Warriors of Camlann (10 page)

Ursula yelled the last with such authority that Bryn gave up the argument, grabbed the reins of Larcius's horse and rode off the road towards a small clump of wind-stunted trees in the distance.

Ursula rode towards Petronax, her sword at the ready. His eyes widened in fear.

‘I'm not going to kill you, you fool! You have a right to defend yourself if these are Aenglisc, but I warn you,
you attack me and you'll die painfully and very slowly.'

With unexpected skill she rode alongside him, cut his bonds and handed him his sword, which she had kept tied to her own saddle.

‘Die well, Petronax!'

She shot him a grin of such ferocity that his blood ran cold. Recklessly, she spurred her horse forward to meet the advancing horsemen.

As she drew nearer she saw they were in Roman dress – more or less, though she had never seen Romans in the short leather trousers that these men wore. One of them, who seemed to be leading, was wearing a long, dark grey hooded cloak but he rode like a Combrogi. She tried to get a grip of the fear and desperate energy, which fired her blood. She had not Dan's skill, so she could not afford his total foolhardiness. She had always been a calmer, more deliberate fighter. She needed to keep her wits; wildness was not her style. The grey man broke away from his escort, urging his horse to a gallop. He did not seem to be wielding a spear, or angon, but she kept herself ready to wheel her mount just the same. He seemed to be shouting something. She strained to hear.

‘Ursula!'

She faltered. She thought he'd shouted her name. No one here knew her name did they?

‘Ursula!' The man in grey threw back his hood.
‘Ursula! Sheath that sword! It's me, Dan!'

It took several moments for that information to percolate through her adrenalin-charged system; longer still for her to recognise Dan's familiar face and form in the unfamiliar clothes. Tears streamed down her face and she could not see at all as she rode blindly towards him.

It was not magic; it was no trick. He was real. Dan was alive!

They rode back to camp on one horse, the fine stallion belonging to Medraut, Count of the Saxon Shore. Ursula had disregarded her usual caution to leap, with Bright Killer shining, from her own horse over on to Dan's. She needed to touch him to be sure that he did still live.

Dan was relieved beyond measure to see her. She clung to his back as they rode. Her unfamiliar touch and her profound joy at finding him shook him a little. He hadn't realised that Ursula's feelings ran so deep – so little showed on the outside. He wanted to tell her about Taliesin, and about his own new power, his determination not to kill any more, but riding like the wildest of wild Combrogi for Camulodunum was probably not the time. Instead, he savoured her happiness and his own – pure and unsullied for the duration of the ride.

Bedewyr welcomed Petronax home and did his best not to show his amusement that the proud veteran had
been captured by a woman. Dan sent the other men Bedewyr had chosen to find Larcius and Bryn.

The summons from Duke Arturus came almost at once, before Dan had done little more than outline what had happened to him and sketch in Taliesin's role. Ursula seemed less concerned than he had expected.

‘Well, you know, Dan, it's not certain that I'd have got us home anyway. There are places I could have taken us to that are a lot worse than this. You don't want to know some of the nightmares I've had about the Veil – back in Macsen's world! I'm just grateful we've both survived.' She was – he could feel it clearly. For the moment, all she could think about was that he lived, and so did she – against the odds. Ursula pushed her hair back from her grimy face unselfconsciously and continued, ‘Anyway, what's this Duke Arturus like?'

‘Not like Macsen. He's cold somehow – not such a leader.'

‘Is he one of the good guys?'

‘He's against Rhonwen and he says the Aenglisc are savages. Are they?'

‘I don't think I saw their caring-sharing side. They were going to kill me and let Rhonwen tell the future from my death throes. What does Taliesin think?'

‘I think he sees these people as Combrogi, even though they seem more Roman to me and some of them don't even speak the tribal languages.'

‘You don't seem convinced, Dan.'

‘I've had enough fighting. All I want to do is go home.'

With that, they were escorted back into Arturus's council chamber where Dan greeted Bryn with a warrior's embrace. Bryn almost glowed with joy that his Lord still lived. Dan fought a lump in his throat. He'd never realised how much he meant to the Combrogi orphan. He made a private vow to be more worthy of the boy's absolute and unqualified adoration.

There was a tension in the air that must have been obvious to anyone. Taliesin stood silently to the left of Arturus while Medraut stood to his right, looking remarkably cheerful in spite of his wound. He did not seem to be in any pain but was being persuaded to sit down by an insistent Brother Frontalis. The walls of the chamber were lined with men. The man Ursula knew as Larcius was lounging on the sheepskin-covered couch. Dan sensed Ursula's sudden confusion when she saw Larcius in clean garments. He realised bleakly that she was very attracted to him. She even blushed. It made him feel acutely uncomfortable.

Ursula had been too busy talking with Dan to change her clothes. She was caked in dried blood and dirt and stank of horses and stale sweat. Her pale blonde hair was filthy and hung like rats' tails around her face. Dan thought she looked beautiful, if in an unconventional way.

The Duke eyed her coldly.

‘Do you claim to be the Boar Skull of legend?'

‘I have been called that, sir, yes,' she said calmly, undeterred by the tension in the air.

‘But you are a woman.'

‘Yes, that's true. Didn't Taliesin tell you that bit?'

She was joking but Dan knew the moment she said it that Taliesin had omitted that part of the tale. Dan glanced at the bard; his lips were drawn into a thin line but his face remained otherwise impassive. Perhaps he'd thought her transformation into the mighty Boar Skull too unbelievable. Ursula was smiling; her joy at finding Dan had put her into an uncharacteristically buoyant mood. It worried Dan because to him she seemed enormously vulnerable. She was taller than almost all the men there, strong and athletically lean, but compared to the burly men all round she seemed young and slight and horribly, innocently, unaware of the disapproval she was generating. Dan felt the waves of it combined with anger that the hero Taliesin had promised was this tall, filthy, straggle-haired girl. He wanted to warn her. She had learned to fight well as Ursula but without her magically-enhanced alter ego, she was no more the Boar Skull than he was the Bear Sark. He sensed trouble.

‘Taliesin neglected to mention that you were a girl, yes, and it makes me wonder how true the rest of his tales were.'

Taliesin said nothing, but Dan felt Ursula's anger begin to blaze. He wished he still had his sword. If they hurt her he was not sure he could keep from killing them all or dying in the attempt. His sword, still moulded to his own hand, was in Ursula's strong grip. They had not thought to disarm her, which summed up their expectations of her.

‘I don't know why Taliesin did not mention my gender; perhaps he did not think it important. I have fought as a Combrogi warrior and I have proved my worth to those whose opinion I respect.' Dan noted how she tightened her grip on the sword and subtly altered her stance. She was not unaware then. He could feel her rising anger but also her battle readiness.

There was a murmuring from the assembled men, a wave of challenge: let her fight.

Ursula glanced around quickly at the assembled men and spoke to them directly. She was afraid now, Dan knew it, but she was ready to do some damage. He prayed silently that there would be a way out. Ursula was good, but without magic, she could be beaten. Ursula herself brought his earnest prayer to an unexpected halt. ‘Come on then! Try me!' she shouted in the commonest Combrogi tongue, accompanying the challenge with a white-toothed smile that had much in common with Braveheart's warning teeth-baring. She dropped into a fighting stance. She turned off her
grimace of a smile – her face became sullen and expressionless, as it always did when she was under threat. Her blankness was strangely intimidating.

The assembled men ceased their muttering as Larcius rose to his feet, somewhat awkwardly due to his wound. ‘For those of you who do not know me, I am Ambrosius Larcius, son of Ambrosius Aurelianus, High King of Britannia, and grandson of Ambrosius Aurelius who wore the purple.'

There was a sharp intake of breath from the assembled men and Dan finally grasped the reason for the underlying tension in the air. Ursula was only part of it. If this Larcius was the son of the High King was he not the new High King? Did he now outrank Arturus?

Larcius waited until silence was restored. ‘I am here now, alive before you, due to the courage and strength of this young woman. She has proved herself to me and I stand as witness to her many stalwart qualities.'

There was silence, then someone from the back shouted, ‘You fight her then!'

Dan sensed Ursula's shock; her mixed pleasure and annoyance at Larcius's somewhat patronising accolade. She did not want to fight him. Dan knew that.

‘He is injured!' Ursula objected, angrily.

‘And you are a woman,' Arturus said softly. ‘Give him a sword!'

Someone took Larcius's cloak and gave him a sword,
not a gladius but a longer Roman spatha. Ursula looked at it in distaste. She spat on her hands and wiped them on her grimy tunic. Dan was worried. If this handsome Larcius were a prince he would have had the best available tuition in the arts of war. Ursula had learned with a hard taskmaster, Hane, himself Roman trained, but even so. Maybe Dan could help her as she had once helped him. Maybe he could enter her mind.

‘Ursula?'

He knew she'd heard him, felt the connection between them, the marrying of minds. It had happened before, in Macsen's world, this strange intimacy at once shocking and familiar. Her answer came back firm and uncompromising, and shocking in its crystal clarity.

‘Get the hell out of my head, Dan. Can't you see I'm busy?'

Larcius circled her with a professional eye. Ursula contrived to look bored. He made a move and Ursula turned his blade away nonchalantly. Her extra height and reach and her longer sword gave her an advantage that Dan had, in his panic, failed to acknowledge.

She parried several more of Larcius's more probing attacks. He was a confident swordsman but Ursula came from the hacking and thrusting school of survival; she looked unimpressed. Dan watched her with growing respect. She was not as quick as Dan himself, but she was always where she should be. She moved without particular grace but with great economy and she was
strong. She turned aside Larcius's blade again and again. The crowd was silent now, watching. If any of the assembled men were true Combrogi they would be betting on the outcome even as Ursula fought. Dan began to get the feeling that Ursula was spinning this out, trying to make Larcius look better than he was. He saw several opportunities she didn't take, and he knew she'd seen them too.

‘Ursula, get on with it. Finish it!'

She did not answer him but thrust forward suddenly with a well-aimed attack and knocked the sword effortlessly from Larcius's hand. It skittered across the mosaic floor amidst silence. Taliesin clapped and Arturus scowled.

‘I hope I didn't reopen your wound.' Ursula sounded genuinely anxious.

Larcius smiled shakily.

‘You have already pierced my heart with your loveliness – the rest is nothing.'

Ursula blushed again. Dan could not believe it.

There was some clamour at the back and yells of ‘Fix!' and ‘He let her win!'

Dan knew Larcius had not let her win, though his overly courtly response might have been designed to suggest that he had. That man had been afraid.

Ursula's irritation got the better of her caution and, with a sinking feeling, Dan heard her shout, ‘Oh, for
Lugh's sake! I'll fight anyone you like but can we do it outside? This room is stifling!'

They walked en masse to the amphitheatre where Dan had fought Medraut the previous day. Dan pushed his way to Ursula's side, though she was effectively under guard. They spoke in English.

‘You heard me didn't you?'

‘Yes, Dan, though I don't think much of your timing. I don't know why you're so surprised, you forget I was once a sorcerer!' Her triumph over Larcius had put her in playful mood.

‘Seriously, how did you hear me and speak back to me?'

Ursula looked suddenly earnest. ‘Things have changed, Dan, but not the connection between us. Have you forgotten how I passed power to you? How you learned the language from me? We are linked somehow, as we have been since Rhonwen first called us.'

Dan was confused by that earnestness, the uncomplicated affection she had for him. ‘No, I've not forgotten. I just didn't think it would still work here. Oh, I don't know. It's all too weird.' He found it increasingly difficult to get his mind round what was happening to him, the strange feeling that his own mind was not a closed entity but receptive to the minds of others. He changed the subject. ‘Listen, are you OK with this fight even though you're not Boar Skull now?'

In Macsen's world, Ursula's magic had first manifested itself in her ability to take on the form of a huge and extremely effective male warrior.

Ursula's grin was mischievous. ‘The funny thing is, I think I am. I don't look like him … er, me – whatever. I don't seem to have his physique and all the rest of it but I feel like I've got the strength and the reactions he, I mean
I
, had when I was Boar Skull. It's great! I loved having that power. I tell you, whoever fights me next is in for a surprise.'