The Warrior's Princess

by Barbara Erskine

  They both looked up at the distant rumble of thunder.

  ‘That poor little soul lying up there,’ Aurelia murmured. ‘I can’t take it in.’ She hugged her arms around herself with a shudder. ‘But they are talking English?’

  Steph shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is because it’s us listening. Doesn’t it filter through our brains or something? Otherwise we wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘I hope Meryn gets in touch soon. He will know what to do. About the child. About Titus. He will probably know what to do about Dan.’ Aurelia shook her head. ‘I wish Rhodri would come back. I feel so vulnerable here, just you and me.’ She glanced round, shivering. ‘This is such an isolated spot, Steph. I can’t think how you can live here on your own.’

  Steph gave a wan smile. ‘And that comment is from our intrepid lady explorer who traverses unknown wastes alone and lives in the Pyrenees miles from anywhere and lived near here herself once upon a time!’

  ‘My mountains aren’t haunted,’ Aurelia said pointedly.

  ‘I bet they are!’

  ‘Well, if they are they aren’t bothering to haunt me.’ She shivered again.

  Behind them the phone rang in the kitchen. Steph ran indoors with Aurelia following more sedately behind.

  Steph handed her the phone. ‘Your friend Meryn.’

  At the end of their conversation she was smiling. Meryn had listened to her story, asked some questions and suggested he drive down at once from Scotland.

  ‘He’ll be here some time this evening. I think he was glad of the excuse to come back.’

  Steph raised an eyebrow. ‘I suppose it’s no good me asking about him?’

  Aurelia shook her head. ‘If you mean about him and me, I’ve told you, there is nothing to tell. The important thing is that he has devoted his life to studying weird stuff and he will help.’

  Steph sat down at the kitchen table and rested her chin on her hands. ‘I suppose nothing comes much weirder than this! I hope to God he can sort us out.’ She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back her tears. ‘I am so glad you are here.’ She reached out across the table and clutched her mother’s hands.

  Returning with the dogs Megan parked her ancient Land Rover in the yard and climbed out as the two dogs leaped down from the back. ‘Where’s Rhodri?’

  ‘He hasn’t come back yet.’ Steph was wearing her walking boots and carrying a stick. ‘Mummy is going to stay here by the phone. I thought I would walk up with you. The dogs will at least find Rhodri, won’t they? Then the three of us can spread out.’

  Rhodri was sitting on a tree stump in a clearing some mile and a half from the summit. He had followed a barely perceptible track through the undergrowth, wandering without much thought wherever the path led. His throat was sore from shouting. He was exhausted. As the dogs raced up to him, their tails wagging he looked up. His eyes were red and puffy.

  ‘I’ve brought Jess’s scarf.’ Steph rummaged in her pocket. ‘So the dogs can smell it.’

  Rhodri smiled. ‘They’re not trained for tracking, Steph. Just for sheep. Better just to tell them to find Jess. They probably won’t know what they’re looking for, but they’ll rush around a lot and we’ll know if they find something. Anything.’ He glanced at his mother. ‘Dad didn’t want to come?’ It was beginning to rain. He brushed raindrops off his face with the back of his wrist.

  She shook her head. ‘He wasn’t there. I think he went into market this morning. Doesn’t matter. I’ll send them. Might as well start here as anywhere?’ She turned and called the dogs. At her command they both sniffed at Jess’s scarf with interest, wagging their tails, then she sent them away. They shot off into the trees and within seconds they had disappeared from sight as a louder rumble of thunder echoed round them.

  They worked across the hill in circles, to no avail. By mid-afternoon it was raining hard and they were too exhausted to go on. Disconsolately trailing back to Ty Bran through the rain and wind, they flung themselves down at the kitchen table, watching as the dogs drank frantically from the large bowl of water Aurelia put down for them.

  ‘The police rang.’ Aurelia looked at Rhodri. ‘They are going to put up a helicopter as soon as the storm has passed.’ She tried to keep her voice steady. ‘Have something to eat at least. No one can go on without food and rest. You all look completely done in.’

  ‘Is there any word about Dan?’ Rhodri pushed his hair back from his face with both hands. There was a long bramble scratch across his forehead.

  Aurelia shook her head. ‘They are looking.’

  ‘There must be something else we can do. I’ll ring them again.’ Rhodri climbed wearily to his feet and went to the phone.

  When he turned back to them he was frowning. ‘They have found Dan’s car. They were going to tell us, apparently. Maybe next year! It was locked and parked in Newtown. In the town centre car park. No trace of him.’

  ‘So he was on his way here.’

  Rhodri shrugged. ‘They said they are doing forensic tests on it.’ He paused. ‘Maybe he hasn’t got here yet after all.’ He sounded hopeful.

  ‘So Jess’s disappearance could have nothing to do with him.’ Aurelia stared out of the window, her face drawn with anxiety. Rain was streaming down the glass. Lightning flashed across the yard and another clap of thunder shook the house.

  ‘Or he had been and gone before we even realised Jess was missing.’ Rhodri threw himself back into his chair. ‘It’s all my fault. If I had just waited for her!’

  Megan leaned across and touched his hand. ‘Don’t waste energy beating yourself up, son. We’ll find her.’

  Meryn was exhausted when at last his car pulled into the courtyard. Megan and the dogs had long gone back to the farm. Rhodri was still there though, refusing to leave.

  A tall distinguished figure with thick grey hair brushed back from a lean, weather-beaten face, Meryn pulled two bags out of the car into the rain and headed into the house. The smaller contained his toothbrush and razor and a change of clothes, the larger the items he might need in his professional capacity as a walker between the worlds. Dressed in faded jeans and an open-necked shirt he looked more like a retired school teacher than the be-robed Druid that Steph and Rhodri had been expecting. He bent to kiss Aurelia on the cheek, shook hands with the others and followed them into the farmhouse. Already he could feel the turbulent energies whirling around the building. Some were from the present, but some, far more interestingly, were from the distant past.

  Aurelia had tried to distract herself from her anguish while they were waiting by cooking a meal and the house was full of the savoury smell of a slow-cooking stew.

  ‘You must be hungry after that long drive!’ she insisted. She passed Meryn a glass of wine. ‘We can tell you everything while we eat.’

  It was Steph who did most of the talking. From time to time she glanced at Rhodri for support but he was picking at his food, lost in misery. She saw Meryn watching him too, but most of the time he gave Steph his full attention, his thoughtful eyes fixed on her face.

  When at last she had finished there was a long silence broken at last by Rhodri as he pushed aside his plate. ‘Can you help, do you think?’

  Meryn nodded. ‘I will do my best but until I have had a chance to wander round and get a feel of things, I can’t tell you much.’ He looked at Aurelia. ‘That meal was a feast for the senses, my dear.’ He pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘Now, if I may I would like to feel my way around the house on my own, then I will go into the outbuildings. After that I might want to walk up the hill along the track you have mentioned. While I do that I suggest you all try and get some rest. Distract yourselves. Have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Can’t I come?’ Steph looked up at him anxiously.

  He shook his head. ‘I would rather you didn’t at this stage. I find I can hear and see things better on my own. If I need your help I will ask for it. If I’m reading the situation aright, the two people at the centre of this whole conundrum of yours are Eigon and Ti
tus. Jess and Dan have been dragged in and to a greater or lesser extent used by them in their on-going battle. I hope we will find them soon but it will probably be through Eigon. I need to contact her and I will do that better alone.’ He glanced at Rhodri. ‘I use shamanic techniques to do this. Later I may need your help.’

  Rhodri raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. ‘I’ll do whatever I can.’

  ‘I believe so.’ Meryn inclined his head with a trace of a smile.

  ‘Let me at least show you my studio.’ Steph stood up hastily. ‘According to Jess that’s where it all started.’

  Meryn stood for a while, his thumbs tucked into the belt of his jeans, listening to the silence. The storm had moved on. He could still hear it rumbling away in the east, but the full force of it had passed. The rain had lessened. From somewhere in the yard he could hear water gurgling down a drainpipe; occasional drops reverberated on the roof, but otherwise it was very quiet. The atmosphere in the large room was strangely muffled by the clay; he was intrigued. He hadn’t worked in a studio before. The overlay of earthy materials plus the agitation of the creative technique clogged the messages he was getting from the surroundings. He walked slowly round, gazing down at the pots and sculptures on the shelves, the huge cold kiln squatting in the corner, the dusty table, the sacks of materials, the tins and bottles of pigment and glaze. Slowly he was feeling his way down through the layers. Before this was a studio it had been a byre. For storage and for animals. Men had sheltered here; and sheep. Long passages of time had passed where the place had slept untroubled by any usage at all. There had been trees here, growing up through the jumbled stones of the walls. They had grown old and rotted and fallen. Others had been cut down. Elders had been ripped up without apology, their roots torn screaming from the soil. Piles of slate had stood against a wall, moss growing through and over them, pulling them back into the native rock from whence they had been wrenched. They had been removed and the builders had come in to neaten and tidy the site. He gave a half-smile. Their thoughts and fears and jibes were recorded in the echoes of the building as much as the hesitancies of the current owner in her creative torment. Perhaps he could help her see where she should be going. Her talent was flailing without enough confidence to drive it on.

  He shook his head slightly. He had to get past all this. Further back. Down the years into the darkness.

  Now he could see it. The place was a byre again, the stones had tumbled and it was half-roofed against the winter snows. But here was a group of men. Their lust was like a slash of vicious scarlet across the darkness of the night. They had lost control of themselves in the bloody battle in which they had been involved. They no longer thought. They no longer reasoned. Titus Marcus Olivinus was their leader. Where he led, they followed.

  Meryn watched, a shadow from the future, as the men thrust again and again into the screaming helpless women. He saw the child dragged out; he saw the others hesitate but Titus, his eyes filmed with bloodlust, threw her down and fell on her.

  When he had finished they went back to their horses, leaving the women and the child for dead. Titus was exalted, triumphant, his followers subdued as the hoofbeats echoed into the darkness of time.

  Meryn waited. He had learned to empty his mind, to wait without judgement, without involvement. If he was to act he had to be in control.

  He saw the second band of soldiers come. He saw their leader’s compassion, the men’s revulsion. These were disciplined legionaries acting under a code of war.

  The women were removed. The byre sank back into the darkness, but the stench of fear and blood remained. Then after a while a small child appeared, nervous as a young deer with huge dark-blue eyes. The little girl peered round. ‘Eigon?’ Her voice was tremulous. ‘Eigon, where are you? Are we still playing the game? Can we come out now?’

  He could feel the watching trees, bending closer. There was nothing they could do. She wandered into the enclosure sniffing at the atmosphere like a small animal, knowing that what she sensed was bad, yet not knowing how to interpret it. He saw her stand still suddenly. In front of her a patch of blood showed black on the grass. She glanced up. It was growing light. Merciful darkness was drawing back. Soon she would see blood everywhere.

  ‘Eigon? Where are you?’ The little voice was tremulous. ‘I don’t know where Togo has gone.’ Suddenly she was crying. ‘I’m all alone.’

  Meryn watched helplessly. For a while she hung around then, disconsolate, her little shoulders slumped with misery, she turned back and trailed away into the trees.

  He shook his head. So much pain and fear and unhappiness etched on the surrounding countryside. The battlefield below in the valley, death and destruction everywhere, up here this small but anguished scene, one man’s vicious crime crying out for retribution.

  He waited. The scene darkened. Day followed night; the weather changed. Ravens circled the battlefield, servants of the goddess of death. Kites picked clean the bones that had remained unburied. It grew cold; the snows came. The little girl never returned. He sent feelers out after her into the woodland. There was nothing there. He searched for the little boy. It was a small spark, so easily extinguished; a life force gone almost before it had lived. He caught a glimpse of the small body curled in the darkness. He was sucking his thumb, his eyes closed tightly against his fear and loneliness. A fox trotted past his hiding place and paused, paw raised, its nose quivering to test the air. It smelled human; it smelled fever. It turned away and fled. A wolf mother might have sensed a lonely cub and suckled him; the fox turned about its business and disappeared without a backward thought into the night. By morning the little boy was dead.

  ‘So,’ Meryn breathed. ‘We have two little girls. Eigon and Glads. We know what happened to Eigon but where is her sister?’ He waited. A stray beam of light crawled across the floor of the studio towards him as for a moment the storm clouds parted. He watched it thoughtfully. The sun had almost set. She was older; maybe she had gone elsewhere to find help.

  The byre’s story was told. Tomorrow he would cleanse it of its memories. For now it was time to go outside. He let himself out into the courtyard and walked slowly towards the gate into the lane. An owl was calling in the distance. He smiled. She was hunting away from the hills this evening, flying out across the fields looking for voles in the wet grass. If he could see through her eyes he might be able to find Jess. When Steph told him about the dogs looking for her this afternoon she had indicated with a nod the crumpled silk scarf they had used to try and show the dogs who they were looking for. Before supper he had quietly picked it up and put it in his pocket. He drew it out now, winding it round his hand, tuning into the woman who had been wearing it.

  And there he was. Titus Marcus Olivinus. Older now, with greying hair, and deep-set watchful eyes, heart and soul heavy with hatred and fear. Obsessive, his whole being centred on one person.

  Eigon.

  Jess.

  Eigon.

  They were not the same person. There was no sign there of a soul reborn; no kindred; no descent, but Titus connected them in his twisted mind. No, not his. Meryn ranged wider, following secret pathways through the air around him. This was where it had happened. Where the lines had become crossed. Jess had been interested. Sympathetic. Vulnerable. She had been caught up in Eigon’s memories and somehow a pathway had opened between them.

  But it had worked both ways. Dan. Dan and Titus. Meryn rubbed his chin, pondering. Dan had followed Jess here and Titus had followed Eigon. He could see Dan. Tall, intense, jealous. Dan had brought hatred and anger back to the mountain; his emotions had acted as conductor. The life stories had flared and run like wildfire between the four characters who had met here at this house and the destruction had begun.

  ‘But are you still alive, Jess?’ Meryn walked across the courtyard and opened the gate, standing for a minute in the lane. The thunder and lightning had cleared the air. Now he could sense more clearly. She had turned right and walked up the path to the summit
; then she had come halfway back. She had moved off the path, following some subconscious urge. It had led her into the trees and eventually round behind the cottage.

  She had heard someone singing; that was it. A voice had led her deeper and deeper into the woods. It was like a fairy story. He tensed, listening. This voice had been ghostly. The voice of a woman keening for her dead love.

  Jess had followed it as Glads had followed it all those years before. The woman had been kneeling beside the body of her man, a Celtic warrior, dead on the field of battle, naked but for his shield, his sword stolen by the ghouls who follow battles everywhere, his eyes taken by the ravens.

  Glads stopped beside her and stood staring down at the dead man’s body. The woman looked up, tears still running down her cheeks and saw the little girl with the wan face, the muddy dress, the bramble-scratched legs and arms.

  Meryn watched as they clung to each other in their loneliness and misery. Glads stared down as the woman buried her man, scrabbling mud over his body until it was hidden from the birds; she watched as the woman prayed for his soul, then hand in hand, much later, the woman and the child walked away from the battlefield into the mist.

  He sighed. For some reason he couldn’t follow them. Someone had set up a barrier. He looked round for Jess. She had heard the woman singing too; she had followed the sound. So where was she? He turned left down the lane walking slowly in the darkness between the hedges and then turned left again through a gate into the field. He could see better here. In the coming darkness the moon had risen. Moonlight lay scattered across the rough ground. The track was leading back behind Ty Bran towards the darkness of the gorge cut by the brook into the edge of the hillside. There the ground was thick with oak and birch and fell away steeply towards the roar of the water far below. If she had fallen down there she could be badly hurt. He needed help and he needed a torch. ‘Wait for me, Jess,’ he breathed. ‘Hang on. I’m going for Rhodri. We’re coming. Soon.’