Warriors of Ethandun (4 page)

‘Come with me, Ursula. I know how much you want to.'

She shook her head savagely, fighting to keep control. ‘Go away!' She was shaking and she wanted to cry. He was torturing her.

Taliesin got to his feet and the leather of his soles squeaked against the lino as he turned to leave. ‘Dan sends his – you know …'

She tried to smile. She did know. At least Dan was in this world too; she was not sure she would be able to survive here without him. She found her self-possession. ‘Thank you, Taliesin, for bringing me home. You saved me – you and Dan and Rhonwen. My mum would thank you too, if she understood.' It was as well that she didn't.
Ursula's teeth had started to chatter quite against her will. She could not stop it. It was as if her rebellious body craved the magic as much as she did.

‘Dan can help you when – I mean, if – you change your mind. He has the means to raise the Veil.'

‘Dan has magic?' Ursula was startled.

Taliesin shook his head. ‘He'll explain. He has an artefact that should take you back to Macsen.' He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. The magic on his lips burned her skin, as he had known it would.

‘Go, Taliesin! I can't stand it!'

He waved his hand in a casual gesture of farewell and disappeared. The scent of power lingered in the air like gunpowder, stronger than longing. His voice echoed in the empty cubicle: ‘Your magic is through the Veil.' And his words rang in her ears and through her mind like a kind of madness. It was hard to breathe. She reached for the tepid drinking water on the nightstand, but her hands trembled too much and she dropped it, so that water pooled under the high bed. She waved her hand to clear it away with power and for a moment the residual magic in the air almost responded. She felt that part of herself that had once wielded magic strain, try to move again like a muscle wasted from lack of use, or more like a ghost memory from an amputated limb. Nothing happened; the water remained on the floor. There was no magic any more. Not for her. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. She did not want her mother to find her crying.

By the time her mother had returned with a toasted
sandwich and a bunch of grapes, Ursula had pulled herself together.

‘Mum – I feel fine … Do you think I could go home now?'

‘It's not been long, love. What if you were to relapse? How would I get you back here on my own?'

‘It's fine, Mum. I've healed. There won't be a relapse. Could you ask the doctors, please?'

‘You do look better …' Her mother stared at her face intently.

Ursula had tied her hair back so it more nearly resembled the cropped hairstyle she'd had before entering the Veil. She knew that her face was flushed and her eyes over-bright after her meeting with Taliesin, but again her mother saw nothing amiss.

‘I don't want you to wear yourself out. You're not strong, Ursula.'

Ursula smothered a smile. Her mum had no idea. Now that Taliesin had restored her to health she was stronger than most men and, she knew, some way tougher. She stretched. It was good to be fit again. ‘Hey, Mum. Have you seen this? I think I might have to go shopping!' She jumped out from under the covers to reveal that she had already dressed herself in her old jeans, which were now several sizes too big and had to be pinned with a safety pin to stop them falling down. She'd also put on her favourite men's extra-large navy sweatshirt that effectively disguised her newly fit and toned body as well as it had her unfit one.

‘Well, you have certainly lost weight. Are those really
your jeans? I might have brought the wrong pair. I'm worried, though. Darling, you mustn't lose any more weight. You need to build yourself back up, Ursula, you've been so very ill.' Her mother's eyes filled with tears.

‘Mum. I'm fine. Never better.' Ursula put her arm round her mother's shoulders. Her mother felt slight, delicate, like a porcelain doll. Ursula got her size from her rugby-playing father. She held her mother's small hand in her own strong one. Her mother was as emotionally fragile as she was physically frail. Ursula could not hurt her by telling the truth. In all the pain and worry of battle and its aftermath, Ursula had forgotten how terrible it was to crave something she could never have. She had forgotten how exhausting it was to desire something so strongly. Physically she felt fine, bursting with energy, free of any twinge of pain. Even a few old injuries from earlier encounters were fully restored and free of scar tissue. But still the void within her ached like the empty socket of a lost tooth. Being home was not enough. She wanted the magic back. She had to battle to ignore it. Her mother patted her hand.

‘Oh, I almost forgot. Silly me! Your father's going to give us what I asked for – more money every month, and he's backdated it. It was a pity it took nearly losing you to make him see sense. But it means we have a bit of a windfall. We can afford to go shopping and get you some new, prettier things!' She looked at the navy sweatshirt with disdain. ‘I never did like that top!'

Shopping was a bit of a nightmare. Ursula had forgotten
how much her mother complained about her father, about what he spent on his new wife and how his new baby, who was quite plain and not a bit like Ursula as a child, was dressed in designer clothes – she'd seen the labels for herself. How her dad had started dying his hair and lost at least a stone trying to keep up with that young floozy he'd taken up with.

It was hard for Ursula to keep quiet. She had seen more of life than her mother now and she understood that things could be complicated. She had guilt of her own. Once, in Arturus's world, she and Dan had abandoned an eight-year-old boy who was devoted to them, who'd risked his life for them and who was entirely their responsibility. They had taken their chances to try to escape from a place they did not want to be and had run. Ursula finally understood how her father could have made that same choice, though if his marriage to her mother had been a battlefield it was much cleaner and less bloody than the one she and Dan had fled: probably not much quieter, though. Bryn, the boy they had so grievously betrayed, had turned out well in spite of their dereliction of duty and care. He was brave and honourable, loyal and honest. He had not blamed them but had learned to forgive. She could turn out well too; it was up to her.

Of course she did not tell her mother all that. Her mother had no doubts at all; Ursula's father had betrayed them and he would forever be in the wrong. His sin seemed trivial compared to Ursula's own. She had looked into the face of a corpse and known herself responsible for someone's death, for many deaths. She wanted to tell her
mother that in any hierarchy of evil in the world her father's was not the worst. She didn't, of course. She couldn't; it wouldn't have been fair. Instead she tried to be the girl that she'd been before. Somehow that worked.

‘Oh Ursula, isn't this sweet? I love young girls in pink. You will look so cute in this. We must have it.'

Ursula opened her mouth and then shut it again. Did it matter that she would rather not wear a pink miniskirt with glitter detail? Her mother was as excited as she had ever seen her.

‘Does it come in a different colour?'

‘No, no, no. I always think blondes look good in pink, and look at this scarf with the hearts on it. It would look so nice with that and a pretty top. Oh, and look – it's in the sale! Ursula, it's perfect!'

The shop assistant, a nice-looking man in his early twenties, smiled at Ursula. He at least did not think she was twelve. She did not smile back. She had seen that look he wore before – on the faces of too many men who'd followed her to their deaths. She ignored his smile, gritted strong teeth and agreed to the pink skirt. There were worse things than being inappropriately dressed.

Dan was relieved to find that he'd been right about the charges – they had to be dropped once Ursula denied that he'd hurt her. He had wanted to go and see her but the lawyer his father had engaged had strongly advised him to stay away. The police did not believe Ursula's story. They were still obsessing about their clothes. They appeared to believe that Dan and Ursula had been having some secret relationship, that he'd attacked her in a jealous rage. It made no particular sense, but then the truth made no sense at all.

Ursula came back to school surprisingly quickly. She looked stunning and one glance in her direction told Dan that she'd lost none of her strength. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. His schoolmates clustered round her like wasps round a jam jar and Ursula did nothing to discourage them. The one exchange he'd had with her had not been very satisfactory. He sought her out the first day that she was back. She was briefly alone by the lockers.

‘Are you all right?' He spoke to her in the language of
the Combrogi, the language that had become theirs. She smiled at him and he wanted to fall at her feet, but that wouldn't do at all.

‘I'm good. Taliesin came and finished the job of the doctors. I'm good as new. Thanks for saving me, Dan. I owe you my life.'

He shrugged as if it were nothing, as if it had cost him nothing. He would have paid even more to have kept her safe. He did not want to say that, though. He didn't want to burden her with that. He kept his voice non-committal. He spoke to her casually, as if she wasn't … everything.

‘What did Taliesin say?'

‘Oh, what you might expect – that I should go with him back to Macsen's world, that I would be appreciated there.'

Dan knew that was true enough. King Macsen had been more than a little in love with her and would have liked her magical bloodline running through his descendants.

‘Did you want to go?'

Ursula tidied a stray hair and stuck it behind her ear. She pulled a face. ‘This is home. Right?'

He wanted to touch her – just to hold her hand – but things were different for her now. She had a certain glamour that came with her newly uncovered beauty and the fact that she had nearly died in mysterious circumstances. Everyone wanted to be her friend. He didn't want to feel she had to be with him because he'd saved her. Taliesin was right. He knew too much about how people worked. The time he'd spent being able to read minds had
changed the way he looked at people, had made him cynical, uncharitable. By and large he'd prefer to avoid them. He wanted Ursula to be free – of him and of the guilt and horrors of their shared past.

‘Yeah. No one even had time to miss us,' he said easily.

‘Dan, I …'

He did not want to hear her tell him that things couldn't be the same between them now that they were home. He didn't think he'd be able to bear it. He'd prefer to stay out of her way and leave everything unsaid. He could hear someone coming and then the bell went. ‘Got to go! See you later!' he said and hurried away.

It was a big school and he made sure that he was always busy at the few times their paths might have crossed. He stopped hanging out with the smokers and with his other mates. He could not care about the things they talked about and, of course, they all fancied Ursula now and wanted to know what had happened to the two of them in that lost hour after they left the re-enactment. His friends seemed hurt by his withdrawal but left him alone. He took to going running and to using the gym every lunchtime, as if by wearing out his body he could somehow control his mind. It did not work.

He was in the library one wet lunchtime when for some reason the gym was closed and he could not face running in the cold. He sensed Ursula's arrival before he saw her. He always knew where she was – it was the one hangover from the magical bond between them that had saved them so often in the past. He watched her from behind the bookcases. She was with a group of Year Elevens, mucking
about and being a little too loud. Dan's mate Josh was shouting – showing off. ‘So what happened with Dan, then? He must have done something because he's turned into a right weirdo since that day.'

Ursula shrugged and sent a pointed look in Dan's direction. So she knew where he was too. Some vestige of that old link still existed for her too. He busied himself with finding the book he needed for his homework and then he heard raised voices again. ‘Look. Leave it alone, will you. I have said that Dan never touched me. He would never hurt me!' They all picked on that remark and started teasing Ursula that she had some kind of thing for Dan, and Dan just knew that Ursula was getting angry. They really did not want to make Ursula angry.

One of the girls, Lucy – she'd been queen bee until Ursula had started causing a buzz – suddenly said, ‘Yeah, Ursula, why don't you go out with Dan and leave all our boyfriends alone? You've turned into a real slag since you came back from hospital.'

Dan found that he was holding his breath. Ursula had gone very white and her blue eyes seemed to flash Lucy ample warning, but Lucy didn't know what she was dealing with.

‘What did you say?' Ursula said dangerously.

‘You should get with Dan – he's more your type. You're both weird.'

‘Dan is not weird,' Ursula said emphatically. Lucy did not seem to know when to stop.

‘Look, you might have got all thin and interesting since your “accident”, but we all know that he did it and you
pushed him to it. You were weird two weeks ago and you're weird now.'

Dan saw Ursula get to her feet. Even if he'd been unable to feel her fury, her body language must have told Lucy it was time to shut up.

‘Do you want a fight, Lucy?' Ursula said softly.

Lucy laughed. ‘I'm not afraid of you. Josh wouldn't let you hurt me anyway. Would you, Josh?'

Josh was not an idiot and he recognised something in Ursula that Lucy did not. ‘Stop it, Lucy.'

‘You're not afraid of Ursula, are you, Josh?' Lucy had an instinct for trouble and because Josh was actually afraid of Ursula, because he had instincts of his own – good ones – he had to deny it.