The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy Read online

  And as for Minna, Mamo always said her mind was sharp as a thorn, swift as a river. But she had let that mind dull, drifting in summer dreams. Well, no more. As she stirred the stew, she vowed that never again would she be caught out like this.

  Minna blinked as a dark shape passed across the stars.

  Her bed was in a little room on the back of the house, looking over the hills, and she realized she was sitting cross-legged on it with the door open to the night. She had been awake-dreaming.

  She cradled the familiar pain in her belly and peered up, recognizing Broc. ‘What … what did I say?’

  Broc leaned against the door-jamb, looking out. ‘How, by the Christos, would I know?’

  Her heart was tripping erratically. Sweat prickled her temples. ‘Did I scream?’

  ‘Once. That’s what brought me in here. Then you babbled some complete nonsense; I couldn’t even understand you.’ Disgust thickened his voice. ‘Honestly, Mamo has ruined you with these old stories. She fills your head with foolishness, and then you wonder why you get nightmares.’

  She wrapped her arms about her knees. ‘I can’t help the visions. And Mamo gets them, too.’

  Her grandmother, however, honoured the gift – the sight, as she called it – and her dreams were never violent. Surrender to them, Mamo said. There must be some reason the Goddess speaks to you this way. You resist them, so they bring pain. But Minna resisted because the dreams made people hate and fear her. Because she could not control them, no matter how she tried. She didn’t think any goddess would send such pain, anyway, and so sometimes, in her darkest hours, she wondered if the Christians had it right when they said such things were pagan and the work of devils.

  ‘Mamo has never used her sight in front of others,’ Broc pointed out. ‘And anyway, she’s old, and she is the herb-woman. People make allowances for her. But they’re afraid of you. Severus is the only one—’

  ‘Don’t say it!’ She hunched one shoulder away.

  Broc squatted before her, a finger raising her chin. ‘It’s done, sister.’ He sighed. ‘I must do my duty and give you a dowry, however small, to make it legal, though that will have to wait until next month for my first pay. But I’ve agreed now in principle, and Master Publius has given his assent. I will tell Mamo tomorrow.’

  Minna stared into the darkness.

  ‘I will give you one last piece of advice. Apply yourself to learning from Mistress Flavia: start dressing like a lady, acting like a lady, speaking like a lady. Stop racing around the fields with your skirt hitched up. You’re a woman, not a child. Forget Mamo’s tales and strive to control these bizarre … turns. Then people might start to accept you.’

  Minna gazed into her brother’s face. She thought of how they played together in the heather as children, how he had defended her from the worst taunts. But now she realized with a sinking feeling that after all those years, Broc did not know her soul at all, not if he honestly thought she could ever be that woman.

  ‘Don’t waste this chance!’ he urged. ‘At least try, Minna, to change. Just try.’

  Heavy as stone, her heart followed her belly down. She turned her face towards the star glitter, beckoning beyond this house. ‘Yes, brother,’ she agreed. For she understood now he would not know that she lied.

  Two days later Broc left for the Wall.

  Chapter 2

  ‘It looks as though there will be a storm, Mamo,’ Minna observed from the doorway. She leaned her head against the cool stone wall.

  Across the stubbled fields the sky was bruised. The air lay in a damp blanket over the dusky hollows, exuding the scents of turned soil and crushed grain. No wind stirred the turning leaves or the brown grass that grew so high on the pasture – ripe for running through. Four weeks ago, Minna may have done just that. Before Broc leaving, and the daily war she had been waging to avoid Severus. Before Mamo’s crackling cough had deepened into this stubborn fever.

  And nothing had been heard from Broc at all – as if he had forgotten about them already, Minna thought bitterly – and no dowry had been forthcoming as yet, though that at least was a relief.

  ‘Is the fruit in?’ Mamo spoke weakly from the bed.

  ‘Nearly. Tomorrow is the last day of picking.’

  ‘The Mother gave us a fine summer, a good harvest.’ Abruptly, Mamo broke into a terrible fit of coughing, her chest as clogged as the weedy stream outside.

  Minna propped her against the pillows, grabbing the wooden cup from the stool. ‘Have some more coltsfoot, Mamo.’

  ‘I’m going to turn green and sprout roots if I have any more.’ Despite the spark of humour, bones ran in a ladder across Mamo’s shrunken chest.

  ‘Well, coltsfoot flowers are pretty.’ She held the cup to Mamo’s lips, biting down on her own.

  Minna had tried every concoction she could think of to treat Mamo’s illness. Long into the night, as her grandmother’s breath rasped, she turned over all the scraps of herb-lore in her mind. Now she had a linseed poultice warming by the fire. She had begged one of the carters to trade her only bead necklace in Eboracum for dried starwort roots, imported from Greece. Some were brewing to drink, and some would go in a bowl so Mamo could inhale the steam.

  When she had fulfilled her duties with the boys each day, Minna immersed herself in kneading and baking bread, gathering eggs and chopping firewood, but even the unwilling parts of her could see Mamo was growing weaker. Something in her eyes was struggling, when they had always shone with life, with wisdom.

  She dabbed Mamo’s chin where tea had spilled. The old woman’s gaze was piercing, despite the fever sheen. ‘Child, you know I will not be able to lead the harvest rite.’

  Minna took the steaming kettle off the flame. ‘The starwort will help. You’ll be up and around by tomorrow night—’

  ‘No.’ Stray white hairs drifted from Mamo’s braids, feathering the bones that seemed to push through her translucent skin. ‘I am not well enough.’

  Minna stared down at the curling vapour over the kettle, her throat tight.

  ‘You’ve grown so much,’ Mamo said suddenly.

  She rallied a wry smile. ‘What do you mean?’ She poked her bony hip. ‘It is sideways I need to grow.’

  Those birdlike eyes didn’t waver. ‘I do not mean you have grown in body.’

  ‘I’m not you,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll never be you.’

  ‘Nor do you need to be. It’s you the world needs.’

  Minna blinked and looked at the wall.

  ‘I can’t manage the walk to the fields.’

  ‘We can take you in the cart!’ She dropped on her knees by the bed. The room was stifling from the pressure of the coming storm, and Mamo’s papery skin was clammy. ‘I will hold you.’ Her throat closed. ‘I’ll never let go.’

  Mamo’s swollen fingers tightened into claws. ‘No, you must do it for me. You know the words.’

  Goddess of Light. Lady of the Forests. Giver of Life. Bringer of Death. Yes, she knew.

  Mamo pressed one hand to her bony breast, as it struggled to rise and fall. ‘If we don’t speak to our Lady, then how will She know how much we need Her? How will She know to send us the sun and rain? If we are silent, She may forget us … ’ Exhausted by her fervour, she fell back on the pillows, coughing.

  ‘Rest now, Mamo, and don’t be upset. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.’

  When finally the old woman slept, Minna rubbed beeswax with mustard into Mamo’s feet to warm her blood and break the fever. She sprinkled cleansing herbs in the smoke. The healer in her – well-taught, detached – paused as every hour passed, stopping to reassess the timbre of Mamo’s wheezing. But each time Minna’s own chin sunk lower, and her eyes became fixed on the fraying edge of the blanket.

  The fire dimmed; she got up to feed it with hazel twigs. When she came back, Mamo’s eyes had flickered open, but they were glazed by the veil of the awake-dreams, the sight. ‘Who are you?’ her grandmother whispered, plucking restlessly at the sheets. />
  ‘It’s me, Mamo, me.’ The two of them were suspended in the glow of the lamp; the blackened hearth, pots, pans, baskets and work tools hidden in shadow on hooks around the walls.

  Mamo’s eyes wandered to the lamp-flame. ‘Ah, you are a jewel,’ she crooned, sing-song. ‘A jewel hidden among men, long-buried, long-forgotten. But not for ever; not for ever, my love.’

  Minna fervently kissed her grandmother’s brow – the true eye, or spirit-eye, as Mamo called the sacred place in the middle of the forehead. When Minna was a child she would make her shut her eyes and try to feel things through this opening, see with her mind. Your eyes can fool you, Mamo would instruct, tapping Minna’s brow. Your spirit-eye never will.

  Now she rested her cheek against Mamo’s forehead and took a breath, unwilling to break the touch. What was Mamo seeing at this moment? Minna didn’t dare ask her. Just as she would not open her own spirit-eye this night, for fear of what it might show.

  Then Mamo stirred under her hands. ‘Minna, you must take all the honey.’

  She sat back, wiped her face. ‘What, Mamo?’

  Mamo’s gaze flickered back and forth across the wall, as if observing some invisible scene. ‘Take the last of the honey to the city, and see if that wily old Craccus will buy it. We need cloth for Broc’s tunics – he grows so fast! But don’t take less than five numii a jar, child: no one else can sing flavour like that from their bees. Tell Craccus!’

  Minna clutched her grandmother’s cold hand. ‘Yes, Mamo. I will take the honey.’ Blankly, she stared into the shadows.

  The Boar! The Boar! Men struggled in a haze of smoke that was rancid with blood and the stench of loosed bowels … swords glinted, raised high to stab down …

  Minna lurched upright by Mamo’s cot, those unintelligible cries spilling from her lips. It hurt … the pain … Terror clawed at her, until Mamo was there, her soothing voice calming her. It is all right, my little one. All will be well. Hush. All will be well.

  Minna slumped back. Mamo always woke her from nightmares and held her. Her grandmother’s special caress came then, a warm hand cradling one cheek and then the other. Minna felt tears falling on her own skin. She smelled Mamo’s scent, wild thyme from the moors. She glimpsed a light behind her eyelids, like a spark of a bonfire, spiralling up into a darkened sky …

  The Light … Goddess of Light. Giver of Life.

  Bringer of Death.

  With a second cry Minna was fully awake and staggering to her feet, knocking the lamp over. The tiny pool of oil spilled on the earth floor and guttered out. For a moment, she was blinded by the after-flare, blue across her eyes. The words she had shouted were already fading, her mind a jumble of images that left only a taste of blood.

  But the house was silent. The house held nothing.

  She swayed, and her legs buckled so she fell by the bed, staring down. The fire was burned to coals, the glow soft on Mamo’s cheeks and eyelids, smoothing the age from her, the beauty of her youth shining through. She was gone. The light was gone.

  For an endless moment Minna reeled over a yawning, dark hole, before numbness descended, cutting off the pain. She must not feel. She must not think. She grasped for Mamo’s hand, held on, though it was already cold.

  Her soul still caught in the awake-dream, Minna could sense the roof beams alive with flutterings and whisperings, the air shimmering with the insubstantial presence of the others, the sprites, the fey to whom Mamo spoke under her breath as she kneaded dough.

  They cried to Minna, reaching to her pain with soft fingers and silvery voices. But she batted them away, staring dry-eyed into the growing dark as the coals died.

  For a night and day she did not leave Mamo’s side. The voices continued whispering among the rafters, but she resolutely ignored them.

  The news spread. Mistress Flavia came and tried to get Minna to release the body for burial. When she would not answer, the Mistress threw up her hands and left her there. Everyone else stayed away.

  She only found out why when Marcus and Lucius disobeyed their mother and crept into the silent house. Marcus slid into her lap while Lucius crouched by her stool, dark eyes fixed on her face.

  ‘Minna,’ Marcus ventured at last. ‘Why do they say these things about you? I’m scared.’

  She did not answer, only turned her face to meet Lucius’s intent gaze. ‘They say you are a banshee, a devil,’ he whispered. ‘They say you called down the death on your Mamo, that you fed it to her in draughts with your own hand.’ His voice faltered. ‘They say … that you made your Mamo die.’

  She turned back to her grandmother’s still face, her fingers stroking through Marcus’s fine hair.

  At the second dusk, Minna stood beside a hole dug in the cemetery. Shrivelled oak leaves drifted down around her in the cold wind. She was wrapped in aloneness just as the shroud wrapped Mamo’s frail body.

  Everyone was staring at her while the priest muttered a few hasty words, their expressions suspicious, hostile. But Minna saw only one man, for the others left a space of deference around him and his gaze burned her like a furnace. Beside him stood Master Publius, his brows seeming heavier and his mouth more severe than usual. She could plead, but that expression would never soften. And her only shield – Mamo – was gone.

  They were like an arrangement of statues from the forum: Minna at the end, Severus in the middle with the Master, and at the other end a host of squat, hard-faced people who would hiss at her every day of her life. She could see that life clearly, a straight path going on and on. And she knew that step by step along that road she would gradually shrink and fade, until she was nothing.

  Withered by contempt. Shrivelled by hostility. A dried husk at last, finally pressed into crumbling dust by the weight of Severus’s body upon her own.

  Chapter 3

  L it by the sputtering lamp, Minna watched with an odd detachment as her hands appeared to move without her will.

  A leather pack was spread open on the oak table; she had no idea who had taken it from beside her bed. Cheese was set by, bread, cold chicken. A spare pair of boots. Her fingers, red and chafed, were folding a pair of wool trousers. They reached for her cloak.

  From the edges of the room came a faint keening, just below hearing. It might be grief. It made the air shiver, the lamp-flame waver. It set her teeth on edge. ‘I won’t listen,’ she said.

  A meat knife was in her hand, then stuffed down inside the pack. Stiffly, her legs took her to the loose stone by the hearth; she levered it up to expose the hole and the nestled bag of coins. Mamo’s coins. Something in her chest jerked, like a fish on a line.

  The honey. Minna had to take the honey. Five jars – one, two, three, four, five – down inside the pack so the clay would not break. Then numb arms came through the straps and dragged the pack onto her back. She paused beneath the lintel.

  The grief flung itself about the room like a crazed moth, hurtling into the rafters with broken wings. Mamo by the hearth. Mamo cooking barley cakes. Mamo’s cool hand on the back of little Minna’s neck as she ran around the table.

  Minna turned away. Outside, the moon was as lop-sided as a squashed plum, and a pale mist gathered over the stream. The cold pricked her throat. The scents of home, of hay fields and muddy banks, rose around her. She closed her nose and her mind.

  But one tender feeling she could not, in the end, ignore. Despite the danger of discovery, she crept to the schoolroom, a little shed in the villa’s yard. Inside the musty room, she felt around for a wax slate and took it to the moonlit doorway. ‘I must go,’ she wrote to her boys with a stylus, pressing the Latin characters into the soft wax. ‘But it’s not you. Look after each other. Your barbarian.’

  Then she slipped into the darkness along the field edges until she was out of sight of the houses, and stepped onto the moonlit road, which led in a silver trail over the hills. Her breath misted the air in white gusts. At the estate gate she stopped and stared down at the ruts made by carts in the mud.

/>   What was she doing? Why was she here?

  Ah, the honey. She must take the honey to Eboracum, as Mamo asked her to do.

  At daylight, shivering, Minna hitched a ride on a farmer’s cart of tethered chickens which by afternoon was swaying along the humped track that crawled west from the coastal hills into the city. When the cart crested the last hill, she slid silently down and stood blankly in the mud of the road, her pack held to her chest.

  Eboracum was spread before her. The foremost northern city of the Roman Province of Britannia, it was the seat of Fullofaudes, the great Dux Britanniarum, commander of the forces on the Wall. The title was as grand as the white buildings that reared in tall columns and the sailing ships crowding the river. Dux Fullofaudes. Eboracum. Britannia. She repeated the words silently, though they fell down through the echoing vault of her mind and meant nothing.

  Then the wind turned, and the city’s stink hit her like a slap on the face. The stench of briny wharves and sewage battling with the scents of baking bread and roasting meat. The reek of lime furnaces and tanning yards set against the floating cloud of spices from over the sea. Urine and peat smoke; mule dung and raw timber. It was a heady mixture that hinted at bustle and trade, the ports of Gaul, Rome and Egypt. It threatened to wake her, to drag her back to a world of merchants and shopkeepers. Thieves, cut-throats and whores. A world of grief.

  But she had nowhere else to go.

  Minna stumbled down the road to the city walls, tall and grim beneath a cloud of blue smoke, and was drawn into the mass of people flowing through the towering timber gates. Once in the narrow streets, chaos swallowed her.

  On the north side of the Abus river stood the stone fort of the soldiers, its walls pealing with trumpets. On the south was the civilian town. Here merchants shouted, children shrieked and hammers thunked on wood until Minna’s ears ached. The white-washed townhouses of the rich loomed over the cobbled streets and shut out the pallid autumn sun. Shops lined the pavements, their shutters thrown open. Stalls were spread with fruit, bread, meat, skinned chickens, bronze pots, incense and clay bowls, and were crowded by people of all colours babbling in exotic tongues.