“Special, eh?” Diarmid pushed the entrails into a shallow bowl with a sweep of his knife. Setting his blade aside, he wiped his hands on a broad strip of fabric, then tossed the cloth to me. “Give the hounds a good sniff and set them loose in the granary. That’s where I trapped these two.” He nodded at the carcasses, tipping some water from a nearby bucket to clean the gore from his hands. “Bad luck, rats in the granary. But it’s not yet autumn. There’s still time.”
Something in the Keeper’s tone told me he was speaking of more than rats.
“I took Angharad to the stones at Wildburn,” I told him. “Something troubling happened there.”
Diarmid looked up. “Come in, then. We should not speak of it here.”
I set the bloody cloth on the table and followed Diarmid to the front of the temple. Inside, the stone floor kept the air cool and blocked the sounds of domestic bustle from the courtyard. I breathed in the soothing char of burned resin and heard Gwenddolau’s golden eagles chattering to one another, ruffling their feathers. At the center of the room, a wooden effigy of Herne loomed, cluttered with offerings. Blossoms, gold and silver from our plunder, antler, bone, fresh mead, and a small but skillfully rendered wooden figure with an enlarged phallus, carved by Dreon from the look of it, though I could not imagine, given the number in his brood, he lacked the gift of virility.
Diarmid tossed the entrails to the birds as I removed my leather shoes, nodding to the effigy. It was a representation only. A god of wild places did not favor the confines of any man-made temple, even one hewn of stone. All Britons knew this, not only the Keepers. But it suited to have a place where the people could come during snow and wet weather to sit with their gods, where favors could be asked and offerings could remain unscattered by wind.
“Well?” Diarmid called. “Tell me of the stones.”
I followed him behind the wicker wall that cordoned off his sleeping quarters. In the space, he kept a thin cot, a small bedside table, and a candle in a rude wooden holder. He eased himself onto the cot, and I sank onto the floor across from him, drawing my knees into my chest.
Diarmid listened as I told him of the shift in the air, the smell of it. Of what Angharad had told me, the beast that was threatening. At last Diarmid spoke. “Lailoken. Do you truly believe that men are the wagers of war?”
I considered Diarmid’s question. “Aye. It is men who draw their weapons, who plan their attack. We may beseech the blessings of our chosen gods, but it is we who fight for land, for power, for freedom.”
“Nay.” Diarmid wagged his finger. “The force that drives war is far more terrible than any single man. It is a power—animate and complete. It has a hunger that cannot be sated by the corpses of one hundred thousand men. Always it hungers for more.” He met my eyes. “The beast that comes is war.”
“War,” I echoed. I had felt it, had I not? The immensity. The hunger. “So Angharad warns us of a battle to come. We have fought battles before. Long have Gwrgi and Peredur fixed their eyes upon our land. We will prepare. Angharad’s Knowing is fortuitous.”
“I do not speak of battle. I speak of war,” Diarmid said, and his ferocity startled me.
“Go on, then. I am listening.”
The diviner stared off into the distance a moment, as he did when playing fidchell. “Raids. Battles. Thievery. Lies. All such things only serve to stir the beast. I fear this is larger than revenge sought or justice reclaimed. I fear a greater threat comes for our people, the Britons.”
“We Britons have made our home on this island for time out of memory,” I said. “We will not be undone by this, whatever it may be. With Angharad’s warning, with my counsel and your sight… surely we can find a way to stop this beast in its tracks.”
Diarmid threw up his hands. “Perhaps. Perhaps not! Lailoken, you are a learned man. You know as well as I, vision alone cannot prevent catastrophe.”
I rubbed my forehead wearily. “If only there were fewer kingdoms from which danger may come. That is our first trouble.”
There could be a mass of sea raiders from Pictland, or a scourge of Angles sweeping the country from east to west, as they had done when I and my sister were but little. We could see an attack from Gwrgi and Peredur from the kingdom of Ebrauc, but what strength had they, without a confederation of kingdoms at their backs?
Surely the kings of the Britons were too preoccupied in raiding their neighbors and the rising threat of the Angles of Bernicia to take up arms against the Dragon Warriors, our island’s own protectors. And Rhydderch of Strathclyde was a brother by marriage. He may not have agreed to an alliance, but he would never be my enemy. Take up arms against us? What cause had we given him?
No. Gwrgi and Peredur were our greatest living threat, and on the morrow we would ride out to crush them. “Do not tell me we should not claim our revenge,” I said.
Diarmid’s face shifted. “I crave justice as much as you, Lailoken, but I worry this is not the way.”
“But this very eve I saw success for our campaign. A bevy of quail—the way they flushed underfoot. Herne knows my mind. He knows I seek after it.”
“Aye?” Diarmid’s eyes flicked to the effigy. “And a quick wit has Herne, sending birds.”
I nodded at the memory. I’d been ten winters when my sister and her servant had chanced upon Gwrgi in the market. He’d tormented them by tearing the throat from a chicken with his bare teeth. My cousins and I had seen his deed repaid and tenfold. We’d stolen into his chamber at the inn and filled his bed with chicken heads enough to satiate his hunger. It seemed so long ago now, but the memory summoned some pride. To protect my sister, to answer for a wrong. To do so in a way that was clever yet did not incite a blood feud. That day was the first I understood what it was to be a true warrior.
Diarmid stood, and together we walked to the threshold of the temple.
“Are you prepared, then, to ride out?”
“Nearly,” I said. “We finalize the attack tonight. Truth be told, I hunger for it.”
“Hunger?” Diarmid lifted his brows. “Beware the beast, eh, Lailoken?”
Laughter carried across the courtyard. The door to the hall stood open, and overhead, the sky was awash in purple evening light. In the great room, no fire was lit. With the golden glow of oil lamps, there was no need of it. My eyes fell upon our standard tethered between the posts at the back wall of the great room. The twisting body of the dragon seemed to breathe as the breeze from the open door fluttered the rich blue cloth.
Our Song Keeper, Yarin, was perched on a stool beneath our wall of round painted shields, head tilted to his cruit as he tested its strings. Around the hall, warriors relaxed on pine benches or fleece-lined couches, hunched over gaming boards or cradling cups of ale.
“Escaped so soon?” I chided Dreon, then clapped the muscled shoulder of Fendwin, who sat beside him. Women had come up from the settlement below and arranged themselves on benches beside the warriors, if not upon their laps. Their eyes touched upon the Dragon, but Gwenddolau sat alone, his blue eyes distant.
“I’ve come from Diarmid,” I said, joining him at his table.
“Tell me,” he said, but his voice was weary.