Both boats were drawn onto the sand above the tide level. The children began to race up and down the beach. Freedom went to their heads like wine. Hibernia rang with their happy voices and I remembered something I had almost forgotten. Once, we were a people who sang.
I nodded to Cormiac Ru, indicating that he—and his sword—were to stand close by me while I further interrogated Goulvan. “Tell me more about these natives you mentioned. You say they call themselves the Iverni?”
“Some of them do.”
“Are there other tribes, then?”
Goulvan dug into the sand with his toe. “Other tribes with other names,” he admitted reluctantly. Beneath his perpetual windburn he had grown very pale.
I know a frightened man when I see one. He had described the Iverni as well armed; were they also hostile?
“Are the Iverni members of the Celtic race?” I inquired.
“They must be,” said Goulvan. “They had rather fight than eat. They’re all like that on this island. They attack one another day after day, year after year, for any reason or none. These people are quite mad.”
I, who had been born into the warrior aristocracy, was amused. “Men who fight for pleasure terrify you, do they?”
The contempt in my voice stiffened his spine. “Of course not. I just don’t like this place. I find the natives too difficult to deal with. They can turn against you between one breath and the next and you never know why. Honor means more to these people than life. They’re not afraid to die but they’re terrified of being humiliated. One other odd thing about them: Any foreigner who lies to them is slain without hesitation.”
I smiled to myself. No wonder Goulvan disliked Hibernia. A trader who dare not lie would be at a serious disadvantage. “Slain how?”
“Decapitated. They mount his head on top of a pole.”
“The Celts have taken heads since before the before,” I commented. “Of course, the heads didn’t belong to liars. They were trophies of war taken from the most valiant as an expression of admiration. In the lifetime of my father’s father we abandoned the practice, however.”
Goulvan looked over his shoulder apprehensively. “I’m afraid that change of custom hasn’t reached here.”
Following his glance, my eyes reported nothing more ominous than a fox far down the beach. The animal emerged from a clump of salt grass, saw us, and vanished again.
I was surprised to be able to see such a small creature so far away. While we were in the boats the constant wind and the fierce glare off the water had strained my eyes. They itched and burned so badly I had to keep them closed most of the time. I had even begun to fear my vision was permanently impaired.
The light in Hibernia was singularly limpid. Soft and luminous yet amazingly clear, it bathed a landscape dominated by the color green. An omnipresence of green, a hundred different shades of green that soothed my scalded eyes.
They feasted on the vista before us.
The salt grass was the silvery hem of a mantle of meadowland thickly embroidered with wildflowers. In places the verdant expanse was interrupted by masses of golden-blossomed furze and billows of purple heather. Beyond the meadow a succession of low hills rolled in waves toward a wall of forest.
Trees! my spirit exulted.
A land with such broad meadows and vast forests would richly support a great number of people. So why would the natives need to fight? Upon reflection, my head concluded that the Armoricans, like the Romans, did not understand foreign customs. What they mistook for warfare was likely to be a form of sport. Celtic sports could be exceedingly rough, as befits a warrior race.
Goulvan might be reluctant to leave the beach, but I must. And I wanted Dian Cet with me; his snowy beard would assure respect if the natives really were Celtic. I told him, “We have to come to an amicable arrangement with the Hibernians, because we’re in no position to fight them. You and I are going to take Cormiac Ru as an escort and go in search of the nearest local chieftain. We’ll try to bargain with him for enough land to settle on.”
“Bargain with what, Ainvar? You gave the last gold we had to those thieves.” Dian Cet, who was old enough to have dispensed with diplomacy, indicated the Armoricans with a gesture of his thumb, the finger of insult.
Tapping my head with my forefinger, I reminded Dian Cet, “Our greatest treasure is here. We have four members of the Order of the Wise, with abilities worth more than gold.”
Once my words would have been true. But no longer; at least not about myself. Not since Alesia.
Among the possessions we had carried with us to that fateful siege was a bodiless stone head as high as a man’s thigh. The image—a representation of the Two-Faced One—consisted of two huge faces looking in opposite directions. One set of features was placid, icily remote. The other was sly and cruel. The avatar, which was mounted on a wheeled platform for ease of transport, had been carved by the Goban Saor. His talent had found within the stone a fearsome quiddity. To gaze upon it was to feel the cold breath of the Otherworld.
Fear is a tool of magic.
After Vercingetorix was captured I had made a desperate effort to save a remnant of my people. Placing my hand on the surface of the stone image, I had concentrated all the formidable force of an exceptionally gifted chief druid.
No mortal can make the unliving live. Yet I did, at Alesia.
An incredible heat had exploded within me, raced down my arm, and poured from my fingertips. I made myself stand firm. Long ago, Menua had taught me the defining tenet of true druidry: You will enter the fire but never feel the flame.
I stood transfixed in a bubble of scalding light. I did not dare look at the carved figure, though it was changing beneath my hand. Even as Caesar’s Germanic allies were bearing down on us, intent on slaughtering every Gaul in their path, I felt mottled gray stone turn to scabrous flesh. Fevered, pulsating; loathsome to the touch.
As soon as they got a good look at the Two-Faced One, panic seized the Germans. They fled in all directions, trampling one another in their desperation to escape. I had never heard such howls as they uttered. Their mad screaming surely tore their throats apart.
The Germans sped away.
And I collapsed. Fortunately the Goban Saor caught me as I fell. Over his shoulder I had one glimpse of the horror I had brought to life.
Squatting on its wooden platform, the figure loomed as large as a man. Four baleful eyes rolled wildly; two sets of nostrils snorted fire; two pairs of lips writhed over gnashing teeth while a guttural gibbering polluted the air. The monstrosity belonged in no sane world. Yet for a brief time it was blazingly, undeniably alive. Even death will not extinguish that memory. I fear I shall revisit it in nightmare through many lives to come.
Later we buried the awful figure in a deep hole and raised a cairn of boulders over it. By that time the image of the Two-Faced One was merely stone again. Perhaps. I thought, briefly, of saying a prayer of thanksgiving beside the cairn and rejected the idea. The terror the thing engendered had enabled a few of my clan to escape, but at a terrible cost.
My druidic gift had been spent in its entirety.
Not the least of my wounds was the one to my pride. I, chief druid of the Carnutes, had been able to materially alter the form and function of objects through a deliberate act of will. That ability had set me apart from all my people.
Its loss left me a sadly diminished man.
I had said nothing about my personal tragedy to anyone. Yet Briga knew. The first time she touched me after Alesia, she realized the power that once flowed through me was gone. Like the force used by a fragile shoot to escape the hard acorn, such power is only given once. I could never summon it again. But Briga, my wise and loving Briga, had touched me anyway. She mercifully reawakened my sexual desire so I could lose myself in her flesh long enough to forget.
As her reward I had brought her to the end of the world.
Goulvan’s fears I could discount, but had Briga been apprehensive I would have ord
ered my people back into the boats immediately. Instead, my senior wife stripped off her sandals so she could run barefoot with the children.
Briga, my Briga. Whatever else we may find in Hibernia, we have brought life with us.
When I told her what I intended to do next, she approved. “It’s much more sensible to bargain for land than to try to seize any, Ainvar. We’re not Romans after all. We’ll wait for you right here, and spend the time looking for food and firewood.”
“Don’t let the Armoricans leave until I return,” I warned. “If anything happens and we don’t come back, wait for only one night, then have them take you somewhere else.”
“Where?” Briga had a talent for asking difficult questions.
Druids answer only those questions they choose to answer. I gently touched her cheek with the back of my fingers. Flesh can speak for itself.
She reached up to me in response, pushing back my hood so she could see my face clearly. Her smile sent small wrinkles fanning out from the corners of her eyes. “When you return I’d better shave you, Ainvar. Your tonsure’s growing out.” Her fingers danced across my forehead. “Fuzzy dome,” she said fondly.
The druid’s tonsure kept the front of the head bared to the Great Fire of Life. When, I wondered, had I stopped maintaining mine? Trust a wife to notice.
Young Labraid resented being left behind. He stomped around in a bad temper, making a nuisance of himself. “If you’re taking Cormiac you have to take me, Ainvar,” he insisted. “I have a sword, too.”
“That’s why I need you to stay here. We only have two young men with warrior spirits. I’m relying on you to protect our people until I get back.” To mollify him I added, “It’s the most important task you could perform, Labraid.”
The boy grinned and puffed out his chest exactly as Vercingetorix used to do.
It would be extremely foolhardy to entrust the security of my people to a mere child. The arrangement was, however, safer than taking Labraid with us. His brashness could be a liability in dealing with an unfamiliar tribe.
Besides, the real responsibility for keeping the clan safe would fall on the broad shoulders of Grannus, as well as Teyrnon and the Goban Saor. Maturity is the most dependable asset.
Our exploratory party set out at once. Menua had instructed me in the languages of Athens and Latium, taught me to write using Greek letters, as many druids could, and also taught me ogham, the druidic method of leaving simple messages by carving esoteric marks on trees or stones. By this method I left signs announcing that Ainvar had passed this way. If anything untoward happened and the rest of my clan disobeyed my injunction and came after us, the ogham would guide them. Keryth could read it as well as I.
After we had gone some little distance, Dian Cet said, “Are you sure this is a good idea, Ainvar?”
“I don’t see that we have any option. Besides, I trust Briga’s instincts. She would have discouraged me if it were a mistake.”
“I’m surprised you take counsel from your senior wife on such a matter. I never listened to any of mine.”
“If you had,” I commented drily, “there might have been more harmony in your lodge. I recall you suffering from dreadful stomach pains.”
“Oh, Sulis cured me of those long ago.”
“Did she?” I could not resist a wry smile. “And was the treatment medicinal, or tactile?”
“A man at war with his wife is entitled to seek relief where he can find it,” Dian Cet said with a sniff. He was prickly on the subject of women. Although a gifted arbiter in his druidic capacity, he was inept when it came to himself. Only one of his wives had died in childbirth. Four others during his long lifetime had left him.
We do not own our women. Celts are free persons.
As we walked, Dian Cet’s question set me to speculating on our bargaining position. If druidic ability was our only wealth, our purse was far too light. Avaricious Caesar had impoverished us. Among the four surviving members of the Order of the Wise there was no student of the sky to interpret the patterns of the stars and align human effort accordingly; no tribal historian capable of memorizing a hundred generations to assure the inheritance of rank and property; no sacrificer to provide the most certain means of interceding with the Otherworld. No bardic poet to celebrate the past and record the present.
As for the few druids we did possess, what value would they have here? Dian Cet was thoroughly familiar with the laws of Gaul, but what laws pertained in Hibernia and how long would he need to learn them? Keryth had been chief of the vates, or prognosticators, whose gift was the ability to dream reality even if the occurrence itself was taking place at a great distance. But foretelling was not immediately impressive. One never knew the accuracy of it until later.
Sulis was an experienced healer, though not as extraordinarily gifted as my own Briga, and healers were always needed. But a large part of healing depends on trust. Unless the natives were willing to entrust their care to strangers, neither woman would have the opportunity to prove her worth.
In order to create the impression we needed it might be necessary to demonstrate powerful magic. The highest order of druid magic was the skillful manipulation of natural forces. This was the singular and defining gift of a chief druid. Like Ainvar of the Carnutes.
The true adept knows that magic does not work every time. Infallibility is a sure sign of fakery. I would never attempt to fake magic—yet I was painfully aware that I could not rely on my own abilities. Not after Alesia. I had been used up to the very last drop at Alesia.
I trudged on, anticipating disaster.
Independent of my somber mood, my eyes and ears and nose made the usual reports to my head. Hibernia was beautiful in every aspect. The clear, glimmering light fell on rounded hills like the breasts of women; on meadowlands rapturous with birdsong; on sparkling streams that tumbled over water-polished rocks into fern-fringed pools of incredible clarity.
The earth hummed. Actually hummed. The sound was too low for my ears to hear, but the vibrations came up through the well-worn leather of my shoes and entered my bones. The brown soil exhaled a fecund aroma that unexpectedly stirred my lust.
I thought of my wives.
As we drew near the forest my eyes were gratified by the sight of alder and willow and oak. Especially oak. The word drui means “oak.” To be druid is to be a child of the oak, gifted with wisdom, long life, and the ability to create awe.
Once I was druid. Mine was the vast dark sky and the spaces between the stars; mine was the promise of magic.
No longer. No longer. That knowledge was like lead in my belly.
How good it felt to be among trees again! This was not the Great Grove of the Carnutes, but a vast assemblage of living spirits, just the same. The green shade was like a refreshing bath of cool water. The ground beneath the trees was carpeted with bluebells. Our footfalls were cushioned by moss in the shape of stars. I imagined myself laying Briga down upon the moss and…
“Wolf,” said Cormiac Ru.
“Where?”
“Just there.” He pointed toward empty space. “Gone now, but definitely a big wolf. Maybe two.”
“Wolf fur makes a fine cloak,” Dian Cet remarked.
Farther on we surprised a herd of enormous red deer resting in a glade filled with bracken. They bolted at our approach, but not before we saw that they were sleek and fat. “Hibernia is generous to her children,” I remarked.
Dian Cet said, “Let us hope she’ll be half as good to us.”
We continued to travel through the forest until Cormiac Ru halted abruptly. “I smell smoke.”
We sniffed the air. The day was cool and bright with no hint of Taranis the thunder god, whose white-hot javelins ignite the trees to create a new nursery for seedlings. The fire we smelled was man-made.
“The smoke’s coming from that direction,” said Dian Cet, pointing. “I can see light between the trees.”
We had found them, whoever they were. Our future.
&nbs
p; We walked out of the forest three abreast. Three is the number of fate.
chapter IV
BESIDE A REED-FRINGED LAKE WAS A SETTLEMENT CONSISTING of five or six round lodges with thatched roofs. Instead of solid timber logs the Hibernian lodges were made of woven hazel rods, like the temporary shelters we had thrown together as we fled from the advancing Romans. A barrier of branches had been erected to protect the compound from trampling by some small black cattle grazing nearby. But there was a yawning gap in the fence.
An open gate is an invitation.
Three abreast, my companions and I walked forward. I threw back the hood of my cloak to reveal my deliberately serene features. We must appear as men with legitimate business, not troublemakers.
An iron-headed spear thudded into the earth at my feet.
“Don’t,” I hissed to Cormiac Ru before he could draw his sword. Raising my voice, I called in the traditional way, “We salute you as free persons!” My dialect was that of the Carnutes, but I trusted my words would be understood here. If these people really were Celts.
A second spear whistled through the air and lodged itself snugly against the first. Whoever he was, he had an accurate arm.
Dian Cet said, “We must retreat, Ainvar.”
“We can’t retreat,” said Cormiac Ru on my other side.
I forced myself to a moment of absolute calm. Then my head agreed with Cormiac Ru. Turning our backs on such hostility would invite a spear between the shoulder blades.
My feet took one step forward.
The third spear was not thrown.
Beckoning to Cormiac and Dian Cet to follow me, I walked toward the nearest lodge. There I stopped abruptly.
In front of the lodge was a pole topped by a human head. The features were still recognizable. Not long ago, the head belonged to a man about my age. And he had…I rubbed my eyes, unwilling to believe them…he had a tonsure.
Dian Cet made a small sound of distress.
The Greener Shore Page 4
