The Druid King

by Norman Spinrad

  “Conquer us with your legions, you mean,” he said.

  “Perhaps, my young friend, but not necessarily in the manner that you mean…”

  Caesar halted his horse and reared it up on its hind legs while bringing it around to face the oncoming Roman foot soldiers in one continuous motion, a fine piece of horsemanship that Vercingetorix sought to emulate but accomplished with a good deal less grace.

  “Look at them, Vercingetorix!” he said. “Be honest with yourself—a fearsome enemy to confront, are they not?”

  Vercingetorix certainly had to admit that they were.

  Shields strapped to their backs, helmets and short swords across their armored chests, the Roman infantry marched a dozen abreast and scores of ranks deep. Each helmet, each breastplate, each shield and sword were identical, as if forged by the same smith at the same moment. The effect was to make each legionnaire appear identical to every other. There was something not quite natural about it. Facing such an army in battle would be like facing an army of huge metal-clad ants.

  Caesar wheeled his horse around again and proceeded up the road very slowly, and Vercingetorix followed suit.

  “Now imagine the legions of Rome as your allies,” said Caesar. “As your shield. Imagine yourself not confronting them but riding before them into battle at the side of their commander, as you are doing now.”

  Vercingetorix heard the clattering thunder of thousands of marching feet slapping the stone roadway behind him in a regular pounding rhythm. As they drew closer, he breathed the dust they kicked up and smelled sweat on leather. This was but the smallest fragment of the vast forces that Caesar commanded, and yet their passage seemed to shake the world.

  “Rather than conquer Gaul by grinding its warriors into the dust with my legions,” said Caesar, “I will use them to conquer the hearts of the Gauls.”

  “You are a sorcerer as well as a general and a sometime priest?” Vercingetorix said dryly.

  “And a lawyer too!” said Caesar. He laughed. “Not to mention a writer of no little skill, if I do say so myself. But none of these arts are required to win the noble warriors of Gaul to the venture I am proposing, only the politician’s craft. For I know that the surest way to convert enemies to allies is to make your best interest their own.”

  Vercingetorix had never met a man who spoke like Caesar, who in one moment made him feel a barbarian and in the next clarified his understanding in a way that raised him up above himself. He sensed that this man was an accomplished liar, and yet also capable of using the most profound truths to his own ends too.

  And he also sensed that the might of Rome was rooted in more than its legions, that Caesar wielded another, greater power, whose true nature presently eluded his understanding.

  “And what is this venture of yours that will accomplish the seemingly impossible?” he asked.

  And now I have you, Caesar thought. “I will lead an invasion of Britain, my young friend,” he said, “a land rich beyond dreams of avarice, yet defended only by primitive barbarians. My invincible infantry and the best cavalry in the world—that of all the tribes of Gaul—fighting side by side to earn fame, glory, and riches. And the Gauls will have half of everything our joint forces seize!”

  “You would have us join you in pillaging Britain as you pillage Gaul?”

  “Such an ugly word!” said Caesar. “Nor is it just. Think of it, rather, as an orderly system of tribute. The Britons pay a certain amount to Gaul, Gaul pays a certain amount to Rome, in return for which our legions keep the peace, do the collecting, build the roads that make commerce possible, introduce the benefits of our medicine, our arts, our schools. And so is civilization spread, and so does Rome help its friends to help themselves.”

  Caesar was pleased to note that Vercingetorix, though clearly intrigued, moderated his enthusiasm with a suspicious stare, for were he a big enough fool to swallow it all whole, his usefulness would surely be limited.

  “But at a price, Caesar?” Vercingetorix said. “The Gauls will no doubt be expected to bear the cost of the forces we are invited to raise to support your legions?”

  Caesar laughed. “Spoken like a Roman!” he said. “Rome may be many things, but a dispenser of alms isn’t one of them!”

  He then summoned up a great sigh. “What a pity!” he moaned.

  “Pity…?”

  “I like you, Vercingetorix, son of Keltill, I sense you would be worthy of being the son that, alas, I do not have. It vexes me that you cannot take part in our grand and glorious adventure.”

  “And why not?” demanded Vercingetorix.

  “In a word, Gobanit,” said Caesar.

  “Gobanit?” said Vercingetorix.

  “The vergobrets of all the major tribes of Gaul, and most of the minor ones, have eagerly agreed to join us. All save the slothful and cowardly Gobanit, who would deny the warriors of the Arverni their fair share of the riches and glory.”

  “I have no love for Gobanit!” snapped Vercingetorix. “He will not tell me what I may do or not!”

  “Indeed?” said Caesar in the manner of a purring cat, feigning a surprise so obviously false that his equally feline grin acknowledged that he knew that Vercingetorix knew it. “My sentiments exactly.”

  The chill that pierced Vercingetorix’s heart at these last words was like a knife of ice, for, though he remembered not where or when, he knew that his father had spoken them. Could it be possible that in this moment the spirit of Keltill was using the mouth of Caesar to speak to him?

  “Gobanit lit the fire that burned my father,” said Vercingetorix, sensing that he was telling Caesar something he already knew.

  “So I have heard,” said Caesar. “And so you ride to Gergovia to avenge your father’s foul murder and regain your birthright. As a loyal son must do. But how?”

  Vercingetorix touched the hilt of his sword.

  “You intend to ride into Gergovia alone and through the city and plunge your sword through the fat and into the black and cowardly heart of the vergobret of the Arverni?”

  Vercingetorix nodded.

  “Will you now?” said Caesar.

  “It is my destiny, and I have seen it in the Land of Legend,” said Vercingetorix. “I cannot—”

  Vercingetorix stayed himself, for he had been about to say, I cannot be slain on the soil of Gaul. And this was surely more than Caesar should know. “I will stop the thought that slows the mind,” he said instead.

  “And you called me a sorcerer?” said Caesar.

  They were now approaching a crossroads where the dusty and winding earthen Gallic road to Gergovia intersected the arrow-straight Roman road of stone.

  “Our paths diverge now,” said Caesar. “But I think not for long. I sense in you a man of destiny.”

  “Like yourself, Caesar?”

  Caesar laughed. “Indeed,” he said. “And so, as one man of destiny to another, as one sorcerer to another, allow me to arm you with a bit of my magic.”

  And his mien became earnest. He reared his horse, whirling it around, once, twice, thrice, with his right hand upraised.

  Behind them, for as far down the road as the eye could see and perhaps more, the ranks of Roman legionnaires ceased their thunderous marching, one rank after another like a wave magically moving backward out to sea, and, in their thousands, were in a few moments standing still and silent, flesh-and-metal trees in a human forest.

  Then Caesar took off his bright crimson cloak and draped it around Vercingetorix’s shoulders.

  “Wear my crimson cape as you ride my horse into Gergovia,” he said, “for no other Roman in all my legions may wear one of this hue, and so all will know that the young man in Arverne orange riding the white horse of a Roman general is cloaked in the mantle of Gaius Julius Caesar. They must either believe that you have taken them from me, or that you stand very high in my favor indeed.”

  Caesar laughed, but his eyes were as hard and cold as polished metal. “No one is likely to move against you with
out knowing which. That should be enough to…raise the thoughts that slow the mind, and perhaps open the way for you to work your own sorcery, my young friend.”

  He clasped forearms with Vercingetorix in the Roman manner.

  “If you succeed, you may return the cloak to me when you arrive at the head of an army of Arverne warriors,” he said. “If not, you can give it back to me in your Land of Legend when we are both dead. For, one way or the other, I am sure we will both get there.”

  “As am I,” Vercingetorix told him. “But who is to say what part each of us will play in the other’s legend?”

  And he reared his horse and rode away alone toward Gergovia.

  Caesar sat there on his horse, watching the boy he had cloaked in his own colors disappear up the primitive Gallic road, and wondering exactly what he had just done, wondering who was using whom for what purpose.

  Wondering whether King Philip of Macedon might have had a moment like this regarding the boy Alexander riding off into his own destiny. There was something in this youth’s eyes, in his illogical certainty in himself and his destiny, that Philip must have seen in the son who would so surpass him.

  And, ludicrous as it seemed, Caesar felt a pang of jealousy.

  “The cloak too, Caesar? What next, your standard?”

  Gisstus had ridden up behind him to interrupt his reverie as no one else would have dared, and just as well.

  “I have others,” Caesar told him. “And other horses. A horse and a cloak wagered against the replacement of Gobanit with a leader with good reason to be loyal to me…” He shrugged. “The odds may be long, but the stakes are favorable. I want you to find out everything there is to know about this boy. I do not want an unbroken, wild horse among us. Find me his bridle.”

  “Do you really believe he can just ride alone into Gergovia and capture the city?” asked Gisstus.

  “By force, of course not, Gisstus. But by…a certain kind of sorcery…? Somehow, I believe I do!”

  VIII

  THE CLOSER HE GOT to Gergovia, the more crowded the road became, but even when it passed through lands that were once his father’s, no one hailed Vercingetorix as the son of Keltill. That no one recognized him was hardly magic, but that no one dared meet his eye must be the mantle of the spell cast upon him by Gaius Julius Caesar.

  He could well understand their unease, their fear, and their hope as they beheld a youth in Arverne orange, wearing neither armor nor helmet and armed with an ordinary sword, but riding a white horse festooned with the trappings of a Roman general, and a crimson cloak of the hue reserved for Caesar himself.

  Though no one would speak to him, Vercingetorix heard the murmuring voices; though no one would meet his own eye, he felt the weight of a multitude of eyes upon him. He knew a procession was forming behind him, for, even when he slowed his horse to a pace slower than that of a heavily laden cart, no one would pass him.

  And as the road began to mount the hill, he quickened the pace of his horse to a fast walk, so that the carts and wagons and peasants afoot behind him followed at a clattering, rattling, dust-raising pace, approaching the city like the vision of his future army.

  Baravax, captain of Gergovia’s city guard, customarily assigned only two warriors on the ground to guard the gates by day, when they were opened, but stationed six more, armed with lances, atop the ramparts between the two towers flanking them, where they could easily cut down any troublemakers attempting to enter.

  Though this might seem excessive, Baravax was the third son of a poor shepherd family who had become a guard to escape a grinding life of poverty, and he was determined to guard his position as carefully as he guarded the city.

  Baravax was surprised and dismayed when Milgar shouted down from the wall that a mob, or perhaps even an army, was approaching the city. He scrambled up the nearest ladder to the walkway atop the wall, where Milgar was pointing down the road with his lance.

  Baravax shaded his eyes against the bright sun with his hand, but still had to squint to see clearly. At first, all he could make out was a cloud of dust approaching the city gates at an unusually rapid pace. Then he was able to discern that Milgar’s “army” consisted of a crowd of the usual wagons and carts, but moving so rapidly, for some reason, that the crowd of people afoot had to trot to keep up. Then he saw a man riding a white horse leading them. And more people, arriving in dribs and drabs across the open plain, falling in behind him, joining his procession.

  Still, this was certainly no “army,” or even a “mob,” just what one would expect on the way to market, except for the man on the white horse. But then he brought his horse up to a gallop and quickly outdistanced his followers, and as he galloped up to the gates, Baravax saw that his horse was draped in the red and gold of a Roman general.

  The rider was a youth of no more than twenty years in a plain tunic of Arverne orange. He had a sword, but wore neither armor nor helmet, and bore no shield or standard. Around his shoulders swirled the crimson cloak of Gaius Julius Caesar.

  At the approach of this disquieting apparition, Baravax’s men did as they were schooled to do: the guards on the ground stepped toward each other and crossed their lances to bar his way, and those on the wall above their gates raised theirs threateningly, announcing their readiness to hurl them down if need be.

  Baravax scrambled back down the ladder to confront the horseman on the ground.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The blond youth on the white horse sat still and silent as a statue.

  “Who are you?” Baravax demanded again.

  He did not like this at all. His duties had become more complex since Gobanit had replaced Keltill. In Keltill’s day, it was simple enough: his duty was to keep the peace, see to it that fights were broken up before serious harm was done, apprehend thieves, or, better yet, keep them from entering the city. Now, though, there were factions among the Arverni. Gobanit’s supporters. Young bloods who hated Gobanit for burning Keltill. Enemies of Rome. Friends of Rome. Old Critognat and his comrades, who knew not what they liked, but knew they did not like things as they were now. A captain of the guard was hard put not to be drawn into the swirl and eddies of these dangerous currents, but Baravax knew that if he could not stay clear he could be swept away.

  The man on the white horse did not speak or move until the people and wagons and carts rumbling and rushing up the hill had spread out expectantly behind him.

  “Who are you?” Baravax said again. “Speak, depart, or be slain!”

  The Arverne wearing Caesar’s cloak reared his horse. “I am Vercingetorix, son of Keltill!” he shouted. “I have returned to claim my birthright! And I come offering riches and glory!”

  The crowd behind him gasped in surprise.

  It was all that Baravax could do to stifle his moan of dismay. Surely he had no right to bar entry to the son of Keltill. Surely if he did there would be trouble from these people. But, just as surely, Gobanit, who was even now meeting with his “Senate” in the Great Hall, would not be pleased. But surest of all was that Baravax had to act now. And act cautiously.

  So he signaled to the gate guards to lift their lances and allow Vercingetorix to ride into the city. But as he did, and the people poured in behind him, Baravax summoned Milgar down from the wall and ordered him to gather a squad of guards from within with which to follow close behind Vercingetorix.

  Vercingetorix had not ridden far into Gergovia when he noticed that the guard captain and about a dozen warriors were following him at a discreet distance. The market was under way, and the avenue leading into the main plaza was crowded, so he was forced to walk his horse very slowly, and forced thereby to observe the changes wrought by time since he had last been in Gergovia. By time and by Rome.

  Here and there, white-painted wooden columns supported porticoes that ludicrously embellished the fronts of ordinary dwellings of graying wood and brownish wattle. Many roofs of thatch had retained their conical shapes while the reeds had been rep
laced by reddish tile. There were a few new buildings crafted entirely of square reddish-brown bricks. He saw women in flowing Roman robes with elaborately coiffed hair held up by tiaras and combs of silver or some iridescent gray stuff with a rainbow sheen. There were warriors wearing Roman helmets, breastplates, bearing Roman swords, and men whom he took for merchants wearing white Roman togas—one, ridiculously enough, wearing his over orange Arverne pantaloons.

  When he reached the plaza, he saw that it was now paved with stones set in cement. There was a stone fountain in the center, where water sprayed from the mouths of four crudely carved bears standing on a round pedestal facing the quarters of the wind.

  Stalls offered the usual local goods—dressed carcasses of boar and sheep, live fowl, turnips and carrots, barrels and jars of beer, orange-and-gray plaid cloth, silver jewelry in the good old style, ironwork, whole hides and crafted leathers, herbs and roots and mushrooms from the forest. But some stalls, overhung with colorful fringed awnings, purveyed goods that could only have come from afar—amphorae and casks of wine, cloths in colors never seen in Gaul, Roman clothing, dried brown fruits on strings, stools of carved wood, little thrones of wood and leather, wondrous translucent goblets, leather cylinders containing rolls of white cloth, and stranger things Vercingetorix’s eye could not identify. All of the merchants presiding over these stalls wore Roman garb, and most of them, by their short stature and dark hair and complexions, seemed to be Romans. And they were assisted by slaves, a few of whom had skin darker than heavily tanned ox hide.

  There were the usual bards and jugglers and musicians, but some of the musicians played harps of unfamiliar design, some produced piercing and haunting sounds by blowing through sets of reeds of different lengths. There were new odors in the air: some savory, some florally sweet, some sickeningly so.

  Gergovia had been touched by Caesar’s “civilization,” and though Vercingetorix found much of it distasteful, it would be impossible to contend that all of the changes were for the worse, for the city seemed cleaner, and the stink of the sewage gutters was notable for its absence.