22
The green silence of the trees enfolded Branwen as she followed the river north and west. In one of the two panniers on her trusty mule, Pedr, were her most treasured possessions, the scrying bowl, various scrolled books, writing materials. She had folded a spare tunic and a stole and a blanket with her extra sturdy walking sandals into the second pannier and for the time being she walked at the animal’s head. She carried a staff on which were engraved various symbols to protect her and her four-footed companion from the dangers of the road. Anyone who thought about robbing her would almost certainly recognise the staff with its signs of her calling and realise that it would be wise to leave her severely alone.
Pedr’s hooves padded almost soundlessly through the soft earth of the path, the branches of the trees brushing his flanks. Over her shoulder Branwen wore a satchel into which one of the servants of the headman had packed a linen napkin wrapped around a loaf of bread with a wedge of local cheese and a bottle stoppered with wax.
To begin with she had been alert for noises behind her. She knew no one from the oppidum would dare follow her, but woods were traditionally the lair of robbers and outlaws. There were none there, however, to bother her today and her journey was tranquil. Any eyes watching from the shadows were benign.
She followed the ancient trackways of her people. Some had been made good by the Romans with their admitted engin-eering skills to make the roadways solid, with good drainage ditches on either side where they were needed. Elsewhere she followed the age-old paths angled to the solstice lines, all leading without deviation to her destination, Dinas Affaraon, scarce half a day’s walk south of Caer Seiont, or Segontium, as the Romans called it. The man she sought had been her teacher years before at the college in the grove of oaks beside the hill. He would be her teacher still.
But it was not to be.
King Brennius was standing on the clifftop near Dinas Dinlle staring out to sea as he leaned on his staff. ‘Your teacher tarried for you as long as he could, Branwen, both at Dinas Affaraon and then here, in the place of his birth. But he was old in years and longed to go to his gods. He left messages for you, though, in case you ever came back to find him. He trusted you. He told me you had learned all he could teach and that you had passed the learning on where it was needed. But even so, you come in good time, sister.’ He turned to look down at Branwen, his dark eyes gentle. ‘There is trouble in the air, for our empress and for her children. I can feel it.’
‘You acknowledge her as empress?’ Branwen met his glance with a slight raise of the eyebrow.
He nodded. ‘She won’t use that title when she returns here, as she surely will, but she will always be a queen to us here in the western kingdoms. Her blood is royal, she is the descendant of the gods of this land.’ He turned back to gaze across the angry grey sea. The tide was high and it crashed against the cliffs below the ramparts, throwing spray high in the air. ‘I hear Macsen has had success after success after he was accepted by Britannia and then by Gaul and Hispania and Africa as emperor of the West. His capital at Augusta Treverorum is a rich and peaceful place, I understand, and his rule is successful as he and our queen live in Gratian’s palace surrounded by Gratian’s riches. Macsen has coins minted with the image of his head upon silver and gold. He has in many ways achieved all the success he dreamed of, but now word is he has turned greedy eyes towards the city of Roma herself. He covets the entire empire, east as well as west, and on top of that he has offended the gods he worshipped. He has broken his sacred oath to his god Mithras and to his fellow initiates in their temple.’
Branwen grimaced dismissively. ‘A Roman god; a god of blood; the soldiers’ god.’
‘Indeed. And one very easily angered. Our queen follows the men of Christ and she has succeeded in luring Macsen to their cause. I hear he wins these victories under the banner of their cross as did the old Emperor Constantine.’ He looked down at her again. ‘You knew?’
‘I knew she was a Christian and her children are baptised in that faith. It is a gentle faith, one of love and brotherhood, and through the Roman sentence of death, their Christ hung from a tree like one of our gods.’ She was amazed at how much he knew, this elderly man who ruled this isolated land with its islands and its mountains and its green strip of flat countryside bordering the vast ocean to the west. It might all ostensibly be part of the Roman Empire now, but she suspected below the surface he had command of far more men than the legions that had been based in the Roman forts before Macsen led them away, could ever guess, men who had vowed allegiance to Elen as their queen and who would do so again if she ever returned. For now it suited him to bide his time and watch.
‘Do you follow the Jesus god?’ He turned to her again. Below them the inexorable waves thundered against the cliffs, showering them with spray.
Branwen shook her head. ‘No, I am faithful to the forest ways I was born into, but I will not kill to preserve the old ways as the followers of Mithras do and I can accept Elen’s Christ as another of our woodland gods. But, how can these men threaten Macsen with all his legions round him? He has thousands of men under arms.’
He nodded gloomily. ‘I hear Mithras still has very strong magic. The flow of blood releases so much power and I’m told they released it here recently in the ultimate sacrifice of a white bull.’
She looked shocked. Then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Our own people once made sacrifices, don’t forget, long ago.’ She cocked her head towards the sea. ‘Out there. On M?n.’ The sacred isle, along the wild coast and across the narrow strait, was lost now in the clouds of sleeting rain as were the mountains behind the fortress where they stood. ‘But I’ve been told the followers of Mithras no longer make sacrifices to their god. If they ever did. Are their gods not up there in the constellations with the sun and moon?’
He snorted. ‘Perhaps we’re all learning gentleness from the Christ. I understand his followers use wine to represent his blood, but the fact remains that Macsen has broken the sacred vow he took, here in Segontium, to be a follower of Mithras. And by breaking that vow he has opened himself to the ultimate penalty, and he has doomed his sons after him unless they return to worship here in the temple where he first made his vows.’
‘He first made his vows far away in North Africa,’ Branwen retorted. ‘Not here. He brought the god with him.’
‘You know that for certain?’
She gave a slight nod of the head. ‘I am told it was generally known in the fort. His senior officers were all initiates.’
‘So.’ The king nodded slowly. ‘It was not so secret, and never was. Nevertheless, someone else less inclined to change, has stepped into his shoes at Segontium.’
‘There are always people eager to step into another man’s shoes,’ Branwen muttered under her breath. ‘It is the way of men.’
‘But not women?’
‘Women wait in the dark, then they pounce!’
There was a moment’s silence then he laughed companionably. ‘Will you stay at Segontium?’ he asked as they began -slowly to walk back along the top of the rampart.
She shook her head. ‘With your permission I will stay with you here at the oppidum. I have plans to make. For now, as is the way of women, I will wait in the dark before I pounce.’
* * *
Mithras! So, Branwen had been prepared to tell her side of the story, and it was the story of the temple of Mithras. Cadi shivered. The name even today had connotations of dark caves swimming with the blood of sacrificial bulls, sinister places full of shadows.
She walked over to the door into the garden and pulled it open, stepping out into the darkness.
Steve, the archaeologist and two assistants had returned that afternoon and painstakingly removed the bones from the ground after taking dozens of photographs, leaving the empty grave under a small tent. Presumably they would come back another day to make a more intensive search of the area.
As she stared through the hedge towards the meadow an owl flew low over the grass, distracting her from her thoughts of the dead for only a second with its echoing call. For a moment she couldn’t move, then slowly she extricated herself from the clinging branches. Ghosts. That was all. Her story was about ghosts. Echoes. Meryn had barely given any thought at all to her descriptions of the armed men marching up the road, along Sarn Elen. He had thought the whole thing so unremarkable as to be unworthy of comment. She could almost hear him ridiculing the creeping chill which had run down her back. ‘Don’t be frightened, Cadi, for goodness’ sake. Don’t worry about it. It’s only an echo. And even if it isn’t, even if it’s a warning, they’re on our side. Enjoy the fact that you can hear them. Most -people can’t. Cultivate your sensitivity. You’re blessed with a talent many would give their eye teeth for.’
A warning. But what was she being warned about? Her story? The fate of Elen and her children, or was it a danger nearer to home? A danger lurking in the meadow.