by N. M. Browne
‘Dan, there are many injured here. Help them! Leave this pig to me.’
Ursula was an awe-inspiring sight. Her blonde hair streamed behind the gold and silver helmet and her tense, white face was locked in concentration. She looked like an avenging goddess. She galloped towards Dan’s opponent with her sword drawn. Dan felt the sudden fear of the man she was charging. He unaccountably dropped his spear, screamed ‘Waelcyrige!’, wheeled his horse and rode away, with Ursula in pursuit.
Ursula’s own feelings were kept under very tight control. Dan felt her focus on her businesslike attack, distancing herself from her task. Dan tried not to know what she was seeing and feeling; tried not to know how the sole-surviving Aenglisc was feeling. His own thoughts and emotions were quite enough for him to deal with on their own. He turned away as a cry of fear and pain informed him that Ursula had dealt with the last Aenglisc. Her sword, when she returned a few moments later, was red with gore and her face was pale as paper.
‘Should someone take their horses?’
Dan shrugged. ‘Arturus can sort that out. Are you all right?’
She nodded. ‘I don’t like doing it, you know.’ She sounded bleak, her voice shaky, almost tearful.
‘I know,’ he said, because he did. Her feelings mingled with his and it was difficult for him to separate them.
‘Thanks, Ursula, you saved me again. I lost it after I killed that guy. I didn’t want to do it.’
‘I know.’ She smiled a sad, weary smile and the two of them rode back towards Bedewyr and Quiriac.
Chapter Fourteen
Between them they managed to help many of the very badly injured. They loaded the horses with as many as they could bear and escorted the sad survivors into the City of Camulodunum. The archers who had watched the whole encounter from behind the palisade cheered them as they came within earshot. Ursula and Dan had done what heroes did. Brother Frontalis and Taliesin met them at the gates to take the injured to the army hospital in the barracks. Arturus met them there.
‘The Aenglisc grow very bold, to chase these people to the gates of Camulodunum. It would have been good to bring one of them back for questioning.’
‘Yes, it might have been a good idea but I was too busy trying to stay alive to think of it,’ Ursula answered tartly.
Bedewyr nodded in silent agreement.
Arturus smiled. ‘I am of course grateful for your heroism, Lady Boar Skull, and, of course, that of the Bear Sark.’ He met Dan’s eye and amended his thanks. ‘I mean, my thanks to Gawain.’
Ursula was equally unhappy to be known as Lady Boar Skull. ‘Please, call me Ursula.’
‘I will, if it pleases you, call you Ursa, meaning “she-bear”, for it suits your courage and ferocious skill much better.’
Arturus was doing his best, but he was not a natural charmer. Ursula struggled to answer him with a suitably gracious response. She was suddenly so tired she could scarcely speak. She smiled and nodded and begged his permission to seek her lodgings. She had ridden for eight or ten straight hours, fought three men, killed a fourth, and reaction had just set in. She swayed and would have fallen but for the timely intervention of Larcius.
‘Lady Ursa, I do not know how you can still be standing. You truly have the strength of ten men and the courage of twenty. What you did out there was nobly done. You have given the men an example of heroism that will inspire them through all the dark days to come. Allow me to escort you to your lodgings.’
Ursula found she was not quite as exhausted as she had thought. Her heart started to beat rapidly and she was acutely conscious of his hand at her hip, where her mail shirt ended. She was several centimetres taller than Larcius but leaned gratefully on his shoulder, until she remembered his injury. ‘I’m sorry – I forgot your wound.’
‘It is much restored through the prayers of Brother Frontalis and the herbal knowledge of Taliesin.’ It was quite possible that much of Larcius’s incapacity was the result of shock. Certainly, he looked fine – more than fine in fact.
Larcius gently removed her helmet, then the sheepskin hat she was wearing under it for a closer fit. She was aware that her hair was plastered to her head with sweat, that she had been perspiring heavily in the padded leather jerkin she wore under her mail shirt, and that she was too tired to care. He returned her helmet when they reached the door of the inn.
‘If you need help with removing your boots and mail shirt, don’t hesitate to call for me.’
She must have raised a knowing twenty-first-century eyebrow because he added smoothly, ‘I will send one of my retinue to assist you. Duke Arturus has been good enough to furnish me with servants. When we first met, I had nothing, but thanks to the War Duke’s largesse I have acquired some of the accoutrements of a prince. My lands were sequestered when I moved to Armorica, over the sea. I came back only because I heard Ambrosius, my father, was sick and now I can reclaim what was once mine, Ursula. You will not find me powerless again.’
She knew there was information contained in that sentence that she ought to understand, but she couldn’t for the moment make sense of anything. Even with Boar Skull’s strength magically contained within her own frailer body, she had come to the end of her endurance.
‘Thank you, Larcius,’ she murmured, conscious of her slurring speech.
‘My Lady – Ursa – you saved my life today and I will never forget it. I returned to Britannia too carelessly, anxious to seek my father’s pardon before he died. I came back too late, but without you I would not have come back at all. You have restored me to my rightful place when otherwise I would lie dead and unburied in a Aenglisc sacred grove. Arturus is to hold a Mass for my safe return to the bosom of the Combrogi peoples. All I can say is that I am for ever in your debt and will give you anything you ask of me.’
He looked at her meaningfully, his handsome face alight with earnestness.
Ursula had no idea what he was talking about.
‘It was a pleasure,’ she mumbled, more or less incoherently, and staggered off to her chamber and the merciful oblivion of sleep.
Dan tried to help Taliesin but the dizzying multiplicity of images and feelings from the traumatised survivors of the Aenglisc raid was too much for him. Many of the injured kept reliving the events they had witnessed in brutal flashes of memory, like cinematic flashbacks. They were not just visual memories either, but multi-sensory. Dan relived with them the sounds of terror, the screaming, the meaty thud and thump of boot and sword meeting flesh, and the odours: the metallic smell of blood and human excrement and the choking smoke from burning homes. He felt with them the still-present pain of scratches, bruises, lacerations, abrasions, and large gaping wounds. It was all too much. Taliesin, staunching a wide leg wound with professional calm, spotted Dan’s white face.
‘You can’t help, Dan. Preserve your sanity for all our sakes. Get out of here!’
‘I could hear them when they were outside the city wall – I don’t think I can get away from it.’
Taliesin looked at him with an unreadable expression in his eyes.
‘Brother Frontalis,’ he said with a slightly odd inflection, ‘I need your good right arm.’
Dan never saw it coming. The broad-shouldered monk swung round from the child he had been tending and took in the situation with one swift appraising glance. Without a warning flicker of an eye or twitch of a muscle he withdrew one powerful arm and threw a punch that sent Dan reeling into unconsciousness and blessed peace.
*
* Dan woke in the darkness of the inn. Someone had put him to bed. His head throbbed. The chamber smelled sweetly of lavender and of some other pleasant but unrecognisable fragrance. Someone had left pots of oil and a wooden crucifix at each of the corners of his straw-stuffed pallet. He did not understand why. He inhaled the clean sweetness of the aroma and was grateful that his mind was his own again. He was in a small private room, which seemed strange after the communal living of his time in Macsen’s world. By the quality of the light
that filtered through the shuttered window it was long past dawn – long past the time when he should be up.
He dressed quickly and joined Ursula for breakfast before they headed off for the barracks together, in search of Taliesin.
As they approached the guard on the barracks they were surprised to receive a smart Roman-style salute. They both nodded at the guard in some confusion: ‘Where will we find Taliesin?’
‘Who? Oh, the Druid. He is with the Duke in the Commander’s quarters.’ The guard pointed at a squat single-storey building at the other end of the parade ground.
‘Arturus doesn’t seem to know what to do with us, does he?’ Ursula said reflectively to Dan as they walked towards the building.
‘I think we’ve arrived at a bad time,’ Dan said distractedly. He was again beginning to feel oppressed by the fear and pain emanating from the barracks. ‘Talk to me, Ursula. Are you sure you have no magic left? You’ve still got Boar Skull’s strength – that must be magical.’
Ursula glanced at his tense face. ‘No, I would know if I still had the magic, Dan – it races through your veins like electricity – it’s like raw energy surging through your body. It’s as if you’ve been plugged into the earth itself. I can’t tell you how much I miss it, Dan. I don’t feel I’m enough on my own.’
It was true. Dan could feel the terrible awareness of its absence in her. Her pleasure at finding him alive and then her determination to prove herself a warrior had masked her underlying sadness at the loss of her power.
Dan grabbed her hand and she squeezed his back, clumsily.
‘Ouch! You don’t know your own strength, you don’t.’
They both grinned and then fell silent. As they approached the Commander’s quarters, Dan was taken aback by the passionate fury emanating from the room. He let go of Ursula’s hand.
Two soldiers stood guarding the door, and Medraut’s voice could be heard bellowing, ‘I will not leave my fort unguarded. If we move men out of here we are wide open! You saw what happened yesterday. They are getting bolder every day and they’re greedy for good land. They’re just waiting for a chance! We have lost Ceint. I will not lose the rest of my land to the barbarians!’
Arturus’s response was quieter but clearly as angry. ‘And I will not let one of my oldest friends down. More than that I will not let the Aenglisc get behind us like that. Look at the map, man. If they take Caer-Baddon we’re lost – they’ll have free rein over all the west – Caer-Baddon is undefended and we might all just as well pack up like our good friend Ambrosius Larcius and flee for Armorica. We have good intelligence that they’re gathering forces. They have not had such effective leadership since Hengest was in his prime. Now they have Aelle as their Bretwalda – he took Pevensey, he’s no fool – and a very ambitious leader in Hengest’s son Aesc, not to mention the pernicious influence of the enchantress, Rhonwen. We have to beat them now and beat them decisively. We can use some of the troops from Fort Cado and bring the heavy cavalry across the Icknield Way. We could make a stand here, at the old fort at Mons Badonicus, you know, Baddon Hill.’
Dan was surprised by the passion in Arturus’s voice. It seemed that he did have the spirit of a leader in spite of first appearances. The guard at the door saluted them, notably awestruck by Ursula’s appearance now that she was clean and obviously female, no longer the grim and filthy warrior of the previous day. She gave him one of her rare smiles, causing the young soldier to blush and almost fall over his spear in his effort to open the door for them.
The door opened on five men in various stages of exhaustion scowling over an ageing map, which was laid out on a large wooden table. The room smelled of stale sweat and sour wine and men too long together in close quarters. Arturus looked up to greet them.
‘Boar Skull and the Bear Sark – I mean, Ursa and Gawain – welcome! You catch us debating our strategy for ridding ourselves of the Aenglisc menace for good. You are most welcome to join us. I have just ordered some breakfast. It has been a long night. You know Gorlois Cerdic of Dumnonia and Helvius of Caer-Baddon?’
Arturus rubbed one be-ringed and elegant hand over the light stubble on his chin. His robes were crumpled and he looked altogether more like a War Duke than he had the day before. He was flanked by Medraut, Taliesin, and two other men dressed in Combrogi plaids, who inclined their heads in acknowledgement of the new arrivals.
‘Thank you,’ Dan said courteously, ‘though we might be of more use if we had a little more background on this … conflict.’
Taliesin spoke in reply. ‘My Lord, Duke Arturus, it may be as well that I speak to our heroes in private and brief them on our recent history. I know you are anxious to continue this debate. Perhaps we may rejoin you later?’
Nodding and bowing, Taliesin ushered Dan and Ursula out of the room and into the clean cold air of the parade ground.
‘Taliesin,’ Dan wasted no time in interrogating him. ‘What on earth did you do to me last night?’
‘Oh, that!’ Taliesin looked sheepish. ‘Brother Frontalis is the great grandson of one of the last legitimate gladiatorial champions of Rome. Before he took up the cross of the Christos he used to dabble in some unofficial, not to say illegal, gladiatorial bouts in Gaul. He knocked you out! You looked terrible – we thought it might help.’
‘And what of the scents and the crosses around my bed?’ Dan did not look pleased.
‘I know some herbs that seem to calm the fevered brain and Brother Frontalis blessed the crosses and prayed for your soul to be at peace. By the look of you, something worked.’
Dan’s scowl cleared. ‘I slept well – but do you know what I could do to control this …’ he searched for an appropriate word, ‘empathy, while I’m awake? It is just too much.’
He felt a wave of sympathy from the older man.
‘I know, Daniel, but you must find your own way through it. Brother Frontalis will pray that you find the strength to control it – there is little else anyone can do, my friend.’
Dan felt choked by emotion, his own this time. He could feel Taliesin’s sympathy shading into pity, Ursula’s worry and fear that he was no longer the Dan she thought she knew. He could feel the anguish of the Combrogi refugees, their silent, potent keen of grief, and the controlled fury still radiating from the Commander’s quarters. He just wanted it all to stop.
He put his hands over his ears in a pointless attempt to cut out the noise that was not noise, and somehow found the strength to mumble, ‘Then please, can we get further away from here – if distance will make any difference? Is there somewhere quiet we can go to talk about what’s going on?’
Ursula looked momentarily puzzled as she surveyed the deserted training ground. She shared a quick glance of complicity with Taliesin and, following Brother Frontalis’s example, punched Dan squarely on the jaw. For the second time he was knocked, unprepared, into the peace of unconsciousness.
Chapter Fifteen
When Dan revived it was to the cool, dark interior of a small, rectangular, stone building, dominated by a large wooden cross.
‘Dan, I’m so sorry, but you looked so terrible, so lost, I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘Well, I’m glad you pulled your punch and didn’t break my jaw.’
He sat up, feeling woozy, but the background noise of other people’s pain had at least faded to a distant hum. He could deal with that. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not being much help.’ He swallowed down his distress. ‘I just don’t know how to control it.’
Taliesin smiled. ‘Is it better in here?’
‘Yes – it’s not so overwhelming.’
‘Perhaps the suffering Christos bears the burden here,’ Taliesin said enigmatically.
‘Anyway, I need to apologise to you, Ursula, and explain why you’re here.’
‘It’s done now, Taliesin, Dan told me what you did. We’re stuck here. What more is there to say?’ Ursula sounded resigned. Dan tried to dampen down his awareness of her own distinctive brand of sadness.
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‘I want you to know why I called you. It wasn’t only that I thought you could get me home. These people need you as much as Macsen needed you, they are Macsen’s heirs in every sense that counts.’
‘But they’re Ravens! How can they be his heirs?’ Ursula interjected, anger evident in her voice.
‘In this world the Ravens are Romans, and they and the Combrogi have a common cause. Arturus is an able man, a sensible, intelligent leader, but he is not a hero. You know, men don’t fight for able men, they fight for heroes. The men need to know that you two are with Arturus – you will inspire them.’
Something in Taliesin’s voice made Dan look at him sharply; he seemed disappointed as he had when Ursula pledged Dan’s sword to Arturus. Taliesin acknowledged Dan’s look.
‘I will not lie to you – I had hoped that Arturus himself might look to you for leadership, not the other way around. I thought you, either separately or together, might be The Bear of the prophecy.’
‘What?’
‘Dan will explain. When I was searching for Rhonwen I met a philosopher, Igris. He said there was a prophecy associated with the Combrogi here.’
‘Go on.’
‘The prophecy said, “As the bear on the high hillside protects the cubs, so The Bear of Ynys Prydein, the Island of the Mighty, protects its own. Remember The Bear and cherish it, for when The Bear is gone the hillside falls.”’
‘So?’
‘Your name, Ursula, means bear and Daniel was always the Bear Sark. I had prepared the Combrogi to see you as the culmination of the prophecy but by pledging yourselves to Arturus you threw all that away.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, Taliesin, that I didn’t do what I didn’t know you wanted.’ Ursula’s tone was tart. ‘Anyway, couldn’t Arturus be The Bear? I thought he was the great leader.’