Once Every Never

by Lesley Livingston

  Clare shifted her gaze to Connal’s handsome face; he looked years older than when she’d seen him last. She wondered fleetingly if a great deal of time had passed since her previous trip, but as she looked more closely at him she dismissed the thought. It was really only fatigue and grief, carved into the planes of his face and painted in dark smudges under his eyes, that made his gaze seem a hollow thing.

  “Clarinet?” he murmured. “Are you really here?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m here.”

  In three long strides he had his good arm wrapped around her, so tight she could barely breathe. He clung to her the way a drowning man might cling to a piece of driftwood. He smelled of acrid smoke and earth and iron.

  “I thought you would have forsaken me along with the goddess. You tried to warn us. You tried to warn me …” His voice was choked with anguish.

  Clare put a hand up to stroke his tangled hair, shushing him as if he were a hurt child. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m right here.”

  He shook his head under her hand. “I didn’t listen. I should have listened to you. You saved my life … and now it seems that I live on only so that I might bear witness to the death of everything I ever held dear.”

  “Connal.” Clare pried herself out of his embrace and turned his head so that he would look at her. “What’s happened? Tell me.”

  His mouth worked as he struggled to put grief into words. “The queen is dead.”

  Clare knew that already. That was why he was here, wasn’t it? In her tomb?

  “She did not die alone.”

  Connal stepped away and looked back over his shoulder. As Clare followed his gaze it suddenly felt as though her own heart would crack in two. The body on the bier was not the one she’d been expecting.

  “Comorra!” she cried. “No!”

  Clare ran to the stone slab where the Iceni princess had been laid out. She was richly dressed in a gown of deep russet, a thin gold torc around her neck and silver bracelets and anklets circling her limbs. Her cloak was held together at the shoulder with a plain, undecorated clasp. Because, of course, she’d given her raven brooch away. To someone she’d thought would protect her. Clare swallowed painfully, her throat closed with emotion.

  “Oh, Comorra …”

  A tiny, sad smile lifted the corners of the princess’s lips and her small, smooth hands were curved around the hilt of the sword that lay on her breast. The blade gleamed dully in the ruddy torchlight, its edge dinted in places. Had Comorra died in battle? It didn’t look as though she’d suffered any mortal wounds, although it was hard to tell in the dimness.

  Clare felt the prickling of tears behind her eyes. “What happened?” she asked. “I thought you were going to run away together. How did she die?” This wasn’t the way it was supposed to have happened. Comorra was supposed to have lived—to have fled into the west with Connal. That was why Clare had saved him. So that he could save her. So that they could be together.

  “Comorra would not leave with me,” Connal said. “Not if there was a chance that the Iceni might win.”

  “But I told her—”

  “She wanted to believe in her mother so much. And, in truth, Boudicca’s army seemed unstoppable. At first. But the Roman is a patient animal. Seutonius simply waited for her to make a mistake. And then another and another—and then the tide of the battle began to turn. Soon it became obvious, even to Boudicca and the chiefs, that we were facing not only defeat but utter destruction. Our lines—such as they were, there was never any discipline in our ranks—collapsed and it swiftly became a bloodbath. Comorra agreed to run with me then. Only it was too late. It was chaos. Thousands upon thousands dead and dying. We had to climb over the bodies of our own to flee the field.”

  Clare watched as Connal’s eyes tracked back and forth as if he was watching the whole, horrific scene playing out in his head. Her heart broke for him.

  “It was madness …” He struggled to continue. “I tried to stay with the princess, but we were separated in the confusion. The Romans won, of course. Just as you said they would. But it didn’t end there. In the days after the massacre they pursued us. Hunting the rest of the Iceni … Hunting Boudicca. We fled into the forests singly and in pairs. Trying to find our way home … thinking we could make a last stand.” Connal’s eyes squeezed shut in anguish. “But we were so few. At last, after three days of running and hiding, I found my way back home. The town was deserted. I made my way to the Great Hall. I knew that if Comorra had made it back alive, that is where I would find her. And I did.”

  Somehow Clare knew what he would say next. “She wasn’t the only one there, was she?”

  Connal shook his head, his eyes pools of despair. Tears shone on his lashes in the torchlight. “Boudicca was sitting in her chair in front of the council fire. I do not know how long she had been dead but Comorra found her, a cup of hemlock in her cold hand. As I walked through the doors, Comorra was swallowing the last of the poison that Boudicca had left behind.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Grief. Despair … She was all alone. I should have been there …”

  “Connal—”

  “I tried to stop her, but she’d already …” He closed his eyes and shook his head so hard the tears flew from his cheeks. “A moment earlier—a moment, Clarinet—and I could have … I was too late.”

  “It’s not your fault, Connal.”

  “It is!” He slashed a hand fiercely through the air. “I never should have let her go into battle. You told me what would happen. I should have tied her to her chariot and taken her into the west whether she willed it or no. I should have died first before she had to see what she saw. It should have been me that drank from that cup. Comorra was … I …”

  Connal’s head dropped forward and his hair curtained his face. Clare felt as though an invisible hand was squeezing her heart. Comorra had loved Connal. And now Clare knew that, whatever had happened between her and the Druid prince, it was nothing in the face of the truth that Connal had also loved Comorra in return. And he’d never told her.

  She tried to swallow the painful lump in her throat, but it just wouldn’t go away. Tears gathered along her lashes, turning the torch flames to rainbow spangles as she tried to blink them back. Connal mustered a smile and took Clare by the shoulders, gazing down at her.

  “I’m sorry, Clarinet …”

  She shook her head. “It’s just … I’ll miss her. That’s all.” That wasn’t all. She wouldn’t just miss her. She would mourn her. She was supposed to have saved her. She wiped a sleeve across her face. “What will you do, now?”

  Connal looked at her with a strange, aching longing in his eyes. And a kind of wildness she’d never seen in him before. He shrugged and turned toward the archway. “What should I do?” he said. “I’ve said goodbye to my princess. Now I must go and bid farewell to my queen. And then …” He shrugged again and spun away from her, stalking down the darkened passageway as if it were a brightly lit hall.

  Clare turned, stopping for one last look at Comorra. Somehow she just couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye. She followed Connal through the tunnel and out into what must have been the main burial chamber under the highest of the three hills. And suddenly she knew why Stuart Morholt was so damned eager to discover the whereabouts of Queen Boudicca’s tomb.

  THE FLAMES OF A DOZEN pitch torches painted the curving walls of the high-domed burial chamber in lurid swaths of light and shadows. Everything had a sheen of orange and red. And gold. There was gold everywhere; an absolute bounty of priceless treasure. Piled against the walls were chests and baskets filled with golden torcs and necklaces, earrings and arm rings, bracelets and belts and brooches. There was silver too, and bronze. Jewels.

  More riches, Clare was sure, than even Stuart Morholt had dreamed about.

  It was a treasure hunter’s dream. And an archaeologist’s.

  Everything Maggie or Dr. Jenkins would ever have wanted to know about the life a
nd times of an Iron Age Celtic warrior queen could have been discovered right there in that one place.

  Weapons and armour lay stacked in neat piles and a dismantled war chariot lay off to one side. Shallow wicker and reed baskets and trays sat heaped with food and wax-sealed wine and beer jugs stood next to drinking mugs and goblets. A chest filled to the brim with rich garments stood next to a wooden crate containing soft leather boots and slippers. There was an ivory-coloured box that looked as though it contained cosmetics or toiletries, and a bronze comb and a mirror lay on top of that. There was even a brazier, provisioned with unused charcoal, and a cauldron that looked a lot like a soup pot. The Iceni must have prepared the tomb for their queen well in advance because it seemed to contain everything that Boudicca could possibly have need of in her next life. Including the companionship of her late husband.

  A large slab of polished stone stood alone among the grave goods, on top of which sat a sealed urn decorated with elaborate, swirling patterns.

  Prasutagus, Clare thought. He’s here, too.

  On the other side of the chamber, there was another slab of stone. And on it, laid out as if sleeping peacefully, was the body of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni. Clare wondered for an instant why Boudicca’s body had not been committed to the flames as her husband’s had been. But she already knew the answer: time. With the Romans hunting the rebel Iceni, there had been no time for funeral bonfires. Boudicca and Comorra had been buried as they were. Probably Tasca, too, under the third barrow.

  She approached the bier hesitantly, as if Boudicca might suddenly sit upright and accuse her, and rightly so, of trespassing. The stone surface was richly draped with furs and the queen lay upon a flowing mantle of her own glorious mane of red hair. Unbound and brushed to gleaming, it reached almost to her knees. Her hands, strong and pale, were wrapped, as Comorra’s had been, around the hilt of her sword, whose blade bore the deep grooves of hard-fought battles. The queen’s feet were bare and calloused, but gold shone on her wrists and ankles.

  And around her neck was the great golden torc.

  That makes no sense, Clare thought, frowning. It was called the Snettisham Torc because it was found in Snettisham. The neck ring had been discovered stashed in a hole in the ground near the north coast of Norfolk along with a whole bunch of other treasure. But if it was here now, in a grave that had never been discovered, never been plundered, then how was that possible?

  Clare looked over to where Connal stood at the foot of Boudicca’s bier. His haggard face was like a stone mask, except for his lips, which moved in a silent flood of words Clare couldn’t make out. His dark eyes burned as he stared at the queen. Finally he took a step forward and removed one of the two matching silver bracelets that encircled his wrists. He kissed the silver cuff in his hand, and after mouthing another string of unheard words, placed the beautifully wrought ornament on the cold, polished stone at Boudicca’s feet.

  “It will be my punishment,” he murmured. “For serving the queen so blindly in life, my soul will return here after I die to serve her forever in the beyond. For good or ill.”

  Clare thought he was being a little harsh on himself, but it wasn’t the time or place to point that out. Besides, it wasn’t as if his spirit was actually tethered to the silver bracelet. It was a gesture, she thought. Nothing more.

  He walked over to Clare and held out a hand. “I am finished here and now I will leave this place, Clarinet. Will you come with me? Boudicca’s chiefs will come soon to close up the tomb. They will pile rocks over the entrance and cover it with earth and turf. And, with the help of Llassar’s enchantments, perhaps the Romans will never find it.”

  No, Clare thought. They never will.

  Connal plucked one of the flaring firebrands from its sconce and led the way out of the chamber, Clare following close behind. He led her down a passageway opposite the one they’d come through, into another, smaller chamber that held the body of Tasca, and then out into the chill black night.

  Llassar waited with his same bulky travelling pack slung over his shoulder.

  “Hey,” Clare greeted him. “Mr. Smith.”

  Llassar blinked at her and then inclined his enormous, leo-nine head. “Lady Clare,” he said. “May the goddess smile upon you.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  “Perhaps one day, again. For now, she turns her face from us, I think.”

  If Connal was surprised to see that Llassar and Clare knew each other, he didn’t register it. In fact, Clare thought, he’s not really registering much in the emotion department. She worried about him. He seemed shocky or post-traumatic or something. His behaviour in the grave chamber with the bracelet and Boudicca struck her as odd.

  Llassar hefted the pack higher on his shoulder and nodded at it, saying to Connal, “I finished it last night. It will keep her safe. After we close up the barrow, we’ll take it to the Great River and offer it to the gods in their domain that they may mark her passage.”

  Clare recognized now the contours of the bronze shield she’d seen Llassar holding high above his head in her inaugural shimmering. She remembered how it had been that first sight of Connal, the sound of him saying her name, that made her want to explore this world. It seemed like a thousand years had passed since then. In a sense, she supposed it had. “Is that the grave shield?” She nodded at the pack. “Are you guys going to go throw it in the river?”

  Connal and Llassar regarded her with mild surprise.

  “Hey, look. I’m guessing you cast one of your magic spells on that thing using my blood, didn’t you?”

  The two men exchanged a wary glance. Llassar had the good manners to look vaguely guilty about it.

  “Right. Well, so, you shouldn’t be surprised that I know about it then. And don’t worry. It worked. The grave remains undisturbed.”

  Llassar seemed relieved, not only that the enchantment, according to Clare, had worked, but that she hadn’t wrought some horrible vengeance on him for using her “tylwyth teg” blood in the process.

  “Let me ask you something, though.” Clare frowned, puzzling. “When you close up the tomb, are you going leave the torc with the queen? The big gold one she’s wearing now?”

  “Yes!” Llassar said in alarm. “The torc must stay with her. It is …”

  “What?” she said with a sinking feeling. “Cursed?”

  He nodded his big, shaggy head. “Aye. It was Boudicca’s doing. Not just enspelled. But cursed. Blood cursed.”

  “Damn.” Clare put a hand to her neck, remembering the sight of her blood on the cloth Connal had used to clean the wound. Stupid scrap of cloth … “She used my blood in that one, too, didn’t she?”

  “And her own,” Llassar said. “It was a dark spell. An evil spell. I counselled her against it but she would not be dissuaded. Her grief had made her mad. That is why I created the grave shield—so that I could bury her vengeance with her where it would never be found.”

  Great, Clare thought. Nice try. Except that it had been found. In a hole in the ground in Snettisham.

  Clare took a deep breath and explained, as simply as she could, that in her world the torc was on the loose. The passage of time really did seem an abstract concept to the Druiddyn, but Llassar and Connal seemed to get the gist of it. As she spoke their confusion turned to alarm.

  “Connal,” Llassar rumbled. “This is ill luck. Clare has only ever sought to help us. For Boudicca’s vengeance to be inflicted on her world … it is not just. Not right.”

  “You say the barrow remains hidden, Clarinet,” Connal said. “Undisturbed. How do you know that? Unless you yourself have found it there?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Clare shrugged. “Well, Milo was the one who actually found it. And he’s sort of a genius. But like I said, it’s undisturbed and we won’t tell anyone. In fact, we’re actively trying to keep it a secret. That’s why I’m here talking to you guys.”

  “Who is Milo?” Connal asked.

  “He’s … a friend.” Clare blushed
and felt ridiculous for it. “He’s been trying to help me through all this. Although I’m still not really sure why. All I’ve done so far is gotten him hit on the head and had a gun pointed at him—”

  “The queen’s torc must never be worn again, Lady,” Llassar interrupted. “You must return it to her barrow. It must lie here with her—or it will carry her spirit out into the world and Boudicca will wreak her vengeance anew. I have seen what my queen is capable of.” He looked at Connal. “We both have. It must not happen again.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” Clare stared at the smith in disbelief. “Even if I take the torc to the barrow, there’s no way to get it inside the grave chamber.”

  “Connal might be able to help,” Llassar said quietly, turning to look at the young Druid. “If he is willing.”

  “Wait,” Clare said. “What? He can?” She turned to Connal. “You can?”

  Connal looked at the sorcerer smith with a question in his red-rimmed eyes.

  “Boudicca meant for you to be her spirit warrior,” Llassar said, putting a hand on Connal’s shoulder. “But this Shining One kept that from happening.”

  “Oh …” Clare grimaced. “You saw me in the boat too, huh?”

  Llassar nodded.

  “Um.” Clare dropped her gaze to the ground. “Yeah. Comorra also had a hand in it. We didn’t mean any harm.”

  “I know. That is why I never told the queen what I saw that night. If Andrasta had wished it so, Clarinet,” Llassar said, “it would have been so.”

  Clare didn’t argue.

  “I think the Raven Goddess has had other plans for you all along, Connal.” His gaze shifted to the silver bracelet the Druid prince wore. “I made those cuffs for you at Boudicca’s request, and there is strong magic in them. Her magic.” He nodded his bearded chin at Clare. “They were to be your talis-mans, Connal, and through them Andrasta was to give you the gift of walking the spirit ways—just as she opens those ways to Clarinet.”

  “Right,” Clare put in, as if she knew Andrasta personally. Llassar and the rest of her Iceni pals seemed to think she and the war goddess did coffee dates in the Otherworld.