Warriors of Ethandun Read Free Page A

– Dan? – had brought her to what she now recognised as a hospital. So where was he now?
    She didn’t ask then. She felt weak, and when she tried to hug her mother back she seemed to be tied to the bed by wires and tubes and it was hard to move. A nurse came in and did something and then she went away and Ursula found it impossible to resist sleep.
    She woke briefly and slept for some time. There was a lot of pain and then there wasn’t. Someone filled her brain with cotton wool and she didn’t mind the cotton-wool feeling so much because it made the pain go away. Peoplecame and went. Her dad came and the new baby cried and would not be shushed and her mother told him off for bringing the child. She had been glad to let herself drift away from that row. The bad pain went away and then she merely felt uncomfortable: stiff and achy and weak, as if her muscles had melted away to water. She knew that time was passing, the days marked by her mother’s conversations and the changing of dressings and tubes, and then one day she woke up and felt OK. Not great, not normal, but OK.
    It was only then that she was able to ask the question that had been bothering her for so long: ‘Where’s Dan?’
    Her mother paused in her bed-straightening.
    â€˜How are you feeling, darling? The doctors are amazed at how well you’re doing. They say you might be able to come home in a day or two and they are going to take the last of the tubes out today. I’m afraid the police are going to want to talk to you now …’
    Ursula waited for her mother to finish, but she just let her sentence die away.
    â€˜Where’s Dan?’ Ursula repeated. She was surprised he’d not been to see her. Surely all that had happened between them would still matter? Surely he wouldn’t abandon her just because they were back home and he was with his friends again? Dan was not that shallow, she knew that, and yet she couldn’t help feeling a little hurt and disappointed that she’d not seen him.
    â€˜Dan? Is that the boy who was with you? The one who did this to you?’
    â€˜Dan didn’t do this to me. He saved me.’
    Her mother shook her head. ‘The police have taken him into custody. They’re saying that no one else was involved. Why are you protecting him?’
    Ursula took a moment to make sense of this. Dan was in custody?
    She tried to imagine what he might have said to explain her wounds – the state she was in. Would he have tried to tell the truth? She thought not. He wouldn’t want to be locked up as a madman any more than he’d want to be locked up as a criminal: there had to be another way.
    â€˜Mum, I want to talk to the police now. They’ve got to let Dan go.’
    Her mother plumped up her pillows.
    â€˜I don’t know. You’ve been so ill. You’ve gone so thin. I can barely recognise you. I think you should leave it a bit longer. Even your father agrees that you shouldn’t talk to them until you’ve recovered. The police are being very understanding. They know you’ve been traumatised, that you nearly died, that you’ve been pumped full of painkillers and I don’t know what drugs …’ Her mother sounded tearful.
    â€˜Dan is my friend. He didn’t hurt me. Tell the police I’m ready to talk to them.’ Her mother gave her a look of surprise. ‘Please, Mummy,’ Ursula added, suddenly aware that the old Ursula was never so forceful at home. She had grown used to command. It was going to be hard to be a child again. She washed her face and tied back her hair to face the police. Her mother did not seem to have noticed that her hair had grown five or six inches or that she had lost far more weight than could be possible in the briefperiod of her convalescence. Her sleeveless nightdress revealed arms that any athlete would have been proud of. How had her mother not noticed? When Ursula checked