B007IIXYQY EBOK (96 page)

Auriane saw then a party of soldiers within the fort had recognized her. One nodded curtly and an order was barked. Auriane shut her eyes; this was past enduring.

She raised her sword. “Beloved mother, forgive me.”

And she brought it down on the taut rein. It snapped; Athelinda stumbled forward. Berinhard capered sideways as if surprised by his sudden freedom, then shot forward like a bolt from a catapult.

Auriane guided him with her hands. By the time he streaked through the open gate, Berinhard was hurtling past the slower mounts of Fastila and Witgern.

“Auriane!”
Athelinda’s shriek pierced her like an arrow.

Athelinda dropped to her hands and knees before a muddy pool that bloomed with blood. She scooped up a handful of mud and smeared it over her face, still moaning ceaselessly, “No…no!”
One of Thrusnelda’s surviving apprentices caught her shoulders and steadied her.

“My lady, it is her fate,” the priestess said urgently. “The great Lady who birthed us all loves her still.” But Athelinda was past hearing.

The poison. Take it now, you’ve lost all reason not to take it. Quickly!

Athelinda struggled to her feet, fumbling for the pouch of poisons at her belt.

It was knocked from her hand with the butt of a javelin. Then hard, swift soldier’s hands caught her from behind and dragged her toward a line of chained captives. She did not struggle or scream.

Athelinda accepted it as the Fates’ will. She was meant to live.

None in the line of old women with whom she was chained recognized her mud-smeared face, and so did not know that Athelinda, daughter of Gandrida, wife of Baldemar, was manacled next to them like the commonest of farmwives.

Auriane, Witgern and Fastila bore down upon the legion, with Berinhard well in the lead. Raw cries were torn from Auriane’s throat; she could no more stop them than she could control her horse. He bolted forward in a furious, headlong rush, belly low to the ground, an equine storm with whipping tail and mane.

When the legionaries on the wall were alerted to this breakout, five whirled about and hurled javelins at the flying horses.

Fastila was struck in the back. The heavy missile penetrated through her and pierced her horse’s neck. The beast arced into the air, throwing up its head as a spasm of agony twisted its body, then fell heavily onto its side. Fastila died at once.

Witgern looked back in farewell, responding instinctively with the whispered words,
“Fria, be gentle with her soul.”
Auriane, far in the lead and intent on her quarry, did not even know. Her face was pressed close to her horse’s rhythmically surging neck; her spirit lived in his clamoring hooves. Her upraised blade was an exclamation of outrage at the Fates.

The javelins fell well short of Witgern. But moments afterward, his mount found a rabbit hole and cartwheeled onto its back. Witgern was thrown free; he lay stunned and motionless on the ground.

Auriane galloped on alone.

The first rank of the legion loomed close. They stood at stony attention, concealing well their alarm at the sight of this flying horse, this frightful vision of womanly thunder bearing down on them. Their commander, calm and dignified on his mount, spoke rapid instructions, and signal flags whipped about, relaying orders to the men.

Auriane knew only that she vaulted into emptiness. Life’s garments were torn off by the wind, piece by piece, as she sped from all she was: shame-ridden daughter, sorrowing mother, doubtful apprentice of Ramis, debtor to the Lightning Oak. Her spirit dissolved into solemn, active quiet; the world about became vastly barren. She was naked and wet in a gale, a shivering babe cast down to be reborn on the blasted plains of Hel, she whose cackle was like the crack of ice.

I know now why old Hel’s face is blue. It is the cold, the awful, eternal cold.

We are all motherless. My life was a cloak rent with a knife—slowly, as the years turned, it all unraveled. I struggled well and mightily, only to hasten the pull on the threads. Ramis is a clever liar—the stuff of everything is
grief.
Of what use were the god-blessed victories? I do not want to play any part, noblewoman or thrall, in a world where gallantry is punished and beasts with tearing teeth are loosed at the last.

The doomed bride rushes into the arms of her cruel bridegroom. I despise you, Wodan, for accepting this shameful sacrifice. I loathe you, Fria, for bringing forth this iron-cold world. Great Wolf, open wide your jaws.

When Auriane was so close the men of the first rank could see the fury in her eyes, one thought sprang into many minds—
how I would disgrace the standards if I ran from single woman
.

But
was
this a woman? Or a northern Medusa erupting out of the bogs, come to rend their orderliness with her wildness? She was the earth-born emanation of all they were disciplined to force back into the dark—primeval rage, impetuosity, ecstasy. She came not to judge but to destroy, simply because it was time—rational man had ruled too long, and nature was out of patience.

In the final moments Auriane forgot utterly where she was. Sky, earth and forest were stirred in one living cauldron until they blurred into lambent mist. She urged Berinhard on not to death, but to victory in the sacred race. The bristling wall of legionaries was her tribespeople, urging her on.

We have won! The rest are so far back I cannot see them. There is Decius, hailing me and complaining I’ve done it all wrong. There is Baldemar, standing before the Eastre fire, sword drawn to protect it forever. All is as it should be. I know I fought hard enough, by the mothering moon, the wheeling stars. No one could have fought harder.

She struck the first rank. It gave way a fraction too late; the impact of her horse broke a soldier’s shield arm and knocked another under iron hooves. The second rank opened, then the third and fourth in rapid succession.

As Berinhard ploughed through mail-covered men, his hooves sending sparks as they struck the iron bindings of shields, Auriane brought down her sword in a furious rhythm, striking helmets, crossed javelins, laminated iron cuirasses, and occasionally flesh—but no drawn swords. Strong hands reached for her horse’s bridle, and javelins were extended across his path, slowing him.

She realized then that they were not fighting back. They meant to evade her blows, then pull her from her horse and disarm her.

“Fight! Fight me! I want to die!”

Then Decius’ warning flashed into her mind:
Promise me you will never let my people take you alive.
No admonition he had ever given her had been spoken with such heartfelt urgency.

How pleased Decius would be to know I died heeding his advice.

She grasped her sword securely in both hands and raised it high, meaning to plunge it into her breast.

Swiftly she brought it down. But her sword struck calfskin-covered wooden planks—one of the legionaries had thrust his shield between the sword’s point and her chest. Then powerful hands seized her from behind, dragging her from Berinhard’s back. She struggled blindly. After a short struggle they wrenched the sword from her hand.

I am disarmed by the enemy. Vile hands pollute Baldemar’s sword. Now, truly, the luck and life of our kin is broken.

Fria, open the earth for me. I will sleep in it as a bed. I will live on in the roots of trees, in ripe wheat; there I will grow and know peace until it is my time to be reborn. Let my people dance on me at festival time.

As they held her pinned to the ground, she was distantly aware that they exerted only enough force to subdue her; other than that, they handled her with care.

Beware. They are saving you for some purpose.

And still she somehow managed to tear one hand free. She caught her horse’s slender pastern and held it, seeking comfort in the familiar feel of silken fur over bone. It was her last embrace of all she had known. Berinhard seemed to sense something had ended as he bent down and brushed his muzzle inquisitively over her hair.

Then her arms were hers no more; swiftly they were bound behind her back with strong cord. The bridegroom enveloped her in his pitiless embrace.

Marcus Julianus had already departed for Rome when Five Wells was stormed and taken, for Domitian had decided suddenly he could no longer bear his festering suspicions of myriad plots springing up at home. And so with the whole of the imperial staff, the Emperor had hastily decamped for his capitol on the day before the final battle.

It was midmorning. Julianus was riding in his traveling carriage, immersed in the tiresome task of reviewing Domitian’s correspondence with the Governor of Bithynia, who had requested revisions in the province’s criminal laws, when a trusted secretary, the one servant in his confidence in the matter of Auriane, interrupted him with the news that she had spurned his offer of freedom.

Of course, I should have known you would not be saved while your fellows died.

He quietly put his head into his hands.

Magnificent fool! Has such a creature ever lived? How can you possibly live in captivity? How nearly impossible you make my task now.

ROME

CHAPTER XXX

T
HE SUN BURNED
A
URIANE’S SWOLLEN EYES.
She forced them open. Before her was a strange landscape divided by bars. Every muscle was aflame with pain; the air hurt to breathe. Chill iron encircled her ankles and wrists. She refused to look at her chains but knew she could not hide them from the eyes of ancestors.

The memories flooded back.

This is my first morning in the Land of the Dead. They have taken even my warrior’s ring—my arm is naked as a child’s.

She rode in a mule-drawn prison cart, shackled to nine of her tribesmen. Their chains kept up a monotonous chatter as, one by one, her companions stirred in painful sleep. To this was added the jingling of horses’ bits—files of cavalrymen rode alongside, their faces alien and expressionless. Dully she struggled to make sense of the situation. She guessed the captives and spoil trailed the march of the main body of the army. She assumed they would be sacrificed to the Roman god of war.

The air was heavy with the odor of terebinth resin and blood. Slowly she realized the man who lay next to her as Vangio, a middle-ranked warrior of Sigwulf’s Companions. His shrieks of the night before still reverberated in her mind. An army surgeon had come to remove the head of a javelin from his thigh. The surgeon worked swiftly and savagely, using a variety of odd iron implements; to keep the wound from festering he had applied the resin. Vangio lay now in the heavy stupor that comes before death; his eyes, opened barely, had a milky glaze.

Auriane saw that the surgeon had left behind one of his sinister implements—a curved, needle-sharp tool of iron. She covered it with one foot and dragged it within reach. The cart jolted to a stop. She dared not move her foot lest it be seen.

The stillness hummed with flies drawn to the feast of wounds. Slaves appeared bearing skins of water and grimy wooden bowls filled with a bland, cooked grain unknown to her. She ate slowly, ashamed of the pleasure she found in the enemy’s food.

She saw that Vangio had not stirred. He must have water, at least. She nudged him gently, but he only made a sound like the lowing of cattle.

“Vangio!” she whispered. The whole of her lost world resided in this man only slightly known to her. He must not die. She held the water to his lips and was elated to see it course down his throat.

The haze cleared from Vangio’s eyes. “Auriane…it is you ….
How do they dare—”

“Eat this. Please try.”

“It is no use….” He breathed like a woman in labor. “The pain…it rages like a hall afire…. Give to me what is under your foot.”

He had seen. The nearness of death must have given him a sorcerer’s sight. “Vangio, do not leave me.”

“A god could not endure this pain. How can a man?”

She knew she should not beg him to live. It would be cruelty to refuse him simply because she could not bear to go into the darkness alone.

“End your pain,” she said softly, helping him position the surgeon’s tool between his knees, for his hands were manacled behind his back. “Go in peace to the Sky Hall. Greet my father. Tell him I tried to go to him, but Fria closed the gate. And…ask the gods’ help for those of us condemned to live…even though we leave them for a strange land.”

She turned her head away as Vangio pressed his body onto the sharp implement. Then she regarded him without tears, thinking only: How efficiently the surgeon’s tool kills.

That is good. It is a fine weapon.

She wiped the tool clean of blood and hid it in her battered shoe-boot.

Night came, leaving her to the boundless desolation and terror of the babe exposed on the midden. She drew out the surgeon’s tool and felt its point, hungry for death.

Avenahar! Be quiet now, cry no more. Your mother comes to you.
She shook violently, the deadly point poised before her heart.