Druids (41 page)

“Look,” said Aberth, pointing.

On the far side of the glade a massive oak had been riven from crotch to root by lightning. Lightning in winter. The smell of bumed wood thickened the air.

No one asked me to explain. I was chief druid.

“Carry the emptied bodies back to the for! so the women can prepare them to be given to the earth,” I ordered. The procession moved through a blue twilight, myself at the head. Alone.

Lakutu walked beside the body of Tarvos as before, quietly sobbing.

Much later that night, when the fort was quiet and only me redoubled guard I had ordered kept vigil, I left my lodge and went out beneath the stars-Tarvos is there, I thought. Out of sight but not out of reach.

In the spring new buds will appear on the trees. They always do.

Meanwhile, we druids would have work to do. We are the eyes and ears of the earth. We think her thoughts. We feel her pain. As we would discover when we returned to our vineyard to inspect the damage, the Romans had not contented themselves with trampling the tender vines. The stench told us they had urinated on them as an expression of contempt. Even worse, they had scattered salt among the rows,

The polluted earth cried out to us, begging to be healed.

The horror we felt at the act was exceeded by the disgust we felt for me people who had committed it. What manner of beings poison the goddess who is mother to us all?

Standing in the desecrated vineyard, we wept. Then we com-menced cleansing and healing rituals that would restore life to the earth. We had been well trained in the art, it was our obligation and our privilege.

My heart would always grieve that I was not permitted to do the same for Tarvos.

The experience in the grove left me a humbler and wiser man. I found I could not share it; the language of the spirit is alien to human tongues, there are no words to describe what I had seen and felt. Yet I was changed, in many ways.

From that day a broad streak of silver ran through my hair from

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just above my left temple; silver against dark bronze. My people remarked on it in awed whispers.

There was another change. The very next night, Briga appeared at the door of my lodge with her bedding rolled under her arm. “Don’t just stand there, Ainvar. Let me in.”

Trying to conceal my astonishment, I stepped aside so she could enter- “Why have you come?”

“Why do you think?” the hoarse little voice replied impu-dently. “I’ve come to be with you, you great gawking man.”

“But why now … ?”

She dropped her bedding and, with a laugh, flung herself, the whole warm sweet weight of her, into my arms. Against my mouth she murmured, “Don’t ask. I’m to be a druid and druids don’t have to explain themselves.”

Perhaps other men understand women—

That was a difficult winter. The weather was mild, but anxiety makes any season bleak. While we buried those the Romans had slain, I tensely awaited news from Cenabum, word from Rix, information about Caesar, and possible reprisals.

I began living more and more inside myself. Briga, with her abundant life, seemed to demand more of me than I had to spare. Even in our closest embraces I found myself distracted, with part of my mind Ustening… .

Menua’s old raven screamed on& morning from his perch on me rooftree.

I had been sitting by the fire, anointing my ash stick with oil to keep it from splitting. At the raven’s cry I ran outside. There was nothing to be seen but the usual activity of the fort—yet I knew there was more. The raven had said so.

I went as far as the main gate and beyond, scanning the empty trackway. Nothing. Yet the day hummed with a peculiar tension, and the wind from the south was singing a low, sad song of death.

I ran for the grove, to listen to me trees,

When I returned to the fort and my lodge, I told Briga, “Tasgetius is dead.”

She opened her eyes very wide. “What will happen now?”

I considered. There were undercurrents I did not like. “It depends on how he died,” I told her.

The shouted news reached us shortly after midday. Tarvos was

no longer mere to come running to me with it, so I went down to the gates myself and waited, footshifting, watching the horizon to the south until I caught the first echoes. The sound came rolling toward us over me plain, from herder to hunter to woodsman.

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The king had been killed in Cenabum during the night-That night was the longest of the year, which he had celebrated by ordering fires lighted everywhere in the town and spreading a great feast for his princes. The eating and drinking would last till sunrise, defying the night, and the crowd had overflowed the area of the king’s lodge and had run through Cenabum with torches, laughing and singing.

Someone in the crowd had found an opportunity to run a sword through Tasgetius.

Cenabum was in turmoil; the chief druid was urgently needed.

I summoned Aberth. “Guard the grove in my absence. I must take the other senior members of the Order with me, a new king must be chosen. May I vote on your behalf?”

“Who arc the candidates?”

I smiled with one side of my mouth only. “Men of my choosing.”

Aberth showed me his teeth. “Then vote for the best in my name. Here.” He look the fur arm ring, symbol of a sacrificer, from his upper arm and gave it to me. “Show them this as proof you speak for me.”

“While I am gone, sleep standing. I shall send back more warriors from Cenabum to help guard the grove, but until they arrive, be doubly vigilant.”

“You’re certain me new king, whoever he may be, will let us have more warriors?”

“I’m certain,” I replied. Aberth smiled.

I collected our oldest and wisest heads—Grannus, Dian Cet, Narios, and a few others—and, together with my personal bodyguard, prepared to set off at the gallop.

Dian Cet objected strenuously. “I come from a line of craftsmen, Ainvar, I never learned to ride. Besides, druids walk.”

‘ ‘Not now, we don’t have time. Life is change, remember? Just grit your teeth and hang on to the mane; there’s a good healer at Cenabum who can put soothing ointment on your backside.”

We arrived to find the stronghold still chaotic. The king’s death was not me result of a unified uprising as I had hoped; it seemed that Cotuatus had nothing near the majority support he had claimed. One man alone had slain the king, for reasons as yet undetermined.

Tasgetius ‘s relatives were wailing murder and demanding that the killer be found so they could receive the king’s honor price to compensate for their loss. A number of warrior princes were clamoring to compete for the newly vacated royal lodge. The

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Roman traders, fearful for their own position, were planning to petition Caesar to” investigate the wanton slaughter of his friend,”

The tribe was running and flapping like a headless chicken.

I sat beside Dian Cet in the assembly house as he listened to an endless parade of protests, lies, rumors, accusations, and occasionally shifted his weight to one side to rub his sore buttocks.

A familiar face appeared on the far side of the large room.

Crom Daral always looked surly; on this occasion he looked like a dog expecting a beating. I got up quietly, edged my way through the noisy crowd, and took him by the arm.

“Say nothing until we are outside,” I warned him.

Raising my hood, I led him away from the assembly house until I found some privacy for us in the dark and stinking lean-to where some lodgeholder kept his pigs. “Now, Crom. What have you been doing?”

“Why do you think I’ve done anything?” he whined.

“I know you. You’d better tell me.”

He turned his face from me and muttered something.

“Tell me!” commanded the chief druid of me Camutes.

“I did it,” he said reluctantly.

“You did what?”

“I killed the king.”

WHY DID YOU kill Tasgetius, Crom? Did Cotuatus orierit?”

“No. He wouldn’t even talk to me. I went out to his camp to tell him I hadn’t betrayed him deliberately, I was just so angry when he went off without me … but he wouldn’t ;- even see me.

^ “So in the night, when no one was looking, I put my sword ^ through Tasgetius. I had sworn that sword to Cotuatus, you see,

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and I thought with Tasgetius dead, he could come back into the town. I thought maybe then he would take me back.” Crom’s

voice sank low in his chest. We stood together in the stink and darkness as I waited for him to speak again. “Will Cotuatus take me back, Ainvar?” he asked at last.

Crom Daral, our tangled knot. I sighed. “I don’t know, Crom. I just wish you’d waited until Cotuatus had more followers. As it is … ah, one thing is certain. We have to get you away from here. Tbo many are howling for the killer’s blood.

“I think the safest place for you would be back in the Fort of the Grove. You can take one of our horses, and I‘11 send an escort with you-Leave quietly; do nothing to attract attention.”

He said gracelessly, “I don’t want to be indebted to you for saving my life.”

“No obligation is incurred. We druids are supposed to protect me tribe, and that includes you, Crom. Just do as I tell you.”

As we left the shed, a thought struck me. “One other thing, Crom. You’d better know. Briga is living in my lodge now.”

He gave me a terrible look. “You always get what you want, Ainvar, don’t you?”

Later that day he left Cenabum as I had instructed, however, accompanied by two of my personal bodyguards. Crom Daral was not overly gifted with courage.

With the killer of Tasgetius undiscovered and out of the way, I set about repairing the damage while making the most of the opportunity. At least we were rid of Tasgetius. I would not, however, suggest Cotuatus too readily as his successor.

I did not want him to be accused of the killing-Also, me more I thought about his foolishness the more annoyed I became; me man had given in to the Celtic tendency to exaggerate when he assured me he had a large following. I had based my decisions on his word, which I now saw as untrustworthy to some extent. He would not necessarily be our best choice as king.

In fact, none of the men eligible by blood to contend for the kingship could claim majority support, either among the elders or the people. And the men who had been swom to Tasgetius had coalesced into an angry group more devoted to me memory of the dead man than they had been to him while he lived, and determined to oppose anyone who took his place.

Death, my head observed, can put a bright shine on very tarnished metal.

My druids and I met with the council of elders to discuss the

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problem. After a long and argumentative day, nothing was resolved. We had not even agreed upon a list of men to be tested.

After the song for the sun next morning, I left Cenabum and went alone to the woodland beyond the town to think among the

trees.

I could not solve the problem alone, but fortunately I was not really alone. None of us ever is. The Otherworid swirls in and around us, part of us always, giving the lie to the Roman priests who claim to be sole agents for the spirits. That Which Watched was with me in the woodland as it was with me m the sacred grove. I only needed to be by myself, to concentrate… .

My eye fell on a slim young birch, the tree symbolizing a new start. I paused. Then turned. And saw a beech, the tree of ancient knowledge, symbol of the aged and wise. I turned again. Directly in my path stood an elder, the wood of regeneration.

We must begin anew with the old, the trees told me, and trust the Source to supply the old with the needed strength.

I went back to Cenabum and asked that the council be reconvened. Addressing them in the assembly house, I held up my ash stick to put the weight of my authority behind my words as I said, “Among the eligible princes there is none right now who could command the support of all the tribe. We are in a dangerous situation, we must not be divided. But there is one among us whom everyone has always respected.

” I suggest we return the kingship to Nantorus for now, *’ I said, ignoring their gasps of surprise. “At least until one strong new leader clearly emerges from the pack. An election now would just divide the tribe more, but they will stand behind Nantorus.” Looking around at the seamed faces of the elders, I added, ‘ “The oldest heads contain the most-”

Which was not necessarily true. But it was what they loved hearing.

“What of his physical abilities? ” someone asked. “Wedonot deny his popularity, but he gave up the king’s lodge before because he was not able to lead men into battle.”

I told them, “If the Camutes fight in the immediate future, our opponent will not be some other tribe. Like the rest of free Gaul we have one enemy now; the man Caesar. When the time comes to fight him, we will have a brilliant war leader, one both young and able enough to bring us victory. Nantorus will be our king, but when we need a true leader, I propose that Vercingetorix the Arvemian lead us in war!”

There was a stunned silence. Anticipating this moment, I had

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had a long discussion with Nantorus, who was standing quietly in the shadows at the rear of the assembly house. When I beckoned to him he came forward.

I stepped aside; the former king took my place. To arm him with the strength of anger, I had told him whose hand had hurled the spear into his back. But I had added,’ ‘Do not publicly accuse Tasgetius. Rocks thrown at the dead have a way of bouncing back. You can get a better revenge by helping us defeat his Roman

friends.”

Taut with held-in rage, Nantorus had never looked more kingly. There was the expected debate, but by the end of the day the council accepted Nantorus as the least divisive solution to our predicament. There need be no election; he had been elected once already. Even Tasgetius’s men had once accepted him as king;

they could hardly refuse to do so again.

More important, with Tasgetius dead no one opposed the concept of the Gaulish confederacy, and Nantorus gave it his whole-hearted support.