Arturus was right. By noon of the next day the vanguard of the Aenglisc army began to pour onto the land beneath the fortress. Only their leaders rode. The majority of the men walked together in no particular order, each carrying his own personal kit. There was little in the manner of their dress to distinguish them from the less Romanised of their enemies. They all carried shields, mainly large, oval, wooden shields with heavy, metal, central bosses that were themselves pointed enough to be used as weapons. Some carried slightly smaller round shields, but all walked with pride and a certain ease with their weaponry which Ursula recognised as the mark of a warrior. They were more threatening than the Aenglisc she had already fought. They were warriors not soldiers, closer in their demeanour to Macsen’s Combrogi warriors than to Arturus’s trained Romanised forces. It hit her then, the realisation that these men were dressed like those she had seen in a re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings before she first entered the Veil. Like her classmates she had been shouting encouragement to the men in the Aenglisc shield wall as they were charged by the Norman knights. Dan was right. These men might very well be her own ancestors. Few were as tall as herself, but that was probably the result of their diet. Many were blonde as she was, blonde with faces that would not have been out of place in any street in modern England. She had agreed to fight these men and some of them she would kill. She was after all still Boar Skull where it mattered – in the strength of her right arm. She would kill some of these men, unless her own luck ran out quite spectacularly. She moved away from the walkway on the battlements with a growing sense of unease. Could she back out now? Bedewyr, Larcius and Cynfach had also been watching the arrivals. As Ursula turned to walk away she noticed that all of them were watching her closely. There was no way she could back out without harming Arturus’s cause. She was committed. It had seemed so much clearer when she had rescued the Combrogi villagers from the brutal invaders. Here and now the Aenglisc were just another band of men, wanting what was not theirs. Did they deserve to die?
Arturus’s servant saw her walk away, and hailed her.
‘Lady Ursa, the High King and Taliesin would like to see you in Taliesin’s quarters.’
She smiled and the young man flushed, embarrassed to be acknowledged by a hero. It made Ursula uncomfortable, but it was a common reaction. Damn Taliesin and his clever ideas. It was all his fault – he’d turned her into a legend.
Dan was waiting in Taliesin’s tent, his dark cloak giving him a distant, monkish air.
The High King was speaking in furtive whispers to Taliesin but stopped when Ursula entered.
‘Lady Ursa, thank you for coming so swiftly. You have seen them – the war bands?’
Ursula nodded.
I have been talking over our tactics for the battle with Taliesin. We agree that it would inspire the men if you were to lead the charge of the Sarmatians.’
Even in the dimness of the tent Ursula must have looked stunned because Arturus added quickly, ‘It is important that the men have heart. Were not so many of the men Christians, I fear that they would regard you as a goddess.’
Ursula hesitated, and then said cautiously, ‘But, Arturus, you are their leader, their High King, their War Duke – would it not be best for them to follow you?’
Arturus’s teeth flashed brightly in the gloom, a swift, rare smile.
‘Lady Ursa, I am not a fool, and though I wish my men gave me half the adoration they reserve for you, they do not. I win battles. I won battles for my dear friend, the High King Ambrosius; I will do it now for myself. The men and the kings of this island respect my competence, but I have never had their love …’
‘But—’
‘Leave it, Ursula – he’s right. You don’t know how these people feel about you. I do. They would follow you to the gates of hell and back, which is just as well because there are enough Aenglisc to send you there. Taliesin agrees. It’s why he called to us through the Veil.’
Dan’s mental voice was firm and strong. She trusted it. She let her ‘but’ trail away. All she could do was accept the inevitable with the best grace she could manage. She sighed, the smallest, least dramatic sigh she could produce – no more than an exhalation of breath.
‘You’d better tell me what you want me to do.’
By late evening, the land around the ancient hill fort was bright with campfires. The songs of their enemies, raucous and warlike, rang loudly and discordantly through the still night. They stoked the flames of their courage and hate with their fires, their war songs, their sea songs and their sagas.
Dan stood with Braveheart on the battlements. He was protected by the high, wooden parapet and the darkness of his hooded cloak. His body quivered, with an involuntary nervous spasm as the waves of aggression and hate from the Aenglisc threatened to overwhelm him. There were more than a thousand men. Either his earlier estimate had been wrong or more troops had joined the battle force.
The Aenglisc were convinced to a man that they had caught Arturus this time. They could not fail. They saw war as the duty of a man and they gloried in it. They were afraid, of course, but they believed they could win, that they would win and the victory would inspire a hundred tales to fuel the fireside sagas for a thousand years. Somewhere out there in the darkness Dan could feel Rhonwen, readying herself for her own battle. Was she the source of their confidence? Dan was not skilled enough to pick up her particular brand of hate among so many, but he knew it was there. He swung round as he sensed Taliesin approach.
‘I have brought you comfort, Dan.’
Dan tried to smile. He managed a grimace, a twitch of the lips, no more.
Brother Frontalis and Bryn came into view. Bryn carried Taliesin’s harp in a leather case, lined with fur. He removed it reverently. Taliesin settled himself in Combrogi style on the muddy wooden boards of the walkway. He took something from the cord he wore round his neck and began to tune his harp. It was a dark night but for the slight, transient, glimmering moonlight, but Taliesin needed nothing but his harp and his talent, hard won through endless years of practice in Macsen’s world; it had not been lost in the movement between worlds. Taliesin’s quick fingers spun a magical web of musical threads, wove sound to insulate them from the menace in the night. A hush fell over the soldiers in the hill fort. They paused in their clattering and cleaning of kit, stilled and silenced by the haunting harmonies, as Brother Frontalis added his rich baritone to Taliesin’s harp. The night should have swallowed one man’s harp and another man’s voice, but it did not. When Bryn raised his own pure treble, it was as if the stars themselves sang, piercing the darkness with silver clarity. Where Bryn’s voice and Taliesin’s harp sounded there was only beauty and belonging. While they played Dan was free of any feelings but his own.
It was a kind of spell and even when the last lingering chord died Dan sensed a change around him. Arturus’s men were calmer and he was no longer overwhelmed.
‘Thank you.’ Dan’s response was heartfelt. ‘I did not think anything could help but that did.’
‘Can you sense Rhonwen out there?’ Taliesin nodded in the direction of the Aenglisc camp, which now surrounded the hill fort like a sea.
‘She’s there. I know that much – but I don’t know what she plans to do.’
‘We’ll find out tomorrow. I’ve no doubt they will try to provoke a battle, they’re not well placed for a siege. The harvest is in and most of it is in Caer-Baddon or here. Arturus will try to delay the fight until they’re hungry and sick – a few dead sheep in the river will sort them out nicely. The men from Cado have their orders.’
Dan absorbed this information for a moment. ‘But what about our water?’
‘Our barrels of water are guarded night and day.’
‘Rhonwen couldn’t poison us through magic could she?’
‘I don’t think so. If she had the power to strike us all down with a real sickness she would have done it by now.’
‘What are you expecting then?’
‘Only trouble, Dan, no more than that. Let’s get some sleep.’
‘What if they attack tonight?’
‘Then we’ll fight them tonight. But they won’t. They’re too drunk.’
It was true. There was a different quality to the emotions still raging over the fortress wall. Without a further glance at the sprawling enemy camp, Dan followed Taliesin to the neat rows of tents, the familiar stink of the latrines and the powerful odour of horses. When his mum had been alive she had grown roses and had bought manure from the stables. He was not sure she would have been impressed by the association he made between her and the reek from the stables, but nonetheless it gave him comfort and he went to sleep dreaming of home, of his mother and Lizzie, and a carefree, sober father he had not known for years. He longed for those lost days when he had always felt safe. He longed for them so badly that his chest ached and he woke to the sound of the lituus, the morning battle horn, with his face wet with tears.