Druids (20 page)

“I suppose they were right,” the man added. “What happens in the tribes of Hairy Gaul is really no concern of ours. Those people have always fought one another and always will, they’re only savages.”

He realized too late that he had overstepped himself. “I don’t mean men like yourself, of course!’
he said hastily. But from the corner of my eye I had just seen three familiar figures hurrying down the road away from the villa. Drawing myself up into a tower of white-lipped outrage, I said coldly, ‘ ‘If that is how you feel, I can find someone else to provide us savages with oil at a premium price.’

I shook my leather purse in his face and left-Once we were safely back in camp together, well off the main roads, I gave Rix an overdue lecture about his reckless woman-izing. His appetite was insatiable. He paid little attention, no doubt dreaming, even while I was talking, about his next conquest.

I was thinking on another level myself. Examining the new information I had received in the light of Caesar’s reputed ambition, I could almost see the shape of the future.

Leading my band onward, I continued exploring, observing, learning.

Southern Gaul was rich land. The climate was mild, the soil welcomed the seed. Roman roads provided a reliable network between farms and towns and ports, so there was a constant movement of goods. For a price you could buy anything; we tasted fruits and sweetmeats and fishes we had never known existed.

For a price.

Everything in the Province had a price to be paid in the coin of Rome.

The land was bounteous, yet the farther we traveled the more I realized the true, unacknowledged poverty of Narbonese Gaul. Set amid flower-perfumed gardens with sparkling fountains, the villas of wealthy Romans were scattered across the hillsides of

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the Province like jewels flung from a careless hand. But their beauty was maintained, like the flow of goods along the roads, by the unremitting toil of people who owned nothing—the native population.

In free Gaul we had three principal classes of society, though there was a certain overlapping: the druids, the warrior aristocracy, and me common class, freemen who farmed the land and made the tools and weapons and built the forts and lodges.

Free men.

Bondservants were not unknown among us, because there will always be men who find themselves indebted to someone more prudent and have to serve him for a time in order to clear the debt. But even our bondservants were not slaves; were never slaves. Their period of service had an end; they remained, essentially, free.

In Narbonese Gaul the Romans had suppressed the druids, slain the nobles, and reduced the entire population to the rank of common class with neither its dignity nor its freedom. Those who were not outright slaves to be bought and sold like cattle were little better off, since they were constantly reminded of their inferior position. They were tolerated only so long as they produced for Rome.

The labors of the southern Gauls, whose tribeland this had been, were now a sacrifice poured into the voracious maw of their conquerors.

There were lessons to be learned here.

Under Roman tutelage, the people of the Province grew row upon row of grapevines in soil we would have considered useless, thus turning it to a profit. The wines they produced were not as good as the wines of Latium, according to the Romans living in the region, but those same Romans sold Provincial wine to the tribes of free Gaul and represented it as the drink of the gods.

For a long time we had believed them; it had become our principal import.

I wondered if the wild vines that flourished in the valley of the Liger might not produce an even better wine, if properly cultivated.

We began visiting vineyards and vintners. Hanesa elicited information about the techniques of vinegrowing and winemaking;

I listened. Under the guise of prospective purchasers, we were welcomed everywhere.

From an old man who had spent his life cultivating me grape I learned more than the art of winemaking. He was delighted when

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we appeared on his doorstep, claiming we were representing “northern princes” interested in making a new trading connection for their wine supplies. He insisted on personally showing us around his vineyard, an invitation I accepted gladly.

A leathery-skinned, wizened old fellow with hands as gnaried as his vines, he had us examine the stakes, showed us how the vines were pruned, bade us taste both the grape and the soil from which it grew. “The soil must be thin and dry,” he explained. “The rain that makes heavy fruit makes sour wine. A bright, hot summer makes small, sweet grapes that taste like honey—here, taste these.”

I savored the grapes appreciatively. And wondered, as I put a few grains of the soil to my tongue, if there was a bit of druid in the old man somewhere.

Later we sat in his paved courtyard overlooking the vineyard and haggled over prices I had no intention of paying. Hanesa enlivened the conversation with anecdotes that made the old man laugh. * ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in a year,” he admitted. “Not since I lost the Arvemian contract, actually. That hurt my business.”

“What Arvernian contract?*’ I asked, feeling a prickie run down my spine.

‘ ‘A prince of that tribe, a man called Celtillus, had been buying my wine for years, quite a sizable order. Then he was involved in a struggle for power within the tribe and was killed. Rather iron-ically, it was our own governor, very newly arrived at the time, who is whispered to have been responsible. So I have little to thank Caesar for,” he added with some bitterness.

^Caesar was responsible?” I repeated tensely.

A flicker of alarm crossed the old man’s face, as if afraid he had said too much. I concentrated my entire mind, enveloping him in a cloud of calm until he visibly relaxed. “Not personally,” he said. “But Caesar gave the order that resulted in the man’s death. It seems Caesar was supporting the other side. He’s made all sorts of connections among the barbarians, I can’t think why.”

“What others, do you know?”

The old man scratched his head. “I think there is an Aeduan druid called … Divicus?”

“Diviciacus,” I said.

“Yes, that’s the one. He was thrown out of Rome for trying to

enlist the support of the Senate against his own brother, but Cae-sar no sooner arrived to lake up the governorship than he invited this Diviciacus to his palace at Narbo and made overtures of

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friendship, I thought at the time, and still think, that it was strange for the governor of the Province to involve himself so intimately in the affairs of barbarians. We have enough trouble here to keep him occupied; he could do something about the taxes, for example. You would not believe what I have to pay’”

Hanesa murmured sympathetically and led the old man into a recital of his troubles, while I sat with a half-smile frozen on my face and watched the pattern take its final shape in my head.

I was thankful we had not brought Tarvos and Rix with us because they would have spoiled our benign image as trade ambassadors. If Rix had heard what I just did, he would have been impossible to control.

So Caesar had been behind the murder of Celtillus! I decided he must have made a study of Gaulish affairs well before arriving in the Province. How cleverly he had established himself as an ally to two of the most powerful men in Gaul, the king of the Arvemi and the chief judge of me Aedui.

Thinking further, I saw what Caesar must have foreseen. Given the Gaulish nature, sooner or later one or the other would find his people involved in a war. What could be more natural than to call upon the new and powerful ally, Caesar, for aid?

Then Caesar’s armies would march into free Gaul by invitation, looting and plundering, enriching their commander. When the war was over the warriors would stay, because that was the Roman pattern. They would marry local women, build homes, and Rome would announce that Gaul was now Roman territory by right of occupancy.

A chill ran from my head to my belly. Like a spider, Caesar had spun his web to entrap free Gaul while most of us were unaware of his presence.

AT THE TIME I thought Caesar more calculating than any druid. The genius of his plan, as I had pieced it together, alarmed me.

But the passage of time has taught me not to be so quick to credit any man with infallibility. No matter how shrewd the scheme beforehand, in practice the outcome of almost any venture is determined by a combination of the inevitable and the unexpected. The Otherworid provides the unexpected.

Afterward, when all is resolved and the tangled threads unraveled to their beginning, historians like to attribute success to the brilliant planning of the winner-But the truth is, there is usually less contemplation than inspiration behind any victory.

I know.

I wanted to hurry back to Menua and tell him what I had learned. He alone would know how to combat the schemes of the Roman. The power and support of the Otherworid must be enlisted, of course, and Gaul would need all its strength to withstand the mighty armies at Roman disposal.

All its strength …

The dream Rix had inherited from the murdered Celtillus did not seem so foolish after all. Unity was desperately needed in Gaul. How could any one tribe hope to resist an army that conquered and subjugated entire lands?

As soon as Hanesa and I had rejoined the others, I announced, “We’re heading for home.”

Rix raised one golden eyebrow. “So abruptly? Why?”

* ‘I have to talk to Menua. I ‘11 tell you about it on the way, since it very much concerns you, I think.”

To my surprise, I discovered that pan of me was reluctant to leave the Province. I had learned what I came for, and more, but

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the lure of the unknown was still around the bend of every road. New sights, new scents, new sounds . , .

I wanted to lie among the vines and listen to their song.

The place was dangerously seductive. I turned my face resolutely northward and herded my charges toward home.

As we traveled, I told Rix what I had learned, and what I surmised. He was furious at first, then a deadly coldness came over him that would have frightened me all the more were I his enemy.

“Caesar,” he said. That was all he said. “Caesar.”

He walked beside me like a great gleaming spear, and I knew we had, in him, the weapon to use against the Roman. Men would follow Vercingetorix. Even the kings of other tribes must surely see his splendor, and want to fight beside him… .

We stopped in the market square of a Provincial town to have our sandals repaired before we began making our way northward, and amid cages of songbirds imported from the shores of the Mediterranean, my druid hearing heard one woman say to another, ” My daughter has been receiving flattering attentions from that Roman officer; you know the one.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes!” the first woman boasted. “She might be the wife

of a Roman citizen someday.”

“Has he asked to marry her?”-

“Not yet. But he comes to her almost every day. He’s told her that the governor is very concerned about what he calls increasing German incursions into Hairy Gaul. Germans so close to the borders of me Province are a threat to our peace and could hinder trade. My daughter’s friend says his legion could be sent into Hairy Gaul at almost any time.”

“Your daughter’s friend,” the other woman observed, “is telling a tale to enlist her pity so he can sleep with her. I heard that story myself when I was young. ‘I’m off to fight and die,’ they say. ‘Be kind to me.’ Tell her not to believe him.”

But I, overhearing, believed.

The Germans were Caesar’s chosen enemy.

Before leaving the marketplace I waited until no one was looking, then opened the doors of the birdcages. Those trapped little songsters had suffered a crime against nature, “Go quickly,” I whispered to them. “You are free persons.”

They understood; animals always understand druids. Suddenly the air was filled with a rainbow of wings and my heart flew with them.

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hi the confusion that followed we left the town very quickly.

Back on the road, I told Rix, “I think we can expect Caesar to enter free Gaul at almost any tune.”

Walking provides an excellent opportunity to think. I had learned not to listen to the almost constant monologue from Ha-nesa the Talker. I walked cocooned in a druidic silence, communing with my head.

Diviciacus had strongly objected to the German alliances of his brother Dumnorix. And Diviciacus had made himself a friend of Caesar’s. And Caesar had chosen the Germans as the enemies he needed to justify entering Gaul.

So simple, so clear. The only question was, what act would dp the scale and set the armies to marching? And when?

Celtic people fought small wars, exercises in power between the tribes. The Romans thought on a larger scale. Carthage. Greece. Iberia. Gaul.

What spirits spawned such greed? What forces impelled it?

That night I dreamed of the clink of coins in a leather bag.

Our own funds were exhausted; they would not see us home. Again Hanesa proved invaluable. Taking up position at a crossroads, he began spinning tales for anyone who came along, while

Tarvos, looking bored and embarrassed, held out a basket.

Soon Hanesa had a crowd gathered to listen, openmouthed, to the legends of the Celts. The natives of Narbonese Gaul had not totally forgotten their heritage.

At the end of the day the basket was heavy with coins.

We would buy all needed supplies for the journey in the next town. I was infected with a sense of urgency. Even the seasons were driving me homeward, for the autumn was upon us and the light was changing-We needed to be across the mountains and into free Gaul before the weather turned against us.

I had promised Menua to be back in me great grove by Sam-ham. I began watching eagerly for a town.

We found one soon enough.

I did not care for Roman towns. In our travels we had gone as far as Nemausus, where we had gazed in astonishment at the Roman construction called an aqueduct that carried water into the town. The aqueduct was a triple-tiered structure composed of arches supporting an artificial riveibed. At one point this manmade river crossed a real river, the Gard. There I felt again the unsettling sensation I had known before, when I tried to imagine being stone and water at the same time.