Warriors of Ethandun (31 page)

Somewhere Finna was singing in her high reedy voice. It was the only sound that Ursula could hear and she rather wished she couldn't. Finna could not wield magic but she could call and bind it and at that moment that made her the one holding all the cards. Even the sound of her tuneless wailing made Ursula panic and that was not
good. Ursula needed to remember that she was a warrior and a sorceress, and neither allowed themselves to panic. At least this time the magic had not overwhelmed her; at least this time she still knew who she was. This time Finna would have Ursula to contend with, not some goddess lost in a sea of myriad experiences. Ursula knew who she was. She knew that she was strong and that if only she could reach Dan he would help her, save her, allow her to break free.

She clung to that hope, and tried not to let fear overcome her. She was Ursula and not easily beaten.

It took Dan and Gunnarr's combined efforts to get Ursula on her horse. The beast refused to cooperate and it was some minutes before Dan was satisfied that she was safe and unlikely to slip and fall. They had to lay her across the back of the gelding – like a corpse in an old western, like a large rag doll; Dan hated seeing her that way.

Gunnarr knew little about Finna and less that helped. From what he had been able to find out from the women's gossip and the hazy recollections of the other warriors, Finna was the daughter of a warrior who had perished in one of the many Viking raids and had been born of a local woman, a slave who had died in the bearing of her. Finna was raised in a haphazard fashion by the slave's mistress – a noted seith-wife who had taught her all she knew. Gunnarr had been unable to find out more, as many of the slave women and the free Danish wives were frightened of her and regarded her as having the evil eye. The
girl's mother had been taken from a convent and on finding herself pregnant had cursed the child she bore – which to some people made the curse more powerful as it was made more or less with her dying breath. Some people had said that Finna's mother, being a good Christian woman, was obliged to forgive her enemies and would never have been so wicked as to curse her only child, but either way the other slaves certainly believed that Finna was cursed, the more so when she was adopted by the heathen seith-wife. Saxon slave and Viking warrior alike agreed that she had bewitched Guthrum with her prophecies and promises of victory. Guthrum was putty in her thin, childish hands.

‘What has she done to the Goddess?' Gunnarr asked.

‘She's not a goddess. She is just Ursula, my comrade-in-arms, my friend,' Dan snapped back, keeping the bear under control with difficulty. ‘Ursula has so much power. Unless this Finna is a very powerful sorceress I don't know what she can have done – do you, Taliesin?'

Taliesin touched Ursula's head gently and shut his eyes. Dan knew that he was using his own magic to try to seek Ursula out. When he opened his eyes, they were full of tears.

‘I have been a fool,' he said. ‘I have come across this Finna before – soon after I arrived here. It was before I had thrown in my lot with Aelfred, before I had found Rhonwen. She was a child and reputed to have great potential. I tried to find out but I could sense nothing. However, she visited me in my dreams for years after, promising to lock up my power and use it for herself. I
took neither the rumours of her power nor the dreams seriously. I was wrong. I can't reach Ursula. This Finna has called to her somehow. She would not be in this state if she had a choice.'

‘Tell us something we didn't know,' Dan said angrily.

‘Dan, please, try to stay calm; you cannot let the bear out. You have to stay in control. If you change into a bear now, I cannot save you – we will all be lost without Ursula to help control the beast.'

‘I have no friends besides Ursula – you are all just interested in what I can do. It is your fault for making her do magic and mine for not preventing it. I've let her down. I need to get her home!' It was hard for Dan to keep the bear at bay long enough to speak. He was angry with everyone, but reserved most of his fury for himself. He should have stopped her from using magic. He should have saved her.

Taliesin was explaining things to him carefully, like he was a little child, not a man. ‘She cannot go home while the magic flows through her, Dan. You cannot take her through the Veil. You know that – we tried, remember?'

‘Maybe you didn't try hard enough,' Dan snarled. What kind of idiot did Taliesin think he was? He could feel himself changing again. He had to fight it. Taliesin was right in one thing at least, that he dare not let the bear take over. That would not help Ursula. He had a new worry too: what if he became the bear and never changed back? Who would care about Ursula then? Taliesin was an interfering old man, but he was right. Asser was right. Dan had to fight the bear within. As his anger against Taliesin
abated, he could feel the risk of transforming into the beast recede. Maybe that was the secret: to reason himself out of his temper. He tried to think of good things, things that wouldn't make him angry – beginning with Taliesin. Yes, he was an interfering old man, but he had helped them in the past. He had helped Dan get Ursula home after the Battle of Camlann. He had kept Braveheart safe. That was good; the bear-like feeling was beginning to go away. He had to keep thinking positively, fight the fury. He had to keep the bear away so that he could help Ursula.

He took a deep breath. No one here was his enemy: not Gunnarr, not Aethelnoth, not Taliesin. ‘Let us get her back to Athelney. Perhaps Rhonwen can help her. What else can we do?' he said. No one argued.

They rode back following the route they had taken earlier. No one spoke – everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts: Dan was simply lost.

They had been travelling for about an hour when Dan became aware of an alien human scent – male – that he knew he had smelled before. Even so he was not as alert to danger as he might have been. He was so worried about Ursula. He should have stayed in her mind, protecting her.

The attack, when it came, took him by surprise. A man launched himself at Dan, screaming and wielding an axe, throwing himself at the horse, spitting venom. The man's fury had made him wild and careless. Dan's horse reared, and while he struggled to control his mount, both Aethelnoth and Gunnarr rode to his defence. The man's
temper must have overridden his common sense for Aethelnoth disarmed him quickly with a swift blow of his sword. A second later Gunnarr dismounted and had his sword to the man's throat. Dan was angry that he had been caught unawares, but dared not give in to that emotion; he had to keep control.

The man was wild-eyed but silent. Gunnarr's blade was pressed hard against the thin flesh of his neck. The man was millimetres from death.

‘Thank you,' Dan said. It was hard to get the words out. Even though, by some miracle, he had not become the bear, the bear's independence and reluctance to accept help made it difficult to thank anyone. ‘You may let him speak. I know this man.' It was an overstatement, but he did finally recognise him. It was the householder he had first encountered – the one who had tried to kill the King.

Gunnarr moved the edge of his blade a little further from the man's throat so that he could speak.

‘Why did you attack me?' Dan said.

‘You know why,' the man answered. ‘When you broke my wrist and took my boat, you took my livelihood. What am I to do now?'

‘You could serve your King,' Aethelnoth said. ‘I know who you are now and the King has told me of your treachery. I would sleep easier if you were dead. We have enough enemies among the Danes; we do not need native Wessex men against us. You should fall at Aelfred's feet and beg his forgiveness. As a Christian King he is always ready to allow a man to make penance and repent.'

The man made a noise at the back of his throat that
suggested he did not care much for kings. It was a risky response but one with which Dan had some sympathy.

‘Give me one good reason why I should let you live,' Dan said, as Aethlnoth's threats seemed to be making little impact.

‘I have something that you might want,' the man said sullenly. ‘I will trade it for my life.'

‘What is to stop me taking both it and your life?'

‘I do not have it with me, but I will tell you where it is if you promise not to kill me.'

Gunnarr appeared to have grasped the essence of the man's little speech and said something obscene in Danish – his blade was perilously close to the man's jugular.

‘You are in no position to negotiate,' Dan said. ‘Where is this “thing” that you think I might want?'

The man clamped his mouth shut until Gunnarr's sword nicked his flesh and a small droplet of blood oozed from his neck. Aethlnoth began patting him down like a particularly officious guard at an airport. From a small pouch their resentful prisoner had tied around his waist he pulled the orb that Dan had lost in the bog when he had first emerged through the Veil.

Aethelnoth threw it towards Dan, who caught it easily. It felt warm to his touch, still heated with magic. Dan held it tightly. He looked over at the bard, who seemed oblivious to the significance of Aethelnoth's find. It was a way home that was not reliant upon Taliesin – it was a kind of freedom.

‘What shall we do with him?' Gunnarr asked in Danish.

‘Tie him up,' Dan said. ‘His chief crime was against the
King; it is for him to decide his fate.'

He was proud of himself for that decision. He had not turned into the bear and he shown suitable mercy to an enemy; perhaps he was not entirely beyond hope.

Gunnarr tied the prisoner with some complex sailor's knot and attached his hands to a lead rein so that he could walk behind Gunnarr's horse.

Ursula did not stir. Dan held the orb close to her in case the magic within it might work to revive her, but it made no difference. Dan knew deep inside himself that it would take something far more powerful than a crystal ball to help her now.

Aelfred accepted Gunnarr's oath of allegiance – after he had agreed to convert to Christianity. Asser was given the task of preparing him for baptism and of learning whatever he could about Guthrum's strength. Asser spoke some Danish for reasons that he was reluctant to explain and when he needed further assistance he called on Dan's magically acquired linguistic gifts. The news was not good. Guthrum's forces did indeed number several thousand battle-hardened warriors, and in spite of the hard work of Aelfred's men recruiting troops from throughout Wessex, Aelfred could not currently field half so many and scarcely any had much in the way of weaponry or skill.

Athelney turned itself over to the production of spears and shields. They pilfered and borrowed what wood they could and used every scrap of metal they could find, even nails, to heat in the furnace and flatten and sharpen into spear heads. Athelney grew busier every day. Aelfred had sent out a call to craftsmen, promising them a king's commission and all the benefits that might come from serving the King of Wessex once he was restored to the throne.
Hope and confidence somehow began to grow and gambling men began to see the point in backing Aelfred. He was, after all, a Wessex man of good lineage and everyone knew that the Danes made unreliable friends.

Aelfred accepted their captive and did not condemn him to death. The man's father had been a blacksmith and though he had given up the craft after some undisclosed difference of opinion which saw him hiding out in the wilds of the levels. Aelfred was too practical to lose a potential smith, even one with an injured wrist, and put him to work as penance for his sins. Dan was pleased. He had a grudging admiration for the man's gritty kind of awkwardness. He was also relieved that he could still be heartened by a man's survival. It meant that he was not entirely lost to the bloodlust of the bear, that he could still find mercy and compassion somewhere in his soul.

Dan gave Ursula over to Rhonwen's care. She did not open her eyes or show any sign of awareness of her surroundings, almost as if she was in a coma. She looked like a fairytale princess waiting for Prince Charming to breathe life back into her. Dan found the idea disturbing – he'd never met anyone less in need of rescuing than Ursula, and yet here she was. He had to fight back the urge to kiss her, as if they really were in a fairy tale. He was not at all sure that he had any right to cast himself in the role of handsome prince – more like the beast in ‘Beauty and the Beast'.

Dan did not hand her over easily. ‘What can we do? Can I go and find this Finna or what?' the bear rumbled in Dan's voice.

‘I don't know,' Rhonwen said tightly. ‘I have tried all the charms I know and nothing is working. Asser is praying for Ursula night and day. Taliesin can seek her out, but I fear it will do no good. There are some particular herbs we can try that might help him, but then …'

It took Rhonwen some time to acquire the herbs she needed and it was not until the fourth night of Ursula's magical sleep that she was able to give Taliesin the sleeping draught she hoped would allow him to pursue Ursula.

‘It is bitter, mind, and it might make you sick.'

Taliesin pulled a face as he downed her concoction in one, then lay down on the floor next to Ursula and held her limp hand. Rhonwen had to hold Dan back.

‘For the love of all that is holy, Dan, do not hover over him like that. He will not hurt her. He needs to touch her in order to seek her. Watch yourself – we cannot have the bear in here.'

Dan made himself breathe deeply. He wanted to grab Ursula and shake some life into her, but even he could see that wouldn't help. The draught worked quickly. Taliesin's breathing slowed and his face became white and bloodless as a corpse.

‘Are you sure that is supposed to happen?' Dan asked. Rhonwen's face was pale too, even in the warm light of the candles she had set about the room.