by N. M. Browne
After the burial, they journeyed on in sombre mood. Dan was thoughtful and distracted. Afraid of where his distraction might lead, Ursula attempted to teach him the language. She didn’t know where to start. She knew the language of the Combrogi as she knew her own; so she had no ready-made lists of verbs or declensions to offer him. In the end he asked questions and she gave him the answers. He listened hard to the conversation around him and tried to talk to Bryn. It kept Dan’s mind off darker thoughts and he made astonishing progress.
With typical Dan-like confidence he decided to speak only in his new language, unless he needed help, which Ursula would supply. Ursula had tried that once with a friend. They had decided to only speak French, but had been forced to give up after ten minutes when the topics of the weather, their names and birthdays were exhausted. Dan, predictably, had no such difficulty and, on the occasions when he did get stuck, Ursula only needed to think the word for Dan to know it. It happened more than once and gave her a strange feeling. Was Dan developing the capacity to read her mind? The thought made her shiver.
They journeyed for several nights. Ursula got confused as to how many. Each day was the same. They rode all day except for breaks to water the horses, attend to calls of nature, and of course to eat. Ursula had a tendency to ‘comfort eat’ as her mother described it, but here when she most needed comfort, there was little of interest to eat. The food was plentiful but tasted terrible and they ate the same thing every day. At first light, Rhodri, who was the best camp cook, apparently, secured a large iron cauldron over the fire and prepared a salted porridge of oats and other grains. Without sugar or honey to sweeten it and without milk or cream to improve the flavour, only hunger enabled her to eat it. It was like eating thick, salted wallpaper paste. At midday they ate dry oat biscuits and dried salted meat. When it was too dark to ride any further Rhodri concocted some broth with root vegetables and barley. They drank only mead or stream water and Ursula found herself day dreaming about a nice hot cup of tea, and a bar of chocolate. The waistband of her trousers felt loose.
At night the men took turns to tell tales or sing songs when they were not on watch. Dan, Bryn and Ursula were not trusted with a watch so slept for most of the hours of darkness. Ursula’s bruised body ached from all the riding and all the falling on to hard ground. She was not a natural horsewoman.
She slept for around ten hours each night, Braveheart at her head, Bryn at her feet and Dan lying next to her. Macsen had taken the only tent for Rhonwen.
The songs the Combrogi sang round the fire were almost all about war and feasting, about gods or heroes or ancestors or possibly all three. She found the riding so exhausting that she kept drifting off into sleep during the singing. Perhaps that was why the songs pervaded her dreams, which were often violent and bloody. Sometimes she dreamed of Macsen and Rhonwen, whose green eyes seemed to haunt her with generalised malevolence. She dreamed of the Veil a lot, of the yellow mist choking her, or of stepping through it into deserts or seas. Most nights, some way or another, she dreamed of the infinite variety of ways she could die. Not one of them was pleasant.
In spite of this, Ursula was less frightened than she had been since she walked through the Veil. She rode without the imminent sense of danger that had kept her whole body racked by an inner tide of adrenalin. The men, though wary, seemed more relaxed too. Caradoc still scouted ahead and then covered their tracks behind them. He rode so far and fast that he had to change ponies several times in the day, though he himself seemed tireless.
They avoided towns and rode through unspoiled countryside. They rode over ancient wooden pathways to cross marsh and bog, through woodland, over hills and through rich farmland. It was spring, Ursula thought, though nature had never been one of her interests. She could feel the energy of new life welling up through the ground. It seemed to travel up through her own spine, like sap rising. It filled her with a wild excitement. She pulsed with it. She felt more alive than she ever had at home, more aware. She was fascinated by the sights and smells of the land and the beauty of it all. If she had only known that her mother was all right and had been able to change her underwear, she would have been happy.
Dan’s grasp of the Combrogi tongue had developed to the extent that he could hold quite complex discussions. Ursula was not altogether pleased about that. He said some very provocative things, too loudly, as if he no longer cared much for his safety. He was worried that they were on the wrong side.
‘I thought the Romans were the good ones, the ones who brought civilisation, law and justice. All I have seen of the Combrogi is their lust for death.’
Bryn spluttered red in the face. Ursula suspected that some rule or custom kept him from contradicting his liege lord. Dan really had no right to talk of other people’s lust for death, but he was right. They found themselves among the Combrogi who had drugged her, tied her to a horse, threatened her and killed virtually every civilised Roman they had come across and then cut off their heads. She turned to the child.
‘Bryn ab Madoc, Kai would have killed you. Where I come from to kill a child is a terrible evil. It is hard for us to see that the Combrogi are not evil if they could do such a thing.’
Bryn blushed a deep scarlet and looked like he wanted to spear her. Braveheart, picking up on his anxiety, growled. Braveheart did not entirely trust her. Bryn looked at Dan, as if for permission to speak, which irritated Ursula greatly.
‘I am not a child. I am Dan’s squire. Had Da lived I would have served him and learned the ways of war as a man. I know enough of them now to kill you, Boar Skull. You are no warrior, big as you are … ’
The boy cocked his spear at Ursula’s face. Ursula’s fear rose like bile to her mouth.
‘That is enough, Bryn. Ursula, I mean Boar Skull, is my …’ Dan groped for a word and came up with Ursula’s usual fallback description. ‘Brother … You owe her respect. I mean him respect.’ Bryn laughed at the mistake, with all the heartiness of an eight year old and let his spear drop. Man or not his sense of humour was exactly what Ursula expected of an eight-year-old boy. At that age her mother had not even let her get a knife from the knife drawer. Ursula shot Dan a warning look. Whatever Queen Boudicca had done, Ursula suspected that, like Macsen, these men wanted their women as far from action as possible, bearing babies. She remembered just enough history to know that childbirth was a very risky business before modern medicine. There was little Ursula could be sure of in this world, but she was absolutely sure that here she would rather be a boy.
Dan muttered ‘Sorry!’ in English. Ursula was not listening. There was trouble ahead.
Above the tree line they could see a plume of dark smoke rising. The unmistakable stench of burnt flesh travelled downwind towards them.
Gwyn, his face pale and his eyes dark with just contained fury, rode towards Dan.
‘Beyond is the settlement of Alavna. We were to have stopped there for supplies. This is something Kai would have you see, strangers.’
He muttered ‘Raven lover’ under his breath to Dan. Ursula knew it as a bitter insult. Gwyn dug Dan viciously in the ribs with the hilt of his sword. It was swiftly done and Gwyn’s look defied him to retaliate. Dan winced but kept his face impassive. Ursula felt sick. Something very bad was going to happen. Would they be killed now as potential traitors because of Dan’s big, too-clever mouth? She knew what the smell meant and she had no stomach for what she might see. Two bodies more would likely as not make no difference. She was trembling. She hoped that they would not let Bryn watch. He was still a child. Children should be protected. She clung to that thought; without such a belief she too would be a savage.
That thought stayed in her mind as they rode through what was left of the village. But no one had been able to protect the children of that place, though it was clear that many had tried valiantly to do so.
There are things too terrible to be contemplated, too dreadful to be remembered and yet which should never be forgotten. What had happened in that villag
e was one of them. Many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition, but the Ravens had shown no compassion to any, babies, children, pregnant women, old men. There had been torture too. Prys said they did it for fun and as a message for the other Combrogi. Such action was not unknown in Ursula’s own time. Then they called it ethnic cleansing. Until that moment she had not known what those words meant. Ursula did not think she could ever be cleansed of the memory of it. Scrawled on the lime-washed wall of the one of the few remaining buildings were the words ‘Legio II’, the second legion. The civilised Romans even had graffiti and they wrote it in blood.
Dan was weeping openly, as were the Combrogi warriors.
‘What price the Ravens’ laws and justice now?’ Gwyn said, but his sneer was muffled by the sob that caught in his throat. Ursula couldn’t cry. She tried to shield Bryn and stop him from looking, but he had seen his father and his sister killed. This was his world and Ursula could not protect him from that.
They all helped to bury the dead. It had to be a mass grave. There was no time to do more. There was always the risk the legion might return, that they might know that Macsen’s men would return this way.
At the graveside, when Kai had said and sang all he could in the circumstances, Dan surprised Ursula again. He knelt at Kai’s feet.
‘I am sorry I spoke as I did on the road. Four nights ago I killed Ravens because I could do nothing else. Kill me now if you will, but I swear to you that I will kill all the Ravens I can for what they have done today. For this and for Bryn’s sister, the red-haired girl, and for his father, Madoc. This is an abomination.’
Kai and the others looked as taken aback as Ursula. Dan’s grasp of the tongue was still incomplete but in using the word for ‘abomination’ he had used the strongest word he knew. It was an obscenity, but then so was what they had witnessed.
Kai wiped his face with his cloak. They all looked the same, faces blackened by soot, streaked by sweat.
‘Oaths that bind the soul are serious things. You are a stranger and stranger to us than any of the others Rhonwen called through the Veil. You are a Bear Sark. You will kill because it is your nature. You have no choice. We are all bound by this, all of us, together, by what we have seen here. We shall carry the name Alavna always with us and we will each of us avenge this,’ he hesitated for it was a vile word, ‘“abomination”.’ All the warriors drew their swords and stuck them one by one in the earth of the grave mound.
Kai was first. ‘I am Kai Alavna ab Owain. By my name I swear to avenge this.’
Bryn was next. He looked so very small next to Kai but he was indomitable. He had no sword but he stuck his spear defiantly in the soil.
‘I am Bryn Alavna ab Madoc. By my name I swear to avenge this and the murder of my kin.’
Dan and Ursula were last. Dan thrust Bright Killer deep into the ground with all his force.
‘I am Daniel Alavna ab George. By my name I swear to avenge this.’
Ursula had no sword or spear. She knelt on the damp earth and kissed the soil. She did not know what else to do. Could she kill anyone? Should she? Even for this? Here, there was only one answer.
‘I am Ursula Alavna ab Helen. By my name I swear to avenge this.’ She was her mother’s daughter. Worlds away she was still that. The oath hung heavily on her. She was committed. She was Combrogi now.
Chapter Eleven
They rode swiftly after that. They were anxious to put miles between them and the legion’s scouts. But they all knew that however far they travelled they would never leave Alavna.
The ride was uneventful, though to strained nerves the flurry of wings as they rode past a bird’s nest or the snap of a branch underfoot was an event to provoke a nervous reaction. Dan was trying hard not to think of Alavna, of the small body of a child of Lizzie’s age. He was trying to get Ursula to talk. He needed distraction. No one silenced him, so he guessed that they must be far enough away from enemy scouts to be reasonably safe.
‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Well, those are the first words you’ve spoken since Alavna.’
‘Are you OK?’ Dan knew it was a stupid question.
‘Not really. Are you?’ Dan shook his head.
‘Since we’ve been here I’ve felt weird. Haven’t you?’
‘Ursula, for a lot of the time we’ve been here I’ve been berserk.’
Ursula looked embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’
‘It’s fine. I’m trying not to think about it.’ Kai’s words, ‘You are a bear sark. You will kill because it is your nature, you have no choice,’ echoed rather hollowly in his head. He was not a machine. He had choice. He chose not to think about it. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I feel sort of plugged in to this world, sort of connected. I feel things more. I don’t know if it’s that cup I drank from, or if it was the Veil or if it is the land itself, but I … Well, like, I’m quite convinced that just around the corner there are a load of men waiting to jump us.’
Ursula’s normally rather expressionless face was contorted with embarrassment. She did not like exposing herself to ridicule. She felt that she was being ridiculous.
‘No, I don’t feel that …’ Dan said slowly. ‘I feel even more disconnected than usual, I …’
As they rounded the corner, there was a whoop and then the blood-chilling war cry of the Combrogi. Three armed men sprang out at Kai and Gwyn, the leading riders. They had their swords ready. Dan’s heart sank. He did not want to go to that place again. He did not want that compelling liberating rhythm of killing. This time he would have a choice and he would not go there. As long as they did not touch Ursula, or Bryn or Braveheart. His sword was already in his hand. That much was already automatic. He pulled ahead of Ursula and Bryn and, for the first time, wished he had a shield and knew how to use it. He could feel the disconnection. It was like slipping into another gear. It was happening more quickly and more easily every time. He felt the beginning of the terrible calm.
‘Dan! It’s OK. They’re Macsen’s men.’ Ursula’s voice shattered the calm and brought him back. ‘It was beginning to happen, wasn’t it?’ Dan nodded. Sweat was breaking out on his forehead. ‘You weren’t even angry, were you?’ Again he shook his head. Then he remembered something. From what seemed like a long time ago he dredged the memory.
‘Ursula! The men were there, like you said.’
‘Dan, I’m scared. I think something is happening to me. I feel like I’m changing, not just because of Alavna. It’s like your bear sark thing only different.’
Dan did not understand exactly but her distress was very clear. He leant over and squeezed her hand.
‘Dan! I’m a man, remember. Don’t hold my hand!’
Ursula’s outrage was almost funny. It was more like the girl he’d liked at school.
He grinned, but Ursula did not smile. ‘You will help me, won’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know …’ her exasperation was clear. ‘You know, do all that boy stuff.’
‘What like peeing standing up?’ At that even Ursula laughed. ‘I’ll make you an oath.’
‘No, not an oath!’ Ursula interrupted him. But it was too late. The air was charged with the portent of it. Dan’s oath to her was unsaid but not unthought. She could feel it binding them. It was a magic as real as the power that conjured Rhonwen’s dragon but less visible. Poor Dan, he was bound by his nature as a bear sark, by his oath at Alavna and to his loyalty to Ursula. He had little freedom left, but he could not see it. It worried her that she was so sure that their oaths did bind them here. It was yet another proof that the place was changing her in subtle ways. She put her concern aside. Events were moving quickly. People were arriving. New people bringing new dangers. She had to concentrate.
Kai was signalling. They had mastered the Combrogi battle hand signals on the ride. Dan dismounted, but did not drop his sword. He resisted the urge to help Ursula down from her horse. Dan took his responsi
bilities seriously. He watched her impartially. Could she be a boy? The question was more – could she be human, at the moment. There was not a part of her clothes or face that was not covered in soot, grime, muck or blood. They walked together towards Kai and his new companion, one of the three men who had attacked them. Bryn and Braveheart followed a pace or two behind.
‘I am male, I am a warrior, I can do this,’ Ursula muttered under her breath, grinding her teeth. She was a good four inches taller than Dan anyway and strongly built. Like an actress, she seemed to make herself seem even bigger, squarer, with those words. She had lost weight on the ride, enough to show off the sharp angles of her face. It was a well-made face, finer than you might expect. She might be beautiful one day if she gave up scowling and tooth grinding and covering her face in blood and grime. Today, yes, she looked like a boy and an extremely disreputable one. She was good at adopting an aggressive stance too.
They stood in front of Kai’s companion. Dan was not afraid. He held Bright Killer as if it was part of his arm, and had, to be honest, forgotten it was there.
Kai flashed him a look and Ursula whispered, ‘Lay down your sword or you’ll get us killed,’ in deeply irritated English. Dan obligingly laid Bright Killer down.
‘Finn, these are the men Rhonwen brought through the Veil. This is Finn the castle steward.’ Kai waved at Ursula and Dan as if proudly displaying his prized cattle. He must have been seeing them with different eyes because both looked too weary to be very impressive.
‘You travelled for four nights’ ride on the whim of a princess for two … boys. Is this all she got for her dreams of drawing a great army through the Veil at Cenn Croech?’ the man, Finn, seemed to spit contempt. Kai ignored his tone though he answered his question.
‘These two were called through the Veil by the Princess Rhonwen near Cenn Croech. This is Ursula Alavna ab Helen, known as Boar Skull. He has courage, if no skill at weapons, and he buried the children of Alavna with his own hands and kissed the earth on their grave. I, Kai Alavna ab Owain vouch for him.’
