Druids (18 page)

Mindful of the warning of the chief druid of the Gabali, I tucked my amulet beneath my clothes and instructed Hanesa not to identify himself as a bard if anyone asked.

I began noticing that a wild grape similar to one that flourished in the valley of the Liger had been tamed in the Province, and was standing in orderly rows. “Look, Rix! There is the source of

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the wine we import at such cost. You can see the same thing growing wild at home.”

Wild at home. Tame here. Under Roman control, the vine was submissive -

The alien stamp was everywhere. Though we saw grass-headed lodges, the farther south we advanced the less Gaulish and more Roman they became. The natives of the Province, the Celtic Al-lobroges, the Nantuates, the Volcae, the clever Saluvii, and the strong Ligures, still lived here, but after a few generations of Roman domination they had become Latinized. We saw it in their buildings and heard it in their speech.

We soon learned we could no longer ask for hospitality wherever the night found us. All doors except those of commercial inns were barred to strangers, and the innkeepers demanded to see money first,

I had brought the Celtic coins we used with traders. Among ourselves we preferred barter, but we had learned from the Greeks that southerners preferred cold metal. And the Romans would consider nothing else. So we made coins.

At the first inn we visited, the innkeeper looked at my coins and sniffed. He had eyes like nuts and the face of a hot red baby. “Don’t you have any real money?”

“This is real.”

“Look what’s stamped on them. Who is this savage with wild hair, and what is this figure, a horse or a hound? Give me Roman coin with Roman heads.”

“We have none.”

His eyes gleamed. “I thought not. You barbarians never do when you first arrive. I have a generous nature, though, 1*11 change your money for you. For a percentage, of course. You’ll have to do it, currency from Hairy Gaul won’t buy you anything here.”

That was the first time I heard free Gaul referred to by that insulting name.

“You’ll need to buy yourselves some decent clothes, too,” he went on. “You can’t walk around in those gaudy colors; people will know you for savages at once. You’re doubly fortunate in that I have a brother in the next town, a shopkeeper who’ll outfit you properly. For a price, of course.” He laughed—unpleasantly-A huge stack of Roman coins purchased a meal for us that would have starved a mouse. Everything was drenched in rancid oil. The meat was older than I was. In accordance with our rank I requested the best sleeping accommodation for Hanesa and my-self, and space for our bodyguards and porter close by. The bard

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and I were shown to an airless cubicle we had to reach by climbing

a rickety ladder from the main room of the inn. There we spent a miserable night on louse-infected straw listening to the snoring and farting of four other travelers.

Dawn found us grainy-eyed and furiously scratching. By contrast, our warriors and porter seemed refreshed. “They put us in the shed with the cow,” Rix confided. “While it was still dark a young woman as round and firm as a loaf of bread came along with her milk pail, and I interrupted her duties for a time.” He laughed. “She didn’t seem to mind.”

“Probably merely part of her job,” Hanesa said.

Rix was offended. “What do you mean? She wanted me.”

“She wanted to please her master, who probably orders her to entertain the guests.”

“Her master?”

“She’s a slave, of course. Didn’t you know? All the servants here are slaves. I’ve talked to several of them.”

“But she is of Celtic stock like ourselves! Born a free person!”

“Not in the Province,” Hanesa informed him.

The expression on Rix’s face said he found this information almost impossible to believe. But it was true. I asked a few questions myself. Slaves were the muscle underlying me fat of the Province, and most of those slaves were of Celtic stock. People who, by heritage, should have been free persons.

We left the inn as soon as we could, with me privately deciding we would sleep under the stars thereafter unless the weather was savage.

Instead of the rutted trackways of free Gaul, the Province boasted wide, well-traveled roadways frequently surfaced with slabs of stone already grooved by Roman wheels. One of these roads led us to the nearest town, a cluster of stone houses separated by narrow alleyways incongruously brightened by pots and tubs of cultivated flowers. Everything was scrubbed and tended. Slave labor, I thought souriy. We made a minimal number of clothing purchases in a tiny shop owned by the brother of our former host—who proved to be as big a thief as the innkeeper.

The weight of coins in my bag was decreasing alarmingly. We would definitely sleep outside from now on, and we would make our new clothes last. “I look ridiculous,” Baroc complained of his. “This thing is like a woman’s gown cut off at the shin. And it’s loose, loose all over.”

“We coutd never fight in anything like this,” Rix agreed glumly, glaring at his own collarless coat or smock.

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Back on the road we encountered travelers of every description and color, from milk white to ebony. Several times I had to re—

prove Baroc for staring with his mouth open. Most of the travelers were afoot, but there were also carts, wagons, several types of chanot, both two-and four-wheeled, and a variety of ridden animals, including horses, mules, asses, and shaggy ponies with feathered feet. To my dazzled eyes it appeared as if all the world traveled the roads of Narbonese Gaul.

I tried to strike up conversations with some of these people. Few responded to any variant of the Celtic tongue, though obviously many understood me. When I attempted the Latin Menua had taught me, I had difficulty understanding the replies.

To my delight, Hanesa had more success. His gift was his tongue and he could make almost anyone respond to him. He also had an ear for language, which he proved by quickly learning the various Provincial dialects we encountered.

The pattern had brought me the man when I most needed him.

That night I did not waste time looking for an inn, but Rix and I together selected a campsite out of sight of the road, close to a stream of sweet running water and screened from casual eyes by a stand of alders.

With the warm earth beneath me and the familiar stars above me, the Province did not seem so alien.

The next morning as we set out again, Rix asked me, “What are we looking for?”

” Anything and everything,” I told him. The words were hardly out of my mouth when we had to leap unceremoniously into a ditch beside the road to avoid being trampled. A company of cavalry galloped past, eyes ahead as if no one else existed. Only their leader gave us one imperious glance from beneath his bronze helmet as he pounded by. He swore at us briefly and impersonally, then was gone.

“What did he say?” I asked Hanesa as we clambered out of the ditch, wiping muck from ourselves. “Was that even Latin?”

“I suspect army Latin is different from that of traders,” the bard replied in a shaky voice. His eyes were wide with fright.

Rix stepped into the roadway and stared after the vanishing horsemen. Over his shoulder he said to me in an awed voice, “Those horses were matched stride for stride, Ainvar, did you notice? Long legs, small muzzles—what sort of horses are they, do you suppose? And the equipment was matched, too, every man just like every other. Shortsword in a scabbard, long oval shield on his arm, leather body armor, bronze helmet.”

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“Gaulish face,” I could not resist adding.

“What?”

“Celtic stock again. All those horsemen were shaven like Ro-mans, but unless I’m mistaken every one was born to some Gaulish tribe. Except their captain, I’d guess him fora Roman.”

‘ ‘Gauls in slavery, working in the inns, Gauls in the cavalry, following a Roman captain … what sort of place is this, Ain-var?”

“That,” I said, “is what we’ve come to find out.”

Our brush with the cavalry had left Hanesa pale and jumpy. Bards are not accustomed to sudden danger, he told me.

“You’d better get used to it if you intend to follow Vercingetorix,” I told him.

“I shall… if only I had a cup of wine to stop my hands from shaking… .”

“I see an inn ahead,” I said, taking pity on him. “We can get you a drink. If it isn’t loo dear.” This constantly having to consider money was new to me, and decidedly unpleasant.

A wall sheltered the stables and courtyard of the inn from view by the road, so we were almost at the doorway before I noticed that the cavalry company had dismounted there and were rubbing their horses* legs. Their captain was standing to one side as if waiting for something. When he saw us arrive his expression did not change by the nicker of an eyelash; he was not waiting for us.

“Shall we go on?” Hanesa asked nervously.

“I think not. I promised you that wine.”

“You go on in and get it,” said Rix. “I’ll wander around out here, perhaps talk to some of these fellows. I’d like to know more about their horses.”

Just then the blare of a trumpet, followed by a clatter of hooves, announced other travelers approaching. The Roman captain leaped to attention. Turning, I saw a mounted escort of six galloping up the road toward the inn, followed by a four-wheeled chariot paneled in leather and a second wagon piled high with baggage.

The innkeeper came running out to greet the new arrivals, almost knocking me over in his haste. He had sunken eyes and yellow teeth and was groveling like a bitch in heat by the time the chariot wheeled into the courtyard.

The leader of the escort swung his leg over his horse’s neck and slid down, exchanging salutes with the cavalry captain. The Romans, I observed, saluted by beating their breasts with clenched fists.

The driver stepped out of the paneled chariot and turned to

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offer a hand to his lone passenger. This second man waved aside the preferred assistance and leaped to the earth as lightly as a cat.

Suddenly I experienced such an intense clarity of vision that

every detail of him was burned into my brain.

The man was short by Gaulish standards; his head would not have reached my shoulder. His body was lean and youthful. A brief summerweight tunic revealed ropy sinews in strong bare arms and legs. Flung back from his shoulders was a mantle of vivid scarlet held in place by massive gold brooches.

When he turned in my direction I realized he was not young after all. Unmistakably Roman, his was a face that had never been young. He had a broad forehead and sunken cheeks beneath sharp cheekbones. His eyes were sunken, too, and as dark as his receding hair. From a thin, high-bridged nose deep grooves ran to the comers of a mobile and sensitive mouth.

He looked as if he might have a charming smile in the right circumstances. But he was not smiling now.

His eyes flicked over me, dismissed me, moved on. Restless eyes. Then they stopped. He stiffened. I swung around to see what had caught his attention.

Rix, distracted on his way to look at the cavalry horses by the arrival of the newcomers, was walking back toward me. His cowl had slipped so that his ruddy gold hair caught the summer sun. In that dusty courtyard, Vercingetorix blazed.

He towered above the Roman like a giant from some superior race. Yet when their gazes met and locked, I, standing off to one side, felt the jolt of equal personalities colliding.

Rix jutted his jaw beneath his golden beard. The Roman sniffed the air with his aquiline nose like an animal scenting an enemy.

I had seen two stallions face each other that way before a fight to the death.

While my senses screamed a warning, the dangerous moment held and lengthened. I stepped forward, cutting off their mutual line of vision. Simultaneously I turned my back to the Roman and gestured to Rix to accompany me to the far side of the courtyard. Puzzled, he obeyed.

As we walked, I could feel the Roman’s eyes on us every step of the way.

A man, apparently a steward, was just emerging from an out-building with a cask balanced on his shoulder. I caught his other arm. “Who is that?” I asked slowly so he could understand.

He knew at once who I meant. “The new governor of the

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Province, of course. We were warned he was coming, he’s on a tour of inspection.”

“And his name?”

The steward was anxious to get past me, but Rix and I together

were so intimidating he stood long enough to answer. “Guy-us Yoo-lee-us Kye-sar,” he enunciated carefully. “Proconsul of Rome.”

Gaius Julius Caesar. The name meant nothing to me—then.

But I knew I did not want Rix anywhere near him. Something had passed between them when they first saw each other that gave me a cold feeling in the pit of my belly.

As CAESAR ENTERED the inn, ‘with the innkeeper walking backward before him and mouthing welcomes, I quickly collected my little party. “We’re leaving now,” I told them.

Hanesa objected. “What about the wine?”

“We’ll get some elsewhere. Hurry now, to the road. And you, Rix, pull up your cowl and keep your face averted, don’t draw any more attention to yourself.”

My warning was too late, of course. Caesar had already marked and measured him. But we hurried from the place while the Ro-man officers shouted orders and stableboys scurried and harness creaked and the air smelled of dust and sweat and horse dung.

That night when we made our camp, I collected an assortment of pebbles of roughly one size, and placed them in a heap next to the spot where my head would lie. At dawn, while the others still slept, I lifted the pebbles and dropped them all at one time onto my cloak, which still bore the shape of my sleeping.

The pebbles spilled from my fingers onto the crumpled cloth and rolled among its hills and valleys, each finding its appointed

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place. From their design I read the map we would follow. The Otherworld would guide us away from Caesar.

As it happened, I could not have chosen a better time to assess Roman intentions than with the arrival of a new governor in Narbonese Gaul. The Province rumbled like a belly with rumor and speculation. I made the most of Hanesa’s gift for conversation, having him talk to strangers at every crossroads and inn. The mns proved expensive, for when people talked to you there, they expected you to buy them a drink. But that same drink oiled their tongues. Hanesa talked, seemingly casually; I listened and learned. Rix devoted himself to studying the military with professional interest.