A Painted Winter

by H. Barnard

  Brei picked up the sword and placed it on the anvil. “Will it be done tonight? I’ll come back and get it, save you having to deal with him again.”

  Gwyddion wiped the soot off his forehead with his wrist. “The whole thing with her is strange, and it’s making him strange.”

  “Taran would die before he betrayed Caledon. Will you have it ready?”

  “Just needs polishing now. Aaron will do it, won’t you?” He looked at his apprentice. “I’m going to be at Elwyn’s getting sloshed enough to forget I don’t want to knock your lord brother’s head off.”

  Brei stepped towards Gwyddion and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Finish the sword now, Gwyddion. Finish it now, while I watch.”

  A week later, Brei passed through the stone passageway carved with bulls and dismounted outside the gates to the fortress at Caertarwos. Taran closed his eyes, wincing as he dismounted. “I thought we would never get here. My arse has never been this sore.”

  Brei nodded. What usually took five days had taken seven. King Gartnait had forced them to rest every hour. His pallid skin was perpetually sweaty, and he frequently relieved himself, though it did not appear he was drinking any more ale than the others. Brei noticed he would often mutter nonsensical sentences to himself on the theme of, “she came to us, she belongs to us, she belongs to me.”

  “The vultures will start circling when they see this,” Taran muttered as they watched Naoise and Dylan help the king down from his horse.

  Brei swept a rock away with his boot. “You better make your case here then, if you can.”

  Taran’s finger paused as he pulled Ri’s reigns over his head. “Would you support me, Brei? This time?”

  Taran’s blue eyes widened, and in Brei’s mind he saw him again as a boy of only fourteen. Blood still stained his blond hair as he stared through the crowd of warriors gathered under the Great Oak. Brei swallowed as he remembered how he had said nothing. How Taran had begged him with his eyes, and Brei had abandoned him with his silence.

  “I should have supported you.” Brei cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell everyone what I did?”

  Taran grabbed Brei’s shoulder. “Because you’re all I have left.”

  Brei looked over Taran’s shoulder as the clopping of horses’ hooves ushered more men into the windswept fortress. The kings of the north had arrived.

  Twenty-Three

  Spring, 367 C.E., the Saxon shore

  Clouds shimmered against blue, moving fast for the first time in days. The boat had drifted, listless, along the Britannic coastline, spending days bobbing on the calm sea, before the wind burst into the red sails, and they sprinted along the smooth white cliffs. Sorsha rested her head on the side of the boat, watching fluffy rabbits, horses, and bears float overhead. Occasionally a seagull circled and shrieked, dragging her back from her daydreams.

  In her hands she twirled a U-shaped brooch with a long flat bar. A snake slithering around the “U”. “The Snake of Caledon,” Taran had murmured as he clasped it to a forest green cape he had gifted to her as they left Caercaled. “The colour of your eyes.”

  A salty sea breeze blew her hair across her sun-drenched face. She closed her eyes, and she was there again.

  The merchant ship had taken Sorsha and Taran from Caerdwabonna to Caeredyn, the harbour city swirling in the mists of the Kingdom of Gwoddodin, the kingdom her father had told her tales of. Taran had found them an inn in the harbour market for the night. He smiled as he told her of his plans for their journey by horse to find her parents’ village near the Great Wall. “We can practise more with your new sword,” he said.

  The tightness in her chest became unbearable. The longer he spoke of the adventure they would have, the more she wondered if she would be sick. Two days before they had been due to depart Caercaled, she had spoken to Captain Antonius, a merchant and Roman citizen who spoke Latin, and she had bartered a Torc bracelet for the captain’s role in helping her escape.

  “Caercaled will be so different when we get back,” Taran said as they shared a meal at the inn. “The Shining Lake will be full of life, otters and birds of prey, squirrels everywhere, and the trees and grass. Everything will be green. And I can take you up to the mountains, the real ones, in northern Caledon. You’ll love those.” His eyes were animated, like a child showing his parents an ants’ nest. Sorsha smiled, not trusting the lump in her throat to let her speak. “I think I’ll get some more ale from the innkeeper. Do you want any?” Taran asked.

  She stood with an abrupt jerk. “Let me. I need the amenities anyway.” Her heart thundered, and for a panicked moment, she was terrified he would hear it. She crossed the room on shaking legs and, as she closed the door, the coppery light of the fire danced across his face as he smiled back at her.

  Her mind raced as she walked past roundhouses under cover of darkness. She refused to look behind her, and she broke into a run when she saw the merchants, who had made ready for her as promised.

  Suddenly, the air chilled, and invisible hands seemed to clasp around her neck. She choked and fell to the ground as the green-eyed woman from her nightmares flashed in her mind. Shards of rock pressed into Sorsha’s palms as she tried to stand. Scrambling against the invisible hold, she ran to the harbour, and Antonius held his hand out as she sprinted across the wooden jetty. Once in the boat, she pressed her back against the mast, digging her nails into her palms. Water splashed, and the chains rattled against the side of the boat as the crew wrenched the anchor up. A gust of wind filled the red sails with a stretching thud. Blood pulsed violently in her neck and she wondered how long until they curved out of the bay into the open water. “Even if he is watching,” she whispered to herself, “even if he hates me for this, one day his soul will disappear from the Earth and I will have no reason to feel guilty.” She closed her eyes and, in the darkness, the woman with frozen hands waited for her.

  A seagull screeched and Sorsha opened her eyes to the bright white clouds, chasing each other across the sapphire sky. Sometimes she wondered whether he had looked for her. Whether he was still looking. He didn’t deserve it. Her eyes tingled and a tear escaped down her cheek. He vouched for me, saved me, and showed me nothing but kindness. Sorsha leant over the edge, overcome with a desire to jump into the deep channel waters. She gripped the edge of the boat as hard as she could, her nails crushing into the wood. Through the pain, Arian’s grey eyes and silvery hair appeared in her mind. “This journey you feel you must take… I wish it led here, instead of away.” Arian’s last whispers echoed in her mind. Shaking, Sorsha placed her hands into her lap, and she looked down at her fingernails, bloodied and broken. I deserve this.

  Sorsha gazed at the land that passed, at what Captain Antonius called the “Saxon shore”. High on the smooth white cliffs were a series of enormous fortresses built by the Romano-British to defend the island against the threat of Saxon pirates who terrorised merchants and soldiers alike. The cliffs rolled into green hills that sloped to meet the sea, and occasionally the shimmering grey ocean would push into the land through a wide natural harbour where it met the brackish water of a river.

  The merchant crew did not speak to Sorsha. She seemed almost invisible, though she knew they would hold her to the gold she owed them. It is a terrible thing to give up a sacred Torc. But like everything else I have done, it was a necessary sacrifice that had to be made. Sorsha spent the chilly nights on the ship half-awake, twirling her new sword in her hand, trying to fight off the sleep that brought passageways and gloomy chambers whenever she closed her eyes.

  As they sailed up the Thames to Londinium, her body was stiff, and her skin burnt from days in the sun. The land was swampy, and she wondered, as she gazed at the outline of buildings and a bridge, at how a city could exist in such terrain. They docked at a wooden pier just within the defensive wall on the city’s eastern side. An enormous stone building was wedged in the corner by the river, between a wall running north to south and another that ran east to w
est along the shoreline. To the west, a long bridge spanned from one side of the river to the other. People and horses and carts crossed the bridge in both directions.

  She remained on board as the crew disembarked onto the wooden quay. Silt covered the wood, which in parts was rotting, and a pungent scent of fish, mud, and smoke filled the air. Horses and carts rolled over the dirty road set above the riverbank, and traders were unloading boats docked along the quay. Sorsha had never been to Londinium and her heart leapt at the possibilities that lay in a city so large. But by nightfall, Captain Antonius assisted Sorsha onto a merchant cart, and she had no time to explore the city. The cart trundled out of the city gates and along the paved roads leading through smaller towns and villages for a week until, on a sweltering afternoon, the merchant cart finally arrived in Corinium Dobunnorum.

  The fields leading to the walled city swayed green in the gentle breeze, and the rhythm of cartwheels on the road was soon joined by the bustling sounds of prosperity. Corinium Dobunnorum was a large city lying at the crossroads of the paved roads heading from Londinium to the west and from Aquae Sulis in the south to the northern city of Lindum Colonia. The city was surrounded by thick stone walls that could be seen for more than a mile. On the northeast side wound the River Corrin, across which stretched a large stone bridge that led to a formidable, double-turret, arched gate tower.

  Sweat dampened the underarms of her thick woollen tunic and the soles of her leather boots, but she kept on her forest-green cape to conceal the sword that hung at her waist. The rectangular terracotta tiled roofs and whitewashed walls glistened in the sun, and the white stone pillars of the buildings and marble statues seemed to sing to her. When the cart reached the main road, Sorsha jumped off and ambled along the straight cobblestone street that ran the city’s length and which she knew would take her to the gate tower on the other side.

  Corinium was laid out in straight lines at right angles to each other, with two main streets crossing in the middle. Each block was filled with organised commerce, and Sorsha’s chest swelled with a nostalgic pride as she passed stone carvers, schools of art for mosaics, glass-makers, and goldsmiths. In the shopfront of a draper, she stopped to admire a wall fresco, painted in vibrant hues of greens, reds, and golds, depicting women in voluminous tunics and flowing pallas. Sorsha continued on, passing the high walls and columns of the great forum and basilica, until she reached the walls and exited the gate tower on the other side of the city.

  Leaving the road that led out of the city, Sorsha cut across a dirt track towards green hills, following until she saw fields of barley bordering a vineyard her father had planted. They stretched in rows before a manor house perched on a gentle hill. Sorsha smiled as the green leaves came into view. The white stone pillars of the entrance sparkled, and her heart was lifted by the sight of familiar slaves working as she passed. A young girl squatted at the base of a vine and looked at her warily. Sorsha’s stomach tensed as she remembered no one would recognise her. I wonder if I look like a barbarian.

  “Is the mistress of the house in?” Sorsha called to the girl.

  The slave bowed her head. “No, she’s not in. She’s gone to the markets at the forum.”

  “Thank you.” Sorsha turned and headed back along the dirt track, retracing her steps through the fields towards the city walls. I hope she will still be there. Her heart raced. What if she is still angry at me?

  Sorsha hurried under the stone gate tower and onto the cobbled main street, dodging horses and groups of people talking fast but walking slow until she reached the basilica’s high, white walls. Intricately carved marble pillars adorned the building, and statues inlaid the walls. She recognised her father’s favourite column, dedicated to the God Jupiter. Bacchus, the God of Wine, perched atop with two bunches of grapes set either side of his curly hair. She climbed the steps and crossed the marble foyer. An overweight, bald man in a red toga brushed past her, and she followed him outside to the forum.

  The market stalls were organised in an open-air courtyard, surrounded by the long rectangular buildings of official city business to make a square. Pushing through the crowd, she searched the faces of the throngs of slaves in drab tunics, and citizens draped in togas and colourful pallas, for her mother. A blonde woman wrapped in a marigold palla chatted to a man selling loaves of bread. Is that her? Sorsha pushed past a tall slave with olive skin. No, it’s not her. Her stomach dropped, and she held her breath until her heart slowed and she could continue along the long line of stalls. The smell of cinnamon from a spice merchant transported her momentarily to Serenn’s gloomy chamber. There. Her mother was a few stalls further, admiring reams of dyed cloth.

  Sorsha approached the stall and stood next to her mother. She tried to catch her eye, but her mother was examining a silk. A pale green palla covered most of her hair, but her mother looked the same as Sorsha remembered. Blonde hair flecked with white, full glossy cheeks, and eyes the colour of emeralds.

  “Hello,” Sorsha whispered. Her mother looked up and smiled. Within an instant it vanished into a frown.

  “Mother. It’s Lucia,” Sorsha whispered.

  “Is it?” She smiled and embraced her. Sorsha closed her eyes and breathed in her mother’s woody scent of frankincense oil.

  “Lucia, darling,” her mother whispered in her ear, “I have worried so much whether you’d survived. I found your body so close to the edge of the stone circle I wondered if it had actually worked.” She held Sorsha away and stared into her eyes. “I know you didn’t want to leave, but look at you, you look just like the Gallar in Tirscath.”

  Sorsha’s eyes filled with tears, and she leant forwards to kiss her mother on the cheek. “Can we talk?”

  Her mother nodded and led her to a quiet edge of the market. “Is something wrong? Where were you sent?” Her mother switched from Latin to the Ancient Tongue.

  “North.” Sorsha swallowed. “So far north, to Caledon, far above the Great Wall.”

  “I expected further north actually, to the Kingdom of Vortriu, or to Ulster. That is where my other firstborn daughters have been sent.”

  “You knew I’d be sent to live with barbarians?”

  “Barbarians? Do they think they are barbarians?”

  Sorsha pressed her lips together for a moment before answering. “No. But they live so differently to here.”

  “And different means barbaric, does it?”

  Sorsha bit into the side of her cheek, thinking of Arian. “No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m back now.”

  Her mother grabbed her hand. “Lucia, you’re not being serious, are you?”

  “Please…please don’t say I have to go back.”

  “Don’t tell me you came here for yourself, without a purpose from the Gods? Is there no one who suffers? Have you been told they do not need help?”

  “I have been healing the sick and injured in Caercaled.”

  Her mother rubbed her hands over her face. “Lucia, you would be dead if not for the Gift. You have no home other than the one the Gallar chooses for you. You exist for the Gods and for them alone, do you understand? We are not people in the way they are.” She motioned towards the people in the market, flittering between stalls, chatting and smiling. “We are here to protect and to heal. Throughout all the lives you will inevitably lead, you will find that you are controlled by the Gods. I’m surprised you managed to get so far south alone, you must…” She paused and studied Sorsha’s face. “You must be having such terrible dreams.”

  “I am… The most awful nightmares. What do they mean?”

  “It is a warning. A warning of what will come to pass should you stray from the path that has been set for you. You will die. The Gods will make you take the life they have gifted you.”

  “So, we can never live for our own pleasures? We are just tools?”

  “It may help you to think that way, yes. I know it takes great strength to say goodbye to the ones yo
u love, believe me. But focus on your work. It will be less painful if you do. Think not of the individuals but of the Ancient People, and I think you will not hurt anymore.”

  Tears crept over the edges of Sorsha’s eyes. “I can’t go back.”

  “Lucia, please” her mother’s voice sounded steady, but the redness of her eyes betrayed her. “I am just as bound to the will of the Gods as you are. I know you didn’t want this, but I had to force you to accept the Gift. You don’t know yet, but you will, what it is to have the fate of thousands played out through you. We are Healers. We are the children of the Gallar of Tirscath. We are here to ensure the survival of the Ancient People. Individuals may perish, but the Ancient People survive.”

  Sorsha felt her nose running. “I don’t care. I don’t care about them. You don’t know what I went through to get back to you. You can’t send me back, I won’t do it.”

  Her mother slapped her across the cheek. Sorsha blinked rapidly, her ears ringing.

  “I will not allow you to bring me into this. I don’t want to be punished for your weakness of character. How do you think I know about the dreams? I’ve had them before.” Her mother grimaced. “Oh yes, Lucia, I know exactly what haunts you. But I grew up. I rose to the challenge of what has been assigned to me, and I got on with it. You exist so that our people may survive. Stop thinking you are special and that you deserve free will, because you don’t. You deserve nothing but death, and every day the Gods allow you to live is a gift. You will never stop being at the mercy of the Gods and the plans they have for the Ancient People.”

  Sorsha dropped her gaze to the cobbled pavement. I’d rather die than live at the mercy of others. Her stomach churned, and the darkness of the chamber swallowed her mind. She choked as the icy fingers closed around her neck. Her mother held her shoulder and helped her to steady herself as she gasped for air.