Alma mused while she ate. Then she said, “Thank you for the breakfast. I’ve an idea that might work if you’ll listen.”
“We’re all interested in good ideas, Alma,” Wiglaff said.
“Yeah, Alma, even ideas from a filthy Roman spy like you.” Boadicea was proud of herself for getting in this dig.
Wiglaff said, “Alma, Boadicea is always grumpy until she’s digested her breakfast. What’s your idea?”
Alma looked daggers at Boadicea before she shifted her glance to Wiglaff. “What would be very bad in this case is to treat it as simple.”
“I agree. Please explain so everyone can understand.” Wiglaff looked at Mornow and winked.
“You can’t kill these men because others will follow. You can’t just take them back to the Wall because they or others will just come back to accomplish their mission. You can’t tell them what happened to the two men they’re looking for because there’ll be a casus belli.” Saying these things, Alma had counted each statement with one raised finger on her right hand. She was now touching her little finger with her thumb, and three raised fingers were spread like a W.
Wiglaff said, “I agree. The situation’s complexity can’t deter us from action. So what do you think we should do?”
Boadicea broke into the discussion. “Why not kill these men and all those who follow?” She was smiling broadly and stuffing her face with nuts and berries.
Patiently, Wiglaff told his martial daughter, “Winna did not kill the men because the Romans are looking for an excuse to send their soldiers north, not in ones and twos but in multitudes. We don’t want to give them what they want, which is a general war. If such a war were to break out again, you’ll get the chance to kill all Romans you can eat and more. Until that time, we’ll have to be diplomatic.”
Alma held up her fourth finger, “Yes, diplomacy would be the fourth option.”
Mornow became interested in the conversation. He asked her, “What sort of diplomacy do you think will work?”
Alma took a deep breath. Then she spoke to Mornow directly. “Future husband, Wiglaff just said that Winna has sent word to a great chief about her having taken the two prisoners. Since every scouting expedition is a form of communication, the prisoners are an excuse for Romans and Caledonians to discuss something. So I recommend that you use the occasion to establish a framework for discussions that range widely. Make a list of the Confederacy’s grievances and let Rome make a list of theirs. Negotiate everything, including the personnel on both sides who will be the negotiators for the Emperor on one side and the Confederacy on the other. So what do you think?”
Wiglaff went into deep thought. Mornow was surprised at Alma’s sagacity. Boadicea was brooding about Alma’s having announced that Mornow was her future husband.
Boadicea blurted out, “Mornow, are you going to be Alma’s future husband?”
Mornow screwed up his face, but he would neither affirm nor deny the allegation. Alma raised her nose when Boadicea met her gaze.
Wiglaff was the first to speak, “Boadicea, I have an important mission for you. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Does it involve cutting Roman throats?”
He laughed. “Not right away, it doesn’t. I want you to run by the fastest route each way to Winna and tell her we want to set up negotiations with the Romans on a whole range of grievances on both sides. The two current prisoners are only one of those grievances. When the two of you are taken before Argentocoxos, you’ll make the same case with him and his men. Before you meet him, see if you can arrange a prior meeting with his wife.”
“His wife?” Alma interjected.
“Alma, this chief’s wife was bold enough to answer the Empress’s insults about all our women. Her voice was heard in Rome, where women are still chattering about her being an example to all Roman women. If Boadicea and Winna see her first, she’ll assure her husband will do as we desire.” Mornow said this with such admiration of the woman that Alma only nodded.
“So Boadicea, do you know what you must do?” Wiglaff asked.
“Yes, father. I’d better be going. Much may already have happened to change the game.” She took another huge handful of breakfast mix and raced down the path, eating as she ran.
“Mornow, before I discuss the scrolls with your uncle, will you please introduce me to your wolves? Onya told me you’d made friends with a whole wolf family.”
“I’ll do that on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
He locked eyes with her and spoke in a deep, stern voice. “Until I propose marriage to you properly, don’t ever call me your future husband.”
Alma blushed with shame and anger for this rebuke. She had hoped her statement would become fact, because he had not denied it.
“Does this mean you will definitely propose to me?”
“No. It means we have a deal. If so, I’ll show you my wolf family.”
“We have a deal.” She looked at him proudly with the thought that, at least for the time, the negotiations had begun. She walked over to his crow and cawed at it. The bird hopped to her shoulder. She took Mornow’s arm and led him to the cavern’s entrance. He took her hand and led her up the mountain path to the cutoff where the overhanging ledge hid the wolf family.
Wiglaff remained in the cavern, munching on the remains of the breakfast mix while in a state of reverie. It’s been a busy morning. Alma has certainly asserted herself. She’s convinced me to seek negotiations with the Romans and Mornow to negotiate a relationship with her. I must confess, I’m beginning to like this young woman. She has a fine spirit and uncanny intelligence. She’s also bringing out a new side of my nephew Mornow—a side I’ve never witnessed, though he’s been my constant companion and protégé for almost nineteen years. While the shaman thought, a large hawk landed just outside the cavern. It hopped onto Wiglaff’s lap and pressed its beak against his nose. Wiglaff raised his arm, and the hawk hopped on it, supporting itself with its long talons.
The shaman muttered something under his breath, and the hawk looked him directly in the eyes. “I said, I suppose you’d like a tender, live mouse. Let’s see what I can find.” The bird spread its wings and folded them again. In the back of the cavern in Mornow’s space, Wiglaff found what he was looking for, a large brown mouse in a cage. He picked up the mouse and offered it to the hawk. With a screech of joy, the hawk seized the mouse and then took wing. It flew out of the cavern into the bright blue sky.
“Was that a hawk I saw flying out of the cavern?” Alma asked as she came back into the cavern. “It seemed to have something in its mouth.”
“Yes. That was the hawk that visits me occasionally. Today it wanted a mouse offering. Fortunately, Mornow had captured the perfect mouse. The hawk flew off, probably taking the mouse to feed its young.”
“I see. I’ve been to see the wolves. They’re tame, at least when Mornow is present. The father wolf is off hunting. The mother let me pet her five pups while they fed from her. Did you know that the Emperor claims to have been fed by a mother wolf just as Romulus was?”
“I suppose that’s part of the Emperor’s propaganda.” He sounded both weary and scornful.
“Now that I’ve witnessed Mornow’s way with animals, I’m ready to believe the propaganda.”
“Where is Mornow?”
“He wanted to go up to the summit to think for a while. He said I should come to you to explain the scrolls. Would you like for me to do that?”
“Yes. I’ve got a little more breakfast mix if you’d like it.”
“No, thank you. I’ll just get the contents scroll so we can review it.” She went back to the scroll box and pulled out the scroll she was looking for. “Here it is. As I told you, the scrolls contain the histories of Tacitus. The one I like best is his Germania, but he wrote about his relative Agricola--and Britannia as well. He pulls no punches. His writing is terse, sometimes crabbed and often difficult. He puts a lot in a few words. So if you aren’t
careful, you’ll miss what he’s saying.”
“Often, a writer says more between lines than in them,” Wiglaff said. “The same is true for speech.”
“Do I detect a rebuke, Wiglaff?”
“Alma, I was thinking while you were up playing with the wolves. I’m beginning to like you. I don’t always read between the lines, but with you, I feel I must.”
“Thank you, I guess. Shall we go on?” She was flattered and yet a little nervous too.
“Tell me about Tacitus’s vision, if you will.”
“Tacitus knows the evil in the hearts of men, but he sensibly lets their actions show what’s in their hearts. The best example is his discussion of the Emperor Tiberius, a dreadful human who used his courtiers like pawns in much the same way as the current Emperor Septimius Severus does. Tiberius was a deep one who worked behind the scenes. He managed to survive a kind of Hades.”
“The Hades he survived was largely of his making,” Wiglaff observed.
“Sejanus was his foil.”
“And Macro was Sejanus’s foil.”
“You know the story. Why do you need me to explain it?” She was put off by him asking for an explanation. She sounded weary and a little annoyed.
“I want to see your soul in the telling.”
She stopped before she spoke and thought. “Tell me, Wiglaff, what you really want to know about me. I’ll tell you. You’ll know if what I say is true or not. You have that priceless gift.”
“You are a priestess of the god Mercury. What is your relationship with your god and your role as priestess?”
Alma took the question to heart. She waited a moment to compose her answer, searching her mind for the right place to begin her explanation. “Mercury is always changing. The more I study him, the more I find he changes. In fact, I only know what he used to be, not what he is or will be. I sometimes feel he is close, hidden and silent but chuckling noiselessly. Through him I can fly almost anywhere when I’m seeing visions. It’s hard to say whether the visions are mine or his. My earliest memories are of Mercury with his staff and cap standing nude on top of a little world, his hair hanging out from his cap and streaming in the breeze of his passing. The small wings on the back of his heels fluttered only a little while he flew, swiftest among the gods. The snake that wrapped around his staff hissed at me. None of the other gods affected me in quite the same way.”
“Do you sense from that any deficiency in Mercury?”
Alma might have been insulted except that their exchange had been entirely open. Besides, Wiglaff’s tone was genuinely curious, not threatening or insinuating in any way. She looked down as if into her soul and said, “Others argue incessantly about what he does and does not do. The stories about him usually involve the other gods. Sometimes he tricks them. Sometimes he fathers children that explain his hidden attributes and makes them whole and intelligible. I’d have to say that for me he’s not deficient, but wholly self-sufficient. His images inspire me, and my belief makes them live for me. That hawk that flew into this cavern, did you suspect what that was?” She leaned forward anticipating his answer.
“I saw what I saw. I did what I did. Perhaps you can enlighten me about the hawk.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “It was, of course, Mavors. You were right, it asked for an offering. You chose well. It came because you invoked him earlier today by suggesting negotiations instead of fighting. Like Boadicea, he felt slighted and needed to know whether you meant offense by your strategy.”
Wiglaff frowned while reflecting on the irony of the situation. “But the strategy I suggested was your strategy exactly as you explained it.”
“That’s true, but you made the decision about what to make of it. Your plan was serious. Mavors understood that. Further, if war does not come immediately, it may still come. Finally, Mavors will have his due.” She shifted her gaze to the entrance with a faraway look in her eyes.
“I have a collection of relics in a trunk in the back of this cavern. They were taken from the remains of soldiers whose standards we took as symbols of our victory.”
She raised her head and leaned forward. “The power of those symbols is palpable. I thought they must be here. They are some of the artifacts I’ve been searching for.”
Alma paused before she continued. She looked at Wiglaff to be sure he understood her. She wondered whether in volunteering this, she might earn his distrust.
“Do you see that dun red stone with the thong passed through the hole at its center?”
She picked up the stone in one hand and passed the thong through the fingers of her other hand.
“It feels warm.”
“Hold it tightly and close your eyes.”
She did as she was told. For several moments she sat there, waiting. Then she heard thunder so loud and close that it startled her. She did not release the stone, but grasped it harder than before. Suddenly, a great black cloud covered the mountain. Rain began to fall, at first in large fat drops, and then in a torrent. Mornow raced into the cave, brushing the water off his clothes and shaking it out of his hair. He stopped when he saw Alma sitting there clutching the dun red stone in her hand. Wiglaff looked up at him and nodded.
Smiling, he told his nephew, “Alma is a very special girl.”
The two men watched the woman as she opened her eyes and released her grip on the dun red stone. The torrential rain stopped. The black cloud hurried by. The sunshine streamed into the cavern’s mouth again, and an enormous double rainbow appeared in the sky in the direction of the receding black cloud.
Alma looked down at the dun red stone. “Is this what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is, Alma?” Mornow asked.
“I think it is victory.” Amazed, she picked up the stone by its thong and handed it reverently to Wiglaff, who put the thong around his neck.
“Mornow, the hawk came and I fed it your brown mouse. I hope you won’t mind finding another for us.”
Mornow nodded. “Thank you. I’ll make a mental note to find another mouse.” Then his face became serious. “So the negotiations are going to mean war?” Mornow asked.
“That’s what I thought, too,” Alma said.
“I think negotiations always may mean war if they’re handled badly or if they’re conducted in bad faith. The hawk came, as Alma suggested, to gauge how I felt about war.”
He paused to let them absorb the significance of the symbolic event. Then he continued, “If war comes, we’ll fight. We’ll take the risk of negotiating only because we’re ready to fight. Alma understands the hawk as a symbol for Mavors, the god of war that devours men on the battlefield. I have no problem with that interpretation.”
He looked at Alma and then back at Mornow again. “By the way, you and Alma have a lot to discuss by way of her being a priestess. She clearly has religious power, or we’d not have had the rain just now. In our brief discussions, I found in her a kindred sensibility.”
“What does that mean?” Mornow asked, intrigued by Wiglaff’s observations.
“It means you and she will have to sort out your religious differences right from the start. Do that before you embark on any form of personal relationship. I think you’ll both discover you have more in common than you have differences.” The two young people looked at each other significantly. Wiglaff raised one hand to get their attention and went on, “I could be wrong. What did you find at the summit while we were talking here?”
“I startled a skylark, which flew up into the sun. It burned my eyes to watch it, and the sun swallowed the bird entirely.” Mornow smiled as he recalled the vision he had seen. “The huge black cloud came out of nowhere, and the rain was so sudden, I knew something was happening down here, but I didn’t know what or why.”
As an afterthought, he added, “The rainwater makes me feel clean but soggy too.” He walked back into his space to greet his crow.
“I don’t suppose that other birds visit from time to time?”
&nbs
p; “Yes, many do. We have an owl, for example. Then there’s the magpie. Oh, yes, we have an occasional shrike.”
“Do you do auspices?” She said this while leaning forward to glean any details about the shaman’s religious practices.
“In our experience, we don’t do that. It happens no matter what we do.”
“In the Roman rites, auspices and haruspices are important ways to read the future.”
“Those rites of reading bird behavior and entrails are closer to what we’re used to than all your parsing of abstract features into human-shaped gods.” Mornow said this with a matter-of-fact tone. “I mean no offense, Alma.”
“I see what Wiglaff means. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Let’s walk around outside and begin our discussions.”
Mornow looked at his mentor for guidance. Wiglaff shrugged and gestured towards the entrance of the cavern. “Why not take the last of the breakfast mix and munch on it as you talk?”
Alma took the sack from Wiglaff and kissed him on the cheek. Her unprecedented and peremptory action took Wiglaff totally by surprise. Then, as if nothing special had occurred, she took Mornow’s hand and led him out into the light.
Onya passed the young couple on her way to the cavern. She traded her full sack of food for their almost empty one.
“I see that the couple’s relationship shows promise.” She said this with an arched right eyebrow, more a question than a statement. She handed Wiglaff the sack she had taken from Alma.
“Do you remember that first time when we went up to the summit and I proposed marriage to you?”
Wiglaff put away the sack, pacing while listening for her answer.
“I recall every detail. It was the turning point of my life. You made me so happy.”
“Mornow and Alma are not there yet, but they’re converging. A lot depends on how they work out their differences.”
After considering what he said for a moment, she frowned in thought.
“There are no differences in love.” Her eyes were welling up with tears, yet she was now smiling too.
The WIglaff Tales (The Wiglaff Chronicles Book 1) Page 16
