But clearly Auriane had obeyed Baldemar’s wish and saved him from the foulest fate that could befall a celebrated warrior—life in captivity.
Was she kinslayer or deliverer? One belief that was absolute was set firmly against another.
Because the case was so baffling, the people raised an outcry when Geisar claimed the right to try her; this matter, they held, was beyond his powers. The Assembly demanded she be tried by Ramis, who best understood the irreconcilable ways of the Fates.
Auriane hardly had a chance to be relieved by this decision when word came by messenger that Ramis refused to act as judge in the case. She offered no reason.
Wretched hag of Hel, Auriane thought. You do not miss one chance to put terrifying obstacles in my path and make my misery worse.
So she was thrown once more on Geisar’s mercy. Geisar would have taken pleasure in condemning her to be drowned under hurdles, but he knew from the temper of the people that he would not get off with a summary execution. He must make some effort to convince them of her guilt, a thing far from established in most people’s minds. Confusion prevailed even among Baldemar’s Companions, who felt they could not champion the daughter without betraying the father.
And so Geisar turned the matter over to the god he served—Auriane would face a trial by ordeal and let Wodan be judge. The method he chose was the stallion fight. One stallion would be invested with all the evils that lay outside the tribe—the souls of thieves, trolls, murderers, the scaled things of the deep forest. And the other stallion, who would be chosen by Auriane, would be invested with her spirit. If Auriane’s stallion proved weaker than the unholy spirits that possessed the other horse, she was guilty and would suffer death by drowning. Reluctantly the Assembly approved this.
At the same Assembly, Geisar ordered Athelinda to relinquish the sword of Baldemar to Gundobad. Athelinda, who had sequestered herself in the hall, sent Fredemund with her refusal.
“The great lady,” Fredemund reported, “holds that the lowliest thrall would not pollute that sword as much as would the touch of Gundobad.”
Geisar swore silently to find a way to bring Athelinda to her knees.
On the day of Baldemar’s funeral, Auriane, her hands bound with cord, was taken to the west palisade of the village, which overlooked the cremation grounds. By sacred law she could not be prevented from attending the final rites for her father.
Baldemar’s body was prepared for the pyre by the order of cremation priestesses the villagers called the Daughters of Hel, whose duty it was to conduct the dead through the stages of the spirit journey. Auriane watched from the palisade as the people came from the remotest villages; by midday their numbers darkened the gray-green plain below as they arranged themselves about the carefully stacked bed of wood where Baldemar’s spirit would be hurried off to the sky. A few shouted “Kinslayer!” at her while making the sign of cursing. Most, however, simply milled about in numbed quiet. It was as though they had been orphaned.
At midmorning the Daughters of Hel emerged from the birch forest clad in vulture-feather cloaks, moving in one file onto the rise of ground set aside for cremations. Their first priestess was known locally as the Vulture Mother; she walked at their head, her face colored bone-white with chalk. As she ascended the rise, she wailed a piercing, somber song that told of disasters sure to come: The land would never again be green; the barley would wither; the people would die by the sword, now that the Great Protector of the Land was dead.
Behind her, eight priestesses bore Baldemar’s body on a great shield of linden. The pyre was built of woods known for their various powers: apple wood for life everlasting, pine for rebirth, rowan for protection against sorcery. When all thirteen priestesses ringed the pyre, they laid Baldemar’s body on this grim bed.
Auriane refused to cast her eyes down; she knew many were observing her to see if she had the courage to watch. She did not allow herself to cry; she was a woman of stone, like the eerie images she had seen in the villa of the slave-dealer.
I believe none of the lies of Eastre now. Life is made of death. We stand on corpses. The dead outnumber us so, why should death not rule? Eastre’s face is gory with blood. Where is my father’s resurrection? All are born only to die.
Decius, my father wrung all the sadness out of me and I’ve not had a proper amount left for you. You are certainly dead, and I’ve said no farewell. But I do not suppose we will be separated long; Geisar will find a way to arrange my murder and you will be irritating me in the afterworld, if the shades of Romans are allowed to mingle with the ghosts of my people.
The Daughters of Hel then sacrificed Baldemar’s black stallion and poured its blood all around the pyre. Then Baldemar’s Companions came forward one by one, bearing ashwood spears and painted shields, and laid them all about the place of burning. Auriane looked for Witgern and found him with difficulty, for all had smeared their faces and hair with charcoal.
How Witgern must loathe me. Will I ever have words with him again?
Then the people began to come forward with their personal treasures as offerings—torques of gold, horns of silver—and these, too, were laid about the stacked wood of the pyre.
What happened next was common at great funerals, yet still she felt a twist of horror in her stomach and wanted to push the sight of it away. First five, six, then seven of the Companions got down from their horses. Solemnly they drew swords and slew one another; the last man living then took his own life. She prayed Witgern was not among them, but at this distance she could not be certain.
The men who chose to die with their chief were then laid on the pyre. By this, they regained lost honor. The Companions who went on living would do so under an evil shadow: No retinue leader would want men sworn to a chieftain whose death could not be avenged. Auriane’s soul contracted at the sight of this immense and awful result of the snap of her arm, the path of one spear.
Then the Vulture Mother approached the pyre holding a torch aloft, still singing her heart-shredding lament, a song that brought to mind withered wastes where no hearthfire ever burned, a black sun, and gaped caverns beneath the earth; the tune’s path staggered downward, trickling, falling like a tear. And then she was suddenly silent. She touched her torch to the wood.
Now all the Daughters of Hel joined in an upsurging hymn of praise that gathered in intensity with the swiftly spreading flames. The surviving Companions began to ride their horses slowly, in sunwise direction, about the pyre.
The burning required much of the day. When dusk approached, two cremation priestesses came forward with the urn that would hold Baldemar’s ashes, a red clay vessel incised with eggs and serpents, fashioned by hand, not on a wheel. For some reason the sight of the burial urn broke Auriane’s strength and now she freely cried.
I should have disobeyed him! Perhaps he might have later escaped or been rescued. What good can ever come to pass in these times?
On the next morning Grunig came to the hut where Auriane was imprisoned and set before her a steaming gruel of linseed, bindweed, green bristle and yarrow—a ritual meal intended to make her visible to the gods during the horse test. Grunig would not meet her eye, as though he feared he might be called to account for the shameful treatment meted out to her. He then led her out, and Sidgreda accompanied her to the stallion pens.
Before her in their separate pens were twelve bony, half-starved stallions.
So this is how Geisar plans to murder me. He must gone round the neighboring farms to gather up every sickly, unsound animal he could find.
Escape. Now. I am not that well guarded. If I seized Sigreda’s staff I would have a weapon….
But no, it seems a mean and dishonorable thing to do, and would gain me little. Baldemar thought it right to trust the gods, and will they not know and see my innocence?…if I am innocent.
Auriane studied with growing alarm the line of angular bodies with their jutting hipbones, lowered heads, dulled eyes. One had a festering sore near the fetlock; o
ne wheezed, sides fluttering pitiably; another nervously looked about at its flanks, an early sign of colic. Their tails lashed at flies.
Fria, see me and protect me.
Then she saw the stallion in the last pen. Of all of them he was the smallest in stature, his gauntness exaggerating further his diminutive size, and like the others, he was listless from neglect. But something about him caused her gaze to linger long. His eyes bore a look of patient wisdom, and somewhere in him, a fire still burned. He was a dapple-gray with near-black tail and mane, and he was of odd conformation: His neck, though thin, was arched like a well-pulled bow; a refined head tapered to a charcoal gray muzzle small enough to fit into her palm. When he shifted nervously about, his tail fanned like a banner. His was a graceful shape, if small; she guessed this was once an exquisite animal.
She approached him, studying the line of neck and back. The beast threw up his head inquiringly and snorted; the look was so like a greeting she half smiled. She guessed this horse was from the distant, waterless places of the south, a strain not often seen; most likely he was the captured mount of one of the Arabian archers stationed at the fortress at Mogontiacum. She struggled to remember all she had learned of horses from listening to Baldemar’s stable thralls, not knowing where she got the strength to think, to decide, when all she wished to do was sink to the earth and mourn. Were not the desert horses called remarkable for their endurance, intelligence, and speed, and for their ability to withstand harsh conditions?
She held out her hand to the dappled stallion. He stretched his neck and licked her palm with a rough tongue.
“This one is mine,” Auriane said at last.
“This one?” Sigreda said with a surprised, amused frown. “A runt and a weakling? You are certain?” The two grooms looked at one another. She could hear their unspoken words— the daughter of Baldemar does not know horses.
“It shall be so, then.” Sigreda held a torch before the dappled stallion to purify the air, then softly intoned: “Wodan, leader of the souls of the dead…let the spirit of this woman Auriane inhabit the horse. Almighty bringer of the winds…breathe the ghost of this maid into this stallion….”
The village gently smoked in the morning cold. A journeyer coming to the teeming ironworking center known as the Village of the Boar would first see a tight-packed jumble of mismatched thatched rooftops rising above a sturdy wooden palisade. Jammed so close together they rubbed shoulders, the settlement’s sheds and houses sprouted up in an indecipherable mass, all connected by radiating, wood-planked walkways raised above a sea of hoofmark-pocked mud. Here itinerant potters from afar found a market for their wheel-made pots; workers in fine leather goods flocked to this tribal trading center to offer their wares to the warriors of retinues. Upon entering, most journeyers first paid obeisance to a curious standing stone by the gate, shaped like a woman bent in mourning. A wizard was said to be buried beneath it; his ghost, which protected the village at night, was not overly demanding; once a year he required the sacrifice of a dog.
Near the settlement’s center where the wooden walkways converged, the stallion pit lay, a circular enclosure sunk to the height of a man’s waist; its floor was covered over with straw. Between the settlement’s gate and the long row of smith’s workshops, a quiet crowd of villagers and farmers massed into the open spaces. Across from them, a solemn aggregation of gray-robed priests of Wodan stood in grim silence, leaning on upright spears; Auriane was pale and small in their midst. She was dressed humbly in a thrall’s sleeveless sheath of undyed wool, secured with a rope. The priests had taken her ornaments, but they dared not remove her warrior’s ring until they heard the judgment of Wodan on this, his bride. By the village’s palisaded gate was the cart that would take her to the lake if she were judged guilty.
The day was sullen; gray smoke drifted up from the sheds and houses to merge into an oppressive, ashy sky. Auriane found her mother on the far side of the pit, regally positioned before Baldemar’s Companions. Athelinda’s face was a haunting mystery beneath the voluminous hood of her dark cloak; she was a gloomy giantess frozen in mourning shape. Auriane sensed about her mother a towering misery no one could approach. She wanted in one moment to fall down before Athelinda and beg her to understand. Then in the next, she doubted she had the courage to look upon the suffering face beneath that hood.
Several of the Companions wept openly or simply looked vacant and lost, while others examined her with hostile curiosity. Sigwulf stared fiercely ahead, all feeling well masked. She found Witgern and was greatly relieved; he had not followed his chieftain into death. But his face was flaccid and expressionless as a corpse’s. He never looked in her direction. Witgern, who so loved her—could he so thoroughly have turned from her?
It is possible. After all, my fate has destroyed his. Such things do not kindle affection.
Then she looked to Gundobad’s men, who were watching as her small dappled-gray stallion was led into the pen and nodding with satisfaction. Finally she turned her gaze to Romilda’s women. Only among the provisions-women did Auriane find an unambivalently sympathetic face—the thin, ragged Sunia had pushed her way to the front, and was examining her with unjudging animal affection, eyes bright with tears.
Auriane’s gray stallion was released into the pit, where he trotted about, snorting, kicking up straw.
Then six priests led forth the rival stallion.
Moans of dismay rivered through the throng.
This was a horse gone mad as some men go mad, one of those stallions occasionally caught that must be either killed or let go. He was a thick and bluntly made beast with heavily muscled shoulders and a short neck that supported a head like a mallet; he required all six handlers to restrain him. His bristly, upright mane lent him a brutish look; his coat was the color of yellow river mud. A dark brown stripe ran the length of his spine to a scraggly tail like a whisk broom. The priests tried to coax him down into the pit but he frog jumped sideways instead, kicking out hard while snapping at the air, eager for something to bite, yanking one of his consecrated handlers off his feet.
Auriane thought: Today I will know what it is to die.
This horse is sleek and strong. And no one knows I was forced to choose among sickly stallions. Once more Geisar commits an act of treachery and none can call him to account.
As the dun stallion sprang down into the straw, Auriane’s dappled horse shook his head vigorously and capered sideways with rapid, liquid strides, lifting each hoof with the deftness of a dancer; he was a creature of almost feminine grace.
Another priest of Wodan’s temple approached the pit, leading a mare in season; at the sight of her the ugly dun beast erupted into fresh spasms of kicks and emitted a nearly human scream of rage. The dappled stallion merely distended his nostrils and drew his neck into a tighter arch.
He almost seems to reason, Auriane thought; he knows he must conserve his remaining strength.
The dun hurtled toward the gray, ears flattened, charging erratically like a maddened boar. The gray moved lightly around him in a high-stepping trot, thin sides heaving rapidly, eyes bright with annoyance.
Auriane found herself half-shutting her eyes, compressing her thoughts, using all her mind to will strength into the gray.
The dun heaved himself into the gray’s shoulder, using that mallet-head as a ram, knocking the dappled stallion to his knees. Long yellow teeth sank into the mottled gray shoulder. The gray kicked frantically, rolled once, then righted himself; thin streaks of blood coursed down his muscled shoulder. He cantered loosely around the pit, angrily shaking his head, hind legs snapping out in random kicks of annoyance.
He is too weak to have an appetite for fighting, Auriane thought. Struggling against despair, she renewed her effort to will strength into the gray’s limbs.
The dun fell in behind her horse at a bouncing trot, harrying the gray, nipping at his flanks. Then he lurched clumsily onto the weaker stallion’s back, bringing the gray hard to the straw.
Moans of desolation arose from Baldemar’s men. Only then did Auriane realize that many among them wished her to live.
The dappled stallion’s belly was exposed as he rolled from side to side, dark legs thrashing blindly at air. The dun pummeled him with iron forehooves, then delivered rabbit-quick kicks to the gray’s flanks.
The gray staggered to his feet, then sped away from the dun, who chased him with lowered head and pinned-back ears. Abruptly they twisted round and reared up together, entangled in each other’s forelegs, necks whipping about like vipers as tearing teeth sought flesh. Bloody foam trickled from the mouth of the dun; his eyes seemed full of battle-smoke. Finally the crude weight of the dun pushed the gray over backward. He battered the weaker stallion relentlessly with outsized hooves, grunting darkly like a bull. The horrible hammer-head struck again and again; the belly of the dappled stallion was crisscrossed with bands of blood. Her horse’s dark eyes were luminous with pain.
Auriane lived within that thrashing, bruised and bleeding body, contracting with each fresh blow until she shriveled into something miserable and dwarfed, numbed and blind. But then there came an unaccountable moment when the world about softened, and her focus flashed inward. She saw her own life as if from a long distance, all brightly laid out. This struggle between horses was the sum of her days. The dun was the three Fates, goring her, harrying her through all the years, incarnate in Hertha, in Baldemar’s death, in Rome, until she learned—what? Words of Ramis’ from their last encounter, dormant in her until this moment, voiced themselves with clarity: If there is some shame lying about, how quickly you take it up and say, `This is mine.’ With grim amusement she realized her affinity for shame made her ashamed. But she felt Ramis’ steady presence, definite as a rush of wind from a great wing, and for one vaulting moment she was loosed from all the bonds of life, a creature that fed on joy, not shame.
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