Daughters of Fire

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘History.’ She smiled sadly.

  ‘What was Pat talking about up there on the hill?’

  ‘She’s convinced Venutios wanted to kill Cartimandua.’

  ‘She had only to read the history books to know that.’

  ‘She - Medb - thinks you might want to kill me.’ She looked at him uncomfortably. ‘You thought that yourself, didn’t you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You did, Hugh.’ Her voice softened. ‘Please. You said we were on the same side but you have to mean it,’ she said gently. ‘Tell me what to do. The brooch is at the centre of all this. Venutios wants it. Carta wants it. Medb wants it. The museum wants it.’ She laughed uncomfortably. ‘You can’t deny all this is happening.’

  ‘I’m not denying it.’ He shrugged angrily. ‘I just find it hard to believe.’

  ‘So do I. I didn’t want all this to happen. I don’t want us to be enemies.’

  They looked at each other silently.

  ‘Did you bring the brooch here?’ he asked at last.

  She nodded.

  ‘I think I’d better have it back.’

  ‘Yes, I think you’d better,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s hidden. Up There, on the hillside. I’ll retrieve it tomorrow.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll go now. I’m sorry to have inflicted myself on you,’ he said. He hesitated, then unexpectedly he moved forward and kissed her on the cheek. For a moment they gazed at each other then he said softly, ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow?’

  Viv watched him through the window as he walked out to the car, climbed in and drove away. When she turned round she found Peggy standing behind her.

  ‘I thought I told you I don’t want any men in my house!’ Peggy’s voice was harsh.

  Startled, Viv stepped back. The cold anger was back in the other woman’s eyes. ‘He wanted the brooch, didn’t he,’ Peggy went on. She grabbed Viv’s wrist. ‘I think it would be best for everyone if you let me have it. Whatever happens you must not give it to him. Did you see Venutios?’

  Viv gasped. ‘You could see him?’

  ‘Of course I could see him.’ Peggy studied her face for a full ten seconds. ‘Just as I can see Cartimandua and Medb. My dear, don’t imagine these people care who they use. Or who they hurt. Don’t you see,’ she gave a cold humourless laugh, ‘you and your friends have created a cast of monsters!’

  VII

  As the sun set and the mist began to gather in the folds of the hillside it grew colder, but Pat didn’t feel it as she sat on the bench in the orchard. The voice in her head was too insistent, too loud, to allow any coherent thought.

  ‘I gave you the brooch for a reason, Venutios! Get it back.’ Medb was incandescent with anger.

  He eyed her coldly, wondering not for the first time why he had ever felt attracted to this woman with her pale eyes and her vicious temper. ‘Why is it so important?’ He leaned forward and took hold of her arms.

  She didn’t flinch. ‘Because I imbued it with power, you fool. To protect you. Do you want it to serve your wife?’

  He held her gaze. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Then leave it!’ She tore herself out of his grasp. ‘See what happens!’

  He smiled. ‘I think I will do just that. It is time you moved on, Medb. Your constant meddling annoys me.’ He folded his arms. ‘I’ll give you a pension and a horse. Perhaps you should go home to Dun Pelder. Would they want you back there? Are you not a queen in your own country?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know I was never queen.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course. I had forgotten. You were a murderess who cast spells upon anyone who you thought might be a rival. And when my astute wife saw through you and sought, I think with commendable restraint, to dispose of you without resorting to your own foul methods, you decided to hound her for the rest of her days.’

  Medb scowled at him. ‘No one treats me like that and gets away with it.’

  ‘Yet you treat everyone else with vile disdain.’ He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think I should take back that brooch. For all I know it binds me to you forever -’ He broke off and then gave a short hard laugh. ‘I see I have hit the mark. You are nothing but a sorceress! Get out of my sight! I am an honourable man and I will pay as I said I would for such services as you have rendered, but no more. Get out of Dinas Dwr today and never come back.’

  Medb stood white-faced, watching him as he turned on his heel and walked away from her. ‘Oh yes, you will pay for this, my friend,’ she murmured at his retreating back. ‘Do not think a few fine brave words can release you from your debt to me.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘You accuse me of casting spells. Believe me, Venutios of the Carvetii, you have seen nothing yet, neither you, nor your scheming, Roman-loving wife.’

  On her bench in the orchard Pat wiped a fleck of foam from the corner of her mouth. The brooch. She had to retrieve the brooch before Venutios found it. She stared up at the hill rising in the distance above the roofs of the house. Somewhere up there it was hidden where no one could find it. Only one person could retrieve it for her. After that she would let destiny takes its course and leave Viv to Venutios’s rage.

  32

  Carta and Venutios were at Dinas Dwr. ‘The ramparts are nearly finished.’ Venutios strode along the inside of the wall approvingly. ‘But they will still have to be strengthened in places. They would not withstand an attack.’

  ‘There will be no attack.’ Cartimandua turned her back on the wall and surveyed the township which had swelled in size to fill the huge area inside the new walls. Houses, workshops, granaries, store houses, craftsmen’s dwellings, sweat houses, temple, barns, all prosperous and new, together with a new parade ground where the young men of the township were playing Hurley, had sprung up around the main central enclosure within which stood the great round house.

  Some of the round houses were linked now by passages. Her private lodging, her bedroom, her meeting house led off the high council chambers to the west. The guest house was in the far side of the compound and between were a dozen new dwellings.

  ‘There will undoubtedly be an attack.’

  They had been quarrelling all day. Sometimes, it felt to Carta, all their lives. He was pushing at her constantly, undermining her, countermanding her orders. He leaned back against the warm stone and squinted into the sun. ‘Don’t delude yourself, woman. These Romans are not going to be content to stop at the Trisantona. Once they have caught their breath they will cross the river and start looking north!’

  ‘When will you believe that the Romans are our allies.’ Carta sighed wearily. ‘They won’t attack unless we provoke them.’

  ‘But we will provoke them.’ Venutios laughed grimly. ‘As soon as we’re ready, that is exactly what we’ll do.’

  She narrowed her eyes. So, it started again. Would he never learn? ‘Luckily you are in no position to dictate the policy of Brigantia.’

  ‘No?’ He glared at her. ‘I think you’ll find I am. Culann will be chief Druid to the Brigantians after Artgenos’s time. He is for a war. So is Artgenos, if truth were told. And my brother. Brucetos has a good head on his shoulders. He studies the way the Romans think. And the men. Ask every chieftain and king when they assemble here for Samhain. To a man they will follow me.’

  ‘Then they will die as rebels.’ She drew herself upto her full height. ‘Don’t defy me, Venutios. You cannot deny that I have brought peace and prosperity to my people. Look at this place if you do not believe me. And I do not intend to let it all slip through my fingers.’

  ‘Pah!’ He looked at her in exasperation. ‘No one wants peace. And prosperity can be obtained by force. All we need to do is capture some Roman wagons and liberate some of the stores they extort from the peoples they have conquered. Have you any idea of the amount of grain they are demanding from the next harvest? Men and women and children will starve, while the legions grow fat!’

  ‘Then it is our duty to try and persuade them to lessen the burden of ta
xation. But we will not do it by adding ourselves to the list of their victims.’ Her voice had grown hard. ‘Leave me, Venutios. Your endless hectoring bores me.’

  ‘Does it indeed.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you left me to deal with these matters and turn to something less complicated, wife. Politics obviously confuses you!’

  She could feel the anger boiling up inside her. Their truces were so short-lived and every time they were ended by a quarrel; a quarrel which each time was more violent. More bitter. ‘Don’t insult me, Venutios! The gods will not tolerate such infamy and neither will I.’ Nevertheless, it was she who turned and walked away from him, aware that many pairs of eyes were watching surreptitiously.

  That night he came to her bedchamber after the meal. He was very drunk. Tripping in the doorway, he almost fell into the room.

  ‘So, wife.’ He slurred his words. ‘I think it is time to put another child into your womb. A Brigantian child, who will fight against Rome alongside his father.’ He staggered towards her.

  Carta was sitting in the lamplight playing gwyddbwyll with Mairghread. As Venutios approached them he staggered, knocking the wooden board off the chest between them scattering the little silver and gold pieces in all directions.

  Carta stood up, furious. ‘Lay one finger on me and I will call my guards. I forbid you to touch me.’

  As Mairghread retreated into the outer chamber, Carta dodged away but he lunged after her and caught her arm. ‘My beautiful, vicious wife. It is time for bed -’

  She wrenched herself away from him and he cursed, grabbing at her. She lurched away from him again, tearing her gown, and gasped as he slapped her hard across the face.

  Her punch to the side of his head sent him reeling. He lost his grip on her and fell to his knees.

  ‘That is the last time you attack me!’ she hissed at him. Her lip was bleeding. ‘The last time you hit me! Leave this house now.’

  ‘Never, my love.’ He gave a drunken laugh. ‘Not till I have sired that little Roman-hater!’ He threw himself after her, slipped and, cursing, landed once more on his knees. He was clawing at her when Culann walked into the room with Mairghread behind him.

  ‘Venutios, do you dare to hit your wife?’ The Druid’s voice cut like acid though the sound of Venutios’s heavy breathing.

  ‘Oh yes, I dare.’ Venutios let out a furious bellow. ‘Indeed I dare. And I’ll hit her again if I can just lay my hands on her!’

  ‘That is enough!’ Carta spoke very quietly, but the tone of her voice had the effect of stopping Venutios in his tracks as she pulled her mantle more tightly round her shoulders. She grabbed at a rough linen towel hanging near the bronze basin on a stand beside the bed and dabbed at her lip. ‘This has happened too often. You conspire against me; you ally yourself to my enemies; you lay hands on me, your wife and your queen. And you come to me drunk and stinking! I divorce you, Venutios. You are no longer my husband. You have insulted me and betrayed me and threatened and assaulted me and I call on the laws of our peoples to end this marriage. I have more than enough just cause. I shall declare it tomorrow before the whole gathering.’

  ‘You can’t!’ He staggered away from her, sobering rapidly. ‘I am your husband before the gods.’

  ‘And you have betrayed your promises and your position. You have forfeited your status as my husband.’

  ‘She is right, Venutios.’ Culann spoke with rigid authority. ‘Leave this house now. We will consult with Artgenos in the morning and with the queen’s leave you may plead your case, but I do not believe her to be in the wrong.’

  Carta turned her back on her husband. She walked over to the lamp, holding the towel to her face. ‘I shall not change my mind.’

  ‘Then may the gods protect you, woman!’ Venutios spat out the words. ‘Because you and I shall be at war!’

  II

  ‘What an extraordinary story.’ The Reverend James Oakley had cooked dinner and proved himself an excellent chef. His wife, he explained, had retired to bed with a migraine. He and Hugh had finished the zabaglione which he had whipped up for dessert and had adjourned once more to the book-lined snug with their coffee and brandy. Apple logs smouldered in the fireplace and Hugh felt himself to be extraordinarily content. Or he would have been, but for a niggling sense of guilt and fear.

  ‘I have persecuted the woman. I confess it,’ he said slowly, astonished at himself for finding how comforting confession to a man of the cloth could be. ‘And now I’ve discovered why she’s been making these claims. This actress person -’ He said the words with the same distaste with which he would have described a peculiarly disgusting piece of litter sticking to his shoe, ‘has been encouraging her to go into some sort of trance and declaim like a Greek oracle while they record the process for a radio play.’

  ‘Really?’ James stared at him over the rims of his glasses. ‘How incredibly interesting. Some kind of spiritualist contact, you think? Or is she merely improvising?’

  Hugh was contemplating the gently hissing logs. ‘Surely a man of your calling doesn’t believe in spiritualism?’

  James sipped his brandy. ‘Not as a religion, of course. Or as a do-it-yourself shortcut to proof of the afterlife, but as a philosophical concept and as an esoteric reality, yes, I do.’

  Hugh sat back in his chair. ‘You astound me.’ He shivered.

  ‘I’m surprised myself, that you as a historian don’t have an open mind to the cycles of existence,’ James went on mildly. ‘And as a Celticist, how could you not have absorbed some of the more palatable of their beliefs?’

  Hugh chuckled. ‘More palatable? You mean not human sacrifice? I confess that that idea has occurred to me once or twice,’ he said dryly. He glanced at the bookshelves near him. ‘I see you have books on modern Druidry here as well as historical. I have to say that astonishes me. If you are a Christian, how can you study such a thing?’

  ‘The Druids have much to teach us, and I study it, as do quite a few Christians, including the Archbishop, as you know.’ James smiled in quiet reproof. ‘I think of it as a philosophy, not a religion. And as I told you I happen to believe the Druids may well have taught Our Lord.’

  There was a long silence. Hugh leaned forward in his chair again and pulled a book from the shelf near him. ‘This one. By Meryn Jones. What do you think of him?’

  ‘A great scholar. And a genuine Druid in every sense.’ James smiled again.

  ‘I know him,’ Hugh said thoughtfully. ‘Like you he believes in intuitive knowledge and the reality of the supernatural. But I have great respect for his scholarship. His books are deeply intelligent. We have often agreed to differ, but I wouldn’t hesitate to turn to him for advice on occasions.’ He paused. ‘I have turned to him.’

  ‘For instance in the matter of your enthusiastic playwrights and the shade of Cartimandua?’ James probed gently.

  Hugh nodded. ‘This all worries me. I can’t get the sound of Viv declaiming to the heavens out of my head. I should have been impressed. I was impressed, but it frightened me. A great deal about this frightens me.’ He hesitated. ‘Can I tell you a bit more about it?’

  James listened in silence as Hugh, at first hesitantly and then with more and more candour related what had been happening to him. ‘I am terrified that I shall find myself doing something I have no control over. Venutios wants Cartimandua dead. I’m not sure even now, if this man, this person, this spirit,’ he hesitated, unable to describe Venutios with any certainty. ‘My character, the hero of my book, the hero, no the villain of Viv’s book - is he haunting me? Possessing me? I don’t know. And I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘What about Meryn Jones, where does he fit in?’ James was studying Hugh through half-closed eyes.

  Hugh shrugged. ‘I phoned him. But I didn’t wait. There was no time.’

  ‘Does he know where you are?’

  Hugh shook his head.

  ‘In my opinion it might be wise to call him. I am very willing to help, o
ld chap, but I don’t think my brand of spirituality will be of much use when it comes to banishing an Iron Age king.’

  ‘No! We don’t need Meryn.’ It was a flat denial.

  James frowned. ‘I beg your pardon?’ He put down his brandy glass.

  ‘I said no.’ Hugh shook his head violently. There was a buzzing in his ears which alarmed him. ‘And I don’t need you.’ He stood up agitatedly. Something was happening. Venutios was there in the room with them. ‘I need to see Viv. And I need to get that brooch back. She said she had hidden it. I have to find out where.’

  ‘Maybe. But not tonight.’ James spoke quietly but there was a firmness in his voice which pulled Hugh up. ‘Go in the morning,’ he went on. ‘Have another brandy and relax now. I am sure nothing can be done in the dark.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Hugh sat down restlessly. He noticed that James was studying him with some care. ‘Can you see him?’ he asked abruptly.

  James looked thoughtfully down at his hands. ‘I’m not sure. I am not in any way psychic, to my intense sorrow,’ he smiled. ‘But I do get a very strong impression -’

  ‘God Almighty!’ Hugh leaped to his feet. ‘What?’

  ‘A shadow. A presence in here with us.’

  ‘And it doesn’t scare you?’ Hugh’s eyes widened.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, it scares me.’ Hugh shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to get out of here!’ Turning, he headed for the door and let himself out into the night.

  III

  Tiptoeing down the landing, Viv paused outside Pat’s room. There was no sound from inside. ‘Pat?’ Cautiously she knocked. ‘Pat, are you there?’ There had been no sign of Pat all evening. She tried the handle. The door opened. The room inside was dark and she reached for the light switch. The window was open and the curtain flapped in the wind as she surveyed the litter of Pat’s clothes and papers and books. Her headphones and a pile of CDs lay on the table beside her laptop. She had disappeared.