Calgaich the Swordsman (11 page)

Calgaich looked down at her. “The Red Crests have been too long in this land. Time and time again the wild waves of warriors from Caledonia have washed against and over their damned wall. There were times when even the Novantae were driven back from this land. The Red Crests established forts and outposts in the lands of the Selgovae and the Novantae, but in time they couldn't stand the constant pressure of the tribesmen and fell back themselves. When I was first a warrior, I fought against them. You saw the fort I set fire to with my own hands. It became a funeral pyre for a
turma
of Roman auxiliary cavalry. Not one of diem escaped! Aye, they've been in this land too long, like a festering wound that must be cleansed and healed. Someday, someday . . .” His voice trailed off.

There was intense hatred of the Romans in his words
and yet there was Roman blood in his veins.

“Come,” Calgaich said. “It will soon be dark and the wolves are the owners of the nights in these glens.”

The sun was almost gone when Calgaich motioned for Cairenn to drop to the ground. Then he vanished into the bracken and woods as silently as a hunting cat.

A faint whickering sound soon came from the direction where Calgaich had disappeared. A few minutes later the sound came again. Then it was quiet except for the wind soughing through the trees.

Suddenly Calgaich appeared. “Guidd comes,” he said.

Nothing moved except the leaves of the trees.

Cairenn wet her dry lips and looked uneasily from one side of her to the other. The shadows seemed to have taken on the appearances of strange and grotesque creatures who shifted and changed before her very eyes.

Calgaich glanced toward Cairenn. “The forest is alive,” he said mysteriously.

Suddenly she seemed to
feel
a presence. A curious musky odor came on the wind. She turned quickly and could not help but cry out. She backed toward Calgaich and pressed herself against him.

A wolflike shape stood between two of the trees, almost like part of their shadow. Its head was held up high and its mouth gaped widely. Its forepaws were thrust out in front of the body and held a short hunting spear. A picture flashed through Cairenn's mind—the punch marks on Calgaich's spear and sword showed two such figures with their forepaws holding them erect against a bell-shaped tower.

The wolf came closer and Cairenn finally saw a human face under die wolfs-head cap. The man moved so noiselessly it seemed as if he were not a man of flesh and blood at all but some creature of the night conjured up out of the dark forest.

"Guidd, old wolf!” Calgaich called.

"Calgaich! Calgaich! Calgaich!” Guidd cried. There was a catch in his hoarse voice. His brown, seamed face glistened with tears from his one yellowish eye. He drew close to Calgaich and Cairenn. Cairenn stepped hastily aside. Guidd’s head hardly reached to Calgaich’s chin, but he dealt him such a buffet with his right hand that it sent Calgaich staggering backward. Calgaich returned the blow with such force that Guidd went sprawling backward in the bracken and his wolf’s-head cap fell off to reveal his gray poll. His foxlike face split into a wide grin. He got to his feet and flopped the headpiece back into position and Cairenn could see that it was still attached to the pelt, which was over Guidd’s shoulders and belted about his waist. He wore wolfskin leggings and a necklace of wolf’s claws about his neck.

Guidd studied Cairenn with his one piercing eye. He nodded in appreciation.

"She’s not my wife, Guidd. She is a
cumal
only, gifted to me by Crann of the Five Hostages,” Calgaich explained hastily.

Cairenn again heard his words with sorrow. Their night together had meant much to her, but for him it had been something whiskey had caused, something to shrug off and forget. She straightened her tired shoulders and forced herself to meet Guidd’s stare.

Guidd tilted his grizzled head to one side. His eye flicked over Cairenn from head to foot and then back again, slowly, as if he could see beneath her dusty boy’s clothing to her young girl’s body. "Are these the wages Crann of the Five Hostages now pays his
fianna
for a little pleasurable red work with spear and sword?” he murmured. He whistled sharply. "It was not so in my time in Eriu when I was outlawed from the Novantae.”

"Crann bad no she-wolves then,” Calgaich said as he again clapped Guidd on his furred shoulder.

Darkness was gathering swiftly. The howling of a wolf came from somewhere in the dark hills.

"Come to my wolf's den,” Guidd invited. "Our four-footed brothers gather for the night's hunting, Calgaich.” He grinned at Cairenn and his seamed face seemed to change as if by magic into the semblance of an old grizzler of a wolf. She shuddered and looked away. Guidd laughed softly as he led them through the darkening forests.

Guidd reached the landward end of the loch where the river ran shallowly over and between great stones. The woodsman skipped ably from one stone to another and waited for the others on the far side of the river. He grinned as he saw Calgaich pick die woman up under one arm and carry her quickly across.

Guidd led the way into the thick forest to the edge of the loch. There was no sign of a habitation anywhere in sight. Guidd looked back at Calgaich. "Do you remember the way across the
crannog
path?” he asked.

"It has been too many years, old wolf.”

There was a small, tree-studded island a good spear's cast from the shore. The bald head of a great rock outcropping showed above the trees. Guidd stepped into the water. He looked back at Calgaich. "Stay close behind me, Calgaich,” he warned. "The loch is deep and cold.”

Calgaich handed the woodsman his war spear. He got down on his knees and looked over a shoulder at Cairenn. "Mount, little one,” he invited. Cairenn hesitated a moment before climbing onto his back. She had not been this close to him, her legs spread around his narrow hips, since that night he had taken her, drunkenly forced himself into her, finally exhausting them both. Calgaich stood up without effort as Cairenn held tightly to him, her arms around his neck, her mouth pressed beside the warm mat of his hair.

Guidd began walking out into the water. Calgaich closed up tight behind him. Guidd made a sharp turn to the left, waded a few paces and then made a sharp turn to the right. He waded on for several spear's lengths and then angled to his left again, then curved right and walked straight for a time. Calgaich waded close behind him.

Something made Cairenn turn her head. Her heart sank and her throat went dry. Two wolves stood on the shore watching the progress of the three people out into the loch. "Calgaich," she whispered. He shook his head, intent only on following Guidd.

Guidd made two more turns, one hard left, then
a
sharp right-hand turn, and then he angled in to the shore of the rocky islet. He stepped out of the water and turned to watch Calgaich and Cairenn. She looked back over her shoulder again. The two wolves were wading behind them. She placed a hand over her eyes.

Calgaich eased Cairenn to the ground. "I would not have made it without your guidance, Guidd. The years washed away my memory of the path." He looked at Cairenn. "Have they
crannogs
in your country?” he asked.

She shook her head. "The wolves!" she cried, trembling. She could not help herself. They were halfway to the islet.

Guidd laughed. He whistled sharply. The wolves barked. "They are my brothers, woman," he explained. He looked at her slyly out of the comer of his eye. "They guarded us on our way through the forest. They are only coming home."

Calgaich studied the two huge wolfhounds. "Guidd?" he asked. "Could one of them be my hound Bron?"

Guidd shook his head. "They are both mine, Calgaich.”

"And where is Bron?" Calgaich asked.

Guidd shrugged. "I saw the great hound some time after you left for Eriu. For
a
long time I did not see him. One year the pack came out of the hills in the winter when food was hard to come by. Your father ordered me to get rid of them if I could. I had the help of several other woodsmen. We fought a great battle with the wolves." He patted the wolf head on top of his own head. "This is one of them. One of the other woodsmen put his mark on a great brindle of
a
wolf and was slain in return." Guidd greeted the two hounds as they splashed ashore. He grinned at the frightened look on Cairenn's face as she moved closer to Calgaich.

"Go on," Calgaich urged.

"The wolf was sore wounded, Calgaich. I could have killed him, but something held me back. I think he was Bron. I left him there in the dark woods. The next day he was gone. The snow was red with his blood. For a long time I thought he was dead. Then one night the pack came down again from the hills. They howled that night. How they howled!” His one eye glistened. He looked up at the dark hills. “Then I heard one of them barking.”

“Bron?”

Guidd shrugged. “Have you ever heard a wolf bark, my brother?”

As though in answer to Guidd’s question, a wolf howled in the woods on the far side of the loch.

Guidd handed Calgaich his spear. “Come into my wolf’s den,” he invited, leading the way into the trees.

Cairenn looked back across the smooth surface of the loch. There was no indication of the underwater rock pathway by which they had reached the island.

“A
crannog,
Cairenn,” Calgaich explained. “Only those who live here know the way. To step off the pathway is to sink into the deep water. The
crannog
and his wolfhounds are the two reasons Guidd stays alive while my uncle rules the Novantae, otherwise he would be killed on sight by Bruidge’s warriors. If Guidd got his chance, he would kill Bruidge in turn. Guidd was my father’s hound. He knows no other master.”

Guidd’s den was a cave in the side of the naked outcropping of rock. He had enclosed the front of it with a palisade of timbers cleverly concealed by brush and trees. Guidd lighted an oil lamp of Roman fashion and threw wood on the smoldering fireplace in the center of the hardpacked earthen floor. The air of the den was thick and close, and redolent with the mingled odors of smoke, stale sweat, cooked food, damp wool, wet hounds, and the scent of strong
usquebaugh
. A wide, low bed stood beside one wall. It was covered with greasy hides and filthy sheep and wolf skins. The rear of the cave seemed to probe into the very darkness of the pit itself. Cairenn was reminded eerily of the barrow in which she and Calgaich had sought shelter their first night ashore in Albu.

Guidd barred the door after the wolfhounds had entered. He placed his wide-bladed hunting spear close beside the door. “Bruidge of the Battle-Axe has his spies everywhere," he explained over a shoulder. “The hounds will warn us if they come to the loch shore."

“Is it as bad as all that?” Calgaich asked.

Guidd's seamed face was grim. “No one in the clan can say that he is still your friend, Calgaich. No one can talk about you or your father without being heard by Bruidge's spies. He rules this country by fear.”

“Is he at Rioghaine now?”

Guidd laughed harshly as he placed a jug of whiskey on the table. “He is almost always there now. He rarely ever leaves the Dun of Evicatos. Bruidge of the Battle-Axe? Call him rather Bruidge of the Bottle. He has hardly left the Dun of Evicatos these past few months nor drawn
a
sober breath.”

Cairenn, forgotten by the two men, set her pack against the cave wall and tiredly slumped onto the earthen floor beside it. The warm, stale air of the chamber made her sleepy. She closed her eyes and half listened as the two men continued talking of the changes that had brought Bruidge to Calgaich's home.

“What have any of the Novantae done to rescue my father?”

Guidd looked quickly sideways at Calgaich. “Rescue?” he asked. “The Novantae can hardly do it alone. Your father is in the prison at Fortress ala Petriana, guarded by the cavalry regiment stationed there—one thousand horsemen of the senior regiment of cavalry in the entire Province of Britain. Ala Petriana is now the largest and strongest fort along the Great Wall of Hadrian. Since your father was taken there, a cohort of the Twentieth Legion was brought up from Camulodunum as personal escort to Quaestor Lucius Sextillius, acting governor of the province, who is supposedly on an inspection tour of the wall.”

“That perverted pig?” Calgaich demanded.

Guidd unstoppered the jug and filled two earthenware bowls with the powerful spirits. “Half goat and half man. What is it the Red Crests call such a being?”

“Satyr,” Calgaich replied. He reached for one of the bowls. “What's he really doing along the wall?”

Guidd threw some wood on the smoldering fire. “The rumor is that he is really trying to make a deal with your beloved uncle Bruidge.”

Calgaich drank deeply, then slowly lowered the bowl. He wiped his mouth and mustache with the back of a hand. "You lie,” he murmured. "Not even Bruidge would do that.” His voice died away at the look in Guidd’s one eye.

Guidd bent his head a little and looked at Calgaich from under lowered brows. "You call me
liar?”
he challenged.

Cairenn opened her eyes in alarm. The honor of a Celt was a touchy thing. Even Calgaich’s long friendship with Guidd could not bridge the insult he had given the woodsman.

Calgaich smiled placatingly. He extended his empty hands. "I was not thinking, old wolf.”

Almost imperceptibly, the hackles of the woodsman seemed to lie down. Guidd reached out his hands to those of Calgaich. Calgaich drew him close and hugged him hard. "I should have known better,” he murmured.

Guidd turned away and looked at Cairenn, seated against the wall. "There is food to prepare,” he said huskily. His one eye glistened brightly.

While Cairenn prepared the meal, the jug passed back and forth between Calgaich and Guidd with great regularity. The woodsman’s larder surprised Cairenn. There was freshly caught salmon, firm and pink of flesh. She found a jug of thick, sugary honey for spreading on hard brown-crusted bread. There were chunks of mottled cheese tangy to the taste.

All the time the three of them ate, the contents of the jug were steadily lowered. When the food was finished, Calgaich and Guidd sat crosslegged by the fire while Cairenn cleared away the debris of the meal. Now and again she would glance at the two huge wolfhounds who lay in the shadows near the doorway. Their yellow eyes were like moist jewels reflecting the dancing firelight as they watched Cairenn moving about. When she was finished she returned to her place against the wall.