Read The White Mare: The Dalraida Trilogy, Book One for Free Online

blood of the traitors!’
    The men roared, baring their teeth, their worn faces lighting up. Some leaned over to beat a din on their shields, and others spat deadly curses at Donn of the Brown Beard. And then, breathless and fierce, they returned to their benches to row once more.
    Soon the strain of a harp took up the beat of the oars, and in the bow, Aedan began a new song. Aedan’s songs involved too much undying glory for Eremon’s taste, especially when the reality was cold fear, thestench of battle, and a final sword thrust in the gut. And as for the maidens who swanned through the bard’s tales, the reality there was similar. In Eremon’s experience they were twittering birds with a love of finery and jewels; jewels that must be hard won by such as he.
    But as the men relaxed into the rhythm of rowing, Eremon noted their new sense of purpose, a purpose that no storm, no betrayal, could beat out of them. He smiled to himself. The campaign against his uncle had wrought them into a warband to reckon with. Above all, they were intensely loyal – they’d proven this by being willing to follow him into exile.
    Exile .
    He savoured the vile, unavoidable word on his tongue again. If only there’d been more men like this, his uncle’s betrayal would have ended differently. He tested the razor-edge of his sword with a fingertip. Very differently . Then he sighed, sheathed the sword and stowed it, joining Conaire at the oar.
    In his short life, he had learned that men’s hearts are seldom true. Of women’s hearts, he gave no thought.

Chapter 5

    B rica woke Rhiann and Linnet long before dawn on the day of the funeral, a lamp of tallow-soaked rushes sputtering in her hands.
    By the hearth, the maid first stripped Rhiann of her bed-shift, and then with a mixture of fat and rowan ash, she painted over the blue tattoos that curled all over Rhiann’s breasts and belly.
    All Epidii women were tattooed at puberty, but as the Mother of the Land, the Ban Cré’s tattoos represented the curving lines of power that radiated through the soil and rock, and along the rivers. The designs anchored the divine Goddess to the land and people through Rhiann’s earthly body. Her tattoos were therefore the most beautiful and sacred, and must be protected by the rowan as they sent the King to the Otherworld this day.
    Over a fresh linen shift, Brica dressed Rhiann in an ankle-length tunic of green wool, embroidered with scarlet flowers, fastened on each shoulder by a swan-head brooch. Over that she draped her blue priestess cloak, clasped by the royal brooch of the Epidii: two filigree horses, their eyes set with jewels of amber that matched her hair. Bronze rings glittered on her fingers and white wrists, their chased designs digging into her tender skin. Her twisted gold torc was heavy, and she felt every measure of its weight dragging on her neck.
    Linnet was dressed in similar finery, and when they were ready, she surveyed her niece with approval in her eyes. Rhiann’s answering smile felt bleak. She understood well how such spectacle garnered respect and power, and she was not above using it to her own advantage when needed.
    But deep down, she longed to be barefoot on Liath’s back, with a hot sun above her, and only dandelion seed in her hair.
    ‘It is time,’ Linnet said. ‘We must go.’
    And as they sprinkled the goddess figures with the daily offering of meal and milk, Rhiann thought, Great Mother, though you no longer speak to me, at least give me strength this day. Give me the courage to face what I must .
    By light of moon and flaming torch, by foot, on horseback and chariot, it was a subdued throng of nobles that took the Trade Path downriver for Crìanan, where they would take ship for the Isle of Deer, just offshore. Mist rose in ghostly wraiths from the Add, and hung in pale sheets over the marshes, softening the sound of riffling water. The alders and willows that fringed the banks dripped with dew.
    Gelert had set