Lady of the Light

by Donna Gillespie

  The corrugated bone grip fused to her hand like hot glass.

  She wondered, once, at the boldness with which she made her own law. To that council within, protesting that women called by the seeresses should not touch iron, she answered only—This one does. Why would the gods give her a champion’s skill, along with an admonition never to use it? And of what matter was it now, since she was doomed to die, and Sawitha had taken Ramis’s place?

  The stern weight of the sword in her hand brought a strong temblor of excitement as she got slowly to her feet. She lifted it to the sky so her war god could see it, while muttering a quick prayer to evict the spirit of the dead man from the blade, and infuse it with her family’s soul.

  She drew it once through air—a controlled, sure cut like the measured step of a dancer—to accustom herself to the balance, the striking distance. Something quiet and thunderous with the strength of horses gathered within her. She knew herself only as some fanged forest mother, poised to protect.

  With the sword held low at her side, she slunk alongside the line of wagons, abandoning herself to the dark dance that killed.

  She came to a break in the line of wagons. Through it streamed a more disorganized century made up of newer recruits, advancing at a slow trot in ragged files. They were driving Witgern’s men ahead of them like cattle.

  She fell upon their rear line, a lone predator gone gloriously mad.

  It was as though a horse were dropped at full gallop into the midst of a race; she was already in furious motion as she landed among the last rank. A whip-fast lateral strike ripped across three mailed backs. The men she’d struck turned round to face a wheel already spinning, a dancer in frenzy. Before blank astonishment could fade from their faces, her powerful return cut struck a short sword’s blade with a penetrating clang, dislodging it from a soldier’s grip. The man she’d disarmed had no time to recover from the sight of his sword turning in air before she executed a series of deftly-modulated feints that drove his fellows back, then lashed out at serpent speed with her short sword’s point—and he was slowly sinking forward onto his shield.

  Dimly she was aware they yelped like dogs. One man thrust a javelin’s point at her, but her sword flashed upward seemingly with its own mind—and the blade bit deeply into hard wood, knocking the javelin skyward. With a two-handed hold she tore her sword free, pulling this man off his feet. Then she was battering two blades at once, a frenetic staccato at racing speed—while a third man, emitting a hoarse bellow of rage, charged her from behind, meaning to maim her with the iron boss of his shield. Through the fury of this dance her mind rested somewhere in the sky; she saw all about her as if it were generated by one heart. Shifting forward in time with his movement, she broke the force of the blow as the shield struck. She missed the boss narrowly, lightly rolled off the iron-bound shield while, with animal fluidity, she lashed out with one foot, tripping him. He heaved sideways, pulling two men down with him as she fell seamlessly into the next rank of soldiers.

  For long moments, surprise was her ally. No one expected an attack from behind their own lines, and even less, an ambush by a lone woman.

  Through speed alone, she wove round herself a net of steel. Five men engaged her now, while dozens more waited their turn, barking encouragement to their fellows or simply gaping in disbelief at this Fury who erupted from the ground, this marvel wreaking baffling amounts of destruction with measured ferocity married to what seemed, astonishingly, displays of school-trained swordfighting skill. The very unlikeliness of it caused more and more in the ranks ahead to whip about and stare. “It’s Bellona in possession of a woman,” one sputtered out. A very few among them—men who had been in Rome at the time of the fall of Domitian—knew her history; this was that strange creature called Aurinia, who’d managed through sorcery and luck to slay a heavy-armed swordfighter who was Domitian’s favorite, on the sands of the Great Amphitheater. These kept a careful distance from her, and strove to pull their fellows out of her path.

  The forward movement of the unit was stuttering to a halt.

  She had no plan but to fight until she died. She sensed the battle-spirits called the Choosers flocking above her, fierce and invisible, glad of her as they breathed strength into her hand. Memories long tamped down burst into day: Musk of animals. Sprays of sand. Victory cries from thousands of throats. Who would be mad enough to miss the arena as a lover? This was like being catapulted into the clouds, rediscovering a lost ability to fly. She’d once been told she owned battle; more right to say, battle owned her.

  Gradually, the inevitable caught up with her. The bizarre disruption was drawing the attention of one of the veteran cohorts. Twenty and more abandoned their ranks in the fray ahead and began pouring in her direction at a jog-trot. After much jostling and confusion they formed a tight circle about her, great rectangular shields to the fore.

  She had less and less room to maneuver; her sword broke against iron, sending sparks, as she found no more opponents, only shields. “Careful of her, stay aware,” one man cautioned his fellows. A shield-boss ground into her back. As she spun round to meet it, a short sword lashed out at her from behind. She knew, and was too fast for it, but the blade caught in her flying hair and she was thrown to the ground with brutal force.

  In fast succession a javelin struck the side of her head, a hobnail-booted foot delivered a blow to her spine with such force that a bright numbness flashed down her back. A second foot pinned her wrist to the ground while another man wrested the sword from her grasp.

  By now, the four soldiers in pursuit of her had come up with the rest, and were giving an account of the mischief she’d committed with the tent rope. “Finish her,” several began to shout. One lifted her beneath her arms, then heaved her into a blood-darkened puddle. As she finally lay still, another man crouched beside her, his manner that of a dumbfounded naturalist examining some unknown beast thrown up from the deep. “She cannot be mortal,” this man muttered. “From where comes such mastery?”

  Auriane withdrew into last darkness and acceptance, believing that death, this way, was no worse than the death sure to come later—and this, at least, was a useful expenditure of her life, if it divided their forces long enough to allow Witgern time to flee. “Live, Witgern,” she whispered in her own tongue as another booted foot slammed into her chest, cracking a rib.

  Hard hands sought purchase in her hair, pulling back her head to expose her throat. Of course they would slay her with the sword she stole from them. She had turned one of their own weapons against them; killing her with it would reverse the curse.

  She waited for the quick, hot pain across the throat, and oblivion. A blind rabbit-fright gripped her, followed by a wretched twist of sadness at being cast down into gloomy realms where Marcus and her children were not, and finally, gratefulness, for she was seized with a sudden notion that, after death, all that passed would make sense.

  “Fall back. Don’t harm her.” The words were spoken with the weary annoyance of a man accustomed to perfect obedience.

  They let her drop like a grain sack. The soft blackness closed over her again; unconsciousness was a warm, comforting bed. Then someone was roughly hauling her to her feet; she clung to an armored shoulder while her knees turned to warm wax. Once, she thought she was in the hall of her father, and a warrior of his companions was politely addressing her at a feast. Then she realized one of their centurions was briskly, courteously, introducing himself to her.

  Now she had gone mad, for certain.

  She jumped within when he spoke his name—Firmius Speratus—though she could not, at first, recall why. Gradually, she discerned a familiar square, sun-weathered face, a narrow nose sharply interrupted, as if once broken. This was the man of many decorations for valor who had watched her from a distance, two days before—the man she believed responsible for her better treatment.

  Two legionaries conducted her back to the reda, while this Firmius Speratus oversaw them closely; the soldiers would beg
in molesting her anew if she strayed more than an instant from his sight.

  A memory came, then. Marcus had spoken this man’s name. Firmius Speratus was the man Marcus rescued from disgrace, then saw promoted, during that inquiry last year, following Witgern’s attack on the frontier fort. This was something she could understand, for it was in accord with the ways of her tribe: Marcus was this man’s chieftain, his giver of gifts, and this man owed him fealty. And she, in the mind of Speratus, belonged to Marcus Julianus like a belt or a horse. For Marcus’s sake, this Speratus would see her treated with decent respect—at least, until such time as a better man than he could dispose of her properly, when the sentence was carried out in that faraway land.

  Before she sank once more into unknowing darkness she thought she heard the barritus again. She awakened to find herself within the reda, leg shackles chafing her ankles. Brico pressed close beside her. Auriane scarce recognized her maidservant. Brico’s lips were a bloodless gray; damp hair clung to her glistening, swollen cheeks. Her eyes were as wide and fixed as a madwoman’s.

  And there was no quiet anywhere. Auriane did not know how much time had passed, but impossibly, she was rocking about in the midst of pitched battle. The clatter of swords falling on shields came crisp and fast as hailstones striking a roof. Shield bosses butted against the carriage’s sides. The floor bucked like a horse. Javelins skidded off the top of the carriage. Witgern, or his allies, must have held men in reserve, even though such tactics were not common among her people. Auriane crawled to the back of the carriage. Two of Speratus’s men were pushing it from behind, most likely to remove her from the path of danger. A mule gave out a pitiful squeal—she supposed it had caught a spear—and the carriage lurched as the animal kicked at the shafts in its death throes.

  The reda’s door shuddered; someone struggled to remove the bolt. Brico was panting and clawing at the carriage’s walls. All about were yips of pain, hoarsely shouted commands, the hollow shrieks of the tubae, and behind it all the deep, doomful booming of the cornu, insistent, almost continuous now—the shadow of a dark wing passing over the land. The haunted bellowing of the cornu was sure to rouse primitive terror in anyone who had ever met Rome in battle.

  Auriane suspected that the reda was being employed as a fortification to hold the two forces apart. A Chattian warrior, beard matted with blood, sank against the rear window, dying, his arm linked over the backboard. His long red hair was flung into the carriage like a dirty mop. A short sword hacked downward, finishing him, bloodying Brico’s cloak. She erupted into frenzied shrieks, but so overwhelming was the noise of battle, Brico seemed a mute taken off with spasms of madness. Auriane dragged her away from the opening and clamped a hand over the young woman’s eyes. Struggling to ease her own terror, Auriane shut her eyes and strove to envision the calming flames of the Ritual of Fire, as Ramis had taught her so long ago.

  But she soon gave it up and pulled furiously on her leg irons, cursing them—they were bolted to the reda’s floor. She wondered which warbands were taking part; all Witgern’s men and all Sigibert’s did not equal a band this size. Her numbed mind accepted that at least a quarter, or perhaps even half the men of her tribe fit for battle must have rallied for this rescue. Her people’s Great Assembly must have had a part in laying plans for this. Only then did she let herself know how deeply her countrymen desired her return.

  And then, just beyond the storm and confusion, Avenahar saw him—the Wolf warrior astride the fine bay stallion. The youth’s face was smeared with mud from brow to chin, so that he wore a mask of night. He seemed to be urging his fellows to fall back to safety. Something in his demeanor caused her to feel her soul threw out an echo, and Auriane watched as though transfixed by a writhing flame in a darkened room.

  Now he struggled to drag a wounded companion across the withers of his skittish stallion, a sturdy beauty that surely was cavalry-bred. Auriane looked more closely and felt a prickling on the skin. Not a youth. A maid.

  Once the Wolf maid had gotten her injured companion securely positioned, she laid a length of rein across the horse’s haunches, and the burdened stallion rocked forward, its stifled canter impeded by the crush of bodies, bringing its skin-clad riders within fifteen paces of the prison cart.

  Gods below, no—let it not be.

  But it was.

  Auriane felt she’d been struck senseless by a fire bolt.

  “Avenahar, no. Get out of here!” she cried out with such violence her lungs ached, even while knowing she couldn’t compete with the clamor and distance. She pulled so hard at the leg shackles that she scored the flesh of her ankles. Witgern, how can you have dragged my child into this slaughterhouse?

  “Avenahar! I am here.” But her words were flung into the roar and lost. In a brutally brief instant she greedily took in every curve of that well-loved face she’d held to her breast, that stubborn chin, that proud and gracefully rounded brow. She wrapped herself tightly about Avenahar with a look, stretching out her hands in an embrace that could not be filled. She felt a bittersweet twist of the heart at the sight of Avenahar, so grown beyond what she had been, so at ease taking her place in a world that gave no quarter. My babe is launched into the world-sea, with no need of me.

  “Avenahar!”

  But it was as if they inhabited realms that, though tantalizingly close, could not touch. She might as well have observed her daughter’s image in a bronze mirror—mute, small, but alive in another world. How thin she was—she’d never been that thin. If only I could have her in my care, to nurse to health again.

  Avenahar . . . do you forgive me?

  As Avenahar lurched forward in the saddle to keep her wounded companion from falling, Auriane saw something catch fire and go dim at her daughter’s shoulder. A fibula with the low luster of purest gold secured Avenahar’s loose wolfskin cloak.

  She’s wearing the brooch Decius gave her. Does she even know where she got it? I never had a chance to tell her.

  “Get to safety! Get out of here,” Auriane shrieked as Avenahar reined the half-bolting stallion behind a row of wagons, and she was lost again, a ghost in a dream.

  My poor babe . . . we’ll not be together again in this life.

  She lay still against the backboard, her hand extended toward her vanished daughter. Some cruelly effective missile ploughed a furrow through the mass of native warriors, tearing a bloody avenue through densely-packed bodies. Auriane recognized it as the bolt of the war-engine called the scorpion. The Wolf Coats bunched about the carriage reversed direction with the unanimity of a flock of birds, though with less grace. In the space they opened, Auriane saw a warrior of her people, taller by a head than his fellows, ramming his way through close-packed bodies, moving crossways against the human tide, forcing a path to the reda’s rear window. His naked chest was broad as a shield. This giant had no weapon in his hands, but that face was grotesque as the demon-masks of Charon she’d seen in Rome, worn by the men who dragged the dead from the arena—perhaps he depended upon frightening the enemy to death. He had a strangely pacific expression, as though he dreamed. Clamped beneath one heavy arm was a long linen-wrapped bundle, swaddled like a babe and bound with hemp rope; he held it upright, to ease his passage.

  The fearful giant filled the narrow opening at the back of the reda. With one ring-girded arm he hauled the dead man away from the backboard. Then he began pushing his swaddled burden lengthways through the aperture, while gesturing sharply to Auriane, demanding her help.

  Moving as if in a sleep-trance, Auriane joined in conspiracy with him, pulling on the cumbersome burden as he pushed. Once, she met his pale, slate-hued eyes; in them was the ecstasy mingled with the unreachable calm of the man who is ready to journey to the Sky Hall. Too wretched with grief to be curious as to the nature of the man’s gift, she dragged the mysterious bundle across the floor, unlatched the cedar trunk, then pushed it within to conceal it. She looked back at the warrior, once. He held her gaze an instant longer, as if striving to
take with him the image of her face, while quickly tracing in air the bird-foot shape of algiz, the rune of protection. Then he heaved himself away from the back of the carriage. A moment later, the gift-bearing giant stopped in place and began to sink slowly down, his eyes blank as a tablet on which nothing has yet been written. She never saw the weapon that struck him.

  With horror’s cup overfull, Auriane hid her face in her hands and sank to the floor of the carriage.

  Avenahar. What great grace to know you’re living. But for how long?

  And do you despise me still?

  Chapter 30

  Auriane awakened to find the battle done, and a doleful quiet hanging all about. She heard forest sounds again—the dry rustling of interlaced branches wrestling in wind-rivers above, the Moenus’s brisk song, the taunts of the ravens as they dropped from the sky to feast. When she moved to peer out, her head throbbed viciously. Debris was flung over the ground as if on a windstorm. The dead were strewn everywhere—mules, horses, men.

  Avenahar, you were no mind-spectre—my most fevered imaginings wouldn’t have conjured Decius’s gift on your cloak. With great dread, Auriane examined the near-naked, blood-mottled bodies that lay near her carriage. Only her countrymen were left untended; the Roman dead had been respectfully collected up. Many of her tribesmen lay atop each other, and huge crows had taken possession, but gradually Auriane assured herself Avenahar was not among those lying within her sight. A measure of life-warmth started to flow through her again, but she didn’t rejoice; her daughter might have been cut down somewhere in the wood.

  At a small distance off in the forest, soldiers labored without helmets or shields, hacking at underbrush, dragging wood for pyres. The camp’s wounded, legionaries and slaves, lay on the ground in neat rows, groaning softly beneath their blankets; their numbers had proved too great for the hospital tent. The rank tang of unwashed bodies mingled with the astringent smell of the terebinth resin the camp’s medicus had employed to purify wounds.