The Valiant, Page 2

  It was as simple—and as complicated—as that.

  Cast in the ethereal glow of flickering lamplight, I stood staring at the wavering apparition reflected back at me from the polished bronze mirror hanging on the wall—another of Sorcha’s exotic treasures. I raised an eyebrow at the ragged creature. Even in that uncertain light, I saw a smudge of dirt on my left cheek, partially obscuring the smattering of freckles there. The long tunic I wore over my shift of thin wool had once been a bright red-and-purple check but was now worn to faded shades of rust, stained from climbing hills and fording brooks and fighting Mael day after day in the vale. A tangled, unruly crown of fox-brown strands had escaped from the plait to which I’d hastily consigned my hair in the dark hours before dawn. At the age of seventeen, I might have the lean muscles and the long, strong legs that a warrior ought to have, but I would have to make myself presentable for when my father honored me with my full warrior status.

  Just like he had my sister before me.

  Sorcha was older by nine full years, and she’d never let me forget it. There were two baby brothers born between us, but they had both been lost to marsh fever before the age of three, and our mother had followed them to the Otherworld herself only days after I was born, leaving Sorcha to raise me—and keep me out of trouble—when our father the king was too busy ruling a sprawling tribe of brawling Celts to pay me much heed. The fact that she probably got me into more trouble than she ever kept me out of never bothered me a bit. She was everything I wanted to be when I grew up. Strong and sharp and dangerous as the sword she carried on her hip, Sorcha was my goddess even more than the Morrigan we both worshipped. I followed her everywhere, stumbling along on baby legs behind her as she ran, deer-swift, through the forests of our home, always looking for an adventure—or, better yet, a fight to pick.

  And then, one day it all changed.

  Caesar and his legions landed on our shores—not once but twice. And the second time, they took my father, King Virico, prisoner in a hard-fought battle. When the gathered tribes rode out in their chariots to free him, Virico’s royal war band led the charge. Three days later, Father came home. Sorcha didn’t. My fierce, bright, beautiful sister was gone. Dead.

  Just like that.

  It had been almost seven years since the legions left our shores, having declared the Island of the Mighty sufficiently conquered. In all that time, the Romans had not returned to Prydain, the island they called Britannia in their strident native tongue. Of course, the traders had never left—they’d been here before Caesar had set foot on our shore, and they’d stayed when he’d departed, “triumphant.” Since that time, we’d been left in peace.

  But one day, the legions would return to finish what they’d started. Prydain was too rich a resource for gold and tin and timber—and “barbarian” slaves. Caesar and his kind wouldn’t be able to resist. The armies of Rome would return and we would be ready to fight them when they did. I would be ready to fight, just as my sister had.

  Only I wouldn’t fall to the thrust of a Roman sword.

  The night Sorcha had ridden out in her chariot for the last time, I’d sat on the end of the bed watching her in the mirror as she buckled the straps of her breastplate and adjusted the hang of her sword on her hip. Angry at being left behind yet again, I complained loudly to Sorcha’s reflection about how I wanted to go out to fight Caesar’s legions with her.

  She ignored me as long as she could.

  “Enough!” Sorcha said finally, rounding on me. “Have you really thought about what it means to be a warrior, Fallon?”

  I blinked at her, noticing for the first time the turbulence in her gaze.

  “Have you?” She sighed. “Because I have. It means you kill. You kill men. You kill women. All while they are trying very hard to kill you. And if one of them is better at it than you, then you die. Are you so eager to dance with death, little sister?”

  I was ten years old. I didn’t know what to say.

  What I should have said was “Don’t go.”

  But instead, I just pouted and stayed silent. Sorcha left our house and never returned to hear my answer to her question. That was the first night that the Morrigan visited me in my sleep and named me—me, not Sorcha—her daughter. It was a sacred thing, fearsome and awesome all at once, and I’d never told anyone. But I’d always kept the memory of her voice locked away in my heart.

  I shook myself free from the clutches of those memories. Never mind that night. After this night, the Cantii would see me as the newest member of my father’s royal war band, not just as the legendary Sorcha’s little sister.

  Facing the mirror, I picked up the carved bone comb that lay among a pile of bracelets and ear hoops on top of a wicker trunk. The occasion demanded that I should at least put a little effort into my appearance. Normally, I would have called for the bondswomen who attended me to deal with such things. But today seemed somehow as if it was meant to be mine alone, and I wanted to savor it—what had already happened and what was to come—without the drone of gossipy slaves in my ears. The merry chaos of this evening’s feast would come soon enough. Even with the distractions of choosing a tunic and shift, setting out jewelry, and taming my hair into submission—things I had little patience or skill with—all I could think of was what my father would say at the feast.

  As the sun sank over the far purple hills, I imagined how he would welcome me into his war band with silver words praising my prowess with sword and spear. Indeed, the great hall would be crowded with Prydain royalty, including Aeddan, Mael’s older brother by two years. After the passing of their father, Mannuetios, he was now king of the Trinovantes.

  The thought of seeing him made me smile. We’d all grown up together when Aeddan was still a fosterling in our tribe, but Mael and I hadn’t seen him in a good long while. Not since their father’s great betrayal. But after our morning spent in the vale, Mael had gotten word that Aeddan and his train of Trinovante chiefs had arrived in Durovernum. I had sent him off to greet his brother while I untangled the brambles from my hair.

  Every two years on the Eve of Lughnasa—which also happened to be my birthday—the kings of the Four Tribes came together to feast and toast each other with wide smiles and enough thick, foamy beer to strengthen the bonds of friendship forged in the alliances of years past. This would be Aeddan’s first time there as king, newly returned from a long period of exile in Rome after his father was killed, executed for selling vital information to the Romans. Mael never spoke of his father’s betrayal, but he’d remained with the Cantii since that time, past the usual age of fostering, because of it.

  As for his feelings toward his brother, Mael had always known that when he returned from Rome, Aeddan would be king, not him, and so he bore him no ill will. The three of us—four, if you counted the times Sorcha indulged in our mischief—had grown up together, and I’d feared that Mael might come to resent his brother. But he never did, which was a great relief to me. We were like family, and I would have hated for anything to come between us.

  I finished dressing with care, adjusting the delicate silver torc around my neck with nervous fingers. I could hear laughter and shouting outside my door.

  The festival atmosphere that had slowly grown throughout Durovernum over the preceding weeks had finally burst into full bloom. Beyond the town’s wooden palisades, in the fields leading down to the docks on the River Dwr, there were games and contests and stalls selling bolts of brightly colored cloth, arm rings and furs, food and drink, and songs that could be bought from the bards to woo a lover from afar or shame a rival without bloodshed. Charioteers raced their pony-drawn carts up and down the winding tracks (none with quite the skill or daring of Mael and me), and the very air crackled with anticipation of the feast that would begin after sundown.

  At last, the sky shaded to indigo in the east, and the rich smells that had seasoned the breezes all day—spit-roasting boar and
venison stewed in great cauldrons—drew the nobles of the Four Tribes and their freemen and freewomen to gather in the great hall.

  I took a last nervous glance at myself in the mirror. I’d brushed the thick waves of my hair until they shimmered down my back, and I’d dressed them off my face with a circlet of red gold that twined about my brow. I had to admit, the look suited me. A gown of leaf-green wool under a russet-and-purple mantle draped the lines of my body. The torc around my neck gleamed, and the stacked bronze and silver bangles on my wrists jangled as I pushed aside my door curtain and headed up the winding path to my father’s great hall.

  Once inside, I was enveloped by the smells of roasting meat and peat smoke and had to snake through the crush of bodies to find my seat by the hearth.

  “You’re dressed like a proper queen this night,” Clota, my father’s chief bondswoman, said, chuckling as she leaned over to fill my cup with mead. “And more than one lad here tonight seems to have noticed finally that you are a girl.”

  I rolled my eyes and reached for a platter of honeyed oatcakes and apples, too nervous to eat much. I shifted on the low bench seat near my father’s left hand and wondered where Mael had gotten to. Clota might have been joking, but in truth, I could almost feel the looks from all about the hall—glances that traced the lines of my limbs, the planes of my face. But when I sought them out, there was only one person who was bold enough to return my gaze.

  And it was not Maelgwyn Ironhand but his brother, Aeddan. I grinned and raised my hand in greeting, but Aeddan did not smile back. Instead, he just raised his cup to me.

  He knows, I thought, my stomach knotting a bit. Mael told him.

  Aeddan was two years older than his brother, but they were unmistakably related. Both had dark hair, worn long, and almost identical slate-gray eyes. Like his younger brother, Aeddan was handsome and clever and good with a sword. But—to me, at least—his had always seemed more of a brooding presence, sitting in the shadows just beyond the circle of firelight. Where Mael’s eyes could shine bright with passion or burn dark with anger, Aeddan’s gaze always seemed to me a bit cool. Sharp. Like the blade of a fine iron knife waiting to be used. The veneer of Roman culture that he’d adopted from his time in that place—he drank wine and draped his cloak over one arm like a toga—only emphasized the contrast between the brothers. But as different as they were, I had always loved them both: Aeddan like a brother, Mael . . . as something more. Much more, it seemed. I turned away from Aeddan’s gaze before he noticed the blush creeping up my cheeks.

  Clota passed by in that moment, and I lunged for her tray, snatching up another mug of spiced mead. I’d gulped the first one down far too fast in an attempt to steady my nerves. I glanced around the room again, suddenly desperate to find Mael’s face. I thought I saw him pass through the archway of the great oak doors and half rose from my seat to go to him. But then a drift of conversation between a grizzled old bear of a Catuvellauni warrior and a pair of young men—freemen of a visiting chief from Gaul, by the strange look of them—caught my attention.

  “How goes the resistance, then?” the old bear asked. “Do the Arverni and the Carnutes still harry the Romans in Gaul and set fire to their forts?”

  One of the freeman with tattoos on his cheeks and red-rimmed eyes spat. “There is no resistance since Arviragus surrendered. The coward.”

  I was pretending not to listen but could barely hide my shock. Arviragus? A coward? Impossible. I had met the Gaulish warrior king when I was young and he was but a prince, but I’d been awed by his bravery and skill with a sword. He would never surrender to the Romans.

  “He was no coward,” his companion said loudly, chewing his words through a mouthful of meat. “But he was a fool. Letting himself be taken by the Roman. I’d have fallen on my own sword first.”

  “Be careful how you speak!” the older man snapped, his eyes flicking to where my father, Virico, sat, gazing out over the gathered crowd.

  “Why?” Dark beer sloshed over the rim of the young warrior’s mug. “I simply speak the truth.”

  I realized in that moment that he either didn’t know or didn’t care that, like Arviragus, my father himself had once been captured by Caesar. Or that his beloved daughter Sorcha had led an army to free him and in doing so had been lost herself.

  His tattooed companion began to guffaw. “Maybe he’s right, Biron. Perhaps these Prydain tribes have the way of it. Why even fight the Romans? Easier to let them think they’ve had their way with you, and in the morning, they’ll just hitch up their skirts and leave you in peace.”

  Drunkards, I seethed, my hand tightening on my dagger.

  I was close enough to my father to see that he’d heard the exchange. For a moment, I wondered if he’d silence the fools with his blade, but his only reaction was to toss back the rest of his own drink and stand.

  Virico Lugotorix rising to his feet was a sure way to draw the attention of even the drunkest of revelers. Two of the hearth slaves heaved a heavy log onto the great fire at the same time. As firefly sparks bloomed around him, my father looked like the king of some fiery underground realm. His chestnut hair and beard gleamed, and his handsome face glowed crimson.

  “Tuatha!” he bellowed. “Welcome. The voices of the Four Tribes sing you peace. The Island of the Mighty carries you on her green shoulders. Fill your bellies and your hearts this night in my hall, and we shall be as one people. One tribe. More so for the good tidings I tell you now.”

  The men and women in the hall fell silent and leaned forward, straining to catch the next words of Virico’s grand pronouncement. I leaned forward too, my fingertips biting into the edge of my seat as I waited, breathless, for my father’s call to me to join his elite warrior band. Finally, I would have my chance to make him proud—as proud as Sorcha ever did.

  “My daughter Fallon is the jewel of my house,” he continued, gesturing toward me. “She is of age now, as of this very night. Her heart is golden, and her sword is a spark in the darkness. And I would have her take her place among my war chiefs, as both her mother and her sister did before her . . .”

  My cheeks flushed, and I felt elated as the blood rushed from my head to my feet and back again, leaving me hot and cold in waves.

  “. . . but for this.”

  Virico’s voice lapsed into echoing silence.

  This? I looked up at him.

  He refused to meet my gaze, and when he spoke again, it was like the sound of a blade’s edge dragging over a whetstone. He lifted his head and called out a name: “Aeddan ap Mannuetios!”

  Aeddan? I stood up and tried to speak, but my voice fled from me in that moment.

  “Come forth!” Virico bellowed. “Come and claim my daughter’s hand before our gathered friends here in my hall.”

  No, I thought. He’s made a mistake.

  “Aeddan!” Virico shouted again. He beckoned with one hand, fingers winking with gold rings. “Chief among our dear friends the Trinovante, my soon-to-be son, come forth!”

  A roar went up from the gathered crowd, but I was shocked into silence. The smoke-dark air seemed to thicken, pressing against my skin.

  I glanced wildly around the room, searching until I finally spotted Mael’s ashen face. He stood frozen near the stacked barrels of beer and mead, surrounded by a group of laughing Trinovante chiefs and freemen—young men from Mael’s own tribe, all friends of Aeddan’s. His dazed expression turned to fury in a moment. I saw him shout his brother’s name, but I couldn’t hear him over the noise. At the same time, Aeddan worked his way through the press of bodies packing the hall, accepting hearty, undeserved congratulations with a grin tugging at his lips. Only I saw how the bashful expression never reached Aeddan’s dark eyes.

  This is all a terrible mistake. Father is drunk. He’s not thinking clearly . . .

  “Mael!” I shouted above the raucous din. “Do something!”

&n
bsp; Mael could stop Aeddan. Talk reason to him or, at the very least, challenge his absurd claim! We could still stop this. We just had to get to my father.

  Mael shouted back, but I couldn’t make out the words. He was too far away. And Aeddan was too close, moving nimbly through the crowd of gathered tribesmen and tribeswomen toward where I stood.

  “Father!” I reached out a hand, grabbing at Virico’s sleeve, but the cries of the chiefs and their freemen shook the very air of the great roundhouse and drowned out my protests.

  Virico’s head swung around, his eyes fever-bright in the firelight. “I knew you would be upset,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “But I cannot make you a war chief, Fallon. I lost your sister to the sword. I will not have you suffer the same fate as Sorcha. I cannot lose you both.”

  “No!” I shook my head desperately. “Father, you can’t do this to me.”

  But just then Aeddan reached me. An even more thunderous shout erupted from the gathering as he spun me around and kissed me hard on the lips.

  It was the second time that day that a son of Mannuetios had kissed me.

  Only this time, it felt like poison pouring into my mouth.

  I struggled to push Aeddan away, but there was nowhere to push him to. The throng was crushing. The women of the Cantii converged upon me with fierce embraces and well-wishing. Some of them burst into song, and others whirled and threw their arms in the air. If there was one thing every good Celt loved, it was love itself. They sang of it, fought for it, wept bitter tears into mugs of mead over the loss of it, and—if the slightest hint of a joyous union so much as wafted past on a breeze—seized the opportunity to celebrate it ferociously.