The Medieval Murderers: Hill of Bones

But the woman already knew much about Geraint. Knew that his mother was ill and must shortly die, knew that his father had been killed in a skirmish with the Saxons when Geraint was little, knew that he regarded his only surviving brother with a mixture of respect and love and resentment. Above all, she knew of his waking dreams, of those moments when something seemed to slide between him and the reality surrounding him. When he first began to experience these, around the time of his father’s death, Geraint had been truly frightened. He told no one and suffered in silence.

In one vision he saw two men tussling on the bank of a nearby river. One fell in, or was pushed, and the other stumbled after him. He recognised the two men. Geraint was actually within sight of the river but by the time he plucked up the courage to go closer, they had disappeared. The death by drowning – which occurred a few days later – was accounted an accident but Geraint had seen in his vision the way in which Deri’s opponent, who desired Deri’s wife, had held his rival’s head underwater. Perhaps he did not intend to get rid of Deri but had taken the opportunity as it arose. The man who held the other underwater was redheaded Aelric, the head of the village. Later Geraint heard Aelric describe to the other villagers how he had been several fields away when Deri drowned, and this seemed to allay any suspicions they might have. Geraint said nothing to contradict him but, afterwards, he was more wary and frightened of Aelric than ever.

On another occasion during the winter Geraint dreamed several times of a sunless summer of cloud and constant rain, and how the village went hungry when the crops failed. Sure enough, it happened and the village sent petitioners to Cadwys for help.

When, on his second visit to the burial ground, he started to tell the woman who lived there of these things – and he had never mentioned them to anyone before – she merely nodded and grasped his arm with her claw-like hand. She reassured Geraint, telling him he was possessed by a gift, not a curse. All men and women could see with their eyes, she said, save those few unfortunates like herself who lacked sight. And everyone, even the blind, was able to see backwards in time thanks to the gift of memory. A few, a lucky few, had the ability also to see forwards in time.

‘What can I do with it, this gift?’ said Geraint. ‘I should have warned Deri that his neighbour was going to kill him.’

‘You would not have been believed.’

‘I could have told the others that the crops would fail.’

‘You would not have been believed.’

‘So what use is it?’

‘Everything has a place,’ she said, ‘but not everything has a use.’

The third time he visited the burial place the woman told Geraint that he would soon be leaving the village where he had been born; he and most of the other able-bodied men. Geraint was pleased to be thought a man. It put him on the same level as his brother, Caradoc. A great crisis was coming, the woman said. They would be summoned away to face it. Geraint knew nothing of this but accepted the truth of her words without question. He wanted to ask if he and the others would ever return but he was afraid of the answer. The woman sensed his mood and said that it was a time of danger but also of hope. Geraint would experience grief but gladness as well. There is no victory without tears, she said.

‘Will Caradoc go too?’

‘He will accompany you,’ she said.

She had a gift for him. He was to take it on his journey when the call came. She reached into a bag that lay at her side and extracted a small object. He was surprised to see that it was a knife, but small, almost ornamental, rather than practical. She held it in the palm of one hand and ran the fingers of the other across the surface of the hilt before passing it to Geraint. The blade glinted with a metallic blue threat but the hilt was finely worked. It was made from some off-white substance that Geraint did not recognise, like stone but with a smooth, living feel to it that stone did not possess. The hilt depicted an animal that Geraint also didn’t recognise. The beast stood on its hind legs with its forelegs wrapped around the trunk of a tree. Its upright posture was disturbing, neither man-like nor animal.

‘What is the beast on the hilt?’

‘A bear.’

‘I have never seen one.’

‘Are you sure of that?’

Geraint did not answer. Instead he said, ‘What am I to do with it?’

‘Keep it with you, safe. Take it with you when you are called away. You will know what to do with it when the time comes.’

And Geraint had to be content with that. A few weeks afterwards the call came. Arthur was summoning his countrymen to confront the Saxon hordes at a place several days’ travel from the village, near the old Roman town of Aquae Sulis. Caradoc explained what was happening. It all might have been rumour but he told his younger brother as if it were fact (which it was, more or less). Caradoc said that for many months Arthur, using pedlars and paid informants as well as reputable travelling merchants, had caused a story to be spread among the Saxon enemy. The story was that the Picts, the people of the far north, were preparing to march south as soon as the winter retreated. Arthur had made a great show of sending some of his men north, apparently to face the Pictish threat and leaving the southlands undefended. But the British army had halted near the mouth of the Sabrina, far from their supposed destination. The Saxons, deceived, saw their chance to swing round and cut the country in two, like a woodman cleaving an upturned log at a single stroke. They massed to march west and south towards the river Abona, ignorant of the existence of the army lying hidden at their heels.

When Arthur received news of the Saxon preparation to march, he made the general call to arms. It was the final crisis, as predicted by the woman in the burial ground. If the Saxons were not dealt with now, they would surely overrun the whole land.

Caradoc and Geraint might have left with the other men of the village although they had not got the explicit permission of Aelric to go. But, as it happened, they had to delay their departure by a couple of days since their mother, so long dying during the spring and early summer, was now at the very point of extinction. They departed on the morning following her death, each young man sunk in his thoughts and letting the breeze dry the occasional tear. Hence it was that they eventually arrived near Aquae Sulis, accompanied by the dog Cynric, but behind the rest of their neighbours.

Now Geraint sat not far from the men’s campfire and wondered about the coming battle. He heard the sound of his brother’s voice, protesting amid some laughter that he did know how to use the sword and knife that he carried. Geraint remembered the knife and its ornamental hilt. The bear with its arms clasped around the tree trunk. You will know what to do with it when the time comes . What would he have to do? When? Too late now. He had been robbed by the old boatman. The leather pouch and the knife were at the bottom of the river Abona. He had failed. He felt ashamed.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a tall man near the dying fire. Aelric welcomed him and asked him where he was from. The man said, ‘I am with the Company of the Bear.’

Geraint started at the words, since they chimed with his recent thoughts. The newcomer settled himself close to the embers as if he had a right to be there and the others accepted him without question. He was wearing a hooded mantle, grey, and his great height was evident even though he carried himself with a stoop.

‘What news?’ he said to no one in particular.

Aelric said, ‘The enemy draws nearer.’