Druids (57 page)

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live in the future more than men do, so I want to know what’s going to happen, if anyone can tell me. I hoped you could.”

“If … if the unthinkable should happen and Vercingetorix dies, what will you do?” I wanted to know.

Her voluptuous lips narrowed to a thin line. “Find another strong man,” she said mockingly.

There was iron in her eyes. Why had I thought women were soft?

The longer I lived the less I knew.

A ponderous presence came bustling up to us. “Ainvar, there you are, I *ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“What is it, Hanesa?”

” The army is leaving in the morning.”

“I know.”

“But the king Just told me I’m not to go with them,” the bard wailed.” He says I ‘ve gotten too fat, I couldn ‘t keep up the pace.”

“There is rather a lot of you,” Onuava interjected.

I sensed an old and simmering antagonism between them as Hanesa replied huffily, “Ita very fast on my feet.” He held out his hands to me. “Talk to him, Ainvar. Persuade him to change his mind. You can do it, no one else could.”

Onuava was watching. “I don’t have any exceptional influence with Vercingetorix, Hanesa. The command decisions are his; who am I to argue?”

The bard goggled at me. “This is me you’re talking to, Ainvar. And I ‘m asking you for friendship’s sake—tell the king he must bring me.”

Onuava was smiling with one side of her mouth only. “Must, Ainvar? You can say ‘must’ to the king?”

Suddenly I wondered. “I’ll talk to him, Hanesa, but I doubt if it will do any good.”

I felt a weight leaning against me. Onuava said softly, “Speak to him on my behalf also, Ainvar. Tell him he must take me.”

Hanesa and I both stared at her. “But you’ll be safe here, in Gergovia,” I argued. “We’re going to war, Onuava!”

“Gaulish women fight beside their men.”

“Sometimes, yes—in tribal battles, when the fighting is tak-ing place close to their lodges and farms. But this is a different sort of war, we’ll be marching for many days and facing soldiers who …”

“I know what Roman soldiers are like. I watched them from the walls.”

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“I thought you were concerned about the future. Going off to war is no way for a woman to guarantee herself a future.”

“Ah, but it is, Ainvar. I have a bigger stake in this than you do. I don’t mean to be left behind to worry and wonder. If I’m with you I shall know what happens as soon as it happens and can plan accordingly.”

“And ride off with the victor,” said Hanesa abruptly.

She whirled on him. “This is no business of yours!”

The bard said to me, “I’ve never mentioned the name of On-uava in my praise songs, and for good reason.”

“You’ve never mentioned my name because I won’t sit on the lap of a fat man.”

“I wouldn’t have you on my lap,” he retorted. “Not a woman who would be willing to ride in a Roman chariot, which you will, if the Romans win.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” she shrieked.

“My wife wanted to go with me once but I refused,” I interjected, hoping to distract them. But neither was listening.

“I know about you,” said Hanesa. “Everyone knows about you.”

She doubled her fists and sprang at him like a man.

With grave misgivings I stepped between them. Onuava hit me a jolting blow, then I caught her arm and twisted it back, holding her. She struggled violently; she was almost as strong as I was. I was aware we were gathering a crowd. People will always con-gregate to watch a fight, and a fight involving the king’s wife and the chief druid of Gaul was not to be missed.

Hanesa, who was a prudent man, had stepped back into the night and left me struggling with the woman. I had no reason to fight his battle, but she was making a sincere effort to kill me and I did not dare turn her loose.

She hit me be.ow the heart with her doubled fist, and the breath whooshed out of me. I twisted my body to protect my genitals from her knee, and she screamed at me as she had screamed at

the Roman trying to scale the wall.

The watching crowd was laughing and making wagers as to the eventual winner.

The battle must be ended for the sake of the dignity of my office. I succeeded, briefly, in pinioning both her wrists with one hand, and simultaneously put my other hand on her head, concentrating on sending a stab of disabling pain through her skull without doing her any actual harm.

It had no effect at all.

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When I had the time, I must contemplate the awful possibility that magic had no effect on women.

There was a clatter of hooves; Rix rode out of the night on his big black horse. He reined the animal in and sat staring down at us. I was too preoccupied to take time to read the expression on his face—and I was terribly embarrassed. Onuava look advantage of the distraction to break free from my grip and hit me as hard as she could on the side of the head with clubbed fists.

I staggered.

Somewhere above me, I heard Rix laugh. “That’s enough, wife,” he said mildly.

Enough for him perhaps, but not for me. I wanted to lift the woman over my head and hurl her from the walls of Gergovia. But it was too late. The battle was over. Onuava dropped her hands to her sides so I could not, in honor, hit her, and stepped back, tossing her hair out of her eyes. “I was just showing Ainvar how well I can fight,” she said, breathing hard. “He had agreed to ask you to take me with you tomorrow, and I wanted to prove to him he had made the right decision.”

How could I accuse the king’s wife of being a liar in front of both the king and a large, very amused crowd? I looked around for Hanesa, but he had totally disappeared.

Rix shifted weight on his horse and the black stallion pranced sideways, making people scatter. “I did not know you wanted to go with us, Onuava,” he called to her. ”But if Ainvar approves I suppose it’s all right.” Then he laughed. “We need every fighter we can get!” He rode off.

Onuava and I looked at each other. I discovered that I did not want to hit her again.

I wanted to rape her.

It was the first time I had ever felt that specific desire. She was a woman made for conquest. Made for a conqueror. She aroused such contradictory emotions in me that I determined to avoid her in the future—which might not be easy, since she was obviously going with us.

Rix LEFT A sizable force to garrison Gergovia, but still we set out for the land of the Aedui with almost thirty-five thousand men, including his Arvemian warriors and the new recruits from the southern tribes. A great train of baggage wagons followed us, though they made no effort to keep up with the cavalry.

Onuava rode in one of those wagons. As I would leam later, she had even persuaded some of the other warriors’ wives to accompany her.

Hanesa was also with us. Having lost the battle with Onuava, I had argued for him and won. If we had room in the wagons for the king’s wife we surely had room for his personal praise singer.

No sooner did we enter Aeduan territory, than it became obvious how much the situation had changed. Signs of Romaniza-tion were stripped away. On every side we saw burned and looted houses with triumphant Gaulish standards fluttering above the ruins. Each face that greeted us was a Celtic face. If there were still any Roman traders or officials in the territory, they were in hiding.

When we camped at night I no longer shared a tent with Ha-nesa, who was too far behind. I shared quarters instead with Cotuatus, who knew better than to question my frequent visits to the command tent.

Actually there was no advice I had to give Rix. He knew where he was going and exactly what he intended to accomplish. I sim-ply sought him out as my soul friend—and because his was the force that drove us all.

Litaviccus himself met us before the gates of Bibracte. Leaving the warlords to discuss war, I withdrew to the sacred grove of the Aedui, site of the largest druidic school in all of Gaul. Its use had

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declined with the waxing influence of Rome, but young people were flocking there again to be taught and inspired, to establish links with the Source.

Whatever that might be.

The Aeduan druids were effusive in their welcome. With the coming of Caesar they had been facing the extinction of the Order, and now they wanted to credit me with having saved druidry. I urged them not to assume the battle for Gaulish freedom was won, however. “We are going to need every bit of wisdom and magic and force we can summon,” I told them, “and even then it may not be enough. Caesar cannot afford to lose Gaul. His reputation back in the lands of Latium would be destroyed, to say nothing of his personal fortune. He will fight us as no enemy has fought before, and I want to be able to put the total strength of the Order at Vercingetorix’s disposal.”

Mindful of the magic of confidence, I did not reveal my secret fear—that a wisdom beyond my understanding had already decreed change for Gaul.

I told no one of the vision I had had in the grove of the Carnutes.

We must fight. We had to fight. What else could we do? We were a race of warriors.

We were too contentious, in fact. When I returned to the stronghold of Bibracte, a bitter quarrel had broken out-Vercin- getorix had demanded to be put in charge of the combined tribal armies of Gaul, and the princes of the Aedui had balked, summoning the old arguments we had heard from OIlovico and so many others.

As I passed through the main gateway, I could hear the shouting coming from the assembly house, though it was almost in the center of the town. Soon Rix came striding toward me, white-lipped with anger.

“I’ve given Gaius Caesar his first major defeat,” he snarled, ‘ ‘yet those woodenheads in there refuse to entrust me with command of the army. Of the army / inspired and created! They say I want to usurp their power in their own tribe!”

I fell into step beside him. “Other kings have had the same fear, but we convinced them, remember? And there is no believer as devout as the recently converted. Why not summon them here and let them persuade the Aeduans? They’ve given their warriors into your charge, yet they still control their own tribes; they would make the most persuasive argument on your behalf. Every one of

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them is no doubt very happy with you right now, after the triumph atGergovia.”

“Hmmm.” Rix paced on beside me, but I could feel him cooling and relaxing. I was aware of this when he turned his head to glance at a handsome Aeduan woman, smiling at him from her doorway. He was ready to listen to reason; the deafness of anger had passed.

I repealed my suggestion and he nodded.k ‘Yes, we can do that. And have them bring more warriors with them at the same time. That will make us even better prepared when the time comes to march against Caesar.”

He sent out messengers recruited from the Arvemian cavalry, riding our swiftest horses. In response to his summons the most powerful men in Gaul came to us, except for the leaders of the Remi and the Lingones. The Remi were too thoroughly cowed by Caesar to want anything to do with the confederacy, and the Ro-mans had too many men encamped in the land of the Lingones for that tribe to risk involving itself with us. Also absent were the Treveri, who were simply too far away—and the Nervii, upon whom Caesar had practiced almost totally genocide.

When the tribal leaders had assembled at Bibracte, Rix gave them time to convince the Aeduans that he should be put in supreme command of the army—then requested that the issue be put to a vote.

In spite of pressure being brought to bear by their peers, the Aeduan princes continued to be stubborn. If Rix had been of any other tribe than the Arverni, they would have accepted him more easily, but the old animosity blinded them just as it had bothered him.

We had too much to lose; I did not mean to leave anything to chance. While they were preparing to take the vote, I was preparing to work magic.

Once a certain magic has proven itself it should be repeated with as little deviation in the ritual as possible. When Vercingetorix was elected king of the Arvemi, I had been mating with Briga. I did not underestimate the power of sex magic. But Briga, unfortunately, was not available.

1 saw the workings of the pattern in the fact that another woman with an intimate connection to Vercingetorix was available. But how could I ask Rix to let me use his wife in a dmid ritual? I could not appeal to his self-interest, since he had no belief in magic.

I only hoped Onuava did not share his views.

360 Morgan Llywetyn

Our wagons had long since reached Bibracte, adding their colorful confusion to the sprawling encampment around the base of the stronghold. It took me a while to find Onuava. Many claimed to have seen her but no one could remember just where.

I was beginning to grow desperate when one of the leather curtains screening the interior of a brightly painted wagon was pulled aside. Onuava looked out at me. “Amvar’ What brings you to this part of the camp?”

She sounded happy to see me, as if our recent battle were forgotten. She was in a strange land; every familiar face had be-come a cherished friend to her.

“I was looking for you, Onuava.”

If she had been the sort of woman I originally thought she was, she might have smirked. Instead, she slitted her eyes at me, then drew the curtain farther aside and gestured at me to Join her in the wagon. “If you want to talk to me, it’s best to do it in here.”

The interior of the wagon was a surprise. Designed for carrying baggage and supplies, the large four-wheeled cart had been converted into a home on wheels. Onuava had equipped herself with cushions and blankets and fur robes, with water jugs and wine amphorae, and even a little bronze brazier.

“If you light a fire in that,” I remarked, “you’ll bum down

your wagon.”

“I’m not going to light it in here, I’m no fool. I merely brought it in case the summer turns cold and wet, as it can in Gaul. And I brought my own supplies of dried meat and fruit and salt, in case you need any. I’ve thought of every thing,” she added smugly.