The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (49 page)

Eremon was surprised. ‘Yes, my lord.’

Without warning, the great man flashed Eremon a challenge, and drove his heels into his mount’s flanks, a big bay with fire in his eye. The horse sprang forward, and in a heartbeat Eremon had Dòrn beside him, until both stallions were racing neck and neck, their hooves pounding on the wet sand. The wind sang in Eremon’s ears, and he nearly laughed.

When they pulled up at the rock headland that blocked the beach, panting, Calgacus’s eyes were fiercely bright. He glanced back, to see his
more portly nobles trotting sedately along behind. For a moment, they were alone.

The horses shook their heads and snorted, their sides heaving. The sun was hot above this day, a bright glare on the sands, and Eremon massaged his scar, strained by the ride. Rhiann would not be pleased.

‘So now I know you have a good seat,’ Calgacus remarked. ‘Yet there are many other mysteries about you.’

‘Yes?’

‘You come here to trade, and yet instead you take up arms against the invaders.’ The eyes were eagle-sharp now. ‘You walk into, and out of a Roman camp. You attack a fort. You seek me out as an ally. Why?’

Eremon’s mouth went dry, and he remembered clearly the day he had to defend himself to Gelert. The first day he had to lie. And watching now the directness of the King’s gaze, Eremon felt a deep pang of regret that he would have to lie to such a man as this. A man whose respect, he suddenly realized, he desperately wanted.

By the Boar, I wish the day would come where I never had to lie again
, he thought bleakly. But Calgacus was waiting, so Eremon took a deep breath. ‘It is simple. When I met Agricola, he was looking over the sea to Erin. My land is no safer than yours. I may have come to trade, but I did not count on the Romans. I am only doing what you yourself would do. Will do, I hope.’

Calgacus weighed that up, fingering the eagle talon around his neck. Then he smiled. ‘You presume to know my mind! You are a great judge of men, for one so young.’

‘I had little chance to be young, my lord.’ He had not meant to say
that
.

But Calgacus did not laugh at him. ‘When you are marked for the throne, there is little time for boyish games. That is why it is the King’s prerogative to have a little fun when he wishes.’ The light of the wild ride flickered in his face. ‘You should remember that.’

The pang of the lie returned. ‘I will do so, my lord.’

Calgacus was measuring again. ‘I like you, prince of Erin. You have great strength in your face. You have proven your courage, your foresight. Unlike
them
.’ He threw an impatient glance over his shoulder at his nobles. ‘They only care for their furs and gold, and their Roman wine and oil. They see Roman coin in one hand, and not the dagger concealed in the other. You, though, I feel, had to fight for your birthright, as did I. There was more than one possible heir to my uncle’s throne, and I had to win it with a sword, not with flattery. And I do not intend to lose it through the seduction of wealth, or power.’ He patted the sword at his side. ‘Here lies power.’ Then he laid his hand on his chest. ‘And here. I trust only my own heart, and that is how I keep my throne. We speak the same language, do we not?’

Eremon’s breath caught. Did this mean that Calgacus would support him? ‘We do, lord,’ he replied. ‘Except that you have someone else to trust, now. For I tell you on my father’s honour, that the Romans will come for your lands. Only by standing together can we defeat them.’

‘Perhaps. I believe in their danger, as my nobles do not. But I do not think that they will come north.’ Calgacus looked over his shoulder again. ‘Know also that there are many kings in Alba. And we have never, in living memory, acted together.’

‘The world changes,’ Eremon said shortly. ‘We change too, or we fall to Roman swords like grain to the scythe.’

At that Calgacus smiled. ‘Perhaps you should have been a poet, prince. If you use such gilded words with my chieftains, and the other kings, you may get your wish. Do you fight as well as you speak?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. A king should be truthful above all. If you can fulfil any boast, then the bards will sing of you for generations.’

Hot sun beat on Rhiann’s brow as she left the lodge of the Caledonii Ban Cré, an old aunt of the King. The priestess was bent and lined, with swollen joints, yet her eyes had sparked with vigour as she and Rhiann spoke of the coming celebration for the longest day. The second turning of the year was fast approaching now; the night sky held its grey until morning, and the sun hardly seemed to sink before rising again.

Seeking a breeze, Rhiann crossed the stableyard and there spied the stairs to the upper walkway. But when she came out on top of the palisade, who should be standing before her but Drust.

He was holding court where there was a view of the sea. The group of attendants around him was unremarkable: sons of some of the lesser nobles, and their wives and unmarried daughters.

Drust was explaining something he had seen when visiting his mother’s kin in the south. ‘… and the Romans make their symbols on stone, not flesh and wood as we do,’ he was saying. ‘That is why I carved the eagle stones for my father.’

‘What do the Romans carve?’ one of the girls asked prettily. She was looking at Drust with intensity, but he seemed oblivious to her. His face was alight with some passion. Rhiann’s cheeks grew even warmer.

‘Mostly names,’ Drust said, dismissively. ‘But imagine seeing my designs on stones all over Alba!’ He swept his hand out to the horizon. ‘They would last for ever! They could be set up at all points of the land, as the Romans do with their milestones, and then everyone would see our power!’

He paused, and Rhiann took the opportunity to speak, as the audience fell into impressed silence. ‘My lord Drust.’

Drust swung to face her. ‘Lady Rhiann!’

Her belly flipped over. He did remember her!

‘I have been hoping to speak with you,’ he said.

She was rooted to the spot, speechless. It was not the greeting she had expected. He spoke as if they were friends, and had just seen each other days ago. She sought for something to say, but in one smooth movement he took her arm and turned her away from the others. She noticed the sullen looks from the women left behind. This would not do!

‘I have been watching you,’ Drust murmured. ‘I am glad you sought me out.’

In her sleeveless linen tunic, Drust’s touch burned Rhiann’s bare skin more than the sun above. Then she remembered who she was, and removed his hand from her arm. ‘It is good to see you again, my lord.’

He flashed a look she could not decipher. ‘And I you – but I am sure you do not wish to speak with me like this.’ He gestured at the little group, all straining to hear what they were saying. ‘Can we meet somewhere more private?’ His face was tilted down, and now he looked up at her from under his eyelashes; a look her body remembered.

This was ridiculous! He had not spoken to her with the proper degree of respect for either her rank or their unfamiliarity. And she could not arrange some secret assignation; it was beneath her. Yet … Goddess … she
had
to meet him. She had slipped into the stream, she had already let it take hold of her.

What if someone sees me?
She dismissed that thought as soon as it came. She was no Roman woman, forbidden to speak to a man not her husband.

So in a quirk of impulsiveness, before she could back down, she answered: ‘Yes. I will meet with you.’

‘There is another feast tonight.’ He was eager now. ‘It is outside the walls, on the plain. Come back inside the dun and go to the eastern stables, after my father has declared the toasts. We will talk there.’

Rhiann wavered. To steal away, and meet him at night! But his eyes were on her mouth, as he said, softly, urgently, ‘I must talk with you. Please come.’

And suddenly she was in the hut on the Sacred Isle, with the firelight on the walls and his hands tracing the curved lines over her belly. He had looked at her then with the same urgency. So she found herself nodding, and turned away, her damp hands clenched by her sides.
I will only talk!
she told herself fiercely.
I just want to see the man he has become
.

For how else would she know if he was the one in her dream? She did not stop to think if she wanted him to be. The beloved was here in Thisworld, somewhere. He was here to take her from her loneliness.

To help her to be something great.

The feast was under a pale sky, its swollen moon a bronze shield hung to catch the last light. Beneath the sparks of bonfires, Calgacus toasted his ties with the Epidii. But he did not speak of the Roman threat.

Watching him, Eremon realized that until he, Eremon, spoke before all the Caledonii nobles, Calgacus would not show his hand. After all, what did Eremon mean to him? Calgacus had powerful men to placate: men with kin bonds to hold warriors to them, men who, massed together, could take his throne.

Who was Eremon to him?

And yet, even so, Calgacus kept Eremon close, giving him the best cut of boar and the best ale, and introducing him to all the influential men who had arrived that day. He jested with him, and told him of his lands and his peoples with pride.

Eremon could see that the pride came not from boasting of wealth, but from the King’s knowledge that in his twenty-year reign he had built his people into the foremost tribe of Alba, until every soul, from the lowliest cattle herder to the King himself, felt strong and secure and prosperous.

To this, Eremon listened with envy. He realized that, absorbed as he was with losing his father’s hall, and the fighting and scheming, he had long ago stopped thinking about what kind of king
he
would be.

Like this one
, he thought now, as Calgacus held court before a fire.

Imagine having the peace to build, to forge a people into something united and strong and safe. To wrap power around them all as a man enfolds his children, so they can watch their barley grow fat in the fields, their cattle multiply, and their babies sleeping safe in their beds.

That would be a good life’s work. He sighed. His own father had felt it necessary to war incessantly with his neighbours over some slight or another. Even the seeds of Donn’s betrayal had been sown between the brothers long before.

Standing there, a prince with no lands, Eremon promised himself fiercely that he would keep fighting, not for his own glory, but so he could give his people of Dalriada a king like Calgacus.

A snatch of Aedan’s voice drifted up with the spiralling sparks, and Eremon turned his head to hear better. Nearby, the bard was keeping a sizeable group entertained with his new song about the attack on the Roman fort. Seeing the eyes of the listeners wide and shining in the firelight, Eremon smiled to himself.

Well, perhaps he could bask in a little glory.

Just then he caught sight of Conaire with Caitlin across the crowd, and realized that he had not spoken to Rhiann all evening, or even found out what she did that day. Now, she was just here a moment ago …

His eyes scanned the crowd near Calgacus, where he’d last seen her
standing. But she was gone. Perhaps she was getting something to eat. He wandered around the fires, peering at every woman that passed, seeing if it was her.

Many women looked back, but none of them were Rhiann.

Something made him glance up to the walls of the dun, then, and he glimpsed a figure disappearing through the gate. From the grace of her walk he knew who it was, and without thinking, he found himself following her.

Soon the men would meet in council, he told himself. He really should see if Rhiann had any other news to add to what he already knew. Women found out all sorts of interesting things from other women …

But when he entered the gates, she was not on the torch-lit path up to the guest lodges. Turning around, he just caught sight of her vanishing into the maze of tracks that led towards the worksheds and stables. He knew there were no houses there, because he had toured the walls with Conaire only that morning.

Something in his chest thumped, and his mind began to race.

Why is she going there
?

Perhaps she is visiting a friend
.

But she has never been here before
.

Perhaps she goes to check on Liath
.

Liath is in the western stables; I took her there myself
.

He realized, belatedly, that he was being ridiculous. So instead of giving in to the urge to pursue her, he forced his steps back out of the gate and down towards the fires on the plain.

But despite his determination to put Rhiann out of his mind, when he got there, he began to look for someone else in the crowd.

And as he suspected, Calgacus’s son was nowhere to be seen.

Rhiann made her way down the darkened path to the stables.
I feel like a maid on the way to meet her stableboy
! She shook her head, but beneath the wry smile, her belly churned.

It was all very well to lie and think about this in the night. It was disturbing enough to see Drust in daylight. But this was something else entirely. She could not quite believe she was doing it.

And yet, recklessness, which she rarely felt or ever surrendered to, was thrumming in her blood. She’d seen Eremon with Aiveen and Samana, and caught snippets of Conaire’s tales about his conquests. She had not missed Rori making eyes at Eithne, nor was she blind to the growing feelings between Caitlin and Conaire.
Everyone else is doing this, why can’t I
?

Despite these brave thoughts, she still half-hoped that Drust was not there. And when she got to the darkened stable and heard only the
snuffling of horse breath, she shook with a sigh of relief. So that was that, then.

‘Lady.’ The voice slid out of the night, and a shape moved within the shadows of the walls.

The blood leaped in her veins. ‘Prince, I am not accustomed to meeting men in stables.’ She thought she should remind him of who she was.