Warriors of Camlann

by N. M. Browne

  ‘But he’s a king in the stories, not a miserable duke.’ Ursula was scowling. She did not want to believe it. ‘And there wasn’t a Boar Skull in the stories or a Dan or an Ursula,’ she added triumphantly.

  ‘No, but I think there was a Gawain.’

  Ursula looked at him curiously.

  ‘It’s the name Bedewyr gave me when I couldn’t remember my real name – anyway, I think Arturus could be appointed High King. Didn’t you realise? That’s why so many people are here.’

  ‘I don’t know, Dan, it makes my head ache thinking about it.’ Ursula sighed her dissatisfaction. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, does it? If what you said about Taliesin is true and he can’t raise the Veil, and neither can I, unless we can persuade Rhonwen to do us a favour and raise it for us, we’re stuck here with him whoever he is. And I’ve pledged myself to his service.’ She looked suddenly exhausted. ‘I’m cold and fed up of not having proper clothes to wear and this bread’s awful and I don’t want to be a bloody hero and I ache all over.’

  The inn’s Roman heating system no longer worked and the fire, which replaced it, smoked badly and was not up to the task of heating the large main room. Dan put his arm round her in comradely fashion and felt her tense. He spoke before he thought.

  ‘Come here, I’ll warm you up!’ He said it lightly and meant it innocently, but Ursula looked startled. He felt her discomfort and flushed.

  ‘I meant, you could share my cloak.’

  Ursula had jumped awkwardly to her feet, her embarrassment showing through her attempt to sound casual and unconcerned. He knew she did not want to offend him.

  ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll try and use the bathhouse and get warm there. I should change – I think Arturus’s gifts are probably clean clothes and stuff.’

  She was gabbling as Ursula rarely did.

  Dan tried to adopt the same friendly tone of voice. ‘I’m sure Arturus will send a woman to help you.’

  She would need assistance to strap on Arturus’s gift of armour and though he’d helped her when they had trained together in Macsen’s land he knew he couldn’t do that anymore.

  ‘I’ll see you at the feast, then!’

  As she left he swore inventively under his breath and squirmed internally. He didn’t know quite when it happened but he found himself – well – he found that he fancied Ursula. It didn’t seem right; she was the best friend he’d ever had, Boar Skull, his comrade in arms. He was closer to her than he’d been to anyone and now, of all times, he had to start noticing how beautiful she was. He didn’t want her to know; he was sure she didn’t feel the same way – yet how could he hide his feelings from someone who could sometimes read his mind? He struggled to his feet, stumbling over his long priestly robe, and tried to excise the embarrassing moment from his thoughts.

  Dan tried to decide whether or not to wear the gifts that Arturus had sent. They were soldier’s clothes and he had the strong feeling that Arturus had granted him great honour by offering these garments. They were largely of Roman manufacture and of a quality absent from the cruder garments that many of the men wore. They felt old and valuable. There was a felt shirt, a soft woollen tunic and a shirt of silvered scale armour. It was much polished and showed not the slightest sign of tarnish. There was an elaborately decorated belt, not as finely made as his scabbard, but of good, well-cured, dark leather and an elaborate silver buckle. There were long, soft, woollen trousers dyed a deep red colour, dark leather pointed boots with a strong sole, and a thick, blue cloak with a large and heavy gold brooch in the shape of a crossbow. There was also a spectacular heavy, crested, silver helmet, decorated with huge coloured-glass stones. Dan was tempted by the splendour of it all. He was vain enough to know that he could not fail to look suitably heroic in such a costume, that it might impress Ursula, but it would only be a costume; he was not the Bear Sark any more. He dressed himself in the tunic, belt and leggings; the pointed boots were too small for his size ten-and-a-half feet. Then, with a slight pang of regret he put on Taliesin’s grey cloak and his empty Celtic scabbard and walked alone to Arturus’s villa.

  The first person he saw was Ursula. It took him a moment to recognise her because she was dressed as a Roman, complete with gilded helmet and fine-linked chain mail. She looked magnificent. Arturus had obviously decided that if she fought like a man she should dress like one. She gave Dan an embarrassed grin.

  ‘You didn’t put your stuff on?’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Nah, it didn’t seem right.’

  ‘This helmet is really heavy and so is the mail shirt. I feel a right nerd. I don’t think I can keep it on for long.’

  ‘I think you should, you look like Taliesin’s hero.’

  ‘But why won’t you wear yours?’

  ‘I’m not a berserker any more, Ursula, and I can’t fight when I know how it feels to be my own victim. You do understand don’t you?’

  ‘Not really, I mean, you can fight without being a berserker. I heard that you beat a horde of Aenglisc. Bedewyr told everyone in Camulodunum about that.’

  ‘It just doesn’t feel right.’

  Ursula saw Dan’s pained expression. His face was more strained than she’d ever seen it. His eyes had a haunted look. She had once been terrified of his berserker madness, but now she missed that capacity in him. Even without her magical perceptions she knew it was gone and that what he was going through now was every bit as frightening for him as his madness had once been. He had told her about his new gift of empathy; she was not sure it was a gift at all. She wondered if he could feel her own conflicting emotions. She wanted him by her side, Bright Killer in his hand, making everything safe for her. There had been a kind of security in the knowledge of his killing power. In a world where she had already faced death more than once such knowledge was comforting. In Macsen’s world he had been her anchor in an alien land. Here, he was so unlike himself, so uncertain in his plain druidic robes. She was worried about him. She put her hand to his shoulder as if she were still Boar Skull.

  ‘Dan, I don’t have to understand. If you say you don’t want to fight anymore that’s enough for me. I know you’re no coward. We’re in this together, right?’

  He grasped her arm, Combrogi fashion, relieved beyond belief that she had chosen this moment to reassure him. He felt nervous without his sword, diminished, less a man, in a place where battle skills seemed as important as ever they had been to Macsen’s Combrogi. He smiled.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve committed us to with all that pledging, Ursula. We’d better go and find out.’

  Dan removed his arm from hers, quickly, so there could be no misunderstanding and the two of them walked together, comrades once more, towards the soldiers guarding the villa.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The feast was a curious mixture of Combrogi and Roman. Low tables had been set in a square so that all present faced one another. Duke Arturus sat with Medraut and Larcius at his right hand and a woman in long flowing robes on his left. He rose when he saw Dan and Ursula enter the room. The assembled guests started to bang their horn goblets on the table in what Ursula hoped was approval. Taliesin sat next to Medraut. He looked grave when he saw Dan’s grey clothing.

  Arturus gave a tight smile ‘Welcome to the heroes of the Celtic wars! We are honoured to have you with us.’

  Dan nodded in acknowledgement of the welcome, conscious of too many emotions eddying round the room. Taliesin and Arturus were displeased that he had failed to arrive in the resplendent armour of a warrior. The woman sitting next to Arturus gave Ursula a pointedly envious look, though whether it was because of the splendour of her apparel, her athletic figure, or the warmth of her reception from the assembled guests, Dan could not tell. Ursula herself was exultant, basking in the approbation of the men. He realised with a small shock that she was a girl for whom acceptance and affection were relatively new experiences; she had always been an outsider at school. Here she looked happy and relaxed, as though all that had happen
ed to her in Macsen’s land and in this one had been for the better, and all the horrible sights, the mutilation of battle, the pain and the hardship they had seen had only made her stronger. It was amazing. He could not blame her for it. He was glad she was happy. All he felt was guilt.

  Arturus introduced him to many of the assembled dignitaries. Most were soldiers although some had brought their wives, whose bright robes and flashing jewellery vied with the splendour of the military armour. There were also a few elaborately dressed civilian men who held positions of importance. Dan guessed that it was a gathering of almost all the powerful members of the Combrogi alliance. He touched the arm of each guest, even the women, and murmured words in whichever language was their mother tongue. He had learned the commonest idioms when he had served Macsen. They seemed surprised and pleased. He felt horribly disoriented as in the brief moment of contact he was engulfed by the emotions of each individual. He felt like a cork bobbing in a vast ocean of sensation and was in danger of being overwhelmed. As had happened so many times before, Ursula saved him.

  ‘Dan, come and sit down. No one can eat until we do. You’re not the bloody Queen – you don’t have to greet everyone by name. Come on, please, I’m starving.’

  The clear voice in his head reminded him he was Dan and he went to take his place by Ursula as Arturus introduced the envious woman next to him.

  ‘This is my Lady Gwynefa, daughter of the Count of Britannia, King Meirchion Gul of Rheged. We are to be married when Taliesin says the time is auspicious, when Brother Frontalis can organise the service, and when her father arrives with his five hundred heavy cavalry, which is her dowry.’

  He tempered this blunt remark with a smile of unexpected warmth for his Lady and an oddly boyish grin. Perhaps he had the makings of a leader after all.

  The Lady Gwynefa smiled too. She was plumply pretty with dark curls swept up in some complicated arrangement of combs and decorative clips, pale green eyes and olive brown skin. She was no older than Ursula and may have been younger, but she was remarkably self-assured and confident of her own beauty and seemed determined to engage Dan in flirtatious conversation. He was glad of the distraction. Keeping his mind on her prevented it straying to the many undercurrents of tension within the room and almost prevented him from noticing Ursula giggling with Larcius. There was something incongruous about a fully armoured Roman soldier giggling but no one but Dan seemed to notice. Try as he might he could think of no other occasion on which Ursula had giggled.

  The interminable meal was not over when he became aware that something very bad was happening. Unconsciously, his hand reached for the sword he no longer wore. He could feel a terrible menace, like storm clouds gathering to block out the sun. Dan glanced in Taliesin’s direction and saw the older man pale and put down the morsel of meat he’d been about to eat. Their eyes met. Dan felt sick. Horror was moving in their direction. He saw the laughing, drinking, feasting faces of those around him in a kind of horrible slow motion. They did not know it but the bad thing was almost here.

  The shrill bugling call of a trumpet sounded an alarm.

  Arturus was at his feet at once. ‘Arm yourselves, men!’

  He rushed from the table as men threw down their drinking vessels and raced for their weapons which, in accordance with old Combrogi ways, they had left outside the hall.

  ‘What is it? You felt it too, didn’t you?’ Dan whispered to Taliesin.

  ‘Death and destruction and human misery, Dan. I would guess the Aenglisc have attacked a settlement nearby and will now be cutting down all those who’ve tried to escape. It’s happened before.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘I don’t joke about massacres, Dan.’

  Ursula ran to his side, strapping on a borrowed sword, a second sheathed weapon tucked underarm.

  ‘I took this from Bedewyr,’ she said, thrusting Bedewyr’s spare sword into his hand.

  ‘Please take it. Don’t use it if you don’t want to, but have it near.’

  He could not resist the mute appeal of her eyes. He sheathed it in the fine Combrogi scabbard under his robe, and joined the others who ran for the city walls to see what was coming their way.

  Perhaps fifty people were hurrying in their direction. Some were in family groups, some supported injured men and women staggering along the Roman road. Many were bloody and all were distressed beyond measure. Dan could feel their anguish and grief. Unwanted pictures flashed through his mind: whole families being hacked to pieces, houses set on fire with the inhabitants still in them. He heard the screaming and the shrieks of pain of those now dead, forever remembered in the minds of the survivors. As if that were not bad enough he felt the terrible fear of the people now fleeing to Camulodunum. They were being pursued.

  ‘Ursula, the Aenglisc are harrying them. Get a horse. Arturus, get archers – the Aenglisc are coming!’

  Dan ran for the stables. Ursula was only a pace behind.

  ‘What’s going on, Dan?’

  ‘They’re refugees. There’s been a massacre – like Alavna. I think some of the Aenglisc are chasing the refugees, hunting them on horseback. They’re terrified, Ursula, and a lot of them are carrying children.’

  He turned to see that Bedewyr and Quiriac were within earshot. Bedewyr said something to the grooms, who quickly had all four of them mounted. Braveheart, hearing his master’s voice, leaped up at Dan. Bryn was moments behind.

  ‘Bryn, stay here!’ Ursula snapped in a tone that brooked no argument. Her face was grim.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  Townspeople hurried out of their way as they set off at a canter for the city gate. The great door was already open to let in the first few refugees. A woman bleeding profusely from a deep head wound, her eyes blank with shock, muttered, ‘The Aenglisc have come – they killed hundreds!’ Then she sunk to the ground.

  Ursula noted the deep gashes on her arms where she must have held up her hands to protect herself. They did not pause but rode forward. Dan glanced up and saw the top of Arturus’s head as he gave rapid orders to the archers on the ramparts. They galloped past the few groups of refugees close enough to the city gate to be safe. Braveheart ran at Dan’s side, elated to be free of the confines of the city. Dan could sense the dog’s excitement; it was the only positive emotion he could perceive. He had to fight to block out the horror and the fear that was pouring from these people as freely as their blood and tears. There were Aenglisc ahead, he could smell them.

  ‘There they are!’ Quiriac shouted.

  In the distance, Dan could make out three men on horseback, whooping and shouting with wild pleasure at the chase. The bulk of the Aenglisc had obviously stayed at the village while these few pursued their sport. One of them rode past an unarmed girl and cut her down with his sword so she fell on the tilled earth.

  Dan could feel his fury build. He spurred his horse on and unsheathed his borrowed sword.

  He was close enough now to feel the mad joy of the mounted Aengliscman as the young girl died, screaming for mercy. He was close enough to feel her terrible fear and pain. The man’s eyes widened as he saw Dan, his grey robes flying, ride screaming towards him. Fury blinded Dan to any thought of his own safety – he was as reckless as he had been in his deepest berserker frenzy. Dan rode hard till he was parallel with his enemy. The man spoke to him and though he could not understand the words he knew they were said in mockery because the Aengliscman believed Dan to be a priest. The man was a warrior unlike the other Aenglisc he had fought. He wore a boar-crested helmet of gilded iron, a loose mail shirt, and carried a sword. He raised it in his own defence but Dan was too quick. Carefully timing the blow, Dan hefted Bedewyr’s sword two-handed at the enemy’s neck. The momentum of Dan’s still moving horse carried the powerful stroke forward and the Aengliscman’s head was hacked from his shoulders. Dan had little experience of fighting on horseback and was grateful that the combat had been brief. He did not know how effective he could have been if his opponent h
ad taken the offensive. A short fight was bad enough. He had felt the man’s surprise as the sword severed his spine. The man’s last thoughts were the horrified realisation of the inevitability of his own death. They were imprinted indelibly on Dan’s mind. He would never be rid of them.

  He looked down at the sprawled form of the girl. Her head was tilted a little to one side and he could see the soft curve of her youthful cheek. He did not need to dismount to know that she was dead and it was her life’s blood that had ebbed away to soak the earth.

  He had not meant to kill again. He regretted the act at once. What good had it done? The girl was still dead and now her corpse was joined by another to pollute the fertile fields outside Camulodunum.

  ‘Dan!’ Ursula’s scream of warning inside his head shook him from his regrets. Two mounted men were bearing down on him with spears raised. The first threw a viciously barbed wooden spear in his direction. He ducked neatly and it whistled over his head to land harmlessly in the rain-softened ground. The Aenglisc’s sword was out and he was charging towards Dan, screaming something unintelligible. Dan prised the spear from the ground. His only reasonable response was to turn his horse to gallop towards his attacker. A good enough horseman not to worry about losing his seat, Dan clutched his sword in his left hand and the smooth shaft of the spear in his right. It was a well-made weapon. He had never thrown a spear at an enemy, but had excelled at javelin throwing at school. He found the point at which it balanced and tried to estimate how far ahead of his enemy he should aim in order for the spear point to hit its mark. He had no experience to build on, only his normally reliable fighting instincts. Twisting slightly in the saddle to avoid damaging his horse, he let the weapon fly. He sensed rather than heard it punch through the boiled leather breastplate of his adversary, and the man toppled from his horse. Dan was doubled over by a sudden pain in his own chest; he could hardly breathe. The Aengliscman was dying in agony and Dan found himself fighting for his every breath. He swayed in the saddle and would have fallen but he knew he was still in danger and with huge effort pulled his thoughts from the dying man’s pain. The second mounted man had taken some time to arrest his horse’s charge and steer it in Dan’s direction. He readied himself for another attack, but then Ursula’s voice came clearly into his mind.