Dreaming the Eagle by Manda Scott Page B

help clear the greathouse for the gathering.’
    Breaca cursed, fluidly. ‘Sinochos, then?’
    The grandmother grinned, showing her lack of teeth. ‘He is out hunting for the feast tomorrow night. If you were wanting a man and not over-fussy about which one, his son is here.’
    ‘Dubornos? Why?’ Dubornos, when she had seen him last, had been sitting in the trade stands, broaching his second jug of ale and speaking floridly to anyone who would listen of the bargains he had made at the fair.
    ‘He fought with another youth over the trade of a sword belt and they sent him home,’ said the grandmother. ‘I dare say they would let him back did he bring big enough news. You’ll find him in the men’s place, cooling his head. He will be fit to ride as long as he is given a horse with good sense.’
    ‘What’s wrong with his own horse?’
    Airmid said, ‘They took it from him and made him walk. You would need to give him another.’ She did not say the grey; she knew better than that. Breaca loathed Dubornos with a fierce passion. In her opinion, he was a bully, a liar and - worst of all insults - an appalling horseman. Her eyes met Airmid’s. Breaca’s hands tensed on the reins and the filly tossed her head. She said, ‘I’ll take him to the paddocks. He can take one of the new geldings. They are fast enough and their mouths are better able to take him.’ It was not true, she knew that, but she would have died before she gave him her own horse to ruin.
    She left before the elder grandmother could argue. In the men’s place, Dubornos was sulking and refused to believe either that warriors were coming or that he had any need to act as she requested. She let him call her a liar twice and then drew her beltknife and laid the blade across his throat.
    ‘When you have won your spear, you will have the right to argue. Until then, you are a child and do as you are told. Is that clear?’
    It was the first time she had used the rank her killing gave her, the first also when she had drawn her knife against another in genuine anger. Dubornos blanched and his eyes widened, showing the whites. He pushed himself back against the doorpost and the movement shaved a sliver of skin from his neck, making it bleed. Holding the blade with excessive care, Breaca said, ‘Swear to me in the name of your ancestors that you will ride as fast as you can to my father and tell him what I have told you.’
    ‘I swear.’ It came out as a whisper. She did not push for more.
    ‘Get up.’
    She took him to the paddocks and waited long enough to see him catch-and mount a safe, unimaginative gelding before turning back and riding for the gates.
    Airmid and the elder grandmother had been busy in her absence. The grandmother held the blue cloak and little-owl brooch that Breaca had laid out to wear at the gathering. Airmid held a comb and a belt with fine tooling that was new and that had clearly been set aside as a gift for later.
    ‘There is no time-‘ she began.
    ‘There is always time.’ The elder grandmother spoke patiently, as she did to women nearing childbirth. ‘The storm has not yet passed over the trees where they shelter. They will not leave until it does so and then they will walk slowly for a while to dry. When they are near we will hear them and, in any case, they will not pass us by. This is the house of the royal line and it is you they have come to see, even if that is not how they tell it. In this, you are your mother’s daughter. You will greet them as she would have done, not as a child newly back from rooting out rats’ nests in the fields.’
    That was unfair. She had not been rooting out anything; she had been looking for the greengrey fungus that grew on the elm trees and could, if stewed right, make a lotion to keep off the flies. It was to have been her gift to Airmid before the gathering; they could have stewed it together and had the liquid ready to give to those elders who wished it. She opened her mouth to