died some four years ago, a few days before you first came to me. After her death I came to study with Alcelcius. He is such a good, kind man. He has taught me Latin and Greek, as well as medicine and the ways and customs of the Romans. Have you come from Rome?’
I shook my head and smiled.
‘No, I’m not a Roman. I’ve been to Rome once, many years ago, but there haven’t been Romans in Britain for a very long time. I think you and I live in different ages rather than in different places. Can you tell me what year it is, here, at this moment?’
The grey eyes widened and she nodded slowly.
‘This is the fourteenth year of the reign of Niall, son of Laoghaire, King of Tara and the tenth year of the reign of Morrough, son of Ferdagh, King of Emain.’
I shook my head and laughed, none the wiser.
‘That sounds like a long time ago. Presumably the Romans are still in Britain?’
‘Britain? Where is that, please?’
I tried to think what Britain was called in Roman times, but I just couldn’t remember.
‘Where Londinium is,’ I offered helpfully.
‘Ah yes, Londinium. Alcelcius served there before he went north to Eboracum. You know Londinium?’
‘Yes, I live and work there, but it’s rather larger now than it was in Alcelcius’s day . . . or rather, I mean . . .’
‘You mean that you have come from the future?’
‘It looks like it. I know quite a lot about the Roman Empire and I’ve read Agricola, but his world was about nineteen centuries before the time in which I live.’
‘So, how have you come? Why have you come?’ she asked earnestly, pressing my hand, as if my answer was of the greatest importance to her.
‘I don’t know. Why did you come to me six days ago when I was sitting crying with my migraine?’
She shook her head gently and smiled, that lovely warm smile which banished all anxiety.
‘My friend, for you the time was but six days, for me, four years and four months. It seems there is much we do not know. But some things are clear to us.’
‘Such as?’
‘Who we are. That we are friends.’
She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. I was terribly taken aback. Until I met my sister-in-law, Diana, I’d never been kissed by a woman. She’s one of those Anglican clergy wives who kisses everyone, so it shouldn’t have been a problem, particularly as I happen to like her. But it was. Every time Matthew and I went to visit I d get worried I might react in spite of myself. Eventually we managed to work out what lay behind it. Mother, of course. As if we couldn’t have guessed. She’d never held or kissed either Sandy or me, even when we were very little, and her comments were always quite vicious if she ever saw two women kiss each other.
‘Please, tell me your name,’ she said earnestly.
‘Deirdre.’
‘Oh . . . so . . .’
Her eyes grew round with amazement.
‘What’s so strange about that?’ I asked, as I saw her begin to smile.
‘I too am Deirdre, but only a few people know that, a Druid who bears me ill will and my foster-mother, who gave me the name Deara.’
‘But why did she do that?’
‘Because Deirdre was a name too hard to bear.’
She said it so softly that I wasn’t sure I had heard her properly, and yet I felt it was the most important thing she could have said. Yes, it was too hard to bear, being Deirdre. Often enough, just existing could be too hard to bear.
I thought of the strange scenes and images I’d experienced when Deara had laid her hands upon me and all that had come to me in the days that had followed. Her life had been as full of anxious thoughts as mine seemed to be. I wanted to understand how and why this had happened to her. I asked her about the woman who had died by the God’s well, about the Druid who had tried to have her executed. And she answered all my questions, quite easily and steadily, explaining both what had happened on the night of her birth and how Conor had behaved towards her as she was growing up.
‘But, Deirdre, how is it you know these things about my life when we have not spoken of them until now?’
I was about to explain, when suddenly the warm stillness of the afternoon was broken by the most appalling noise, a kind of high-pitched scream, followed by shouts and a fierce metallic banging like the dustbin lid protests up the Falls Road in the early days of The Troubles.
I jumped and went rigid. Her hand tightened around mine and she said softly: ‘It’s all right, Deirdre. The King has arrived back at Emain with the ambassadors from Tara. That was the guard shout and the warrior greeting. I hate it too. When I’m up there and it happens, I hide in my workplace till the speeches begin. They go on a long time, but they’re quiet. Did you see the King’s party pass by?’
I nodded, not yet trusting my voice, for my heart had leapt into my mouth at the sudden jarring noise.
‘Just a glimpse, before I saw you,’ I managed to reply, my mouth suddenly dry. ‘Was that the King at the front?’
‘Yes, it would have been. He is always so happy to ride home. He’s not overfond of Tara and he hates negotiations, but that is the only way to keep the peace. Without going to Tara, it would be easy for enemies to make trouble between Emain and Tara. Then many suffer, not just warriors. Do you live in a time of peace, Deirdre?’
I shook my head wearily. I could not bear to tell her of the killings, the car bombs, the ambushes and the thousands of innocent people the last years of bitterness and hatred had claimed.
Again, a violent clamour erupted from the west. I felt it like a physical blow, but before I could react she took my other hand. I saw the look of concern on her face as she explained gently and patiently, as one does to a frightened child, that the guest cup is offered to the ambassadors, and it is the children who make the noise with blunt swords and broken shields, a tradition which would not go on for more than a few minutes.
I seem always to have hated loud noises. Long before The Troubles began, with their real threat from bombs and bullets, I had jumped out of my skin at fireworks, or cars backfiring, or even some child bursting its paper bag at lunchtime. The racket had now died away. I took a deep breath and tried to forget it.
‘Is it impolite if I ask what age you are, Deara?’ I asked, knowing that I sounded formal again because I couldn’t find a word for ‘rude’, only one for ‘vulgar’ and another for ‘obscene’.
‘Surely not. I was twenty-one in the fifth month of this year. And you, my friend?’
‘I shall be thirty-five in a few months’ time.’
‘By then we shall have known each other a long time.’
‘What do you mean?’
