Free The Boar Stone: Book Three of the Dalriada Trilogy by Jules Watson Page B

ha!’
    The sailors yelped, and Minna stood defiantly by Cian’s side as he tugged the tunic over his black curls. ‘I am the finest horseman you’ll ever see,’ Cian announced suddenly.
    Jared’s face hardened. ‘You keep your mouth shut and do what I tell you.’
    Cian took a deep breath. ‘They can have me for the horses. They value their horses above all things.’
    Jared’s eyes went blank as he moved closer, then, without warning, he sunk a fist into Cian’s gut. Cian grunted, doubling over, and Minna dropped her tunic and sank by his side, holding his shoulders. They were crusted with sand, quivering between her fingers.
    Jared ignored her, flexing his fist. When he spoke he was perfectly pleasant. ‘I think it’s time you learned your place, boy. No one cares what you think. If they say carry, you’ll do it; if they ask you to lick their feet, you’ll do that, too. Got it?’
    Cian was winded, his chin tucked into his chest. It was Minna who answered. ‘You are an abomination to all the gods.’ Her voice was strained with fury. ‘I bring all their curses down on you, trader Jared.’
    Jared grinned. ‘I’ve been called worse things than that, sweetness, and cursed better in a dozen languages. But don’t worry, you’ll have a new master shortly and if you’re lucky you won’t need to see my puking face again.’ He threw a bone comb in the sand at her feet. ‘Comb your hair and his while we unload.’ He yelled some instructions at his men and made his way back to his ship.
    Cian knelt in the sand with Minna’s arms around him until he could breathe again. Then he pushed her away and staggered to his feet. He turned his back on land, faced the water, and wouldn’t meet her eyes.
    When they were finally dragged away, Minna’s embroidered tunic was stamped into the sand by marching feet. She never saw it again.
    As she was prodded inland along a road that hugged the river, Minna kept her eyes lowered, her breath swift and shallow. But she could not blot out this land that somehow still forced itself inside her.
    Instead of pastures and tame fields, Alba was the hue of rusted iron and blood, with ruffled grasses bronzed by cold and wind. Yellow trees lined the brown, foaming river, and the marsh beside the path was a copper sea, carpeted with moss. The wind had a blade’s edge as it sliced down from the mountains, flinging spatters of rain into her face.
    From downcast eyes, she caught glimpses of muddy boots as people passed. Voices babbled unintelligible words. Cart wheels rattled and the spindly feet of bleating sheep being driven along the track pock-marked the mud. Then her gaze came to rest on the painted hooves of what must be a warrior’s horse.
    She saw the tip of a scabbard and the gaudy check of the warrior’s trousers. She saw his broad fist, curled around his spear. But she could not bring herself to raise her face and see his eyes, his wildness.
    However, after nearly an hour of trudging along the riverbank, Cian silent behind her, something did at last draw Minna’s head up, and she stopped then and could not go on.
    Ahead rose a crag. It loomed up alone from the marsh, circled by an arm of the river. The teeth of rocks showed between houses clustered on its slopes, and on the crest sat an enormous roundhouse swathed in cooksmoke, its roof sweeping the ground. A village sprawled around the base of the crag, on the river meadow.
    Minna’s eyes desperately darted back and forth, as if the shapes might make sense to her. But there were no great town walls here, only rough palisades of timber stakes, one around the village and one circling the crag. There were no straight roofs, marble temples or colonnades, just squat round walls and thatch. It seemed squalid, awash with mud and smoke.
    One of Jared’s men cursed her, prodding her forward, and her legs wobbled back into life.
    As they came closer, the stink of dung and smoke enveloped them. People milled about the gates