Hill of Bones

I

Geraint watched the lizard basking in the sun on the tiled floor. Its head was canted towards where Geraint sat a few feet away on the grassy slope. The creature was so still it might have been carved out of stone apart from the tiny pulse that throbbed on the underside of its silver-grey neck.

The lizard, about the length of a man’s hand, was crouching above a fish with a great mouth and with water spouting from the top of its head. The lizard was directly over the gaping mouth. Geraint amused himself with the idea of the lizard’s surprise if the fish were to come to sudden life and swallow it down in a single gulp. Geraint knew the fish could not come to life, of course, since it was made up of countless little tiles that were coloured red and blue and green and silver.

Shifting his gaze without moving his head, Geraint looked across the rest of the ornamented floor, beyond the lizard and the great fish. It lay bare to the sky but was edged with random blocks of stone, the remains of the walls to the chamber. Beyond were the outlines of other rooms and even fragments of columns. The house had been built on a ledge of land on a hillside. It looked out on a circle of hills and a town below in the valley basin. Geraint wondered how the inhabitants of the villa had defended themselves, isolated, far from other habitations. Perhaps they had not needed to.

He returned his attention to the tiled floor, which showed a picture of the sea and its inhabitants but quite unlike any that Geraint had ever seen. There were creatures with swollen heads and many arms, and others whose foreparts were similar to birds, with beaks and claws, but whose hindquarters were those of fish. Among these monsters sailed small ships containing smaller men holding nets and spears.

Closer to Geraint and riding out of the sea was a great bare-chested man or god, twenty times the size of the men in boats. He was in a chariot drawn by horses with scaly fins for tails. The face of the man-god – wise and vigorous – reminded Geraint of their leader, Arthur. He had seen Arthur astride a horse holding the reins in the same easy fashion as the man-god in the chariot. Arthur had even spoken to Geraint as he rode by. He had scarcely been able to look at him nor had he heard the leader’s words, his ears were buzzing so. But he knew the words were firm and, in their way, kindly. Kinder than he was used to hearing from Caradoc, for example.

A rustling in the grass behind him did not cause him to look round – he already knew who it must be – but, instead, to flick his gaze back towards the lizard. But the lizard had gone. For an instant, Geraint wondered whether the creature had been swallowed up by the great spouting fish. But that could not be, because the fish’s jaws were still gaping with hunger. And because, although the lizard was real, the fish was no more than an image.

Someone clumped down the slope and clouted Geraint across the back of his head. He sighed and clambered to his feet. He turned to look at his brother, Caradoc, standing on the higher ground above. The sun was behind him so Geraint couldn’t see his brother’s expression but he sensed it was showing the usual mixture of irritation and impatience.

‘What are you doing?’ said Caradoc. ‘We must be on our way. There’s no time to waste.’

As if to show that his own time had not been wasted, Caradoc held up a cony by the hind legs.

‘Tribute,’ he said. ‘A contribution to supper. When we get there.’

The dead animal swayed in the evening air, its white front speckled with blood. Further up the slope sat Caradoc’s dog, Cynric. It stared fixedly at the rabbit, but gave no sign of anger at being deprived of its prey.

Geraint did not move. He thought of the much more valuable tribute he was bringing and his hand closed about the pouch that was attached to his belt. Then, as if to distract Caradoc from the gesture, he swept his arm over the mosaic sea-scene.

‘What happened to them?’ he said.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The ones who lived here. The Roman people who made these pictures.’

‘Who knows?’ said Caradoc in a tone that meant, ‘Who cares?’.

‘They left long before the time of our father’s father but their traces are all around us,’ said Geraint. He was thinking of other villas, in better condition, that they had passed on their journey up from the south. Not just villas, either, but terraces of land with strangled vines and neglected orchard plots. Now Geraint looked in the direction of the old town tucked into the fold of the river below. He knew this was Aquae Sulis. The upper parts of the buildings glowed in the evening sun but even while the brothers watched, the light dimmed and died as if an invisible hand were wiping it away. In reality it was only the sun slipping down behind a neighbouring hill but Geraint shivered.

‘Dreamer,’ said Caradoc. ‘And trust you to miss the only thing of value here.’

He bent down and picked up a battered coin from the edge of the mosaic floor. It was true, Geraint had been so intent on the sea picture that he had overlooked the little tarnished disc. Then Caradoc swung away in a downhill direction, still holding the dead rabbit and skirting the remains of the villa, with its exposed floors and weather-beaten columns. Cynric leaped from a sitting position and bounded after him.

Geraint paused for a moment longer. Perhaps it was the image of the sea on the floor that made him think of waves of people, waves of men, flowing across this land. Men who were of a different race from him. Men such as the ones who had built this villa on the outskirts of the town in the valley and then, in a time before his father’s father, abandoned it and withdrawn like the tide. Or perhaps they had not withdrawn at all but simply died out. Which came to the same thing.

And now there were different waves of men from the east and north, fresh and fierce, Saxon barbarians, threatening this land with fire and slaughter. For years, they had advanced like the incoming tide but now there had come a chance to stem the tide, even to turn it back. The only chance perhaps, but a fair one under their leader, Arthur.

He stood up and gazed across the valley towards the hills to the north-east. One hill stood slightly separate from the others and was distinguished by a flattened top. In the clear light of evening Geraint was able to see that the lines of the hill top looked too straight to be completely natural. There were few trees growing on the lower slopes and none at all on the upper, which meant that any approaching group would be easily seen. It reminded him of the great hill town in the south, near the village that he and Caradoc had come from. The town called Cadwy’s Fort, which Arthur used as his headquarters when he was in the region. The size of Cadwy’s, with its towering grassy flanks and deep defensive ditches surmounted by walls of pale stone, made Geraint think of the work of gods rather than mere men.

The hill opposite where he stood was less imposing than Cadwy’s, but that it was occupied by men was not in doubt, for he now saw a thick column of black smoke rising from a point near the centre of the flattened top. Then other spirals of smoke sprang up, and carried on the breeze there came cries and screams, the scrape of metal on metal, the thud of blows. Geraint had never been in battle, never been close to the scene of battle, but he recognised this for what it was. Had he and Caradoc arrived too late? Was the decisive encounter already taking place?

He felt confused and dizzy and almost sank down on the ground. When he looked again at the flattened hill, its top was placid and the pillars of smoke had vanished. In his ears there rang no sound except birdsong. Geraint was familiar with these moments, which overcame him occasionally. He had told no one of them, except one person.

Geraint blinked and followed his brother downhill towards the town in the valley. It was an open evening on the edge of midsummer. Threads of innocent white smoke wavered from the encampments set around the town of Aquae Sulis. The distance and the fading light made it impossible to judge numbers. You would scarcely know that there was an army camped about the town. You would not know that there was another army on the march in this direction.

Caradoc and Geraint crossed the lower-lying meadows, where the ground was soft underfoot and the breeze rippled through willows and rows of poplars. Geraint said nothing of the battle-scene he had witnessed on the opposite hill top. Either it had happened in the past, in which case there was nothing to be done about it, or – and this was more likely – it was still to come. The question was, would the battle take place in Geraint’s presence? Was he one of the fighters? Was his own voice among the screams and cries he had heard? Or Caradoc’s?

As they drew nearer to the encampments, with Caradoc still in the lead and the dog off to one side on some mission of its own, they could smell distant wood smoke and roasting meat, could hear a whinnying horse. It seemed to Geraint that his brother knew exactly where he was going, he walked with such confidence. Then Caradoc halted. He was standing on the edge of a marshy, reed-fringed stretch of water. They might have been able to wade through it, but beyond the reeds was a faster-flowing current, which caught up all the light remaining in the sky. Geraint realised that this must be the Abona. From their vantage point up in the hills the course of the river down here had been concealed. Now it was going to require a detour before they could reach the encampments or the town.

‘There must be a crossing point further along,’ said Caradoc, gesturing towards the west. ‘There must be a ford.’

How much further along? thought Geraint. He saw the pair of them blundering about in the gathering dark, their nostrils tickled by the smells from the other side of the river and their eyes distracted by the twinkle of fires. He suddenly felt hungry. Caradoc whistled for Cynric and the black shape came crashing through the long grass.

Distracted by the return of the dog, neither brother noticed the small boat sliding noiselessly out of the reeds. When they did, Caradoc dropped the dead rabbit and his hand jumped to his sword hilt. Geraint tensed and Cynric growled. The occupant of the boat had seen them before they were aware of him. He was a lean and wrinkled man – quite old, to Geraint’s eyes – and he was crouching in the centre of the boat, which was about half as broad as it was long. He was pushing himself towards the bank with one hand but there was a paddle resting across his knees.

‘I had my eye on you as you came across the meadows,’ said the boatman.

‘Where is the crossing place?’ said Caradoc.

The boatman did not answer until, with a final flick of his wrist, he caused his craft to crunch softly into the mud and reeds a few feet from where Caradoc and Geraint were standing.

‘Over there, but you will not reach it this side of night,’ he said, jerking his head in the direction of the now vanished sun.

‘We are here to join Arthur’s host,’ said Caradoc.

The boatman cleared his throat and spat into the water. Evidently he was not impressed. ‘Is Arthur here?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Caradoc with a confidence that was based more on belief than knowledge.

The boatman cast his eyes up and down the length of the brothers as if assessing their fitness as warriors. Geraint was conscious that he cut a boyish figure but his brother now, Caradoc, he had more bone and sinew on him.

‘You will carry us over,’ said Caradoc.

‘And you will pay what?’

‘We are here to fight our common enemy,’ said Geraint, speaking for the first time. ‘The Saxon horde.’

‘Oh, that enemy,’ said the boatman. He flexed his arms and the oval boat rocked in the water. ‘What are your names?’

‘I am Caradoc and this is my brother, Geraint.’

‘And I am Brennus,’ said the boatman. He had a high-pitched voice, disagreeable. Geraint was reminded of an ungreased axle on a cart. ‘Talking of enemies, mine are the cold in winter and the hunger and thirst all the time. You’ve got something to drink?’

‘The dregs of some water only,’ said Caradoc, ‘warm and stale from being carried all day.’

The boatman laughed, an odd sound like the squeak of some water bird.

‘You must surely be carrying something of value,’ he said. Instinctively, Geraint’s hand tightened on the pouch, which was fixed to his belt across from his sword. Despite the growing gloom, he could have sworn that Brennus the boatman observed this slight gesture.

Caradoc retrieved the coin he’d picked up from the villa floor. He held it towards the boatman.

‘This will more than do,’ he said. ‘It’s a coin from the old days and it is silver. You can have it if you ferry us both across. And the dog.’

‘The dog will swim behind us. You can’t have a dog in a small boat like this on account of the balance,’ said Brennus, stretching out a sinewy arm and waggling his hand to illustrate his point. He gathered a coil of rope from the bottom of the boat. ‘Here. Tie a stick to this and throw it out when we are afloat. The dog will seize hold of the stick.’

Caradoc found a fallen branch along the bank and, using his knife, sawed off a section. He secured one end of the boatman’s rope to the piece of wood. Cynric sat and stared with his head on one side, baffled by his master’s actions. The boatman watched with almost as much interest, stroking his chin with one hand and grasping the long paddle on his knees with the other. At one point his gaze wandered casually towards Geraint, then flicked away again – too quickly, Geraint thought. Clouds of midges hovered in the half-light.

Brennus was suddenly struck with a fresh idea. ‘Come to think of it, my little craft will not carry three at once. I will take one of you over and come back for the other. Out of goodness of heart, and seeing as you are to join the fight against the Saxon horde – our common enemy – I will do two journeys for the price of one, and in any order you please.’

Geraint was about to protest at their separation but stopped himself. It would sound feeble and unmanly. This Brennus was quite old and withered, for all his sinewy arms. The brothers were young and strong.

If Caradoc had any doubts he did not show them. He nodded. ‘Very well. But you will not be paid until we are both standing on the far bank.’

‘Step in,’ said the boatman, ‘but carefully now.’

Geraint nodded at his brother as if to say, you go first. Brennus shuffled backwards as Caradoc, holding the coiled rope, stepped into the boat and sat down at the near end. Cynric quivered on the edge of the reedy bank, uncertain of the next stage in this game. The boatman shoved off with his paddle. When they had pushed out a little way, he indicated that Caradoc should throw out the rope. The stick-end landed on the mud and Cynric snatched it up in his jaws, floundered out into the water and began paddling as if he was born to it.

Geraint heard the old boatman instructing Caradoc to keep the rope slack so that the dog’s struggles would not drag the boat down. He watched as the boat cleared the reeds and shallows and bobbed out into the clearer stretch of the Abona, the black head of the dog just visible. At once he felt very alone. Suppose the boat overturned and his brother was drowned? It did not look very stable, more like an oversized platter thrown onto the water. Suppose that, once they reached the other side, the ferryman refused to return? But then he would not be paid. Geraint did not believe that Brennus would be able to overpower Caradoc, his older, stronger brother, equipped with knife and sword. He breathed deeply, taking in cool draughts of evening air. He gazed back at the willows and poplars that fringed the shore.

By the time he looked again across the river it was to see Caradoc clambering out of the little boat on the far bank, followed a few moments later by Cynric. Geraint sensed rather than saw the dog shaking itself violently, sending spray everywhere. Then the boat, paddled by Brennus, was making progress back over the water. With one hand Geraint grasped his sword hilt, while the other kept firm hold on the pouch attached to his belt. Inside was his tribute, intended for some purpose that he did not yet know. He was tempted for an instant to unfasten the pouch, to unwrap the precious item, examine it once more in the twilight. But, hearing the splash of the paddle as the boat pushed through the outermost reeds on this side, he resisted the temptation. He glanced at the ground and noticed the white, blood-speckled front of the dead rabbit. Caradoc had forgotten his contribution to the supper that they hoped to get on arrival. Geraint picked up the dead animal by its stiff hind legs. Carrying it somehow distracted attention from the contents of the pouch.

Brennus grounded the boat once more in the mud of the shore.

‘Come on, sir,’ he said. ‘No time to waste. We must get across before nightfall.’

Geraint stepped in the boat and sat down clumsily as Caradoc had done.

For the second time, the boatman used the paddle to push them off the bank and the craft bobbled its way out into the open.

The river seemed immense once you were in the middle of it and the willow frame and stretched skin of the boat offered very thin protection. The current carried them at an angle, but Brennus was familiar with its twists and turns for, with a slight touch or stroke of the paddle, he aimed for the point at which Geraint could see his brother standing with the dog. The rushing of the water threatened to swamp the boat but it was more stable than it looked and, after a time, Geraint started to relax and study Brennus, helped by the fact that the boatman’s face was half averted. He wondered what the man did for a living. Ferrying travellers across the Abona? Fishing? Certainly a strong, disagreeable odour of fish came off him now that he was at close quarters.

Then the boat came to a halt or, rather, began to spin about in a slow circular motion as if they were trapped on the edge of a whirlpool. Geraint found himself looking at the bank they’d left behind. Brennus withdrew his paddle from the water and laid it, dripping, across his bony knees. He reached over and stroked the fur of the rabbit, which Geraint was holding. The young man suddenly felt foolish for bringing this insignificant dead tribute.

‘I’ve changed my mind, sir,’ said Brennus. His voice grew higher, more disagreeable and grating. ‘The coin your brother is offering is only enough for one passage. I need something more before I take you to the other side.’

‘I haven’t got anything,’ said Geraint, somehow unsurprised by this new demand. He had not trusted Brennus from the instant the boatman slid out of the reeds. He indicated the rabbit that nestled in his lap. ‘Nothing except this cony. You are welcome to it.’

‘I want more than a dead thing,’ said Brennus. ‘You have got something else on your very person. I saw the way your hand went towards your belt on the bank earlier. I see the way you’re gripping that pouch on your belt even now.’

It was true. Geraint was holding on to the leather pouch even more tightly than he was using his other hand to cling to the side of the boat. He had his short sword, but it was tucked awkwardly down by his side and would be slow to draw. Besides, he had never used it in anger, scarcely knew how to wield it.

‘Can you swim?’ said the boatman.

‘Yes,’ said Geraint promptly.

‘You’re a liar, and a bad one at that. Whatever you say, you have got something in that pouch of yours and, whatever else you say, you cannot swim. Not one in a hundred men can swim. I’ll turn the boat over and you’ll sink like a stone.’

‘Then you lose whatever I’m carrying. You lose your boat.’

‘Boats float,’ said Brennus. ‘And you will lose rather more when you’re at the bottom of the river.’

Geraint sensed that Brennus was enjoying this: the teasing, the control of what was happening on his boat. He looked towards the far bank where Caradoc and Cynric were standing expectantly. He thought of shouting out, but what could his brother do? Then he noticed that although they were still spinning round, the figure of his brother was growing larger. The current was gradually pushing them to the other shore while the boatman, intent on his threats, was neglecting to use the paddle to keep them in the centre of the stream. If he could only manage to distract Brennus for a little longer…

‘So you are able to swim?’ he said.

‘Like a fish. Come on now, just open up your pouch and hand whatever’s inside it to me. I’ll take it in exchange for a safe landing. A blind bargain on my side, can’t say fairer than that.’

‘It is a keepsake from my mother,’ said Geraint.

This was a lie too, more or less, but one the boatman seemed eager to accept.

‘Then she’d be pleased if you handed it over to save yourself from death by water.’

‘She is dead now, my mother,’ said Geraint, his eyes growing moist as he said the words but still seeing the outline of Caradoc, standing rigid on the bank. From his posture, Geraint’s brother knew something was wrong.

‘I don’t care what she is,’ said the boatman, tiring of his chat. ‘Give me what you’re carrying or you’ll be dead alongside her.’

‘Here you are then,’ said Geraint, angry now. He made to open the leather pouch. Instead he seized the rabbit by the hind legs and swung it straight at Brennus’s face. It connected with a satisfying thwack. The dead cony was no club but the shock of the blow was enough to surprise and distract the boatman, who jerked back and put up his hands to protect himself. Geraint rose to his feet, the boat swaying wildly beneath him, and before he should lose his balance altogether he pressed down against the side of the shallow craft and made to leap into a clump of feathery reeds, one of several outcrops not so far from the bank. He felt something holding him and realised that Brennus had made a grab at the region of his waist. There was a tearing sound and Geraint toppled rather than jumped into the water.

His body sank through the reeds into the murk. His mouth filled with choking water and his feet flailed for the bottom. Through his mind flashed the image he’d glimpsed on the villa floor, the sea with the strange beasts that lived there, and he wondered whether his final moments had come. He could not swim, that was no lie. Then his feet came to rest on something that was neither hard nor soft, perhaps a submerged clump of vegetation, and it gave him enough purchase to push himself above the surface of the water. Gasping for air, he scrabbled about among the reeds, pulling himself forward, kicking out with his legs and feeling his wool clothes growing heavier by the second.

He touched bottom but, far from giving him support, the mud of the river-bed grabbed at his boots as if it wanted to tear them from his feet. His head was above the surface but he could not keep upright. Something struck him in the face and he heard shouting. At first he thought it was the boatman, but then he recognised his brother. He was calling out, ‘Take hold! Take hold!’ Caradoc was too far off to reach Geraint but he had tossed out the boatman’s rope to which was still fastened the stick the dog had used. Geraint grabbed it and, half by dint of his own struggling, half by being tugged in on the rope, found himself drawn up onto the bank, the last few feet in his brother’s hands.

He lay on his front, a landed fish, water pouring from his hair, his eyes, his garments. The black shape of Cynric panted above him while his brother stood off a distance to allow him to recover. Geraint sat up. He wiped his eyes and looked out across the Abona. He glanced at the bank on either side of him. He half expected to see the treacherous boatman emerging from the river, dripping wet and vengeful. It was only then that he realised, in the struggle, the pouch had been torn away from his belt. It was lost, presumably at the bottom of the river. Or in the watery grasp of the boatman.

He felt more angry than he could remember feeling in his life. He would have attacked the boatman with his bare hands if he had appeared onshore. But of Brennus there was no sign, not an arm or head visible in the twilight above the swirling current. Then he caught sight of the man’s upturned boat, like a giant’s hat in midstream. Boats float. But he prayed that Brennus had gone to the bottom.

‘What in God’s name was going on out there?’ said Caradoc. He sounded more irritated than relieved.

‘He tried to rob me,’ said Geraint. ‘He said the coin you’d promised him wasn’t enough. He thought I was carrying something of value.’

Caradoc looked curiously at his brother. He made to say something but stopped himself. Geraint stood up. His clothes clung to him. The anger had gone and now he was cold and shivery.

‘At least you have saved yourself a silver coin.’ The bitterness of losing his pouch and its contents was like a bad taste in Geraint’s mouth. He said nothing of the loss to his brother.

‘And I have got the man’s rope,’ said Caradoc, rolling it up into a coil.

‘We should use it to hang him with if we find him again.’

‘I see there’s some spark in you after all, brother. Save it for the Saxons. Come on.’

They tramped across the fields to the nearest encampment, marked by fires and makeshift shelters. They struck lucky almost straight away. Caradoc did not give the name of their village or steading – a place-name that few were likely to know or remember among the occupants of so many villages that had flocked to Aquae Sulis – but he spoke instead of a very tall man with reddish hair by the name of Aelric. The second person to whom he mentioned Aelric indicated a dilapidated farm building in the twilight next to a cluster of willows. Approaching, Geraint and Caradoc saw a cluster of men sprawled about a fire by the entrance. Hobbled horses champed the grass close by. Redheaded Aelric seemed surprised to see them but grudgingly welcomed the young brothers to the circle. Geraint was ribbed about his wet clothes but allowed to get close to the fire.

It was only later, after the food and drink and the talk, that Geraint, now lying at a little distance from the cooking fire, finally began to think of what he had lost or had been snatched from him. The pouch that hung from his belt and the precious object that he had been carrying for three days on his journey from the south. Although he had been guarding it for longer than that.

II

It was on his third and last visit to the old woman that Geraint was presented with the gift. She lived inside one of the hollowed-out mounds that dotted a flat area of ground not far from the village. The field, with its tussocky hummocks, was a place that the villagers avoided because it was believed to hold the dead. Not their dead, the recent ones, but the dead of long ago. At least, that was what was suggested by the things that had been discovered (and allowed to remain undisturbed) within the hummocks: the remains of skeletons and scraps of old leather and potsherds; even knives and axe-heads fashioned from stone.

There must have been some powerful magic preventing the villagers from using these places for shelter or storage, since they were dry and warm in winter, as well as cool in summer. Perhaps it was not only the partial skeletons but the presence of the woman that frightened people. She had flowing white hair and a face through which the bones showed as if she was more than half-way towards joining her underground companions for ever. She was so tall that, when she stood, she had to stoop within the quite generous confines of the burial chambers. At first, Geraint had not realised she was blind. There was a little light by the outer parts of the old woman’s lair because during the day she was in the habit of sitting near the entrance, which was made out of two stone uprights and a crosspiece. Geraint thought she sat there because she wanted to see who was coming, before he realised that there was no sight in her large, glazed eyes. And then he understood that she did not need to see in order to know who was coming. She had, after all, greeted him by name on his first visit.

Geraint was not frightened. He did not see why he should be frightened. Unlike the other villagers – unlike his brother, Caradoc, for example – he did not question why the woman – she had no name, she was simply the woman – should not live there in the place of the dead, by herself. If she really was alone. Once or twice during their conversations, Geraint had caught the tremor and sound of movement further back in the chamber, not some animal but human, he thought. Who it was he never discovered.

But the woman already knew much about Geraint. Knew that his mother was ill and must shortly die, knew that his father had been killed in a skirmish with the Saxons when Geraint was little, knew that he regarded his only surviving brother with a mixture of respect and love and resentment. Above all, she knew of his waking dreams, of those moments when something seemed to slide between him and the reality surrounding him. When he first began to experience these, around the time of his father’s death, Geraint had been truly frightened. He told no one and suffered in silence.

In one vision he saw two men tussling on the bank of a nearby river. One fell in, or was pushed, and the other stumbled after him. He recognised the two men. Geraint was actually within sight of the river but by the time he plucked up the courage to go closer, they had disappeared. The death by drowning – which occurred a few days later – was accounted an accident but Geraint had seen in his vision the way in which Deri’s opponent, who desired Deri’s wife, had held his rival’s head underwater. Perhaps he did not intend to get rid of Deri but had taken the opportunity as it arose. The man who held the other underwater was redheaded Aelric, the head of the village. Later Geraint heard Aelric describe to the other villagers how he had been several fields away when Deri drowned, and this seemed to allay any suspicions they might have. Geraint said nothing to contradict him but, afterwards, he was more wary and frightened of Aelric than ever.

On another occasion during the winter Geraint dreamed several times of a sunless summer of cloud and constant rain, and how the village went hungry when the crops failed. Sure enough, it happened and the village sent petitioners to Cadwys for help.

When, on his second visit to the burial ground, he started to tell the woman who lived there of these things – and he had never mentioned them to anyone before – she merely nodded and grasped his arm with her claw-like hand. She reassured Geraint, telling him he was possessed by a gift, not a curse. All men and women could see with their eyes, she said, save those few unfortunates like herself who lacked sight. And everyone, even the blind, was able to see backwards in time thanks to the gift of memory. A few, a lucky few, had the ability also to see forwards in time.

‘What can I do with it, this gift?’ said Geraint. ‘I should have warned Deri that his neighbour was going to kill him.’

‘You would not have been believed.’

‘I could have told the others that the crops would fail.’

‘You would not have been believed.’

‘So what use is it?’

‘Everything has a place,’ she said, ‘but not everything has a use.’

The third time he visited the burial place the woman told Geraint that he would soon be leaving the village where he had been born; he and most of the other able-bodied men. Geraint was pleased to be thought a man. It put him on the same level as his brother, Caradoc. A great crisis was coming, the woman said. They would be summoned away to face it. Geraint knew nothing of this but accepted the truth of her words without question. He wanted to ask if he and the others would ever return but he was afraid of the answer. The woman sensed his mood and said that it was a time of danger but also of hope. Geraint would experience grief but gladness as well. There is no victory without tears, she said.

‘Will Caradoc go too?’

‘He will accompany you,’ she said.

She had a gift for him. He was to take it on his journey when the call came. She reached into a bag that lay at her side and extracted a small object. He was surprised to see that it was a knife, but small, almost ornamental, rather than practical. She held it in the palm of one hand and ran the fingers of the other across the surface of the hilt before passing it to Geraint. The blade glinted with a metallic blue threat but the hilt was finely worked. It was made from some off-white substance that Geraint did not recognise, like stone but with a smooth, living feel to it that stone did not possess. The hilt depicted an animal that Geraint also didn’t recognise. The beast stood on its hind legs with its forelegs wrapped around the trunk of a tree. Its upright posture was disturbing, neither man-like nor animal.

‘What is the beast on the hilt?’

‘A bear.’

‘I have never seen one.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

Geraint did not answer. Instead he said, ‘What am I to do with it?’

‘Keep it with you, safe. Take it with you when you are called away. You will know what to do with it when the time comes.’

And Geraint had to be content with that. A few weeks afterwards the call came. Arthur was summoning his countrymen to confront the Saxon hordes at a place several days’ travel from the village, near the old Roman town of Aquae Sulis. Caradoc explained what was happening. It all might have been rumour but he told his younger brother as if it were fact (which it was, more or less). Caradoc said that for many months Arthur, using pedlars and paid informants as well as reputable travelling merchants, had caused a story to be spread among the Saxon enemy. The story was that the Picts, the people of the far north, were preparing to march south as soon as the winter retreated. Arthur had made a great show of sending some of his men north, apparently to face the Pictish threat and leaving the southlands undefended. But the British army had halted near the mouth of the Sabrina, far from their supposed destination. The Saxons, deceived, saw their chance to swing round and cut the country in two, like a woodman cleaving an upturned log at a single stroke. They massed to march west and south towards the river Abona, ignorant of the existence of the army lying hidden at their heels.

When Arthur received news of the Saxon preparation to march, he made the general call to arms. It was the final crisis, as predicted by the woman in the burial ground. If the Saxons were not dealt with now, they would surely overrun the whole land.

Caradoc and Geraint might have left with the other men of the village although they had not got the explicit permission of Aelric to go. But, as it happened, they had to delay their departure by a couple of days since their mother, so long dying during the spring and early summer, was now at the very point of extinction. They departed on the morning following her death, each young man sunk in his thoughts and letting the breeze dry the occasional tear. Hence it was that they eventually arrived near Aquae Sulis, accompanied by the dog Cynric, but behind the rest of their neighbours.

Now Geraint sat not far from the men’s campfire and wondered about the coming battle. He heard the sound of his brother’s voice, protesting amid some laughter that he did know how to use the sword and knife that he carried. Geraint remembered the knife and its ornamental hilt. The bear with its arms clasped around the tree trunk. You will know what to do with it when the time comes. What would he have to do? When? Too late now. He had been robbed by the old boatman. The leather pouch and the knife were at the bottom of the river Abona. He had failed. He felt ashamed.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a tall man near the dying fire. Aelric welcomed him and asked him where he was from. The man said, ‘I am with the Company of the Bear.’

Geraint started at the words, since they chimed with his recent thoughts. The newcomer settled himself close to the embers as if he had a right to be there and the others accepted him without question. He was wearing a hooded mantle, grey, and his great height was evident even though he carried himself with a stoop.

‘What news?’ he said to no one in particular.

Aelric said, ‘The enemy draws nearer.’

‘And what are our chances?’

It was either a foolish or an inappropriate question for there was an uneasy shifting among the group by the fire.

Then Caradoc piped up, ‘Under our leader, how can we fail?’

‘You mean Arthur guards us against defeat?’

There was a general mutter of agreement at this but the man was firm in contradicting his own question. ‘No, each man must guard himself against defeat. Arthur is not one of the gods, as in the religion of the olden days.’

‘He is not an ordinary man,’ said Aelric. ‘You, of all people, must know that if you are truly with the Company of the Bear.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said the newcomer, ‘but the outcome of battle is always uncertain. What do you think, you over there? Do you expect victory?’

As he said these last words he turned to look at Geraint, who was sitting in shadow. Disconcertingly Geraint could see nothing of the face under the hood except the glitter of the man’s eyes – that and a grizzled beard.

‘No victory without tears,’ said Geraint, repeating what the sightless woman in the burial ground had told him.

‘True enough,’ said the man.

‘That is my young brother, Geraint,’ said Caradoc.

‘Whoever he is, he speaks sense,’ said the man.

After that the group about the fire fell silent and after a time the man got up and, with a muttered farewell, left them.

III

The next morning Geraint woke early, cramped and stiff from where he’d been sleeping on the rough ground. There was a thin mist lying across the valley and the damp had crept under his clothes. He clambered to his feet. Cynric, who had edged himself close to the dying fire during the night, staggered up, looking expectantly at Geraint. No one else was awake, not even Caradoc.

Geraint and the dog wandered away to stretch their legs. Quite soon Geraint heard the sound of the river, although at first he saw nothing but the blurred outline of the willows along the bank. He pushed through some low-lying shrubs and entered a flat, grassy area fronting the water. Suddenly Cynric stopped and the hackles on his back rose. Through the mist Geraint strained to see what the dog had sensed. A few yards in front of him a man was sitting on the edge of the water. His knees were drawn up under him and his head was bowed. He looked like a large grey stone. Something about his posture and the cowl that covered his head reminded Geraint of the individual who’d joined them at the campfire the previous evening. He gave no sign of being aware of their presence. Perhaps he was asleep or praying.

Geraint was about to move away. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw movement on the far side of the clearing. Another man was emerging from the undergrowth. This one Geraint also recognized, and his heart thumped and his mouth went dry. It was the boatman, Brennus. He had survived the spill from his coracle! Moving through the long grass with exaggerated gestures, raising his legs high with each step, he advanced towards the man on the bank, who remained still as a stone. In his hand he held a knife. Geraint recognised this too. It was his, the knife with the bear-hilt.

The treacherous boatman was within a few strides of the other, the one huddled up on the bank. His intention was plain: to take the other by surprise, to stab him in the back or the neck.

Geraint had no weapon. His sword was left, carelessly, inexcusably, where he had been sleeping. But his unarmed state did not cross his mind. Seeing Brennus once more, stepping like a malevolent spirit through the tendrils of mist, grasping his bear-knife, was sufficient to cause Geraint to launch himself across the clearing. He almost took Brennus by surprise but the wrinkled man turned just in time and slashed out with the knife. He was aiming too high and the sweeping stroke passed over Geraint’s back as the lad hit him around the knees. Both of them tumbled into the dank grass and rolled over, now one on top, now the other. Geraint seized hold of Brennus’s forearm and exerted all his strength to keep the knife blade away from his face and eyes. His nostrils filled with the stench of fish from the boatman.

Cynric joined in but he was no dog for a fight. Rather, he lunged at the tangle of legs and impeded Geraint instead of helping him. Brennus might have been old but he was tough and wiry as a strip of tanned leather. At one moment, Geraint levered himself up and sat astride Brennus. As he did so, his grip on the other’s knife-hand slackened. The boatman’s arm wriggled away and would have slashed Geraint across the face had he not raised his own arm to protect himself. So instead the blade sliced through the coarse fabric of Geraint’s sleeve and ripped down the underside of his arm. He was conscious of no pain but the blood welled through the cloth and blotted Brennus’s withered face. Wounded with his own weapon, Geraint managed to seize the other’s knife-hand once again but his hold was not as tight as it had been. Now the boatman had the advantage and, arching his back, he threw Geraint off. Positions were reversed, with the boatman lying at an angle across the younger man and attempting to twist his hand and arm about so that he might pierce Geraint in the flank.

Then there loomed above them both a man’s shape, a very tall man in cloak and hood. With one hand, it seemed, he grabbed Brennus about the nape of his neck and lifted him clear of Geraint. He held the boatman at a distance as one would a poisonous viper, and his grip on the other’s neck was so firm that Brennus appeared to hang like a sack from the man’s hand.

With his other arm and in almost leisurely fashion, the tall man reached about and twisted the knife-hand of the boatman. Twisted it so sharply Geraint could have sworn he heard the crack of bone. Brennus gave a screech like a bird and let go of the bear-knife. The man dropped the boatman on the ground and then planted a foot on the side of his head. All this time he looked not at Brennus, who might have been so much discarded rubbish, but at Geraint. The lad was standing up by this time but felt very unsteady. It was not only as a consequence of his wound but also because he recognised the man for certain. In the struggle his hood had fallen away and Geraint realised this was indeed the individual from the night before, the man with glittering eyes and grizzled beard. His stooping posture then had disguised his true height: he was almost a giant, in Geraint’s eyes. Cynric the dog crouched uneasily at the edge of the clearing, watching the trio.

‘Thank you,’ said the man. ‘You have protected me. I know this traitor. He would have killed me while I was sunk deep in my thoughts and was lost to the world. Each man must guard himself, I said, but I forgot my own teaching.’

‘Thoughts about the battle – the battle to come?’ said Geraint, surprising himself by the evenness of his voice. But he could not look at the tall man and instead cast his glance down to where Brennus, writhing, was pinned under the other’s foot.

‘Yes. I was thinking of the battle.’

‘I am here to take part,’ said Geraint.

‘How old are you?’

‘Old enough to fight,’ he said, then, seeing the man staring hard at him, ‘Twelve years, I think.’

‘And your brother, the one who identified you last night?’

‘I do not know,’ said Geraint. ‘Two years older maybe.’

The man seemed about to say something then turned his head to one side. ‘You must be attended to,’ he said.

By now blood was beginning to issue from his arm in some quantity and, before he knew it, Geraint was sitting back on the rank grass and then lying down as he heard rather than saw a rush of people enter the clearing. Then the morning mist seemed to enter his own mind too.

Geraint dreamed he was in a desperate fight but, even though he was once again equipped with the bear-knife, he could not lift his arm to strike out against his unseen enemy, who was jabbing at him out of a mist. Then he woke and when he glanced sideways at his arm he saw it was swathed in blood-soaked bandages and, although it was throbbing slightly, it seemed not to be part of him. He was lying on a plain bed in a plain room, illuminated by sun pouring through a high narrow aperture. Caradoc was standing nearby, awkward.

‘Brother,’ he said simply.

He squatted down on his hams so that he almost on a level with Geraint.

In a corner of the room lay Cynric. The dog’s tail fluttered to see Geraint awake. It was cool and dry in the chamber.

‘This is a storage room of one of the villas in Aquae Sulis,’ said Caradoc. ‘You have been brought here to recover. One of the women of the town has been ordered to tend to you.’

‘It is my fighting arm,’ said Geraint.

‘You will not be doing any fighting for a while,’ said Caradoc, and the remark sounded like something he had heard someone else say.

‘What happened? Did you see Brennus?’

‘Who? Oh, the boatman. Yes, he has been… questioned. It seems he was more than a petty thief and ferryman. He was in the pay of the Saxons. We have agents among them and they keep traitors among us.’

‘Brennus was trying to attack the man by the river. The hooded man.’

‘Thanks to you he did not succeed. You know who the hooded man is?’

‘Arthur,’ said Geraint, remembering the time when he had seen him near Cadwy’s Fort. On that occasion he had ridden past in splendour, high and easy, like a god. Very different from the man still as stone in a grey mantle by the riverbank. ‘Arthur, our leader.’

‘Arthur knew Brennus of old. He was a steward at Cadwy’s Fort. He had stolen from the stores and kept false records. Arthur showed mercy by driving him from the realm in disgrace instead of taking his life. He was not grateful but twisted with bitterness. He would have harmed Arthur.’

‘Arthur was the stranger by the fire last night. The one who said he was not a god.’

‘It is his custom, they say, to walk unknown among his men and listen to what they are saying.’

‘We are his men,’ said Geraint.

‘Yes,’ said Caradoc. ‘Boys no longer.’

There was an awkward pause before Caradoc said, ‘He told me to return something to you. Arthur spoke to me! I could scarcely meet his gaze. He told me to give this back to you. He assured me it was your property even though I have never seen it before.’ He fumbled in his garments and produced the knife with the bear-hilt. Geraint took it with his good hand. ‘Where did it come from? It is not our father’s.’

‘The bear is Arthur’s image, isn’t it?’ said Geraint, not replying to his brother’s question. ‘The Company of the Bear. Brennus could surely not have killed Arthur with a weapon bearing his own image on the hilt.’

‘In any case, you alerted him.’

‘He was deep in thought. Or he was praying for success in battle.’

‘The battle that is coming,’ said Caradoc.

‘I am afraid for you,’ said Geraint, struggling to rise from the narrow bed.

‘Be still, little brother. Recover your strength and the use of your arm.’

The battle of Badon Hill, which Geraint had witnessed as plumes of smoke and cries and screams, began within a matter of days. The Saxons were ambushed by Arthur’s men as they approached Aquae Sulis, in a pass between the hills to the east of the Roman town. Taken by surprise and temporarily overwhelmed, they retreated to the old fortified hill top called Badon and there the Britons laid siege to them. The hill top was barren, without water or any resources. When the enemy was weakened by hunger and thirst and constant harrying, Arthur’s men stormed the bare slopes and swept over the plateau with sword and fire.

It was a great struggle, and a great victory for Arthur and the Britons against the Saxons. Arthur was reputed to have slain over nine hundred of the foe single-handed – or so the story went centuries later when he was no longer a mere man but a god once more. There were losses on the British side too, among them red-headed Aelric and young Caradoc from an anonymous village not far from Cadwy’s.

Geraint, kept from the battle by his wound, knew of Caradoc’s death before the woman who was tending to him informed him of it. He knew of it not because of any vision but because one morning Cynric, who stayed in the storeroom and would not leave Geraint’s side, was restless for hours and then raised the hairs on the boy’s neck with a long-drawn-out ghostly howl. Geraint turned his head to one side and wept for his brother, following so hard at the heels of their departed mother.

He might be glad of the happy outcome of the battle but he grieved for the loss of Caradoc. In commemoration of his brother and before returning to his village, Geraint went to the hill of Badon outside the town. The day was overcast and the clouds pressed down low. Geraint did not walk to the very top of the hill from which smoke drifted, acrid, smelling of meat. The dead were still burning, the corpses of Saxons and the Britons, or it was merely the carcasses of the horses. Nevertheless Geraint did not want to climb any higher. He did not want to go searching for the exact spot where Caradoc had fallen. He did not want the possibility of glimpsing his brother’s mangled, roasting corpse among the slain.

Instead he faced about to the south-west in the direction of his village. The gentle hills slept under the low sky. Geraint saw no vision of any battle to come. Perhaps the talk that he had heard while he was recovering his strength was true: that the battle of Badon was the last battle, or the last for many years. The Saxons were routed. For all the bitter scent in his nostrils, thought Geraint, perhaps the Saxon threat was sleeping or even at an end. Then, in the company of the dog Cynric and, choosing a secluded spot on the slope, Geraint buried the dagger with the ivory bear-hilt.