Druids (44 page)

The taking of hostages to ensure good behavior was an ancient custom, one we Celtic people practiced also. But in the hands of Gaius Caesar, it reached sinister proportions.

Still fearing a rebellion in some part of Gaul during his absence, Caesar decided to take with him to the land of the Britons the war leaders of the Gaulish tribes he had already * ‘pacified.”

One of these was Dumnorix of the Aedui, brother to Diviciacus.

The Aedui now all professed loyalty to Caesar. Even the re-doubtable Dumnorix moved his lips in the proper words. But Caesar was not convinced. He meant to keep Dumnorix where he could watch him.

The noble hostages were assembled on the north coast of Gaul, at die point of embarkation-As the warships were being loaded, Dumnorix took advantage of the confusion to escape with the aid of some Aeduan cavalrymen who were supposedly loyal to Cae-sar. Riding for his life, Dumnorix fled for home.

Caesar postponed the sailing and sent men in pursuit. After a wild chase, the Roman cavalry caught up with the fugitive. Dumnorix resisted and they killed him mercilessly, even as he was shouting that he was a free man and the inhabitant of a free land.

When news of this reached us, I ordered a herd of cattle to be sacrificed in the sacred grove in honor of a courageous man.

As I told Rix at our next meeting, “He was not of our tribe, but he was one of us. By offering such a tribute I show the people mat all Gauls are in this together, linked by a common fate.”

“Your druid symbolism may be wasted on Ollovico,” Rix

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drawled. “He is more impressed by the sword that severed Dumnorix’sneck.”

Indeed we were meeting at Avaricum because OUovico was wavering again. The lolling of Dumnonx was causing him to doubt the wisdom of standing against Caesar. In response to a summons from Rix, I had come to help repersuade him.

I was just as happy meeting Rix away from the Fort of the Grove. Briga had asked at least twice if 1 had heard from him, and if he was well.

Prudence dictated another of my actions. Learning from Cae-sar’s example, I impressed the spiteful Crom Daral into my bodyguard instead of leaving him behind to cause trouble in the fort.

“I don’t ride well,” Crom had whined. “I would just hold you back.”

“That’s foolishness, Crom. You could do more if you would just try.”

“I cannot. My back …”

“Your back isn’t as bad as you think it is.”

“If you would just let Briga mb it for me the way she used to…”

“I’ll send SuUs to you,” I said briskly. “But I insist you go with me when I travel, hi times of trouble we need to be surrounded by friends,” I added rather deceitfully, for I no longer thought of Crom as a friend.

Neither was I willing to consider him an enemy.

In Avaricum, Rix and I met once more with OUovico, ate with OUovico, drank with OUovico, argued with OUovico. He was as stubborn as a stump in a grainfield. Several times Rix came close to losing his temper. If I had not put a restraining hand on his arm, he would have lost us the Bituriges in one violent explosion of anger. I understood; my imagination dwelled lovingly on im-ages of us beating the man to a pulp.

But because of its location, we needed his tribe.

When we finaUy worked him around to joining with us again, Rix and I were both exhausted. We left OUovico and went in search of some wine. Over a brimming cup, Rix asked me, “How’s that plump little wife of yours, Ainvar? Bnga, is that her name?”

“Plumper than ever,” I assured him. “She’s going to have my child.”

He threw back his head and gave such a bellowing laugh that

startled strangers nearby joined in. “You worked at it hard enough!” Rix cried, clapping me on the back.

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I managed a smug smile.

“I ‘11 bring your first son a gift for his name day,” Rix promised me. “And a gift for your Briga, too. I’ll select something for her myself, something that would suit her and no other woman. I think I know what she’d like.”

He winked.

On the moon that marked the anniversary of his conception, we named the child ofTarvos and Lakutu Glas, a Celtic word for the color green.

Using a color as part of a child’s name is not uncommon—if the child has black hair or red lips or a purple birthmark, for example. But when the vates read the portents and omens for Tarvos’s son, every sign indicated verdure and lushness, grass and leaf, an emerald future.

So we called him Glas. And wondered where the name would lead him.

As Briga’s pregnancy ripened, she grew calmer, quieter. Cmld-bearing women often subside into a milky serenity, I had observed. Many times I would find her and Lakutu with their heads together, murmuring away like conspirators about those aspects of creation from which the male is excluded.

I was jealous of their shared mysteries, but I was always jealous where Briga was concerned.

Encouraged by her prenatal tranquility, 1 decided it was safe to introduce her to an aspect of dmidry that had been too long postponed. Though she had studied with Sulis and Grannus and Dian Cet and several others, I had never sent her to Aberth.

Her grief over her brother still lay in the deepest shadows be-hind her eyes.

Sacrifice is an integral part of the exchange between Man and Otherworld. If she was going to be a full member of the Order, Briga would have to learn to accept it—

1 had been thinking a lot about sacrifice lately. The efficacy of Menua’s offering of the Senonian prisoners of war had worn thin with time. The Camutes had not yet felt the full force of Caesar as many other tribes had, but he was closing in on us. We would need fresh protections.

Everyone must be prepared.

On a morning when thick white mist rose from the river like the birth of clouds, I asked Briga to take a walk with me beyond the palisade.

“Are we going to the grove?”

“Not that far. We shall just. . - walk,” I replied.

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She looked toward Lakutu, who was sprinkling the floor with water in preparation for sweeping. Lakutu gave a very Gaulish shrug and Briga nodded, the eternal exchange of women acknowledging male vagaries.

I led my wife out into the mist.

Fog and mist are druid weather. When familiar landscape vanishes and there are no visible boundaries, one who knows the way may stumble into mystery. We are none of us solid. Nor are time and space immutable. It is claimed that the greatest of our druids, in ancient days, knew how to step from one reality into another, from one age into another. Sometimes, alone in the fog, wrapped in the hooded robe, I was tempted to try… .

But on this day my concern was the instruction of Briga. Taking her into the mist was merely a way of cutting her off from distractions and making her more vulnerable. She would resist what I was about to tell her; she must be isolated until she accepted.

I must be the chief druid.

As we passed out through the gate of the fort, the mist thickened until it swirted around us in clots and clouds. Briga put one hand on her swelling belly and pressed closer to me, but I did not put my arm around her. Instead, I began to speak. Quietly, calmly, gently; one strong and familiar voice amid white nothingness-1 wanted to hold her. But I wanted her to have nothing to hold on to but my words- “As you know,” I began, “we consist of two parts: a spirit of fire and a fort of flesh. When the flesh dies the spirit does not cease to be. It merely alters the conditions of its existence.”

“How can you be so sure?”

I explained it to her as Menua had once explained to me:

“Imagine a lake in a hot, dry summer, with a cloudless blue sky burning above it. We have all seen this. Every day the level of the lake falls. Where is the water going?”

She walked in silence for a time before admitting, “I don’t know.”

I smiled to myself. The mist was making her uncertain. Good.

The mist grew even thicker.

“Remember what always happens,” I told her. “Every day there is less water. Then at last clouds begin to form in that hot, bright sky. In time, they shed rain, and the rain replenishes the lake. Druids observed this for centuries before you were born, until they understood. The water had not ceased to be, Briga.

Nothing ceases to be. It had merely altered the conditions of its existence. The lake water became a water spirit, was drawn up

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into the clouds, rested there for a time, men fell as rain to become part of the take again.

“So it is with all spirits, including those housed in your flesh and mine. The body releases us—in our case, through death—and we move on through the cycles of existence.”

“But why must there be death at all?” she asked resentfully.

“Look to nature again. Imagine a forest. If no tree ever died, me forest would become so crowded the trees would exist in a choking, lightless horror. There would be no light near the ground to encourage young seedlings, there would be only old trees growing older, drying, splitting, rotting, tormented by insects, with no way to let their spirits escape and start afresh.

“Instead, observe what happens when a tree dies. In old age its roots have already shrunk back so they do not grasp a great handful of earth as they did in their youthful vigor. This is one way in which the Source prepares the tree for its death. A wind comes and easily topples the ancient one and the forces of destruction cause it to decay, becoming part of the soil again. Where the old tree falls new trees grow, nourished by its discarded body as its spirit moves on.

“So the dual forces of construction and destruction keep the cycle of existence turning, freeing and rehousing spirits so each has a chance to grow and express itself in ways appropriate to its nature, while remaining part of the whole.

“We swim through spirits as we swim through air. Spirits caught between human lives and spirits that have never been and will never be human. Animal spirits, bird spirits, tree spirits, water spirits. Spirits of place. Spirits of being so different from ourselves we can no more understand mem than wolves can understand rainbows. Yet all share the commonality of being and each commands respect.

“Sacrifice is one way of showing that respect.”

At the mention of the word, I heard her swift intake of breath. Yet she had attended cattle sacrifices during her seasons of training for the Order. With her own small, calloused hands she had poured their blood upon the earth to beseech a good harvest.

She knew, however, that the sacrifice of a bullock was not the ultimate in offerings. She knew what I was about to tell her, she just did not want to hear it. Nor, remembering my own youthful ignorance, could I blame her.

“Sacrifice is an act of piety,” I said in my gentlest voice as I guided her through a billowing mist that, wraithlike, extended tenuous, pleading amis to us. “The most potent form of sacrifice

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is human, Briga, because both sacrificer and victim can understand the nature of the act. Unlike animals, humans can go to their sacrifice willingly, as your brother did when he offered his life in a conscious effort to protect his people.

“Offering flesh and blood which has been sanctified through ritual is the utmost tribute, for it obligates the gods to give a gift of equal value in return. The most exalted intercourse between human and god takes place in the moment of sacrifice.”

If I closed my eyes I could still see the golden sparks, flying upward… .

“You make it sound as if something wonderful happened to Bran,” Briga said in a choked voice.

“It did.”

“He was killed.”

“No, Briga. His body was killed, only his body. The thing inside him that made him alive was his spirit, and that was not killed. Spirits cannot be unmade. Nothing ever ceases to be. Bran’s flesh was transformed into ash, but his spirit was freed to inter-cede with me Otherworid on behalf of his people. He was successful, the plague was ended. Then the spirit of Bran, the essential, living Bran, moved on to other lives and other opportunities you and I cannot imagine.”

We had stopped walking. Surrounded by a mist as thick as clotted cream, we stood feeing one another. With my mind I held the mist around us like a palisade, keeping the distractions of the world at bay. Simultaneously I attempted to reach into Briga’s head and instill her with belief.

The future might be terrible. The omens were increasingly daik. I wanted this woman who was more dear to me than any other to be able to meet whatever came without fear, secure in the wisdom of the druids. Knowing what druids know.

“Nothing ceases to be,” I reiterated emphatically, forcing her to accept the taw of nature.’ “Therefore we are, all of us, perfectly safe, even though the conditions of our existence change.”

She was standing close to me, gazing up into my face with an expression so earnest, so hopeful yet so fearful that it made me ache. Concentrating every fiber of my being, I poured into her the full, unshielded force of my knowledge, all my experience, all my memories …

… until I saw the shadows fade from her eyes like the coming of dawn.

Filled with wonder, her dear little, hoarse little voice repeated at last, “We are, all of us, perfectly safe. “

I OPENED MY arms wide and she came into them. Lost in the

mist, embracing my world, I was shaken by Joy. Between our tightly pressed bodies I fell the infant stir in her belly.

I

Briga laughed her gurgling laugh. “And the baby is safe too, yes?”

“Yes. That which causes it to move within you is its immortal spirit.”

“I love you, Ainvar,” Briga murmured.

In the silence of my head 1 murmured a prayer of profound gratitude to That Which Watched. Briga was entirely mine, she was no longer afraid to love me.

But I was afraid. Not of death. I was afraid that the child which was mine and Briga’s would not have the chance to grow up as a free person among free people, a singer among people who sang. I was afraid that Tarvos’s son, and the boy Briga had rescued from blindness, and all our other children would be denied their heritage.