Bard I (13 page)

‘And yon ugly fellow can conjure it all, as easily as a crock of stew! Do you follow me now?’

The robber chief followed, indeed. In a slavering daze he followed, hands a-quiver.

‘The pig! He’s cheated us for years! Where is he?’

‘I can lead you to him,’ Felimid promised. ‘It will please me. Do you know what he did? He began to suspect I was guessing the things I’ve told you, and he tried to slay me-almost with success! It’s why Regan and I were about to leave.’

‘Take us to him, then!’

‘Aye!’

‘Aye!’

‘To be sure. Here, Myfanwy . . . sa, sa. Mount you, Regan.’

‘Stay off the horse!’ one of the robbers snarled.

‘I’ll not stay off her! Regan has been hurt, and this boot of mine is unfit to walk in. I say we ride.’

‘Let ‘em do so,’ growled the chief. ‘Bareback, mounted double, and lacking a bridle, what are you thinking they’ll do, fool? Run for it? In this?’ He waved a hairy arm at the surrounding forest, impenetrable save for the one winding deer path that led away from Pendor’s garden. ‘They wouldn’t run far.’

Felimid helped Regan mount, bending his head to hide the effulgence of triumph in his face. All his talk had been to this end. A few heartbeats more, and Regan had settled herself behind him, arms encircling his waist.

‘Take us out of here.’

Myfanwy did.

The air about them shimmered strangely. Mare, man and woman were gone.

Regan looked north, and the view was wide. Hill and plain were darkened by occasional copses only. Heavy rain had fattened the rivers. But for a few steadings, the Saxons had never settled here, and those were gone now, burned by resurgent Britons inspired by Badon. They would win through.

She dismounted in haste. Their sudden vanishing from the forest, the ride through an other-worldly country on this goddess’s daughter who spoke from a beast’s mouth, had frightened her badly. She didn’t like it. Felimid had seemed to enjoy it. He’s welcome, she thought. Maybe if someone grew up in propinquity with beings like that, he’d not be alarmed. He’d be used to it. They wouldn’t shake his soul. Regan wasn’t used to it, and never wanted to be.

Myfanwy had brought them back to their own world not far from the ruined town of Venta. The forest lay behind them, a sombre mass stretching far to the eastward.

‘We did it,’ Regan whispered. ‘Mother of God, Sanctified Virgin, we did it! We came through the Forest of Andred from east to west! Let me have grandchildren, and I’ll tell them of this!

The bard stroked Myfanwy’s silken neck. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘For my part, I freed a brave lady from a cruel master, slew a spider slavering venom, and showed again what unmatched wit and resource is mine! Kev, though . . . there was nothing I could do for him.’

Myfanwy said, ‘If he knew you pity him, he might truly wonder why.’

‘True for you, lady. Are we parting, then? My hope is that I ‘ll see you another day.’

‘When you are desperate and have need of a fast horse, call me by the name you gave me. I’ll hear and come, Felimid. For now . . . there are fair plains and rivers in a land you’ve never seen, and my kindred wait for me. and a lover or two. I’ve been some time away! May you have a good life and long.’

Rearing, she vanished.

It might have been dreary, after that, to descend to mundane things like eating and walking. It proved not to be. Felimid sang joyously, and Regan chorused along with him. They were alive and free. Regan was going home. The world seemed very fine.

Part of Regan’s happiness came from the smug knowledge that the Lord Avraig’s gold lay wrapped in cloth at the bottom of her satchel. It was all there; the gold pommel of his sword, the gold wire that had bound its hilt, the golden chape and mouth of his scabbard, the buckle, cloak-pin, tore, and harness ornaments. In the excitement of fleeing, Felimid had forgotten it lay in Pendor’s house; his concern lay only with recovering his sword and his precious harp. Regan, however, had remembered. . .

‘MY SENDINGS RETURN’

The eagles have flown from Britain, as geese when the red leaves fall,

And the geese may come back, but never again will the Roman eagles call.

The roads they built are rotting, the law they enforced is a tale

That grandmothers tell to children, or old men babble in ale;

And the forts of stone are forsaken the length of the crumbling Wall.

Felimid mac Fal,
The Forgotten Romans

A
WIND
THAT
WAS
HALF
A
GALE
RAGED
UP
THE
R
OMAN
ROAD
. It buffeted two walking figures, lashing their backs, driving them on. Felimid and Regan came at last to the destination they had sought: Calleva, the Town in the Wood.

The month was March. Grey clouds seethed in a turbulent sky that would soon pelt rain. Behind them and to the east were oak woods tossing like an angry sea. Regan found the town a welcome, promising sight; to Felimid it was less so. He’d no love for the heritage of Rome. Massive gates and constricting stone walls-but here the walls had crumbled in places and been mended with timber palisades, thickly covered with clay to be proof against fire. There were no masons to restore them as they had first been raised.

‘Remember,’ he said,‘don’t speak my name. If you’re asked, I am Paul, and we were captives of the sea-wolves together.’

‘I know, Paul. You’ve told me and told me! By the saints, this town is really a dangerous place for you, isn’t it?’

‘Oh. I’ve friends here. But there are reasons why I may not linger, or show myself as Felimid the bard. Not that I look much like him just now.’

It was true. He did not. The Felimid folk would have recognised went cleanly and elegantly clad. This one wore torn grimy furs and, it seemed, a motley of hard-used cleaning rags. His boots were worn into holes big as oyster shells. The one that had been slit down the front was threaded with makeshift laces to hold it together; the cloak that all Regan’s work had failed to restore, flapped its free ends about like moulting wings.

The harp-bag Felimid carried was wrapped in two blankets, which made it a mere shapeless bundle. His distinctive sword Jay hidden in a cylindrical roll of other belongings, tucked under his arm. A pale reddish beard masked part of his face; only the sea-green eyes and the long fine hands remained unmistakeable.

They mounted the hill to the south gate. A wooden bridge crossed the ditch dug around the walls, and two men with spear, shield and sword guarded the gate. They were bored, and showed it.

‘Now what’s this?’ demanded one. ‘A sea-wolf come to sack the town?’

‘A cur dog all fleas and tatters is more like it! From the south, too. If you wish entry here you will have to be persuasive, man. Who are you?’

‘A Briton of Hamo. The woman and I have been prisoners of the Jutes and not long escaped.’ That wasn’t entirely true, but a short lie seemed better than a long explanation with the first drops of rain coming down.

‘We can both work, and we’ve come far. Suppose you let us in, that we may find shelter.’

‘Suppose we do?’ the senior guard demanded. ‘Have you silver or gold to recompense us for standing here in the wind? Not that I can see.’ He chuckled, and it came to the bard that he didn’t like this fellow. ‘But we may let the girl pay toll for both of you. to both of us. You hear, girl? Just you come into the gate-tower with me.’

‘Na, me first!’ exclaimed the other, impetuous with youth. ‘You have it right, that is a fair toll, but I claim it first. And from as pretty a slut as ever came to this gate. Our luck’s in.’

‘Your luck’s out,’ Felimid said sharply. ‘Far out, and ebbing. What’s happened to manners? Is this how you treat fellow Britons, you lice? Your king would hang you for it, if he knew!’

‘The dirty pigs,’ Regan thought. She had gold in her satchel, but too much of it, that was the trouble. Were there only a scrap. she’d have used it gladly to buy her way past the guards. The amount she did have might well tempt them to murder.

The senior guard had a loosely-muscled face and greying hair. He looked Felimid insultingly from head to foot. ‘You’re no fellow of mine, if you’re even a Briton,’ he said. ‘Have respect and be quiet, or be cut down. As for the wench, if she’s been a captive of Jutes, there’s nothing new we can do to her.’

Regan whitened.

Anger blazed high in Felimid. He hurled the bundle containing his sword into the younger guard’s face, set down the other bundle and sprang forward. The senior guard levelled his spear. Felimid caught it behind the head, and seized the man’s oblong shield (it was of the old legionary pattern) by the lower end. He heaved strongly upward and back. The shield’s upper end struck its owner under the chin, paralysing his larynx. He staggered, face blackening. Felimid wrestled the spear from his shaken grip, and turned to face the younger oaf.

It had been quick, agile and beautifully precise. But now the younger guard was ready, and he knew what he was about.

It didn’t help him when Regan sprang on his back, clawing at his eyes from behind. Felimid struck his legs from under him with the spear-shaft, then hit him solidly between the eyes with the butt as Regan rolled clear. The guard sank low.

Choking after breath, the other fumbled for his sword. Felimid grabbed his arm and the scruff of his neck and jerked him backwards, so that his legs moved in a frantic race to keep him upright. His shield clattered on the bridge. The rail met the small of his back.

Felimid passed an arm behind his knees, and tipped him over. The ditch beneath was twelve feet deep, with glutinous black mud at the bottom to cushion his fall.

He gave a wild squawk as he dropped. A huge slimy splash spattered the bard’s jaw with muck.

‘Inside with us, now,’ he said cheerfully, whisking up the fallen bundles. ‘We’d best be out of sight when they recover.’

They entered Calleva. Regan was pale yet, her small face hard set like a mask with anger and hurt. She had indeed borne worse from the Jutes of Kent, but this had come from Britons, two of her own people.

‘Do you suppose it will be like that all the time?’ she asked. ‘The moment anybody knows where I’ve been?’

‘Na,’ Felimid replied absently. ‘That pair were hogs.

These are good people I’m taking you to see now.’

He barely noticed her distress in his haste, and distress of his own was upon him. Calleva was a Roman town, built to the Roman pattern of straight lines and ordered forms that had dominated Britain for long. In such places, Felimid’s bardic powers left him. He felt them go, thinning away like smoke in the wind. They would not return until he was outside Calleva’s walls once more.

‘A trap,’ he thought. ‘A grey stone trap.’

On their right lay an inn. Felimid barely glanced at it; any inquiries would begin there. They hurried up the main street with its shops and booths, reached the market-square and turned right by the Christian church. Despite the urgency of hiding, Regan found time to be amazed. Before this, the biggest place in her experience had been King Oisc’s burg on the Isle of Thanet. Four hundred, maybe, bad Lived there. Five times that number dwelt in Calleva, and the town’s population had been far larger in former centuries. Nor had she seen anything like the paved streets and big stone buildings.

‘I thought you were having fun with me when you described this place! But it’s all you told!’

‘Did you? It’s as well I didn’t speak of Isca or Glevum, then, for any playful giant could drop this town into either and lose it! Ah, there.’

At the next corner stood a long, two-storied wooden house, its shutters closed against the wind. Its thatch was like dull gold under the dull sky. Felimid led the way through an alley beslimed with mud to a walled yard. Handing his bundles to Regan, he made a spring, caught the top of the wall, drew himself astride it and grabbed the bundles again as Regan tossed them up. Then he helped his companion to scale the wall. They dropped into the yard between a run of witlessly gabbing hens and a neat herbal bed. Instantly a dog raised a racket from behind a timber gate.

Felimid pounded on a door as the rain came drumming down. Footsteps and murmuring followed. A big voice demanded, ‘Who’s there? If you’ve deviltry in mind, you’ve come to the wrong house, I warn you straight!’

‘Ah, let me in, Gavrus, before I’m soaked! What’s a little deviltry between friends?’

‘Who–Felimid!’ The door was hurled wide. Gavrus seized the bard in a mighty, welcoming hug as sudden lightning dazzled the yard. ‘Now this is an answer to prayers oft repeated! Come in!’

‘And gladly! Gavrus, this is Regan, who has a history she’ll maybe tell you . . . and Regan, this is Gavrus the saddler, the best leather worker for two dozen miles around.’

‘In Britain!’ Gavrus said positively. ‘Man, I hardly know you! The poorest farmer in the land ‘ud reject you for a scarecrow, and you stink like a dead goat! Where have you been?’

He kicked the door shut, barred it.

‘In Kent, you insulting fellow. I’d have chosen to associate with dead goats rather, had I been wise, now that I think upon it. This corridor’s very dark . . . are you finding your way, Regan?’

‘With my hand against the wall, yes.’

They entered a lamplit dining-room blending Roman and British traditions. The sensation as they came in was gratifying.

‘See what appeared on the wind!’ Gavrus announced. Seen in the gentle lamplight, he was a short heavy man with enormous shoulder muscles, thick forearms, and powerful hands calloused to the toughness of the leather he worked. His two sons were on Felimid then, with fistings and laughter, all of which he gave back in like manner.

It was a sandy-haired household. The saddler’s firstborn, Veronica (named for a saint, which she was not) had brown hair, as did the younger of her small daughters; but the other was fair-skinned and sandy as her uncles. Both girls squealed, ‘Felimid, Felimid!’ and clamored to be picked up.