The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (78 page)

White gull feathers were tucked into her braids, and beneath her torc, she had strung herself a necklace of purple shells. Her buckskin trousers and scarlet tunic were startling after the priestess robes that had surrounded Rhiann for days.

Now Caitlin flew to her and hugged her tightly. ‘Cousin, we have been so worried! Every time I asked, they said you were sleeping!’

With a faint smile, Fola moved to the chair to take up her spinning again.

Rhiann lay back on the pillow. ‘After such rites, the body needs that sleep. Do not worry; I look worse than I feel.’

Relief flooded Caitlin’s face, and she took Rhiann’s hand. ‘I tried to get close to you last night, but when I saw the Sisters all around, I thought you would want me to follow Eremon.’

At the mere mention of his name, Rhiann’s fingers tightened. ‘How is he? No one will tell me anything except that he is well.’

Caitlin’s brow wrinkled. ‘And I can say little else. I followed his litter back to the broch, along with Conaire and the men. But the druids took him into their lodge, and Nectan and his men set up guard at the door, barring everyone from entering. The kings have come, but even they would not be admitted. Conaire was on the verge of breaking down the door to get to him, but without laying hands on Nectan, he could not.’

‘Why will they not let anyone see him?’

Caitlin shrugged. ‘Both Conaire and I slept outside the door – the druids have been stepping over us all morning! They say he is resting, that the wound is clean and not too deep. They ask us to respect their wishes. What can we do without offending every warrior in that broch?’

Rhiann slid her legs out of the bed and pulled her shift straight. ‘Then I am going.’

Caitlin glanced at Fola, who quickly put down her spinning. ‘Oh no, my girl! You are to stay abed. Nerida has ordered it.’

Rhiann was tugging her dress over her head. ‘No one can order me in this.’ Her face came free, and she blew strands of hair from her mouth and looked at Fola. ‘I love him! He has waited two years to hear me say it, and I’m not making him wait longer. After all the talking and dreaming we did in this very room … will you stand in my way?’

Caitlin clapped her hands together and put them to her mouth, her eyes shining.

Fola was grinning at Rhiann. ‘Now that you put it like that, how could I stand in the way of anything?’ She shrugged. ‘Nerida knows well how stubborn you are. She will not punish me for your rebellion.’

Fola quietly saddled the most placid of the Sisters’ mares, and led it to the edge of the settlement, where the path wound up out of the dell through the hawthorns. Caitlin and Rhiann managed to slip from the house, undetected by Nerida or any of the older priestesses, and when Caitlin led Rhiann away on the mare, no one came rushing out to stop her.

Or perhaps they expected her to do this after all.

When Caitlin tied the mare up outside the druid lodge, Conaire hastened to help Rhiann to the ground. ‘Rhiann! We have all been worried about you!’

Rhiann gave his waist a squeeze, smiling over his shoulder at Colum and Fergus. ‘I am quite well, as you can see – just a little wobbly on my feet. I want to speak to Eremon.’

Conaire frowned and shook his head. ‘They are guarding him like a pack of wolves.’ He threw a glance over his shoulder, to where Nectan stood before the door with a spear, flanked by two of his men. ‘I knew we should not have trusted that one.’

‘Peace, Conaire. I will talk to Nectan alone.’

When Rhiann approached the door of the lodge, Nectan looked up at her with a touch of defiance, gripping his spear.

‘Am I not to be allowed to enter, either?’ She spoke his own dialect, smiling.

‘No women can enter, lady.’

‘But I need to see him! If not, then tell me why.’

Nectan jerked his head at his men, and they relaxed their stiff pose and moved to one side, out of earshot.

‘Lady,’ Nectan said respectfully. ‘This is a matter for the druids, for the God. For all of us. Your man came for an alliance, and an alliance he will have – if he chooses. But the moment hangs in the balance. The moment must not be disturbed.’

Rhiann stared at him, a suspicion suddenly entering her mind. ‘Nectan, do you know why Eremon was chosen to be the Stag? A stranger, a foreigner?’

Nectan’s grin was proud. ‘I did it. The kings were beginning to be convinced, but they did not wish to heed the call of a
gael
. We only follow our own. I spoke with Brethan’s druid. The druids have seen the signs … they know the Source is disturbed, that danger is near. They saw that the Goddess brought your man to our shores, in the eighteenth year. He, who has shed Roman blood, and had his own blood shed by Romans. He, the bonded man of a Ban Cré. Who else could be the Stag? She had called him. And if he became our God for this night, then perhaps the kings would heed him.’

Rhiann nodded. Of course! Now, her mind free of the
saor
, she could see it all. ‘Nectan.’ She bowed her head. ‘You are wise beyond imagining. We have much to thank you for, if what you say is true. But will they follow him? Have they told you so?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On what he says when they give him the choice.’

In the druid lodge, Eremon lay curled up against the wall, on a bed of soft skins. His shoulder throbbed only faintly, for it had been cleaned and packed with herbs, and the druid healer gave him a draught of something that took the pain away.

It was not his bodily hurts that kept him huddled as far from the chanting druids as possible. It was his spirit that was utterly overwhelmed, and not just from the power he felt in the stone circle.

No. It was the moment when Rhiann chose him, when
she
pulled his mouth down to hers, that would be burned on his memory for ever. Nothing would ever come close to that sweetness … to the feel of her wanting him so hungrily. Nothing.

If he could have died right there and then, if he could have slipped from his body, and taken her to the Otherworld, leaving everything, he would have done so. Right at that moment, life became as pure as it would ever be.

‘Prince.’ It was Brethan’s druid. ‘I would speak with you.’

Painfully, Eremon turned, shifting his body higher against the pillow.

The young druid’s eyes were cavernous, burning with excitement. Over his shoulder, other druids kept up that sibilant chanting, and every now and then, one would throw a handful of something on the fire that caught at the back of Eremon’s throat.

‘You know why we chose you to be the Stag.’

Eremon nodded dizzily. ‘Nectan told me.’ He coughed, and the druid handed him a cup of water, and waited while he sipped it.

Taking it from him, the druid sat on the edge of the bed pallet. ‘And our choice was right. The flowering of the Source was the most powerful we have known for many, many years. You did well.’

Eremon’s mind was on Rhiann. ‘I am glad. Now, if you’ll just get me my cloak so I can go to my wife …’

But the druid was shaking his head. ‘No, there is more.’ He leaned forward, almost hungrily. ‘When the island woman took the knife to you, she shed your blood. Instead of the symbolic sacrifice,
your blood truly ran from the sacred knife, into the earth
.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘Prince, you must understand.
You
have given the blood sacrifice – the first Stag to do so for generations. It has bonded you to us; the Goddess has claimed you.’

At those words, something crept coldly into Eremon’s belly, and he remembered the day he first stepped ashore at Crìanan, and how he sensed that something waited for him.

‘Because She demanded your blood, which none of us looked for or planned, you have gone far beyond the Beltaine rite. But you are not yet wholly ours – you walk the path between the worlds. It is too dangerous for any but a druid to come near. We cannot even celebrate the Beltaine feast until the doorway is safely closed once more.’

Eremon shivered at the druid’s tone, and then his mind caught on something. ‘Yet? You said, “You are not
yet
wholly ours.” What do you mean?’

The druid bowed his head. ‘I come to give you your choice. We can draw you fully back to your body, and release you to return to your world unchanged. But know that if you do this, the kings will not heed your call.’

‘Or?’

‘Or we give you up to Her, and make you truly ours – our war leader, the Consort of our Goddess, the King Stag for as long as your lifeblood flows.’

‘I wish I knew what you were talking about.’

At that, the druid smiled. ‘We must brand you, prince, brand you as one of our own. I speak of tattoos, for the lines of power will bond you to the Mother, and to us. A few steps away, twenty kings and chieftains are poised to bend their knees to you, to offer up their swords. But they will only give you their allegiance, if you give Her yours.’

As the meaning of his words finally penetrated Eremon’s mind, the fear in his belly overflowed. By the Boar! ‘I … I need to speak with my brother.’

‘No one can see you.’

‘I demand it! I have made commitments to my own people, oaths that I must take into account. Would you have me break faith with them?’

The druid hesitated. ‘He can speak with you, if he does not get too close.’

‘Then will you let me rise and walk with him outside? I can hardly breathe in here.’

The druid’s brow darkened. ‘No. It is dangerous for my people. You must make your choice here, alone. To go further, or to pull back. It is a choice you make in your heart.’

Eremon managed to get all the druids to leave, except Brethan’s, who said he must ward the door. But he withdrew far enough away for Conaire and Eremon to speak alone.

Conaire sat on a stool a few paces from the bed, listening to all Eremon had to say. Afterwards, he was silent, his chin resting on his hands, his blue eyes far away.

‘What does this mean for us?’ Eremon asked, hoarsely. ‘I am my father’s heir. My home is in Erin; I gave my people an oath to serve them.’

‘Yet does it break an oath to them, to take another here?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘But you gave your oath to the Epidii.’

‘I know but … that was different. The Epidii
said
that it was a marriage to the land, to the Goddess, but I did not feel it at the time. This feels real.’

Conaire sighed. ‘Eremon, the only way to regain your throne is to
make alliances here. Only then can we return you to your rightful place.’

‘We did not count on the Romans intervening in
that
plan.’

‘No, but they have. As have … many other things.’

At the wistfulness of the tone, Eremon glanced at him. ‘What do you mean?’

It was only when Conaire lifted his eyes that Eremon saw the suppressed excitement; a glow that had not been there before. ‘Caitlin is to have a babe.’

Eremon was speechless.

‘Brother!’ Conaire’s excitement flared. ‘He could be a king! The next King of the Epidii!’

Eremon looked long at him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You have your own bonds here now; you have taken your own oaths.’

Perhaps Conaire fancied that he heard disappointment in Eremon’s voice, for he raised his chin. ‘Yes. I did not come looking for Caitlin, but I found her anyway. My path led me somewhere I was not expecting.’

‘As has mine.’

‘As has yours.’

They were silent, each turning over their own thoughts.

‘You know,’ Conaire offered, with his disarming grin, ‘Erin is not far away. Perhaps we shall found a clan that spans both sides of the sea! My son may be King here, yours in Erin! Aedan said as much to you when you wed Rhiann.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘Eremon.’ Conaire leaned forward, his hands on his knees. ‘We were led here, and I say we take the gifts we are given. If you lead the Albans, it does not mean you stop leading us! You protect those in Erin by what you do here, for we all share a common enemy.’

At his simple words, Eremon’s heart at last lightened. ‘Now I know why I have kept you by my side all these years.’

Conaire grinned again, and looked sidelong at him. ‘Rhiann came to you.’

Eremon tensed. ‘Where is she?’

‘She spoke to Nectan, and then she went away. She must know of the druid’s proposal. But they would not let her in to see you.’

Strangely, though he yearned for her, this knowledge brought Eremon a wave of relief.

Much had passed between them in the stone circle. What if she did not feel the same about it as he did?

Chapter 80

R
hiann could neither eat nor sleep, sew nor grind nor cook. Her fingers would not obey her mind, for her thoughts bubbled and roiled in her head like the surface of one of Fola’s stews.

She knew only that Eremon had agreed to the tattoos. So, he had chosen them.

But her? Had he chosen her?

At last, Caitlin came for her in the grey dawn. ‘He has emerged!’ she cried from the doorway of the dairy, catching Rhiann around the waist. ‘And the kings are making ready to swear their oaths. The Beltaine feast will go ahead!’

Rhiann disentangled herself. ‘Well, what does he look like? Is he well? Did he speak?’