Chapter Twenty-nine

Dan led his horse back to the yard to get Taliesin. Perhaps he ought to have realised earlier that Aelfred’s scop, the man they had been trying to meet, would be Macsen’s bard, Taliesin. It was obvious when he came to think about it and, on the plus side, Taliesin could play the harp better than anyone else Dan knew, so they were unlikely to be killed for their lack of musical prowess. It was always good to reduce the number of reasons your enemies might have for killing you.

Dan called out to Aethelnoth and to Braveheart to alert them that they should move on. He went alone to wash in the stream: cold but necessary ablutions. Things were not going the way he’d hoped. The magic of this world was not working on him in helpful ways. All he wanted was to find Ursula; it did not seem fair that such a simple desire was proving so difficult to satisfy. A sudden noise made him turn. He whipped round to face whatever the world should throw at him next.

‘Please, don’t hurt me!’ It was the boy. He had put up his hand to defend himself and was trembling with fear – his voice a frightened squeak. ‘I picked up your sword and cleaned it and my mother asks you to take this cloak and shirt.’

The boy swallowed hard and Dan checked himself to make sure that he had not begun to transform again. His hands looked normal, if rather blue.

‘We are grateful. You saved us. We know that – it was just …’

‘Don’t worry,’ Dan said. ‘I am frightened too. I don’t want to be a bear.’ That was true. This new gift was more frightening than anything that had gone before. It was worse than hearing other people’s thoughts. Dan had to fight back tears and he did not want this boy to know of his weakness.

‘I am a man and I am sorry that you had to see what I did – how I fought. I am ashamed of that. Battle is terrible and it turns men into beasts – inside.’ He shrugged. ‘I did not expect to be a beast on the outside too.’

‘You were brave,’ the boy said hesitantly.

‘So were you,’ Dan answered, with a smile which felt fake even though he meant it.

‘I didn’t have to do anything – they all ran away when … when you did what you did.’

Dan nodded. ‘I am glad you did not have to do anything. It is a terrible thing to kill another person.’

‘But sometimes it has to be done – doesn’t it?’ the boy said. Dan splashed icy water on his face.

‘I don’t know any more. I always thought I fought on the side of good, but all the killing … it has turned me into someone else, something else – a monster.’

‘I am glad,’ the boy said. ‘If you hadn’t been a bigger monster than them, I would be dead. They would have taken my mother and sister and killed us all.’ He hooked the clean, dry garments on the branch of an overhanging tree along with a piece of rough cloth for Dan to dry himself.

‘Thank you,’ Dan said. ‘You should probably know that King Aelfred is gathering an army to take back his lands from the Danes and to take back his throne from his nephew. There will be messengers, I’m sure … Think hard before you join him.’

The boy shook his head. ‘I have to fight. I have to fight to keep the farm, to keep the others safe. There isn’t anything to think about.’

He ran back the way he’d come and Dan was left wishing he could be as certain. He had lost count of the men he’d killed in his journeys through the Veil and that could not be a good thing. Perhaps each death had made him less a man and more a beast. Maybe he deserved to be a bear.

He took the new clothes gratefully, noticing their fine quality. The woman had given him the very best that she had. He didn’t know if that made him feel better or worse.

By the time Dan returned from the stream, Aethelnoth had woken Taliesin and they were ready to leave. Only the boy waved them off. ‘Think about what I said!’ Dan called, by way of farewell, though he was certain his warning had fallen on deaf ears.

‘So, still think I’m a Viking?’ Dan asked Aethelnoth when they had left the farm behind.

Aethelnoth kept his horse well away from Dan’s so that Dan had to shout back over his shoulder to be heard.

‘I don’t know what to think. I don’t think such savagery can be godly.’

‘Will you tell the King what happened?’

Aethelnoth’s silence had an eloquence of its own. Dan doubted that in Aethelnoth’s shoes he would want to tell a killer what he did not want to hear either.

They rode in silence again for a while. Braveheart was trotting by Dan’s side. He at least seemed to have forgotten about Dan’s unfortunate transformation into a wild beast; perhaps dogs were more forgiving. Dan’s mount had for some reason decided that Braveheart was not a problem and was far better behaved than Dan had expected. It was a pity in a way, because at least a difficult mount would have given Dan something to think about besides the obvious. Perhaps that was why Taliesin chose to distract him with some questions of his own.

‘Why did you say I was to blame – back when I first saw you?’

‘Because you gave me that orb thing to raise the Veil and lied and told me that it would bring me back to Macsen.’

‘Dan, I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t seen you since we crossed the Veil after we left the battlefield together at Camlann. I did as you said. I left you in the field before we got to the place of the huge land-ships. I took Braveheart, raised the Veil and found myself here. The presence of Rhonwen called to me, I suppose. I am bound to her after all, through thick and thin, through time and all the strangeness of the Veil.’

‘Then I saw you in my past but your future,’ Dan said with sudden certainty. ‘Don’t do it! When you get the chance, please don’t give me the orb. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want Ursula to be here. None of it would have happened but for you.’

‘I can’t promise anything,’ Taliesin said. ‘If I brought you here, perhaps I have to bring you here – I am not fool enough to try to change what has to be.’

As Taliesin had been trying to change things since they first met, interfering and meddling in Dan’s life, he felt a burst of hot rage at such a dishonest response. He forced himself to calm down. The bear was waiting for him on the other side of anger and he did not want to turn into that savage beast ever again.

‘Whatever …’ Dan said in English, which neither Taliesin nor Aethelnoth understood. He made himself breathe deeply and tried not to think of Taliesin as the interfering old man he undoubtedly was. If Taliesin knew anything of Dan’s internal struggle, he didn’t acknowledge it, but wittered on in a loud conversational voice, as if Dan cared at all about what he’d been doing.

‘I have been out and about scouting for the King and he told me to meet Aethelnoth near here. I did not expect to see you again. I heard the Dane’s charge and saw you transform. It was extraordinary. You were a magnificent beast – a giant even among bears. Amazing!’

‘It did not feel amazing,’ Dan said bleakly, but that was a lie. That was the worst thing. The bear had no conscience – men were meat and death was of no consequence, unless it was his own.

He had loved having that power, that strength, the weapons that were just there in his hands, in his mouth. He had not even needed Bright Killer. He was complete in himself. That was the worst thing of all. When he had been killing those men in such a violent and vicious way, it had felt amazing – he had been perfectly and completely happy. Taliesin shot him a quizzical look which Dan ignored and they rode on.

Dan realised that there were Danes ahead at about the same moment that Braveheart stopped, sniffed the air and growled. The scent of men was strong and Dan found himself licking his lips. ‘There are Vikings ahead,’ he said softly, ‘and I want you, Taliesin, to put me to sleep. I will not fight as a monster.’

‘But, Dan …’

‘Do it!’ Dan’s sword was in his hand before he had finished the sentence. Taliesin looked mutinous. ‘Do not trick me again, Taliesin. I am in this mess because of you and you are going to get me out of it. Put me to sleep.’

‘They will kill us.’

‘I am sure with all your spells and charms you can think of something,’ Dan hissed. He knew that the transformation was coming. His body was heavier, denser, and he was growing; he could feel it. ‘Make me sleep!’

Taliesin lifted his hands to do Dan’s bidding. Dan heard the wild war cries of the charging enemy in the last instant before his eyelids closed.