The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (57 page)

Conaire grinned. ‘For a while there, neither did I! For one so small, she has a will the size of a bear.’

‘It does seem to run in the family.’

A shadow crossed Conaire’s face. ‘Will the council agree, though, Eremon? With her riding around the borders beside me, I forget her real status. Won’t they make her marry an Alban prince?’

‘They will do no such thing,’ Eremon assured him. ‘We have proven ourselves, and I have gained much of the control that I need. I won’t let them refuse you.’

But Conaire still looked worried.

‘They usually marry their princesses to foreign men,’ Eremon reminded him. ‘You are a chieftain’s son, do not forget. This strengthens their ties with us yet again.’

Conaire chewed over that, and then sighed. ‘You know, brother … I did not expect this. I have never wanted any woman beyond one night! I know you don’t approve, for one day we will leave. But there has never been another, not like this. I will not live without her.’ He raised his chin, and his eyes held a look that Eremon had only ever seen on the battlefield.

A jest sprang to Eremon’s lips, and then he realized the solemn tone for what it was. When a man spoke from the deepest part of his soul, the listener must give the moment its due. He bowed his head, his heart suddenly sore. For an answering part of him wanted that, too – to feel that. Few things would be as great.

When Conaire left, Eremon leaned on the half-built pier, digging his heel into the damp sand. It was one thing marrying for expediency, as he had done. It was another marrying for love. The way the bloodlines ran in this strange country, the Epidii would not give Caitlin up to Erin. And how could Eremon ever do without Conaire by his side?

It was easy to become embroiled in what was happening here with the Romans, but Eremon had never forgotten his ultimate goal. Kingship over his father’s lands was all he had been bred for, all he had thought about his whole life.

It was all that kept him going when they crouched behind that barricade on the beach, arrows falling around them; when they sailed away from Erin’s shores, burning with rage and hurt. And if Eremon could just bring the Epidii through the Roman threat intact, he’d have an army at his disposal, ready to land in Erin and take his own dun back.

In all of that, there was no place for love … and certainly not with a woman who felt nothing in return.

Rhiann
.

He kicked the piling on which he was leaning, and Cù yelped and bounded around him, expecting a game. But Eremon had no heart for that.

There was no place for love.

‘You!’ he barked at one of the workers, stripping off his tunic. ‘Help me to haul this post up. Now!’

Chapter 55

LEAF-FALL
AD
80

T
he harvest was barely in when the weather suddenly turned. The wind grew sharper as it blew down from the hills, tugging at the golden leaves of alder and willow along the river, and after a clear night of stars, the first frost covered the ground.

On a day of cloud and stinging rain, Rhiann mysteriously banned Caitlin from her house. Caitlin spent the morning playing
fidchell
with Aedan, but she was too intrigued about what Rhiann was doing to bother concentrating. Aedan won easily, which stunned him so much he did not speak for the rest of the afternoon.

When Eithne came to get her, her black eyes sparkling, Caitlin leaped up and was down the path at a run.

She ducked under the door cover of Rhiann’s house, straightened, and gasped.

‘Your dowry,’ said Rhiann, half-embarrassed, and Caitlin’s eyes widened.

Stacked on the floor were nests of woven baskets, wooden bowls, bronze cauldrons, and a set of ornate fire dogs. On the bed, piles of bedlinens, furs and tanned hides spilled over wall hangings and bright rugs. On top, a fine linen undershift was spread, and a dress of the softest blue wool, edged with white mink.

Before Caitlin could speak, Rhiann handed her a wooden chest bound with bronze. Inside was a delicate golden torc, the two arms deer heads set with eyes of amethyst. There were also hair pins, and shoulder brooches of bronze and silver in the shape of wolf and salmon and eagle – all the symbols that Caitlin loved.

She shook her head, her eyes bright. ‘How can I accept these? I cannot, I have never—’

Rhiann turned away, straightening the bedlinens. ‘Hush! I am your
closest kin here at Dunadd, and in the absence of father and uncles I must furnish your dowry, for I represent the clan.’

Suddenly Caitlin’s arms wrapped around her, and she buried her head into Rhiann’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, oh, thank you!’

Rhiann looked down at the small, fair head, and her own arms came out to gather Caitlin close. ‘There, there,’ she said, patting Caitlin’s back. ‘This is a time for happiness, not tears.’

Caitlin pulled back and wiped her face, leaving a dirty streak. ‘I am happy! That is why I cry!’ She laughed, shaking her head. ‘It is just that I did not expect such a thing!’

‘If these men from Erin insist on taking royal brides from Alba, then they must not be disappointed!’

Caitlin smiled shyly, and stroked the head of one of the brooches. ‘I do not think he will be disappointed,’ she said, in a low voice.

Rhiann turned away, knowing that he would not.

Two husbands of Erin, yet two very different stories.

Conaire and Caitlin’s marriage took place at dusk on Samhain eve, before the fires were extinguished and Rhiann’s ride to the mound in the valley began.

The ceremony, not being the symbolic union of the Ban Cré with the war leader, did not need to be public, and only Linnet officiated. So it was that the couple’s hands were tied with the red sash before the sacred fire of hawthorn, with only Eremon’s men, Talorc and Belen, and Eithne and Rhiann in attendance.

Throughout the simple ceremony, Caitlin remained calm and glowing in her new gown, while Conaire was all fingers and toes. But when Linnet finally called on the Mother of All to bless the union, Conaire lifted Caitlin off her feet with one arm to kiss her, and his face softened into a look of such tenderness that Rhiann’s breath caught in her throat and she had to look away.

Of anyone she knew, Caitlin deserved love most of all. But that did not stop the jealous ache in Rhiann’s breast. For who would not wish for that?

As she turned her head, her eyes fell on Eremon. He was pale tonight, but the unusual fairness of his skin brought out the crimson of his tunic, and deepened the green of his eyes. He wore all his jewellery tonight, which on many men would appear gaudy, but to her surprise it only enhanced his straightness and the breadth of his shoulders. Draped with the gold and jewels of the civilized, what was raw in him only stood out more starkly.

She raised her gaze to his face, and her heart gave a thump. The pain there was as finely drawn as Conaire’s tenderness had been. Flushing,
she looked down at her feet. She knew that she had glimpsed something private.

Something she was not meant to see.

Later, under a clear, frosted sky, Rhiann found herself pushed close against Eremon around the bonfire as they watched the dancing. And she realized, suddenly, that they had not spoken properly for moons.

At first she’d been so angry about his lie, but by the time she forgot to be angry, he was deeply involved in the rebuilding of Crìanan and the strengthening of their tribal boundaries, and often away from the dun. She had been busy with the storing of grain, the preserving of the berries and roots, the meat and cheese and honey. At night, she was too exhausted to sit with his men in the hall, and more often than not she left him to sleep in her own house.

‘You never dance,’ she said now, as they watched Caitlin and Conaire leading the whirling couples. ‘Could it be that the shining prince of Erin lacks one skill?’

She said it lightly, with a smile in her voice. But he barely turned his head. ‘No one has ever asked me.’

She searched his hard profile, black against the fire. ‘Well, then, dance with me.’

A pause. ‘I do not need to be pitied.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ she retorted, stung. When he did not answer, she snapped, ‘Don’t dance with me, then!’

‘As you will.’ He folded his arms.

They stood for some time in silence, as the music swirled around them, and then, with an impatient movement, Eremon turned. ‘Come then, and dance.’ He sounded angry, and his grip on her arm was hard as he pulled her into the mass of twirling bodies and stamping feet.

The musicians were just ending one dance, and she and Eremon stood for a moment facing each other. His face was flushed, but Rhiann recognized the challenge there, and when the next song started, she raised her chin and held his eyes, as they circled each other to a slow drumbeat. He was surprisingly graceful, although since he rode and fought and spoke with grace, it should not have come as the surprise it did.

Now the beats quickened, and Rhiann had to hold her skirts up with both hands to free her feet for the intricate steps. But she did not look down, and as Eremon danced faster, nor did he. Her blood pounded from the exertion, but that was nothing to the lurch of her belly when he took her around the waist to turn her. He did not laugh down at her, like the other men. His mouth was a grim line scoring his face, and his arms were iron bands, bruising her skin.

Her hands came up against his chest, and she could smell the sweat on him, the scent of his hair …

Then someone grabbed her hand, and someone else took Eremon’s hand, and they were all spinning in a great, linked circle around the bonfire. When the circle broke up again, Rhiann had lost him in the crowd. With trembling legs, she pushed her way to the mead barrels, trying to catch her breath. No wonder he never danced!

But it was long before her heart calmed, and when she at last sought the bed in her own house, still sleep was elusive. Every time she closed her eyes, flashes of memory crossed her mind.

Last Beltaine, when he lay at ease on the mound in the firelight and smiled at her. When he held her head and gave her water. When he looked down at her with such gentleness in his face …

Mother! Do not venture down that path, Rhiann. Only pain waits there
.

And he had not been gentle tonight. In fact, he’d looked on her with nothing less than dislike. The journey to Calgacus had changed him. Perhaps he felt more secure in his position now, and no longer needed her. Perhaps he knew all about Drust, and thought her foolish.

But the look of pain on his face as he watched Conaire and Caitlin came back to her, and she lay and wondered far into the night.

Cù shivered, and curled closer around Eremon’s thighs. His master’s hand came down and gently stroked his head. ‘I’m sorry, boy. I try your patience at times.’

At the sound of Eremon’s voice, Cù raised his head and licked his hand. Eremon shifted so that he could wrap his cloak around both of them. It was ridiculous to be here in a workshed at this time of year, with no fire. But the coldness was somehow comforting; it helped to scour out his heart, to numb it.

He leaned back on the straw, watching the starlight through a crumbling gap in the wall under the eaves. Samhain. The long dark was nearly upon them. He’d dealt with the attack on Crìanan as well as he could. He had done as much as possible to ward their borders. The training was continuing under Finan’s care. The tribal meeting would go ahead.

So, there was little for him to do for many moons.

And that prospect yawned before him like a black pit. As his responsibilities had lessened, so the feelings that he had successfully buried since their journey north were surfacing. Gods! When he saw the way Conaire and Caitlin looked at each other … that stab of despair had taken him by surprise. For Rhiann would never turn such eyes on him.

How could his heart be so treacherous? He had never asked for these feelings, never wanted them. A hundred other women were yielding
and pliant and warm – and interested in him. Yet out of them all, he had to feel this way for
her
!

And when he tried to freeze her out, tried desperately to maintain the distance between them, what did she do? She taunted him, using her fine eyes in the firelight, pressing her soft body up against him in the crowd …

She did not even care for him, so why did she do it? She loved Drust, for some unknown reason, and had never shown Eremon even a grain of affection. He must be mad to feel this way. And yet … gods! Nothing he thought or said to himself made any difference. He could wrench at his heart, stamp on it, curse it, squeeze it, and tear it until it bled. But it would not surrender. It was the first thing in his life he had been unable to conquer.

Cù heard the harshness of his breathing and whimpered, and Eremon buried himself deeper in his cloak, turning his head to look at the hound.

‘I can’t stay here through the long dark,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll ride out as often as I can, stay in the other duns. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? We can keep moving. Perhaps it will be better then.’

At the word ‘ride’ the hound’s ears pricked up.