Druids (17 page)

His eyes fell on my amulet. “Druid?”

“Menua’s apprentice.”

“A waste of good reflexes,” commented Vercingetorix.

Though he was scratched and gaunt and filthy, in the morning of his manhood the Arvemian prince was a song of strength. From his leonine head to his muscular legs, line flowed into line in perfect harmony. He was even taller than I, and massively boned in maturity. But his lazy-lidded gaze was the same, and his irresistible grin had not changed.

We threw our arms around each other and hugged and pounded.

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Over Rix’s shoulder I saw Hanesa staring. “We were manmade together,” I tried to explain.

“I almost didn’t recognize you, though,” said Rix. “When you came crashing through the trees I mistook you for one of the king’s warriors come to take my head.”

“Is it as bad as that?”

He smiled with one side of his mouth. ‘ ‘It could be better. But it’s temporary. I mean to change everything, and soon.”

“How long have you been here? I know about your father, of course.”

“Ah. I took refuge here two nights later, Ainvar. I have friends who bring me food when they dare, and there are men who will follow me when I’m ready to make my move. Any of them would let me hide out in his lodge but I don’t want to put anyone else in danger.”

Hanesa pressed forward eageriy. ‘ ‘What move will you make? Will you attack Gergovia?”

Rix responded with a bitter laugh. “Me … and a handful of supporters … against the mighty walls of Gergovia? Even I am not that reckless, bard. No, I intend to do to Potomarus what he did to my father, lure him into an ambush and kill him.”

“That won’t bring your father back, and it would leave your tribe headless.”

Something glittered in Rix’s eyes. Fora moment I saw his soul.

Opening up the senses of my spirit, I listened to the weight of the water in the river and smelled the pattern of the geese flying above us. I recalled the shadings of the sprouting grain in the fields, and the panic of the sheep. ‘*•

“Now is not the time for you to aspire to the kingship, Rix,” ^ I heard myself say. ‘^

His eyes widened. “Who said I wanted it?” (,

‘ ‘Just be warned. The atmosphere is disturbed. The omens are / bad for whoever leads the Arvemi now.” ^

“Druid talk,” Rix scoffed. „

“I would listen to this man,” Hanesa told him. The Order j| supports its own. f’_

Tarvos added, “Ainvar has a good head, you know.” It was ^.

the first compliment I ever received from the Bull. H

Rix raked his eyes over the other warrior, measuring him. Then he turned back to me. “You do have a good head, I’ll admit that. But you don’t understand. Potomarus doesn’t deserve to be king. He and his Roman traders …”

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“Hanesa told me, at least what is suspected. Have you more than mere suspicion?”

The skin tightened around Rix’s eyes. “If I had any proof I would take it to the Judges. But anyone who might know anything is afraid to speak up. The king and the traders are safe from everything but my sword,” he added with a growl.

“The kingship is an elected office, Rix. Take it by me sword and someone will feel free to take it from you by the sword.

“Listen to me. Everything is shirting, the very atmosphere here is as unstable as the quicksands in the Liger. If you act rashly you will find yourself as dead as your father, with nothing accomplished.

“I have a suggestion. Let memories fade and tempers cool, your own included. Come with me. Menua is sending me as far south as the Province to study with the druids along the way and, more important, to observe the Romans in Narbonese Gaul and report back to him on their actions and plans.”

The skin was still taut around Rix’s eyes; in their expression I read refusal, so I tossed him a quick, and inspired, lure: “On our travels we will meet other traders who might know the truth of what happened to your father. You know how it is, Rix, the members of one class talk to each other. Traders surely gossip to traders. We can question people, we can leam. If the pattern wills it, you could even get the proof you need to present to the chief judge of the Arvemi.”

“Do you think so?” he asked with touching eagerness.

I had to be honest. “I don’t know, but it’s worth a try. You cannot accomplish anything here, hiding in trees. Give the situation time. I tell you, the omens are so bad your new king will undoubtedly fail the tribe in some way, and then you could find yourself with a lot of new allies.

“Besides,” I added, hoping it was the final temptation, “I want your company.”

I could see him teetering. “Know this, Ainvar. If I go with you I mean to come back to Gergovia. This isn’t over.”

“I know that.”

“It was my father’s dream to have the Arvemi lead the tribes of Gaul.” Rix stared into some inner space of his own to which I did not have access. “His dream was like a spark in dry grass. That spark is not extinguished. Someday I mean to finish what he

began.”

In that moment I was both certain he would, and frightened for him. All the danger I had intuitively felt since entering this

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land now swirled unmistakably around the form of my friend. “When the time is right I wilt help you,” I said rashly. I would have said anything at that moment. ‘ ‘But come away with me now. I have to return to the great grove by Samhain; Menua wants me to tell the annual convocation of druids what I have learned then.”

Pulling Rix with me took all the strength I had, but somehow it was done. We set off together southward, accompanied now by Hanesa the Talker as well as by Tarvos and my porter. The bard had not asked permission, just fallen into step with us. I hid a smile; I had done the same thing myself often enough.

If Vercingetorix were recognized it might prove unsafe, so I convinced him to disguise his very recognizable self as much as possible. At a crossroads fair I had Tarvos bargain for a filthy woolen cape that looked as if some herder had lived in it for years, summer and winter. The cape was cowled, and the cowl could be pulled up over Rix’s bright hair almost like a druid’s hood. We tucked his tamer’s jewel-hilled sword into the mule’s pack, and Rix thereafter carried only a spear, as if he were part of my bodyguard.

He accepted these decisions with a relief he tried to conceal, which told me how terrible the past days had been for him, alone and tormented. He obediently took his place and awaited marching orders from Tarvos.

This caused the Bull difficulties.

“I can’t give orders to him, Ainvar,’* he hissed to me out of the side of his mouth. “He’s chariot rank!”

“You must. I can’t have him be in charge of the bodyguard, that would make him too conspicuous.”

Overhearing this, Hanesa said with a nourish, “People will always notice Vercingetorix, bright sun of the Arvemi!”

“And you be quiet,” I ordered irritably. “At least until we are in some other tribe’s territory, or you could get your bright sun killed.”

With Vercingetorix figuratively tucked under my arm like a valuable package, I made my way southward, visiting various druid groves along the way but lingering in none. The real goal of the journey was the Province, and I was in a hurry to get there, to see a place that must surely be exotic and strange.

Until we left the land of the Arvemi, tension was palpable in me air and clung to my skin like a sheen of sweat. The names of Celtillus and Potomarus were whispered on the wind; some said a war within the tribe might yet erupt.

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Yet there was no unified effort, merely talk. Some shouting and fist waving, some wine-bom boasting. Without a leader it would come to nothing and be forgotten. We were not people to smolder; we burst into name at once or else the flame died.

The flame walked beside me, hiding his thoughts behind his eyelids.

The increasingly warm weather provoked stirrings in us; we were all young men. Sometimes as we walked we spoke of women. They were a favorite topic of Rix’s, who had had a wide experience of them already. Hanesa joined in with his own reminiscences, florid and surely exaggerated. Baroc chewed his lip;

a bondservant’s access to women was limited until his obligation was discharged. Tarvos was quiet, as usual.

I thought of Suits, and of Briga. I spoke of Suits aloud because everyone but Hanesa knew who she was and I was young enough to enjoy boasting.

I never spoke of Briga. But when I lay wrapped in my cloak at night, I saw her behind my closed eyelids.

It would be a long time until Samhain. And surely some man would have claimed her by then… .

I tried to keep from thinking about it. Unsuccessfully.

Occasionally on our journey, just because we were young, sheer high spirits overtook us and we romped and yelled and pushed one another while the mule looked on with an expression of ag-grieved maturity.

Late one day, when a silence had fallen that I was quite enjoying, Rix fell into step beside me. He did that sometimes when there was no one to see such familiarity. He began the conversation abruptly, as though it had been in his mind for a long time.

‘ ‘I quarreled with my father shortly before he was killed, Ain-var. We used to quarrel a lot. He hit me on the ear with his fist.”

“All families quarrel,” I assured him.

“Not like we did. He and I were cross-grained with each other from the very beginning, yet we were much alike. But whatever I said he disagreed with, and following his example, I did the same with him.”

“Sounds harmless. I should think that often happens with fathers and sons. Testing each other like two bulls.”

It was easy for me to be objective, I had never known my father.

“You don’t understand. The last words we exchanged were violent and angry, and the next time I saw him, he was dead. I wanted to tell him he was right; now I don’t even remember what

we argued about. But I never got to tell him and I just go on and

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on talking to him in my head, trying to finish the conversation we can never finish.”

“You can finish it in the Otherworid when your spirits meet there.”

He whirled on me. “Do you seriously believe that nonsense?”

I was so astonished that I stumbled and nearly fell. “Of course! Don’t you?”

“IheldCeltillusinmyarmsafterhewasdead,Ainvar. Nothing remained of him. No life. He was cold and his blood was stiff on his clothes. He was Just so much dead meat. I cried out to him, but there was no answer, he was gone. As if he had never been. Destroyed. Not watching me benevolently from the Otherworid, or he would have found some way to tell me so. He could do anything, my father. He was destroyed, do you hear what I’m saying? Made nothing! When you die there is nothing, I learned that that day. No Otherworid, no continuing. You live and you die and it’s over.”

The depth of his bitterness appalled me, though I now understood why he was so determined to take up his father’s dream.

I was reminded of Briga, weeping for her sacrificed brother who had died in a very different cause. Confronted with such pain I felt inadequate. I had been taught that the living and the dead are part of one ongoing community, that death ends nothing, but I did not know how to hand on my faith like a cup of wine.

I must hurry back to the grove so Menua could complete my education and give me the wisdom to comfort Briga and Rix.

But first I had an assignment to fulfill and other education to acquire.

Our last visit before reaching the Province was with the Gabali tribe in their mountain wilderness. With obvious embarrassment the old chief druid escorted me to their grove, a sad little stand ofgnaried oaks from which many trees were missing, like broken teeth ruining a smile.

“What happened here?” I wanted to know, staring at the hacked stumps.

“My people cut down the trees. For firewood.” He would not meet my eyes.

“They wouldn’t dare!”

“Not many worship here anymore, Ainvar. Some are even setting up clay gods in the Roman style in niches in their walls.” The poor little man hunched his shoulders around himself protectively. “They make puddings out of the blood of sacrificial

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animals, which should be given to the earth instead. I argue, but the young ones don’t listen.”

He was simultaneously pathetic and frightening, like a tragic, prophetic dream. A skinny old man with little power left, he was being nibbled away.

“How could this happen?” I asked him.

“A day at a time,” he said sadly. “It began when the Roman authorities in Narbonese Gaul declared the Order persona non grata there It means no druids are welcome in the Province anymore. It was an insult, and they made many derogatory claims about us to justify it. People across the mountains began believing them. Then my own people—the ones who have some dealings with Provincials in the borderlands—began losing faith in us, too.

“We are too close to the Romans. Their influence …*’ He extended his hands and shook his gray head.

Ah, Menua, I thought. Great is your wisdom, Keeper of the Grove!

There was nothing more the Gabali could teach me, but the one lesson was valuable enough. The Romans must be afraid of the Order if they were going to such lengths to discredit us.

And if they were afraid of us, it meant we had a power they tacitly acknowledged—

I led my little band through the mountain passes, and into Narbonese Gaul.

We seemed to have crossed into a different world.

The Province prospered beneath a hotter, more reliable sun than we knew in the north. When we came down from the mountains, the land spread out before us like a green lap; we saw well-maintained farmsteads and fat livestock everywhere we looked. Wild flowers bloomed hi every unused pocket of soil. The air smelled of butter and cheese.

As we advanced deeper into the Province, I stopped again and again to kneel and crumble the earth between my fingers. Each time its color and texture changed I paused to touch and taste and smell, to familiarize myself with this new place. I noted each change in leaf and shrub, each different birdsong. I walked marveling.