Daughters of Fire (71 page)

He backed away a little. ‘Can we talk first?’ He was still panting slightly, feeling the rock slippery under his feet.

She had scarcely any strength left, but she raised the knife and pointed it towards his chest. ‘What have we to talk about?’

‘We could talk about Medb. Venutios killed her, you know.’

‘Which is why she’s so angry.’ Peggy smiled. ‘You think I didn’t know that?’

‘She’s angry because Venutios vowed that one day he and Cartimandua would be together again.’ He paused. ‘Be careful, Mrs Steadman. It’s slippery from the spray.’ Hugh edged backwards, still trying to catch his breath.

She shook her head. ‘She was trying to use Pat. But Pat is weak. She is useless. She needed someone stronger.’ She waved the knife again.

‘Are you saying she needed you?’ Hugh shook the spray off his face.

‘Of course me! She has given me such power, even without the brooch! And all I have to do to please her is to kill Venutios! To make sure he never makes his peace with Cartimandua!’ She laughed.

‘And I walked into your trap.’ Hugh sighed.

‘Convenient, wasn’t it!’ She was beaming. ‘One life. Two men. A professor and a king. How lucky can one get!’

Hugh glanced round in spite of himself. Was Venutios there? Venutios who had killed Medb with his bare hands. He was too frightened to feel anything save the cold damp from the spray seeping into his shirt. The woman’s face was implacable as she watched him. ‘Can you see him?’ he asked. Engage her. Try to keep her talking.

She nodded.

He shuddered, resisting the urged to turn round and look where she was looking. ‘Tell me what he looks like.’ Somehow he had to distract her, see if he could get round beyond her to the safety of the cliff wall. He took a small side step and then another. The ground was shaking with the roar of the falls.

‘He’s tall; tattooed with war paint.’ She narrowed her eyes. She was staring at a point just behind him. In spite of himself Hugh felt a shiver of pure terror. ‘He is very close to you,’ she went on. Her tone was conversational now. She shifted her grip on the knife.

‘Because he doesn’t want me to die, Mrs Steadman,’ Hugh stated. ‘On the contrary. He is anxious to keep me alive. He needs me.’

He could hear someone coming. A branch cracked further up the hillside and he heard footsteps slipping on the scree, tripping over tree roots, pushing through the curtains of wet leaves. ‘Down here!’ he shouted suddenly.

She smiled. ‘No one can save you.’

‘Ma?’ Steve’s voice reached them over the sound of the water. ‘Where are you?’

She looked up at that, surprised. ‘Steve?’ she called. ‘You’ve come back!’

Steve slid the last few feet down the wet rockface and landed a few feet from Hugh, the dogs after him. He saw the knife in her hands and recoiled. ‘Ma? Is that one of your Sabatier set? What are you doing?’

‘The gods need blood.’ She shrugged. ‘Medb needs blood.’

‘What rubbish!’ Steve stepped towards her. She swung the knife towards him and he stopped.

‘We’re going to have a party.’ She brushed some spray off her face. ‘Venutios has to drink our health before he jumps.’

‘Shit!’ Steve glanced at Hugh desperately. ‘A party sounds like fun, Ma,’ he said cautiously. He looked round. She and Hugh were
so close to the edge, if either slipped they would plunge into the falls. She was holding the knife in front of her with both hands. ‘Take my bag, Steve.’ She slid the strap over her head and dropped it on the ground. ‘I’ve brought mead.’

Steve reached over and hesitantly he took the bag as the dogs cowered behind him, staring at her. He had never seen them behave like that before. ‘Go on.’ She nodded towards it.

He opened it and withdrew the small brown bottle and two plastic mugs. ‘We have to drink a toast in mead,’ she went on casually. ‘Unscrew the bottle.’ She watched him do it. The sweetness of honey and herbs was so strong he could smell it over the scent of the river and the wet ferns and moss all around them. ‘First a libation.’ She gestured with the knife. ‘An offering to the goddess.’

He poured a small drop out over the edge of the path into the falls.

‘Now, for you and Venutios.’

Steve glanced at Hugh desperately. ‘The police are coming,’ he mouthed. He doubted if Hugh could hear him against the roar of the waters. Hugh was moving very carefully along the rock towards her now, as Steve poured mead into the two mugs. His hands were shaking.

‘Give him one.’ She swung the knife towards Hugh. He froze.

Steve sniffed at the mug cautiously. ‘Bloody hell, this smells pretty potent, Ma.’ He glanced back at his mother.

She smiled. ‘It is. A drink fit for the gods. An ancient recipe.’

He took a sip and then another. After the initial bitterness it was extremely good.

‘Why don’t you sit down, Steve. Here, on the rocks where it’s safe. Then you can watch.’ She had found a flat place high above the water. ‘This is perfect. A moonlit tryst.’ She was watching them both carefully. ‘Drink!’ She waved the knife at Hugh.

Hastily he took the mug from Steve.

‘Don’t touch it, Hugh.’ The voice suddenly so close behind her took Peggy by surprise. She swung round. Meryn was standing on the path. He raised his hands in a gesture of openness. ‘Mrs Stead-man. The gods do not need a sacrifice. It is the wrong time.’ His voice was strong.

‘You dare to tell me what the gods want?’ Peggy sneered. ‘I don’t know who you are, but this is none of your business! Drink it!’ She was pointing the knife at Hugh again.

Hugh raised the mug to his lips. It smelled sweet, but then mead always was, with behind it a bitter herbal undertone. Even the aroma made him feel unsteady. He lowered the mug without tasting it, staring out across the falls, mesmerised by the thunder of water on the rocks below.

Peggy smiled. ‘It’s good, isn’t it.’ She turned to Steve.

Nodding, he took another sip.

Meryn glanced at Hugh. Venutios was standing immediately behind him. As Meryn watched, the two figures blended into one.

‘Hugh!’ Meryn stepped closer. ‘Move away from the falls.’

Hugh didn’t hear him. It was Venutios who shook his head. ‘This woman wants to perpetuate Medb’s spite. She has to die. She can be a sacrifice to the gods.’ His voice blended with the thundering of the waters behind him.

Meryn edged closer. ‘The gods forbid this! The omens are wrong!’

‘Sacrifice?’ Steve looked up. He took another sip from the mug.

Behind them the moonlight swirled in the spray.

‘Venutios! I forbid this!’ Meryn moved closer. His voice was formidable against the roar of the falls.

Venutios held his gaze. ‘Medb died with a curse on her lips. She made promises which need to be broken!’

‘No. Listen to me! This is forbidden!’ Meryn was very close to him now. ‘This woman is not a suitable messenger. She is tainted.’

Peggy looked round at him. She seemed confused. The knife wavered in her hand. The moonlight on the water was dazzling. The moment had come and she was ready. With a smile she stepped towards the edge of the path.

Carta kissed Vellocatus on the forehead as he lay unconscious on their bed, covered with furs to keep him warm, then she walked out through the great gates in the rampart walls. Vivienne would helpVellocatus. She would save him in exchange for a sacrifice. She would make everything all right again. She ignored the warriors who ran after her and the flames that rent the night sky to
the north. She ignored the distant steady beat of a deerskin drum. Her eyes were fixed on the path at her feet. She had to reach the place of sacrifice.

‘Come back, now! We have to close the gates!’ Someone caught her arm. Someone else was forcing her to turn, dragging her back inside as the huge oak gates were swung closed and barred.

She stood staring round, dazed. The whole tribe were there, huddling in the shelter of the ramparts, hundreds of people, wide-eyed, afraid. With their livestock and as many of their belongings as they could carry, they had been streaming in from their smallholdings and farms in the dales and on the moors and deep in the forest, up the hill towards the fort since Venutios’s army had been spied marching inexorably southwards towards them.

‘Come back to Vellocatus, lady. He needs you.’ Gruoch and her Druids were there inside the stockade too, though the Carvetii would never harm the Druid college or any of its members.

‘Venutios is here!’ The words, laden with fear, were spreading like wildfire around the fort.

‘Set up the ghost fence. The spirits of our ancestors will save us,’ Carta implored Gruoch.

The woman shook her head. ‘Not possible. Our ancestors will not guard us against our own brothers and our sons. These are our own people, Carta. Venutios is one of us!’

Slowly Carta climbed the steps to the top of the ramparts and stood looking out across the fells towards the forest. In her head she would transfer herself into the form of a bird, an owl to fly silently over the trees in the darkness so that she could still reach the great falls, the place of sacrifice. In her vision she would oversee it all. Vivienne was waiting. The priestess of the falls was ready.

In her dream she flew through the curtains of birch and yew and juniper and the tangle of undergrowth gliding downwards, until she could hear the roar of the water; smell it; sense its clean invigorating excitement. Her sacrifice would be to the goddess, Vivienne, but also this time to Camulos, the god of war. All was ready. The ceremony planned, the victim chosen and waiting by the great hungry falls. When at last she folded her wings and came to rest, feeling the rock tremble beneath her talons, she could see Peggy clearly. She was sitting with Steve on the rocks, right on the edge of the drop. In the moonlight the spray shone like silver, lighting the whole scene. Steve was lolling backwards; she could see his
mouth open; was he laughing or screaming? She couldn’t hear because of the thunder of the waters.

Venutios was watching, and with him a Druid priest.

Peggy! Stop! Don’t!

That was what she wanted to say.

The goddess, cold and implacable, stopped her.

She could hear the sound of a horn, the deep note reverberating above the roar of the water. The note of the carnyx.

She felt herself grow cold.

Her voice, when she spoke again to Pat and James on the dark limestone slabs, was her own.

‘Venutios was there. He arrived at Dun Righ before she witnessed the sacrifice and she knew this time he would kill her. If the gods would not help her she had no alternative but to send for Gaius again,’ she whispered. ‘In her despair, without Vellocatus to help her, she sent for Gaius and in the depths of the fire she watched her messenger ride south.’

The Brigantian, well aware of his mistress’s watching eyes, demanded to see Gaius with such urgency that the legionnaire in the outer office bade the muddy, ragged, unshaven man wait and he sent word to Gaius at once. He was in attendance on the Governor.

‘Cartimandua bade me find you. She needs you and your men, Roman. Venutios is at her gate again and this time he means to kill her.’

Gaius frowned, tempted to turn the man away. One glance at the man behind the desk told him otherwise.

‘As always she is our last chance to hold the north at bay, Gaius. Without her the whole northern frontier will be at Venutios’s mercy. We cannot afford the distraction now of all times.’

Even so, they could not spare a legion. A wing was mustered at once from the garrison at Deva and marched into the teeth of the wind.

Carta ordered her army to attack Venutios at dawn. It poured out of the gates, the men holding their banners before them to drive him from her walls.

She watched them go, then she withdrew to the royal house to sit with Vellocatus. His wound had turned black. The strongest
herbs could not mask the smell of the putrid flesh as he lay tossing and turning with fever.

Gruoch and her Druidesses redressed the wound as best they could. Only the gods could save him now.

As the battle raged on the distant fells, only a handful of men remained to guard the fort and the women and children who remained there, and half of them secretly welcomed the coming of Venutios. Whilst Carta sat weeping at her husband’s side the great gate opened a crack. Into the darkness of the compound a band of Carvetian warriors, a file of shadowy figures in the darkness, crept into the heart of the township. No one saw them come. No one opposed them until with shouts and yells of triumph they raced between the houses, brandishing their swords. Two of Carta’s guards were cut down where they stood and the night sky flared as burning torches were tossed onto the heather roofs of the houses.

Carta did not move. If she heard anything she gave no sign, holding Vellocatus’s hand. ‘Soon you will be better, my love!’ She sponged his forehead gently. ‘I will make everything all right. Do not fear.’

The screams and shouts outside grew louder and now she could smell the burning as Gruoch ran into the room. ‘My queen, the house is on fire. You must come. We’ll move Vellocatus. You can’t stay here.’