The Celtic Mirror

by Louis Phillippi

  A smile of welcome died when the woman beheld her bound husband, and she cried out in fear, “Heinz!”

  “Kirkpatrick, Greenfeld, check the interior. Ax-Wielder! Establish a perimeter around the house.”

  The woman rushed to her husband’s side and clung to him in puzzlement and with undisguised fright. Connach drew his handgun. The weapon might have been unfamiliar, but the threat could not be misunderstood.

  “Farmer,” Connach directed “tell your woman to get back inside.”

  The man nodded emphatically to his mate who obeyed with fear twisting her mouth. She glanced at her trussed husband with anxious eyes. Then Connach, motioning with his pistol, herded the man through the door. Morgan followed, handing Greenfeld’s rifle to Patrick and drawing his own sidearm.

  Morgan closed the door after admitting Greenfeld and the pilot. He stepped to the room’s single window and, without being told, closed the homespun curtains, securing them with knotted ties.

  Kirkpatrick and Greenfeld reentered the room from a darkened hallway.

  “All clear back there,” Greenfeld said. “We’ve closed the shutters at the back of the house. Kirkpatrick jammed the rear door shut.”

  “Good.” Connach sat down on a roughly-carved wooden stool. His pistol rested on a knee. The prince leaned back. Morgan knew that the apparent ease was only a ploy; that Connach was as tightly sprung as he was. Appearance was everything in the battle for loyalties.

  “Woman,” Connach said in a pleasant tone, “you may untie your man.” He looked pointedly at Morgan. The unsaid command was, Morgan, keep them covered.

  Morgan steadied his pistol and narrowly watched the woman fumble at the knots. He was not concerned that she or the Mercian would attempt anything rash, but he knew that he could now kill a woman. His old war had done wonders for women’s rights.

  She freed the last knot and dropped the thong upon the table. Her husband clenched his teeth against the pain of returning circulation but made no sound.

  That one has guts, Morgan acknowledged. He’s a lot tougher than he looks. He watched the woman as she clucked and fussed over her husband, apparently forgetting for a time the four sinister figures that crowded her main chamber. Morgan felt that his charges were not going to bolt from the house, and looked about the room. It was the first ordinary dwelling he had entered since the Le Fay failed to make landfall at Anacapa.

  The low-ceilinged room was simply furnished, attesting to the difficulty of earning a living from the land under Mercian rule. The hearth lay in the center of the room—a custom strongly reinforced by both Celtic and Amerind architectural traditions; however, the smoke was collected by a conical hood and piped out via a red clay chimney pipe. It was the first evidence he had seen that a true fireplace had appeared in Connach’s world. A trestle table and a few stools completed the list of scanty furnishings.

  A single dim oil lamp swaged over the table lighted the room. There were no light panels or glowlights visible. High technology and magic both appeared to be dead as far as that household was concerned. The room’s unlit periphery remained dark and difficult to see.

  “Who are you men?” Came a quavering voice from that periphery.

  Morgan raised his pistol and aimed it, aligning the sights on a small couch he had not seen before in the weak light. With his left hand he tilted the polished reflector behind the lamp, directing wan light into the corner. A used-up old man was propped in an upright position upon the couch, swaddled in blankets although the room was not cold. His voice was tremulous, but from age, not fear.

  He was unintimidated. “I said, ‘who are you men?’” He shielded his eyes from the intruding light.

  “We are the Free States’ last hope, old man,” Connach replied. “And who are you?”

  “That is my father-in-law, lords,” said the farmer, answering for the ancient. “He owned and worked this farm until the Governor-General assigned me to take over in the name of the Alliance.”

  “Alliance?” Connach asked poisonously. “That’s one hell of a name for a pack of Vik wolves.”

  “Ah, but the Alliance’s colonization plans are not quite working out to Thorkell’s liking,” the woman added.

  “Oh, really?” Connach said. “And why not, Frou . . . Frou . . .?”

  “I am the wife of Heinz Axtgirtle, an honorable man,” she pointedly informed her unwanted guest. “The Governor-General has been disappointed in his plan to repopulate the civitat of Dumnonia with blond, blue-eyed children. Heinz, and others like him, all too frequently married the girls who came with the land. Like me.”

  “And the female colonists?”

  “They married the first black-haired men they bedded.” She laughed and smoothed her glossy tresses.

  She was beautiful in an exhausted way, and seeing her make the tired gesture, hearing her artless laugh, made Morgan think of Brigid. For a brief moment, he thought he felt the ring thrum warmly, but when he glanced down, the stone had already faded into opacity. He chided himself for thoughts inappropriate to the time and place.

  “You see,” their ‘hostess’ continued, “Thorkell and his advisors never figured on the perverse human need for variety.”

  Morgan winced. Was his love for Brigid based upon such a shallow need?

  “I’ll be damned,” Connach said, sounding like Greenfeld only the night before.

  “What angered Thorkell even more,” the farmer offered in a voice from which most previous terror had vanished, “is that your Celtic women were very good proselytizers. We ended up by taking your gods as our own.”

  “Thorkell must have pissed blood over that.” The Celtic lord rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “That he did, but the Governor-General has ways of correcting errors . . . or at least of punishing the errors of others,” the Mercian said.

  The woman dropped her eyes and appeared to be studying her bare feet. “Heinz and I were sterilized so that his Mercian blood could never be weakened by that of a mixed race,” she whispered.

  “Damn Thorkell!” Connach’s face was suffused with blood. “Where’s the farspeaker?”

  “The table by the window, sir,” Frou Axtgirtle said quickly.

  Morgan had not seen the device in the shadowed room. That gave him slim comfort. If he expected to survive the expedition, he had better begin noticing things that hid in the shadows.

  “Are calls to Caerwent intercepted in any way?” Connach asked.

  The woman shrugged an eloquent gesture that said much for the civilian state of morale on the mainland.

  Connach crossed to the box and placed a hand over it. He looked squarely at the farmer. “You are taking a wagon-load of crops . . . whatever you have ready . . . to Caerwent in the morning.”

  Axtgirtle glanced at his wife, then at the grooved flesh of his wrists. The lessons of the tree line had obviously not been forgotten.

  The feeling of drama, which had been high since the Mercian’s capture appeared even more heightened to Morgan and oddly changed. Connach and his two prisoners seemed more principal characters in a play, while Kirkpatrick, Greenfeld, the old man and himself had become mere walk-ons or, more remote than that, the audience. This was not his scene; he had no part to play, so he watched with a detachment that amused him.

  Looking every inch the noble lord, Connach touched the stones that were set into the farspeaker base. He paused. The stones remained dark. It was not in Connach’s script to show frustration at that moment, Morgan decided. He had to appear to be in complete charge of the situation.

  Connach followed Morgan’s analysis exactly. He ignored the offending box as if it was beneath him to acknowledge its failure to cooperate. He strode to the hearth and held his hands over the coals as if to warm them. He was at stage center and held all eyes.

  “Greenfeld,” Connach ordered quietly, “call the priest.”

  Morgan had a terrible intuition. He knew what Connach was planning to do next.

  Greenfeld returned with
the acolyte too quickly for him to have been forced to make a search. The next actor had been waiting in the wings.

  “Witness that this is indeed a priest of the Truths, you that dwell in this household,” Connach began in a sonorous voice.

  He pulled the heavy pectoral from around the young man’s neck and held it to the light, turning it so that the enfeebled creature who lived in the corner could witness what was to follow, so that even the dimmest eyes would know that the gods themselves sanctioned Connach’s next move.

  “Do you keep the Holy Scrolls in this house?”

  Morgan’s heart sank. This is really going to happen, and I am not going to do anything about it.

  “Yes,” the woman answered, reciting her lines as if rehearsed, “They are on the main table. I was reading when Heinz . . . when Heinz ....”

  “Farmer, bring them to me,” the actor-Connach ordered.

  The heavy scroll chest was brought to the stone hearth without hesitation. Heinz Axtgirtle then rejoined his wife and placed a protective arm about her waist. The spectators were hushed, expectant, as Connach searched through the scrolls. When he located the one he wanted, he lifted it from the box, snared between thumb and forefinger like a dead animal removed from a trap.

  He looked at the man and wife. “Do you know what we are?” The two nodded mutely. “Then you must have guessed what is going to happen here on the mainland.”

  The pair nodded again, not watching Connach, but the Book of Nero held by the warrior chief. Connach beckoned to the priest and spoke softly into his ear. Although Connach shielded the priest from the far couple’s full view of his body, Morgan clearly saw the acolyte blanch and pull away. Connach snared him by one arm and spoke just one more word. He released the acolyte and offered him the scroll. Slowly and with reluctance, the youthful holy man took the rolled document by the upper handle and let the parchment unwind to the floor. Morgan saw the farmer tense and noticed that the old man in the shadows sat up straighter on his couch.

  “If you know that war has come again to the mainland,” the acolyte began in a voice that rang out strongly, “then you should also know this.” His words were large in the small room. “The Book of Nero is closed forever!” Saying that, he tore the unwound scriptures from the spools that held them, and with tears streaking his cheeks, crumpled the parchment into a ball, which he tossed into the glowing coals in the kitchen fire.

  Every eye but Connach’s watched the teachings of Nero smolder then burst into bright, cleansing flame. Then the acolyte turned and left the room without looking at anyone. Morgan wanted to follow, but Connach stopped him with a quick shake of his head. He held still, feeling the priest’s pain constrict his own throat.

  Connach picked up the discarded scroll handles and placed them upon the table as if they held more worth than the words they once protected. He moved to the stunned couple and placed a hand on a shoulder of each.

  “If you are to survive these coming days you must choose a side . . . slavery or freedom,” he stated. “If you choose freedom, you may have to kill for that choice, or be killed because of it.”

  He turned from them and opened the door. “Chulainn!”

  The Lothian appeared as if shot from a Mercian crossbow, and both man and woman shrank from the burly warrior and from the round, damp object he carried in a sack tied to his cinglium.

  Chulainn grinned at their awe.

  “Take as many men as you require and follow the road that leads toward Caerwent,” Connach ordered. “A Mercian barracks is located about three kilometers from here. Bring back two uniforms with as little fuss as possible. And, Coel…. “

  “Yes, Lord Connach.”

  “Don’t leave any bodies lying about.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Mercian tunic was uncomfortably tight around Morgan’s waist and the mended tear in the chest would be visible upon a close inspection, but he had no intention of being closely inspected by the enemy.

  “Damn it, Ian,” he complained, scratching at something that crawled in the thicket of his armpits, “These things should have been boiled.”

  “Not enough time to dry them,” Connach explained. “If you were perfectly hygienic, you couldn’t pass as a Mercian anyway. The bastards stink to the heavens.” He held up a flawed mirror to Morgan. “OK, Bogentrager, what do you think?”

  Morgan ran his fingers through the cropped and bleached bristle of hair that Frou Axtgirtle had left him. “Passable, Ian, passable.”

  The woman had, indeed, worked a bit of female sorcery with her scissors and the few cosmetics in her possession. She had also, Morgan thought, cut their hair with a show of more pleasure than the job warranted. He smiled wryly at the “Mercian” in the mirror and then pulled the tunic back over his head, stuffing the suspect garment into his already-bulging pack he followed Connach into the dawn-lit farmyard. The damp morning air was redolent of soil, growing things, and of the heady scents of manure and mulch. He wondered, as he drew in deep breaths, if he would ever again have the leisure to enjoy the smells and sights of a peaceful Earth.

  Too much thinking was bad for the business at hand, he told himself.

  Axtgirtle had pulled his wagon close to the house and had positioned a keg nearby so the soldiers could more easily scale the high sides. He seemed to be cooperating freely, but then, a man who remembered the feel of a crossbow bolt against his neck was most likely to be cooperative under most circumstances. Morgan tried to forget the farmer and pitched his pack over the side, handing Greenfeld’s M-16 to Patrick. A splintered plank gave way under his weight as he swung over the top and dropped onto the mound of sugar beets.

  He had the odd sensation of playing some enormous child’s game as he worked himself deeper under the loosely packed roots. The game would be played with loaded weapons, however, and no “time out” would be called.

  The woman climbed onto the tractor, and sat beside her husband without looking behind at the mixed cargo she was helping to take to Caerwent. With a jolt, the steam tractor began to roll, and the commandos moved toward their destinies on huge, solid tires.

  Morgan felt nearly suffocated the weight of the beets and their heavy odor long before the city’s stone walls were reached. The powdery dust from the road made things even worse. He forced a chink in his prison and peered out through a splintered hole in the wagon’s siding.

  The Mercian slowed his tractor, and then halted. Through his chink, Morgan could see a guarded gate and four soldiers who barred free entrance to the city.

  Axtgirtle jumped down from his seat and pretended to be checking the hitch. “Those aren’t the same sentries that usually guard this gate,” he said loudly enough for Morgan and Connach to hear. “These look like Thorkell’s Vulkanetruppen, his personal guards.”

  From that distance, Morgan could see only that the soldiers did not wear uniforms that resembled the one in his pack. The tunics and trousers were cut from a blood-red material. Sunlight glinted off of polished steel helmets that covered their faces in the classical Greek style. They impressed Morgan, even at a distance, as professionals. Despots usually surrounded themselves with professionals. Thorkell was evidently no exception.

  While he watched, two scarlet-clad soldiers detached themselves from the gate and with weapons raised, walked unhurriedly toward the halted wagon.

  “Ian,” Morgan whispered, “we’ve got trouble!”

  Connach pushed himself through the beets and looked out through Morgan’s peephole. “I think you’re right. Everybody else, stay put. Kerry, come with me.” Keeping low, he worked to the rear of the wagon, squeezed between two slats, and dropped to the ground. Morgan then dropped into the floury earth beside him. The tractor masked them from view, temporarily.

  “Kerry,” Connach whispered, “head off the road to your right and look for something that looks like a manhole designed by a baroque madman. There has to be one around here somewhere. If not, we’ve had it!”

  Morgan checked his pos
ition against the advancing Mercians. He was still shielded from view. Keeping the tractor in front of him, he backed to the side of the road and slid into a dry ditch that paralleled it. He had plenty of concealment. The roadside and drainage ditch was choked with brush, landscaping gone wild for lack of maintenance over a long period of time.

  Connach joined him in the tangle, and they began the search for Connach’s “manhole cover”, crawling through the tall grasses in search of man’s handiwork. Morgan occasionally looked back to the wagon. The soldiers had covered half of the distance. If they could not locate Connach’s manhole in time, a firefight would be forced on them, and the chance of surprise lost forever. It was Morgan who located the encrusted iron lid by banging into it. A rusted padlock that was not as timeworn as it appeared, secured it.

  “Ian! Over here,” he called, soto-voice as he pried at the stubborn lock with his dagger. The mechanism perversely held fast and he was afraid that his blade might snap before the hasp did.

  Connach slid to Morgan’s side and tested the lock. “You’ll never get it open that way.” He rose to his knees. “Shit! The bastards are almost there. Wait here,” he commanded. “If you hear the tractor sound like it’s going to go into orbit, shoot the lock with the M-16. While you’re waiting, you night pray to your God that that trick isn’t just another Hollywood fabrication.” He got to his feet, bent nearly double and ran for the wagon.

  Morgan did pray, flash suppresser pushed against the lock. He watched Connach reach the wagon, apparently unnoticed by the Mercians. The other commandos began to slide from the wagon and into the ditch. Connach paused a dangerous moment, talking with the farm couple, then he, too, dove back into the ditch, followed by the other commandos.

  The Mercian colonist walked around his tractor without looking in the direction Connach had taken. Morgan could not see what he was doing to his machine. His wife, on the other hand, was visible. She dropped to the ground, while Morgan was watching, and hurried on foot to meet the approaching soldiers.