Calgaich the Swordsman (19 page)

“You're not speaking of the Caledonians, Tribune,” Calgaich challenged swiftly.

“The only reason you Caledonians have survived thus far is because you have the longest legs, the better to run from the Roman legions.”

“Someday, Roman, you and I will see between us who has the longest legs for running.”

“It might be interesting,” Ulpius admitted. “However, it can hardly come to pass. Rome is unconquerable, barbarian. Your fate is cast.”

Calgaich shrugged. “My own grandfather once said that Rome was a prisoner of her own ambition, that she had conquered the world, and in so doing, had woven a tight net of barbarians about herself. It was only a matter of time, he said, before that net would close in and strangle her to death.”

Ulpius laughed. “Your grandfather? Evicatos the Spearman? What could an illiterate barbarian know about such things?”

"I was not speaking of Evicatos, Roman. I meant my
Roman
grandfather—Rufus Arrius Niger—once tribune
legatus legionis,
and now a senator of Rome. Even now he is said to be inspecting the forts of the Saxon shore. Why? Could it be that Rome is deeply concerned about the Saxon wind that is blowing stronger every day against the southeast coast of Britannia?”

The tribune spat at Calgaich's feet and spurred his horse toward the head of the cavalcade. Already the advance riders were trotting their horses across the bridge. The low thunder of hooves echoed along the river valley. A trumpet sounded from the fort. A detail of auxiliaries trotted out of the guardhouse that stood at the far end of the bridge.

Guidd spoke to Calgaich out of the side of his mouth. "What was it you said to him that angered him so, Calgaich? I haven't mastered much of their twisted Latin tongue.”

"He seemed to think that Rome will stand forever against us barbarians.”

Guidd growled. "They are afraid. They walk about as though they still owned the world,
but they are afraid
. When you were in Eriu, Calgaich, and after your father had been turned over to the Romans, I came here to Luguvalium and this fort to see what could be done to rescue him.”

Calgaich looked quickly at the woodsman.
“Alone,
old hound?”

Guidd nodded. "No one would come with me. Your uncle had outlawed me. Many of the Novantae were afraid to be seen with me. So I came alone.” Guidd’s voice died away. "He was my master,” he added simply.

“Why do you think the Romans are afraid, Guidd?”

"Look at the gates of the fort. They have been narrowed by half. It is so the length of the Great Wall.”

"The better for defense.”

Guidd nodded. "I walked the streets of Luguvalium disguised as a trapper of wolves, to sell my pelts. The town had changed much. Many of the houses had been tom down to repair and heighten the Great Wall. Only their foundations showed, with weeds sprouting between the flagstones. The faces of the people showed fear. Remember, Calgaich, that it was only seventeen years ago that your grandfather led the Novantae, the Selgovae, the Damnonii and many Picts across the Great Wall almost as far south as Londinium."

Calgaich nodded. "Those were great days. I can remember when the Novantae war spears came back, all of you loaded with fine loot."

Guidd laughed. "By Lugh! We got further south than any other Caledonians ever had. I still swear I could smell the privies of Londinium on the breeze the day before we fell back, laden with loot and women prisoners, rather than to try the massed might of two legions and their auxiliaries."

There was much food for thought in these matters. A thread of thought, a dark and twisted one, meandered through the fabric of Calgaich’s thoughts. The tribune Ulpius Claudius had not been in the country of the Novantae to pick berries. What was it Guidd had said about Bruidge?
That's why he is playing the weakling's game of putting himself into the hands of one enemy to save himself from another
. The Romans were afraid of the Novantae, the only border tribe that had steadfastly resisted Roman domination, and had never accepted any of their overtures of friendship, that is, up until now. Bruidge had put himself into the debt of the Romans, whom he hated as much as any other of the Novantae, in order to secure the chieftainship for himself.

"The Romans are afraid of us," Guidd said.

Calgaich nodded. "Right now they are winning the dice game."

"They fear you, Calgaich."

"One man? What can I do now to overthrow their empire?"

"You are the grandson of Evicatos, and the son of Lellan."

"And the grandson of a Roman," Calgaich added dryly.

"Even so, Calgaich, you must return to our country someday."

"We are being taken to Rome, old wolf."

"You will return,” Guidd insisted. "It is in the stars. You must return!”

They crossed the bridge and passed the great Fort ala Petriana, watched curiously by the sentries on the walls. They crossed through open fields to a large
mansio,
or villa, that had a fine view of the fort and of the town of Luguvalium, sprawling along the other side of the river. The villa was large, and had recently been modified, so that it was more of an outlying bastion of the fort, rather than the quarters for visiting dignitaries for whose use it had originally been built. Additional walls had been constructed to bring the villa closer to the protection of the fort and to provide for the small garrison who guarded the villa.

A cold wind came up as the sun set. The gate of the villa was swung open to admit the cavalcade. Calgaich and Guidd were then unbound and lowered to the ground from their horses, hardly able to stand or walk.

Ulpius dismounted. He eyed his two prisoners. "This
mansio
is the temporary headquarters of Quaestor Lucius Sextillius, acting governor of this province. I warn you that he is a harder man to deal with than I. You will be confined here until he decides your fate.” He looked directly at Calgaich. "Remember that the hangman's noose is being woven for you. A second desertion, such as you committed, makes such punishment mandatory. Perhaps the quaestor will make different provisions. I will recommend that you be taken to Rome for the Games.”

"Has your recommendation any weight with him?” "Some,” Ulpius admitted. "You see, he is my uncle.” They watched the tribune walk toward the largest of the buildings within the walled enclosure. "You know what that means, Calgaich,” Guidd said in a low voice. "It’s to be Rome for you, under the personal escort of that perfumed bastard of a Roman.”

"It's a long way to Rome,” Calgaich said cryptically. "Move, damn you!” Montanas barked.

Ulpius had stopped just outside the entrance to the largest building of the villa complex. He was talking with a cloaked person near the villa. The sun was almost gone and the gloaming was filling the courtyard with shadows, but there was a streak of gold about the head of the person talking with the tribune. Her musical laughter carried to Calgaich. She flung back her head and the hood of her cloak fell back letting fall a cascade of golden hair. Likely a whore, Calgaich thought, for he knew Roman whores traditionally wore dark clothing and dyed their hair saffron in color. The woman turned to look toward Calgaich.

Calgaich stared at the woman. He took a few faltering steps toward her on his numbed legs but could not continue. He did not want to fall. A great longing filled him. “Morar! Morar!” he cried in anguish.

The woman looked at Calgaich for a few seconds, until Ulpius moved between them; then she turned quickly and entered the building. Ulpius smiled knowingly at Calgaich as he followed her in.

A sandaled foot struck Calgaich just over the kidneys. Numbing pain shot through his body as he went down on the graveled ground.

“When I give an order, pig-shit,” Decrius said in a low hard voice, “you’ll obey, or I’ll have your hide in bloody strips.”

The killing urge swept through Calgaich. Guidd helped him to his feet. “For the love of the gods,” he hissed, “take what he gives out, and bide your time.”

“Lock these Caledonian cattle up!” Montanas barked at the decurion. “Separate them!”

“There is only one available cell, Centurion.”

“Then find another! I don’t care what it is!”

A spear butt struck Calgaich between the shoulder blades. He stumbled toward a row of outbuildings. He was driven into a room and the heavy door was slammed shut behind him.

He looked about him. In the dimness he saw great jars and containers lining the walls. There were trusses of hay and straw piled against an end wall. A faint ray of dying light shone through a small barred window.

Calgaich paced back and forth. He was sure the woman he had just seen was Morar. No hair dyed yellow could have that golden sheen. Even though her dark cloak had effectively concealed her body, he could still see it well enough in his mind’s eye. The thought of her and that lush body had tortured him many a night during his exile.

Even at fourteen, when Calgaich first met her, Morar had the mark of the woman, rather than the girl. Her parents had been long dead, and she was the ward of Bruidge of the Battle-Axe, who had let her do what she willed, perhaps too much so. There were times when the other girls said dark things about Morar. It was rumored that one of her uncles had been a Druid of the highest rank. It was said that he had been able to travel into the life-after-death, and to return to the land of the living at will. He had taught her much. Calgaich had never believed such rot, because to look at Morar was to see the light of life and the sun rather than the dark and bloody mysteries of the eerie Druids.

Morar and Calgaich had become betrothed just before he traveled south to enlist in the Ulpia Torquata, the Double Battalion of Britons. While stationed with his battalion along the Rhine, the news came to him that his mother was dying. He asked permission to see her and was refused by a brutal centurion. There was no holding him then. He made his way to the channel, where he stole a small
birlinn
. He crossed the channel and then made his way north by night. An Asturian cavalry
turma
caught him ten miles north of the Great Wall. He was brought back for the vicious and brutal flogging prescribed by legion law. After that experience he was more determined than ever. He killed his guard and escaped again. He reached Rioghaine only to find that his mother had died that same day.

There followed weeks of mourning for Calgaich. He spent much time hunting with Guidd One-Eye, living with him in his
crannog.
One day when the rains were in their third day, Calgaich unexpectedly returned to the Dun of Evicatos. He took a torch from near the entrance and went from room to room looking for someone to drink with while he silently mourned his loss. He would never forget what happened next as long as he lived.

Two rooms beyond the great hall, in the last bedchamber, he came upon Morar and Fergus alone together. Morar was stripped to the skin and lying on a low bed little-used except by the servants. Fergus, half-dressed, stood over her. Morar screamed as the rusted hinges of the door announced Calgaich’s entrance and she saw him.

“Calgaich, I have been raped,” she cried. Her sobs filled the room as Fergus caught up his tunic and fled. Calgaich rushed to Morar’s side and took her in his arms. Her hair was a mass of tangled gold; her eyes were wild. He could still remember the touch of her soft skin, her breasts wet with her tears of pain and relief that he had found her and saved her from more of Fergus’s assaults. He tried to quiet her.

"Hush, Morar, there is no need to talk." He called a servant in to bathe her. Then he left, promising to return after avenging her terrible ravishment. An hour later Calgaich found his cousin, Fergus, in one of the guard huts. He called to him to come out for fair combat or he would fire the thatched roof. Fergus appeared, babbling things Calgaich was too crazed to hear. The weapons were drawn. Fergus was no match for the sword of Calgaich. He died within minutes, but not before he managed to leave his mark on the face of his killer. Calgaich’s anger subsided almost instantly as he stood over the body, and he knew there was no going back to Morar at that time. Once again he became an outlaw and fled from the country to Eriu. There he joined the
fianna
of King Crann and plotted his return to his home and to Morar.

Calgaich’s foot struck something partially buried in the thick layer of floor straw. He bent to pick up a heavy jar, stoppered by a wooden bung. He pulled the bung free. The heady, fruity odor of strong spirits rose to tingle within his nostrils. He grinned widely. “Lugh is still with me," he whispered to the night.

The first drink seemed to hit him like a leaden ball hurled by one of the famed Balearic slingers. He coughed and tears came into his eyes. He drank deeply again.
“Sa ha!”
he cried. "I have found a true friend in this Roman hellhole!”

He pulled several trusses of straw together to fashion a bed, and he lay down on it with the jug resting on his chest. From time to time he nipped at the spirits, but the wanted drunkenness did not come. Raindrops began to patter on the roof.

Dim pictures flowed through his mind. He could see the Ordovician woman as though she were standing there naked, her skin a pristine whiteness. The lovely, beautifully molded breasts with their pink buds, outthrust from the rough bite of the cold sea wind, while she stood on the deck of the doomed
birlinn.
He saw her, too as she stood in the dimness of the barrow, that place of evil and indescribable horror, after she had given him her concealing cloak at his demand. His body shook as he remembered every detail of the time he had violated her maidenhood. He could still see her great emerald eyes looking up into his lust-twisted face as he had forced her. He recalled the velvety smoothness of her buttocks and the inner parts of her thighs, the soft fullness of her lips and the lush swelling of her breasts beneath his calloused hands.

Sleep came at last. Sleep came, but not rest, for Morar, the Golden One, came to him through the whiskey haze. It was not the first time she had done so in his dreams. He had often seen her so while in Eriu, and always after battle, when the liquor was strong in him. Morar had always appeared naked, as she had been when he had surprised Fergus in his attempted rape. Still, when she had come to him in his dreams, there was little enough of her body to be seen, for she clothed herself in her thigh-length golden hair, shot with glintings of light like honey suspended in the pouring. She usually appeared through a swirling mist like those that hung over the marshes in the damp nights of fall and spring. She could be seen and yet she could not be seen, at least not as he
wanted
to see her, and whenever Calgaich would reach out to her with his bloodstained hands, toward that living flesh of purity beyond purity and longing beyond longing, she would vanish with an enigmatic smile, gently mocking, that promised so much and yet gave nothing.