“And you must give oath to aid me in bringing my father’s murderer to me.”
Gundobad gave a manic nod of assent, too relieved to think closely about the implication of those words. But the others did, and they exchanged baffled looks.
“And you will humble yourself before Athelinda now,” Auriane continued, “and beg her lenience.” Feverishly Gundobad nodded again. Auriane motioned for him to rise. Gundobad got up unsteadily and prostrated himself before Athelinda.
Only then did full knowledge of what she had done fall hard on Auriane’s shoulders. Death had closed so tightly about her she could scarcely breathe, held her for a time, then passed on. Now she felt fully the terror of the battle—fury could carry her for only so long, then it dropped her, weak and shivering, back to earth.
She stood very still, her gaze on Gundobad, still not daring to meet Athelinda’s eyes, not knowing if the sight of her was loathsome to her mother. Athelinda let Gundobad stay in that humble posture for a while, then she whispered, “Get up, niding’s accomplice. Never come near this farm, and I will ask no further punishment for you.”
Two of Gundobad’s men helped him to Thrusnelda’s lodge so she could tend to his wound. Witgern then approached Auriane, who still faced away from her mother. “Auriane,” he asked carefully, “what did you mean when you said, ‘my father’s murderer’?”
Auriane caught her breath when she looked at Witgern; he was so emaciated it seemed a good gust of wind would bear him off.
“I learned from…from a Roman thrall a thing that is commonly known among our enemies.” Without emotion, she retold Decius’ tale. She shut her ears to the sound of Athelinda’s muffled tears, fearful she would go mad.
A slow smile crept over Witgern’s face. “That is wondrous! Then vengeance can be won!” he whispered. “We are saved!”
From behind them came cautious shouts of joy. It would take time for Baldemar’s old Companions to fully appreciate that freedom had come. Auriane could not find pleasure in their rejoicing; grief still owned her completely.
“Auriane, then you must…,” Witgern began, and broke off awkwardly. He meant to say, “return to us,” until he remembered Athelinda’s curse.
“Go now,” Athelinda broke in curtly. “Leave me in peace, all of you.”
Auriane gave Witgern a look of pity and understanding, then embraced him. Gradually all did as Athelinda bid, leaving by twos and threes for the village.
When they were gone, Auriane turned to find Berinhard, who was grazing among the apple trees. She meant to return to the forest.
“But not you, Daughter. Stay.”
Auriane stopped abruptly. They stood alone in what seemed a wasteland. The wind kicked up eddies of dust; it reminded her of that barren twilight when she came here to find Baldemar’s horse, riderless.
Finally the silence pressed too heavily on her chest. “You cannot want me here, Mother. I will go now.”
Athelinda said to her back, “I do not say what I do not mean.”
Auriane fought hard to say no more; then the words were torn from her: “I don’t know how you could have cursed your own flesh and blood!”
Athelinda was surprised to silence. “Auriane,” she said at last, her voice now a firm, gentle hand pulling her close, “I thought you knew. You must have known. I cursed you to keep you alive. Geisar would have killed you after you so boldly named his crime before the throng. I am a mother. Any mother would rather have her child cursed than slain horribly. Grief must have snatched your wits—in days before, you would have understood at once.”
“Do you count me his murderer?” She winced as she spoke, as if her throat were a wound, and the words, stinging salt.
“Never! Never did I.”
“Why would you not look at me on the funeral day?”
“I looked at no one. Grief blinded. I saw nothing.”
“Hertha’s vile words were true.”
“No. Hers was a loathly and bitter spirit. She saw evil in everything. Should Wodan come to me in face and say it, I would not believe my daughter a murderer of kin.”
“You…you will undo your curse then?” Slowly Auriane turned round and forced herself to meet her mother’s eyes. There was no hatred there, only the look of a creature lost.
“It was undone at once, that very night, in a secret ceremony with Thrusnelda.”
Auriane rushed to her then, and her mother held to her tightly; neither spoke for long moments. Stroking her hair, Athelinda continued, “My poor child! Now it will be no secret. You have returned, which is to Geisar as though Baldemar returned, or worse, for you so openly thwarted his authority. I want you here, understand. But listen to me! It would almost be better if you stayed in the forest, for it will only be a matter of time before Geisar finds an acceptable way of murdering you.”
She disengaged herself from her mother’s arms. “I must stay here…. I’m certain it’s what Father wanted. What is done is done.” She looked behind her, the direction of the advancing Roman plague. “Geisar is a horsefly compared to what menaces us from the south. I won’t abandon our people.”
Athelinda embraced her tightly again. After a long silence she held Auriane at arm’s length and said, “Baldemar’s spirit is great, but still you could not have done what you did without some tutelage. Who in the name of all the gods taught you the art of the sword?”
Auriane was not surprised her mother hadn’t been fooled. She hesitated, knowing Athelinda would not like the truth any better than Baldemar had, and equally certain her mother would know if she held part of it back. “The Roman thrall,” she said at last. “The same one who gave me the tidings about Odberht.”
Athelinda’s eyes darkened. “You have been alone with a man who is a foreigner? That is reckless and mad, Auriane.”
This left Auriane speechless and desolate. Then from an unknown place, familiar words came unbidden—“‘The Fates handed us our holy traditions…but when cycles end, they choose some wise fool to break them.’”
“And you answer me with words of Ramis’? I thought you despised her.”
Auriane started; she had not thought whose words those were. Uneasiness swarmed in then. Was Ramis creeping into her thoughts while she slept—a slow, insidious invasion that would leech away her outrage, all her willingness to fight?
“I…I do despise her. But we are near to destruction. No one bleeds and dies if I am alone with a foreigner. But if I can learn their magic, I might keep us alive longer.”
“Like your father, you’ve a ready answer to allow the uncommon,” Athelinda said, smiling and shaking her head. “This day is the gift of Fria. Swear on a plait, you’ll not leave me again except through death.”
On the next day Witgern saw that a solemn feast was prepared for Auriane. Coniaric, who of all the old Companions of Baldemar was wealthiest in cattle, provided three oxen to be sacrificed to Wodan for her well-being and roasted for the feast. The booming calls of aurochs horns summoned those who dwelled in the countryside to the Village of the Boar. This was the first day of gladness since the death of Baldemar. Auriane had driven off the unholiness that struck at the tribe’s sacred center. None near her home village ever again whispered that she was a slayer of kin.
When the mead-horn had gone round many times, Witgern and Thorgild rose together, commanded silence, then entreated her to lead them in battle as Baldemar had. She did not protest—she knew better now—for the current that bore her forward all her life was now swift and irresistible, carrying her midstream where all moved swiftly. One hundred and ten men drank and gave oath to fight and die for her—most were former Companions of Baldemar, but among them too were twenty of Gundobad’s, a varied collection of unallied young men, and a half dozen young women born temple-children, the issue of Ash Priestesses, who joined partly to thwart Geisar, who had been ever more brazenly robbing their shrines. Auriane suspected that Thrusnelda disapproved of all this, in spite of the smile of practiced benignity on her round face�
�she believed, Auriane knew, that a woman was debased by handling a sword, that the spirits that swarmed about a woman despised the touch of iron. Most others viewed the situation in reverse: Auriane would not be debased; rather, the battlefield would be sanctified through a woman’s greater holiness, and the killings would be transformed into sacred offerings. This uncommon case of a woman crossing from the world of the spirits to the world of war was counted a great good omen by most. But Thrusnelda, as she blessed the fire by sprinkling it with the blood of the ox, regarded Auriane as if she had abandoned her true home.
Auriane spoke to no one of her certainty that even now she was not innocent, of her sense that her evil followed her persistently as night follows day. They must not see her wound.
Thrusnelda prepared a fire of ash logs so those who wished could swear vengeance against Odberht. Then she stood before it, bearing Baldemar’s sword on a white linen cloth.
Auriane was first to swear; with one hand on a plait of hair, the other on the blade of the sword, she spoke the words of the oath:
“Before Wodan I declare I will not rest, nor will I cut my hair, until Odberht is destroyed by my hand. I will call him to judgment whether he cross the sea or fly beyond the sky-reaching mountains. Know, Baldemar, you will not lie unquiet. She who stands before you will raise you up through the blood of your bane, Odberht.”
She took a horn of mead, drank it down, refilled it, and gave it to Witgern as witness. He too oathed to slay Odberht, drank, then passed it to Thorgild, who grinned at Auriane, a look of comradely encouragement.
They feasted far into the night. The tale-singers began to play but retreated jealously into the background when Witgern brought out his harp. None had a voice to match Witgern’s rich, silken tones—strong dark honey, Athelinda called it. He gave them one of their favorite songs—a gruesome tale of a monster from the bogs who attacks the hall of a great chief, nightly seizing ten or twelve of the chief’s companions for his dinner, then sharing the meal with his ogress mother. The battle-chief accepts the judgment of Hel and recognizes that his reign is done, then summons a greater chief, his successor, from afar—here, to flatter Auriane, Witgern substituted Baldemar’s name for that of the usual hero. The great chief comes in glory and slays the beast, tearing it limb from limb. Half of the villagers listened, and half fell into a drunken sleep, for they had heard versions of the tale so many times.
When Witgern and Auriane were among the few still wakeful, he said to her in an offhand way, “Did you know Sigwulf is searching everywhere for that Roman thrall called Decius?”
Auriane was sharply alert. She fought for calm. “Is he?”
“He’s even offered a rich reward. When he returns from the south—”
“Witgern…what does he mean to do when he finds him? Is it honorable to put so much effort into punishing one lowly thrall?”
“Punish? He wants to raise him up and shower him with gifts. Auriane, that thrall led him to his son.”
“What? No!”
“The words the thrall read from the book were true. Sigwulf found a smith at the native settlement outside Mattiacorum who knew the farm Decius named. Sigwulf’s son Eadgyth was a chained laborer in the field—and the boy but a child of nine! Through two separate traders Sigwulf arranged to buy him back, for a sum large enough to make even Geisar smile.”
“So there was one happy outcome of that day,” Auriane said, carefully keeping her voice flat. She realized with a private surge of joy that Decius need not hide from anyone now.
“You are happier than you show, Auriane.”
She looked at him, realizing then that his purpose in speaking of the matter was to probe her feelings. “Yes,” she said, looking at him sadly, then looking down. “You have a sharp eye, Witgern…, or else I no longer know myself and have become as unsubtle as Gundobad.” She paused, wanting and not wanting to explain. “I do not know if you would understand it.”
“Oh, I understand well love that cannot be fulfilled!” He took her hand and held it in the dark. “Better than any man of them here.”
She felt sharp loneliness, as if all the world were empty of comfort, and realized she was knowing his loneliness—perhaps his touch had infused it into her blood.
She grasped his hand with both of hers. “Love is a willful creature that cannot be harnessed, penned or leashed—it bolts and pulls us after it, into a pit for all it cares. We agree upon that, then! My secret will be closely kept?”
“Of course. But it is so dangerous, Auriane. That is my only discouraging thought on the matter. Especially now. When Geisar learns you’ve returned and that we’ve formed something resembling Baldemar’s Companions, he will declare war on you. How he would delight to know you dream of bedding a foreigner. He would even be evil enough to accuse you of lying with him, you know.”
She realized with sharp alarm Witgern accepted most of the truth, but was unready to grasp all of it.
The next day Auriane rode out to bring Decius back to the hall.
“Does this mean all will be as before?” Decius asked as they galloped together over a meadow scattered with rose-tinted flowers of fragrant marjoram. “I can take up life in my miserable but homey hut with its fondly familiar leaks, and your fellow tribesmen won’t try to use my hide as a tent?”
“Better than that,” she shouted into the wind. “Sigwulf is insisting you be freed. Thralls are almost never freed.”
“Freed! What milk and honey that would have been to my ears two years ago! Decius, you’re free. Just do not try to travel anywhere in the known world.”
“Known world?”
“The part of the world with books and baths and forums and real roads, real food, and steam heat. Tell Sigwulf I am grateful, but it isn’t going to make an appreciable difference in my condition.”
“Because we are barbarians.”
“I was not going to say it.”
“Idiot. I hear you thinking it.”
As usual, Decius was maddeningly impervious to her frustration, grinning as if it were as amusing as a child’s fit of temper. She released Berinhard and he shot ahead of Decius’ horse—she was amazed at this horse’s speed; it seemed there was no steed Berinhard could not catch and pass—but soon her anger abated, and she decided she had made Decius look long enough at her horse’s hindquarters. She slowed and let him come alongside her again.
Smoothly he shifted back to the manner of a beloved. “Soon it will be difficult for us to…to lie together. That is a loss greater than any gain this questionable freedom may bring.”
“We will find a way. Let us not speak of it.” She was silent for a moment. “Decius, all of this should make me more joyous than it does. I am home. Gundobad is routed. Mother does not despise me. But the hearthfire smokes with poisons and the mead has no taste and there is something great and large missing from the house. And the tasks ahead are near impossible. I do not even know how to find Odberht. He is a coward—he will not come at my summoning. What am I to do?”
“I suppose you would not consider putting all that in back of you and thinking on it no more.”
“How can I? It is before me every day. Could you bear it if it were your own father?”
“I’ve no answer to that—there was no love between my father and me. It is a shame, that is all, because I see far greater problems stalking you. Every time your people cross the river and go looting and killing you bring closer the day that there will be war with Rome, a real war, not the skirmishes you’ve known in your lifetime. I have said it before—you do not know what that means.”
Auriane sent a messenger north to Chariomer, the king of the Cheruscans, in whose service Odberht was reported to be. As it happened, she knew her challenge was received; the messenger reported on his return that Odberht heard it personally in King Chariomer’ hall.
As she feared, the reply was silence.
Then in late autumn of the following year, Auriane saw him.
At summer’s end a horse r
ace was held annually on the strip of wild country between the lands claimed by her people and the territories of the Cheruscans; this was part of the autumn festivities celebrated by all the tribes, a rite to give energy to the earth and ensure its revival after winter’s death-sleep. This year the prize of the race was particularly rich—enough weapons of iron to equip a king’s retinue. It happened that a Gallic trader had fished fifteen wagonloads of native spears and longswords from a stream where they had been deposited as an offering to Wodan, then sold them to King Chariomer. When Chariomer learned the weapons had been impiously snatched from the most feared of the gods, he gave them up as a prize of the race in hope that Wodan would spare his life.
Auriane knew her people had an urgent need of the prize—in the southern reaches of their lands the Romans had begun systematically stripping whole villages of weapons, knowing that weapons production was so slow among her people that years would pass before they could fully replace them. As she judged Berinhard’s chances better than most—in village contests he regularly outran the fleetest of the captured Roman cavalry horses—Auriane made the nine days’ journey north to take part in the race.
And so she sat astride her fretting dappled stallion, waiting with a field of fifty-nine riders for the starting rope to drop. On the plain alongside the first leg of the course, men and women of all tribes had erected a village of bright tents; here horse traders gathered and peddlers cried their wares—wheel-made pots, ornaments of amber, fine glass vessels, salted haunches of beef, linen cloth dyed every hue. Arrayed in a line before the impatient contestants were nine priestesses and priests clad in ocher-stained hides and horse-skull headdresses; one, swaying behind a dark veil, groaned a sonorous invocation to Erda, goddess of the deep forces of the earth, who some said was Fria in her most ancient, blind and primal form. Among the riders of the race, Auriane saw the brown-red tunics of their enemies, the Hermundures, the sunburnt faces of the wiry horsemen of the Tencteres who were taught to ride before they could walk, and a scattering of tall, fair riders from the Bructeres, her mother’s people. There were as well two sinewy maids of fierce aspect from the tribe of sorcerers who dwelled by the Amber Sea, called the Sitones, or Queen-People, because their chief was said to always be a woman, and two brash Cheruscan youths who laughed loudly at each other’s jests while watching her with looks of playful lust from atop rangy Roman cavalry mounts.
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