CHAPTER 29

In daylight, with the sun slanting from the west, Cunobelin’s grave mound was a peaceful place,

Breaca stood inside, facing the back wall with her knife in her hand. Experimentally, she stabbed the dry earth, and then again, a handspan to the right.

Go more to the left. The opening was aligned for the sun’s angle on the day of my death.

She knew him by his voice; not the texture of it, dry as the dead earth, but the round curves of the vowels that had been Caradoc’s after him and she heard still daily in Cygfa, who was most like her father, and so most closely mirrored her grandfather.

She turned, slowly. Had it not been daylight, she might not have seen him. He was not as distinct as her father had been and far less than the newly dead of the burning city, bright with the shock of their slaughter.

Cunobelin, Hound of the Sun, war leader of two tribes, was a twist in the evening light, no more substantial than that. As she had done in the night, Breaca patched him with Graine’s eyes and Cygfa’s hair that he might seem more readily human. He smiled for her then, and she saw that more easily than the rest; his smile had always been the warmest part of him.

She set her knife on the floor. “I thought the westerly sun might warm you more than the chill light of dawn,” she said. “If you would rather I not disturb your mound, I’ll leave it now.”

Why did you come again? Like all the ancient dead, his voice was the rustle of wind in winter leaves.

“I saw the sun slide off the bronze doors and it reminded me of what Luain mac Calma did for you on the day we first brought you here.”

Mac Calma did it better.

“He did. The engineer who built the temple to honour Claudius knew how to celebrate the full light of the noon sun, but Luain mac Calma built this mound so that the sun honoured you in its setting as well as its rising.”

Breaca lifted her knife and pricked the tip along the wall to the left and found the rectangle, as long as her arm and half as wide, where the earth was packed less hard. She began to dig there, using the back edge of the blade.

Clots of earth fell out over her. Brushing them away, she said, “I met Caradoc in here on the third day of your funeral. We fought; he had just fathered Cygfa by another woman, and I had not known; these things mattered then. I was going to put your ring on the bier as my honouring of you. He stopped me, saying that you would not want that gift returned.”

As with so many things, my third son knew me best. It is to my eternal regret that I did not care for him better.

“He would have been a different man if you had, and perhaps not as great.” The truth of that sat newly between them. Breaca hacked with greater energy at the walls. “Remembering Caradoc, I remembered also the last time I saw you in life. You called me daughter, and made an oath.” She gave more power to the words, sending them to echo off the curving walls. “‘The gods have not seen fit to grant me a daughter. Now, perhaps, I have the beginnings of one. If you need help in the name of the Sun Hound, it will be given, even to the ends of the earth and the four winds.’”

…even to the ends of the earth and the four winds.

Two voices spoke the binding of the oath. The dead man’s was the stronger.

“Is it binding beyond the grave?” she asked.

Always. As you will find in your turn. Humour warmed his voice, and something deeper, that might have been regret. What would you ask of one who is bound to give aid? Would you have healing from a dead man you did not trust in life? Would you trust in my care for you—daughter of my spirit?

The quality of his voice reached her, where his smile and his presence had not. Truthfully, she said, “You are grandsire to my children. If you were to offer me healing, I would welcome it and trust its giving.”

The earthen wall was crumbling faster under her knife. She stabbed through living turf to the clear air beyond. A strand of evening sunlight threaded in through the gap and cast amber light on the floor at the Sun Hound’s feet.

He became easier to see; a strong man with a pelt of tawny hair and the cloud-grey eyes she had loved in his son. He regarded her thoughtfully, no longer smiling.

In all your rememberings, do you recall the prophecy of the ancestor-dreamer?

Caution pricked up the length of her spine. She remembered, then, to whom she was speaking: the man who could outmatch any other at the game of Warrior’s Dance, and who never stopped playing. She turned, and laid down the knife for a second time. For the first time, she gave him her undivided attention.

“It would be a hard thing to forget,” she said. “I brought my children east on the strength of it, knowing I might lose them. My daughter has gone west unhealed because of it. My son moulds his life around it, striving to be something he does not understand.”

The twist in the sun sharpened. The air at its margins became less blurred. You were given three tasks to complete, he said. Name them for me. The soft edges of his vowels were as iron.

It was not hard to take herself back along the path of her life, to find again the cave in the mountains and the taunting presence of the ancestor-dreamer; only something Breaca would not have chosen to do.

From clear memory, she said, “For the first task, I was to find a way to give back to the people the heart and courage they had lost. For the second, I was to find a way to call forth the warriors and to arm them, to find the warrior with the eyes and heart of a dreamer to lead them. At the last, I was to find the mark that is ours—the ancestor’s and mine—and seek its place in my soul.”

She was breathing fast when she finished, as if they had matched swords in challenge. In her own defence, she said, “The Eceni have been given heart to rise in revolt. The war host is gathered and armed. The mark of the ancestor-dreamer has been revealed as Briga’s. If it rests in my soul, it is up to the god to show it. I have done what I can.”

No, you have not. Who is the warrior with the eyes and heart of a dreamer who can lead your people, and give them back the heart and courage they have lost? His eyes burned her, studs of molten flint that pierced her soul.

She had no answer for that.

Think. He was leaving. The threat and promise of his presence became less tangible. What was left of him came closer, so that she could feel the place where the air moved around him. Find the answer and it is all answers. Think.

He laid a hand on her head and she was cold and hot together. A depth of care swept her so profound as to leave her shuddering, and a passion for life that she had known once, and forgotten.

Cunobelin said, It has given me great pleasure to see you again, daughter of my soul. If you feel so moved, it would be good to have the window open again, to let Luain mac Calma’s dream live again.

His parting voice fell about her lightly, like autumn rain. In the asking is the healing, and the answer. Remember, too, my other gift. Neither was it given lightly.

Feet brushed on grass. A cloak whispered, not Theophilus’ robes. A living voice said, “Breaca? Do you want to be alone?”

Airmid paused at the open grave mouth, a little back so that she had to shield her eyes from the low-set western sun. Her gaze took in the new light cast on the floor and the clods of hacked earth heaped at the back wall and the unsheathed knife laid on top. “You’ve cut a window in the back wall,” she said.

Breaca said. “It was here before, when the mound was first built. Luain mac Calma made it so that the light came in from the west to fall on the urn that held Cunobelin’s ashes.”

“He bathed the dead with two suns. I’d forgotten.” Airmid hesitated, as if she might leave. “Did you come to find peace? Or to talk with the dead?”

“Both. Come in.”

Airmid smelled of river water and Theophilus’ rosemary oil more than flesh-smoke and the blood and terror and pain of the healing fields. She did not bring much of war to disturb the quiet of the grave. She came to sit opposite, in the darker shadows. Tentatively, she said, “The battle for the temple is almost over. I saw what you did to free Illenna’s mother. It was an honourable thing.”

Breaca frowned. “The woman with the rust-coloured hair? I’d forgotten her. I didn’t do it for the honour. She was a mother who had lost her daughter. In all the killing, there was no need to make more pain.”

“Breaca?” Airmid reached for her hand. “Do you need me to tell you not to fight any more if it sickens you?”

“No, it’s obvious. I was coming to find you, to tell you that I was going to give my shield and blade to Cunomar because Valerius does not yet command enough support amongst the war host. Then I saw the sun pass off the temple doors and remembered a promise.”

She opened her hand. Cunobelin’s ring lay on it, which had been his first gift. The gold did not spark with any particular life, but lay still and quiet on her palm in the evening light. It was heavy with a man’s weight. On the flat surface was a hound, raising its muzzle to greet the sun. Breaca pressed it into the calloused flesh of her thumb and watched the hound mark grow white and then red.

Watching the colours fade, she said, “Cunomar has spent years yearning to be the warrior with the eyes and heart of a dreamer, trying to build himself to be that. I am his mother. I wanted him to succeed. Until today, I believed it possible.”

Gently Airmid said, “Your son is exceptional, and an honour to both of his parents, but no follower of the she-bear has the mind and heart of a dreamer, nor will they ever. Their hearts are given in oath to the bear, which is a great thing, and enough. Cunomar will learn to celebrate that and it will make him the stronger.”

There was such calm in the knowing of that, in having a half-met thought confirmed. Breaca tried the ring on her fingers. It was too big for any except her thumb. She let it hang there, loosely, a spark of honeyed warmth in the light, and wondered why it was so difficult to speak.

She waited for Airmid to fill the silence, which lengthened, unfilled.

In time, when waiting was harder than speaking, Breaca said, “Valerius, then. It has always been him; he began as a warrior, but the dreamer is as strong in him now, if not stronger. I knew it when he came back to us, only that I did not know how to disappoint Cunomar.”

A small stifled cough, or a laugh, or perhaps the beginnings of weeping reached her across the short space.

Breaca raised her eyes at last from the ring. Airmid was staring at her, blinking. A wide wash of feeling crossed her face that was surprise and laughter and exasperation all together. Airmid made a tent of her fingers, pressing the tips together, and brought herself by some effort to quiet.

“Breaca, I loved your brother when he was Bán; he was an exceptional child. I grieved for his loss and grieved more when we found he was alive and had lost his soul to the legions. I celebrated and could love him again now that he is Valerius but rides amongst us, but know this: your brother is a dreamer and has been from the day of his birth. If he had remained as Bán and had never been taken, he would be Elder of Mona when his father is gone. It was for this he was conceived and raised and he showed all the promise of its fulfilment as a child.”

“But he’s a warrior. You’ve seen him fight. He shines in the way Caradoc did, in the way Cygfa still does; or brighter than either.”

“He shines as you do, in fact, and for that we must be grateful that the gods see further than the plans of the elders. Bán would have been an exceptional dreamer, but he would not have known enough to destroy the Ninth, or perhaps to help us destroy the remainder of Paulinus’ legions. The gods have shaped him for the need of his time. Very few men could have taken up the burdens he has done and come through them with heart and soul intact. He is a remarkable man and he fights as a remarkable warrior, but he is a dreamer first and a warrior second, and he will never lead the greater mass of the Eceni into battle.”

There was relief in that, too, if only for Valerius’ sake.

“Who then?” Breaca said. “Who else is left? Cygfa has never shown any facility for dreaming, and Dubornos is too damaged. Ardacos is of the she-bear, but if you are right about them, then he can never be—”

“Breaca…” Airmid was not smiling now, nor close to laughter. She leaned forward and put both palms flat on the ground on either side of the sunlight. Her face was luminous in the old light. “Listen to me. Think. Who was made Warrior of Mona younger than any yet? Who did the elder grandmother lead through the long-nights after the old woman was dead? Who carries the wildfire that can weld together green youths with no battle experience and carry them so that they come through the fight alive? Who has this morning spoken with the dead in a grave mound, and before that in the caves of the western mountains, and before that on her long-nights? Who has been pushed beyond endurance and should be left to live in peace, but that we need you to lead us, and we need you healed?”

Think.

The Sun Hound had said the same and Breaca had not thought. She could not think now.

The ring dazzled her. She covered it with her hand and looked up. Airmid’s gaze was a slant of sun across her face. Breaca looked away, at the earth of the wall.

Airmid said, “If it’s too much, if you can’t do it, we can still ask your brother.”

“No. It’s not that. I can do it. I want to do it, I just need time to think.”

Not only to think; she needed time simply to listen to the thronging ghosts that came to her then.

The elder grandmother was first, saying again, more gently, her words of the long-nights. The blood of the ancestors runs in your line, else you would not dream as you do, and there again, decades later, standing in the corner of Breaca’s workshop, directing her in the making of heron-spears that only a dreamer-smith should make; and here now, in the shifting space of the grave mound, saying, If we had named you dreamer early, would you have made of yourself the warrior that you are?

The ancestor-dreamer followed and made the same offer as before, redolent now with other meaning: I promise you nothing, only that I will be with you. The air crackled with dry, caustic laughter.

Then her father was there, Eburovic, solid in the bulwark of his smithy, making her a blade with the serpent-spear on the pommel, and matching against her in play-fight with the ancestor-blade of his lineage, which bore the feeding she-bear. He was real to her now, in Cunobelin’s grave mound, as he had not been when his blade had been lifted to moonlight from the dark of Briga’s altar.

She reached for him and felt the touch of his smile. “We sent your blade to Mona with a warrior of the Coritani,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Don’t be. I asked for it. There are things yet to be done with it. For now, enough that you know who you are. He was everything the Sun Hound was not: an open, clear, straightforward man, shining in his honesty; she loved him, and he was dead.

The dead came less distinctly after Eburovic, or she was less able to see them; Macha came to her and Gunovic and Maroc and a dozen other elder dreamers of Mona, each one less tangible than the last.

In time, there was only sunlight, and Airmid, living dreamer to the Boudica, who was solid and real and sat very still, as if breathing might break something too fragile to risk with a breath.

Breaca said, “Why did you not tell me before?”

“In the beginning, I thought you knew. How could you not when all of your life has pointed to this? Later, when it was clear that you didn’t…” Airmid looked away for the first time, and back again. “I love you. I would not burden you with more than you can bear.”

“And now?”

“Now you know who you are; and the choice is still yours. You don’t have to take this if you don’t want it. The Boudica leads to victory because she is that victory, not because she has been cajoled into leadership, however benignly.”

“Benignly…?” Breaca pressed her palms to her face. The ancestor had been last of the ancient dead to leave. In the aftershine of her parting, a war spear cracked twice over and became crooked. The two-headed serpents of its haft writhed out and wove over it, staring to past and to future: Briga’s sign, before it was ever hers; god of war, bringer of life and death, hope and loss, holder of past and present, and all that stands outside time.

A single unchallenged god-voice said, Boudica.

“Airmid?” Breaca reached out, blindly. Long, lean fingers caught her own and held them, offering strength and an anchor in the present. Breaca leaned back and, as they had done in childhood, they lifted each other to standing. The patch of sunlight lay between them. They came together awkwardly, as strangers, afraid of what they might find. Breaca tilted her head to the shoulder that was offered. Airmid kissed the place on her crown where the Sun Hound had placed his hand. The feeling now was all of heat, passing down into the earth beneath their feet.

“You’re back,” Airmid said. “Welcome.” Her voice was something to revel in, to enter and never leave.

“I am back. And I do want to lead the war host. I always did. It was only that I thought I wasn’t fit.”

“You are fit now. The warriors will see it, I promise you, down to the greenest of untested youths.”

Breaca eased herself free. She stooped to pick up her knife. “It still may be too late. I left the field of battle early. If the warriors of the war host think I’m lost and have already accepted Valerius or Cunomar, we can’t undo what’s done. Would you come down with me to see?”