High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (6 page)

I sighed. Always, Eluned had this unfailing trust in the Lady. I envied her such trust. I had killed someone. A young woman, much the same age as me, simply doing what she was asked. Going about her task. A task that was so simple – collect some wood to make a fire. Yet now she was dead. A single blow from my arm and her task was over, before she had a chance to complete it. What right did I have to think that I could complete my task? Whatever it might be.

Eluned had picked up her bag and was slowly heading for an opening in the hedge on the other side of the field. With still aching legs, I followed her.

Keeping the sun, slowly sinking in the sky, to our right, we crossed two more fields and then came upon a path. Long overgrown by the wild hedges, it was just wide enough for us to walk along, much more easily than the struggle through the fields. We picked up a little speed. My leg muscles still ached, but at least they seemed stronger now there was nothing to restrict them. Eluned took the lead again. I did not argue with this, as she was convinced that the Lady was guiding us – or at least, she was guiding her.

Before long, the hedge on either side thinned, before eventually disappearing altogether. The path, now clear, was wide and, we noticed for the first time, paved. Just like the old Roman road we had previously followed.

“This is not …?” I said.

“No, my lady. It is not the same road. You need not fear.”

For one brief moment I thought we had somehow run in a circle and had returned to the road we left two days previously.

“How do you know, Eluned?”

“See, my lady.” She was pointing ahead. “See, this was once a village. There is no village on the other road. We passed our destination by running so far. Now we approach it from the other direction. The Lady has indeed protected us.”

“What road is this, then? Another Roman road?”

“Yes, my lady. Continue on this road in the direction from which we came and, after many days walking, you would arrive at the place your people call Deva Caster. A very large city. As you saw, no one travels this road today. That is why it has become so overgrown.” She turned her head away from me as she muttered the last words. “One day you will have to take it.”

“What was that?”

She shook her head. “The other side of this village we will find our destination. Soon we will be there. Come, my lady.”

She set off. I had heard what she said, even though I pretended I had not. ‘One day you will have to take it.’ What did she mean by saying that? Why would I have to go to this ‘Deva Caster’? A little unnerved, I followed her.

The road passed through the middle of what had been a small village, now completely ruined. It seemed odd to me that people should wish to live in such a remote place. I supposed it was what Eluned called ‘the old people’ who had built it, but why here? Once again, it reminded me of the ruined village near the lake beside Plas Maen Heledd. Eluned had told me she once lived there when it was a thriving place. Hundreds of years ago. So she claimed.

“Who lived here?” I asked as we passed through the village.

“The old people, my lady.”

“I know that. Which old people? What sort of people? Why would they want to live here? It seems to be in the middle of nowhere.”

“The old people lived in small places like this. They feared living in large communities. The old Romans had moved them into cities, much like your casters. But when the old Roman soldiers left, the people abandoned the cities and moved into small places such as this. At first they made their dwellings with wood, as their ancestors had done, before the Romans came. As time passed, they made them from stone. A stone dwelling provides greater protection against the seasons as they change.”

“But what did they do? How did they live?”

“The fields we have passed through, my lady. Each one of the old people would have one or two of those fields, perhaps with a beast, mostly with vegetables and a little wheat to make bread.”

“Did they have children in those times?”

Eluned laughed out loud. “Children, my lady? Of course they had children. There are always children.”

“Did they go to school?”

She laughed again. “No. No school. Why learn to read when you have no books? Why learn to number when there is never more than the fingers on your hands?”

“No school? No books? Not even the Bible?”

“There was a time when the people would have a Bible, my lady, but not when the old people were living. There were books but they belonged to the kings and the holy men, who lived in the houses of kings and holy men.”

“So what did the children do?”

“Do, my lady? They worked in the fields with their mothers and fathers. What else would they do?”

“Is that what you did? When you were a child?”

“That. And helped my mother make the flour. To make bread. In the winter I was given the task of watching the broth, making sure the wind did not blow out the fire. And we learned the songs and stories of the old people. I liked that. With the wind howling outside, my little sisters would huddle against me to keep warm while we slowly drank a bowl of broth. My father would tell us the stories, and my mother would sing the songs. That is how I learned them, my lady.”

I looked up. We had continued walking while we talked and had now passed through what remained of the village. I turned to take one last look, imagining the small families sitting around their fires, listening to poems and stories. Now they were gone. Soon their houses would also be gone.

“Soon we will be there, my lady. Look.”

I turned back to the way we were travelling. The road ran straight and level ahead of us. Just visible on the horizon was what looked like a wall, which had at least one huge hole in it, possibly two.

“That’s it?” I said. “That broken wall is where we are going?”

“The wall is the biggest part left of the city the old Romans made here. In their time there were many people here. There were many houses. Large halls. A place where the people gathered to wash themselves. Many markets.”

“Now there is nothing left but a broken wall.”

“That is what your people think. It is best that they think that. The truth is different. Come.”

She walked on. I stood for a moment, wondering at all the people who had once lived in this countryside. Romans, ‘old people’. Some in large cities, some in small villages. When I lived in ‘my world’ I did not know of these places, nor of the people who once lived in them. I pictured the posters in my school – ‘Before was Chaos. After was Order.’ - and – ‘That was NOT then. This is NOW. That will NOT be.’ It seemed to me that these things were so wrong. It had not been chaos, but a different kind of order. My ‘now’ – the ‘now’ of my world – was only one of many. There had indeed been a ‘then’. A ‘then’ with people who made huge cities and small villages. Who probably did not think that their great stone buildings, or their small ones, would one day collapse into ruin, then decay away to nothing. What would be the ‘wall’ that would be left of my world, I wondered. I could not think of one.

Musing on this, I walked straight into a motionless Eluned. As I apologised, she pointed ahead. Between us and the wall which had grown as we approached it, there stood a figure, facing in our direction. My first reaction, as always, was panic. The vagabondi had found us. The one I thought I had killed was alive. They knew they were looking for at least one young woman.

“Is it them?” I blurted.

Eluned turned to me and smiled. “No, my lady. It is our final guide. It is Gwenllian, last high servant of the lady. She who dwells in Uricon.”

The figure drew nearer. Just like Ceridwen, the Keeper of the Dyke, she was very tall and clothed all in red. While still some distance away, she spoke.

“Welcome, Eluned Llyn Y Gadair. Welcome Expected One. Long has been our waiting. Uricon welcomes and awaits you.”

Her voice was deep and magical, her words resonating through the air.

We had at last arrived in Uricon.

PART TWO

Uricon

“The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”

I stared at him. “You sound just like Eluned.” I was about to laugh, but the look on his face stopped me.

“That I take as a compliment. Eluned is of the old people. They know much that we have forgotten. You would do well to remember that.”

These many weeks after we had arrived at Uricon, there was still much I had to learn about this young man. We were sitting, uncomfortably, each on one of the small pillars of bricks that lay around. Before us loomed the vast, broken wall built, so it was said, by the old Romans. Each time I saw it I wondered at the mind that encompassed such an undertaking.

Unusually, the sun was shining and the air was warm. I had pulled the skirt of my shift up over my knees. The slight breeze cooled my calves. I knew Nefyn did not like to be up here in daylight, especially a day as bright as this, but I missed the warmth of the sun.

“Your legs are well-shaped,” he said. “You should discard this dress. Wear trousers. They would be better.”

I smiled at him. “Better for what?”

He looked at me, then looked away.

I knew he would not answer my question. “Besides, who would give me trousers? You?”

Even though I was considered to be tall for a woman, Nefyn stood head and shoulders above me. His legs seemed to reach up to my arm pits when I stood next to him.

“You should ask your tailor.”

“My who?”

“Your tailor. Ignoramus. The one who makes these shapeless garments you wear. They do not grow on trees.”

“She wouldn’t know how to make trousers. It’s easy to make one of these.” I stood up, dropped my skirts and twirled about.

“You could try asking her.”

I left him and wandered over to the enormous ruined wall. It soared upwards and off in both directions. Straight in front of where I stood now, there was an equally massive gap in the wall, as if someone had designed a doorway, but never found doors large enough to fill it.

“‘Through conquest of kingdoms, unconquered this wall endured.’”

Nefyn’s voice startled me. He was right behind me. “Who said that?”

“It is from the writing of the old people of England. They came after our old people. Took many of their lands. When they saw the works of the old Romans, they were astonished.”

“And so are we. And so are we. Look at it. Over two thousand years old. No one would think of building like this any more.” I looked around at what appeared to be nothing but desolation. “This was once a city?”

“One of the greatest. Filled with people. Laughing. Singing. Buying. Selling. Fighting. Drinking. Men. Women. Children.”

“Now they are gone. What is left of their city belongs to us. You. Me. Eluned. Perhaps Gwenllian.”

“The travelling women. Sometimes. And the ghosts.”

“The ghosts? What are they?” I assumed he meant the vagabondi when he said ‘travelling women’.

“Those who could not leave. Those who left their spirits here. Of the many generations, most left when the old Romans left. Some remained. Now they are gone. But they did not leave willingly.”

When Nefyn started to talk in this manner I tended to switch off. He became increasingly negative. Speaking of the past as if it was only yesterday. As if he could have changed the past, given the chance. I knew that was not possible, so his words simply irritated me. The future was all that concerned me. What was I – what were we going to do?

“Come on,” I said, turning to him. “Let’s go back inside. What we see out here always makes you sad.”
 

I put out my hand, but he did not take it. Arms by his side, his fists clenched, he turned away and headed back to the hidden room.

“What do these words say?” I asked as we crouched down to crawl along the corridor leading to the Room. Along one side of the corridor there were words, carved into the rock face. No one answered. I had asked that the first time I had entered the room. I had been terrified, even with Nefyn crawling along in front of me, and Eluned behind me, constantly touching my foot to reassure me. With only the faint light from Nefyn’s candle, the tunnel had seemed to go on for ever, deeper and deeper into the cold, damp earth.

Since that time I had learned not to fear the darkness of the tunnel, even once crawling along it on my own without a candle, not something I wished to repeat. Each time I entered the tunnel I forced myself to memorise one or two of the carved words, then as soon as we arrived in the Room, I picked up my notebook and wrote them down, as near as I could. None of the letters were particularly clear, so some words I just made up, writing in the same jagged way, hoping that it would become clear once I had it all.

As I wrote down the final pair, Nefyn came up behind me and snatched the book away from me.

“The words in the tunnel,” he said.

“Yes. So what?”

“You can read them?”

“I don’t know yet. Those are the last two words. It’s complete now. Do you know what they say?”

“Of course not. They’re not English, are they?” He threw the book back to me. “You waste too much time.”

I crawled off into my corner, taking one of the small candles from the table. Eluned came to sit next to me.

“You must not fear him, my lady.”

“Fear him? I don’t fear him. He’s an idiot.”

“No, my lady. Not so. What did he wish to see in your book?”

I showed her the page in my book where I had written the words.

“You know these words?”

“What? Oh, they seem familiar. Somehow. I think they may be in Welsh. Like The Gododdin.”

“Yes, it seems so to me. But I think they are not written as they should be.”

“What do you mean? I wrote them down two words at a time, as they were written on the wall. At least, I think that’s how they were written. It’s difficult to be sure when I only get one chance, by the light of a flickering candle.”

Eluned sat down on the floor with the book on her lap. She turned to the back of it and tore out a blank page. “You have a pencil, my lady?”