B007IIXYQY EBOK (71 page)

The sight of the Roman legionaries scattering in terror was a powerful elixir in the blood. Auriane longed to pursue. A wealth in vengeance was before her for the taking. Berinhard felt her excitement and strained against the reins. But she knew it was unwise—the task of getting the captives off the road and safely into the deep forest would be slow and difficult, and she had no doubt the enemy would return at once with reinforcements.

But all were not of the same mind. Sigwulf, who aided her with his own Companions—he had led the attack from the opposite side of the road—took one of the horses they had brought for the prisoners and gave chase, with a hundred or more of his men bolting after him on foot. Using his spear as a lance, he might have been harpooning fish as he finished the stragglers. She cried out his name and begged him to come back, but he paid no heed. He was a runaway horse, impetuous and blind; he would stop when he tired.

Working swiftly in the moon-bright night, the warriors stripped the Roman dead of their short swords, helmets, cuirasses and daggers, and collected javelins from the ground. Others unbound the prisoners and helped them onto the sturdy ponies brought to convey those too weakened to travel. They worked silently. Most of the trembling captives did not seem to know they were free.

Auriane inspected their moon-washed faces. Most were known to her from the Assembly, but none were kin or close in heart. She began to fear Theudobald was not among them. He must have died and been thrown into some charnel pit.

Then she saw him and realized she had passed him by once, he was so greatly changed. His fine mane of hair was thinned to wisps; those deep-set eyes, once full of brash certainty, now gazed on emptiness. Words came to his lips meant for people who were not here. Gradually she realized he spoke names of his children, all slain in battles past.
“The pine that stands alone soon withers,”
Auriane always heard it said of those torn from the tribe, and here was proof. With the aid of young Fastila, she pulled him onto Berinhard’s back—a kinsman should have the best horse. But still Theudobald did not know her.

“Theudobald, I am your kinswoman,” she said urgently.

“Auriane?” came his shuddery voice. A hand wandered out and tentatively touched her face.

“Can it be the daughter of my brother?” Theudobald leaned forward, squinting. She realized he was near blind. “Dear you must be in the eyes of Wodan,” he whispered, then strength left him suddenly; he caved forward onto Berinhard’s neck. She saw then the ulcerous sores on his arms.

She put a hand on his. “Your life shall be as before,” she said with firm assurance as she began slowly walking the horse. “I have kept safe all that was yours, Theudobald. Your herds are together and away from harm. We are hallowed again.”

After a long silence Theudobald gathered strength again and said, “Pride makes me twice as strong when I look at you, blessed daughter. But tell me…have we taken vengeance for Baldemar?”

Every time anyone spoke thus, it was as if a wicked knife carved another small piece out of her heart. She knew she should have expected that Theudobald would want to know this at once. She looked away, not wanting to see his bitter disappointment. “No,” she said. “The beast still roams. Odberht lives.”

And now she could not stop the cruel thought:
All these years have passed, yet Theudobald survived in this fortress to be rescued. Could not Baldemar have done the same?
Had she not slain him, Baldemar might have lived to be set free on this day.

But he
chose
death.

But I could have disobeyed. He would be alive.

As the soldiers who had been ambushed streamed, broken and bleeding, back into the fortress of Mogontiacum, they related with wonder how nature in the guise of the battle maid Aurinia had sent the clearest omen for which anyone could ask. They had been right not to hail Domitian; his reign would be evil. The camp erupted into violent revolt. The legionaries surged round the image of Domitian erected before the Principia
and pulled it down.
By dawn they had set their barracks alight; then the tribunes’ quarters and the granaries caught fire while the soldiers held their officers hostage in the Praetorium,
the private quarters of the Governor.

Lucius Antonius sent out a frantic letter by the last post-rider who managed to leave the camp, specifying it be delivered directly into the hands of the Emperor. The camp had been docile, he insisted, and was submitting to the new Emperor’s rule. But then the rebellious daughter of Baldemar, the
ganna
Aurinia, principal pest along the frontier at the moment, whipped the men of the First and the Fourteenth into a superstitious frenzy by pulling down his divine image, and incited the soldiers to mutiny. And so he eased his fears that Domitian might doubt his own loyalty by laying the causes of the insurrection at the door of the turbulent forces of nature.

In the afternoon of the same autumn day the band of two thousand Chattian warriors retreated to a thickly forested rise of ground on the river’s east side; stretched out lazily below was the broad, stately avenue of the Rhine. Winter pressed close; the whole of the land had dulled to one shade of grim gray-green. Stands of skeletal aspen and oak anxiously rattled the last of their leaves, a desolate, death-filled music. Dense accumulations of clouds clotted a clear autumn sky. Distantly they saw the Mogontiacum fortress on its smooth hill, the flaming barracks buildings glowing molten like some god’s forge; this was the only spot of warmth in a hard, gray land bracing for winter.

Auriane remained apart from the others, standing in a drift of ocher and vermilion leaves, watching Mogontiacum burn. Decius sat near her, hungrily devouring leek-and-squirrel stew. He had stayed in the camp with Romilda’s women but had not slept, spending the night restlessly retracing Auriane’s battle plan to which he had contributed advice, certain they had neglected some small point. The greater part of the Companions slept, fatigued from the night’s work. Only Witgern and Thorgild were still wakeful, groggily tossing dice and drinking mead.

Decius was tired and content. In these days he almost might have been one of them, Auriane often thought. He had lightened his hair to a Chattian red-blond with a mixture of herbal ashes; it fell in uncivilized tangles to his shoulders. He wore a beard that was wild and untrimmed. When he scowled fiercely, Auriane thought he somewhat resembled Thorgild, though more refined in feature. The deception held until Decius spoke; then his odd mixture of broken Chattian and rapid Latin—which only she could follow—gave him away at once. But to a close observer Decius’ eyes gave him away still, Auriane thought. They had a stubbornly Roman way of looking at the world. If a tree fell in his path, he would order it hewn and moved. Her own people would leave the tree where it fell, build a shrine there, then find a path around it. They were the eyes of a man who looked upon nature as a tool or as a beast to be broken, eyes that suggested nature had better get out of his way.

“The hospital buildings are going up now,” Decius said to her. “And if I’m not mistaken, the armory. A good piece of work! Alight beside me here, my feisty pet. You look as though you’re ready to take flight back there and do battle all over again.”

This did nothing to warm the bleak look in her eyes. “We
lost four,” she said as if she admitted to a crime.

“And you rescued ninety-six. It was remarkable! Why do you think only of what is lost? All came out exceedingly well, I would say, and it was a fine end to this warring season. In one summer we freed that cursed salt spring—for the third time. We reclaimed all the rich farmlands in the valley of the Wetterau. And Baldemar’s brother now will die on his own soil. Cannot you snatch
one
moment of pleasure from all this?”

Decius came up beside her. Had they been alone he would have put an arm about her waist, but with the Companions so near he dared not; he contented himself with offering a warm, protective presence. “And you! You are becoming legend, as your father was.”

Auriane’s dark look remained. “Had I persuaded more warriors to join us, those four might have lived,” she said, eyes bright with tangled misery. “The gods alone can help us if we failed to frighten their soldiers out of accepting this new emperor. You are
certain
Domitian will turn all his fury on us and make war?”

“I would wager my last piece of this boot-leather you call meat,” Decius replied, brandishing a strip of dried venison in her face, “that he cannot restrain himself. For too many years he’s been lusting for battle like a half-starved hound lusts for a fat hen. And here
we
are,
the perfect target—troublesome, defiant, and primitive enough that a good, solid victory is assured. You are baiting a bull and have been for years. If they do
accept him, you can be certain we’ll be a sacrificial gift to Domitian on his accession. But
this
”—he
gestured toward the fortress below—“is just one camp. I’ve little notion what’s happening at Argentoratum or at Vetera, or among the legions in the East—or for that matter, at this moment in Rome.”

Auriane was quiet but he sensed it an active silence, in which she never ceased considering, planning.

After a time she spoke. “I did not tell you what I learned from the last meeting with our spies.” She had long cultivated informants among the market women of the native settlement that served the fortress. “The mountain cats are not being taken to work magic against us. Geisar is wrong.” The Romans had been observed trapping mountain cats in pits baited with lambs, and carrying the creatures off, writhing and hissing, in wooden cages; her people had been greatly disturbed by this of late.

“Of course not. But
you
tell it,” Decius said with an amused smile. She knew he found it entertaining to hear her mangle explanations of his people’s customs, but tried to maintain dignity nevertheless.

“They have built a vast stone temple in Rome, larger than any built before, raised up to the sky by a powerful sorcerer. It is called the Col …Colo…”

“Colosseum.”

“On its altar, men fight men to feed their blood to the sun god, and sometimes men fight and are eaten by animals. The mountain cats are for that.
The Romans care not at all that they are our sacred animal. Soon there will be—is this right? Decius, what is wrong?” His irksomely self-assured smile had vanished; in its place was a look that was distant, haunted.

“Pretty close. You found better sources this time. Auriane, promise me one thing. That if ever you are captured by my people and you are certain that escape is impossible—
you
will find a way to end your life.”

She turned to look at him, baffled by the grim passion in his voice. “Why do you say that?”

“I just had a nightmare vision of
you
in that place.”

This struck her as odd, for although Decius had an overabundance of opinions about events to come, based on acquired knowledge, he was not normally given to premonitions.

“You’ve no need to make me promise, Decius. I would rather be sold into thralldom to the poorest farmer of the north than be taken alive by your people.” But even as she said it, she realized she did not believe in the possibility of her capture.

Thorgild, who despised Decius and still treated him as a thrall, was listening intently to this and growing increasingly irritated because he understood less than half of what Decius was saying. Normally he would not even address Decius, but Romilda’s mead was strong and they had drunk many toasts.

“Thrall, tell me,” Thorgild broke in with a drunken sweep of his hand, “your people have the souls of slaves—how is it that they have the mettle to refuse this new king?”

Decius felt a flash of anger. All benefited from his knowledge of war, but few, other than Sigwulf or Auriane, ever showed him gratitude. He forced himself to answer evenly, “There have always been transgressions our army will not forgive. Parricide—the murder of a parent or near relation—is one of these.” Decius enjoyed the fact that Thorgild did not catch the meaning of every word and was too proud to say so. “And it is not slavery
to give strict obedience to your commanders,” Decius continued as though showing patience with a child slow to learn, “—but tactical wisdom.”

Thorgild shrugged—the explanation did not interest him—and continued to watch Decius with hostility.

Decius ignored him and said to Auriane, “Sigwulf should not have given chase. If the camp at Vetera sends reinforcements, he’s leading your people to certain slaughter. In a day he’ll lose the weapons of iron it took us a year
to acquire.”

“Decius,” Auriane said in a low warning voice. A former thrall should not criticize the acts of a free-born warrior.

But Thorgild had heard, and unfortunately, this time, understood. He threw the leather dice cup hard to the ground. “Do you not have some pig dung to shovel, thrall? Auriane, why do you allow this insolent donkey to prance among us?”

Auriane whipped about, low fire in her eye. “Because he often speaks truth, Thorgild. I count it foolish to muddle over where
truth comes from, if it serves us well.”