The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One (42 page)

The feast resumed, but the chatter and music was muted now. Rhiann watched Eremon chew the boar haunch with grim eyes, and now men did not look at him, but huddled in groups, talking among themselves.

Later, by her own hearth, Rhiann scrutinized the wound on his upper arm. She’d had a time convincing him to let her see it at all, for he would not move from the fires until he had drunk deep with the nobles, seeking to quiet their unrest. Now she could see why his tunic was drenched in blood; it was a deep slash, though clean.

‘You were not surprised when Lorn challenged you.’ She put down the moss pad and took up a bone needle threaded with flax.

‘No.’ Eremon flinched at the first piercing, but held his arm still. ‘He told me on our journey home that he would do it. He was just looking for an excuse.’

‘The people were not happy when you won; nor would they have been happy if Lorn had won.’

‘I know.’ Eremon shook his head. ‘This breach has weakened us, yet I had no choice. If I gave in, I may as well have handed the leadership to him tonight.’

She concentrated on her sewing, holding the flesh together so the underlying skin would bind.

‘Rhiann,’ Eremon suddenly said. ‘I do not wish to talk of painful things. I wish to tell you of the fort attack. I thought you’d like to know that the training has paid off – paid off a hundred times and more!’ His breath caught as she worked on the deepest part of the wound. ‘Your warriors fought with valour and discipline. The way they held to my orders … we stormed the gate and would have easily taken the fort if … well, if not for Lorn. I can forge them into something strong, I know that now. Agricola will find more than a disorganized rabble if he comes west.’

Was he asking for her approval? Surely not. ‘I still think it was foolhardy,’ she said cautiously, laying down the needle and wiping blood away. ‘But as you said, it has paid off.’

‘Difficult to draw compliments from, aren’t you?’

‘You hardly need more from me! After this night, I’m surprised you can get your head through the door.’

He chuckled, then winced again as she began to wind a bandage around his arm. ‘Well, if that is the case, I need only come to you.’

She sighed. The tension of the last days and the stress of the fight had worn down her patience. ‘You know you did well, Eremon. There are hundreds of people here to tell you so. I’m glad that you had success. I feel safer for it. Are you happy now?’

Eremon turned his head to stare at her. Above the smeared dirt on his cheeks, his eyes were sharp. ‘Something has befallen you while I was gone. Something has disturbed you.’

She bit her lip, tying off the ends of the bandage. He was going to find out about Caitlin very soon; they all would. Should she tell him now? And then anger surged in her. She hated that he could discern her emotions, hated that he did not let her be.

‘I must sleep now, Eremon.’ She rose and cleared away the bronze bowl, the needle, and bandages. ‘I will stay here tonight, for the hall will be noisy with men.’

When he thanked her and left, his gaze lingering on her face, she let out a breath she did not realize she held.

He sees clearly for a man. Too clearly of me
.

Deep in sleep, Rhiann nevertheless sensed the movement of the door cover. Raising herself on her elbow and peering through the bed-screen, she saw Caitlin’s slight form outlined against the fire, unpinning her cloak. Rhiann drew on a robe and padded out.

Caitlin glanced up from the hearth-bench in surprise. ‘Rhiann! We had no chance to talk after the fight – wasn’t it exciting? Of course, I knew Eremon would win after seeing him in the raid. Even though I was in the woods with the archers, you could see his sword from a league away … I mean Lorn is a fine fighter too, but Eremon just
had
to win …’

Rhiann stared down at Caitlin’s glowing face, at the gilded tracery of Linnet’s bones, of her own bones. And for that moment, her anger at Linnet fell away. She perched on her chair, and watched Caitlin pull her boots off with an easy air that was fast becoming as familiar to Rhiann as the way that Eithne tilted her head when she was grinding grain.

And Rhiann was suddenly swept by a much softer – and stranger – feeling than that which had consumed her on the ride home from Linnet’s house.

Sister
.

‘Caitlin,’ she said, stopping the chatter, looking into the girl’s shining eyes, ‘I have something to tell you …’

Chapter 40

R
hiann never found out what happened when Linnet and Caitlin met. At first light, hardly able to contain herself, Caitlin threw on her clothes, although she had barely slept.

‘Do you think I should wear something else?’ she asked Rhiann anxiously, dragging a comb through her hair. Rhiann poured blackberry tea and thrust a cup at Caitlin. Her own hands were shaking, but Caitlin was too beside herself to notice.

Rhiann spoke as calmly as she could. ‘She won’t care, Caitlin.’

‘Are you sure? She’s a great priestess, you said. What if she finds me coarse?’

‘She’s not like that.’ Tears welled up dangerously in Rhiann’s throat, and she swallowed them. ‘She is very gentle. She will be proud to have you as … a daughter.’

‘I hope so!’ Caitlin slurped the tea, then put the cup on the hearth-bench. ‘Oh, I’m so nervous! Won’t you come?’

Rhiann shook her head. ‘This is between you and she.’

‘But did she not tell you anything else?’

Rhiann hesitated. She had not told Caitlin that she and Linnet argued. She had not told Caitlin who fathered her. Linnet could reap that particular sowing herself. Why spoil what was, to Caitlin, such an unexpected and joyous occasion? ‘Again, only that she thought you dead all these years. It’s better for you to gain the details from her yourself.’
And because I did not stay to find out any more
.

Now Rhiann brushed Caitlin’s nervous fingers aside, unwound the single lumpy plait, and started braiding again. ‘I will leave it to Linnet to tell the council.’ Rhiann’s usually nimble fingers were also dulled this day, but she managed to get the hair into a serviceable braid before winding it around Caitlin’s head and securing it with bone pins.

‘Oh, should I wear the jewelled pin you gave me?’ Caitlin fretted, hopping from foot to foot.

Rhiann grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. ‘No! She will love you as you are.’ Her breath caught on the last words.

‘Oh, Rhiann! We are cousins!’ Caitlin threw her arms around Rhiann’s waist and hugged her. Rhiann instantly stiffened, for no one beside Linnet had touched her like that; not since she left the Sisters on the Sacred Isle. But Caitlin had already let her go, and was hastily thrusting bits of clothing into her leather pack.

In a flurry of nervous chatter she disappeared into the pale dawn, her belt buckle jingling. Rhiann was left alone at her door to watch the sun come up. A curlew called its plaintive cry, far out on the marsh, as the golden light washed over the reeds.

She will be proud to have you as a daughter
.

Rhiann put her face in her hands. And the tightness that she had carried inside since she saw Linnet melted, and so began to hurt.

Linnet returned to the dun two days later, with Caitlin by her side. Rhiann saw them enter the gate when she herself was returning from the river, but she could not face Linnet, not yet, and so she turned aside.

She was far downstream, collecting comfrey from the damp soil beneath the willows, when she heard hooves on the Trade Path. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Dòrn’s distinctive black coat. She froze, one hand wrapped around the fleshy leaves, the other holding her herb-knife. Eremon had announced that he was riding to Crianan that morning. Perhaps if she bent low enough, he would not see her.

But the hooves slowed and stopped, and there was the thud of boots to the ground. ‘We should just hand you over to the river sprites and be done with it,’ Eremon said. ‘You spend all your time up to your ankles in mud.’

She straightened, watching him warily, and pulled her feet one by one out of the mire until she could reach her net bag. ‘I gather you’ve heard, then?’

‘Yes, we all have.’ Eremon looped the reins over a dead alder and perched on a broken stump, cradling his bandaged arm. ‘Linnet called what council members there were in the dun together, and told them. You must be happy.’ The last statement seemed like a question.

Rhiann squatted, wiping mud from the leaves as she laid them out. ‘I found out while you were away … it was a great shock.’

‘A shock, yes, but surely a pleasant one?’

‘Of course, a pleasant one!’ She willed him to go away and leave her be.

‘So.’ He sounded satisfied. ‘This is what was bothering you the other night.’

She frowned up at him. ‘What are you talking about? Caitlin is my
kin … I am proud she is my kin.’ That, at least, was true, and she was able to say it emphatically.

But Eremon was chewing on his lip, his eyes boring into her. ‘Forgive me if I misunderstand, but if she is Linnet’s daughter, then does she not have the same status as you, when it comes to carrying the king’s blood? Apart from you being Ban Cré, I mean.’

‘Yes,’ she said through gritted teeth, packing the leaves in the bag. What did he care for their kin laws? And why was he here?

‘But you are not jealous, of course. That someone else now has that rank?’

‘Jealous!’ She shook her head, laughing with soft bitterness. ‘Ah, if only you knew how many nights I have lain awake, wishing there was a woman to share that burden with me. How little I wanted it at all! How glad I would have been to be born someone else’s niece!’ She shook her head again, and got to her feet. ‘You are not as perceptive as you pretend to be, prince.’

‘Yet something has hurt you.’

‘And what business is it of yours, exactly?’

He did not answer her, but simply held her eyes: she could almost hear his mind working.

Annoyed, she picked her bag up and took to a boggy path that ran away into the reeds. She knew he would not follow, for he had his new boots on, which she herself had sewn. Unfortunately, her exit was less dignified than she wished, as mud squelched loudly between her toes.

‘Rhiann.’ She glanced over her shoulder. He was leaning against the tree trunk now. ‘Jealous of her position; perhaps not. But you fear something.’

‘Fear!’ She turned, heedless of the picture she would present. ‘You presume too much, trying to see into my heart!’

He shrugged. ‘And yet, you don’t hesitate to do the same to me. Why is it right for you, and not for me?’

Her mind raced for an answer, but he used the stump to mount Dòrn, and crossed his hands on the reins. ‘You know, whatever you fear, it is better to face it than to hide here in a bog. I credit you with more courage than that.’ With a polite nod he urged the horse back to the Trade Path.

She watched him go, breathing hard. For despite not wanting to hear it from him, what he said struck her to the core. She was hiding; it was true. She glanced towards Dunadd.

I am angry with Linnet, but … fear? What do I fear
?

Rhiann waited until dark had fallen before she returned. She put her head in at the stables and saw, with relief, that Linnet’s horse Whin was gone. But even before she gained the sanctuary of her own house, the
whispers reached her from the women gossiping at their doors, babes slung on their hips.

Linnet had acknowledged Caitlin as her own, but did not name the father. The people assumed that the girl was gotten by a man at the Beltaine fires, or in some other mysterious priestess ritual. And it would also be expected that a priestess in retreat would send the child away for fostering, so Linnet’s lie was covered there as well. Only Rhiann knew that she’d wanted to hide the baby because of its parentage.

Rhiann was glad to find her house deserted. Eithne would be up at the hall cooking for Eremon’s men, and she’d probably taken Didius with her. But as Rhiann hung up her cloak, she heard racing footsteps outside.

‘Rhiann!’ Caitlin threw herself into Rhiann’s arms. ‘Oh, Rhiann, I have so wanted to talk with you these last days! It has been like a dream!’

‘Hush, now. Take some breaths!’

Caitlin flung herself down on the hearth-bench, clasping her fingers between her knees. ‘Linnet – I can’t think of her as my mother – was so glad to see me, Rhiann. She cried!’

Rhiann’s heart clenched. ‘Did she?’ She sat down. ‘And you, too, I imagine.’

‘No – I was too excited!’

‘And do you like her?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Then Caitlin frowned. ‘But she is a very great lady. I don’t know what to say to her yet.’

‘She is gentle, as I said.’

‘Gentle, yes, but strong, too. She is so like you, Rhiann.’

Rhiann’s throat closed over. ‘It has been said before.’

‘And she told me how losing me was all an accident. She was sending me to the Votadini for training as a noble lady, because she had kin there, but her servant must have been killed in that raid, and I was taken. She searched for me for such a long time, until eventually she had to accept that I was dead.’ Caitlin shook her head. ‘And all along I was growing up there, not far from the path. Fethach’s wife obviously would not give me up.’ She looked over at Rhiann with pain on her brow. ‘Why, Rhiann? Fethach’s wife never seemed to want me, not after I grew from a babe to a girl. Why did she not return me? How could she do that?’