The Druid King

by Norman Spinrad

  Beyond is a much greater battlefield, stretching to the outer defensive ditches and far beyond, heaped with twice as many corpses, the green grass soaked with still-congealing brown-red blood.

  In the midst of this vast field of unburied dead, picked at by triumphantly cawing crows and silent and unseen but victorious worms and insects, have been planted the tribal standards of the Arverni, and the Edui, of the Atrebates, and the Santons, of the Turons and the Parisii, of all the many tribes of Gaul.

  Under truce, sullenly and forlornly standing behind them, and guarded by legionnaires are surviving vergobrets and nobles of the scattered tribal forces of what was once the army of Gaul. Behind their leaders are hundreds of ordinary warriors and peasants, each contingent cleaving to the standard of its own tribe, gathered by the Romans to bear witness and the word of that witness throughout the lands of the Gauls.

  Before these witnesses the Romans have laid out a path of crimson carpeting through another aisle of centurions, and at the end of it sits Caesar, beneath a crimson awning upon a chair gilded like a throne.

  Vercingetorix slowly rides through the battlefield to the lip of this carpeted passage, then stops. He looks out at the Gauls standing in isolated groups under the standards of tribes whose names will soon be forgotten. And the silver-tongued Vercingetorix speaks to them one last time.

  “All of you know that I have sworn a blood oath never to rule as king in Gaul while one Roman soldier remains on our soil. But here they stand in their scores of thousands. And here I stand before you wearing the Crown of Brenn. Yet I will keep the oath I swore in my own blood. I will not rule as your king in Gaul. I will die as your king in Rome.”

  He gestures down at the midden of corpses and severed body parts and drying blood, all mingled and mangled together, among which the men of every tribe stand.

  “Behold, here are Gauls of every tribe, whole and in parts, united at last as brothers. As I keep the oath I have sworn in my blood, I call upon you to keep the oath they have sworn with theirs, for they have entered the Land of Legend as Gauls, and so as Gauls must you remember them. Surely here is enough spilled blood to seal that oath till the end of time.”

  Before him, the tribesmen squirm and mutter uncertainly.

  “As they lie here together as Gauls in the brotherhood of death, so must the living now come together, that by their blood and mine the Gaul they died for might be born. Gaul is defeated! Long live Gaul!”

  Vercingetorix speaks no more. No one speaks. He glares at the tribesmen for a long moment that begins to seem eternal. No one moves.

  Then the vergobret of the Parisii silently strides to the standard of the Santons. And the vergobret of the Atrebates takes a place behind the standard of the Turons. And a noble of the Turons moves to the standard of the Cadurques. And then more tribal leaders change places. And behind them, warriors and peasants mix together.

  There is no cheering. There is no chanting. There is nothing to be heard but the slow, steady stamping of feet upon the ground.

  And there is nothing to be seen but Gauls.

  Vercingetorix rides slowly down the Roman carpet toward the conqueror of Gaul. Three times do Roman trumpets blow fanfares as three times does Vercingetorix ride around the throne of Gaius Julius Caesar.

  The Roman trumpets sound one more time as he halts before Caesar and dismounts, and now they are joined by a bass harmonic of carnaxes from the distant ramparts of Alesia.

  Vercingetorix draws his sword and holds it before him in both hands as an offering as he approaches Caesar.

  “In the name of the Kingdom of Gaul, I offer the surrender of my life and my sword,” Vercingetorix declaims.

  He does not kneel.

  “But not your honor, my young friend,” Caesar whispers in a voice that only the two of them can hear.

  Then he reaches out to take the sword.

  He hesitates.

  And then he rises to accept it.

  And proclaims in the stentorian voice of a well-schooled Roman orator for all the world to hear:

  “In the name of the Senate and people of Rome, I accept your surrender…Vercingetorix, King of Gaul.”

  EPILOGUE

  BENEATH THE SHADE of a copse of trees overhanging the stream below the hill upon which stands the city of Gergovia, a small boy plays with a staff of wood taller than a man, unsure whether to pretend it is a scepter or a sword, while his mother watches with a wistful smile.

  “Tell me the story of my father again, Momma,” he asks.

  Marah sighs, as if she has told it too many times, but then, as she speaks, her eyes soften with tears, even as they seem to be gazing elsewhere in pride, as if she never truly tires of telling it nevertheless.

  “Your father was a great king,” she says. “Out of tribes whose names will soon be forgotten, he made a nation whose spirit will live forever. Your father was a druid—”

  “—he made magic!”

  “He made magic. He conjured victory out of defeat. And there is no greater magic than that.”

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people who were instrumental, one way or another, in inspiring the creation of The Druid King or making this novel what it has become.

  Jacques Dorfmann, without whom I would never have begun this journey, nor, in the end, been compelled to continue.

  My literary agent, Russell Galen, and my foreign rights agent, Danny Baror, whose belief in The Druid King was initially even stronger than my own.

  Martin Asher at Vintage Books and Sonny Mehta at Alfred A. Knopf, who took a chance on a most unusual project by a writer who had never written such a novel before.

  Edward Kastenmeier, my editor, who persisted so diligently and in such a detailed manner during the long and arduous process of putting the novel into its final form.

  Most of all, I would like to thank my late great friend Richard Shorr, who brought me to this story at the outset, and who argued so passionately and so forcefully, as only Richie could, that what I had done in an early version of a screenplay should not be lost in what a film had become, that not only could I write this novel, but I must.

  Once again, you were right, Richie. I only wish you were around to read the result and tell me “I told you so!” one last time.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Norman Spinrad is the author of Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream, Child of Fortune, The Void Captain’s Tale, and numerous other novels. He has also written literary criticism, political commentary, and the screenplays for two feature films. He lives in Paris.

  NOTE ON THE TYPE

  The text of this book was set in Plantin, a typeface first cut in 1913 by the Monotype Corporation of London. Though the face bears the name of the great Christopher Plantin (ca. 1520-1589), who in the latter part of the sixteenth century owned, in Antwerp, the largest printing and publishing firm in Europe, it is a rather free adaptation of designs by Claude Garamond made for that firm. With its strong, simple lines, Plantin is a no-nonsense face of exceptional legibility.

  Composed by Stratford Publishing Services, Brattleboro, Vermont

  Printed and bound by Berryville Graphics, Berryville, Virginia

  Designed by Robert C. Olsson