Lady of the Light

by Donna Gillespie

  “That’s just folly. No place in all this land is safe, or ever will be.”

  “Don’t tell the Fates their business, Avenahar.” He ruffled her hair so that it fell into her face; she watched him forlornly through the cascade of hair, making no move to straighten it. “You’ll pay me a visit tomorrow?” he said then. “It gets stupefyingly boring in this damp hole.”

  “Yes,” she said hoarsely, tears forming in her eyes.

  For an instant, he held out a mad hope she might embrace him.

  But she turned suddenly, and started energetically climbing the rope ladder.

  “Avenahar,” he gaily called out after her. “Will you call me ‘Father’?”

  She paused, swaying, on the ladder.

  “Would ‘Uncle’ keep you quiet?”

  “Sorry, it’s ‘Father,’ or nothing.”

  She just gave him a look of exasperation.

  “Athelinda wouldn’t have any books up there, would she?”

  But he was speaking to her feet as she scrambled out of the root cellar. “Didn’t think so,” he muttered to himself as Avenahar dragged the hazel-wood branches in place and left him in gloom.

  Chapter 28

  The month of Maius

  Auriane lay on the jolting floor of a reda, shorn of life-love and hope. Iron fetters dragged at her wrists. The four-wheeled travelling carriage had been stripped of all adornments and adapted to transport a prisoner—one side was boarded closed, the other, fitted with a bolted door. An aperture above the back board, not quite wide enough to thrust a head through, afforded the only light.

  There had come the time of the breaking of ice—though Auriane scarce knew. With the first day of Maius, her journey to her appeal before the Emperor began. On this spring dawn, the march set out through the stone gate of the Mogontiacum Fortress; she travelled in the custody of four cohorts drawn from fortresses along the Rhenus, final detachments dispatched to the Dacian war. The first leg of their long journey would closely follow the meandering course of the Moenus, a lesser river that flowed into the Rhenus.

  In Dacia, their destination far to the east, the Roman Army had crossed the Danuvius, and into shadow. The flow of letters from Marcus Julianus had ceased after the winter days of Saturnalia, last year. His silence was unsettling, for she knew well that had he his life, his freedom, and writing materials at hand, he would have written, often as he was able. Supply galleys travelled continuously to and from the army’s base camp on the Danuvius, and it would not have been difficult to find someone to carry a letter. She felt certain some unknown shadow lay over him in that far land. And in the night’s stillness, she knew in her blood that Marcus had not turned the Emperor’s mind regarding her case. She accepted that she journeyed to her execution, to be carried out in that distant land.

  Auriane’s reda was positioned in the center of the march, amidst the legionary baggage and the two-wheeled carts hauling catapults and the larger ballistae. They travelled on a military road, no more than a well-cleared track. Fine dust lifted off the pathway and found its way inside the carriage, causing her to break into sporadic fits of coughing. From time to time she crawled to the back of the carriage, far as her fetters would allow, and looked out. Beyond the backs of a line of oxen and trudging men bent beneath loads, flowering hawthorn trees cast fragile veils across the green. Still farther in the distance were the gentle, maternal curves of the hills of her birth country, putting her in mind of the body of a kind mother, resting on her side.

  A kind mother. Such as I am not. Ever since she’d been told of Arria’s rescue from the household of Victorinus she was loath to close her eyes, for then would come bright, wretched imaginings she wanted to thrust off the edge of this iron-cold world. Arria is well now. She is safe. Or so Auriane had been told, when she’d been given letters detailing Arria’s journey, and her supposedly happy arrival at her great-aunt’s in Rome. Letters full of awful silence, as to what, precisely, had occurred in that fetid den. Safe? No. She will never be. The nightly horrors I dream—who can heal them? A physician? Ramis? The sword?

  Perhaps only the sword that falls on my neck.

  “You must want clear sight, more than refuge,” Ramis had said. And now, Auriane wanted neither. That fleeting intoxication of hope she’d felt on that night on the quay had been driven off by her own unvoiced shrieks. If only I could take Arria’s hurts onto my body. She wanted to fight a clamorous last battle that would bring a finish to all she knew. Or to slide underground, into eternal unknowing, taking with her the remnants of a sense that the Fates’ workings were just.

  Behind her, Brico drowsed atop a pile of soiled coverlets, seized occasionally with delicate, higher-pitched coughing spasms of her own. A sheet of dark amber hair fell across a creamy cheek; one voluptuous arm was curled about a four-string lyre she kept for plucking out tribal songs. The praefect of the march had allowed Auriane one trunk of possessions and a single maid. Brico had petitioned vigorously to be that maid. Auriane was reluctant to bring her on such a grueling journey, but knew Brico despised being confined to the villa, where she claimed to see the murdered Demaratos’s ghost staring at her from the alcoves, begging her help. Brico was a sunny mystery with her rattling collection of beauty unguents, her durable trust in her gods—and that supple nature, venturesome and content as a puppy’s, able to carve out a home anywhere. Auriane had stopped trying to understand her devotion and was content to be strongly grateful for her.

  As they set out they would be passing close to the territories of the increasingly restive Chattians. This detachment numbered almost two thousand men, strung out over a distance of a half mile. At its head were regular cavalry troopers on proud Hispanian horses; they were a moving fortress wall as they rode at a decorous trot, two abreast. Their bronze-embossed helmets and the medallions on the horses’ breast straps flashed across the meadows and fields like some mirror-signal announcing their menacing magnificence. Behind the cavalry were the men of the regular legions, marching row on row, six abreast. Trekking alongside Auriane’s reda were the slaves of the legionaries, who shouldered the heavier equipment. Among them were a scattering of slave women, unassuming figures colored like earth in their hooded travelling cloaks; these served as cooks and washer women to the men of higher rank. Here, too, was a collection of camp followers, recognizable at once with their wine-dark lips, so harsh against faces whitened with cosmetic chalk, their tunicas of crimson or burnt orange, worn short enough to expose their glittering anklets of bright gold. The camp followers were a few hardy, nimble-witted young women of the Celtic tribe who dwelled in the native settlement by the Mogontiacum Fortress; they’d left to seek adventure, hoping to trade their embraces for a few coppers. They got no rations and thrived as best they could. All the noncombatant members of the march had been drilled in how to conduct themselves in the event of an attack, so they wouldn’t interfere with the actions of the troops. Behind the ox-drawn baggage wagons marched two cohorts of veteran soldiers, protected by auxiliary cavalry serving as flank guards—barbarian attacks most commonly came from the rear. Horses, baggage, and legionaries were kept moving at a uniform speed so that the march could not easily be broken into sections. As it was counted unlikely a Chattian warband would attack a force of this size, the flank guards’ vigilance was relaxed, and there was laughter and banter among the camp followers. Nevertheless, every dawn before they broke camp, a cavalry reconnaissance force would be sent ahead to search out ambushes.

  But Auriane had no thought of ambushes—she noted only that the gray-blue forest that had swallowed Avenahar looked particularly benign on this day. All through winter she’d gotten no further news of Avenahar’s fate. Now I die not knowing if I have your love or even your understanding. I’d be drunken with happiness just to know you’re contentedly living on.

  IT WAS THE time of the noon halt, on the first day of the march.

  Brico had the freedom to move about, and Auriane had sent her to the medical orderlies’ wagon,
for coltsfoot leaves to ease their coughing spasms. When Brico returned she was like an overfull chalice spilling its contents.

  “Mistress. The camp women are all talking of Avenahar. She’s . . .” Brico paused to gasp for air; she had been running. “. . . in great trouble. She’s wanted for murder and insurrection.”

  She lives still! Auriane found the knowledge disorienting and blinding, as if she’d been unexpectedly exposed to the sun after a time immured in a tomb. A moment passed before Brico’s words turned her insides to pudding.

  “It’s all right, Brico, stay calm,” Auriane said, though she herself had begun to shiver. Auriane grasped Brico’s hand and pulled the girl into the carriage. “Tell me what she’s done.”

  They sat close together in the gloom. “She’s won great fame among Witgern’s band,” Brico whispered, fast as she could get the words out, “and there’s a bounty on her head—”

  “Gods, no.”

  “—for she has murdered two cavalrymen, from a patrol hated by your people because they robbed your villages. She used her woman’s wiles and entered their camp at night and seduced them and gave them a draught and cut their throats while they lay sleeping—that’s how the soldiers tell it, anyway—”

  “To have such mean nonsense attached to her name,” Auriane interrupted, “—woman’s wiles? Avenahar? It means she must have struck deep and true.”

  “—but your people say she took the form of a black she-wolf and leapt upon the cavalrymen as they travelled, and with great strength, mangled them with teeth and claws.”

  Auriane battled nausea as the floor of the carriage began to roll in gentle, regular waves. My fierce and foolish child. The life I feared you’d seek—you’ve embraced it with relish.

  Avenahar slew two cavalrymen. That, evidently, was the bare core of truth in the tale. With sword, dagger, or spear? Auriane tried to imagine it and couldn’t. The thought was bewildering. She’s a hotheaded brawler, no more, she would never . . . Then Auriane remembered that day in the grove, when she’d discovered that Avenahar had boldly defied her by keeping the fugitive sailor’s sword. There are chambers of her soul to which I’ve never had the key.

  Tears she had no will to stop streamed down, and she felt she bled from the eyes.

  “Your people’s Assembly declared her an outlaw,” Brico said then. “Your own Chattian people. What does it mean?”

  “Rome probably pressed them to do it. It means if anyone does her harm, my family can’t avenge her.” Auriane looked off at the forest. “She’s just a babe. What sad madness. She’s put up a mountain between herself and home!”

  Auriane shut her eyes and rested her head against the carriage’s side. “Her life’s in Witgern’s hands now,” she said, all her strength running out. “I can do nothing. My poor child’s on an island that grows smaller and smaller. I pray he’s got the wit to protect her.”

  That night Auriane lay in a fever of wakefulness, struggling to wrap her mind protectively around Avenahar’s, then Arria’s, until shell-pink streaks lightened the eastern sky.

  How can it have happened that in just one year our family’s been quartered like some slaughtered beast? Avenahar has thrown herself on spears. My doom is certain. Some awful darkness lies over Marcus. Arria may well be all that’s left of us. Live for us, Arria . . . my poor, dear, fragile-strong babe. Live for us in your new world.

  They camped that night within the safety of the cleared land about one of the Moenus forts. On the second day she heard the trumpet-flourish of the army’s salutation for greeting comrades—the march had been joined by a century of soldiers from the fort at Aquae Mattiaci. Not long after, Auriane was startled when one of the cavalrymen assigned to her carriage unbolted the side door, produced an iron key, and removed the fetters from her wrists and ankles. His manner was blunt and closed, suggesting he didn’t approve of this; clearly, the order originated with someone above. The mystery over this small act of kindness lingered. And when their evening rations were brought, she and Brico got another surprise: Instead of barley mush, commonly thought fit only for geese, oxen, and slaves, they were given wheat porridge, hard-meal biscuits, and vinegar water—the same ration as the common soldier. Brico made a thanksgiving offering to her tribal goddess Sirona for these puzzling acts of good will, sprinkling a few crumbs from her meal biscuit onto the ground. And that eve, as the tents were being raised, Auriane saw that one of the centurions who had just joined the march watched her from a small distance—she would have known his rank by the proprietary sweep of his gaze as he surveyed the camp, even had she not seen the sword suspended from a baldric on his left side and his vine-stick of office. His bronzed cuirass was covered with the gold medallions awarded for valor. He seemed ready to approach and have words with her, but did not, and after a short time he moved on. She was near certain this man was responsible for their improved fortune. But the man was a stranger to her.

  THE THIRD MORN blurred with the second. By day she found some obscure comfort in movement, even though it was movement toward death. Day was a narrow corridor, where all seemed bound in iron. By night, curiously, she was least afraid: Enfolded in darkness, the world fell open vastly; she sensed the ghosts of her people, thick in the forest. In night, she could float like some will-o’-the-wisp above her bones and flesh, and flit down avenues to other worlds.

  In late afternoon, at a place where the trackway strayed close to a low ridge thick with beeches, Auriane and Brico heard a thin-voiced lament for the dead, sung out in the Chattian tongue. Gradually it grew fuller, entwining with the wind, seeming to drift from the sky. Brico was puzzled and alarmed. Auriane thought she heard her name. On the ridge above she saw gaunt human faces, tattered gray-brown cloaks. A collection of a hundred or more Chattian villagers had quietly massed there, doubtless feeling protected by the ridge’s sheer face. Auriane felt a vaulting excitement as she recognized Gunora—but it proved only a woman who resembled her. The wind unfurled the women’s long hair as they inclined their heads to look down upon the rank-upon-rank of passing soldiers. A cloud of petals and leaves spiraled down—they cast the Nine Herbs on the wind, as a last blessing. She squinted. Something else was there, too, fluttering like aspen keys—small tokens of wood, of the sort onto which runic letters were cut. Some charm for her release? How had the villagers known she would be passing by on this day? It was a mystery sometimes, how well news flew from Fortress to forest. As their wails ascended to the pitch of a gale, it brought her to a frenzy of stifled hope and longing. She wanted to stop her ears.

  A detachment of ten cavalrymen cantered round the back of the ridge and drove the villagers off with shouts, despite the fact that their extended hands were empty of weapons.

  That eve, when Brico returned from an errand, she brought Auriane one of these tokens. It was a strip of applewood. Brico had no comprehension of the sigils burned into the wood, so she watched raptly while Auriane struggled to work out the meaning.

  Auriane recognized, first, the signs for the moon in eclipse. “It’s not a charm,” she said softly. “It’s—” She had trouble with the next three signs, which indicated a name, employing the runes that corresponded to S, Th, and A. With a start of dismay she realized it was “Sawitha.” This was followed by the sign for the Veleda, and the three runic letters that signified an enemy or wolf had stolen into the village.

  She understood. Sawitha had been named Ramis’s successor. Evidently, the women of the groves were not pleased. “It’s a warning, and a plea.” Grimly, she met Brico’s gaze. “On a matter in which I can do nothing.”

  I resisted so long, another stepped forth and took my place. She felt she shed a great and uncomfortable burden. Ramis, you hunted me all my life, but I eluded you. I’m sick with sadness to think what a disappointment I must have been. A part of me loved you, and did want to do your will.

  But I don’t think I could have carried your staff. You were sadly mistaken, thinking I was the one.

  Night came; the moo
n’s gauzy orb was a ghost lantern lifted languorously above the sea of trees. Auriane felt it rise. Just as she crawled to the back of the carriage to meet its complex gaze, she heard a single cry of a wolf. There was a furtiveness in its tone—and a promise.

  The man-wolf. Her breathing slowed.

  She waited to hear it again, but was met with stubborn silence. Had it been conjured by her despair? She looked questioningly into the wild forest gloom beyond the cookfires. None in the camp paid it any mind; their attention was fixed upon their comforts and discomforts, not on forest and sky.

  “Brico. Did you hear a wolf?”

  “No, I didn’t. How could I hear anything through all that carousing?” Brico indicated a half-drunken group of soldiers sitting round a nearby cookfire who were making animal sounds and yipping with laughter. “Maybe it was them.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Auriane was left with bleakness, and puzzlement—it must have been the cruel trick of a mind ravenous for reasons to hope.

  No. She was certain she’d heard it.

  Somewhere near, in the night-drenched forest, Witgern waited.

  THAT EVE, THE legionary detachments camped at a site Auriane would not have chosen, had their men of rank taken counsel with her. The beech forest pressed too close. They had come to wilder country where native settlements were sparse; here, forts were more thinly spaced, and the forest, unknown and dense. A cleared strip of land alongside the trackway was punctuated with beech stumps; a previous legionary crew had begun cutting back the forest, but halted their work too soon. The country was broken with flinty projections of rock, which could afford cover for a warrior crawling on his belly. The nearby river was drunken and dangerous on spring. The narrowness of the open strip of ground between river and forest would make it difficult for their heavily equipped soldiers to maneuver. A bold enemy could do much with these land features. But she supposed the need to stay close to an abundant water source must have prevailed in their councils.