Daughters of Fire (25 page)

Carta hesitated. A wave of anguish shot through her as she stared at the baby. For a moment she couldn’t move, overwhelmed by her sense of loss and longing.

‘Carta?’ Triganos didn’t understand why she was hanging back. ‘Take him.’ He was full of pride. ‘Isn’t he splendid? This is Finn. My eldest son!’

Stooping, he kissed his wife on the top of her head and she looked up at him in adoration.

Carta forced herself to smile. Somehow she managed to hold out her arms and take the baby, hugging it to her as she looked down at the small face with its fuzz of blond hair, its wildly waving little hands, the milky bubbles at the rosebud mouth. It fixed her with a serious stare and then suddenly smiled.

She kissed his head gently, biting back her anguished tears. ‘He’s lovely. May the blessings of the goddess be upon him.’ Her voice was husky.

‘Triganos!’ Fidelma walked into the room. ‘Were you not going to tell me that Cartimandua was here?’ She took in the situation at a glance. At once the baby was returned to its mother, Triganos was despatched elsewhere and Fidelma had led her daughter to an alcove where they could sit in private as Essylt returned to her milky worship of her child.

By the time she was facing her mother’s astute gaze Carta had brushed away her tears and won the fight to regain her composure.

‘It will get better with time, child.’ The older woman was not fooled for a second. ‘You will have other babies of your own. I lost children. It happens. But I have you and your brothers as comfort.’ The quizzical glance she sent after Triganos underlined the wry smile which hovered for a moment round her mouth. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry to marry again Carta,’ she added softly. ‘Wait to choose the right man.’

Carta took her hand. ‘The right man died, Mama. No one will be able to replace him.’

‘But you will remarry.’ It was not a question.

‘Of course. In time.’ Carta grimaced. ‘When I see someone suitable.’

Fidelma chuckled. Carta had grown up indeed She doubted if anyone married to her daughter would have an easy life, or a boring one. But she would be a rich prize in more ways than one.

‘Why were you not at the feast yesterday, Mama?’ Carta scanned her mother’s face. Even in the dim rushlight she could see the lines of strain.

‘I felt I should stay with Essylt.’ Fidelma’s mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘There were enough people there without me.’

‘You don’t approve of Triganos’s desire to take father’s place?’

Fidelma shrugged. ‘It’s not up to me. If his Druid advisers think it best then it must happen.’ She paused. ‘Your father is tired, Carta,’ she conceded. ‘Perhaps it is time to step back. But is Triganos the right man to follow him?’

Carta frowned. ‘Triganos is your son!’

‘And I look on him with a mother’s pride. But I can be dispassionate.’ Fidelma sighed. ‘I see his faults as well as his strengths.’

‘He only needs experience, Mama.’ Carta defended him

Fidelma nodded.

Her daughter frowned. ‘You wouldn’t want Venutios to succeed father as high king?’

‘Indeed not.’

‘Then support Triganos, Mama. Give him the benefit of your strength and your experience.’ Carta smiled. ‘He’ll take it from you!’

Fidelma gave a low chuckle. ‘I shall try, my dear. Indeed. I shall try.’

Walking later onto the hillside outside the walls Carta stood, her back to the fort, staring out towards the Western Sea. On a clear day it was possible to see right out across the gilded waters towards the Manannan’s Isle, halfway to Erin. Today it was hazy. Fold upon fold of cloud shrouded the distant hills. She missed, she realised, the clear bright view of the cold Northern Ocean with its great rocks, shrouded in gannets. Its ever-changing freshness. She had become a stranger in her own soft, rain-swept lands.

Below her, in a fold of the moor on the edge of the forest nestled the Druid college, one of the most respected in the whole of the Pretannic Isles. Gruoch had promised to stay at Carta’s side as long as she was needed, but above all, she wanted to make her way down to the guest house at the college. ‘It is important I meet my colleagues here and continue my studies.’ She had laid a gentle hand on Carta’s arm. ‘As you must if you are to fulfil your destiny.’ The two young women had held one another’s gaze for a moment.

‘And what is my destiny?’ Carta whispered. ‘When will I marry again? Who will it be? Will I have another baby one day? I have
begged the gods to tell me and they say nothing. Will Medb’s curse last forever?’ Tears filled her eyes.

Gruoch shrugged. ‘That is not for me to know, Carta. That is for you to learn from the gods. Consult the omens. Your teachers say you are a talented seer. Now is the time to put your gifts to good use. Consult the signs. See what is required of you.’

Praying to her gods was as natural to Carta as breathing. She consulted them, railed against them, pleaded with them, made them offerings. Their voices were everywhere. In the wind in the trees, in the song of the birds, in the rippling of the water over the broad sweeping rivers, the roar of the waterfalls and in the echoes of the hollow hills. Making her way now across the steep hillside, avoiding the sink holes which led down into those echoing hollows where only the gods dared go, she paused again to listen. The west wind was whispering across the soft fell grasses as she stood deep in thought, the hood of her cloak pulled up over her hair. She was alone. No one would accost her here and there was no danger from strangers on these her homeland hills and yet the whispers spoke of danger.

Vivienne?

She whispered the name out loud.

Vivienne! Tell me of the future. Tell me where my destiny lies!

There was no answer.

Then as she stood there a flock of small birds flew out of the gorse bushes ahead of her. She watched them automatically, listening to their gossip, noting the direction of their flight, tuning her mind to the messages they had for her. In the space of a heartbeat she saw the birds wheel as one and turn and dive back into the bushes as a shadow passed across the grass at her feet. Squinting up from beneath her hood she saw, high up, the drifting watchful silhouette of a sea eagle and she heard it scream.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stir. The whispers of the grass were true. There was danger lurking in the future, distant danger, not imminent, not close but somewhere in the shadows it was there, waiting.

Viv woke to find herself sitting staring out across the fells and fields towards the west. The sun was high in the sky now and it was growing warm. She tensed, listening. From far away she could hear the sound of galloping hooves. For a moment she didn’t move, then slowly she stood up and turned, shading her eyes as she stared up towards the folded ramparts and beyond into the distant haze. The sound was coming closer. Several horses, moving fast. She could hear the chink of harness now, the click of hoof on stone but she could see nothing. High above, a buzzard wheeled, riding the thermals and she heard its plaintive wild mewing echoing off the distant scar. The sound grew louder. It was on her. Then it passed and almost at once had drawn away with a rattle of hooves on the scree until it had died away into silence. She had seen nothing. Shaken, she turned round, staring in every direction. There was nothing and no one to be seen. If any horsemen had passed close by on the faint track they were invisible.

Peggy was alone in the kitchen when she finally reached the farm, exhausted by her second long walk in two days. The men, it appeared, had gone out early to the lower fields, haymaking. ‘You must have left soon after them.’ Peggy put down a pot of coffee and some toast in front of her. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cooked breakfast, love?’

Viv shook her head. Her fear had evaporated considerably on the long walk back down from the summit, but she was still shaken. After a moment’s hesitation she told Peggy what had happened. ‘It was as though they rode right past me. I could feel the ground shake.’

Peggy nodded. She sat down across the table from Viv. ‘So many people have mentioned it over the years I’ve got used to hearing about it.’

‘Is it some kind of trick of geology? An echo through the ground, through the caves and potholes, of people riding miles away?’ Relieved at Peggy’s matter-of-fact reaction, Viv found she was ravenous. She reached for the homemade marmalade.

Peggy was shaking her head. ‘Nothing like that. Several people have been up and investigated it. Even the local TV news came up
once. It is horses galloping. Everyone agrees on that. You can hear the squeak of leather, the snorting, and breathing of the horses sometimes. They tried to record it, but nothing came out.’

Viv stopped eating for a moment to study her hostess’s face. ‘You don’t really think it’s ghosts?’

Peggy shrugged comfortably. ‘I don’t have a view. It happens. All sorts of strange things happen round here. It’s part of what makes it so special. The land is alive. It’s full of memories of the past and, who knows, echoes of the future as well.’ She leaned across to top up Viv’s coffee cup. ‘You’ve written about the fort in your book, Steve tells me.’

Viv nodded. ‘Can I tell you something about that? Something that’s been happening to me?’ She hesitated, her eyes fixed anxiously on Peggy’s. Steve had said she would understand. ‘I’m nervous talking about this because I think maybe I’m going mad.’ She paused. Then she plunged on. ‘My best friend is a psychologist. I’ve told her about this, and she’s calm and reassuring and has lots of professional suggestions to make about me being obsessed with the subject of my book, but -’ She hesitated again. ‘Well, I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.’

Peggy listened without comment as Viv told her the whole story, interrupting once to answer the phone and once to replenish the coffee pot. Otherwise the kitchen was silent save for the sound of Viv’s voice and the ticking of the old clock on the shelf above the Aga. When she had finished Viv sat nursing her empty mug, staring down into the dregs.

Peggy looked up at last. ‘I think your friend is wrong,’ she said slowly. ‘As a psychologist she is looking for orthodox answers to your problem. That is not necessarily helpful. Tell me, does all this frighten you or does it interest you?’

Viv shrugged. ‘A bit of both.’

Peggy nodded. ‘I think you need to decide which feeling is the stronger, love. If it’s the former you must stop doing it now. Forget it. Fight it. Never let yourself do it again.’ She glanced up and held Viv’s gaze. ‘If you’re not going to stop, then you need to lay down some ground rules. Whatever - whoever - she is, she’s in your head and you only want her there on your terms.’

‘So you believe she’s real. Do you think I’m being possessed?’

‘No. No, I don’t think that. But I think maybe you are being used and I think that at least to start with that was by your invitation.
You’ve opened up a line of communication, but that needs to stay open only as long as you want it to.’

Peggy stood up and went over to lean against the Aga rail. ‘I’m not a clever psychologist like your friend and I’m no church-goer.’ Again she paused and scanned Viv’s face for a reaction. ‘So I speak as I find. These things happen. There are people out there,’ she gestured towards the ceiling,‘from other times, maybe from other dimensions, who knows where they come from, but they have stories to tell. We can welcome them and listen or we can push them away. That’s up to us. It’s our business and theirs. But it is natural. You needn’t be afraid of it. But you must be strong.’

‘You’re saying it’s normal.’

‘It would be if people would open themselves up.’

Viv, elbows on table, rested her chin on her hands.

Peggy pushed the kettle onto the hotplate again. ‘You said there is stuff this Carta is telling you that you didn’t know before. That nobody knows?’

Viv nodded. ‘It could all be rubbish.’

‘It could. Or it could be true. Stop worrying about that. Listen to her.’ She smiled. ‘That is what you want, isn’t it.’

Viv nodded.

‘Well, go on writing down what she tells you. You are a writer first and foremost, my Steve says, so write. Only when you’ve got it all down and the story is finished one way or another do you have to make a decision about what to do about it. My guess is, she’ll go once she’s told you everything.’

Viv grinned. ‘I knew I was right to talk to you. Thank you. You’ve made it all sound so simple.’

‘It is simple.’ Waiting for the kettle to boil, Peggy moved across to the fridge and lifted out a huge lump of crumbly cheese. ‘Now, I’m going to make some sandwiches for my haymakers and if you like you can come down to the fields with me and on the way back I’ll show you the Druid’s Well.’

It was down three steep limestone steps at the bottom of a steeply folded valley near the hayfields. As Peggy led her towards it, Viv felt her throat constricting. There was something about the place, the line of the tumbling beck, the outline of the hills, she recognised as they picked their way between lichen-draped trees and through
waist-high grasses feathery with seed, deeper into the tumbled limestone cliffs which closed the end of the valley.