‘If it is truly healing, until then I can bluff as well as you.’ She let him lead her to the door. ‘Do you speak to your Council tonight?’
‘Nay, not until they are all here. I will discuss this matter once and no more. Besides,’ he smiled as, golden head by golden head, they paced sedately up the hall to the High King’s table, ‘I have more important matters to attend to tonight. Young Dawid makes his debut as a harper.’
All the same, he took silent stock of those present, as the hounds who served the High King’s hall scurried about with flagons and platters, and the four-footed hounds who lay beside their masters’ chairs followed them with hopeful eyes.
Cathuil was there, of course, a grey bulwark seated beside the queen, and, farther down the hall, her brother Donal, Dawid’s father, who had driven in that night. Galt, to the High King’s other side, appeared unconcerned with anything save his protégé, who was pouring mead at the far end of the table and looking as if he might drop the whole flagon out of sheer nerves at any moment. But Vortrix was well aware that when his blood brother seemed unconcerned, he was most likely to be dangerous.
Conor was there, quietly watching the High King eat his meal, and Cawdor, sulkily eating his own across the room. Talhaiere, impressive in his priestly robes, was talking quietly with Cathuil. They had been boys together and saw eye to eye on certain matters. Berec would arrive in the morning, though no one, except perhaps Cawdor, seemed to miss his presence at the moment. Duncan would most likely be there by late afternoon tomorrow.
Those present seemed content to wait for the morrow to discover why the High King had called them in. For the moment, the mead flowed freely, and the sacrifice of some of the High King’s best spring lambs did not go unappreciated. As the meal was ending, the boys came out to dance the Spear Dance for the assembled lords, its wild, sweeping music and flying spear points catching them all up in the exultation of the hunt… or the battle, depending on the interpretation the dancers wished to give it. Tonight the battle aspect of the ancient dance of the Tribe was most evident, and its effect on the watchers was not lost on Vortrix who had had a private word with the leader of the dance earlier in the day. Enmeshed in the sound and the pattern of the dancers, they shifted in their chairs, some unconsciously fingering sword hilt or dagger. It was the Dance of Death, of bloody victory and the end of the enemy, blotted out like a candle flame to rise no more, while the Tribe danced singing on the grave. Few men could watch a spear dance such as this one without emotion. Of them all, only Conor sat unmoved, his unwavering eyes fixed on the High King, and curiosity in his gaze.
The dance ended in a flash of spear points and a shout of triumph, and then the dancers were only the High King’s hounds again.
Vortrix beckoned to the youngest of them, a freckled urchin with bright blue eyes and ears like a jug. ‘Go and fetch young Dawid. Tell him he may bring his harp.’
The boy nodded and scampered around the edge of the hall to the group of boys at the far end. ‘I hope your harp’s in tune,’ he whispered, grinning at Dawid. ‘The High King wants you.’ Dawid took the harp from the bag he had hung on the wall behind him, and started, heart pounding, for the head of the hall, while behind him two of the older boys suppressed the message bearer ruthlessly for lack of respect for his elders.
‘I am told you have the music in you,’ Vortrix said. ‘Will you wake your harp for us?’
Galt, seeing that his protégé was becoming more petrified by the moment, smiled reassuringly and murmured to him, ‘Indeed, I have told him so, and I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to cast us both into disrepute.’
Dawid smiled and took his cue. ‘I shall endeavor not to do so,’ he said with such an inflection of Galt at his driest that the others laughed.
‘You have taught your pupil well, Galt.’
‘A harper needs many things besides his music. Keeping his head in a crisis is but one of them.’
Dawid took the old harp lovingly from its bag and ran his fingers along the strings, letting the music wash away his nervousness. The Council Lords and their retinues settled back to listen. The blue-eyed urchin, undaunted, dusted himself off and perched, legs a-swing, on the end of the boys’ table, while the other boys also fell silent in anticipation. The gift of music was a great thing, and few men were blessed with it. It was a source of pride to them all that the master harper saw that gift in Dawid.
The wooden frame was oiled and rubbed to a glow as soft as candlelight, and the strings were shining and alive with the music in them. Slowly, as Dawid touched them, the music began to emerge, a song as old as the golden people themselves, of a daughter of the Sky Folk who loved a mortal king and gave up her powers and her free world of wind and clouds to be his queen. In the end she died, as mortals will, and her sisters mourned their lost one, seeing her always in the faces of her children from generation to generation. In time her descendants forgot that ever they had a foremother from the Sky Folk, but the wind and rain remember her still and sigh for their lost sister when a mortal with her likeness passes by.
As Dawid drew the last note from the strings, it hung in the air like the voice of the wind, and even the High King sat in silence until it had faded past hearing.
Then he lifted his brows at Galt, who nodded. Vortrix leaned forward. ‘Do you wish to be a harper, little brother?’
‘Oh yes, sir!’ Dawid looked from one to the other, eyes shining.
‘Then if Galt will take you for pupil, you are excused from housekeeping chores that you may have time to learn your craft. But you must not let your training with your spear brothers suffer. The Tribe has need of warriors, and I am told you show promise there also.’
‘Yes, sir. I promise.’
Then Galt also leaned forward, taking from his wrist an ancient and finely wrought band of red gold. ‘This was given me by a very great old man, who woke the music in me. I would have you wear it if you will come to me as fosterling.’ Dawid hesitated, and Galt added gently, ‘I have spoken to your father, and you have his blessing.’
‘Th-thank you, sir. I will come, and gladly.’ The boy took the armband and slipped it on his own, pushing it high up on the forearm for safety.
Galt touched him on the shoulder. ‘Very well, youngling. We will talk later.’ The High King nodded his dismissal, and Dawid picked up his harp and made his way slowly down the hall to the gleeful approval of the boys’ table. Their congratulations were tinged with envy for one excused from the housekeeping chores which were part of their duties and overseen with a firm hand by the women of the king’s house, but there was no real malice in it; a harper in their midst promised to enliven their lives considerably.
Dawid gave his father a look of gratitude as he passed, although custom forbade his speaking to him now. They would find each other when the evening was over. Donal watched him go with a pride that was tinged with bewilderment. He himself lacked any ear for even the simplest music. It had been a source of wonder to him, ever since Galt had first spoken of it, that he had sired a harper.
The night was getting cold, and a biting wind whistled in the rooftree and set the torches to sputtering. Two of the boys threw more wood (now mercifully dried) on the fire, and the women of the house came out to dance. Galt pulled his own harp from the bag and took up an accompaniment to the drumbeat kept by a brown-haired girl with braids almost as long as she was. The women’s robes swirled about them and their golden jewelry caught the torchlight as they whirled and leapt, their feet as light upon the rushes as swallows in the wind. Branwen, tall and golden as a shaft of sunlight, danced at their lead, taking the line in intricate formation around and through the trailing dancers. Unlike the Spear Dance, theirs was a dance of new beginnings, of the kernel in the corn, the bud within a winter tree and the promise of a babe unborn. Vortrix, watching his wife spin by him, arms outstretched, thought perhaps she wove a double meaning in her steps. If so, it was meant for none but him; Branwen could indeed bluff as well as he. He had done well
when he took old Cathuil’s daughter.
And the spirit of rebirth, which the dance wove around them all, served to end the evening on the note he wanted.
* * *
‘And so we are to continue to bleed ourselves dry to put grain in Rome’s storehouses?’ Berec turned furiously to Vortrix where he sat in the great oaken chair at the head of the Council Hall.
‘That is right, Berec,’ Vortrix said quietly, ‘and the man who does not will answer to me.’ He was dressed in his best, in a robe of sleek furs and the golden torque of the High King around his neck. His boots were of the soft leather worn only indoors, pricked and patterned with blue woad in much the same fashion as the spiral tattoos on his face and chest. His golden hair, brushed and shining, hung loose over his shoulders, brilliant against the dark back of his chair. He was impressive to look at, but beneath the finery was still the warrior – patient, watchful, and dangerous.
‘So we put our necks meekly into the Romans’ yoke and plough where they bid us?’
‘For the time being, Berec, you will plough where I bid you.’
Conor, who had been making much of studying the toe of his right boot during this exchange, now looked up. ‘I would suggest that we hear the whole of Lord Vortrix’s plans before we brangle about the part of them,’ he said.
‘Aye.’ Duncan, stiff from the long journey, shifted in his seat by the fire. ‘I have driven far for this council, at the High King’s word, and it is he I will hear.’
Vortrix murmured something to one of his household and the man slipped from the room. ‘I know as well as you that no High King may rule without the consent of the Council. But that consent, once given, may not be withdrawn at your caprice. I am king and I will rule, and that will end the matter.’ He leaned forward, his hands gripped tight on the arms of his chair, and looked at them one by one. ‘By the Spear of Lugh, can you not see? We must be one people, or we will be no people… we will go down before the Romans as the little dark folk went down before our fathers’ fathers.’
There was silence for a moment, and then the priest Talhaiere spoke for the first time, in the low voice of one accustomed to be heard in silence. ‘The High King speaks the truth, for I have seen it in the night sky… and there are yet worse wolves than Rome. The time has come for us to learn to hunt together.’
‘And think you not that there will be no payment for this lesson,’ Vortrix said. ‘I have sent to Eri the trader that we must have all of the new blades that he can bring us this season. And so now we must pay double tribute for our hunting – to Eri for the blades we need and to Rome for the time.’
‘And what of those who have paid already, in burned steadings and slaughtered cattle?’ Donal’s voice was bitter, and Vortrix knew well what the Legion had left behind it of Donal’s hall.
‘They must give what they can, brother, and we will ask no more. If we are to be as one, we must pay as one.’ He pulled the torque from his neck and sent it clattering to the floor. ‘Thus we will pay if need be.’
‘This is insane,’ Cawdor said.
‘Nay, it is good trading.’ Vortrix stripped off his arm rings and the circlet from his head, and sent them spinning after the torque. There was a moment of uneasy silence, and then Galt stepped forward and pulled his own jewels from him. With a wry smile of farewell, he added them to the pile.
‘All my vanity, stripped away so easily,’ he murmured, and the others began to laugh.
But the crowning touch was provided by Branwen. Choosing her moment well, she had entered the hall unnoticed, and now she marched to its center, clad in the plainest of her gowns, to spill her dower chest upon the floor, a little rain of gold. Behind her came her women, carrying finely worked cloth and furs, and jewels of their own. When the last bolt of cloth was stacked in the middle of the hall and the last eardrop had rolled down the little pile of gold and come to rest against the shining torque of the High King, Branwen turned to the Council Lords and raised her brows.
‘Can your women not do as well?’ she inquired, and then, gathering her ladies about her, she swept from the hall again, a commanding figure in a plain grey gown.
Donal, looking less grim, grinned at her as she passed, and she winked at him, never breaking her stride. Still smiling, he pulled an enameled brooch, his only piece of jewelry, from his cloak, and laid it with the rest. The little vixen! He’d be willing to bet she and her lord had thought that one out beforehand.
All the same, it had its effect. One by one, some eager, some shamefaced, the Council Lords came forward and made their gifts… Cathuil’s golden arm rings and topaz-studded brooch… Duncan’s silver belt buckle… Conor’s amber necklace and heavy golden ring… Cawdor’s rings and eardrops, and – when Galt looked at him pointedly – a little jeweled dagger in a wrist sheath; Berec, with a beautifully worked bracelet of enameled copper links and a cloak pin of red gold. Then the warriors of Vortrix’s house, with armbands and collars of copper and bronze, and a few precious bits of gold. Even the small jug-eared boy who was tending the fire scrambled up and pulled off a tiny drop of amber on a chain. ‘It came to me from my mother’s mother,’ he said, his homely freckled countenance upturned to the High King, ‘and she is dead now. Better that you have it.’
And last of all, Talhaiere, stately in his snow white robes, and carrying the golden diadem of the sun that was the mark of his priesthood. He laid it gently with the rest and whispered over it a ritual none but he could hear, running his gnarled fingers lightly over the surface of the sun, as if to seal its outline in his mind.
‘Father, this is not necessary,’ Vortrix said gently, but Talhaiere shook his head and smiled.
‘Nay, its power lay in the Mystery within it, and I have called it forth again. The rest is but metal.’
‘May it not still be used to bring ill upon us?’ Donal asked.
‘It shall be melted and cast, and the last of its light shall go out in that fire.’
‘I cannot say I like it all the same,’ Cathuil said.
Talhaiere came and stood by him. ‘Cathuil, we hunted together from our boyhood, and we are brothers still, for all that our paths have taken different ways. Cannot you believe me when I tell you that it is but a trinket now, the outward trappings of a Mystery too great to be captured in a piece of gold?’
Cathuil nodded and Talhaiere swung round to face the others. ‘It is fitting that it be sent to save us, for if we cannot stem the Roman tide, all our old ways will be taken from us, and we shall die. It is as simple as that.’ He took his seat again, and his face regained its usual expression of serenity, but Galt, seated beside him, heard the priest mutter into his snowy beard, ‘Superstitious old fool.’
Cathuil’s inaudible comment substituted the adjective ‘pompous,’ but otherwise it echoed that of his old friend. Thus they remained in charity with one another. And when Galt had made his report on the horse herd and the financing of Eri’s goods, and when the next installment of tribute had been worked out, the two came forward together to pledge themselves, and such of their households as would follow, to the High King’s service.
Vortrix, knowing that there would be few in those two households who would dare not follow, thanked them gravely and proceeded to accept the pledges of the rest of the Council.
‘I am the king’s man.’
‘The king’s man.’ Donal and Duncan bowed and moved on.
‘Yours, brother.’ Galt knelt gracefully before him, but his eyes were grave.
‘I am the king’s man in this matter. So I swear.’ Conor, who could afford to wait.
‘The king’s man,’ pledged Cawdor, with subtle emphasis.
‘The king’s man.’
‘So now we hunt as one,’ Duncan said when it was over. ‘But we have chased this wolf before and found him overstrong. This is our last chance to make a kill, I think.’
‘I did not speak of the Tribe alone.’ Vortrix rose and took the white-collared Pictish spear from its bed, and the shadow he ca
st towered on the wall behind him. ‘This time, Britain hunts as one.’
XII
Trimontium
In the high peaks the snow was melting, and the little streams danced and bubbled down the hillside to the sea. The stream beds were alive with minnows and crayfish, and water bugs skated leisurely on the surface. The banks were cool and green under the trees, thick with maidenhair and hartstongue. In deeper waters, the fish were waking from a winter sleep, rising idly to the bait of the persistent. The wolves paid less attention to the pastures of man, and turned their noses to the forest where their prey was growing fat again. Everywhere was the drone of bees, and the air was wild with birds.
In Eburacum the Legate’s rosebush was blooming, and green shoots were coming up in the kitchen gardens where the ‘on report’ list labored with hoe and trowel.
It was spring and the world was out and about again. Swallows swooped and twittered in the portico, and the scent of honeysuckle mingled with the fresh and fishy odor of the market stalls and the briny smell of oysters in their tanks. Justin and Gwytha, coming in from the walks they snatched in Justin’s few off-duty hours after the Governor’s departure, bought oysters by the plateful, consuming them raw and washing them down with flasks of cheap sour wine from the stall across the road, while Finn wheedled bones from his tame butcher in the next street.
Licinius, beset by an inclination to lie in the new grass and count clouds, was irked to find himself counting spring colds instead; while Flavius was no happier to be counting bandages while spring rolled by outside his window.
Hilarion, who had drawn extra duty for the Governor’s rock along with the rest of the Legion, was forced to curtail his promising romance with Cordaella, and then to abandon it entirely when she took her favors and her free time elsewhere. Ruefully he watched a parade of hairy calves march by on the drill field and thought of Cordaella’s plump white ones.
Lepidus, afflicted with an unexpected case of spring madness, got into a brawl with another centurion in a wineshop and drew a dressing down and three days confined to quarters from Justin, who then went back to his own room and laughed himself sick at the memory of his staid second in command, helmet hanging over his one unblackened eye, trying to explain that he thought it was about a girl, sir, but he wasn’t sure. No, he didn’t think the other centurion was either.
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