B007IIXYQY EBOK (78 page)

“He lives!” She pressed the curled paper to her cheek, then held it at a distance and spent a long time studying it, as if by examining it long enough, she might make some sense of what was written there. “I wonder if he is safe where he is.”

“You will not learn it from
him,”
Fastila retorted. “He could be pinned beneath hurdles with a hundred aurochs bearing down on him, and he would say only, ‘Now this
is an annoying circumstance.’” She paused. “Will you go to him?”

Auriane was quiet for a time, considering in gloomy silence. Finally she said, “No. No matter what is written here, or what he says to lure me, I could not. It is not that I do not love him enough. I’m bound by my oaths, and I’m bound by blood. I know no other way to live. Fastila, I haven’t abandoned hope they’ll call me back.”

Fastila’s look betrayed she had no such hope, but she nodded firmly and said, “Of course they will.” From this, Auriane guessed the answer to the next question.

“What is being said at the Assembly?”

“The Fates have not softened. I am sorry. It is hard for me to witness at times—”

To Auriane the very air now had a bitter taste. Why, she wondered, was it her fate to never have what all other women accepted as their natural due? A husband who was human and not divine. Rich-yielding land handed down from her mother’s mothers. A child of her own family’s blood. A great clan all about, and the smallest measure of peace.

Abruptly she stopped these thoughts. Dimly she knew she would not be content even then.

“—but Athelinda speaks for you bravely,” Fastila spoke on, “as does Theudobald. Every Assembly rings with their entreaties.”

“What of Witgern and Sigwulf?”

“Sigwulf says nothing for or against you. You know how he is. Loyal when he has to be, but not so much that it interferes with his plans. He wants a great retinue, but now Geisar controls who is consecrated as a warrior and who is not. But Witgern speaks for you.”

“Does he truly? I…I am surprised. I thought he despised me now.”

“He means much to you.” Fastila’s voice was suddenly taut; she carefully examined Auriane’s face.

“Of course,” Auriane answered, alert to the catch of hurt and sorrow in the younger woman’s voice. “But not in the way you suggest.” Auriane took Fastila’s hand and regarded her with gently knowing eyes. “Fastila, you…and Witgern…?”

Fastila looked down, flushing deeply; Auriane was the first to ferret out her secret. “Yes. Once. At the Midsummer rites. And in that one ill-fated conjoining, he managed to bind me with fetters I cannot break. But he will not look at me now…if I flung myself naked before him on the trail, he would throw me down a cloak and ride on!”

“Fastila, take care none see you giving him looks of longing.”

“Why? Thurid was a thrall-woman when she and Witgern were joined—she has no kin to take vengeance on me.”

“Geisar performed the marriage—have you forgotten? He will act for her.”

Fastila laughed with constrained gaiety. “I may be ever the fool in choosing lovers but not when it comes to outwitting cutthroat priests. Do not worry over me.”

On the next day, among the people camped about the lake, Auriane found a young man who was a house-slave escaped from a Gallic estate; he had been his master’s reader. In exchange for the silver
denarius
she wore about her neck, he read Decius’ letter to her.

“‘I am a prisoner of Chariomer, the Cheruscan king, although he calls me guest,’” the young Gallic fugitive read. “‘I suffered capture after two days’ riding. I live because of your courage, Auriane. I loved you before and love you still—why could I not ever tell you? I beg you, stay where you are. I am more certain than ever a terrible war is coming. Enclosed is a measure of the king’s gold. I pray it is not stolen….’”

Of course, it has been, Auriane saw, looking at the flaccid pouch that came with the letter.

The reader continued, “‘…a gift for the child, who I hope has no taste for war. May the poor babe know more peace than we have known. I am tired of the world. I will send messages when I can.’”

It made her feel jolted and bruised inside. This did not sound like Decius, but a worn and humbled man, and for a brief moment she even wondered if Decius wrote it. She was intrigued that the words he could not speak—that he loved her—he managed to
write
on this paper. So people will write what they dare not speak, when there is not the heat of the other’s gaze upon them. Perhaps there was
some good in this habit of the peoples of the south.

She judged that Decius had most likely saved himself by affecting a great knowledge of warfare—preserving his life, if not his freedom. Surely, she thought hopefully, he will devise a way to escape.

Suddenly Decius seemed unbearably pitiable to her, he who would never beg another’s protection. How ironic, she thought, that he who seems so little to need protection arouses in me a desire to give it. All I know of the outer world he taught me, and it seems I did not give much in return.

It was not until the following day that Fastila told her the thing that was to haunt her sleep and possess her with terror in the days to come. For Fastila thought it news of little account and almost did not say it at all.

“One of Witgern’s sources in the village of the fortress,” she said idly, toying with the fire, “reports that the Emperor Domitian has left Rome and travels to Gaul for a
census.
What is that?”

Auriane felt every sense tauten.

“They like to count their people from time to time. It is usual for them,” she said, watching Fastila with growing concern.

“They say he has with him a great army, and they mean to camp in the country of the Treveres in northern Gaul—Auriane, what is wrong? Is it the child? Are you well?”

Auriane slowly rose to her feet. “Yes, I am well,” she whispered, pacing with heavy steps, hands clenched over her swollen stomach. “Fastila, we are done,” she whispered. “Why did you not tell me this at once?”

Fastila shrugged and struggled up after her. “But…why would I? What is so terrible in their counting their people?”

“That is not what they are doing,
Fastila. They used this stratagem once before, in the time of our grandfathers. What fools they must think us.” She paused and met Fastila’s eyes. “They do not send Emperors for a census, nor do they send out great armies. They come for
us.
In the spring they mean to catch us unprepared—then they will strike with all their strength.” Auriane looked away, a restless melancholy in her eyes. “Fastila, can you bring my mother to me?”

“I…I have no influence with Athelinda…. Yes, I will try.”

“What preparations for war are being made?”

“None. Except against Odberht. That wretched spawn of Wido has enlisted the good will of the Cheruscan king. His companions have swelled to a mighty army, and they’re nothing but cattle thieves and butchers. He plans to attack the north ranges in spring—he as much as said so. Everyone who is celebrated means to go north and fight him. He should be easy to put down.”

“Madness. They must awaken.
He is in league with them.”

“I do not understand.”

“Do you not see? Odberht means to divert our attention from the south. The Romans have given Odberht a rich bribe, I would wager all I own. When our warriors are drawn north to fight him, we will be vulnerable in the south. Then the Emperor will launch an attack. This is Odberht’s final vengeance upon us.”

“But…he has a rogue’s nature for certain but that is madness—he was born one of us!”

“You are wrong. My father always said Odberht would do what even Wido would not. Odberht lusts for renown, and the greater the crime he commits, the more tales the people will tell of him. He would not have the mettle to do such a thing without the assistance of the Cheruscan king. In the spring when we’re weary of war with Odberht and straggling home, the Romans will strike with greater force than ever in our lifetimes.”

Fastila was quiet for a moment, fighting the idea. Then at last she gave up and said with gloomy finality, “You are right.”

Another disturbing thought came to Auriane. Decius was a captive of the Cheruscan king. He might be forced to give tactical advice to the Cheruscans in this war with her own people. Would Decius be a traitor to her? He might, if the only alternative were to take his own life. He was already a traitor once—to his own people. Perhaps it would not be so difficult for him to act as traitor once again. The Fates seemed to delight in these cruel tricks.

Surely he will not turn on us. I know him as honorable.

But what is “honorable”? Its meaning must be confusing to a man who has lost his people twice.

“Fastila,” she said softly, firmly, “you must say all these things at the next Assembly.
Odberht’s challenge must be ignored.”

A look of sharp discomfort came to Fastila’s face. “I wish to go on living, Auriane. Geisar wants this northern war. And he has the support of everyone who’s important. It’s easy vengeance and easy plunder. You cannot stop such a thing as this.”

Baldemar would have stopped it, Auriane thought in a moment of frantic misery. Do you watch us now? How could you leave us to this?

“Here is what you must try, then,” Auriane replied. “Explain what I have said to Thrusnelda, and make certain she knows it comes from me. Then have her deliver it up as an oracle.”

“That is good! They dare not lay a hand on her, though they’ll want to.”

“It probably will not stop them. But it might set their minds to thinking of the folly of going north…and hopefully, it will start disputes that might slow their haste.”

At dawn the next day Auriane said a somber farewell to Fastila.

At the waxing of the fourth moon, the time of the Festival of Loaves when the people baked barley-cakes for burial in the first furrow of the fields, Auriane was milking one of the goats that roamed the island while looking restlessly toward the two even hills between which far travelers came. Surely war had not begun, she thought; she would have seen streams of people driven from their homes with crying children in tow and household possessions tied onto their backs.

Then came a low bolt of pain that flashed out through her whole body and brought her gasping to her knees. She cried out for Helgrune, who was using a flint axe to crack open the ice that had formed over the watering trough so the animals could drink.

Helgrune helped Auriane stagger to her hut. Then the serving-woman sent a messenger off to Ramis, who had departed at noon for a midnight gathering of the Nine.

“She will not come,” Auriane protested, feeling pitiful and small. Why would Ramis return for a mere birthing when she sets out to lead a ceremony that will bring mild weather for the coming year to all the tribes of the north?

“She may not,” Helgrune agreed laconically as she steadied Auriane with hard hands, guiding her onto the bed of straw. “She either comes, or she doesn’t.”

Auriane despised Helgrune then. The woman was comforting as a bed of brambles. The pain struck again—a clutch of excruciating torment, a nightmare in her body that held her hostage for a harrowing length of time before it let her go. A wild madness seized her.
Surely this is Wodan’s punishment for lying with a foreigner.

Helgrune moved fretfully about the hut, first planting a torch in the earthen floor, then marching off to the drying-shed, to return with a cat’s skull, which she placed in the doorway to protect the child’s spirit from restless ghosts, and a snakeskin girdle. Snakeskin was believed to ease birth pangs and speed delivery. Hastily Helgrune fastened it round Auriane’s stomach, not meeting Auriane’s eyes, seeming loath to touch her. More good fortune! Auriane thought miserably. Helgrune despises this task. I am trapped here with a woman who would rather bed down on a glowing hearth than assist at a birthing.

Auriane recalled vividly tales of lying-ins that stretched on for half a cycle of the moon, or ended wretchedly, the babe dead, the mother drained of all her lifeblood. She struggled to do the fire ritual, but it was too new to her; each time her body was gripped with fresh agony she clawed at the straw, a tormented animal that did not know fire from air or water. When the tide of pain subsided she doggedly fixed her gaze on the flame of the torch, imagining it struggled to give birth to itself.

Evening came; shadows lengthened and gradually overtook the island. Helgrune announced irritably that Ramis was not coming, and she sent out to the nearest village for a midwife. Then Auriane lay alone; Helgrune busied herself somewhere out of sight. Through the door of her hut Auriane watched the sun die and leave a bloody wake; the sky was pearly nacre streaked with blood, lurid and full of evil omen. Desolation gripped her. She realized she had allowed herself to believe that Ramis
would
come.

Wolves began to howl. She tried to read meaning in their rising and falling cries. Were they greeting the child’s descending spirit or heralding her death?

She tasted her own salt sweat. The hut seemed stiflingly hot. Her fear was thick in the air; she could scarcely breathe. From time to time she tentatively put her hands on her swollen belly, probing gingerly, striving instinctively to push out the child and rid herself of this grievous burden. Gradually she suspected that something was wrong. The babe’s head was too high. Yes, she thought as she probed again, that was the child’s head, near her navel. From the birth-talk she had heard all her life she knew that the child should have turned round. By now, the babe’s head should have dropped and be pressing hard for release.