Page 14 of The Dragon Ring
“What was the prophecy, then? And who made it?”
She ran her hands through my hair with a sigh of satisfaction. “That’s gettin’ better now.” She patted my head. “I’ll braid it for ye to keep it neat.”
“The prophecy?” I prompted.
She started to plait my hair. “Well, this story goes back ter the last days o’ the legions, when there were king after king declared, emperors they called theirselves back then. My old mother told me all about it. She were but a girl ’erself back then. There were fighting ’mongst the men what wanted to be kings, there were fightin’ ’gainst the painted people from beyond the wall, and along the western coast ’gainst the Irish raiders. As well as that, the man what would be king, ’e’d invited in them Yeller ’aired warriors to ’elp ’im fight ’is enemies.”
Yellow Hairs. Of course. Saxons with their traditional blond hair and beards. The boy working the spit must be a Saxon prisoner. That would account for his sandy hair and startling blue eyes.
“D’you know what his name was? This man who wanted to be king and use the Yellow Haired warriors to fight his enemies?” I thought I knew it already, but I wanted her to verify it for me.
She shook her head. “I misremember ’is proper name, but ’e were called the Guorthegirn. The Tyrant. It was ’is own wise men what made the prophecy.”
Guorthegirn. Vortigern. It had to be. The man who traditionally gave the Saxons their foothold in Britain, the man who gave them an inch and found they took a mile.
She reached the end of the plait and started binding it with something I couldn’t see, that might well have been string for all I knew. Oh, for elastic bands and scrunchies. I waited for her to go on.
“It was when them Yeller ’airs turned against ’im that the Guorthegirn called ’is wise men to ’im, and asked ’em to tell ’im what ’e needed to do to defeat ’em, and free ’is land.” She was into her stride now, a natural storyteller, despite the difficult accent.
“They put their ’eads together and cast their stones to see what they could foretell. And they come up with nothin’ that would ’elp ’im. ’Cept a boy what told ’im about a red dragon and a white one. My mother told me– she ’ad it from one o’ the Guorthegirn’s own servants at the Council o’ Kings– that ’is wise men told ’im ’e’d die alone and forgot. ’E’d lose all ’is sons, and there were nothin’ anyone could do to prevent it. That bit were certainly true.” She finished fastening my plait. “But what they also said were another’d come, unborn then, who’d be the red dragon that’d defeat the Yeller ’airs, them that were the white dragon.”
“But how does that affect me? I don’t understand.”
She wagged a finger at me. “Let me finish, then. What were said were that a woman’d come, a woman with no past. She’d ’ave the golden dragon ring of Dumnonia, and she’d ’erald the rise o’ the red dragon. This ring ’ere.” She jabbed her finger at my right hand. “This dragon warrior’d finish off them Yeller ’airs and free us from ’em, an’ there’d be a new golden age. My old mother knew– no, we all knew, that the red dragon they’d seen were the dragon o’ the royal ’ouse o’ Dumnonia.” She paused. “And now you’re ’ere. With yer ring.”
I turned the ring on my finger. “And I’m supposed to be the woman who precedes the rise of this red dragon?”
Cottia finished fastening my plait and nodded. “Aye, that ye are.”
I turned my head to look at her. “And who is the man whose rise my arrival heralds? And what makes you think I need to marry him, for him to fulfill his role?”
She smoothed the sleeve of my gown with her gnarled brown fingers. “Merlin told the ’igh King it were one of ’is sons who’d fulfill the prophecy. That one of ’em would marry the ring bearer when she came. Prince Cadwy’s already wed. Only Arthur’s still free. When Merlin told me ye were coming ’e told me you was to be Arthur’s bride.”
Oh, did he? I was amazed at his effrontery. It seemed he’d been coming to my world for years, waiting for the right time to snatch me and marry me to his protégé. I’d only seen him twice, but who was to say how many times he’d watched me in secret? I’d accused him of being a stalker, and it turned out I’d been right. Who did he think he was?
Quite frankly, I considered myself to have been kidnapped. He couldn’t just decide my future because it suited him, and he needed to be told. Besides which, Cottia was talking hokum about prophecies, and although she sounded as though she believed it, I, with my twenty-first-century common sense, knew it was a load of bollocks. Just like I knew time travel was…
A knock on the door that led into the great hall disturbed us. Cottia opened it, and Merlin stepped inside. He’d changed his clothes and now wore a dark green tunic edged with elaborate embroidery, brown trousers and soft tan boots that came halfway up his calves. Like me, he had the cream of an undershirt showing at his throat and cuffs. The smartest person I’d seen so far, he stood out as an island of normality in a sea of strangeness. I scolded myself for thinking anything nice about him. I had to remember he was one of them– my enemy, not my friend.
He looked me up and down in satisfaction, with a smile on his lips. It softened his thin face, making him look friendly and approachable. If I hadn’t been so cross with his colossal cheek, I might have liked what I saw. Instead, I scowled at him.
“I’ve just found out what you want me for,” I said, cutting to the chase. “Cottia told me about your so-called ‘prophecy’, which I have to say is just nonsense, and I don’t believe it at all.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand, on which that bloody dragon ring shone in the torchlight. “If you think you’re going to marry me off to your Arthur, you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t believe in prophecies. I don’t belong here. And I certainly don’t intend to hang about while a husband of mine conquers the Saxons.”
He closed his mouth, a frown replacing the smile.
I surged on. “That’s who the Yellow Hairs are, isn’t it? That boy in the Great Hall’s a Saxon captive, isn’t he? Is that why Corwyn shouted at him? And while we’re at it, I don’t like people who get hold of children by their ears. It’s probably against the Geneva Convention.”
Of course, he would never have heard of that, but I just felt like saying it.
I ground to a halt.
A picture of Nathan popped into my head– of him waiting for me in the hotel, wondering where I’d got to, maybe taking a walk up the Tor himself. He’d find my backpack and my father’s urn abandoned by the tower, and maybe my lost hat lying on the hillside, and all the while I was here, out of the reach of anyone in my world, facing the prospect of imminent marriage to someone I hadn’t even met.
Merlin looked aggrieved. He shot a cross look at Cottia, who was gathering up her things and ignoring my outraged outburst and her own part in triggering it.
“I’ve left ye a choice o’ gowns, spare stockings, clean undershirts and a cloak,” she said, not even looking at Merlin. “An’ I’ll be back later and ’elp ye get ready for yer bed.” She bustled past Merlin and the door banged shut behind her.
