Druids (46 page)

men. You can begin by explaining just who you are, and what gives you the right to send for a Roman officer.”

“I am of horse rank,” 1 replied evenly, “like your Gaius Cae-sar. I have just returned to find Cenabum surrounded by armed foreigners who were not invited here. So of course I demand an explanation.”

“You demand an explanation?” Plancus was perplexed. I was not acting in accordance with his expectations.

“I do. We have never marched an army into your land, why do you bring one into ours?”

“We have been sent to keep the peace,” he said stiffly.

“There was peace here until you came. Now, with five thousand troops blundering across fields and meadowland and turning them into useless muck, the peace is destroyed. Men are angered by your intrusion, and even as we speak, they are polishing their weapons. Blood will flow and you will be to blame.”

“Are you threatening a rebellion?”

“A rebellion is an uprising against the established authority,” I told him with the confidence of one well educated by the Order.

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“We have no reason to resist our established authority, which is that of the king Nantorus, beloved of his people.

“We do have every reason to resist foreign invaders, however, and we are fully capable of doing so. You bring trouble with you. All I ask is that you take it away. Go. Take your tegion elsewhere and leave us in peace.”

Plancus glanced toward Nantorus. “I thought the old man was too smart for this, but obviously he is willing to let a fool speak for him. You are making a mistake, Ainvar. You do not understand the situation.”

“It is you who does not understand the situation.” I corrected him gently.

Like a clever war leader, Plancus tried to shift the area of conflict onto familiar ground. ‘ ‘We have been ordered to leam the name of the murderer of your king Tasgetius, and surrender him .Xo justice.”

“By whose authority?”

“That of Gaius Julius Caesar, on behalf of the citizens of Rome.”

“A group that has no status in free Gaul,” I replied. “You are here by no authority we recognize, Plancus, in the land of the Camutes, who have six warriors to your every one.” I paused to let him digest that fact. Romans, my head reminded me, believe ^ death is permanent. Even a man as hard as Plancus must fear t

death as the ultimate threat.

“Whoever sent you here,” I told him, “has ordered you to die for a matter of no consequence. Our princes can call in their sworn warriors from the surrounding countryside with a simple shout if || Nantorus asks it of them. He has been lenient with you so far, p because we are a people at peace, with a lawful king. You have ^ come here in response to the unfounded accusations of a handful of disaffected traders, but are you willing to die for them, Plancus? Would any of them sacrifice himself for you? Are all of them together worth the destruction of a Roman legion?” f

He snorted. “What makes you think your men could do any ^ real damage to a legion of Rome?” I

Without warning I seized his sword wrist. Locking his eyes y with mine so I had access to his head, I began to squeeze.

Heavy. Stone. The weight of stone pressing inward on itself. ;. The weight of the earth, the ultimate goddess, mother to us all, pressing in, pressing down, irresistible, grinding and crushing … and crushing …

Inside the man’s head, in the place where each of us shapes our

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exterior form, consciously or not, I spoke to the bones of Plancus’s wnst. Grind and crush, I ordered. Grind and crush each other.

The Roman’s face went white beneath the layers of windbum.

Summoning memories of Vercingetorix, I spread his radiant, indomitable smile across my face and showed it to Lucius Plancus. Look upon the face of a free man! I commanded silently.

Fear him!

In the quiet lodge, the sudden crunching of bone being pulver-ized was shockingly loud.

Plancus sagged in my grip. He neither gasped nor cried out, however. Rome hammers her warriors hard. But I doubt if he ever thought his wrist could be crushed by a single squeeze.

When 1 released him, his hand flopped uselessly. He caught it with the other hand and tried to rotate the joint. There was a terrible grating noise and from the look of him, I thought Plancus would faint.

“You had better sit down,” I said solicitously. “Here, on this bench. With a fur robe for your knees? And take some wine. Perhaps you would like one of our healers to attend you?”

Throughout the confrontation, Nantorus and his attendants had followed my instructions and kept quiet. Now the king’s wife stepped forward to offer a cup of wine to the Roman. Taking the cup in his uninjured hand, he drained it in a gulp.

I thought of the earth, and darkness, and weight. Great weight, pressing down.

This time Plancus did gasp, but he fought back. “I do not want any of your barbarian healers to do me any more damage,” he said through gritted teeth.

“As you wish,” I agreed pleasantly. Still in conversational tones I remarked, “I am not the strongest of our tribe, you know. Far from it. Some of our warriors would consider me weak. You have never fought free Gauls, have you? There are those among us whom no sane man would dare to face in combat.”

When he least expected it, I resurrected the radiant grin of Vercingetorix and showed it to him again.

Simultaneously I commanded the bones in his wrist to do my bidding one final time.

Plancus’s eyes rolled up in his head. When he recovered he started to say something, but I forestalled him. “Shall 1 call your men to take you back to camp now? You do not seem to be enjoying yourself very much, which is a pity. We pride ourselves on our hospitality. I do not think you will want to tell your men what

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happened to you here, will you? It would do your reputation no good to admit you were so easily incapacitated by … a barbarian. Shall we just say you fell? It is so dark in these lodges.”

Putting a hand under his good arm, I helped the Roman to his feet. He could not summon the strength to resist me. Pain was washing over him in waves, and his wrist hung at his side like a tube of skin rilled with gravel. It would never wield a sword again, the joint was crushed. By the weight of the earth.

As we reached the door, all solicitude fell away from me in a blink, leaving a core of ice. In a low, intense voice, I hissed, “There is no reason for you to be here except to die, Lucius Plancus. To die horribly. You have already suffered. Leave while you can, before something much worse happens to you and to your men.”

I walked him through the doorway. The sun was just setting in a bloodred sky. Turning my body precisely so the last, lurid rays were reflected in my eyes, I bent the full force of my gaze on the Roman.

“Leave,” I commanded. “While you can.”

MY PEOPLE WERE waiting for me at the gates of the Fort of the Grove, elbowing one another in their eagerness to hear what had happened at Cenabum. Even Crom Daral was there, not pressing forward with the others but standing beyond the crowd like a solitary raven on a branch.

Though I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, I did my duty. I

led the crowd to the assembly house, where I related my experience with the Romans. When telling of the confrontation with Plancus, I spun it out a bit, as Hanesa would have, enjoying the resultant gasps and murmurs. Perhaps in some other life I might be a good bard.

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My druids asked the important questions. “Did the Romans leave?” DianCet insisted on knowing, several times, before I had quite finished the best part of the story.

“Plancus went back to his camp with much to think about,” I replied. “I did not expect he would immediately pull out the legion; they continued to drill and march and countermarch as before. But no one appeared in Cenabum to investigate the death of Tasgetius.

“We waited.

“Plancus remained encamped near the town for a full seven nights, then on the eighth morning the sentries reported the legion was moving across the Liger, moving away from us in the general direction of the land of the Turones. Presumably Lucius Plancus had decided the peace could be better kept by watching the Turones instead of us.”

The Goban Saor spoke up. “I don’t understand why he didn’t kill you. You had, after all, assaulted a commander of the Roman army.”

Ismiled. “I kept him too off-balance. Romans want everything to be clear, with sharp edges, and they train endlessly in preparation for predictable situations. But there was no way Plancus could have prepared himself for what befell him in the king’s lodge. From the moment he arrived he was dealing with the unexpected.

“If he were a man who reacted rashly he would never have been put in charge of a Roman legion, so I was safe enough as long as I kept him confused, unable to sort out the situation in his head and decide on some sensible Roman response.

“By the time he returned to his own camp he must have felt something of a fool, but there was still the pain to be dealt with, and I relied on that pain. His injury was one no man could ignore. We all inadvertently tighten the tendons of our hands and fingers almost continually, and every time Plancus did so he must have been in agony. Agony prevents clear thought. Since he could not think clearly, he did what must have seemed the wisest thing—he made a strategic retreat. What reason he will give to Caesar I cannot say, but he will probably find a satisfactory justification.”

“Will the legion return?”

“Not immediately. We have a little more time.”

In truth, 1 felt as if I were conducting a complex trading negotiation with the unseen Caesar, using all of my cleverness to buy my people one day at a time, like one bead at a time to be

strung on a string.

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The two of us were engaged in a struggle whose true nature I understood far better than Caesar. For him, the campaigns in Gaul were merely stepping stones in his career.

For us, the issue was something more important than life itself. Presumably he did not yet realize that the Order of the Wise was his true and implacable enemy.

The valiant mdutiomarus of the Treveri was captured by Cae-sar’s men as he attempted to cross a river. We learned with great anger that his head had been carried on a pole to the Roman camp, where it was greeted with hoots and jeers.

In the great grove we offered a fitting sacrifice to the glory of the Treveran king; one of us, now and forever.

With the death of Indutiomarus northern resistance seemed to have abated, for the time being. Caesar called a council of the Gaulish leaders-He claimed afterward that most of them attended, which was a blatant lie.

An uneasy quiet that might have been mistaken for peace settied over Gaul, but underneath, the druid network was busy urging, persuading, arguing, suggesting.

I know. From the great grove at the heart of Gaul I guided them, playing my desperate, invisible game against the cruelty and cunning of Gaius Caesar.

One of the most frequent visitors to the grove had come to be Riommar, chief druid of the Senones. Like myself, he was young for his office; a man of talent and vigor, devoted to the protection of bis tribe. His own diviners had seen portents that worried him, causing him to set aside any lingering resentment his people might have for mine over the matter of the long-ago sacrifice of the Senones prisoners of war. Such deeds were commonplace and understood by us born; the threat posed by Caesar was different, and Riommar was wise enough to realize that it superseded tribal

rivalries.

If only kings were as wise!

It was at my urging that Riommar had warned Cavarinus, king of the Senones, not to attend Caesar’s council. Cavarinus was beguiled by Rome’s riches, but Riommar had managed to frighten him with dire portents.

“A temporary success,” he told me in the grove. “Cavarinus is too much impressed by Caesar. It was with the Roman’s support that he ousted our former king, Moritasgus, and took his place in the king’s lodge at Vellaunodunum.”

“That has come to be a familiar story in Gaul,” I said. “But Moritasgus is still living, is he not?”

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“He is.”

“More fortunate than some,” I murmured, thinking ofCeltil-lus the Arvemian. “You would be better off if he became your king again, Riommar. He would not deliver you into the Roman’s hands as I fear Cavarinus might.”

Riommar nodded, his face shadowed with worry. “These are hard times.”

‘ ‘The addition of the Senones to the confederacy of free Gaul would greatly strengthen us,” I suggested.

“Cavarinus would never …”

“No. But surely Moritasgus would. He must hate Caesar.”

“If Cavarinus were assassinated the Romans would be suspicious. I do not want my tribe to be under their scrutiny as yours has been since the death of your Tasgetius.”

“I was not thinking of oven murder,” I assured Riommar. “That is the Roman way and to be avoided, as we have learned. There are other ways, older and better. Druid ways.”

Our eyes met in understanding. “I defer to the wisdom of the Keeper of the Grove,” said Riommar. “We seek your help because Cavarinus should not be king of our tribe; how you choose to help us is up to you.”

“Nothing comes free. For every crop taken from the earth an offering must be given. If we use the power of the grove to help you, in return you must use your influence to persuade Moritasgus and the other princes of the Senones to join the Gaulish confederacy and follow Vercingetorix in battle against Caesar when the time comes.”

“Agreed.”

“What about those who are now most loyal to Cavarinus?”

We were walking in the forest, since Briga’s time would soon be upon her and there were too many women in my lodge. On me bare branches of the trees tight new buds waited to spring into life.

Bending down, Riommar collected a handful of yellowish pebbles from the soft brown earth. He tossed them up, they fell into a pattern. Most fell together, but a few skipped and rolled apart from the others. “The majority will follow Moritasgus,” Riommar said. “A few will go their own way. We are free people.”