High The Vanes (The Change Book 2)
Read High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) Online
Authors: David Kearns
HIGH THE VANES
By
David Kearns
Copyright © 2015 David Kearns
All rights reserved.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and events portrayed in it are
The work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
Actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
Entirely coincidental.
Cover design and artwork by thecovercollection.com
For Jo, always my inspiration
High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west
A E Housman
PART ONE
To Uricon
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Eluned was now several paces ahead of me. She stopped.
“Uricon,” she said, without turning her head.
“Where’s that?”
“Many leagues, my lady.”
“I must stop, Eluned. I’m tired and hungry.”
Eluned turned and looked up at the sun. “There are more hours of light left in this day. We cannot waste them, my lady.”
Beside the road where I stood there was a large rock with a flat top. I sat down on it, heavily.
“A break, then. We have plenty of food. A piece of bread. Or something.”
Eluned unhitched the bag from her shoulder and squatted down beside it. Lifting the flap, she took out a small brown loaf and a brown bottle. Standing up, she walked over and handed them to me.
“Thank you.”
“Quickly, my lady. We must not slow. By tomorrow night we must be at the dyke.”
I tore a piece from the loaf and ate it, hungrily. I put the bottle on the rock beside me.
“Why are we going to … what did you call it?”
“Uricon.”
“Uricon. Why are we going there?”
“Tonight, my lady. When we have stopped for the night I will explain. While it is daylight we must keep walking.”
We had been walking for several hours already. Eluned kept up a pace that I found difficult to match, fit as I was. She had not paused once since we left the castle. At first I was exhilarated. To be free of that place and its punishing routines. Away from the Teacher. He had not even bothered to come to the gate when we left.
“Tomorrow you leave,” were his final words to me, the previous night. Nothing more.
I had no idea where we were going. Or why, to be honest.
“You will return to your world.” He told me that several days before we left.
When I asked for explanation he said, “Eluned has been taught how to take you.”
As we stepped out of the gate at dawn this morning, I naturally expected Eluned to tell me where we were headed. She said nothing.
Now, after several hours of silence, I needed to know the answer. I determined to eat my bread and drink from the bottle as slowly as possible, hoping it would encourage Eluned to tell me more. She did not. She returned to her bag, hitched it back over her shoulder and stood patiently facing the direction in which we were headed.
“Ready,” I said. She was a determined woman. I knew that of old. I stuffed the half of the loaf I had not eaten into a pocket, took a last draught from the bottle, and joined her on the path. She took the bottle and returned it to her bag. She smiled at me and set off. I followed, two or three paces behind.
Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the sun moved down the sky. Before I knew it dusk had fallen. The moors around us, which we had been walking across all day, turned grey and a low mist rose, obscuring the path we were following. Eluned stopped.
“We should have taken less time. We are late.”
“I suppose that was my fault for stopping back there.”
She turned and looked at me. “The way is further than they told me. Perhaps they measured it with the pace of men. Not women.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“The men of old Rome. We are walking their road, my lady. In my father’s time the way would have been clearer. In the time of my grandfather, soldiers kept it clear. Now, in our time, it is fading.”
“I don’t understand. What men?”
“Before the time of your ‘Gododdin’, my lady. The time of my grandfather’s grandfather. This land was ruled by men who came from Rome. Great armies. They made these roads. To move their soldiers.”
I was lost. ‘Before the time of my Gododdin’? What could she be saying? I shook my head.
“They told me there was an old Roman house not one day’s walk from the castle. They said it is small and now in ruins, but very easy to see at the side of the road. The sun has set, yet I can not see a house.”
“Let’s walk a little further, Eluned. There’s still some light. Perhaps we’ll find this house you’re looking for.”
Without another word, Eluned set off again. Half an hour passed. By now the light had completely faded. There was no moon.
“I see it,” she exclaimed, striking out to the side, across the moor. I followed, stumbling over the ridges and ditches, my feet splashing in freezing pools. Out of the mist, three broken walls emerged.
“They were not wrong, my lady. We shall rest here for the night.”
She stepped over the threshold of what had once been a door. The remains of a small room, open to the skies, lay inside. It reminded me of the ruined village near the lake where we had sheltered so long ago. When the Guards had destroyed our house. And taken my grandfather. I shivered.
“Here we will rest the night, my lady. We are quite safe. The genius is still here.”
She pronounced it with a hard ‘g’. I was almost too tired to ask. Almost.
“What is a ‘genius’?”
A small candle burned in a niche in the wall. It gave a surprising light. Eluned was busy unrolling the blankets she had been carrying. She pushed aside fallen stones to create two smooth places.
“The old Romans, my lady.” She carried on laying out the beds. “They made sure to protect their houses. With a spirit. Each house had its own spirit. The genius. It will protect us. See. I have lit the candle in its place.”
Another of her superstitions, I thought to myself. The ‘genius’ did not seem to have protected the house against the ravages of the years.
“So why is it ruined? Has the ‘genius’ left it.”
“The old people have left it, my lady. The genius will stay for eternity. Without the old people there can be no repairs. Do not be afraid. Come. Eat.”
I sat down beside her, pushing my bag around my back, out of the way.
“You may take off your bag, my lady.”
“I’ll keep it, if you don’t mind, Eluned. Wouldn’t want to lose it.”
Inside the bag were my two treasures. A copy of the old Welsh poem, ‘Y Gododdin’, that I had rescued from the house where we had stayed before I went to join the Teacher. And a notebook containing a translation of the poem into English. Made by my grandfather. It was all I had left of him. I did not intend to lose it.
Eluned had laid out two apples, two carrots, a jar containing some round red balls of something, another loaf and a small piece of dry cheese. She broke the bread in two, handing me one half with an apple.
“Eat, my lady. This food is good. It will give you strength for the walk tomorrow.”
As I chewed on the bread I gestured towards the jar. “What is that? Is it food?”
“The root of the beet. We will have one after the cheese and apple. It will clear your mouth before you sleep.”
As I finished my apple, Eluned took out a small knife from her bag and cut the cheese in two. She handed this to me, with a carrot. We ate in silence. Finally, all consumed, she opened the jar and plunged her knife into it. When she removed it one of the red balls hung at its tip, dark liquid dripping from it. She held the knife towards me. As I reached out with my fingers she pulled the knife back.
“No, my lady. Not your fingers. The beet will stain them. Into your mouth from the knife.”
I leaned forward, she thrust the ball into my mouth and I gripped it with my teeth. The taste was sharp. Sharp and clean. I liked it. While I chewed on this new experience, Eluned took one for herself and ate it in the same way. She carefully replaced the lid on the jar.
“Now we drink.” She took out the brown bottle and handed it to me. I removed the stopper and drank from it, before handing it back. “Enough, my lady?”
I nodded. The taste of the beet defeated the taste of the spring water. I moved away from the ‘table’.
“You were going to tell me where we are going, Eluned. Weren’t you?”
I was desperately tired, but determined that Eluned should keep her promise to tell me about this journey.
“Surely you are tired, my lady. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“No. Tomorrow you will no doubt say the same. Tell me now. I don’t imagine it will take long.”
“There is much to tell. But as you wish, I will begin.”
She began by returning to the incident outside the house called Ty’r Brodyr. The man I called the Teacher had fired an arrow into her arm, wounding her. He had shown me how to apply a bandage and I had carried her back inside the house. The following day he had returned and forced me to follow him, leaving Eluned behind.
“When I awoke, you had gone. At first I despaired. My whole life I had waited for you. Now I had lost you. I could not understand how the Lady had allowed this. Of course, I should not have been so doubtful. There is always a purpose to what the Lady does.
“Two days after he took you, I awoke to see two women, grey of face, grey of dress, sitting beside my bed. At first I thought it was a dream. I was weak. I had lost much blood. But no. When they saw that I was awake, they smiled at me. ‘All shall be well, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair,’ one of them said. Her voice was as a gentle breeze, soft and tuneful.
“The other said, in a like-sounding way, ‘She is well. Never fear. Soon you will be together.’ The first one said, ‘She will learn the ways of the Teacher. You will learn our ways. Together you will begin the task that is your destiny.’ Weak as I was, I smiled. I recalled your ever-questing face, my lady. I knew you would have immediately asked what was this ‘task’.”
I laughed at that. She knew me so well. And here I was again – ever-questioning. Eluned smiled and continued in her slow manner.
“Together, I know not how, the two women transported me to their dwelling. It seemed far, but I was little able to know the way. When we arrived they placed me in a straw-filled cot. I slept for many days, and many nights, but when at last I awoke, the pain in my arm was gone. The wound was healed, leaving not a mark.”
She lifted the sleeve of her shift. There was indeed no sign of where the arrow had pierced through her arm.
“I felt refreshed, with no hunger and no thirst, though neither bread nor water had passed my lips all this time. Again, on waking, the two women were sat beside me. ‘I am Hafren,’ the one who had spoken first said. ‘My sister is Gwyr. You are most welcome, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair.’ I asked how they knew me. They told me they had known me since the day I was born. They had known my father, my father’s father, and his father. They are the spirits of waterways and roadways, my lady, high servants of the Lady, known to the old people as Sabrina and Vaga.”
“So it was these two who told you to take this road that we are now following.”
“Yes. I was highly honoured to be with them. Even though I had doubted the Lady, she granted me this honour. It shows that our task is important. The Lady trusts me, even when I fall from the way.”