Warriors of Camlann (24 page)

It was not long before Dan rode towards her, his dark robes flowing. He did not pause to explain. ‘Get up! I think she's about a mile from here. Taliesin thinks she'll try to get away.'

Ursula did not argue but mounted up behind Dan, hoping his pony, which would not have been used in the
charge for a good reason, was up to carrying the additional weight. Neither of them spoke. Braveheart loped beside them, his long legs easily keeping pace with the pony. Ursula knew that Dan was aware of her mixed emotions and her revulsion for the horror she had helped perpetrate. She was grateful that he did not say, ‘I told you so.'

The battle stench did not abate perceptibly as they rode. So powerful did the vile stink remain that Ursula began to wonder if it was herself she could smell. Would she ever be able to smell anything else?

Dan saw Rhonwen first, kneeling by a grove of trees. She had put to one side her cloak of skulls and wore only a thin, stained, silk shift. Her luxuriant, dark hair fell to her waist. She was singing, crooning almost, in a low voice and Ursula felt her nerves tingle and jangle at the magic. Rhonwen was raising the Veil.

Ursula and Dan dismounted as quietly as possible, much to the relief of the pony. Rhonwen showed no sign of having heard them. She was deeply involved in the ritual of her own technique for calling the yellow mist, dissolving the barrier between worlds. Ursula closed her eyes against a sudden attack of dizziness. She could feel the Veil pulling at her at some deep level, calling to her, and she had not the power to answer. Dan obviously perceived her distress. He did not speak for fear of alerting Rhonwen but reached for her hand and
held it. She fought to stay calm. Something began to be visible, metres from Rhonwen's kneeling form. It began as a small yellowish blur, like nicotine-tainted air, and then grew until the area of swirling yellow was perhaps two or three metres wide.

‘Where do you think she will go? Back to her brother, to King Macsen?'
Ursula asked.

‘I don't know, but I can't stay here. Taliesin thinks swapping worlds changes your abilities. I would do almost anything to be rid of this bloody empathy.'
Dan's mental voice sounded desperate. Ursula sneaked a glance at his shadowed face and was shocked by the pallor and the tension there. She thought about what he said. If, say, they followed Rhonwen back to Macsen's world there was a chance that Ursula would once more be able to wield the magic. Once she had the magic back she could raise the Veil herself and steer them both home.

‘What do you think?'
Dan was responding to her close scrutiny of him with a hard look of his own.

‘I want to risk it,'
Ursula said firmly.

‘What have we got to lose?
'

‘
Well, we could die.'
Honesty required that Ursula did not spare him the truth. Bryn managed to follow them successfully through the Veil, but he might have been exceptionally lucky. Ursula knew that in Macsen's world she had wielded more power than Rhonwen commanded even here. What if Rhonwen's way through the
gate was more unstable, not strong enough to allow the passage of two more people?

‘What about Bryn?' Their responsibility for the young Combrogi struck Ursula forcibly and she spoke out loud.

‘Taliesin would care for him, I'm sure. He is very gifted. He might be the bard's apprentice Frontalis thinks he's looking for.'

‘Would he want that?'

Ursula knew that Bryn would not want that but she hoped by asking the question, Dan would realise it for himself.

‘If I go back for him – we'll miss our only chance to get home.'

Dan's face was growing paler by the minute.

‘Ursula, I swear, if I stay here I'll die. I cannot endure all this pain. I can show you what it feels like if you want.'

Ursula shook her head. She believed him. She did not need the kind of proof he had in mind.

‘Dan, how can we leave a message for Bryn?'

‘He can't read.'

‘But Arturus can.'

They both looked around wildly for something to write on as the power building in the Veil grew towards a climax. Ursula thought her head might burst with the intensity of it. The mist's power was like an impending
storm and they would need to be ready to enter into the eye of it. Braveheart wore a heavy, leather collar that one of the grooms had fashioned from a damaged leather belt. Ursula grabbed and removed it with trembling, eager hands and scratched a message with her belt knife into the soft leather.

‘HAD TO GO, BRYN, OR DAN DIES. SORRY.'

‘I feel terrible – it will be the third time I have let him down.'

Ursula closed her eyes against the pull of the Veil. Rhonwen was standing and beginning to step through. Ursula could bear it no longer; grabbing Braveheart by the scruff of his neck and Dan by his arm she dragged both of them towards the swirling yellow mist and walked through to its heart. She recoiled from the oiliness of the yellow droplets of mist, from the coldness and the strange way it made her feel. It was wrong to leave Bryn behind. She knew it was wrong and she had no excuse. She wanted the magic again and she wanted Dan to live. That was all there was to it. She was sure, even as the mist engulfed her, that those were not good enough reasons to abandon an eight-year-old boy in an alien world.

It was all too familiar. They emerged from the Veil into the unknown, their hands locked. Braveheart sneezed and whined; it must have seemed very strange to a dog. He hung his head and dropped his tail dejectedly between his legs. They emerged sometime in a summer afternoon. Birds sang and trees rustled. They were in a forest glade with dappled golden sunlight dancing around them as a light breeze tossed the leafy branches overhead. There was no sign of Rhonwen. They had no way of knowing when or where she might be and they could have been in their own time or in any other.

‘We didn't die then?' Dan said, without noticeable emotion.

Ursula shook her head. For an instant she had almost felt she could control the Veil, but here and now there was still no magic. She couldn't disguise her disappointment. She shook her head again when Dan asked, ‘Do
you think we're home?' It did not feel like home. ‘Can you …?'

Dan looked bleak. ‘I know you're disappointed that you couldn't direct the Veil, and a little afraid, so, yes, I can still empathise. What if I'm stuck with that for ever?'

Ursula did not need exceptional empathy to hear the fear in his voice.

‘Dan.' She made him meet her eyes. ‘One problem at a time! Let's find out where we are. I think we might see more from the top of the hill.'

The forest floor sloped steeply in one direction towards what looked like a ridge. Ursula did not have a good feeling about this. Ursula's riding boots were smooth-soled and gave her little purchase on the dry earth. Dan had to help her up the steep forested slope, which was surprisingly slippery. The air was warm and Ursula was conscious of her own battle filth and the weight of her mail. She did not think it wise to take it off and gripped her sword with her right hand as tightly as she held Dan's hand in her left. Braveheart explored the forest floor excitedly. He shook himself once to be free of the lingering dampness of the mist and now seemed content, racing around in front of them like a puppy. Ursula was panting when they reached the top. She pushed a hand through her hair and was horrified to find it stained with gore.

‘Have I been cut?'

Dan looked at her, appraisingly. ‘No, I think it's someone else's blood and there's some gunky stuff in your hair as well.'

‘What do you mean,
gunky stuff
?'

Dan shrugged. ‘You've just fought in a bloody massacre, Ursula – you're splattered with all kinds of stuff, and so is Braveheart. It will wash away.'

The same could not be said of the sensations of pain and loss and anguish that still seemed to pollute his own thoughts.

‘Don't complain, Ursula, you didn't hear the men you killed scream inside your head.' Dan sounded uncharacteristically bitter.

He had let her hand go and Ursula wished he hadn't. Climbing up to the ridge had not helped much, all they could see below them was grassland in front of them and forest to both sides.

‘We're not home are we?' Dan said heavily. ‘There isn't a road in sight.'

‘No noise either – just birds. I'm sorry, Dan.'

‘At least it got me away from the battle. I don't think I could have endured any more of that. Where should we go?'

‘Straight on. Looks like it might be cultivated further over that way.'

Dan's face looked grey in the sunlight and beaded with sweat. He took off his long grey cloak and rolled it
into a bundle. Ursula was surprised to see that underneath it he wore the scale armour that Arturus had given him. Bedewyr's sword was at his hip.

He shrugged. ‘Frontalis thought it was a good idea – when we were travelling – I didn't get round to taking it off.'

‘I can tell,' said Ursula with a delicate wrinkling of her nose, though she knew that she must smell at least as bad.

Dan grinned, and she suddenly realised how unusual that had become.

‘At least we're alive and we didn't get separated.' She tried to sound bright but she knew as well as he did that, as she had not recovered her magic, their chances of leaving this new world were virtually nil.

‘Let's hope we've landed somewhere peaceful.' Ursula continued in the same rather forced tone. ‘Do you think I should try to clean up a bit?'

‘Stay as you are. You look terrifying – that might be useful.'

‘Do you know something I don't?'

Dan glanced at her quickly, as if gauging her reaction.

‘I think I can sense something – soldiers, I think. Over there.'

Ursula worked her sword out of its scabbard. She had sheathed it dirty and it stuck badly. She cleaned it up as best she could. Dan unsheathed his too.

Ursula looked at him questioningly.

‘I won't let anyone hurt you,' he said tersely, and Ursula wisely said nothing. Dan called Braveheart to heel.

They walked together more cautiously, keeping to the tree line for cover for as long as possible. There was a road, no more than a cart track running across the grassland, too narrow to be seen from the ridge. They started to walk along it. Tracks had to go somewhere and they could not stay in the middle of nowhere for very long. In the distance they could make out two mounted men.

‘What do you think?'

Dan shrugged. ‘I don't know, Ursula – we don't know that they're hostile. Let's assume that they're not.'

He sheathed his sword. Reluctantly, Ursula followed suit.

‘Can you make out how they're dressed?' Dan asked.

‘I think they're wearing helmets.'

‘Riding helmets?'

Ursula shot him a look. ‘You wish! No, I think they've got ridge helmets on.'

‘Like Arturus's men?' Dan squinted up the road but could make out nothing clearly.

‘Yes, or Aenglisc – they wore the same sort of thing.'

Ursula's heart was beating too fast again, the familiar tattoo of fear. She was tired and hot and hungry. She felt
quite tearful. She knew it for certain now. They were not home.

They stopped then, the three of them, and waited for the riders to come into view. Ursula had the best eyesight – in daylight anyway. She identified them first.

‘I think they're Combrogi, light cavalry. Cerdic's men.'

Dan looked shocked. ‘We're still in Arturus's world?'

‘Don't know – looks like it. What can you sense?'

‘I'm trying not to sense anything.'

Dan had never looked less relaxed. He was tensed as if against a blow.

Ursula did not recognise the men who stopped a couple of metres in front of them.

Dan held Braveheart by the loose fur round his neck to prevent him from threatening the mounted men more intimately. As it was he bared his bloodstained teeth menacingly.

The riders were clearly uncertain of what to make of a tall, blood-spattered girl in chain mail and her grim-faced companion and war hound. Neither of the men dismounted.

‘State your name and business. You trespass on the High King's land.'

They spoke the heavily inflected Latin they had become used to among Arturus's men.

‘You mean the High King Arturus?' Ursula ventured.

‘Your name?' repeated the bigger of the two men.

‘If you are Cerdic's men you will know me. I am Ursa, and this is Gawain.'

There was a sharp intake of breath from the riders.

‘You fought with Cerdic?'

‘We did not fight together but for the same side, yes,' said Ursula, uncertain of the reason for their obvious agitation.

‘Then you, too, must be a traitor and will suffer a traitor's fate. I suppose you know Medraut too?'

‘Do you mean Medraut, Count of the Saxon Shore?'

‘He means Medraut, ally of the Aenglisc and traitor to the Combrogi cause – what other Medraut is there?'

Dan spoke for the first time, keeping his voice calm and level. The younger of the two riders was red in the face with outrage at the very name of Medraut. It occurred to Dan that they had emerged from the mist into a world almost like the one they had left, but subtly different in ways likely to get them killed.

‘Forgive us,' he said as smoothly as Larcius might have done. ‘We have been away and clearly much has changed since our last visit. The High King is?'

‘Ursus, as every right-thinking Combrogi knows, defender of the faith and champion of Britannia.'

‘Ursus?'

‘High King Arturus Ursus, known to his soldiers as Ursus, since his triumphant victory at Baddon Hill.
Where can you have been that you don't know of his slaughter of nine hundred Aenglisc at one charge, as he wielded the enchanted blade, Caliburn, torn from the stone of the earth by his own hand?'