Kitabı oku: «Daughters of Fire»

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition 2007

Copyright © Barbara Erskine 2006

Barbara Erskine asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents 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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN 9780007174270

Ebook edition © SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN 9780007279449

Version: 2017-09-12

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Dedication

For Diz, who started the hare.

Epigraph

 
The lamps now glitter down the street;
Faintly sound the falling feet;
And the blue even slowly falls
About the garden trees and walls.
 
 
Now in the falling of the gloom
The red fire paints the empty room:
And warmly on the roof it looks,
And flickers on the backs of books.
 
 
Armies march by tower and spire
Of cities blazing, in the fire;
Till as I gaze with staring eyes,
The armies fade, the lustre dies.
 
 
Then once again the glow returns;
Again the phantom city burns;
And down the red-hot valley, lo!
The phantom armies marching go!
 
 
Blinking embers, tell me true,
Where are those armies marching to,
And what the burning city is
That crumbles in your furnaces!
 

‘Armies in the Fire’

A Child’s Garden of Verses

Robert Louis Stevenson

‘The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones …’

Julius Caesar

William Shakespeare

Map

Prologue

She had demanded initiation. Without it she could not be queen.

And now she was afraid. For the first time in her life she was really afraid.

Not of the ancestors amongst whose bones she sat in the dark, but of the others, the shadows, the voices, the faces from the future. Those, she had not expected.

As the last remnant of light disappeared she had crouched quite still, the only sound in the silence beyond the settling of the stones and earth with which they had blocked the entrance tunnel behind her, the thudding of her heart. She had imagined she would hear the Druid priests’ footsteps as they withdrew, perhaps their whispered voices dying away in the distance, but there was nothing save an awareness of the weight of rocks and soil over her head and of the presence of the bones somewhere near her feet. Cautiously she stretched out her hands, feeling around her in the darkness. As her fingers at last met those of the woman with whom she shared the grave there was no sound but the rattle of dried bones.

Taking a deep breath she sat down, her back against the wall of limestone, and closed her eyes, waiting for something to happen. What. She didn’t know.

Outside, the moors grew dark. There was no guard outside the living grave. There was no need. No one sane would stray there by day or night. It was the place of the ancestors. A place of the gods. When she was released, if she was alive and in her right mind, she would be an initiate. A member of the élite. A woman who could mediate the gods and rule the people. A woman fit to be queen. If she was dead her bones would join those around her and her spirit would roam the fells until it was called to the place of rest beyond the western seas, the land of the ever young, and thence once more to the world of men to live again.

At first the voices were indistinct – a mumbling out of the darkness. She clenched her fists in terror, straining her ears to make out the words. Slowly the meaning came and with the meaning, pictures. She saw men with war chariots forming up on the edge of the hills, their eyes cruel, their hard bodies cased in armour; she saw women weeping. She saw swords and fire and blood. She saw the landscape change – from forest to heather moor and back to forest again. She saw men plough the land, their ploughs pulled and pushed by men, and then pulled by oxen, then horses, and then strange chariots which smoked above their huge wheels. She saw flocks of gulls following the furrows age after age through famine and plenty; through war and peace. She saw her people live. She saw her people die. She saw them laugh and she saw them weep. And one voice above all others came to her clearly out of the shadows. It called her name, Cartimandua, Sleek Pony, with an accent strange to her ears. She shook her head, trying to see more clearly in the swirling mists and a woman’s face swam into focus. A woman who held out her hands. Who stretched out across aeons to touch her mind. Who wanted to know who she was and what she had done. A woman who had chosen her above all others as a lesson and a story.

The tomb was growing colder. Outside, the sun was sinking into a bank of cloud. Soon it would be dark. She shivered suddenly and the mind that had reached out to touch hers drew back.

‘Where are you?’ Carta called out. ‘Wait. Are you one of the gods?’

There was no reply.

Somewhere near her feet she heard something rustle and click amongst the bones and she gritted her teeth against a scream. For the first time she wondered if anyone would come back to release her, or would they leave her here to lie amongst the dead whilst another took up the mantle of leadership?

Another, more fitted for the role because he was a man.

1

I

‘Have you any idea of what you have done to this department?’ Professor Hugh Graham threw the magazine down on the desk in front of him. It was folded open at an article entitled, ‘Cartimandua, the First British Queen?’ ‘You’ve made us a laughing stock! And me! You’ve made me a laughing stock in the academic community.’ He spoke with the soft lilt of the Scottish Borders, usually scarcely noticeable but now emphasised by his anger.

Behind him the sun, shining in through the office window which looked out onto Edinburgh’s George Square, backlit his thick, unruly pepper-and-salt hair and cast the planes of his weather-beaten face into relief. ‘I don’t think you and I can go on working together, Viv. Not when you clearly hold my views in such low esteem.’

‘Rubbish!’ Viv Lloyd Rees was thirty-five years old, five foot four, slightly plump and had short fiery red hair which had been cut to stand out in a hedgehog frame around her face, emphasising her bright green eyes. In spite of the Welsh name her accent was cut-glass English, another fact that irritated intensely the nationalist that resided deep in the professor’s soul.

‘Are you telling me that suddenly no one is allowed to have their own opinions in this place?’ she went on furiously. ‘For goodness’ sake, Hugh! We study Celtic history. We are not a think tank for some politburo!’

‘No.’ He leaned forward, his hands braced on the shambles of papers and open books which lay strewn across the desk behind his computer monitor. Somewhere under there, presumably, lurked a keyboard and mouse. ‘No, you are correct. We study. We examine facts. We spell them out –’

‘That’s all I’ve done, Hugh. I’ve spelled out some facts. Interpreted them …’

‘Your own interpretation, not mine.’

The atmosphere crackled between them.

‘Mine, as you say. It is my article, Hugh. Not yours.’

‘Fictional twaddle!’

‘No, Hugh. Not fictional.’ Her temper was rising to match his. ‘Intuitive interpretation.’

But there was more than that, wasn’t there, if she was honest. He was right.

‘Intuitive!’ He spat out the word with utter disdain. ‘Need I say more! And your book. Your much vaunted – hyped – book. Do I assume it will be along these same lines?’ He gestured at the supplement lying on his desk.

‘Obviously. Haven’t you been sent a copy to review yet?’ She met his eye in a direct challenge.

She had fought it. She had fought it so hard, that strange voice in her head, the voice she had conjured from her research. The voice that had wanted her to write the book, and now wanted her to write a play. The voice she could not tell anyone about. But its promptings had been too subtle, its information too specific to pretend it wasn’t there. She hadn’t managed to catch the information, to keep it out of the book, the book which was going to be published in exactly four weeks’ time on 14th July. She had tried to sieve the facts, separate the known from the unknown. She had failed.

She waited miserably to see what he would say next, as she did so staring fixedly at the small box lying in a ray of sunlight in his in-tray. She did not want to meet his eye.

There was a long silence as Hugh tried, visibly, to calm himself. In his early fifties, of middle height and with deep-set, slightly slanted hazel eyes, he was a strikingly handsome man. Today he was also formidable as he glared at the woman who stood before him on the layered threadbare rugs which carpeted the floor of his small, overcrowded, first-floor study.

‘Your by-line here,’ he went on at last, ignoring her question, ‘ ‘‘Viv Lloyd Rees of the Department of Pan-Celtic History and Culture at the University of Edinburgh’’,’ – the last dozen words, normally abbreviated to DPCHC by its members and students, were heavily emphasised – ‘I trust that will not be appearing on this famous book of yours. I am withdrawing the funding for your research facilities. And your post here will not be renewed at the end of the year.’

Viv stared at him. ‘You can’t do that!’ She was paralysed with shock.

‘I am sure I can find a way.’ He folded his arms. ‘This department prides itself in scholarship, not guesswork. There is no room here for fantasists.’ Leaning forward, he picked up the Sunday Times magazine by one corner and tossed it across the desk towards her. ‘You may as well take this. I shall not be looking at it again.’ He refolded his arms and sat watching her from beneath frowning sandy brows.

The knowledge that he was right in many of his criticisms, and that she was already in an agony of guilt about them, made her angrier than ever.

She had been overjoyed when he had asked her to come back to Edinburgh to work with him and accepted the lectureship and research post with eager optimism. It was a chance to put the past behind her, to start again and forward her career under the guidance of the man she most respected in their field.

The past was in Dublin. His name was Andrew Brennan and for four years she and he had had a passionate affair, an affair which she, in her perhaps deliberate naïveté, had assumed would lead if not to marriage, at least to a live-in relationship once he had obtained the divorce which he promised was only a matter of time. It never happened. Of course it never happened; had never even been on the cards. When she finally brought herself to accept the fact, she had broken it off and written to Hugh in response to a rumour that a lectureship might be coming up in his department. He had invited her to join him and she had bought a tiny flat in the Old Town with a monstrously large mortgage and put Andrew and his protestations behind her with sufficient alacrity for her to wonder just how much she had really loved him. Even so, at the beginning it was hard in many ways. Harder than she expected. She had friends in Edinburgh from her student days but the gap in her life was huge. She missed Andrew’s close companionship, his unquestioned lien on her spare time, and it was this newly raw loneliness which led her to see more of Hugh Graham and his wife than perhaps she should.

Alison Graham became one of her closest friends. They confided in one another; she told Alison about Andrew; she told her about her sadness after her brother David, like their father a respected consultant paediatrician, had emigrated to Australia with his wife and their baby and she told her about her sense of utter bewildered loss after her parents had followed them five years later to Perth. Alison and Hugh had been there for her. They had supported her. They had all seen a great deal of one another and gradually she had begun to suspect that she was falling in love with Hugh. She drew back. Nothing would persuade her to threaten her friends’ marriage. She went to see them less often and avoided Hugh where possible. Puzzled and hurt by her sudden rejection without suspecting its reason, Hugh had become angry. Then unbelievably, heart-breakingly, Alison had died.

His anger had not abated after she had gone, far from it, and his easy friendship with Viv had deteriorated into something like enmity in their professional relationship. She found that he had an unbearable, overweening ego. He refused to acknowledge that the study of history had changed its emphasis; that maybe scholasticism should nowadays allow itself a more popular, approachable face, and above all he refused to admit that anyone else could be good at it! The man who had been the youngest, most ambitious professor ever to head the department appeared to have sunk into staid orthodoxy.

He was returning her gaze steadily, studying her as though she were some kind of strange specimen he had found in a bell jar in a laboratory. Every line of his face was set with disapproval. The look stung.

Taking a deep breath she launched back into the fray. ‘You are calling me a fantasist!’ Her voice was shaking suddenly. ‘May I remind you that you are the one who gave me a first-class honours degree, Professor.’ She emphasised the word sarcastically. ‘You thought my standard of work good then. You helped me get into Aberystwyth to get my Masters and then my doctorate from the University of Wales. You underwrote my application to go to Dublin and you helped me to get the position at UCLA. Then you, you,’ she repeated, ‘offered me a research grant and a lectureship here! You encouraged me to write the book!’

‘And you were an excellent student. Otherwise I would never have offered you the job in my department.’ He shrugged. ‘And you were a first-class historian when you first came back here. My friendship and my trust in you has obviously gone to your head. In your anxiety to gain recognition and self-publicity you have lost touch with reality. So you are no more use to me. I suggest you go and write romances somewhere where your claims to all this inside knowledge of Iron Age life can do no harm and leave the writing of serious history to those of us who know how to do it!’

Staring at him as he sat there Viv felt, for a moment, as she was surely supposed to, like a naughty school girl who had been caught cheating and knew it, and had then been called up before the head. She drew in a shaky breath to ward off the hurt, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘So that’s what this is all about. At last!’ She was deliberately disingenuous. ‘You’re writing a book as well! Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, I was supposed to guess, was I, that that is what you are doing?’

‘Indeed you should, as this period is my speciality.’ He threw himself back in his seat. ‘It would have been a fairly easy assumption to make.’ She was wearing a baggy magenta sweater and tracksuit bottoms. Just looking at her gave the professor a headache. Especially when she was angry.

‘And you’re writing about Cartimandua in spite of the fact that it was no secret that she is my subject!’ Viv narrowed her eyes.

He shrugged. He did not mention the fact that his book was as yet barely more than a few files of notes, an outline and a chapter or two, and that it was unlikely that anyone at all beyond his editor at the university press knew about it as yet. ‘No,’ his tone was disdainful, ‘as it happens I am not writing about Cartimandua. She would hardly merit a serious study. Whatever you claim, not enough is known about her. No, my book will be – is – a treatise on the British opposition to the Roman invasion with Venutios as its central figure.’

‘Cartimandua’s husband.’

‘Indeed.’

She took a deep breath, trying to retrieve the situation. ‘But surely that doesn’t matter? There is room for both books.’ She eyed him with a quizzical lift of the left eyebrow. ‘And whatever you think of my article,’ she glanced at the magazine lying on his desk, ‘I can assure you that mine is a serious study.’ That at least was true. More or less. She paused, looking at him thoughtfully. ‘Can it be that you are afraid my sales will so eclipse yours that you will be embarrassed? Surely the great Professor Hugh Graham wouldn’t worry about that?’

‘No, strangely, I do not fear that.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘My book will be published by the university press. Yours, I understand, is being produced by a commercial publisher. That means you are bound to sell more copies than I do, I am sure. To an ignorant public who are not concerned with intellectual probity. No, I have given you my reason for my objections. Your research and writing are not of the standard I expect and require from someone in my department. Now, if you would excuse me, I have work to do.’

‘I’m sure you do.’ Viv tried and failed to keep the irony out of her voice. ‘I won’t keep you.’ She turned to the door, still shaking with anger. Then she paused. God! She had completely forgotten why she had come to see him in the first place. Turning back, she forced herself to smile. ‘Before I go, I need to ask you a favour.’ Not an auspicious moment, but it was the purpose for which she had walked so unsuspectingly into the lion’s den twenty minutes before. ‘I wanted to ask you if I may borrow the Cartimandua Pin before you return it to the museum.’ It had been a while before she had realised that was what was lying there in its box, in his in-tray. ‘You won’t grudge me that, at least. I am appearing on History Discussion Night on Channel 4 next month and I would like to show it when I talk about my book. It would interest the viewers to see a piece of jewellery contemporary with the period.’

Hugh folded his arms. ‘Impossible.’ It was an instant response. Unconsidered. Automatic.

‘Why?’ She held her temper in check with an effort.

‘I’ve given an undertaking to the museum not to let it out of my sight.’

‘But it’s your property. You only loaned it to them in the first place. And it’s already been out of your sight!’

‘Exactly. It is a priceless artefact so I do not propose to lose track of it again.’ He bristled. The pin had been presented to his archaeologist father by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1950s after the excavation of the fortifications at Stanwick.

‘So priceless in fact that rather than keep it in the department safe, you’ve chucked it in your in-tray next to your stapler.’ Gesturing towards it, Viv took a deep breath. ‘I’d take better care of it than that, Hugh! After all, I’m not contemplating melting it down.’ She reached over and picked up the transparent Perspex box in which the enamelled pin nestled in its protective packing.

‘Put it down!’ Hugh’s voice was like acid. ‘Don’t touch it!’ His father had hated the brooch. A scientist to his core, he had nevertheless had a superstitious horror of this beautiful object and refused to let anyone in his family handle, or even look at it.

‘I’m not hurting it.’ The naughty child in Viv had surfaced again in spite of her anger and she fought an absurd urge to stick out her tongue and dodge away from the desk out of his reach, waving the box under his nose. ‘Do you think Venutios really gave it to Cartimandua?’ Carefully removing the lid, she studied it closely. The light from the desklamp caught the coloured enamels and the exquisitely engraved gold as she turned it this way and that. It exuded an aura of richness and power.

‘I doubt it.’ Hugh’s tone was repressive.

‘It’s very beautiful. And expensive. And the right date.’

‘Put it down.’ He was becoming more and more agitated.

‘Think how it would capture the viewers’ imagination on the telly.’

‘No!’

‘But you lent it to Hamish for his lecture tour.’

‘That was a personal favour.’

‘I only want it for one evening before you return it to the museum. It would be a personal favour to me.’

‘No.’

‘Because you don’t like my style of writing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘That’s childish!’

‘No, it’s an academic judgment. Put that box down, please.’

Her face flushed angrily. ‘Do you know what – that’s petty and vindictive!’ Gently, almost reverently, she touched the brooch with the tip of her little finger. The enamels felt ice cold. Unnerved, she hastily fitted the lid back on and tossed the box onto his desk, where it skidded down a heap of papers and vanished into the scholarly detritus. For a second, as she touched it, she had felt an almost overwhelming sense of unease.

His visible relief when she put it down was replaced by a scowl. ‘Please don’t let me detain you.’

‘You’re being a bastard, Hugh.’ She shuddered and without quite knowing why rubbed the palms of her hands on the seat of her tracksuit as though to rid herself of the cloying feel of the brooch.

‘Please go, Viv. I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other.’ Standing up angrily, he walked over to the window and stood with his back to her.

This was insane. Unbelievable! ‘You can’t sack me, Hugh, and you know it,’ she said quietly.

‘As I said, I’m sure I’ll find a way.’ He did not turn round.

Leaning forward, she picked up the discarded magazine supplement. Beneath it the gleam of gold and red and green caught her eye again. She glanced up at the taut shoulders of the man by the window and gave a small smile. It took a tenth of a second to slip the box into her bag.

‘Goodbye, Hugh.’

He did not deign to reply. Nor did he turn round after he heard the door bang. When at last he sat down once more at his desk he did not look for the brooch; he didn’t notice it had gone. He shivered. The room was suddenly very cold.

II

‘I walked out at that point, Cathy. If I hadn’t, I would have throttled him!’

Completely exhausted, Viv threw herself down on the sofa in the living room of Cathy French’s shambolically elegant maisonette in Abercromby Place. She had not mentioned her last defiant action, the removal of a valuable artefact from the professor’s study. She still could not believe that she had done it. She shook her head as she went on. ‘He’s turned into an utter total and complete bastard! And to think how long I’ve spent marking exam papers for him this last couple of weeks.’ She reached out for the glass of wine Cathy had poured for her. ‘What am I going to do?’

The two women sat in companionable silence for a couple of moments. Normally noisy and humorous, the dejection which had replaced Viv’s fury was completely uncharacteristic.

Cathy was her complete opposite in looks. Tall and slim, her dark hair swinging just above shoulder length, dressed in a long skirt and cotton shirt, she sat facing her friend, wine glass in one hand, spectacles dangling from the other.

‘Is this really irreconcilable? It sounds to me more as if he has had his nose put out of joint.’

Viv grimaced. ‘Can the psychology, Cathy. I’m not one of your patients. Even if Hugh and I could agree on the history – any fragment of the history – we seem to have become incompatible personalities.’ She took another sip from the glass. She loved this sprawling, two-floor flat with its beautiful large rooms, its views over Queen Street Gardens with their lovely trees in full summer leaf and its air of controlled chaotic creativity. It relaxed her. Normally. ‘If he is serious my career is over. Kaput. Finished.’

‘Right.’ Cathy gave a rueful smile. ‘I take it that’s a ‘‘no’’ then? So,’ she took a deep breath, ‘you carry on to what, the end of term? The end of the academic year? Then what?’

‘The semester is already over; the exams are finished. And to be honest, he can’t actually sack me. Not without a specific and very good reason and he doesn’t have one.’ Viv sighed. ‘But he can make my life impossible. He has already said he will withdraw funding for my research. Or at least make sure it’s not renewed. He can do that. And he can change his mind about promoting me. I was hoping to be made Reader next year after Hamish Macleod retires. That would mean a hike in my salary which I badly need. Some of us have huge mortgages.’

Cathy leaned back and crossed her legs, ignoring the jibe. Her flat had been left to her by her father, a renowned Edinburgh doctor and former colleague of Viv’s father, a bequest which made her, according to Viv, nothing more or less than a trust fund kid. ‘If you give him his heart’s desire and leave, what could you do instead? What has happened about the radio documentary you’re writing?’

Viv let out another deep sigh. ‘I’ve screwed that up as well. I showed my first draft to Maddie Corston at the BBC and she thinks it’s rubbish.’

‘Did she say that?’

‘Not exactly, but she implied it. She thinks I need help getting it finished by the deadline.’

‘Ah.’ Cathy frowned. ‘Help from who? Hugh?’

‘Good God, no! He doesn’t know about it. If he did it would be another nail in my coffin. No, she’s suggested that I meet up with an experienced producer she knows who she thinks would help me write it.’ Viv was defensive. ‘Some stranger who knows nothing about Cartimandua. Who has probably never even heard of her. Someone who’s going to waltz in and wave her wand and make it work even if she knows sod all about the subject.’

‘If she knows about radio, Viv,’ Cathy put in mildly, ‘perhaps it’s good advice.’

‘Maybe.’ Viv was still doubtful.

‘Who is she? Would I know her through Pete?’

Pete was Cathy’s partner and they had been together for four years. He was a travel writer and independent TV documentary producer and came with baggage: a daughter and an ex. Viv envied Cathy her easy relationship with this lovely, supportive man, but not the complications his family appeared to cause in her life. His former wife, as tall and thin as he was, compounded her many faults, apparently, by being exquisitely blonde, beautiful, elegant and clever. Her only advantage, according to Cathy, was that she had decided to live once again in her native Stockholm. Viv had never met her.

Being in the world of TV and film, Pete might well have come across the woman Maddie was suggesting. Viv rummaged in her bag for the piece of paper with the name on it.

‘She’s called Pat Hebden. She lives in London.’

Cathy let out a shout of laughter. ‘Small world! I do know Pat. And your editor is probably right, she would be helpful. She’s got a lot of experience. She’s been in radio for years. She does a bit of writing and producing and she’s an actress as well. She’s even stayed here once or twice when she came up for the Festival.’

Viv took another sip of wine. ‘It sounds like a conspiracy! So you think I should meet her? Would I like her?’ She was still apprehensive.

Cathy hesitated for only a second. ‘She’s quite a character. I think you’d get on. And meeting would do no harm, Viv. Who knows? It might be a huge success. Why don’t I ring her, or has Maddie done it already? Yes, the more I think about it, the more I think it would be a fantastic idea. OK, so writing this drama is one thing you can do to earn some money. What else?’

Viv thought. ‘Well, there is the book of course, but that’s not going to make me a fortune. Otherwise not much. I work in a small world, Cathy. Hugh could pretty much scupper me. All he needs to do is put the word round that I’m trouble or unreliable or a useless historian and no department would look at me.’ Putting down her glass she slipped off the sofa onto the floor and reaching up for a cushion, wedged it behind her head. ‘I can’t believe this has happened, Cathy! I can’t believe just reading an article can turn him into an enemy like this!’ Purring, the large tabby cat which had been watching the proceedings from the arm of the sofa leaped heavily into her lap and settled down.

Cathy eyed him fondly. ‘Pablo knows success when he sees it. He is giving you his seal of approval.’

‘Soft old thing.’ Viv scratched the cat’s ears.

‘Surely there’s more to this than just an article.’ Cathy raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure you haven’t antagonised Hugh in some other way?’

Viv shrugged. ‘I suppose I might have, inadvertently.’ She had been so pleased for her parents when they had left Britain. Envied them their new exciting life, had even been out to see them twice. That was the problem. They never stopped trying to persuade her to follow them down under, but how could she? Her career, her interests, and her obsessions were all tied to the world of the Ancient Celts. Hugh had understood. They had been close, then. It was her fault she had fallen in love with him; and it had been her decision to erect a barrier between them.

‘We used to get on well,’ she said wistfully, ‘but if I’m honest we haven’t for a while now.’ She didn’t elaborate. ‘And the trouble is, I’m going to be so vulnerable. If Hugh reviews this book he will trash it. He and his cronies in the academic world will rubbish everything I’ve said. And if he doesn’t review it everyone will want to know why. Either way I’m sunk.’

‘Then you’ll have to fight him.’ Cathy grinned amiably. ‘Come on, lady, where is that feisty female who stormed in here just now spitting nails? And you know as well as I do,’ she added, ‘being completely cynical about it, that the more controversial the book is, the more you two row in public, the better it will sell. When are you going to give me a copy, by the way?’ With a rueful laugh she slipped down onto the floor to be on the same level as her guest and topped up both their glasses once more. Pablo stood up, stretched and stepped carefully across the table to sit instead on his mistress’s knee. ‘So, remind me. Why is this book so controversial?’ she went on. ‘What is so shocking about it that it has wound him up like this?’

Apart from the facts that weren’t facts, you mean. The details I have tried so hard to weed out which shouldn’t be there because they are not part of the historical record. The ‘fictional twaddle’ which Hugh had spotted at once! Viv didn’t say it. Instead she shook her head adamantly. ‘The only shocking thing is that I have had the temerity to finish it ahead of the book Hugh is writing himself!’

‘Yours is about Cartimandua and the Celtic tribe called the Brigantes, right?’

‘And it turns out that Hugh’s is about Venutios. Her husband!’ Viv scowled. ‘Two different views on Iron Age Britain around the time of the Roman invasion in AD 43.’

‘But surely,’ Cathy took a sip of wine thoughtfully, ‘that shouldn’t matter, should it? Won’t people be interested in the two different stories?’

‘You’d think so.’ Viv sniffed. ‘And they are very different.’ That much at least she would admit. ‘I’m coming from a woman’s point of view, writing about a controversial queen. The antithesis of Boudica. A gutsy, clever Celtic queen, yes, but she cosied up to the Romans and because of that she is – was – regarded by many, including her husband, as a traitor. A quisling.’

‘Ah.’ Cathy eased the purring cat into a more comfortable position on her knees. ‘And Hugh takes the opposite position to you.’

‘In everything. He is writing about a man who is regarded as a patriot because he opposed Rome, and about war and military tactics and stuff like that.’

‘I still don’t see why that should matter. Surely both points of view are valid?’

‘In a rational world, yes.’ Viv grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself a refill. She stood up and walked over to the window. ‘I’ve blown it. He used to respect me. He was impressed by my research. He encouraged me to do my first TV show. We used to get on so well.’ She heard the wistful note in her own voice and frowned, despising herself for it. He used to like me. That was what she had been going to say. And I used to like him. A lot. Why was she so angry that he had seen through her? Had she really expected him not to react to that article? And when – or if – he read the book, had she really thought he would give it his seal of approval? She took another swig from the glass. ‘He’s jealous, of course.’

‘Of your success?’

‘Yes. Of my success. He hates it that I’ve appeared on TV more than he has. And that they’ve profiled me in the Sunday Times magazine with the article based on my book. And that I’m going to be in another programme – a discussion programme on Channel 4 –’ She broke off abruptly and glanced at her bag, lying on the coffee table. The box with the two-thousand-year-old brooch inside it was in there, lying in the bottom somewhere amongst the litter of her possessions. She hadn’t taken it out since she had thrown it into the bag; hadn’t been able to believe what she had done.

‘You have to stand up to him, Viv.’ Cathy was quietly insistent as she sat stroking the sleeping cat. ‘You can’t go on letting him get to you like this.’

‘No.’ Viv turned back to the window. ‘No, I know I can’t. I’m just not sure what I’m going to do about it. I have a copy of the book for you, Cathy, of course I have. Signed and everything. You must read it and tell me what you think.’

III

Pat Hebden was sitting slumped on the arm of the sofa in the living room of her small Victorian house in Battersea, staring into space, her mobile still in her hand. David Roach, her agent, had called her with the news as soon as he heard it. ‘I’m so sorry, Pat. I thought it was in the bag. It was so you, darling.’

The woman who had got the TV part was fifteen years her junior. ‘But I’m the right age, David. I have the experience. The part was me.’

‘I know, darling. I can’t believe it either.’ He had a slight American intonation. Fake. She knew he hailed from the East End of London. ‘But we’ll find the right part for you. It’s out there somewhere. It will just take a little bit longer.’ Ever pragmatic – and anodyne. She could hear the shrug. And the unspoken words: very few parts for women your age, darling. Unless you’re a character actress and the public know you. You’ve spread yourself too thin, that’s the problem. Too many irons in the fire.

She was still sitting staring into space five minutes later, disappointment washing through every fibre of her body. With a groan she stood up at last. Damn it, she wasn’t that old. Mid-fifties. Could pass for forty. Or less. With make-up. A lot of make-up. She chuckled wryly. Who was she kidding? They were right. She’d have been lousy in the part.

As she reached for her mobile again her eye fell on the notepad on the table, half hidden under yesterday’s Guardian. Pulling it out, she stared down at it. Cartimandua, it said. Queen. Romans. Celts. Viv Lloyd Rees. Play? Docu-drama? Ring Maddie Corston!!!

The way Maddie had described the story there was melodrama. Romance. War. A strong story. Commissioned. Overdue. A writer with huge talent but who had never written for radio before and was in need of a strong guiding hand. And maybe a female lead.

Glancing up, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and frowned. Fantastic voice. Good face. Golden hair. Well, greyish with expert highlights! Just the right height – five foot five – well, perhaps five foot four if she forgot to stand up straight. Excellent cheekbones. Unconsciously she tilted her head slightly. She used reading glasses now, she had to admit, but that didn’t matter for in her head she had ceased to see herself as an actress. Now she was an academic. A mentor. The calm, skilled hand on the rudder which would bring a play first to the radio, then, who knows, to the TV. Big Screen? Stage? Maddie had hinted at an inexperienced and vulnerable author and a background of academic rancour. War behind the scenes. Perfect publicity. In the mirror the face she was scanning smiled. Ever optimistic, the defeat was forgotten. Ahead was a new scheme. A scheme she could get her teeth into. And one that involved a trip to Edinburgh.

Outside it was a glorious summer day, though you wouldn’t guess it from here. The cherry trees which lined the narrow road were in full leaf and the air had a faint trace of freshness in it; a strong breeze from Battersea Park and the river beyond it, cutting through traffic fumes and the blankets of diesel which spewed down from the low-flying aircraft shaking the house every couple of minutes on their way to Heathrow. She glanced round the small narrow rectangular room which comprised virtually the whole of the ground floor area of her tiny house. Light seeped fitfully through the heavy lace curtains she kept constantly drawn across the front window to keep prying eyes out. The room looked tired and dusty. She ran a finger over the table ruefully and examined the ensuing faint line with a sigh. She was between cleaning ladies at the moment. She was always between cleaning ladies. She had caught the last one shooting up in her kitchen. Shame. She had been a nice, bright girl. Trustworthy, or so she had thought. On the slippery slope, so it turned out, from the third year of a degree course in modern languages to, no doubt, a horrible death under a bridge somewhere. Two days after the girl had gone the house had been done over. Pat sighed. She knew it was Sarah because of the things taken. Not the treasures which would have hurt so much. Not even her grandmother’s gold bracelet which she had left so carelessly on the table in her bedroom. Just the electronic stuff which could be replaced. The cash from the kitchen cupboard and the silver candlesticks which she and Sarah had agreed were really rather vulgar.

She had changed the locks now, finally made up her mind to install security bars over the front windows, and acknowledged a huge reluctance to become involved with yet another personality who would bring their problems to her door while vaguely pushing her vacuum up and down and flicking the dust from one surface to watch it settle on another. What she really wanted was to leave London for a bit.

‘Maddie?’ She had picked up the phone, almost without being aware of the fact. ‘I’ve given your suggestion some thought and I’d love to come and discuss it.’

2

I

Next morning, Viv found herself pacing up and down her living room thinking about the brooch. She had hidden it in the back of a drawer in her desk when she came in the night before, tucking it well out of sight.

She had to give it back. She couldn’t keep it. She shivered. She didn’t want to keep it. But how was she to return it without admitting what she had done?

The overnight rain had blown away and watery sunlight pooled across the rugs on the floor warming her as she came to a halt, arms folded, staring out of the window across the rooftops. She loved this view; being part of the historic heart of the City, so near the castle. It was for this that she tolerated the narrow twisting flights of stairs, the stone landings, the need to park her car so far away, the walk back up the steep hill in the evenings to the small alleyway off the Lawnmarket, her arms full of books, her shoulder weighted by the strap of her computer case. She had set up her desk on the far side of the room, knowing that if she sat in front of the window she would do no work, lost in dreams amongst the grey slates, the chimneys, the odd spot of colour from a flower pot on a window sill or rooftop oasis, the torn rags of smoke, the wheeling birds settling, sleeping, rising again into the air.

Behind her, her desk was neat. Tidy. The rejected manuscript of the play stacked carefully. The textbooks back on their shelves. The box files neatly lined up on the floor. In front of her the sky was the colour of a Canaletto lagoon.

The book itself was finished. Edited. Printed. Jacketed. There was a box full of copies on the floor beside the bentwood rocker near the door into the kitchen. She ought to be feeling content. Excited. Satisfied. One project complete, another on the drawing board. Instead she was on edge, worried. And guilty. Guilty about her research methods and guilty about the pin and worried about having to collaborate on the play. Collaboration was not something she was eager to contemplate. Especially not if it involved confessing her research methods to someone else.

But then the play was not going to work without help.

She gave a deep sigh. She had a thousand things to do, all the things which had been put on hold as she coped with lecturing, tutoring her students and writing a 231-page book – plus ten pages of notes and bibliography followed by two major articles, one for the Sunday Times and one for the History Magazine, to say nothing of marking the end of year papers for her first-and second-year students. She needed to buy some shoes; she needed to have her hair cut – she ran her fingers through the wild untidy red mop. She needed to sort out her finances, and now on top of all that she needed to start this bloody rewrite, so why was she standing, almost paralysed with uncertainty, staring out of the window?

The answer came as a whisper in the corner of her mind. The voice, the increasingly powerful voice she had been fighting for the last few months had come back, echoing to her over unimaginable distances. She felt an uneasy shiver tiptoe down her spine. She had been so sure it would go away once the book was finished. But it hadn’t. If anything it was more insistent than ever. And now it was beginning to frighten her.

The sound of her doorbell distracted her from her thoughts. There was one good thing about living on the top floor of a six-storey tenement house. No one was going to arrive without a good reason for being there.

Opening the door she found herself face to face with Steve Steadman, one of her post-graduate students. Calm, reliable, and universally popular in the department he was, she had to admit, at the moment, also one of her favourite people. He was a good-looking man in his early thirties, tall and sturdy, with a thatch of fair hair and a weathered, ruddy skin liberally sprinkled with freckles. He was also one of the very few people of her acquaintance who wasn’t completely out of breath after climbing the stairs to her front door.

‘Hi, Viv.’ He was holding a copy of Cartimandua, Queen of the North. ‘I hope you don’t mind me dropping by, but I wondered if you’d sign it for me.’

She stared at it, frozen to the spot. ‘Where did you get that?’ Then she relented. ‘Sorry. Of course I’ll sign it. Come in. It’s just that it’s not in the shops yet.’ She grabbed his arm and drew him inside the room. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Steve.’

Before he had a chance to reply she had gestured him towards the rocking chair as she went to hunt for a pen on her desk. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Hugh was writing about Venutios?’

Steve frowned. ‘I had no idea that he was.’

She turned to face him, pen in hand. ‘Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t told me.’ His voice wavered slightly as he caught sight of her face. ‘You didn’t know either, I take it?’

She sighed. ‘No. So, where did you get the book?’

‘Hugh gave it to me.’ He sat down on the edge of the rocking chair, balancing easily as he stuck his long legs out in front of him.

‘So, it’s a review copy.’ She gave a wry smile.

It was rapidly dawning on Steve that he was tiptoeing around a minefield. ‘I suppose he is sent so many …’ The comment trailed away as he began to see only too clearly that he had fallen into the Professor’s trap. ‘Go and ask her to sign it for you,’ he had said, with a gleam in his eye which Steve now suspected had been purely malicious. ‘She’s probably going to resign some time during the summer so you won’t be seeing much more of her, and I’m sure she would like to think she has a fan.’

Viv was riffling through the book. Had it been read? She was almost afraid she would find red lines striking out paragraph after paragraph – a phenomenon his students grew used to as the terms progressed. There were no marks that she could see. She breathed a sigh of relief and turning back to the title page, signed it with a flourish.

Steve took the book as she handed it back and tucked it into the tatty canvas bag he had dropped beside his chair. ‘The Prof hinted that you were thinking of resigning. It’s not true, is it? We’d miss you tremendously if you did.’ The remark was warm; totally genuine.

‘No, I’m not leaving, Steve, however much the Professor might wish it,’ she said firmly. ‘That was his little joke.’

Steve shook his head. ‘I’m glad! I must have misunderstood him!’

‘No, you didn’t misunderstand, Steve. Don’t worry about it. I’ll still be here next year.’ She paused as a thought occurred to her. Hugh had passed the book on unread because he was not going to review it. He didn’t think it was worth the bother. He probably hadn’t even glanced at it. She stood for a moment chewing her lip. Was she angry or relieved? It was going to be an insult, either now or more publicly later. But then, what had she expected? Had she really thought she would get away with it? Had she expected him to act as anything other than a curmudgeonly, narrow-minded, devious chauvinist? She grinned broadly. Even silently thinking the invective made her feel better. ‘I hope you enjoy the book, Steve.’ Once he had read it he would know, of course, why Hugh didn’t rate it. But then everyone was going to know soon.

Steve was smiling. ‘I’ve read it already. I thought it was excellent.’ He showed no sign of moving from the rocking chair. ‘I read it last night after he gave it to me. It’s brilliant. Really brilliant. It would complement the Professor’s book perfectly if he’s writing about Venutios. You make him out to be quite a bastard.’ He chuckled. ‘You mention Ingleborough a lot in the book, Viv. You did know I’m from there, didn’t you? My parents’ farm is just below the hill fort. Actually on the slopes, more or less. You say that was where Cartimandua was born and brought up.’ He didn’t notice the way Viv clenched her fists, the stress in her face. ‘I didn’t know that was a fact. It’s local legend, of course, but I’ve never seen it acknowledged in a history book before. Tacitus and the other historians wouldn’t have known or cared where she came from of course, and they never referred to the smaller sub-sects of the Brigantian tribes, did they? It’s strange, because of living there I feel I have always known Cartimandua really well. I was brought up with her ghost.’

Looking up at last, he noted Viv’s white face, her raised eyebrows, and he shook his head hastily. ‘Not literally, of course. At least, I don’t think so. Though my mother could tell you a thing or two about ghostly noises in the night. The clash of swords. Horses galloping by. That sort of stuff.’ He grinned. ‘Not the kind of thing I would tell the Prof!’

‘Indeed, not.’ Viv grimaced. ‘I went there, of course, but only for a couple of hours. I didn’t hear any ghosts.’

Liar! Of course she had. She had heard more than ghostly hooves. She had heard a voice.

Steve was shaking his head. ‘I wish I’d known. You could have stayed with us while you were visiting the area. My mother’s been doing B&B since the foot and mouth epidemic.’ He sighed. ‘You can’t leave the department, Viv. You mustn’t.’

‘I don’t intend to if I can help it.’ Viv met his gaze. He would know all about the row soon enough. The grapevine was pretty good and it was a small department and she doubted if Hugh was going to be even slightly discreet about his dislike of her book. She sighed, and realised suddenly that it was partly with relief. The moment had passed. Steve wasn’t going to ask her where all her information had come from. He was content that it was legend. For him at least that was good enough. He was picking up his bag and standing up.

‘Stay and have a coffee,’ she found herself saying. She didn’t want to be alone. Not at the moment, not with the voice still clamouring in her ear. ‘I want to hear about your mother’s ghosts. I’m intrigued. I can’t think why we’ve never talked about this before.’

He slid his bag off his shoulder and, clearly pleased with the invitation, dropped it on the floor before following her into her small kitchen. The sky outside the mansard window was a bright duck-egg blue now as the sunlight poured in, spotlighting the cupboards, the shelves, the jars and bottles, as she reached for the kettle. ‘I had some strange experiences myself while I was visiting the sites I’ve written about.’ Keep the tone casual. Humorous. Don’t let him see how much it all worried her. ‘The trouble is I was always on my own so I had no one to compare notes with.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh. She mustn’t let him think she took this seriously.

Steve was leaning against a cupboard, arms folded, watching as she scooped coffee into the pot. He seemed to be considering what she had said. ‘My dad has lived there all his life.’ He had a soft Yorkshire accent which she had always found rather attractive. ‘The farm has been in the family for hundreds of years. I know there are all sorts of stories – there always are, aren’t there, in the country?’ He paused. ‘But you know farmers,’ he added, shrugging. ‘They see things, all sorts of things, but they won’t admit it.’ He glanced at her from under his eyelashes and she saw a strange mixture of emotions flash across his face. Caution. Suspicion. Maybe he was testing her reaction? But the moment had passed and he was his usual relaxed self again at once. ‘My mother is a local girl. From the dale. She loved the farm from the first day Dad took her up there to visit,’ he went on. ‘It’s so beautiful and remote and wild. She was all romantic then. And young.’ He paused. ‘It’s a hard life being a farmer’s wife.’

She looked up again, hearing the change in his tone. ‘It must have been awful when you got foot and mouth.’

He nodded. ‘The worst. My dad nearly gave up. Then she came up with this idea of doing B&B – advertising on the Internet and all that. At first we hated the thought of having strangers in the house – she more than anyone – but it’s not so bad.’ He shrugged.

‘I don’t suppose she has time to hear ghosts now.’ Viv plunged the coffee and poured it into two scarlet mugs.

‘She doesn’t go up on the hill much.’ He shrugged a second time, his face wistful. ‘She’s changed a lot. But she does still hear things. Sometimes I think she’s always been too sensitive. Dad’s far more down to earth. The visitors love it up there, of course.’ Again the quiet chuckle. ‘They come back some evenings with some cracking stories.’

Viv handed him a mug, then faced him, leaning against the cooker, her hands cupped around her own. ‘What sort of stories?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you really interested? Well, there’s the boggart holes, of course.’ He smiled. ‘And sometimes they think they’ve heard the barguest, shrieking in the night! They talk about horses, too. Galloping hooves. Sometimes they get quite spooked. There was one woman, she said she had ‘‘feelings’’.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘She was a bit freaky, but I saw Mum’s face and I reckoned she knew what the woman was talking about.’ Again the quick glance at Viv. ‘That woman wanted to hold a séance, but Mum wasn’t having that. Not in our house. Dad wouldn’t stand for it and she thought it was wrong. Disrespectful.’

‘I’d like to meet your mum.’ Viv sipped her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I will book myself in some time. I need to do some more research –’ She stopped herself abruptly but Steve picked up on the word at once.

‘Are you going to write more about Cartimandua? You’ve found some new sources, haven’t you?’

Oh God, so he had spotted all the extra stuff. Well, so he should have done. He was after all one of their best students and if he hadn’t noticed she would have been very surprised. She had let so many details slip in. Cartimandua’s tribe, her birthplace, were obvious traps; facts no one knew. Facts, if they were indeed facts, which she had no business to know.

Steve was nodding. ‘It’s frustrating, isn’t it, working just over the pre-history border; only having the Roman texts to go on. If only the Celts had written down stuff themselves.’

‘But they did.’

Viv was becoming more and more uncomfortable at the turn the conversation was taking. She wagged her finger at him in mock reproof. ‘Remember that where necessary they wrote in Greek and Latin as well as Celtic using Latin script. We know the Celts had an oral culture but remember their phenomenal feats of memory did not mean they were illiterate. We can’t be certain they didn’t write history too.’ She paused. ‘Maybe they even wrote down the sacred stuff and it was destroyed. We just don’t know.’

Steve shook his head. ‘We’d have found something by now if they had. I’ve been doing exhaustive research on this, you know I have, for my thesis. Their traditions were broken. The memories lost. The Romans and the Christians utterly determined to root out their culture. So it is only the Roman and Christian sources left.’ He paused. ‘Unless …?’ He was looking at her hard. ‘Is that what’s happened? Viv? They wrote something down after all and you’ve found it?’

There was a moment of silence. Oh yes, she had found something. But it was not a scrap of old parchment. It was in her head. An echo out of time.

He was still gazing at her, taking her silence for acquiescence. ‘My God, how exciting! And Hugh is jealous because you found something he doesn’t know about? Wow!’

‘No, Steve –’

But he was already convinced. ‘No, don’t worry. I shan’t say a word to anyone. I promise. Where did you find it? You’re sure it’s not been faked like Iolo?’

Viv shook her head, taking a deep swig of coffee. Iolo Morganwg, the eighteenth/early-nineteenth century Welsh Celticist had faked and/or created, depending on which way you looked at it, numerous so-called Druidic and Celtic manuscripts which had convinced the academic world for a long time. This was getting far too close for comfort to something she did not want to face at the moment. She glanced at her watch. ‘Sorry, Steve, but I’m going to have to go. I have to be somewhere.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘We’ll talk some more about this, I promise. But please, please, don’t say anything to Hugh. It is nothing that would interest him or be remotely important for his area of research, honestly.’ She hesitated. ‘And maybe I will go and stay with your parents. I would like to go back to Ingleborough. It was enormously atmospheric.’

Closing the door behind him she paused, looking down at the card he had pressed into her hands:

Peggy and Gordon Steadman

Winter Gill Farm

High Fell

Ingleborough

N. Yorks

High Fell, Ingleborough. The name resonated in her head. Suddenly she was shivering with excitement.

II

It was focussing so closely and so constantly on Cartimandua that had first brought the woman closer. It must have been. It was as though she was there at the end of a phone line and it had begun soon after Viv had actually started writing the book following two years of intense research, two years of studying Roman texts, of following up the latest archaeological, anthropological and social studies. She had interviewed archaeological conservators, forensic archaeologists, philologists. She had, she used to say to herself, learned to extract blood from stones.

Then one day, out of nowhere, as she sat staring at her computer screen she had heard the voice. Not clearly at first. No words. Just a strange resonance deep inside her brain. It had worried her. She wondered if she was going potty; she took a couple of days off. Then it happened again and this time she had heard the one word clearly.

Vivienne.

A strange, foreign-sounding version of her own name and one she never, ever, used herself.

She worked harder every time it happened, fighting it; ignoring it. So the voice used another approach. In her dreams. And in her dreams she could do nothing to stop it.

She grew confused. Cartimandua was emerging from the shadows of archaeology as a flesh and blood personality. She had grey-green eyes with dark flecks in them, red-blonde hair which was thick and long, she had strong broad cheek bones and a generous mouth. A forceful character. She was clever. Sometimes amusing. Often troubled. Sometimes hard to understand.

It had been so difficult to ignore her. To stick to the facts. The facts as far as they are known through a few Roman historians and Cartimandua’s place within the historical context of first-century Britain.

Each time it happened she had fought it tooth and nail. Thrown down her pen. Another whole passage of the book to be erased. Romantic, imaginative rubbish. Her book was to be factual.

She had spoken to a colleague in the modern history department, cautiously, casually, not giving too much away, about getting too close to the subject of one’s biography.

‘Oh God, yes!’ he had said, roaring with laughter. ‘It’s spooky. You become so intimate with someone you get right under their skin. You feel you know them better than they know themselves. Don’t worry, old thing. We read too many letters and diaries in our job, that’s the problem.’

Viv had nodded and grinned and walked away. Too many letters and diaries?

No. Not in the Iron Age.

If only.

If Cartimandua had written letters and diaries they had long ago dissolved into the sodden mires of northern England where she had lived and loved and died, and academics are not supposed to know how the subjects of their biographies feel and think without those indispensable written sources.

Hugh was right. She was probably a novelist at heart. Someone who could write good convincing historical fiction.

‘But I’m not!’ The words exploded out of her, heard only by the pot plants on her window sill. ‘I am an academic, damn it! I have studied Celtic history for fifteen years. That’s why this has all come so easily. It’s not because of –’ She paused. ‘It’s not because of her.’

Viv’s editor had loved it. So had the publishers’ readers; the publicity department; the sales team. Parts of it which she had cut, her editor insisted on reinstating – the best bits – the most ‘imaginative’! And the first person to look at it who knew what he was talking about, Professor Hugh Graham, had spotted it immediately. Cartimandua’s voice was there. It shouldn’t have been.

And now Viv was hearing it again, more insistently than ever. The book was finished. The voice should have gone away. Instead it was louder and now there was no reason – no academic reason – not to listen. After all, there were so many pieces of the jigsaw still missing. So much she still wanted to know.

Walking slowly back into her living room, so empty after Steve’s departure, Viv was lost in thought. Where was the voice coming from? Was it from her imagination? Was it a memory? An echo? A ghost? Why did she have this strange feeling suddenly that on top of all the other reasons not to listen to the voice that called itself Cartimandua, there might be one overriding factor. That it was dangerous?

She stood staring at the phone thoughtfully. Perhaps she should tell Cathy what was happening. Cathy would know what to do. She was after all the psychologist; the expert. But then, supposing Cathy said it was stupid and potentially harmful and that she should stop?

The words of the first scene of her play resonated in her mind again suddenly. Once written, she had not been able to erase them. Most of them hadn’t gone into the book, but they were still there. In her computer. In her notes. In her head. They were the bit of the play that Maddie Corston had praised. They were the words that had first brought Cartimandua alive.

III

For as long as she could remember she had known that she would be a queen some day. It wasn’t a dream, or a memory of past existences or a knowledge of a destiny which was the result of birth or fortune. It was a certainty. A knowing in her blood. Besides, the goddess had told her. The first time she had heard the voice clearly she had been standing quite alone amongst the trees near the river in the lush valley below her hilltop home. She had left her pony to graze and was staring down into the glittering churning sweep of the brown waters, her mind a blank, mesmerised by the movement of the ripples.

‘She was winding you up. You know she was.’

‘Was she?’ Viv glanced at Cathy. Suddenly she was pushing back her chair and, leaping to her feet she headed for the bathroom. Slamming the door behind her, her heart pounding with fear, she stared hard at the mirror.

VI

‘That dog will never be good for anything again. Why not have it knocked on the head. It would save a deal of trouble!’

The arrogant young voice behind her made Carta spin round. She had been encouraging Catia to walk slowly round the compound in the gentle sunshine.

‘Mind your own business, Venutios!’ Her cheeks flared with anger at the sight of her brother’s friend lounging against the wheel of a wagon drawn up at the side of the kitchens. He was chewing the end of a piece of straw.

He laughed. ‘Sorry. I forgot your new game. Still playing at healers, are we – instead of warrior queens? Your mother must be pleased to see her little girl doing that!’

The taunt was expertly aimed. Carta’s anger was instantaneous and violent. Forgetting the dog, who sat down wearily where she was, Carta flew at the boy, more than a head taller as he was, her fingers clawed ready to scratch his eyes out. With a shout of laughter he dodged easily out of reach, dancing backwards away from her, jeering until he collided with the two carters emerging from the fragrant darkness of the baking rooms to collect two more sacks from the wagon.

One of them grabbed Venutios by the back of his tunic. ‘Prince or no prince, you watch where you’re going young man or I’ll tan your backside for you!’

Venutios’s strangled expletives were drowned by Carta’s crow of laughter as her tormentor was held helpless within her reach.

Before her small fists connected, however, the angry voice of her mother from the doorway of the house behind her froze her in her tracks.

‘Cartimandua! Come here now!’

The two waggoners dropped their captive and stood back as Venutios regained his feet and scrambled out of sight.

Carta scowled. For a second she contemplated running after him, but one look at the queen’s face changed her mind. Meekly she followed her mother indoors.

Sighing, Fidelma surveyed her daughter. Of the queen’s twelve children only four had lived beyond babyhood. Triganos, Fintan and Bran, the three boys and this the only surviving girl. The child had torn her gown yet again. Her face was grimy, her hair a bird’s nest and the vivid grey-green eyes were blazing with anger.

‘I want you to send Venutios back to his father. I hate him!’

Fidelma sat down on a stool beside the fire and drew her cloak around her shoulders. She sighed. ‘The king of the Carvetii has sent his son here to learn how to be a warrior and a prince. We can’t send him away,’ she said patiently. ‘His presence here, as you should know, seals the friendship and brotherhood between our two tribes.’ It was hard to believe that at this moment her husband and their Druid guest were continuing to discuss this girl’s destiny as a matter of the highest importance for the tribe, or that it was more than likely that she and not Venutios would be the one to be sent away. Fidelma, usually at her husband’s side at all the important meetings with his advisers, had left them to it not long since, curious to find out what the young woman in question was actually doing with her time. Carta was too often, she had ruefully realised, out of sight and out of mind. ‘Have you completed your tasks for the day, child?’ She noted without comment that the dog had followed her daughter in and was now leaning trustingly against Carta’s legs.

Carta shrugged. ‘Mellia said she would do them for me.’

Fidelma bit back an angry retort. The child wasn’t even remotely repentant that her convenient arrangement should be discovered. Somehow she managed to smile. ‘Mellia is far too kind for her own good, Carta. It is you who needs to practise your skills with the needle and spindle.’ She glanced across the room where Carta’s companion, the daughter of one of Bellacos’s senior warriors and almost the same age as Carta, had appeared. Neat, tidy, nimble-fingered and biddable the child was everything that Carta was not. Nor was she strictly speaking Carta’s friend. Fidelma knew perfectly well that her daughter preferred the company of her brothers and their companions – barring Venutios – to that of this gentle child. She suffered her, no more, and, it appeared, exploited her as well. Fidelma shook her head wearily. Secretly she admired her daughter’s spirit and her ambition if not her endless rebellion. As Bellacos’s daughter she could look for a rich and powerful husband – almost certainly the heir to one of the neighbouring tribal kings – but she would need a modicum of education and restraint.

Eyeing her daughter’s mutinous face, Fidelma gave a wry smile. The husband would need the blessing of the gods and the strength and determination of a bear to manage Cartimandua – but then the gods, their decisions interpreted by the Druids of the tribe, were going to choose her husband and so would presumably send her somewhere she would meet her master!

3

I

‘Viv! Let me in. Are you OK?’ Cathy was banging on the bathroom door.

Viv clenched her hands on the edge of the basin, her face sheened with icy sweat. Narrowing her eyes, she leaned forward trying to see past her own profile, past the wild hair, the pale, strained face. What had Tasha seen? She had described her as a lady. Not a child; not the young girl of those first deleted chapters Viv had seen just now in the depths of the cloudy mirror. No, Tasha had seen the shadow of the queen herself. ‘She’s real!’ Viv whispered to herself shakily, her eyes wild. ‘Somehow she’s escaped from my dreams. She’s appeared to someone else. I’ve created her!’

Her sense of dislocation was absolute. She was shaking, feeling intensely cold. Dear God in heaven, what had happened to her? She was standing surrounded by large unforgiving mirrors shrouded with Cathy’s amazing tropical plants, but she had been there, at Carta’s side. Seen the jeering waggoners, smelled the strange musky scent worn by the woman who was the child’s mother, noted Carta’s muddy shoes, seen how neat and docile Mellia seemed beside her.

The smell of brewing coffee drifted slowly through the flat as she stood paralysed with fear, staring at her own reflection. Only when Cathy rattled the handle and shouted again did she turn slowly and, unlocking the door pull it open.

‘What happened?’ Cathy passed her a mug of black coffee. Tasha had been sent to watch TV in the next room.

Viv shrugged. ‘Sorry. Tired and emotional, I believe is how it’s described.’ She looked down at her hands, refusing to meet their eyes.

‘Tasha didn’t really see anything,’ Cathy said gently. She reached forward and put her hand over Viv’s.

‘Didn’t she?’ Viv looked up. She shrugged. ‘Perhaps not.’ How could she tell them what had happened? She didn’t know herself. There was nothing she could say.

It was a relief when at last Pete offered to drive her home.

The flat was very still. Standing in the doorway she looked round the living room uncomfortably. The desk drawers were open. She frowned. Surely she hadn’t left them like that? Pulling open the top drawer with trembling hands she rifled through its contents. The pin. What had she done with the pin? It wasn’t there. With a small cry of distress she turned her bag upside down and emptied it onto the floor, scattering the contents across the rug. Notebooks, pens, comb, diary, purse, wallet, shopping lists, receipts, car keys – but no Perspex box. Where was it? She picked up the bag and shook it hard. It was empty.

Wildly she glanced round the room. She couldn’t have lost it. The thing was irreplaceable. Running next door, she searched her bedroom. Going down on her hands and knees she lifted the valance and peered under the bed. Nothing. Nothing under the pillows, on the bedside table, the bookshelves.

She had put it in the desk drawer. She knew she had. ‘Perhaps it was another drawer.’ She was talking to herself – another sign of madness! ‘Dear God, what have I done?’ Going back into the living room she pulled all the drawers out one by one and emptied them onto the floor, scattering papers and pens and pencils over the carpet. There was no sign.

In the street below Pete climbed thoughtfully back into the car and put the key into the ignition. With a glance up at her window at the top of the house he pulled away from the kerb.

Viv sat down on the sofa, her head in her hands. The flat was totally silent. The script of the play with its forest of red stickers courtesy of Maddie Corston lay on her desk in mute reproach. On top of it sat a small box. She stared at it for several seconds, her mouth dry, then leaping to her feet she pounced on it.

The enamelled pin shone in the lamplight as she opened the lid. It was exquisitely crafted. Shaped like the head of a crane, with an elegant elongated beak and curved neck, the gold was engraved and moulded into intricate designs, and set with scarlet and green enamels. For a long time she stared at it, then almost reluctantly she stroked it with her fingertip. A slight haze appeared on the surface of the gold from the contact with her skin and she pulled her finger away, with a shiver, biting her lip. The brooch was so cold. She glanced over her shoulder almost guiltily, sensing accusing eyes watching her from the corners of the room. She should not have touched it.

She should not have taken it at all. Why had she? Had someone else prompted her; guided her hand?

Outside the window the luminous night had settled over the city and slowly it was growing more silent. In the distance she heard a shout, then another and a short burst of music as somewhere down the Lawnmarket a door opened and then closed again.

The shadowy woman standing in the lamplight near the desk was staring at the brooch with intensity, her eyes the only part of her that seemed alive. As Viv picked up the lid of the box and carefully fitted it back into place, the figure reached out a hand as if in protest, then slowly faded into the darkness.

II

The ponies were kept at the far side of the compound. They were stamping impatiently, waiting for Carta and Triganos to appear from their mother’s house.

Silently, careful not to be seen, a figure was creeping along in the shadow of the great wall, climbing over the rubble where it had fallen, coming closer to the horses every second. First one, then another cocked their ears watching and Carta’s pony shifted restlessly, backing away as far as its halter would allow.

The boy glanced left and right, then ran sure-footed in between the animals. There was something in his hand, half-concealed behind his back. Ducking under the rope he approached Carta’s pony and thrust something under the saddle cloth. The horses all moved restlessly now as he turned and ran out of sight, chuckling.

When the king’s children appeared a few moments later the horses had settled again. Triganos was laughing. ‘Come on. I’ll race you! To the forest and back before sundown.’ He vaulted onto his own pony, leaning forward to pull the rein free, and turned it already galloping as he headed for the gates. Carta was not far behind him. As she leaped for her pony, bareback as his was, but for the backcloth, the animal let out a scream of pain and reared up. Carta flew over the horse’s back and landed on the ground on the far side, winded. For a moment she didn’t move.

From the shadows Venutios appeared. He stooped to help her climb to her feet. ‘Are you all right? What happened.’ His face was bland. Then concerned. Kindly. Behind him two men working at the bellows outside the smith’s house dropped the great wooden handles and ran to her aid, as did another of Carta’s companions, Mairghread, a tall dark-haired girl with buck teeth, who was just emerging from the house. Shaken and with her dignity wounded Carta scrambled to her feet and shook off Venutios’s arm. ‘I’m all right! I’m fine. How is Olwen?’

Venutios was beside the pony already, soothing it and gentling its trembling skin. The bunch of holly leaves had gone, tossed into the sunshadows out of sight beyond the other horses.

To his delight Carta was taken away, back to her mother to be cleaned and soothed and reprimanded for not checking the pony’s saddle cloth was firmly fixed, for not approaching quietly, for not mounting carefully, and long before she was allowed once more to emerge into the sunshine Venutios had climbed onto his own pony and ridden in pursuit of Triganos, followed by some of the other boys and leaving Carta at home to sulk. It was a long time before she managed to slip away at last from her mother’s eagle eye, but when she did she hurried straightaway over to the horse lines and whispering to the pony, fed it handfuls of titbits. Then carefully she ducked under the rope and began to search the ground.

From the top of the wall she could see far into the distance, beyond the forest, the scarlet gleam as the sun began to set into the sea. Pushing her hair out of her eyes she stood for a long time, listening for the voice. It wasn’t there. All she could hear was the gentle moaning of the wind. Silently she watched as the colours changed to deeper richer red, then to orange, then slowly they dulled into night. Behind her the coming darkness was already thick on the fells. There was no trace of Triganos and his friends.

There was a rattle of stones behind her and she turned. Mellia had scrambled up beside her. For a moment she too stared at the sunset, then she shrugged. ‘It’ll be dark soon. Is there any sign of them?’

Carta shook her head.

‘You think they’ll spend the night in the forest?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘And you wanted to go with them.’

‘You know I did.’ Carta pursed her lips. ‘Someone had put some holly under my saddle cloth.’

Mellia’s eyes rounded. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I found it. And then the scratches on poor Olwen’s back.’

‘But who would do such a thing?’

‘Venutios. He didn’t want me to go with them. If I’m there Triganos looks after me and does what I say. If I’m not, then the boys can do what they like.’ She gave an elaborate shrug.

Mellia studied the other girl’s profile with misgiving. She recognised the set of the jaw. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I haven’t decided yet. I’ll think of something.’

When the boys finally returned they brought with them a fine haul of game and had clearly enjoyed themselves enormously. Carta was not there to greet them. She had decided unaccountably to sit in the sunshine and watch Mellia’s attempts at mending some of the tears in her friends’ gowns; a thankless task, but one she seemed happy enough to try. Triganos brought his sister the gift of a pair of soft leather slippers which he had wheedled from the shoemaker near the entrance gates in an attempt to console her for leaving her behind. She smiled and accepted the gift with a gracious smile which filled him with foreboding.

Two days later Venutios was taken violently ill after the evening meal. Crouching behind the feasting hall as he vomited again and again into a latrine pit he glanced up at last, wiping his sweating face, to see Carta watching him. She was wearing her best gown and new slippers. And she was smiling. ‘Poor Venutios … Aren’t you well?’

‘Obviously not.’ He groaned and leaned down towards the stinking mess again.

‘No one else has been ill.’ She did not come any closer, wrinkling her nose fastidiously. ‘The gods must be punishing you for something. I wonder why.’

‘I can’t imagine.’ He looked up at her. ‘I hope you haven’t poisoned me, you little bitch!’

Carta frowned. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

He was incapable of answering. With another groan he bent double again. By the time he had recovered enough to straighten and look round she had gone.

III

‘Pete didn’t tell you I’d rung him, did he!’

Pat took one look at Cathy’s astonished face and read the situation correctly. ‘Admittedly, I didn’t give him much notice before I jumped on the Shuttle, but I didn’t think he could forget that easily. Shit, I’m sorry. He said I could scrounge a bed after I’d been down to see Maddie. No worry.’ She had dropped a large scarlet canvas bag and her computer case on the floor at her feet. ‘I can stay with some mates of mine down in Leith. I’m sure they won’t mind, if there is no room here.’

Cathy shrugged helplessly. Bugger Pete. ‘It’s not that I’m not glad to see you, Pat.’ She kissed her visitor. ‘It’s just that we’ve got Tasha for a couple of nights.’

‘Say no more. I remember the child from hell!’ Pat chortled.

‘Tasha adores you, Pat, you know she does.’ Cathy didn’t sound too convinced. ‘And we’ve got room.’

‘Somewhere I can lie late abed without screaming children or for that matter cats jumping on my diaphragm?’ Pat peered over Cathy’s shoulder. ‘Is it safe to come in now?’

‘Of course it is.’ Cathy gestured her towards the living room. ‘I’d love you to stay. In fact I’d be furious if you didn’t. You can have the box room upstairs. It’s a bit crowded with junk and stuff, but it’s quiet and it’s got a nice bed. You’ll be safe up there! Come on. I’ll show you.’

Cathy arranged their first meeting the next day and as the one o’clock gun resounded across the city, the three women seated themselves at a corner table in a small restaurant in a narrow street off the Grassmarket. It was a place Viv knew well, and one where she would almost certainly not run into any other members of the department.

After Cathy had introduced the two women to one another she raised her wine glass. ‘Right, ladies, let’s drink to your alliance, to the play and perdition to reactionary male academics.’

Viv grinned. ‘You don’t know how the thought of this meeting cheered me up this morning. Especially after I had opened my bank statement. That concentrates the mind.’ She took a gulp of wine. She was looking strained and pale. She didn’t mention the abrupt end to the supper party on Sunday night and neither did Cathy. ‘Has Cathy told you my predicament?’ she addressed Pat. ‘If my boss, Hugh, is not going to promote me to Reader when Hamish Macleod goes, and if he succeeds in cutting the funding for my research I am going to have to find some other gainful employment and soon.’

‘Isn’t writing a successful biography gainful employment?’ Pat asked curiously. She sat back in her seat and surveyed the woman sitting opposite her. Her initial reaction was to be slightly wary of this obviously highly intelligent redhead.

There was a shout of laughter at the next table as a late arrival tried to squeeze in amongst the other diners. The room was very hot.

‘If it’s successful, yes, then it might be employment of a sort.’ Viv grimaced. ‘If the book is slated by the critics and blackballed by my ex boss, probably no.’

‘That hasn’t happened yet, Viv,’ Cathy put in calmly.

‘To be honest, it won’t matter if it is. The more controversy the better.’ Pat accepted a menu from the waiter with an absent-minded smile. Maddie was right. Viv’s slightly aggressive demeanour probably hid a lot of hurt and insecurity. ‘It would bring us good publicity. Always a plus. More listeners for our play. More readers for your book. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?’

Viv shrugged. ‘Yes, to be honest. Not the more readers part, but the criticism. I’m an academic. That matters. It will put my scholarship in question.’ She reached for a bread roll from the basket which had been set down on the table between them. Tearing it to shreds, she piled the crumbs into a heap on her table mat.

‘Well, one of the first things you have to learn, Viv,’ Pat said firmly, ‘is that you need a thick skin in this business. And that’s what I’m here to help you achieve!’

Cathy glanced from one to the other. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, I think you two will make a good team. You’re the academic, Viv. And Pat has lots of experience in this field, and has had some success with her script writing. So listen to her! She knows her stuff. And she can help you.’

‘When is your book being published, Viv?’ Pat asked after a pause.

‘Just under a month. July 14th.’

‘Great. And we have a deadline for the play, right? So we need to get down to it as fast as possible.’

Nodding, Viv met her eye with a determined smile. ‘Your name would be a huge asset. No one’s heard of me, after all.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘I thought you were a TV pundit?’ Pat raised an eyebrow.

‘Only late-night programmes.’ Viv shrugged. Pat’s comments had unsettled her. The woman was too worldly, too confident, too knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of this project without knowing anything about the subject itself. She was feeling threatened and uneasy. Yet it had to happen. Without Pat this play was not going to get off the ground.

Pat was frowning. ‘I have a feeling you’re being a bit disingenuous there. No matter. If you’re not famous yet, you will be, darling! One way or another! History is a very sexy subject these days, so hopefully we can incorporate a bit of my know how and knowledge to make the play appeal widely, while keeping the academic integrity of the book as a serious study. Quite a challenge!’

There was a pause as Viv gave a wry smile. ‘My serious academic approach.’ Oh God, what had she got herself into? ‘Ah, but that’s maybe the trouble. Perhaps I’d better let you read it before you commit yourself to that opinion. The thing is,’ she hesitated. ‘I have a confession to make. Some of my sources are a bit suspect.’ She paused again. ‘That is the reason for Hugh’s antagonism. And my crossed wires with Maddie. The book does not perhaps come over as quite as academically based as you expect and the play has gone a bit off track for that reason. I kept trying to rein it in and it hasn’t worked.’

Pat looked puzzled. ‘You mean it is fiction?’

‘No, it’s not fiction.’ There was another momentary pause. ‘Well, perhaps it is. Read it, Pat. Please. The book and my attempts at the script. Then let’s talk again.’

4

I

‘You’ve got to give it back.’ Cathy stared at the brooch, awed. ‘Think of its value. The insurance. What if you lost it!’

They had gone back with her to collect a pre-publication copy of her book each, duly signed by the author, and the draft of the play. As Viv moved the box backwards and forwards in the sunlight to reflect its colours, Pat reached for it with a gasp of delight. For a few seconds she gazed at it, then she took off the box’s lid.

‘Don’t touch –’ Viv was too late. It was already lying in Pat’s palm.

‘Why not?’ Pat looked up curiously.

‘One should wear gloves.’ Viv shrugged. Who was she to talk? She shuddered.

Pat was staring down at it, frowning, studying it intently. After a moment she shivered and tipped it back into its box. ‘You know, that’s got a really nasty vibe,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that odd, for something so lovely.’ She handed it back to Viv with a grimace. ‘Cathy’s right, you should give it back to the horrid professor.’

And now they had gone and the brooch was back in its drawer and Viv was alone.

The voice was there, just outside her range of hearing. She found herself whispering out loud again. ‘This way madness lies.’

Schizophrenia. Spiritualism. Necromancy? In spite of herself she glanced round the room. Was Carta there, lurking in the shadows? She grimaced. The voice had told her everything which had made her work come alive. Those were the bits her publisher had liked; the bits Maddie liked. Those were the bits they all wanted more of. Natural. Lively. Real.

Too real.

Viv groaned out loud as a sudden wave of total terror flooded through her. ‘Carta?’ Her mouth was dry. ‘Are you there?’ The room was silent. She glanced up at the mirror which hung above her desk but the only reflection there was hers.

Then she heard it, the voice from the past, echoing in her head.

Vivienne?

She couldn’t ignore it. She wanted to know what it had to tell her. What Cartimandua had to tell her. Surely just to listen once more would not be dangerous?

The path to the cave was wet, the limestone steps slippery with moss. Carta walked slowly down it, the heavy wool of her skirt soaked as she brushed through the overhanging ferns. The roar of water in her ears was deafening. Here, where the river tumbled over the cliff the water dissipated into rainbows before plunging into the dark pool at the foot of the rocks. She often came here. It was a sacred place, a place where the goddess of the hill spoke to her. Where she brought her hopes and fears. And her dreams.

The gods were everywhere, but here in this dark place between earth and water, hidden from the sky, she felt close to them. So close she could communicate especially with her own tutelary spirit, Vivienne. She had been puzzled by the name. Ninian was a name she knew, but this female daughter of the gods was a stranger. Perhaps a goddess who had come with the Roman or Gaulish merchants who from time to time travelled the trade routes up the River Humbte from the coast, or perhaps one who had arrived from the west with the trading ships from Erin. Hers was a voice which reached Carta from beyond the mists which separated the world of the spirits from the world of men and women.

Pulling her cloak more tightly round her shoulders, she ducked through the curtain of ferns and grasses into the darkness. The offerings she had left before the small carved figurine had gone. The lamp had long ago blown out. Reaching into her bag she brought out fresh offerings to the spirits that dwelt in the cave. Be they gods or little people, animals or birds, it was right that they be rewarded and thanked for allowing her to use this place.

The small hollow horn in her bag, carefully stoppered with a plug of wax, contained oil for the lamp. She lit it quickly and easily, sparking dried moss and holding it to the lamp’s wick, and then she sat down silently, eyes closed, to wait for the clear thoughts she sought.

The sound of running water faded as the silence deepened and at last she began to speak. There was much to tell. Much to ask of the goddess of the hill.

The decision had at last been made. She was to be sent as fosterling to the house of the king of the Votadini. Such arrangements were usual. Her brothers too would leave the house they knew to live with other family groups or tribes. Thus were alliances made; friendships between boys which hardened as they grew into warriors, and matches between girls and young men which would be sealed by marriage as a man or his father or mother chose the wives who would expand and ensure a dynasty. She was happy with this. It was part of her destiny. Companions would go with her on the journey north : Mellia and Mairghread, the daughter of her mother’s best friend, who was the same age as she was and with them two slaves, Pacata and Éabha, who had looked after her since she was a baby and with whom she had formed a close friendship. Best of all her youngest brother, Bran, was part of the group as, with horses and carts and wagons full of possessions and gifts the procession left her father’s dun at dawn, winding its way down the great hill on a spring morning, blessed and escorted by the Druid, Eochaid, who in a moment of gentleness had saved her bitch Catia. The bitch and both pups, already grown, followed at her pony’s heels. Behind her, her mother and father and the people of the whole community had turned out to wave them farewell. Her mother, normally so strong, so determined, was crying softly. She had given her daughter a string of sacred beads to wear around her neck and keep her safe. Her father had pressed a lucky charm into her hand. Her only worry was that Venutios, alone of the children, was to remain, foster son to her father, to be trained by him as a warrior without her or her brothers there to keep an eye on him. The thought did not trouble her for long. There was too much to think about in the new exciting days ahead.

Spring had thrown a gentle mantle of green across the bleak hills and stark winter trees. Lulled by the rattle of the carts, the squeak and creak of harness and the warm familiar smell of oxen and horses she looked around her eagerly, exhilarated by the idea of the coming adventure.

Beside her Mellia was sobbing quietly as she rode. Carta glanced across at her companion with a flash of irritation, her own momentary sadness already forgotten. ‘You’ll see your mother again, Mellia. Do cheer yourself up. Look what a glorious day we have to start our journey. And think where we are going. It will all be new and wonderful.’ She had not realised until almost that moment how much the thought of change excited her. New faces. New places. Perhaps she was about to meet the man she would marry and with whom she would have children. At that thought, her face reflected a wave of distaste, perhaps a frisson of fear. Her small fingers clenched on the soft leather reins as her mouth turned down at the corners and her pony, feeling the tension on its jointed snaffle bit, shook its head indignantly. At once she was back from the lurking shadows of that particular thought and at one with her horse, gentling, reassuring, her eyes on the track ahead where even as she watched, the lead wagon lurched to a standstill, its wheels mired in the mud.

Descending at last from the fells onto the plains the track joined the wider road of one of the main trade routes which led from the south through the rich lands of the Brigantian tribes, north towards their capital, the sprawling settlement of Dinas Dwr, seat of the high king. From there they journeyed on following a well-used network of roads and tracks, ridgeways and carefully constructed and maintained causeways where the track led across low-lying and marshy ground. They were passing homesteads and farms, townships, villages and trading posts, communities of workshops and mining areas where lead and silver were extracted from the living heart of the land. In places they were travelling through forests and over open moors and in others along the cliffs which to Carta’s great delight, bordered the great Northern Ocean.

They were expected. Lookouts had alerted their hosts as their party forded the broad river which separated the territories of the Brigantes from those of the Votadini. Their escorts were waiting on its far bank. Carta eyed their warriors critically. The men rode sturdy horses and they rode them well. The war chariots of the warriors were well made and elegantly decorated, drawn by fine ponies.

The leader of the band jumped from his chariot and came forward to greet them. To greet her. Ignoring everyone else he came towards her, a girl of some twelve summers only, his hands outstretched to clasp hers. ‘Greetings, cousin! I am Riach. I trust your journey has not been too long and arduous?’ He was young too. Not as young as she was but still unbearded. His smile was huge, infectious in a broad-browed, tanned face, his eyes a piercing blue, the swirling tattoos decorating his forehead and temples expertly executed. From the golden ornaments at his neck and on his arms she guessed he must be a son or foster son of the royal house and she was suddenly very conscious of her own shabbiness. She was covered in splashes of mud from the journey. Her hair was uncombed and matted. The overnight stays they had made at farms and forts along the way and the two nights camping on the moors had not provided ideal conditions for primping and preening. She had not unpacked clothes or combs or her mirror, although doubtless her mother’s slaves had put them in her bundles, and never before had she bothered about what the small animated face which looked out from beneath her frowsty hair looked like. Or cared about jewellery beyond the simple silver bracelet on her wrist and the string of protective amber beads about her neck. She frowned. A queen would care. A woman who was going to be a queen should care.

The young man into whose eyes she stared for two whole heartbeats before turning away, embarrassed, would care.

Snatching her hands from him, her face scarlet, she ran to climb back on the wagon she shared with the other women when too tired to ride another mile. Not a queenly mode of transport. Not at all. Under her breath she made a vow that day. Never again would she travel with slaves. She would demand her own light-cart, a war chariot of her own, and her own two matched horses to pull it and they would one day be the best in the whole of the Pretannic Isles.

Watching her, the boy laughed. He could see her discomfort and her shame, sense her pride; in fact he suspected he could read her very thoughts. But nothing about her displeased him. On the contrary. He admired her already for her courage and for her looks which under all the dirt were striking and would one day be spectacular. Which was just as well as his father had informed him that this child, as soon as she reached womanhood, would be his wife.

II

Viv started out of her reverie, shocked, her heart thudding as she stared round disorientated. She could still feel the heat and the cold. Sense the mud and the dirt, smell the sharp tang of the pine needles beneath the horses’ feet, the earthy mist which hung low and cold over the bogs as the ox-carts and wagons rattled through the dales between the ranges of windswept fells, across the causeways and for a moment she was aware, just as the child Carta became aware, of the dirt beneath her fingernails and the strong smell of horse on her skin.

The detail. She must not forget the detail. Overwhelmed with excitement she pulled open a drawer in her desk with shaking hands and she extricated a pack of microcassettes. Slamming one into her little recorder she plugged in the mike, then as an afterthought she reached for a scribbling pad and ballpoint pen. She had to go back again. At once.

A bolt of fear hit her. She took a deep breath. There would be no danger now, surely. Now Carta knew she was listening.

‘OK, lady. I’m ready this time.’ She sat down at her desk and reaching forward she pressed the record button and picked up her pen.

Carta gazed at the hill fort in front of them in open-mouthed amazement as it rose out of the trees in the distance. Even from here she could see it was at least twice the size of Dun Righ, her home. They were travelling through rich farmland here, passing homesteads much like those they had passed continuously on their journey, but this fort was like nothing she had seen before: buildings clustered all over the top of the steep hillside of what had once been a volcanic crag, and as they moved closer she saw how truly enormous the fort was with its triple ramparts topped by a sharp, pointed palisade and huge gateways. The young man was riding beside the wagon now. ‘Dun Pelder.’ He grinned as he waved towards the settlement. ‘Fortress of Spears. We’re nearly there.’

The track led in between two gatehouses in the encircling walls, then climbed steeply, winding up the terraced sides of the hill between huge round houses, some built out onto the terraces themselves, with other buildings clustered near them. The Brigantian visitors were led to the guest house beside the largest round house of all, clearly that of the king himself. Noisy crowds were gathering about them already and she could smell woodsmoke and cooking as, suddenly shy, she edged closer to her companions.

Riach leaped from his chariot and came to the side of the wagon. With a bow he reached up to help Carta down. ‘You will be anxious to rest and change your clothes,’ he said, solemnly looking down at her. ‘Later my father will greet you and we will all eat together this evening. A huge feast is being prepared to welcome the lady of the Brigantes and her brother.’ He grinned at Bran, who had reined in his pony beside them and beckoned him closer. Bran and his companions would lodge in the house of the warriors, where the unmarried aristocratic young men of the tribe and leaders of visiting war bands slept.

The guest house was larger than her father’s feasting hall. She stared round in awe. The hearth was piled high with logs and crackled merrily and the interior of the building was lit with dozens of lamps. The central area was well provided with benches and sumptuous cushions and behind them the small sleeping chambers around the walls were furnished with bed boxes piled high with heather mattresses, woollen blankets and soft silky furs. Carta continued to stare open-mouthed as slaves carried in her belongings before moving the wagon-load of gifts sent by her father further up the hill to the king’s house.

‘Look, Carta.’ Mellia was standing in front of the table in the largest of the small chambers, much more cheerful now the long journey was over. ‘This must be where you are to sleep. Look at the things they have put here for you.’ Her voice was full of awe. There was a delicately worked bronze wash basin, exquisitely carved bone combs, a bronze mirror inlaid with coloured enamels. Already slaves were bringing jugs of hot water for her from the cauldron hanging over the central fire.

Carta was impressed and for once struck dumb. Meekly she allowed Pacata and Éabha to strip off her mud-caked clothes and wash her body with the sweet-scented soapwort solution they found waiting in a jug beside the basin. Then they dressed her in a clean linen gown and a plaid woollen mantle quickly dug from one of the packs and threaded pretty glass beads through her hair. They slipped on her best soft leather shoes and stood back to admire their handiwork. She looked almost respectable.

Lugaid, King of the Votadini, was a short, thick-set man of nearly forty summers, his long dark hair, bleached and stiffened with lye, caught back behind his head and tied with a leather thong. His face was scarred from a long-ago battle encounter which had made his eyebrow twist into a permanent quizzical loop and it said much for his strength and regal manner that this had not disqualified him from sacred kingship. He was terrifying. From his four wives he had fifteen children. Riach was the youngest of four sons by his senior and favourite wife, Brigit.

Brigit greeted Carta with a hug. ‘So, my new foster daughter, you are welcome here.’ Her arms clanked with silver bangles that caught the firelight in the great feasting hall.

Glancing up shyly, Carta noticed that the hall boasted a huge gallery, screened with wattle and hung with woven curtains. Brigit followed the girl’s glance.

‘That is the women’s chamber. We will withdraw there after the feast, but meanwhile you will sit with me and Riach.’ Taking her hand, Brigit drew Carta close beside her and led her to a bench, where she sat down amongst the warriors and the nobles and their wives and the dozens of strangers who all seemed to be casting covert glances in their direction.

From the shadows a harper began to play as the doors were flung wide and a succession of huge trays of food were carried in.

She had not expected she would have lessons. King Lugaid insisted that his children, foster children and those of his warriors who wished it, learn to speak and write the language of Rome.

‘Why?’ Her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing, her small feet planted firmly apart, Cartimandua of the Brigantes faced the king of the Votadini in fury. She was no longer afraid of him.

He hid a smile. He had a soft spot for the little wild cat he had imported for his favourite son.

‘Because it is sensible.’ He folded his arms, settling back onto his cushioned bench. She was the only one of all of them to question his decision. ‘Our trading links with the Empire are good. It is a language which is beginning to be spoken all over the trading world. Your great-grandfather visited Rome, did he not? Did he not leave stories of its marvels to his bards so that all might hear about them?’

Besides, his Druids had advised him that it was expedient. Rome was restless. Its conquests and trade routes spread ever towards the setting sun. One day the eagle of Rome would fly once more across the seas, plump with greed and aggression, and then those that understood the invader and spoke their language would be at an advantage.

She was bright. She learned to read and to carve her letters on the wax tablets, smooth them over and write again. She learned to write with liquid soot on fine leaves of wood, drawing and forming her letters and exchanging notes with the other students with ease both in her native Celtic language and in the lingua Latina. And she learned to count and calculate. The Druid teachers at the college on the eastern side of the great hill were pleased with her. From the bards she learned ever more stories and songs – she already had a fund of these from her father’s fireside, and she learned to play the harp. She would never play well, she was too impatient, but she had a good singing voice and would sing to her companions as the women sat sewing in their gallery or out in the sun sheltered from the wind by the great stone walls. She still did not sew. She preferred to work with the horses.

Her intelligent questions and gentle hands were welcomed in the stables. She was quick to learn which herbs to add to a horse’s feed to calm it down or increase its strength. She could soothe the most fretful stallion with her small hands and pull sharp stones from a huge and shaggy hoof without need for twitch or whip.

Viv stirred. Unconsciously she stretched her cramped fingers, but the story was racing on. Picking up her pen again she wrote on, the pages filling quickly under her uneven, untidy scribbled notes. When her doorbell rang once, echoing through her silent flat, she did not hear it.

Cartimandua was universally liked. One pair of eyes alone watched her balefully from the shadows and as she grew, so the resentment behind those eyes deepened. Their owner was careful, hiding her dislike and jealousy, but as the Brigantian girl blossomed into a beautiful young woman so dislike deepened into hatred.

It started with small things. Carta’s favourite pottery bowl was found broken. Then a string of freshwater pearls disappeared. Her best shoes were found thrown into a latrine pit behind the house and the smooth surface of her precious mirror was viciously scratched. Sadly she surveyed the faces of the women around her, wondering, but as yet not angry enough to go to the king.

‘Take care, Carta.’ Mellia had brought her own small mirror as a replacement. ‘Someone is jealous of you.’

‘Who?’ Carta sat down on the stool near her lamp stand. The fluttering wick needed tending and automatically Mellia moved across to see to it, the light reflecting on the girl’s pale hair.

Mellia shrugged. ‘None of the women in this house. They all love you.’ She was speaking softly, while glancing quickly over her shoulder towards the screened doorway into the central chamber where Pacata was singing to the others. The slave girl had a pure gentle voice and was often excused her other duties so she could sing them the sad beautiful songs of her native Erin.

‘I haven’t done anything to make people jealous of me.’ Carta was genuinely bewildered.

Mellia sat down beside her and fondled Catia’s head as the dog lay next to her young mistress. The two pups had gone. One, Carta had shyly presented to Riach, the other had returned to Dun Righ with her brother, Bran, a link between them as they made their tearful farewells.

In her loneliness after his departure she had turned more and more to Mellia as a friend and confidante and the two girls had grown close in their time at Dun Pelder, often whispering their hopes and dreams to one another. ‘You’re too pretty!’ Mellia smiled. ‘And you’re going to marry Prince Riach, everyone knows that. That would make most women jealous.’

‘I don’t know I’m going to marry him!’ Carta protested, colouring slightly. ‘No one has ever said anything. Not officially.’ The thought made her feel tingly and embarrassed, scared and excited, all at the same time. ‘If I did, you wouldn’t be jealous?’

‘No. I’d be happy for you. If it was what you wanted.’

‘Because you’re in love with someone else!’ Carta raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been flirting with Conaire.’

Conaire had accompanied them from her father’s hall as a young and inexperienced musician and had been studying hard at the bardic school which nestled on the northern flank of Dun Pelder, between the stonemasons and the goldsmith’s workshop, and he had done well. He was nearly halfway through his seven years’ course and had already learned a vast stock of songs and poems as well as being an acknowledged master in composing his own.

Mellia blushed scarlet. ‘That’s not true!’

‘It is!’ Carta teased. ‘And why not. He’s going to be a great bard one day. He will need a very special wife.’

Mellia looked down at her feet. ‘He wouldn’t look at me.’

Carta stared at her. ‘Why not?’

‘I’m not good enough.’

For once Carta was speechless. She stared for several moments at Mellia then she shook her head. ‘How can you be so silly! You are beautiful. Far more beautiful than me.’ She was surveying the other girl critically. ‘Your hair is gorgeous. Much nicer than mine. Your eyes are prettier. You can sew and stuff like that.’ Carta was being scrupulously honest. As Catia sat up and rested her head trustingly on Carta’s knee, she leaned forward and hugged the dog and kissed her forehead. ‘Next to Catia you’re my best friend, Mellia. I couldn’t have lived here without you. And I want you to marry someone really special. If Conaire becomes my head bard he will travel everywhere with me, and that means you can too. We’ll be together forever. I’d like that.’

Behind them a shadow crossed the doorway and vanished. As Pacata’s pure voice soared to the roof, whoever had been standing there tiptoed across the central chamber behind the silent women spinning and sewing beside the fire and disappeared out into the night.

Two days later Carta found her beloved dog, Catia, lying dead in the passage between the feasting hall and the kitchens, a dirty froth of vomit around her mouth, the remains of a meat sauce in a bowl nearby.

She knelt there on the cold stones beside the dog, her hand on the cold matted fur, tears pouring down her face. For a long time she would not let anyone touch Catia. Her despair and her misery were too raw. Even Mellia could not come near her. When at last she stood up, it was to go straight to Lugaid, interrupting his consultation with his Druid advisers.

‘You have to do something!’ Her eyes were bright with tears still but somehow she held her anguish back, concentrating only on her anger. ‘Someone is trying to chase me away. A woman. It is a woman’s trick to resort to poison.’ She looked from one solemn face to another. Did these men understand? Did they even care?

Truthac, one of the oldest and most senior Druids in the community held up his hand to forestall her passionate accusations. ‘I don’t think we would disagree with you, Cartimandua. However, what is needed is subtlety and study to find out who is doing this to you.’

‘And why,’ his colleague Vivios put in. ‘Have you angered someone, child?’

They were taking her seriously. She was not going to have to convince them of her accusations.

‘I am not aware of angering anyone. The people here are my friends.’ She was speaking to the king, her eyes clear of tears now and focussed on his.

She had her suspicions. She had had them for a while now, but without proof, as the Druid said, there was little she could do.

Truthac was watching her shrewdly and she found herself looking away quickly. He can read my thoughts, she realised. He knows I suspect someone.

As if answering her unspoken statement, he gave her a grave smile. ‘Suspicions are not enough, child. There must be proof. Have you consulted the gods?’

She bit her lip. The gods were a part of her life, of course they were, as they were a part of everybody’s, but in this matter she preferred to rely on her native wit.

He was watching her again. As was the king, who leaned back on his bench with his arms folded. ‘Go and make offerings, child, and search for omens to see what they say to you,’ the king put in. ‘And ask someone to help you to the temple with the dog’s body. She was your friend and companion. It is right to offer her to the gods so she may live again, is that not true, Truthac?’

The Druid nodded. ‘Go, child. Be steadfast in your prayers and your actions and remember,’ he held up his hand as she turned away. ‘Tears are the offerings we give to our departed friends and loved ones, and rightly so. Never be ashamed to cry. But tears dry and disappear. Justice is what will serve best here. Be canny.’ He tapped his nose with a gnarled finger.

Dun Pelder was a sacred hill. Upon it there were temples and offering pits and a healing centre as well as an open space, surrounded by a high hedge of yew, where the gods came to the sacred lochan beneath an ancient oak tree.

She wrapped Catia’s body herself in a softly woven sheet and sprinkled it with flowers. Then a servant lifted it for her and carried it to the place of offerings where it was lowered down the deep shaft to the otherworld of Annwn from where the animal would find her way into the land of everlasting summer. After the body went her leash and collar, her food bowl and her mistress’s best comb. Then Carta went to the shrine of the goddess.

At home she had prayed at the sacred spring near the waterfalls. It was her nemeton, her special shrine, deep in the woods on the edge of the fells and very near the gods. It felt strange, here, amongst so many people, to seek for the other world, but there was a complex of temples sacred to the gods of the Votadini and she found her way to the shrine to Brigantia, the goddess of her own people and their land, known to her hosts and her new family as Brigit, after whom the king’s wife was named.

Slipping into the darkness, she sat quietly watching a Druidess sprinkling herbs as she tended the sacred flame. The smoke from the vervain and juniper made her cough and she saw the Druidess glance at her, frowning. She sat there for a long time, without a sound, then at last, standing up, she crept into one of the two tiny sleeping chambers off the main temple. It was here that people came to pray, to ask for healing, and to seek solutions to their problems. Lying down on the couch, she closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind as she had been taught by the Druids. ‘Sweet goddess hear me. Help me.’

Eventually she slept. The answer of the goddess would come in her dreams.

III

Viv sat up with a start. She could still smell the smoky incense in her nostrils, still hear the intense miserable young voice in her ears.

It was nearly dark in the room and she was extremely cold. She focussed on the table in front of her, confused, and then slowly she reached for the switch of the table lamp and throwing down her pen, stared at the notebook. Switching off the Dictaphone she wound it back a little way and pressed the play button. Silence. Then she made out a slight scratching sound. The sound of her writing. ‘Damn.’ She had so hoped she would speak out loud. Had tried to tell herself to speak out loud, to describe what was happening in her dream.

Or trance.

Or imagination, at last given free rein.

Or whatever it was.

It hadn’t worked. She wound back the tape a whole lot further. Still silence. Just the endless automatic scribbling. With a groan she turned back in her notebook to the beginning and pulling the lamp closer, she tried to read what she had said.

Frustratingly she found there were long passages where she appeared to have been writing so fast the words had turned into long undecipherable lines and were lost forever, but in others, for instance as Carta lay silently waiting for the goddess to speak to her, the script was clear and unambiguous:

Carta beware.

Who had said that?

She wants to kill you. She does not want you to marry. She does not want you to bear children. She does not want her own seed usurped.

And who was she?

Medb of the White Hands, the king’s youngest wife.

‘Oh God!’ Viv bit her lip, totally engrossed. ‘Does she know? Did I warn her?’

It didn’t matter of course. Nothing she did or said mattered. She couldn’t change the course of history.

Could she?

5

I

Pat turned over in bed with a groan and glanced at the small alarm clock near the lamp on the table beside her. It was ten past three and she was still reading. With a sigh she laid down the book and sat up. She couldn’t stop now. Padding down the stairs in her royal-blue pyjamas, she made her way through the silent flat to the kitchen. Turning on the light she reached for a glass and went across to the sink for some water.

She frowned. There was no mention of Medb in the book. None at all. She took a sip from her glass.

Medb.

Where had that name come from?

It had swum up from her subconscious while she was reading. Or had she dozed off without realising it and dreamed it?

‘Pat? Are you OK?’ Cathy appeared in the doorway behind her. She was wearing a dark red nightshirt.

‘Yes, sorry. Did I wake you?’ Pat leaned against the worktop, sipping from the glass. ‘I was reading Viv’s book. I didn’t realise it was so late.’

‘Is it any good?’ Cathy went over to the kettle. ‘I haven’t started it yet. No, I was awake anyway, worrying about Tasha.’

Pat glanced at Cathy across her glass. ‘Is she a problem? I thought you liked her.’

‘I do. It’s her mother I’m not so keen on. It’s such an issue each time she comes over. Pete’s got a meeting next time she brings Tasha so I’ve got to entertain the woman.’

‘Can’t you just grab the kid and shut the door in her face?’

Cathy gave a throaty laugh. ‘I wish! No, I’ll serve tea and cake and look all domesticated and try to outshine her at her own game as usual.’

‘That’s crazy. Pete lives with you. He didn’t like domesticated, remember?’

‘I know.’ Cathy sighed. ‘I may be a psychologist, Pat, but I’m still as insecure as the next woman.’ Cathy reached for a jar of teabags. ‘So, is Viv’s book any good? I must confess I haven’t read it yet.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Pat rubbed her eyes wearily. ‘But it’s really strange. She’s an academic, right? And she’s making a huge issue of the fact, but whatever she says it does read like fiction, she’s right. It’s almost lyrical. Even I can see it’s full of stuff she could not possibly know for a fact and her professor is probably justified in his remarks. It is not kosher research. It can’t be. I don’t pretend to know anything about the subject, but I would have expected lots of other detail, social history, Roman background to the period, that sort of thing. Stuff which would be hard to convey in a drama documentary with no visual cues and not much time to spare, but this …’ She paused, sipping from her glass. ‘It doesn’t matter. From my point of view it’s brilliant! We can do a lot with it!’

Cathy shrugged. ‘She’s been translating old Celtic manuscripts and things and reading oghams, which are some sort of ancient Celtic sign writing, and running her hands over stones and stuff. She let on that much. She was really embarrassed about it!’ She grinned. ‘So, do I gather it is readable? After all, that is the important thing, isn’t it?’

‘Indeed, yes. It is readable. Very. And great material for a play, so I think we’re in business, and,’ Pat headed for the door, ‘I’m going back to bed to finish it. As far as I remember from looking her up before I came, no one knows about Cartimandua’s later life. I shall be intrigued to see what Viv has to say on the subject.’

The answer was, she didn’t. She described the final confrontation between the Brigantian forces and Rome and the story stopped abruptly.

No more is heard of the Queen of the Brigantes.

She disappears from history every bit as enigmatically, if with less drama, than did her sister queen, Boudica. Did she live to grow old?

Did she leave heirs? Did she meet her husband again? We do not know.

Pat closed the book and let it fall on the sheet. She felt absurdly cheated. The story had been exciting. Engrossing. Brilliant. Surely there must be more to the ending than that?

But of course even she, who was no historian, knew there wasn’t. History is not interested in happy endings. It is not indeed interested in endings at all. It moves on with the current of events, ever following the path to the future. And Cartimandua was not even a part of history as such. She belonged to pre-history, her name only known because of her interest to Roman historians who recorded what they knew of her, or guessed, or invented, and then moved on to talk of different things.

Putting the book on the table with a sigh she reached over to turn out the light. It would make a brilliant play.

II

Sixteen miles away and some two hours later, in Aberlady, Hugh woke up and lay staring up at the ceiling. Outside the dawn chorus was in full swing, the birds so loud the glory of their song was an almost discordant force, pouring through the open window into his bedroom, drowning the silence.

He closed his eyes with a groan. It had been a long time since Alison had come to him in a dream. ‘Hugh!’ Her voice had been so clear. ‘Hugh! Be careful.’ Dropping his hand, she had moved away, turning towards the skyline. He remembered what would happen next and he reached out towards her desperately. ‘Don’t go. Please, don’t go.’

She had paused and turned back. ‘Speak to Meryn, Hugh,’ she said softly. ‘Speak to Meryn.’ And then she had gone.

He frowned as the words came back to him.

As his car bumped over the mountain track towards the white painted stone cottage, Hugh gave a wry grin. Where else would his old friend, Meryn Jones, have come to rest in his peripatetic life when he needed to be near the National Library of Scotland for his research, than this remote glen in the Pentland hills? Any nearer the city would have been an anathema.

The two men had first met at Jesus College, Oxford over thirty years before, their point of contact their intense interest in the Celtic world in which both were working on post-graduate research, prior to setting off in very different directions, Hugh to Trinity College, Dublin, Meryn to his native Wales where he was to centre his life around his study of Druidism.

Parking near the door Hugh climbed out and looked round appreciatively. The cottage, nestling beneath a glorious great mountain, and within earshot of a swiftly running rocky burn was surrounded by a small garden where vegetables and herbs – always herbs, wherever Meryn lived, herbs for healing, and for magic and for divination – vied with flowers for the space within the tumbled grey stone garden walls.

As the two men shook hands and then turned to walk inside, Hugh grinned. He could smell coffee. Most of his friend’s eccentricities he could tolerate, but herb tea morning noon and night was not one of them.

Tall, with dark hair greying at the temples, Meryn was in his mid-fifties, though his confident stride and upright posture had not changed at all from that of the young man who had gone from Oxford to live and work and study in the mountains of mid-Wales.

He led Hugh into the cottage where a large work table stood in the centre of the book-lined living room; its stone walls were nearly completely hidden by the shelves, the deep window recesses bright with scarlet geraniums, the fire in the hearth lit even though it was June.

He gestured Hugh towards one of the two deep armchairs and fetched their drinks.

‘You look troubled, my friend,’ Meryn said as he set down a cup beside Hugh.

Hugh sighed. There were never any preambles with Meryn. Straight to the point.

‘I’m tired. Getting old and grouchy.’

Meryn smiled. ‘You’ve always been grouchy, Hugh. As for old, you’re younger than me. Prime of life! The target of many a beautiful undergraduate’s lustful fantasies if rumours are true.’ He smiled as he glanced across at the other man, as always acute in his summing up of the situation. ‘Time for a sabbatical, perhaps?’

‘In two years’ time.’ Hugh reached for his coffee and sniffed it appreciatively before taking a gulp. His host had a cup of something green steaming away beside him. He had not touched it, Hugh noticed. ‘I dreamed about Alison,’ he went on abruptly. ‘I thought I was moving on, like we’re told to, you know, getting on with my life,’ he shrugged, ‘and it’s getting easier. Then suddenly, this.’

Meryn was studying his face. His silence led Hugh to continue.

‘She told me to come and see you.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘She is a wise lady.’

Hugh nodded. Is. Not was. That was typical of Meryn. He and Meryn had re-established their close friendship thanks to Alison. She had adored Meryn’s books, written to him without realising that he and her husband had once been so close, met him at last the year before she died, then on discovering the length and depth of their former friendship, insisted that Hugh and he get in touch again. They had kept in contact over the years, but their approach to their studies was very different and had in a sense driven them apart, Hugh’s academic and based in the empirical record, Meryn’s spiritual and psychological. His approach to Druidry was rooted not only in study, but in memory and meditation – in experience – something Hugh found hard to understand.

Meryn didn’t deny being a Druid nowadays. In fact it was what he called himself. Not a member of any organisation. Nothing formal. Just a deep, passionate philosophy. A way of living. A way of believing and of remembering which came from the distant Celtic past of his country and his ancestors and his finely tuned intuition which was undoubtedly psychic. He frowned as he sat studying his visitor. His intuition was telling him now that something was very wrong.

Hugh put down his cup. He respected Meryn’s learning, and his natural wisdom if not his academic purity, and lately he had begun to regard his friend as something of a mentor and guru. Meryn seemed to possess a knowledge and assurance which he himself lacked. It was something he envied.

Meryn reached for his drink at last. ‘You must let her go, Hugh.’

‘Who?’ Hugh started almost guiltily.

‘Alison, of course.’ Meryn was watching him closely. ‘Who did you think I meant?’

Hugh shook his head. He leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath. Then he plunged into his story, coming straight to the point. ‘Did you ever meet Dr Lloyd Rees when you came up to the DPCHC?’

Meryn shook his head. ‘One of your adoring disciples?’

Hugh gave a bitter smile. ‘I used to think so.’

After a pause Meryn asked, ‘So, what has Dr Lloyd Rees done to displease you?’

‘She’s written a damn stupid book. Made a complete ass of herself. It’s going to show up the whole department, and she’s –’ He paused abruptly. ‘She’s done something else unutterably stupid as well, and I don’t know what to do about it.’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘She’s stolen something, Meryn. Something of inestimable value.’ Hugh glanced up.

He hadn’t actually seen her do it, but when he had gone back to the office and searched the chaos of his desk it had gone. It had to have been her. Who else would have done it?

‘Have you asked her?’

Hugh shook his head.

‘Why?’

‘I didn’t want to confront her, I suppose.’ Hugh shrugged. Scowling, he levered himself out of his chair and paced restlessly up and down the floor a couple of times.

Thoughtfully Meryn watched him. Hugh was growing more agitated by the second.

‘She doesn’t realise what she has started!’ Hugh burst out suddenly. He flung himself down on the chair again and drummed his fingers on his knee, staring into the fire.

‘And what has she started?’ Meryn’s question was very soft as he studied the other man’s expression.

‘A war.’ Hugh said the words almost absent-mindedly. ‘She started a war. Stupid bitch!’ His voice had changed. Deepened. Become raw with anger. ‘She will pay for what she has done!’

Meryn raised an eyebrow. ‘Strong words.’ He was carefully scanning Hugh’s face.

‘Not strong enough!’

‘Are we still talking about Dr Lloyd Rees?’

‘No! I’m talking about Cartimandua!’ Hugh’s eyes were closed now, his mouth set in a grim line.

Meryn frowned, his senses alert. It wasn’t Cartimandua who had started a war, it was the man whose essence was prowling through the room, the man whose anger and impatience was resonating in the shadows, whose voice had used Hugh’s larynx, the man whom Hugh did not appear, as yet, to have seen.

‘What do you think Dr Lloyd Rees took from you, Hugh?’ he asked quietly.

‘A brooch. Technically a gold fibula.’ After a moment’s hesitation Hugh’s voice was his own again. The shadowy figure had gone.

Meryn nodded gravely. He relaxed. ‘And why did she take it, do you know? Presumably she is not by nature a thief.’

‘She wants it to show on a TV programme. Part of the publicity for her book.’

‘So she hasn’t stolen it? She intends to give it back?’

Hugh shrugged. ‘As far as I know.’

‘And did she not ask if she could borrow it?’

Hugh nodded. ‘I said no.’

‘Why?’

‘Because –’ Hugh shook his head from side to side vehemently. ‘Because I didn’t want her to have it, Meryn!’ He hesitated again. ‘Don’t ask me why. I was feeling uncooperative, perhaps. Or grouchy, as you so charmingly put it. Or just angry with her. But she shouldn’t have taken it.’

‘If indeed she has.’

‘If indeed she has.’ Hugh sighed. ‘I lent it to Hamish Macleod.’ He paused. ‘He couldn’t bring himself to touch it. He told me he left it in the box. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch it either.’ He looked up and met Meryn’s steady gaze. ‘There is something about the brooch which is odd.’

‘What about you? Have you touched it, Hugh?’

Hugh nodded.

‘What happened?’ Meryn was looking thoughtful.

‘Nothing happened. At least –’ Hugh shrugged. ‘It felt strange. Powerful. I assumed that was because I knew how old and rare it was. But …’

‘But?’ Meryn prompted after a minute or two.

Hugh shook his head. ‘Artefacts like that have a powerful effect on the imagination.’ He couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word evil. His father had felt it. Perhaps so had Wheeler. He had always wondered why the latter had given up the brooch so easily. Maybe this irrational fear was experienced by anyone who came near it. That would explain everything.

Meryn was nodding sagely. ‘So, what did you imagine, my friend?’ There was a slight twinkle in his eye.

‘That the brooch would give me an unpleasant insight into the head of the man to whom it had belonged.’

‘Who was?’

‘Venutios, King of the Brigantes.’

‘And you don’t want Dr Lloyd Rees to share your insight?’

Hugh opened his mouth to answer, said nothing, and shrugged. ‘I didn’t want her to be harmed.’

‘Harmed in what way?’

Hugh sighed. ‘Something happened when she left the room. The sudden cold. The atmosphere. It didn’t make sense at the time. I thought it was me. The quarrel I’d had with her. But now,’ he looked up with a frown, ‘I’m frightened, Meryn. I think the brooch could be dangerous. That’s why I came to see you.’

III

Meryn sat for a long time after Hugh left, staring deep into the smouldering embers of the fire, reaching with tentative fingers into the past. Hugh had left him a postcard of the brooch, its exquisite craftsmanship obvious in the intricate swirls of gold and the jewelled colours of the enamels as it sat on its black velvet plinth in the museum showcase. The card rested on his knee as his mind quested the darkness behind the glowing logs at his feet. The craftsman who had made it had been proud of this his most beautiful achievement. It was an artefact fit for a god. But it had not been given to a god. Meryn frowned. The shadowy figure who was stalking Hugh was not alone. There were others there, drifting in the room, conjured from the otherworld by the very thought of this piece of jewellery. Who else had been affected by it, he wondered. He shivered as his thoughts strayed to the museum where it had lain, the malign chill of its presence cut off from the world by its glass case. Conservators and curators had admitted to him more than once in private that they could feel the vibes coming off some of the treasures in their care. Alone, when the public had gone, in the empty galleries or the work rooms behind the scenes they saw and felt echoes of the past which were far from dormant. This brooch had probably done the same.

He lifted the picture off his knee and studied it in the flickering glow of the firelight. At some point in its existence it had been imbued with power which, whatever the original intention, was now malign. Why? By whom? How? Why had these sticky threads of danger remained to contaminate all who touched it? He looked back into the fire. Tendrils of grey smoke were seeping out into the room and he screwed up his eyes with a frown, sensing a swirl of conflict, of love and hate, of fear and tragedy as the last of the logs collapsed into the bed of ash and for the time being the window into the shadows closed.

IV

‘So, Dr Lloyd Rees, are you coming to hand in your notice? As a popular author, you clearly no longer need the pittance you earn with us.’ Hugh had just managed to ease his car into a much coveted parking space near George Square. He was pocketing his car keys as he turned and found himself face to face with Viv.

She could feel her face flaming in response to the comment. Somehow she clamped down on the retort which fizzed in her head. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her lose her temper again. She forced herself to smile. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me a while, yet, Hugh. Someone has to try and bring our attitudes out of the ark and into the world of modern research, after all.’

Damn! Why had she said that? Why antagonise him further?

He had started it, though.

She gripped the strap of the tote bag on her shoulder until her knuckles turned white. Don’t say another word, Viv. Wait for him to mention the brooch. Did he even know it was missing? If he didn’t he soon would if he was heading into the office. She chewed her lips nervously, watching as he bent to retrieve from the pavement the heavy briefcase which he had just pulled out of the car.

For a moment they both stood unmoving there on the footpath. It was the professor who turned away first. Swinging on his heel without another word he strode off, carrying his heavy case with him. He had said nothing about the pin. At the corner he veered away from the office, walking briskly into the square. In spite of herself she smiled with relief. At least they were not going to the same place, but he wouldn’t want to carry that briefcase far.

Following him at a safe distance she headed away from him, seeking the sanctuary of the small book-lined room she had called her own for five years now on the first floor of the small Georgian terraced building on the west side of the square.

Turning up the steps she ducked in through the door to look in at the office where the departmental secretary, Heather James, was sitting at her computer, her eyes fixed on the screen. The coffee machine was gurgling quietly. ‘Can I grab one on my way upstairs?’ Viv dropped her bag on the only empty chair and reached towards the tray of mugs. ‘I suppose you saw that through the window?’

‘Saw what?’ Heather’s large blue eyes seemed to grow larger behind her glasses as she glanced up, then went back to her letter.

‘The Prof heading off towards the library rather than come in here with me.’ Viv grinned. She poured herself a coffee, then realised that her legs were shaking. She sat down abruptly beside her bag, cupping her hands around the mug.

Heather raised an eyebrow. Her light-hearted daily flirtations with her devastatingly attractive boss were part of office life, as was her ability to soothe his notoriously short fuse. ‘Don’t let him get to you, Viv.’ Her fingers flashed across the keyboard; her eyes didn’t leave the screen.

‘It’s hard not to.’

‘But not impossible. He’s done it before, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Bullied people. I think it means he likes you.’ There was an unexpected chortle from behind the piles of files on her desk. ‘Keep cool. He’s won if you lose it.’

Viv exhaled audibly. ‘Lose what? Temper or job?’ Heather clearly hadn’t heard about her attempt at grand larceny.

‘Either or both. Take some time out this summer and chill. Get right away from the department.’

It was a tempting idea. Upstairs Viv stared round her office. Book-lined walls, desk, chairs for students. Piles of papers and the view out across the square. How many days and months had she spent in this room in all? She didn’t like to think. It was beginning to feel like a trap. It smelled dusty. Depressing. She could cross the floor in three paces. Throwing up the sash window with its old frayed cords juddering on the brink of stasis, she stood looking out. Hugh hadn’t headed across towards the library as she had assumed after all. He was sitting in the square. She could see him easily from here. His briefcase on the bench beside him, he was leaning forward, his hands clenched between his knees, his face set in deep lines as he stared down at his feet, the dappled shadow of the trees playing over his features. He looked up briefly as someone walked past him, then he looked down again. His whole body language spelled out dejection. She frowned. She wasn’t about to feel sorry for him.

Twice she looked out of the window again. He hadn’t moved. Then as she was about to sit down at her desk at last she saw him climb to his feet and slowly turn back towards the department.

V

Standing in his office doorway, jingling his keys in his hand, Hugh was surveying the room as though he had never seen it before. The building was quiet. Further up the corridor Viv’s door was closed. Taking a step inside he shut the door behind him, dropped his heavy bag on the floor, and stood, taking in the over-laden book-shelves, the piles of books and papers on the floor, the worn rugs, the untidy desk, the ancient chairs some of which also bore piles of books.

Slowly he walked across to the desk.

‘Just make absolutely sure the brooch has actually gone, Hugh,’ Meryn had said. ‘Go for the obvious first. Check and double-check you haven’t hidden it, lost it, dropped it. Then decide what you want to do.’

Methodically he began to tidy the desk, collecting files and letters into neat stacks, returning books to the shelves, capping pens and biros and putting them into the mug which sat beside his computer for that purpose. Twice he paused, looking round, listening. The room was empty. He had no sense that there was anything, or anyone, there. The strange overwhelming feeling that someone had been watching Viv as she left his room with the brooch, the feeling about which he had told Meryn, had gone. Emptying the two filing trays and refilling them methodically with the letters and reports and memos which they were supposed to contain but somehow didn’t any more, he slowly began to bring order to the chaos. Before he was halfway through his task he knew for certain that the brooch wasn’t there.

Finished at last, he sat down and considered the empty blotter, the tidy filing trays, the piles of files, the whole neat area in front of him, then he put his head in his hands. His mind was a blank.

‘Do you want to sack her? Do you want to call the police?’ Meryn had said before Hugh left. The blue eyes had held his for a second. ‘If she has stolen the brooch, she’s given you cause.’

Hugh sighed with frustration. What had possessed her to take the wretched thing? He pictured her standing there in front of him, a vision in magenta, her eyes betraying her every thought as she looked at him. Angry. Challenging. Frightened. Indignant and then guilty. Even before she had taken the darn thing. Guilty.

Guilty because she was the cause of the war.

Guilty because she had betrayed her people.

Hugh frowned and took a deep breath, clenching his fists on the blotter in front of him. He had done it again. For one frightening moment he had confused her in his mind with the woman who had owned the brooch nearly two millennia before.

‘Be careful, Hugh,’ Meryn had said quietly as they had sat together before the gently smouldering fire in the cottage in the Pentland hills. ‘Don’t let yourself identify too closely with Venutios. I don’t know why yet, but his link with that brooch was only too real.’

Hugh had laughed.

VI

The sun had risen out of a bank of opal mist. Above it scraps of pink cloud floated like spun gauze in the clear blue bowl of the sky. The sea slumbered still, the colour of knapped flint, save where a path of light, carbuncle red, led towards the shore.

Her horse’s rein over her arm, Carta stood on the clifftop watching. In a moment the gauze would be too flimsy, the sun’s brilliance too strong and she would have to avert her eyes. The sweet symbol of the goddess of fire who hung her cloak upon its golden rays and whose warmth would sustain and comfort them through the summer would in a moment remind her of its implacable strength.

Dropping the rein she waited, ignoring the animal, who wandered a few paces away before beginning to graze, then as the crimson sliver broke through the mist she raised her arms in greeting.

She could feel the goddess’s kiss of warmth on her skin. Feel her power touching the land. As her gentle fingers touched the horse’s flank it raised its head and in turn it whickered greeting and acknowledgement before dropping its head once more to the grass.

The time of her marriage was coming close. Carta was a woman now. Several moons ago her bleeding time had started. There was a celebration for her in the women’s hall and a blessing. The king’s Druids and the king and his sons had met and messages had been sent to her father, recently elected high king of Brigantia. Her marriage portion had to be agreed and brought to Alba and her father and mother would come to celebrate the Beltane feast with gifts and feasting. Her husband was chosen and she was happy – so happy.

Were it not for one deep cloud like that which hovered across the sea and now covered the great rock out there amidst the gathering sun paths through the mist. Someone who did not want her to marry. Someone who had cursed her.

She shivered. The night before it had been the turn of Carta’s bard, Conaire, to sing. He had risen to his feet and with a bow to the king reached for his small harp. The song he had sung was one of Carta’s favourites. It told how she had raced across the moors against her three brothers and won. It told how well she rode, how she was one with her pony as it galloped through the Setantian mists. It told how she had won her name.

The men and women in the crowded hall listened as they lounged round the fire glancing from time to time at Carta who sat next to Riach, with Mellia beside her, the girl’s eyes fixed on the young man’s face with adoration. The servants and slaves had cleared away the dishes and the food. Fresh logs had been thrown on the hot ashes and mead and wine were being passed round the assembled company as, outside, the heavy spring rain watered the growing crops of the farms which spread out across the plain below the high terraces of the fort and drenched the roofs of the round houses, splattering on the mud beneath the eaves.

Carta stared down at her own small goblet, half embarrassed, pleased by the looks of admiration being cast in her direction. She was glowing with pride.

The music was slowing. Conaire drew his fingers across the strings in a vivid, dramatic chord.

Carta came to the court of a king,

And all who looked upon her smiled.

His voice rang to the roof timbers.

But deep in the heart of the friendly crowd

Lurked a worm who her name reviled.

There was a dramatic pause, then a gasp spread around the great chamber. The words of the bard implied that the sacred vow of hospitality and friendship had been violated. Such an accusation was unheard of, but the accusation of a trained bard had the blessing of the gods as his words came direct from them through their inspiration. It had to be heard.

The king rose to his feet and silence fell on the company. Carta could feel her cheeks flaming. She did not dare to look around at the faces of the king’s family, her foster family. Beside her Mellia was holding her breath.

‘You make a grave accusation, my friend.’ Lugaid’s voice was calm. ‘And you make it in a public place.’

Conaire bowed. He set his harp down at his feet. ‘I speak the truth.’ His voice was quiet, but it carried to every man and woman there.

Carta found the courage to look up at last. Her eyes met Medb’s. The king’s youngest wife was white to the lips, her eyes radiating anger and hatred. Carta looked away. Somehow she forced herself to stand up and face the crowds in the room. The silence was intense. ‘I don’t know what I have done to earn such dislike,’ she said, her voice ringing out clearly, ‘but I am sorry for it. I would have hoped to be a sister to every woman here.’

There was a second gasp and a rapid murmur of voices ran round the fire. She had added her support to the accusation; and she had confirmed that her enemy was a woman.

Truthac, the king’s Druid leaned forward and murmured in his ear. Lugaid nodded and sat down as Truthac rose in his place and stood, leaning on his staff. ‘This must be spoken about further. But for now I would invite our own bard to sing us another song; perhaps a song about Carta’s family and her heritage of courage and dedication.’ He smiled gravely at the silent crowd, his eyes resting for only a fraction longer on one face than on the others. His gaze was met by stony defiance.

By the fire Carta resumed her seat on the cushioned bench, so close to the woman who was her enemy. The nervous thudding of her heart had subsided a little. She glanced at Conaire as Mellia slipped away from her side and made her way towards him, shyly touching the young man’s shoulder in a gesture of support. Carta hadn’t realised he knew what was going on, but the gods had chosen to speak through him and all she could do now was to wait patiently and see what Truthac and Lugaid advised, and in the mean time she would pray to her goddesses to help her.

‘Strong Lady of the sun; Sweet Lady of the moon; guardians of this place; spirits of this land; keep me safe. Shield me from her curses. Turn them back as arrows to her heart. Tell me what to do –’

‘Viv? Are you asleep?’

The voice beside her made Viv jump violently. Heather was standing in the doorway with the coffee jug in her hand. ‘I thought you might like a top up. You’ve been up here for ages.’

Outside her office the sun had moved on round. The bench where Hugh had been sitting was in deep shadow. And empty.

Viv stared at it for a moment, numb with shock, her heart thumping under her ribs. Carta had gone. Vanished in an instant in the middle of her prayer as though a door had slammed, separating them so abruptly that the shock she felt was like a pain. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Heather and somehow she managed to pull herself together, forcing herself to concentrate on the present and put the dream behind her. Her first coherent thought was of the professor. ‘Is Hugh here?’

‘Yup. In his office. He’s got a meeting with Hamish later.’

‘I think I’ll go home, then.’ Viv reached for her mug and held it out. Her hand was shaking. ‘Thanks, Heather. Just half. Then I’ll go and work at the flat for the rest of the week. Keep out of his way. If you need me give me a call.’

The vision had come without invitation. Suddenly. Completely. For over an hour she had been sitting there in another world, unaware of anything around her. Not even hearing the door open. Aware of nothing until Heather spoke to her. Slowly she began to pile books and folders into her bag, realising as she did so that her hands were still trembling.

‘There shouldn’t be any problems. All the exam papers are marked. I don’t think there will be any queries. There aren’t any resits this year, thank goodness.’

After Heather disappeared she stopped her frenetic activity for a moment and took a deep breath. She mustn’t forget the dream. She had to fix the details in her mind. The sounds and smells of the feasting hall, the haunting beauty of the song, the background noise and then the total silence, the bolt of fear that had shocked Carta as she sat and listened to the prophecy. Somehow she had to find her way back to the scene as soon as possible. As soon as she reached the privacy of her own flat.

Her desk cleared, she let herself out of her office and stood for a moment on the landing, listening. Hugh’s door was closed. The building was silent. Holding her breath, she tiptoed along the corridor, pausing as the floor creaked beneath her feet. The last thing she needed now was another encounter with Hugh and the discussion which would surely follow about the Cartimandua Pin.

Heather was right. She needed to chill.

She had made her escape, pulling the heavy outside door behind her when, only a few paces from the building, a voice accosted her. ‘Hi, Viv.’

She nearly jumped out of her skin.

It was Steve Steadman. The bag on his back hung open to reveal several books and files. ‘I’ve just been to the library.’

‘So I see.’ She did not stop walking so he fell in step beside her, his long strides adapting at once to hers. He was smiling, his pleasant face relaxed and friendly.

‘When are you planning to go home to Yorkshire?’ She glanced across at him, pleased suddenly to have his cheerful, straight forward company.

‘Next weekend.’

‘You must be looking forward to it.’ She was making conversation to compensate for not stopping; for walking so fast. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and the office and Hugh as possible.

‘I am.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll probably stay there for a bit over the summer and give them a hand on the farm. I can come back up to the library if I need to as I work on my thesis. So, might I see you down there?’ He gave her his usual relaxed grin. ‘It would be great if you could visit us.’

She hesitated. ‘You know, I might. It’s very tempting.’ Tempting and frightening. To see Carta’s home. The scenes of her early childhood. What would happen if she went there? They paused to wait for the traffic lights before turning into Forrest Road. She glanced at him in time to see his eyes fixed on her face. He looked away at once, as though embarrassed to be caught staring. Could he see something odd about her, she wondered. Sense the aura of the past which she could still feel hanging around her? She hoped not. She shivered. The street was busy, and for a moment the noise of a lorry changing gear beside them almost drowned out the quiet voice which spoke unexpectedly in her ear.

‘So, Dr Lloyd Rees, has Mr Steadman been giving you his opinion of your book?’

Viv gasped audibly. Hugh Graham had walked up behind them, unnoticed. She faced him, her heart thudding. ‘Indeed he has. He liked it.’

‘Did you?’ Hugh turned to her companion and peered at him over the top of his spectacles. ‘Well, you’re inexperienced as yet.’ He smiled. ‘I had hoped to see you in the department, Dr Lloyd Rees.’ He paused, scanning her face. ‘I would have appreciated the chance to speak to you alone.’ He glanced at Steve, then he went on, ‘But as you are here now, I may as well tell you. Amongst other things, I have been looking over the timetables for next year. Assuming you are still with us.’ He paused for a fraction of a second, his eyes fixed on hers. For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of hesitation there, but if there was it was gone so fast she might have imagined it. He went on implacably, ‘I’m sure you’ll be pleased to see you’ve been given more time to lecture the new intake of undergraduates. I think your approach to history will intrigue them. The second years, where the standards of teaching are so much more important, will be supervised by Dr Grant. As you know Dr Macleod has resigned as from the end of this academic year to start his well-earned retirement, and I have decided that I will give the Readership to Dr Grant as a reward for his hard work and loyalty to the department.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction as the lights changed once more and the traffic surged forward. ‘He hasn’t published as much as you, but his work is sound.’

Viv stared at him, dimly aware that Steve had moved closer to her and reached out to touch her elbow in a quiet gesture of support. For a moment she was too stunned to speak. When at last she managed to open her mouth it was to stutter, ‘You’re right. This is hardly the place to discuss this, Hugh!’

He shrugged. ‘Why not? Surely you don’t mind Mr Steadman knowing. Everyone will soon enough. As I warned you I have reviewed the situation and I have now made the right decision. We are a small department. I am afraid there is very little room for promotion and when a position does come up, it must go to the strongest candidate. The most reliable and honest candidate.’

‘Honest?’ Viv was intensely aware of Steve’s eyes on her face again. He was looking very uncomfortable.

‘Honest, Dr Lloyd Rees.’ Hugh pursed his lips. ‘There is, as I believe you know, something missing from my study.’ Near them the lights turned red once more. People surged past them across the road. They did not move.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Viv’s mouth had gone dry.

‘Don’t you?’

They faced each other in silence for a moment, Steve at Viv’s elbow. Holding her breath, she waited for Hugh’s next blow; for him to laugh as he told her he had the perfect excuse now to sack her, an excuse which would be upheld by any court and any university council in the world. He didn’t. He didn’t know for sure, she realised suddenly. He couldn’t prove it.

He gave her another long cold look then with a smile he bowed slightly and turned away, walking briskly up the road towards Greyfriars.

Steve shook his head. ‘What the hell is he talking about? What is he thinking of, telling you like that, in the street, for God’s sake?’ He was furiously indignant for her. ‘I’m so sorry, Viv.’

‘You too?’ Viv said somewhat grimly. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not. If he was out to humiliate me, it hasn’t worked.’ She managed to bring her attention back to his face. ‘Look, I wish you hadn’t had to witness that. I’m not the Prof’s favourite person at the moment as you can see and he doesn’t seem to be himself, does he.’ She realised that she was shaking. ‘This is nothing that can’t be fixed, I’m sure. We differ in our approach to things, that’s all. A nice long summer holiday and it will all blow over.’ It wouldn’t, of course. How could it? But there was no need for Steve to know that.

‘Come to Ingleborough, Viv.’ Steve reached out and touched her arm. ‘Away from Hugh. Follow the footsteps of Cartimandua. Why don’t you?’

She shivered. ‘I’ll let you know, Steve.’ She punched his arm affectionately. ‘See you soon.’ And she ducked across the road just as the lights turned green again, leaving him standing looking after her.

6

I

Viv spotted the manuscript of her play on Cathy’s desk at once, with the copy of her book resting on top of it, as she threw herself into one of the armchairs in front of the bookcase. Cathy and Pete were in the kitchen getting supper and Tasha was slumped in front of the TV in the living room. Pat had followed her into the study with a bottle of chilled white wine and two glasses. The other armchair was occupied with a certain air of defiance by Pablo, so after a moment’s hesitation Pat pulled up a smaller chair next to the desk.

‘This is fantastic!’ She thumped the jacket of the book. ‘Brilliant. I enjoyed it enormously. What a woman!’

Viv gave a wry grin. ‘Indeed.’ She waited to see what Pat was going to say next.

‘And your stab at the play is not at all bad.’ Pat put on a pair of green-rimmed spectacles and laid her hand on the manuscript. ‘Much better than I expected, in fact.’ She reached for the bottle and poured, pushing one of the glasses across the desk towards Viv. ‘I like the approach you’ve taken. The drama. The narrative interludes. That works well.’

‘Not according to Maddie.’ Viv took a gulp from her glass.

‘And I’ll tell you why.’ Pat glanced up. ‘You don’t mind? It’s what I’m here for.’

‘I don’t mind.’ Viv shrugged. She minded like hell, but she had no choice.

‘You’ve become self-conscious. In the book you were relaxed and confident. On your own ground. You knew what you were doing. Your voice, and Cartimandua’s voice are authentic. In the play you’ve lost that authenticity. It comes through from time to time almost by accident and those bits come alive. Like the first scene. It’s brilliant. Then you rein yourself in again and I think that’s the phrase you used yourself, and the style becomes –’ Pat hesitated. ‘Pedagogic. Even pedantic.’ She groped in her pocket for her cigarettes. ‘Do you think Cathy would notice if I smoke?’

‘Yes.’ Viv grinned. ‘Yes, she would.’

‘You’re right. It’s a bummer trying to give up.’ Pushing the packet back into her jacket Pat reached for her glass again instead. ‘Does what I’m saying make sense?’ She raised an eyebrow.

Viv shrugged again. ‘I suppose it does, yes.’

Cartimandua’s voice – not authentic! She smiled grimly to herself.

‘Do you mind if we do some deconstructing?’ Pat went on. ‘Shorter scenes. Punchier. More real. Your good ones are so good they make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. That’s why the others are such an anti-climax.’ She shook her head. ‘And the narrator’s voice needs to be less tentative. This is you, right? Whether we use you in person, or an actor. You are the world authority on this woman. We need to be convinced of it.’

Viv let out a gasp of laughter. ‘The world authority?’

‘Too right!’ Pat took off her glasses and looked at her earnestly. ‘I’ve got such a good feeling about this. It will make a fabulous piece of radio. I’ve got a friend down in Cornwall who could compose us some music. Lots of ambient sound. Celtic stuff, you know. Pentatonic scale – all the black notes! Full of mystery and atmosphere. Maybe record it on site with the wind in the mike. I can hear it in my head already. Viv, this is going to be wonderful.’ She took a sip of wine, then reached for her spectacles again. Opening the manuscript she glanced at it, running her finger down the text as though she were going to read a bit from it. Then she changed her mind. ‘What we need is a new outline.’ She studied Viv’s face and hesitated. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘What?’

Who is Maeve?’

‘Maeve?’ Viv echoed the name in shock. ‘Why?’

Maeve. Medb.

Medb of the White Hands.

She was not in the play. Not in the book. She had no part to play in recorded history.

Pat was frowning. ‘The name keeps coming to me. I dreamed about her last night, as though she was a character in your book. But she isn’t. Is she? I checked the index and I couldn’t find her.’

Viv shook her head. ‘No, she’s not in the book.’ Her mouth had gone dry.

‘But the name means something to you?’ Pat cocked an eyebrow. She picked up her glass and standing up, wandered over to the other chair near Viv’s where, careful not to disturb the cat, she perched on the arm. ‘Who is she?’

Viv shook her head. ‘I believe she was someone Cartimandua came across in her early life. A period not covered by the book because we know nothing about it officially.’ She paused. Then she found herself unable to resist asking, ‘What did she look like. In your dream?’

Pat was silent for a moment, remembering. ‘She was young. Very beautiful. Tall. Slim. With amazingly striking eyes. Intense light steely-blue. A hard face.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think she was very nice.’

The silence in the study drew out into a long pause as Pat swung one leg slowly back and forth, the shoe dangling from her foot. She was studying Viv’s face.

‘No.’ Viv sounded worried. ‘She wasn’t very nice. But I don’t know how we know that. We know nothing about Cartimandua’s life apart from what the Roman historians tell us. They were not interested in anything much but politics.’

‘A point you make very clearly in the book.’

Viv nodded.

‘And yet you’ve put in a lot more than Roman politics.’

‘Extrapolated from other sources,’ Viv said, almost to herself. ‘From archaeology for instance.’

‘And Maeve’s name is not mentioned anywhere.’

‘No.’

‘But she features in the story, doesn’t she? Why haven’t you mentioned her?’

It was Viv’s turn to reach for the bottle. Lunging forward out of her chair she grabbed it and slopped a little wine into her glass with a shaking hand, spilling some onto the carpet. ‘Nothing more than guesswork. Forget her. She’s not part of this story.’

‘Are you sure?’ Pat was frowning. ‘Why would I dream about her?’

‘I can’t imagine.’

For a moment the two women looked at each other, then at last Pat shrugged. She changed the subject. ‘How do you want to work with this? Shall we get together each morning? I could come over to your place and we can concentrate on getting it done before you have to go away. I gather you have a publicity tour coming up?’

Viv nodded. ‘A week or so talking about my book.’

‘Right. Well, we’ll try and get as much done as possible before that.’ Pat paused. Then went on, ‘Another idea has just occurred to me. Rather than do all this in a studio, I think it would be really effective to record some if not all of it on location. With sound effects. Like the music. It would be tremendously atmospheric. It works on radio. Something TV has taught us. Any editing we need I’ll do myself initially on my laptop.’

‘That sounds a wonderful idea.’ Viv nodded vehemently, then she glanced round as the door opened and Pete put his head in. ‘Supper’s ready, girls.’

As they stood up and made their way after him towards the kitchen Pablo sat up and stretched, then he jumped down from the chair to follow them. In the doorway he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder into the empty room. For a moment he hesitated, eyes wide, his tail fluffing with fear, then he followed them.

There were five of them around the table this time including Tasha, and tonight’s menu was once-more child friendly. Fishcakes made from a mixture of organic wild salmon and sustainably-sourced white fish, the name of which Cathy could not recall.

‘You can help Viv and me choose a name for ourselves, Tash,’ Pat said with a grin as she sat down. She was becoming quite fond of this precocious mixed-up child. ‘Maddie has suggested we form a production company. And this could be the start of a very exciting new angle to Viv’s career. You realise, Viv,’ she added enthusiastically, ‘if this is the success I think it is going to be, we needn’t stop with Cartimandua. We could go on to make other historical drama documentaries for radio. The success of this will carry us forward and your name will be linked with the product rather than with the period. That would get your professor off your back.’

‘But I’m a Celticist.’

‘You’re a talented woman with several strings to your bow,’ Pat contradicted. She sat back in the chair, her arms outstretched on either side of her plate, eyeing her fishcake. She was dying for a cigarette. Opposite her Pablo the cat was sitting on the draining board watching the proceedings with inscrutable green eyes. ‘So, what are we going to call ourselves?’

Half an hour later they were still arguing. Wearily Cathy stood up and went to rummage in the fridge for another bottle of wine. ‘Do you think you’ll find it easy to agree the script if you find it this difficult to decide on a name?’ She picked up the corkscrew with a rueful smile.

‘Sisters. That’s good. Something sisters. Or sisters of something,’ Pat went on, ignoring her. She too was growing impatient. They were going round in circles.

‘Sounds too much like feminist stuff.’ Pete shook his head. He helped himself to the last of the peas.

‘Daughters, then.’ Cathy topped up their glasses.

‘That’s less aggressive, certainly.’ Pete nodded. He was keeping out of the argument.

‘Daughters of Fire,’ Viv said suddenly. ‘That’s it. Brigantia is a fire goddess, the Brigantes the people of fire and Cartimandua is a fiery woman.’ She was conscious of Pablo watching her, his eyes unblinking.

‘As are we! Perfect!’ Pat punched the air. ‘Yes! Then if we write other things we can specialise in feisty women. Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth. Mary Tudor. Eleanor of Aquitaine –’

‘They needn’t be queens of course,’ Cathy put in. ‘Jane Austen. The Brontë Sisters, George Eliot.’ The excitement was catching. ‘Amelia Earhart, Mata Hari. Florence Nightingale.’ She paused. ‘So, as I said, no need to panic at being typecast as a Celticist who kicked over the traces, Viv!’ She laughed. ‘Right, now, one thing at a time. Don’t forget you need a working title for the play.’

‘The Forgotten Queen,’ Viv put in quietly. ‘That’s what I’ve called it. After all, you’ll find hardly anyone has heard of her.’

‘Perfect.’ Pat nodded. ‘It’s intriguing. Descriptive. Tantalising.’ She didn’t tell them it would probably be changed several times before the editors decided what was right. ‘So, let’s drink a toast. To the Daughters of Fire: Viv, Pat and Cartimandua, the Forgotten Queen.’

Tash was very silent. She had finished her fishcake, pushed aside the impeccably vegetarian peas and rice and the especially bought bottle of tomato sauce which was her exclusive property and which now stood untouched beside her plate. ‘Do you want to drink to us, Tash?’ Viv asked, uncomfortably aware that the child’s eyes had been fixed on her face. There was a glass of orange beside her plate.

Tasha shook her head. ‘She’s there again,’ she said, her small face screwed into a puzzled frown. ‘That woman behind you.’

Viv froze, paralysed with terror. The room had grown very still.

The others fell silent. One by one they turned to look at Viv.

‘Tasha!’ Pete was very stern. ‘We told you before.’

‘It’s true!’ Tasha stood up. ‘It’s true!’ she wailed again. ‘Look!’ She pointed. ‘Can’t you see her? Pablo can. Look at him.’ The cat had risen to his feet, back arched, and was staring towards Viv, his fur on end.

There was a further second of utter silence. At last Cathy spoke. ‘We can’t see anyone, Tash,’ she said gently. ‘Pablo is just stretching.’

‘I’m not making it up!’ Tash screamed.

Pablo let out a screech of terror and jumped off the draining board, fleeing out of the door. Tasha paused for only a second before breaking into floods of tears and running from the kitchen after him.

‘Wow!’ Pat took a deep breath. ‘Does she often do that?’ She glanced at Viv, who had gone white as a sheet. Cartimandua was here in the room with them. She could feel her.

‘She said the same thing last time I was here,’ Viv replied shakily.

‘And as before, we all know it’s rubbish,’ Cathy said firmly. ‘Collect up the plates, Pete, would you? She got a wonderful reaction last time and she thought she’d try it again. Let her be. Ignore it.’

‘I saw something,’ Pete said quietly. He hadn’t moved.

The three women looked at him. Viv blanched. Please, no.

‘A shadow. Just for a second. There, immediately behind Viv.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Cathy began to gather up the plates herself. ‘Come on, Pete. Let’s have a bit of stark reality here, please!’

He shook his head. ‘Of course. It must have been a trick of the light.’ He didn’t sound convinced.

‘Too right!’ Cathy was cross.

Pete shrugged. He was watching Viv’s face. ‘You OK? Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

‘Well, you did!’ Viv stood up. Suddenly she found she couldn’t breathe. ‘I need some fresh air. I’m going home. I’m sorry. I’m all right …’

Ignoring the anxious voices behind her, Viv ran down the elegant curved stone staircase with its wrought-iron balustrade which climbed up through the house towards an oval skylight above her head. As she reached the entrance hall, she glanced over her shoulder with a shiver of terror. The street door was closed. The vestibule was silent, shadowy and cold, and smelled of pine disinfectant and, faintly, of cigarettes. Scrabbling frantically at the latch, she let herself out into the street. Behind her the light clicked off on its timer and left her in darkness.

II

Pat couldn’t sleep. The so-called box room in which she had been installed boasted a narrow pine bed and a duvet decorated with fairy tale princesses, aimed she suspected at Tasha or her friends in earlier, more innocent incarnations. On the small chest of drawers she had laid out her notebooks and laptop. Her capacious red canvas bag acted as wardrobe and her cosmetics such as they were sat on the window sill where earlier she had rested on her elbows puffing the smoke from a guiltily smoked cigarette into the darkness. She left the window open as she turned out the light and climbed into the bed to lie staring up at the ceiling.

Sleep wouldn’t come. Tense and uneasy, she kept playing back the extraordinary scene at the kitchen table. Tasha and Pete had both seen something. There was no doubt about that. And Pete had not just said it to show solidarity with his daughter. She pictured Viv’s white face. She had often heard people described as looking like rabbits caught in a car’s headlights. That was how she had looked. Disbelieving. Trapped. Terrified.

They hadn’t wanted her to go home alone. Cathy was worried and cross. Cross with Tasha and with Pete. Protective. Pete and she had had a row after Viv had gone and Pat had left them to it, wandering into the sitting room where she had joined Tasha who was sitting on the sofa in front of the television. The news was just finishing and a map of the next day’s weather was flashed on the screen. Tasha was hugging a large cushion. There were tears in her eyes. ‘I did see something.’

‘I know.’ Pat was dying for a cigarette.

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I didn’t say that. I didn’t see anything myself, Tasha,’ Pat said cautiously. ‘But your dad said he did.’ They were both staring at the screen.

‘It was a woman.’ Tasha’s arms tightened on the cushion.

‘Can you describe her?’

‘She was looking at Viv. Trying to get her attention. She had reddish hair.’

Not Medb, then. Pat had felt a surge of relief. And not a shadow either.

She turned over and punched the pillow. Pete was going to drop her off at Viv’s in the morning on his way to a meeting so that she and Viv could start on the play. Suddenly she was dreading it.

Somewhere outside a dog barked and she found herself tensing. The sound was eerie in the silence of the city streets.

She awoke suddenly some time later, aware that she was shouting out loud, her heart thumping in her chest. Staring round the dark room she held her breath, wondering if she had woken the others. There was no sound from the rest of the flat. Perhaps the shout had been in her dream. Groping for her watch, she squinted at it. One a.m. She had been asleep for less than half an hour.

Lying back on the pillow again with a groan she screwed her eyes up against the darkness, willing herself back to sleep.

Medb.

Her eyes flew open.

Medb must be in the play. She was a key character. Medb who wasn’t in the index. Who wasn’t in the book. Who did not exist at all, according to Viv who had shrugged and then admitted that she had heard of her. Somewhere. Pat saw again the pale clear eyes in her mind’s eye and she shivered. The woman’s implacable hatred was a physical presence in the room with her.

7

I

Vivienne! Help me!

With a sob Viv shook her head.

The wind amongst the chimney pots sometimes wailed strangely and it was a windy day. The early morning sun was throwing shadows from corbels and chimneys across the deep window-lined chasms where the wynd sliced back through the tall slab of buildings. Far above she could see the white cloud, shredded and spinning against the vivid blue of the sky. As she watched a gull, messenger of the sea gods, soared past the window, angling its wings as it headed back towards the Forth. What she had heard had been its ringing cry.

Vivienne

I need you

Help me

Lady, I bring you gifts!

Turning sharply back into the room she went and stood by her desk, looking down at the notebook where she had scribbled her descriptions of the world of Cartimandua, descriptions from some part of her brain hell-bent on writing fiction and destroying her street cred as a serious historian forever.

She had walked home fast the night before, her head down, her hands rammed into the pockets of her jacket, determined not to think about Tasha’s revelation, concentrating instead on the city around her. It was beautiful at night. She loved it all. The secrecy that the luminous darkness threw across the elegant streets and gardens of the New Town. The contrast, as she crossed Princes Street, between the brightly lit shop windows and the convoys of buses making their way towards the West End, with the darkness of the gardens beyond, the cavern of blackness over the railway line, set deep in its gorge below the castle. And she loved the steep ridge beyond the gardens on which crouched the Old Town where she lived, crowded, atmospheric, the shadows of the night hiding the twenty-first century, allowing memories of the past to filter up through the narrow streets and dark alleyways like a subtle, all-pervasive miasma.

Vivienne, Lady, hear my pleas!

Carta was crying, her voice echoing amongst the trees and bushes which clustered around the hilltop lochan.

I need your help, Lady. Where are you?

Viv had walked faster.

Daughters of Fire. It had a good ring to it. It made her cooperation with Pat official. It gave them a base from which to work. If they got on. There hadn’t been an instant rapport between them, that much was certain, but she thought that they could respect each other for the experience each could bring to the project.

She had reached the bend in the Mound when she heard footsteps behind her. Light. Hurrying. She stopped dead and turned. There was no one there. The street was empty. Below her the city spread out like a colourful carpet of light and dark.

Cartimandua.

Or Maeve.

Medb.

Medb of the White Hands.

Where had Pat got that name? Viv felt a shiver playing again across her shoulders, and wished she had allowed Pete to bring her home.

Medb and Cartimandua. Who or what had Tasha and Pablo and then Pete, dear old unflappable, unimaginative Pete, seen as they stared at her across the kitchen table? They had certainly seen something, and whatever they may all have said afterwards about the child’s vivid imagination, and the scatty cat, and the trick of the light, deep down inside, they all knew it.

II

‘Mellia?’ Carta had walked out of her bedroom and stared round the living chamber. It was empty. The fire burned quietly, unwatched, a full cauldron of water steaming gently as it hung from the chains above it. The women were outside in the sunshine about their various tasks. ‘Mellia?’ she called again. ‘I want you to come with me to see Conaire about tonight’s songs.’ Mellia would enjoy that; Carta, not above a little matchmaking, smiled gleefully. She planned to bring Mellia into the discussion and then, remembering an urgent meeting with her groom, to leave the two of them together. She made her way outside and stood in the warm sunshine looking around. Mellia would not be far. She always stayed within earshot in case Carta should need her. ‘Mellia?’ She walked across the cobbled street, between two other houses and onto the broad grass terrace above the clifftop ramparts. From there a panorama of woods and hills stretched out towards the western horizon. Below her a blackbird broke cover, screeching its alarm note and she stepped forward, glancing down.

At the bottom of the flight of steep steps cut into the rockface a body lay in the shadows on a pile of fallen scree below the cliff. Carta stared down, her heart in her mouth. The green plaid mantle had been pulled half off in the fall and it lay fluttering and tangled in a bush of whin. It was a mantle that she herself had given to Mellia as a gift only a few days earlier. Mellia, who was like a sister to her.

‘Mellia?’ Her strangled whisper hardly made a sound. For a moment she stood still, paralysed with terror, then she ran frantically down the long flight of steps. ‘Mellia? Mellia? Are you all right?’

Mellia’s eyes were still open, her hand clutched around a lump of raw wool. Her spindle lay crushed beneath her.

‘Mellia?’ Carta touched the girl’s face with incredulous fingers. ‘Mellia? Speak to me!’ She could feel the panic welling up in her throat. ‘Mellia! Wake up!’

But the girl’s skin was cold, her head twisted to one side at an impossible angle, her neck broken.

For a long time she knelt there, Mellia’s cold hand clutched in her own, willing warmth back into the stiffening fingers, tears pouring down her cheeks. No one came. The busy township went about its business on the hill above her as usual, unaware of the tragedy.

It was a long time before someone appeared at the top of the steps. It was Éabha. She stood there for a moment, calling, ‘Mellia? Where are you? Are you out here?’ Then she looked down and saw.

‘She tripped, child.’ Truthac was summoned at once. Gently he raised Carta to her feet. ‘See, the thongs of her shoe are unlaced. She was concentrating on her spinning as she walked.’

‘It’s not true.’ Carta could not control her tears as Mairghread, summoned by Éabha’s screams, put her arms around her. ‘She was killed. Someone pushed her.’ It was a certainty deep inside her. Something she had known the very moment she realised that Mellia was dead.

Truthac looked hard at her face. He did not attempt to contradict her, or to question. She could feel his mind reaching out to hers, questing, seeking the truth.

After a moment he nodded. He believed her, as he had believed her all along. ‘I will consult with the gods. And so, child, must you. They watch over you, Carta. If you ask, they will answer.’ He gave the order and Mellia’s body was lifted and carried away.

Sadly Carta stepped away from Mairghread. She stooped and picked up the broken spindle. ‘I will ask my goddess,’ she muttered to herself. ‘She sees everything. She will know what to do.’ Anger was coming now and the tears were drying on her face. She knew who had done it, whether with her own hands or through someone else’s action at her command, or by magic, by weaving a spell to unlace the thong around Mellia’s ankle. By whatever method Mellia’s death had been accomplished, Carta vowed she was going to find out the truth. Above all else, that was what mattered here. That was what the Druids taught. Truth and justice and finally retribution. Mourning could come later.

She stared round. Truthac had gone. Trying desperately to compose herself she sent the women away. For a moment they hesitated, then they moved back towards the house, shooing away the crowd of sightseers who had gathered to watch the young woman’s body being carried back up the cliff. She was alone again now, save for the one pair of eyes that watched her constantly from the dark corners of the settlement, jealous, vicious eyes which could see her from wherever their owner was hidden. Eyes which held power and hatred. Carta shivered, then she turned and headed towards the shrine.

‘What shall I do, Lady? The king will never believe me. How can I prove what she has done?’

She had brought offerings of milk and a pot of wild bee honey to the goddess.

As she looked up, her eyes were looking straight at Viv’s. She was in the room, yet not in the room. Together, they were in some dark place that smelled of cold stone. Viv could hear the lap of water and somewhere in the distance the thin delicate sound of a flute. She held her breath, trying to concentrate, afraid to blink in case the young woman disappeared.

But nothing she could do would hold her. Carta was fading, dissolving. In seconds she had gone.

Viv shivered violently. The wind in Dun Pelder had been cold, in spite of the spring sunshine; the trickling water bringing memories of winter ice from deep beneath the ground. Going back to the window, she focussed on her neighbour’s geraniums as she felt warmth seep back slowly into her body. She could feel the tears wet on her own cheeks, the misery tight inside her. Carta’s misery. Her absolute desolation. Leaning with her elbows on the sill, Viv breathed in the comforting warm smell of stone. Far below she could hear the early morning traffic rattling down the Lawnmarket. In the distance someone gave a sharp indignant hoot. From one of the open windows across the wynd she heard the wail of a child. Far above, a gull gave a long drawn out raucous peel of laughter. The sound was drowned out as someone turned on the radio and pop music echoed round the close.

With a sigh she turned back into the room.

III

Seating herself on the rocking chair, Pat leaned back and crossed her legs. She scanned Viv’s face. ‘Are you OK after last night?’

Viv nodded. ‘Did Tash or Pete say anything else about what happened?’

Pat shook her head. ‘They didn’t say anything about it to me. I don’t think Tasha was making it up.’

‘No.’

There was a moment’s silence. It was Pat who spoke first. ‘I dreamed about Medb again last night,’ she said at last.

Viv paled. ‘But how could you? You don’t know anything about Medb,’ she whispered.

‘Apparently, I do.’ Pat leaned over towards her bag, groped for her cigarettes, then changed her mind. ‘So, where does she fit in?’

‘She doesn’t.’ Viv stood up. ‘I told you. She has no part in the play at all.’

‘Are you sure?’ Pat frowned. ‘Who the hell is she, then?’

‘She’s –’ Viv broke off with a deep sigh. ‘I don’t know. That’s the point. Maybe I’ve dreamed about her as well, but whoever, whatever she is, Pat, she is not in the play. She has no part in history. This is a drama documentary with the emphasis on documentary. We can guess some bits –’ she paused with a wry inner smile, ‘– but most of it is fact. Not fiction. There is no room for extraneous characters and sub-plots. Maddie made that clear. You said so yourself.’

‘Fair enough.’ Pat didn’t sound convinced but she let it ride. ‘So, let’s make a start.’ She reached into her bag for her notepad.

Medb.

The name seemed to hang in the air between them.

‘Your first scene is good, as I said.’ Pat said thoughtfully. ‘But I think we need more narrative to introduce the subject before we launch into too much action. To anchor the scene.’

Vivienne

Viv tensed. The voice was in the room.

Vivienne. Tell me what to do.

Pat was flipping through the first few pages of the manuscript. She gave no sign that she had heard anything out of the ordinary. ‘Here. From this point we want the voice of the narrator.’ She marked the page and held it out. Viv didn’t move.

‘Viv?’ Pat stared at her.

‘Did you hear it?’

‘What?’ Pat put the pile of manuscript down on her knee.

‘The voice.’ Viv closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly from side to side. ‘No, of course you didn’t. It was in my head. I’m sorry.’

Pat studied her face. ‘What sort of voice?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t describe it. A woman. No. No, it was nothing. Probably a gull. You hear them a lot up here.’

‘Then it wasn’t in your head.’

Viv returned her gaze steadily. ‘No.’ It wasn’t Medb. She wanted to shout the words out loud.

It wasn’t. It was Carta. She needs me.

She gave a watery grin. ‘Sorry. Last night. Whatever it was, it spooked me a bit. I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘Do you want to put this off –’ Pat gestured at the sheets of paper on her knee.

‘No. No, I want to get it finished as soon as possible.’ Viv sighed.

Think about the play.

Bring Cartimandua’s voice alive. Allow her to speak for herself.

Fact.

Not fiction.

Concentrate. Think about what Pat was saying. Walking over to her desk she picked up a pad and pencil and returning to her chair she sat down and began to doodle on the paper.

By the time Pat left at about five Viv had a pounding headache.

‘Same time tomorrow?’ Pat slung her bag on her shoulder.

Viv nodded. All she wanted was to be alone.

Shutting the door behind her she took a deep breath, closing her eyes, pressing her fingers against her throbbing temples. The phone rang and she sat listening as the answering machine clicked on. ‘Viv? It’s Steve. I just wanted to make sure you were OK. Ring me if you want to.’ He paused, giving her a chance to respond, then hung up.

She didn’t move.

The room was very still.

Vivienne

Carta was there, waiting.

Vivienne

I have brought offerings. Help me, Vivienne. Tell me what to do.

All Viv needed to do was to ask what had happened and the story would unfold; a story unknown to history. The story about which she already knew more than any other person alive.

Or guessed.

Or imagined.

Fiction.

Not fact.

Can’t be fact.

Wrapping her arms around herself she shivered violently. Push her away, Viv. That is what you should do. You are sick. Hearing voices. Mad.

Vivienne, receive my gifts.

I have brought you milk and honey. Help me!

‘Go away!’ Viv cried out loud. ‘Please, go away. Leave me alone!’

She paced round the room a couple of times.

But she wanted to know what was happening. She wanted to know so badly. Would it really do any harm? As long as she kept a firm grip on reality. As long as she knew this was a day dream.

Fiction.

Not fact.

IV

Carta was standing looking down into the grave, tears pouring down her face. How was she going to live without her friend? How could she live with the guilt of knowing that Mellia had been killed because of her? She had never felt more alone.

As Carta’s friend Mellia had been given a formal ceremony and interred with her broken spindle, her comb and mirror, her favourite strings of beads and bangles and a flagon of mead. With her went prayers and exhortations to the gods to guide her to the land of the ever young.

Now it was over, as they stood around the grave in one final moment of silence after the eulogies ended, Carta raised her eyes to those of the woman who was watching her across the freshly piled soil. Medb of the White Hands was smiling.

In her private bedchamber, one of many portioned off with wattle screens inside the wall of the women’s house Carta set up a new little shrine. Her belongings were comparatively few. Beside the bed box filled with softly scented, tightly packed heather, topped with linen sheets and soft beautifully cured fur covers, there were two chests containing her personal possessions. Her jewellery, her clothes, folded away clean with dried wormwood and sweet gale and wild mountain thyme to keep away moth and mildew. Her mantles and cloaks hung on pegs on the wall. Her comb and mirror lay on a small table with the lamp by whose light she went to bed. Now on one of the coffers she placed a figure of the goddess, carved in holly wood, a silver bowl in which she piled her offerings and the bundle of little carved ogham staves which she used for divination when there was no fire and there were no clouds and no birds to speak to her of the omens.

Her Druid instructors had been thorough. She was a good reader. She could write and speak Latin and write in Greek reasonably fluently now as well as writing the Celtic language of her own people using both alphabets. She could recite poetry and sing and she knew something of the magic of the Druids, studying healing, divination and law.

‘You are one of us, Cartimandua,’ Truthac had said. ‘By birth and by blood, you are of the royal house, a descendant of warriors, a daughter of kings and queens, and of the line of Druids. You have been more than thrice blessed. Your destiny is written in the stars which later you will study, and in the rocks and in the waters which circle this land. You are a daughter of Brigantia. A daughter of fire. The portents at your birth were favourable and the auguries now speak of great futures and fame for all time.’ He laid a cool hand on her head. ‘You will outshine me, child. When my name is forgotten yours will echo in the words of the bards. It is not for me to tell you how to avenge the death of your friend. Consult the staves; through them consult your gods; listen to what you are told. But be sure that you divine the truth. Remember, what is done cannot be undone.’

Rising from the stool on which he had been sitting he paused for a moment, looking down at her as he leaned on his staff and he nodded sagely as he saw the loss and misery in her eyes. ‘You are no longer a child, Carta, you are now a woman. The rising sun is behind you, the setting sun many moons in front. It will take courage to tread the path you feel is right. But you have that courage.’ Gravely he nodded once more. ‘You have more courage than anyone I have taught, Cartimandua. All you need to do is summon it.’

She watched him walk away, dumbfounded. He had taught the king and the king’s sons. He was senior tutor to the Druid school. He examined bards and seers and Druids on their long journey to wisdom. And yet he thought her brave. She remembered her tears and her face burned. He didn’t know how frightened and angry and lonely she had felt; still felt in the secret dark of the night.

And he must never know. No one must know.

Except perhaps the goddess who knew everything and would give her courage.

Carta stood for a moment longer before the shrine she had created. She was frowning. Sometimes she was so sure the Lady had heard her and would help. Other times it felt as though there was no one there. No one at all.

It was late. Viv sat at her desk, writing without a break as the sun moved across into the west and sank out of sight. Outside it grew dark, and the street became more and more noisy, then quiet again as one by one people began to make for home. In her room Viv put down the pencil and stretched cramped fingers. Somewhere far below her windows a man shouted a drunken obscenity in the deep crevasse of the narrow wynd as he relieved himself against the wall. Behind him a group of young people, cheerfully rowdy from the pub, jeered and someone threw a bottle. Viv heard nothing. She was watching Carta. Who was watching Medb of the White Hands.

Medb was nervous. It had seemed so easy to torment the king’s latest fosterling. Her naturally acerbic temperament and resentful nature had sought someone to pick on since the day she had arrived at Dun Pelder, the daughter of one of the king’s best warriors. At first it had been assumed that she would marry his son, Riach. Then the king himself had chosen her. It was a great honour.

It was not what she wanted.

No one would force her into marriage. That was against the law, but who would want to refuse to mate with a king? The contracts were drawn up, her marriage portion stacked in the house the king gave her for her own and, save for the fact that there had been no children so far of the match, in her own way she was content. Until she realised that Riach was to marry someone else.

The king’s senior wife was under no illusions about Medb. At first a little resentful herself that he was looking for younger flesh she had resigned herself to the situation with pragmatic grace. She had her sons and her two daughters to comfort her, she had her husband’s respect and generosity. She could put up with his frequent absences from her bed, but she would not tolerate the young woman’s vicious temper and her spiteful treatment of slaves and servants and the other women in the household. She did not know about Medb’s latest vendetta. Medb was too clever for that.

It was easy to kill the dog. She had hidden wolfsbane in a lump of fresh venison and put some leftover gravy from the kitchens in the bowl for luck. The animal had swallowed it without hesitation. She was almost sad to see how it suffered, but Carta’s pain more than made up for it. Medb was astonished how satisfied it made her feel.

Killing Mellia had been a spur of the moment action, not planned in any way. She had walked around the house on the cobbled path which led towards the kitchens and seen the woman standing there on the terrace at the top of the flight of steps, staring out across the fields, singing quietly to herself as she twisted the woollen threads between her fingers. Mellia had half turned and smiled at her. The smile had died on her lips as she saw Medb’s face and read her fate in the other woman’s eyes.

Medb would have to be careful how she dealt with Carta. People were suspicious now, the bard had seen to that, and Carta herself was wary. Medb saw the way the young woman looked at her. She read suspicion and angry resolution where once there had been nothing but open friendliness and she began to be afraid. But her hatred and jealousy did not abate. If anything they grew as she saw how the family of her husband, King Lugaid, who should be supporting and loving her, closed instead around this young woman, consoling her for the death of a mere servant and a dog. Month after month, year after year when she had failed to conceive, the king had frowned, and shrugged and patted her stomach and assured her that one day soon his seed would take root. That was all the comfort he gave her. He had sons and daughters already. It did not matter to him whether or not he had more. He did not recognise her gnawing pain or her loneliness. Nor did he see her jealousy of Carta growing.

Nurturing her bitterness, she went to see Aoife, the spell maker, and demanded a lead token on which a spell had been inscribed. ‘I will write the name of the recipient myself.’

Aoife was affronted. ‘The spell will not work unless I cast it fully, lady.’

‘The spell will work.’ Medb fixed her with a cold eye. ‘Or it will rebound on you. And as it is the spell of barrenness you would do well to see that its power is correctly directed.’ She stared at Aoife’s belly, visibly swelling beneath her gown.

The seer turned white with fear as she stood transfixed by the other woman’s hard gaze. ‘It seems to me, lady,’ she stuttered, ‘that you have no need of my skills.’

‘Maybe not. But I choose to do it this way.’ Medb stretched out her hand for the amulet. The implication was clear. If the charm failed Aoife would be blamed. If it succeeded and there were repercussions the seer would be blamed equally.

Aoife went straight to Truthac. He listened to her story thoughtfully. ‘You did right to tell me. It is every man and every woman’s right to curse an enemy. If there is an enemy and if it is fully justified, but to do so out of mere spite or jealousy, that is a different matter. Was the amulet empowered?’

Aoife nodded miserably. ‘She made me do it.’

‘But was it properly done without the name of the person to be cursed written on it, that is the question.’ The old man sighed. ‘Even now sometimes I question the logic of the gods. Are they so easily won over, so easily bribed?’ He smiled ruefully at Aoife, noting the hand resting protectively over her belly. ‘Let us bless this child and ask for its safety. That will be a good place to start. Then we will ask the gods about the other matter.’ He knew who the recipient of Medb’s spite would be, and so, he guessed, did Aoife.

Viv stirred uncomfortably. Outside a seagull was calling in the luminous night sky. The sound echoed in her head.

Gulls don’t cry at night.

Do they?

Carta, be careful. The omens are not good.

A hunting party had arrived, bringing in more food for the Beltane feast and cattle were being rounded up from the grazing grounds ready for slaughter. A king’s wealth is judged on the numbers of his cattle, augmented regularly by raids on neighbouring tribes and King Lugaid’s wealth was enormous.

Excitement was beginning to build at Dun Pelder. Wagons loaded with food and goods creaked and groaned as they made their way along the tracks towards the township. A party of Gaulish traders laden with wine and another with bales of richly-coloured silks from the eastern frontiers of the Roman Empire joined the crowds thronging the fields around the base of the hill.

Carta was sick with excitement. Her parents, the year before confirmed as High King and Queen of all Brigantia, would be arriving any day now and with them would come two of her brothers, Triganos, the eldest, and Bran, the youngest who several years before had accompanied her to Dun Pelder. With them would come Brigantian priests and Druids who would help officiate at the marriage.

It was while she tried to distract herself from the excitement by watching the grooms attending to her ponies in the stable lines that Riach sought her out at last. Darting out of the shadows he caught her hand.

‘I hardly ever see you nowadays.’

She shrugged, suddenly shy. ‘Then you have not tried hard enough. I sit at your father’s feet often enough. I ride with your mother and your sisters.’

‘And I have been into the hills with the hunting party.’ He grinned. ‘So I wasn’t there to see. But I am now. Your parents are nearby. Word has come. Their baggage train has been seen on the road.’

Carta shivered with excitement. ‘And the feast starts tomorrow at sundown.’

‘And our wedding is the day after.’ He reached into the leather bag that hung at his waist. ‘I have a present for you. It is special. We so seldom get the chance to be alone. Shall I give it to you now? No, not here.’ He pushed whatever it was back into the bag. ‘Come with me.’ He caught her wrist and drew her away from the horses across the busy muddy yard and onto the track. Together they ran between the houses, across the warriors’ training ground and scrambled down the ramparts, through the open gates, and giggling like the children they still were, dodged at last out between the gatehouses and into the fields. Riach led her over a bank and into an orchard. Around them sweet early blossom on the crab apple trees and thick creamy hawthorn flowers with their musky provocative scent cast a dappled shade on the grass. ‘Here.’ As they faced each other under the trees he produced a small bundle, wrapped in blue linen.

She glanced up at his face. He was excited, his eyes dancing as he pressed it into her hands.

Slowly, trying to prolong the anticipation, she began to unfold the material, conscious of the heavy flexible weight of the present in her fingers.

It was a golden chain and hanging from it a tiny enamelled golden horse. She gasped with delight. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘My wedding gift. Here, let me put it on.’ He slipped the chain over her head and rearranged her hair carefully on her shoulders. ‘A glossy pony. After your name. I had it made specially by my father’s best goldsmith.’

She could guess which one, the old man who lived near the ironsmith. She had wandered into all the craft houses on the hill. Each one housed a family business. There were more scattered down amongst the farmhouses. Potters, harness makers, woodturners, stone carvers, jewellery makers, weavers, three weapon makers and swordsmiths, but the best, the absolute best, were up there on the top of Dun Pelder near the king.

She glanced up. ‘You are so generous.’ The shyness vanished. She flung her arms around his neck and touched her lips against his.

The impetuous childish gesture hovered for a moment between them, then his arms closed around her. A man’s arms, claiming his woman. The kiss deepened. Her eyes closed as their bodies pressed closer and she felt him pulling aside her tunic as his lips left hers to move down her neck into the nest of her shoulder and then on towards her breasts.

Pausing only a moment to tear off his cloak and throw it onto the ground beneath the trees, he pulled her down with him, and they lay there in one another’s arms, exploring each other’s bodies, touching and kissing throats, breasts, shoulders, until at last he pushed her legs apart with his knee, and then gasped with surprise and delight as with a shout of glee she gripped him with her thighs and pulled him inside her.

For a long time they were oblivious of the world about them. If anyone glanced over the bank into the orchard they smiled tolerantly and moved on. It was the spring. The blood was high. What else would a man and a maid do given half a chance beneath the newly warm sun?

Only one creature saw them and stayed to watch. A hoodie crow in the spiny apple boughs above them swayed in time with the gentle breeze, fixed them with a baleful eye and kept unaccountably silent.

‘Watch out for the bird!’ Viv was struggling to make herself heard. ‘Can’t you see it’s a spy? Oh please, be careful.’

Her own voice in the silent room precipitated her out of her dream and she found herself sitting at her desk, trembling with cold and exhaustion. Carta and Riach were gone. It was 3.30 a.m.

8

I

Arriving early at the department next morning, Hugh glanced in at the office. There was no sign of Heather. The room was silent, the computer off, the coffee machine cold. He frowned in disappointment. His easy banter with her always cheered him up, but of course it was Saturday. He probably had the building to himself. Thoughtfully he climbed the stairs and walked along the narrow, dark corridor with its squeaky floorboards, past the three closed doors with their labels announcing Dr Hamish Macleod, Miss Mhairi Mackenzie and Dr Viv Lloyd Rees. He paused outside Viv’s room and listened. There was no sound from within. Cautiously he reached out and turned the knob. The door was locked. He stood for a moment, lost in thought, then he turned and retraced his steps swiftly down the stairs and into the office. There behind Heather’s impressive cheese plant, which was threatening to take over the entire room, was a small cupboard in which hung duplicates of all the department’s keys. Scooping Viv’s key off its hook, he turned and made his way once more towards the stairs.

Her room was unnaturally tidy, the desk cleared of its usual piles of books and papers, her bookcase neatly ordered, the chairs pushed back against the walls. She had taken most of her files, her boxes of old floppy disks, her CDs, her notepads, her correspondence. There was nothing of her there. The room felt abandoned. Walking over to her desk he sat down in her chair. For a moment he didn’t move, sitting, staring into space, then slowly he leaned forward and began methodically to open the drawers of her desk. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He knew the pin would not be there but somehow he couldn’t stop himself searching. As he scanned the contents, the notepaper and envelopes, the old pens and biros, the notepads, the files of old papers and letters, a couple of unused birthday cards, still in their Cellophane slips, he found himself trying to gain a sense of her presence. A scent. A sound. There was nothing. Giving up abruptly he slammed the drawers shut and walking out of the door, locked it once more behind him. Going straight into his own room he flung himself down at his desk and thumped the surface with his fist.

‘Stupid, silly woman! Why in God’s name did you do it?’

There was no reply.

Pulling the phone towards him he lifted the receiver and punched in a number. ‘Meryn? I’ve looked everywhere. The brooch has gone. I’ve more or less accused her but she pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about! I couldn’t bring myself to press the point. Not to her face. If she has taken it the implications are appalling.’

‘Why not wait and give her the chance to return it after her programme?’ The voice the other end sounded faintly amused. ‘Don’t dwell on it, Hugh.’

‘But the insurance –’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. Trust her.’

‘What if she’s touched it? What if it’s cursed?’ He couldn’t believe he had said the words, but that sense of chill, the feeling of evil, seemed to cling still to his fingertips. He shivered.

Meryn didn’t balk at the word. ‘If she’s touched it, Hugh, it’s already too late.’

Hugh was silent for a moment. ‘You said the link with Venutios was real, Meryn.’ He clenched his fist in front of him, asking the question in spite of himself. ‘How do you know?’

There was a pause at the other end of the phone. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, Hugh, now would you.’

‘Try me.’ Hugh’s voice was dry.

‘OK.’ There was a further silence. ‘I sensed it strongly when you came here. There was a vibration in your auric field when you talked about it. I sensed him as a watching spirit.’

‘I shouldn’t have asked!’ In his office Hugh glanced heavenwards and shook his head.

‘No.’ A quiet chuckle. ‘But you need to be careful, Hugh. Believe that at least. Don’t talk about the brooch. Don’t think about it. Avoid thinking about Venutios at all if you can.’

‘I’m writing a book about him, Meryn!’

‘Don’t. At least, not for now.’ All the humour had disappeared from Meryn’s voice. ‘Concentrate on other aspects in the book. You told me it’s about the Romans. Think about them for a bit. I’m serious, Hugh. Don’t spare him any thoughts at the moment.’

‘That is ridiculous! You know I can’t do that. He’s central to the whole thing –’ Hugh broke off as a quiet tap sounded at the door. It opened and Steve poked his head around it. ‘I’m sorry, Professor –’

‘Meryn, I have to go. I’ll call you back a bit later.’ Hugh put down the phone and frowned. ‘Yes? What are you doing here?’

‘Could I have a word if you’re not too busy?’ Steve approached the desk. ‘You kindly said you would lend me some of your notes about the northern tribes. I’m planning to go home for a few weeks fairly soon, and it would be great if I could take them with me.’ He eyed the Professor thoughtfully. ‘I gather you’ve started a new book on the subject. I shall look forward to reading it.’

Venutios.

It seemed to Hugh that the name hung in the air between them.

Staring up at the tall young man, casual and relaxed in a striped, open-necked shirt and faded jeans, Hugh gave a tight smile. He felt old just looking at him. No wonder Viv enjoyed his company so much. ‘I wonder where you heard about that. Well, no matter. It will be some time before it’s finished, Steve. I have a great deal of work to do yet but you are welcome to the lecture notes.’ He stood up and walked over to the bookcase, riffling through a box file and extricating a pile of A4 sheets. ‘Return them to me, if you would, when you’ve finished with them. I can let you have some books too if you like, but they are at home. You’ll have to arrange to come and collect them.’

As Steve closed the door Hugh stood where he was, frowning, listening to the sound of the young man’s footsteps as he walked back down the corridor and ran down the stairs.

In the silence that followed Hugh found himself staring round the room. The hair on the back of his neck was prickling suddenly and he was uncomfortably aware of a strange feeling that there was a presence there with him. He scanned the corners carefully. There was no one there. Nothing. Of course there was nothing. Just the echo of Meryn’s voice with his usual brand of silly superstitious mumbo jumbo. For a moment he considered ringing Meryn back. He should have asked him what he meant, why he should avoid thinking about Venutios. He stared down at his hand, the hand that had touched the brooch, and flexed his fingers cautiously, then shrugging his shoulders he walked back to his desk. The whole thing was a blatant nonsense. The only problem was what to do about Viv Lloyd Rees and perhaps for now he would take Meryn’s advice on that one and do absolutely nothing.

II

‘I can’t work on the play today!’ Viv stared at Pat in dismay. The sound of the doorbell at 9.30 a.m. had dragged her out of a deep exhausted sleep. She ran her hands through her hair leaving it standing on end, uncomfortably aware that Pat, in a pale blue blouse and cream trousers looked rested and alert while she herself was wearing nothing but a crumpled shirt, her customary sleeping attire, her legs and feet bare.

‘I could make us some coffee while you jump in the shower,’ Pat said, eyebrow raised. ‘Please, don’t make me go down all those damn stairs again. What on earth made you choose to live in a place like this without a lift?’ She dropped her bag on the floor and pushing past Viv, walked into the living room.

‘I live here because I like it,’ Viv retorted.

‘And it’s fabulous. You’re right,’ Pat said quickly. ‘It’s just the stairs getting to me. I’m too unfit. Put it down to the smoking.’ She changed the subject. ‘I did some more work on the play last night. I can’t wait to show it to you.’

In the shower Viv stood for a long time allowing tepid water to pour over her head and face and down her aching body. The story from the night before was coming back to her. The two young lovers in the orchard under the apple blossom. Carta’s ecstatic passion. The sound of their laughter, the heat of their young bodies. Her eyes closed, she found she was smiling as languidly she sponged her own body beneath the water. Then she remembered the bird sitting high above them. Medb’s messenger; Medb’s spy. Abruptly she opened her eyes and reached out to turn off the tap. How did she know the bird was a spy? Somehow she had to get rid of Pat; go back to Carta’s life. Find out about Medb.

Pat was waiting with a mug of black coffee. Sipping from it, Viv listened to her as she read from the pages on her knee. It was good. Fluent. Well written.

‘This bit,’ Pat said, glancing up, ‘is straight narrative. And I think it should be your voice. You would be good at this –’

‘Pat,’ Viv interrupted. ‘I’m really sorry, but I’m not in the mood.’

‘You have to be, Viv. We have a deadline,’ Pat said firmly. ‘I’m sorry too, but we’ve got to keep at this if we can, to get it done.’

‘No.’ Viv stood up. ‘No, Pat. I can’t. Look, give me some space. We’ll do this tomorrow. I promise.’ She put down the mug. ‘There is something I have to do now. Something important.’

Pat peered at her over her spectacles. ‘You do look like shit.’

Viv scowled. ‘No doubt.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. Really sorry.’ She relented. ‘I should have rung, but I overslept. I didn’t get to bed till the early hours and I’ve got a foul headache. I won’t make any sense today.’ She just wanted Pat to go.

She needed to know what happened next.

She had to warn Carta about the bird.

‘OK.’ Pat did not look happy as she stood up. ‘But for God’s sake ring me next time. I didn’t get a lift, you know. I had to make my own way here.’ She gathered together her papers and slotted them into her bag. ‘I’m up in Edinburgh to do you a favour,’ she said sharply as she opened the door. ‘You might give that fact some thought.’

‘A favour that will be very well paid!’ Viv retorted. ‘Shit!’ she muttered as the door banged and she heard Pat’s heels clattering down the stairs outside. For a moment she entertained the idea of opening the door and shouting down after her to come back. But only for a moment.

In seconds Pat was forgotten.

III

‘She has cursed me! Look!’ Carta held out the amulet with a shaking hand. She had found it on her pillow. ‘She has made me barren!’

Truthac took it from her soberly. ‘This is bad work, daughter. Grave. But a curse can be unmade. The woman who put this on your bed is not a powerful seer and nor is the person who made this charm.’

‘You know?’ Carta stared at him through her tears. ‘You know who did this?’

‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘The spell maker came to me for advice after it was bought from her. It was undedicated and without power. You have nothing to fear.’

‘And you know who it was who bought it?’

‘And so do you, child. You have the strength and the knowledge to fight her viciousness.’

‘I might have.’ She didn’t sound certain. ‘But what about Mellia? She died.’

‘Of an accident.’

‘No. She was murdered. The gods have told me.’ Carta’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘As was my Catia. Are they to go unavenged? Is Conaire to go unavenged?’ Her voice rose passionately. ‘He spoke out against this vicious woman at the feast. He loved Mellia too. You are a great judge. You must deliver justice!’

‘And so I shall.’ He paused. A scandal at Beltane when the fort was full and the surrounding settlements overflowing with visitors in celebratory mood would be unpropitious. ‘It will be done at the right time, Carta. At Elembivios, you will bring me your charge and your evidence when I hold my court of justice, and at Edrinios, in the time of arbitration, I will give judgement.’ He paused, seeing her shoulders slump. ‘It’s but three moons away, daughter of Brigantia, and then justice will be done.’

Medb was hiding in the shadows, watching the dancing.

Riach and Cartimandua were holding hands, their vows made before the whole world. Gifts had been exchanged, her marriage portion safely lodged in the Votadini warehouses and the three days of feasting had begun. On their marriage bed lay silken sheets, brought by trade routes from the east through Galatia to Gaul, and rich soft brown bearskins from the northern forests of the Caledones. On her arms were gold and silver bracelets. Round her neck she wore her enamelled pony on its golden chain.

Lugaid had given them their own house as a wedding present. Small, neat, newly thatched, it afforded them privacy as long as the members of their household – their servants and slaves and companions – were outside around the communal fire.

All night they made love, sometimes in their own deep heather bed in the new house, sometimes wrapped in Riach’s cloak out in the hay meadows and orchards, staring up at Sarn Gwyddion, the great swathe of stars, which came to be known to the poets as the Milky Way. And then they danced, late into the night with their friends around them to the tune of pipe and lyre and harp. Or they sat with others listening to the songs of the bards and to the sennachies with their stories of long ago. Only Carta was aware of the sadness in Conaire’s eyes and the wistful lilt to his music and deep in her heart she vowed she would make it up to him. He too would be avenged.

But all the time Medb was coming closer, her eyes narrowed, her heart locked in jealous rage.

In the second week of the festival, as slowly the farmers began to drift back to their fields and the hunters sharpened their spears and arrows and the warrior parties drew apart to plan new raids, Carta bade a sad farewell to her parents and her brothers and the friends who had accompanied them to see her married and watched them ride away. Then at last she decided to act. Her husband knew nothing of his stepmother’s lustful rage. He had eyes for none but his wife. Truthac had still said nothing; whatever was to be done, it had to be done by her. It was her friend and her dog who had to be avenged. Her bard whose heart was broken. It was her life and the lives of her children to come that had to be saved. Even as she lay in Riach’s arms she could feel the threat approaching. Somehow she had to be free of it.

Outside, at the street door someone rang the bell again and again. Viv did not react. In her dream there was no door. No sound other than the crackle of the fire in the fire pit and the bubble of boiling water in the cauldron suspended over it, as Carta sat alone in her new house, deep in thought.

The first party of merchants of the year had arrived from Gaul. The members of the tribe were used to such visitors now. Traders from the Empire were commonplace in the coastal towns, but this far north it was unusual to see them in person. King Lugaid fêted them and talked with them long into the night, promising rich goods, wolfhounds and slaves from Erin, silver and gold and lead, skins and weapons, in exchange for their wine and olive oil, beautiful pottery, luxury fabrics, exotic herbs and spices.

Listening to them talk, Carta had begun to form the beginnings of a plan.

It would take three men of the Brigantes to carry it out. Men who would be richly rewarded and then sent home to her father’s service; one of those men she suspected had been as much in love with Mellia as was Conaire, and would look to his young mistress to avenge any wrong that had been done to her. The others would follow without question. No one would ever know what became of Medb of the White Hands.

Two days after the Gaulish party had set off back towards the coast where they would embark into the Germanican Ocean and thence, down the coast and across to Gaul, Medb rode south with two of her maidens in response to an invitation to visit the dun of her friend, Étain. The small party travelled in an ornate wagon, escorted by three horsemen. What danger was there, after all, in the land of the king’s allies and compatriots?

The raiders came upon them swiftly, weapons drawn. The warriors died hard, protecting their king’s wife. The three women were captured. Horses and chariot were part of the booty. The bodies were buried so no trace would be found, given to the gods in the hungry depths of a local marsh.

The price for female slaves was high. The traders paid handsomely. No one believed women chained with neck rings and manacles when they cried that the king of the Votadini would pay handsomely for their release. Why should they? Slaves made claims like that all the time.

At Dun Pelder, Carta danced in a circle of women round the fire and wondered with the rest of the township what could have happened to Medb of the White Hands.

It was a long time before she dared to hope that Mellia and Catia could rest in peace. That they were avenged and that she was safe.

Viv frowned, staring at the monitor. Page 143. She could see the numbers flashing at the bottom of the screen. 143 pages! Her arms were cramped, her fingers stiff and painful. In disbelief she clicked on the save icon and pushed back her chair. It was dark outside once more.

IV

‘How many people sit down in this chair and announce that they think they’re going mad?’ Viv threw herself uneasily into the chair in Cathy’s office.

‘About sixty per cent.’

‘Is that all?’ Viv was silent for a moment.

‘Viv, whatever it is, if it worries you, tell me about it. It won’t go any further, I promise.’

‘What if I told you I sat in front of the computer last night and typed 143 pages without being aware of it. It took me several hours.’

Cathy took off her glasses. ‘Have you read what you wrote?’

‘Not all of it, but it makes sense, if that’s what you are wondering.’

‘Can I ask what it is about?’

‘Cartimandua.’

‘Viv, we’ve been here before! You’ve just finished a book about her. She is very much on your mind for all sorts of reasons. This is normal.’

‘This is about her life before the book starts. The part of her life no one knows about.’

Fiction.

The word hovered on Viv’s lips but she didn’t say it. It wasn’t true. ‘I’m not making it up, Cathy. I can’t stop. She’s talking to me.’

Cathy nodded. ‘I’m sure it feels like that. Your brain has gone into overdrive. The exhaustion from writing the book and then the hassle with Professor Graham has probably triggered the same reflexes which give us nightmares and make us sleep walk. That, combined with your very real frustration at finding there are so many aspects of her life you can’t ever know about.’

Viv slumped back in the chair. ‘I suppose so. But it’s so vivid!’

‘As are a lot of dreams.’

Viv hesitated. ‘So you don’t think she is actually communicating with me?’

‘No.’ Cathy shook her head.

‘Or that Tasha and Pete really saw her the other night?’

‘No.’

‘But you don’t rule out the possibility of some sort of communication between the living and the dead?’

Cathy frowned. ‘Like spiritualism, you mean? I think, on the whole, most of that is a con.’ She paused. ‘I’m not saying I don’t believe in some paranormal stuff, in fact, yes, I do believe in some things, but not that you’re being stalked by some Celtic female with tattoos, no.’

‘So, Tasha told you what she looked like.’

Cathy nodded.

‘It was Cartimandua.’

‘I don’t think so. Look,’ Cathy leaned forward in her chair, ‘you have a story to tell. You are putting on a radio play. So your brain is providing you with the story. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter where this stuff is coming from. Who ever knows where creative stuff comes from? It is a wonderful story. You now have an extra scene or two to go at the beginning of your drama: her childhood; her marriage. Who cares if it’s fact or fiction?’

‘I care.’ Viv shrugged. ‘I care very much. I’m a serious academic.’

Behind them there was a slight click as the door opened a fraction and Pablo pushed his way into the room. He sat down, carefully surveying them both before beginning to wash his ears.

‘You can’t tackle this academically and I think that fact is at the root of your problem,’ Cathy went on. ‘Your brain is creating a let-out for you. Just use it. Tell Pat what’s happening. Let her help you write it into the play.’

‘And give Hugh Graham even more ammunition to use against me?’

There was a pause. ‘Why do you really care so much what he thinks?’

‘Because he is my professor. The head of department.’

‘And?’

‘What do you mean, and?’

‘What is wrong with an academic writing a semi-fictional piece? I am not saying any of your book was sourced like this –’ Cathy stopped abruptly. ‘Or was it?’

Viv shook her head. ‘No! No, of course not! At least …’ She looked at Cathy in despair. ‘I’m not sure. It’s all got so muddled up.’

Cathy raised an eyebrow. ‘Then you’ve got nothing to lose, if you ask me. Exploit your dreams and your creative visions. Turn them into, what do they call it, faction?’ She grimaced. ‘Use all this as a kind of catharsis to clear Cartimandua out of your system.’

‘Catharsis, maybe.’ Viv shook her head wearily. ‘But for me professional suicide.’

‘Why?’ Cathy looked genuinely bewildered. ‘I don’t understand what you’ve got against it. You are an academic writing fiction. It’s been done before.’

‘No, Cathy, I’m not a fiction writer. I can’t make these leaps of deduction. It’s not allowed.’

‘Who says?’

‘It’s just part of the rules.’

Behind them Pablo finished his ablutions and sat watching Viv intently. Neither woman noticed him.

‘Yet in your book, if you don’t mind my saying so,’ Cathy said slowly, ‘everything is supposition because it is pre-historic in the literal sense of the word, and all your sources are suspect in that they are Roman spin! Didn’t you tell me that? So, how come that is allowed?’

‘It just is.’

‘Well, now you have Pat on board to keep the academic in check. Use her, Viv. You really upset her by chasing her away yesterday, you know. And then this morning. She is threatening to go back to London.’

‘Perhaps it would be better if she does.’ Viv was getting more and more stressed.

Behind them Pablo stood up. He was staring at her in a panic, eyes wide, ears flattened against his head, and leaping off the chair, he fled through the door. Once more neither of them noticed.

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Cathy.

‘I do. She’s going to interfere.’

‘That’s what she’s here for.’ Cathy frowned. ‘Be reasonable. Don’t upset her. Listen to her.’

‘And if she upsets me?’ With her mentions of Medb, for instance. Where had they come from? She shuddered.

‘She hasn’t. Or if she did, she didn’t mean to. You need her –’

Somewhere in the flat a door banged. Cathy sat back in her chair, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. ‘Look, that must be Pete and Tash,’ she said gently. ‘Hang on a minute while I let them know we’re here –’

Before she had a chance to move the door was flung open and Tasha stood there, an evil grin on her face. ‘I thought so. You’re hiding! Mummy’s here. Don’t you want to talk to her, Cathy?’

Cathy laughed uncomfortably. ‘Tasha, we are having a meeting. I’ve asked you before not to burst into my office. I might have had a patient here.’

‘But you haven’t,’ Tasha retorted.

Cathy groaned. ‘Nevertheless, we are having a meeting. When it’s finished Viv and I will come and say hello, OK?’

Tasha looked both quizzical and smug. It was an extraordinary feat of facial gymnastics which brought Viv to the conclusion that the child would go far on the stage.

‘Should I surrender now?’ Cathy smiled wryly as the door closed behind the girl. ‘May as well.’

Greta greeted Viv and Cathy with a patently insincere smile. ‘I’m so sorry not to be able to stay. I have an appointment.’

‘That’s all right.’ Tasha smiled. ‘We want to talk to Viv about her ghost, don’t we, Cathy.’ Turning, she reached for her mother’s handbag. ‘Mummy, please. You promised me some extra pocket money.’

‘Ghost?’ Greta frowned. ‘What ghost?’

‘It’s nothing, Greta.’ Cathy glared at Tasha repressively. ‘A joke, that’s all.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Greta turned towards her daughter. ‘Put my bag down!’ She was peremptory.

Viv clenched her fists. Cartimandua was a ghost; not a dream, not imaginary, not a disembodied memory. She was a ghost and she had shown herself in this room.

‘I’m frightened of ghosts!’ Tasha continued firmly and glanced at her father as Cathy sighed.

He pursed his lips.

Greta stared at her. Then turned to Pete. ‘What is this nonsense?’

‘As Cathy said, Greta. A joke. Take no notice.’ Pete glared at his daughter.

‘Well, I have no time for jokes. I have to go,’ Greta retorted. ‘Tasha!’ The name hurled across the kitchen made the child jump guiltily. Her hand was inside her mother’s purse.

‘Is this what you teach her?’ Greta grabbed the bag. The accusation was aimed at Cathy.

‘Certainly not.’ Cathy was flustered.

Tasha scowled. ‘Cathy was hiding from you, Mummy. In her study. She knew you were here and hid! She didn’t want you to know about the ghost. It was in there with them. It follows Viv everywhere.’

There was a moment of silence. The kitchen seemed to have gone cold as Viv looked around at their faces, Tasha’s smug, Greta’s lip curling with disdain, Pete frowning, Cathy astonished.

‘I think it’s time for me to go.’ Viv tried to smile and failed.

‘No, wait. Our consultation …’ Cathy reached out towards her.

‘Was brilliant. You’ve given me lots to think about.’ Viv gave an uncomfortable gesture of surrender. ‘Tell Pat I’m sorry. I’ll call her.’

Outside the door at the top of the stairs she paused, her heart thudding in terror.

Carta had been standing there next to her. Tasha was right. This time she had seen the hazy figure herself.

V

Slamming the door of her flat behind her, Viv tried to force herself to be calm. She sat down on the rocking chair and closed her eyes, rocking back and forth. Cathy was right! Her brain was dreaming up a story which her intellect had rejected. There was nothing sinister here. Tasha was only trying to stir things. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes. The flat was unusually quiet and cold. She looked round nervously. It was several seconds before it dawned on her that the computer was switched on. She frowned. Surely it had been off when she left home? Standing up reluctantly she moved across to her desk and sat down again in front of the screen. Beside the keyboard her answer machine was flashing. She ignored it.

Carta was pregnant. Ecstatic and excited, she stood for long periods, her hands gently cupped over her belly where as yet there was barely any sign of the life not yet quickened inside her. For now Medb was forgotten.

Riach was as excited as she was. He presented her with an exquisitely carved and decorated chariot and two matched ponies to pull it. ‘So you don’t need to ride when the child is larger.’ He rested his hand on the place where only moments before she had been stroking her own belly. ‘A soft and gentle ride for my son!’

The young charioteer was called Fergal. He was the son of a warrior, one of Riach’s older warrior comrades, elevated to a position of honour as her driver and her bodyguard.

She still rode daily, but the novelty of her own war cart was an exciting one and she planned excursions to visit the duns and homesteads of the women she had met at the Beltane and Lughnasadh gatherings in the fort. Fergal drove her all over the territories of the Votadini. He was a serious young man, tall and well-built, with fair wavy hair and blue eyes. By inclination he would have preferred to study as a bard, and later maybe as a Druid, but his father was adamant that he should carry weapons in the king’s service and Fergal, good-natured and always willing to oblige, gave up his hopes. Driving the prince’s young wife was a perfect compromise. As he escorted her around the district he listened to bards and learned their songs. He carried his lyre in the war cart with his sword and spears.

Carta’s baby quickened at the time of the autumnal equinox as violent gales roared across the land from the west, tearing the leaves from the trees. The cailleach, goddess of the winter storm, had arrived early. It was time for hunting and reiving, the cattle raids which would augment the herds brought in for slaughter from the shielings. One man’s feasting is another man’s starvation. That was the way it was. No amount of grain would fill the belly in the same way as beef or mutton or venison salted down and stored away in safety for the long winter months.

‘Do you want to go with them, Fergal?’ Carta had been watching the young man’s face as Riach called his men together. They had been sharpening and polishing their weapons for days, drawing up plans, waiting for the runners to return with news of when the herds were being brought down from the pastures of neighbouring tribes. Rich pickings, with the added excitement of the chance to capture slaves and take prisoners for ransom.

‘I’d rather stay with you, lady.’ Fergal gave a rueful grin. ‘I have my orders. The king and Riach have spoken.’

‘Poor Fergal.’ Carta shook her head. ‘Watching women is not much fun. Being a woman is not much fun either.’ Her wry pout echoed his own. She had been feeling sick and uncomfortable and hated having to stay at home. ‘But once this child is born then you and I will join the next raids with the men.’ The glint in her eye showed the tomboy was still alive and well. ‘My women can take care of the baby.’

They laughed easily together and he went to groom the ponies who had caught the excitement in the horse lines and were expecting to go out with the others.

Carta walked back out of the wind and rain into the small round house which was now her home and stood staring down at the central fire. The flames flickered in the draught. Riach had said his farewells the night before, holding her in his arms so that she was completely enfolded in his cloak. ‘Take care of our son, my Carta,’ he whispered. ‘And of yourself. You are my two treasures. I don’t know why I need more.’

She laughed, snuggling against his chest. ‘To feed your men and your father’s followers. That’s why. A thousand hungry mouths.’ She reached up and kissed him on the lips. ‘And to make me proud. My husband must be the greatest warrior who ever lived.’

He gave a shout of laughter. ‘I’ll remember that. My bard goes with me to record my every move and when we return he will tell the whole court of my courage and feats of arms!’

‘And I will listen to every detail as we sit together by the winter fires.’ She wound her fingers into the fine linen of his tunic under his cloak. ‘And sing them myself to your son as he waits to be born.’

She watched them ride away, her companion Mairghread by her side, a comforting presence as the horses, the chariots, the great wolfhounds from Erin baying at their heels drew away into the distance. It was then she found herself shivering with apprehension.

She felt it again now as she stared down into the fire. Mairghread, sensitive as always to her every mood had rounded up the other women and ushered them out of hearing so that she could be alone with her thoughts. Sitting there, she lost herself in her dreams, gazing at the tongues of flame licking around the glowing logs, hissing their message as they threaded patterns through the fragrant smoke.

Danger.

Her hand went automatically to her belly where her child, Riach’s child, nestled in the darkness below her heart. It was safe there. The flames crackled and a log split with a bang. Suddenly her head was spinning. She was falling towards the fire.

There was an arm around her. Then another. ‘Come on, lady. Let me take you to your bed.’ It was Mairghread. ‘I saw you grow dizzy. Lie down and rest.’ Two other women reappeared from the far side of the room where they had been sitting talking, out of the cold wind. They guided her through to the bedchamber and drew the wicker screens around her.

‘My baby …’

‘Your baby is fine. Women often feel as you do now. It is quite usual. Your baby is greedy. He is sucking at your strength from within. It shows he is already big and strong.’ Mairghread smiled reassuringly. She placed a cool hand on Carta’s forehead. ‘I’ll bring you some chamomile infusion and you must sleep for a while. Then you will be yourself again, your own strength recovered. You’ll see.’

In her sleeping chamber Mairghread went to her herb cupboard. There, neatly arranged on the shelves behind the door were bundles of dried herbs, gathered in the spring and summer, each neatly labelled with a small wooden tag engraved with a symbol. Twice married and twice widowed already, although she was less than ten years older than Carta, and childless herself, Mairghread had elected to remain unmarried and instead to study with the Druid healers and to look after her young mistress and companion, understanding the gap Mellia had left in Carta’s life, and wishing she could fill it. She took some chamomile and went to ladle boiling water from the cauldron. Frowning, she waited while the herbs were steeping in their flagon, her eyes fixed on the dancing flames. What had Carta seen?

The whole fort had turned out to look for Medb of the White Hands when she disappeared. Search parties were sent far and wide, messengers despatched the length and breadth of the land, to Brigantia and beyond to the lands of the Selgovae and the Novantae, the Venicones and even further north, to the lands of the Picti. The seers consulted their auguries to see if she had been killed by wolves or bears, and the bards constructed magical lays to bring her home had she been stolen by the gods. There was no sign of her. It was as if she and her two slaves had never been. Only two people asked themselves if they could guess. Truthac, Archdruid of the Votadini, and Brigit, senior wife to the king. Both looked at Carta’s wide-eyed innocence and concern and both wondered. Both kept their thoughts to themselves.

The Archdruid came to Carta’s bedside, when her message reached him. She was lying wrapped in warm furs, the brazier near her throwing out heat which did not seem to be able to dispel the chill from her bones.

‘The curse is working.’ She was white-lipped. The small chamber was empty – they could hear the subdued chatter of the other women around the main fire pit beyond the wattle walls. Some were spinning in the firelight, others just sat listening to the soft voice of one of the women bards as she told a story, accompanying the narrative from time to time with a few chords on the small harp on the table at her side. At Carta’s request Mairghread had gone to join the others so she could talk to Truthac alone.

‘The curse that condemned me to barrenness. I can feel it worming its way into my womb.’

The Archdruid leaned his staff against the wall and, sitting down beside the bed, took her hand. It was ice-cold and clammy. He was frowning. ‘Mairghread told me she thought you saw something in the flames.’

‘I did. I saw blood.’ Carta took a deep shaky breath, trying to still her own panic.

‘But there is no issue of blood from your womb. The child lies securely?’ His eyes were fixed steadily on her face. She was reminded of that other Druid years before who had saved her dog’s life. He had had the same calm certainty, the same ability to reassure. She nodded.

‘Then allow your ladies to take care of you. Rest. Do not ride horse or chariot for a while and do not consult the oracles yourself.’ He gave a grave smile. ‘It is commonplace, so I’ve noticed, for women in your condition to see troubles where there are none.’

‘And the curse?’

‘The curse tablet had not been awakened. It would not have worked.’

Carta bit her lip. ‘Supposing –’ She hesitated.

‘Suppose nothing, princess.’ He put a stern hand on hers. ‘Think no more about it, or about the person who wanted it.’ He raised his eyes to hers and held her gaze. ‘The gods know the truth, Carta. They know who is honest and who deserves punishment here.’ There was a pause. He saw the pupils of her eyes contract with fear. She looked away into the corner of the room. ‘My goddess knows what happens in my heart,’ she said quietly. ‘And what happened to Medb. She is not dead. She did not come to harm.’

The old man frowned but he made no comment. He stood up slowly, drawing his robe around him and reached for his staff. ‘Rest now, child, and forget Medb. And pray that your baby stays safe.’

Carta watched him disappear between the screens, then she huddled down into the bed, pulling the covers over her head.

The vision returned in her dreams that night. Three ravens were sitting in a storm-swept tree staring down at a blood-soaked body as the wind and rain tore through a narrow glen. ‘Who is it? Who is dead?’ Her screams woke the other women and they ran to her bedside, holding up lamps in the darkness. The central fire had been smoored for the night, carefully covered by a layer of peats so that in the morning it would be ready to stir back into life. Someone grabbed the poker and in a short while it was blazing, bringing warmth back to her chilled body.

‘Someone is dead!’ Carta was crying. She clutched at Mairghread’s hand.

‘No one is dead, Carta!’ The young woman was trying to comfort her. ‘Everyone is safe. See, your little one kicks. You have woken him.’ They all saw the slight movement beneath her nightgown.

But someone was dead. Two days later the remnants of the hunting party returned. Riach’s body was carried in the chariot in which he had so proudly ridden away from Dun Pelder. Four of the young men who had accompanied him had died with him, the others came home badly wounded.

Concentrating so completely on Carta’s baby, no one had given a thought to the raiding party which had ridden with such optimism towards the western hills, the lands of the neighbouring Selgovae, favourite targets for autumn raids, so news of the hunters was not expected for a long time. Their arrival back was a devastating shock.

Mairghread tried to hold Carta back. ‘Don’t look. Stay in here by the fire. You don’t want to see him.’

Carta swept her aside. Walking very straight, wrapped in a cloak against the icy wind she stood beside the chariot and stared down. For a few moments her composure held. He looked the same. So serene, so eager, so strong. The arms which had held her, the lips which had kissed every inch of her body, were undamaged. The terrible wounds which had drained his life were hidden beneath the fur rug.

‘He fought with honour. It is we who survive who are dishonoured.’ His own arm nearly severed through, a gaping wound in his shoulder, Riach’s charioteer gently wiped the mud from the prince’s face. ‘We could do nothing against them, my lady. There were two dozen of them. They came out of the clouds and mist. There was no warning. We read no omens.’ He stood, staring down, his own eyes brimming with tears of shame. At least they had left him his head. Two of his companions had not been so fortunate.

Carta was biting her lips. ‘I saw omens and I did nothing to help him.’ She knelt beside her husband and kissed his cold, bloody forehead. It was then that her tears burst through the dam. Shaking with sobs she clung to his body and wept as though her heart would break.

When she rose at last to her feet she found the king and Brigit at her side. Lugaid was staring down at his son, weeping openly. Behind him men and women were flocking out of their houses as the news spread. They parted to let Carta through as she turned away, her face white and strained. She headed not towards the round house behind her but towards the shrine where she had made her offerings to her goddess.

‘I gave you rich gifts. I begged you to take care of him!’ Her voice rose to an anguished shriek of misery as she stood before the wooden statue in a darkness lit only by dim lamps fed by sweet oil. ‘You promised. You promised you would watch over me and mine. You came to me and you assured me. Why did you let him die? Why?’

Her hand went to her stomach suddenly and she gave a sharp cry of pain. ‘My baby!’ She fell to her knees on the stones. ‘Sweet Lady, forgive me. Help me!’

No one had followed her. They had held back in respect. As blood began to soak into her skirt, Carta screamed in her rage and fear and desolation, alone but for the woman who watched, helpless, two thousand years away.

VI

She didn’t realise that she had picked up the phone. As she put it to her ear her eyes were fixed on the scene in the smoky shrine, her ears full of Carta’s screams.

‘Viv? It’s Steve. Viv, are you there? Viv, is something wrong?’ The voice in the receiver echoed into the past unheard.

Wrong? Of course something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Suddenly she was crying. Heart-rending sobs she couldn’t hold back.

‘Viv, it’s Steve. Wait there. I’m coming over!’

Then the doorbell was ringing. The scene in the temple drew back into the shadows.

‘Viv, let me in!’ She could hear a voice calling; hear frantic banging on the door.

Wearily she dragged herself to her feet.

‘Steve.’ She saw him staring at her as she pulled the door open and realised after a second how she must look. She was pale and exhausted. Her eye make-up had run, leaving streaks of coppery green on her cheeks. Her hair was on end and her clothes crumpled.

‘Are you all right? Viv, what’s wrong!’ He seized her hands and pulled her to him protectively. He was scanning the living room apprehensively. ‘Is there someone here?’

‘No. Yes.’ Oh God! She shouldn’t have opened the door. Gently she pushed him away, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry, Steve. There wasn’t any need for you to come.’

‘Of course I had to come. You’re upset. You sounded so frightened.’ He stepped past her, still looking round. ‘What’s happened? Is it Hugh?’

‘Hugh?’ She stared at him. ‘No, it’s not Hugh.’ The tears were coming back. She was disorientated and confused. Shaking her head she pointed helplessly to the flickering computer monitor on the desk.

He followed the gesture, puzzled. ‘What is it? Is there something wrong with the computer?’

‘Look at it.’

He frowned. ‘All I can see is text.’

‘Read it.’ She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself as Steve sat down at the desk but before he could start reading she had begun to talk, unable to stop herself, words falling over one another in her hurry to get the story out.

‘She grabbed me by the throat!’ Her hands were shaking. ‘As soon as I came in she was in my head. It’s automatic writing, Steve. Oh God, what am I going to do!’ She sat down abruptly, rubbing her palms up and down her face.

Steve was silent; after glancing anxiously at her he turned back to the screen and was at once engrossed in the text unrolling before his eyes. ‘You were certainly writing this very fast,’ he commented cautiously. He glanced across at her again, puzzled. ‘It’s breathless.’ The text was littered with little red squiggly lines denoting spelling errors.

He lapsed into silence again, reading intently while Viv, too restless to sit still, got to her feet and paced up and down the floor behind him. When he finished at last he turned away from the computer.

‘That’s incredible prose. So vivid.’ He hesitated. ‘You’re writing a novel, yes?’ He studied her face.

‘No!’ She came to a standstill behind him. ‘It’s not a novel, Steve. It’s real!’

‘What do you mean, real?’

‘It’s true!’ Suddenly she was sobbing.

He frowned. ‘It’s weird and frightening.’

‘And convincing.’

‘It certainly reads convincingly.’ He sounded dubious. ‘But it is a novel you’re writing. It must be.’

‘No! No! I told you, it’s true! You’ve got to believe it. I didn’t make it up.’

He said nothing for a moment. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t know what to think. How can it be real?’ He scanned her face. ‘Look, Viv. You must calm down. Tell me exactly what happened.’ He was anxious.

‘She is there. In my head. I can’t stop her! I don’t want to stop her!’

‘You can’t stop who?’ Steve stood up and put his arms around her. She seemed so vulnerable. So unlike herself.

‘Cartimandua. I told you.’

For a moment he was speechless. ‘You don’t mean you think she is dictating all this?’

‘I just said so, didn’t I!’ She was trying to control her trembling. ‘It’s overwhelming. I can’t fight it. She’s there. All the time. Just out of sight. Not out of sight. Tasha saw her. And Pete.’ She choked back a sob.

‘Who are Tasha and Pete?’ Steve was incredulous.

‘Friends. They saw her. Oh God, what am I going to do?’

‘You must calm down.’

‘You mustn’t tell anyone about this, Steve. Promise. I shouldn’t have told you. Nobody must know. Especially not Hugh –’

‘I won’t tell a soul.’ He stared at the screen again. ‘It can’t be real, Viv.’

‘It is.’ Her mouth was dry, her lips sore where she had chewed them. She moved away from him and sat down on the sofa. ‘She’s haunting me, Steve.’

He went and sat down beside her on the sofa. Taking the tissue out of her hand, he leaned forward and dabbed at her cheeks then hesitantly he put an arm around her shoulder again. They sat for a while, unmoving.

‘Why don’t I go and make some coffee,’ he said at last. ‘I know where everything is.’

When he came back she was still sitting where he had left her but she seemed calmer. ‘Steve, I’m sorry.’ She looked up at him wanly. ‘I shouldn’t have got you involved in all this. You rang at just the wrong moment.’

‘I’m glad I did.’ He put a mug into her hands. ‘Look, you know this is not real, Viv. I don’t have to tell you that. It can’t be. You’re not being haunted. It must be some kind of stream of consciousness creative thing, coming from deep inside you.’

She shook her head. God, he sounded just like Cathy. Rationalising. Always rationalising. Making it sound normal.

‘Viv, it’s –’ He started, then stopped, unable to find the words. ‘It’s amazing, but it’s not true.’

‘It is!’ She was anguished.

He sighed. ‘Whatever it is, you have to stop.’

‘I can’t stop!’ It was a whisper.

There was a long silence as they both contemplated the screen in the corner of the room. With a sigh, Viv climbed to her feet and went over to turn it off, then she threw herself back down on the sofa. ‘I’m going mad.’

‘No.’ He turned to face her. ‘Gifted. Honoured. Blessed. Maybe obsessive, and highly creative and fighting the tight restrictions of the rules of your – our – chosen profession. Mad, no.’

‘Not yet, anyway.’ She gave a wry smile.

‘You are exhausted, Viv.’ He reached for his own coffee thoughtfully. ‘Before anything else, I think you should get some rest.’ He paused. ‘Unless – do you dream about her too?’

She shrugged. Those flashes of firelight. The thunder of hooves. The shouts and clashes of sword-blades. Were those part of her waking dream or part of a nightmare?

‘Would you like me to stay?’ He was watching her anxiously. ‘I can sleep on the sofa. I don’t think you should be alone.’

‘No, Steve.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ He was uncertain. ‘I don’t think you should do this any more. Not if it upsets you so much.’

‘I don’t have a choice. She forces herself into my consciousness. I’m not imagining this.’ She was pleading with him. ‘Besides,’ she hesitated, ‘I want to go on.’

He leaned over and took her hand. ‘I think it could be dangerous.’ He was looking very serious. ‘Honestly. Whether it is coming from inside you, or from some sort of ghostly spirit it’s not good if it’s taken control of you like this. I wish my mother was here. She knows more about this sort of thing than I do. She would believe you.’

Viv gave a wan smile. ‘Then I shall look forward to meeting your mother one day.’

‘You must.’ He paused. ‘Are you sure I can’t stay?’

‘No. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me. It was really nice of you to come, Steve.’ She hesitated. ‘This is all secret. You realise that, don’t you? I don’t want anyone to know about it.’

‘They won’t. Not from me.’ A thought struck him. ‘Is this where those extra facts came from in the book?’

‘I didn’t mean to use them. I tried not to listen. I pushed her away. I never wrote it down before!’ She swallowed, looking down at her hands. ‘I think I want you to go now, Steve.’

He stood up unhappily. ‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’

She nodded. ‘Promise you won’t say anything?’

‘I promise.’ He headed for the door. ‘Call me if you need me. Any time.’ He turned anxiously. ‘I don’t like to leave you alone –’

‘I’m fine. Thanks for coming, Steve.’

Closing the door behind him, she shut her eyes with a sigh. Shit! She wouldn’t blame him if he went straight to Hugh.

9

I

Steve rang at 8.30 the next morning. Standing beside the phone, Viv listened to his voice, her fists clenched, her forehead twisted into an agonised frown. She didn’t pick it up.

She had to get out of the flat. She had to distract herself from the cacophony of voices whirling around her. She hadn’t slept. She hadn’t moved from the computer all night. She was exhausted.

Traprain. Carta wanted her to go to there.

By nine she was in her car, heading south on the A1, heading for the car park at the foot of Traprain Law. It was here that Carta had come to live with the Votadini. Here she had met and married her first love. Here she had fallen ill during her pregnancy. Sitting in the car, Viv stared up at the steep grass-sided hill climbing sheer out of the flat countryside around it. Then slowly she opened the car door.

Climbing over the stile from the car park she started to walk up the steep track, up the huge shoulder of the hill. In this life the place was deserted, but the view was still amazing. She could see for miles. To the east the sea was a brilliant, almost violet blue, with the viridian-topped Bass Rock rising vertically out of it in the distance. She shivered. Warm though it was, the wind was cold, whistling though the grass, drumming in her ears as she walked slowly across the empty terraces where once a thriving Iron Age community had lived.

Small yellow flowers of tormentil danced at her feet, and lush dandelions on the banks. Nearby she could hear a skylark as it soared overhead. She stopped, listening intently. The atmosphere had become jagged. She shivered again, plunging her hands into the pockets of her jacket as the wind whipped briskly across the grass, trying to marshal facts in her head. This place, desecrated now at one end by a quarry, had once been a busy township. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of houses had clustered on the flat top of this high, almost surreal volcanic mound. It had been called Dun Pelder then. Its present name, Traprain, also came, it was thought, from the Celtic or Welsh Tra Pren, which would mean something like the ‘wooden town’, from the palisades which had topped some of the great ramparts defending it and which would have been visible for miles. Over the span of the centuries, thousands of people had lived and loved and died here and in the township which had sprung up around the hill; kings and queens, the ancient Druids, the bards, the seers, the educated, aristocratic layer of people who with the warriors, the farmers and the servants and slaves made up the society of Britain two thousand years ago. The contemporaries of Boudica. The contemporaries of the Romans, who she had fought. The contemporaries of Cartimandua, Queen of the North.

Vivienne!

The ringing in her ears grew louder and she found herself turning round and round, unexpectedly finding herself at last looking down the sheer cliff face where Mellia had fallen to her death. Her eyes filled with tears. The memories here were too confused, too violent, too intense and she was quite alone. Why in God’s name had she come? Turning quickly, she began to retrace her steps across the plateau towards the track, and once there she began to scramble down from the summit. Pausing to catch her breath, she smelled the wild thyme and sweet grasses and the subtle undertone of sheep dung. Once out of the wind the silence was an enormous relief. She could hear again the lark and in the distance the mewing of a buzzard as it circled over the wide farmland below her. Here the air was full of the scent of woodsmoke from a farmhouse down in the lea of the hill and the rich coconut scent of the gorse from the flanks of the terraces.

She sat down on a sheltered ridge of the ancient terracing, just visible still beneath the grass, and closed her eyes to the view.

They had carried Carta to her bed and sent for Gruoch, the Druid priestess who specialised at the college as a healer in women’s problems. She arrived carrying her emergency bag of herb bundles and went straight to the bedside, dismissing the women who flocked anxiously around the room.

Her hands on Carta’s belly were gentle and experienced, her voice soothing. She frowned as she felt the muscles under her fingers contract. ‘Your babe is not happy, my dear.’ She pulled aside the bloody skirts and frowned again. ‘And you are still bleeding. We must pray to the blessed goddess to bring you succour. Lie still. I will give you something to help.’ She pulled the blankets back and reached for her bag. Calling for warm wine in which to steep the herbs, she smiled across at the frightened young woman. ‘Have no fear. If this child is destined to be born he will be. If there is no soul ready to come to rebirth then so be it. There will be others.’ She opened a pouch of dried mosses and reached for some linen to make a pad to ease beneath the girl’s hips as Mairghread brought in a goblet of wine and set it down carefully near the lamp beside the bed.

‘But it’s Riach’s child.’ Tears slid down Carta’s cheeks.

‘And Riach may require him in Tir n’an Og,’ Gruoch said reassuringly. ‘If that is so, then you must allow him to claim his son.’ She sighed. She saw no future for this baby. Even if the birth pains stopped she doubted if it would go to term. She knew, as well as everyone else within the Druids’ college, that Cartimandua’s womb was blighted by a curse. Truthac had called a meeting of his senior colleagues after Riach’s funeral, a ceremony Carta had been too sick to attend, and warned them. And he had told them then the future he saw for this young woman. He had foreseen her widowhood and he had foreseen what would happen next.

‘No!’ Viv was unaware that she had spoken out loud. Startled, two ramblers climbing the track nearby stopped and glanced at her. She appeared to be staring into the distance, lost in thought. With a quick look at each other they hurried on.

The pains and the bleeding stopped. Carta climbed wearily from her bed at last to make offerings to the goddess. From the woodcarver’s stock of amulets and charms she bought a tiny carving of a baby and, with her favourite gold clip knelt before the sacred lochan and dropped them in, allowing them to carry her prayers and pleas deep into the fern-draped depths of clear brown water.

‘I am praying for you. I am,’ Viv murmured. She, like Gruoch, knew it was to no avail. If Cartimandua had borne a child to the son of the king of the Votadini, surely history would know about it. On the hillside, only a hundred yards, did she but know it, from the spot where Carta’s marriage bed had stood in the round house near the middle of the settlement, and within sight of the location of Riach’s funeral pyre far below in what were now fields, Viv drew up her knees and hugged them thoughtfully, her eyes fixed unseeing on the North Sea.

The pains returned at midnight two days later as the moon moved from Samionos, the time of seedfall, to Dumannios, the darkest depth of winter and as the cold winter sun slid above the horizon Riach’s tiny son was born. He never drew breath. His body, wrapped in soft fur, comforted with precious beads, a small carved toy bear and his mother’s jewelled pony pendant, was consigned to the pit of offerings which would take him into the next world where his father’s arms would gather him up and carry him towards the western shore.

Carta remained dry-eyed throughout the ceremony, then as her breasts began to leak precious unneeded milk beneath her linen tunic, she walked alone to the shrine.

‘Why? I gave you offerings. I gave you my prayers. I gave you my husband! Why did you take my son as well?’ Her anguished cry echoed round the settlement and men and women crept away, respecting her need to be alone. ‘I see you watching me. Listening to me. Why? Why, if you do nothing to help me?’

And gradually Viv became aware of the pale tear-stained face, framed by wild uncombed hair, staring straight into her own with wide furious eyes.

She woke with a violent start and scrambled to her knees.

She was alone. The hillside was bare now, where in her trance it had been terraced, crowded with houses, busy with people. Only one part in her vision was empty. Sacred. Where the pit of sacrifice had been and the holy lochan and the temple that guarded it. She stared round, still trembling with the shock of seeing those grey-green eyes fixed so firmly on her own.

Slowly she stood up and at once she felt the wind catching her hair. All around her the Law was silent save for the distant song of the skylark and from somewhere in the fields far below the warning cry of a curlew. Retracing her steps, she found the lochan, on the very top. Small, insignificant. Its importance long forgotten. Overwhelmed by the need to make an offering of her own in memory of that little boy, she hunted through her pockets and brought out a coin. She looked at the water and back at the pound in her hand and shook her head. Carta had always left gold. This coin seemed tawdry, to say nothing of a gross intrusion on the memories and ecology of the place. Instead she stooped and picked a small perfect head of white saxifrage and dropped it into the water. It floated out into the centre of the pool and lay there in the sunshine.

‘I’m sorry.’ The words were ringing in her head. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save him for you.’

Gruoch would have done so if she could. She had been so calm. So confident. A Druidess, trained in the healing arts.

Viv stood there for a long time, her head bowed, then at last she turned and made her way back to the track. She was shivering. She had to pull herself together. Remember the detail, not the emotions. She was a historian. She had watched a healer at work. She must try and remember the details of what Gruoch had done. Perhaps this was something that could be checked and verified. What had the woman used? Red wine. Imported from Gaul presumably at this date, although the Romans cultivated vines when they came to southern Britain. A nice Burgundy or a Bordeaux, perhaps. She smiled sadly. It was used to steep the herbs which Gruoch had pulled from what appeared to be, in Native American terms, a medicine bundle and used to make a soothing mulled wine. What herbs were they? She repeated the names to herself like a mantra, trying to remember the unfamiliar terms which the woman had murmured as she added them to her concoction. At the end, as the baby was about to be born, Gruoch had given her rasps, presumably wild raspberries, and willow. And other things. Haws. Rosehips. She groped in her pocket for a notebook. Had those herbs been of any use? Did Gruoch, stately, reassuring Gruoch, know what she was doing? Did Carta survive?

But of course she survived. History was clear on that score.

Out to sea it was growing hazy. Once more a breeze stroked her skin, this time cold, smelling of salt.

She stood staring round. The other climbers and walkers if there had been any while she was in her trance had disappeared. There was no one in sight. Nothing on the top of the great hill of Traprain but fleeting memories, lost as soon as they surfaced, swept away by new gods and time.

II

‘I told you so!’ Pat looked across the desk at Maddie Corston with a grimace ‘Still no answer. Just the machine.’

Maddie leaned back in her chair with a sigh. A slim, natural blonde with startlingly blue eyes she was dressed in voluminous trousers and a bright blue T-shirt which moulded tightly over the large, presumably fairly imminent bump of her belly.

‘You say you got on well?’ Maddie picked up the folder on her desk and stared at it.

‘I thought so.’ Pat shrugged. ‘I still think so.’

‘This is certainly good. A huge improvement.’ Maddie tapped the folder with a bright red fingernail.

‘It’s a good book. I’m enjoying working on it.’ Pat was watching Maddie’s face closely. ‘I could do it on my own, if necessary, you know,’ she said cautiously. The idea had been growing slowly at the back of her mind, egged on by the subliminal presence of Medb, the stranger in her dreams who could prove the stronger, more dramatic character the play needed.