Calgaich the Swordsman (25 page)

Calgaich smiled crookedly. "Fomoire.”

"Excellent! Fomoire—Misfortune!”

"You were misfortune enough to us,” Calgaich murmured. He looked at the great oak. "The gods help her.” Fomoire shrugged. "Her lot is women's lot. Their future can be read easily in the flame of a candle.”

"And ours?”

"The web of man's destiny is skillfully spun. No man can discern the pattern. Perhaps it's just as well. There are some things we should not see, or else we'd go mad at the thought of them.”

Several of the Numidians paused just beyond the sacred clearing to nock cane arrows to their bowstrings. Calgaich picked up his spear and raised it, butt uppermost. Fomoire and Guidd held out their empty hands.

"Throw down that spear, Calgaich mac Lellan,” a familiar voice ordered from behind an oak tree. Tribune Ulpius Claudius stepped out into view. He had his right hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

Calgaich threw down the spear. He held out his empty hands. Bron stood silently beside him.

Ulpius Claudius strode forward into the clearing, with a confident air, although his eyes darted sideways, as though looking for something evil or dangerous. "By the Lord Mithras,” he exclaimed, "this is a foul place!”

"You should feel at home here, Tribune,” Calgaich suggested dryly.

The tribune reddened. "The only thing that saves you from being strung from that great oak is the fact that my uncle, Quaestor Lucius Sextillius, has specifically ordered that you be brought back to Luguvalium. Do you know how many men you barbarians killed or wounded there?”

"Hopefully, a great many.”

The tribune's hand tightened on the hilt of his gladius. He eyed Fomoire. "Who is this mangy-looking creature?”

The Druid bowed his head and smiled. "Men call me Fomoire, that is to say, in your language, Tribune—Misfortune. A healer of the eye sickness. A leech. A juggler. A teller of tales. A worker of simple conjuring tricks. I have some knowledge of the telling of fortunes. A singer of songs. A bard of some skill.”

Ulpius threw his cloak back from his shoulders and rested his hands on his hips. "All of these things? I’ll warrant you're no more than a beggar. Sing me a verse, bard, to test your skill.”

Fomoire bowed again and waved his slender, graceful hands.

"The girls of Spain were honey sweet,

And the golden girls of Gaul,

And the Thracian maids were soft as birds To hold the heart in thrall.”

“You'll have to do better than that,” Ulpius said.

Fomoire narrowed his eyes. "There is a better one.”

Ulpius smiled unpleasantly. "There had
better
be. Any tosspot, in any wine shop throughout the Empire, can sing at least a dozen verses of The Girl I Kissed at Clusium.”

Calgaich had been surveying the situation while Fomoire engaged the tribune in talk. He could see more Romans in the oak grove. Their horses were restless, jerking back on their reins, and whinnying incessantly. The hounds were cowed. They stood behind their handlers, with their ears laid back. The grove was lighter now with the rising of the sun. There wasn't a chance for a hare to slip through that blade-tipped ring of fighting men. Why was the tribune playing with Fomoire? Did he suspect that the Druid was someone other than whom he was portraying?

Decrius Montanas met Calgaich eye to eye. The two tough fighting men studied each other. Calgaich knew that if it wasn't for the tribune, Montanas would kill him on die spot.

"Sing, lark,” Ulpius commanded.

It would be the acid test for Fomoire. If he failed, instant death for him would be the result of his failure. "There is a woman,” he began quietly, "who has powers to steal the heart and soul from any man. She is a golden woman, Tribune. She is a barbarian woman of the wild north country. I will dedicate this composition to her. It will be heard for the first time here in this most ancient of all oak groves.”

Ulpius looked startled. He narrowed his eyes.

Fomoire waved his hands.

"With golden hair, eye-blinding,

Blue-irised, tempting eyes,

Cheeks blood-tinged like foxglove,

Like to the flash of snow,

The flash of her teeth’s treasury,

Between crimson lips’ treasure.”

Ulpius cut his hand sideways. "Enough, damn you! You know of her?”

"Morar, the Golden One? I have heard of her great unearthly beauty, Tribune. Does it trouble you so much?”

Calgaich looked sideways at the calm Druid. Fomoire met his glance. There was a warning in his eyes. Ulpius evidently was enamored of Morar. What kind of game was this mad Druid playing with the tribune?

Ulpius looked about him, anything to escape the calm, deep-seeing eyes of Fomoire. He beckoned to a Numidian archer. He pointed at the great sacred oak. "Shoot me down one of those baubles,” he ordered. "I want a memento of the grove of hell before it is burned to the ground.”

Calgaich closed his eyes. He prayed to Lugh, asking him to save the woman from harm.

The grinning Numidian nocked an arrow. He raised his bow, and almost without effort loosed the arrow at the biggest of the ornaments dangling from the oak—a gorgeous arm torque of soft, reddish Hibernian gold, skillfully decorated with a red and white enamel design. The arrow struck and severed the golden chain from which the torque hung. The torque dropped to the turf, as the arrow continued on and struck into the trunk of the oak. A startled cry rang out from the leafy cover.

Ulpius picked up the torque. "Name of Light!” he shouted. "Who or what is
that?”

The archer nocked another arrow. His action was stayed by an outflung arm of the tribune.

The leaves rustled and a slight figure dropped to the turf. Ulpius strode forward. “So! Another one! Who are you!” he demanded. He gripped Cairenn by the shoulder and as he did so she twisted away, and the cloak dropped from her naked body to the ground. The sunlight coming through the leafy branches shone on her pure white skin, her full, pink-budded breasts and her long, shapely legs.

Ulpius stared unbelievingly.
“Roma Dea!
What is this? A dryad?”

“She's mine,” Calgaich said. He picked up the cloak and draped it about Cairenn's shoulders. Cairenn looked up, and saw in his eyes his concern for her.

“You own nothing! You have no rights!” the Roman snapped.

“Nevertheless, Tribune, she
is
mine. She is a
cumal”

“A slave?”

“That is what a Roman would call her.”

Ulpius glared at Calgaich. “But for my uncle, barbarian, you'd die in these blood-stinking woods, and this woman would be thrown to my Numidians for bed sport!”

Fomoire came forward. “It would be a great waste, Tribune, to throw this tidbit to the Numidians. Your uncle, the quaestor, might appreciate such a gift. It might ensure you a passage to Rome, as you so much desire.”

Ulpius studied the Druid. “You know too much,” he insinuated quietly. “Who
are
you?”

“Fomoire! A healer of the eye sickness. A leech. A juggler. A teller of tales. A worker of simple conjuring tricks. I have some slight knowledge of the telling of fortunes. A singer of songs. A bard of some skill.”

Ulpius looked into the clear, seemingly guileless eyes, then turned abruptly away, as if he were not quite sure of what he saw. “Get these barbarians out of here, Montanas. Fire these damned woods if they’re not too wet. There is an evil here that must be cleansed with purifying fire.” He twisted the golden torque about his left arm and shouted for his horse.

“Your woman is safe, at least for the time being, Calgaich,” Fomoire said.

“If he ever sees through you …”

Fomoire shrugged. “Man's time on earth is short. There are greater things in the hereafter.” He watched the tribune mount his horse. Then sun glinted from his gold arm torque. "He took an offering from the Sacred Oak,” he murmured, almost as though to himself. "Such a man is accursed from now on.”

Calgaich spat to one side. "I cursed him long ago, priest.”

Fomoire looked quickly at Calgaich. "Be careful! The centurion might hear you!”

"Nothing, not the vengeance of your Druid brotherhood for despoiling this sacred grove of yours, or all the power of mighty Caesar’s legions,
shall keep that Roman dog from death at my hands!”

Fomoire looked quickly at Calgaich. This time it was Fomoire who felt uneasy at what he saw in the hard eyes of Calgaich mac Lellan.

Quaestor Lucius Sextillius sat in judgment on the four bedraggled prisoners and the huge wolfhound who stood before him in the audience chamber of the
mansio.
The Roman was bald as a grape. His pure white woolen toga contrasted with his round, olive-hued visage, which seemed to exude a faint greasiness. His plump wet lips were pursed as he studied the barbarians.

Tribune Ulpius Claudius leaned against a pillar to one side of the chamber, while Centurion Decrius Montanas was in charge of a guard behind the prisoners.

The faint musky odor of perfume, mingled with a sour odor of perspiration, drifted from the quaestor. He constantly moved back and forth on his seat. There was something reptilian about the Roman, and yet something gross, as though a serpent and a sow had mated to bring forth into the civilized light of Rome the not-quite-human creature known as Lucius Sextillius.

"The law of Rome is such that you should be executed forthwith, Calgaich mac Lellan,” the quaestor explained. "Not only for your second desertion from the Eagles, but also for your efforts to free a political prisoner, one Lellan, former chief of the barbarian Novantae. We add to those charges the murdering and wounding of soldiers of the Empire. What have you to say for yourself?”

Calgaich shrugged. "What does it matter
what
I say, Quaestor? You Romans claim to rule the known world. You make the laws. All men must obey them, whether they are Romans or barbarians. We who are not Romans, and who do not have the rights and privileges of being Roman citizens, are still bound by the laws of Rome.”

"You have the impertinence to object? You must know that it is the mission of Rome to civilize and rule the world.”

"A mission set by you Romans, Quaestor. Did you Romans ever think to ask any Egyptian, Thracian, Dacian, Briton or any other barbarian if he
wanted
to be ruled by Rome?”

Sextillius leaned back in his seat and studied Calgaich. His gaze rested on Calgaich's broad shoulders and muscular arms and then drifted furtively down to Calgaich’s loins. “Your people are war mad and quick to battle, Calgaich,” he accused.

“Like Romans, Quaestor,” Calgaich countered.

“But it is our mission!”

“To my people, you are invaders. This is
our
country. We do not want you here, Roman.”

Sextillius glanced at Ulpius Claudius, as if to say, “What can you do with this barbarian?” Ulpius shrugged. The quaestor leaned forward. “Don't you understand, Calgaich, that if we Romans leave Britannia, your country is doomed?”

Calgaich smiled a little. “Perhaps Rome itself is doomed.”

Lucius Sextillius threw up his hands in despair.

The tribune looked at his uncle. “As I told you, Quaestor, the barbarian is hopeless. Death itself could not convince him of your argument. However, there is not a warrior and swordsman in Britannia today who can match his skill.”

“Except yourself, Nephew?” Sextillius asked slyly.

“I was speaking only of the barbarians. I could easily master him with the
gladius”

“Try me, Roman!” Calgaich challenged.

“I'll champion Rome against this barbarian!” Montanas cried.

Ulpius shook his head angrily at the eager centurion. He looked at Calgaich. “Do not try my patience again, barbarian.”

“You have not accepted my challenge!”

Fomoire spoke sideways to Calgaich, but his lips did not move. “For the love of the gods, Calgaich, hold that serpent's tongue of yours,” the Druid hissed.

Lucius Sextillius had not missed the byplay between Calgaich and Fomoire. There was an alien strangeness about this Fomoire, the quaestor thought. His eyes drifted past the one-eyed man and studied the dark-haired woman. They were a strangely assorted quartet, these barbarians.

Lucius looked at the tribune. “You say this is the woman who wore men's clothing and charged into battle wielding the great war spear of Calgaich the night he escaped from here?"

“That is true, Quaestor. The bitch killed two of my men."

The quaestor eyed Cairenn.
“Her?
She killed two Roman soldiers?" He beckoned to Cairenn. “Come forward, little one."

Cairenn walked forward. She was still draped in the cutoff Asturian cloak. She stood there, with head upraised, giving the Roman eye for eye. She would not allow this pig of a Roman to see her fear. Too much had happened since the time she had been dragged from her father's
rath.
She had changed. She was stronger now.

Sextillius leaned back in his seat. “Strip," he ordered her, his plump mouth moving back and forth.

Cairenn slowly dropped the cloak to the floor and stood there, cold and beautiful. She told herself that she disrobed for Calgaich only. This might be the last time he saw her thus. She turned her emerald eyes to him in a long look before again turning back to Sextillius.

“Turn," Sextillius ordered. She turned. He nodded, pleased. “Face me, woman," he ordered. “Do not look at the barbarian." He inclined his head toward her with an ingratiating smile. “Tell me, woman, can you bathe and massage a Roman quaestor with any skill at all?"

“I can drown one with great skill," Cairenn answered coldly.

Sextillius stared at her. He broke into a false, cackling sort of laughter. “They say these barbarian women are ice on the outside and hellsfire within." He looked at Calgaich. “This one, perchance, Caledonian, is she perhaps the
other
way around?"

Calgaich knew that if Cairenn went into the service of the quaestor she'd be forced into forms of utter depravity by this porker of a Roman. He had heard the low-voiced chatter of some of the Roman legionnaires while waiting in his cell to be taken before Sextillius. "Man, boy, woman, sheep, goat or camel,” one of them had related, "our beloved quaestor is equally at home with any of them in his bed. By Mithras, he could make a male spintrian blush!”