Once Every Never Part 22

Clare was thunderstruck.

Images of the Bartlow Hills, a group of three hillocks-tumuli, as Milo and Al had called them-swam up on the screen. The middle image rotated at a stately pace, giving Clare a three-dimensional aerial view of the barrows. She gasped, astonished at how closely the contours of the landmarks seemed to correspond with the Battersea s.h.i.+eld. Milo overlaid a transparent image of the s.h.i.+eld on the rotating topography and Clare could see how the high-domed b.u.mp, or "boss" as Milo called it, in the middle of the ancient artifact, and the two smaller, swirling roundels top and bottom, over-laid the gra.s.s-covered humps almost exactly.

"X marks the spot," Milo murmured, calling up an information page on the site as the girls stared at the monitor. "Wanna know what's even weirder? Those three hills just happen to be the only ones left out of a whole group of barrows that were plowed under to make way for an old railway line back at the turn of the century. The three Boudiccan Tumuli-that's what I'm gonna call them-remained untouched when the others were levelled. Almost as if they were-"

"Protected by magic!" Al and Clare exclaimed in unison.

"Right. And nowadays the English Heritage Society doesn't let developers just go around levelling those suckers, so there they sit. I'm willing to bet that our redheaded girl slumbers deep beneath, just waiting to be found."

Clare s.h.i.+vered. "That is not exactly an unchilling prospect."

"Nice use of the double negative." Al elbowed Clare and grinned.

"Thank you."

They could see from the aerial shot of the tumuli that a wooden staircase had been constructed up one side of the highest hill so that tourists wis.h.i.+ng to climb to its summit could do so without contributing to erosion. Other than that, the barrows looked relatively untouched.

Queen Boudicca's burial site.

Clare tore her gaze away from the screen and hugged her elbows. In the back of her mind she thought she heard a throaty voice, like the harsh croak of a raven, calling her name. She knew what she was going to do. What she had to do.

21.

"You don't have to go back again. You know Milo's right."

"I know he's probably right. I need to be sure."

"Why? So you can go tell Morholt where to dig?"

Clare sighed and looked at Al, who stood between her and the rosewood box. Al only ever got this snappish when she was truly freaked out about something. She wasn't angry with Clare, she was afraid for her.

"No, Al," she said. "I need to be sure so that I can tell Morholt to dig anywhere but there. You know he's not going to give up on this anytime soon. And if we know-absolutely know-the exact whereabouts of the tomb, we can do everything possible to protect that place. We just need to make sure it's the right place. I need to make sure."

"Are you really able to direct your s.h.i.+mmering that closely, Clare?" Milo asked from where he leaned on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his chest and a faint frown on his face. He wasn't happy about the idea of Clare taking another s.h.i.+mmer trip either, she could tell, but he also hadn't said anything to stop her. She kind of appreciated that. "I mean, do you think you can manage to hit the barrows at the right time?"

"I can try. Hey-the last time, Al said 'flaming arrows.' And what did I get?"

"Yeah," Al muttered. "Really sorry about that ..."

Suddenly Milo was across the room and gripping Clare's arms. Hard. "Listen to me, Clare." His stare seemed to stab through to the back of her skull. "You listen to me. I'm not going to stop you from doing this. It's your gift and you have every right to use it as you see fit. I also know that you seem to need to go back there for ... well, for whatever reason. That's fine. But you'd d.a.m.ned well better promise me you'll be careful. You've been luckier than you've had any right to expect, but I don't think you can exactly place your faith in people who see you as some kind of blood-magic vending machine."

Clare stared back into the depths of those blue-sky eyes. Milo was worried about her. Deeply, pa.s.sionately worried about her. And it thrilled her more than just a little to know that. "One quick trip. That's all this is. And it's the last."

Here's hoping those aren't stupid famous last words. She told herself to shut up and offered a rea.s.suring smile to Milo.

"I promise."

THE FACT THAT Clare did sort of wind up in the right place was actually pretty astonis.h.i.+ng to her. Maybe she really was starting to figure out how to direct her s.h.i.+mmering. That thought did nothing to comfort her, however, once she realized that she'd rematerialized not just at Boudicca's tomb ... but in Boudicca's tomb.

As she felt herself growing heavier, more solid than the air around her, Clare realized that the darkness of her in-between-time journey wasn't dissipating. For a moment she panicked, thinking she was stuck-caught between worlds. But then she realized that, although she might not be able to see anything, her sense of smell was working just fine-and it was telling her that she was underground. Clare breathed deeply, inhaling the cold, earthy air and trying to calm her jangling nerves.

Slowly, as her eyes adjusted, she became aware that she was in a pa.s.sageway, and that light, dim and flickering, was coming from somewhere in front of her. And sound.

Singing.

Clare moved toward it slowly, silent as a ghost in the gloom of the underground tunnel. She hugged the rough-hewn stone and earthen walls, stepping carefully on an uneven floor puddled with shadows. Up ahead the corridor seemed to widen, and she could make out the shape of an archway leading to a chamber.

Eerie, broken music echoed around her and Clare s.h.i.+vered in apprehension.

Don't panic, she told herself, you're invisible.

She reached the mouth of the tunnel and saw that it opened up into a round, domed grave chamber, lit by torches on poles that cast an uncertain, flickering glow-just enough for Clare to make out someone-a man-standing in front of a body laid out upon a stone bier. He was singing. And it was obvious from the tight, strained quality of his rich voice that he was also weeping. But even through the heartbreaking pall of sorrow, Clare recognized the voice.

"Connal?" she whispered.

Instantly, the ragged music stopped in his throat. Connal lifted his head and turned slowly to look at Clare where she stood in the doorway. Beneath a plain woollen cloak he still wore only breeches, a sleeveless sheepskin vest, and a fox-fur armband. His torc was a simple double strand of twisted silver and the matched pair of silver fox-and-raven cuffs still circled his muscle-corded wrists. Blood and dirt covered his hands and arms and dried blood striped his face in rust-coloured streaks. His auburn hair had mostly come loose from his leather tie-back and it hung around his face in tangles. His left arm hung awkwardly, and Clare saw that he bore a shoulder wound that was seeping fresh crimson through a tattered bandage already stained dark.

Clare s.h.i.+fted her gaze to Connal's handsome face; he looked years older than when she'd seen him last. She wondered fleetingly if a great deal of time had pa.s.sed since her previous trip, but as she looked more closely at him she dismissed the thought. It was really only fatigue and grief, carved into the planes of his face and painted in dark smudges under his eyes, that made his gaze seem a hollow thing.

"Clarinet?" he murmured. "Are you really here?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm here."

In three long strides he had his good arm wrapped around her, so tight she could barely breathe. He clung to her the way a drowning man might cling to a piece of driftwood. He smelled of acrid smoke and earth and iron.

"I thought you would have forsaken me along with the G.o.ddess. You tried to warn us. You tried to warn me ..." His voice was choked with anguish.

Clare put a hand up to stroke his tangled hair, shus.h.i.+ng him as if he were a hurt child. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here."

He shook his head under her hand. "I didn't listen. I should have listened to you. You saved my life ... and now it seems that I live on only so that I might bear witness to the death of everything I ever held dear."

"Connal." Clare pried herself out of his embrace and turned his head so that he would look at her. "What's happened? Tell me."

His mouth worked as he struggled to put grief into words. "The queen is dead."

Clare knew that already. That was why he was here, wasn't it? In her tomb?

"She did not die alone."

Connal stepped away and looked back over his shoulder. As Clare followed his gaze it suddenly felt as though her own heart would crack in two. The body on the bier was not the one she'd been expecting.

"Comorra!" she cried. "No!"

Clare ran to the stone slab where the Iceni princess had been laid out. She was richly dressed in a gown of deep russet, a thin gold torc around her neck and silver bracelets and anklets circling her limbs. Her cloak was held together at the shoulder with a plain, undecorated clasp. Because, of course, she'd given her raven brooch away. To someone she'd thought would protect her. Clare swallowed painfully, her throat closed with emotion.

"Oh, Comorra ..."

A tiny, sad smile lifted the corners of the princess's lips and her small, smooth hands were curved around the hilt of the sword that lay on her breast. The blade gleamed dully in the ruddy torchlight, its edge dinted in places. Had Comorra died in battle? It didn't look as though she'd suffered any mortal wounds, although it was hard to tell in the dimness.

Clare felt the p.r.i.c.kling of tears behind her eyes. "What happened?" she asked. "I thought you were going to run away together. How did she die?" This wasn't the way it was supposed to have happened. Comorra was supposed to have lived-to have fled into the west with Connal. That was why Clare had saved him. So that he could save her. So that they could be together.

"Comorra would not leave with me," Connal said. "Not if there was a chance that the Iceni might win."

"But I told her-"

"She wanted to believe in her mother so much. And, in truth, Boudicca's army seemed unstoppable. At first. But the Roman is a patient animal. Seutonius simply waited for her to make a mistake. And then another and another-and then the tide of the battle began to turn. Soon it became obvious, even to Boudicca and the chiefs, that we were facing not only defeat but utter destruction. Our lines-such as they were, there was never any discipline in our ranks-collapsed and it swiftly became a bloodbath. Comorra agreed to run with me then. Only it was too late. It was chaos. Thousands upon thousands dead and dying. We had to climb over the bodies of our own to flee the field."

Clare watched as Connal's eyes tracked back and forth as if he was watching the whole, horrific scene playing out in his head. Her heart broke for him.

"It was madness ..." He struggled to continue. "I tried to stay with the princess, but we were separated in the confusion. The Romans won, of course. Just as you said they would. But it didn't end there. In the days after the ma.s.sacre they pursued us. Hunting the rest of the Iceni ... Hunting Boudicca. We fled into the forests singly and in pairs. Trying to find our way home ... thinking we could make a last stand." Connal's eyes squeezed shut in anguish. "But we were so few. At last, after three days of running and hiding, I found my way back home. The town was deserted. I made my way to the Great Hall. I knew that if Comorra had made it back alive, that is where I would find her. And I did."

Somehow Clare knew what he would say next. "She wasn't the only one there, was she?"

Connal shook his head, his eyes pools of despair. Tears shone on his lashes in the torchlight. "Boudicca was sitting in her chair in front of the council fire. I do not know how long she had been dead but Comorra found her, a cup of hemlock in her cold hand. As I walked through the doors, Comorra was swallowing the last of the poison that Boudicca had left behind."

"Why would she do that?"

"Grief. Despair ... She was all alone. I should have been there ..."

"Connal-"

"I tried to stop her, but she'd already ..." He closed his eyes and shook his head so hard the tears flew from his cheeks. "A moment earlier-a moment, Clarinet-and I could have ... I was too late."

"It's not your fault, Connal."

"It is!" He slashed a hand fiercely through the air. "I never should have let her go into battle. You told me what would happen. I should have tied her to her chariot and taken her into the west whether she willed it or no. I should have died first before she had to see what she saw. It should have been me that drank from that cup. Comorra was ... I ..."

Connal's head dropped forward and his hair curtained his face. Clare felt as though an invisible hand was squeezing her heart. Comorra had loved Connal. And now Clare knew that, whatever had happened between her and the Druid prince, it was nothing in the face of the truth that Connal had also loved Comorra in return. And he'd never told her.

She tried to swallow the painful lump in her throat, but it just wouldn't go away. Tears gathered along her lashes, turning the torch flames to rainbow spangles as she tried to blink them back. Connal mustered a smile and took Clare by the shoulders, gazing down at her.

"I'm sorry, Clarinet ..."

She shook her head. "It's just ... I'll miss her. That's all." That wasn't all. She wouldn't just miss her. She would mourn her. She was supposed to have saved her. She wiped a sleeve across her face. "What will you do, now?"

Connal looked at her with a strange, aching longing in his eyes. And a kind of wildness she'd never seen in him before. He shrugged and turned toward the archway. "What should I do?" he said. "I've said goodbye to my princess. Now I must go and bid farewell to my queen. And then ..." He shrugged again and spun away from her, stalking down the darkened pa.s.sageway as if it were a brightly lit hall.

Clare turned, stopping for one last look at Comorra. Somehow she just couldn't bring herself to say goodbye. She followed Connal through the tunnel and out into what must have been the main burial chamber under the highest of the three hills. And suddenly she knew why Stuart Morholt was so d.a.m.ned eager to discover the whereabouts of Queen Boudicca's tomb.

THE FLAMES OF A DOZEN pitch torches painted the curving walls of the high-domed burial chamber in lurid swaths of light and shadows. Everything had a sheen of orange and red. And gold. There was gold everywhere; an absolute bounty of priceless treasure. Piled against the walls were chests and baskets filled with golden torcs and necklaces, earrings and arm rings, bracelets and belts and brooches. There was silver too, and bronze. Jewels.

More riches, Clare was sure, than even Stuart Morholt had dreamed about.

It was a treasure hunter's dream. And an archaeologist's.

Everything Maggie or Dr. Jenkins would ever have wanted to know about the life and times of an Iron Age Celtic warrior queen could have been discovered right there in that one place.

Weapons and armour lay stacked in neat piles and a dismantled war chariot lay off to one side. Shallow wicker and reed baskets and trays sat heaped with food and wax-sealed wine and beer jugs stood next to drinking mugs and goblets. A chest filled to the brim with rich garments stood next to a wooden crate containing soft leather boots and slippers. There was an ivory-coloured box that looked as though it contained cosmetics or toiletries, and a bronze comb and a mirror lay on top of that. There was even a brazier, provisioned with unused charcoal, and a cauldron that looked a lot like a soup pot. The Iceni must have prepared the tomb for their queen well in advance because it seemed to contain everything that Boudicca could possibly have need of in her next life. Including the companions.h.i.+p of her late husband.

A large slab of polished stone stood alone among the grave goods, on top of which sat a sealed urn decorated with elaborate, swirling patterns.

Prasutagus, Clare thought. He's here, too.

On the other side of the chamber, there was another slab of stone. And on it, laid out as if sleeping peacefully, was the body of Queen Boudicca of the Iceni. Clare wondered for an instant why Boudicca's body had not been committed to the flames as her husband's had been. But she already knew the answer: time. With the Romans hunting the rebel Iceni, there had been no time for funeral bonfires. Boudicca and Comorra had been buried as they were. Probably Tasca, too, under the third barrow.

She approached the bier hesitantly, as if Boudicca might suddenly sit upright and accuse her, and rightly so, of trespa.s.sing. The stone surface was richly draped with furs and the queen lay upon a flowing mantle of her own glorious mane of red hair. Unbound and brushed to gleaming, it reached almost to her knees. Her hands, strong and pale, were wrapped, as Comorra's had been, around the hilt of her sword, whose blade bore the deep grooves of hard-fought battles. The queen's feet were bare and calloused, but gold shone on her wrists and ankles.

And around her neck was the great golden torc.

That makes no sense, Clare thought, frowning. It was called the Snettisham Torc because it was found in Snettisham. The neck ring had been discovered stashed in a hole in the ground near the north coast of Norfolk along with a whole bunch of other treasure. But if it was here now, in a grave that had never been discovered, never been plundered, then how was that possible?

Clare looked over to where Connal stood at the foot of Boudicca's bier. His haggard face was like a stone mask, except for his lips, which moved in a silent flood of words Clare couldn't make out. His dark eyes burned as he stared at the queen. Finally he took a step forward and removed one of the two matching silver bracelets that encircled his wrists. He kissed the silver cuff in his hand, and after mouthing another string of unheard words, placed the beautifully wrought ornament on the cold, polished stone at Boudicca's feet.

"It will be my punishment," he murmured. "For serving the queen so blindly in life, my soul will return here after I die to serve her forever in the beyond. For good or ill."

Clare thought he was being a little harsh on himself, but it wasn't the time or place to point that out. Besides, it wasn't as if his spirit was actually tethered to the silver bracelet. It was a gesture, she thought. Nothing more.

He walked over to Clare and held out a hand. "I am finished here and now I will leave this place, Clarinet. Will you come with me? Boudicca's chiefs will come soon to close up the tomb. They will pile rocks over the entrance and cover it with earth and turf. And, with the help of Lla.s.sar's enchantments, perhaps the Romans will never find it."

No, Clare thought. They never will.

Connal plucked one of the flaring firebrands from its sconce and led the way out of the chamber, Clare following close behind. He led her down a pa.s.sageway opposite the one they'd come through, into another, smaller chamber that held the body of Tasca, and then out into the chill black night.

Lla.s.sar waited with his same bulky travelling pack slung over his shoulder.

"Hey," Clare greeted him. "Mr. Smith."

Lla.s.sar blinked at her and then inclined his enormous, leo-nine head. "Lady Clare," he said. "May the G.o.ddess smile upon you."

"Yeah. You too."

"Perhaps one day, again. For now, she turns her face from us, I think."

If Connal was surprised to see that Lla.s.sar and Clare knew each other, he didn't register it. In fact, Clare thought, he's not really registering much in the emotion department. She worried about him. He seemed shocky or post-traumatic or something. His behaviour in the grave chamber with the bracelet and Boudicca struck her as odd.

Lla.s.sar hefted the pack higher on his shoulder and nodded at it, saying to Connal, "I finished it last night. It will keep her safe. After we close up the barrow, we'll take it to the Great River and offer it to the G.o.ds in their domain that they may mark her pa.s.sage."

Clare recognized now the contours of the bronze s.h.i.+eld she'd seen Lla.s.sar holding high above his head in her inaugural s.h.i.+mmering. She remembered how it had been that first sight of Connal, the sound of him saying her name, that made her want to explore this world. It seemed like a thousand years had pa.s.sed since then. In a sense, she supposed it had. "Is that the grave s.h.i.+eld?" She nodded at the pack. "Are you guys going to go throw it in the river?"

Connal and Lla.s.sar regarded her with mild surprise.