Hadrian's wall (25 page)

The clan held hands, singing a song of the departing and returning sun as flames licked the cold sky.

Then there was quiet again, the Celts tensely waiting as the fire heated them on one side and the approaching winter chilled them on the other. Finally the circle broke to let in Kalin, his hood back, his eyes bright, and his arms bearing a trembling animal.

It was a sheep, black as winter night.

The druid stood inside the circle of Celts, the column of sparks behind him a roiling funnel. His face beaded with sweat, he called in a deep and steady voice. "Who speaks for the clan of Caratacus, of the tribe of the Attacotti and alliance of Caledonia?"

"I do!" Arden replied. He stood straight, his sword by his side, his cloak thrown back, his hair plaited, and his tunic open to the golden torque at his throat. "I'm chieftain of this clan, confirmed by combat and acclamation."

"Does your clan appreciate what the gods of wood and water have given them, chieftain Caratacus? Do they have thanks and humility in their hearts?"

"The clan thanks the good god Dagda, who knows all crafts and all hearts, and who gave us the harvest to see us through the coming winter."

"And who speaks for the great god Dagda?"

"I do," Arden replied.

"And will the god accept sacrifice from the Caledonii?"

"The god demands it. The god desires it."

With surprising strength, Kalin lifted the trussed sheep up above his head. The Celts roared their approval. Then the druid lowered the animal to the dry grass at his feet and took out a golden dagger.

"Accept back some of the fruit you have given us, Dagda!" The knife plunged; the sheep kicked and was still. The blade came out red, and Kalin turned the animal to efficiently slit its throat. Then he walked in stately circle around the fire so that the drain of the animal's neck left a splattered circle of blood.

Finally he came back to where he'd started and hurled the carcass into the fire.

A great shout went up. "To Dagda and all the gods!"

Then, amid the acrid smell of burning wool and flesh, the celebration began.

There was sour-sweet mead scooped by cups out of cauldrons, the skull drinking bowls passed from lip to lip. There was wine, traded or stolen from the Romans. There was beer in oaken casks. Cooking pits were uncovered and meat unwrapped from steaming leaves. Pork and beef were stabbed by daggers, dribbles of grease wiped clean by warm bread. There were fresh-picked apples, late-autumn greens, and honeyed cakes, all consumed under moon, stars, and sparks, laughter making white clouds in the night. Occasionally they'd glance more apprehensively at their fortress on its hill, wondering at the dark banquet going on there.

Arden kept a careful distance from Valeria, but his eye was almost always on her, watching her eat with the others, a kiss on her cheek here, a cheerful insult about her Roman origins there. She moved with quiet aura like the goddess she was about to play. What did she think of them now, in her secret heart? What would she do when her husband finally came for her, as someday he surely must?

She had her own goblet. "I'm learning to like their mead and beer," Valeria confessed to Savia, even while discreetly keeping her own eye on Arden.

"Don't drink so much that you forget who you are."

At length, Brisa touched Valeria's arm to escort her away. Arden disappeared as well. The merriment and feasting went on in their absence, more logs hurled onto the fire. Finally there was the low, long call of a horn, echoing down the pasture, and the crowd quieted somewhat, most of them drunk now.

Kalin's voice came out of the dark. "Make way for the good god Dagda!"

Music began, the beat of drums and swirl of pipes, men and women tapping and swaying to its rhythm. Out of the darkness a stag appeared: five-pointed antlers, muzzled head, shoulders draped with dressed deerskin. It was a stag with two legs, human and yet not human, quick and strong. The animal darted, stopped, stepped hesitantly, and stopped again-and then, its head up, it recognized the clan and the fire that welcomed it every year, and danced ahead. Blue human eyes looked out from the holes in its head, the great rack of antlers dipping up and down like a god in rut.

It was looking for its mate.

"Dagda!" the assembly cried. "Lord of all the gods!"

Round the fire the stag danced, three times. Then the horn sounded again.

"Morrigan of the horse roams free on the pasture," Brisa cried. "Now she comes into the circle of fire!"

The goddess ran headlong into the circle as if pushed, rearing to a halt just before crashing into the flames. The horse-goddess whirled in confusion as if bewildered or intoxicated. In truth, of course, she was both. Her head was that of the horse, a framework of hide and free-flowing mane, and her body, freed of its cloak, showed a goddess's form. A light dress was belted in an X across her breasts, and the firelight through the tunic silhouetted slim, muscular legs. A belt of gold cinched her narrow waist, its ends tied over and dropping into the grotto between her thighs. The tusks of a boar gleamed at her neck. The goddess-pony dashed this way and that, every attempt at escape blocked by the surrounding corral of laughing humans. Giving up, she danced light and carefree as a filly around the tower of flames, the antlered stag following half a circle behind, the drums pounding harder and the pipes swirling toward some kind of climax.

"Morrigan of the horse! Her belly promises spring!" Fearing that something irrevocable was about to happen, the goddess kept darting ahead. She'd pause, allow Dagda to approach, and then bolt. Around and around they danced, Dagda ducking and rearing in feigned impatience, Morrigan whirling to give a glimpse of her thighs. The heat made them sweat, and the night made them shiver.

The drums were accompanied by pounding feet and clapping hands in rhythmic thunder, the pace accelerating as Dagda drew ever nearer to the goddess whose fecundity would bring back light and food. She was slowing from exhaustion, looking over her shoulder at the antlered buck, her movements becoming more liquid and seductive as her soul was swallowed by her costume. Her hips were in rhythm with the music, her bare feet skipping on heat-curled grass. The sweat and heat picked out the points of her breasts, the geometry of her hips. The stag's arms were bare and powerfully muscled, a bone necklace rattling on his chest as he danced.

"Catch her, good god! Give us promise for the end of winter!" Yet still she darted away. It seemed the tension of the dance might never end.

Then Dagda suddenly stopped, crouched, and whirled, darting swiftly around the fire the other way. He met a surprised and dazed Morrigan on the other side before she realized he'd changed direction. He grasped her with his arms and swept her around in great, dizzying, dancing turns, the two animal heads muzzle to muzzle, his horns like the branches of the bare trees that reached for the moon. He'd captured her! Or had she allowed herself to be captured? And even as the goddess stumbled, exhausted, he swept her off her feet and into his arms, her horse's head falling off. Valeria looked up at the beast who held her with dazed, surrendering eyes.

The Celts howled.

Then the stag ran off into the dark, still carrying her.

Savia was weeping.

Arden's horse was waiting, and he cast his own headdress aside, the antlers tumbling away on the meadow. Valeria was lifted up onto the stallion's back, and he vaulted up behind her. "Let's reclaim our home from the dead," he whispered. They pounded toward the sentry line of lighted lanterns, their candles guttering, the moon orange as it set in the west. The horse galloped up the winding line of light as the others watched from the meadow below, and then it disappeared into the hill fort.

It was dark and silent inside Tiranen. Arden slipped from the horse and caught Valeria as she slid down, holding her tight to keep her bare feet out of the frosty mud. Then he strode toward the Great House where the dead had feasted, banging open the doors with the confidence of the greatest of all the gods. He saw with satisfaction that the mugs of milk had been drained and the platters had been emptied of their apple and barley. Their ancestors had been satiated. The ghosts were gone.

He carried her past the fire pit, his boot kicking a fresh log onto the embers of a fire. Then through a tapestry of winged birds to a chamber she'd never seen before.

There was a winding wooden stair, its balustrade carved with the scales of a snake. At its top was a sleeping loft. Thin windows looked out over moors and mountains silvered with starlight. Valeria had swooned as he'd carried her, not entirely sure if she were goddess or mortal woman, alive or dead, in a dream or reality. Now Arden laid her on a bed piled high with bear and fox fur, closed the chamber's shutters, and lit a fire on its hearth. She watched him dazedly, and all she knew was that she wanted the arms, chest, and heart of Dagda.

He knelt to whisper. "Let's tear down the Wall, Valeria."

He grasped her hand and gently slipped off her silver wedding ring with its intaglio of Fortuna, goddess of Fortune. She'd forgotten she even wore it. Then he produced the sea-horse brooch she'd abandoned in the forest so long ago. "I've kept this since I first saw you. For Samhain we join these in a golden goblet."

The ring and brooch rang as he dropped them into a cup.

She was trembling. "I don't know where I am. Who I am."

"You're one of us."

He came to her then, the warmth of his skin a renewed fire, and kissed with a tenderness she'd never known. Instead of the rough urgency of the stag, he was gentle as he undressed her, murmuring words and stroking her skin in transcendent wonder.

She was more beautiful than he'd imagined, her breasts high and full, her nipples roseate, her hips like the curve of the polished apple that had fallen from her hand.

His body was hard and hot like sanded wood, and as they continued to kiss, his passion and urgency grew.

She opened to him like a flower.

The gods joined and cried out even as the setting moon sent beams of radiance through the cracks of the shutters. Then the east glowed with promise, and the last of the grinning gourds, in the smoky line far below, finally burned out.

The New Year had been achieved.

Valeria woke at midafternoon to a world that seemed utterly changed and newly magical. She stretched her drowsy body in its nest of fur and woolens with languid laziness, physically satiated. What joy, followed by what an odd combination of depletion and fulfillment! Who'd known her body could be made to feel like that? Their beings had joined like flash and thunder, every nerve on fire, and now it was the aftermath of a vast and wonderful storm, everything wet and glistening in its wake.

She and Arden had made love well into morning before falling into exhausted sleep. At some point he'd awakened, kissed her tenderly, and left to attend to the clan. She'd lain in a cocoon of heat and musk, drifting randomly, dreaming of forest gods and a gourd-glow moon and the swirling stars of a winter's night. Now she came awake as if from a spell. How magical Samhain had been!

And then, as she remembered where and who she was, her contentment began to be polluted with guilt.

She had betrayed her husband.

Everything seemed turned upside down. She was in love with a man she once thought of as a dangerous and uncouth barbarian, and impossibly distant from a man she'd traveled more than a thousand miles to wed. She felt more at home in this timbered building than in the commander's house that was a reminder of Rome. She had more freedom and authority in the wilderness than she'd ever had in civilization, and thus more power with this poor tribe than she'd had in the Roman Empire. She was happier than she'd ever been, but only because everything she once scorned she now accepted.

How strange life had turned out to be!

Now she dreaded seeing Savia. The maidservant would no doubt start lecturing her about Christian ideas of sin.

Where was Arden? Suddenly she felt lonely with her doubts. Why had he left her like Marcus? Was this the way of all men? And why was her heart so suddenly and miserably confused? What mischief were the gods inflicting on her?

She got up, filled now with disquiet and a premonition that something was more deeply awry than she knew. It was wrong to have danced as a Celtic goddess, of course, no matter how weirdly thrilling it had been. Wrong to have gone to the bed of Arden Caratacus, sworn enemy of Rome. Yet how she savored the memory of his embrace, sometimes gentle, sometimes rough! Never with Marcus had she felt the passion and ecstasy she'd felt with Arden. It made her half dizzy even to remember it. So was the greatest moment of her life a mistake? Had she lost all sense? What did that foretell for future happiness?

What if she became heavy with child, hidden here away from her husband?

Why hadn't Marcus ever come for her?

The room was cold outside the coverings of the bed, and the sky had clouded over. It was already dim, slipping again toward long winter night. She looked outside and saw men leading strange horses toward the hill-fort corral. Who would come so late in the year? Or rather, so early in the next? Smoke rose from cooking fires, and she could hear the squeal of children and cackle of chickens. Everything was normal and yet strangely warped, as if viewed in a mirror. Her life had irrevocably changed.

She dressed hurriedly and crept downstairs. The Great House was being readied for supper, and Valeria realized she was famished again. She'd never been very hungry in Rome but always seemed that way here, where food was so simple. It wasn't just her mind that had changed, it was her very body, the buds of taste, the memory of smell. How disoriented she felt, as if still drunk!

She almost bumped into Asa, the redhead looking at her warily. Valeria's position in the clan had changed. By surrendering to the chieftain, she'd gained his power, so now Asa exhibited toward Valeria the surly deference of a disciplined dog. These were people who lived at extremes, overbearing in victory and downcast in defeat. "Where's Arden?" Valeria asked.

"In the Council Hut with a visitor." The question allowed Asa a small victory. "He's not to be disturbed."

The Council Hut was one of the round and peaked Celtic houses inside the hill fort, used for meetings when there were issues that were not for all ears. No doubt the horses Valeria had seen were from another chief. Was there some business that went with the dawn of the Celtic New Year? She'd have to ask Arden.

"Where's Savia?"

"Who knows?" Asa sniffed. "She scurries like a lizard from rock to rock."

Valeria got her cloak and went outside. She wore the high Celtic boots, but the mire had stiffened anyway: Cailleach had indeed struck with her staff. The overcast was low, its color sword-steel, and Valeria's breath made quick puffs of cloud. She wanted to find her maidservant, so much like a mother, and explain what had happened. Or have Savia explain it to her. She wanted, unconsciously, her slave's blessing.

Yet Savia was not at the gate, nor at the well. The corral? Valeria walked there and noticed that saddles had been taken from the tired mounts and placed on the rail. She was about to walk by, paying no mind, when she stopped and turned.

They were Roman.

The angle of horns, stitching of leather, and embedment of small coins were as distinctive as a face. These horses had come from the Wall.

Her heart skipped a beat. Was it Marcus, come to bargain for her release? Had she fallen in love with Arden Caratacus only to leave because of ransom?

But she should leave him, of course, out of loyalty to her husband!

She should, but she didn't want to.

She went to the railing of the corral and looked at the horses.

They whinnied, trotting this way and that, fearful they'd be made to ride again before resting. But no, she only wanted to see if she could tell which horses they were…

"The black one. Recognize him?"

She turned. It was Savia, the older woman hiding her face with the hood of her cloak. She'd stolen up on Valeria from behind.

"Go on, look," the maidservant urged.

The black one? Yes, there he was, big and proud, head uplifted, nostrils wide. "Galba!"

"Yes, my lady, Galba. Or rather, Galba's horse."

"Is the senior tribune here, too?"

"Like an apparition of the devil."

"Why?"

"Come to negotiate our release, I suspect."

"After all this time?"

"Before anything worse can happen. Before we forget where we came from and who we are."

Valeria felt sick. If it were Marcus, her feelings might be more mixed. But to have to ride back to the Wall with Galba…

"Why now? Why him?"

"I don't know. But if this concerns our fate, then I suggest we do what we slaves do best, which is listen. There's a hayrick in back of the hut where two women might hide while peering through a chink in the wall."

"A chink?"

Savia held up a stick. "When I saw Galba ride through the gate, as bold as an emperor and as wary as a wolf, I made one."

Two Roman cavalrymen guarded the door, Valeria recognizing the posture and profile of Galba's closest decurions. A third was in the rear of the hut, squatting in boredom. The women burrowed through the hayrick and lay not four paces away, invisible to his eyes. Savia's slit in the daub-and-wattle wall revealed Arden and Galba sitting by the charcoal heat of a small fire, each holding wine cups but regarding each other with the stiff courtliness of men who are allies but never friends. Behind them, listening like an owl and swaddled in robes, was Kalin.

The Roman's boots were spattered with mud, and his tunic was wet from sweat, evidence of a hard ride. Galba looked all business. So did Arden. The gentle and passionate lover of Samhain had been replaced by the warrior. He was unarmed but tense, military, alert, his features chiseled. Galba's face was darker and more sunken, as if caving in on itself.

"Are you here for the woman?" Arden's question was carefully flat.

"Who?" Galba seemed uncertain for a moment what the barbarian was talking about. "Oh, her. Of course not."

Arden stayed expressionless. "She's our hostage against attack, you know."

Galba nodded. "The situation has been more than a little frustrating for Marcus Flavius. I pretend ignorance about the girl's whereabouts while he fears to even hunt for her. He's wretched about doing nothing and wretched about doing something. He vacillates and broods and blames me, while ignoring letters from Rome seeking news of her plight. What a coward the man is! Given enough time, the duke would relieve him. But events on the Continent mean we don't have that time."

"What do you mean?"

"It's I who am about to be transferred. To Gaul or Spain."

"You?"

"It's the work of the praefectus. He's never trusted me and secretly blames me for the loss of his wife. Never mind that I lost four good men trying to save her."

"From a rendezvous you engineered, Brassidias."

"At your suggestion, Caratacus."

"You didn't warn us those four would come after her."

He shrugged. "I didn't know. There happened to be a conscientious duplicarius that night. When they didn't succeed, I had to punish him for his diligence. I had to pretend surprise."

Arden looked at the tribune curiously. "It doesn't bother you to be ruthless, does it?" It was as if he only now fully realized the menace of the man he was treating with.

"It doesn't bother me to be effective, forced by the jealousies and preferment of lesser men. Marcus hates that I've forgotten more about running the Petriana than he'll ever learn. He's as afraid of me as he is envious. So he's trying to get rid of me, and now, with events changing, the duke seems inclined to listen."

"What events?"

Galba leaned back, savoring his announcement. "The emperor is ill."

"Valentinian? He's been sick for a year."

"But now near death. The appointment of his son Gratian as co-emperor has divided the court. The Germans sense opportunity. Generals are taking the child under their wing and filling his ears with nonsense. Troops are being moved into Gaul as a precaution against invasion or civil war."

"How does this change things for us?"

"I'm to go there because soldiers are being taken from Britannia."

There was a long quiet. Kalin, who'd been so still that Valeria wondered if he'd fallen asleep, had straightened.

"Where from Britannia?" Arden asked with quiet intensity, his posture taut.

"The Wall."

The Celts absorbed the news. "They'd risk that?"

"The duke thinks it insane, but commanders in the south have more influence to hold their troops. The difference is being made up from the Sixth Victrix. Marcus contributed by claiming his raid on the grove suppressed chances of a northern uprising. He even cites the hostage of his wife as evidence of truce! As a reward, the Petriana is being depleted and given twice the length of wall to patrol."

"They think that little of us?"

"You know better than I that the tribes and clans have never acted in concert. The Romans think they can bluff you until the succession is settled. They regard you as a fool, Arden Caratacus."

Arden smiled grimly. "I hope you encourage them to continue that view, tribune."

"Continental transfer be damned! I'm too old, and I've worked too hard, to give up Britannia. By the gods, I gave my life to Britannia, my blood and my sweat, and they've rewarded me with second-place spit. I tried working with that plodding praefectus and buttering his little bitch, and they both disdained me. So I'm half tempted to take their transfer to Gaul and leave Marcus Flavius to roast in one of your wicker cages, screaming as he recognizes his own stupidity."

"We don't roast anybody anymore, Galba."

"Pity. I've persuaded him that you do. But while such a fire would satisfy my emotions, it won't fulfill my goals. So listen. The empire is weak and divided. You've a once-in-a-lifetime chance to wrest Britannia away from Rome. Rally the tribes, advance on the Wall, and you'll cut like a knife through cheese. You can loot your way to Londinium and crown yourself king."

"He's a traitor!" Savia hissed in the hay. Valeria pinched her maid's shoulder. The men didn't hear.

"You'll help us do that?" Arden asked.

"I'll make sure the Petriana doesn't oppose you too strongly."

Arden added charcoal to the fire. "What do you want in return?"

"My own little kingdom, of course."

"The Wall?"

"South of it, among the Brigante tribe. I know those people and can keep them from turning on you Attacotti. I can tell you how to beat the legions. What I want is northern Britannia and a quarter share of the gold you'll loot in Londinium."

"You don't care about your fellow soldiers?"

"The ones I care about will stick to me."

There was silence then, the men regarding each other. Bound by necessity, mistrustful by experience. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"The news about the emperor is no secret, and the transfer of troops not much more of one," Galba said. "Ask your allies. Query your spies. They'll confirm what I've told you. Believe me, Caratacus, at one time I'd have opposed you with all my might. But I've learned that the empire is a place where the best men are passed over and the least rewarded. I despise Marcus Flavius, and I despise the Roman bitch who allowed herself to be used by him for advancement. I want to build a-"

"Stop calling her that." It was flat warning.

"What?"

"Don't call Valeria a bitch."

Galba paused in surprise. Then he grinned. "Ah. I see. That little beauty has gotten to you, too. Why am I surprised? Too bad that initial ambush we arranged on the way to the wedding didn't work as intended. If you'd ambushed them before we were near, you wouldn't have vows in your way."

Valeria sucked in her breath. Galba had intended her abduction all along? He'd conspired with the brigands in the forest from the beginning? Of course! That was how the Celts had known when and where she'd be. That she could ride a horse. He'd maneuvered Clodius into being her lone escort. Had Titus known?

"The gods work in their own strange way," Arden said. "If I'd captured her then, Marcus would have likely lost his posting, and I'd be preparing to fight you, Galba."