Warrior Scarlet

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Then as they stirred and rubbed their eyes and looked about them with an air of having lost something, the old Priest stirred also, looking out of his eyes again, and brought out from under his cloak a bowl of black lathe-turned shale. ‘Sa, it is over,’ he said, and smiled a little, the bowl between his hands. ‘Come now to me, ye who return again out of the West, new and weak as thy mothers brought thee into the world afore-time. Come now and drink, and grow strong again.’

  One after another, still a little dazed, they got themselves to their feet and went to him, and took the bowl he held up, passing it among themselves from one to another. There was milk in the bowl, and other things in the milk. What they were Drem never knew, things that tasted bitter, with an under-taste that clung evilly to the back of one’s throat after the milk was swallowed—but new strength ran through him as he drank, and some of the weariness fell away.

  ‘Now ye are warriors and men of the Clan, and of the Tribe,’ Midir said when they had all drunk. ‘Now ye have seen those things which are forbidden to all save the Priest kind and the warrior at his initiation, and which none may speak of afterwards. Therefore now ye shall swear the silence, by the ancient threefold oath of the Golden People, that no boy not yet come to his manhood shall ever learn from you the things that lie before him.’

  And so, each in turn, kneeling before the old priest, they swore, just as the warriors had sworn fealty to the new King. ‘If I break faith, may the green earth gape and swallow me, may the grey seas burst out and overwhelm me, may the sky of stars fall and crush me out of life for ever.’

  It was near to sunset again when they came down the last sloping shoulder of the Chalk towards the village, following Midir, one behind another; and their long shadows ran away before them, pointing the way home.

  The village was swarming with life, the poor thin sheep and cattle left from the famine winter all driven in close to wait for the Beltane fires. As the New Spears drew nearer, suddenly the voice of a war horn rang to and fro between the hills, and a throng of young warriors burst out from among the huts and came, tossing up their weapons as they ran, to close around the New Spears and swing back with them, shouting and chanting, towards the village.

  How often Drem had seen this triumphal return of the New Spears that was the start of the Beltane Festival. How often he had looked forward to the fierce and shining day when he would be one of those for whom the Clan roared in their rejoicing. Then had come last year; last year that was not good to think about; and now, after all, against all seeming possibility the fierce and shining day had come, and he was returning out of the Sunset like a warrior from victory. And he cried out inside himself, ‘It is real, it is true! I am a warrior like my brothers,’ and could not quite believe it.

  Afterwards, that sunset time, the final ceremonies of his initiation remained with Drem only as a blur, shining but without form; but out of it stood up small, clear-edged memories. He remembered the heat of the Council Fire on his cheek as he stood beside it to receive his weapons. He remembered the Grandfather towering over him as he towered over most people when he cared to stand erect, setting the great new war spear in his hand with a grumbling, ‘There, take it. Did I not always say that the boy would make a warrior?’ and a golden glare under his eyebrows for anyone who dared to contradict him. He remembered Talore’s swift, dark smile lifting his lip over the strong dog-teeth as he raised the ancient bronze and bull’s-hide shield. ‘Small fierce cub, was it well that I found you under the oak tree, seven summers ago?’ And the proud smart of the shoulder harness as the heavy shield dragged its straps down on the lately healed wolf scars and the sore new lines of tattooing. He remembered the flash of his spear blade as he tossed it up in salute to the setting sun, and brought it crashing across his shield. He remembered Whitethroat’s growling song of gladness at finding him again, and the taste of the piece of rib that he and Vortrix shared between them, sitting shoulder to shoulder, when the ceremonies were over, and the cooking pits had been opened, and the feasting began.

  But Drem was to remember the day of his Warrior Scarlet for another thing; a thing that he did not as yet dream of, as the dusk deepened into the dark, and the Council Fire sank to red embers.

  Save for the Council Fire, all the fires in the village had been quenched before the feasting started, and when that too had sunk, and the last red embers been scattered and stamped out under the heels of the young warriors, the village was a village without fire, dark save for the glow of a great, broom-yellow moon just shaking clear of the Chalk.

  With the dying of the last fire, the Feast of New Spears was over, and the Feast of Beltane was begun; and it was time to raise the New Fire, the Living Fire. A strangeness came over the village, as it came every year between the fires; and it was in silence and a breath-caught expectancy and something very like fear that presently they laid aside their weapons and Clan and Half People together wound their way out of the village and up the Hill of Gathering, driving with them a young red bull garlanded for sacrifice with vervain and green broom and whitethorn blossom.

  They thronged the crest of the hill, a crowd of shadows touched by the silver of the moon, no sound among them save the wind hushing through the furze and whitethorn bushes; and in their midst the twin stacks of the Beltane fires, dark on one side, brushed on the other with that same silver of the moon, waiting as the whole night waited, for the Wonder.

  Now the red bull who must die for the rest of the herd had played his part, and certain of the warriors were laying aside their cloaks and stepping forward to the trailing raw-hide ropes of the fire drill that stood reared beside the stacks.

  On and on, as the moon rose higher into the glimmering, wind-streaked sky, they worked the fire drill, one team of nine taking over as another tired, while Midir, with the blood of the red bull on his breast and forehead, stood by to add his magic to their labour. Team followed team, while the whole awareness of the watching crowd, blent into one spearhead of intense concentration, was fixed upon the dark point where the sharpened spindle whirled in its socket, every soul waiting, waiting for the Wonder, half fearful, as they were half fearful every year, that this year the Wonder would not come.

  Always the New Spears and the youngest warriors tried to hang back till towards the end, each eager to be in the team that actually woke the spark; and several teams had followed each other, when Drem, standing by among his own year, felt Vortrix’s hand on his shoulder. ‘See, they are beginning to tire,’ Vortrix said, ‘and it is in my mind that the fire is not far off. Our turn now, my brother. Urian—Maelgan—’

  They stepped forward, the rest of last year’s warriors with them, and three of the New Spears, to make up the team; each taking up his stand beside one of the toiling men. The hide ropes changed hands, the old team fell back, and Drem and Vortrix, facing each other through the dark framework, with the rest ranged behind them, took up the swift, rhythmic pull and release, pull and release, the long step forward and the long swing back, that set the fire drill spinning. The hide rope thrummed under Drem’s hand, the whirring squeal of the drill was in his ears, and the sense of being one with his own kind again, joined with his Spear Brothers in this, that was the very life and death of the Clan, rose hot in his breast until he felt it pressing out against the smarting patterns of his new manhood. He had tried so hard, down there through the ceremonies by the Council Fire, to believe in what was happening, and somehow never quite succeeded. And now suddenly it was all real and came piercing home to him, and he could have wept, as he had wept when Vortrix first told him that he was to be let into his own world after all.

  In the same instant he caught the smell of charring, and from the sharp nose of the spindle a thread of smoke wisped up into the moonlight.

  His eyes flew to meet those of his blood brother, as Vortrix also looked up; and in the hushed moment the excitement and the triumph and the swift, awed delight leapt between them like a shout. They were together in this thing, and the Wonder was
coming, and it was good—everything was good. Instinctively they quickened the rhythm of the pull, and the squeal of the drill grew higher and more urgent.

  The thread of smoke had become a wisping frond, a feather; suddenly a spark flew out to fall upon the dry moss with which the socket was packed, cling there an instant like a red jewel, and go out. Another followed, and another; and a soft, long-drawn gasp of relief and exultation burst from the watching throng as a little clear tongue of flame sprang up, yellow as a broom flower in the moony darkness.

  Old Midir stirred as one rousing quietly from a thousand-year sleep, and brought from within his bull’s-hide robe a torch of plaited straw, and bent to dip it into the flame. Then, drawing himself erect, he began to whirl it in the air until it burst into swooping circles of fire, as though a bird of flame flew about and about his head. And his deep throbbing cry rang out over the Hill of Gathering. ‘Fire is come again! Behold, O ye people, O all ye people, there is fire again in the world of man!’

  This year also, the Wonder had come! Roar on roar of fierce rejoicing beat up from the crowd, and as the old priest went from one stack to the other, kindling them from the torch in his hand, they broke into the chant of the Reborn Fire. ‘We were in darkness and fire came again to us, the Red Fire, the Red Flower, the Flower of the Sun . . .’ The little fork-tongued flames ran crackling through the brushwood and laid hold of the bigger branches, flaring up to light the eager, crowding faces of Golden and Dark People, and the Half People between, to flicker in men’s eyes and jink on copper armring and bronze, leaf-bladed spear, and kindle the eyes of the hounds to green lamps against the moon-watered dark.

  Higher and higher leapt the flames, sending their fierce and fitful glare far out over the Hill of Gathering, warming the threshold of the great, quiet mound where the nameless champion slept with his copper sword beside him. And with the flames, the crowd’s excitement mounted too. The young warriors sprang forward and began to whirl and stamp in the fierce glare between the fires, to the rhythm that the girls clapped for them, until with a lowing and a trampling out of the darkness, the first of the driven herds came pelting up. And then a yet wilder turmoil broke out, a chaos of gaunt, up-tossed heads, horns flashing in the firelight, an uproar of shouting and bellowing, barking and bleating, as the terrified sheep and cattle were driven through between the fires by their yelling and laughing herdsmen, that they might be protected and made fruitful for the year to come. Lastly the half wild pony herds were driven through, the mares with their foals running at heel, in a flood of streaming manes and trampling hooves; and the tumult was ripped across by their terrified neighing.

  The uproar was sinking a little, by and by, when Drem, returning from helping to gather in some of the ponies, caught sight of little dark Erp on the edge of the fire glow, with the dog Asal beside him. ‘Erp!’ he called. ‘Erp!’ and turned in his tracks, threading his way towards him through the shifting throng of men and beasts.

  The boy stood to wait his coming, but did not look round. And when they stood side by side, he asked: ‘Well then, what is it that you want with me?’

  Drem looked at him, half puzzled, half already beginning to understand, while Asal and Whitethroat sniffed muzzles in the way of old friends. ‘You have the dog, then,’ he said at last. It was not what he had meant to say.

  ‘Aye, I have the dog.’

  Drem waited a moment, then, as it seemed the other had nothing more to say: ‘Let you tell me of Doli.’

  ‘Doli is gone back to the Dark. There is no more to tell.’

  Another pause, full of the shouts of men and the lowing of scattered cattle—a fine job it would be to get them rounded up again. Drem looked down, a frown between his coppery brows, at the boy beside him. But Erp’s face was shut fast in the firelight, his own gaze caught between the pricked ears of his dog.

  ‘At least let you tell me where they have laid him,’ Drem said.

  The little dark shepherd looked up then, looked him full in the face for almost the first time in their lives, then let his gaze slide downwards. ‘What is it to the Golden People where Tah-Nu’s children lay their dead?’ He whistled Asal to heel, and turned away about the business of the sheep.

  Drem made a swift movement as though to catch him, then checked. What was the use? He shrugged and swung on his heel—to find himself face to face with Luga standing close by and looking on. ‘Even the great Drem One-arm cannot hunt in two worlds at once,’ Luga said.

  ‘If Luga viper-tongue does not have a care, he will not hunt long in any world!’ Drem retorted furiously, and thrust past him with his nose in the air, and went shouldering back to the fire.

  The flames were sinking, and the warriors and their women who wished for sons in the coming year had for the most part already leapt hand in hand through the fire; and now some of the young warriors who had no wives as yet had begun to take the girls of their choice out of the Women’s side—girls with star-wort and the magic vervain in their hair—to leap with them for the same purpose. Just as Drem reached the forefront of the crowd again, Vortrix had pulled out from among her own kind a tall, laughing girl with bright hair round her head. They cleared the fire easily, the girl shrilling like a curlew, and scattered a few hot embers on the edge as they landed. And Drem, watching, thought that little Eyes-and-Ears had spoken the truth; she was indeed fair, the girl that Vortrix had under his cloak.

  And now, before the fire sank too low, it was time to be taking home the New Fire to rekindle the dark hearths for another year; and in ones and twos the youngest grown men in every household began to come forward to take their fire; those whose homes were in the village merely dipping a branch into the flames and running with it streaming out in rags of smoking brightness behind, while those whose homes were the outland farms and the herdsmen’s and shepherds’ bothies among the Chalk took carefully chosen embers and stowed them in fire-pots. It dawned on Drem, watching, that it was no longer for Drustic to carry home the New Fire, but for himself.

  He went in search of the Grandfather to tell him.

  He found the Grandfather sitting defiantly on a pile of cut turfs, with a horn of heather beer on his knee, with Drem’s mother and Cordaella hovering over him, and Drustic standing by at a safe distance. ‘You should come home now,’ Drem’s mother was saying. ‘It grows late, and so much heather beer is not good for your belly. You will be ill, and then I must tend you.’

  The Grandfather was scowling at all of them under his thick, grey-gold brows. ‘I am old, and it is not good for my belly that I do not have what I wish! What I wish is to be left in peace to enjoy myself, on this, the night that the youngest son of my youngest son becomes a man. The Fire will burn for a long while yet. Woman, I shall remain here so long as I choose, and when I choose, then Drustic shall bring me home. Let Drem go now and carry home the New Fire, that the hearth may be bright when I choose to come!’

  And so in a little, Drem was loping back along the moonlit flanks of the Chalk, with the red seeds of the New Fire glowing in the fire-pot his mother had given him, under his wolfskin.

  The steading lay quiet in the moonlight as he came up the driftway between the little irregular barley plots, pausing once to blow gently on the glowing embers in his fire-pot. As he came through the gate gap in the steading hedge, he saw Blai in the house-place doorway, sitting sideways against the rowan wood doorpost, with her head drooping as though she were very tired. He had forgotten that she must be at home; he had not missed the sight of her among the other girls about the Beltane fires. The wind fell away between one long, soft gust and another, and in the moment’s stillness the shadows and the moonlight were sharply pied as a magpie’s feathers; the shadows of the birch tree lay all across the threshold, across Blai’s skirt and her hands that lay palm upward, empty, in her lap.

  Whitethroat padded ahead, across the moon-washed garth, and thrust his muzzle against her neck, and she started and looked up, then rose to her feet. She had taken off the woollen net th
at usually bound her hair, and it hung about her neck and shoulders like black smoke. There were no flowers in it, no star-wort nor magic vervain. ‘Drem,’ she said, a little questioningly.

  ‘I have brought the New Fire,’ Drem said.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘The Grandfather would not come away yet. They will be here in a while; but I have come now, to bring the New Fire.’

  Not really aware that he did so, he held out the fire-pot towards her in a gesture of sharing. They stood with it between them, their heads bent to peer into it, like a pair of children holding a miracle cupped between their hands. The red seeds of the fire glowed in the darkness of the pot; Drem blew on them gently and the seeds brightened, casting a faint glow around them.

  ‘Come, let us wake the fire on the hearth,’ said Blai.

  It was very dark in the house-place, with the moonlight shut out, a waiting darkness. They had to grope their way to the hearth. Kneeling beside it, Drem blew on the spark until it grew strong, and Blai dipped in a dry twig, and as they watched, suddenly there was a slender bud of flame at the tip of the twig. Then she kindled a piece of dry birch bark on the hearth, and then another and another, and dropped in the twig as the flame reached her fingers.

  Drem blew on the little tender new flames, on the birch bark whose crumbling edges were suddenly strung with red jewels; then sat back on his heels, as the fire quickened and spread, watching the pale, eager tongues and petals of flame spring up out of the dark.

  ‘It is like a flower,’ Blai said very softly, feeding it with bigger and bigger bits of wood. ‘A flower of the Sun.’