19
‘Gemma!' Elen's cry echoed across the field. Her grazing horse threw up his head and after a moment cantered towards her, thrusting his nose into her hands. ‘Where has she gone? She's disappeared. You knew that would happen!' She was distraught.
‘Don't be upset, my dear.' Branwen put her arm round Elen's shoulders. ‘She has gone home. She was not yours to keep. She would not have flourished here, and she has someone waiting for her on the other side, someone who has missed her grievously.'
Elen pushed her horse aside and ran a few steps over the grass. ‘But where is she? On the other side of what? The stream? I can't see her!'
Branwen shook her head. ‘Gemma lives in another world, my Elen. A world you can never visit.'
‘You mean she's dead!'
‘No, no, not dead, but gone from us to Annwn, to the land of faery, to—'
Elen spun round. ‘You told me my mother had gone to Annwn.'
‘No, child, I told you that to comfort you when you were small. Your mother is in the Christian heaven. Annwn is nearer to this land than that.'
‘Can you see it? This place. How do you know where she is?' Her voice was sharp; accusing.
‘I know, cariad, because I have learned to read the land, the voice of the wind, the cry of the mountain birds, they all speak of other worlds and other times.'
‘But if she belongs somewhere else, how did Gemma get here?'
Branwen glanced towards the spot where Gemma had vanished. The slight haze over the grass had gone, leaving sunlight and shadows. The stallion was staring after the little dog, his eyes huge, his ears laid back, ready to flee. ‘Your horse senses it. Horses always know where there are special places, places of transition, where the gods play their games of chance with us humans and with one another. Sometimes there are keepers at the gates, sometimes we see otherworldly beings at a ford, and on the banks of lakes and the great oceans and sometimes, as in this case, there is an unguarded entrance to other worlds where people and animals can cross if they know the way, or sometimes they are lost and enter the kingdoms unaware. Sometimes they never find their way home.'
Elen shivered. But now she was intrigued. ‘I want to read the land and hear the voice in the wind. Will you teach me?'
‘I'll teach you, cariad, if you have the will to learn, but first you have other destinies to follow. The child you carry in your belly will be the mother of a race of kings. Kings of a nation that doesn't yet exist.'
Branwen patted the horse who had moved closer to them, rubbing his forehead, soothing his fears. ‘The destinies of all your children will be special. But, for now, you are the wife of a man who has ambition and strength and a destiny of his own,' she went on, her voice low. She hesitated. ‘But one day, my Elen, you will be free to live your own dream. Then I will come to find you.' She gave Elen's shoulder a squeeze.
‘And you say I am carrying a child?' It was as if Elen had only heard that last sentence.
‘Did you not realise?' Branwen smiled. ‘When you return to Segontium you will be accompanied by two children.'
As predicted by Branwen, Elen's second daughter, -Sevira, was born barely eleven months after her sister. Elen was still in the south, at Venta Silurum with her father. Only after she had recovered from the birth and the Christmas -celebrations hadcome and gone once more, and at last the roads hadopened after the winter snows, did Elen return to Segontium with her two infant daughters. Under Branwen's guidance she had gained at least a little patience and fortitude, learned to read the land and to hear the voice of the wind, to speak to plants and listen to the birds and the trees. There was one thing she did not want to learn and that was to read the water in the -scrying bowl, and Branwen did not offer to teach her. By the time shereturned north, without -Branwen, she had learned that she must be content to remain, at least for now, at -Segontium. She had married a soldier; she had known that involved him travelling to different parts of Britannia with the army as -pockets of unrest appeared more and more -frequently, the result of incursions from tribes from Hibernia and -Caledonia, from northern Gaul and Germania. The hardest lesson of all had been to accept that she must live with only a part of the heart of the man she had thought would love her, and that to keep herself and her family safe she must be content to remain at home.
She and Macsen lived together amicably enough, at least outwardly, when he was back at the base at her side, but their relationship had changed. The easy banter had become strained, the reliance she had placed in him had gone, as had any feeling of awe. She was her own mistress now, as Branwen had taught her. And she was the wife of the commander of the fort, who was head of the armies and Comes Britanniarum in official charge of the entire province with, supposedly, the direct ear of the emperor– the emperor who still did not respond to requests for more support. But she was also a princess of her native land, her royal blood descended from the gods of ancient times. Carefully managing the situation, she had at her command untold numbers of native troops, the hosts of Britannia. She was Elen Luyddog.
Scarce more than a year after she re-joined Macsen at -Segontium the longed-for son appeared and was named -Flavius -Victor, like his elder half-brother, and after him came in short order three more boys: Antonius Donatus, Eugenius and -Publicius, or so they were named by their father. To her they would always be Anwn, Owain and little Peblig.
Cadi frowned. She knew all this from her research notes. Or did she? She glanced through them again, a muddle of different names and sources, from Wikipedia to the annals of the past. No one seemed to agree on dates, if indeed there were any dates at all, or about how many children Elen and Macsen had had, or when. Or even if Elen had been his first wife or his second. Had he really had two sons called Victor? But yes, apparently that was a Roman thing. One, possibly both, would have been known as something else, a nickname, perhaps. How would she ever know what was the truth about what had happened? On one date however all the sources agreed. In the year of Our Lord 383 there was another meeting of the leaders of the Roman armies of Britannia. It was the occasion when, frustrated and driven beyond endurance by the lack of support or money from Rome and in the face of increasing attacks from barbarians on every side, the troops of the legions of the Province of Britannia elected their leader, Magnus Maximus, to be emperor of the West.
The historians were unable to agree on the character of Magnus Maximus at this point. He was undoubtedly wildly popular with his men and a fine general who had consistently held high office in the army. He was a good and fair administrator. But now some doubt crept in. Was he overly ambitious? Greedy? Reckless? Elen would probably have agreed with all those descriptions.
Within weeks of his election the Roman legions of the -British province had assembled behind Magnus's standard and embarked for Gaul to confront Gratian, the recognised legitimate holder of the title Macsen had assumed. Finally, Gratian took notice, furious and ready at last to fight for his title and his supremacy. He had been fighting yet another incursion of the Alamanni peoples into the Roman territories, but now he had no alternative but to confront the man who had so openly challenged him.
Macsen took Elen and their children with him, leaving the grown-up sons of his first marriage, Victor and Constantine, behind to supervise the province with Elen's father and -stepbrother. And, if the stories were to be believed, he also invited Cunedda, the king of Strathclyde, married to the daughter of Coel Hen, old king Cole, ruler of Eboracum, to come south with a special mandate to oversee the lands of the Ordovices; Cunedda, who was later claimed as ancestor ofthekings of Gwynedd.
Cadi shook her head in confusion. So much of this was legend and spurious history. What was she witnessing? Wasit real, or was it some fabrication of her own imagination? Whatever it was she was desperate to find out what happened next. Was she going to follow Elen abroad? See ancient Gaul for herself? She threw down her notebook with its confusion of scribbles and arrows and sticky notes. Only one thing they all agreed on, historians then and now: Magnus took with him the best part of the remaining legions of the Roman army, leaving Britannia open to the invasions she had been fighting for so long– the Hibernian tribes, the Picti from Caledonia, the Angles, the Saxons and after them the Vikings. And his wife and family went with him.
Branwen begged her not to go. Arriving unannounced at Segontium on the eve of their long march south and embarkation for Gaul, she seized Elen's arm. ‘This is madness. He can leave you in charge, you would be as competent if not more so than his sons or your brother. No, Elen, you must not set foot in Gaul!'
‘Why not? I go as my husband's wife, as empress of the West,' Elen couldn't resist placing emphasis on the title, as yet so new and foreign a term. ‘Come with me. Please. I choose my own attendants. Then you can watch over me.'
Branwen shuddered. ‘I am not leaving these shores. Nothing but tragedy and death can come from this madness.'
Elen shook her head. ‘No. You are wrong. Macsen is strong. He is unbeatable. He has every man, woman and child in Britannia behind him.'
‘And of the whole Roman Empire as well?' Branwen was scornful. ‘Are you sure?'
Elen scanned the other woman's face. ‘What do you know? Have you seen the future?' That was the art she had never mastered and for that she was eternally grateful.
Branwen turned away tight-lipped. ‘I see no future for Macsen Wledig at all.'
Elen shivered. ‘You lie.'
‘If you say so. If your powers of foresight are greater than mine, I bow to your knowledge. You have no more need of me.' Branwen turned and, pulling her hood down over her face, she walked towards the door.
‘Wait!' Elen ran after her. ‘You can't just say that and go. I -haven't dismissed you.' She was learning the language of -authority.
Branwen's lip curled. ‘You have dismissed me. You ignore my advice. I have no further role to play in your life. Be it on your own head and on the heads of your children.'
Elen was aware of the servants in the room watching the scene, one or two moving forward, hesitating, waiting for her to order them to prevent the woman's departure. She said nothing. Branwen walked steadily towards the double doors that led out into the atrium, and disappeared between the row of columns. Elen walked over to her chair and threw herself down, fighting back tears. ‘Bring the children to me,' she commanded, steadying her voice with care. The two nurses scurried forward with their charges, the two youngest babies; the elder children she assumed were outside playing in the gardens. Scooping the little boys into her arms, Elen looked down at their faces, dark-eyed, both with mops of unruly curls, both watching their mother with curious concentration. Owain was eighteen months old now and little Peblig barely six months. Hugging them tightly, she had sent out a silent prayer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, to protect them all.
Branwen did not accompany them to the port at -Rutupiae, nor to Gaul. As they travelled east through the forests and fields of Gaul, meeting little or no opposition, Elen, safe in the vanguard of the long lines of troops, began to relax. She had not seen Branwen again after their exchange and slowly the -woman's warnings were forgotten.