The Druid King (9 page)

—and right into a boar, who suddenly stepped out from behind a tree, crouching low, bracing himself, and letting the impact flip the ball-carrying horse over onto his back.

In the cool forest shade just beyond the edge of the meadow, the Arch Druid Guttuatr stands watching the game of war with Gwyndo.

“They remain boys on the gaming field,” says Gwyndo, half ruefully, half affectionately.

On the green field in the bright sunlight, the pig’s bladder has been knocked free again, and a dozen boys rush together after it, tripping each other, kicking, elbowing, crawling beneath each other on the grass, as they fight for the ball.

“All too often in the world of strife as well,” says Guttuatr. “We may teach them the ways of the man of knowledge here, but even when we succeed, the man of knowledge always contains a man of action. Alas, the reverse is seldom true.”

“You speak of Keltill’s son?”

“He is filled with anger and a lust for vengeance. And yet . . .”

The Arch Druid’s shrug is belied by the intensity with which he regards the game of strife.

“And yet his wit is quick, if slower than his tongue . . . and he
is
still a boy. . . .”

The ball bounded free in the middle of the field, boars and horses dashing after it, the former outnumbering the latter. But a horse got to the pig’s bladder first, scooped it up, ran a few steps forward, looked over his shoulder.

Behind him, fellow horses had knocked down some of the pursuing boars, but there remained three more coming up fast. The horse with the ball looked far down the meadow and saw Viridwx run out into the open from behind a stand of blackberry bushes not far from the wooden horse where he had been lurking, waving his arms frantically, and clapping his hands for the ball.

The horse with the ball reared back and tossed it high and hard with all of his might.

Vercingetorix had run almost the full length of the field, chasing down a previous horse ball-carrier and knocking the pig’s bladder free, then had been knocked down himself by four other horses, who gave him a good angry pummeling for preventing the touch. Out of breath and sore, he had ducked behind a tree to recover for a few moments, and saw it happen.

Viridwx ran out from a stand of bushes, waving his arms for the ball. A long, high throw brought it almost to him. The ball hit the ground in front of him; it bounced, once, twice; and Viridwx had it.

He whirled around, dashed for the horse statue. Vercingetorix saw that he himself was the only defender visible between him and a sure touch, so, out of breath or not, as Viridwx angled toward him he prepared to leap out of cover and bring him down. But before he could—

—a boar, the Arverne Fragar, slid from behind a nearby boulder as Viridwx ran past him and, instead of tripping him fairly, fetched him a blind-sided kick in the balls.

Viridwx went down screaming, but managed to hold on to the ball as he rolled on the ground, writhing in pain.

Without thought, Vercingetorix ran across the field as—

—Fragar punched Viridwx squarely on the brow and pried the ball from his hands.

Vercingetorix arrived just as Fragar turned to carry the ball to the other end of the field, grabbed him by the arm, spun him around, punched him in the sternum, kicked him to the ground, and took the ball himself.

Time seemed to stop as Litivak ran toward the bizarre tableau. He saw Viridwx, clutching at his aching groin, staring up at Vercingetorix in puzzlement and the Arverne boy glaring at him in a fury. Vercingetorix stood there uncertainly, with the strangest look on his face as he clutched the pig’s bladder, as if he too, no less than Fragar, had entirely forgotten the rules of the game.

But then Keltill’s son, like his father, seemed to have little regard for rules handed down by either gods or men. Litivak’s own father often enough declared that this was typical of the Arverni, which was why the gods frowned upon them and favored the Edui, an opinion generally shared by most Eduen warriors of a mature age.

Why the gods of Gaul should choose to smile on a tribe who had achieved wealth and strength through craven alliance with the Roman worshippers of Jove and Venus was a question that some of Litivak’s generation might ponder unsuccessfully among themselves, but not one they would dare broach to their fathers.

Perhaps this was what fascinated Litivak about this callow Arverne. Vercingetorix was free in a way that Litivak both feared and envied, for his rage at those who had rendered him fatherless and disinherited freed him to give the heat of his blood full voice, to challenge all the rules of fathers and tribes and even druids.

Vercingetorix looks down at the furious Fragar and the dumbfounded Viridwx, a frozen moment that seems both a serious conundrum and quite ridiculous.

Fragar the Arverne is “on his side.”

Viridwx the Eduen is “on the other side,” and is his personal enemy too.

Yet he has thoughtlessly fought his “ally” to avenge an act of injustice against his “enemy.”

Ally?

Enemy?

This is not a war. This is only a game.

And he is holding not a sword but a pig’s bladder stuffed with straw.

And he remembers Litivak’s words of not very long ago: Better to win over those who oppose your way with noble deeds that display its virtues.

“You cheated, Fragar,” he says, and he pulls Viridwx to his feet. And hands him the ball.

“Which side are you on?” Viridwx mutters in utter befuddlement.

And Vercingetorix finds the words to fit the deed.

“The side of honor, Viridwx. Is that not the side of us all?”

“The boy of action contains the seed of a man of knowledge, Gwyndo,” says the Arch Druid, Guttuatr, smiling at what he has seen.

“You truly believe we can mold this angry boy into a druid?” Gwyndo asks skeptically.

“Angry or not—and who is to say he has no cause?—I do believe we have just seen him take the first true step to becoming a man—”

“—of knowledge?”

“Let us hope so, Gwyndo,” Guttuatr says more darkly. “We must certainly do our best to make it so. For if not . . .”

A tiny shudder passes through the Arch Druid’s body.

The druid Gwyndo knows the worldly reason for Guttuatr’s presence here yet not the deeper why of it, just as he knows the story of the tribes of Gaul as passed down by generations of tellers thereof like himself, and the laws of the druids, but not that which connects them, that which flows through, the slow, unseen river shaping all things.

The Arch Druid has come to “observe” his teaching of the story of Brenn, and there he stands behind the circle of nervously squirming students discomforted by his presence, implacable and immobile in the shade of the temple entrance like some marble Roman statue of himself.

Gwyndo knows that Guttuatr seeks to bend a vengeful boy, whom the heavens may have singled out, away from the path of action and onto the path of knowledge. Gwyndo knows that Guttuatr fears the coming of a king. Gwyndo knows that the law of the druids declares that Gaul must not
have
a king. But he knows not the why of it.

For this is knowledge that lies deep within the Inner Way. And he is one of the many, not one of the few. He is a keeper of the annals and the law and a teacher thereof. He is not a druid of the Inner Way. When he was offered that knowledge he refused, for the price was greater than he was willing to pay.

He is a druid. He is a man of knowledge.

But not the knowledge of the oak.

Of all the students seated before Gwyndo and sweating from more than the noonday sun, only Vercingetorix was anything like at ease.
The Arch Druid might be a daunting apparition to the rest of them, but he could not cast eyes upon Guttuatr without seeing also the bard Sporos in his threadbare robe.

Gwyndo was expounding the story of Brenn, and, this being a tale he well knew, Vercingetorix was listening with half an ear when, without warning, Guttuatr strode forward through the gasping semicircle of students, stood beside the squatting Gwyndo, thumped his staff hard on the ground, and looked straight at Vercingetorix.

“Tell us the true lesson of the story of Brenn, Vercingetorix,” he demanded.

And this was no Sporos, no blind beggar, no fellow ordure-smeared fugitive playing games of invisibility, this was the Arch Druid in all his solemn grandeur. Vercingetorix felt the pressure of every eye upon him in the rapt silence that followed. He knew that this was a test. Or a trap. Or both. He knew what he was expected to say, for he had used this tale to extol Keltill and what he had died for many times, and he knew all too well that the druids who had condemned his father used the very same tale to condemn also his just cause.

“Brenn was the last king the Gauls have had,” he said slowly. “After him, we have had no other. . . .”

“And can you tell us why?” asked the Arch Druid.

“Because since then we have had no need of a king,” Vercingetorix said sullenly, not adding “until now,” but knowing that all would hear those words’ unspoken ghosts.

“And why have we had no need of a king?” he asked.

Vercingetorix’s silver tongue failed him utterly.

“What is the purpose of a king?” said Guttuatr.

“To lead his people.”

“To lead them into what?”

Vercingetorix stared into Guttuatr’s eyes for a long silent moment. Those eyes revealed nothing. And yet . . . those eyes seemed to be looking out at him from a world of flame, and something seemed to speak through him.

“Into war!” he said. “King Brenn led the tribes of Gaul against Rome in order to unite them!”

“Did he?” said Guttuatr. “Or did he unite the tribes of Gaul in order to lead them into war on Rome?”

“There’s a difference?” Vercingetorix blurted.

Several of the students choked on titters. Gwyndo laughed openly. Even Guttuatr smiled fleetingly. Vercingetorix’s ears burned, and his teeth ground against each other in chagrin.

“What did Brenn do after he had led his army of Gauls to Rome and gained his great victory?” Guttuatr demanded.

“He turned around and led them home,” Vercingetorix admitted reluctantly.

“Why?” asked Guttuatr.

“Why?”

“Why did Brenn not crown himself king of Rome instead?”

“As Caesar would crown himself king of Gaul and Rome and of the whole world and the heavens beyond if we allowed him!” Vercingetorix interrupted hotly.

“Exactly,” said the Arch Druid.

To this, Vercingetorix had no answer, for it seemed to him that Brenn, though a great war leader, had in the end been a fool. He had defeated and humiliated the Romans but refused to conquer them. And for that mistake in the long ago, Gaul was paying dearly now.

Guttuatr strode to an oak at the margin of the clearing.

“Here is an oak growing out of the soil of Gaul,” he said, laying a palm on its rough bark. “Would it prosper in the hot lands across the southern ocean? Yet in those lands are other trees that thrive in the broiling heat. Would they flourish here?”

“What do
trees
have to do with the story of Brenn?” Vercingetorix demanded.

“The Romans believe that any land they conquer belongs to them. But men too are rooted in the soil of their own land. Sooner or later— even if it takes a thousand years—the tree of Gaul will die in the soil of Italy, and the tree of Rome will die in the soil of Gaul. Brenn knew that we could not forever rule Rome. Nor can Rome forever rule Gaul.”

“One does not have to be a man of knowledge to know that men are not trees!” Vercingetorix said contemptuously. “Trees have no choice but to stand there defenselessly and bow to the woodsman’s ax! Is that what you would have us do? Meekly keep our swords in their scabbards, bow to the will of Caesar, and become just one more enslaved province of Rome?”

At this there were scattered cheers, and Vercingetorix believed there would have been more had it not been the Arch Druid that he had challenged.

Guttuatr scowled, and Vercingetorix, as a warrior should, pressed his advantage home. “Are we
trees
or are we
Gauls
?” he demanded. “I say we must unite to make war on the Romans to drive them from our lands!”

Now the cheers were louder, and the Arch Druid’s discomfort verged on open ire. “Behind a king?” Guttuatr said grimly.

“Is not a comet the sign of the coming of a king?” demanded Vercingetorix. “And was not one seen in the heavens?”

“Is it?” said Guttuatr. “Was there? No man of knowledge saw any such thing. A comet endures long in the firmament; a falling star, no matter how brightly it burns, is gone in a few heartbeats. And so— might not what was seen be the sign of the
death
of him who, in his prideful vanity, would place a crown upon his brow in defiance of the law? For did not this very thing come to pass?”

Vercingetorix’s hands balled into fists, and for one mad moment, he almost stepped forward to menace the Arch Druid of all Gaul.

“All hail Vercingetorix, king of Gaul!” some Eduen bastard shouted mockingly, and the ensuing roar of laughter was enough to prevent the unthinkable.

Instead, Vercingetorix found himself fleeing the unbearable, fleeing the harsh, hot sunlight of the clearing to hide his tears and cool his blood in the calm, quiet, shadowy depths of the woods.

Caesar gazed down at a broad valley that narrowed gradually as it rose into the mild, grassy foothills leading up into the great rocky gray-brown ridges of the Maritime Alps. The green of the grass was only beginning to wither toward brown, but there was white to be seen on the higher crests, and a cool breeze blew down from the mountains, ruffling the banners, whirling the dust kicked up by the carts and wagons and horses, a harbinger of autumn.

This was a sign that it was indeed time to begin to move south to Aix for the winter, before snow began to clog the passes.

Caesar had marshaled all his legions here, save the garrison forces being left behind under Titus Labienus, and as he sat on his favorite horse surveying them from a low hilltop, it was almost as if he beheld vast fields of crops that he had sown, ripe now, and ready for the harvest: the brazen helmets slung across the chests of the infantry formations like gleaming yellow sunflowers, the upraised spears and standards like rows of giant asparagus, the brush-crested helmets of the cavalry bobbing like rushes in the wind. And, indeed, in the midst of these fields of his fancy were the real rich crops he had harvested—long strings of yoked slaves, wagons and carts loaded with dyes, metalwork, pelts, silver, gold—the spoils of this season’s booty and tribute.