Chapter 6
The next morning my legs were even more brutally sore and stiff than usual, but I got back up on Weasel as soon as Belis and I had broken our fast. After much hesitation Belis had agreed that we could ride along the road.
She paused again as we left the forest and touched the back of her head, checking that her braids were tucked under her scarf.
She caught me looking and flushed, urging Carrot forward onto the road.
Out in the open we passed other travellers every few hours, greeting them with nods and a mutual unease.
Most were small merchants, riding on carts piled with bales of carded wool or cages of chickens.
The wealthier ones rated a guard trotting along beside them who invariably glared at us until we were out of sight.
After three days on the road we saw our first Romans, a covered carriage escorted by a small squadron of legionaries.
They barely glanced at us as we scrambled off the road to let them pass, taking our obeisance as their right.
I saw Belis grinding her teeth and heard her fingers tapping the sheath of her dagger.
She was jumpy for the rest of that day and I let her take a long time to find a campsite that felt safe without complaint.
She insisted we keep a watch and it was only with great effort that I talked her into letting me take the first half of the night.
She tossed and turned for a while before eventually lapsing into a restless sleep.
A few hours later she started screaming.
I scrambled up from where I had been sitting, leaning against a tree and staring out into the blackness, and hurried over to her.
Belis’s eyes were clamped shut and she was all tangled up in her cloak, pinning her arms to her side.
Her face was damp with sweat and she was howling in fear.
“Belis, wake up!” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her, but she was too lost in the dream. She managed to free one hand from her cloak and started grabbing for the spear beside her. I kicked it away and slapped her in the face.
“Wake up!” I yelled.
Belis’s eyes snapped open and in one fluid movement she had spun me over, pinning me beneath her. I squinted up at her, watching as the terror in her face ceded to recognition.
“Mallt?” she whispered, letting go of my wrists.
“You were having a nightmare,” I said, pulling myself into a seated position. “You were screaming. I had to wake you up.”
“Screaming?” Belis looked confused. “I never screamed. I kept quiet the whole time. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.”
I regarded her for a long moment, watching as the pulse in her neck slowed back to normal, as her breathing became less ragged. I thought I understood what she meant.
“Well, do you want to break camp? In case anyone heard us? You were making quite a lot of noise.”
Belis glanced at the dying fire and then shook her head.
“We’re half an hour’s ride from the main road. I made good and sure that we were alone before we lit the fire.”
She put her hand to her head, rubbing at her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mallt, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll take the next watch.”
“Are you sure?”
Belis nodded. “I’m sure. I don’t want to go back to sleep just yet.”
I stood up and made my way back to where I had left my pack and started unrolling the sleeping mat Vatta had given me. The night was cold and I wrapped my cloak around me and dragged the mat a little closer to the fire.
“Here, take my bedroll as well.” Belis tucked it around me. “I’ll be fine with my cloak.”
I thanked her and snuggled into the extra fabric, still warm from her body.
I watched as Belis picked up her spear and went to the edge of our clearing, her features bright against the darkness of the night.
I tried to stretch out my mind, to understand the emotions that must be tussling within her.
All these years I had run, guiding my lost souls, I had seen every stage of human life in every possible permutation.
Yet I still didn’t understand them. That hadn’t seemed to matter to me before, but, looking at Belis now as she leaned against her spear, I found that I wanted to understand.
We rose early and rode west, meeting the road as we went.
The land continued to unspool ahead of us until suddenly we were there.
The cliffs dropped away and all was the silver sea, shining in the grey daylight.
Belis slid out of the saddle and tiptoed right up to the edge of the land.
I eyed the ground suspiciously, but it seemed solid.
Gulls swirled overhead in the pale sky, screeching at us. Belis’s eyes were wide and the grey-green of her irises seemed luminous with wonder.
“So this is the sea,” she said, not turning away from the view. “I always wondered. It’s so much more than I thought.”
“More what?” I asked.
“Just more.” She stretched out her hand as if to touch the air.
“Didn’t you see it in the east?” I said, remembering what she had told me on the Chalk.
“We stayed in the fens, in the marshes and rivers. My father always said he would take us one day but there was never time.”
She stayed where she was, breathing deeply. I waited a while then coughed gently. Belis sighed and looked over towards me.
“Well, this is the coast. Is Caer Sidi far from here?”
I shook my head. “Another fifteen miles or so further west.”
“West?” Belis glanced up at the sun then back at the sea. “How much further west can we go? Is there a headland somewhere?”
“No. Caer Sidi isn’t on the mainland. There’s an island, the locals call it Grassholm, about fifteen miles from here.”
“An island?” She frowned. “Do you have a boat?”
That was a strange question, I thought. Why would I have a boat, and even if I did, why would I keep it here?
“No…”
Belis stared at me and I wondered if I had missed something.
“Then how do you get to the island, to Grassholm?” She slowed her speech as if I was stupid. I bridled at that. I thought we had moved past this.
“I run, of course. I don’t go often, every ten years or so. I just wait for a full moon and then run across the path. You can do it in a half- or crescent moon, too, but the path is widest at full.”
“You could run on water?” Belis shook her head. “No, of course you could. Goddess, I remember. What I mean to ask is: how were you planning on getting there now?”
“Well, it’s a full moon tonight so I’ll just—” I broke off, finally understanding. “It won’t work any more, will it? Humans can’t run on water.”
“No.” Belis looked as if she was going to continue, then slammed her mouth shut before anything else could slip out. I appreciated that.
I swung myself off Weasel and down to the ground, wincing as my legs straightened out after hours in the saddle.
I tiptoed up to the edge and looked over.
Below me the waves were enthusiastically smashing themselves onto the rocks, the sea churned into a roiling foam.
I stepped back smartly and went to grip the reins of my pony.
My head was spinning at the height and I wanted to cling to something solid.
Weasel nuzzled at my hair, whiffling comfortingly.
“Well?” demanded Belis.
“I guess we can’t run. Unless you can magic the water to hold us?” I asked hopefully. Belis dismissed the idea without consideration.
“No, and definitely not while running for fifteen miles. I’m not sure I can run fifteen miles on land.”
“We could swim,” I said, chewing on my lip. I liked swimming usually but hadn’t done more than bathing in a stream since meeting Belis.
“Not for fifteen miles of open water.”
“Do you have a boat?” One look at Belis told me she didn’t think this question was any less stupid coming from me than I had when she’d said it.
“Sorry, I forgot to bring it with me when I fled my home.”
“We need to find a boat then.” I scanned the horizon. The land was completely empty of human habitation. “Could you make one? Your tribe uses little coracles and suchlike on the fens, no?”
“I can make a coracle,” Belis said. “Just give me two deer hides, a basket of cat guts, a stack of aged willow branches, some hooves to boil down for glue and about three months.”
I thought that over.
“Could you use the horse hides instead?” I nodded at the knife on her belt. “And the hooves, horses have hooves, too!”
Belis looked shocked.
“We are not skinning the horses! I was being facetious anyway. I can’t make a boat.”
I sighed. It was difficult not to complain when she said confusing things like that.
“Then we’ll have to go find someone who can. Or at least someone we can borrow a boat from.”
“We haven’t passed anyone on the road for three days. Where are you going to find this fantastic shipwright?”
I considered. It was rare for any mortal dying so close to Caer Sidi to get lost. The pull to Annwn was stronger here, and so I did not have cause to come by often.
There had been an incident about fifteen years ago, however, a woman murdered by her husband.
Her soul had been so tangled in fear and fury that it had metastasised into something dark and had haunted the community that had failed her.
By the time I had arrived and sent her to her rest, the ghost had taken a bloody revenge on her killer, along with half the men in the village.
I tried to remember where the village was in relation to here.
A lot of my navigation had been helped by my sensitivity to the background magic of Britain. One more thing that was now lost to me.
“I think there’s a fishing village about ten miles north of here.” I said. “They have boats, or at least they did the last time I visited. We can go there and try to buy one.”
“Buy one? I suppose we could. We could trade the horses. I guess it’s better than the alternatives,” Belis said, stroking her horse’s neck. “Ten miles, you say? We should get there by nightfall. If we set sail tomorrow we’ll only have lost one day.”