Summer came in earnest, laying vivid veils of green, bringing ever more color—the violet of hyssop flowers, the yellow of cowslips, the salmon shades of fragrant meadowsweet. Waterbugs streaked over glassy pools; clouds of bees hummed hymns to the sun.
One morning when Avenahar had lived through three moons, Auriane and Helgrune were busy in the drying-shed, laying out freshly gathered coltsfoot. Ramis had journeyed off to some distant chief to give counsel concerning a marriage. Auriane had not wanted her to go, sensing she might need her that day.
They heard an unaccustomed sound; steadily it grew louder. When Auriane realized it was the drumming of many horses’ hooves, she whisked Avenahar from the wicker cradle and held the child tightly to her breast.
Then came the villagers’ shouts and dogs’ barks; now the battering of hooves was very near. As yet they could see nothing; the riders were concealed by a stand of alder.
The party seemed to have halted by the horse sheds; Auriane heard welcoming neighs and men’s shouted questions. Then the thunder began again. And a party of thirty and more horsemen emerged from behind the alders, approaching the lakeside on its marshy, deserted shore.
They halted just across the water.
Helgrune seized Auriane’s arm, meaning to drag her into the shadows of the shed. “Quickly. Hide yourself,” she whispered. “Who are those bold ruffians? How dare they ride so close!”
“Helgrune, let me go,” Auriane said as she fought her way free. “Do you think they do not know I am here?”
Auriane moved closer to the island’s bank, showing herself to the shaggy band draped in bearskin cloaks; Helgrune followed, a step behind. The party’s many upright spears formed a dense thicket. Dully gleaming warrior’s rings girded their upper arms. The band’s leader held aloft a cat skull stained with ocher, mounted on a yew pole.
“They are my own people, Helgrune. You must not fear. They’ve come for me.” Auriane struggled with a confused mix of joy and fright, unsure what this party’s intention was. She stood utterly still, Avenahar in her arms, a wary animal poised to protect her young.
She realized then why they had tarried at the sheds. They had found Berinhard; his coat was brushed clean of charcoal and he stood bridled and ready.
They have me. I will be dragged back to Geisar and condemned.
She squinted, desperate to see if they were friend or foe, but she could not discern individual faces. Avenahar felt her gathering tension and began to wail.
Then one of the warriors raised an aurochs horn to his lips and sounded a long alto tone.
“‘We come in peace to talk,’” Auriane said, interpreting the meaning of the horn sign for Helgrune. It did not still her heart. What if they had some evil plan in mind for the child?
Helgrune said with all her gloomy authority, “You must not cross that water.”
“Helgrune, I must.” She would not shame herself by begging mercy or attempting escape. She turned about and strode to her hut to find better clothes in which to greet them. Helgrune trailed worriedly after.
Her one fine garment was a long, sand-hued tunic of linen, finely embroidered at the hem with a pattern of green foliage; she girded it with a belt of links of silver embossed with garnet-eyed ravens. Both were gifts from Ramis. Then she loosened her hair from its knot; she had not cut it since vowing vengeance on Odberht and it dropped in a heavy silken mass, rippling down to her waist. Helgrune helped her brush it out while Auriane opened the side of the tunic and gave the child her breast. Watching Avenahar take her milk, Auriane felt a sharp physical pain at the thought that she might be separated from her daughter. Her need of that small creature was deep, mysterious, subtly overwhelming. Before she had a child of her own, Auriane could not have imagined its intensity.
My whole body will ache without her. I will be a house without a hearth. My arms will know a barrenness that can never be filled.
Helgrune saw the tear that formed in spite of Auriane’s best efforts; a disapproving frown darkened the serving woman’s face. To Helgrune, Auriane’s unbounded love of her child was weakness. Submitting wholly to love in Helgrune’s mind was like tolerating a room left unswept and dirty—a thing that clutters life and renders it distressingly chaotic.
Auriane then pulled on calfskin riding breeches. Her only ornament was the warrior’s ring circling her right arm. Since it would be unseemly for a consecrated warrior to face any delegation weaponless, she took a ceremonial wooden spear from the temple house. Finally she concealed a flint dagger in her belt—she would take her life with it, if indeed this was a trap and they meant to drag her to punishment. She would not die an ignoble death that would shame Avenahar and force the child to seek vengeance for her mother when she grew to womanhood.
Auriane descended to the coracle, Helgrune walking behind. Helgrune rowed; Auriane stood straight and solemn in the small vessel as it glided over the black water. In one arm she cradled Avenahar; in the other she held the wooden spear, upright like a slender sentinel.
Something startlingly white caught Auriane’s attention—a family of swans, idols made of snow, drifted smoothly as clouds over the black waters, moving abreast of them for a time. The lead swan raised its wings as if in salute, then settled them again.
Why have I not seen them before? Perhaps they are the dawn maidens that haunt the deep forest in swan form.
Then she had the disquieting sense the lead swan was Ramis herself, keeping watch on her.
As Auriane came closer to the shore, she recognized one warrior, then another, as men of Sigwulf’s retinue. Then she saw two of her own, as well as several who were emissaries of Geisar, and behind them, one of Romilda’s women. It was as though an effort had been made to send representatives of every faction of the tribe. She held the baby closer, unconsciously covering Avenahar’s fleecy black hair with her hand to shield it from their probing gazes. Foreign curse! she imagined she read in their eyes.
Then she saw that Berinhard’s mane and tail had been braided with white marguerite from the nearby meadow; sprigs of vervain were woven into his forelock. He was being honored as though he were something holy.
When the coracle touched the bank, Auriane alighted and walked toward them, her manner cautious but proud; she would not let them think she was ashamed of the child. Helgrune walked warily behind.
It was Coniaric who called out gaily, “Long life and health to you, daughter of Athelinda and Baldemar!” Apparently Coniaric, ranked second among Sigwulf’s Companions, had been chosen to speak for them. His dark gold hair shone like amber in the sun. His faded blue eyes seemed not quite focused on her as he spoke.
“We have come from the Warriors’ Council,” Coniaric went on in his practiced Assembly voice. He smiled broadly, showing strong, perfect teeth. “We bid you return with us and walk once more with your ancestors.” She understood why they chose Coniaric to speak for them—he could humble himself without embarrassment, for he had the gift of speaking words convincingly, effusively, without truly feeling the meaning of what he spoke. “Geisar and Sigwulf send locks of hair—they are friends,” Coniaric continued, holding out a leather pouch tied to his belt.
She felt the first throb of alarm. A great and terrible thing must have occurred to reduce Geisar to even a moderate show of humility; she sensed the weight of it, saw the size of it in every eye. She began slowly bracing herself for something that would rupture the soul.
“Geisar asks only that you purify yourself of your uncleanness before you enter our lands,” Coniaric went on with smooth joviality. “Your clan is in dire need of your strength and luck. You will be treated with all honor, Auriane. Wodan, witness my words.”
At the word uncleanness Auriane’s eyes smoldered. There followed an awkward quiet. They had not supposed she would need much convincing; most assumed she would leap eagerly at the chance to return. None knew what to say next.
“Tell Geisar he must first purify his viper’s soul,” Auriane replied with soft precision, a
flare of fire in her eyes. “All this winter he reduced me to hopelessness while he joyed in my humiliation. And now I am to come quickly because he needs me. How dare he. How dare you all.”
She wheeled about, Avenahar pressed close to her chest, and strode back to the coracle with a queenly gait. That passionate pride was so much the image of Baldemar’s that the sight of it pained many of them with vivid, sad memories.
This is mad, Auriane thought as she walked away. I know I cannot desert them. But I cannot help it—they drive me to fury.
Then a familiar and loved voice called out, “Auriane! Wait.”
She halted and slowly turned about. “Witgern?” She came closer, barely disguised pleasure in her face. “Witgern!” He had been concealed at the back of the company. When she was close enough to see him well, she suppressed a look of alarm at the change in him. Witgern had in one season made the small but critical journey from the final years of youth to the first years of old age. Features that had once appeared sensitive and refined now seemed closer to fragility; the hopelessness in that one melancholy eye no longer seemed youthful moodiness—now it was brittle and deep-set. His red-gold hair hung straight to his shoulders—she realized he must have taken some vow, for no shears had touched it since last she saw him. “Why did you not show yourself at once?” she asked.
“For…for shame. I did not do as much for you as I could. I beg you, let us have no hard words. I’ve missed you sorely.” He dropped from his horse, and they held tightly to one another; it felt like going home, so well-worn and comfortable was his embrace. Then he drew her away several paces so they could speak privately. They stood facing the smoking waters of the lake.
“Auriane,” he said softly, “listen to me. Many spoke against you but you must not forget those who spoke for you. Half of them do not even believe that…that you—”
“Witgern, it is true. I am ashamed of nothing. I cannot abide this pretense. This is not Wodan’s child—Decius is her father and none other. Were you one of those who did not believe it?”
Witgern looked down, acutely uncomfortable. “No. But I suppose I have come not to mind it. Geisar is proclaiming loudly everywhere that all you do is holy. Maybe for once the old curmudgeon has spoken the truth, though not for the right motives. But listen to me, I beg you, in the name of our love for each other. Auriane, catastrophe has come.”
“Curses on Hel, Witgern, I know already what you are going to say.”
Two robins pecked furiously at one another in a mulberry tree, their chatter absurdly cheerful in contrast to Witgern’s face.
“Your warnings were true,” he continued in a low voice. “Now they call you a god-sent seer. A mighty force is assembled at Mogontiacum. There are soldiers drawn from faraway Albion, along with the legions of the fortresses at Argentoratum and Vindonissa, as well as troops from their elite Palace Guard at Rome. Five legions are poised to strike at us, all under the command of Domitian himself.”
She shut her eyes.
“They came with unnatural speed,” Witgern continued. “Sigwulf chose to believe when they came to Gaul that it was indeed for a census. Fastila spoke your words in the Assembly and barely got off with her life.”
“Fastila! She did it. She is bolder than she knows.”
“The last of our allies have deserted us in terror,” Witgern continued. “Even the Usipes who have never refused us help are now the Romans’ pet dogs. All of them—Sigwulf, even Geisar—say only the Daughter of the Ash can deliver us. They’ve revived the old tale that none who follow you die.”
Her heart stilled; her mind raced. “Incredible that they say that,” she said numbly. “The ones who repeat that tale were never with me.”
“Let them believe what they must. Terror has humbled them, Auriane. Have pity on them. You are much loved of Wodan. You are the Opener of the Gate, their living shield, she who chastised Ramis and lived. They want you—and the sword of Baldemar—at the center of the front line in the charge.”
“There is about this the madness of dreams,” Auriane whispered. “Why does the enemy come with so great a force? They come not to do battle but…to annihilate.” She remembered Decius explaining once that his people went into battle with a minimum number of men. A Roman army thought nothing of facing barbarian forces that outnumbered them ten times, so confident were they in the superiority of their tactics and weaponry. Feeling a chill creeping into her limbs, she wondered what Decius would say of this.
Miserably she looked at Avenahar, dressed in the bearskin clothes Helgrune had made for her. Then she looked at the taut, hopeful faces of the delegation, awaiting her will.
This was the decision she so dreaded, this decision that was already made. She felt she carried the weight of an ox on her chest.
I am just one woman with a child! Let me be!
Why have the Fates so arranged it that in order to do what I must, I have to give up this creature I cannot live without?
“This child has weakened me, Witgern. I want fiercely now not to die. Would my ghost be able to visit her as she grows?”
Witgern put a hand on her shoulder. “All who are wise say so, Auriane.”
“Ah, but I do not believe it enough to feel at peace.”
Where is Ramis? Why is she not here to advise? Surely she foresaw this and absented herself on purpose.
What had Ramis said? “Make fire in your mind.” Auriane envisioned pale flames over lake and sky, and after a moment the cloak of anguish felt faintly lighter, and the air seemed a living medium that connected all souls, no matter how separated by land and water. There was deep comfort in knowing that, in the mind of Fria, she could not be separated from her child.
She felt a wind shift about, somewhere within; it tugged at her with growing insistence, drawing her in the direction of her people’s lands.
So it must be. It is my fate to have my attachments sundered. There is no mercy in this world—why do I keep falling into expecting it?
Witgern saw her mysterious shift from misery to certainty; like Decius, he too had noticed her ability to draw strength suddenly from some unknown place. To Witgern in that moment she was remote and full of magic; he imagined he heard about her the whisper of ancestors. It was odd, Witgern thought, to have known her as a child, a vulnerable creature crying when hurt, then to see her now, clothed in a strength beyond his understanding.
Slowly she moved away from Witgern and stood before the delegation. She felt distant from herself, as though she entered someone else’s life, a grander one than her own.
“Here is my answer,” she said quietly. “I will return—if these things are done.”
She turned Avenahar around so they could see the child’s face.
“This is my daughter, Avenahar, of the lineage of Baldemar and Gandrida. She will not be treated by you as an outcast. She will have lands and a husband of this tribe if she wishes, and the respect due to one of noble blood.”
“That is well,” Coniaric replied, that broad smile returning to his face. “And what else?”
“I want a great effort mounted to see us better armed. To rely on the gods alone is madness,” she continued, her voice gradually finding its strength. “Wherever there are stores of iron, whether it be tools of the field or weapons fallen into disuse, I want them taken and forged into iron heads for spears. And I would have the captured Roman swords dedicated in the groves to Wodan be taken out and distributed to those who have no sword.”
“Monstrous sacrilege,” came an indignant whisper behind Coniaric.
“A blight will take us,” said a Companion of Sigwulf’s.
“Is it a greater sacrilege than allowing me to return?” she replied, soft gray eyes on them steadily. “Or than accepting Avenahar? These times seem to demand sacrilege. How do we know the gods have not originally given us these things that we might make good use of them in the direst of times?”
“I scent truth in those words,” came a voice at the rear of the company, followed b
y cautious nods and scattered mutterings of assent.
Witgern marveled as he saw gradual acceptance come into their faces. She calms, she binds—who else would dare propose such things? She is like, yet unlike Baldemar, he realized. Both test limits, but she intrudes on a realm he never challenged—the precincts of the gods.
“And I ask as well,” Auriane continued, “that we give the war-leaders we select strict obedience, whether in the march, the retreat, or the charge—or in the matter of disposing of spoil. All quests for individual glory must be set aside. The hosts of the Romans act as one, and that is their strength. We must do the same.” She paused, looking slowly from one countenance to another.
The wind rose suddenly, lifting the horses’ manes, billowing her long tunic.
Coniaric grinned. “Well, it is settled then! Come, and mount your horse.”
“How can that be?” she asked. “Do you not have to go to the Assembly with these things?”
“It was said at the last Assembly: ‘Do what she wills. But do not return without Auriane.’ They cannot go back on those words.”
This battle so suddenly won, a chilled emptiness came into her chest.
If I am wrong, let only me be punished, she silently prayed. Baldemar, if you heard these things I proposed, things you would never allow, forgive me and know I do this so we can live.
She turned about and walked past Helgrune, pressing Avenahar’s silky cheek to her own. For long moments they stood like this, while the wind mingled their hair. They made one sorrowful silhouette against the water. Witgern turned away, unable to watch. Coniaric’s horse clanked its bit impatiently. Avenahar, unconcerned with all this, tried to snatch Auriane’s warrior’s ring, on which the sunlight played with liquid movements. Auriane pulled it off her arm and gave it to the child.
“That is your warrior’s ring,” Helgrune protested sullenly.
“She must have it—I’ll have another made,” Auriane replied, not taking her gaze from the girl’s bright, inquisitive eyes.
B007IIXYQY EBOK Page 58
