The Greener Shore (9 page)

As we drew near the beach where we had left the boats, Briga came running to meet me with the sunlight on her face. My arms folded around her; I buried my face in her hair. It felt different, stiffer. Yet it was my Briga’s hair, and that’s all I needed to know. She was warm in my arms and soft in my arms and her softness summoned a most delicious hardness in myself. We must build lodges very soon.

Briga and I stood unmoving until our hearts began to beat with the same rhythm and we were one again. When I raised my head I saw that my clan was still gathered on the beach. But the boats were gone.

I stared at the space where they had been. Then looked to the sea. The empty, empty sea. I felt nothing. Since Caesar invaded Gaul I had received so many shocks, I could not absorb any more.

“Where did the boats go?” I asked faintly.

My wife’s eyes sparked with anger. “As soon as you were out of sight, Goulvan ordered his men back into them and they all sailed away.”

The others were crowding around us. I did not see Labraid among them. “Where is he?” I asked Onuava.

She knew exactly who I meant, and why. When she answered her words ran together too fast. “He tried to stop them, Ainvar, I swear he did. All the men tried to stop them, but the Armoricans were too strong.”

Too strong for Teyrnon the ironsmith, and the sinewy arms of the Goban Saor, and stalwart Grannus who never took a step backward in his life? If I had left Cormiac Ru with them, things would have been different.

Looking around, I observed that the faces of my friends were battered and bruised. Even young Glas had a purple eye. At that moment, if I could have got Goulvan’s neck in my hands I would have snapped it like a dead branch.

My ears reported that Onuava was still babbling. “Labraid’s always been as fearless as his father was, you know. My brave little prince ran headlong into the sea and began beating the water with his arms and legs. I shouted after him but he ignored me. Ignored his own mother! His head stayed atop the water for a little while, but he never even got close to the boats. Then suddenly he disappeared.”

My ability to feel returned in full measure. Agony shot through me. This latest disaster was one too many. If the son of Vercingetorix had drowned due to a bad decision of mine, my failure was complete.

Briga sneezed. “Labraid didn’t drown, Ainvar,” she said in her hoarse little voice. “I went after him.”

“But you can’t swim.”

“No,” she agreed.

My second wife took a step forward to get my attention. “Briga went out and Briga came back,” Lakutu said simply. “With Labraid.”

chapter
V

“B
RIGA WADED INTO THE SEA BEFORE WE COULD STOP HER,” THE
Goban Saor elaborated. “I was sure they both would drown and tried to go after them myself, but Grannus and Teyrnon held me back.”

“We couldn’t afford to lose everybody,” Grannus said reasonably.

“Just so. Anyway, while we watched, Briga kept going in the direction where we had last seen Labraid. She went a long way out, Ainvar. Her feet could not possibly have been touching the bottom. Besides, the surf was very strong. When we saw the waves break over her, we thought we’d lost her, too. Then she reappeared holding Labraid. While we stood and stared like a tree full of owls, she returned to us. They both returned to us.”

This explained the texture of Briga’s hair. It was stiff with salt.

Grannus took up the story. “Sulis stretched Labraid out on the sand and pummeled him until he coughed up the water he’d swallowed. He’s all right now, though considerably quieter than he was yesterday, which is no bad thing. He’s asleep over there under my cloak.”

Fear snapped the thread of my temper. “Don’t ever do anything like that again!” I shouted at Briga.

She gave my arm a little pat. “Oh, Ainvar, a bit of water won’t hurt me.”

“We’re talking about the Great Sea!”

She just smiled at me.

Teyrnon thought he had seen Briga swimming, but his eyes were not young and sometimes deceived him. In Gaul, when we went bathing in the lake, Briga had always stayed in shallow water. When I offered to teach her to swim she demurred. “Why would I need to swim? I never go into deep water.”

Yet here she had gone into deep water.

Lakutu had a different version. My second wife said flatly, “The water parted and let Briga pass through.”

If this was true—and I had never known Lakutu to lie—it was magic of a very high order.

Briga laughed at the suggestion. “I didn’t work any magic, Ainvar, I wouldn’t know how. I just did what had to be done.”

“What, exactly, did you do?”

She pleated her forehead for a moment, then gave a Gaulish shrug of dismissal. “It all happened so fast, I don’t remember.”

Because she was Briga I chose to believe her. Had she been Onuava, I would have demanded a pinch of valuable salt first. My third wife liked to embroider the truth or even stretch it completely out of shape. When Onuava tugged at my arm with her own version of the incident, I did not bother to listen. Much later I would wish I had.

When I regained my composure, I related our encounter with Cohern and the deal we had struck, including the promise of sheep and cattle. “They’ll give us a small supply of food to begin with,” I said, “but Goulvan was right about one thing: This land is teeming with game. We’re in no danger of starving.”

The Goban Saor spoke up. “While you were gone, Ainvar, I did some exploring. The tales we heard are true in one respect. There’s gold in the streams flowing down from the mountains. I also found rocks containing iron and copper ore, so as soon as we get settled, Teyrnon and I will be able to forge metal. We even have an apprentice. Lakutu’s son, Glas, is interested in craftsmanship and he’s good with his hands.”

“As soon as you make some shears for me and Grannus builds a loom,” Damona chimed in, “I can weave the wool from our new sheep.”

Already my people were planning new lives.

Fortunately the women had unloaded our supplies before the Armoricans deserted. I have no doubt that Briga’s enameled bowls were the first items removed from our boat. They had been set to one side where no clumsy foot would stumble over them.

In addition to our clothing we had brought a few iron spearheads and axe-heads, one iron cauldron, knives, flesh forks, emmer wheat for planting, smoked pigmeat, dried venison, hard cheese, a large bag of flour, and a small sack of salt. Salt had been the earliest wealth of the Celts, a scarce commodity that lured traders from the Amber Road to a village high in the Blue Mountains. A village called Hallstatt, the womb of our race.

Before the before, that was.

On the beach in Hibernia we distributed our belongings so that every person carried a share. Except for Labraid. Thanks to the overenergetic pounding our healer had given his back, the youth had a broken rib. An apologetic Sulis slathered his torso with unguents, then bound his body tightly so he could walk without much discomfort.

Grannus carried Briga’s big iron cauldron strapped to his back. Her beloved bowls, wrapped in her favorite cloak, were tucked safely inside the cauldron. Instead of walking with me she paced along behind Grannus, keeping a watchful eye on her property.

Cohern’s clanspeople gave us a better welcome this time. They came out of their lodges to greet us; their smallest children soon were playing with our smallest children. I sent Sulis to the chieftain straightaway. She disappeared into his lodge and did not reemerge until the following morning, looking exhausted but pleased with herself.

By the next sundown Cohern’s health had begun to improve.

His people made us as comfortable as possible in their lodges. As I had surmised, the clan had been seriously reduced through warfare. The survivors lived primitive lives. Everything was pared down to the bone. Cohern’s people grew a little barley for ale, and a few oats, but they subsisted primarily on mutton and cheese. Cattle were raised for their hides. Leather was the only valuable commodity the clan had to trade.

Without strong men to defend the herd from raiders, Cohern would be totally impoverished. Meanwhile his clan stood a very real chance of being captured by an enemy tribe and taken into bondage. The blood of Milesios would not save them.

Noble blood had not saved Vercingetorix, either.

The Order of the Wise teaches: We rule in one life and serve in the next.

I spoke privately with Cormiac because it was only fair to warn him. “If you are captured and taken into bondage we might never see you again.”

The Red Wolf showed his teeth in a thin smile. “What makes you think I’d let myself be captured? Don’t worry, Ainvar, I’ll never be far from you and yours.”

“Cohern and I have an agreement.”

“I understand, and I’ll honor it—unless it happens that your needs conflict with his.”

“What will you do then?”

His smile widened by an infinitesimal degree. “Melt away as the wolf melts away into the forest.”

When he began to feel better, Cohern summoned me. “I’ve decided where your people can live, Ainvar. At the far edge of our clanland is an uninhabited valley with plenty of good grass.”

“Is there fresh water?”

“On…er, Hibernia? Don’t make me laugh. Rivers, lakes, bogs, waterfalls…throw a stone in any direction and you’ll have water splashing in your face.”

I asked the obvious question. “If this valley’s so good, why aren’t some of your own people living there?”

“Ah, right now there aren’t enough of us, Ainvar. You know how clans are. They wax and wane like the moon.”

I accepted his explanation. My own family had waned severely. “Tell me more about the valley. How far is it from here?”

“Less than half a morning’s walk. A morning in winter, that is, not high summer. In high summer we have almost no night at all.”

A summer of nightless days. Magic.

Cohern cannily refused to let us leave for the valley until his recovery was complete. I thought of asking Briga to help speed the process, but discarded the idea. I was never certain of the exact dimensions of Briga’s gift. If there was a serious illness in our family she always sent for Sulis. Was that to show respect for the older woman? Or was she afraid to treat her own children because she might fail? In our time together I had seen Briga do a number of things that could not be explained, yet none of them, aside from healing Cormiac’s eyes, inspired awe. Until her rescue of Labraid.

Whether she belonged to the Order of the Wise or not, my senior wife was druid.

Fortunately Cohern’s recovery was rapid. He sent us on our way with four cows, a bull calf that bawled continually, and a small flock of sheep. He presented Sulis with some domestic fowl as a gift of gratitude.

Labraid and Cormiac Ru he kept for himself.

Guided by an old man whose vocabulary was limited to grunting and pointing, we reached the valley long before high sun. Cohern’s clanland was not very large; we would be living closer to him than I liked. I feared he would be peering over my shoulder and finding fault with our foreign ways. There was one compensation, however. Among his clanspeople were several young girls. Glas and my son Dara would soon be of an age to take wives.

Cormiac Ru was old enough already, but I had long since accepted his fantasy. The Red Wolf was destined for Maia.

His mission fulfilled, the old man left us without even a grunt of farewell. We stood together in a tight little knot of hopes and fears and looked around. What we saw was better than I could have hoped. The valley lay in the lap of low mountains that shielded it from the prevailing wind. A herd of red deer were napping in the tall grass. As we approached, they leaped to their feet and bounded away up the forested slopes. Their sheer grace made my heart sing.

“Meat,” said Grannus.

“And good water!” Briga drew my attention to a river that emerged from a gorge at the head of the valley. A dancing little river that tumbled over its rocky bed and sparkled in the sunshine.

Here was all that was necessary for life.

A nearby stand of mountain ash and whitethorn provided enough dead wood for a ceremonial fire. Briga had a deft hand with flintstones; she could coax a living spark from the dampest timber. Standing around the blaze in solemn assembly, we chanted our thanks to the Source.

Then we got to work.

There is no energy like that of a woman setting up a new household. While we men watched bemused, our womenfolk brisked about, choosing sites for lodges. In the Gaul of my youth a man and his senior wife had occupied one lodge, with separate accommodations built for other wives as they came along. While hiding in the forest we had enjoyed no such luxury. Of necessity, we had thrown up communal shelters as quickly as we could because we had to move so often. In Hibernia we continued out of habit.

My three wives conferred at length, with many excited gestures, before deciding on a site for the lodge we would share. The doorway must face the rising sun. The ground should be high enough to avoid flooding. There had to be room inside for a central hearth with a cauldron and spit, a loom, a stone kneading trough and other necessary domestic furniture, and an adequate number of beds. When a man and woman lie together—or sit or stand or roll around in each other’s arms—those who share their lodge neither see nor hear them. That applies to everyone from the toothless grandmother to the toothless infant. We had no toothless infants among us but there were plenty of children. My lodge had to be big.