Once Every Never (21 page)

Suddenly a burly, long-haired warrior wearing a checkered cloak and carrying an enormous two-headed axe went rushing by—within a foot of passing through what to him would have seemed empty space. Clare deked out of the way. However the magic worked, suddenly appearing out of thin air to a guy like that couldn’t be good, and so she headed for a stand of trees on a bit of high ground about thirty yards off. The vantage point would give her a good, safely distant place from which to gather intel, even though she was pretty sure this time-jump wouldn’t give her any clues to Boudicca’s grave site location. When she reached the trees she froze: someone was there, off to one side, crouching in the shadows. And Clare could feel their eyes on her.

She swung around—and let out her breath in a sigh of relief. “Comorra.”

She was alive! Ever since Clare had witnessed her capture by the Roman soldier on the riverbank she’d feared the worst for the princess. But Comorra’s tunic was torn and the hem of her skirt was in tatters. A blossoming purplish bruise shadowed her cheek and blood seeped from one of her nostrils. Although her eyes were empty of emotion, tears ran down her cheeks, leaving gleaming white trails in the dirt that smudged her pale skin.

“Comorra?” Clare knelt down beside her and put a hand gently on her shoulder. “Are you all right? That Roman … The soldier. Did he …?”

Comorra held up the little sword Clare had seen her earn on the night of her Warrior Making. The sharp edge of the blade gleamed red in the moonlight. “He tried.”

Horrified, Clare put her arms around her. “Tell me, Clare,” Comorra murmured in a soft, small voice. “Can you fly?”

“What?” Clare relaxed her hug a little and looked down at the princess who huddled against her like a poor wounded bird. Clare smoothed Comorra’s hair with one hand while she gently pried the sword from her white-knuckled grip with the other. “What do you mean?”

“I have heard that there are those of the tylwyth teg who can grow wings and fly if they wish … can you fly? Like Andrasta? Like her ravens?”

Clare felt a chill run up her spine at the mention of the goddess. “Uh … sort of. I guess. Not on my own I can’t, but we—in my world—we have … um … great big chariots with wings. They take us places. But I don’t think that’s what you mean. I did try hang-gliding once, two summers ago … that was pretty cool.”

Comorra tilted her head at Clare, not understanding.

Clare gestured with outspread arms, trying to put the experience into words that the Iceni girl could understand. “It’s like strapping on a big pair of wings and jumping off a cliff into the wind. It picks you up and you soar. Just like a bird …” Clare remembered the experience vividly. The sheer terror and the absolute, exhilarating freedom of it.

“It sounds wonderful.” Comorra smiled a small, dreamy little smile.

“Yeah,” Clare nodded. “It was pretty cool. I guess that’s the closest I’ve ever come to really flying.”

“I’ve dreamed of that …” Comorra snuffled a bit and shook her head. “Of finding some way to take wing and soar above all this. Ever since the Legions came to this island, all I have wanted to do was to find a way to fly up into the sky. Where I would be so far away that I couldn’t even tell which army was which. And it would no longer matter to me.” She scrubbed at her face with a corner of her sleeve, wiping away the tears and most of the dirt. When she looked up at Clare she seemed to come back to herself and smiled a wan but genuine smile. “Is that silly of me, do you think?”

“I don’t think so. But, then, I can be pretty silly sometimes, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask.”

Comorra laughed a little.

“Besides, silly’s not so bad.”

“No.” Comorra turned her head and gazed through the trees to where her mother’s harsh, strident tones rang through the air. She was accompanied by a chorus of steadily rising shouts and cries from the gathering throng. “But
that
is …”

“Yeah.
That
can’t be good.” Clare frowned, already knowing the outcome.

“War is never good.” Comorra shook her head sadly. “Despite what my mother would say.”

The girls watched as battle chariots and a few fast-running men and women split off from the fringes of the throng, heading in all directions.

“Where are they going?”

“To the other tribes. To gather as many of our people as will come to fight the Romans.”

“Comorra, what exactly happened in Londinium?” Clare asked. She knew what Al had told her. What the history books said. But she doubted it was the whole story.

“We went to the governor’s
mansio
. It was a trap. Seneca goaded my mother into refusing to pay any of the king’s debts by heaping ridiculous amounts of interest on top of them and then calling her honour into question. She would have paid back the original loans—she
would
have! But what Seneca wanted … it would have paupered us as a tribe.”

“This Seneca guy sounds like a creep.”

“He is a loathsome toad. When we arrived, he was toying with my father’s torc. My mother had given it to the Romans on the night of my father’s funeral. He dangled it from his fingers as though it were a worthless bauble and then, later that night, he put it around the neck of one of the serving girls. She giggled and pranced around in it like a fool. Seneca told her that it suited her—like a collar for a good dog.”

“And your mom didn’t just kill him on the spot?” Clare was aghast. She could only imagine the kind of humiliation the proud queen would have felt—or maybe that had been the idea. Maybe Connal had been right when he’d told her that by presenting the torc to the Romans, Boudicca had probably started a war. Seneca’s actions had most likely sealed the deal—and maybe that had been the queen’s intentions all along.

“My mother would not brook such an insult, of course.”

Right
, Clare thought.
Of course
…

“We tried to leave, but when we got to the courtyard the Roman soldiers surrounded us. They took my mother out into the public square and …” Comorra squeezed her eyes shut but then opened them again after a moment, as if willing herself not to cry. “They chained her to a post and they flogged her.”

Clare winced. She remembered what Boudicca’s back and shoulders had looked like. It hadn’t been any kind of punishment at all. It had been torture, plain and simple, for the sick amusement of a bunch of decadent Romans. And it had been a message to the Iceni. One that had backfired rather spectacularly.

“Mother didn’t even cry out,” Comorra said with pride and awe. And horror. “Then everything turned to chaos. The Roman citizens—and even some of our own people—went mad with blood lust. They cheered each stroke of the whip. Now I understand why the Romans have the coliseum in Rome. They are a vicious people …”

“How did you guys get away?” Clare asked.

“There were also those in the mob who were loyal to Boudicca. Those who had been loyal to Prasutagus, too. Some of them rebelled, protesting the treatment of the queen. They set fires, broke through to where my mother was chained, and set her free. Connal went in search of Seneca’s serving wench so that he could take back my father’s torc.”

Clare preferred not to contemplate how he’d achieved that. She preferred to think he’d simply asked politely. She doubted it … but she refused to give it any further thought. There were some things that she wished to remain blissfully ignorant about. But at least she knew now how Connal had come to possess the torc he’d handed back to the queen that night.

“My mother’s chiefs fought to get past the gates to our chariots,” Comorra continued. “Many of them fell. I escaped with Tasca, but we got separated in the madness. I tried to go back but the soldiers … they were merciless. They cut our folk down like wheat as they fled. And so I ran.”

“Down to the river,” Clare murmured. “I know. That’s when we first met.”

Comorra looked at her in vague puzzlement.

“I mean—that’s when we first met
tonight
. By the river.”

The princess nodded. “And when that soldier caught me and tried to take me back to Londinium … I fought.”

“I guess you won.”

Comorra shook her head a little. “He lost.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not being able to help you.”

The two girls sat there for a long moment, silent amid the rage roaring through the night just beyond the shelter of the trees. But eventually Clare noticed that Comorra seemed to have gone utterly limp. And where her arm rested against Comorra’s ribs, she felt something wet. Warm. When she pulled her hand away it was sticky with blood.

“Oh God! You’re hurt!” Clare eased the girl back against the trunk of the tree. “Why didn’t you say something? Wait here—I’ll get help!”

Comorra’s head nodded forward and she looked as though she might faint.

“Hang on,”
Clare pleaded. “Just … hang on until I can bring help!”

She leapt up and ran, breaking from the cover of the trees and standing on the lip of the little rise, waving her arms over her head.

“Help!” she shouted. “I need help over here!”

The men and women rushing past ignored Clare as if she wasn’t even there. Which, of course, she wasn’t. Just as she had tried to attract Boudicca and Connal’s attention when Comorra first got into trouble, Clare was useless. Helpless.

No. Not this time
. She was not about to let Comorra bleed to death just because she wasn’t supposed to exist in that time. Clare’s mind spun. If she suddenly appeared to one of the frothing-mad mob members she’d likely get cut down. Frantic, she started to run. In the near distance, she could see the hunched shapes of the thatch-roofed houses of the town. Maybe one or two stragglers were left in Venta Icenorum that she could approach for help.

She slowed when she saw a familiar figure stalking past one of the buildings just outside the town. It was Llassar—the Druid blacksmith—the one who was responsible for everything that had happened to her in the last few days. He had a bulky travelling pack slung on one shoulder and his long cloak flapped in his wake. The singed tangle of his hair and beard wreathed his broad face like a mane and Clare saw the gleam of a sword hilt at his side. The master smith walked with long, loping strides, and Clare had to really sprint to catch up with him.

She ran down the little hill and through the yards surrounding the stables—and when Llassar paused for a moment to shift the weight of his pack, she made her move. Clare lunged down the path and slapped the palm of her hand flat against the huge man’s burly chest. It was like sticking her finger in an industrial-wattage light socket. She flew through the air on contact and Llassar flew in the opposite direction, a look of extreme shock and surprise on his sun-browned, soot-stained face.

“Mighty Cernunnos!” he swore, as he landed hard on his hip in the dust. He shook his head and looked around, his gaze suddenly snapping up to zero in sharply on Clare’s face. His breathing was quick and shallow but he moved slowly, warily, as he got back up to his feet. His eyes never left Clare’s face as he backed up a step and moved his hand to the hilt of his sword.

“Please,” Clare said, holding out her hands, palms up. “Please, Mr. Smith—Llassar—please don’t be afraid. I am … shit. What the hell did she call me again? Oh, right! I am
tylwyth teg
.”

Llassar’s eyes went saucer-wide and his nostrils flared, giving him the look of a startled muskox.

“I am a friend of Princess Comorra.”

“Comorra …”

“I was there the night you made her brooch. The raven pin with the red eye.”

Llassar gaped at Clare open-mouthed.

“The stone. The red stone. Remember? I helped you choose it. Not—I mean, hey, you were really bagged that night—not that you wouldn’t have probably picked that one anyway, I just gave you a nudge. I’m Clare. Clarinet. At least that’s what Connal calls me but, I mean, it’s really just ‘Clare’ and …” She was babbling, she knew, but she had to make him understand before he either ran for the hills or ran her through with his sword. “… and I’m here because I need your help.”

“Andrasta’s wings,” Llassar whispered. He stood perfectly still. And then, after a long moment, he took a tentative step toward her. “You … you are
real
.” His voice was full of wonder. “I thought Comorra had been fooling with me …”

“She
told
you about me?” Clare was surprised. Comorra must have trusted the blacksmith a lot.

He nodded his head slowly, his eyes never leaving her. “She did. I didn’t believe. That is, I wasn’t sure. But I can see you, too!”

He reached out with one huge, square, dirty-nailed finger toward Clare. As he touched her cheek another electric-shock crackled in the air—only tiny this time, like carpet static in a dry house. He touched her hair and her forehead and then poked a bit at her shoulder.

“Dude.” Clare rolled her eyes. “I’m
real
.”

Llassar tilted his head. Growing up, Clare had had a beagle named Reggie that used to do the same thing when she talked to him—as if he could understand what she was saying, but just had to listen very carefully. She couldn’t blame Llassar—she’d had to do that too at first. And some of her words doubtless didn’t translate into the Iceni tongue. Clare made a mental note to stop using expressions like “dude.”

“I never really—I mean—I thought …” Llassar stumbled over his words, searching, it seemed, for the right thing to say to a being from the Otherworld. “I fear you have chosen an … awkward time to visit the House of Iceni.” His gaze went to the distance where Boudicca still stood riling up the locals. But then he turned back to Clare and held out his hands, palms up in a sort of formal greeting. “Forgive me my crude behaviour, Shining One. And welcome.”

“It’s just ‘Clare.’ I’m not really all that shiny at the moment. But, y’know, whatever …” Clare sighed. This was getting
way
too complicated. Now there were
three
people who knew of her existence, and all the while Milo’s voice repeatedly echoed through her head:
“Don’t monkey with the time stream!”

“Clare …” Llassar rolled the sound of her name around his mouth.