cahir looked down at her, his excitement flowing free. His people had acclaimed him this night as if this was his true crowning, banishing all pain. ‘It is really your blessing they await,
a stór
, not mine.’

‘Mine?’

‘You are the queen of the may this night, and they have not had the royal blessing of love for many years, or felt the earth quicken as it should. But it is quickening now.’

Yes
, Minna cried, as she was taken to the bonfires and showered with more hawthorn blossom. Cahir blessed the betrothed youths with the flat of his sword, and as the druids gave Minna a bowl of rowan ash, milk and honey, the first of the girls was bending her head before her. It was Keeva … Keeva and Lonán, of course. This blessing would seal their marriage, and those of all the others waiting in line.

Her world stood still. She must summon the Source and call it home, as Darine said the Sisters once did. Closing her eyes, Minna blocked out the shrieks of merriment and bawling of the cattle, surrendering all thought, all feeling to become the vessel.
I am yours, my Goddess, in service to your people. Give now of your Source, to make the land, your flesh, fruitful, so that your people may prosper.

The ancient vow was released from her heart, transforming the world around her. Suddenly, she could feel the Source pooling under her feet as a vibrating warmth. In her spirit-eye it became streams of light running together into one river that flowed up her body. She swelled with it, expanded, her skin glowing, and in that heat, that light, that surrender, another presence came and filled her body.

The Goddess. The energy of Mother. The single essence of all goddesses as one, worshipped by different names but the same – an immense love, compassion and grace that overflowed from Minna in tears, for she could not contain it all.

The light was a flooding wave, pushing her far out across the world, and swirling within its currents was all knowledge, all the answers to every question. Minna’s own soul, a bobbing flame, was carried along in the tide. She was so close to it all … so close to knowing everything … she could put out her hand and capture it, know it … why she was here … what she was …
who spoke to her in dreams … who loved her …

She heard a gasp. Her eyes flew open and she was back, looking directly into Keeva’s upturned face.

The maid’s clever smile was gone, transfigured with awe. Overcome, she clasped her hands together, bowing her head. ‘Lady,’ she breathed, and this time Minna knew it was not given as a formal address to the king’s
lennan
, but to the Other who walked in her body.

As her own spirit stood aside, awed, Minna saw her finger dip into the ash paste without volition and draw a spiral on Keeva’s forehead. ‘Be strong and open in heart,’ her voice flowed, wise and deep as oceans. ‘Be fruitful in body and compassionate in soul. The Lady’s blessings on your union.’

When Keeva got to her feet, for the first time Minna saw tears in her black eyes as she reached for Lonán’s hand. Then, one by one, the maidens came before Minna, and their men before Cahir, as a reverent hush descended on the hill. The silence spread to the dancers, who began to slow, and the musicians and those drinking at the ale kegs, who fell into whispers.

By the time she marked the last girl, the pool of the Source in Minna’s belly had moved lower, pulsating. As the land was burgeoning, flooding with sap and new life, so it was coursing through her body. And when Cahir dropped his sword and turned to her, she looked into the face of the God, his eyes alight with stars.

‘Take me to the ancestor valley,’ she whispered, both of them moving blindly towards each other. ‘It must be there.’

He led her to the horse and lifted her up, and all the while the awed silence spread around them. The sea of people parted once more, their faces shining, as Cahir rode back across the river meadow. Hands reached out to touch Minna’s dress and catch the flowers that fell from her crown. Eyes glowed in the light of the bonfires.

Cahir rode past Dunadd to the north, the Source thundering in their blood. Clinging to his waist, Minna melted into his warm body as if they were already one. The moon was just high enough to light the path, drawing them on.

He left the horse by a circle of buried stones and, taking her in his arms, plunged into the dark woods. Where he walked, the forest came alive: she could see the Source spreading in his footsteps, gilding the branches and leaves, their edges coated with dew.

At last the moon pooled in a hollow of grass guarded by birches. As he rested her down on his cloak, she could smell the primroses and hyacinths. He had brought her to a bower that was a sea of blooms.
The Maiden of Flowers
.

Silently, Cahir set aside her crown, drew her robes over her head and slid her shift from her shoulder, pausing to lay a reverent kiss on her skin. The may-blossoms fell about them like snow, crushed in the folds of their clothes.

Though the heat of passion was in them both, Minna knew how sacred this loving was. Their bodies would transmute the Source so it showered the earth with new life, and as she blessed the betrothed couples, now it was her task to bless the Sacred King. She must become the channel for the Source to enshrine him.

So as he bore her to the ground, she twisted out from under him, bidding him lie instead as she rose to her feet. There she paused and gazed down, summoning instinctively all those women she had been in before-lives, letting them fill her until desire soaked her flesh. For as she had been Rhiann’s child so she had been other women, who loved in other places, and that was why she wasn’t afraid: their passions were clamouring for release.

Cahir gazed back, moonlight shining in his eyes, opening all of himself to her. He looked no less a man for showing his vulnerability, a fear that even now, at this moment, she might see into him and find him wanting.

She sank to her knees beside his scarred body, stroking his powerful limbs as the ancient words came to her tongue to anoint him. ‘Be crowned, oh king, by the light of the land, the love of the land, the will of the land.’

The scents of the oils wafted about her, and there was a loosening between her thighs, warm and wet, as she touched Cahir in every place she had been oiled. Gasping, he moved under her and stroked the glow back into her own skin, polishing it, kissing her limbs one by one as if they were each a sacred offering.

When at last he entered her and filled her, she knew it was the union of all things, for all the men he had been, and all the women of her soul.

But though the joining was bigger than them both, when Minna was astride him, wrapped around him, it was Cahir’s hands that came to rest on the small of her back, and fitted there perfectly.

Chapter 43

I
t was a breath before dawn, as night fled through a veil of glimmering mist. A timeless moment of dreamy touches and delirious joining, another melding of bodies that had continued through the night as if they could not bear to be parted. The divine nectar of taste and scent and warm skin, before the sun rose and they had to be human again.

As the mist turned gold, Minna nestled against Cahir’s naked back in their nest of cloaks, his hair wet with dew like a god of the woods.

And she stared up at the trees, sore and replete, and she knew. She had walked as a goddess, she had so very nearly touched the knowing, but been drawn back for others before she could truly
see
her own truth. So it was clear now she must journey further herself, with her own will. Further and deeper.

And for that she needed the
saor
of which Darine had spoken. She needed Brónach.

That day Cahir expelled all traders from the port with the tale there was an outbreak of a plague in Dunadd. Messengers were secretly dispatched north, east and south bearing armbands cast into boar’s heads as a sign to muster Dalriadan warriors to the king’s standard. It was soon time for Cahir to sail for Erin, to convince his brother king Fergus to join the rebellion.

Minna stood with him on the cold beach beside a long, oared boat wallowing in the shallows. As the men shouted to each other, tossing in barrels of food and bundles of weapons, Cahir wrapped his cloak about Minna and drew her into the curve of his body. ‘You will be safe here while I am gone,
a stór,
’ he murmured, his eyes shadowed. ‘But will you be content? Or am I leaving you to the vixens? I don’t know how women reckon these things.’