by N. M. Browne
It was the Eagles who now camped on the bloodstained valley in front of the fortress. Rufinus had promised to ask Ursula to reopen the Veil for those of his command who wished to return, back to where they had come from. He himself would stay. As Ursula had suspected he had been involved in the death of Caesar Domitianus Augustus in his own time. Finding another emperor by the same name in Macsen’s world had made the Legate determined to stay and oppose that enemy too. To him, no one by the name of Caesar Domitianus Augustus could be other than an enemy. As a blood Celt, Rufinus also wanted to aid King Macsen in rebuilding the Combrogi kingdoms. Dan did not know whether the Legate thought he was in another time or another world or just another part of Britain from his point of origin. He did not even seem to be very interested in the question. Rufinus was wholly engrossed in planning military strategy with Macsen. Lud was furiously trying to reestablish himself as an ally. The total removal of all the Ravens from Britain was now looking like a real possibility.
After talking it over endlessly with Ursula, Dan was pretty sure Rufinus had left their own world at a point about thirty years into Macsen’s future. Only Dan seemed to care.
Rufinus and those of his men who had agreed to stay had also agreed to drink the Cup of Belonging, if Kai could still perform the rite. There was plenty of land for the taking in abandoned tribal territory. There was a future for those who wanted it in this land and it was a Combrogi future. Dan salved his conscience with the thought that those who wished to stay were content with their lot.
In the end, no more than a few hundred soldiers of the ninth legion wished to return to their own place and those followed Dan and Ursula to the witch-shaped tree.
It was a strange gathering. The soldiers were in awe of Ursula, the sorceress who could fly like a bird. They spoke in hushed whispers and there was fear in the air. Ursula was afraid too. Rhonwen’s presence still haunted her. There was still the echo of an echo of her call. Had she somehow got stuck within the mist itself? Would she re-emerge when Ursula raised the Veil again? It was with a determined effort of will that she put these fears to one side and calmed her mind. She had made her preparation. She had fasted and bathed as before. She took a deep breath, stuck her sword in the ground and prayed for the return of the Veil and safe passage for the waiting legionaries.
The yellow mist billowed out from an unknown source as before. With obvious trepidation the men marched through it in close formation. The Combrogi made a kind of honour guard for them, their allies in the Combrogi’s darkest hour. Bryn and Braveheart were there and the veterans of Alavna, as well as Hane’s men, Taliesin, Rufinus and the King. As the rump of the ninth entered the mist the Combrogi all raised their swords in silent salute until the last of the Romans were swallowed by the mist. No one spoke. Ursula released the Veil.
Macsen stared after them for a moment, a haunted look on his face. If Ursula had been afraid that Rhonwen might reappear then Macsen had hoped that she would. The disappointment was written on his face. Rhonwen mattered to Macsen. In the end she had not mattered too much to Cadal. Though he had been unhappy to lose his magical bride, he had been content to settle for a beautiful young cousin instead. The alliance was safe without Rhonwen and the women and children were returning on the next tide. There was a real hope that a whole new era was about to begin. It was to be a Combrogi renaissance, but Macsen had paid dearly for it.
He didn’t care what he paid to reward Dan and Ursula who had served his cause so valiantly. He had wanted to burden them with many gifts. He had offered them gold and silver and fine woven cloth. Reluctantly Ursula had accepted a brooch in the shape of an eagle. It was bearing a sword entwined with mistletoe. He’d had it made especially from Raven gold. Dan had been prepared to give up Bright Killer and wanted to give it to Bryn. Bryn refused to take it because it was moulded now to fit Dan’s own hand. Dan had very mixed feelings about the sword. For him it was a potent symbol of his madness. His fondness for it was the sign that he was unfit for the civilisation he had left. Ursula knew his fear. It was not so far distant from her own. Anyway, Dan had taken the sword and in a part of himself been glad to possess it. He also accepted a particularly beautiful Celtic leather sheath tooled with gold.
Dan looked at the Combrogi who remained by the witch-shaped tree. It was hard to say goodbye. It was hard to know that they would never see these men again; Kai who had been a kind of father to them both, Taliesin and the men of Alavna. Dan would have liked to take Braveheart back with him. He loved the dog and knew that his feeling was reciprocated. Because he loved him he knew that he could not condemn him to the restricted life he would lead in Dan’s small suburban house. He gave him to Bryn in so far as Braveheart was his to give and Braveheart seemed to understand. Dan could not bear to be parted from Bryn either. His guilt at leaving him was not as great as that he had felt on leaving Lizzie, but it was bad enough. Bryn had wanted to go with him through the Veil until Dan shocked him with tales of school. It amused Dan that after all the horrors he had seen, Bryn could be so horrified by the concept of sitting in a room and learning to read and write. As for most of the Combrogi, writing was anathema, a curse of the Ravens. Bryn would do well enough. Kai had promised to care for him and train him in the warrior’s ways. Kai would give the boy more affection, Dan knew, than Dan’s own father had managed to give to Dan.
Ursula found she was crying when she kissed Kai and the others goodbye. She was part of their tribe now. She was one of them. It was a liberating feeling to know she belonged somewhere. It was very difficult to give that up. Saying goodbye to Macsen was difficult in a different way. He was a complex man. She could not forget what Kai had said about his liking her. He kissed her hand and looked at her very intently.
‘Ursula, you do not have to go. You could be Queen here of all the Combrogi if you wished it.’
‘Thank you, King Macsen. I am flattered to be so well regarded but in my country I would not be expected to marry for a good while yet. Perhaps later if we were to meet again it would be different …’
He grinned, suddenly a younger-seeming, more carefree man. His burdens would be of a different kind now his people were victorious.
‘Why, Ursula, I do believe you are learning diplomacy. What has happened to Boar Skull of few words and most of them ill-tempered?’
She grinned back. ‘Goodbye Macsen. I wanted to let you know about Rhonwen. I know she lives still. I have heard her calling to me. She saved me, you know, when I was an eagle. It was her voice calling to me that brought me back to the fortress.’ As she said it she knew that it was true and also that she had refused to admit it to herself before. ‘She is alive somewhere and still connected to this world. I’m sure she will find her way back.’
Macsen nodded, sombre again.
‘Thank you for telling me, Ursula. I have thought I sensed her too, in the battle. Let us hope she finds her way back to us.’
He kissed her then just once, swiftly, on the lips. ‘You come back to us too, Ursula. I have not released you from your oaths.’
‘Good luck, Macsen,’ she whispered, and tried to hide her scarlet face from Dan.
Dan embraced Kai and Macsen, Bryn and the bard in warrior fashion. He patted Braveheart and stood alongside Ursula.
‘You’re sure that this won’t take us to second-century Roman Britain?’
Ursula nodded.
‘As sure as I can be.’
Nothing was sure. Craigwen had taught her that. First they had looked like they could not win against the Ravens and then it had looked like they could not lose, but they had very nearly lost, in spite of Rufinus. No, nothing but death was sure. That rather dismal thought gave her courage. If death was the only certainty, in life there was everything to play for. She had no intention of ever standing back and watching from the sidelines again. She moved a little way from her friends to focus her strength on her last act of magic. It was hard to give up such power, such energy, such exhilaration. She knelt down on the damp earth a
nd felt the now familiar magic of the land flow through her. It was time to go. She stuck her sword into the earth, bowed her head in prayer and raised the Veil for the last time.
Dan joined her. She could tell by the look on his face that he too felt the building of that inner tension they knew so well as fear. They were not afraid of the Veil. They were not afraid of landing in the wrong place. Dan trusted Ursula and Ursula trusted herself. Their worst fear lay unspoken between them. Had they been so brutalised by their warrior life that they might be unfit to live in their own world? The deaths they’d caused weighed heavily on both their minds. They felt shy too. They had been so important to each other here. It was hard to imagine being back at school and just being two people in the same year group. Dan was the first to break the silence.
‘Well, this time I’m not losing you in the mist.’
With a final wave to Bryn, Dan grabbed Ursula’s hand. It was cool and strong and comforting. Ursula smiled, grateful for his gesture. Thus linked, Boar Skull and The Bear Sark stepped from Craigwen’s bloody soil into the mists of the Warrior’s Veil.
Afterword
The events described in this book occur in a parallel world, but one which has a lot in common with first-century Britain. In 1984 the body of ‘Lovernios’, a man from this period, was found preserved in a bog and investigations of the body suggest that he may have been ritually sacrificed. I have used the theories of Ann Ross and Don Robins from their book The Life and Death of a Druid Prince (Rider Books, 1989), as a starting point for the fictional Lovernios of my story. My version of druidic belief is, however, true only of the parallel world and is not intended to represent the beliefs of British druids of the period. I’m not sure that anyone really knows what they were. First-century Britain was also a time of genuine conflict between the indigenous peoples of the British Isles and the Roman invaders. In AD 98 Tacitus wrote a biography of his father-in-law, Julius Agricola, who concluded the conquest of Britain. It is a key source of information about the period. Macsen’s speech to his army at the Battle of Craigwen borrows a little from Tacitus’s account of Calgacus’s speech at the Battle of the Graupian Mountain, translated by Anthony R. Birley (Oxford University Press, 1999). The world, the battle and the outcome are very different in his story, but I suspect that the feelings of the men about to meet their enemy would have been the same. Even though the events of this story occurred in another world, this one has had its share of Alavnas throughout its history and continues to have them with horrible regularity.
N. M. Browne
The line from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth featured here is taken from the opening scene, Act I.
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THE WARRIORS STORY CONTINUES IN …
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or call 020 7440 2475
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MORE FANTASTIC FICTION FROM N.M. BROWNE
To order direct from Bloomsbury Publishing visit www.bloomsbury.com/nmbrowne
or call 020 7440 2475
www.bloomsbury.com
MORE FANTASTIC FICTION FROM N.M. BROWNE
To order direct from Bloomsbury Publishing visit www.bloomsbury.com/nmbrowne
or call 020 7440 2475
www.bloomsbury.com
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York
This electronic edition published in September 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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Copyright © N.M. Browne 2000
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Afterword
Also by N.M. Browne
Imprint
